Chapter 62: Unexpected Reunion
While walking too stealthily and quickly through the interior of that building, Diddy went through one of the corridors, where he saw a large entrance, which had a greater illumination than the rest of the rooms; that caught his attention and he immediately went there. But suddenly, he stopped in his tracks when he could hear four known voices nearby, so he immediately hid behind the walls.
"Ugh, why did this building have to be so big?" Jemky complained as he walked out of a door, along with the other three kids, all carrying handkerchiefs, mops and brooms. In addition... each of them rubbed his back, arms and hips as if they were sore.
"I think I was the one whom they whipped harder," Rocky said as he rubbed his back and made a look of pain.
"Well, you deserve it for ratting us out," Jemky said, rolling his eyes. "You could have told them something different about the jet ski."
"Shut up, this is your fault, it was your idea!" Rocky replied to Jemky. "Only you should have been whipped!"
"Huh, who says it!" Jemky replied in the same way. "You and Melenky are the biggest gossipy! We could even have quietly gone to catch those stupid monkeys instead of calling our dads!"
"But we wouldn't have had the need to do it had it not been for your whim to make those two break up!"
"Yeah, yeah, get over it!" Jemky replied with a shrug. "Think that at least those two monkeys are not even together anymore. Poor little fool monkey, he must be crying alone on Hurricane Island if he's still alive," he added in a mocking tone.
The four of them walked out of that room and kept walking through the corridors. They even passed near the wall where Diddy was hiding, but luckily, they couldn't see him.
"Bah! I'm tired of cleaning," Jemky was heard saying. "I'd better go to our room to rest for a while."
"Hey, but we're just getting started," Rocky said.
"Our dads went out right now; they won't know whether we clean or not," Jemky replied with a shrug. "Or let's spy or bother those captured kids, what do you say?"
"Sounds good, I want too. I'm getting bored," Melenky added in the same way. "Or let's play spy through those kids."
"You go there; I had had enough of using them," Rocky added.
Diddy walked close to the wall stealthily and, when he had the four of them farther away, he ran out into the illuminated room. He turned for a while and gave a furious glance at the four of them from a distance; he would go out at that time to confront them, but he had to keep a low profile if he wanted to have a safe escape from that place. The only thing that gave him satisfaction was remembering that at least the group of adult apes had recently given them their punishment due.
Diddy noticed that in the room where he was now, there was a huge staircase leading to the highest floors of the building. Looking around to make sure he wasn't seen by anyone, he started climbing the stairs as fast as he could. He had heard the four bully kids say that they would go to bother the captured children, but for some reason, it didn't seem to be the case, as they didn't show up again, so Diddy just continued on his way.
During the journey, Diddy was thinking several things... like the fact that Dixie never really lied to him; all the drama had been in vain and now he felt like a fool for not believing her even though he didn't know what to think about what Jemky had shown, and just thinking about how bad Dixie may have felt. Now he just hoped that, after everything happened, Dixie wanted to give him another chance, although he didn't know if he would have it back, since he assumed that Dixie wouldn't do it after having seen him along with Jenny. And, speaking about Jenny, Diddy was more regretful than ever of having struck up a friendship with that other group whom he considered "friends"; he should never have trusted them, since in the end they turned out to be complicit in the whole matter as well. However, Diddy knew another detail about them... and if he were to prove it to Dixie, maybe she could consider him another chance.
Diddy searched through some of the rooms on each level of the building, until he reached the last ones of it. On the penultimate floor, there was a quite spacious room, which Diddy entered. Around that whole room, there were a bunch of empty cells. The atmosphere was so heavy that even Diddy was starting to tremble with fear.
Suddenly, he looked into each of the cells and was shocked when he realized that he was being watched, from one of them, by a group of the same kong children who had been captured. Diddy stood still, begging the children not to make any noise when they saw him... But no, those children just stared at him and didn't even make an expression of amazement when they saw him.
"Uhh... Hi!" Diddy said to them with a forced smile, but received no answer; they continued to stare at him. He approached the cell to talk to them better. "Don't tell anyone you've seen me," he whispered as he looked everywhere in case anyone was coming. "How did those mandrills and orangutans kidnap you?... Did they give you any hypnotizing mixture as they said?
But the children didn't respond to him at all; they were as if they were mannequins looking at Diddy, and they didn't even make a gesture or an expression at him.
"R-Ri... Ricky... Me-Mel…" one of them began to stutter.
"Ricky, Melvyn, Jenny and Mandy?!" Diddy hurried to ask them. "What did they do to you?!"
But the kong children didn't respond anymore, so Diddy had to give up.
Diddy continued to search the cells to find Dixie. He left the room and then climbed the stairs again until he reached the next and last floor of the building. In this, there was also a room with several cells around. Diddy entered and began to inspect each of the cells: they were all empty and there was no noise inside the room... except for some external sounds that seemed to come from a duct that was in the center of the roof that, when looking under it, had a skylight appearance.
Suddenly, Diddy heard a different little sound, it wasn't as loud and it seemed to come from one of the last cells in the room. He immediately headed there, until the sound became more and more like sobs. Being closer, Diddy peeked stealthily into the cell where they seemed to come from... His heart began to race, while a small smile was drawn on his face when finally... he had found Dixie. But his smile faded as he saw that Dixie was just sitting against the wall as several tears welled up in her eyes and she kept trembling with fear. She hadn't noticed Diddy yet.
Diddy hid again, but he knew he had to talk to her anyway, regardless of whether she would be happy to see him or not. He took a heavy breath before calling her.
"D-Dixie?"
Dixie opened her eyes instantly and turned little by little to see who was calling her, since that voice was the most known to her. She made a gesture of astonishment and was all paralyzed to see with her own eyes the very Diddy, because she never imagined a bit that he would appear in that place and in that way.
"D-Di... Diddy!" she stammered before closing her eyes tightly and speaking to herself. "No, no, no. I must not think about Diddy, he doesn't-"
"Yes, it's me, Dixie," Diddy interrupted hurriedly, placing his hands on the bars.
Dixie looked up at him again, as she couldn't seem to believe that she was seeing him.
"But... H-how... have you come here?" she asked him as she wiped away her tears and headed to him.
"I was on that ship too!" he whispered. "I was going to Mr. Pinky's house, when I saw those hooded apes entering and heard that they had caught you and the other children on that ship, so I ran immediately and infiltrated! Then I went through this building and found you!" he explained quickly.
Dixie was quite shocked at what Diddy said; she was even still trying to process that she had him in front of her.
"I came to get you out of here, Dixie," Diddy said, looking everywhere in the room. "H-how can this cell be opened?"
"Uhh... according to me, these cells here are opened by pressing that over there button," Dixie pointed through the bars to a panel at the entrance to the room. Diddy was about to run over there, but Dixie stopped him instantly, grabbing him by the T-shirt. "But... it opens only with a footprint of those who live here, and if you press it, an alarm will be triggered."
"Oh, what then?!" Diddy said frustrated.
"By the way, you don't even know who I found here-"
"Yes, I know, those four fools from school and those criminal apes," Diddy interrupted, speaking fast. "I also heard and saw everything when you were in those mechanical chairs... I see now where the bad blood of those four fools comes from. Ah, and those apes must be plotting something terrible with all those kids... But I'm going to get you out of here, Dixie! Don't worry... Oh, will there be any other way to open this?" he added, looking everywhere in the cell.
"Diddy... In case you don't remember what I told you... once you enter here, it's almost impossible to get out," Dixie said, tears coming again from her eyes and beginning to sob in fear.
"Oh, no, no. Don't say that, Dix. Of course we'll get out of here," Diddy hurriedly told her as he held her hand through the bars. There was a moment of silence as they both looked at each other in a distressed manner. Until Diddy remembered another important detail he had to tell her. "By the way, Dixie... Please, forgive me... for not having believed you that... that letter was fake and all that."
Suddenly, and as if for a moment she got out of context, Dixie gave Diddy an angry look and immediately pulled her hand away from him in disgust. She then turned her back to him.
"Oh, please, Dixie! I'm really sorry!" Diddy exclaimed desperately. "I also heard that from them and-"
"You believed that burnt-hair orangutan and not me, Diddy Kong," Dixie interrupted angrily before turning back to him.
"Please, Dixie! Forgive me," Diddy added with a pleading look. "If you want, we'll figure out later about the rest of the evidence that that stupid showed, but please... forgive me... Please."
"Do you know anything, Diddy? I think we're more likely to get out of here than for me to forgive you," Dixie told him before turning back and crossing her arms. "Let alone for what you did afterwards when I just wanted to fix things with you."
"Are you talking about Jenny?" asked Diddy. "No, no, no, I can explain it! I don't love her or anything! We weren't really going to go on a date at that moment you arrived, it was just-"
"Huh, and so what happened?!" interrupted Dixie by turning in front of him. "You even told her that-"
"I'll explain, Dixie! Don't think I cheated on you! Not at all!"
"How not?! You even told her about what happened-"
"Jenny is a robot!" Diddy interrupted, raising his voice a little more.
"What?..."
"Yes, how you heard it! She's not a real girl!"
Dixie fell silent as she made an extreme glance of weirdness at Diddy after what he had just uttered. She looked at him as if he were a lunatic and as if he had told her an incoherence... Suddenly, Dixie began to want to laugh, before letting out a low-voiced laugh because of how weird what Diddy said sounded to her.
"Wait, wait, wait! Could you repeat that to me, Diddy?" Dixie said, trying to stop laughing.
"That's the truth, she's a robot! I'm serious!" said Diddy earnestly and quickly as he waved the bars. "That's something I wanted to tell you this afternoon, but I didn't find you anymore!"
"But what... excuse is that?" Dixie interrupted, continuing her laughter in a low voice. "A... robot? Hey, Diddy, what are you talking abou-"
"Yes, it's true, Dixie!" replied Diddy. "Jenny is not like us, she's not real, she's a machine, literally! And not only her! Ricky, Melvyn and Mandy too! All four of them are robots... Ugh, I knew you wouldn't believe me so easily."
"Wait, wait, wait a minute, Diddy," Dixie interrupted, finishing laughing and looking at him strangely. "Tell me how you discovered it or what you're trying to tell-"
"It's that I was just sitting on a tree branch and then Jenny came, she tried to flirt with me again and cornered me, and then I pushed her and accidentally made her fall to the ground and I went to see if she was okay, but she didn't react. Then, I saw that she had something shiny in her eyes, and behind her ears I saw that she had some buttons that also shined, and I pressed them, and then her head opened and she had many wires inside and a pair of strange spheres, and she even had a black box in the middle of her whole head!" Diddy explained quickly.
Dixie gave him the same look of extreme strangeness, while still thinking that maybe he was crazy, so she let out a little laugh again; that sounded most out of context to her.
"Diddy, did you hit your head by any chance?!" she said, wanting to laugh. "Hey, Diddy, I wouldn't have a problem either if you just told me you actually wanted to date Jenny and-"
"You really don't believe me?!" Diddy interrupted in frustration, before pausing before. "It doesn't matter, I'll take you out of this place anyway!"
Diddy began to wobble the cell hard, as if in that way he managed to open it. While Dixie just continued to laugh a little and think that at least Diddy had done well to arrive to make her laugh for a while. Then, Dixie became serious again while looking at Diddy.
"Look, Diddy…" she said in a calmer tone. "I also have no problem hearing the truth, so you can just tell me if Jenn-"
"Just in case, I never liked her, Dixie," Diddy interrupted, still defending his version, looking at her seriously. "And I'm really sorry I didn't believe you. But I can tell you that Jenny, Ricky, Melvyn and Mandy are robots!"
Dixie only continued to look at him with all weirdness when she saw that Diddy repeated the same somewhat illogical and absurd statement to her.
"BUT WHAT?!" exclaimed suddenly a voice that belonged to neither of them. "DIDDY!"
Diddy and Dixie got scared and turned to look at the entrance of the room and, as if the universe was conspiring against them… the same Jenny was heading towards them while keeping the same expression of shock as the two of them. All three were extremely astonished to meet again.
Before long, Dixie looked quite seriously at Diddy.
"No, no, no! I don't know what she's doing here!" Diddy whispered, all in confusion.
Diddy began to tremble in fear at the sight of Jenny approaching, not so much because Dixie was going to think wrong, but because that would mean being found out and being in grave danger.
"Ahh, Diddy! But how did you get here?!" Jenny exclaimed, shocked when she reached the two of them. "How did you get in? I didn't know you were coming too."
"No, no, Jenny... or whatever you are! Don't tell anyone I'm here, please!" said Diddy desperately as he grabbed her arms.
"Wow. I was just coming to check on Dixie," Jenny said as she looked sideways at Dixie. "But now it turns out that you're here too, Diddy... How cute you are," she added, patting his face in a flirtatious manner.
"Well, what are you going to say now, Diddy?" Dixie whispered with a serious look.
"Oh, poor one," Jenny said to Dixie in a mocking manner, to which she looked at her strangely. "How dumb and naïve you were when you thought Diddy loved you, Dixie."
"By the way, Jenny," Dixie replied in kind. "When I told you I wasn't going to fight you for Diddy, I was serious, I'm not a fake double-faced one like you."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say," Jenny replied in the same tone. "But what a pity that your relationship didn't turn out to be indestructible."
"And by the way, are you also complicit with those criminal apes?!" Dixie asked more seriously.
"What? What are you talking about?" Jenny exclaimed with a strange look.
Suddenly, Diddy seemed to realize that this might be his chance to prove what he claimed.
"Uhh, Jenny," Diddy said as he got closer to her. "I think you have something in your ear."
"Huh? What?" Jenny asked, her hand to her ear.
"This!"
Immediately, Diddy lunged at Jenny, but she tried to push him away.
"Hey! Oh no, no, not that!" Jenny exclaimed as she struggled against Diddy when he tried to grab her ears. "Let go of me, dumb monkey!"
Suddenly, Jenny began to hit Diddy a few times, which made it difficult for him to get it.
"Hold her, Dixie!" Diddy exclaimed before pushing Jenny against bars.
Dixie, though not quite understanding the situation, held Jenny by the shoulders anyway. While Diddy, after receiving a pair more blows from Jenny, took her by the ear forward and pressed it hard... Suddenly, Jenny stopped in her tracks and began to loosen her arms until she was completely paralyzed... Literally, she stayed like a mannequin... All her movements stopped... And she even no longer seemed to breathe or blink...
Diddy was breathing heavily after managing to stop Jenny, while Dixie was more confused by what happened, that no longer knew if she was just dreaming random and incoherent things.
"Look! Do you believe me now?" Diddy said to Dixie, taking Jenny by the shoulders and turning her toward Dixie's direction. "If you want, touch her eyes and you'll see that they're not real."
Dixie, with a blank mind and extreme confusion at the sudden event, stretched out her hand through the bars and proceeded to touch Jenny's eyes... Indeed, they felt with a texture similar to a rubber, even her pupils didn't seem to be like those of a real living being, since when touching them, Dixie realized that they were rather... like glass.
Jenny was now still in her entirety, as if she were a doll: she didn't blink, she didn't breathe, and her eyes were opened wide with a fixed gaze. Her eyes also emitted a dim light as did her ears.
"Look at this," Diddy said to Dixie before pressing behind Jenny's other ear.
Upon he did so, Jenny's head literally began to split in half as if a puzzle piece was coming off... and, as Diddy had explained, inside it they could see a bunch of small wires connected to each other, and also a pair of spheres that apparently connected to what would be her eyes... In addition to having a black mechanical box in the center... All just as Diddy had described it.
Dixie was frightened to see Jenny's head split open, and only gasped as she tried to process and wonder if what she was seeing at the moment was real. It was something that never crossed her mind, not even dreaming.
"And look at this too," Diddy added.
Diddy took Jenny's arm and, as if it were a sleeve, pulled back her fur with some force, where under this, other wires could be seen inside and connected to her hand. Then, he did the same with her other three remaining limbs, in which wires could also be seen inside.
Dixie was left with almost the same posture as Jenny: completely paralyzed. She didn't know what to say or what to think about it now.
"B-but..." was the only thing Dixie could utter before looking away, confused in her entirety and finishing processing what she had just seen.
"Ricky, Melvyn and Mandy are like that too," Diddy said earnestly. "You don't even would believe everything that happened: after you left yesterday, I was asking Jenny what she really was, and later, out of nowhere Ricky, Melvyn and Mandy arrived and made me a kind of kidnapping; they were behaving quite weird and I insisted that they give me an explanation, but they just ignored me. Until later, I managed to escape and tried to catch them and there I saw that all four are of this kind of robots... By the way, I think that explains why those four didn't like water or never wanted to eat or drink anything with us."
"But it's that…" Dixie said, reaching out through the bars, grabbing Jenny's arms, and then touching her face, her hands, her hair, and again her eyes. "It's so real... Her skin looks and feels real, her hair and fur too... Even her way of speaking and moving is so… realistic… Why didn't you tell me about it before, Diddy?"
"That's what I was going to tell you this afternoon, but you weren't in the house."
"But why didn't you tell me yesterday that I saw you with her?"
"Dixie, I knew you wouldn't believe something like that so easily for a quick explanation," he replied before pausing and lowering his gaze. "Oh... and forgive me, Dixie... I was really angry with you for what I thought had happened, and I didn't know what to say to you when you arrived suddenly while I was with Jenny, that is, I didn't know how to explain to you that Jenny is really like that, I didn't even finish believing it, and at the same time, I didn't want to fix things with you because I really thought the matter had no fix... And no, I wasn't dating Jenny, I was just chasing her to get more information out of her, but she didn't want to tell me anything more about her being a robot."
"Oh, but you could tell me anyway!" replied Dixie before remaining calm. "Ugh, maybe you're right, I don't think I could have believed that so easily, even now I didn't want to believe it... Anyway, we'll talk later about; now we just have to get out of here-"
"Wait! What is that?" Diddy interrupted.
Suddenly, Diddy heard some rapid footsteps that seemed to be far away, but sounded as if they came from below.
"Wait a minute!" Diddy whispered before leaving for a while.
Diddy went to the entrance of the room and looked out of the stairs, from which he managed to observe a pair of known silhouettes coming up at speed through them.
"Fast! He's on the top floor!" exclaimed one of them who was coming up. "That monkey is there with Dixie!"
Diddy panicked instantly and immediately returned to Dixie; he knew he had to get her out of there no matter what.
"It's Rocky and Mandrew; they're coming here!" Diddy whispered desperately as he thought about what actions to take.
"Try pressing the button, it doesn't matter if it doesn't work for you, but it's the only alternative!" Dixie replied in the same way.
"Wait, I have an idea!"
Diddy, not knowing if what he had in mind would work, took Jenny by the shoulders and dragged her quickly to the entrance of the room. He reached the button that Dixie pointed to and took Jenny's hand to place her thumb to press the button... Instantly, all the cells in that room began to open.
Dixie immediately got out before the cell was fully opened, and ran to where Diddy was. They arranged Jenny motionless towards the wall, and then they both left the room as quickly as possible, barely having time to be glad they had gotten out there.
"What do we do now?!" Diddy asked himself desperately.
They peeked down the stairs and saw that Rocky and Mandrew were one floor away from arriving, so it wouldn't be a good idea to go down there.
"Come this way! I already know how to go down!" Dixie whispered before taking Diddy's arm and heading to the end of the handrail of the stairs, where there was an interior balcony that had a view of the other floors. Dixie looked down, being determined in what she was going to do.
"Oh, no, no! Not again, Dixie!" Diddy exclaimed, getting the idea.
"We have no choice, I'm sorry!" Dixie replied, climbing onto the balcony railing and pulling Diddy toward her.
Diddy, not so sure, grabbed onto Dixie, and then she jumped with him from the balcony until she managed to land on one of the lower floors, with the help of her hair. Standing up to about three floors less, they looked up and saw Rocky and Mandrew enter the cell room. But they couldn't stay stopped for long, so they immediately ran in random directions across the floor where they now were.
"Now what?!" Dixie asked as they ran aimlessly through the halls of the building.
"I don't know!... Wait, wait!" Diddy replied before stopping in his tracks along with Dixie.
Both were about to cross an entrance, when suddenly, someone they knew was in the middle of it. Both Diddy and Dixie were frozen, when they now had run into Melvyn, who was staring at them... with the same expressionless face that Jenny had recently and still in his entirety.
"Mel-Melvyn?" Dixie stuttered.
"Don't worry, I think it's turned off," Diddy whispered to Dixie. "Although his eyes don't shine," he added, looking at him uncertainly.
Diddy took Dixie's hand, and they both began to take stealthy steps through the entrance, while Melvyn just remained still as a mannequin. Seeing that he didn't make any movement, they walked normally again and crossed the entrance without problems... Not before feeling that they were grabbed by the arm of both. They immediately turned around and saw that it was Melvyn who was holding them and trying to stop them.
"Hold him!" Diddy exclaimed to Dixie instantly. "Just turn it off!"
Melvyn was struggling with Diddy and Dixie not to let them escape, but it was not so difficult for both of them to pounce on him, since he was of smaller stature. Diddy and Dixie let go from him and took him by his arms and then held his head, then Diddy took him by the ear and, as he did with Jenny, pressed it... Instantly, Melvyn stopped moving and again had an expression of total seriousness as if he were a doll... just like Jenny had stayed.
"Hey... So... it's true?" Dixie said, being completely surprised to see Melvyn in that way now.
"Yes, I didn't believe it either when I discovered them," Diddy replied, also observing Melvyn. "And I don't know how they could be made so realistic. They don't look like robots, rather they look like-"
"They're over there! The dumb monkey managed to free Dixie!" exclaimed a voice heard from the other side of the wall that sounded exactly like Mandrew's.
"Let's run! Run!" Diddy whispered desperately.
Both continued to flee aimlessly so as not to be captured by Mandrew and Rocky, who could be heard running and talking at a not-so-distant distance.
"Let's go this way! There is a pipeline that leads outwards!" Diddy pointed as they ran. "That's where I was able to enter this building."
"I think I know which one you mean. That's where we got out with Tiny and Kiddy that time."
Both entered one of the corridors that were, in the direction of finding the duct through which Diddy had managed to enter the building. When suddenly... both stopped immediately when they noticed a walking silhouette with a long cloak, at the end of that corridor. They were paralyzed, as they thought it would be one of the evil apes... But it didn't seem to be so. That silhouette seemed to look more like a muscular ape, and not a mandrill or orangutan. It was all dark in the bottom, so they could not see that figure well.
Without thinking any more, Diddy and Dixie began to run in the opposite direction when they saw that silhouette beginning to head towards them as if it wanted to catch them.
"And who is that one?!" Dixie asked as she ran speedily with Diddy.
"I have no idea... One minute!" exclaimed Diddy, opening his eyes to the fullest when he managed to visualize that silhouette clearly.
Diddy and Dixie stopped in their tracks and just waited for the walking silhouette to finish reaching them.
"Mr. Pinky!" they both exclaimed in unison as he was arriving.
To their great surprise, the very Mr. Pinky was the one who was approaching them, although this time... he was wearing a black long cloak... similar to that of evil apes. Both were speechless and didn't know what to think, because they never imagined seeing him in that place. They didn't have time to start drawing conclusions, so they just let him approach them...