Hiya!
A huge thank you to everyone who has read and/or reviewed! *hugs you all*
I should mention that I don't have a Beta reader so I apologize for any spelling mistakes you might come across, but feel free to let me know so I can correct them.:)
Here's chapter 7, enjoy!:D

Chapter 7: Nightmares

When the two of them started to get tired, Caleb showed Ember to where he had set up the bed spaces. The beds themselves weren't much, basically one bed was just a thin mattress on the ground with a scruffy blanket, but Ember wasn't going to start complaining about that. She felt exhausted after the day's events, the running from the Roboidz and the Shades, the amount of information her brain was trying to process was just getting a little too much to handle.

"I'm going to set up the defences." Caleb said. "Won't be a minute."

Ember just nodded before he left. She picked out one of the beds and sat down on the thin mattress. She took of the boots and khaki vest, putting them aside at the foot of the bed. After that, she unzipped the jumpsuit and tied the sleeves around her waist so she was going to be a little more comfortable as she felt that the jumpsuit was restricting her movements just a tiny bit. She decided to leave the long sleeved shirt on, seeing as it wasn't all that warm in the sleeping quarters. She grabbed another blanket and folded it so it could function as a pillow before lying down and pulling the blanket up over her shoulders. The blanket smelled a little mouldy, but Ember tried to ignore that as much as she could.

Ember glanced up when Caleb came walking back into the room and walked over to his own bed close to the door. She watched as Caleb took of his boots, thigh pack, his half fingered glove and leather jacket before lying down.

"Goodnight, Ember." Caleb said, glancing over at her.

"Night, Caleb." Ember replied before turning her back on him with the intention of getting some sleep.

Now that Ember was lying down, she found that sleep was eluding her, which she found really annoying. She always had this problem, no matter how tired she was, she couldn't fall asleep straight away if she was lying in something else than her own bed. Not that everything was quiet, she could hear sounds coming from deep within FutureGate and she wasn't afraid to admit that it scared her a little. Since it was so quiet, she could also hear the moment that Caleb fell asleep as his breathing deepened a little.

After spending some time tossing and turning, Ember got out of the bed and walked over to the single round window that was in the room. She pulled over a crate to it so she could sit down and look out of it. It wasn't a clear night, so Ember couldn't see the starts, so instead she tried to entertain herself by trying to see figures in the clouds.

Ember was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that she was actually on FutureGate in the year 2110. She pinched herself to make sure that all of it wasn't a dream and when she found that she wasn't waking up in her own safe bedroom, she felt a shudder running down her spine. During the evening she'd found out that the weird brain in the tube was actually Neuros and Caleb had already warned her that she was the one who was going to have to navigate through the web of lasers as Caleb's cybernetics would probably alert the Roboidz, not to mention Neuros. It was something that she wasn't looking forward too at all; in fact, the thought of having to navigate her way through a web of lasers that was most certainly harmful to humans was completely terrifying. But seeing as Ember had signed up to help Caleb, she told herself that she was going to see it through to the end. She had too; it was after all what she had signed up for.

Ember pulled her knees up against her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs as she looked out of the window. All the thinking she was doing was giving her a major headache, but there was so much stuff to think about that she couldn't put it aside to think about in the morning.

"Why can't you just stop thinking? Stupid brain." Ember whispered quietly, leaning her chin on her knees.

After staring out of the window for a few more minutes, Ember went back to her bed and was just about to get comfortable when she heard Caleb whimpering in his sleep. She sat up and looked over to Caleb to find that he was tossing and turning. For a moment Ember wondered what to do before she got to her feet and walked over to Caleb's bed. She kneeled down beside him and in the dim light she could see that he was grimacing in his sleep, not to mention that he was sweating. It was clear to see he was having a nightmare and for a moment Ember had no idea what she was supposed to do before she remembered what she used to do when her little brother Danny had a nightmare. Ember carefully put her hand on Caleb's forehead and started to stroke it with her thumb as she took hold of Caleb's human hand with her other one.

"It's alright." Ember said softly. "You're safe Caleb, it's just a dream. It's all just a dream. None of it is real, you're completely safe."

Ember kept talking even if it was just to let Caleb know that he wasn't alone. As soon as Ember had taken hold of Caleb's human hand, it tightened around hers in a vice like grip. After 10 minutes of sitting beside him, and trying to calm Caleb down while he slept, his grip relaxed and the grimacing stopped.

"There we are..." Ember whispered, sitting back as Caleb settled into a dreamless sleep.

She slipped her hand out of Caleb's and quietly went back to her own bed. Ember lay down and glanced over at Caleb to find that he was still sleeping peacefully which made her smile slightly to herself. The moment that she rolled onto her side with the back facing the wall next to her, she managed to fall asleep.

Ember woke up the following morning when a light shone in her face and when she opened her eyes, she immediately closed them again against the bright sunlight.

"Bugger..." Ember complained, throwing an arm over her eyes against the light. "Where's a bloody curtain when you need one?"

After a few moments Ember sat up and ran a hand through her hair as she opened her eyes. She sighed when she saw that she was still inside FutureGate and that everything was real. She glanced over to Caleb's bed to find that he was already out of bed. Ember climbed to her feet and put on her boots without bothering to lace them up properly. As she walked out of the sleeping quarters, she found that Caleb was already looking over the blue prints that he'd been looking over the night before.

"You're up early." Ember remarked as she walked over to him.

She watched as Caleb jumped a little before turning to face her, which was when he started to grin.

"Good morning." He grinned. "Want some breakfast?

"If you've got some." Ember nodded.

She watched as Caleb walked over to the bag he'd taken to go exploring the night before. When he pulled out a full English breakfast, which was also vacuum packed, Ember felt her stomach flipping. The night before both of them had forgotten to eat in their excitement at finding out what Neuros was and where N-Lab was and the idea of eating a full, greasy English breakfast wasn't appealing to her empty stomach at all.

"Uh... I'd rather eat the beans on toast if you don't mind." Ember remarked.

Caleb shrugged after frowning for a moment and tossed her the packet with the beans and toast. For a moment Ember wondered how she was going to heat the beans, but in the end she settled for only eating the toast.

"What are you doing?" Ember asked, sitting beside Caleb on the table as he kept going through the blueprints.

"Plotting our route." Caleb replied without looking up.

"Right." Ember said. "I suppose a SatNav would be useful right now, we could just type in Neuros and let that thing lead us there."

"What's a SatNav?" Caleb asked, looking confused.

"Satellite navigation." Ember replied. "It's like this device that tells you where you want to go when you type in the destination. Although I doubt think it would work here... the Roboidz probably shot down all satellites to cut off communications so the humans couldn't call for help... anyway, what's the route?"

"Nothing special, just stealthily sneaking past a Shade plant." Caleb replied.

"Shades?" Ember asked. "Isn't there another route we could take?"

"Not unless you want to go through a cargo hold full of war droidz." Caleb shook his head.

"Well, if that's the case, I'll take the Shades over Roboidz any day of the week." Ember remarked.

"Brilliant." Caleb grinned.

Ember walked back into the sleeping quarters and put on the rest of her stuff and laced up her boots properly before walking out into the main room of the lair again.

"Ready to go, sir!" Ember grinned, giving a mock salute.

"Let's get going then, recruit." Caleb replied, acting like a strict leader for a few moments.

Ember laughed as Caleb started to smirk before the two of them left the lair. They moved through FutureGate as fast as they could without getting caught by patrolling Roboidz or Shades. Ember had been looking around as they walked through FutureGate. The section that they were in looked like it had been inhabited by Humans once upon a time. Ember had been so focussed on looking around that she hadn't noticed Caleb had stopped and she ended up walking into his back. Caleb glanced back at her and gave her a slightly annoyed look before looking back through the doorway they were standing at.

"What's wrong?" Ember asked.

"We're about to enter the Shade plant." Caleb explained. "Stay close and keep moving."

Ember nodded and took a deep breath to calm herself before Caleb moved into the plant. She barely had any time to look around to see what was going on as the two of them moved through the plant as swiftly and stealthily as they could.

Caleb had lead them over to the upper walkways of the Shade plant, for which Ember was grateful as that meant that there the Shades wouldn't be able to get to them. She was also glad for the fact that Caleb had decided to take that rout as that meant that Ember wouldn't be able to see how a Shade was made, which was the last thing she wanted seeing as she already knew what was behind a Shade's mask. She made sure to keep her eyes on Caleb's back at all times as they moved through the plant. The smell inside the plant was unbearable, the smell of one Shade was bad enough, but the smell of a whole plant full of Shades made Ember want to throw up. As soon as they left the plant, Ember let out the breath that she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"That went smoothly." Caleb remarked.

"If you say so" Ember replied. "Personally I wouldn't want to go through here again if you don't mind."

"So you'd rather face the Roboidz." Caleb smirked.

"Hell no." Ember replied as Caleb kept smirking. "I'd rather take a route that doesn't involve Roboidz or Shades."

"Tough." Caleb smirked.

Ember shook her head at him as the two of them reached the door that would get them inside N-Lab. Ember felt that there was something wrong with the whole thing. The trip getting to N-Lab had been way to easy, and now that they were right outside the door, which wasn't guarded at all, made a shiver run down her spine.

"Caleb, I think we should go..." Ember whispered, grabbing Caleb's arm.

"Yeah, it's too quiet." Caleb agreed. "But we got to know what we're up against."

"I know, but we're no good to this war dead." Ember replied.

Caleb turned to look at her and Ember knew that arguing wasn't going to do any good after seeing the look of determination in Caleb's eyes.

"Alright, forget I said anything." Ember said. "Don't blame me if this turns out to be a trap."

"This isn't a trap." Caleb said confidently.

Ember raised an eyebrow at him, he sounded confident and his posture screamed confidence as well, but his eyes betrayed him. He wasn't feeling confident at all and if Ember didn't know any better, she would've said that Caleb was looking a little scared.

"Well, let's go do this then." Ember said. "The longer we stand here the longer Neuros has time to send the Roboidz to go after us."

"You're right." Caleb said. "Ready?"

"As I'll ever be." Ember nodded.

Caleb opened the door and the two of them sneaked inside N-Lab. Ember felt the hairs on the back of her neck and arms standing on edge as they stepped inside. Caleb had selected a walkway over N-Lab as an entry point and they had a good view on what was going on. They heard a soft but evil voice ordering the Roboidz via what Ember suspected was a communications system. She knew instantly that that voice belonged to Neuros and she felt a shiver rolling down her spine again. Both Caleb and Ember moved along the gantry, keeping their footsteps as light as they possibly could so that they didn't make too much noise that would attract unwanted attention.

"The web is bigger than it looked on camera." Ember whispered as the two of them crouched down in the middle of the walkway.

"It's not going to be easy to get through that." Caleb remarked, looking down at the web of lasers.

"I'll manage." Ember replied with more confidence than she felt before pointing at the Roboidz that were standing around. "Look at that. They must be Neuros' guards."

There were wardroidz and guards standing all around the room. all of the wardroidz had weapons on their arms while the gaurds didn't have anything at all, but Ember suspected that the gaurds had enough strength to crush a human in the blink of an eye.

"We'd have to find a way to take them out." Caleb whispered.

"Not to mention find a way to take out the cameras." Ember whispered back. "Although that could be fixed by a simple feed loop."

"A what?" Caleb asked.

"I'll explain later." Ember replied. "Can we get out of here now?"

"Yeah, come on." Caleb nodded. "Stay close."

"No need to remind me of that." Ember remarked.

Caleb got to his feet and grabbed Ember's hand before the two of them started moving back to the door that they had used to get into N-Lab with. Ember glanced down at the Roboidz to find that a few of them were looking up at the walkway they were standing on before raising their guns.

"Caleb!" Ember yelled.

The next few seconds almost seemed to happen too fast for Ember to process, but the second that she had yelled, Caleb turned to see what was going on before he saw the Roboidz.

"Run!" he ordered, pushing Ember ahead of him.

They ran towards the door as fast as they could. Just as Ember was about to reach the door, she was pulled down to the floor of the walkway by Caleb. Knowing what was probably about to happen, she covered her head and a second later, the shots made impact on the walkway. The walkway shook and Ember felt her heart sinking when she heard the metal starting to ground, as if it wasn't able to take the weight anymore.

"Come on!" Caleb yelled.

The next thing Ember knew, she was being pulled to her feet before they started running again. Seeing as they had left the door open when they'd come in, Caleb and Ember were able to dive through it before the walkway gave out underneath them. Both of them were gasping for breath as they jumped to their feet just in time to see the walkway falling before it hit the ground with an ear deafening crash.

"Come on, back to the lair." Caleb said, grabbing Ember's hand again.

They ran back the way they came, but at some point they must've taken a wrong turn somewhere. Instead of ending up on the walkway they had used the first time they passed through the Shade plant, they ended up on the ground floor. There weren't any Roboidz around, for which Ember was glad, but there were Shades there, a lot of Shades. They only realized this as they were standing in the middle of the plant and the exit was blocked by Shades.

"This way!" Ember yelled, pulling Caleb along to go back the way they came.

Before they could reach the door they'd just came through, Shades stepped out in front of it, trapping them in the middle of the plant with a lot of smelly Shades surrounding them.

"Don't let them touch you." Caleb warned, pulling Ember out of reach from an approaching Shade. "They're highly toxic."

"Great, just what we need." Ember remarked sarcastically.

She looked around when Caleb leaned down to grab something only for it to be two metal bars.

"Don't knock of their masks." Ember warned as Caleb handed her one of the bars before they turned to stand back to back. "You don't want to see that, trust me."

"I believe you." Caleb replied.

Caleb and Ember were standing in the middle of the plant, waiting for the Shades to come close enough for them to attack while they were looking around to find an exit. As Ember watched the Shades on her side coming closer and closer, she wondered if Caleb had a plan to escape, because she couldn't figure out an escape route. If he didn't have a plan, they were going to be in a lot of trouble.

So, that's it for chapter 7, really hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Just thought to let everyone know that there's not a Mission 2110 forum online here, set up by the lovely and awesomely awesome Oddments and Tweaks. Just head to the main page is where everyone's Mission 2110 stories are posted and click on Discussion Forums.
Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think:)
~ Abby