Allice in Mysterious Land (ON HOLD)

17: Incapacitated

Several mild footsteps echo from the corridor, pounding like hammer against nails. I brace my feet and clutch my backpack when the visitors knock three times on the meeting room's door.

It flashes open like a storm. "What is it?" Jorge asks with a grated throat. "Is the situation under control?"

"Sorry to interrupt your meeting, Sir, but Mr. Austin insists us to," a voice as warm as sunlight replies. Is that Argus? "Prototype Zero-Two fails to finish your task, Sir."

Jorge clicks his tongue. "So where is the pest now? Has he escaped?"

"There's an Onyx Agent showing up at our Tracer screen." I gulp down at the hesitation in his words. "The signal comes from here."

I snatch The Office's Onyx Agent off my earlobe, crushing it in my grip. White crackles and a foul-smelled smoke, alike to the signals of Jorge's creations when they're broken, explode through the fissure. I shove the bits down my pocket, mourning how my stupidity seems to be a lifetime curse.

"We should search every room, Sir."

Abundant panic overflows my thoughts as I sling my backpack to a shoulder, treating it like my shield. Before I spend another step to the door, the handle twitches. Thin threads of light stream into the room.

Like an animal avoiding capture, I lunge at the black-uniformed officer, knocking him with the backpack. I skip past his figure as I dash to the elevator. Ominous buzzes and shrieks echo everywhere. Blue rods try to reach my furious legs like hungry snake tongues.

The elevator is a grasp away. An outstretched finger away. Now a thumb away—

"Don't let him get away!"

"Lobby guards, target is underground. I repeat..."

The elevator's glass door rifts open. It's like there are vines binding me as I push myself forward. My limbs grow weary and painful, screaming for a pause.

Right when I thrust myself forward with a feral cry, the elevator's glass door traps me inside.

The surrounding officers pounce on the barrier as Jorge's cries lash their backs like an invisible whip. His two colleagues stand like statues behind him, watching the events like it's merely a movie.

The floor gradually distances from my sight, and the elevator jostles into a halt as dark clouds crowd above the glass. Spread around me are more officers clad in black. There's a patch-eyed between them—Migos. A horde of dark dogs greet me, saliva dripping from their yellowing fangs. Like the Mantis shrimps, there's something too beastly about them.

I'm as dead as a corpse while being surrounded by these vultures.

"Allice Worke"—a restless shift bustles in the backpack; why is Xin-Yo awake?—"Xin-Yo has sent a distress signal to Lin-Roy using Allice Worke's Onyx Agent."

"Put your hands in the air!" an officer bellows, aiming his taser rod at my face.

"So what do we do?" I ask, shrinking deeper as the door opens with an innocent hiss.

"How about stalling time? Lin-Roy can't be long—"

"Rubik's Shield!"

Our surroundings alter for a while before stabilizing back to its original state. The officers redirect their weapons to the outer part of the black gate. The air weights heavy until a curious item prances under their feet, erupting into a massive wall of black and white squares, dividing the officers from the view beyond them.

The Rubik's Shield belongs to none other than Lin-Roy himself.

I dart out of the elevator, cringing at how it zooms back down with ease.