Heather didn't see anyone for more than three days.
Theo had all but vanished, and she was bored out of her mind in the tiny little room. There was a chest next to the bed with some food, but otherwise her cell was dull and unwelcoming. She wasn't sure if he was angry with her, or just busy, or killed by Notch, or what, but there was no sign of him. She had even tried yelling for him through the window of her door. Nothing.
She was fairly sure he was okay, though, if only because Notch would most likely let her out if he killed him. Captor or not, Theo had become her friend. She didn't want to see him dead.
Finally, as she lay in bed at the end of the third day, he reappeared.
Heather was dozing on the mattress when she spotted a red light, and her eyes flickered open to find red eyes glowing on the other side of the room. She pushed herself up, and he jumped.
"Sorry."
"Sorry?" The blonde echoed, making a fist and rubbing at her tired eyes. "For what?"
"I thought you were asleep." Theo shrugged, not looking her in the eye.
"Uhm." She stretched her arms above her head. "Where've you been?"
"Just working."
"For three days?"
"Hey, sometimes I can focus." He gave her a halfhearted grin. "Sorry to leave you all alone so long. I got lost in my work."
"Make any progress?"
"A bit." His gaze flitted away again. "Notch is, as I've mentioned, really powerful."
"I'm aware."
"How are you doing? Have you run out of food?" Theo changed the subject. "Anything I can get you while I'm here?"
"I'm bored." Heather complained. "There's nothing to do but eat and sleep. Or… I could do push-ups or something, I guess, but I don't really want to."
"Fair enough. I also avoid physical exertion at every opportunity." Theo nodded, nonchalant. "Um, I can add a jukebox and some disks if you want. And some noteblocks."
"That sounds good." Playing around with music was something, at least. Heather watched with half-lidded eyes as he placed a row of noteblocks on one side of the room, then a jukebox beside her bed, along with a chest which he filled up with disks. "Are you too busy to hang out with me?"
"Pretty much, sorry." He gave her a half-smile. Something was definitely off with him.
"Did something happen?" She asked, trying to sit up straight. He blinked at her.
"Not really. Why?"
"You're… jumpy."
"Oh." He fiddled with his sleeve. "Maybe I'm just tired."
"Maybe." He was definitely lying about something, but she was doubtful that she could get it out of him. He'd just tell her more lies. "Where's Manfred been?"
"Manfred?" The hacker echoed, glancing up at her. "Oh… not sure. He's wandering somewhere, I guess."
"Oh." Not incredibly comforting, but whatever. "Okay. Have fun."
"Thanks." Without looking at her, he disappeared. Worry twisted her stomach as she slowly got to your feet, ambling over to the chest and fishing out a disk. Cat. After examining the record for a moment, she slipped it into the jukebox and sat down beside it as the melody began to play.
Heather let her chin rest in her palm, letting out a breath.. She wasn't really sure what to do now. She had no contact with… basically anyone but Theo, she didn't know where her husband was, and she didn't dare rely on Notch to come and save her. She was definitely kind of attached to Theo, and didn't want him hurt, but it would really unfair to everyone else for her to stop trying to oppose him - in the little ways she could, anyway.
She leaned back against her bed, letting out a deep sigh. She was really tired of not having any say in her situation. When she got out of there, she was definitely gonna have Herobrine train her some more. Next time, she wasn't going down without a fight.
Steve hid behind the doorway, peeking out into Notch's chamber as his creator typed in a string of numbers. The miner recognized a few strings of code on his screen - a tracking program. He was hunting down Entity 303.
Steve hesitated, then started to step out, opening his mouth to try and get his attention, but at that moment Notch disappeared in a burst of golden light. The miner stopped short, freezing in the doorway and glancing behind himself on a reflex. He had been intending to ask if there had been any progress in the search, but… now he was gone. Could he figure it out himself?
Venturing closer, Steve took his creator's place in front of the main screen, skimming the lines of code. He was hardly an expert, but he recognized the tracking program, and as he watched it appeared to pick up a signature - Notch's. He was searching the area himself.
His eyes strayed to a second screen, the one showing Heather's health and hunger bars. Again, she appeared perfectly fine, so he kept looking. 303's signature was also there, but he had no status bars. In creative mode. The last one on the list appeared to be Null.
Though he looked, however, he couldn't find any coordinates. Even Null, whose location Steve was sure Notch knew, had no coordinates listed. Unfortunate.
As he started to turn away, though, a beep from the main screen caught his attention. Red text was sprawled across the screen, a warning.
"an error was spotted; line 396" Steve reached out, scrolling up to the offending line, only to freeze in shock as he watched the code be rewritten.
The text on the screen was changing, exactly how it would be if Notch were here working on it, but the creator was nowhere to be found. 303. It had to be. Notch had called him a hacker, this must be his doing. Steve's eyes flitted about the room, looking for some way he might be able to call his master back - only to stop short at the sight of a strip of coordinates under the hacker's signature.
His location had been revealed. This could be his chance - but, he had no idea where Notch was, and he wasn't nearly strong enough to take him out on his own. Maybe he should get Alex-?
Heather's coordinates were visible too, Steve realized with a start. He could get her out of there. Quickly, he checked his inventory - he had a pickaxe, a sword, and a few baked potatoes. Good enough.
Heading back to the screen, the miner scrolled down to the latest line of code, and entered his own, a simple command.
"/tp Steve 27536907 46 54368964"
