Kyle looks at me, his eyes still red from the endless tears and the anger that comes with dishonesty. I know the pain I see in his eyes is from seeing Kelton hurt and not being able to do anything about it. He mouths words that I can’t make out, maybe they aren’t words. I mouth back words that he can understand, and hopefully he can help me.
“Kelton is alive. We’ll find him. Can you think of any way to get out of here?” I mouth to him. He understands what I’m asking, because he starts glancing around the cell for anything that might be of use. The man forgot to lock Kyle back up, so he roams freely in his cell. He pushes his hands against the walls, trying to find an opening. I start glancing around the small cell. My eyes land on the small security camera across from me, watching my every move.
Someone can probably see me. They must have someone watch over us at all times, I think. Then another thought hits me. If all of the guards are out fighting for complete control over the galaxy, then who did they tell to watch us? They need every soldier they have to help fight the other planets. I wonder, is Kelton watching?
Kyle looks over at me and shrugs. He’s found nothing to help us escape. They’ll have to feed us, unless they plan to have us starve. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case, but they have to have some use for us, right?
Kyle crouches down and breathes on the glass. He writes something fast before his breath fades. It reads: ask guards for food, will they bring it? I nod my head, and he starts talking to the wall. After a minute, he smiles and sits back down next to the post. I had no idea that it was a two-way communication system. They can hear us and respond if they want. I wave my hands to get Kyle’s attention.
“What did they say to you?” I mouth. He starts to mouth something back when we both hear the door at the end of the hallway open. Kyle stands up and braces himself against the wall, like he’s been waiting for this moment his whole life. I realize I have been too when I see who it is that brings us our food.
“Father!” I cry out as he pulls a ring of cards from his belt loop. I shift closer to the glass, hoping my father will see me first but then remember that I’m supposed to be saving Kyle, which means he goes first.
My father finds the right card and inserts it into the slot. Kyle’s cell door opens, and he leaps out, hugging our father. He points over at me, and Kyle releases him. He finds a different card and opens my door. I start to jump up, but my chains pull me back down. My father looks at me and laughs.
After we’ve all shared our hugs and cries of joy, my father leads us down the hall and toward a different room with millions of buttons. He tells us that each one does something different, from opening doors to sending out messages. It takes a lot of restraint not to press any of them, but somehow I refrain.
“So, how did you find us?” I say with a laugh. “I didn’t think anyone would be able to find us or even come.”
“I saw that you both went missing. I heard you jump off the platform. Your scream is much louder than I thought,” he says, holding his ears playfully. “I saw which way you went, so eventually I followed you. I lost you both when you went into that hallway, so I went to the control room and looked at the cameras. I knew neither of you could see me, so I had to find some other way to communicate with you. Eventually, Kyle asked for food, and I knew I found a way to get to you.”
I stare at him in awe for a few moments longer than necessary. He gives me a confused grin and I look away. I glance at a door off to the side of the room that has no windows, only a sturdy, metal handle. He follows my gaze to the door and clears his throat.
“I’ve been trying to open that door since I found it,” he says. “I’ve tried all of the cards, but none of them seem to work. I do want to see what’s behind it, though.” He walks over to the door and tries pulling on the handle, straining his back, but the door doesn’t budge. It’s too thick to hear anything from the other side, so for all we know, there could be a whole room full of guards just waiting for someone to come by.
“Maybe one of these buttons does something,” Kyle suggests. “I mean, it’s worth a shot. There has to be some way to open the door.” He walks over to one of the control panels and presses a button. Nothing happens.
“We have to be careful,” my father says. “We don’t know what will happen if we press the wrong one.” He carefully examines the buttons on the panel before pressing one that’s colored blue. Nothing happens in the room, but I’m guessing that somewhere in the galaxy, something happened. Whether it was good or bad, I do not know.
He presses another one after careful examination, but we only hear a small click. Kyle tries the door, but it doesn’t open. I try to pull open the door we came in, but it stays closed, which means we’re locked in here. I start to scream but remember my father is in here with us; we are not alone anymore.
After a few more tries, with no success, they both give up, but my curiosity gets the better of me, so I keep going. I find a lever, but before I push it down, I think: the Corps would never leave their control room that contains life-or-death buttons and levers unattended. Maybe this isn’t the head control room. Maybe this room has only the unimportant buttons, the real one is somewhere else in this enormous building, and we have locked ourselves in the most unimportant room in the entire building. Who are we saving by sitting here and pushing different buttons? Who are we harming?
I pull the lever and a quiet alarm sounds out in the hall. Eight guards run past the room, guns hoisted in their hands and belts. There are a million things they could be running for, or a million things they think they’re running for, but will never find. They pass by our room without glancing our way, which makes me think that they think it’s something really important, and I want to find out what it is exactly.
Neither of the doors open, and I start to panic. No one else knows that we’re in here, so dying of starvation or dehydration seems likely a chance of death. The walls of the room seem to be getting smaller, but I think it’s just my imagination. Kyle doesn’t move as fast as he used to. My father looks tired and pale. I begin to think none of us will make it out of here alive, that one day someone will come in here and find three piles of bones. The thought makes me shiver, and I push the thought away.
I stand up from my sitting position with renewed energy and start across the room toward one of the control panels. One of these buttons has to do something. Whether it opens a door or sends us food, I don’t care. Hopefully I’m not hurting other people’s lives by pressing random buttons. I stare at my father, who lies still on the floor, sleeping.
I look over to Kyle who sits bug-eyed and stares into space. “You saw Kelton, right? I wasn’t hallucinating when I saw him, was I?” I ask Kyle.
“No,” he says. “Unless I was hallucinating too. I think it was a hologram, some kind of projection, but I didn’t see any light beams. As soon as Rowan ran off with the card, Kelton disappeared. He had something to do with it.”
“Do you think that the hologram was really Kelton, like a projection of him from somewhere else in the building?” I ask nervously.
“I don’t know. We studied some forms of holograms in school, and I remember hearing something about how the projection can be anywhere from seconds to weeks old. That could have been recorded weeks ago, but it also could have been present-day images. Hopefully it’s present day, otherwise he might be…” His voice trails off. He doesn’t have to finish, because I know exactly what he means. If we don’t get out of here and find Kelton, chances are I may never get to see him again.
One of these buttons has to do something important. I’m going to find which one it is, and I’m going to get to Kelton. I repeat these words over and over in my head, trying to believe them. Eventually, we’ve each tried over two thirds of the buttons in total, but still nothing significant.
With every minute that I waste trying to figure out which button will take me to Kelton, the closer he is to death, if he isn’t already dead. But I can’t afford to think like that.
Two guards stop outside of our room. They start talking, quietly, and I have to strain to hear them.
“What was that alarm for? It scared me half to death.”
“Why do you think I know? I’m guessing Commander pulled it, maybe as a drill. He does a lot of things for no reason.”
“Commander’s on the third floor, you idiot. The control room where all of the alarm buttons are is on this floor! Man, you are so dumb. Sometimes I wonder how I got stuck with you as my partner. If Commander didn’t threaten to kill me every time I complained, we would not be partners right now!”
“Well, I’d rather be partners with that kid who left any day! At least he was nice.”
“I’d be a lot nicer if you weren’t so stupid. And anyways, we’ve been over this. Kelton left because he saw a way to escape and took what might have been his only chance.”
“Oh, that’s his name! I always forget! Oh, and by the way, I’m smarter than you think. I know that Kelton is still here. Commander found him and brought him to some room. He also found some other kid who was with him. They never escaped, and I don’t think they ever will. I wonder what happened to that girl he saw. She was really pretty. I can see why Kelton followed her up to that platform.”
“Be quiet, you’ve never even met her. She was probably really mean or snotty, like most females. And people wonder why Commander doesn’t hire girls.”
This makes me mad. I know they’re talking about me. And most people don’t wonder why he never hires girls. He probably thinks they can’t fight as well as boys can, but whatever. They gave me some really useful information: Kelton is still here, most likely alive because “Commander” took him as prisoner, and something tells me he won’t kill him just yet. But something keeps nagging at me. One of the guards mentioned that Commander found someone else with Kelton. Who would that be?
I start pressing all of the buttons with renewed energy. The guards talked about Kelton being kept in a room, and I need to get to him. My father wakes with a start when he sees me pushing all of the buttons. He’s about to reach for my hand to stop, but before he can, the door behind me opens slightly, revealing a small room. I run to it, wanting to see what’s inside.
My heart stops when I realize what—who—is in there. “Kelton!” I scream, adrenaline rushing through me, making me propel toward him. He’s chained to the wall, the shackles tight, making his hands purple. I pull my hardest against them, but they don’t move. I stop trying when I see him wince.
I wrap my arms around his neck, but he doesn’t move. I pull back and examine his face. He’s scratched and bleeding, and one eye is swollen, the purple enveloping his blue-green eyes. He looks almost the same as the hologram did, so I assume the recording was taken recently.
“What happened?” I ask quietly.
“Commander found me,” he says hoarsely. “He knew I was trying to escape, so he brought me to the Torturing Room, on the fifth floor, and tortured me until I was nearly dead. He took me here, hoping I would eventually die. Thanks for finding me.” He gives me a weak smile, trying to show how strong he is, but I know better.
I fight back tears. “Kyle and I saw a projection of you. We knew you were still alive, but we didn’t know for how much longer. I can’t believe they did this to you and then left you to die. How long have you been here?” I ask gently.
“A couple of days. There wasn’t anything you could have done. I kept hoping someone would find me, but I began to lose hope. You don’t know how long it’s been, just sitting here, waiting for death or someone to find me,” he says.
“Kyle and I were trying to find you, but these guys captured us and brought us to the cells,” I explain to him. “This guy named Rowan wanted to trade with us; he said we had something he needed. He was going to give you back to us, but instead he ran off with some card that contained a bunch of codes. He tricked us by showing a projection of you, making us think he was going to trade fairly. I’m so sorry we didn’t get here sooner.”
“Those codes are important,” he says, his tone serious. “They were going to use them to hack into the government’s data systems and take control over the galaxy. That card was the only thing stopping them from full control of the galaxy.”
Kyle clears his throat. “I’m sorry Kelton. I didn’t know what the card contained. This older man gave it to me. He told me he was an undercover agent, disguised as a sanitation worker. He thought I could be trusted with it for some reason.” I realize Kyle is talking about the man who let us out of the golden mirror hallway. That’s what they were talking about that took so long.
“I didn’t expect you to know,” Kelton says. “Let’s just hope something goes wrong with the card.” He looks at me, but I turn away. I can’t look at him, not after what happened to him.
My father moves around both of us and around to the wall opposite us. He uses one of his cards to unlock the shackles from his wrists. His arms fall forward, and he winces when he pulls them close to his chest. My father and Kyle help him stand up and move out of the room. I go first to help keep the door to the control room open but remember that it’s still locked shut. Kelton looks from me to my father and back to me.
“Do you see that pink button over there?” he asks weakly. I nod. “Press it, it’ll unlock the door.” I run over to the button flashing pink, the only one on this control panel, and press it like my life depends on it, which in some ways is true.
The door gives a resounding click, and I pull it open so fast that I think I might break the door handle. I sneak my head into the hall and look to the left and then to the right, to make sure no one will see our escape. Fortunately, the hall is relatively quiet.
Two guards quietly talk at the end of the gray-brown hallway. They don’t notice us, but I recognize them as the two guards who had been talking about Kelton by the mirrored hallway. One of the guards, the smarter of the two, stands with his gun at his side. He’s medium height and rounder than the other guard. His brown, bowl-shaped haircut makes him look like he’s in his forties. The other guard leans against the wall, his gun resting next to his leg. He’s taller, thinner, and younger-looking than the first guard. His dark blonde hair flops over one side of his head, making him look like an older teenager instead of in his twenties or thirties.
The hall is dimly lit, which makes it hard to determine which way they are looking. I can’t risk being out in the open, especially not with Kelton not being able to fully walk. I can tell they’re getting impatient with me, so I turn around and tell them the news.
“There are two guards at the end of the hall. I don’t know if they can see us, so I think we should wait,” I whisper. Kelton slowly hobbles to the doorframe and sticks his head out far enough to see the guards. And just when I think we couldn’t be in a worse position, Kelton yells out to them.
“Hey!” he yells. I pull him back into the room before they can see him, but I’m not fast enough. They come running down the hall, guns positioned to shoot. I almost shout “Run!” to the others, but then I remember that Kelton can barely walk. My first instinct is to hide behind the door and punch them in the face when they get close enough, but something stops me. If these guards catch us, they will most likely bring us to Commander, who will torture us, like he did to Kelton. Kelton should know this, and I’m pretty sure he does. So why did he yell to them?
The words get stuck in my throat. I want to ask him why he wanted to get their attention, but before I can do that, the guards reach the door. I brace for impact, squeezing my eyes shut, only to hear the sounds of laughter.
“Kelton? Is that really you? Man, we’ve missed you!” the tall, skinny guard exclaims.
“It’s good to see you too David. Where have you guys been?” Kelton asks.
“Sipping tea and relaxing,” the shorter guard says sarcastically. “What do you think we’ve been doing?”
I step in the middle of the three of them and hold my hands up, as if to signal that it’s my turn to comment.
“You guys know each other? How?” I ask, bewildered.
“We worked in the same squadron for a few years. They were already here when I joined, so they showed me the basics and the best ways to escape. They’re like older brothers,” Kelton says with a laugh. “Remember? I told you I had been working here for a while.”
“Of course,” I laugh, as if I was the stupid one. “How could I forget? So is that why you got their attention?”
“Yeah,” the shorter guard says. “We said that once Kelton was found and we could break him free, we would stick together. Sorry man, I wish we had come sooner. We couldn’t find you, though. Luckily, these guys did.”
“It’s alright Max. This place is so big, I’m surprised anyone found me at all,” Kelton says. Then he turns toward me. “Thank you.” I blush and turn my head to the ground.
“By the way,” David says, breaking the silence, “did you hear any of our conversation?” He’s looking at me, his light eyes anxious.
“Yeah, pretty much all of it,” I say with a giggle. I look at David. “Thank you.” I wink at him. Now it’s his turn to blush.
Kelton glances at me sideways. “What did he say?”
“Oh, he just mentioned that I was really pretty and he understood why you followed me. Max, on the other hand, didn’t agree,” I say with a mini eye roll. “Still think I’m snobby?” I’m taunting him now.
“Yes,” he fires back. “In fact, you just proved what I already thought. So there.” I start laughing. Everyone else follows in my laughter, except Max, who rolls his eyes. “We’re going to get caught if you don’t keep it down,” he says annoyed. I laugh even harder.
Fortunately, no one hears us, or if they do, they don’t care. David and Max take over carrying Kelton, and I walk in the back with Kyle and my father. Kelton’s talking to Max about something, their tones serious, not at all like what I heard earlier. I freeze when I hear what Max and Kelton are talking about.
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