Power Surge
Part 10
By Jack Straw

The hallway was empty and made of unmarked concrete. There was no indication of where they were, or even where their former cells were--and even less of a clue as to the way out. Kimberly, still invisible and totally naked, hugged close to Bennett as he peered out of the door of his torture chamber.

"Which way do we go?"

He thought about it. Everything, from the long length of the hallway, to the hydraulic walls, to the complete lack of windows, told Bennett that he was in a basement of some kind. On the other hand, the featurelessness of the building could very well be addling his brain.

"I don’t know."

He felt her leave his side a moment before his arm was pulled to the right. A light voice bounced off the walls.

"I’m tired of waiting. Let’s get out of here," she said.

The soft pitter-pat of Kimberly’s bare feet against the floor was masked by Bennett’s heavy steps. They sprinted a full seventy yards until they came to a locked door on the left side of the hall. Bennett swiped the card he took from the unconscious body of their captor, Lester Maines, and the door opened with a click.

It was a stairwell--going down. Was it possible they were actually on the top floor of a building? Bennett couldn’t believe it. The only way to go was down. Bennett gazed into the stairwell. There were at least four floors below theirs. The imprint of Kimberly’s fingers appeared on his shoulder.

"What about the other side? Maybe it has the stairs going up." she asked.

"I don’t even know where we are. It could be that down is where we need to go. What do you think?"

There was no response.

"Kimberly? Kimberly!" His whisper was barely below a shout. "Where are you?"

He felt a warmth and a sudden wetness on his lips as she quickly kissed him.

"Sorry. I went to check it out. There aren’t any more doors, so down we go."

"You first. I want to know if you aren’t with me."

She started running down the stairs as hard as she could. The first thing she noticed was that there weren’t any doors on the way down. It was as though there were just two floors set five stories apart. Three flights down, her chest started to hurt from the up-and-down, and she crossed an arm over her breasts to keep them from bouncing. More than once, Bennett clipped the back of her heels, but they reached the bottom of the stairwell without major incident.

Kimberly cracked the door open and stuck her head outside, hoping that whatever guards were down here were not wearing their infrared goggles. Far from being the heavily protected installation she was expecting, it looked like the hallway was empty. She grabbed Bennett by his belt and pulled him silently forward.

They stepped quickly down the hall, constantly alert. They were a few steps past a set of swinging double doors when Bennett whispered to Kimberly.

"Hold on! I want to see this!"

Steeling himself, Bennett straightened and swiped Maines’s keycard though the lock. As the doors opened, he walked through with as close to a casual manner as he could muster, Kimberly literally hugging him from behind. The temperature dropped instantly as they crossed the threshold.

As Bennett suspected, they were in a machine room, packed floor to ceiling with computers. The cold in the room was for their benefit, to keep the machines from overheating.

A technician at a large console turned around at Bennett’s entrance. A look of alarm spread across his face.

"Who...who are you?"

"Relax, pal. I’m just here to analyze some data, that’s all. You already logged in?"

"Yes, but--"

He didn’t see the fire extinguisher floating above his head behind him. Not even when it came down on top of him. He crumpled to the floor without a whimper. Bennett leapt into the technician’s chair.

"Thanks."

"Sure, but Maines is going to wake up any second. Shouldn’t we be looking for a way out?"

"We will, but I need to see something."

"What?"

"Maines said he had fragments of data from the accident that turned you invisible. I want to see what he has. You’d better guard the door."

Kimberly picked the fire extinguisher back up and stood by the door, ready to attack anybody who walked through while Bennett typed at a frantic pace.

"I’m close...There’s a directory. I’m in!"

He searched the console for a disc, but none was there. He pulled open the drawers, finally pulling a rewritable CD from one of them. He slid it into the drive and started copying, reading as it went along.

Even reading fragments of the fragments, he was picking up details he had missed in his simulation. Using this information, he was newly confident that should they make it out of this building alive, he could make Kimberly visible again--this time, without pain or side-effects.

"Is it done yet?" came a disembodied voice from the other side of the room.

"Almost."

"Well, hurry up."

Kimberly was getting nervous. By delaying their exit, the odds of being caught were going up, as were the odds of her being experimented on and eventually dissected as well. Not only that, but the cold room was bothering her. She was covered in gooseflesh and could feel the chill penetrating her skin. Kimberly began stamping her feet to get her blood moving.

"I’m going as fast as I can! You don’t have to be so impatient," Bennett snapped at the noise.

"I wasn’t rushing you. It’s freezing in here and in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not wearing anything!"

"I’m sorry. I forget sometimes."

"Well, I never forget. I can’t forget."

She wanted to be visible at that moment more than anything, so she could forget about it, forget it like a bad dream. For the time being, however, her invisibility was one of the few things keeping the two of them alive. When it ceased to be an advantage, however, she wanted to see herself, gooseflesh and all.

"Finished."

The CD slid out of the drive and he snatched it up before shoving into his pocket.

"Let’s go."

Kimberly looked at the machine room, still holding the extinguisher in her hands.

"Hold on."

The extinguisher flew into the air, hovered, then crashed into the monitors. Sparks flying, the glass shattering to pieces. Then, it lifted itself out again before swinging in a wild arc toward some storage banks, with the same destructive result. Bennett stood by the door watching the damage he knew was being caused by his girlfriend, who was, of course, nowhere in sight. The extinguisher operated independently, but he tried to picture her swinging it. She was glorious, even if only in his imagination.

By the time she had finished, the machine room probably didn’t have a single working part. Whatever data was stored here was gone. She was momentarily satisfied.

Bennett was in shock. "I’d hate to be on the wrong end of your bad mood."

"Hey, at least I worked up a sweat."

She pulled his hand onto her chest. Sure enough, it was damp with perspiration. Like all of her bodily fluids, her sweat was invisible, but he could feel it just the same. Kimberly smiled with pleasure at her workout.

"You thought that was something, you ought to see me...well, you ought to see me eventually. Now, let’s go."

They ran out the door, not into an empty hallway, but into the view of Lester Maines--dressed only in Peter’s old hospital gown, limping out of the stairwell with two of the goon squad right behind. They wore the infrared goggles that made the normally invisible Kimberly bright as day in their sight. And they had guns that they immediately fired at Bennett.

"KILL THEM!" yelled Maines as the bullets shattered part of the wall in front of Bennett and Kimberly.

They ran for the other end of the hallway, toward a door with another keycard entry. Bennett pulled Maines’s card out of his pocket as the men gave chase, practically throwing it through the lock. The door flew open and Bennett dove through the entranceway, trying to slam the door behind him simultaneously. The door stopped mid-swing against something unseen.

Kimberly’s voice rang out.

"I’m not in!"

He waited a half-second, catching a glimpse of the armed men twenty yards behind them.

"NOW! I’m through."

He slammed the door shut and looked up. At the other end of this small room was a glass revolving door, and behind that....daylight. Kimberly grabbed his arm, lurching him in its direction.

"We’re almost out!"

Gunfire erupted behind them as the keycard lock exploded. They flung themselves into one compartment of the revolving door, pushing frantically to get out the other side.

One of Maines’s goons kicked open the door behind them, wielding a large pistol that he leveled at Bennett’s head. Bennett froze for a second and the door stopped turning. He was having a deer-in-headlights moment while Kimberly still struggled against the door, writhing against him.

"Peter! Come on!"

The goon squeezed the trigger of his gun and the barrel flashed white. Even before he heard the shot, the glass in front of Bennett’s nose cracked-- first in a circle the size of a dime, then fanning out in spiderweb fingers toward the edges. Bulletproof glass. Well, maybe not bulletproof, but bullet resistant. And Bennett didn’t want to find out how much more it could take.

He reached out instinctively for the door but stopped against the warm small of Kimberly’s back. The door moved anyway as she was doing all the pushing and he felt her legs pumping frantically.

Maines was halfway up the corridor when the revolving door spat them out on the other side. The outside. Bennett found himself looking into sunlight for the first time in days and reeled for a moment. He recovered and started a vain search for Kimberly. Again, she took him by the hand and led him.

"We need a car," he said.

"Hang on."

She let go of his hand and he was suddenly alone, wide open, and vulnerable in the middle of the parking lot, and in about two seconds a crazy man with a large gun was going to burst out of the building. Bennett was still going through his options when he did.

The goon didn’t even wait for the door to fully revolve before he tried to escape it, leading with his gun hand. That was his mistake--Kimberly was waiting beside the door and with a solid shot, knocked the gun onto the ground. Still halfway in the door, he didn’t have a chance to pick it up before it floated into the air. The slide bolt pulled back of its own accord with a loud click. The goon stopped moving, the door motionless.

"Peter! Now!"

The first car Bennett could see was a sport utility vehicle without license plates. He threw his elbow against the driver’s side window. It exploded into pieces and Bennett undid the lock. He flung the door open and reached under the dashboard.

Kimberly could see Maines through the revolving door in the corridor behind. He was screaming something while being half-carried by the other member of the goon squad. They would no doubt sacrifice their comrade to recapture the Invisible Woman, Kimberly knew. There wasn’t much time.

The engine of the SUV sprang to life. Bennett jammed the truck into reverse and floored the gas pedal. The tires screamed and filled the air with acrid smoke. With a jolt, Bennett realized how easily he could run over Kimberly. Through the rear view mirror, he spotted the gun hovering in the air and swerved to avoid it, slamming on the brakes. The gun danced around to the passenger side and the door flew open. A deep depression in the seat appeared, and the sound of Kimberly breathing heavily came with it.

"I’m in. I’m in."

Maines and his men spilled out into the parking lot just in time to see the SUV clear the unguarded security gate. He collapsed to the ground in exhausted defeat.

"Take me to the infirmary...and activate that vehicle’s tracking device."

*    *    *    *    *

Kimberly smothered Bennett with kisses, his clothes seeming to take on a life of their own as she caressed him passionately.

"We made it! I can’t believe we’re still alive," she said with amazement.

"We’re not safe yet."

"Not yet, but we will be. I know it."

"Well, we have a big problem to worry about before then."

"What is it?"

He motioned out the window at an utterly featureless landscape. No landmarks, no mountains, no buildings as far as the eye could see.

"I have absolutely no idea where we are."

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