Chapter 10 – The Floor Show

Helen untangled herself from the mass of limbs, guns, and hair in the elevator and tried to figure out where they were being taken to; up, that was the obvious answer.

She put her hands on the doors and tried t pull it open, but it was magnetically sealed.

Of course, it was so like Nikola, there whenever you don't need him, gone the minute you do.

There were also no controls, buttons, or any way of stalling the elevator.

"Well this is just perfect!" growled Will, as he got up and slapped a hand across the metal bars.

"Don't lose hope, we could still get out of here," said Helen, her face betraying her words.

"How? There is no exit, no controls, no magical button, and no Nikola! Every time we take two steps forward this puppet master pushes us back five! How are we supposed to win if he keeps changing the rules?" fumed Will.

"My arm is definitely twisted," mumbled Henry, holding his wrist.

"Even better! Now Henry is out of commission! Kate is not going to wake up without a blood transfusion, and Big Guy has to carry her!" Will paced angrily in the small space.

"Don't count Nikola out; who knows, whoever runs this thing might release us just to get rid of him," Helen suggested lightly.

"Well, that's something," Will sighed and sat down on the floor as Helen went over to Henry to examine his wrist.

Big Guy tended to Kate gently, redressing her wound, and trying to stem the bleeding again.

Suddenly the elevator jerked to a stop right behind the screen, the movie still playing on it.

"Well, this wasn't what I was expecting," muttered Helen, surprised to see the space empty, and not swarmed with scary contraptions, or their captor, which only made her more curious as to where he was.

They exited the elevator cautiously and walked back into the auditorium.

She spun around when she heard clapping and turned to see Nikola sitting in one of theatre seats, completely unharmed.

"Of course, I should have known, this had all the markings of one of your schemes," Helen growled bitterly.

"As much as I'd love to take the credit for this one, my dear Helen, it wasn't me, because if I went through so much trouble to sleep with you, why would I drag along the children?" he stood up and strode over to them.

"For sport," muttered Helen, eyeing him coldly and disbelievingly.

"And put their pretty little heads in danger, come now Helen, I am way too fond of them for that," he looked at Kate and Henry.

"Maybe you didn't mean for it to happen, but you were kind of distracted at the time," she spat bitterly.

"Helen, I promise you, my days of tricking you into underground traps are over, once was enough, and you shot me!" he took her hand, and held on tightly despite her resistance. "Please listen to me, Helen."

He looked at her sincerely and she relented slightly.

"Fine, if you are telling the truth, who do you think is running this place?" she kept staring into his face for any hint of a lie.

"Someone very sneaky, and fond of my work, look over here," he waved them over to a small device on the wall.

"What is it?" asked Helen.

He waved his hand over it.

Nothing happened.

"Wait for it…" mumbled Nikola.

Then suddenly the room burst to life with a exuberant crowd.

"It's motion censored with a time delay, we most likely set it off walking to our seats," he smiled widely.

"If that's true, wouldn't it have gone of earlier?" Helen looked at the device with curiosity.

"Yes, but…I;ve been fiddling with it, it's a derivative of some technology I was working on about 1940, an ingenius decoy if I do say so myself, I had a working prototype and everything, but then the whole death ray business stopped it from actually patenting, it was all part of the files I had locked up and gave you for safe keeping when I went into hiding," Helen looked at him.

"Your not helping your case," she gave him a hard look.

"Well, I'd completely forgotten about it till I saw it fifteen minutes ago, for all I know, you've still had the design and the prototype in your possession, or you may have lost it in the recent years, I don't know, but it wasn't me!" Nikola moved away from the group and Helen followed.

She didn't want to admit it, but she didn't regret the moment she shared with Nikola in that cell, and it was true, he hadn't known anything about Rocky Horror, and she had been the one to make him wear those ridiculous shorts, the only reason he was actually here was because she had wanted him to be. Sudden;y the idea of him being the mastermind behind this fiasco became less plausible, sure he had the intelligence, but if he wanted to sleep with her he could've just stolen a nubbin and hid it in her room.

"Nikola, I believe you, you are far too arrogant to go to this extreme just for sex," Helen teased lightly and he gave her a look.

"Hey, it wasn't just sex, well it was, but you mean more than that to me; I meant what I said in Rome, nevermind that I tried to kill you afterwards, we've already had that argument, but my words were true, sex was just a bonus," Helen smiled as Nikola rambled on, and she eventually just closed her lips over his mouth, cutting off whatever he had left to say.

"You talk too much," Helen chuckled and smiled at him, he gave her a goofy smile in return.

The moment was ruined by Will coughing to get their attention.

"As much as I hate to ruin this hallmark moment, we're still stuck in here."

"Not necessarily, the door is unlocked," said Nikola.

"What? And you were planning to share this when?" asked Helen.

"Well I wanted to show you the hologram projector thingy first, you have to admit it's pretty cool," said Nikola pointing innocently at the device.

Helen sighed and took his hand dragging him out of the auditorium.

"It's been a long day," muttered Helen, the rest of the team following behind.

They got into the foyer of the theatre, and Helen almost sighed in relief at seeing the front doors, and the world beyond them.

"That's more like it!" Helen said, her face beaming a bit more hopefully.

Suddenly a feeling of light-headedness came upon her and she fell to the ground, the team coming down with her.

"Gas!" she gasped out.

She felt Nikola's fingers wrap around her hand, and she gripped them tightly.

"See you on the other side," he muttered before collapsing completely into unconsciousness.

Helen lazily reached a hand over hand stroked his hair back gently before slipping away herself.