The light emanating from the computer's screen illuminated the two figures otherwise shrouded in darkness. The one sitting in front of the device was female, while the one leaning over her shoulder was male.
"How much longer?" the man asked impatiently, his eyes scanning the stream of letters and numbers on the screen. "We're going to miss our window."
"I know. Can you be quiet for a minute? I'm trying to concentrate," the woman answered, voice laced with annoyance. "It's not like I'm a Technopath, so it'll take time."
"Time we don't have," the man hissed, his hand nervously clenching around the back of her chair.
"Quiet," the woman grumbled, eyes scanning the screen as her fingers danced over the keyboard.
"If you don't get him out of there, you'll be stuck doing his job. You know that, right?" he commented, leaning in closer.
She swiveled around in her seat, pinning him with a glare so deadly he took an involuntary step back. A chill ran down his spine.
"Shut. Up." she ground out, turning her attention back to her work.
The man didn't return to her side until the unusual crackling in the room abated and even then, he didn't lean over her anymore. They were in a hurry, true, but it wasn't worth invoking her wrath, so he stiffly stood beside her, swallowing down his impatience.
"Shit," she exhaled the word a couple of minutes later.
The man's eyes snapped to the screen, but the jumble of words and letters made no sense to him.
"Shit?" he repeated.
"Yes, shit," she said, nervously twisting her fingers.
"Shit what? What's wrong? What did you do?" he asked in the same breath, an edge to his voice as he scanned the faintly illuminated side of her face.
"I shut down the whole grid." her fingers were hovering above the keyboard now, unsure of what to do next.
"The whole grid as in the whole building? Not just sub-level 2?" he asked, visibly paling.
"Yes," she whispered, glancing at him over her shoulder.
"Shit," he said in the same tone she'd used before. "Brad's gonna kill us."
"Not if he doesn't find out..."
His eyes snapped over to hers but she was resolutely staring at the two other screens she'd been ignoring up to this point. One showed a floor map, the annotation in the upper right corner reading "sub-level 2", while the second was divided into multiple small squares, all of them dark.
"Not if... dammit, woman, are you crazy? We can't not tell him! Oh, we're so screwed," the man moaned, dropping his face in his palms.
"He doesn't need to know. We had to get the idiot out and we did. Mission accomplished," she insisted, fingers nervously drumming against the desk. "And if some other poor souls manage to escape in the meantime, well who cares? Not like they deserved to be locked up."
"You're joking. The lower levels have some seriously dangerous ones locked away," the man's voice was filled with disbelief as he stared at the back of her head. "If they get out, it could jeopardize everything! Everything we built, all down the drain..."
"I know, okay, I was there too," she interrupted, hands clenching on the wooden surface. "They won't escape. Everyone in there knows security's been shut down and the guards are going to head for the lower levels first. They want those people out even less than we do."
There was a faint crackling sound and he watched her tuck her hands into her lap, trying to reign her temper in. She was probably right and the guards would head down to the lower levels first, which meant fewer obstacles for the upper floors.
In a way, it was a pretty good distraction, but he wasn't going to tell her that. She had messed up and needed to take responsibility for it.
The comm wedged in his right ear came to life, the familiar voice of his comrade informing them their target had been successfully collected and that they should vacate the premises.
She stood abruptly and made her way to the door, having also heard the message. He followed her out but stopped at the exit, facing the inside of the room.
Snapping his fingers once, he watched as the computer and its three screens caught fire. He hurried down the hallway, guided by his colleague's determined strides. He stretched a hand out, fingers grazing the drab walls and leaving a trail of flames in their wake.
By the time they reached the staircase, most of the hallway had been engulfed by fire.
They ran down the stairs, the fire alarm blaring to life above them. He glanced back, catching sight of flames licking at the top of the stairs, smoke slowly filling the staircase. It would soon spread to the whole building, as no fire door could ever hold back his flames.
He did accelerate at the sight of the smoke, however. Though the fire couldn't hurt him, the smoke would still choke him and make his eyes water unpleasantly.
They burst out into a small alleyway, under an insistent drizzle. He shot the sky a faintly annoyed glare. He hated the rain.
A rusted SUV swerved to a stop right in front of them, the backdoor sliding open before the car had even stopped. A man with a shaved head and a formless white shirt leaned out, a goofy grin splayed across his lips.
"Your carriage, Milady, Milord," he said, voice rough with disuse.
The duo groaned in unison as they clambered inside the vehicle. It roared to life and sped down the street before they had managed to shut the door.
* * * * *
Her migraine had abated, which was unusual. She had long ago realized that her headaches were due to unnatural causes – namely, the ability suppressor that ran through the whole building, her cell and gauntlets included.
It needed to be ramped up quite high to function for as long as it had, which meant that it released a constant, inaudible thrum that caused severe headaches.
The lack of migraine hadn't been what had alerted her to the cessation of the ability suppressor, however. No, what had caught her attention was the sudden disappearance of discomfort around her wrists and hands; how light her extremities had become.
She lifted shaky hands in front of her face, as emaciated as the rest of her body. She looked around her cot but there was no sign of the gauntlets anywhere, which could only mean one thing.
She hoisted herself to her feet, hands facing away from her body, and slowly made her way to the door. She stood in front of it, ears perked. She couldn't hear anything, but then again, her cell was soundproof.
The narrow window was too high up for her to peek through, so she gingerly nudged the door with her shoulder instead. Normally, this was the part where the deafening alarm went off in her cell, warning her not to try anything funny.
Nothing happened.
A sliver of hope wiggled itself in her heart as she stared at the door. Could it be?
She had only ever attempted to escape once, in the very beginning, and had obviously failed, barely reaching the end of a sterile hall. She still bore the scars of the punishment she had received.
Survive. Live. Burn.
She tentatively stretched her hand out, her palm connecting with the cold surface of the door. It crumbled to dust in the blink of an eye.
Light flooded the cell, blinding her temporarily. It took a while for her eyes to get accustomed to the unnatural glare of the neon lights in the hallway.
She took a hesitant step outside, waiting for a group of soldiers to swarm her and drag her to the punishment room. The one with the uncomfortable, metal chair and the restraints. The room with the iron pole that had chains and cuffs hanging from it. The one that had narrow channels running by the walls that lead into small holes in the ground. The room with the dark splatters on the ground that she had realized was blood only once her own was trickling down her back. The place that reeked of urine, sweat, and blood; that smelled like death.
No one was coming. She took a step forward. Then another one. Soon enough, she was hobbling down the corridor, retracing her steps from so many years ago, when she had been brought down here for the first time, never to leave her cell again. Until today.
Her eyes slid over one steel door, then a second one, then a third, all identical to her own and she suddenly came to a stop. She glanced at the doors adorning the walls on either side of her then swiveled around to look back the way she had come.
What if there were others in these cells? She couldn't just leave them to their fate, could she? Her whole being was thrumming with impatience, urging her forward, as far from here as possible.
If they want out, they should escape by themselves. An ugly voiced piped up in the back of her mind. Not like they would stop to free you.
No, they probably wouldn't. Then again, the guards were bound to show up any minute and she could use some support or at least a distraction.
The corridor was narrow enough that when she stretched out both arms, her fingertips managed to graze the doors on either side of it. She continued down the hall in silence, destroying door after door. She sometimes caught sight of a figure huddling at the back of the dark rooms, but never got a good look at any of them.
Most cells were empty, while a putrid smell reached her nose as she opened others. She had no doubt that more than a few had died in their cells, the guards never bothering to drag the corpses away.
She only realized after opening the third foul-smelling one that the cells containing deceased inmates were marked with a painted red X. She proceeded to skip those on her way out.
It only took a couple of minutes to reach the end of the hallway but it felt like hours, her knobbly knees and weakened legs barely keeping her standing.
By the time she reached the elevator, she could hear hesitant shuffling behind her, signaling that the other prisoners were also trying for an escape.
Bypassing the elevator – it was activated by a special key card –, she headed for the white door with a green emergency exit above it. She leaned into it, but only managed to open it halfway before it swung back, almost toppling her. Anger blossoming in her chest, she smacked it with both hands, satisfied when it disintegrated.
A flight of stairs that lead both up and down greeted her, the number -6 painted on the wall to her right. She was on the last floor of cells, as sub-level 7 housed the punishment room.
She clearly remembered standing between two tall guards inside the elevator, the top of her head barely reaching their waist, watching the numbers pass by until they reached -7. There was no lower floor.
She leaned against the chilly handrail, wearily staring up the flight of stairs. She was in for a long walk. Gritting her teeth, she put a dirty foot on the first step.
Survive. Live.