Under New Management

Chapter 14

Emily finally pulled the ropes off of her. Devin and Carla had left her hours ago, and she had been struggling ever since. But, finally, she was free, and in the middle of their control room.

She immediately jumped to the camera feeds. Devin and Carla were in the lab, arguing. Devin looked like he was trying to work on something with his microscope, but Carla kept distracting him. She turned up the volume.

"I just don't see why they're still alive!" Carla said, exasperated. "What's the point? They'll only end up causing us more problems than we can afford."

"I need them." Devin said. "I've used everything on this island. There's no life left. I can't just waste perfectly good test subjects, especially when they wander right into my hands!"

"So, they're still going to die, right?" Carla asked.

"Oh, absolutely!" He exclaimed. "No agents can live, not when they've come here."

"You mean, all agents except me, right?" Carla asked, suddenly suspicious.

Devin didn't answer.

"Devin." Carla said, her voice dangerously quiet. "All agents, except me, right?"

"Oh, Carla." He sighed. "I thought I told you not to ask any questions."

He suddenly shoved her into one of the large cages behind them. Most of the others were filled with his experiments.

"I trusted you!!!" She screamed. "I believed you!!!"

Devin just smiled, put in his headphones, and continued his work.

Emily sat stunned. Now Carla too? She shook her head. She had bigger priorities, such as getting out of here, and finding Lucy.

She scanned through the rest of the feeds. There! She found one of a cell, with Lucy and her husband inside.

Now, how to get them out. She looked around, and found the control panel. She could disable all power, which would make it easy for escape, as long as they were fast. If Devin got back here and turned it back on before they were out, the whole plan would be ruined. Was it worth the risk?

She decided that she couldn't afford to sit here and think. She pulled the lever, and everything around her went dark.

Lucy groped around in the dark, and found her husband. She heard a hiss of air behind her.

"What was that?" She asked Gru.

"I think it was the door." He whispered.

She heard him fumbling for a bit, and then he held up his watch, which was now glowing like a flashlight. Sure enough, the door was open. They both snuck out into the hallway, and towards the trapdoor.

"Wait," Lucy hissed. "Emily. I won't leave her. She helped me so much."

Gru nodded. They both crept toward the control room where Lucy had seen her last.

Gru shone his watch around the room. Nothing. Suddenly, he heard a noise behind him. He turned around, and found himself face-to-face with a blond who was wearing glasses.

"Emily!" Lucy excitedly whispered.

Oh, so this was Emily. They all crept up the ladder, and out of the trapdoor, and took off towards the beach.

"Our escape pods were over here!" Gru shouted. "We can use them to escape!"

Lucy ran next to him, and spotted the pods before he did.

"There!" She pointed.

They all came to a stop in front of the pods as the realization suddenly hit him.

There were two pods, and three people.

Immediately, he turned to Lucy.

"You go with your friend. Get off this island. Go back to the girls." He commanded.

"Absolutely not!" She retorted. "I'm not going anywhere without you!"

"You both go." Emily said. "I'll stay. You have a family to go back to."

"No." Gru said. "This is my mission. I need to stay and finish it, no matter who assigned it to me."

He had only said that to try to get Lucy and her friend to get to safety, but as soon as the words left his lips, he realized that they were true. He had a mission to finish. Devin and Carla had to be stopped.

"Please," he said to Lucy. "Go. I couldn't bear it if something happened to you."

"Do you think that the feeling is one-sided?" She exclaimed. "I would be lost without you! I won't go, because the reason I came here is to protect you, and if I leave now, I'll have only made your situation worse!"

He sighed. She really wasn't going to leave, and there was nothing he could do about it.

"You go." He said to Emily. "You can go and get help. Bring back a ship or something that can get us all off of here when we're done."

Emily hesitated before nodding.

"I'll get back as soon as I can." She said. She turned to climb into one of the pods.

Gru stopped her before she climbed in.

"And, thank you." He said, sincerely. "We never would've gotten out of there if it weren't for you. You saved all of us."

Lucy nodded in agreement.

"You got me all the way here. I wouldn't have ever been able to find out anything if you hadn't come along." She added.

Emily blushed.

"It was nothing." She said. "You guys did the real work."

"We couldn't have done any of our work without you." Gru insisted. "Thank you."

Emily slid into the pod, started the engine, and dove into the sea. She found herself very grateful that it was a one-person pod, because explaining the tears running down her face was something that she didn't really feel like she could do right now.