* * *
Matt, Manny, and Amanda dropped to their hands and knees as they neared the end of the shelf. As they peered down from their perch they saw James lying on the floor as a guard stood over him getting ready to shoot him. Before they could act the man screamed and dropped his weapon. While he was still howling in pain from whatever James had done to him Manny reached out and took control of the guard, freezing him in his tracks.
“I’ve got the guard,” Manny whispered to Amanda. “Can you take him out?”
Amanda looked around quickly. On a nearby shelf she saw lengths of metal pipe. They were heavy but she found a short one that she could manage. She used her power to pick up the pipe and sent it spinning at the guard. The pipe hit him squarely in the face, knocking him to the floor.
“Nice,” Manny said, squeezing her hand.
“The window,” Matt whispered from Manny’s other side.
They looked down and saw another guard pull himself through the narrow opening and drop to the floor. Before he could get to his feet Manny took control of him, freezing him in place. Anamda was just reaching out with her senses for another object to hurl at him when Matt cried out.
“Look out!”
Machine gun fire exploded into the room. They didn’t know if the guard had actually seen them or not but bullets began ricocheting around them. Manny released the guard and they pulled back into the shadows. As they hunkered down, Matt went rigid.
“Stop him James!” Matt yelled suddenly. “He’s unblocking the window!”
The warning was all they could do for now. Until the shooting stopped they didn’t dare poke their heads up. As the bullets continued to whine and ricochet around them the three friends huddled together on the metal shelf. Then Amanda screamed as a bullet pierced the shelf inches away from her head. That’s when Manny decided to act.
Normally he needed to see the person he wanted to control, but he had learned earlier that it wasn’t always necessary. Closing his eyes he reached out with his senses, searching for the guard who was shooting into the room. After his recent experience he knew that he had to be careful not to jump his consciousness completely into the other person, but he needed to stop the shooting before a stray bullet hit one of them. Stretching out with his senses he felt around in the room below. It only took him a few moments to locate the man he was searching for. Without being able to see him he could not direct his actions but he could freeze him. The machine gun fire stopped.
“Got him!” Manny said.
The group of them crept forward and peered down.
“Oh shit,” Manny swore under his breath.
The guard he was controlling stood frozen in the window, but the crate that had been blocking the window was now out of the way and guards were beginning to come through the opening two and three at a time. Off to one side they could see James crouched behind the forklift. For the moment the guards didn’t see him but it was only a matter of time before one of them looked in his direction.
Even as Manny was worrying about James’ predicament, Amanda was acting. Items began flying off the shelves toward the guards, pelting them from every direction as they climbed through the window. There were so many of them that she didn’t have the time to aim as carefully as she would have liked. She managed to hit some of them in the head, stunning them and even knocking a few down.
As Amanda harassed the guards, Manny added his skill to the battle, taking control of one guard after another, making them throw themselves into their comrades and knocking them both down. They worked as fast as they could and for a time they managed to hold their own against the guards. For all their efforts however they were not able to do much more than delay them. And more were continuing to pour into the room every moment.
That was when Paige appeared from the next aisle. She launched herself into the midst of the guards like a tornado and the bodies began to fly. There were so many of them now that they couldn’t use their guns without shooting each other and Paige used this to her advantage. Staying in their midst she bounced from place to place, keeping herself surrounded by living human shields as she delivered punches and kicks with devastating results.
Then James joined the fray. From his hiding place behind the forklift he began heating the objects Amanda was hurling at the guards. Screams rang out as the guards began to be struck by red-hot objects, which often stuck to them for several seconds causing extensive burns. Soon the smell of charred flesh began to fill the air.
Looking down into the confusion below, Amanda selected a target and sent a heavy box slamming into the head of one guard, bowling him over. He hit the floor hard and didn’t move. Amanda pumped her fist and muttered, “Yes!” under her breath. But in the time she had taken to deal with that one guard, three others had climbed through the window.
“There’s too many of them,” she said as she returned to hurling random objects at the guards, confusing them as they searched for their tormentor. “We need to block the window again.”
A wide grin sprouted on Matt’s face just then. “I think James has that covered.”
Glancing down, the teens saw James still crouched behind the forklift, but now his attention was focused on the window. He had both arms raised toward the window and a look of intense concentration was on his face. A series of screams sounded from the window as several guards who had started to climb through at the same time threw themselves backward into the office. Tendrils of smoke started to curl upward from the window as the metal of the frame began to glow, dull red at first and gradually increasing to a bright, yellow-orange. Waves of heat shimmered in the air around the window and even from their position atop the shelves the three teens could feel the heat radiating from the metal frame. Then, with a whoosh, the crate held by the forklift burst into flame. Everyone on the floor of the warehouse backed away from the sudden blaze. Even James seemed surprised by the spontaneous conflagration.
Between the super-heated metal of the window frame and the burning wooden crate, no one would be coming through there for quite some time. The teens took advantage of the opportunity and pressed the fight with renewed spirit.
While Paige continued to battle like a whirling dervish in their midst, Amanda sent more objects slamming into the guards, this time aiming her shots carefully. Manny selected the largest guard he could see, an intimidating figure as tall as Dimitri whose body was thick with muscle, and sent him after the other guards. Under Manny’s direction the massive figure batted aside anyone near him, pummeling them into unconsciousness. For his part James alternated between heating the objects Amanda was launching at the guards and targeting their machine guns. Soon most of the guards had been disarmed and were too preoccupied with their burns to put up much of a fight.
Without reinforcements constantly pouring through the window the teens were able to quickly get control of the situation. In a short time all of the guards had been dealt with.
As Paige delivered a spinning kick to the last of the guards and sent him cart-wheeling to the floor, the warehouse became quiet. The only sound was the crackling of the fire as the wooden crate burned fiercely away. Matt, Manny, and Amanda climbed down from the shelves to join Paige and James.
Paige was breathing heavily from her exertions and had a bruise on her left cheek but was otherwise fine. James however was having trouble staying on his feet. He stood swaying slightly and complained of a terrible weakness. When Manny moved to help him stand, he was shocked by how cold James’ body felt.
“You’re like ice!” Manny said.
James looked at him with drowsy eyes. “Jus’ need a minute to res’,” he slurred.
Matt glanced down the aisle toward the front of the building. “The others have made it to the door,” he said. “But there’s a problem. We need to catch up with them.”
They started toward the front of the warehouse, Amanda leading the way. Behind her Manny and Matt helped to support James between them while Paige took up the rear,
watching their backs.
When they reached the front of the building they saw the rest of their group huddled by the main door. A security shutter like the ones covering the office windows had lowered into place over the door. Tom lay stretched out on the floor nearby, not moving. At first glance Paige feared he was dead. Then she saw his chest rising and falling in shallow, rapid breaths. Although relieved that he was alive she was frightened by how tenuous his hold on life seemed to be. Beside him Dimitri sat next to Shay who was huddled against the base of the wall, her head resting on his shoulder. Shay glanced up at their arrival, met her sister’s eyes, and they shared a brief smile. She looked better but didn’t seem to be completely recovered yet. On Dimitri’s other side Magda was perched on a small crate, her head bowed as she sat hunched over resting her forearms on her knees and looking drained.
Danny and Reed were the only ones on their feet. Reed stood facing the door, an expression of intense concentration on his face. Behind him Danny was shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot as he looked on helplessly. With the computer system off-line the EM field around the door was deactivated so they could use their powers, but without Tom’s strength they were forced to release each of the deadbolts one by one. There were four deadbolts on either side of the security shutter and two along the bottom. Reed had just defeated two of the locks along one side and was starting on the third when the others arrived.
Matt and Manny eased James down to sit on the floor next to Magda while Paige knelt beside Tom and held his hand.
“How’s it going?” Manny asked, stepping up beside Danny.
“Slow,” Reed said over his shoulder. “Too slow. We need to get this open before…” He stopped suddenly, staring at the door in disbelief. “No.”
“What’s wrong?” Manny asked.
“An EM barrier just went up,” Danny said, raising a palm toward the door. “The computer system must have finished rebooting.”
“Crash it again,” Manny said.
“I’ll try,” Danny said, sounding none too sure. He closed his eyes, frowning in concentration. After several moments he opened them again, shaking his head. “I was afraid of this,” he said. “I can’t get back in. The system restarted in secure mode. All contact with anything outside of the system core has been cut off.”
Matt looked toward the back of the warehouse.
“We’ve got another problem,” Matt said. “Now that the system is back up they’re overriding the lockdown on the trap room door. They’ll be through any minute.”
“NO!” Reed yelled and kicked the sealed doorway.
“What do we do?” Amanda said.
“We fight,” Manny said, his expression hard.
Paige brushed a few loose strands of hair out of Tom’s face and stood up. “We fight,” she said, echoing Manny.
Magda pushed herself to her feet, took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “We fight.”
Beside her, James struggled to his feet as well. “We fight,” he said, swaying slightly.
At that moment they were surprised to see a shadowy shape appear out of one of the aisles. Apollo padded slowly up to Shay, head hanging, and sat by her side. Shay draped her arm around the dog, stroking his head absently, and looked up at the others.
“We fight,” Shay agreed.
They were a motley group. Apart from Tom who lay gravely wounded and unconscious on the floor, the rest of them were either wounded themselves or just plain exhausted. But in their eyes burned a fierce determination. Having made their decision the group seemed to draw strength from each other. As they came together all their aches, pains, fears and exhaustion seemed to melt away.
Just then Matt looked up.
“They’re coming.”
Chapter Seventeen