Chapter 37: Regroup and Escape

No words were said, they both knew they needed to get down there at once. Jay grabbed a flashlight, and they left the security station behind, taking the quickest way down the halls to the Dormitory Storage area. Jay gave some instruction on which path to take to avoid any guards. When they got to that side of the facility, it turned out that the power had been cut there as well. There were no lights on in the dormitory area except the faint blue emergency lights that lined the floor. "Jay, I don't hear her," Fletch said.

"Shh! ….. They're still around," Jay said.

"Who?"

"Shh!"

Fletch stopped talking and followed Jay in the darkness.

They arrived at the storage room, which was only faintly lit.

Through the darkness, they heard quiet breathing that was rapid and panicky, and from the tone was distinguishably Kip's. Jay turned the flashlight on. Fletch hurried over to where it was coming from and found her sitting down in a corner, hugging her knees. "Kip!"

Kip wasn't able to talk, she was so scared. He put his good arm around her and helped her up. She curled her arms up between them as he held her. Fletch could tell she was crying softly, and she was trembling like crazy.

They heard movement somewhere else and Jay turned the flashlight to it, where they saw Nick getting up off the floor, seemingly unhurt, though barely conscious. Jay came over to help him up, "Are you ok, Nick?"

Nick groaned, "I am…. I don't know about Angel though. She's not breathing." Jay shone the flashlight at the floor where Angel was lying, her long purple hair partially covering her face.

Jay did not need long to make an examination of her mind. It was clear to him right away. "She's gone."

Fletch looked over. "Gone? How do you know she's not just knocked out or in a coma or something?"

"Fletch, I've read all sorts of minds before. Her mind isn't just blank, it's completely gone, which means it cannot come back."

Fletch gave a despairing sigh and shut his eyes, holding Kip securely and glad that at least she was safe. He looked back at Nick, "Nick, what happened?"

Nick shook his head, "I don't know exactly, but from my perspective, it went like this:"

The lights suddenly went out in the room and blue emergency lights turned on near the floor. Fletch radioed to Nick, "Scratch that. Our location here is compromised. Hold your location, we'll come to you."

Before Nick had time to radio back, four unrecognizable figures appeared through the doorway, coming towards the three of them. Nick, Angel, and Kip took out their Robo cubes to fight, but only one of the three figures jumped in front to combat them. Nick initiated the battle and opened up the holoseum for them, selecting his double stun guns as usual, but when the cubes activated in the holoseum, it was just the two of them. Angel and Kip had not gotten in for some reason. Nick jumped a barrier to attack the other Robo but suddenly the entire holoseum deactivated and they were both returned to the conscious world. Nick felt dizzy, and as the darkened room reappeared to him, one of the other figures took something away from near Nick's head that it had been holding there for a few seconds, and then Nick fell backward. He was not knocked out or anything, and could still think, see, and breathe, but he was dizzy and pretended to be unconscious so they would not pay any more attention to him. He held his breath on an exhale, only breathed softly, and remained motionless.

The next thing he heard was someone else hitting the ground next to him. He opened one eye a little and saw that it was Angel. Kip had shrank away and was sitting in the corner, her eyes shut, covering her ears and screaming loudly. Three of the figures left immediately, and the last one just took a glance at Kip before leaving, not seeming to care about her.

It had all happened so fast that Nick had a hard time conveying the true feeling of the scenario to Fletch, but he had explained it to the best of his ability.

"Nick, the Robo you fought for a brief second. What model was it?"

"Uhh…. I think it was a Seal Head. Yeah, a sandy tan Seal Head."

"Tyler," Fletch declared. "Jay, what do you think happened?"

"I'm not entirely sure, but from what Nick said, they took Angel down too fast to have killed her in a Robo battle. My guess is that they found some way to copy Nick's power and hacked into her mind, where they destroyed it, just like Tyson said."

"That probably means that Strike was the one who did it. He found a way to copy Nick's power, then used it to obtain Angel's, killing her in the process." Fletch looked sorrowfully down at Angel's body one more time, but knew they could not stay there. "Jay, we need to get out of this facility. We're in danger while we're still here."

"The whole place is on lockdown. There is no exit."

"Jay, if we can't find an exit we'll have to make one. I can't express how imperative it is that we get out of here."

Nick volunteered his thoughts, still groggy "Could the scientists here help us maybe? Since the lockdown took effect, I haven't seen them anywhere, so they're probably being held somewhere."

Fletch said, "Freeing the scientists would draw the entire guarding staff of the facility to us. The last thing we want is to attract attention, and we've wasted enough time here. If we're going to discuss this further, let's do it on the move. Jay, where is the wall of the dome thinnest?"

"…. Thinnest?"

"Did I stutter? Let's go." They all started walking down the darkened hallway, Jay in the lead since he could see everything that was ahead of them and kept their path clear of encounters.

Jay said as they walked, "The thinnest place in the wall would be the door to the train access, but even that is several inches thick of metal."

"It's all we've got. Let's go!" Their pace quickened as they made their way through the darkness. Kip was still trembling and not saying anything, and Nick stumbled every now and then with dizziness from what had happened earlier. Jay led them around any guards that were looking for them, and they finally came to the reception wing of the dome where the lights had not gone out yet. They passed through the room where the tournament had been held earlier, and made it to the main entrance where the train tunnel made contact with the dome.

The tunnel was sealed off with a heavy-looking metal door, but that wasn't the only thing in their way, nor was it their primary concern. Three R-Members that had once been considered friendly were between them and the sealed tunnel: Ray, Tyson, and Tyler, all of whom had their arms folded as if they had been waiting.