Sanctuary

Chapter Twenty - Senna

There were no N-Gel. At least, there weren't any guarding the door. There weren't any at the bottom of the stairs, either. She crept through the first hall, expecting them to be around the corner, but they simply weren't there. The halls were dimly lit and vacant as she continued to follow the blue guiding line on her HMD. She was starting to believe that she had gone down the wrong entrance, that is—until she heard the voices.

They weren't alien voices. They didn't speak some foreign language or make incomprehensible sounds. They were voices she could understand —voices that sounded human.

"Do you think she'd really make it out this far?"

"No, but you heard Zed. Never underestimate the determination of a teenager."

The two voices chuckled at the one's mocking imitation of the President.

Senna stopped and pressed her back against the wall, for all the good it would do her. Were they talking about her?

Zed must have used wireless tech to contact them so quickly.

She took a deep breath and turned, creeping towards the end of the hall with the utmost focus. She willed her footfalls to be silent, hoping the breathing apparatus wasn't as loud on the outside as it was inside the helmet. It was hard to tell how quiet she was being, with the cavernous sound of her breath and the thudding of her heart in her ears.

"Shit!" the guard cursed when his eyes focused on the helmet trying to be stealthy as it poked its way around the corner. Senna let out a sound no louder than a squeak as she ducked back. She took off running down the hall, though she knew it would only take her back to the stairs. The guards were right behind her, turning the corner with a speed she couldn't possibly match. The sound of her heart amplified tenfold, to the point where she could hear her blood racing and her muscles straining. The stairs came into view, a chance at hope that plunged upwards into darkness.

A blinding jolt of pain surged through her body. She hit the ground, screaming and writhing, though she couldn't even comprehend why. Her entire body had begun to seize. She couldn't control her limbs, not even to stand or crawl across the ground. There was nothing but the blinding hot pulse of pain.

When the electric surge from the taser died down she was still useless and crying on the ground. She wasn't even sure when the tears had started. They were just there, already on her cheeks and smeared onto the screen of her helmet. Her arms had been wrenched behind her and her wrists cuffed together to keep them there. Another round of tears rose hot in her eyes as her body was heaved up off of the ground by the two guards. One of them tossed her up over his shoulder and her entire field of vision fell upside down. Even so, she could still see the blue line from her HMD. It wasn't on the floor anymore. It was where the floor should have been, but it was still there. And she was still following it. They were taking her to wherever they were keeping Sera.

They took her down sloping halls until they were surrounded by an electronic hum. The dim lights near the entrance gave way to brighter headache-inducing fluorescent ones that filled the halls from one metal wall to another. The turns grew ever more complicated, splitting off here and there in a maze of tunnels. She tried to get a glimpse down the hallways as they passed, hoping to see anything other than the cold metal walls, but she instantly regretted that wish when she caught the sight of a pale blue figure. She only caught the bottom, upside down as she was, but that was enough for her to realize it wasn't human. The part of it that brushed the ground looked like the tips of wing feathers, if said feathers were the same blue as the sky panels on the Rim and flexed like thick silicone. Something moved between the slight parts in those 'feathers', freezing Senna's breath into a lump in her throat. The thing fell out of sight as they passed the hall and Senna gulped that lump down until it fell like a rock into her stomach.