Absent Link

Chapter 12: Hindsight

Amelia was fast in taking care of the first guard— and had to be as another five now prepared to fire at her simultaneously. She retreated to the side of the room which held the wall obstructing the guards' view of her and thought hard about where to go from here. She couldn't turn off her powers or they might simply kill her here and now, and she couldn't face them either. Her only option was to escape, but where to? The only open path led to certain death, so she decided to transmit as much strength and durability as she could into a single arm and pummel her fist repeatedly through the heavy metal wall behind her, hoping to break into another room. As she did so, sending fragments of stone and metal flying in every direction and shockwaves pulsing through the room, she quickly realized that she wasn't going to make it anywhere. She was deep underground in the bedrock of the facility.

Just as she turned around to find another way out, a shower of bullets charged at her, crashing into her body and knocking her backward. She spread her durability over her whole body, so the best they immediately did was create deep bruises and perhaps scrape off a layer of skin, but this was nothing new. Her healing ability could take care of this— as long as she didn't get ripped too drastically. As this heavy fire chipped away at her body, her eyes focused on the smashed chair that she had been in earlier. With immense effort, she pushed herself off the wall and took hold of the chair, tearing it off the floor with a loud groan and then the crack of the metal supporting it. As soon as the chair was hers, she launched it at the squad of guards that, by now, had turned most of the front of her body into a pulp.

From the distant camera room, a distraught Morris watched as another five of his best men tumbled over each other to get out of the way of the large flying seat. Its metal sears and ridges caught most of them on the way, only leaving two for Amelia to quickly take out with the fallen gun of the first guard.

"Order a code 8-D from Dylan's sector. We need backup from all defense lines there." Morris did not turn his eyes away from the screen. In it was a bloody Amelia, pulling the jacket off of one of the guards. Her own clothes had been essentially disintegrated in the initial expansion that kickstarted the whole sequence. After a determined glance around the room, she checked the outside hallway for the best way out.

"Yes sir." An employee quickly typed some words into an interface in front of him, sending out the order for the large group stationed in sector seventeen to move out.

As Morris racked his brain for a solution to this problem, he suddenly stopped fidgeting with his fingers. After a few seconds, he almost pulled through a smile; "Wait... how could I forget?" He chuckled.

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By the time that Dylan was confronted by the guards, Amelia had almost made her way out of the area enclosing her fateful room. She hadn't yet let Emon or Dylan know exactly what had happened in the past few minutes, as she herself did not have many answers. Her best guess was that the moss held some sort of pain response, imbedded to defend the host in a situation of extreme danger. She had expected this stunt to be draining of her energy supply, heightened as it may be by her moss abilities, but instead she felt invigorated, more capable, even now that it was long gone.

Dylan, on the other hand, was nowhere near this state. He was back to feeling ill about his decision to save Amelia, his mind focused on Keith. Though he wouldn't say this out loud, he suspected Emon to have somehow controlled him into this position, messed with his rationality. How? He did not know, but this idea was worth exploring. After all, Amelia said that something very similar had happened to her and Layla. As the line of guards in front of him now ordered him to stand down, Dylan wondered whether they were worth getting past for the sake of getting to Amelia.