Amanda's screams emanated throughout the shaft, and it took all of Tyler's strength not to look down what the Android had done to her.
Suddenly, her screams cut out. Tyler knew what it meant.
He wanted to continue moving forward toward the surface, but it was so dark he wouldn't know when he'd hit the top. The lights streaming through the elevator roof's latch barely broke through what's in front of him.
Tyler had to think about the Android below him. One trigger was all it took for him to ascend using the elevator, and in seconds, he'll be dead.
He could feel the Android's eyes on his back, no doubt using its night vision to single him out in the darkness. That was a significant disadvantage for the Android's part and one that Tyler was helpless to combat.
How could he move forward when he's already losing a battle with the dark?
Tyler found an air duct a few feet up. It was a Godsend, and he almost gasped in excitement.
Standing on the rungs of the ladder, Tyler wasn't sure if he could make it. The air duct was seven feet away from the ladder. Then, he saw a metal platform just beneath the air duct and a bit closer toward him. He could use that.
Leaping off the ladder, Tyler hurled himself toward the platform, but only managing to get one hand on it. He dangled, and with his uninjured left leg, he found another platform from the bottom, albeit only an inch wide.
It was wide enough to pull himself up toward the grating of the air duct. Tyler pummeled on it twice with his fist until it loosened, grasping the metallic grating and pulled it out.
The grating fell and hit the Android on the head.
The Android looked up and snarled.
Tyler made the mistake of looking down. He had chopped Amanda up in unrecognizable pieces. He felt dizzy, and any moment longer staring at her, he would've lost his grip on the platform, and inevitably fall beside the Android's grasp.
With his shoe scraping on the smooth, vertical surface of the wall. There was little traction. Tyler managed to get his other arm up on the ledge, enough to keep him from falling, and hauled himself up with all his might.
Tyler wiggled inside the air duct.
Tyler crawled in fast with no idea where it led, but it beat staying in the elevator shaft with a murdering robot at his heels. Plus, the air duct was tight enough that the Android might not be able to fit. Heck, he could barely fit himself.
He kicked his right leg. That was a mistake. Pain scorched up and he yelped as the glass shards that once protruded out of it was still fresh in his memory when he escaped out of the window. He could still feel the Android's tight grip on his ankle, and he didn't want to repeat that. The Android almost broke his heel, and thank God he wasn't able to.
Just keep crawling, Tyler. Find a way out of here, Tyler repeated like a mantra.
He hoped to see Echo or Gideon Reese on the other side. For a facility as heavily guarded as this, Tyler expected a sensor to pick him up crawling in the air ducts, and then rescue would arrive at the end of the shaft. How amazing that dream would be, but Iago or whoever was controlling Aiden's body took over the facility's systems, and undoubtedly following his trail.
Behind him, he heard the elevator whirred back to life. He didn't know whether it was going up or down. If it was up, then, the Android might've decided to try going after him in the air duct. If he went down, he might be working another way to get to him. Both options terrified Tyler, pushing him deeper into the air duct for a way out.
Heart pummeled at his chest as if it could break his ribs and punctured his lungs. If the Android chose to hunt through sound alone, he'd find him as quickly as a cat would find a mouse. Tyler felt dizzy, sweaty, and overall, tired. But he had no luxury to rest in such a tight space.
He needed a way out.
He needed it fast.
Silence followed after the elevator was gone. Tyler tempted to believe that the Android was gone, too. Though, it was a temptation best resisted else he'd be caught off-guard. He didn't want that.
Tyler had seen the Android blazed through dozens of armed men without even flinching.
A super soldier, Tyler remembered Sam said.
How was he going to survive that?
It was better to give up.
Tyler desperately wanted to cry out for his father. He was the only one who could get rid of this fear away. The only one who could touch the darkness and made it recede with dread and agony. It was wishful thinking, and Tyler saw that. But the thought of it made him feel better and worse at the same time. Here, surrounded by the compressed walls of the air duct and in pitch darkness, he was calling for the man who had scorned him later in his life.
He was all alone, and everyone was dead. He wanted to call out to him, filling his eyes with bitter tears.
No. Tyler couldn't possibly touch that temptation, either.
No doubt his father would've laughed at his face if he did. He had been called a coward many times or acting too girly for his father's tastes, causing a bitter tinge at the back of his throat. He imagined himself finding his body cowering like a child, choking from his stifled screams and blood, in a cold sweat, and also might have defecated himself in the process. The image roiled in his stomach into knots.
The worst part was, His brothers and his father wouldn't bat an eye if he were dead. Maybe Hannah, Erica, Eileen, and Frank would. And that saddened him. Tyler was reduced to a helplessness of a child, to a primal fear he'd want to get rid of and never experience again.
He shook those thoughts away. His father couldn't help him. Not down here. Not ever.
He had to do this himself.
It felt like forever crawling blindly in the darkness. Tyler explored the corners and passageways leading to God knew where, and he had to make a call where to turn next. It might've taken him minutes, hell, even hours to reach one of the exits. A grating at the end was streaming with the menacing red emergency lights from the hall.
He crawled faster toward it. The light was a welcomed sight, and when he finally reached it, he groaned in relief, temporarily blocking the pain radiating from his right leg. He'd never thought being surrounded by light again was the most breathtaking thing he'd ever experience.
Tyler blinked furiously, clearing her tear-blurred vision, letting his shaking subside, and calmed his shallow breaths.
Peering down the gratings, he found that the air duct was a foot above the floor. He sighed. He wouldn't have trouble landing on his bad leg from the height.
Footsteps.
Heavy footsteps.
Tyler held his breath.
Farther along the hall, the footsteps stopped. Looking. Studying.
Given the silence, Tyler knew who the footsteps belong to, and he almost peed himself on the spot. Did it track him there already? Did it follow his scent? Oh God, it must've been the sensors. The facility must have it. Tyler was sure of it.
The Android had found him.
He half-expected the grating to be violently torn off, and he'd get pulled out, but that didn't happen. He closed his eyes, prayed to any God who would listen, not that he was religious himself. It was ironic how at this moment, Tyler realized why people worshipped higher beings they haven't seen their entire life. It was for comfort.
And seconds from death, it was the faith of comfort Tyler wished he had.
The footsteps resounded again, and a looming figure stopped in front of the grating.
Flat on his stomach, Tyler wriggled back, creeping into the darkness as slow as possible, else he'd make a sound.
Tyler lay with his head turned to one side, his left ear pressed on the cold metallic surface of the air duct, staring out toward the grating. He could see a man's black leather boots that belonged to a soldier, and the legs of his black slacks below mid-calf.
Tyler pictured the Android surveying the hall. Why wasn't it pulling the grating off already? Was it playing with him? He imagined a cat playing with its food, and the image didn't reassure him.
A faint doubt flickered through him. Maybe it couldn't find him. Maybe Echo or Gideon Reese found a backdoor loophole or whatever technical garble they found to suppress Iago's hack into the system. He was going to appear like a fool if he decided to make a noise now, rendering the lifeline the others threw at him useless.
Tyler stopped his crawl and waited. Frozen.
God, please let that be it.
The Android chuckled. A low, rumbling, guttural tone that made the air duct's wall tremble from the sound. Given the small space, the chuckle was loud, piercing like claws on a chalkboard against Tyler's ears.
The Android crouched down in front of the grating and peered inside. Smiling.
He found him.
Tyler quickly retreated deep into the air duct. The Android held tight on the grating, moving it slowly, and then rattled it ferociously. He punched it once, and the grating shuddered from the impact.
It loosened, and the Android tore it off its screws.
He reached in.
Tyler swatted it away, but it didn't help.
He grabbed Tyler's hair and balled it into a fist.
Tyler yelped. His scalp felt like thousands of ants swarmed all over it and chewed madly at his skin. He clutched frantically at his head, trying to loosen the Android's grip on his hair. It didn't budge.
The Android yanked him out of the air duct effortlessly without straining or even a grunt. Tyler kicked and screamed overwhelmed by the pain on his leg and top of his head. He pulled him to the middle of the hall. The Android's grip loosened.
Tyler tried to get up, but the Android clutched the collar of his shirt and lifted him off the ground. He pushed him against the wall, and Tyler felt he might've broken a rib or two from the force. A quick glance to the colossal man in front of him said everything that he intended: The Android was going to kill him.
Tyler looked at his eyes. "Aiden!" He clamored, out of breath. "Iago, let him go."
The Android cocked his head to the side and smiled. He shook his head.
"He's still in there. Aiden is still in there," Tyler said, gritting his teeth. "I'm his trigger. You will be nothing. I know I'm his trigger."
The Android tightened his grip on his collar, pressing him against the wall harder. "Pitiful. Little Man," it said in broken words, but it was enough to make Tyler shivered.
Tyler closed his eyes. "I'm his trigger..." he repeated, albeit to himself, using it as a sort of comfort.
The Android mockingly looked around him, Pouted. "Huh, not working."
The Android dint' have the ax with him. He was weaponless just like Tyler, but that didn't matter. He could smoothly go for his neck and break it. Or the Android might wrap his large hands around it and squeeze tightly for a few seconds before Tyler would go limp. He couldn't look at his eyes or his face. All Tyler saw was Aiden, and it was hard enough to imagine Aiden blocking the air out of his throat as he grinned menacingly.
But those didn't happen. The Android looked at him, waiting.
"Do it. Get it over with," said Tyler, but the words almost got stuck on his throat. Saying it alone almost brought his muscles to uncontrolled spasms as the adrenaline fired up through his veins.
The Android merely shook his head.
"What are you waiting for?"
The Android didn't say, but Tyler knew who. Iago.
"How to kill. Many options," it chuckled. Then, the Android's smile broadened. Tyler didn't like the look of it. "Ah. Found one."
He dropped Tyler on the ground, and Tyler landed on his bad leg. The excruciating and numbing pain coiled around his muscles, seizing it as he cried out. Tyler saw spots around his eyes and felt the trickle of blood running out his wound. He looked down. Amanda's sleeves bandaged around his leg now soaked with his blood.
He scrambled for balance, and he fell to the ground. Though, there was no moment of respite as the Android grabbed his hair again and dragged him with his back facing down the hall. His butt scraped against the cold floor.
A trail of blood behind them snaked its way to its source: Tyler's blood-soaked leg. He glanced behind him to where they were going, and realized that he was in Sub-Level Two; the guards' crew quarters.
Tyler's heart sank. He didn't even make it past Sub-Level One. He was farther from Echo or Gideon Reese than he imagined. Far from any potential rescue.
He was going to die.
Then, he thought of one thing. The guns. The training arena.
A flicker of hope engulfed deep inside his chest. If he could make it toward the second training arena where Echo and the rest of the guards kept their guns, he might have a fighting chance. Based on the where they were, the second arena was only three corners to their left, and it seemed the Android was heading for the first arena, bringing him closer to the weapons.
It seemed the Android sensed that he fought less against his grip, and like a sadist, he grasped his hair harder, pulling it with such a force that made Tyler yelped. The Android laughed.
"Aiden! I know you're still in there!"
They entered the first arena. The Android dragged Tyler to the middle where the thick ropes Echo made him climbed were dangling from the ceiling. Horror seized him as he realized what the Android intended to do.
Tyler grabbed at the Android's leg mid-stride and wrapped his arms around it for dear life. Losing his balance, the Android toppled over and crashed on the ground. The Android got up and whirled around quickly, bringing his palm right across Tyler's cheeks. The contact reverberated piercingly across the room. The sting was intense. Tyler retched his head back in a cloud of haze, scrambling to recollect his senses. It felt like his brain popped out of his skull.
The Android left him there and sauntered over to a camera propped up at the corner. He tapped on the lens. "Iago," it called out. "For you. Brought him."
He tapped on the lens again. "Iago?" He looked around, waiting.
Tyler froze as well, listening intently around him, but nothing leaped out. He presumed Iago's voice would emit out of the speakers. However, nothing came.
The Android's grin dropped. It, too, realized that something was wrong. His scowling gaze landed on Tyler and marched toward him with purpose. He reached out for him.
"Please! Please, no--!" Tyler screeched as he tried to crawl away.
His hands were inches away from him. He stopped mid-reach. Eyes bored down on him, but the scowl was gone. It was of surprise and horror that replaced it.
Suddenly, the LED on his neck exploded. It wasn't a big explosion that would sever his head, but it was enough to rip out the diamond LED out of his neck, exposing the wirings hidden beneath the skin. Blue sparks flew out.
The Android reeled back, clutched the hole on his neck, scrambling and howling. He tripped on a dumbbell behind him. He crashed on his back, squirming.
"No! No! Out! Out!" He screamed repeatedly.
Now's my chance.
Tyler eyed the door to his left. The door leading out to the hallway toward the second arena. He could make it in time while the Android was distracted.
Using the ropes dangling from the ceiling, he hauled himself up. He limped toward the door without daring of looking back.