I turned to look at the rest of our ensemble, all of whom shook their heads.
“Great,” Electra muttered, “that’s just great.”
I was suddenly curious. I turned to Aqua, who was behind me. “They change the codes a lot around here?”
Aqua nodded, saying, “Every week on interior locks; every two weeks on exterior ones, like the garage.”
“So what now?” I asked. “Are we done?”
“Not exactly,” Aqua said with laughter in her voice. “Why don’t you turn around and watch your girl do her thing.”
If the “my girl” comment affected Electra in any way, she didn’t show it. In fact, I’m not even sure she heard it. She was holding her hand out towards the door and frowning in deep concentration. I began to feel an ionized charge slowly building in the air. I involuntarily took a step back, having previously been an eyewitness to the type of power Electra had.
There was a slight crackle of electricity and then I saw little shoots of lightning zipping across the surface of the door. Abruptly, there was the sound of tumblers moving and the audible click of a lock changing position. Then the door opened.
“Voila,” said Electra, turning to us with a flourish.
We hustled inside quickly and found ourselves in a stairwell leading down. As we descended, I asked Electra what she had done to the door.
She paused in thought for a second as we walked. “How much do you know about electronics and magnetism?” she asked.
“Not much,” I answered truthfully.
“Well, let’s just say it was a magnetic lock but I was able to electronically bypass the code requirement.”
At the bottom of the stairwell we came to another locked door, which Electra opened in the same manner as the first. She and the others then led me down a complicated series of hallways - practically a maze - before stopping at a set of elevator doors. Electra used her powers again to get the doors to open.
As we stepped inside, I noticed that there were no buttons to push; apparently there was only one place you could go in this elevator. The doors closed and the elevator started descending. No one said anything, but I saw nervous glances between the others. When I opened myself empathically, I felt nervousness and anxiety from several of them - as well as something like determination from Electra.
Rapunzel finally spoke. “Electra, do you really think we should–”
“It’s fine,” Electra snapped, cutting her off. “It’s not a problem.”
I wondered what was going on but kept my mouth shut. I wasn’t clear on what was happening, but I was suddenly interested.
We rode the rest of the way down - about another ten seconds - in silence. The elevator’s momentum slowed and, after coming to a complete stop, the doors opened with a slight hiss.
As we stepped out of the elevator, I noticed that we were in some kind of lobby, about fifteen by twenty feet in area. Long hallways stretched off to both the left and the right, as well as directly ahead of us. All around us I could hear mechanized drones and hums, the sounds of large machinery in operation.
Electra led the way down the hallway to the right. “Come on.”
We all followed - the others sheepishly. They obviously knew more about what was going on than I did. About midway down the hall, Electra stopped and opened a doorway to her left.
The room we went into was large and spacious. Along one side was a huge expanse of what was obviously extremely sophisticated - and expensive - computer equipment. There weren’t a lot of flashing lights and dials, but there were quite a few screens and monitors. Along the other wall were what appeared to be a number of huge open stalls. The walls for each went from floor to ceiling. Looking into the nearest one, I could see a cot against one wall, a sink and a chair. From this angle, they all looked like jail cells (albeit cells with an open front instead of bars). Then it hit me.
These were cells! Nullifier cells! I was about to make a comment to that effect when someone else suddenly spoke.
“What are you kids doing here?” It was Mouse, quietly looking at one of the computer screens and taking notes. He was wearing black trousers and a black t-shirt. I wondered how I hadn’t noticed him before.
“You know you aren’t supposed to be here,” he continued without looking up.
It was Electra who responded. “We just wanted to show Jim the nullifier cells.”
“Oh, hey,” Mouse said, looking up and seeming to notice me for the first time before becoming engrossed in his work again. “Electra, I’m sorry; you’ll have to impress your date later. We’re in the middle of an operation.”
“Please, Mouse,” Electra pleaded. “We’ll just take a quick look at one of the cells and leave.”
“Fine.” Mouse waved his hand in irritation. “Just make it quick.”
We all hustled over to the nearest cell. Most people never get to see a nullifier, so it occurred to me that I needed to look somewhat awestruck. Silently, I was counting my blessings that Mouse had spoken up earlier and kept me from blurting out that I knew what it was.
There was a small panel, almost like a podium, at the front of each cell. Electra pressed a number of buttons on the panel for the cell where we had congregated, and a soft hum filled the air. I felt a pressure building at the front of the cell - almost imperceptibly at first, then slowly growing. Looking intently, I saw a concave shape, ghostly white in color but still transparent, slowly take form at the cell entrance. I didn’t fully realize what it was until Electra stepped over and leaned against it.
“A force field!” I said, almost crying out.
“Pretty cool, huh?” Electra asked. “Come touch it.”
I walked over next to Electra and gently reached my hand out until I felt something. The force field was somewhat yielding, allowing me to exert a little bit of pressure on it. Then it pushed back, shoving my hand away like a spring under pressure.
I’d been around force fields in the past (often in BT’s lab), but I’d never actually seen one before, because force fields were typically invisible.
“Where does the color come from?” I asked.
“It’s artificial,” she replied. “If you work around force fields long enough, you’ll eventually run into them. From what I understand, it’s like being hit with a punch that you never see coming. It’s worse than an ordinary punch, because it’s completely unexpected and you don’t have time to brace yourself. Making it visible prevents those kinds of mishaps.”
I nodded in understanding, and Electra laughed a little. Turning to her friends, she said, “Okay, Aqua, turn it off.”
She must have still been leaning on it somewhat, because when the force field went off Electra stumbled a little into the cell. I instinctively reached forward and caught her, as she reflexively extended her hand and grabbed at my arm. She got her balance back after a second, but - much to my surprise - didn’t move away.
“Aren’t you a gentleman,” she said, with her hand still on my arm. She looked into my eyes, and in a moment I was completely lost as she tilted her head up and leaned towards me. I closed my eyes and inclined my head. I heard a sudden gasp from either Rapunzel or Aqua, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to kiss the girl in front of me.
And just when I thought our lips were about to touch, someone hit me in the chest with a sledgehammer.
Chapter 9
I was momentarily dazed and struggled to get back to my feet. I was also having a hard time catching my breath, having had the wind knocked completely out of me. I glanced around and saw that I was at the back of the nullifier cell. I rubbed my chest where I’d been hit and felt something warm. Looking down, I noticed a scorch mark on the front of my shirt; it was still smoking. It was then that I realized what had happened.
Electra had blasted me. Judging from where I picked myself up off the floor, her power had blown me all the way to the back of the cell. When I had leaned in thinking of an electrifying kiss, she’d been thinking about electrocuting me. Apparently, my
mother was right. Guys are stupid, and some girls can’t be trusted. It was so comical I almost laughed. So much for this date.
I tried to teleport. Nothing happened. That’s when the full import of everything hit me. Not only was I in the nullifier cell, it was on and in full effect! At the front of the cell, I saw that the force field was in operation, too. Through it, I could see Electra apparently arguing vigorously with Mouse and the other four teens. Their voices were loud, but I couldn’t make out the words so I walked to the front of the cell until I could understand what was being said.
“…this while we’re in the middle of an op to get Kid Sensation!” Mouse was saying.
“You don’t need an op to find Kid Sensation!” Electra retorted, before gesturing wildly in my direction. “He is Kid Sensation!”
“And just how do you know that?” Aqua asked.
“His bioelectric field!”
“What?” Nemesis responded, confused. At this point, I was interested myself, so I moved even closer.
“His body’s bioelectric field,” Electra slowly repeated. “Everybody has one.”
“So what?” Aqua asked.
“She can sense them,” Mouse responded, before Electra could speak. “Bioelectric fields. It’s part of her power.”
He turned and looked at me before continuing. “With her, a bioelectric field is as good as a picture or a fingerprint. She can identify somebody with it the way you and I can pick people out of a lineup.”
I couldn’t help but laugh this time. All that crazy stuff that I’d gone through to maintain my anonymity: shapeshifting, removing fingerprints, altering brainwaves…and then someone just identifies me by my bioelectric field.
“What’s so funny?” Herc queried, but I ignored him and kept right on laughing. Mouse turned his attention back to Electra, ignoring me for the moment.
“You say that he’s Kid Sensation,” he began. “Assuming he is, when did you figure that out?”
“Today, at the football game,” she replied. “I knew as soon as I got close enough to him to feel his field.”
“Well, why didn’t you tell anybody, instead of going through all this?” He made an expansive gesture that took in me, the cell, and more. I sobered up at this, my laughter dying away; here was an explanation I wanted to hear.
“Because he reads minds!” she exploded. “I’ve been trying to keep my thoughts penned up all day, the way Esper taught me, in case he was listening in, and covering up what I was really thinking with stupid things like how I hoped it would be a good movie, and how cute he is, and how I want butter with my popcorn, and-”
“Wait a minute,” I interjected. They all turned to look at me, as it was the first time I’d spoken since I got locked in the cell. “You think I’m cute?”
Electra grunted in irritation, then turned back to Mouse without giving me the courtesy of an answer.
“Bottom line: I tried not to think about it because he might be listening in. I tried not to get too close because Esper says contact or even close proximity increases the possibility of a telepath being able to read you. Plus he can teleport and phase through walls. Basically, I didn’t tell anybody because I never knew when he might be eavesdropping. So I came up with this plan.”
Mouse rubbed his chin, nodding and staring blankly into the air - apparently in deep thought. He seemed to buy her explanation, because he now turned his attention to me.
“Well,” he said. “There’s a lot of logic to what she’s said. Moreover, there’s the fact that since you’ve been in that cell, your face has changed.”
Oh jeez! My hand went to my face instinctively. I’d completely forgotten that I had made some alterations.
“It hasn’t changed a lot,” Mouse continued, “but certainly enough to be noticeable.”
I was in shock. This night had quickly devolved into something unrecognizably horrible. And earlier I couldn’t imagine how this date could have gotten any worse. I almost started laughing again at the irony of the situation.
“Listen,” Mouse said, “I’m not asking whether or not you’re Kid Sensation. We’re actually in the middle of an op right now to locate him - an op that’s based on excellent information - so I don’t know how much of anything I just heard is true. I just want to talk to you about this situation.”
He looked at me as if he expected a response. When I didn’t give him one, he went on. “With that understanding, if I turn off the nullifier, do I have your word that you’ll give me a minute of your time to discuss this?”
I pretended to think about it, but it’s not like I had a lot of choice. I wasn’t going anywhere as long as I was in this cell and the nullifier was on. Plus, I was curious about this op they were running. After a few moments, I nodded my head in assent.
Mouse reached over and turned off the force field and the nullifier. Just as a test, I teleported out of the cell and right next to him. It probably removed any doubt as to who I was, but I was no longer planning on just walking out of this place anyway.
If having me pop into existence right next to him was startling in any way, Mouse did an excellent job of not showing it.
“Clock’s ticking.” I tapped my watch.
Mouse wasted no time. “Look, what happened following the trials two years ago wasn’t your fault–”
My laughter, harsh and resolute, cut him off. “You think I blame myself for what happened? You think I’ve been moping around with guilt like I did something wrong? It was the League’s pet monster Paramount who started it.”
“We know that,” he admitted, not trying to argue, “just like we know that the team members who were there probably didn’t respond as they should have. But they thought they were in the presence of a threat. After all, the first thing most of them saw was you walloping Paramount. Then you did who-knew-what to Alpha Prime.”
As always, just thinking about what had happened made me angry. In my head, I had longed for the day that I could call the League on the carpet for what had happened, but right now I was struggling just to control my temper. I glanced at Electra and her friends, but nobody said anything. A couple of them even looked away.
When it became clear that I wasn’t going to respond, Mouse went on. “The bottom line is that nothing that happened should be construed as something that would have kept you from being one of us. And frankly speaking, we could use you right now. There are some things going on–”
Mouse stopped abruptly as the air in the room suddenly shimmered, and a hologram of Esper appeared.
“Mouse, this is Esper. We’re at the target location.”
“It’s okay,” Mouse responded. “I’ve got new information on the target. We can call off the op.”
“I don’t think we can do that. We’ve got a situation here. You need to see this.”
“Okay, expand the hologram to panoramic view.”
I watched for a few seconds as the scene began to expand. Then I reached out and tapped Mouse on the shoulder.
“Minute’s up,” I said.
“No, wait–”
That’s all I heard as I teleported away.
Chapter 10
I popped into my apartment, in the bedroom. I really should have gone home, but - despite the hour - I had a sneaking suspicion my mother (and maybe Gramps, too) would be waiting up to hear how my date went. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone right now. I flopped down on the bed and stretched out, mentally ticking off everything that had gone sideways tonight.
Movie: middling.
Date with pretty girl: disastrous.
Anonymity as Kid Sensation: blown completely to smithereens.
I was thinking that things couldn’t get any worse when I heard voices. Coming from my living room.
I went invisible and my vision instantly switched over to infrared. I crept to the door and phased through.
I saw two people in the living room, male and female, standing almost side by side. The woman I immediately recognized as Esper. The male ap
peared as a huge mass of dark, swirling crimson. Alpha Prime.
This was obviously the op they were running. Somehow they had tracked me down. I thought I’d been careful but it’s pretty clear that I was becoming lax in some way. I glanced around the room to see if anyone else was present. I didn’t see anyone else, but something seemed…off. Then I saw it.
There were odd blotches on the wall and floor near where AP and Esper were standing. There were even some on the ceiling. I briefly wondered if this was some kind of mold or mildew festering almost under my nose.
“This is bad,” Alpha Prime was saying. “A whole lot worse than just having an on-air brawl with the League.”
“Agreed,” Esper said. “I don’t know that we have any choice here.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” said a third, unseen voice. Recognizing it as Mouse, I was a bit startled. How was he here in my apartment? Could he teleport, too? And where exactly was he? Then I remembered: holograms. I cycled my vision out of the infrared and through various wavelengths of light until I could see Mouse. He appeared as a pasty white, spectral presence between the dark gray humanoid forms of Esper and Alpha Prime.
“I’m not certain this would be jumping to conclusions,” Esper stated. “I mean, look at this. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything like it. The type of person who could do this…”
Her voice trailed off, and for the first time I noticed that they were looking down at something near their feet. Something in the midst of all the splotches I had seen on the floor.
At first, I couldn’t make it out. It looked like some three-dimensional rendering of Cubist art. There were jagged edges, sharp jutting angles, odd shapes…
Oh, no.
Almost involuntarily, I spun my vision through the light spectrum again until I came to something approaching normal. I didn’t want to see it, but I had to. And I saw exactly what I expected.
The splotches on the wall weren’t mold. It wasn’t mildew on the ceiling. There wasn’t any kind of infestation on my floor. It was blood. All of it. Blood. Everywhere. Blood. Everything. Blood.
The Kid Sensation Series Box Set Page 9