Lise had been gone for at least five or six hours. I was worrying myself out of my mind over her. The second they brought her back, assuming they ever would, we were gonna high tail it out of here, no questions asked. I just had to find a way to escape this cell. There had to be a way out of here. Anyone else would have given up by now, but a super genius never succumbs to difficulty. The easiest way out appeared to be the barred window. I needed to see how the bars were secured in the wall, but I was way too short to see much of anything at that height. I had to do something, though.

I glanced over at the corpse. I had already gone through his pockets. He had something else I could make use of, though. His clothes. I began unfastening his shirt. This was the single most disgusting thing I had ever done. And I'd done a lot of disgusting things in my time. The shirt reeked of death. I felt like I was gonna toss my cookies there and then. I ripped it into strips and tied them together. I had a fairly long rope when I finished and found a hook-shaped tool in the pile of things I had taken from his pockets. I tied the tool to the end of the rope. Voila! Instant grappling hook.

"Well, here goes nothing." I threw the hook end of the rope towards the bars. After several attempts, it caught. I tugged on it, then put all of my weight on it. It didn't budge. I inched my way up the rope. Of all the things I was, a monkey or a gymnast weren't on the list. I kept thinking I heard my captors opening the door, weapons drawn and ready to shoot Harper down from the wall. I didn't want all the bones in my body crushed on impact with the stone floor of this cell. I reached the window and grasped the bars for dear life. They were constructed of a fairly weak alloy. If I had a sautering wand, it would have been a piece of cake to melt them. But I didn't have a sautering wand. I would have to improvise. A small explosion would suffice. It would also give us a little more room to get out.

I slid down the rope, ignoring the burning sensation on my hands. I pulled down the grappling hook and tossed it into the pile of things I had to work with. Nothing in the pile could cause an explosion. I needed something with some wiring or electronic in nature. Damn! I walked around the perimeter of the cell, avoiding the corpse. A half-naked dead body that reeked something terrible. What a companion! What kind of sick bastards leave a dead body in a cell to rot with their new prisoners? This sucked on an almost unprecented level.

My mind kept wandering back to Lise. They were probably extracting information from her. These kind of people stopped at nothing to get what they wanted. Their torture methods were worse than death. They'd double the regular dosage of flash, nearly killing her in the process. They'd gang rape her for their own perverse pleasure. They'd use torture devices, like specially tuned lasers to cause pain so severe it made the victim go into shock instantly. And that wasn't even breaking the surface of what they'd do. In six hours, she could be scarred for the rest of her life.

The door flew opened, and an unconscious Lise was thrown into the room. A pair of bowls were dropped beside the door before it was slammed shut. I jumped to my feet and ran to her, taking her pulse. She was still alive, but extremely pale, and I could see external injuries. She had been scratched and bruised on the side of her face that I could see. I turned her head over and saw a very bloody spot on the right side of her neck. I looked over at the bowls. One had water in it. I ripped a piece of the bottom of my pants off and dipped it in the water. I carefully wiped away the blood.

She had a cerebral port. The ultimate purpose of the excursion to this planet had been achieved. How ironic it happened in such a horrible way. The bleeding had stopped around the port. I began tending to all of her wounds the best I could. I wanted to make whoever had done this to her pay. With my bare hands. She seemed to be cold. I grabbed her sweater from the other side of the room. As I picked it up, something fell from one of the pockets onto the floor. I bent down and picked it up. I immediately recognized it. It was an ancient Earth cellular phone. Yes! Rigging this thing to explode would be as easy as taking candy from a baby.

I covered Lise, trying to make her as comfortable as I could. I wished there was more I could do for her. I knew the only thing I could do to help her was get us both out of there. I dismantled the phone. It would be difficult to turn it into a time bomb. If I had a couple of clamps and some string, and I was extremely careful, I would theoretically be able to cause an explosion while far enough away to be in little danger. It was my only option so I began rigging the phone's wiring to cause an explosion, using a long length of wire so I could activate it from across the cell.

I didn't have the time to plan where we would go after we escaped. I also didn't have the luxury of having any clue of where we were. Evening was approaching. It would be easier to conceal ourselves in the dark than in the light. But they probably had sensors. Sensors that could detect our ports. It seemed like all we could encounter were obstacles. There was a way to hide a cerebral port from sensors, but it had adverse effects on the port's user. Placing a magnet with southern polarity in the entrance of the port masked it from sensors. But it caused symptoms similar to radiation sickness after leaving the magnet for more than twelve or fourteen hours. We didn't have much of a choice in this matter, though.

The walls had a slight luster and reflectiveness to them. They were composed of lodestone, a natural magnet that would hide us from any attempts to find us Andromeda would make! Our captors were good. But I was better. In the explosion, fragments of the walls would fly off like shrapnel. There would be some large enough to utilize for our puposes.

I finished rigging the phone. All we could do now was wait until darkness. I looked at the contents of the bowls. It appeared to be water and some sort of food. I didn't trust it, though. They probably drugged it to prevent us from thinking clearly enough to make any escape attempts. I wouldn't put anything out of what they would sink to doing. No hunger or thirst were strong enough to surpass my desire to get the hell out of that place.

Lise didn't seem to be changing in condition. I would have to carry her more likely than not. She wasn't extremely heavy, but carrying over a hundred pounds for long distances would be hard for me to do. I wasn't very strong. I wished I was Tyr, for the first time. I'd never thought in a million years I'd want to be a Niet. I despised them, and the Magog, more than anything.

I picked up the large curtain and examined it. Did I still know how to sew? Back on Earth, I had to learn during the Magog raids to patch up my clothes. We didn't have the supplies to spare to make new ones. The corpse had pants on with obvious seams. I could remove the thread from them and transform the curtain into a sack that I could put Lise in and tie to my back. However much I hated the corpse, it was coming in handy for a lot of things.

I made a very badly sewn sack that would be a tight squeeze for Lise. At least it was something. I thought I was being very resourceful and innovative. The suns were setting, and twilight would begin very soon. It was almost time to implement my plan. If this didn't work, I knew we probably wouldn't ever see Andromeda again. I moved Lise's body into the sack. I kissed Lise's cool cheek and gave her a gentle hug before I grabbed the cell phone and grappling hook.

I caught the grappling hook between the bars after a few throws. I climbed up, careful not to set off the bomb. If I accidentally did, Harper would be no more. I reached the top and put the cell phone on the window's ledge. I carefully climbed back down, carrying the wire across the cell. I laid it on the floor and stood Lise up. I used some of the rope I had removed to tie her to me. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and jerked the wire.

The loud explosion rumbled the cell. I felt the sparks burn my face. I was almost thrown off balance. I opened my eyes. I had blown away a large section of the wall, enough that I wouldn't have to climb over it. I found two large pieces of the wall and placed one in my cerebral port and the other in hers.

I started running for my life out into the darkness. The adrenaline made Lise's weight feel like a feather. I didn't stop until I neared a large body of water. There was a rocky area surrounding it. I ran into the rocks and searched for a place that we could rest. There was a small opening. It was covered by plant life. I pushed my way through the plants and hoped nothing was inhabiting the cave.