3-Our Friends

I'm awoken to the feeling of something nudging my arm, half asleep I raise my head slightly and look around the dark room. I'm startled as I see a shadow near my bed and springing wide awake I nervously call out,

"Who are you?!" Squinting my eyes at the shadow in attempt to see clearer my heart rate increases.

"Sshhh, not so loud I'm getting you out of here Ian." The feminine voice whispers while taking a step closer.

I could just barely see shoulder length hair as the figure grew closer. It sounded like Sgt. Yalding but I couldn't really tell. "Yalding, is that you?" I murmur.

"Yes, now be quiet if you want to get outta here." She remarks while pulling something out of her pocket.

"What is that?" I claim wondering if it was a weapon of some sort.

She didn't answer me and whatever it was lit up as I could see her tapping a little screen with her fingers. All of the sudden my wrist and ankle locks released and for the first time since being here I had the freedom of leaving this horribly uncomfortable bed.

Realizing this I quickly sit up swinging my legs off the bed and as my bare feet make contact with cold floor I stand. This is short lived as my legs give out and I fall back onto the bed sighing. "Damn it. What did they do to me?"

"Easy. Hold on a second." She conveys while quickly tapping her fingers a few times on the device in her hand. "I need you stand so I can calibrate the weight differential for the legs."

"I'll try." Wondering what they did to me I pull myself up using the handrails on the side of the bed. Standing with my legs quivering I use my hands as support on it's metal frame.

"Almost done. Okay let go on one. Three. Two. One." She counts down.

As I release my hands from the metal frame my legs stop shaking and I can stand. Not only that. I feel I could run. I could run a marathon right now! Not knowing what to make of it I curiously seek her answer.

"What are these?" Looking down at my legs I rub my hands across my thighs and knees wondering if they feel normal. "They feel so real." I whisper to myself.

"They work. That's all you need to know for now. We have to leave just do what I tell you and I'll answer everything later." She quietly commands me.

"Follow me, and stick close." She tells me as we near the door to my room.

Something about the tone of her voice was off. In a way it didn't sound like her. "Your voice. It sounds-"

Cutting me off she stops, turns around, and presses me. "Do you want to leave here?"

Staring into her distant eyes I sincerely remark. "Yes. I don't like the feeling I get from these guys."

"Why do you think I'm taking you out of here? No more questions until we're out." She orders me while turning back to face the door.

I stay silent as she uses her device on the door by holding it up to the keypad and quickly pressing the touchscreen to unlock it. The door slides up, opens and she peers her head into the hallway to see if we are alone.

"All clear." She conveys. Without even looking back she turns the corner and leaves my room.

As I cross the threshold of the doorway stepping out into the light of the hallway my eyes are struck by it's blinding brightness. Using my hands I block my eyes from the light for a second. It takes a little bit for them to get adjusted and once they are I can see Yalding already a few feet ahead of me.

In a quiet way she impatiently declares. "Lets go Ian."

I follow her down the empty and narrow hallway, passing doors that look just like mine wondering if there were people inside being held and drugged against their will. Not having time to investigate I continue to trace Sgt. Yalding's steps.

The hallway stretches seeming like it will never end. I wonder where everyone is as we haven't seen a single person yet. Ironically a shadow appears around the corner up ahead and knowing that any second a person is to follow I quickly ran up there by Yalding. The stranger appears just as Yalding is pulling what looks to be a syringe gun out of her pocket. Before he has time to react she sticks the needle in his neck and pulling the trigger the stranger immediately fell to the ground dead.

It's weird, I'd seen many people die but this was different. The masked stranger fell straight to the ground like a pile of bricks and that was it. He was instantly dead at the press of that trigger. No convulsing, no twitches, nothing.

She lifts up her hand towards her face. "Code black. Level 5. Patient escape! I repeat, Code black. Level 5. Patient is escaping!" Yalding reports in the device she used to free me from the restraints, "That should buy us some time. Level 5 is one floor under us. The emergency exit station isn't too far." She reveals while advancing ahead through the hall.

An alarm starts blaring as we run through the long corridors. After winding around countless corners we finally reach the end of the hallways and turning the last corner I see the exit station ahead. On the wall is a sign reading, 'Emergency pod exit station.' Sitting on the wall adjacent to the big, red exit door is a Monitor.

Out of breath Yalding runs up and commands the Monitor. "Monitor open door!"

"Security key pass required." The computerized voice remarks.

Sgt. Yalding recites her pass-code instantly. "3-9-Alpha-Echo-7-1"

"Security pass not authorized." The Monitor immediately announces.

Another alarm goes off. "Intruder detected on Level 4. Lock-down of emergency exit station commencing."

"Damn it!" She hollers while tapping the screen of her device wildly as she attempts to over-ride the Monitor's security system. She tries a dozen times to no avail as I hear the echoing of footsteps around the corner, getting louder. She plugs her device into the side of the Monitor and presses a button.

The Monitor's screen turns black and coding appears. Yalding hacks the codes and the exit door slides down, opening. Quickly she unplugs her device and we hurry through the door.

A group of men wearing those black masks and dressed in military uniforms somewhat similar to the one I used to wear turn the corner and take aim at us. Not wanting to get shot Yalding and I jump through the doorway and use the wall as cover while she controls the door making it slam shut.

She plugs her device into the side of the Monitor and fiddles with it for a minute, seemingly causing it to short circuit at the cost of her device as sparks and smoke come from the Monitor's control panel.

"It won't take them long to get through that door. The pods are around the corner." She exclaims.

We run around the corner and I see what must have been 40 small, red, egg-shaped pods lined up in a row against a long wall and another 40 or so lined up on another wall. Above each pod is a narrow tunnel, just wide enough for it to fit through.

I follow her running over to one of the pods as its door swings up and opens. Inside are two white seats and all sorts of controls. We climb in and the pod door swings back down shutting us in it's claustrophobic cabin.

The men turn the corner and taking aim at us they start shooting. The muffled pops of their gunfire cause me to flinch thinking that the bullets will pierce through the pod's glass and hit me. It turns out the glass is bullet resistant because the rounds are just bouncing off. I grow more nervous each second as the men continue advancing on us. If I had a gun I'd be out there blowing away their amateur asses. I wouldn't be hiding behind this pod's window like a sitting duck.

"Strap in!" She shouts while working the controls of the pod.

Just as the men reach us she pulls a red handle and the pod launches, shooting straight up the tunnel. I can't tell how fast we're going but everything is shaking as I look up through the glass. It looks like water is flooding in the open hatch way above.

As we near the end of our ascension through the seemingly never ending tunnel, the pod shoots up through the incoming flood of water pouring in the open exit hatch. The tunnel ends and we are propelled through the water towards the surface.

I assume we are in the middle of the ocean somewhere but I'm not sure. All I know is that we are under a massive body of water.

As I'm peering through the window of our pod I curiously inquire, "Where are we?"

"In the ocean. They're waiting for us up there." She delivers as she points upwards while bringing us closer to the surface.

"Who is?" I wonder. Not knowing who she works with I grow nervous about what could be waiting above. Obviously not Imperium because she just killed one of them while helping me escape their facility.

She quickly claims, "Our friends."

We reach the surface of the water and looking around I see nothing but endless ocean surrounding us. The pod is floating on the water swaying with the flow of the waves.

Not seeing anyone I start to get a bad feeling about all this. "Where are they?" I question her while still looking around.

Before she could reply a huge airship appears before us hovering over the water. It's like it were there the whole time but I just couldn't see it. It must have some advanced cloaking software cause I've never seen anything that big able to fully hide itself like that.

The closest I know of is when I was sent on special assignment by Imperium. Three soldiers of a small unit we were coordinating with had special cloaking outfits. Other than the outlines of their bodies which still were difficult to make out, they were almost fully invisible.

I find it frighteningly incredible how something being as big as that ship is able to fully cloak itself. It's insane how advanced technology is these days. I remember growing up Monitor wasn't even invented yet. Everything was done manually. From; opening doors, to flushing toilets, to turning on lights, to driving cars. Driving a car, huh, I can't even imagine doing that now a days. Manually driven cars are actually illegal through out most of Imperium. I don't remember the last time I even saw one.

My thoughts are interrupted as Sgt. Yalding commands me. "Get ready we're going to board."

In front of us the ship lands in the water roughly and it's waves crash over our pod. A small bay door just big enough to fit through opens, inviting us inside. Yalding navigates our pod through the doorway before it closes locking us inside.