“Yeah?”
“Be careful.”
He reached up and squeezed her ankle lightly before saying, “You too.”
And with that, the group split up, Brynn continuing forward with Amber and Bennett following behind her and Ty veering to the right with Rusty. She got a sinking feeling in her stomach as she let her friend go, and she hoped it was just her nerves and not a bad omen for what was to come.
Brynn, Amber, and Bennett did as they were told, continuing straight on until they reached the third fork. They pulled themselves through the vent system as quietly as they could before coming to the grate they needed to exit through.
“Brynn?” Amber called up in a whisper just as Brynn was about to open the grate for them to leave.
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry I never believed you about all of this stuff before,” she said. “I guess I wasn’t a very good friend.”
“Honestly, if you had come to me insisting that there was some mad woman on the loose trying to kill everyone, I probably wouldn’t have believed you either,” she answered with a soft laugh. “You and Bennett are great friends.”
“Thanks for letting us come with you,” Bennett said from the back of the group. “I never thought I’d do something like this.” She almost sounded excited rather than scared and the tone in her voice made Brynn smile. “Plus Amber wouldn’t have met Hadlock if you hadn’t let us come,” she added conspiratorially.
“Bennett!” Amber said a little too loudly. “First of all he’s on the comms unit,” she whispered back to her friend.
“That doesn’t work at the moment,” Bennett pointed out.
“Second,” Amber went on, not even acknowledging Bennett’s interruption, “We’re about to break into a top secret room in a top secret facility full of people who want to kill us. I hardly think this is the time to talk about boys,” Amber finished, making Brynn feel that ever present pang of guilt when she realized she’d be compromising her friend’s safety because she insisted on saving Jonah.
“Well let’s hurry up and get this over with then so we can have a nice little talk about Hadlock,” Brynn said with a smile, almost happy to be talking about something as normal as boys when the world as they knew it was falling apart.
“We can analyze your conversations,” Bennett said happily and Brynn knew she’d be clapping her hands if they weren’t in such a small space.
“Fine,” Amber relented, pushing Brynn’s foot with her hand in an attempt to get her to start moving again.
Brynn pushed open the grate below her and stuck her head through, looking at the hallway they were about to drop into upside down. Her hair flew up over her face in a dark curtain, so long that she knew it would be a dead giveaway if anyone actually were in the hallway at that moment. Luckily for them, there wasn’t a Worker in sight.
“We’re clear,” Brynn said, slowly lowering herself from the grate in the ceiling and dropping silently onto the soft white floor. “I swear no one ever works around here,” she added, trying to keep the nagging feeling from her gut.
Every time she’d ‘broken into’ the facility, Eris had known where she was all along. Of course, that had been when Jonah was with her. Even though she knew he wasn’t working for Eris, the fact that he was an A.I. meant Eris had probably used him to monitor Brynn’s movement. Now, even though it was far too easy for her to break into the facility, she knew she had the element of surprise.
“How are we supposed to get back into the vent?” Amber asked as she dropped down next to Brynn, her cotton candy pink hair standing out quite obviously in the white space.
“Hopefully he’s got another vent in mind. We definitely can’t reach up there,” Bennett said as she flew through the air above them, landing with a soft thud on the ground.
“What took you guys so long?” Hadlock suddenly said in their ears, startling the three girls who had almost forgotten the ear pieces were even in.
“Nothing,” all three said guiltily at once.
“I don’t even want to know,” Hadlock said with a sigh. “Now go right, down the hallway and take your first right to backtrack to the control room. You guys should be clear as far as I can tell.”
“Rusty,” Ty’s voice said in exasperation over the comms unit.
“What’s happening, Ty?” Brynn asked, suddenly worried for her friend’s safety.
“Rusty won’t stop looking at the technology in the building. She’s stopping every few feet to examine some wall screen or elevator,” he complained as they heard Rusty “ooing” and “awing” in their ears.
“Rusty,” Hadlock snapped. “Focus!”
“Pretty big words for someone who’s trapped on the outside of this absolute gold mine of technology,” Rusty said, her voice sounding distant and happy.
“Rusty,” Ty warned.
“Fine,” she pouted, apparently relenting.
“Hadlock, we’re at the control room,” Ty said while Amber, Bennett, and Brynn continued to make their way through the facility.
“Perfect,” he answered. “Rusty, go ahead and install the bug into the wires like I showed you. Make sure it’s hidden so the A.I.s won’t see it even if they’re looking for it.”
“Yes sir,” Rusty said with mock seriousness.
Hadlock could be heard sighing audibly, though he didn’t actually reprimand her for being so cavalier about their serious mission.
“Almost done,” she said after a moment and all Brynn could think of was how perfectly everything was working out.
If Rusty and Ty were able to install the bug without them, it would be easy for Brynn to sneak away and find Jonah. Of course it also meant that it was completely pointless for her friends to have come to the facility in the first place, when they could have just sent one person in to complete the task rather than risking all of their lives.
As they neared the control room, Brynn let herself fall to the back of the group, wondering if she should even try reasoning with her friends or if she should just make a break for it and hope she didn’t run into any Workers. It definitely would have been easier if her friends were on board with the idea of finding Jonah. Then she’d be able to use Hadlock’s Worker tracker as a resource and she wouldn’t have to worry about turning a corner to find a group of A.I.s standing there.
But, as it was, no one believed her that Jonah was actually innocent and it wasn’t likely that they would any time soon.
“Done!” Rusty said, just as Brynn and the group reached the control room.
“We’re coming in to meet you guys,” Amber said and Brynn knew she couldn’t quite escape yet.
If they were all meeting in the same room, Ty would be looking for Brynn to make sure she hadn’t somehow gotten captured by Eris.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Ty said as they entered the small white room.
“Why isn’t anyone in here if this is such an important room?” Bennett asked, looking around at the many computers that lined the walls and impressing Brynn with her curiosity.
“They usually come in shifts and right now they’re between people,” Hadlock explained. “But they’ll be coming soon so you guys need to get out of there now.”
“How are we going to get out if the vents are on the ceiling?” Amber asked, voicing the concern that had come to Brynn’s mind as well.
“A few stories up there’s a floor vent I want you guys to crawl into. You’ll have to use the elevators though,” Hadlock said, sounding apologetic when in reality, this prospect thrilled Brynn.
Elevators would be a perfect way for her to break away from the group since they could only fit one person at a time. If she wasn’t successful, she could even claim that she had accidentally pushed the wrong button on her elevator in the hopes that they wouldn’t kick her out of The Alliance for disobeying their orders.
“Which way do we go?” Rusty asked, poking her head out of the control room and looking left and right before stepping out into the open.
Her bright red hair cascading down her white clad back reminded Brynn of Eris covered in Cambria’s blood and for a moment, she felt the world go lopsided. She grabbed the wall for support and quickly straightened herself once more, hoping no one had seen her momentary weakness.
“Turn left,” Hadlock said, and the group instantly obeyed, following Rusty down the hall in a line of white clad rebels. “Hang on. My tablet just glitched out. Stupid thing.”
“Please tell me he’s joking,” Ty sighed, looking like he was trying not to panic.
“There we go…Wait, stop!” Hadlock shouted suddenly, causing everyone to freeze almost immediately. “There are some Workers coming up in the elevators. Turn around and go the other way. Fast.”
They didn’t question him, but instead turned instantaneously and walked as fast as they could without breaking into a full on run in the other direction.
“Turn right,” he told them, and they obeyed, entering into a small white room with glass tubes that resembled the elevator system Brynn had seen in the facility before.
“Are these elevators as well?” Amber asked skeptically.
“Yeah they are… why? What’s wrong with them?” Hadlock asked, obviously confused by the apprehension in Amber’s tone.
“They’re glass,” she said.
“They’re normally metal,” Brynn explained, also feeling a bit uneasy.
Something was definitely wrong. The group looked at the clear glass tubes suspiciously for a moment before Bennett stepped into hers.
“They look fine,” she said with a shrug as the glass door rotated closed, drowning out her words.
She watched Bennett for a moment, who stood with a happy smile on her face. She waved at Brynn in the silence of her tube to show her nothing sinister was going on. Though a wave from Bennett was hardly an all clear, she relented, not knowing what else to do.
“I guess they’re okay,” Brynn said slowly, stepping into her own tube and watching her friend’s follow suit.
Still feeling uneasy about the whole thing she looked at the place where the buttons should have been. But there were no buttons there.
“Hadlock these elevators don’t have buttons,” Amber said over the comms unit, reading Brynn’s mind.
“Something’s wrong,” Ty agreed and Brynn could see him trying to open his door.
That was when she heard the faint hiss below her feet. She looked down at the grate, trying to understand why it might be making noise before Hadlock’s voice came in a panic through her ear piece.
“Those aren’t elevators,” he shouted, saying what the group had been trying to tell him all along. “Why did you get in them! What’s wrong with you guys?”
“What are they then?” Brynn asked a little too loudly.
“I’m not sure, but they don’t go anywhere. Hold on a second I’m overriding the doors to let you guys out,” he said, before silence permeated their ear pieces.
“Hadlock,” Amber said slowly, trying to hurry him as the hissing grew louder.
“Almost done,” he promised just as the glass doors slid open, releasing the captives from their tubes.
“I don’t know what those things were but that probably wouldn’t have ended well,” Rusty said, giving herself a little shake.
“Was your tube hissing?” Brynn asked her friends.
“Yeah mine was,” Ty answered just as they heard a pounding behind them.
Turning around they could see Bennett still in her tube, looking confused by the fact that her door hadn’t opened with the rest of them.
“Hadlock, Bennett is still in hers,” Amber said, suddenly sounding very scared.
“I can’t seem to override it,” he told them. “I’m working on it.”
“Oh, don’t mind me, I’ll just be hanging out in the creepy tube all day,” Bennett said sarcastically, cocking her hip and looking unconcerned.
“We’re going to get you out,” Amber promised, placing a hand against the glass wall.
“You’d better,” she threatened playfully. “We still need to analyze certain conversations between two certain people.” She smiled with her perfectly straight, white teeth, her eyes crinkling up in the corners.
Had the situation not been so dire, Brynn would have actually laughed at Bennett’s lack of subtlety. But as it was, her friend was trapped in a mysterious hissing tube, and that was just never a good thing.
“I can’t seem to get into this one,” Hadlock said in frustration just as Bennett’s smile faded.
She turned to her friends in mild confusion and furrowed her brow before saying, “Do you guys smell sugar?”
Chapter 26: Apart
“Hadlock, get her out!” Brynn shouted, not caring about keeping her voice down anymore.
“I’m trying,” he yelled back as Amber began pounding her fists against the glass tube.
Bennett still seemed confused by what was going on, looking around at her friend’s sudden panic.
“Get her out!” Amber screamed, repeatedly pounding against the glass so hard that her fists began leaving bloody marks on the tube. “Now!”
“Bennett, hold your breath,” Rusty instructed desperately, trying to think of the only thing that could keep their friend safe.
“Guys, I’m fine,” Bennett tried to assure them, looking like she was absolutely terrified but keeping a brave face for her friends.
She let out a nervous little laugh.
“Hadlock?” Brynn cried, wondering why he had suddenly become silent.
“They’re coming!” he finally shouted. “The A.I.s are coming, you guys need to run.”
“I’m not leaving Bennett,” Amber said resolutely, breathing hard as she continued to beat her bloody fists against that glass that would never break. “Bennett are you holding your breath?” Amber asked just as Bennett stopped flashing her friends a fake reassuring smile.
She looked dazed for a moment as she met Amber’s eyes and swayed slightly on her feet. For a moment she looked like she was shifting her weight back and forth.
Then, without warning her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she fell against the glass tube with a sickening thud. Her body slumped heavily against the small space at an awkward angle; not quite lying down but no longer standing.
“Bennett!” Amber whispered into the now absolutely quiet space, everyone’s eyes fixated on the scene before them.
“Get out of there,” Hadlock commanded them again. “You have to get back to the elevators you were supposed to go on originally. They’re coming down the right hallway. You have to outrun them to the elevators. I’ll get the car started up.”
“Bennett,” Amber said again with wide eyes, unable to comprehend her friend’s limp body in the tube in front of her.
Rusty grabbed Amber around her waist and hoisted her over her shoulder, exactly as she had with Devey when her sister had died. Not for the first time, Brynn wondered what Rusty had seen in her life to make her so immune to hardship, though her thoughts didn’t plague her for long before her instinct kicked in.
“Come on,” she called to her friends, running out of the white room and leaving one of her best friend’s behind, knowing she was already gone.
Had she been in her right mind Brynn would have cried. She would have screamed and thrown herself on the ground and kicked her feet. But Brynn was running on pure adrenaline as she ran down the white hallway with Amber’s silent lack of comprehension ringing louder than any cries could have. Her mission was to get her friend’s to safety and mourn Bennett once the threat of losing more friends was gone.
“Take the elevators to the fourth floor and the grate will be right outside. It’s a straight shot out after that,” Hadlock instructed.
“Everyone get in an elevator,” Brynn commanded.
Rusty unceremoniously shoved Amber into an elevator and pushed the button for her before hopping into her own. The metal door closed in front of Amber’s confused face. She still wasn’t crying, and Brynn then knew th
ere was a point where you were too shocked or sad to cry.
Brynn could hear the Worker’s yelling to each other down the hallway as she looked at her own elevator, Ty standing beside her and waiting for her to get in.
This was her only chance to get Jonah back.
She had just had a friend die and she wasn’t about to let Jonah die because of her. Her hands were shaking as she stared at the open elevator in front of her. Ty looked over as comprehension dawned on him.
Before he could stop her, Brynn ran into her elevator, pulled out her comms unit and pressed the button that would take her to the room Eris had held her in.
“Brynn, don’t!” Ty yelled as the doors slid closed.
She could see him rushing forward to pull her out but he was too late.
Muffled yells could be heard over her comms unit that she had removed, so she whispered a quick, “Don’t come after me,” before dropping it on the floor and stepping on the small bud, silencing her friend’s and hoping they would leave without her.
Brynn didn’t let herself think of Bennett in the silent elevator ride that she hoped would take her to Jonah. Her mind tried to replay the look on her friend’s face as the life left her eyes but as soon as the images would come, she’d rub her hand over her head and try to envision saving Jonah just in time. If she couldn’t bring Bennett back, she could stop another life from being taken.
“Bennett,” she whispered, her throat aching as she suppressed any emotion attempting to well up inside of her. She wouldn’t think about it. She wouldn’t let herself comprehend what had just happened, not when she still had work to do.
Only a few days ago, Brynn could say she’d never had to face losing a friend. Since then she’d lost Jonah, Cambria, and Bennett. She hoped she wouldn’t have to lose anyone else to save the world. The exchange hardly seemed fair at the moment.
The elevator began to slow down and eventually stopped, opening on the room that Brynn had burned into her memory.
The white padded walls and floor gave her a literal pain in her neck as she remembered the needle Eris had stabbed into her. She rubbed the spot tenderly and wondered what horrors lay in store for her this time.
Rose Tinted Page 20
