Power Surge
Kimberly stood there in the motel room for a full ten minutes, gazing at the lack of herself in the mirror. She knew she was there--making faces, stretching, jumping up and down, but the only movement she could detect came from the clothes on the floor when she touched them. Kimberly picked them up and they floated obediently into the air, hovering a few feet above the floor, only the imprint of her hand supporting them. She threw the blouse and skirt down again and for the first time, she became aware of her heartbeat. It was racing, not out of control, but bursting with excitement. Thousands of images flashed through her mind at once, too fast to focus on any single one of them, until she literally had to tell herself to calm down.
She sat down on the edge of the bed to think, but the depression she created in the mattress was too distracting to think through, so she stood again and paced the room. The laser, she thought. Obviously the radioactive isotope diffused through the lens for a certain amount of time...but there were thousands of other factors to consider. The sudden burst of power, the temperature, the sparks in the air, her clothing--any one of these things could be responsible for her condition. It would be impossible to reproduce scientifically, even if she could get the proper equipment and materials, which would be impossible in itself. The chances of reversing her invisibility on her own seemed remote at best, hopeless at worst, which left outside help as her only other option.
Her mind dismissed this with the same impulse which led her to flee her lab in the first place. Kimberly knew in her heart that if she were ever discovered, the implications would be grim, not just for herself (though the prospect was bone-chilling) but for the thousands of innocent victims she was sure would follow any successful invisibility program. No, Kimberly Harlow was totally on her own.
Seemingly as a recognition of this acceptance, a wave of exhaustion rolled over her, and a moment later, the light switch on the wall flipped down, seemingly of its own accord. In the dark, Kimberly felt like she could imagine the events of the evening as a dream, not a horrifying reality. She felt her way to the bed and slipped between the covers. It was only a minute more before she was sound asleep.
The sun rose a few hours later and the light began to creep in around the edges of the room’s window shades, creeping across the floor and finally reaching Kimberly’s pillow. She winced in pain and shut her eyes tightly, but to no use. She was awake and confused. It took a second for her to remember the night before, along with the realization that her eyelids were transparent and closing them could not keep out the light. The first shock of the morning came as she looked down and saw the form of her body under the bed sheet, her feet sticking up like tent-poles in front of her long legs. The curvaceous shape continued up the bed as it had every morning--legs, abdomen, torso--until it reached her breasts. The sheet ended there in mid-curve and hung a foot over a deep depression in the bed. Kimberly looked for a shadow, any indication that things had changed since last night, but the only shadow on the bed came from the edge of the sheet, and it cut right through where she knew her breasts should be, but weren’t. Instead, the shadow clung to the bottom sheet, never rising to meet the surface of the invisible woman lying on top of it.
She swallowed heavily and tossed the sheet to the side before rising. A slight draft made her aware of her nakedness, causing her nipples to swell but otherwise, she paid it no mind. The risk of discovery was too great to try "passing" for visible in broad daylight, at least for now. Naked was the only way she would be able to go outside, and she decided she had better get over any reservations or modesty quickly or else she was certain to be caught.
Her natural inclination leaned toward organization, and Kimberly instantly made an agenda in her mind. Her first priority, if she didn’t know if and when this would wear off, was money. She had been able to front enough cash for four days in the motel, but her credit cards were useless now, and she had to find some way of getting more money. This would require a certain amount of risk, but she had little option. She would have to walk out of the room sometime.
She slowly opened the front door and looked to see if anyone was outside. There was no one, so (keeping her room key on the ground to avoid any "floating key" rumors), she tip-toed out the door and closed it behind her. It locked with a click. Kimberly slowly dragged to key around the side of the building and hid it underneath a rock, which she then camouflaged with some leaves.
The noise her feet made on the leaves caused her to notice the bare footprints she was leaving in the leaves as she walked, but a gust of wind removed any trace of her trail. Kimberly was startled as a wind-borne leaf caught itself in her thatch of pubic hair, but she quickly removed it, laughing to herself about how the fig leaf had to come off eventually.
She walked, slowly but determined, to the bus stop, where she stood alone as several buses passed her by, obviously preferring clientele they could see. Finally, after about an hour of waiting, a young man wearing sweatclothes approached the stop and sat down on the bench. This was the first person she had encountered while invisible and he fascinated her with his indifference. The young skate punk sat on the bench whistling out of tune for a few minutes, picked his nose, even adjusted himself--all while she stood three feet away from him, mesmerized. She stood watching him until she tired of standing, then sat down on the very edge of the other side of the bench until the bus rolled up.
The door of the bus swung open and the skate punk jumped the steps to get in. Kimberly followed barely one step behind--too close for her comfort, anyway, but he ran off to his seat after flashing the bus driver a pass. Kimberly felt the door close behind her and carefully walked up the steps as the bus pulled away. There were ten or so people on board, all very much into their own worlds and no one noticed the light sound of invisible footsteps moving down the aisle to an empty row of seats.
She sat and for a moment she squirmed with discomfort. The seat was very cold and a little dirty and for the first time it occurred to Kimberly that naked really meant naked. She would have to get used to being intimate with all manner of uncomfortable surfaces.
She distracted herself by looking at the people. They all seemed very sad and very alone and for a minute she was overwhelmed with (almost) gratitude for the new sensations of the last twelve hours. Her life, she would wager, could never be this dull again. Then again, she thought, their lives would never be as dangerous or uncomfortable as hers. They would never sit, naked but ignored, on a bus full of strangers.
A few stops later, the bus pulled up toward the curb of the corner Kimberly had come for, but nobody had pulled the cord to alert the driver to stop. Afraid of missing her stop, she quickly looked around and pulled the cord. A tone sounded, but the passengers paid no heed. It was a common enough sound for them. The driver pulled over to the stop and opened the doors. He turned his head to see who had requested the stop, but nobody got up, and he shut the door before pulling away, a little put out at the unnecessary delay.
Kimberly stood on the curb in front of the Union Atlantic bank building. She checked the soles of her feet--they weren’t sore, but they felt rough. Surprisingly, however, they weren’t picking up any dust. It appeared she could walk undetected for at least a while longer. She stood next to the revolving door until a customer stepped into it, while she herself took the compartment behind him. She walked into the bank and played this game with the door that led to the teller booths as well, easily slipping in behind a twenty-something on his way back from a coffee break.
It was here that Kimberly waited out the rest of the day. She became extremely hungry (having not eaten since the ragged turkey sandwich the day before), but she became even more lonely. She had spent the day surrounded by people and had not been able to say a word. It certainly kept her on her toes to avoid the bustling bank tellers, and when things settled a little bit, she was able to stand over their shoulders and start mentally recording some computer passwords. Their system was simple and she was confident she could do all she required on it. For the rest of her time, she tested the limits of human apathy, standing next to tellers while sticking her tongue out at them, fondling herself in front of the bored man filling out savings bonds.
Finally, closing time came and she watched the manager set the alarms on the vault and building and leave for the night. There were no pressure sensors on the tile floor and the motion detector beams passed right through Kimberly’s abdomen with a small tickle. It was after the cleaning crew finished for the night that she went to work. Though she couldn’t take money out of the bank without being seen, the computers were all she needed. The clicking of the keys would be neither visible nor audible to the security cameras high overhead. First, she quickly set up a checking account for herself under a new name and arranged to send the checkbook to her motel room. She fronted herself a respectable amount of money--not enough to be noticed, but enough to live on for a while. Next, Kimberly gave herself what she really needed to get along in her society—a credit card with a high limit. Using her new card, she would be able to have whatever she needed delivered to her door. She made sure to activate the account and memorize the number so she could use it right away.
Her work finished, with no way out without setting off an alarm, Kimberly went through the process of waiting once again, this time waiting for the bank to open. She dared not fall asleep in here and there was a long, hungry night ahead of her, but eventually the doors opened and the employees filed in for work again.
Kimberly was famished and on the brink of total exhaustion, but she slid out of the bank and back onto a bus, this time headed back to the motel. Unfortunately, this bus was much more crowded than the one she was on before and she took a couple bumps from off-balance riders. Kimberly froze, prepared to sprint to the door, but they turned and apologized to each other, neither realizing that the person they had hit was a gorgeous twenty-seven-year-old naked woman who was actually invisible.
She ran off the bus, kicking a little dust behind her as she approached the motel. Grabbing the key from around the side, she plunged it into the lock of her door and was home. She knew that she needed to sleep, but her stomach was begging for food, so she pulled the laptop computer out of her bag and dialed into the Internet using her old boyfriend’s AOL account—the password to which, remarkably, hadn’t changed in five years.
It took only ten minutes to order seventy-five dollars worth of groceries and toiletries online using her new credit card. After she finished, she pulled her clothes and scarf off of the floor and got dressed to receive the delivery. It was amazing to her how alien the clothes felt. After thirty-six hours of total nudity, putting them back on was almost as strange a feeling as taking them off.
The groceries came an hour later. Despite a queer look from the delivery boy, there was no problem. He never even asked for a driver’s license (something that, she reminded herself, was an absolute necessity). The scarf flew off her head as soon as the door was shut and she immediately dug into the bag for some lunch. The first thing that caught her eye was the Doritos she had ordered. She ripped the bag open and using her still-gloved hand, shoved them into her mouth. The taste exploded on her tongue and she quickly reached in and grabbed a diet Coke from the box. She swallowed some of it down, letting the taste calm her. Satisfied enough to think of other things, Kimberly began to get undressed again for bed, removing her coat and throwing it onto the ground. She pulled open the blouse and gazed in horror at the sight of her own stomach, full of chips and soda—the soda still fizzing enough for Kimberly to follow bubbles from the bottom of her stomach and watch them pop above the surface of the miasma. It sloshed around as she turned, coating her stomach lining like a fishbowl in the air, then sliding off the sides and settling into an oddly shaped puddle three and a half feet off the ground. Kimberly noticed other things, too, like small pieces of Doritos stuck in her teeth that danced around above the disgusting sack of cola and chewed corn chips.
Kimberly threw off the rest of her clothing and realized that there was no way she could ever eat in public. Ever. Whatever went into her body stayed visible--for how long, she didn’t know, but it was vital for her to find out. She laid down in the bed and quickly covered up her stomach before she got sick. It didn’t take long after that for her to fall asleep.
When she awoke, she was immediately relieved to find that the food had passed from visibility to invisibility, apparently as it was absorbed into the intestine. The specks of food in her mouth were still bright orange, so Kimberly cracked open a new toothbrush and went to work with it.
The toothbrush got rid of the food particles, but also entertained Kimberly by lathering up her mouth into a sort of Cheshire cat smile. The sight of the toothbrush moving back and forth by itself, seemingly creating new teeth with the lather as it went, was a delight to her. She rinsed, but could barely keep her mouth shut at the sight of a bubble of water hovering above the sink, with tooth-marks taking a clean bite right out of the middle.
She sat down on the toilet, looking down in morbid curiosity as she went. The water rippled with movement, but nothing was to be seen. Apparently, even her waste was invisible. She stood and flushed before turning on the shower. Steam filled the room almost immediately and tiny beads of water began to collect all over the surface of her skin. A ghostly three-dimensional form appeared in the bathroom and though Kimberly couldn’t make out any expression on her face, she knew it was shock. There were her arms again, and her hair, and her breasts—all well-delineated in the fog. For the first time in the busy last twenty-four hours, everything she had lost began to hit Kimberly and it hurt her deeply. She started to cry, and was amazed to see the beads of water on her face part right below her eyes as streaks of air cut through the water.
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