It had to be morning by now. Sam had quickly lost track of the hours as they slid past, one after another. All he knew was that it had been a long time. He tried not to think about this though. For all he knew, his stay here could turn out to be much, much longer.
Six was quiet. This wasn't really uncharacteristic Six behavior. She never seemed to feel the need to talk just to fill the silence.
He didn't think they could count on a rescue. They hadn't even seen any Mogs since they'd been thrown here. They would come back at some point though, and the fear and dread was only making it worse. Sam knew he'd be the first to go when they did. He knew Six knew it too.
Then something clicked.
Something worth a shot at least. Better than nothing.
"Six," he said quietly. "Can I see your shoe?"
Six simply stared at him for a few seconds. She jutted her foot out a few inches, giving him a better view of her shoe. "Don't tell me you've gone off the deep end."
"Not yet." Sam said, inching a bit closer. "The buckle. Can you take it off?"
Six switched her focus from Sam to her shoes. "I think so." Her hands quickly began working at it, pulling the silver away from the dark leather. "It's only cheap metal though," she told him as she worked. "Lightweight, flimsy. Even if we threw it, I don't know if it's heavy enough to push any of the buttons," she nodded across the room to the control panel taking up an entire wall at least. "And I don't know about you, but I don't even know what button to aim for."
"Okay," Sam said, taking the piece of metal as she worked it free and pressed it into his hand. "I was thinking more about the cuffs."
He carefully took one of her hands, lightly pulling at the cuff encircling it, and struck the two metals against each other.
Six watched him, her eyes flickering between their hands and his face. "If that metal is really strong enough to keep me from using my legacies," she said, "I doubt the buckle off my shoe can hold up against it."
"It still seems like it's just metal." He focused in on one link. He just needed to break one link. "A special kind of metal, probably, but it's thin."
"Do you think you can break it?"
"Maybe."
A minute ticked by, and then another. It was slow going, but there was a tiny dent in the link now which hadn't been there before. It was misshapen now. He'd managed to have some effect. He didn't know how long it would take, but if he kept going –
Well. Something might happen.
They sat there quietly, watching as he forced the metal one way or another.
"Sam," Six said. "I'm going to be okay. They can't kill me. You're the one you need to be worrying about."
Sam looked back at her, not stopping his work. "Worrying about you is worrying about me," he said, wondering if these words were making as much sense out loud as they did in his head. "I'd never've made it this far without you, and I wouldn't make it much further without you either. And I wouldn't want to."
Six looked at him as though she'd never quite seen a creature like him before, even though he was the one who was a normal, every day, average human. One of billions.
"I'm glad you came with us." She said softly.
"Thanks." Sam said. "Me too."
Minute after minute crept by, accompanied only by mechanical noises; the metal scraping against metal, the whirr of machines, the buzz of the laser. Gradually they piled up to at least half an hour.
"You don't have to keep going."
"I've almost got it."
The scraping was repetitive, like a clock marking the strain of their imprisonment. He felt like he was returning to the stage of a caveman, banging two rocks together for the hope of a spark. It was pathetic. But clinging onto that hope, no matter how stupid it was, had to be better than giving up.
Then it snapped.
Six gasped. Sam jerked his hand away as the metal suddenly became white hot, the buckle clacking to the floor. Six stood to her feet in one fluid motion, shaking the flecks of molten metal off of her hands, the chains both completely melted.
She grinned at Sam, extending a hand to help him up. "You were right," she said. "It was the cuffs blocking my legacies."
Sam stood up too. "Lucky guess."
"There's no such thing as luck."
"Did you," Daniel asked from across the room, "break the cuffs?"
"Sam did." Six answered, grasping the bars with both hands. "Now we're getting out of here."
The bars twisted and warped under Six's fiery grip, and she forced them outwards. "Careful, they're hot." She warned Sam, striding through.
She went straight to Daniel and began working at the restraints binding him. Sam followed cautiously and hurried over to the large control panel, trying to make sense of the mess of buttons, screens, and levers, for anything that looked to be marked 'Death Ray Off Switch'.
"No, go get Ella first," Daniel protested. "She's worse off than I am."
They both ignored him. "Daniel, we both know you need to be out of this death trap before Ella lets us help her." Six said. "Sam, careful messing with that, we don't need any other lasers going off."
"I know," Sam said as he ran his hands over everything. Of course none of the words or symbols were English. He had no chance of understanding them.
"There," Six said, undoing the last of the restraints keeping Daniel in place, and he leaped out of the way of the laser. "Ella, Daniel's out of –"
Ella's shield disappeared with a sound like breaking glass, the laser shot through, wearing a neat hole in the floor, and Ella collapsed, unconscious.
"- the way." Six finished faintly. Daniel crossed the room in an instant and simply ripped the lock off of the door, pulling the bars open. He crouched down next to Ella, putting two fingers to her neck.
"Is she . . ." Sam asked hesitantly.
"She's alive." Daniel said swiftly. He gathered Ella into his arms and immediately moved out of the cell and towards the door. "But we need to get out of here. Now."
He certainly received no protests from Six and Sam, gathering behind him in an instant.
"How do we get out?" Sam whispered.
Nobody answered him, so he jut followed after them, trying to keep his footsteps as quiet as possibly, despite the fact that their pace was basically running. Sam tried not to think about the laser that they'd never been able to turn off, the one still steadily drilling a hole through the floor, setting off who knew how many alarms.
He tried to memorize the path they were taking, but there were few distinguishing marks about the uniform hallways, at least none that were striking him as they rushed down them. He still couldn't quite believe that they had escaped, that he'd figured something out, something that had actually worked. He, Sam, the human, had been helpful. Useful. Not a complete waste of time and space and energy.
Hopefully it wouldn't just lead to them being shot in these hallways.
A Mog appeared right in front of them, Leo by his side, then just as instantly the Mog melted away and Teresa was standing there in its place.
"Thank god we found you!" Teresa shrieked, throwing her arms around Six, who instantly stiffened. "We've been teleporting down every hallway, just hoping to stumble on you guys!"
"We got lucky," Daniel said grimly. "But we need to leave. Now."
"Of course," Teresa said as she looked at him and Ella, her face turning white. "What – what happened?"
"No time," Six said, glancing nervously around as Daniel unloaded Ella onto Leo, tersely instructing him to take her back to the camp. With a snap, he disappeared.
Six nodded at Teresa. "You figured out how to do Mogs now."
Leo flashed back, grabbed Daniel's elbow, and they disappeared.
Teresa nodded meekly. "Yeah. It came in handy."
Leo reappeared for a split second, then he and Teresa were gone.
Six turned her head to Sam and gave a rare smile.
Leo slid back, and Six pushed Sam towards him, "You next." Sam opened his mouth to protest, but he was already gone, hurtling and twisting through space.