Young Writers Society

Part 2

Chip slipped into the sleeping bag, the thin material barely functioning as a barrier between his back and the cold metal floor. Capuchins didn't have the thickest layers of fur, and the floor really was cold. Chip shivered. He rolled onto his side to face the others, as he had done last night and the night before. They were asleep, but he knew that. Both nights he'd waited for them to drift off before settling down himself. Without Patrick, who else was going to take care of them?

The room was a low-ceilinged metal chamber, about the size of the room he'd helped construct at the foot of Aurora's ladder. It's lights were piercing white when they were turned on, but the lack of windows plunged them into near darkness when they weren't. The only source of illumination was the 'on' light of a security camera, and its reflection in the mirror that almost completely covered one wall.

Dexi said that in cop shows that was always a window, and that people must have been watching them sleep. That was almost more uncomfortable than the floor. To be fair to Neuromax, they had given each of them a small bed of straw, but none of them could bear to sleep in something clearly made for a pet dog, unless they were on outdoor shift at the zoo.

His friends - Dexi, Gerry the toucan and Lisa the frog - were spaced out around the room, giving the door a wide berth in case someone came in during the night for surprise tests. It hadn't happened yet, but none of them would have put it past Neuromax, or more specifically Frederick Crothers. Sue Haldane wasn't the friendliest of faces either, if Chip was honest. And it didn't help that they barely saw MacLean.

Chip took a deep breath. He couldn't fix this, not tonight. He curled his legs up close to his chest, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.

---

There was a rush of air.

Chip’s eyes sprang open, and he whipped his head around in all directions to see what it was. Could he really have been sleeping so lightly that a stray breeze from a crack in the window frame had woken him. He blinked as rapidly as he could, desperately trying to get his eyes used to the dark.

Just as shadows were beginning to take shape, a voice whispered, “Hello?”

Chip held still. Maybe he could go undetected.

“Chip? Dexi?”

The voice was so quiet all he could really tell about it was that it was female. And he would have known it wasn’t Crothers anyway because Crothers couldn’t even compute that they had names of their own.

“Are you alright?” the voice called, a little louder.

MacLean. Chip raised a paw, testing. MacLean didn’t say anything. Chip had forgotten how terrible human eyesight was. MacLean’s shadow started to move further into the room, towards little Lisa.

“Wait!” Chip hissed, springing forward into the centre of the room. “You’re going to step on Lisa!”

MacLean gasped and jumped back. “Chip! You gave me such a fright.”

“Not as much as you were about to give Lisa,” Chip muttered.

“I’m so sorry. I’d have brought a torch but I think there’s CCTV in here and I’m not meant to be here for more than a few seconds to check on you,” MacLean said, her voice cracking a little. But somehow, as nervous as she sounded, her mouth was distorted in a horrible, arrogant smirk. “Just stay calm, ignore my face, and listen to my words.”

Chip sighed, letting the tension in his shoulders melt a little. He figured she was putting on some sort of act for the CCTV camera, but it was still unnerving to see her look so angry.. “I’m sorry, MacLean, I’ve just been dealing with some less kind humans for the past couple of days. This is going to take a moment.”

MacLean’s voice dropped to an even softer whisper than when she’d first come in, though her words came out tightly pressed lips as if she was spitting them. “What have they done to you?”

Chip shrugged. “It’s alright. Nothing lasting. The scans are pretty painful though. And I don’t think any of us are enjoying the visions.”

MacLean took a long, shaky breath, her face breaking its mask for a moment. “Look, I’m here to help. Patrick wants me to give you these.”

They fumbled a little in the dark, but soon Chip was balancing in his paws five tiny little discs. They were almost flat, but each had a tiny clip on one side, one of which was open and stabbed Chip in the thumb as he rolled it around in his palm.

“What are these?” Chip asked, screwing his eyes up to desperately try and see in the dark.

“Cameras,” MacLean explained. As she went through the steps of the plan, pangs of love shot through Chip’s chest, even as her snarl wound ever tighter on her features. It hadn’t even occurred to him that his friends would find a way to help. It should have, he knew. Of course they would get him out of there.

When she was finished, Chip said, “Thank you so much. Tell Patrick he owes you a drink. And tell him thanks too. And Treego, if it was his idea. And everyone for caring. And say hi to the monkeys for me and if you see Holly or Scott tell them I’m sorry we don’t get to work on their forward flips.”

“Thank you,” MacLean said, “Your support means a lot. I have to go now, okay? But I’ll be sending the signal back to them everyday, even though you won’t see me.”

Chip nodded. “Alright. I’ll get to work thinking of ways to film Crothers’ cruelty. Though really that shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Or you could get some sleep.” MacLean’s voice came from further away than a moment before, near where Chip was picturing the door to be.

Chip raised an eyebrow, though he knew she couldn’t see it. “I don’t know what I was doing before you came in, but it was not sleep.”