4

Somewhere, not too far from the hospital, Tania was staying in, Spencer's unconscious body sat in a wooden chair, tied up with strong ropes, two tying up her hands and ankles, and the third one, tied up her torso to the chair, back against the wood.

She slowly woke up. As her eyes lazily opened, slight pain came from her left eye and her bottom lip. She remembers getting punched by... him. She didn't even try to fight back because she knew her chances were low.

"Well, look who's awake." A deep raspy voice echoed through the darkroom. It's the type of voice some people would consider attractive, even her, if she's being honest but, not this one. She despised this voice in particular and whatever it had to say.

Spencer didn't bother to ask why she was there. She knew exactly what was going on, so she just looked at him, anger boiling inside her that only grew hotter the longer she looked into his eyes.

“You stole the final simulation and gave it to Tania… Tania, of all people, you had to give it to her. I know why you did it. You know why you did it, and you also know you have jeopardized everything. Now tell me, why shouldn’t I kill you right now?” He got up and slammed the metal table next to him. “Why?”

Spencer closed her eyes and flinched. She didn’t open them while she spoke. “If you wanted to kill me,” she opened her eyes and looked in his eyes again, “you would have... You need me.”

His hand clenched into a fist, she was right. He needs her. Otherwise, Tania is going to know what she saw was real.

"Now you tell me, why should I help you?" She asked.

His face changed, "Because you don't want me to hurt your friends… I could also kill all of you but, that wouldn't be as much fun, would it?" He said, getting closer to her.

Spencer swallowed the lump in her throat. She didn't have options and already knew what to do. After all, she had planned this whole thing weeks ago, but he scared her anyway. "I'll help you. What do I need to do?" She said firmly.

"You're going to make her think the dream was a dream," he said while crouching to see Spencer’s face better. "And while doing that, you’ll be telling me how everything goes. If I find out you’re lying to me, I’ll use this.” He got a green fluorescent rhombus out of his flannel pocket. Spencer had no clue what that was.

Well, maybe she had an idea but… it couldn’t be, could it?

“Do you know what this is? I bet you do.” He said, looking at the diamond-shaped item. It made his face glow green, the almost non-existent light in that room helped.

“It can’t be… you- I stopped, how did you do it? Why would you keep doing this!? It’s dangerous, you know what it does! Why!?” Spencer was using all her strength to get out of that chair, not to run, but to punch him and destroy that.

What her boss had in his hand, was something that they started creating almost a decade ago, back when Spencer still believed in his ideas. It's a dangerous device. When it's connected to anything capable of sending any signal, it converts the signal’s route and makes it send neural signals into human’s minds. It only affects humans, that’s why they were doing it in the first place. Once the signal has gotten into the mind-space, whoever is controlling the device, controls the mind.

That was when he decided to introduce Spencer to the human world. He trusted her enough to let her meet their enemy, but Spencer realized they weren’t. Humans aren't all evil. Some of them, yes. But most of them aren’t.

She confronted him about their device. She thought he would trust her on that too, but he said he had bigger plans, ones she would never be able to understand. She decided to make him believe she still was on his side, while he trusted her to get closer to Tania, she dug, got information on what his “big plans” were, until three months ago, she modified Tania’s pill, and now Tania knows too what he’s got in mind. The thing is, Spencer didn’t know about the part where everyone looked like robots. She just now connected the dots. He wanted to mind control everyone, even after all of Spencer’s warnings.

“You know why. Now, are you going to make me use it earlier than expected? It will cause more damage than if we wait until the day it’s supposed to be done.”

Spencer was silent for what seemed the longest time.

“I will help you. But you’re not allowed to start the procedure until the day we had planned.”

He accepted Spencer’s offer. Two huge guys entered the room after he called them in. They untied her so she could get up but then tied her hands again. “Where are you taking me?”

“You don’t think I’ll let you out without watching all your moves, do you?” Her boss said with a sarcastic chuckle.

They practically dragged her through the metallic door they came in a few seconds ago. As they crossed the door, she felt her strength coming back to her, her face hurting less and less until the pain disappeared. She could attack now but it would be useless, the two guys would be easy to take out, but not him. He’s far stronger than her, he would kill her, and then she wouldn’t be able to help Tania figure everything out.

“I’m going to put this camera and microphone on you. Everything you see, I see, everything you hear or say, I hear. If something isn’t right, I will know about it, and then, boom.” He said with a hand movement, simulating an explosion.

“I may be helping you now, but I still think you’re sick,” Spencer said, looking at him angrily.

“Oh, I know exactly what you think of me. I also don’t care about your opinion anymore. I trusted you and you betrayed me. Now you’re going to pay for what you’ve done.” He then gave her the camera contact lenses and a small microphone that would be on her ear after one of the two huge guys untied her hands. “Put them on yourself.” So she did.

They let her out of the building after she put the micro and camera on. She had been in an abandoned warehouse the whole time, at least that’s what it looked like on the inside.

“I hope you hear this loud and clear. Fuck you.”

Right after she said that aloud, her phone started vibrating. The screen was black and in the middle, a message in white letters could be seen.

Loud and clear ;) It said.

“Asshole.” She muttered under her breath, she didn’t think he would have heard that but another message told her otherwise.

I heard that too.

She put her phone in her back pocket and ran to the hospital. Well, she didn’t run all the way, just until people could see her, then she ran at normal speed.

When she got there she wasn’t out of breath, obviously. Perks of being an alien, she thought. She went inside and looked for a pen. Lucky for her, someone left one on the receptionist's table. Making sure he or anyone couldn’t see she was stealing the pen, she casually looked around the place. She grabbed it and hid it in the front pocket of her jeans, she kept walking as she rolled her sleeves up, then she grabbed the pen again and wrote a message for Tania on her forearm. She was looking up, searching for the elevator as she wrote.

Make it all seem like a dream. HE’S WATCHING ME.

She finished writing and hoped Tania would understand. Doing it blindly wasn’t an easy task. She put the pen in her pocket again and rolled her sleeves back down, then got in the elevator and waited until Tania’s floors showed in the small screen on top of the door. It opened and Spencer got out, she saw someone running towards it and held the door open for them, “thank you,” they said with a chuckle. “No problem,” she said with a smile. Her phone vibrated. She looked at it and it was him again.

Such a gentlewoman.

She decided to ignore the message, only responding with a “tsk” she was sure he heard. Then she walked to Tania’s room. She stopped right in front of the door and said, “The only way this ends is with you dead, I hope you know that.”

She waited for one of those messages, her phone vibrated again.

I know how this will end, with your life ruined and me being on top of your problems.

“No John, not at all. Not at all.”