PMOCT- Round 2, Part 3

Labrys wore a thick suit and Sorrel couldn't make out a single feature of his face through that helmet he wore as she shut the door and locked it. He didn't speak, but rather pulled a small metal rod from a pocket and clicked on end of it. A little light flashed, and everyone heard a thin whine echo in the large room. But it didn't come from the rod, rather from a multitude of the spider-cams that had been lurking in the corners of the room, hidden in darkness. All at once there was a clamor of scuttling, and a solid swathe of mechanical spiders swept into view and made for the door. Labrys swiftly opened the door to allow the carpet of spider-cams to exit, then closed it and turned around to face Sorrel and Osteo.
"At least they can't see us," he said in his odd, mechanical voice. Sorrel felt that if he could have placed some expression in them, his words would have sounded casual and friendly. "I'd disable your bracelet too," Labrys continued. "But I don't have the right tools on me right now. I ask, though, that you not summon the nymphs with it until I and my comrades are well out of the area."
"Nymphs?" Osteo shot Sorrel an unpleasant look.
"I won't," Sorrel said, though she couldn't feel an overwhelming sense of sincerity in those words. Labrys seemed to sense it, because he cocked his head. Nevertheless, he didn't push her.
"I'm also pretty certain it's bugged. That's why I was requested to speak with you. Can't have them tracking the voices of the others; at least my voice is already known. And masked."   
"That's nice," Osteo spoke up in an especially dead-pan voice. "But maybe you can tell us what you and your buddies wanted by attacking us." Labrys tilted his masked head toward him.
"Actually, they weren't planning on attacking you. They were aiming for the girl, and then…well according to them you took it to the next level."
"Ah," Osteo blinked slightly, then assumed his usual expression of only token interest.
"We're with the Resistance," Labrys continued.
"Against Minos?" Sorrel asked, and Labrys nodded.
"Resistance?" Osteo's wavering face held that flicker of smugness. "Heh, knew it. Downright predictable, really." Labrys glanced in Sorrel's direction. She shrugged.
Osteo ignored this and looked to Labrys. "So I got it now. The two basic paths here for the protagonists are either to work for big baddie Minos like shortie here," he also ignored Sorrel's scowl, "or join you guys?"
Labrys folded his arms. "If you want." he said. He turned to Sorrel. "I'm here to negotiate for…" he paused and looked to Osteo.
"Osteo," Osteo filled in. "But who says I want to join your resistance? Not that it won't be interesting, but still."
"It's either that," Labrys said, "or get caught eventually by Minos. And he most likely will recapture you. We're assuming that you'd like to avoid that scenario, and so we're willing to help you escape from him and those who work for him." Osteo snorted slightly but didn't say anything.
"Why are you assuming I somehow support Minos?" Sorrel asked flatly.
Labrys tilted his head. "Do you?"
"No."
"Interesting, your actions don't suggest it. Why, then, are you helping Minos recapture his experiment subjects?"
"How did-"
"We have our connections." Sorrel didn't answer. "As far as I can tell," Labrys continued in that voice that, Sorrel guessed, was meant to sound sharp, "all you have is a nicely balanced double standard."
Sorrel crossed her arms as well. "Oh?"
"You insist on hating the powers that suppress you, while making no effort to do something about them. We're trying to do something about them. We don't believe that just because someone has power, everyone else should just lie down and take it."
Sorrel bit her lip, but swallowed any number of the words she could have spit out at that moment. When the big man has all the chips, you listen to him, she petulantly recalled herself saying. Her words had been brash at the time.
"What I'm trying to say is that we can offer you safe harbor," Labrys said. "Drop your obligations to Minos, release Osteo, and my...connections will be willing to accept both of you into the Resistance. If we can really hit Minos where it hurts, if we can bring him down, then you'll be able to return home." Sorrel tried not to let her face express the little spark of…she decided to call it hope, that burst inside her.
Sorrel sighed, running her hand through hair that had fallen out of its usual bun. She mindlessly put it up again as she glanced to Osteo who, bored and insane and violent as he was, she still didn't like to think as suffering the same fate of Aslan. The idea of doing that intentionally to someone made her stomach flop.
And yet if she took Labrys's offer, she'd loose access to Apollo's promise, to Minos's possibly-existent cure, to finding out what had happened to Aslan.
Sorrel froze.
Aslan. Apollo had wanted her to do something concerning him. And now Labrys's words seemed to act as a key, a key that slid everything else neatly into place with a series of satisfying clunks. "If we can really hit Minos where it hurts" …"Minos himself has taken an intense interest in the Dryaid."
Sorrel moved casually away from Osteo and Labrys, not wanting them to glimpse her face as thoughts leapt and surged behind it.
Of course. Apollo wanted her to save Aslan. To spirit him out from right under Minos's nose. Of course. She knew the way out of that prison by now. She had a white-coat who seemed to trust her, to like her even. She felt guilty enough about Aslan that she wanted to help him. She disliked Minos enough that she wanted to harm him. Had Apollo known all that? He had to. He knew that she had all the parts she needed. All she required was the willingness to risk it.
She faltered at that moment, pausing at the edge of the darkness that engulfed the room. She could feel the decision gaping before her. She hadn't wanted to make that decision, because she'd been so frightened. Frightened of the consequences. Of Minos. Of loosing herself, and her family.
But the decision had to be made. And frankly, she was getting tired of her own hypocrasy.
When the big man has all the chips, you listen to him, she thought stolidly, that, or you better keep your head low when you try to cross him.
She turned back towards Labrys and Osteo, the two figures calm and agitated respectively. They stood well over a meter apart, and Sorrel was glad for this. She felt the stun grenades, warm with her own heat, move in her hand. She took her finger and clicked the tiny lever on one of them. Then, as if she were a child again throwing rocks at soldiers, she brought her hand up and slung shot one ball to where Osteo stood. Labrys dove to the side, but he needn't have bothered. The little stun grenade hit Osteo neatly in the chest. He barely had a chance to look angry before Sorrel saw a brief flash of blue lighting and a harsh metallic smell, and then Osteo was nothing more than a huddled mass on the floor of the dark and echoing room.
Labrys stared at Osteo, then looked up in time to see Sorrel's hand slip across her body so she could press her thumb firmly pressed against the black panel on the metal bracelet. The metal bracelet glowed and bleeped serenely.
"You may want to leave," Sorrel said softly. "They'll be here soon." She nodded to Osteo's form. "And I can't let him go with you."
"I can drag him out with me," Labrys said after a drawn-out pause.
"But you won't," Sorrel replied as she held up her second grenade. "Please, I don't want to see you arrested." Labrys seemed hesitant, reluctant, but Sorrel knew he couldn't do anything.
"You're making a mistake," he told her in his expressionless, mechanical voice before he turned swiftly and made for the door.
"Wait," Sorrel called out suddenly. Labrys paused. "The Yarn Ball," Sorrel said. "How sure are you that it will do what your message promised it would do?" She suspected Labrys was doing something like blinking or frowning under his mask.
"I'm very sure," he said. "Some cells just give it more problems."
Sorrel nodded, as satisfied as she could be. And then she gestured. "Hurry." Labrys did so.
Sorrel stood perfectly still as the door slammed shut, her breath coming in short gasps. She then moved swiftly to the grimy window. The alleyway stood completely empty.
Sorrel went towards the door and paused when her boot clicked against something metal. She scooped down in the darkness and picked up a slim little item. She moved her hand into the light struggling through the window and recognized the little metal rod Labrys had used to get rid of the spider-cams. She stared at it for a moment, then slipped it not into her pocket but inside the thick hair of her bun. It was small and light enough that it disappeared easily into the black tresses, just as the alley outside thudded with footsteps.