Chapter 33
Trilby had been waiting for a hour, enough time for him to start losing hope. But, eventually the door opened. Trilby breathed a sigh of relief. His favourite drone was floating toward his cell. That one line of code. 'Activity activate: Inspect cell 319- priority 2'. Priority 1. 'Shut down speakers in the experiment room: status repairs', it had to have been done. If it hadn't the entire exercise was pointless. Regardless, his plan was now in effect. The drone began to hover in front of his cell, bathing the interior with blue light. He breathed deeply, summoning up his inherited power he released it. He sent every spike he had at the walls of the cell. Like he was shedding his skin he felt the control of his powers wane, to a more base level. He lifted his arm. The ovals were drained of all colour. He felt his fur morph. His blue regressing to his redder self. Once the transformation was done, alarms began to ring. The DNA no longer matched. he was not Spike anymore hence the sample was inaccurate. Red lights blurred everyone's vision as the doors flew open. Soldiers crammed through the door. Trilby could sense the eagerness, the scent of bonus money. The anti gravity platform, was crammed with soldiers, in their trademark white suits the bodies melted together the white sea of heads and plasma rifles, lifted to the sky. Such avaricious fervour was commendable- just how much money had Hamsterviel promised them? Points to Hamsterviel- when it came to enticing his minions he knew how to do it. But he digressed, now was not the time for commendations. Trilby bent low, ready to pounce. In his base state he realised he was slower, weaker his unconditioned body would crumble over so many soldiers. He was taking an unavoidable risk- he couldn't deceive or plan his way out of an army of incentivised hulking mercenaries. Nevertheless, he could improvise. He witnessed the storm of soldiers as they crammed themselves onto the 'anti gravity transport platform' same as they used in the control room. With an dramatic grating sound it raised, slowly. Ironic that the gravity slowed an anti gravity platform. But also notable. Trilby ran a calculation in his head, it was a rough and rushed estimation but it could work. The soldiers were so eager they didn't even notice the drone hovering in the doorway, almost an inch in front of the leader's face. They slapped their key cards to the panel's lock, a green flash and the door slid open, it slid from top to bottom. Trilby was small, he leapt to the doors gap, and pounced onto the drone. As the soldiers piled onto the spot he had been a second before. Over eagerness makes mistakes, he thought. Before he could point out the irony, the drone dropped to the floor- or rather the anti gravity platform. The soldiers were roughly parted in its wake. The momentum transferring from the drone's underside to the platform. The platform lights flickered, the weight torturing its magnetism. Anti gravity platforms worked through a series of very powerful magnet- like metals. 'Magnet like' being it was an alien metal which had a powerful attraction to another type of alien metal. The magnetism was so strong that the force of the drone upon an overload of soldiers wasn't enough to break the magnetism. Sadly for Trilby it meant his estimation was wrong. All around him soldiers rubbed their heads, regained their senses. Trilby reached into the insides of the drone bringing out the headset and the computer- into which he wrote in big alien lettering: /move vertical priority 1. It began to rise at a steady pace. A blast splashed onto the computer- its Gluchnakh composition, giving it unrealistic resistance. Nevertheless, the blast forced it out from under his fingers. It dropped to the floor clattering. The drone kept rising. It would not stop rising. Trilby felt a jarring experience throughout his body. He lay on his back, so he could better absorb the shock. As a barrage of plasma splashed past the drone's perimeter. The plasma that connected squarely with the craft forced it up faster. He was close to the ceiling of the tall room. His body already felt sore from the barrage of plasma as it hit the bottom of the drone. It's size meant no plasma physically connected with Trilby. As he reached the roof he pushed against it with all his miniscule might. The plasma didn't desist. He was stuck until he ran out of energy or the plasma melted the drone's vertical motion control. For the first time Trilby felt truly helpless. Shame really. His arms began to wobble. The weight- the force. All far too much for his generic body to take. He stared over to where Stitch had his face pressed against the green-hued glass. Their eyes met and Trilby could almost taste the hatred. It was the same look as he gave Gantu or Hamsterviel. To him he was another enemy. But it was the malicious grin Stitch had donned. The pleasure he had in light of Trilby's plight. It would be a while, if ever, for Trilby to find a friend in little Stitch. His chest slammed against the roof, winding him. His arms were too weak, his legs submissive. Maybe he could still surrender. Suddenly, the drone's blue light flickered out. The plasma had melted the wires and the drone was now very much dead. It dropped. As did Trilby. The air rushing up beneath him. Would he survive the fall? Then… Before he connected with the ground. He felt a sharp feeling, power. He had felt it before, and he recognised the shock. As it flowed through his system. He grinned, his plight was over. He spread his arms mid-air, embracing the power in the air, and he became one with it. He morphed. The seconds it took for him to touch the floor. Blast resistance, shock resistance. Attributes that were almost birthright of the experiments became his. Dust and plasma sloshed on impact. The red lights blew in their many sockets. An electromagnetic pulse wracked the ship. Sparky's Jigawatt Jolt couldn't have come any later. In his head he thanked whatever experiment Gods watched over him. Smiling Trilby rose from the debris. All weakness, ousted from his system. He felt a pair of antenna sprout from his forehead, electricity flowing up its conductive pores. Trilby felt a sting. He had been shot. He felt another, He stopped making light, the room had been plunged into complete darkness. Sparky had used his head. He had saved Trilby through thinking and not simply mindless destruction. Or at least Trilby hoped it wasn't just lucky mindless destruction. He was met by the white masks of over a hundred eager mercenaries. Now and then he was stung by a stray blast. His night vision kicked in and out of the corner of his eye he spied the panel, connected to the large screen. That was his ticket out of here. The soldiers had night vision too, but it didn't turn on automatically, like Trilby's. He had 2 seconds head start. The computer! He thought. But if it was in the crowd there was no way he would get to it. He had taken far too many risks. He would have to carry on unaided, by his magical computer. But if he had Sparky he would be unstoppable anyway. Time to go. He dived into flight. The light dazzled many soldiers. But he was inside the panel before any of them had time to react.