Deception | Sequel

Chapter Six: You're Lost Without Me

And she just promised to make me—with mind control?—be on her side again.

The holes swallow me in an instant and tingles precede a violent shudder that shakes me from my head to my toes. My breaths constrict and my fingers dig into my curls, so tight it almost hurts as much as my chest. It's like I am sliding down a dark, muddy black hole—no, worse, flying away into Deep Space without a tether or life suit.

Everything these past months I've worked for is falling away, crumbling, melting, disintegrating. I don't want to be a Villain again. I don't want to fight for my sanity again. I don't want to be tangled in the past instead of working for the future. I don't want to waste my life here.

I need to get out of here. But how? There's no windows, the tracking chip embedded into my skin is most definitely blanked by now, and I probably don't have access to the net. The task looms above me like the sheer walls of a skyscraper, unyielding and daunting, and the breath in my lungs turns into stone.

My lungs stutter, and for a moment, I can't breathe. It's happening again. I am losing control, my life's outcome slipping through my fingers, a probably inescapable fate spilling out before me, and the Villain label rising to the top. I can't do this again. This can't be happening. It's—I—

Breathe, Elias.

I suck in a breath and scrub my face with the heels of my palms until the dizzying doom spiral fades enough for my head to clear. If I panic, I'll have no chance to get out of here. If I panic, I really will be lost. If I panic, I die.

So don't panic. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. I...can do this. I just need to keep my head about me. My grip is shaky on my control, but it's there, and right now that's what counts.

I could use a hero right now, one part of me mutters. A hero to come in and save the day. Another part of me rolls his eyes but I push in between them. It is the Heroes' job to come rescue kidnapped people, and they will be looking for me. All I need to do is hang on and...try to make myself as findable as possible, which means I need to know where here is and have some sort of access to the outside.

The task skyscraper shrinks and loses its looming qualities. It's still tall, but it's not an impossible height and there's footholds near the bottom. I can do this. Or at least, I can do something.

Taking another deep breath, I pull myself into a sitting position and reach into my pocket. My holopad is still there and amazingly is in one piece, but when I flick it on, I am hit with a blue screen of death. An invisible fist hits my stomach and I wince, dropping the useless device on the cushions beside me. It was a long shot, but still...one hope down the drain.

Rubbing my hands over my face, I force myself to stand and turn on the holoTV. It's fairly standard and I manage to navigate to the online search engine. All social media is blocked except the news. Maybe if I remembered how to hack and code as well as I used to, I could dig around for an IP address (is that even helpful? I barely remember) or something. Even the pre-downloaded games are all offline ones, and any online ones I try to download are blocked.

Another fist punches my gut. That avenue is out of the question, too. Body feeling like a sack of sand, I flop back onto the couch, pressing the heels of my palms into my eyes. I can't access the online world. Alright. Fine. I'll just...have to go off what I can observe. Think, Elias, think!

There's no windows, at least that I've seen. (Maybe I am underground?) The internet is crazy fast and the tech is high-quality, which means there's a lot of energy consumption (don't know how that is useful, but okay). There's an illegal Teleporter out in the open, so this place must be secure and hidden (there's Leapers, too. Did I see a down and an up one or just a down?).