Labyrinth of White - The Moon Trilogy - Book #1

Chapter twenty-nine:

Absolutely nothing happened. A second ticked passed, and then another, and soon a minute. Then another minute, and still another. Still, there was no reaction from the telepath.

Alex checked and rechecked the piece of paper to the name on the vile, glancing back and forth to make sure that they matched, down to the letter. And they did, so something else must be wrong. If only he had some inkling what it was, then he might actually be able to help in some way.

"What are we going to do now?" he asked. He only got shrugs in reply. "Well, we can't stay here. We should find Sam and get to the main computer. The longer we stay here, the less chance we have of getting out alive."

Neither of the girls replied, and the telepath might have been dead, for all he was talking. None of them really knew what was supposed to happen, but he was pretty sure that they'd all been expecting better results.

Just as Alex was about to speak again, his words died in his throat when the telepath gasped, and Alex's eyes shot down at the sound.

The telepath's eyes were open and his breath was coming in fast, short gulps. His back was arched up with the sheer force of his struggle to draw a breath, but then he stopped all at once with a hacking cough.

He blinked once and propped himself up on his elbows. His face contorted in pain with the movement and he flopped back onto the table. His eyes flickered closed, and he was unconscious again.

"I guess we'll just have to carry him." Clarity frowned.

Without a word—as usual-- Rachel walked over and picked the telepath up. She slung him over her shoulder as if he was nothing more than a sack of flour. Alex had learned by now that Rachel was anything but scrawny, but it was still strange to see such a twig pick up a grown human without even breaking a sweat.

He only stayed long enough to make sure that Rachel was okay with handling the telepath by herself before he walked over to the door, cracking it open and peering out into the blank white hall. It looks like a maze. A white maze—a white labyrinth.

The hallway was empty, so he motioned for the others to follow him as he stepped through the door. He headed back in the direction that they had come. He refused to think of all the times he'd walked this way before.

They walked through the white halls, turning left, then right, then right again. He felt more lost then he'd ever been, but at the same time, the halls were quite familiar. It wasn't a pleasant feeling, and it made his skin crawl.

Even though it seemed like the place had been built to be purposefully winding and with indirect and crazy routes between destinations, it wasn't all that long before they were back at the teleporter room. By the looks of things, Sam had just finished sending a group out, as his finger was just pulling away from the activator. He turned around when they came in.

"How'd it go?" he asked.

"It went ok, but we weren't able to wake him up for very long," Alex replied with a vague gesture towards where he assumed Rachel was.

"How many more people are there?" Clarity broke in. Her eyes flicked towards the door, as if she was afraid someone would walk in on them. Actually, now that he thought about it, she had been jittery for a while now. He wished he could tell her something to calm her down, but he didn't even feel very safe himself, so that would probably just backfire.

Sam shrugged. "I'm not sure. That last group was pretty small, so I assumed at first that there was no one left, but then Johnathan left in a hurry as if there were more. So I have no clue." Sam said with a shrug, adding, "Actually, he just left."

"We can't worry about him right now. We need to get to the computer hub and rig it to blow. If Johnathan's not here by then, that's his fault." Rachel spoke up from where she was still hovering by the door. It was the most that Alex had heard her speak in a while.

"Okay, but give me a second first." Sam turned back to the machines. From the looks of things, "a second" would actually be quite a bit longer, and Rachel seemed to notice this because she let the unconscious telepath slip off her shoulder and onto the floor at her feet.

Alex would suggest getting a head start, but he knew very well that Sam was the only one with skills high enough to hack into the computer. At least, he was the only one that Alex knew about.

As he waited, Alex thought about their walk from the laboratory. Something seemed off. The more he thought about it, the more he thought that something was amiss. There was no way that they could get through those halls without getting seen, and, shouldn't there be guards all over the place, trying to track down the intruders? It had been far, far too quiet.

Was it possible that the Organization was going to use their own trick against them, and blow the place up while they were still inside? The building seemed empty enough to support the theory of an evacuation. It was sickeningly possible.

He must have zoned out a little farther than he'd thought because when he was again paying attention, Sam was finished messing around with the computer.

"So, what's the plan?' Sam asked as he turned around with one last press of a button, the motion decidedly final.

"We get to the main computer console. When we get there, we find some way to make it explode. There must be something. And if we get that far, we'll also need to figure out some sort of delayed command, so we can get out." Alex replied.

Sam nodded.

"What about Johnathan?" Rachel asked, her arms crossed.

"If we find him on the way, we'll take him with us. Otherwise, it's his own fault if he gets blown to bits." Alex said. There was no way he was sticking around longer than necessary. If Johnathan wanted to stay, then so be it. He knew their skeleton of a plan just as well as they did.

"The only problem is, how are we going to get to the main computer? We don't know where it is, and even if we did, we probably wouldn't know how to get to it there from here." Clarity said. She glanced hopefully at Alex, but he shook his head. He didn't think he'd ever been there, because not even the dark corners of his foggy memory were yielding anything.

"We'll figure something out," Sam said, taking in the exchange. "But we should probably get going."

"I agree. I don't want to stay here any longer than we have to." Clarity said with a shaky sigh.

Rachel nodded, bending down to heft the telepath back over her shoulder. Alex couldn't see the logic behind the decision at first, but it made sense. If they left the telepath, someone could find him. It was probably safest to bring him along.

Rachel was headed for the double-doors as soon as she'd settled the telepath onto her shoulder in a way that he wouldn't fall off. Sam and Clarity followed, and he walked in the back, keeping one close to the pocket that held his medical-laser-turned-weapon. He tried to be as alert as possible. After all, anything could happen once they were in the labyrinth of halls.

He braced himself, hoping there wasn't an armada of guards on the other side of the door, or a timer going off somewhere in the building that would lead to their fiery demise.

And back into the labyrinth of white they went.