Spy Mage System

219 Through the Ship, Lone at Night

I looked around as I saw crewmen wander the ship, with shouts and orders bellowing from the air.

“Let’s go men!” they shouted, walking around-carrying boxes as if they had places to be, which was probably true. But I needed to find Nikki and free her. Who knows, he might’ve already made his way towards Nikki.

That was enough to get me moving, as I moved through the ship, but I still was very subtle and sneaky. I crouched behind a box, peeking each second to see any chance of movement I could make.

During one of my quick peeks, I saw hiding in the darkness some stairs that led to a room.

Perfect.

But then a crewman walked in my direction, passing by the box before he stopped–and my heart stopped in unison. He turned and looked in my direction and he began to start walking.

Oh no..oh no.

He walked and walked before he stopped, and my heart began to pump faster, fear coursing through my body and sweat dripping from my face.

This was bad, and I needed to do something. But what? I looked back, and the crewman stood there–as if he was waiting just for me.

.....

It almost felt like he was, and he was just standing there like a hawk–patiently waiting to strike.

But then someone called his name or something, because he walked away as if I wasn’t there anymore, and relief fell over like refreshing water. I got up and made my way towards the stairs, unsure of what to even do.

Where to even go.

Now if I remember, it was right by the building that I just came out of at full speed, and this building was right next to it. Unless it was a live video or something–or maybe an illusion, I’m not sure.

All I know is that it was near the building, unless it was maybe the next room.

I made my way inside of the next section of the building, and closed the door, slamming it shut. I looked to the left and right, not seeing much of anything to be honest, but I heard voices in the distance-or so I thought-that made me uneasy with this area. Where would Nikki be?

Hmm...

I remember it was like a big room, with chains and a lot of things perhaps, but there was no door or window, so this was probably a dead end room, which meant that was a bad sign for me to move on to the next section of this building, because it might mean that there wasn’t any place for me to go but to turn around and return back to where I was before this room.

I turned back around and walked in between two objects as they moved with me in front of it-which seemed odd for them to move that way. But then as I did, I felt the thump–the dislocation of the floor.

Thump-thump. I rubbed the floor slightly as I looked down, noticing a trapdoor beyond my midst. I smiled, reaching down and seizing the handle before toiling to lift it up. I saw stairs that led down to some dark room, pitch black, but I could still make out some things inside that looked like barrels and some crates, but it was hard to tell with my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room-which looked almost like some sort of warehouse.

I strode down, each step echoing louder than the other, until I finally reached the end of the stairs-where a small window allowed some light to seep into the room.

I stopped dead in my tracks. I looked to the side, and I saw another door–an immense one that was twice in proportion to me, which was pretty intimidating to be honest. It looked like it was made from steel bars that were held together with iron and all sorts of other stuff that made up some sort of chain-which would make sense since this room seemed like a storage room of sorts.

I opened it up, walking through the door to see a white sort of cockpit or control room, and then outside was the room that Nikki was chained in. My eyes widened and my heart leapt, seeing her in a cold cell with no windows or light-which was worse than I thought. Her face was pale, and she had this vacant look on her face as her eyes looked past me to nothingness.

“Nikki!” I shouted, with a voice that echoed like a dinosaur, as I stepped into the cell as if I had walked into some sort of tomb or tombstone, or just a graveyard of some sort.

Her head turned towards me as if she saw someone who she recognized; which I’m pretty sure she did. “Connor...” she mumbled as she smiled at me, and I nodded. “It’s me, I’m going to get you out okay?” I said with a smile that was twitching as if it was having a seizure, as I felt my heart sink deep into the pit of my stomach.

She stared at me for a while as I stared at her as well. She stared at me for a long time and she did this as if she saw me as a ghost or something that shouldn’t be there at all; which would make sense with the fact that she had been kidnapped or captured in some sort of science lab that could’ve been built by some mad scientist; and was built by some mad scientist.

I ran back inside of the control room, and a group of red and green buttons filled the table. Which one was for which? I looked around until I found one that said, ‘Open door’ so I pushed it before it said something else and there was a small sound as the door slowly opened, letting me see a ladder that lead downwards towards Nikki.

“How do I release the...” I muttered, hoping to find something–anything that would scream “release chains” at me, but it just seemed like everything was filled with metal and other stuff that made sense as far as being in a room filled with scientific things and equipment.

But then I looked at the back of her chains; and noticed they were a bit loose. And not just that they were loose–but they were completely rusted apart. And with that, an idea made it’s way quickly into my mind. I opened the door quickly and I ran towards the chains, but as I came towards the chains they slowly began to become more enormous than anticipated.

The chains started to snap against each other and they started to grow wider–I turned around in panic as they began to bend into something that resembled an accordion rather than just simple metal chains, as if they were going to collapse in on themselves.

“Uh...Nikki,” I muttered worriedly before looking at her. “Hold on.”

I charged my Perk, slightly afraid that I might shatter my bones by doing this, but it was worth it if it meant I could get Nikki out of there quickly and safely.

The chains began to bend into an accordion before they finally broke apart as if they had been built of rubber rather than metal–as I stood over on of the chains and I thrusted my fist forward. It collided and the chains shattered as they fell down rather quickly onto the ground, revealing Nikki, who was looking at me with shock written all over her face, as if she was just surprised to see me in the first place.

All of a sudden she dropped, and just like that–her face quickly returned to normal and her color seemed to re-arrive, as the blood swiftly circled in her body, and her heart seemed to beat in time with mine for some strange reason–but then her eyes darted over towards the broken chains as she sat there quietly–as if she knew what was coming next.

“Connor!” she shouted as she ran over to me hurriedly and embraced me, without me even being prepared, and I felt her arms around my waist and her hands grabbing my shoulders tightly, before she started to weep in my arms like a little child–and she didn’t seem to care as she let herself cry on me as I held her tightly.

“Are you okay?”I muttered stutteredly, trying not to sound too nervous or anxious while she nodded and hugged me even tighter, before she wiped away a tear and nodded again in response. She pulled herself away from me and stared into my eyes.

“Yeah, we gotta go,” she said as she looked around, as she straightened her shirt. She brushed the dirt and dust off of herself before she wiped away a tear from her cheek, as if she’d just been crying for hours and hours before I’d made my way into the room. “Before guards start checking.”

“Yeah, follow me,” I said, as she began to follow me out of the room, and then we walked quickly as we made our way out of that horrifying room of a jail cell. We went up the stairs before returning to the hall.

“We need to find the rest of them, and move in time to escape with the YMPA,” I said, looking around suspiciously, but also feeling rather confident that we could get away. I saw a door at the end of the hall, which had the number ’13’ scribbled in blue marker on the side of it.

“Maybe this could be it,” Nikki said as she looked at me and I nodded in agreement, before she turned the doorknob and opened it slowly, before we could see that it was just another storage room filled with crates and barrels-nothing else. I sighed as I looked at it, then quickly turned over to Nikki who sighed in response.

“Let’s keep going,” I muttered to myself as I tried to put myself together before we began walking down the hallway again. I could hear the shouts of crewman just moving through the ship, quickly trying to rush to their destination. The YMPA boats were probably already catching up, ready to promptly make our escape, before the guards even knew what had happened.

We walked for hours-or minutes-depending on how one looked at it; it may have been minutes being that we only went through one section of the hall, but it felt like hours as we made our way through several doors that had numbers scribbled on them: ’12’, ‘2’, ‘7’-and so on and so forth until I finally reached a door that had the number ‘2’ written on it as well as a number ‘5’ underneath it. I opened it up quickly and peered inside-but found nothing more than more rooms filled with supplies or other stuff.

“Dang it!” Nikki muttered, as she looked around and shook her head, before turning back around to me with an annoyed expression on her face as if she was about to punch me. “I told you we need to hurry up.”

I nodded and smiled at her, feeling relieved that I hadn’t missed them yet. “We’ll find them!” I said reassuringly as she glared at me. “I hope so,” I added with a bit a worry as a side, feeling as if I could be in for quite the challenge if we weren’t able to find the others any time soon.