Chapter 5
"Hrrrrm". "Hrrrrrm". Alex tossed and turned. Normal for sleep. Until a haunting vision, a glance, of a club being swung at her head, startled Alex awake. Sweating, and shivering, she sat up straight. Looking around, she saw she was not in her room, as she usually was. Cold surrounded her, as she shivered. Although darkness brought a pretty bad feel. Yawning, she was happy she escaped the first part. Her and sleep had a strained relationship. Each time she did, she woke up feeling anxious, worried, and in a cold sweat.
She often breathed heavily, when she woke up, and only slept for 2 hours, if not five minutes, thanks to those haunting, innate stressors embedded in her since due to a bad beginning. Now, she woke up, looking around. The cold surrounded, as water drip, drip, dripped from above. Giant stalagmites were there as she looked, intently. It was a cave. Wandering around, she attempted to find her way out, nope. Looking around, she nervously tripped on a piece of rock, ice, what was it, and slipped backwards. Getting up, she saw dim lights, long strips of light, on a pathway, hold on, like a runway!
Leading up to a large, supercomputer lit by a giant screen. A swivel chair sat waiting for her, behind the computer, as she made her soaking wet way over. Sitting down, she typed her name. The computer screen though read, "Invalid". Trying again, she entered her mom's name. A name she knew, and trusted. Nothing either. Going over, she then typed, Sector V into the computer. The screen then read, "welcome", out loud.
There she found statistics and profiles on all the kids she had met a couple days ago! For Kuki, it was that yes, she was Asian, from Japan originally, and loved Rainbow Monkeys. Although when reading IQ level, it had said,161. Gladly enough. Her theories were spot on. She did put on a front. When reading Wally's info, it had said he was from Australia, although he had a low IQ of 109. Could explain why he didn't spell her name. Abby was an Honors Student? Ok. but why was she leader? Where was Nigel? The boy she had met there last month. Why wasn't he on the Kids Next Door profiling page? Hitting a link, she saw a picture of him.
Bald yes, but with a tab that read Galactic Kids Next Door seminar. What was that about? When did he become part of? Hitting the "Galactic" tab, she read the info page. There was a page correlating with Galactic missions set to…. Blow up Earth?! "That can't be right". Reading it over again, she had seen the experiment possibility plans. What in the? "What plans for an experiment?". She asked innocently. "I do love science". She clicked on the "thesis" tab.
There it had shown various adults and kids undergoing simulations, and testing, and on the other tab, it showed… Hypothesis concurring with…. Alexandria Ross?! "What am I doing on there?". She asked.
Clicking, she saw a picture of her as a young child. Presumably 3 months, in a bathtub, with gross looking things all around. She also saw a picture of herself at 5 years, holding a Science Olympiad medal. "Why do they have pictures of me?". She asked out loud. "why…..?" . more info led to a picture of a missile destroying Earth, her and an old IQ test, and a blood test. One was below average. Clicking, clicking, all around was destroying her. "I'd better stop". She said finally.
But she couldn't. She finally entered in the words... SPLINTER CELL. "Don't you want to know where your daughter is?". The Delightful asked. "Bu… Bu…. no". Mrs. Ross said. Handing her the device she asked, "would you like to find out?". Alex saw images of the horror that was the splinter cell, and the damage it could do. She also sat back from the swivel chair, writhing in horror, at the damage she had already done, sitting at this computer, typing away, to herself. But at this point, she was still naive, still innocent, and trying to piece together what the KND was, and why the kids did all that. Her mom, on the other hand, was worried about what kind of damage the KND could do.
The GKND were murderers bent on destroying anyone over the age of 12. She also saw the leader of the GKND, shivering, she hit the next image of Lizzie, a nice enough girl she knew whom she would let borrow her pencils, as… an alien?! An alien?! How could that work?! Lizzie looked, and acted kind of psychotic, and she was a bit bossy, but, an alien?! Gasping, she shivered, and saw more images of the Rainbow Monkey website. That was pretty relieving. Although one of them, the Fun in the Sun Rainbow Monkey was missing an eyeball.
That was disturbing. Looking at the next image, she saw the Caterpillar esque Splinter Cell itself. A shiver of horror ran down her spine. The other images consisted of DNA Strands, infusion, and a machine that would fuse with Nigel's brain. "Oh no!". She gasped. The final image was one of her, when she was 5. Good enough, correct? Sighing a sigh of relief, she decided to look on the Rainbow Monkey website, because why not? Going on, she heard the annoying theme song that had been stuck in her head for weeks. When she entered "Father" into the search base, the computer shut off immediately!
Bright white lights turned on immediately, lighting up a colossal white room, lined with cannons. "Intruder Alert!". An alarm said. "Intruder Alert!" "intruder Alert!" "intruder Alert!" "intruder Alert!". "Prepare for breach!" "prepare for breach!". The voice said mechanically. Running quickly, she had tried to avoid the cannons at every turn. Lifting her arm, she had noticed a cannon stuck on there! Pulling it off, she noted something strange about the cannon, it stuck to her, and only grew around her hand. "Hurgh!" she said, flicking off the cannon. Another entered her back, but it was so tiny, and far down she could not reach it. It grew, with each sucking sound. They were sticky bombs!
Dodging, and turning, she felt it was a like a game of dodgeball avoiding the sticky bombs that were coming at her in all directions. Dodgeball, a game she hated. "No, no, no!" she said, getting a sticky bomb out of her side. Running, she tried to avoid all of the sticky bombs, but to no avail, each one hit her leg, her back, and her face. They all grew, sucking her in. she had finally had enough, and had 56 sticky bombs sucking her in all at once. Trying to breath, she tried to pull the bombs apart, but it didn't work. Catching her breath, she felt numb, as she couldn't breathe. The hole was closing in, and she was trapped. Peering through the slit, she saw the clicking of shoes, a red shirt, and just faintly, what looked to be Nigel Uno, she wasn't sure, crossing his arms.