Road to Utopia - NCT

37 - Prisoner

When Jisung woke up, he was tied up on a chair in a dimly lit room, just like in those cliche movies: hands behind his back, legs tied together and an extra rope around his torso and the chair. His back was towards the door so he couldn't see if anyone entered the room. What he could see was a one-way glass that showed his reflection, where someone would certainly see him from behind the glass. Feeling slightly disorientated, he whined quietly and shifted around to see if he could escape.

During this, the door opened, and an audible sigh could be heard. "You know, I was sceptical of letting such an unknown person enter our tight-knit group but after you showed us your resourcefulness during missions, my doubt was cleared. And yet, here we are. You tied up to a chair in our cells and me interrogating you."

"I don't know what happened."

"I'm sure you don't. But in the event that you do and I'm not here, your actions are being recorded and monitored by Kun." Taeyong mentioned as he circled the chair in the middle of the room. "As a routine interrogation, I must ask a few questions. You may choose to answer them truthfully or not at all. Failure to do the first option will result in a punishment. You have 1 minute per answer. Do you understand?"

"Yes..."

"Good. Now, who are you working for?"

"I don't know."

Taeyong paused. "I will assume that's the truth since that was one of the rules. You really don't know?"

Jisung shook his head. "I get episodes where I black out. Whatever I did that angered you must have been back then. What did I do?"

"I'll ask the questions here. But, for your information, you held me at gunpoint, knocked Mark out and contacted Eunhee, that bitch that held you captive when you got kidnapped. She did mention that she had some sort of control over you and that you had too much 'autonomy' for this mission."

"So, I work for the government?"

"All without realising too. The perfect prisoner in their eyes if you ever got compromised. And you apparently have a chip in your brain, something that our scans never picked up. For all of the above reasons, we have to detain you."

~~

"So, you're telling me that Jisung is a government spy?" Doyoung asked.

The remaining members had made it back to the base safely (and Shotaro with an additional two crowbars despite Kun's disapproval). They were quickly shoved towards the meeting room without any rest so they were all tired.

"For the seventh time, yes." Kun sighed. "I know it's hard to believe but we need to accept it and move on."

"He wasn't one by choice, but we can't control when he'll take their side and that's more dangerous than a willing spy. He can't remember his actions either so we can't extract anything from interrogations." Taeyong added. "Do not under any circumstance enter the third underground floor unless I explicitly say so. Mark and Kun will be granted access since they are leaders and Taeil as the head doctor."

"We have a third floor?" Haechan asked.

"We have a lot of things that many of you are unaware of," Taeyong grinned.

"Like the third ice cream machine on the top floor and the stash of plushies with a knife in them that Shotaro owns," Jaehyun said. Everyone turned to him.

"There's a third ice cream machine?" Renjun asked.

"And it works?" Chenle added.

"Yep."

A short second of silence before half of the members rushed out of the room screaming to find the machine. Only the leaders, Taeil, Ten, Jaehyun Chenle and Sungchan stayed.

"Are we just going to ignore the plushies?" Ten muttered under his breath.

"That kid is a mystery to us all," Taeil whispered back.

"Wait a minute. We don't have a third ice cream machine."

Jaehyun smirked. "I know."

~~

A week later, no new knowledge had been gained from Jisung. He seemed to get more agitated as the days passed and Taeyong could guess why.

As Taeyong entered the room today, Jisung kept glancing around and muttered something repeatedly.

"I can't quite hear you, Jisung. What are you saying?"

"They're coming for me. They're coming for me. They're coming for me." Jisung repeated over and over again, each time getting louder.

"Jisung, look at me." He stared at him, getting on eye level. The younger wouldn't and kept struggling against his restraints. "Who is coming for you?"

"They're coming for me. They're coming for me. They're coming for me-"

"WHO?!"

A loud bang (explosion?) came from upstairs. It was faint since they were underground but still very loud. The leader glanced upstairs and back at Jisung, who was spiralling.

"Stay, I'm going to see what's going on." He grabbed his gun from his side and exited quickly.

When he arrived, he could see the front door had been blown open and the living room furniture looked unsalvageable. Yuta and Jaemin were lying on the ground with a few cuts and bruises. He checked his surroundings for enemies and made his way towards them when he was certain that there was no one there.

"What happened?"

"Explosion...Government...Jisung...escape." Yuta managed to choke out before he fell unconscious. The leader took a few seconds before realising what he meant and rushed back down to the holding cell.

When he arrived, he knew it was too late; Jisung had disappeared.

END