CELLS A2 AND A3

It felt like a dream.

His right hand was still on the wrench, buried in the ripped folds of his pillow. He felt relieved at first that they didn't take it from him yet. Then the thought of it made him afraid.

He could still feel the eyes on him, watching him while they thought he was asleep, even after they had knocked down every camera with the wrench and found all of them hollow fabrications. Of course. Why would their captors' only eyes be in plain view?

What scared him the most was how he couldn't go back to sleep. It had been getting harder and harder to get out of bed every morning, but now he felt energized. His stomach wasn't turning over and in on itself and his muscles didn't feel worn down to nothing. He felt fine.

Also, he was reasonably sure that his eyes were open, but he couldn't see anything. An unnatural sort of darkness, like a black cloud had enveloped him. He reached outwards. He ran his fingers over the surface of the glass wall, surprised at how inviting it felt. He wished he could melt into it, swallow its perfection. Understand how it was made. Why it was made.

Tristan's vision returned to him, steadily clearing its way as though all the lights had just been on and were suddenly turned off. He tried to remember when he had gone to sleep, and once again, failed.

"Son of a bitch…"

The glass started warming up under his fingers. He reacted by pressing his palm flat against it and pushing with all his weight. He gritted his teeth under the pressure on his skull. The feeling was like waking up the first time.

He saw that the occupants of A1 were staring at him.

Tristan tried smiling at the thought that they were all together. He caught himself just in time, his headache pressing harder along with his hand against the glass. His four neighbors turned at what was happening in their cell: white smoke, coming in from nowhere and everywhere. Kevin was closest to the glass, the easiest for Tristan to see that he wasn't even trying to hold his breath. Five seconds and all four of them collapsed to the floor.

"NO!"

He found it within himself to move, his emotions the last to return.

"NO! NO! STAY AWAY FROM THEM! STOP IT!"

He had the wrench unsheathed from the pillow and brought it against the glass, feeling sharp pain travel all the way up to his shoulder. He bit down on it and kept hitting, forcing the muscles to fire harder and harder, hoping the wrench would break or at least his arm would. Smoke continued to fill A1. Against their northern wall, he saw something slide upwards.

"STOP IT! STOP IT! DON'T TAKE THEM!"

Four figures entered the cell, their red eyes piercing the fog. They moved to the bodies.

"YOU MOTHERFUCKER! YOU FUCKING COWARD MOTHERFUCKER!"

Tristan backed off from the wall, sliding out of his bed. He found the strength to turn away.

"We have to help them! We have to do something!"

He looked to each of the bunks in the darkness of his cell. No one was moving.

"WAKE UP!"

Nothing.

He trotted two steps to the nearest bunk, keeping unfocused from the hypnotic pull of the disappearing figures.

He tugged hard at the blanket with both hands. "Simon, we-"

He stopped short of finishing. Simon was sound asleep, breathing steadily. Tristan let go and backed away, and turned to Durango and Shirk's bunks. Their faces shared the same contented expression. Everyone breathing in unison.

The wrench in his hand suddenly went cold, biting through to the skin, to the bone. Now, he wanted more than anything to get rid of it. What good would it do to keep it?

I can't save them

Holly was sleeping as soundly as the rest of them, but Tristan saw her smile as more of a grimace. He fell to his knees at her side.

"I know what you've been doing. I can see it in your eyes…"

I can't save what's important to me.

"I can't watch you do it to yourself. You're killing me." He noticed then…

I can't

He noticed then that all of the bunks were filled.

I

Everyone else's.

I

Someone was back.

Under Sabrina's bunk, the bed was occupied, someone's bulk under the covers. He counted again and again and made sure they all made eight. He forced his legs to move away, but no matter how fast he moved, the form got bigger, bigger, bigger

Buster, forgive me.

stronger, meanerHelp me.

it sneered back at him

He blinked. He had made it to the bathroom, crawled backwards on all fours. Out of the corner of his eye, he had seen the window, the Robotropolis sky strangely clear, allowing the moonlight to shine through.

Get rid of it.

No. Use it.

Try, please try.

Anymore, it was the only place he felt safe.

He tried his hardest to recreate the connection he had when knocking down the camera, taking a moment out before swinging against the base of the toilet. The bang sounded exactly the same as the bang against the glass. With every wind-up and swing he felt his hope slip further and further away. After awhile, he didn't feel it anymore, but it wasn't unusual. It was familiar. He found a slight comfort in feeling this way with every swing, swing, swing, subtracting and picking away at himself to see where he ended and he realized that whoever did this to them didn't have the courage to try the experiment on himself and needed them NEEDED THEM for this; it was important work. No one had depended on him before this

Holly.

No dents or cracks were forming.

A cry escaped him as he stood to his feet and it suddenly turned into a scream and the connection was back, and he brought the wrench back and threw it at the window, at the moon. It arced through the bars and knocked it down.

And he had seen it.

The sky was cloudy again. It had gone dark.

Fell right out of view like it was alive.

No more moon.

The face…

No moon at all.

It had been Sonic's.

voices…

"Hey, Durango, how'd your morning go?"

"How does shit treat a toilet?"

Someone coughed twice and cleared their throat.

"Glad to see you're back to normal. Maybe you'll lighten up. Hey, Tristan, wakey wakey, it's time for lunch!"

Tristan groaned and lifted himself. It happened that the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was Buster's bed, across the cell. It was empty.

All back to normal.

Shirk and Durango were surrounding the food bowl. "Hey, come on, man! If you close your eyes, it's almost like you're eating pussy."

He had to force a smile and it was as difficult as getting out of bed. It had all been a dream, and a large parted of him didn't want it to be over. "Ha."

"Geez, you look like hell. Are you okay?"

As he sat up, he caught a brief glimpse of A1. It looked empty. "… Fine." Voices. He heard three of them, whispering in the corner of the A3 cell. He sat up and craned his head, trying to see. One of the voices sounded unfamiliar. "Who's that?"

"New guy." Durango said without looking. "Don't bother hurting yourself asking him questions. He can't help us."

Tristan nodded but stood up and walked over to them anyway. Their conversation faded in.

"… Deserted?"

"Completely deserted."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive. We turned that place upside down looking for signs of life. It looked like it had been empty for years." Bowman finished his story with a nod, taking a tiny bite out of an apple, and almost spitting it out in disgust. Seated around him, Sabrina and Simon lowered their heads in defeat.

"You run into anybody on the way to the city?" Tristan asked.

Bowman shook his head. "No. The SWATbots caught us by surprise at the outskirts of Knothole. If there's still a resistance in the forest, I don't know about it." He paused under the weight of his own words. He watched Simon crawl away, unable to listen to anything else. "Sorry."

"What about your people in the mountains?"

"We sent a runner back to tell them about Knothole, but I doubt they'll know about the cells in time. From what I've been told, the plan is to fit them in somewhere, too."

"If what they're building is a bigger prison," Tristan lamented, suddenly letting loose two ragged coughs. He was hungry again.

"What I can't figure is how this was done entirely under our noses, without any changes in SWATbot production or mining of outside resources. Mobius has been continuing on its present course for some time now."

"Something we're not seeing..."

Bowman cleared his throat. "Listen… I've also been told that you have contact with someone on the outside. What about him?"

Tristan felt a surge of anger. "Forget about that. It's nothing." He stormed off into A2, his stomach growling at him.

Bowman was at a loss for what to say. Sabrina leaned forward, whispering: "I should have told you."

"Did I come at a bad time?"

"We were hoping you had some good news is all."

"How many of you are in here?"

Sabrina sniffed quietly. "You make eight again. You replaced Buster." She paused. "Snively tortured and killed him."

Bowman's eyes went wide. "I see."

"We won't be eight for much longer…" She motioned to A1. "There used to be four of them. They were all there, yesterday. Now it's empty. They were taken all at once." Sabrina stood to her feet. "Enjoy the bed."

Bowman watched her walk away, and slipped onto the mattress, staring up at the bottom of the bunk above him. He heard someone crying. To his left, a duroc pig was curled up on the top bunk, her skinny arms wrapped around her shoulders, slivers of gray hair wildly jutting outwards. She wasn't breathing.