24 The Culprit

"No, it can't be," Victor exclaimed looking surprisingly at Selena.

"Moir, did you really do all those stuff?" he came closer to her, not pulling himself out of the shock.

Selena on the other hand seemed composed and was looking warily around her surroundings.

"Yes, Victor."

"I did all those stuff" Selena gave in calmly.

Victor's eyes widened in shock, he wanted to deny it but she admitted it herself.

He had no other choice but to quickly collect himself.

"You give me no choice then, Moir", he said laden with grief, As he really had no other choice but to do it.

"So, where are you taking me? to the lab?" Selena asked in a mocking tone, completely unafraid of what was awaiting her.

Trust was something that rarely came by, but the most challenging part was to maintain trust in people. Though Victor didn't have any special relationship with Selena, he felt it was not fair that she had hidden something this big from him.

Victor had thought she'd put up a fight at least. She was not the type to go down without a struggle.

The crew were all in disbelief, but some were glad that Selena is going down. They cheered, they smirked, they would've even danced for it if they could.

"Bind her!" Victor ordered the agents.

Four of the big men in futuristic gear clutched Selena's wrists.

One of them even pushed Selena to move ahead, to which she didn't flinch a bit.

Victor gave him a threatening glare.

They reached the basement of the lab, where forgotten people of the town were held captive for research purposes.

Some were good as dead without any movement, like a fish that had frozen in the refrigerator. But, some were beyond human form while some banged on their glass chamber as they walked past.

Surely they thought, locking her up would end everything. Soon they will be sorry.

The four guards let Selena walk inside one of the chambers which were empty besides the lonely camp-bed that centered it.

It had a minimalistic interior with buzzing LEDs.

As the guards stepped outside, Victor sneakily passed Selena something, which she hold onto her palm tightly hiding it from the view of the guards.

She looked at him and he looked away. It was an inside message.

She heard their footsteps fade away, as it was the only sound she could hear other than the faint buzzing of the lights.

She looked at them as their figures finally vanished from her view.

The glass chambers were well sealed so that the noise inside won't be heard outside but the outside noise can be heard well.

Otherwise, it would seem like a real prison with all the subjects screaming and banging in their chambers.

Selena walked around the chamber, she was looking around subtly for a blind spot from the camera.

She stood beside the faucet in the corner, which hid most of her body from the view of the camera.

She looked at the thing that Victor had given her. It was a black tiny box that had RGB lights blinking.

A thin smile spread across her face.

***

Billie had overslept most of the daytime, she felt her legs numb and felt pins and needles as she tried to stretch it out.

She felt an itchy sensation behind her neck, upon reaching it, she stumbled upon something protruding from her neck.

it felt like a tiny square, she nibbled it with her fingernails. Grabbing it by a corner she tore it off of her neck. It felt like hot-waxing but with more intense pain.

She looked at it, but before she could decipher what she was looking at, her phone pinged.

'What? How?'

she had gotten ridden of the network labels, there was no way anyone could text her.

Her anxiety got back all of a sudden, could it be that she was tracked down?

//The passcode//

the message read.

It was from Selena but it was up a day ago.

'What does she mean?' she wondered.

'The passcode?.....what pa---PASSCODE!!!' it dawned onto her finally.

she read the previous messages.

//No one can turn a blind eye to their darK side, May the good Lord save you 1000 times//

She remembered the code to the shield being a combination of four letters and numbers.

"The number must be 1000!" she figured.

She carefully read the message again and found out that certain letters were capitalized on random.

Marking them down she had now a four letters and four numbers.

"NKML1000, it is!" she exclaimed.

"Selena you're a genius!" she gleefully praised her as she furiously packed her bag and unfolded her her bike.

The sun was high up, blinding Billie as she struggled to ride her bike on the snow-covered path.

Everything felt extra beautiful and less annoying all of a sudden, she is gonna flee finally and look for her friends.

Finally, she stood outside the shield, fortunately for her, there were no passer bys at that time. Everything, everyone seemed to have forgotten about her, or she just got lucky.

She hopped off her bike and stood close to the shield.

As her fingers touched the invisible wall, the blue interface lit up demanding a passcode.

She took a deep breath and typed -NKML1000 one by one.

[Access granted]

The shield dissolved in front of her, allowing her the pathway to her freedom, a journey toward her lost friends. All the while, she'd never know what the path ahead held for her.

She was determined and hopeful that this will work out for her and this was not a decision she had made on the rash.

She grabbed her bike and started riding downhill, towards the foot of the Mountain.

"Hang on mates! I'm coming for you!"