Perils and Plunder

by Ami Diane

  “Change of plans,” she said to the two women sitting in the living room. “We’re going in now.”

  A couple of hours earlier, after having informed Chapman of what they discovered, Ella arranged an emergency meeting with the Keystone Gators (she was still workshopping the name). The trio had assumed Chapman would haul the professor off to a holding cell until he could sort everything out.

  Then the trio planned on waiting until the cover of darkness that night to sneak into the lab, only needing to worry about being spotted by a passing neighbor. But with the professor in the house, it was just too risky. If there was one thing living in the town had taught Ella, it was that most of the citizens were armed.

  “We’re going in now while he’s occupied with Will and Chapman. If we wait, we’ll be breaking in with him home. It’s too risky.”

  The two older women struggled to their feet, eager.

  “Do you have your bolt cutters ready?” Ella asked.

  Wink grabbed a black duffel bag that had been laying by the front door. “Already packed away.”

  Ella was about to ask what else was inside but figured if Wink had approved it, it was safe. Probably.

  “How’re we going to get to the cellar door without being seen?” Flo asked.

  Ella bit her lip. The cover of darkness was supposed to have helped with their ingress into the laboratory. Currently, the two older gals sported black clothes—with the exception of a sunburst of rhinestones on Wink’s shirt. The plan had been for Ella to borrow some of Wink’s clothes for her covert attire since they were closer in size than her and Flo.

  “The kitchen and bathroom overlook that side of the house. The guys are most likely in the living room and won’t spot our approach.”

  Wink frowned. “I don’t like it.”

  “I don’t either.”

  “I still say we come back at night, even if he’s home. We’ll just have to be quiet.” At Wink’s last words, they both glanced at Flo.

  The woman guffawed. “Who are you and what have you done with my best friend? Live a little, will you?”

  What scared Ella was that she was in agreement with Flo. “In addition to putting our necks on the line and being branded as intruders, if we wait, he could get rid of any evidence. Or destroy whatever Twilight Zone is going on in that basement.” She slapped the side of the diner owner’s shoulder. “Look alive.”

  Grabbing the duffel bag from Wink, she hoisted it over her shoulder and stepped onto the porch. Already, they’d wasted precious minutes discussing the issue. Knowing Will, he’d stall as long as possible.

  Once the other two had joined her, Ella stole across Wink’s yard, angling for the side of the professor’s house. The only window visible at the moment was, if she remembered correctly from her previous reconnaissance of the house, the mad scientist’s bedroom.

  The geriatric twins followed as quietly as a pack of rhinos. She clung to the side of the house and rounded the corner, revealing the bathroom and kitchen windows. Their target was directly below the kitchen.

  Paint flaked off onto her clothes. “If you two don’t keep it down,” she hissed as they joined her, Flo’s nose whistling as soft as a fog horn, “they’re going to know we’re here.”

  Sliding along the house, she reached the cellar bulkhead doors and dropped to a crouch. As she dug out the bolt cutters from the duffle bag, Flo and Wink jostled one another to peek through the kitchen window.

  “Give me a boost,” Wink insisted.

  “How ‘bout you give me a boost?”

  “How many times do we have to go through this? I’m half your size.”

  “So?”

  “So, it’s simple physics.”

  “Now you understand physics, do you?”

  “I really hate my life right now,” Ella muttered.

  Inside the bag was an array of ropes, tools, and devices with gauges, no doubt the latter belonging to Flo. Gratefully, she didn’t spot a weapon of any kind, unless the crowbar counted.

  Sliding the lock between the blades on the bolt cutters, she squeezed the handles. Her face strained. Blood vessels popped. A grunt mixed with a squeal escaped her mouth. And for some strange reason, her stomach gurgled. Yet, despite her best efforts, the cutters wouldn’t bite through the lock.

  Frustrated, she tugged on the lock then kicked it for good measure. “What’s this made out of? Titanium?” She inspected the cutters. “Wink, I think these are your pruning shears.”

  Wink paused mid-argue with Flo. “Oh, so they are. Should I run back and get the cutters?”

  “Do you know right where they are?”

  Wink hesitated, and that was all the answer Ella needed. She shook her head. “There’s not enough time.” Tugging at the lock, she cursed. “We can’t get in.”

  “We’ll have to come back tonight.” Disappointment mixed with relief edged Wink’s tone.

  Flo cracked her knuckles. “Unlike you two, I’m always prepared. Hand me the bag, poodle head.”

  Ella tossed it at the woman where it hit her hard in the chest. She wheezed out a cough.

  Quickly, Wink covered Flo’s mouth to muffle the noise.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Ella warned. But it was too late. Wink’s hand flew away as if she’d been electrocuted. She stared in horror at her palm then swiped it down her black blouse.

  “Did you just lick me?”

  “Focus, you two.” Ella stretched and peered through the kitchen. She could see the men’s silhouettes in the living room through the kitchen doorway. They were still talking. How much longer would that last? At this rate, the Keystone Gators wouldn’t enter the lab until the second coming.

  With loud popping from her joints, Flo knelt beside the doors. She held a spray bottle made of a material Ella couldn’t readily identify. A homemade skull and crossbones label peeled away from the bottle’s surface.

  “Flo,” Ella said warily, “what’s in the bottle?”

  “Nitric acid and a bit of water.”

  The hiss of her dousing the lock with the mixture filled the air. How the woman had managed to procure the acid in the first place was a question Ella thought best not to ask.

  She exchanged a glance with Wink, neither stopping the woman. This was their one and only shot of getting in immediately. Of getting answers themselves. Otherwise, it would be Chapman going in by himself, maybe with Will, at a much later time.

  Flo continued to spray the acid on the padlock like it was a weed. The steel fizzed and sizzled, slowly dissolving under her continuous assault.

  “Normally, this would take a couple hours,” she said casually as if chatting about the weather. “But I rejiggered the formula to really punch it up.”

  “Of course you did,” Ella said.

  Gaps in the bubbles revealed that the lock wasn’t corroded all the way through, but the acid had eaten away enough to weaken it. She had Flo pause so she could stomp on the lock.

  After the third karate kick, it broke with a clink.

  Wink nudged her from behind. “Let’s hurry. That wasn’t exactly quiet.”

  Ella made quick work of opening the doors, revealing a set of concrete stairs descending into darkness.

  “After you.” She gestured to Flo.

  “No, you don’t. This was your idea.”

  “Will one of you just go, please?” Wink’s shoving became more insistent.

  Ella dug out the flashlights from the bag, disseminated them, then plunged into the darkness. Cool, dank air blew over her skin. It smelled of warm electronics and something akin to ozone—or more like what she imagined ozone to smell like.

  “Well, this isn’t creepy.” She played the flashlight beam over rows and rows of shelves. An aisle opened up that ran the length of the basement with shelving units perpendicular in small rows, almost like a library.

  The shelves were full of chemicals, wires, broken control panels from decades past, and soldering equipment. The place was akin to Will’s shop, but with a very h
eavy “mad scientist” vibe.

  “Someone see a light switch yet?” Her voice had an echo to it.

  “You’d think it was by the stairs,” Wink said.

  Flo’s voice creaked out from a few feet behind and off to Ella’s right. “I don’t see one.”

  “Well, keep looking.”

  “Aye, captain.”

  Ella rolled her eyes and wished Flo was closer so she could punch her arm.

  The beam from her light attenuated as she plunged deeper into the laboratory. Beside her, Wink pointed her light down the rows on either side while Ella focused hers forward.

  “Feel that?” the woman whispered.

  Ella did. The air vibrated, absent of sound. It felt electric. The hair on her arms stood up, but there was another layer to the sensation vibrating her chest. She was being pulled, stretched like taffy. It was an odd feeling and only served to increase her anxiety.

  “We should’ve brought our walkie-talkies if for no other reason than to test them in here.”

  Wink didn’t respond.

  They reached the end of the aisle which spilled into a large, open area full of wires, cords, and glowing panels. Between the panels, dozens of machines and equipment lay scattered, all lit and humming.

  In the center, on a lone table, sat a metallic box that had more wires than actual surface area. The closer Ella shifted towards it, the more she felt that strange stretching sensation. Something told her this was the source of all their troubles. This innocuous-looking contraption and the surrounding equipment were the reason the town jumped.

  Emotions she hadn’t anticipated surged within her. Relief at finding it, followed by anger, then rage, and lastly grief.

  Reaching out, she brushed her fingers over the device, searching for an off switch.

  “You sure that’s a good idea?” Wink flicked her light to Ella’s face, blinding her, before returning the beam to the device. “We don’t know what it’ll do.”

  “It’s probably not a good idea.” Her fingers found a dial. It was cranked all the way to the right to one-hundred percent. To the left, in what looked to be sharpie, was the word “off.”

  “I think I got it.”

  She turned the dial at the same moment Wink yelled, “Don’t!”

  Ella squeezed her eyes shut.

  Nothing happened.

  The machines continued to hum, the lights continued to blink, and that strange vibration in her chest didn’t cease.

  “Huh.” She turned the dial back and forth.

  “Don’t scare me like that.” Wink clutched her chest. “I think my heart just stopped.”

  “What did you two find?” Flo appeared behind them, causing both of them to jump and yelp. Her mouth fell open, and her eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. “Oh, this looks fun.”

  “Don’t touch anything,” Ella warned.

  “But you just touched something.”

  “Yes, but I don’t tend to blow stuff up.”

  Flo began poking at wires, flipping switches, and pressing buttons.

  “Flo, stop!” Ella lunged for her.

  Her foot caught on a thick cable that ran from the box of doom to a control panel. As in those moments in most movies where she would yell at the TV screen at how clumsy the protagonist was, she fell. Her hands shot out, grappling for anything to break her fall.

  Her right hand wrapped around another cable snaking to a different control panel. With a hiss followed by a shower of sparks, it yanked out from where it had been connected.

  Ella had just enough time to think, That can’t be good and I knew Flo would kill me before the sparks spread. Then all of the control panels popped and sizzled like bacon. It was not unlike being inside a firework, and if it weren’t for the horrible shock waves hitting Ella intermittently, she would’ve thought it pretty.

  They’d already been in darkness, or very near it, but as the sparks faded, the room plunged into absolute black.

  CHAPTER 26

  ELLA WAVED HER hand in front of her face. Nothing. “Oh my God, I’m blind.”

  “Well, then I’m blind, too.” From the sound of it, Wink fumbled in the dark a few feet away. “Flo? You okay?”

  “Look what you did, poodle head.”

  “She’s fine.” Ella winced as she groped around for her flashlight. Her knees and palms were going to have nasty bruises from the fall.

  She found the light and flicked the switch. “Hey, my flashlight’s not working.”

  “Mine neither,” Wink said. “Flo?”

  “You think if mine was working I’d have it off?”

  Ella sighed, climbing to her feet. “A simple ‘no’ would suffice.” There was a strange sensation, like ice, on her right foot.

  Reaching down, Ella probed her shoe, starting from the top down around to the sole.

  “What the—okay, I know this isn’t as high of a priority as being stuck in a dark, creepy laboratory, but my shoe’s got a large hole in it for some reason.”

  “You’re right,” Wink said, “that’s not as high of a priority. How about that phone of yours giving us some light?”

  “Yeah, that’d be great except I left it in Will’s pickup. I hadn’t planned on needing it.”

  Flo’s breath was suddenly on Ella’s face.

  “Whoa, boundaries, Flo. Christmas trees, how often do we have to have this conversation?”

  The old coot didn’t move. “Your shoe’s melting from the acid. Must’ve transferred to the rubber when you kicked the lock.”

  “My shoe’s melting? I just touched it with my hand. What’s this stuff do to skin?”

  There was silence.

  “If you’re shrugging, I can’t see it.”

  “Oh. Right. If I were you, I’d lose the shoe. Only a matter of time before it disintegrates through.”

  Ella swore and kicked off her sneaker. Hobbling, every other step lopsided, she felt her way back to the main aisle. “Let’s see if we can’t make it back to the steps.”

  As they shuffled through the dark, Flo stepped on Ella’s heels multiple times while Wink brought up the caboose. By the storm of gripes Flo made, Wink was needling the woman in the back.

  Eventually, the faint blue of evening lit the far end. She’d just passed another break in the shelves when voices drifted down from the stairs.

  She stopped short.

  “Someone’s coming.” Flo jabbed Ella’s back. “Hide.”

  “Too late.”

  A beam of light hit them, burning her retinas.

  “El? You okay?”

  “Sure. If by okay you mean bruised and possibly-but-almost-certainly destroyed a time machine, then yes. I’m fine. Oh, also I’m getting eaten by acid. So, you know, fun times.”

  The light went to her face again, presumably to see if she was kidding.

  A new voice joined Will’s, raspy and with a thick accent. “What are you doing down here?! You shouldn’t be down here.”

  “Ms. Barton?” Chapman asked as a propane lantern came into view, casting dancing shadows along the shelves.

  “Wow, is everyone here?”

  Dr. Kaufman swept passed them, muttering rapidly in German.

  An elbow nudged her ribs. “What’s he saying?” Flo asked.

  “You really don’t want to know.”

  “How about you turn on the lights, professor?” Ella called out to the now-distant but still profane voice.

  Will answered for the man. “Can’t. The electricity’s been knocked out.”

  Ella dropped her eyes to her one surviving shoe then carefully smoothed out her sweatshirt. “I can’t help but feel partially responsible for that.”

  “Because you are,” Flo said. “This is entirely your fault. Hear that, law dog? For once, this ain’t on me.”

  “Well, let’s not go splitting hairs,” Ella bit back. “If you hadn’t gone pushing buttons—”

  “You did it first!”

  Chapman silenced them with a single gesture. Then, h
e raised his lantern and ordered them back to the other end of the basement where the professor had disappeared.

  While they shuffled along, Ella fell into step beside Will. “Well? What did he say?”

  “He denied everything. He said he wrote the paper, but it couldn’t possibly account for what’s been happening to the town.”

  “Do you believe him?” One look from Will told her that he didn’t.

  When they returned to the open area that served as a lab, they found the professor hunkered over the device, his breath pumping like an engine.

  “It is okay.” He mopped sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. “I thought you caused a small electromagnetic burst, but it was just a gravitational wave that hit the electrical panel.”

  “An EM burst?” Ella asked, her voice shrill. “My cell phone!” It was a few yards away in the driveway.

  “He said it wasn’t one.” Will held his hand up, calming her.

  “A gravity pulse,” Dr. Kaufman said, nodding as if that explained everything. It only resulted in Ella scratching her head.

  Wink grabbed Flo’s arm. “We’ll go see if we can’t reset the breakers or if it’s something more serious.”

  Despite Flo’s protests about wanting to watch, Wink dragged the boarder away after borrowing a light from Will since theirs no longer functioned. It probably had something to do with being so close to the gravity wave when it hit.

  The professor watched them a moment, shaking his head. “It is not just a blown fuse. It can’t be fixed by flipping a breaker.”

  Ella waved her hand dismissively. “It’ll give them something to do.”

  Beside her, Chapman stroked his mustache before pointing at the metal box with a bazillion wires sticking out of it like a pincushion. “What is it?”

  Dr. Kaufman turned towards a dead control panel, flipping switches and pressing buttons for all the good it would do. His face was turned away, his back tense.

  “It’s it, isn’t it?” Ella said when he didn’t speak. “This is what’s causing the jumps? Come on, you can admit it. We’re all friends here. More or less.”

  She held her breath, and when it seemed her lungs would burst, his head dipped in the most minuscule of nods. Ella pumped her fist in the air.