AN: So glad you're all enjoying this! I hope to update about once a week. Hope you like this chapter!
"I recall the blueprints you created to rebuild yourself," Pixal informed him. "If you unlatch the panel in your lower right arm, you should be able to access a drill."
"A drill?" Zane repeated, more than a little confused but willing to try it if the woman claiming to be his friend recommended it. "Okay. I'm opening up the panel now. Oh, oh! There is a drill!"
"Use it to break through the chains," Pixal instructed.
Concentrating so hard that the tip of his tongue poked out of his mouth unbidden, Zane began to drill through the chains.
"Yes! Yes, that's it!" Pixal cheered over the sound of the drill whirring and the metal cracking. "You're doing it!"
A different voice, one Zane didn't recognize (although he hadn't recognized Pixal's voice either, to be fair), became audible from through the grate in the cell door. The voice commented, "Tonight's fight is gonna be epic. Who do you got? Jay or Cole?"
"I'm a Cole man," another voice from outside the cell stated. "Never liked the color blue. What's that grinding sound?"
"Is that voice talking about my drill?" Zane wondered aloud.
"Quiet!" Pixal cried in low tones. "Be still, be quiet! Put the drill away! Play dead!"
Even though he was confused again, Zane did as he was told, slumping over and closing his eyes.
Footsteps approached his cell door, and a moment later, a voice very close outside the door observed, "Huh. Guess I was just hearing things. C'mon, let's go."
The footsteps faded away into the distance, but Zane kept still until Pixal commented, "The guards are gone now. However, others may come. It's not safe, you must break out when everyone's at that fight they were talking about."
Zane frowned. Something she had said seemed off. "You mean, we must break out."
Pixal paused before answering. "Yes. Of course."
The drill made a whining noise and the last of Zane's chains clattered to the ground.
"I am through," Zane reported, walking forward and staring at the barred window between his cell and the cell from which Pixal's voice was coming from. "Now I need to get up to that window. I think I can-"
Zane jumped, but his too-short legs wouldn't let him reach the window and he just slammed against the wall. "Ow."
"Are you all right?" Pixal asked, sounding worried.
"I'm fine," Zane answered, sitting up and dusting himself up. Staring up at the window, he contemplated it. "Maybe a running start?"
Standing and backing to the far end of the cell, Zane sprinted at the other side, leaping for the barred window.
Again, he slammed into the wall. "Ow."
"Are you sure you are all right?" Pixal inquired.
"I am fine," Zane promised. "But I need another way through."
"Zane, maybe you-" Pixal began.
"I know what you're going to say," Zane blurted out. "I am thinking it too!"
"...You are?" Pixal asked.
Zane nodded, then he realized she couldn't see that. "Yes. I will go out through the door and go in through your cell's door. My drill should be able to handle the locks."
Before Pixal could say anything, Zane hurried over to the door. He peered out through the little grate, making sure no one was around, although it was hard because he had to stand on his tiptoes to even get a little bit of a look. He saw no one, so he began drilling, and soon he was done.
Dashing out of the cell, Zane went to the next door over and looked in through the grate, back on his tiptoes. "Pixal? Miss Pixal? Are you in there?"
"I am in here," Pixal reported, sounding worried. "But Zane-"
"Do not worry, I will be in momentarily," Zane said brightly, and he made quick work of the door's locking mechanism. Bursting in, he looked around eagerly, wanting to meet the nice lady who had been talking him through this whole thing.
He saw no one.
Not a single person.
Instead, all he saw was bits and pieces of an android, or maybe several androids, Zane couldn't tell. Zane frowned. "Miss Pixal?"
"I am here, Zane," Pixal said, and now she just sounded sad.
Zane followed the sound of her voice to a computer screen showing a woman with gray skin and bright green eyes staring out at him. Zane's frown deepened. "...Miss Pixal?"
The woman smiled unhappily. "Hello, Zane."
"Why are you on the computer?" Zane asked. He paused. "Wait. Are you the computer?"
"Not exactly. I was once a droid like you, but when that man came and kidnapped you, he took me too, and used some of my parts to finish you," Pixal explained. "Then Chen, the one who is holding us, he and his people realized they didn't want me trying to break out, so they took the rest of my parts and scrapped me. Now I am just a neural drive on this computer, and I am lucky to be that much."
"Why did you not tell me?" Zane wondered. "You let me think that you were okay, that you were going to escape with me."
Pixal sighed. "I couldn't tell you. I needed you to get out of here, you needed to get out of here. This is where my journey ends, but not yours, Zane. You must go on alone. Find your friends. Find your memory. Stop Chen. Stop whatever he is planning. I know you can do it, no matter your form. Don't worry about me. I will always be with you."
Zane felt ready to cry. Go on alone? In this strange place, in this strange body, without the only person who had been nice to him so far? Zane didn't have hope that the weird guards would be anywhere near as nice as Pixal had been. How could he go on without her help?
He couldn't.
But he didn't have to.
"You're right, Miss Pixal," Zane realized. "You will always be with me."
"Zane?" Pixal asked, watching as he reached out to the computer and pulled at a rectangular shape sticking out of it slightly. "What are you-"
In the next moment, Pixal disappeared from the screen as Zane pried the rectangular item out of the computer. Concentrating, he closed his eyes and felt around the back of his neck. There! There it was! Zane opened the port in his neck and inserted the thing he'd taken.
For a few seconds, nothing happened and Zane's heart sank. Had he been wrong? Had he just doomed both of them?
Then an image flickered onto Zane's visual display. It was Pixal. She was fine, and she was here.
"Zane, you've taken my neural drive and inputted into your processor. You're ingenious!" Pixal exclaimed.
"Thank you," Zane beamed. "I hope this will work until we are able to get you into a new body. Now, let's both get out of-"
Pixal interrupted, practically screaming, "Zane, behind you! Initiate evasive-"
Before Zane could fully turn, a massive shock ran through his system, sending him falling to the ground. Dizzy and disorientated, the last thing Zane heard before he lost awareness was a low, scary voice saying sarcastically, "Next time, maybe it would be best to tie up the nindroid with chains thick enough that he couldn't cut through?"