PART SIX..IS THIS DONE YET?

After sharing their stories from their previous experiences with the portals and where they took them and consuming the rest of their food supply, Tara began to lead them out of the bot shelter and up the ladder into the day that was fading away into a beautiful sunset. After they climbed out of the hole and listened to the annoying, metal door shut one last time for them, they exchanged last farewells and a few hugs of gratitude. Tara took off quickly in the opposite direction of the trees that Dane and Violet had found Hana in just a few hours ago. The rest followed, running after Tara as fast as their legs would take them. They jumped over the craters in the ground that the bots had caused and managed to dodge any other obstacle that happened to lie in their path. They arrived at the portal station which seemed to be located in the middle of nowhere just as the one around the farm land had. “I guess this is goodbye. Hurry through the portal and don’t look back. Good luck,” Tara said, giving them a final goodbye as Emma tried to input the portal code for Bington city as quickly as she could without making a mistake. Just as they thought they were safe, the clanging of metal rang out from the sky. The sound began to grow louder, the bot that was making the noise undoubtedly approaching quickly. Tara’s eyes widened and took off back to her shelter after she gave them a final nod.

With the bot in the distance, Emma rushed with the code more than ever, inputting the final numbers with a struggle due to her shaking hands. Nicholas snatched the paper, quickly pressing the final two keys and opening the portal at last. The group rushed through, just missing the bot. Instead of reaching the familiar portal world full of countless white doors that led to locations none of them had even heard of, they were greeted with a dark office building. When they ran to the window to try to identify their location, they all realized that they were somewhere in the middle of Bington’s tallest skyscraper. The sun slowly set, giving the indication that the bots would be out and active any minute. Worry filled their eyes as they began to panic. “What are we going to do?” Claire asked, still peering out the window.

“We’re going to get to the bottom of this building and find that portal station. It should be right outside of this skyscraper if Tara was right. Even if the station doesn’t have the portal code we need, we’ll still need a way to get out of here by midnight,” Emma said. “All we have to do is climb down these floors and get to the bottom in a few hours. That gives us plenty of time to be careful,” she said, trying to boost the morale of the entire group. While everyone else remained unresponsive, Violet jumped onto Emma’s plan.

Violet grinned. “We can do it. If we leave now and stop standing around, we’ll have some extra time saved if we need it. Let’s go,” Violet said, dragging Dane and Ulrich to the door that marked the staircase. Emma took off after her, reminding her to take the stairs on quietly and carefully. Violet nodded, becoming serious once more for the special circumstances. All six of the group members began to creep down the steps as quietly as they could manage. A few times, someone would slip up and miss a step, causing a louder echo to ring out. When that would happen, everyone would freeze in place, listening intently for the clang of metal sound that the bots generally made when they approached. After succeeding in clearing five floors, Violet froze in place, signaling for everyone else to do the same. She closed her eyes, focusing on the faint sound that had managed to catch her attention. It was significantly growing louder as it descended the stairs after them. She turned to the group, her eyes wide with worry. Unable to utter the words out loud, she mouthed the words “There’s a bot,” to the group, sending the same chills down their spines that had traveled down her own when she first heard the metal clang. Emma quickly took charge, directing everyone through the door to floor fifteen and shut the door as quietly as possible. Everyone began to find their own hiding places instantly as soon as the door was shut and capable of shutting out some of the sounds that they were making while trying to remain hidden from view.

Violet, Ulrich, and Dane dashed into a broken broom closet, shutting the damaged doors behind them. Emma spotted a pile of tipped over trash cans. Quickly, she set them up again and set herself down in one, putting the lid on top to cover her head. Nicholas quickly dashed under a desk, pulling a chair in front of him, only partly blocking him from view. Claire stood in the middle of the office type floor, panicking and unable to find a sufficient place to hide. As the clanging grew louder, she dropped to the floor, crawling around until she could find somewhere to hide. Nicholas, watching this display of fear, gestured for Claire to join him, making room for her under the desk. Claire let out a sigh of relief, curling up to Nicholas and pulling the chairs in front of them once more. They held their positions uncomfortably for what felt like an eternity as the clanging became unbearable as the bot descended to their floor. To their relief, the bot continued on its way after stopped for a few seconds at the floor door. When the sound was faded enough away, everyone began to climb out from their hiding spaces, relief washing over them at last.

Emma spoke in a whisper, still taking precautions in case the bot wasn’t out of earshot just yet. “Let’s go to a different staircase and start heading down using that one. I don’t think the bot will be going to the top anytime soon and we need to move now,” she suggested. Everyone agreed, not having any other choice but to follow her out of the room and down the hall to find a staircase labeled Staircase B.

“How many staircases do they have in this building?” Dane asked, unused to being in such a large building that it required more than one staircase.

“They probably have the extras in case of an emergency or for when the building becomes too crowded for everyone to use just the one,” Violet explained to him. Even she was speaking in a whisper. Dane nodded, mouthing the words thank you to her before continuing on with the rest of the group.

Emma poked her head out of the doorway and into the staircase, listening for anymore clangs. After finding the staircase dead silent, she began to lead everyone down the floors once more. She assigned Violet the role of listening for bots since her senses seemed to be the keenest. Another four floors passed them by without a sound from above or below them. As they were nearing the ninth floor, Violet stopped once more, signaling that another bot was descending the staircase. They repeated their previous procedure, rushing into the floor nine rooms and claiming their individual hiding spaces. In this office, there was a closet big enough to hold all six of them, safely keeping them out of sight as the bot passed them by without a clue. After the dreadful sound disappeared to the lower floors, they took off once more down a few hallways to come back to Staircase A. The bot they had changed staircases to avoid was just passing by, causing them all to drop to the floor and freeze. Soon enough, the bot was ascending the floors once more, giving them the opportunity to claim the staircase once more. “We’re running out of time,” Emma whispered as they waited in the room a minute longer to give the bot more time to put distance between them. “If this keeps up, we’ll never make it down in time,” she added, her encouraging attitude disappearing with the bot.

Violet shook her head. “It will be alright,” she said.

Claire smiled, appreciating Violet’s positive attitude at last. “She’s right, Emma. That bot is going to take awhile to reach the top and come back down. By that time, I think we can get to the bottom without anymore distractions unless there are two bots on the stairs at once,” Claire added, smiling at Violet.

“I doubt that there’s two. I think we would have heard the other one. I think it’s far enough away by now though so let’s move out. To the bottom,” Emma pushed forward, continuing down the staircase until they reached the lobby area at last. With no bots in sight, they rushed out the front doors as quickly as they could manage and took off straight for the portal station that was literally right outside just as Tara had explained. Emma darted for the control panel, searching all over for a written list of numbers of any kind. After a while of searching, she turned to everyone, shaking her head in disappointment. “It seems it was just a rumor,” she murmured.

Everyone’s hope dropped, listening for the click of the portal door to show it was unlocked. “At least we know that this portal isn’t Emerson city. Now we can move on and continue like we had originally planned,” Claire said, trying to lift their spirits as Violet had managed back when they first arrived inside the skyscraper. Instead, everyone still looked down at the ground, a mix of frustration and disappointment spreading itself among them. Claire sighed, clenching her fists and trying her best to sound confident even if that wasn’t what she was feeling on the inside. “Stop looking so down,” she demanded. “There is nothing we can do at this point but continue on. Would you rather spend your time brooding or we could step through the portal and try again. Isn’t that what this has been about all along—trial and error? Without trial and error, we wouldn’t have ended up in Shaffer County and learned about Emerson city in the first place,” Claire persisted.

Violet smiled at Claire’s attempt at a pep talk. She stepped to her side, grabbing a hold of her hand. “Claire’s right. We need to stop pouting and move on. If we never learned to move on, we would be stuck in the same rut our entire life,” she said, glancing at Dane as she spoke. “This lead may have been wrong, but it’s not as if this is the end of it. We still have hundreds of doors to try yet.” The door clicked, signaling their opportunity to go and persevere onward. “The door just unlocked. If you’re going to keep feeling sorry for yourselves over this, Claire and I will just go through the portal without you,” she teased.

Everyone else slowly began to smile at their combined words, their hopes slowly being mended and patched back together. “I agree. Let’s go,” Nicholas said, smiling at Claire, impressed by her outspoken and unexpected speech. With everyone on the same page once more, the group stepped through the portal and was greeted with the familiar sight of the white doors, some with tape around the knobs and others untouched.          As Violet weaved between the doors, something about one particular door caught the corner of Claire’s eye. Straying from the group, she approached the door to examine what had caught her eyes in the first place. Above the door knob to this certain white door was a significant scratch in the wood. Claire thought back to days before, remembering a similar scratch in another door they had walked past. As her mind started racing through the possibilities of what it could mean, Violet was already picking a door and stepping through with Dane and Ulrich as Emma taped the door knob. Nicholas turned to find Claire apart from the rest. “Claire, are you ready to go?” he asked.

         Claire turned around, nodding. “I’m ready to go, but it has to be this door,” she said.

         Nicholas looked at her as if she was crazy. “Half our group already went through that one,” he said, pointing at the door Emma was impatiently holding open.

         “It’s too late to get them back, isn’t it?” Claire asked rhetorically. “Look at this door,” she said, leading Nicholas over to the door. “Do you see that scratch in the door? Don’t you think that someone may be marking specific doors for a purpose?” she asked hoping Nicholas would catch on and come to the same conclusion as she had.

         Nicholas slowly nodded his head as he ran his finger over the scratch. “Emma, do you think that the Snake marked his doors so he knew what portals were important for him to go through?” he asked, the same ideas filling his head as well.

         Emma shrugged. “I suppose it’s possible. I would think that he would have the portal code, but there’s a chance that he marks his doors too. What did you find?” she asked, still holding the door open as the others on the other side stood by, confused by the hold up.

         “I found a scratch in the wood of the door. It’s not the first one I’ve seen either. I remember seeing a scratch exactly like this another time we were going through the portals,” Claire explained. “If this is a door the Snake regularly uses, we should check it out.”

         “What about the rest of them?” Emma asked.

         Claire sighed, looking at the door and thinking of Dane. “They all have each other. I’m sure we can meet up again when we come through the portals at midnight. I don’t want to lose this chance, though. Are you guys in?” she asked hopefully.

         Nicholas smirked. “If this means taking that hacker bastard down, I’m all for it. The others will survive without us. What do you say Emma?”

         All eyes were on Emma who was still standing like a statue by the door the rest of the group had gone through. Slowly, a smirk spread across her face. Before they knew it, the door was swinging shut with Emma still inside the portal realm. “Let’s do it,” she said, determination flaring up in her eyes.

         With the three of them in agreement with the plan of action, they set off through the scratched door, leaving no tape to mark their trail this time. The echoing of hallways lined with lockers awaited them on the other side of the portal door. “Is this a school?” Emma asked, feeling a bit of resentment forming in her stomach. “I was never a fan of school,” she added, something already well known to Nicholas. “Why would a hacker come to a school?” she asked, thinking out loud.

         Claire scratched the back of her head, disappointed that her theory had been completely wrong. “I’m sorry. I really thought that we would get a lead of some sort if we went through a scratched door,” she apologized nervously, silently wishing that she had just followed Violet and the others through the door that she had picked.

         Nicholas held up his hand to stop her. “We don’t know that this is a total bust yet, Claire. We might find something if we look around. How about it?” he asked, smiling back at her, putting her worries to rest with the simple but meaningful gesture.

         Emma, taking notice to this exchange of subtle forgiveness, began to walk down one of the school halls. “I’ll go down this hallway if you go two go down the opposite one together. I wouldn’t worry too much about bots since I figure most will be out on the streets, but keep your eyes and ears open regardless. Don’t make a ruckus and attract attention to us either. I’ll meet you back here later,” she said, wandering off by herself in order to give Claire another chance with Nicholas.

         Claire smiled, silently thanking Emma for her willingness to go exploring alone. After watching Emma disappear down the hall, she turned to Nicholas. “Are you ready to go?” she asked, unable to contain the smile that was threatening to cover her face.

         Nicholas nodded, leading them down the deep dark hallway. Faded blue lockers lined both sides of the hallway with the exception of the classroom doors that were randomly placed in between. At first, they began opening every door and doing a thorough check for evidence; however, as they passed each classroom, they began to grow less and less detail oriented and more concerned with talking to each other about other things unrelated to the current task at hand.

         Claire stopped to peer into one of the classroom windows, immediately recognizing the room as being a chemistry room. She opened the door and bounced inside, taking notice to the periodic table posters along with other posters about atoms and molecules. Inside, she leaped from table to table, playing with the beakers that had been abandoned and some even broken into pieces on the floor. “I always hated chemistry class,” she said, sitting down in between two work tables for a rest.

         “I know. You would always complain about it every time we would talk during your grade ten year. I’m not sure why you could never understand the concept of science. It’s simpler than you think,” Nicholas argued playfully as he took a seat next to Claire on the cold floor. He looked straight in her eyes, almost unable to remember why he was cross with her in the first place. “Claire, I want to forgive you so much, but I’m still hurt over what happened,” he added on a more depressing note and managing to tear his eyes away from hers, feeling too ashamed to face her.

         “I understand,” Claire said, leaning her head against his shoulder. “I’m okay with waiting until you’re ready to forgive me even if that means I’ll be waiting around for years. You’re worth it,” she said lovingly.

         “Why am I so important to you?” Nicholas asked curiously.

         Claire looked to the ground this time, embarrassed and unsure of how to answer his question truthfully without setting herself up for immediate rejection. “It’s because…” she trailed off for a moment, swallowing the lump in her throat that she felt forming. “I love you, Nick,” she managed to say, her face growing red from the embarrassment.

         Nicholas sat back a moment, too stunned for words. “I don’t know what to say,” was all he could choke out.

         Claire’s smile faded away, feeling the rejection setting in. “Its fine. I don’t expect you to feel the same way about me,” she said, holding back her tears that were threatening to explode out of her at any moment.

         Nicholas guided Claire’s face so he was looking her right in the eyes once more. “There’s a good reason as to why I don’t know what to say,” Nicholas whispered as he held Claire’s chin with his hand.

         “And why is that?” Claire asked, trying to divert her attention to anything but his face. Before she could ask anything further, Nicholas leaned forward, pressing his lips against hers, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her onto his lap so she could be closer. Claire, surprised at first, froze but soon let Nicholas bring her closer to him. A smile formed on her lips as she wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him back.

         When they finally parted, Nicholas let the huge smile remain on his face for awhile longer. “You know, public displays of affection are against school rules, Miss Lovell,” he teased.

         Claire rolled her eyes. “Well that’s a shame. It looks like they’re going to have to send us both to the principal’s office then, won’t they?” she asked, smiling just as much back.

         “Of course, I would protect you from getting a detention. I’ll take all the blame. For this, I don’t mind,” he joked, leaning in and kissing her once more. When he pulled away, he gazed into her eyes for a moment, trying to form his own sentences. “I can’t stay mad at you, Claire. I care about you too much for that. The truth is, I love you too. Whenever you moved away, I lost my best friend in the entire world. Whenever our communication was cut down and then completely stopped, I was heartbroken. Then, when we started writing letters back and forth, it only made me miss you more than ever. When you showed up at my house to bring me on this portal traveling trip, I never believed my crush would turn into something more, but people can’t control how they feel. Claire, if we can reset the system and get rid of the Snake once and for all, would you like to go on a date with me?” he asked, the ideas already starting to form in his head.

         Claire giggled like a school girl. “I would love to,” she replied, giving Nicholas a hug. Behind them, the chemistry room door opened, revealing Emma looking out of breath and excited. “Emma? Are you alright?” Claire asked, getting off of Nicholas’s lap and walking over to where she was standing and panting.

         Emma nodded her head furiously. “I think I found something,” she said between deep breaths. “Come on, I’ll show you,” she said, taking off back down the hallway in a run, Nicholas and Claire following after her. At the end of the hallway was a single door. Emma reached for the knob and swung open the door to reveal what was inside. At first, the darkness revealed nothing interesting but a collection of desks and chairs like a normal classroom. Then, Emma reached for the light switch, the light flickering to life and revealing an interesting scene. The desks were all pushed together, about ten computers lining the outside of the desks and connected with one source. “What person would need ten computers arranged like this other than a hacker?” she questioned, practically jumping out of her own skin at the reality of their discovery.

         “I think this helps verify the whole scratch in the door theory, Claire,” Nicholas said, unable to contain his excitement for much longer. “What should we do next?” he asked.

         “Let’s check the computers for any kind of information that would help us out,” Emma suggested, taking a seat at the one computer, turning it on and waiting for the others to follow suit. Claire took a seat at the computer beside Emma while Nicholas sat on the other side of the desks. “So, I seemed to have walked in on something pretty interesting back there in the chemistry lab,” she teased, poking Claire’s nose. “So what happened between you two? I’ve been helping out so you at least owe me details,” Emma rambled as she stared at her screen, wondering what new things they could discover about the Snake character. While she was sure the computer was devoid of any information about who he was himself, she still had hope that it had a portal code somewhere stored inside of the computer. Finally, the computer screen opened to the homepage, allowing her to browse through all the files that were unlocked.

         Claire smiled. “Fair enough,” she said rolling her eyes jokingly, turning her own computer on. “He said he couldn’t stay mad at me and said then we kissed,” Claire said, her voice growing quiet whenever she said the word kiss, still embarrassed talking about it.

         Emma grinned. “So it looks like it was the right decision to split up into two groups like that after all. I see how it is, though. While you two were off in your own love fest world confessing your feelings for each other and kissing, I was actually finding something important and relevant to our entire reason for being here,” she added, hoping Claire didn’t take her seriously.

         Claire, too happy over everything that had just occurred in the past hour, just nodded her head in agreement. “Thank you, Emma. You’re amazing,” she complimented, waiting for her computer to load the home screen just as Emma’s had.

         “We will talk about this later. For now, search for documents concerning portal codes or Emerson city,” Emma said to both of the smitten lovers this time. As she pulled open the computer screen, she began searching every folder that she could get her mouse on. Claire and Nicholas followed her example, searching at their own paces for anything that was relevant. After an hour at the computer desk, they all began to groan in irritation.

         “I feel like we’re running around in circles again,” Nicholas grumbled, shutting down his computer, giving up. “If there was something for us to find, we would have found it by now. We should at least take a break,” he persisted.

         “You two can go take a break if you want. I’m not going to give up just yet,” Emma said, not taking her eyes off of her computer screen for a moment.

         Claire looked at Emma, admiring her determination and resolve. “I’ll stay too,” she said; staying by her computer, ready to search more than ever before.

         Emma shook her head. “No, you and Nicholas should go and take a walk around the school. You two can make sure that nothing got in while we’ve been sitting here. Besides, I need some time alone to think,” she muttered, scratching her head furiously. Claire nodded in understanding, following Nicholas out of the room and down the hallway of the uninhabited school.

         “Do you think that she’s finally lost it?” Nicholas asked, concerned for Emma’s well being just as much as Claire was.

         Claire shook her head. “I don’t t think so. I never knew that resetting the system meant so much to her, though. I thought she was just along to get out of Middleton,” Claire added, thinking back to when they had first met at her run down shack.

         “Actually, you should have heard her when I was telling her about the plan. Her life may have been hard before the hack, but now that this country is in absolute chaos, her life has become ten times more difficult to manage. She used to have to worry about supporting her family. Now, she worries constantly about what happened to them, where they were, if they were all okay, and if they were ever coming back for her. If anything, she wants this place safer so her family will come back home to her,” Nicholas explained, wrapping his arm around Claire’s waist.

         Claire leaned into him. “I never realized that it has always been so hard on Emma. I think that everyone thinks their life is one of the hardest, claiming that everyone else doesn’t understand because they haven’t lived it, but in reality, we all have it pretty nice. I hope Emma’s family comes back to the country after this. Why didn’t they take her with anyway?” Claire asked curiously, realizing for the first time in awhile that there was a lot to Emma that she didn’t know. While she may feel like an old friend, she was really someone she had met less than a month ago.

         “They bolted out of the country at the last minute when the conspiracy rumors escalated to an all time high. Apparently, they left her a note at the house, telling her that they were picked up out of nowhere by some relatives that lived out of state and they didn’t have time to retrieve her from Doni’s house which was where she was staying. She actually spent that whole week at Doni’s, none the wiser about what had happened to her parents. When she returned home, she found that the house had been completely empty for days and she hadn’t known anything about it until then,” Nicholas muttered, remembering the devastation that had befallen Emma after that incident.

         “That’s terrible,” Claire whispered, thinking about her own family who had left her as well while she wasn’t home. “This world is just so messed up,” she said, shaking her head, wondering if it was possible to fix everything after all.

         “That’s why someone has to fix it,” Nicholas said, intertwining his fingers with Claire’s, holding onto her hand as if he wasn’t ready to ever let go in case she would disappear when he looked away. “I don’t see or hear anything. Let’s go back to Emma and see if she found anything new,” he said, leading her back down the hallway towards the room that had been used as the hacker’s personal computer lab away from home.

         Emma sat at the computer, tapping her fingers against the desk irritably. “There has to be some purpose to these computers. Why can’t I find it?” she mumbled to herself, feeling her frustration growing with every file she sorted through. “If I were a hacker just leaving my computers around carelessly, where would I hide important files?” she asked, only able to find two possible answers. “Either these computers have had the important information removed from the entire hard drive, or…” she trailed off, a light bulb going off somewhere inside her head. With the new revelation, she shot up, knocking over the chair that she had been sitting in.

         Nicholas and Claire walked through the door, seeing the toppled chair and an overly excited Emma. “What’s going on?” Nicholas asked suspiciously.

         Emma bounced over to Nicholas, dragging him to her computer, sitting the chair back in its original position, and forcing him to sit and listen. “Either the files that we’re looking for aren’t here or they have been hidden in plain sight,” she said, gesturing for Nicholas to begin searching through the documents again. “If anything seems too innocent, open the file for me to see. If we can’t find the information we need from trying this, we can give up and try another portal, but I have a good feeling about this,” she chimed, pointing at the files that stood out to her the most as Nicholas searched through the copious files and folders. As they browsed through the now open documents that Emma had all labeled as suspicious, one in particular caught their eye. Rather than the typical contents of unrecognizable coding, the document contained actual words. Upon further inspection, they realized that what they were looking at was a letter either written by or received from the Snake. “This is amazing,” Emma whispered in awe, slowly reading the letter over. The contents for the most part remained simple, claiming to be asking about information about a school project. Emma read the letter out loud:

Dear Portal Station E workers,

Good afternoon. My name is Louis and my school wants us to experience the portals in a new way. They are asking us to contact people in the career in order to learn about how technology has changed the job market since Dr. Wick’s new inventions surfaced. If it isn’t too much to ask, I would appreciate it if you would send me the portal code of Emerson to me so I may make a presentation on the complexity of portals and how they operate. Please consider this small task and thank you for your time.

-Louis

         “Is that all it says?” Claire asked, trying to sneak a peek at the computer. Emma shook her head, gesturing for Nicholas to scroll down in the letter. “Well, what else does it say?” she asked again.

         “There’s a number code in their response,” Emma said back excitedly, rushing to the teacher’s desk at the back of the room to look for a pen and pencil. In the drawers was crumpled up paper along with one short pencil. Eagerly, Emma grabbed at it, copying down the code as quickly as possible. “Nick, close down all the folders and shut the computers down. Let’s get out of here,” she said, waiting for Nicholas to do as he was told. After the computer successfully shut down at last, they all burst out of the room, taking off down the hallway in search of the school’s exit. “I can’t believe we’re going to make it to Emerson city,” Emma whispered to herself, her expectations of what awaited them increasing with every step they took closer to the portal station.

Once they reached the back exit of the building, they spotted the portal station right nearby. After crossing the street that was free of bots, the three reached the portal, Emma taking the code and inputting it into the keypad. As she struggled to make out the number keys in the dark, the familiar clanging of metal approached. They all turned to each other, eyes widened. “Hurry up and put in the code, Emma,” Nicholas demanded, keeping his eye on the bot. Emma cursed behind him.

“I messed it up,” she growled, her hands shaking too much to focus.

“Clear the code and have Claire enter it then. I’ll keep that bot distracted until you can,” Nicholas demanded, running away from the portal station, leading the bot back towards the school. Claire froze in place, watching as Nicholas ran for his very life.

“Snap out of it, Claire!” Emma growled, grabbing her wrist and pulling her so she stood in front of the keypad. With a new sense of urgency, she thrust the crumbled paper with the code into her hands and pointed at the keypad desperately. “Put in the code,” she ordered, watching after Nicholas as he narrowly escaped the multiple laser attacks that the bot continually aimed at his feet. He jumped around as if he was doing a dance. Claire squinted, pleading with her eyes to adjust to the darkness. When they finally did, she entered the numbers as quickly as she could allow, forcing herself to not watch as Nicholas began to gradually run of energy to dodge and run around.

Claire entered the last few digits of the ten digit code, listening for the distinct unlocking click of the portal door. “Nick, let’s go!” she shouted, waving for him to come back immediately. A relieved smile spread across his face as he changed his direction and made a mad dash back for the portal station. Emma swung open the door, putting one foot inside the portal, ready to jump through at any time.

Nicholas dared a glance behind him, seeing the bot much closer than he had expected or hoped. “Just go through the portal. I’ll be right behind you!” he shouted to the girls in front. Although the worry was clear on their face, they chose to trust his decision and jump through the portal. Nicholas came within feet of the portal, the bot right on his trail. The last laser missed him, giving him a sudden sense of relief. He jumped through the portal, only to have the bot shoot a knife out from one of his weapon compartments. The knife lodged itself right into the back of Nicholas’s leg, sending pain throughout his entire body as he tried to catch his balance on the other side of the portal door. He laid on the ground, unable to stand without pain shooting up his leg. The girls both crowded around him as he groaned in pain.

“We have to get him out of sight,” Emma whispered, taking notes of their surroundings. They were definitely in a city type area, but was it Emerson? Emma stood at Nicholas’s head, picking the top half of his body off of the ground by grabbing onto her arms. Claire followed her example and picked up his legs so he wouldn’t drag on the ground. The girls shuffled awkwardly to a shack that resembled Emma’s back in Middleton. Carefully, they set him down as soon as they were out of sight from the bots outside. Emma forced Nicholas onto his stomach, examining the knife protruding out of his leg. “That looks uncomfortable,” she said, cringing. “But it’s nothing to be worried about. By the time it reached you, the impact was much softer than it could have been so the wound seems fairly shallow,” she said, examining the knife. “I’m going to pull it out, okay?” she said, grabbing onto the handle without giving him a say in the matter.

“Can’t we just talk about this first?” Nicholas asked nervously, clenching his fists in pain as Emma grabbed at the knife and moved it around more on his leg.

Emma looked from Nicholas’s pained face and back to the knife. “Nope,” she said, pulling the knife out cleanly and quickly, the wound gushing blood. In a panic, Claire reached for the closest piece of cloth she could find which was the scarf around her own neck. Carefully, she wrapped the scarf around the bleeding wound as gently as she could manage while still doing it properly. Nicholas winced in pain, trying to worm his way out of their grips. “Calm down, Nick. It’s going to be alright. Let’s all just rest for the night before we head off for the computer lab in Emerson,” Emma said, peering out the window at the destroyed buildings and skyscrapers along with the rubble that decorated the streets impressively. The shack seemed to only have two rooms; the living room where you entered and a small kitchen off to the side. Without any furniture in the entire shack, the three were forced to sleep on the hard, dirtied carpet floor. Claire’s eyes grew heavy as she realized for the first time how tired she actually was. As soon as she curled up and laid her head on her arms to sleep, she was transferred back to the dimension she dreaded every time she fell asleep.

Once again, Claire was standing on the chess board, dressed in her completely white gown and standing in the position of the white queen. However, this time the black king and queen were kneeling at their feet, their hands tied together. The white king held a golden sword in his hand, raising it above his head as if he were about to swing. Claire turned to him, wanting to open her mouth and reason with him; to tell him that there was other ways other than killing them. Just like her last experience in this dimension, no words would come from her mouth no matter how much she struggled and tried. The white king shook her bizarre actions off and took his place in front of the black queen. Claire covered her eyes, unable to watch what she knew was about to unfold. The white king raised his sword high above him, bringing it down upon the treacherous queen’s neck, and cleanly slicing off her head in the process. It rolled, stopping when it reached Claire’s feet.

She opened her fingers slightly, looking down and seeing the queen’s decapitated head staring straight back at her in horror. Claire tried to scream, but nothing came out. She tried to run, but her feet wouldn’t move from the spot. She was forced by this cruel illusion to stand an either behold the consequences and results or to witness the malicious deed in action. After only a few seconds of staring at the queen’s head, Claire was forced to look back up to the white king who was taking his position in front of the black king this time. Claire forced herself to watch, almost unable to take her eyes off of the glint of the golden sword as it was brought into the air, above the white king’s head once more. He swung it down dramatically, time seeming to have slowed just for that particular moment.

With the scene slowed down, Claire caught a black shadow out of the corner of her eye moving towards them. Without any warning, a black knight threw themselves in front of the black king, taking the cut of the sword, their body slicing in two and falling to two different sides. Claire collapsed to the ground, gently parting the knight’s hair in order to see their face. When the knight’s hair was all pushed back, Claire found herself staring at a dead woman, one with the most beautiful blonde hair. As Claire looked at the face longer, she came to realize where she recognized it. She stood up, wishing to run away in the opposite direction. Emma’s dead eyes stared up at her as if she had been the cause of her death. No matter where she looked, a pair of eyes always seemed to rest on her.

She looked down at the severed head that lay by her feet. The black queen looked up at her in fear, as if she had expected some type of help when the white king brought his blade down upon her neck. Next was Emma. Her eyes were dull, lifeless, and judging as if Claire’s lack of action was being judged in front of a court at that moment. Then she looked at the black king who appeared to be chuckling, as if he had gone mad after being saved because a knight sacrificed her own life for him. Finally, she looked up at the white king who was giving her a disappointed look. The knight dropped his golden sword, pulling a dagger out of nowhere and forcing it into Claire’s hands. The white king held her hands around the dagger, positioning himself so he stood behind her. He pressed the dagger’s tip against her throat, slowly applying pressure. With one swipe, everything turned to black and then to different colors. Blues and greens mixed in front of her as the pictures of the dead eyes settled on her, watching her every move as if asking what she would do next.

Claire bolted into an upright position and almost screamed at the top of her lungs. She felt as though she was still in the dream, being forced to remain silent and in place. After a few deep breaths, she came to the realization that her voice was just groggy and sore from the yelling the previous night. Nicholas and Emma, who appeared to have been awake for much longer than Claire, had been. The two looked at her curiously. Nicholas spoke up first. “Are you alright, Claire?” he asked, worry in his tone.

She nodded, wiping the sweat off of her forehead and cringing in disgust. “I had another nightmare and it was similar to the last one,” she explained, knowing that Nicholas wouldn’t understand without an explanation of her previous nightmare.

“What happened in your last dream?” he asked, trying to push the answers out of her. He managed to crawl over to where she was sitting and plop down beside her, the pain only a bit of an annoyance now.

“I don’t want to relive it,” Claire said, blocking out the memories from the murderous chess table that doubled as a battle field. “I just need to walk around in the fresh air a bit and then I’ll be fine,” she said, shuddering as the pairs of eyes briefly popped back into her head. She quickly shook the image away, focusing all her attention on Nicholas. “How is your leg feeling?” she asked, grabbing a hold of the end of the scarf, observing the amount of dried blood that stained it.

Nicholas pulled his leg away on instinct. “It hurts a bit but it’s nothing that’s going to stop me from coming with you guys today. We will stick together no matter what,” he said, his smile as confident as ever.

“You’re practically a cripple with your awful limping when you walk,” Emma chimed in. “I don’t understand how you think that we can move at the same speed as we need to if we have to stop and make sure your leg isn’t bothering you too much along the way.”

“Are you saying you just want to leave me behind?” he asked, his eyes narrowing into a glare at Emma.

She shook her head. “That was what I thought we would do; however, if you’re really going to be this hell bent on coming with us to the computer lab, you’re going to have to deal with the pain no matter how much it hurts. How does that sound?” Emma asked, her hopeful and excited mood from the previous night seemingly disappearing along with her dreams.

“I can handle it,” Nicholas proclaimed, giving Claire a stern look as if telling her not to interfere in his decision. Claire kept her mouth shut, not sure if she was willing to journey to the computer lab without him by her side.

“Good, then we should get going so we don’t waste any sunlight,” Emma said, standing up and walking over the door. Claire stood up and held out her hand to Nicholas who graciously took it, letting her assist him for this one time. In a matter of minutes, the three were already outside, making their way as sneakily as possible to the large computer lab building that had been named after Dr. Wick himself. At the entrance of the building was two bots. “The front door is a bust,” Emma whispered, leading them around the building until they came across an unguarded side door. They tiptoed throughout the copious hallways, searching all over for the main computer room. Emma, becoming impatient and frustrated, dragged the group into the closet and pointed upwards at the air vent. “We’re going to take the scenic route,” she said with a sly smile spreading across her face. The girls pushed Nicholas up into the air vent first so he could pull them both up afterwards. Once inside, they began to crawl, their every move echoing against the metal walls.

Every new opening in the air vent got their hopes up, only to deflate them when they realized it wasn’t a lead to the room they truly needed. After over half an hour of crawling, they began to reach the far back of the building, one that seemed uninhabited by anyone. “Do you think we should turn around?” Nicholas asked, his leg screaming in pain with every crawl he did.

Claire shook her head. “No, let’s at least go down one more vent. Turn left here, Emma,” she said, pointing to the long air vent hallway that split off to the left and to the right. Emma nodded, leading them down the vent. After passing several openings, Emma suddenly stopped, almost being pushed over by Nicholas who hadn’t taken notice to the abrupt halt. “What do you see, Emma?” Claire asked, struggling to see since she was bringing up the rear of their group.

Emma turned to Claire, struggling to push Nicholas to the side so she could see her properly. “I think I found it,” she said, covering her face with her hands in an attempt to contain her excitement.

“You’re not joking?” Claire said as if it was too good to be true.

“I’m not kidding, Claire,” Emma squealed.

“Do you see anyone in the room from where you’re at?” Claire asked, wanting to make sure the room was empty before they charged in.

Emma tried to see inside the room from different angles. “From what I see, the room doesn’t have anyone inside it. Ready to reset the program once and for all?” she asked, unable to believe her own words even as she said them. Nicholas and Claire nodded, waiting for Emma to take the lead once more. With the quietness of a mouse, Emma managed to remove the air vent door and sit it off to the side, dropping herself down through the hole and safely landing on the floor with hardly any noise made. Nicholas gulped, bracing himself the pain that would surely result from pressure on his legs. He lowered himself down into the vent, trying to get himself as close as he could to the floor as possible. Then, he let go, collapsing to the floor instantly as his leg gave out under the pressure and pain. Surprisingly enough, he held back a wince in order to remain quiet. Claire lowered herself and dropped, landing on her feet with ease at the bottom. Nicholas looked around the room. “You would think that the Snake would be more careful about leaving his main computer lab alone,” he said after not being able to spot anyone.

“You would think that, wouldn’t you?” a familiar voice rang out from behind the cluster of computers opposite of them. Claire looked towards Emma who seemed frozen in place, ready to either drop or flee the scene. “I see that at least someone remembers me,” the voice said again. The body that accompanied it stood up from behind the computers, walking towards them yet keeping a fair distance in the process. Before they knew it, they were all face to face with Doni, his green eye and blue eye shining brighter than ever with excitement and anticipation. “Welcome, my lovely friends,” he said smoothly, grinning wickedly.

“Don’t tell me that you’re the hacker, Doni,” Nicholas pleaded, unable to accept it as the truth.