Daughter of Death

XI

Cade stuffed the satphone into the mattress where it had been slashed, among the fillings, as he heard a voice call out, "GET OUT OF MY WAY, I FOUND THE KEY-LER!"

    Then the heavy metal door slammed open with a loud, reverberating CLANG!.

    Cade jumped. Even when getting multiple warnings beforehand, he was still startled by the sound.

    He slowly got to his feet, his hand up, as a tall man in a white tuxedo and black pants burst in, a furious look on his face and a ring of keys in his hand.

    He took a look at Cade, snorted in disbelief, and turned to a woman beside him. Wait a second— Was that a trick of the light, or did she have a horse leg?

    The light from the shield glinted off her other leg.

    And a metal leg?

    Who would ever want a full metal leg cast?

    "So, Key-ler, do we have permission to kill him?" the horse-leg woman asked, sounding excited. Cade raised his eyebrows, not sure what to think about the situation.

    The man growled, and rolled his green eyes in exasperation. "No, you do not have permission to kill him! The Plan is for him to"—he cast a glance at Cade, suspiciously—"...that's classified. I don't hear anything, so I will have you filed to Boreas for disturbing me without a good reason. Also, how many times have I told you to stop calling me Key-ler?! The title's Warden; get it right!"

    The Warden then sent one last glare in Cade's direction, ushered the horse-leg woman out, then slammed the door behind him, locking it again.

    Cade let out a sigh of relief, then, straining his ears, making sure the sound of hooves all faded away, and it was completely silent outside, he slowly reached into the mattress to take out his sat phone again.

    That was unexpected, but he could work with it. If he could lure the Warden back in here, and if he could pickpocket him, and if he could get away with it without being noticed or killed, or something, he might be able to escape outside and maybe—

    Then, as he grasped the sat phone, his fingers brushed against something other than the fillings.

    Something cold, solid, plastic-like, and smooth.

    He hastily pulled the phone out of the mattress, and tried to look inside, but couldn't see anything among the fluff of the fillings.

    Gingerly, he reached one hand back into the mattress. He found the object, and hesitated. It wasn't alive, at least. But the shape was odd. Very much so. It was also small, enough to fit in the palm of his hand. He grasped it gently in his fist.

    It had a small, rectangular-ish body, and four appendages protruding from it, and smaller appendages protruding from them.

    Cade pulled it out, and raised his eyebrows at the sight of a...an ultra tiny drone.

    It was so tiny. The body was no longer than an inch. The propellers were also tiny, and Cade seriously doubted it could fly.

    But tiny drone or not, why was it here? And how? Someone or something must've put it there. He couldn't think of any reasonable possibilities. It couldn't have been the Warden. Maybe a past prisoner—?

    Suddenly, the drone buzzed to life in the palm of his hand. A red light turned on on the front where the camera usually is, blinking as if just waking up.

    Cade barely managed to stifle his yelp, and threw the drone away from him, but it caught itself, hovering in midair, its propellers whirling, buzzing like a fly. Its red eye looked at Cade as if it was offended by his action.