It was pitch black inside to the point where they couldn’t even see their hand, but they could tell that the room they were in was pretty big, as there was a slight draft circulating the room. The ground was weirdly soft, almost squishy.

  “What did you program it to?” Ralphie felt around on the wall for a light switch.

  “I must have routed us to Project Commedia by mistake,” Leon said.

  The wall must have been made of concrete; it was rough and chalky. Eventually, his hand slipped on a smooth, warm surface. It was some kind of electrical panel that was emitting heat. He felt around further until his hand came in contact with a tangle of wires. “Leon, I found something here,” Ralphie looked over into the darkness in an attempt to see him.

  “Leon?” Ralphie asked again

  “Huh, oh, ya one second.” A loud screeching sound of metal echoed around the room, followed by a buzzing noise. The lights began to flicker on. Leon was holding on to a large lever.

  “Kinda obnoxious for just the lights, don’t you think?” Leon grinned before looking around. The room was massive; it looked like the inside of a stadium. In the middle sat four tall monoliths, standing about 15 feet tall. There were circles of grass planted around the feet of the monoliths and a picket fence circling the outer edge of the grass. The monoliths appeared at a distance to be made out of some kind of reflective glass. On top of the monoliths were a series of giant cables that were connected to the ceiling about 30 feet from the ground. They were standing in mud that was stuck to their feet.

  “What the fuck is this?” Leon looked around over at Ralphie; his hand was over a giant white marble square with wires coming out of the sides that ran up towards the ceiling. At the top of the ceiling was a small hole through which all of the cords ran. There was a slight humming noise that was coming from each monolith.

  “Come on, we need a closer look,” Ralphie said as he began to walk towards the giant monoliths. It was eerily cold inside. As they got closer, they realized that what they were looking at were people hanging up inside of each of the monoliths. They were suspended inside of each of the monoliths a couple of feet above the ground. They were being held up by wires digging into the tips of their fingers and knuckles. Wires were strung and wrapped around their bodies, connected to the back of their spines. It looked like they were immensely tangled as a lot of the wires ran loose around their chests.

  “Holy crap,” Ralphie said in a tone that resembled shock and confusion.

  Leon stared intently at the bodies; they were each wearing what appeared to be white pants, and their faces were covered.

  Leon pointed up at the monolith closest to him, “Look, they're alive.” The chests of each of the bodies rose and fell perfectly in sync. Ralphie took a step over the picket fence, peering up at the body that lay in front of him. Each one of them had a patch of a different flag on the upper right side of their chests. The first flag was a green, white, and red flag with a triangle in the center, and the blue and white flag with a moon in the center. They didn’t recognize either flag.

  “What do you think they're doing with them?” Ralphie asked.

  “I’m not sure, but look at their necks,” Leon responded. The necks of the figures were chalk white and unusually pale, but their feet were bright as tometos. Ralphie got close to the glass to the point where his breath fogged the side.

  There was an abrupt sound of a screeching siren that echoed around the room. The wires began to slowly move upwards towards the top of the ceiling, pulling taut against the bodies, squeezing them tightly. The giant monoliths rose a couple of feet above the ground, and each one of the bodies inside bounced around as they moved. The wires connected to the top of the monoliths began to slide around the sides of the giant structure as they began to rotate the body, sliding around, tugging, and pulling against the various wires connected to them. Their skin seemed to almost stretch without breaking, like it was made out of plastic. The bodies inside were completely flipped around to the point where their heads were pointing down toward the ground, while their feet were suspended up in the air, being held up by.

  Ralphie and Leon backed away from the giant structures as the rest of the wires that were holding up the body released, falling loose around the different bodies.

  They stared intently as they watched the redness from the feet of the man in front of them slowly fade away like it was moving through molasses. As the blood began to move down their necks, returning their coloring before it disappeared behind their masks. After a couple of seconds, the man suspended in front of them let out a loud gasp, followed by multiple other gasps as other people trapped in their suspension began to wake up. The man in front of them began writhing around, but the wires, pulled against him, prevented him from swinging.

  Ralphie jumped back, but Leon remained still before looking back at Ralphie, “We have to help him.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? How?” Ralphie looked nervous at the figure in front of him, writing in pain.

  “I think the marble square might be a control panel," Leon said, hopping over the fence.

  There were whirling and twirling noises as Leon held his hand against the control panel. Part of the monolith made a loud cracking noise. Leon yelled out, “I can’t do anything.”

  “What the fuck do you want me to do?” Ralphie shouted

  Leon yelled back, “Try and break the glass.”

  Ralphie took his shoulder, aiming it towards the glass as he slammed his shoulder against it. It shook the bottom of the monolith, creating a loud creaking noise. The top of the monolith began to shift slowly, tilting out towards the floor. Ralphie kept pressing his shoulder into the glass as hard as he could. The bottom of the glass against Ralphie's shoulder screeched as the glass cracked. The man inside was still writhing against his bonds.

  “Ralphie, move!” Leon charged forward, slamming into the glass as it shattered into pieces as fine as dust. Ralphie's body fell to the floor, his head smacking into the bottom corner of the monolith. Blood started pouring down his temples from where he had been hit. The entire room suddenly became covered in alternating blue and red lights. A loud roaring synth could be heard shaking the room. Leon's head was vibrating, and his vision briefly faded to black. His vision was filled with dark spots dancing around.

  Leon stumbled as fast as he could to his feet. Ralphie was lying there, the blood beginning to pool around his head. He lay there gulping in the air, his hands reaching out, feeling the ground shaking ever so slightly. Leon ran up to him, shouting out so he could be heard, “You ok?”

  Ralphie nodded, attempting to use his elbow to wipe away the blood in his eyes. “Flesh wound, it's just making it hard to see.

  Leon looked up at the man pulling against his wires. “I'm gonna grab him.” Ralphie gave him a shaky thumbs-up while he attempted to get to his feet, concussed.

  Leon hopped up to where the man was bound. It was hard for him to see with the lights blaring in his face. Leon put his hand on the man's shoulder, causing him to freeze in fear. Leon then reached over, tearing the cloth from the man's face, revealing a young man with his head shaved. The man looked at Leon with curiosity in his eyes.

  In an attempt to free him, Leon reached up, grabbing the wires surrounding the man. They were soft and extremely stretchy. Leon pulled on them, lowering the man till he lay face down. Leon grabbed them all, pulling them taut before he took out a knife, cutting into them. There was a brief crackle as the wires fell to the ground. The man stood up, and he was about a foot taller than Leon.

  Leon shook the man, “Are you ok. Hello.” The man didn’t say a word to Leon; he just kept looking at him. “Do you have a name?” Leon shouted? The man didn’t say a word. “Ralphie, I don’t think he can talk.”

  Ralphie pulled himself up, blinking rapidly as he cleared the last bit of blood out of his eyes. “We've got to go now.”

  “What about the rest of them?” Leon called out.

  Ralphie looked at him in disbelief, “Do you not see these lights? We need to go.” Ralphie looked over at the man they had just rescued, “He needs help.” The man sat standing straight up, his eyes fluttering rapidly as he tried to adjust to the light.

  “Crap, alright, Baldy, let's get you out of here,” Leon said, wrapping his arm around Baldy. “Come here and help me.” They wrapped their arms around the man. The three of them slowly made their way to the exit. Ralphie opened the door. The bright lights were on throughout the building. A couple of voices could be heard down the hall.

  “Where are they?” one man yelled in the distance. “I heard something down this way,” another man yelled.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Ralphie muttered under his breath. He looked up, noticing that the corners of the hallways were lit up with the red and blue colors faintly seen against the bright lights. They took a turn to the right. Leon looked over his shoulder, “The defenses are turned off, that's why the lights are back on. We just need to find a way out of here. Follow me,” Leon ran, weaving around each corner with a certain amount of feverish speed. The Minds dictated where he went until he reached a large open room ahead. He felt an intense amount of fear in every direction forward. Around the corner were blues; they each carried long, slender guns, the same weapons that they had seen in the office.

  Leon froze in his steps, “Not this way, Leon looked back at Ralphie and Baldy. They were both in bad shape. One of the Blues shouted something before raising the gun that he was holding up and squeezing the trigger. It let out a faint noise like two pieces of sandpaper running against one another.

  There was a loud thud towards the end of the hallway, followed by a man shouting, “Now!” One of the Blues muttered something before a loud bang was followed by several gunshots. The Blues ran off in a different direction.

  “What happened?” Ralphie asked panting.

  “I don’t know, they don’t seem to be after us, but let's continue,” Leon said, peering down the hallway. Leon got a strange sensation; he looked in the direction of the commotion. There was a body lying on the floor, motionless.

  “What the hell,” Ralphie said as Baldy pushed off of him, running towards the body.

  “Crap,” Leon and Ralphie said in unison.

  Baldy stopped to stand over the body. As Ralphie and Leon got closer, they realized that it was a woman dressed in black.

  “It's one of the people I saw earlier. One of the silent people.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Leon looked over, puzzled, “She’s still breathing. I heard gunshots, but there was no blood on her.”

  “Maybe they missed,” Ralphie reached down, shaking the woman by the shoulder. “Hey, are you ok?” The woman didn’t move. Ralphie looked at Leon, “Maybe they knocked her out. Hey, Baldy, what's going on here?”

  Leon grabbed him, pulling him away, “Ralphie, hide.”

  A voice came from down the hall, “Get every Blue an SPD-5 so we can repurpose as many of them as we can. Every Blue that we have at our disposal needs to be here now. Find where they set charges and remove as many of them as possible. Also, someone check on the design chamber.” Chuck Thorne's voice echoed down the hall. Baldy jumped back away from the body, fearful of Chuck Thorne's voice.

  Ralphie waved at Baldy to follow them. “Come on, Baldy, over here.” He whispered urgently, but Baldy didn’t budge.

  Chuck Thorne's voice boomed down the hall, “There’s Isa, we need to contain him. Isa, come here.” So Baldy does have a name, Leon thought to himself. Several footsteps were approaching. Isa was frozen in fear.

  A large explosion erupted from somewhere. The loud bang was followed by the shattering of glass. Everything was engulfed in flames, ash, and debris. Leon and Ralphie lay on the floor, stunned. The entire section of the building had collapsed, their ears ringing out. Ralphie heard several muffled pops of gunshots as men with guns ran past them. Some of the men got knocked back, falling to the ground motionless.

  Once the men passed, Leon crawled to his knees, coughing to get the ash out of his lungs.

  “Leon, we are in a bad spot,” Ralphie yelled, getting to his feet. He grabbed a gun from one of the motionless men.

  “What do you think is going on with these guys?” He kicked one of the Blacks who was lying on the ground.

  Leon looked amongst the rubble, “They're probably sedated, so that they can question them. I see Baldy, he's over there.” Leon walked over, sifting through the rubble.

  Ralphie heard a quiet gurgling noise amongst the rubble, “There someone over here also. You get Baldy, I'll help this guy.” Ralphie began digging through the wreckage.

  “Help,” Chuck Thorne's voice squeaked out underneath the rubble.

  “Shit,” Ralphie said, I couldn't let Chuck Thorne die. A hand popped out of the rubble in front of Ralphie's face.

  “I got Baldy,” Leon shouted as they hobbled over to Ralphie.

  Ralphie pulled piece after piece off of Chuck Thorne. “Come help me,” Ralphie pleaded.

  Together, they pulled off the last pieces of Chuck Thorne. He coughed aggressively before spitting out blood, “Why are you here?” Chuck Thorne shouted, his voice strangled. “Are you with them?” he shouted. “Are you with them?” he shouted again.

  Leon held the gun tight to his chest, “With who? The Blacks?”

  Chuck Thorne stared at Leon, perplexed, “The Blacks? What do you mean by the Blacks?

  “The people dressed in Black,” Ralphie said. Another explosion went off, but much farther away this time.

  “You mean the Spades?” Chuck Thorne questioned, “Are you with them?”

  Leon shook his head, “No, we're not. We're just looking for answers."

  Chuck Thorne was in disbelief; he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Idiots, fucking idiots, you're in the middle of a Spades raid, it's a miracle they haven’t shot you. Not to mention you have Isa with you.”

  “Who is he?” Leon demanded, nudging his gun at Chuck Thorne. “Don’t bullshit me, I’ll know.”

  Ralphie tightened his grip on his gun as loud gunshots rang out. “Leon, what are you doing?”

  “That girl put you up to this, didn’t she. What was her name, Lily?” Chuck Thorne grimaced.

  “I know why you put me in that academy. It was to develop me into one of your soldiers, one of your puppets.”

  Chuck Thorne smiled, “Oh, you have no idea what you are talking about, do you. Just the other day, you were talking about all the good you could do with CelTec. Have you given up so soon? That academy puts you in the real world in all its glory, and you run. You're one of us now, Integrated.

  Ralphie held up his gun, pointing it at Chuck Thorne, “You're going to get the three of us out of here.”

  Chuck Thorne snarled, “Not you too, after everything I’ve done for your family.” He looked up into Ralphie's eyes. Ralphie didn’t budge. “Fine, I can take the two of you, but I will not take Isa.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that's our property,” Chuck Thorne yelled out, strangling his voice as it echoed.

  Leon fired his gun into Chuck Thorne's shoulder. He cried out in pain, the bullet blowing a hole clean through.

  Voices could be heard in the distance, rapidly approaching

  “Fuck, Leon, why did you do that?” Ralphie grabbed onto Chuck Thorne, pulling him to his feet.

  Leon didn’t budge. “He's going to lead us out of here. Show us the way,” he said to Chuck Thorne. Leon put an arm around Baldy as they left.

  “Go this way.” Chuck Thorne said, panting, another person was lying on the ground, motionless but breathing.

  “What's wrong with them?” Ralphie asked, pointing at the man.

  “Their minds are gone.” Chuck Thorne said, his hand gripping his shoulder.

  “How much longer?” Leon said, looking intently at Chuck Thorne as he led them through the labyrinth.

  “I guess we're lucky they're all preoccupied.” Chuck Thorne was breathing deeply; he had lost a lot of blood.

  A man's voice could be heard yelling in the distance. They followed Chuck Thorne. The further they went, the more fighting and chaos they heard. A Spade jumped out from one of the rooms, his gun poised at Leon. Chuck Thorne grabbed the mindsweeper that was attached to his leg. It was a long silver weapon. The weapon made a ratchet sandpaper noise as it was shot. It shot pellets at the Spade; the Spade fell to the floor motionless.

  “How long have you had that?” Ralphie said, taking the weapon from Chuck Thorne.

  Chuck Thorne looked over at Ralphie, “See how I don’t kill them. We're almost there, but as we go through these last couple of hallways, you have to keep moving, don't linger on anything.” They turned the corner to see almost a dozen Spades lying on the floor, each one lying there motionless, some of them with their eyes wide open, slowly breathing. There were also a couple of Blues littered with bullet holes.

  “Keep going.” Chuck Thorne shouted. Ralphie looked forward and noticed that the way they were heading was a dead end. “We're stuck, there's nowhere to go.”

  But when they reached the end of the hall, Chuck Thorne pressed his palm against the wall, releasing a tension as the outline of a door popped out. No bigger than shoulder width. Chuck Thorne took a step through the door, “In here,” he yelled back to them.

  All three of them followed him inside, closing the door behind them. They were standing on a very narrow steel grate. Underneath them, they could feel a cold, steady stream of air coming from somewhere deep below. Sets of red lights lined the ceiling, and the walls were made of hardened stone. They could feel the strong pull of something underneath them.

  “Who is Isa, and why can’t he talk?” Ralphie tried to peer around Chuck Thornes's shoulder in an attempt to see his face.

  Chuck Thorne hesitated for a second, “He should be able to talk at this point. We don’t know why he isn’t.” Isa was sweating quite profusely. Chuck Thorne muttered something at Isa that Ralphie couldn’t make out. Isa shook his head solemnly.

  “Did you create him? Is he a clone of someone?” Ralphie asked

  Steam began to slowly rise from the floor. “No, we didn't create him. We can’t create life, only manipulate it. He’s someone we are working on.”

  “So it's true,” Leon said, who was carrying up the back of the line behind Isa.

  “What did that gun do to that man?”

  “It's called a mindsweeper,” Chuck Thorne replied. “It shoots particles that, when they penetrate the skin, rapidly make their way to the brain. Essentially erasing them.”

  “So they're brain-dead?” Leon asked.

  “Yes, we're almost here.” There was the slight outline of a door ahead, with light peeking around the corners.

  “I don’t understand how that is any better than killing them with a gun. Why keep them alive if their brains don’t work?” asked Ralphie. Chuck Thorne seemed to be telling the truth.

  Chuck Thorne hesitated, looking back, he had a stern look on his face. Chuck Thorne’s eyes gazed over Isa.

  “The design chamber, it's where we build new Minds for them so that they can serve CelTec. That's where Isa was; that's why he can’t go with you.”

  “He is coming with us,” Leon said as he pressed the tip of the gun into Chuck Thorne.

  Chuck Thorne calmly kept walking forward, “If you do this, it will end in chaos. The public isn’t ready for the puppets yet. They won’t see their value.

  “I don’t care,” Leo hissed. They reached the end as they opened the door, and they were blinded by a flood of light.

  Ralphie squinted, “How long were we in there?”

  Chuck Thorne ignored his question. There was a banged-up car that had no license plate. It was a light blue with the paint peeling off one side. The tires on the car must have been new because they were about the only thing that was shiny on the car.

  Chuck Thorne threw a set of car keys over to Ralphie and pointed to a dirt road about a half mile away. “That road will take you out of here. Once Isa is out there, they will come for you. They will come for your reporter.” Chuck Thorne looked at them, “I will come for you. I suggest you run as far away as you can.” He looked sad, “Ralphie, I tried to protect you for as long as I could. I’m sorry it came to this. I suggest you hide well. You will not be able to weather this storm. Now go.” Chuck Thorne turned his back around and, without so much as a wave, went back inside

  “What do we do about that?” Ralphie exclaimed.

  “I don’t know, let him go. He knew about Lily?” Leon said in shock. Isa began to point urgently towards the car.

  “Baldy here is right, we need to get out of here.”

  The road that they took was full of bumps; there was nothing for miles. It didn’t look anything like where they had come. A completely different section of the Celtec building. It was full of dirt and sand, and every once in a while, they would see a shrub pass by. They drove for what felt like an hour before the scenery started to change with water and vegetation. It felt like another hour before they saw their first tree. They were too tired to question why they had been driving so long, and the silence was nice. With no clock in the car, they had no idea how long it had been.

  When they finally hit the road, they were almost a hundred miles away from home. Leo's phone rang. It was a voicemail from Lily. Ralphie wondered why she had called, but it soon became apparent that Leon had told her about their plan.

  Leon put her on speaker, her voice ringing out clearly, “I’m afraid I didn’t get a good chance to introduce you to The Spades. We have a better chance at fighting CelTec as an organization than we do alone. Leon, I already know you want to join. We could use your help, Ralphie.” The message ended. When Leon looked at Ralphie, he could see Ralphies unease to join the Spades.

  They opted to stop at the first restaurant that they saw

  “Do you still have the Melt?” Leo asked

  Ralphie nodded, sneaking Leo a peek at the solid block in his bag. “What does it do?”

  “I’m not sure, Petey once told me it was extremely rare. Apparently, it gives the user wild insights. It might be useful for us. They grabbed their food wrapped in cheap paper.

  “You know what, I figured it out,” Ralphie said with a burger in his hand.”

  “What did you figure out?” Leon said, stuffing his mouth with food.

  Ralphie took a massive bite of his burger. “I figured out the solution to all of this is food. If everyone had the opportunity to eat this burger after being this hungry, then no one would have any problems. I sure don’t right now.”

  “I agree. I wish everyone could feel the joy I feel right now.”

  “Everyone would have to be as hungry as we are, though.” Ralphie said, still munching, “I guess if I wasn't hungry, I wouldn't feel the same.”

  “Hey, Ralphie.”

  “Ya,” Ralphie responded, finishing the last couple of bites.

  “Do you think that Chuck Thorne was threatening us or helping us?”

  “Threatening,” Ralphie dried his hands with a napkin. “All I know is that we have to get Isa here to Lily.”