Read Online Landlocked (Atlas Link Series Book 2) by Jessica Gunn - Free Book Online
Authors: Jessica Gunn
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argument. He’d lived enough of that hijacking situation himself.
“In self-defense!” I shouted.
A disgusted look crossed her face. Her mouth opened, her brows crinkled, but no words came. Instead, she flopped down on the bench beside me, thinking,
This isn’t the time.
No. It wasn’t.
I sighed and, ignoring stares from everyone else in the cell, closed my eyes.
Think, Boncore, think
. There had to be something in this cell we could use to escape. We just had to find it.
I opened my eyes and took a good look around the room. Walls leaned in toward the center of the room, making the space appear much smaller than it really was. I couldn’t figure out what the wall material was made out of, but the bars to our cell that separated us from the door were some kind of metal. Beyond those bars sat a single computer console, a tablet imbedded into a wall. Just outside of arm’s reach.
“Oh,” I said, drawing looks from Chelsea and the others.
That
I could work with. Maybe. If I could stretch far enough.
“Oh?” Chelsea asked.
I pointed through the bars to the shiny tablet, lit up with some sort of menu screen. “Think they use that to control the prison area?”
Pike’s eyes flitted between the tablet and me. “Let’s assume they do. Think you can use it to our advantage?”
Could we use future technology for our advantage? Absolutely. But was I able to even use future tech? Maybe. After all, a computer was still a computer. “I think so. In the very least, I might be able to get us out of this room.” A high promise for sure, but if it worked we’d be one step closer to getting out of here.
Pike stood, rounding the others to stand in front of the camera mounted atop one corner of our cell. He crossed his arms and turned, looking at Chelsea. “We’re going to fake an argument, distract whoever’s watching the cameras from Trevor.”
“What if they can hear us?” Dr. Hill asked.
Sophia and Chelsea joined Pike. Chelsea said, “They’d already be here.” She gestured wildly at Sophia, before Sophia shoved her.
While their fake argument went on, Dr. Hill walked underneath the camera’s line of sight and joined me at the cell bars. I got as close as possible to the tablet and slid my arm through the bars.
It wasn’t nearly far enough. I shifted my body so my shoulder slid almost inside the bars too, adding another inch. My fingers brushed the edge of the tablet. “Almost got it.”
“Work fast,” Pike ordered, taking up a ready position by the cell door.
I crushed my chest so tight against the metal bars that I could barely breathe.
One more inch. Two to be sure.
I sucked in as deep a breath as possible, scrunching my body as thinly as possible, and reached.
My fingertips slipped along the touch screen. “Made it!” I went to work… except this wasn’t English. At least, the words on the screen, or what bits of the screen I could see from this angle—which wasn’t much—weren’t totally in a readable language. Lucky for me, computers were often similar enough that this might still work. I opened and closed windows on the touch screen, finding English words every now and again, searching code and slipping from one program to another.
“Can’t you just look for a ‘unlock door’ button?” Dr. Hill asked.
Well, yeah. But that wouldn’t have solved the powers problem. However the next minute played out, Sophia and Chelsea
needed
their powers to fight these guys. Without their abilities, evening the battlefield aside, we needed a Link Piece to get back. And for that, we had to have the Waterstar map in their heads. I strained against the bars, typing in command after command until the string completed running. And then—
My finger fell just short of the execute button.
Footsteps echoed down the marble hallway, bouncing off the walls. A half dozen of them.
“Are you kidding me?” I growled, pressing against the bars with all I had, scrambling for that extra inch. When it
“In self-defense!” I shouted.
A disgusted look crossed her face. Her mouth opened, her brows crinkled, but no words came. Instead, she flopped down on the bench beside me, thinking,
This isn’t the time.
No. It wasn’t.
I sighed and, ignoring stares from everyone else in the cell, closed my eyes.
Think, Boncore, think
. There had to be something in this cell we could use to escape. We just had to find it.
I opened my eyes and took a good look around the room. Walls leaned in toward the center of the room, making the space appear much smaller than it really was. I couldn’t figure out what the wall material was made out of, but the bars to our cell that separated us from the door were some kind of metal. Beyond those bars sat a single computer console, a tablet imbedded into a wall. Just outside of arm’s reach.
“Oh,” I said, drawing looks from Chelsea and the others.
That
I could work with. Maybe. If I could stretch far enough.
“Oh?” Chelsea asked.
I pointed through the bars to the shiny tablet, lit up with some sort of menu screen. “Think they use that to control the prison area?”
Pike’s eyes flitted between the tablet and me. “Let’s assume they do. Think you can use it to our advantage?”
Could we use future technology for our advantage? Absolutely. But was I able to even use future tech? Maybe. After all, a computer was still a computer. “I think so. In the very least, I might be able to get us out of this room.” A high promise for sure, but if it worked we’d be one step closer to getting out of here.
Pike stood, rounding the others to stand in front of the camera mounted atop one corner of our cell. He crossed his arms and turned, looking at Chelsea. “We’re going to fake an argument, distract whoever’s watching the cameras from Trevor.”
“What if they can hear us?” Dr. Hill asked.
Sophia and Chelsea joined Pike. Chelsea said, “They’d already be here.” She gestured wildly at Sophia, before Sophia shoved her.
While their fake argument went on, Dr. Hill walked underneath the camera’s line of sight and joined me at the cell bars. I got as close as possible to the tablet and slid my arm through the bars.
It wasn’t nearly far enough. I shifted my body so my shoulder slid almost inside the bars too, adding another inch. My fingers brushed the edge of the tablet. “Almost got it.”
“Work fast,” Pike ordered, taking up a ready position by the cell door.
I crushed my chest so tight against the metal bars that I could barely breathe.
One more inch. Two to be sure.
I sucked in as deep a breath as possible, scrunching my body as thinly as possible, and reached.
My fingertips slipped along the touch screen. “Made it!” I went to work… except this wasn’t English. At least, the words on the screen, or what bits of the screen I could see from this angle—which wasn’t much—weren’t totally in a readable language. Lucky for me, computers were often similar enough that this might still work. I opened and closed windows on the touch screen, finding English words every now and again, searching code and slipping from one program to another.
“Can’t you just look for a ‘unlock door’ button?” Dr. Hill asked.
Well, yeah. But that wouldn’t have solved the powers problem. However the next minute played out, Sophia and Chelsea
needed
their powers to fight these guys. Without their abilities, evening the battlefield aside, we needed a Link Piece to get back. And for that, we had to have the Waterstar map in their heads. I strained against the bars, typing in command after command until the string completed running. And then—
My finger fell just short of the execute button.
Footsteps echoed down the marble hallway, bouncing off the walls. A half dozen of them.
“Are you kidding me?” I growled, pressing against the bars with all I had, scrambling for that extra inch. When it
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