Imperium

Chapter 24

Josh is thrown into a dark cell, this is not the cell he was in. It is a different cell, but it's setting is the same. Josh's eyes flap open the moment his back connects with the concrete floor.

Pain runs up his body, he lifts himself up. He runs to the bars of the cell, he tries to peak out of the bars to confirm his surroundings. "Where am I? What am I doing here?"

"You're a reject now kid," says a deep voice from the cell infront of him.

"A reject?"

"No-one ever goes back to their cell after going into that room. That's because if we disagree to grant them our nanobots, this is where we are taken. Welcome to hell."

The man appears from the shadows of his cell. Fresh wounds all over his face, cuts and bruises all over his body. His lips swollen and his eyes blue, the collar around his neck must be stopping his healing. He looks badly beat up and weak, he might die from the blood loss. His wounds and cuts still fresh, Josh wonders what happened to him.

"What happened to you?" Josh asks.

"Nothing that won't happen to you."

"What do you mean?"

"They're not going to just going to let you go. They want your nanobots, and they have means of getting them."

"Torture?" Josh asks.

"Trust me boy, you're better of dead. This is hell."

"Stop scaring the boy," a woman says in a cell next to Josh.

"I'm just being honest with him, he should know what to expect. You don't remember me do you kid?" the man asks going back into the shadows of his cell.

Josh takes a closer look at the man, he knew this man from somewhere. The strong and buffed up figure, he isn't sure where he knows him from. His eyes are very familiar to him, but when he tries to think about it, he just gets a headache.

"They already got the twins to give out, they were once rejects. After days of unceasing torture, they both agreed to let their nanobots get taken away."

"Twins, now it all kicks back in. I was in your team."

"You were the freaking leader, but you were under the Controller's control,"

"You weren't?" Josh asks, confusion written all over his face.

"Nope, I'm a volunteer kid. I got to choose which it ability I get. I named myself soon after that. That's why I'm the Boulder."

"Most of you have memory loss, that's how I know you were under the Controller's control. Sub-Zero and Torch weren't under the Controller's control. We had fun together, we were friends, together with Bruce. Now, they're all gone, the twins don't even have their nanobots anymore."

"If we let them take these so called nanobots, I have a feeling we won't live to complete the process. I trust my instincts, and I just couldn't co-operate," the woman says.

"I know you!" Josh says aloud, memories quickly creeping out. "I'm not sure how to put this but, I remember you. You were beside the businessman, in the other institution."

"The Controller?" the woman asked. "Don't tell me you too don't even remember that?"

Josh looks at the man with a blank look, he remembers being kept in a cell. He remembers it, but there are times when it all went black. He would wake up exhausted, it was only on those days it went black, that he could sleep at night. He knows something happened when it all went black, but he never had anyone to ask. Maybe now he would get some answers, this Boulder guy knows a lot, he looks willing to share.