CELLS E3 AND E4
"-ke up."
Matt woke up and felt something metal wrapped around his neck.
He touched it warily with his left hand, and it took him a moment to assure himself that it was real.
He rolled over and looked for his reflection, blinking the sleep out of his eyes.
But…
The mirrors were missing…
Replaced, with an intensely white surface.
He heard the others stirring as he rolled out of bed and stumbled to his feet. He was used to the headaches, but these new walls were intensely disorienting. His bunkmate, Hy, who slept above him, cried out in surprise. Matt saw that he also had a metal collar around his neck.
"What the-? What the hell is this!" Hy began trying in vain to pry the collar off, digging his sharp claws into the metal. It wouldn't budge.
Matt gave his own collar another curious tug. Tight, and thick. It didn't feel like he'd be able to get it off. He cast a suspicious glance at the security monitors, wondering if he or they were watching.
"What are you planning this time?"
He was amazed at how calm he was.
The center bunks emptied themselves of their mobile occupants. Rebecca and Allison hopped to the floor and began examining each other's collars. At the opposite wall in E3, Red was banging his against his bunk supports, trying to break it off. The beds jumped two inches with every blow. Dan, all skin and thinning fur, was doing his best to calm him down.
"Strange…" Matt checked his own bunk, and it was no longer connected to the floor either. In fact, he could almost lift the entire structure using both of his arms. He rubbed his eyes, still not used to his new surroundings. He saw that even the floor and ceiling had gone completely white.
"Hey! Everybody, come look at this!" It was Steve, calling from E3. Those who could walk gathered around what he had found.
The food bowl. Matt had forgotten about it, so used to how full it was every morning. Now…
Red picked one up, examining it closely. "Why would we be given pistols?"
Rebecca pointed at the other guns in the bowl, mentally counting all eight. "One for all of us."
"Certainly looks that way," Steve said, picking one up for himself. Heavy, long barrel, silver finish, black trigger guard, two lights on the right side.
When everyone had grasped their respective firearm, Matt noticed that there was one more left. "Did he…? Huh. He left one for Lola, too."
"How thoughtful," Allison mumbled.
They guiltily stole glances at her still unconscious form. For the last two days, since she had been given back, they were wondering how they were going to feed her if she didn't wake up soon.
"I'll take hers," piped an excited Steve, swiping Lola's from the bowl before someone could protest.
The prisoners held their guns gently, feeling the weight of them, unsure of what to do next. Red aimed his at one of security cameras. After all, guns are useless hunks of metal without ammunition. It would be a cruel trick on Robotnik's part. Cruel, but he was perfectly capable of doing it.
He pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened. "Damn."
Dan sat on the floor, still staring at his. "I don't know… You think he did this just to screw with us?"
"Certainly looks that way." Steve said, almost under his breath, sitting down next to him and trying to pry the ammunition clip out of one of the guns, to no success.
"Seems pretty pointless, don't you think?"
"I agree," Matt said, kicking the empty food bowl into one of the bathrooms. It clanged loudly three times, bouncing off the walls, before spinning into the bathroom.
"What do you think the collars are for?" Dan asked, breathing heavily.
"Got me."
Allison worked her way into the circle. "We have different colors on each of ours, too." She turned her shoulders, showing the back of her neck. "See?"
They saw a tiny square in the center of the collar. Hers was purple.
Red tried to turn his collar around in vain. It seemed attached to his skin. "Ow."
Steve saved him the trouble and snuck a quick look. "Blue." He looked at Dan's too, leaning over from where he was sitting. "Black."
Matt dropped to his knees and bent down so someone could check his. "Orange." At the same time he gently turned Steve's head and looked. "Yellow."
Dan looked around, not seeing Rebecca nearby. Finally, he spotted her. She was in the bathroom in E3, sitting on the toilet, her legs practically protruding out of the door. Dan ran to her, nonplussed at her surprised reaction. He checked the back of her neck, ignoring her protests. He ran back to the others, a slight smile on his face.
"Green." he said. In the background, Rebecca pulled in her legs as far as she could.
At the same time, Allison had been checking Hy's. "Red."
"Somebody see if Lola has one."
Hy stood to his feet and hopped quickly over to Lola's side. Sure enough, she had a collar on too. Hy hesitated when it came time to move her, but all he needed was a moment. He lifted her head tenderly and checked the back of her neck. "White." He slowly lowered her head back down on her pillow.
Yesterday, it had been business as usual. Passing the time had become the highest priority, ignoring how gradually, impossibly fucked things were becoming. Ignoring the cold showers, the breeze blowing from the barred windows, the fact that their neighbor from E1 had gone into the bathroom and never come out again. Hardest of all was trying to ignore Lola's condition. It had been easy when she wasn't there; they all just assumed she was dead. When she was back in her bunk, the hopelessness of it all became painfully apparent.
Matt had an odd feeling… that there was something he was missing, something that had managed to slip under his radar. "There was…" he stopped, shrinking under their looks. He wasn't quite sure where his thoughts were taking him. "Was there anything that… anybody noticed this morning? Anything unusual?" They still stared at him. "Other than the obvious."
Steve was staring at the floor, squinting his eyes. "I think I know what you mean. It doesn't feel like a normal morning."
There was the sound of a flushing toilet. Rebecca came out and rejoined them. She yawned loudly as she sat down. "Not just talking about the walls and the beds, are you?"
Dan's wheezy breathing abruptly ceased, he eyes going slightly wide. They all turned to him, chilled at the expression on his face. "A voice."
They were gassed every night; they knew that. It took the fight out of them early on, especially after they discovered that holding their breaths did no good. They were gassed long before any secret doors were opened and their rooms were cleaned up and organized. Or, anyhow, that was easier to believe, easier than thinking that they just didn't have the lung power to go the precious extra minute.
In the mornings, they all woke up under their own power, and in some cases, hours after the first few opened their eyes, no longer under the influence of the gas. However, this time, with the exception of Lola, they had all woken up at more or less the same time. That hadn't happened since the first few days of their capture.
"Over the speakers. Shit…"
"Anybody remember what it said?"
Dan pressed his palms against his temples, sealing his eyes shut. "Something about-"
"Five minutes."
The voice from above made everyone jump, about has high as they did the first time the torture list was announced. Volume was a part of it, but it was also the way the voice was focused. It dug in like a knife. This time, it bore a strong resemblance to Snively's.
Matt was the first one to break out of his surprise. "Five minutes until what?"
They listened for more static, wearing identical masks of fear, wishing that they would never have to find out the answer to that question.
Hy disconnected himself from the group, over to the central bunk beds. He looked like he was searching for an internal off switch.
"One of Snively's games?" asked Dan.
"Or Robotnik's." Allison said.
"Like this place is his fucking playground." Red almost flung the gun across the room, but stopped himself before he let it fly. "I'm getting mighty, might, mighty sick of it."
"A game…" they heard Hy say. He was still staring at the bunk beds.
"It might be a game, but it doesn't have to have rules. Robotnik can do whatever he wants to us," Allison said, waiting in the expected moment of silence that usually came after she said something.
"Messing with us. Like you said, old man."
Dan nodded back at Red. "Not a pretty thought, is it?"
"Let's say that it is a game, and it does have rules," Matt put forth, standing up. "What would be the object of the game?"
"Stay alive for the next five minutes?" Allison said, clearly enjoying it on some level.
Matt looked around, deciding to take her seriously. "Nothing's happening. The game… starts in five minutes?"
"We have even less than that, don't we?"
"I don't want to just be sitting here whenever it begins," Rebecca said, also standing.
Dan appeared to be worried, under serious emotional strain. "Wait, wait, wait… how can we be sure that whatever happens is going to be dangerous?"
"He gave us guns," Steve said. "What does that tell you?"
"Not to use against each other, I hope. I couldn't… that is, I wouldn't be able to…" Dan didn't finish.
"So it's a game, right?" Hy came back to them, from the bunks. "He woke us up at the same time, gave us guns, and unhooked our bunks from the floor. He's also giving us time to prepare."
"To get our shit together," Red added, ecstatic at the idea of figuring something out. "To put together a strategy."
"For defense?"
"Fuckin' a for defense. I bet we can get the beds pulled over there, in front of the bathrooms-"
"So certain that they're coming from the blank wall, Red?" Allison asked. "What if they moved us to an identical cell, so they can surround us when we try to outsmart him?"
There was a brief moment before he answered with: "Then we're fucked, aren't we?"
"Aren't we."
Hy was back at Lola's side. "She can't fight. Let's move her into one of the bathrooms and box her in." He managed to carry her by himself into the E3 commode while Steve, Matt, and Red worked on bringing the bunks down.
Dan stood in the center of E3 as they swarmed and worked, unaffected by the loud banging of the bunks hitting the floor. He was still staring at his gun.
"Let's cover up the E3 bathroom entirely with these three bunks," Red was saying. "Hy, you don't mind being boxed in with her, do you? That way, he and Lola are protected. We'll put that last bunk over the E4 bathroom for cover, and we can duck in and out from there if we need to."
"I like how you try to adapt to situations, Red," Allison said to him, right by his ear as he lifted the left E4 bunk. "You play the hero, like we're all on stage and we play the characters that are supposed to admire you. You're getting better at it, at least."
Red grunted and shuffled away from her, mumbling "Cast-iron bitch…" when he was out of her earshot.
Dan, meanwhile, was still looking intently at the gun he was given. As the bunks were strategically placed over the entrances of the bathrooms and Hy and Lola hid in the E3 one, as Steve twirled his guns and stretched in the corner, as Rebecca and Matt and Allison listened to Red barking plans of attack and how to fire their weapons if and when they began to work, he still stared.
"One minute."
Hearing Snively's voice again brought Dan out of it, and what ended up clinching what he had been rolling around in his mind ever since he had been abruptly tortured. How long ago was that? He couldn't remember.
Snively had showed no mercy. It was brutal, but it had a strange sort of finality to it. When Dan had closed his eyes at the end, he had thought it was for good.
Imagine his surprise when he could open them again. He was still alive.
It had felt wrong from the start.
With an unfamiliar confidence coating his voice like honey, he asked the group across the cells without turning to them, "Who wants another gun?"
He didn't hear anything from them at first, but could imagine their reactions; Red would be the most pissed about it. A second passed before he heard Allison chuckling and envisioned her turning away and stepping back a couple of feet.
"… Well? Who wants it?"
There was the sound of footsteps coming towards him. He couldn't tell if they belonged to more than two of them.
"… Are you fucking kidding?"
Good ol' Red. Dan felt himself smiling.
"Hey! Old man, I asked-"
"I heard, I heard, I ain't deef." The pronunciation usually got a couple of laughs. Not this time. "I'm weary."
"We all are. If you think you're going to get special treatment because-"
"I don't expect anything from anyone, Red. Although, I'd think it very big of all of you if you allow me to do this."
"Do what?" Matt asked.
Dan ran his tongue across his teeth, pulling a smirk and turning his head to look at them. "Step down."
Red looked too shocked to breathe, but at least Steve and Matt appeared to get it, lowered their eyes and slumping.
"Step down!" Red had regained his voice. "What the fuck is that?"
"It means, sonny, that I don't want to do this anymore."
"And it's bullshit! No one gets to step down, not in here." He had his hands flexing tightly, one around the gun, one balled into a fist.
"I get it, I get it. And I don't want it." Dan was surprised that he wasn't losing his nerve. He felt free. "I've lived long enough."
"No…"
"I'm sorry I can't be useful to you guys anymore."
"No! You piece of shit, you goddamn piece of shit!" Red was screaming, practically touching noses with Dan. "You don't quit on us! You don't leave us here to die!"
Matt had stepped forward and was debating on whether or not he should physically restrain him. "Come on, Red, just-"
"Just what!"
"… Let him go."
Red stayed where he was, right in Dan's face, staring unblinking into those soft, weathered eyes.
"I understand how you feel about this," Dan said quietly. "Please, understand how I feel."
Seconds passed and Red finally blinked. He opened his free hand. "Gimme the fuckin thing."
Dan handed him his gun. His smirk extended into a toothy smile. "Good luck, all of you."
Red turned away before he saw Dan sit down on the floor. Steve and Matt followed after a moment's hesitation. Rebecca and Allison were waiting for them between the bathrooms, in the split between the cells.
"Okay, here's how it's going to go down." Red wedged one of the guns under his armpit, gesturing with his newly freed hand. "Steve and I are going to hunker down on opposite sides of the cell. You three," he pointed to Rebecca, Allison, and Matt. "are staying inside of the E4 bathroom and are going to fire at whatever comes, but you're going to be careful about it. Let us do most of the risky stuff."
"Of course," Allison said, rolling her eyes.
"Go. Now."
He watched the three of them go into the bathroom, dragging the last bunk over the entrance as though it were a door. It still looked pretty pathetic.
"5..."
"You think we're going to live through this?" Steve asked him.
"4..."
"No. But it feels good to have a plan."
"3... 2..."
They ran for cover at either sides of the bathrooms, going to their knees and pulling both of their pistols up in front of them, aiming at the far wall. Steve was shaking with excitement.
"1..."
They waited for the explosion, whatever it was that deserved so much buildup. They didn't get anything. Static disappeared from the unseen speakers, Snively's voice cut off after the final number like it was interrupted.
For a few moments, it was silent. Nothing was happening.
Several times, Matt turned away from his view from between the bunks, pacing the cramped space of the bathroom, returning seconds later to see if anything had happened. Allison shot him a dirty look after the third go around. "Cut it out," she whispered.
"Sorry. Can't help it." He leaned down again to look, this time at Dan. He was still seated in the center of the opposite half of the cell. He appeared to be deep in meditation, his legs loosely crossed and his hands folded neatly in his lap. Matt said something under his breath.
"What was that?" Rebecca whispered to him without turning.
He smiled at her, covering his embarrassment. "Nothing."
Whoosh.
It came from the E3 side; the sound of a doorway sliding open. Their fingers tightened around the triggers of their guns, barrels pointed at the now missing section of the north wall. White light poured in and prevented them from seeing anything clearly.
"Nobody move!" Red yelled, keeping both guns steadily aimed.
As if on cue, the first clank sounded and echoed throughout their cell. More came, one after the other. Footsteps. Closer and closer, they came. Red squinted, trying to see through the white haze. He was about to bark another order when it came into view.
It moved like an awkward bipedal insect, sporting an external skeleton it clearly wasn't accustomed to and straining like it was trying to make itself taller. The rhythmic footsteps they had heard didn't mirror its actual footsteps at all. Every footfall looked like it pained the metal creature. Magenta tinted oil leaked from its joints. It's hands stretched outwards, like it was blind.
Allison leaned down for a look. She couldn't stop herself from laughing. "You've got to be kidding."
The metal creature's eyes lit up and focused in her direction, letting out a pathetic squeal that held a spirit of malice but came out sounding like a strangled cry.
"Hold your fire!" Red called. "Going out!"
"Here comes the hero," Allison whispered as Red moved into the open, holding twin barrels at the creature's swiveling head. She was the only one who didn't have her gun raised.
Red moved closer and the squeals from the 'bot grew louder, the eyes focusing on him. He was two feet away and the 'bot took a wide, fisted swipe at him. He dodged it easily, taking two steps back.
Allison looked to Matt for his reaction and found that he was squinting his eyes. "I don't get it…" he mumbled.
Two loud round discharges, plasma bursts from Red's guns screamed home into the metal creature's face, blowing it wide open like a flower. The husk fell down twitching. It didn't get a chance to scream.
Red carefully kicked at its body, satisfied when it didn't attack. "Clear!"
Allison was about to push the bunk out of the way when Snively's voice came back. "Five minutes."
Hearing the voice again brought Matt's nerves back to the surface. He frantically pushed the bunk out of the way and emerged into the cell, taking deep, cleansing breaths.
"Huh. I guess they work." Red was saying, gripping his guns tighter, relieved. "And we know where the door is."
"You think we can slip a bunk in there real quick next time? Wedge it open?"
Red cast a look at the cameras, watching them. "Doubt it. We can try."
"That would have been the time to do it."
"No kidding." He gave the fallen 'bot another kick. More magenta oozed out from its head wound. "I didn't see the door close."
"Neither did I. Too fast."
"It'd probably cut one of us in half." Red noticed, for the first time, that Matt had exited the bathroom. "Too cramped in there?"
He nodded. "Five minutes... What's next?"
"Hate to say it," Red said, smiling sardonically. "But I hope it's something more challenging next time." He fell back into his 'visibly sobered' mode. "Yo, Hy!" he yelled. "How you doing in there?"
Hy's voice came back muffled and strained. "Doing okay. Worried."
"Hang tight, man. We're working on a way out." He looked back down at the droid and found Steve sticking one of his hands into the flowered skull. "Now… why would you want to go and do that?"
Steve pulled his hand out and stood up, pink tissue gripped firmly between his fingers. "Brain matter."
They all took a step back, the familiarity of the enemy at their feet only now hitting them. Rebecca's cry of "What's going on?" fell on deaf ears. Time passed around them like a roaring river.
"Look at it. Doesn't resemble us in the slightest. If it didn't have a brain, we wouldn't think twice."
"Is this what we're doing?" Words were falling out of Red involuntarily, in whispers. A part of him was violently ashamed; he had an urge to cover up any evidence that he had done what he had done. But there was no hiding it, and there was no escaping the blowback. "Why would he make it… look like that?"
"It's true… they fixed it…" Just as he had feared, Allison was out of the bathroom and standing at their sides. "I told you that your gung-ho attitude would bite your ass one day, didn't I?"
He bared his fangs. "Didn't you hear it scream? I don't think it wanted to be our friend."
"'It.'" She paused, thinking. "You're right. I suppose it doesn't matter if we kill one of our own in here, does it? Or did you think that we'd all forget about it? What happens in here stays in here-"
Red was attempting to laugh it off, breaking eye contact with her and forcing his boiling anger down to a hot simmer. "How about you, uh, get off my fucking back about it, hmm?"
"I'm hip," Allison said, showing Red her palms and smiling briefly before returning to her cave. Matt followed a moment behind, still looking at the metal body on the floor. Steve brought up the rear and moved the bunk back into place, locking them in.
"You're okay," Steve said, back at Red's side. "He was dead already."
The thought didn't comfort him. "So are we," he said. His eyes fell back on the blank wall. "Let's wait before trying anything with the door. Absorb a pattern, you know?"
"See where else it can come from. I getcha." Steve shook his hand free of the folds of brain he had gripped. "Disgusting."
"One minute."
Red pointed one of his guns at the cameras again and pulled the trigger. No round discharged. "Fuck. Only works on the 'bots." He choked on that last word, placing the back of his hand over his lips, trying to hide it.
"Red… they're going to try and kill us."
He nodded, squinting his watery eyes shut.
"Get your head back in the game. Our lives are at stake."
He nodded again and brought his arm down. "I'm fine, I'm fine. I was… thinking of something else."
They stood there until the voice returned.
"5..."
And he was back.
"4..."
Adrenaline came off pause and flowing through him again, weapons an extension of his own bone, blood, sinew, will power; eyes aflame; muscles contracting to their fullest. He wanted to live.
"3... 2..."
He wanted all of them to live.
"1..."
Like before, the number cut out abruptly, leaving them without static or sound. Red and Steve were less worried about getting back to their positions in time but made it quick enough to have plenty of silence to swim in.
Matt watched them disappear from view. He moved slightly to his right and saw Dan sitting in the exact same position in E3, eyes closed and hands folded in his lap. On their side in E4, the metal body sat in a spreading pool of oil that inched closer and closer to the old man's spot. Matt's mouth moved and words came out in a breath.
"Hmm?" Rebecca nudged him.
He motioned to Dan. "Serious about this, isn't he?"
"Admirable," she said, with a grim reluctance in her throat. She briefly eyed the metallic body. "If that happens to me… do the same."
"Likewise."
Allison moved between them again. "If you two want to fuck, I can go outside."
Rebecca smirked good-naturedly. "Thanks, but-"
Whoosh.
An identically sized door slid open in the E4 half of the cell, white light once again spilling out and blinding them. This time, they could hear a frantic whirring growing gradually louder.
"Approaching!" Red again, shuffling into view with both guns raised. He maneuvered around Dan to the door. "You better move, old man. You're going to be torn in two."
Steve spied an opportunity and sped up the process, running up to Dan and dragging him to the space between the two bathrooms, on the cell fold. Dan didn't resist. Hell, he didn't even open his eyes.
Meanwhile, Matt stared right into the white light, his ears flattening against his head under the loudness of the whirring. He saw a shape move just as Steve reemerged and blocked his view.
"Shit." The cramped space didn't allow for much of an adjustment. He could see an edge of Red, both of his guns slowly lowering to his sides. The sight of it turned his stomach inside out, stabbing a dagger of fear into his heart. He brought his own gun up and pointed it in the direction of the door, at Steve's back.
Every second killed him, his own breath more deafening than the whirring which sounded just beyond the body that blocked his view. He was too afraid to move, let alone say anything to Steve about it or ask Rebecca what she was seeing or what Allison pretended she didn't care about. He knew it was horrifying, whatever it was, an accident too terrible to look away. He didn't want to see but he needed to.
And suddenly, the whirring stopped, just when it sounded the nearest. He squinted at the edges of Steve's form and saw something metal where the door ended and the white light began. It was so wide it looked like it wouldn't fit into their cell.
But apparently it did, because the door came back down, the white light disappeared, and the metal was still there, inside, with them. The whirring came back, deafening, and it must have moved closer because Steve backpedaled and watching it climb over the body of its fallen comrade, crushing the skeleton like bone.
"Fucking shoot it!" Rebecca yelled practically into Matt's ear but he barely heard it; perhaps because it wasn't directed at him. It was as soft as a scream from his own head. Please, just fucking shoot it, whatever it is.
Red had his guns back up and pulled the triggers again and again, giving Steve enough time to move and draw the 'bot away from the bathroom. Matt saw it for the first time: a tank with a torso; arms with drills for hands; a blank face with two yellow eyes glaring from its forehead. Its tracks looked mean and jagged, digging into the floor and scraping it. Actually scraping it! Denting it! Matt began to shake uncontrollably as plasma rounds burnt the air and filled the cell with smoke. He watched the bot's armor grow red and cave inwards with every direct hit and he shook harder. He forgot that he had his gun raised and his finger twitched on the trigger just as Steve crossed in front of him.
He screamed and lowered the pistol as he saw a round tumble out. He watched the bright orange burst run its course but it didn't appear to hit its target. Steve never reacted; he just kept circling the droid and fired rounds into connections between joints and supposed weak spots, hoping it was doing damage and taking the slowed movement and frantic gyrations as a good sign.
Steve saw, at the last moment, the 'bot's eyes glow a bright orange. He jumped aside out of instinct and narrowly avoided being cut up the middle by a fast moving laser beam. Green flashed over him. He landed on a roll, and when we was back on his feet and ready to fire, Red had already scored the killing blow to the head and the 'bot was motionless.
They waited for Snively's voice again.
"Five minutes."
They never thought they'd be relieved to hear it.
Matt jumped through the narrow space of the bunk and came up to Steve's side. "You okay?"
"What? Oh, yeah, fine. Barely got out of the way of that stupid beam. Cheap bastard…"
Red put his guns down on the floor and leaned against the droid, trying to push it. It was no use. It was stuck fast, cut right into the floor. "Goddammit." He picked one of his guns back up. "Can't catch a fucking break."
The sound of the bunk legs rubbing against the floor echoed around them. Allison and Rebecca came out.
"Good, water," Steve said as he ran by. He had the shower on a moment later and they heard him drinking.
"Red…" Matt said, speaking like he had to cut every word out with a scalpel. "I think I… shot Steve."
It took Red a moment to absorb the information. "Like, nearly missed him?"
"No, no… I'm pretty sure I hit him."
"… Huh. Steve! Get over here!"
Ever punctual, Steve was back to his original position as immediate as he could manage. "Sup?"
Red eyed him up and down. "You're okay?"
"Yeah. I'm fine." He shrugged. "No worries."
Red cast a weird look at Matt.
"Seriously!" Matt insisted. "I accidentally shot at him, hit him in the back." He circled around Steve, looking for a gaping wound and not finding it. "It didn't look like I missed."
"You must have," Red said. "But next time, how about you keep your goddamn finger off the trigger if you're just-" he stopped short when he noticed the expression on Matt's face.
Matt had gone breathless, unblinking. He was staring at the back of Steve's head. His lips barely moved when he said, "Steve… your color… it was yellow, right?"
"Uh, I don't know." Steve gave his collar a tug. "I kinda forgot about these stupid things."
"It was yellow. I swear it was. Now, it's blue."
Red crossed to Steve's back and looked. "You're sure it wasn't blue before?"
"We all had different colors, right?" Matt gripped the back of Red's collar. "Because yours is blue, too."
"This would be a lot less confusing if your name wasn't a color, Red," Allison said.
"And I'd be a lot less angry if you were stillborn." He tried turning his collar around to look and he was met with the same piercing pain as last time. "I fuckinghate these things!"
"Everything okay out there?" Hy yelled from his bathroom hideout.
"Fine! Peachy." Red growled back. "Forget it, fuck it, let's concentrate on the next one, we only have a couple more to go."
"Wait, wait, hang on a second," Matt frantically spoke, much to Red's glaring disapproval.
"We don't have a second-"
"Listen to me: what if we're being given more of a chance to survive than we're seeing?"
It was quiet as they waited for him to go on, only Red's heavy, angered breathing permeating the silence. Allison broke it with: "I, for one, am curious."
Matt went on slower, careful with his articulation. "You can feel a vibration in these collars, and the color display on the back is warmer than the rest of it. It's performing a process… and I wasn't sure what it could possibly be until-" he gestured, eyes lowered, to Steve. "I didn't miss. I hit you. We're walking around with shields." He met eye contact with the man he had shot. "I'm sorry."
"No big deal," Steve said, somewhat drunk on the information. "Whatever makes us smarter."
"What's with the color change, then?" Rebecca asked, enraptured, shaking.
"Ever seen a rainbow?"
Allison snickered. "A what?" But it hit her immediately afterwards. "Oh."
"The color spectrum," he continued for her. "They darken as the shields lose energy. We were all given different points to start with."
"So, what's point zero?"
"Well… which one of us had black?"
In the gap between the question and the time it was going to take for them to remember the answer, something happened. A clink, the sound of metal gently kissing the floor, so sweet and so loud that they all knew where it came from.
Dan.
He still sat cross-legged, uncomfortable on the cell fold, his eyes still squeezed shut, only now he held the metal collar in his lap. He had let it hit the floor in order to get their attention. "It just… came off," he said. "I didn't want to… make a big deal about it…"
Red, seething with anger, stomped towards him. "What the fuck are you thinking! Are you trying to take us down with you!"
"Nothing of the sort, sonny-"
"Cut the old fart shit!" Red didn't mean for it to happen, but had gripped Dan by the loose skin on his neck and was pressing the barrel of his gun so hard against the temple that they were both wincing from the force. "Keep anything from me again and I'll tear your heart out."
As if realizing what he was doing, Red backed off, throwing Dan out of his hand like a piece of trash, the old man's head slamming against the partitional trench in the wall. He closed his eyes again as Red stormed away.
"Okay," Red snarled through clenched teeth. "I'm through playing around." In a blur, he flipped one of the guns around in his hand and chucked it like a tomahawk at one of the security cameras. It shattered and fell. "We're getting out of here," he said as he threw his other one, scoring another direct hit. He motioned to Steve. "Help me get one of the bunks covering Hy."
"You sure they won't fall?"
"Don't worry, I can hold the rest in place!" came Hy's voice, full of confidence.
"My man; I knew I could count on you," Red said as he picked both guns back up, ready to toss them again.
"Just don't forget about us."
"One minute."
Both of Red's guns missed the last two cameras on the first try but he managed to knock them down on the second and third. He left them on the floor and ran to the bunks covering E3's bathroom. He had it upright by the time Steve was by his side. Together, they moved it back and picked it up. Matt came to help.
"No, no, get the one covering yours."
Matt took the task and ran for it, grabbing Rebecca along the way for help, leaving Allison standing by herself, a bit bewildered. Red and Steve maneuvered the bunk around the second 'bot and placed it on the floor in front of the mystery wall, approximating the center. Steve eyed it briefly, searching for a seam, and gave up on it. Together, he and Red pressed the beds against the wall, leaving as little space as possible.
They finished just as Rebecca and Matt had theirs up and moving. They struggled to the wall and set it down.
"A little to the left," Allison mumbled, watching. "It'll be more center."
Matt nodded to her, unable to suppress a wink. "Thanks."
"5... 4..."
Everyone quickly ran and retrieved their guns, then came back to the bunks.
"3..."
"What now?"
"2..."
"Yeah, what now?"
"1..."
"Wait." Red stared up at the second 'bot as the static cut out, watching the magenta oil leaking out. He let out a deep, painful sigh. "Wait."
Whoosh.
Their friend the white light arrived early, pouring in from the E4 side. Rebecca, Allison, and Matt all pushed their shoulders into the bunk in unison an instant later. They pushed, pushed, pushed…
"It isn't moving! It won't fit!" Matt cried out.
Red and Steve took up positions on either side, shielding their eyes from the blinding glare. "Stop, stop for sec." They pulled the bunk away and tilted it diagonally, trying to wedge it under the door, or where they thought the door ended under that burning light that seemed to melt into their cell. "Now, try it now!" They tried again, pushing it against the open door with all their strength. They felt it give inwards and a pang of excitement washed over all of them and they pushed even harder, working it left and right but no matter how they did it, it felt like pushing a square peg into a round hole. They tried and tried and tried until they felt a resistance. They were pushed away from the door by a unknown force, batted back like they were a mere annoyance. They bounced back like a piston on its down stroke. Rebecca made a break for the door. Their excitement turned and ran, leaving them with a cold, icy chill.
They were doomed.
The unknown force pushed again, hard, sliding across the cell and slamming against the opposite wall. A rainbow of colors flashed before their eyes. Most of them were blown out of its path but Matt was stuck hanging on the bunk as it rammed against the bathroom.
Steve heard a deafening crack as he landed. A moment of waltzing through the haze and he looked back up at the door. The white light was gone, and in its place, there was another metal figure.
"God…" Allison choked out from the ground, on her stomach. She had seen that kind before. They all had. It was a regular Roboticized unit, horrifyingly familiar in too many ways. It stared at them with glowing red eyes, full of programmed contempt and ready to act on it. It stepped closer, searching for a target.
Red lifted his head from the floor and couldn't tell where he was. He heard screaming from two different sources and the slow progression of metal footsteps, clank clank clank, some rounds discharging and burning the air, senses assaulting him from all angles and he felt nothing. He eyed both of his guns and noticed that two blue lights were flickering on it. He pointed one of them at his head and fired. No round came out. Broken.
Steve got shakily to his knees, one of the guns weighing down his arm, the other gone. Focusing, he raised it and tried to hold it steady. The bot took notice and it advanced. Steve had it targeted between the eyes, through the heart, then the shoulder… "Help," he said without anyone knowing it. "Help me."
Rounds fired again and again, closer to hitting the target. It wasn't until Allison finally hit it that the 'bot turned its glowing eyes on her, shifting its attention from Steve's shaky aim. It moved at her faster, and she pulled the trigger again and again, missing mostly but scoring one or two direct hits on its face, denting it inwards into an unrecognizable mess, and it got easier the more distorted it became and she scored more and more hits as it advanced faster than she would have imagined and she couldn't get out of those gleaming outstretched arms in time.
He had been watching and crawling slowly behind them on his hands and knees but Steve quickened his pace when Allison shielded her face from the metal claws and was captured, her left forearm gripped in the 'bots hands. He scrambled up in spite of the pain and saw her arm bend further and further. It seemed so quick and yet he absorbed every detail, and Steve forced his legs to move, move as the 'bot bent her arm, little by little at first, more as time wore on and the skin began to break and he heard the crack and Allison watched her arm break right in front of her, watching it with a sort of numb fascination, and she didn't start screaming until the 'bot twisted it off.
Shrill shrieking in his ears louder than the pounding of his own blood, Steve gathered up all he had and stood to his feet. Vomit rose in his throat and he let it come, as long as he could make to them. Something burned down his chin and onto his chest as he fell onto the back of the 'bot, wrapping his free arm around its neck, pointing the gun point blank at its head. He fired, feeling a cold blast of heat cover his arm, his hand, his face. Cold turned into heat and he twitched across the trigger and stayed wrapped around the enemy until his muscles wouldn't work. He didn't know how long that was but the 'bot had dropped Allison, at least. He saw under a cloud of smoke and his own burnt flesh that he caused considerable damage. Good. He grinned through blood and charred lips as the 'bot snarled a garbled taunt and picked him up by the throat and pressed him against the wall. Through his working eye, he noticed sharp knives extending on the 'bot's free hand, like giant scissors. Steve went ahead and retched through his grin, unable to say any of the last words that were running through his mind, and the two sharp talons dug into the wall on either side of his neck. The 'bot let him go and he hanged there at first, vaguely noticing the claws digging into his neck. He ignored everything else and stared into those excited red eyes, and the 'bot ended it slowly, grabbing Steve's head by his hair and pulling it away from the wall and into the edges of steel, gradually decapitating him, severing through fur, skin, and muscle like it wasn't even there. Steve tried backing away from the cut but the 'bot held him fast and pulled without a break in speed. He felt his larynx crush and he cried out once before it was cut off entirely, and he heard a small sound, like a membrane being cut open. The blade came across his windpipe and he could no longer breathe and he began to drown in his own blood as it ran into his lungs, and he choked and gasped out of the gaping hole in his throat, still staring into those unfeeling, unsympathetic eyes. His head was pulled further and he lost the ability to try to resist. He felt his heart pump harder and blood gushed into his throat, down his chest, on the floor, everywhere. Suddenly, it felt like someone was holding a match to the back of his neck. His vision tilted. The movement of his head faltered and his spinal cord was exposed to open air and his nerves flickered and caught fire and his other sensations were overwhelmed. The pain was unbearable. The 'bot tugged his head one final time.
Red heard Steve's head hit the floor just before the body did. The gun fell out of the body's limp fingers and slid across the floor, stopping when it collided with Red's nose. He thought he had entered a completely different world. No recognition flickered. Was this their cell? Had they lived here? He stood up. What the hell was going on? He aimed his firearm at the base of the 'bot's exposed skull and fired. The recoil knocked him back to the floor.
"Five minutes."
Silence. He didn't know how long he laid there, on his back, feeling the pounding in his neck and wondering if it was coming from his blood or his collar. His eyes snapped open when he heard gunfire and a muffled scream.
Allison felt instantly better, back to staring at her arm, enraptured, sniffing at the cauterized flesh and burnt fur, the other half of her arm lying in front of her, the fingers grasping at her. She noticed Steve's body next to her, intertwined with the deactivated droid, and she coughed once. "Red," she said. She took another deep breath and tried again. "Red."
"What?" he answered back, annoyed, feeling drained.
"Can you see Rebecca?"
Red sighed deeply, sitting up. He opened his eyes and didn't really look. "No."
"I'm here," she called weakly from the open E4 bathroom. "Matt… He's dead."
Allison leaned forward to look. She saw Rebecca sitting next to his contorted corpse. He had been crushed by the bunk.
Red took a deep breath. "Hy!"
"Yeah! You guys okay? I heard-"
"We're fine, Hy… just fine. How are you?"
"Her heartbeat's irregular! I think something's wrong!"
It got hard to breathe as Red slammed his head back down. "Motherfucker… you fucking welching piece of shit… goddamn you…" Red didn't remember knocking down the video cameras, and looked frantically for them, in every corner. "Show yourself! Fight me like a fucking man!"
"You had your chance to do that."
He thought it came from the speakers at first, but when he followed the source, he saw that it was Allison. "What… what the hell..?"
"Snively told me all about it, Red," she said, smug and full of anger despite the pain she was in. "Told me all about the little talk you guys had."
"Just like you… just like you to believe something he said-"
"He showed me… He showed me the fucking videotape! You fucking liar!"
Red shot up from the ground, coming at Allison. "He said he was going to save us, keep us from harm! I didn't hear you bitching when your mouth was full, you fucking cunt!"
She struggled to her feet too, gripping her smoking gun tighter. "You gave them up! You gave up our fucking friends because you gave in, you coward! You gave in to his bullshit just because he blew some smoke up your ass! Fuck you!" she shrieked, her eyes bulging out of her head.
"I thought-"
"Shut up! They're dead!" She pointed to the north. "They're all dead because of you!"
"He would have found them eventually-"
"Bullshit!"
BANG. Allison blinked as bright purple mixed with the yellow of the plasma blast flashed over her. Her collar disconnected itself from her neck and clanked on the ground against the bodies they stood on.
Red kept his gun pointed at her. "One more. One more fucking word."
They started at each other, waiting for a sudden move. Red peered into her eyes, watching her wondering if she was fast enough to get one, just one shot off before he cut her down. He saw her vision light off of him once and that was all the reason he needed. He fired off a round and burned a hole right through her chest, cauterizing her heart. Her body smacked against the wall and fell out of his view.
"One minute."
A pang hit him from behind as he waited. Like a slow, rising tide, he began to feel something again. Another pang, hotter this time, and he actually began to cry, a relief of pressure on his throat, vision blurring with all the colors of the rainbow.
Rebecca shot Red in the back one more time and killed him, despair clutching at her heart strings. Her gun fell out of her hand onto her lap, disappearing into a mass of shredded flesh.
"5... 4... 3... 2..."
She didn't have the energy to look.
"1..."
Whoosh.
No light poured in. She couldn't hear any approaching footsteps. "I… lost them." She allowed a look at her severed legs, curious if they were still on the other side of the door. "Oh well. I don't… need them… anym…"
Rebecca closed her eyes and didn't open them again.
Dan tilted his head, watching her slump forward. "Hmm." He slumped along with her, forcing himself deeper, deeper, where it was warm, where everything was fine…
Hy had heard the voice from the speaker. He squinted through the bunks and seeing the two doors open, both in E3 and E4. Soft, welcoming light was cutting through the smoke-filled cell. Blood was everywhere, but… it looked fine.
A wave of relief washed over him as he put down his gun and crawled over to Lola's body. "It's over. It's all over. We're free."
She convulsed once, a echoed vibration in her throat. It sounded like "Free…"
Hy leaned down close to pick her up. He didn't know what he was going to do on the outside, if he needed to run or fight. He didn't care. Getting out was winning enough.
Lola's eyes slowly opened, focusing on him. Her body was warm, and getting warmer. Her eyes glowed red. "Free."
Even after that, he wasn't afraid. He held her in his arms as she grew hot. He just wanted to make it to the door, just to look, he just wanted to see-
BOOM.
Lola's body came apart. The explosion took out the entire cell, blowing the insides apart and heating it up like an oven. The cells below didn't feel a thing.