"Yeah?" Imraan answered.
"When we were in the car, coming here, I fell asleep, remember?"
"Yep. It was hilarious. You kept saying Rebecca's name over and over again. I was almost convinced that you had a crush on her."
Connor was glad that it was dark, because then Imraan wouldn't have seen him blush.
"Anyway, I had this dream."
"Figures. What was it about?"
"Well, I was in the car, awake, and you were the one asleep. Then all of a sudden, Rebecca appeared in the middle seat. She was as surprised as I was to be there. I thought that I was just dreaming that, but she was, in my dream, thinking that too. Do you think that's just weird or weirder?" Connor asked.
Imraan paused, then burst out laughing.
"You really think that you and Rebecca were sharing dreams? The only way to prove that would be if Rebecca was here, and she isn't, so that's that. It was just a dream. You can ask Rebecca about it when we get out of here, but I wouldn't share those kind of things with other people." Imraan said, trying not to cry from laughter. Connor lay down to his side, embarrassed that he even asked Imraan that silly question. He soon fell asleep and began to dream.
He was in a dank cavern, lit with translucent rust-colored light that emanated off of the rocks. It didn’t make any sense to his conscious mind, but his subconscious mind took it in like it was natural.
He ran his hand against the wall, admiring the beauty of the lights. Then he heard a sound down the tunnel and made his way towards it.
****************
She was no longer in the hospital room. She was in a cavern lit with shining white and blue crystals. She was lying flat on a table in the center of the room. She was looking upward at all the shining crystals that looked like stars lighting up a long tunnel upward. They led to an even brighter circle that looked like the moon. That must be her way out.
She moved to sit up, but restraints on her wrists and ankles kept her to the rock table. She tried hard to break them, but they wouldn’t budge. After a small while her energy depleted and she had no more strength to try. She plopped back down onto the rock, and her head rolled to the side.
That’s when she saw it. It was a small opening in the side of the cavern, just big enough for a full-grown German Shepherd to walk through. She closed her eyes, knowing neither escapes would be of any use to her.
****************
Nikolaus watched as the screen turned on in his room and the mask of the HE appeared before him. "Oh my gosh! Jasmin!" he yelled, and began shaking her. Her eyes opened and she sat up from his bed. "Schauen Sie!" he cried, pointing to the screen.
Jasmin jumped up quickly. "Stellen Sie die Sprache auf Deutsch!" she answered.
Nikolaus quickly set the language to German so that his girlfriend could understand it. "Er ist der Leiter der GCA. Ich dir erzählt habe ihn vor," he told her so that she knew who he was.
"Sch!" she shushed him. She already knew who the man on the screen was. She just wanted to hear him.
As the HE began talking and the translation came back in German, Nikolaus wondered why he had a mask. What did he have to hide?
****************
Bryan paused. He was thinking the exact same thing. If they were to trust his words, they would have to trust his face. He sighed and slowly took off the mask.
****************
“Dang, gurl!” Aniyah yelled. She pushed her friend and Tamecia fell off the chair. “Am I seein’ thangs, o aint that just a perfict picture o dat one kid who went to da HIA?”
“He’s too old,” Tamecia answered. Aniyah was such a drama queen. “Must be his dad.”
“I aint seein’ thangs, then? That actually him?”
“No,” Tamecia said, standing up. “It’s probably his dad.”
“Well, they got so much look-alike, they coulda fooled me,” Aniyah answered.
“Anything could have fooled you,” Tamecia said under her breath.
****************
Bryan took a deep breath and continued. “I know I told you that the HIA had killed one of our agents unauthorized. But now I’m here to tell you that I was wrong.” It seemed like everyone in the GCA gasped at that moment. Even the cameraman looked up with a shocked look. “I lied to you,” Bryan confessed, “and now I’m here to tell you the truth.”
****************
Conner kept walking down the tunnel, but it began to get smaller and smaller until he had to crawl on his hands and knees. He knew that if it got any smaller, he would have to turn back. He didn’t even know who had made that sound. Or what. Rebecca suddenly heard a strange sound. She turned her head towards the tunnel. A head appeared.
"Don't come any closer!" she tried to say in a loud voice. She was too weak, though, and it only came out as a whisper.
"Rebecca?" He couldn’t see her, but he knew it was her.
Rebecca relaxed when she recognized Connor's voice.
"Connor. I'm dreaming. Wait. I am. And you're not here. You're just doing things that my dream is making up." Rebecca said, talking more to herself than to Connor.
"I could use a little help," Connor said, trying to squeeze through.
"Sorry, but so could I." Rebecca replied. Connor was half-way through the hole.
"What?" Then he saw Rebecca in restraints on the rock.
****************
Bryan finished speaking to the members of the GCA, and the camera turned off. He walked back to his seat, eyeing the other board members' surprised looks. He had to keep his grin back, but he knew that his identity was now known and that he would never keep that secret away from the GCA agents ever again.
****************
Laura grabbed a grenade and threw it around the corner.
"Grenade!" a voice shouted, then
BOOM!
"Ok, let's go." Laura commanded. They turned around the corner and kept going.
"Alright, I'll just hack into their system and find out where those two newbies are." Rylee said. He started to hack into the system while Laura and Kalyia kept watch. Nothing interesting happened.
"Got it. Let's go." Rylee then said. Laura and Kaliya headed to the direction that Rylee was pointing to.
****************