"Ughhh, why won't you let me ouuuuut?" Adam whined, leaning heavily on the glass door of the capsule. "I'm boooored!"
There was no response to his complaining, so he heaved a sigh. "Come on, at least talk to me!" he pleaded, looking at Spike. Well, he thought this was Spike. There really wasn't an easy way to tell unless he was speaking.
The app (or bionic) didn't even glance at Adam, keeping his eyes fixed on the tablet he held as he stood in his own capsule next to Adam's. The oldest bionic didn't know what he was watching, but it was surely more interesting than having nothing to do at all.
As soon as the two of them had arrived here, Adam had been forced into the capsule and had his chip extracted while Spike taunted him. Douglas had taken it with him out of the room to supposedly work on it for a couple of hours, returning later to reinsert it into Adam. Immediately Adam had tried to break out of his capsule, but to his dismay, he found that it could withstand even his super strength.
Since then, Spike (or Chase) had started to glitch, so he went into one of the other capsules and stayed there. After the initial mockery, the other bionic hadn't even acknowledged Adam's existence. Adam was pretty sure he'd rather be verbally beaten up to being totally ignored.
"Hey Ken – you know, as in the girl doll – you look like you could be Barbie's twin sister!" Adam jeered, but there was absolutely no reaction. Not even a flinch. Adam knew that that wasn't his best insult ever, but he starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel at this point. And knowing his little brother, Adam was certain that Chase should have at least bristled at that, and Spike was supposed to roar furiously and attempt to kill him for the third time that week.
But still there was no reaction.
Not even a blink.
And Adam was convinced that something was very wrong. Even he wasn't that stupid. But what it was, Adam couldn't possibly fathom. It usually wasn't the oldest bionic's job to do the problem solving; he generally left that to his siblings, so he was completely helpless now.
Movement caught Adam's eye, and he looked up to see Mr. Davenport and Bree step into the lab cautiously. The oldest bionic's face brightened and he yelled "Mr. Davenport! Bree! Over here!"
At that, Chase's (or Spike's) head shot up, and he stared down the intruders. The two rescuers glared at Adam, all pretense of sneaking in gone. "What do you nugget-heads think you're doing here?" Spike - for it really was Spike - growled, storming out of the capsule to stand between Adam and his liberators.
"Well, we were going to at least attempt to rescue you two-" Mr. Davenport began to say, but he was interrupted rudely by Bree, who elbowed him. "No, we are going to rescue you two," she said firmly.
"Ha! That's cute, cupcake. Why don't you save me the trouble and just step inside the capsule already?" Spike sneered, gesturing to the third capsule.
"Are you kidding? Of course I'm not going to just give in without a fight!" Bree exclaimed indignantly.
"Perfect," Spike said with a sly smile. "It'll be more fun this way." He threw the tablet aside, watching it smash to pieces with satisfaction, getting into a fighting stance. "Let's see what you've got, kitty-cat."
Bree scowled at him, a fire igniting within her eyes. She felt a hand on her shoulder and saw Mr. Davenport looking at her worriedly, and he warned "Don't hurt him, Bree. Feel free to kick his butt, but nothing more."
"She couldn't hurt a fly," Spike scoffed, grinning evilly as he saw Bree's anger increase.
"Be careful, Chase is still in there," Mr. Davenport reminded her softly, squeezing her shoulder before letting go and stepping back. Bree swallowed nervously, her heart starting to race.
"Come on, Bree, you can do it!" Adam cheered from behind the app, giving her a thumbs-up. She simply smiled sadly, not as sure about that as her older brother was. With a deep breath, Bree took up her own fighting stance, letting her mind go blank. She looked up into Spike's sadistic eyes and knew she was in for her most challenging fight yet. If she failed, all of this would be over. There would be no hope left for them. She was their last hope.
Mr. Davenport snuck out of the lab just before Bree and Spike were about to go at each other's throats. He was loathe to leave them, but he had a more important job to do than stand on the sidelines. He needed to find his brother.
He was certain that if Douglas had been in any of the rooms Bree had looked in, she would have told him. But being that she hadn't said anything about Douglas, it narrowed down the search and Mr. Davenport knew at least where not to look.
It didn't take long for the billionaire to find his brother's room – it was the only door that was adorned in any way, shape, or form; and that was with a mirror. Mr. Davenport looked at his reflection briefly, smoothing down a stray lock of hair. Still as handsome as ever, he complimented himself cockily.
Getting back to business, he opened the unlocked door, finding Douglas fast asleep in his bed. Mr. Davenport walked up to the bed and ripped off the covers, startling his brother awake. "Get up, Douglas, and start talking!" Donald Davenport shouted.
"Geez, nice to see you to," Douglas grumbled groggily, moving into a sitting position so that he could stand up. "You know, it takes a good night's sleep to look this good."
"I would know better than you," Donald growled.
"No way! You know I've always been the better looking of the two of us (and not to mention the smarter of the two of us as well)!" Douglas retorted.
"For the record, I'm the smarter and more handsome sibling," Donald argued. "But that's beside the point – what have you done to Chase?"
Douglas smirked, saying "I did what you never had the guts to do."
Donald frowned. "What do you mean by that?"
Douglas started pacing around his older brother, a smile playing at his lips. "I turned him into the perfect super-soldier. I gave him as many bionic abilities as I could fit onto his chip, and I modified Spike. I changed the settings so that I can control his aggression level, and once he's activated, he doesn't go away."
"Why you –" Donald began to say, but he cut himself off, choking on his rage. "How did you ever get Chase to comply?"
"I didn't, not technically. I simply told him that I could remove Spike. You know how gullible he is."
"But we already tried that!"
"And I've got news for you, Donnie. You're clueless when it comes to their chips – only I know them well enough to pull off that feat because I made them. I'd like to brag right now, but I think we are missing an interesting fight," Douglas said, walking over to a cyber desk in the corner of his room. With a few keystrokes, he pulled up live video footage of what was going on in his lab, laughing manically. "And you know what, big brother? It's about to get even more interesting."