mutated

chapter twenty six: no, elliot, you're not michael scofield

"Are you guys out of your chains yet?" I called into the room next to us, before looking around. Everyone was in pairs, except for Lia who was missing, which made sense. She was Mockingbird, and she didn't need to do this drill. A little shuffling was happening inside, and I pressed my ear against the door, trying to hear.

"I've frozen my way out of these stupid chains, but then we can't get the door open. Elliot just turned into steel and hit the chains repeatedly until they broke, since he thought that I would end up freezing his hands as well. Something about not wanting to end up like Cisco?"

"2024 future timeline!" Elliot yelled at her, and I rolled my eyes. Of course, the Flash facts were coming in.

"I don't care! Can you get us out?" I checked the surroundings, but there were no gaps at all. Just a solid metal door. On the edge of it was a panel that needed a keycard or passcode to activate it, but that was it. "Are any of you guys good at hacking?"

"Ryan Lam!" Someone called, and I hurried over to his cell. I looked at the name tag next to his cell and laughed at who he was stuck in there with. Alyssa. Of course. Twiggy and Twiggy.

"Are you guys out of your manacles?" I called, and a loud crash resounded inside.

"Yes! Wait a moment please I'm trying to focus!" Alyssa's voice yelled from inside, and I heard another crash. Something slammed into the door, and another, and then another. Golden light burst through the hinges of the door, and I spun out of the way just as the door gave away and the pair tumbled out. "What do you guys need?"

"I need Ryan Lam," I said, scratching my head. "Sorry, Lyss. Ryan, can you hack into the keypads or something like that?"

"I can try." He mumbled and blundered over to the next door. Martin and... Camellia? He started tapping on the keypad, and I left him to it. Another door slammed open, revealing Sophia and Evan, the former who was grinning smugly.

"First." She smiled triumphantly, before looking at me, and sulked. "Or not."

"Third, actually." I pointed out, and then a loud crack of electricity rung in my ears, and a door opened again. Jay and Charlotte. Both Lottie and Jay's hair were standing on their ends, and I was certain he had accidentally electrocuted themselves as well as the door. "Fourth!"

"I don't care." Muttered Charlotte, who turned to the metal door as a mirror. "Omg, what did you do to my hair, Jay? Wtf!"

"Girl, you gotta stop spelling out and speaking in text language," Lyss complained and pressed a hand on the wall. She frowned, and then tried again. "Our powers don't work out here. They only work in our cells."

"Power dampeners. It'll be real easy to just break out with our powers, but since they're simulating what would happen worst case scena- where are the guards?"

"Here!" A yell erupted from the right of me, and I sprinted in that direction. As I ran over to Alpha's direction, I gradually realized one thing: our cells were in a circle, meaning that the exit had to be on the inner wall. Reaching to a stop as the attackers came into view, I rolled across the ground just as a holographic bullet sailed over my head and buried itself in our door's key panel.

Racing towards the door, I slid between the gap, my legs pressing against the door to stop it from closing, fighting the electric door's need to return to it's original position. Keeping it open with my feet, I used my telekinesis to hurry up and gather everything that I had left inside: some of the cards, my clip-on earrings, my torn up sash with self-repaired as I summoned it (fancy nanotechnology, very helpful) and the laser-lipstick I had used to weld things together.

Sliding out from in between the door and the wall, I focused my sight at the holographic guards, and realized that a few things.

One, those guards were more highly trained than the ones in the simulations who were mostly grunts.