Chapter 12: “Runaway”
“Sir, we might have a problem,” said a Kreon scientist hesitantly.
“What is it?” asked the Kreon in charge.
“I-I can’t find them.”
“Who?”
“The-the humans. They’ve vanished…”
“What?!”
The Kreon in charge shoved the scientist away from the monitor and pressed a few buttons on the keyboard. After a few minutes, he slammed his fist onto the keyboard in frustration.
“Send a search party! NOW!”
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The escape was so easy; I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it myself. According to Alex, we needed a passkey that would open the main gate and lead us out. To obtain that, we had to hide ourselves so that the Kreons would panic and send a search party, and all we had to do was knock one of them out and get the passkey.
Amazingly, it worked.
No sooner had we hid ourselves in the willows (for there were no cameras there) that a Kreon search party started searching for us.
It took the combined effort of Alex, Leon and Natoe to pin one Kreon down and knock him out. Alex searched its body and found a black, square-shaped object, which he said, was the passkey.
We reached towards the main gate where Alex slipped the passkey into a hidden slot. Slowly, the gates opened and we let ourselves out.
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An eerie and deathly silence greeted us as we stepped into a brightly lit hallway. The light almost blinded me and as my eyes slowly adjusted to the brightness, I observed my surroundings. The walls were white while the floor was a light shade of blue. Long fluorescent lights lined the wall but other than these, the walls were bare. The hallway was long and wide and there were no other doors in sight.
“Where are we?” whispered Wanda.
“Somewhere in Kreon Manor,” answered Alex.
“Kreon Manor?”
“The Kreon family that bought us,” said Alex, “this is their house and we were being studied by their scientists in their simulated world.”
“How big is this place?” asked Leon.
“I don’t know and I don’t want to find out…Let’s go,” said Alex.
Alex started walking determinedly towards the right side of the hallway. I took one last glance at the door through which we came. On it, written in bold Krel, which I could read, was Project Trinity.
I was amazed at how I spent a whole year of my life in a fake world. Now, as I was leaving this place forever, I hoped that the saying, Ignorance is bliss doesn’t come true for me. I hoped that I was making the right decision.
The hallway never seemed to end. It went on and on and Alex seemed to know this place like the back of his hand.
“How do you know we’re going the right way?” asked Wanda.
“Because I was here before, and so were all of you.”
“What?” exclaimed everyone in surprise.
“Your memories were erased and while they tried to erase mine, they couldn’t,” answered Alex.
“Why?” asked Wanda.
“I was prepared.”
Alex said no more as we approached a large metal doorway.
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“Have they found the humans yet?” asked the Kreon in charge, pacing impatiently.
“Yes and no, sir,” answered a scientist.
“What do you mean yes and no? Give me a—”
“They found a soldier knocked out, sir, with the passkey missing. Which means that they’re somewhere in the facility,” interrupted the scientist.
“Well? What’re you waiting for? Go get them!”
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On opening the large, metal doors, we found ourselves in as enormous metallic room.
I said metallic because everything in here was made of metals. From the walls and floors to the doors and windows, everything. Here again some of the walls were bare but some had computer screens attached to them. On the far side of the room was another huge doorway and to our right was a glass staircase.
“Kreons have a strange fascination towards metals,” commented Leon.
“And very bad taste,” added Wanda.
“What’d you expect? Chintz armchairs and cozy fireplaces? Com’on lets not loiter,” mumbled Alex grimly.
“No need to be rude,” muttered Wanda under her breath as Alex set off towards the glass staircase.
Wanda looked at me for an explanation of Alex’s behavior but I shrugged my shoulders. He had been acting this way ever since we stepped out of the fake world. Perhaps the tension was getting to him.
As we ascended the stairs, Natoe, pointing to the large metal doorway on the other side of the room, asked Alex, “Where does that door lead to?”
“The Entrance.”
“Then why are we going upstairs to God knows where?” exclaimed Wanda in frustration.
“Because,” said Alex, clearly annoyed for he stopped walking, “there are Kreons guarding the entrance and we need to find another way.”
I thought I sensed a bit of uncertainty in Alex’s voice and asked him softly so that the others wouldn’t hear us, “Do you know another way?”
Alex hesitated to answer, but looking at my eyes, he said, “No.”
Unfortunately, Wanda heard us and, being the worrywart that she is, she exclaimed, “Then what’re we gonna do? Pretend to be explorers until the Kreons find us and kill us?”
“I DON’T KNOW!” shouted Alex as he jerked around, “Now, if you have a better idea, then be my guest and go ahead!”
Nobody moved. They were nonplussed by Alex’s behavior. He was never this tensed or angry. I searched his eyes for an explanation but what I saw sent a chill down my spine. Fear. Alex was scared out of his wits.
“I-I’m sorry,” he apologized to everyone, “I thought I knew what I was doing…I—”
An alarm reverberated around the room. A shrilly Kreon voice spoke in Krel, “The humans have escaped. All units, search the area. Subject Trinity should not be harmed.”
Everyone looked at Alex in confusion who looked at me and asked, “Trinity, what did they say?”
“They know that we escaped.”
“Wait, Trinity knows Krel?!” asked Haley.
“No time for explanations. Let’s move people!” commanded Alex and he ran up the stairs.
We raced up the stairs and ran through a doorway that led us to a hallway lined with more metal doors. Alex swore loudly.
“Okay, let’s split up and see what each door leads to.”
“What’re we looking for?”
“A back door or anything that leads outside.”
Most of the doors were locked but the ones I opened weren’t that interesting. I explored four doors. One room was cold and dark and I didn’t find the lights so I gave up. In another, I found a room full of bookcases reaching the ceiling but no back door. The other two doors were locked.
Wanda opened a door but quickly came out, blushing furiously but refusing to tell anyone what she saw. Leon came screaming out of a room like a girl. He was so shocked, he didn’t tell anyone what he saw either.
All the doors Haley and Natoe investigated were locked.
Alex impatiently opened door after door only to slam it back shut.
There were twelve doors that we had explored and at last, we reached the end of the hallway, the thirteenth door.
With baited breath, I pushed it open.
