Chapter Thirty One

Disaster, AAMC Style

That night, Jenna was asleep in her normal bed when a beeping sound blasted in her ear.

“That’s got to stop,” Jenna complained. “What happened to the sweet music you used to wake me up with?”

“It isn’t morning,” Sardius informed her.

“What is going on then?” Jenna asked cautiously.

“I got the thing in the therapy bed to work. Remember? So I can give you a hug?”

Jenna was surprised by the urgency in his voice. Then she realized that he could see her all the time. Maybe he was just excited to show her a little bit of himself. Without a word, she got up and moved to the other bed.

“Bring your blanket,” Sardius instructed. “I think you’ll need two.”

Obediently, Jenna grabbed it and slid down into the other bed.

“Get in the middle and I’ll activate the program.”

She did so and the bed hugged her curves the way it had before.

The glass went up which was normal and then the pocket door to her bedroom closed with a snap, which was not normal. Jenna was thrown into unbroken darkness.

“What’s going on?” she rasped.

“I lied to you,” Sardius said. “This bed doesn’t give hugs more than what you’ve already experienced. It’s a function used to comfort people in distress. I used it as an excuse to lure you in here, so you wouldn’t try to deal with the problem yourself.”

Jenna’s eyebrows went together in a furious line. “What problem?” she snapped.

“A few of those army guys went after Vash. You can’t get involved in that. Sadly, we didn’t search the majors for guns or weapons when they got here. We scanned them thinking that if they had any weapons on them that they would come up in the scans. Not only that, but we (and when I say we, I mean me and the orbital security team) thought that the AAMC would consider this a peaceful affair and not arm their boys to the teeth in rubber firearms.”

“Why are they armed?” Jenna asked in alarm.

“I think they may have been sent here, not to kill you, but to take control of your crowns. I had Misha put the box of crowns in a locker under this bed earlier this afternoon. And now I have to admit the other thing. This was never a therapy bed. It’s a pod, meant to give you an escape route should anything terrible happen… and something terrible has happened. I think the soldiers went after Vash first because they thought he posed the largest threat. They would have immobilized all your staff before coming in here. Now I’m going to drop you through the floor.”

Jenna heard the floor panels under her move. She heard locks unbuckle. She heard things clicking and moving around her, but she also heard something else. It sounded like something was happening in Sardius’ prison cell. There was a banging sound that was coming through her earpiece.

“What was that?” she asked urgently. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said through clenched teeth.

“You’re fine? You don’t sound fine.”

“Nah, it’s fine. Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to drop you through the floor and have your pod take a transport route that will lead you to Favel’s underwater mansion. He has places for humans to stay without too much fuss. I sent the necessary information to Smoothie, who is more than capable of containing the situation in the palace, and I…” he hesitated. “I’m going to have to cancel our transmissions in a few minutes.”

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“Why?” Jenna panicked.

He smacked his lips. “Have you ever heard of a prison riot?”

She swallowed, hard. “Is something like that happening?”

“Yes.”

Jenna’s pod was dropped into the water with a splash. Sardius kept the inside of her pod in darkness and the water around her was black as if she’d been dropped in an inkwell. It was worse than getting dropped into outer space. There was nothing to hear now as the pod was completely soundproof. The only sound Jenna could hear was the ominous clanging that was happening inside Sardius’ prison. It was rhythmic, metal against metal.

BOOM.

BOOM.

BOOM.

She heard bones crack. Was it the sound of Sardius cracking his neck?

“The Prison doors will open in five…” an automated voice said in the prison cell loud enough for Jenna to hear.

“Wait! What’s going to happen?”

“I’m going to kill a lot of people, and you will be safe. All the info has already been transmitted. You’ll make it to Favel’s for sure.”

“Four.”

“But… I didn’t… get to tell you…” she simpered, trying to find the words.

“None of that matters now,” he interrupted. “Either I’ll be back soon, or I won’t be.”

“But I…”

“Three.”

“Wait. I can’t stand this,” Jenna breathed in a painful rasp. There was too much between them. There was too much they understood about each other without seeing each other, without touching, and without breathing the same air. Those things were luxuries they hadn’t shared, yet they shared a part of themselves that was deeper than all of that. She had to tell him what he meant to her. “What’s going to happen if I don’t tell you I love you?” she questioned urgently, sounding like a whipped dog.

“It’s too bad we could never meet,” he said, his voice light and confident. “If we had… I bet we could have had something really special.”

“Two,” the automated voice in Sardius’ cell sounded.

They were running out of time.

“Tell me you love me, you moron!” Jenna snarled.

There was a horrific sound of metal bending and breaking. Then again. And again. If Sardius answered her, she couldn’t hear him over the sounds of the metal screaming as it twisted.

“One,” the computer voice said calmly like the end of the world was not about to happen.

Then there was a beep so loud it felt like it would break the inside of Jenna’s ear.

“Goodbye,” Sardius said. Of all the words Jenna had heard Sardius say, his ‘goodbye’ was the most jagged, sick sound she had ever heard him say. It was almost like he was not talking to her at all, but talking to whoever had just come through his cell door.

There was a click.

Jenna thought she wouldn’t hear another thing. She thought he’d cut the connection. Her breath came in horrified gasps as sweat pooled on her face and burned her lips like salt in cuts.

Completely alone she muttered with a wet face. “What the hell? What the hell? You were supposed to be safe. You were supposed to be the one person–”

At that exact moment, she realized that Sardius had hit the wrong button. He had meant to sever their connection, but instead, he had only muted her.

“Who’s cell is this?” a distant unfamiliar voice said.

Sardius didn’t answer. There were crashing sounds like a baseball bat hitting bone, sickening thuds, guttural screams, and the sound of heavy footfalls. For Jenna, it was like listening to a war movie with no musical track to soften the sounds of artillery, begging, and a strange slippery sound that happened in the breaks.

An unknown cry was pinched off like a candle being blown out.

Then the real ruckus started.

Jenna didn’t know what she was hearing. Was she listening to the sound of Sardius keeping his promise to her by killing a lot of people? Or was he on the floor with the cacophony clashing around him? Or had he discarded his earpiece and it was still picking up the sounds of the riot?

She clenched her fist to her mouth and rocked back and forth in the bed waiting for a sound that meant that the violence was over, that Sardius had survived, and that he would be back in her ear soon.

After a sound like a pinched crack, the noise stopped completely. That could only mean that his earpiece was broken. That might have meant anything or it might have meant nothing.

Jenna sat there, terrified in the dark for almost an hour before she saw a light in front of her. It was blue light shining from amid a massive underworld of coral and lit-up glass. The light showed the ridges in the terrain around her. The transparent route she was riding took her all the way to the light, where her pod entered Favel’s mansion.

THE END

The story continues in Octavia Girl Vol. II