ESCAPED!

Author's note: Please do read the first part of this End-Times series, VANISHED!

In the wee hours of dawn, when the lights had not stirred and the few birds surviving extinction had not sang their mournful chorus, a lone figure in a dark hood could be seen creeping stealthily up the path that led to Nephert Telecom Corporation Headquarters, Mangrone Strait.

The figure blended well into the shadows, dodging the watchful eyes of the patrolling robotic guards and the ever scanning surveillance cameras.

He should have taken the elevator but he didn't. Instead, he clambered up, as quiet as a mouse, through the steel and aluminum framework of the skyscraper like a preying panther. He got to the topmost floor.

Room 665.

He grimaced at the memory of the torture he had gotten here, that they had all received. Thick bile rose up in the back of his throat and his fingers almost slipped because his palms' sweat glands suddenly became active.

They had been separated, partitioned by an invisible electric force field, still in the same room, but unable to comfort each other.

All he ever heard were the screams and cries. Until, three had succumbed. The siblings and the woman. They had been moved to the adjacent room, Room 666, where, he could guess, they were to be branded with that accursed chip.

Everything was pitch black here as opposed to the normal lighting it should posess. He was almost tempted to rethink and go back.

Maybe she had been relocated to another place, or worse still, maybe she had received the mark. His heart broke at that thought.

He heard a soft cry of a patched voice in pain.

He strained his ear as he clung to the steel scaffolding with his sticky pad. The sound floated to him again.

Good. She's still alive. It was not in vain that he had felt the push to come get her.

He rolled onto the top floor and brought out his gadgets. The silent chain saw cut through the ceiling.

He heard the soft gasp down below.

Don't scream, please.

He jumped down and his eyes had to adjust to the lighting, or darkening, in this room.

He moved closer to her. She was tied tautly with chains hanging to the ceiling. He could feel her fear oozing out as he stepped forward, towards her.

"Alexia," he called... no whispered, out.

"Ke- Kevin?" she replied cautiously. Her voice was full of relief and wonder.

"Is that you?" her voice quavered as she asked this.

He moved closer and held her trembling form. She was cold and he could feel the caked blood on her cheeks and lips as he ran his hand over her face.

She sobbed into the croon of his neck. And oof, she did need a bath too.

"Yes. It is me. And I'm busting you out of here."

He quietly removed his gadgets that graced the entire circumference of his waist. He proceeded to dislodge the encrypted lock of her chain with his state-of-the-art decoding key.

The darkness was stifling. He worked as fast as he could.

He carried her frail body and latched her to his back like a baby koala to its mother.

He got up the ceiling onto the topmost floor with the help of the sturdy rope he had positioned for this particular purpose.

It was a slow, painful climb, but he made it.

Now, to get past all those searchy robots. Lord help us. He could feel the pounding of Alexia's heart against his back. He could feel as her fingernails dug past his cloth, into his skin. All signs of her terror.

He remembered how he had escaped this hell of a dungeon too. He had been scared to death. But somehow, delegates of the Remnants had found him and rescued him. It was too risky for them to go on with their rescue mission lest they be found out by the robots, so they had been forced to leave Alexia behind.

Kevin shook his head. This was no time for flashbacks. No time either for cooing and petting. They had to get out of here as fast as possible. The rays of dawn was already lighting up the whole area.

The other Remnants were waiting, in the underground bunker far North of this place. They were to go seek refuge in the fortes of Jerusalem.

One of his rescuers, a Hispanic man, was rich and owned a large submarine. They would be able to quietly stow away and reach Israel, and if God helped them, the two Witnesses that had been reported to perform great signs by God.

Even Gretel, 'the man of peace', as he referred to himself, was unable to stop them from creating godly stirs which Gretel called 'chaos'.

Kevin had begged and pleaded for their time of departure to be extended to one day more. He wanted to come back for Alexia, for whom his heart still fluttered.

He knew she was strong. He had just hoped and prayed that she would still be hanging on by the time he came.

And she was, albeit on a very thin thread.

He tied a climber's rope to himself, securing Alexia too. He slid down a steel frame that led straight down and descended with a plonk to the marble floor.

Without a minute's hesitation to find out if they had been found out, he began to run, though with difficulty like Christian in the Pilgrim's Progress did when he was running to the cross with his burden, down the path by which he came.

~~~~~~~~~~

"Neph!" Linda's voice screamed as she raced into the large, white and black themed room that hosted a very sleepy Mr Nephert.

"Uh?" he groaned out of his sleep.

She walked in agitation towards the bed and shook him.

"She's gone, I tell you. She's escaped!"

"Who..?" Then his brain clicked and his jumbled mind suddenly became clear.

Alexia!

"That's impossible!" he spat as he shot out of his bed. His bare back showed the bold tattoo of a large dragon.

"She's. Not. There!" Linda said, gesticulating frantically.

"F*ck! She can't be gone. She knows too much." A string of strong cuss words flowed from his mouth. Then he mumbled to himself, "The master will definitely be mad about this." He ran his hand through his disheveled hair, pacing the front of the king-sized bed from which he got up.

"How's that possible? Were the surveillance cameras able to pick anything? What about those dumb robots? I always knew we should have used the most sophisticated ones to secure room 665. Damn it," he said in one breath as he scrambled and wiggled himself into black Levi tops and a loose pant.

"They've all gone haywire," Linda announced flatly.

"What?"

"You try. Jez wasn't even the one who woke me up this morning."

He went over to the alert button. He tapped it multiple times, more than necessary, and said into a mini microphone, "665, I repeat, Assigned robotics 665. Your attention is needed right away!"

Despite the fact that he was only a decibel away from screaming this routine command, he was greeted by immaculate silence, instead of the usual androidic voice of "Aye sir!"

Linda came over and touched his shoulder. He flinched and whirled so suddenly to face her that Linda was frightened. She stepped back.

More frightened was she by the murderous look she saw in his eyes. She could almost swear that she saw his blue eyes darken to the deepest shade ever, closely hinging on black.

"You traitor!" he said angrily.

"Me?" Her brows shot up in shock.

"I knew you were never by our side."

"Hell no! Don't start with that scam, Neph! You know I have always been on your side. I followed your instructions to the letter. I gave you everything. Even my mind and body."

His facial features creased a very wicked smirk. "And you felt that was enough? Why don't you go all the way and give us your heart too."

Linda's face contoured in confusion. What was he talking about?

He turned away from her and raised up his right palm. A light hologram projected from his palm, from the spot where his microchip was infused.

That wasn't weird to her. He always did that when he wanted to summon the special higher squads to fish out the stubborn christians hiding like ants in their holes.

What made her mouth hang down in disbelief was what she heard him command into the hologram speaker.

"GretelSquad666. The moment has come. The sacrifice is ready!"

Sacrifice? What the hell is he talking about?

When he turned back to her, she was sure she must be having a side-effect of too much channeling and mind-projection therapy she had been exposed to for about one year as the favorite girl of the second-in-command of the government of European sector of the New World Order.

The figure she saw before her was no damn sexy Nephert she had always known. It was the image of a greek mythology dragon complete with fangs, scales and night black eyes.

She wanted to let out a high pitched scream of terror and prepared her lungs to do so, but she felt cold, metal android hands clamp down on her lips, effectively cutting off the siren of a scream she had wanted to release.

She whipped her face sideways and came face to face with the very same feminine android that had been assigned to her. Jez.

Before she had the chance to react, Jez picked her up as one would lift up an empty backpack. No matter how hard she tried to squirm out of the grasp of this friend-turned-foe, she was getting no where. Still, she struggled, kicking and fighting, muffled screams echoing through the walls of this room.

Jez had being tailor-made to suit her since the moment she collected the microchip. She was her higher intelligence guru.

The one who taught her to grovel deep down and find out her inner mind.

The one who taught her mind projection therapy and channeling her subconscious and superconscious mind.

The one who told her to be one with the entire universe.

The very android she had been made to trust and depend upon for her daily life.

Linda was suspended mid-air, trapped and helpless.

In no time, GretelSquad666 arrived. She recognized them immediately by their symphonous marching, their ammuntions which glinted of evil.

Her brown eyes were wide, as she took several glances at this monster, this evil creature called Neph. They were filled with fear. Filled with tears.

She didn't know what Jez did to her.

But, she knew one thing: Jez had definitely tampered with her superconscious again. She felt herself slowly slipping, down down, down.

The world around her shut down and everything turned void. There were no voices, no sounds. Not one streak of light erupted in this void.

And though she sought it carefully with tears, she found no chance to repent.