Kinetics (25 page)

“Arch.” I growled.

“Yes, Arch.” He said pointing at me
absent mindedly, “I woke up later in a lab.  I don’t know what they were
sticking me with but I don’t care.  I feel so powerful.” As he said the last
word he opened his hands and shot a few bolts of lightning from his palms.

“Well isn’t that good for you.” I was
backed into the wall.

“It’s a shame that you don’t want to
fight.  I’ll just have to kill you and the two you are guarding in there.” He
nodded towards the door.

He stopped talking and threw himself at
me.  Bolts of lightning streaked behind him.  I was just barely able to move
out of the path of his fist.  He put a huge hole in the wall.

I got up off the ground and tackled him
with all my weight but it did nothing but put him off balance.  He balled his
fist and punched me in the stomach sending me flying into the ceiling.  I
succumbed to gravity, and slammed face first into the ground. 

He spit blood onto the ground and wiped
his mouth. 

“Not bad.” He said. 

I pulled myself up off the ground, my
ribs were killing me.  I balled my fist and ignited it into yellow flames.  I
punched him in the face and fired a ball of flame into his head.  This time
when I attacked I knocked him onto the ground. 

He stood shaking the pain from his
face.  His skin charred from the flames.  He was angry; my attack had touched a
nerve.  I took a few steps back, but he didn’t use a physical attack.  He
slammed his hands together and spread them causing a ball of energy to charge
in between them. 

I had nowhere to go.  When he threw the
ball, it collided with my chest and slammed me into the wall.  Holding me there
for what felt like forever, I could feel the energy from the attack coursing
through my body.

Again I fell to the ground. 

“You are so weak!” he yelled as I
screamed in agony. 

I took a few deep breaths and pushed
past the pain.  I pushed myself up on my fists and then I stood.  My muscles
were tensing with the residual energy. 

“Is that the best you can do?” I was
barely able to get the words out of my mouth. 

He slammed his hands together again but
I took the opportunity.  I threw a quick ball of plasma at him.  Timing
everything perfectly, I ran as fast as I could right behind the ball of
pulsating flame.  When the attack hit him, I tackled him with all of my
momentum. 

We crashed through outer wall and fell
the four stories onto a parked car below.  Jolt took the bulk of the impact.

I rolled myself off of him and fell two
feet down onto the ground. 

He wasn’t moving but he was breathing.

I slowly pushed myself up; I quickly
realized that my left arm was broken so I kept my weight on my other arm.  I
walked over to the building and into the ER door this time with my arm hurt for
real.  I placed my hand on the door and melted the lock with a little heat. 

No one tried to stop me.  The
receptionist stood but quickly sat right back down in her chair. 

I got into the elevator.  The nurse that
I’d stolen the ID badge from was standing next to me.  I reached into my pocket
and gingerly pulled her badge out and handed it to her.

“Sorry.”

She took it and nodded.  Then she took a
small step away from me.

Back on the top floor, I looked down
through the fresh hole in the wall at the still unconscious body of Jolt.  He
had not moved. 

I found an abandoned stretcher and
pulled to Vanish and Ryder’s room.

Ryder was unconscious but his machines
were active.  Vanish was strapped to a table with a gag in her mouth.  I took
out the gag. 

“Are you alright?” I asked undoing the
bindings.  I worked slowly, holding my injured arm to my body.

“I wouldn’t tell them who we are and I
was making a scene.” She rubbed her wrists. 

“I’ve got a ride waiting on the roof;
help me get him onto the stretcher.” I pulled the stretcher over next to
Ryder’s bed.

We gently lifted him and placed him down
on the stretcher.  He was out; an explosion wouldn’t have woken him.

We pushed Ryder to the elevator and when
the door closed I pressed the roof button.  The elevator moved up slowly. 

The doors opened to an empty helipad.

Chuck was not waiting like I had
instructed.

“I thought you had a ride?” Vanish asked,
tired and weak.

“He is supposed to be here.” I said
limping out onto the helipad.  There was no sign of Chuck.  I walked over to
the edge to check on Jolt and to my horror, he was gone.  Only a smashed car
remained where he had landed.

When I turned around, the air in the
center of the helipad began to shimmer and slowly the aircraft began to
reappear.

Vanish pushed Ryder out of the elevator
and onto the occupied helipad.  The back door of the aircraft opened and Chuck
walked out onto the helipad with us.

“I thought the stealth package wasn’t
working.” I asked Chuck as he grabbed a hold of Ryder’s stretcher and pulled it
into the passenger bay.

“Your father was farther along than his
notes let on, he often left break advancements out until he was happy with the
finished product.  While I was flying to the helipad, I hit a small patch of
turbulence that caused me to bump the stealth controls.  It took me a moment to
deactivate the stealth and the computer wouldn’t let me open the door until I
deactivated the stealth system.  I apologize.” He explained as he strapped
Ryder down.

“We don’t have time for apologies.  I
don’t know where Jolt is; we need to get out of here.” I said sitting down and
instructing Vanish to do the same.  We both strapped into the seats and I gave
Chuck the thumbs up.

He closed the rear door and climbed up
the ladder into the cockpit.  He flawlessly lifted the aircraft up off of the
roof and began to take us away from the building.

The back of the aircraft shifted
violently to one side.

“I guess this is Jolt.” Chuck yelled
down from the cockpit.  A holographic projection of the outside of the aircraft
appeared in front of where Vanish and I sat.  Jolt clung onto the wing.

Chuck dropped the left side of the
aircraft suddenly making my stomach jump up into my throat.  The maneuver
caused Jolt to lose his grip and fall.  He grabbed a tree branch on his way
down and slammed into the ground. 

Once Chuck regained our altitude and had
gotten us back on course, we all took a breath of relief. 

“Could you take us to Eastcroft instead
of heading back to the lake house?”

“Yes ma’am.”

I turned to Vanish who hung her head,
“What happened?” I asked.  I wanted to know where they had disappeared to for a
half an hour. 

“I don’t really know how to describe
what happened.  I remember there being a lot of bright white lights and cold. 
I couldn’t really make out anything.  My vision was blurred the whole time.”
She didn’t look up.

“Well whatever happened, I’m glad to
have you both back and in one piece.  What did the doctors do to treat his
gunshot?” I nodded towards Ryder.

“He was taken to several surgeries but I
don’t think they accomplished anything.  Silence never seemed to get any
better.  Everything they tried, they could not get the wound to heal.  I hope
that Doctor Z will be able to do something.” She wiped tears from her cheeks. 

“I’m sure that Doctor Z will have the
answer.  I’m sure he is going to be just fine.” I hid my worry, I wasn’t sure
if he would be able to do anything.

I watched Ryder as he rocked back and
forth with the motion of the aircraft.

“Grace, we are nearing Eastcroft.  I
think that you should try and call their traffic control and request permission
for landing.” Chuck announced, “I could land in stealth.”

“No need, I’m sure they will let us
land.” I said.

“Go ahead whenever you‘re ready.”

“Eastcroft this is Sear, requesting
permission to land immediately.”

“All air traffic has been halted; please
proceed to another landing area.” said a man from the control tower.

“Please find Acumen; I assure you that
he will let us land.” I said with desperation.

The line was dead for a few moments,
“Please state reason for requesting permission to land.” The man said.

I was quickly becoming irritated.

“There are three injured people and we
need to land now.  Silence and Vanish need medical attention.” I practically
yelled at the man in the tower.

“Permission granted.” said Sam over the
line.

Chuck set the aircraft down softly near
the hanger.  I unbuckled my safety belt and stood, shaky from my injuries.  I
helped Chuck unbuckle Ryder from the aircraft.  He opened the rear door and
pushed the stretcher out onto the tarmac.

“I found someone.”

Sam’s face lit up with the sight of
Ryder.

~//~

I sat in the lobby of the clinic. 

I was alone and in pain.  My head was
killing me and I could only imagine what was coming from Alice when I got back
home.

Ryder was in with Doctor Z and Vanish
had been escorted home by Hothead.  He was so happy to see Vanish that he
almost crushed me.

Sam joined me in the lobby, “It’s going
to be a while but the good doctor is optimistic.”

“That’s good.” I said exhausted.

“How did you find them?” He sat down in
a chair across from me, “And what happened?”

“My father helped me find him, well a
holographic representation of him.  I gained access to his computer system and
used some of the technology that he left behind.” I rubbed my face.

“What happened when you found them?”

“When I got to the hospital, everything
was going great until a squad of Sabers and Jolt showed up.  Jolt was pretty
worked up on killing us.” I shifted gently in the chair.

“Is he dead?”

“No, he is not.  It took everything that
I had just to knock him out.  I had to push him out of the fourth floor of a
building.” I shook my head.

“I’m glad you did what you did.  You
understand that I can’t condone what happened, but I’m glad.  The others are on
their way here.” He got up out of his chair and gazed out of a nearby window.

“I understand.”

“Grace, I don’t know what is going to
happen next.  We have had close calls before, but…” he sighed deeply, “Nothing
like this before.”

Just before I was able to doze off, the
room filled with Ronnie, Sandy, Rachel, and Kenny.  They were all excited to
see me.

“Hey guys.” I said awkwardly.

There was a mumble of greetings and they
all sat around me.

“Why didn’t you come and get us to help
you?” Ronnie demanded.

“I didn’t want to waste any time and if
I had, Jolt would have gotten there before me.” I explained.  “Vanish and
Silence wouldn’t have had a chance.”

“I’m just glad that you are back!” Sandy
grabbed my good hand and squeezed.

The first place I went after returning
to my father’s house was to see Alice.  She scanned my injuries with a sour
look on her face the whole time.

“Four broken ribs, arm broken in two
places, and the same shoulder dislocated.  You have dozens of cuts and too many
bruises to count.  Were you hit by a truck?” She fumed throwing her arms into
the air.

“No, I jumped off a building.” I smirked

Alice stopped what she was doing and
looked at me to see if I was being honest; “You are as bad as your father!” she
steamed.

“What?  I did.” I shrugged, but quickly
realized that shrugging was painful.

“Well lucky for you I can fix most of
this.” She grabbed my shoulder and swiftly pushed it back into place with a
small pop sound.  I yelled in agony but she rubbed a light blue gel onto the
shoulder removing all the pain. “Quiet you baby.”

“What is that?”

“Pain killer.” She set the jar down and
went after a small electronic device about the size of her palm.

“You couldn’t have given me that before
you popped my arm back into place?”

“Would you have learned anything?” she
turned the device on and began to wave it over my arm in slow, smooth motions.

“I suppose not.” I winced, “What is
that?” I pointed at the device.

“This will fuse your bones and skin, but
they will still be weak for a short time.  You are going to have to avoid base
jumping for a few days.  Unfortunately it won’t work on your ribs.” She
explained, moving to the second break in my arm.

She wrapped my rips and sent me on my
way.