She tried to turn her head, but it seemed to only want to face the big machine in the middle of the room. As she pleaded with herself to break free of what was holding her still, her vision changed back to her black and blue vision, making her see what her body was feeling. The big machine in the middle of the room was so full of live electricity that the little bouncing lights were bending and stretching like she’d never seen them move before. Out of their core was a rainbow of lights, making her and all the darkness of the black and blue room seem like death compared to them. She willed her vision back to normal as she had in the hallway; seeing the room like she’d just seen it was too much.
She heard the sounds of many men yelling and calling out numbers she didn’t understand. They were running down the hall coming toward her. Her body screamed to be free. Then like a tidal wave, pure electricity spilled out of the machine coming at Donna’s body, wrapping around and pouring into her, knocking her down to her feet but then pushing her back up, like she had no control of herself. It lifted her up into the air, tying around her like a giant electric snake, shocking her, but in a way that didn’t hurt.
It was too intense, too much. Surely she was going to die any moment now. It was suffocating her. She could not survive this place. She looked out, seeing about ten guards slipping lead suits on and getting very weird looking guns ready, but not to save her from the electric hold this machine had on her. No, the guns were for her.
Donna surrendered. Letting the energy in the machine wrap around her and cross into her until her body felt so light that it was as if she wasn’t even there, and her head was dizzy. The men entered the room with their guns drawn toward her. This was it.
No, her mind screamed. No, I want to live!
That’s when her body took control. Somehow she used it to absorb all the electricity it was able to hold from the machine, and then pushed the rest away, breaking the machine’s hold on her. Then she was falling through the air and through the ground. She fell through layers of dirt and gravel, then through hard cement, and what lay underneath that were basement floors she kept falling through.
Had they shot her? Was this an invisible elevator to hell? Is that where she was going? No, she knew she was still alive when she felt her electric body hit the ground.
She landed standing, as if she hadn’t fallen all that way, but her dizziness kicked in, causing her to lose balance, and she was on her back, lying on the cold floor in the next second. She lay there for a moment, hearing alarms going off like crazy. She looked at her hands and saw them looking so much like two rays of energy, no humanity left in them at all.
She looked up and saw she was in a room made of glass with a tall ceiling, and outside the room was a big brightly lit hallway leading to more glass rooms. Oh God, where am I? She ran thought the glass wall down the hall and went through another glass room. All of them had doors with flashing red lights that frightened her. She was in over her head and she knew it. She had known it from the beginning. How was she going to find Paul? How was she ever going to find a way out of here?
The third glass room she ran into was surrounded by computer equipment, with a few small desks in the corner. She heard people running down the halls, and she ducked down behind one of the desks and hid. The door of the room she was in made a loud beeping noise as it opened. Four guards that looked similar to the ones she’d seen before upstairs piled into the room. These men didn’t have those weird looking guns, but that did not lessen her fear.
On all fours, Donna crawled through the desk, behind it and through a giant computer thing, making it pop, crackle, and explode as she passed through it and into another glass room. At the same time, all the lights in all the glass rooms started going on and off. Had she done that when she passed through that machine? Or was this meant to scare her? Either way, at least she felt a little more hidden on her hands and knees. The lights flashing made her transparent, incandescent body blend in a fraction more than she would have otherwise.
She kept crawling now, her body almost weightless and going faster then she could ever imagine she could crawl. She went from room to room to room, not able to do anything but keep moving.
* * *
Randy
“There’s over ten different possibilities of what it could be right now.”
Randy, annoyed, listened to Lynn’s voice over his cell phone as he drove up to the power plant. It was practically 4:30 on a Saturday morning, and they were calling him because God forbid team 105 actually do something without him.
He walked, taking his time, through the main doors, the security guard not bothering to stop him for his entrance card. Good thing, because with the mood Randy was in, he’d definitely regret it. Randy walked toward the main hallway. “Whatever, I’m on my way. I take it Ryan’s there already,” he said on the phone to her bitterly.
Ryan had left right when he did.
“Yeah, he just got here, and don’t take the elevator. The guy is destroying a lot of our equipment on this little spree of his, and if they shut down I’m not coming to get you.”
Randy rolled his eyes and started down the stairs. “Can you please put someone on the phone that knows what they’re talking about!” he snapped at her.
“A fire broke out in one of the power supplier rooms he passed through. Don’t have the specifics yet but maybe you’ll meet someone besides me who can put you in your place,” she hissed.
“In your dreams, sweetheart.” He hung up the phone, now on the third lower level. He saw regular human guards and agents running around toward where the intruder must have gone, some armed with guns, others with tranquilizers. The lights were flashing on and off. The place was a mad house. Goofs, all of them, just gonna get in my way!
Lynn and their new team leader, Kent, were waiting for him. No doubt their other dimwitted precious team member had gone over there to help already, leaving Randy stuck with his girlfriend. Shoot me now!
“You couldn’t have woken up one of the actual REAL teams to do this?” Randy clamored at the guy. Kent had been training them for six months now and he acted like he was running the place. Randy could care less how much his father was paying him; this whole thing was a joke.
“Your father seems to think the three of you are ready,” Kent cockily said back. “Let’s see if you can put your power where your mouth is, 1051.”
“We both know my father wouldn’t allow his favorite to blindly hunt by himself unless he knew this intruder was some idiot amateur.”
“Shut up, Randy! If you ruin this for me I will make sure none of the cheerleaders hook up with you for the next month!” Lynn snapped at him excited for action.
“Oh, I’m really afraid now!”
Kent ignored them, listening to someone on his headset. “The two of you need to go now, it’s on this floor!” he ordered.
* * *
Donna
Donna had crawled through so many glass rooms, one after another after another. So many of the rooms were alike that she wondered if she was just running in circles. After these last ten she could no longer hear the sounds of screaming or men coming after her. Just the sounds of the alarms kept her company now.
She stopped, kneeling down, trying to take advantage of this desolated area. Have I lost them? With the lights still flashing wildly, it was hard to see until she was right next to something, lighting it up.
Two men came into the room. Donna froze, her body shaking. A taller bald one, dressed in a suit, from what Donna could tell, was talking loudly over the alarm to a skinnier man behind him Donna couldn’t make out. “Now you stay put and—” The lights came on, revealing Donna to them both.
Donna’s mind screamed for her to run, but her body stayed still, knowing it was too late. The bald man covered the man behind him as he pulled out a gun and shot her. Donna felt the small bullet go right through her, expecting to feel pain but instead only the speed of the tiny thing knocking her back. Four more shots were fired, each time Donna exp
ecting to die, and each time only feeling the sensation of falling back as she struggled not to.
“Touch him! Touch him!” a voice from somewhere called out. Donna didn’t have time to understand; the shock of being shot at and the bullets trying to slam her down to the ground was enough to distract her. The bald man didn’t seem to be afraid of Donna, nor deterred by the fact that his bullets weren’t killing her. Instead, he was bent of firing till one did its job. Yet all the bullets just kept passing through her electric flesh.
“Touch him! Touch him now!” she heard the voice scream again. Was it calling out to her? Why did it sound so familiar? Then someone was jumping on the shooter’s back, making his shots fly out in totally different directions around the room. His bullets bounced off the glass walls, which must have been bullet proof.
“Touch him! Please, touch him!” the man straddling the shooter’s back was screaming at her over the sounds of the bullets. Donna looked up. The thinner guy that had been behind the shooter the whole time was Paul. Paul was saving her, again. When she’d come to help him. She did what he was telling her to do immediately. She pushed herself up and threw her arms on her shooter, careful not to touch Paul. Paul jumped off the man’s back the moment his gun started to fall out of his hands at Donna’s electrical touch. The man fell to the ground in pain, knocking himself out cold. She stood staring at the man, then back up at Paul. Their eyes locked in silence for the next second that passed by, seeming like forever.
“Don’t change back to normal, they see everything here!” Paul told her. She nodded, not saying a word. She’d found him, but what was she supposed to do next? Why couldn’t she be better at this stuff? If she had the powers of one of these soldiers, why didn’t it all just come natural to her?
“You came here for me?” he asked seeming to know the answer. “You shouldn’t have. Now they know you exist.”
“Rebecca can’t live without you,” Donna told him, as time seemed to speed back up again.
Before Donna was even done talking, Paul was ripping off the ID card that had been around the shooter’s neck and swiping it through the panel on the door. “Come on!”
She followed him as they ran down the hall. He went to another door a few rooms down and swiped the card through, then typed in numbers. He looked very afraid and unsure but the door opened with an annoying beep. This room, like so many others, was full of giant computers that covered an entire ten foot high glass wall from top to bottom.
Paul was at the computer right away, typing in codes.
“What are we doing?” she asked him, feeling dizzy. This was all happening to fast.
“I don’t think they know how far I hacked in; I’m going to try to do it again and plant a virus. Should erase all their footage from tonight and give us time to get out of here.” He typed away on the computer like crazy, as different screens kept popping up and disappearing before Donna could even read them. “You need to go! I have an access card so maybe I can get out now, maybe not, but together we’re dead.”
“You have to get out of here alive, Paul!” If she left him now, wouldn’t she be back to where they started before she even broke into this place?
“I know, but so do you! Trust me, more than our lives depend on it. You’ve given me enough. Now run!”
Run, run, Donna, run! There were those words again sending fresh adrenaline through her, making her anxious as she felt her body glow brighter. “Rebecca and Spencer are in the woods waiting for us,” Donna told him in a rush as her feet were already moving away from him.
Paul pulled his eyes away from the computer and looked at Donna for a second, as if about to say something, but then stopped himself. “Ok, go!”
Donna turned, running through the glass wall into the hallway. He’d made himself clear. He obviously understood all this a hundred times more then she did. If only he had the powers and not me. Four guards were coming her way, which meant they were coming Paul’s way too. Spencer’s words went through Donna’s head.
If anyone tries to hurt you, remember that you’re electricity! Donna! You’re electricity!
The bullets sailed into Donna as she changed directions and started toward the guards. The bullets speed and force were rippling through her, trying to slow her down but she was to weightless as she ran. The men looked more afraid than the bald man from before had, but Donna didn’t have time to think about it. They were trying to kill her, and Paul needed to get away. She ran into them, through them. They all fell to the ground. Some were screaming out like they’d been tasered, others were falling unconscious or maybe even … Donna kept running; whether she’d just killed people in order to escape or not, she didn’t have time to look back.
* * *
Paul
Paul pressed enter, sending the last of the virus he’d downloaded off the web into the power plant’s computer system. It was something that could be easily stopped when being sent to the plant by some random hacker, but not so easily when the hacker was inside their main computer base at the plant and there was an electric girl running through it.
Installing it while bullets were being fired, knowing this was his last chance to escape this place, was not fun or easy at all. A part of him didn’t really think he could escape, but he knew now that, as much as it was a bad idea for everyone, he had to. Rebecca was out there waiting for him. He should have known she’d never just give up and leave it at him being taken; she was too wise and good of a person not to try something.
He had to get to her, to figure out a way to keep her safe. You’re a computer geek who can’t keep your own self protected! How do you expect to keep the girl you love safe also? a voice in his head mocked him, but adrenaline blocked out the thoughts as the power shut off completely in the entire plant. Maybe even the entire town. Of course the power plant was still full of power. He hadn’t shut down everything but the computer that distributed all the information he’d sent a virus to, causing the blackout, while all their files began erasing.
He pushed the door open. Everyone down on this floor was in motion. Paul barely stood out. Every scientist was arming up, slipping bulletproof vest on and taking cover. Clearly they had done drills for this sort of thing. Other people on computers were shouting over bullets being fired, trying to get the systems back and running. Paul had ten minutes tops to get out of here.
He started out the door, awkwardly tripping over the passed out guards, heading into the hallway. He had to get upstairs to the main floor and out a back exit. All while everyone else was after Donna.
* * *
Spencer
For a while there had been nothing but static coming out of the cell phone Paul had wired. Then they had heard Donna’s voice, “You … get out … alive!” followed by more static and then Paul’s “Ok, go!” Then even more terror burned into Spencer as he heard the sounds of guns being fired come out of the phone next, a sound he had heard all to well before, when his stepfather first sent men after his mom when he was only a child.
There were some strained sounds of screaming in the background before the thing lost its connection again. Rebecca looked like she was on the verge of death. Her hand had automatically reached for Spencer’s as they first heard Donna’s voice. Now her nails were digging into his palms out of her raw fear. He got closer to her, wishing somehow he could make her feel better, while his body wanted to absolutely burst or do something, anything, to help his friends. This couldn’t be the end for them.
A thought occurred to him and he grabbed his cell phone, not knowing what else to do.
“What are you doing?” she asked him.
“Clearly they need a distraction if they’re going to get away!” he told her. He dialed nine-one-one. “Yes, we need the police, the fire department, and an ambulance in front of the power plant now!” he yelled into the phone at the operator. “There’s a huge fire, the entire place is burning to the ground, and my sister has asthma and is having a stroke! The fire’s coming closer! Help!” he
screamed into the phone, making it up as he went along, then hung up. Rebecca stared at him. He wondered if that had been a terrible idea, but he had to try something. “If they’re trying to keep this under wraps it should be hard with half of our town showing up to rescue someone from a fire.”
“But they could trace your cell phone—”
“My cell phone’s not in my name,” he interrupted her. “It’s a throwaway, by the minute one, from the West Applegate mall. My mom and I can’t have cell phones in our names, just in case.”
Rebecca looked sympathetic and relieved. A tiny ounce of a smile came upon her face, approving of his decision. Spencer breathed out, putting his free hand on her shoulder. At least he had managed to do something right, he hoped. Now all they could do was wait. Wait for Paul and Donna to come, and whoever else would be behind them.
* * *
Donna
Donna ignored the woman who was screaming and ran around through the computers behind her, hearing them explode as she went through another glass wall. She was in a dark hallway and saw a staircase at the end of it leading up somewhere. She ran to the stairs as fast as she could, praying they would lead to the top floor so she could get out of there.
Even though the whole place was without power and dark already, the middle of the staircase as she approached was somehow darker then the rest of the stairs. Not an ounce of light from the top or bottom floor shone through. Even with her glowing body, it was hard to see. She heard guards coming down toward her, which made her stop. Before she could think to turn around, she heard footsteps coming from behind her as well. She couldn’t see them, but at any moment they were all going to be able to see her. She backed up against the staircase wall to see if one group would turn around, so she wouldn’t have too run through more men. Unfortunately, the darkness had made her back up too far. Before she knew what was happening, she was falling again, through the staircase wall. Behind it was nothing but the outside air. Donna kept falling …