* * *
Danny
Mr. Applegate seemed utterly calm as the entire plant scrambled to get everything back up and running. A virus had gone into all their systems, erasing everything. All they had to go on for security were communications through cell phones and radios. A scary looking Kent stood over Danny’s computer chair arguing with Mr. Applegate. “I can have fifty of our best agents and a 102 out there in two minutes and—”
“Our 105’s will be fine,” Mr. Applegate interrupted him.
Kent looked like the veins in his forehead were going to pop. “But, sir, this isn’t procedure, if the intruder gets away … ”
“You’ll just have to see to it that our 105’s don’t let the intruder escape,” Mr. Applegate taunted. “This inconvenience should prove to be an interesting test.”
Danny tried his best to ignore the men, wishing they could find a different place to argue, while he tried to help retrieve the footage of how the prisoner got in here, though he feared it was too late and all gone. At this rate, they wouldn’t get the cameras up and going for hours; whatever that young kid had done it seemed permanent.
“They should need no more then twenty men to assist them,” Mr. Applegate said, giving Kent his final orders.
* * *
Donna
Donna rode in the machine, hearing sirens from somewhere far away, back from where she’d come from. Her heart was beating so fast and all she wanted was to get as far away as possible. After traveling about a mile, she saw two black Hummers in the distance driving up and stopping near the three houses she needed to get to. Her first instinct was to turn around, but she knew she’d only find Ryan behind her. No, she had to keep going even if it meant going through these people. She’d been through so much; could it really get worse? She didn’t want to know the answer. She felt charged, afraid but ready.
Spencer and Rebecca! The men weren’t very far away from where she’d left them. Oh God! She hoped they’d run away in time. Guards were already coming out of the cars, they were too far away to see at this point, but she was sure they had guns. There had to be at least twenty of them.
The machine started to get slower and slower, the energy she had sucked out of the battery would soon not be enough. She was too worried to think about sucking more energy out of it again. Panicked thoughts started in her head. They’ll all be shooting at me! What if there are more like Ryan waiting? Did Paul make it out? Where would I run to? Why am I hearing ambulances? Is Ryan coming behind me, to hold me down while these men take me? Will I ever see my father again? What will my godfather tell him?
The men were spreading out, each at least ten feet apart. She could see them clearly now as her machine came to a stop. They were all armed and ready, trapping her. It was overwhelming and unreal. It was like she was a deadly criminal or something. As she stood on the still machine, a giant ring of fire jumped up out of the grass, circling out around her, only a few feet in front of the men. It scared her as much as seeing Ryan’s hand pop out of that pile had. The circle was very large, like it was mapping out a building being built around her, about twenty feet out, to be trapped in. Something else was coming. These men were just here to watch. If she was human, she’d definitely be in tears. How could they do this, how could this many people be trying to hurt her? Would this nightmare ever end?
* * *
Paul
Paul held Rebecca close to him as they hid in the woods watching helplessly from afar as twenty agents jumped out of two big black Hummers and ran toward Donna, forming a barrier so she couldn’t pass.
“No! This can’t happen,” Rebecca cried into his chest. He held her tightly, positioning her so she couldn’t see anymore. “We can’t let them hurt Donna,” she mumbled, reading his mind. She was beside herself because Donna had been her best friend, and she had brought her here to save Paul.
Paul was seeing a bigger picture. Donna was innocent, untrained, and oblivious to the secrets of the plant. She could be the equivalent of the stone that hit Goliath’s head destroying him, but if they discovered her identity, none of that could come to pass. Even if she escaped and was on the run, they’d still always be ready for her.
“Ok, Einstein, I take it you have a plan right?” Spencer demanded.
Donna was coming on a giant crane, fully changed and looking like nothing more than electricity shaped like clay into the outline of a human. No one would know she was a helpless girl who’d never fought before. Her machine came to a stop and a ring of fire circled around her and the machine. The flames that encircled her rose up in the air, making it hard for Paul to see. The circle was big enough that a football team could fit inside it. It acted as a wall, separating her from the men, as another tall muscular figure walked toward it, the fire parting for him only. Whether it was meant to scare her or if the soldier suspected she had help, she was now completely out of their reach.
Paul broke free from Rebecca’s grasp.
“Wait, what are you doing?” Spencer yelled to Paul.
“There is a soldier that’s coming, one that’s stronger and will have more power and insight than any of them. One that’s seen great leaders rise and fall and plans to do better, ” Paul told him. “This is the only chance we’ll ever have to find free soldiers like Donna and keep their secret safe until then. People like Mr. Applegate will only turn her into his own weapon.”
“Hold on, buddy, the only thing I’m worried about is the here and now. We’re only sixteen for God’s sake! We get Donna out because she’s our Donna!” Spencer argued.
They both just looked at each other, unsure. Paul knew he had to do something, he couldn’t let her die. “They don’t know about you two! You need to go!” Paul snapped at Spencer.
Spencer was about to start his protest over again.
“It’s up to you to keep them safe!” Paul told him. He grabbed Rebecca and kissed her hard. “I would have given up everything to see you again right now. Your gonna save the world one day, Rebecca. Just make sure you live for me.” Then he ran … ran as fast as he could, toward Donna.
* * *
Spencer
Spencer saw Paul run off, and Rebecca started after him. He grabbed her; she was too tiny and fragile to go near that fire.
“I’ll help him! You run into the woods! You heard what he said, they’re watching your house. Go to Donna’s and wait for us.” He faced her, and the look in her eyes was something he knew he’d never forget. It was something he couldn’t put into words. It was past fear and terror, something deeper and more gut wrenching, mixed with salty tears. She looked so tiny and helpless. She just stared at him now, not moving. “Rebecca, he wants me to protect you, but I can’t help him, and Donna, and you all at once. They need me right now.”
“I’ll stay and help. You can use me.”
“If you and I both stay and both of us die, who’s gonna be alive to help Paul and Donna? You have to run now and get to a safe place! If not, we’re all dead anyway!”
She nodded finally, looking like she’d been stabbed, but her brain seemed to be racing already with a plan he was sure she’d come up with, once she got home, for their escape. Yeah, if we make it that far.
“If something happens to me, Rebecca, make sure my mom is safe.” He wondered if those words would be his last.
“We’re all going to live Spencer. We have to. I’ll be getting things ready, all you guys have to do is make it to Donna’s.”
“My, Becca, you never cease to amaze me,” he repeated, then turned, hoping she’d do what she had said and run.
* * *
Randy
Randy had left Lynn back at the construction site where his brother’s speaker had gone dead. This was turning out to be much more extreme than he’d been warned. Of course he’d been right about everything; Lynn and Ryan weren’t ready.
He’d trapped the guy inside a circle of fire. It was time to finish this and then find that Paul kid before the nerd got himself killed. Whoever
this intruder was, Randy was going to make him pay for having to clean up his mess.
* * *
Donna
Donna could only hide inside the machine for a few moments longer. All this to kill me! She felt very alone, almost as alone as the day she’d woken up abandoned in the forest after the accident. Only this was a different kind of loneliness. All she had was her electric body to get her through this. She’d thought all she’d have to do was get through the men, running through them and perhaps never stopping, but then the fire had come. It was like a caustic portrayal of hell had arrived, designed to solely take her soul.
She held on tight to the machine, letting its remaining energy flow into her, enough to make her lighter and faster then she’d ever been. She felt too full, like she’d drunk too much water but still kept sucking more into herself anyway. Then she jumped down and took a few steps forward; she could still run behind the machine if need be.
Next the fire parted, and a figure walked through. It was a man, looking like a god of fire, the flames closing in behind him as if he controlled them with his will. He was tall, muscular, and all too familiar. Unlike Ryan, his features weren’t twisted and animal like. No, from afar he seemed like the same bully she’d known all her life, walking toward her like she was a small child and he wanted her lunch money. Only difference was he seemed to have a different kind of strength to back him up, a power that was all too deadly. Randy Applegate was the next soldier here to take her.
Donna stayed still. Every new threat was like a new blow to what her old life had been, meant to rub in the fact that it was all a big lie, but better Randy than having to face Ryan again. At least with him Donna could expect pain, yet not have her heart eaten alive by it. Not emotionally, anyway.
Electricity was coming out of the machine behind Donna, and it looked like it was electrocuting her. When in reality she, without thinking about it, was siphoning it out, out of fear. She was doing it without even touching it. She’d done so many new things today, but was any of it enough?
Could she really compete with high school bullies who had powers that the devil should only possess? Randy’s eyes were lit red and annoyed. He saw the machine feeding her, and with a slight movement of his eyes, it burst up into flames behind her, exploding. The guards ran, ducking for cover and backing up. Donna covered her head out of instinct, her scream covered by the painful sound of the explosion. Debris and pieces of metal flew through her, their speed moving her like the bullets had, making her stumble and shake, her body pulsing.
Donna looked up at him. He was staring at her hands. Donna looked down and in them was a small ball of electricity, not touching her electric skin but floating above her fingers. It was the extra bit she had sucked out but couldn’t fully absorb or hold. Her body was pushing it out, ready to hurt someone before they came close enough to try and touch her. Donna felt like an untrained athlete. Like she was being forced to play flag football at school, having the ball passed to her with a hundred mean bullies racing to rip her flag off. Only this flag was her life.
Randy took another step forward, about to say something, when she instinctively threw the ball of electricity at him. He jumped out of the way, but not before a part of it hit his arm. Randy jittered and screamed in pain. Donna just stood there in shock. What did she just do, and how did she do it? Randy looked back at Donna with angry burning eyes, and the next thing she knew the ring of fire was coming in on her fast, like she was stuck in a burning building and the fiery walls were coming down.
The fire swallowed her, so large and powerful that she was but a morsel trapped inside it. It not only wrapped around her, holding her down, but it came up through her feet and shoulders, alive on her insides. It surrounded her heart, crushing it. It was too hot, too much, but then the strangest thing started to happen. Her electric body’s insides began to fight back. Containing the fire that was inside her, using its heat as if it were cleansing her. Her body felt like it was so pure it could float away. The fire on the outside seemed to be the only thing holding her down. She slowly stepped through it, feeling like her body had to eat and digest each part of flame that came into her.
Her body, working to transfer the fire into energy, opened up a new consciousness in her mind. She didn’t feel like Donna Young anymore, she felt like someone else. When she was fully out of the flames, she was only about ten feet away from Randy. Hovering above his hands, dancing over his fingertips, were shreds of more live fire, very similar to how Donna had held the ball of electricity. So he was somewhat like her, unlike Ryan, who had been like something entirely different.
She knew the fire wouldn’t hurt her now, or at least not burn her. It could only slow her down. Yet somehow Randy seemed just as threatening. He’d figured something out she hadn’t yet, a plan forming in his mind. Sparks of new electricity made from Donna’s body that had digested Randy’s own flames, sparked out of her fingers. I’m getting out of here!
He ran toward her, and Donna barely had to move; her electric fingers zapped him and he screamed out. Then he twisted his body and pushed a fist full of fire into her stomach. Donna had been wrong. The fire could hurt her. She felt violated, he was doing what he’d done before, sending fire into her but with his own human hands. She pushed him away, feeling a different kind of physical agony. Her body, like a machine, began absorbing and changing the new fire that had been put inside her, sending sparks of electricity popping out of her hands and lighting some of the grass on fire. Randy smiled, using this moment of her electrical digestion to send the small fires blazing up, not touching her, but making her duck. She couldn’t afford to be in the fire again. It felt good afterwards, but until then it was paralyzing.
“You think because you’re an Electrolite you can get away? You think you have the advantage because we didn’t see you coming?” Randy barked at her, once again becoming the bully of the playground, hell’s playground. The fires on the field roared around him, following him as he walked right next to her. “Electrocute me all you want, I’m just getting started!”
His words felt like claws in her back. Out of Donna’s hands again another ball of electricity was growing; her body was doing too much, and she had to get rid of it. She pushed it out toward him, more to get the fire inside her to die out than to even think about defending herself. This time he was ready, moving around her. Not with super speed like Ryan had, but still quickly enough. Randy’s concentration on the fire inside her just got worse. It was bursting through her shoulders, more and more flames appearing out of thin air, it pushed her further down into the ground. Randy knew now that his fire made her slower, that her body had to work to convert it, giving him more and more time to conquer her. “If I find out you’ve hurt my brother,” he continued on, as if he needed to talk to control his anger. “You’ll wish I’d killed you.”
The fire in her gut flared up ten times in size. It rose up through her more than several feet in the air. Step out of it, Donna, use it like you did before! she told herself, the voice in her head sounding more like a mixture of Brook and her new self, than of Donna Young. It was a stronger person’s voice, but yet it felt like it was being beaten. She tried to crawl forward on her knees, but every movement felt like it was a distraction from her body converting the fire.
She pushed with all her might, half moaning as she crawled one step’s distance, looking up into her bully’s eyes. He made the fire even more intense, kicking her back to shaky stillness. Maybe if he knew it was me, I’d have a moment of freedom, an extra second to run? Unlike Ryan, Randy still seemed like Randy, only with power; but she couldn’t turn back to being human; her body was too busy. The other guards were moving in closer. She hadn’t noticed that a van had arrived only a few feet away from her. Out of the van came three men with some kind of a cage they held together in their hands.
“Why are there only three of you?” Randy demanded with his eyes still locked on Donna. He was concentrating hard on this, she realized, his eyes full
of flames of bitterness, more for these men than for his own prisoner.
“Your father says this should be more than enough for the 105’s to handle.”
Randy didn’t answer the men, but his anger for them wasn’t hidden from Donna, who felt another blast of flames erupt within her. Donna had become his own personal punching bag.
It was amazing how clearly she could think, see, and hear right now while her body was so busy and working hard for control; the fire clearing her head. She pushed her hands down hard into the ground sending electricity through it. The electric rays like snakes slithered over to the men, sending small shocks into them. Their faces seemed pained, but not the least bit surprised. They understand me. These men probably know more about me than I do myself, these three strangers … she thought. All her fears, the old Donna Young, seemed to be far off somewhere, away, somewhere deep inside, hiding safely while this more observant electric self was soaking every moment in.
Then she heard new sounds, sounds of someone running. Donna seemed to hear it first, in her alert state, before anyone else did. She moved her eyes toward it, unable to move her head. Paul, seeming so innocent and out of place among these demons, was running toward not her, but Randy. He was shouting, and the moment Randy looked up his concentration was half lifted. Donna was then able to more easily digest the fire without new fire being there to meet her. With her attention still alert on what was happening, she was able to take the tiniest step toward freedom.
“What the … ” Randy cursed, seeming shocked yet looking at Paul like he was a crazy fool. Not that in this moment Donna could disagree. What is Paul doing? This was too dangerous. He was too fragile. What was he thinking? Then the new, stronger voice in Donna’s conscious answered her calmly as if it was obvious. He’s here to save you, Donna. He’s going to sacrifice himself.
Her old mental voice, the little afraid girl she had been before Randy’s fire had gotten to her, came rushing back in her mind to meet the new one. No! Paul, no! Stop, run away! Randy was making a fist with one hand while motioning for the guards to stay away, but his message wasn’t heard. Paul ran right into Randy as the first shot was fired.