Mind Over Matter

BEGINNINGS

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!

Chris glanced up at the clock. 7:00 AM. He hit "snooze" and rolled over. His brother started snoring again.

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-CRUNCH!!! Chris smacked his alarm clock with the hammer he kept beside his bed for just such emergencies. As the LCD flickered off, he read "7:35 AM."

"Wow," said Chris. "It feels like I slept a whole day." Then he checked his clock again. "OH CRAP!" said Chris. "I'm never going to make it!!"

In two seconds, he was downstairs eating a Hot Pocket™ and pulling his pants on. He ran out the door, knowing his mom was going to kill him. He ran behind a bush to finish dressing. Then it was in the carpool with his 3 other siblings and 52 other friends of his and theirs, and off to school.

Jess heard a sound through the dark reassess of her brain. She rolled over in her bed as she began to make out the words "Get up, Jess, get up!" Groaning she took a deep breath and rolled off the bed and onto the floor were she stumbled around in the dark. She bumped into her mom several times by accident. Stopping to get her bearings Jess began to reach in the dark until she found a light switch and flipped it. Her bedroom was immediately flooded with blinding white light. Muttering in her mind about the ungodly hour she managed to get dressed (in what didn't matter to her), brush her teeth and do other various morning tasks. About half an hour after getting up Jess clamored downstairs and found a leash and put it on her dog, Poland. After a long walk she came back in the house and felt more awake. She glanced at her watch. Crap! She was going to be late for school. Grabbing her book bag she flew out the door without breakfast.

Justin woke up. Slowly. He hated waking up. In this dream, he was some strange perverted cyborg playing the slots. Strange, but fun. He drifted back to sleep.

He woke up when a kitten kneaded his crotch. "Oof." He sat up.

"All right. Time to get down." Gingerly he lifted Cinder down, then extricated his sister, Ebony, from his model castle made of paper, the one he spent one week every year for eight years and finally finished. Then he fell on the bed again and went back to sleep.

He woke up 5 minutes later, still groggy. He held the clock near his face. Late. He undressed under the covers as his mom came in. She yelled at him to move and threw a pair of underwear at him. Unperturbed, he dressed, jeans and a t-shirt, threw a comb across his unruly hair, and grabbed a donut. He speed-walked to school, munching all the way.

It was a beautiful morning as 13-year old Amy awoke. Getting out of bed she yawned. Her family had just moved and she was to start at a new school midyear.

She quickly threw on a t-shirt that fell down to her knees with the words "G[] F[]CK Y[][]RS[]LF!" and under that, "Do you need to buy a vowel?" A pair of jeans, her house key and backpack, and she was heading out the door to the bus stop, socking it to her obnoxious brother on the way out.

The bus ride was unremarkable, as most morning rides are. When they got to school, she neglected to pick up her schedule from the counselor because she already knew what it was. Don't ask her how. She just knew.

The first half of the day passed slowly for Amy. Occasionally she would bump into someone in the hallway and warn them they would fail their test in English, or how their boyfriend would dump them 6th period. Barring that it was uneventful. Finally lunch came around. She walked into the cafeteria. Walking into a roomful of over 200 kids, none of whom you actually know, and half of whom are shouting explicit things to the other half engaged in fistfights, is rather daunting. However, she was inexplicably drawn to three students in particular. Largely because they were neither f-bombing or fighting, and thus seemed like a safe bet. So she strolled over.

"Uh, hi. Can I sit here?" she queried.

The girl looked up from her novel. She said nothing but only nodded, assessing. Amy was suddenly self-conscious of her tangles of red hair, happy, freckled face, and almost jolly eyes; and her stocky, short athletic, brown belted body. And her obvious lack of brains.

Hesitantly, Amy sat.

[Something's weird about her.]

|What?|

[I don't know, but she's thinking that I'm going to pass the social studies quiz next period. Not that I didn't already know that, but how does she even know my schedule? Or that there's a quiz in that class?]

There was a silent pause following the silent conversation.

|Crackpot.|

[Yeah.]

After a long and uncomfortable silence, one of them said, "Hi. I'm Justin." He had blonde hair reaching just past his ears with a few unruly strands sticking up in back, large glasses throwing his eyes into sharp relief, braces, and acne on his forehead. He was light, medium-tall and thin, very thin. And pale. His eyes were the strangest. They kept changing color, and the glasses made them look distorted and huge.

"I know," was all Amy said.

Silence.

"What's my name?" the boy sitting next to her asked. He had light brown hair that came down to mid neck. No glasses or braces, or acne for that matter, although she noted he had to squint to read the clock. He was shorter than Justin, and also heavier, stockier, with just a hint of paunch around his middle. His brown eyes looked always ready to laugh. He also looked friendlier… before Amy had opened her big mouth. Now they glowered with suspicion.

"I don't know."

"He's-"

As soon as the other boy opened his mouth, she knew. "Chris - right?"

This, new uncomfortable silence was broken only by Chris cracking the knuckles of his left hand very loudly. Justin reached across and restrained him, although Chris was easily the stronger of the two. If Amy had much more sense, she would have stopped while she was relatively ahead of Chris' fists. Instead, she turned to the girl who was sitting across from her. Glasses and braces like Justin, but considerably less acne. She had straight brown hair that circled her head like a shower curtain pulled mostly closed from behind which her brown eyes, intelligent and attentive, peered. It had blonde streaks around the edges encircling her face, and the hair came down to mid-back.

"Look out for the soup."

She said it even as a passing boy dutifully spilled an entire bowl-full over the girl's shoulder.

"I told you."

Chris stood up. Slowly. He cracked some more muscles. Instead of stopping him, Justin rose with his friend. He put his palms on the table and leaned over until his face was close to Amy's. Everybody stopped. Literally - just stopped. Forks halted halfway, the food dripping off in suspended animation. The hands on the clock had stopped moving. The boy next to the girl was caught in the middle of another dirty joke. Amy was painfully aware that the boy on her left had his finger stuck up his nose. The other girl remained seated and thoroughly inside time. Justin leaned closer.

"Listen," he snarled, "If there's one thing we can't stand, it's to be trifled with by the like of you." The girl stared silently at the back of his head. He continued. "Like you did with the guidance counselor. Never even showing up. Jeez." He sat back down with a slam, shaking his head. Chris followed. Time restarted. The kid diagonally across from her finished his joke and roared with laughter while his audience stared blankly or simply blanched. The boy next to her transferred the green slime to his mouth. Amy grimaced. She knew that would happen.

The conversation ended completely, Chris and Justin stared off into space, quietly munching. The other girl stared in an out-of-focus manner at the space above Amy's shoulder until lunch period ended. Amy realized she hadn't eaten anything. Not only that, but they knew things she hadn't bothered to tell anyone. Creepy, if such a complex emotion could free up enough brain cells to register.

The day ended. Amy was slightly disappointed. She hadn't made any friends. That wasn't a real big surprise; after all, it was her first day. Still, she had alienated the only people who had been friendly to her. She sighed. Maybe tomorrow.

Tomorrow was, if possible, even worse in every facet of her education. Without exception, every kid she talked with yesterday now harbored a grudge. The boy who failed his English test threw a book at her in the hall. She got in a cat-fight with a girl who claimed Amy stole her boyfriend. Amy had warned her yesterday that would happen. In that school, as with most, when you fight, you wind up in the guidance counselor's office. After blowing the counselor off the day before, she wasn't very interested in Amy's side. Especially after a member of the staff mentioned her inappropriate shirt. When the counselor asked her what she thought her punishment should be, she opened her mouth and stopped. She already knew what it would be. Two days of lunch detention. She somehow felt that that would be unbearable. So instead she replied, "Two after school detentions."

The guidance counselor raised her eyebrows, but, in the end, she wrote out the slip. Sinking into her pillow, Amy reflected that it couldn't get worse.

She was wrong. On her third day she had two days of enemies accumulated.

If her third day was worse, than her fourth day was a living nightmare.

If her fourth day was a nightmare, then her fifth day was hell.

By comparison, if day number five was hell, then number six was the seventh pit of such. She didn't understand. What was she doing wrong?

Miserably she turned each night to her AIM buddies from her previous school for solace. But that couldn't save her during school.

She came to cling to lunch as her final lifeline. At least there no one tried to throw books at her. And besides, she didn't have to pay for it. She managed to scrape a meal together from the fruit and other foods that came sailing her way across the room. Her new "friends" were left alone by the rest of the school, she noticed. Often someone would raise an orange or gatorade, glance nervously at her "protectors", and slowly lower their arms. The other girl's name, she eventually found out, was Jess. After the outburst of the first day the three friends were relatively nice to her and pretended day one never happened. "Relatively nice" means they didn't tell her where to stick it.

At the end of the week, day five for those keeping track, she had just finished her fourth after-school detention (she kept getting into fights), she lounged around for a while in the hallway, took a long drink at a fountain, then had to run suddenly to the bathroom to deal with the problem only girl's have.

She ran out the front door, still putting on her backpack, to see the bus pulling away. Damn. She should've known that would happen. Should've known about the problem, too. She ran around the back of the school. The three lunch-room friends were exactly where she knew they would be.

"Hey guys, can I go home with you?"

They looked at each other uncomfortably, not wanting to be downright rude, not wanting her around either.

"It's your house, Justin," Jess reminded quietly. It was the first time Amy had heard her speak.

After a minute of silent squirming with his conscience, Justin spoke. "I guess. We're just going to play Super Smash Bros. Want to come?"

"The original?"

"No, Melee."

"How can you like Melee? The original is so much better. I've got it at home. I wouldn't dream of buying Melee."

Blink-blink.

"Cough-cough."

Silence.

Chris shifted his foot uncomfortably.

"Fine." They turned as a body and started walking away. She ran after them.

"No, wait wait wait wait wait!" They did. "I still want to play."

Chris' smooth complexion snapped. Like a twig. He was very territorial about Melee, even though it wasn't his game (he too had Super Smash, and was considering an upgrade). "Hey, you just insulted Justin's prize game. Like we're going to let you play now," he fumed.

Justin soothed him. "It's alright. She doesn't mean it. She's too stupid to know better."

She was in.

She didn't know it, but that was one of the turning points in her life. An even bigger one was literally just around the corner.

The three friends swaggered along, talking loudly of this and that, then laughing at some private joke. Amy walked slightly behind. If she had focused, she would have seen the long dark car with the tainted glass pulling up. None of them did. The door opened and a man's voice rang out into the silence.

"Jess. Chris. Justin. Amy."

Thunderbolts would not have more effect. It was like the ancient legends of Britain in which knowing your enemy's true name gave incredible power over them. It was like that now.

"How … do … you … know .. our..names?" Jess was first to regain possession of her vocal chords. Which, of course, is irony, because she was the one that used them the least.

"Come over here."

"How 'bout we scream instead?" Justin struggled to keep his voice impassionate, but the shaking came in anyway.

"I don't think you want to do that."

"Why not?" Chris' voice was steady. His face was not. He looked like he was about to scream, or run, or throw up.

"Come over here," the man's voice repeated.

"I have a much better idea. I think we'd much rather run into one of these houses and dial 911."

"I have Milky Ways®," the man said.

"Ooh! Ooh! I want one!" Amy sprang past them.

"Amy! No! Don't be a fool!" They plunged forward to save her from certain captivity and death. They caught her at the door by both arms. Too late.

"Gotcha." The man's teeth gleamed in the darkness like his gun.

DOCTOR

They were blindfolded immediately. The rope around the hands followed. Every time one of them tried to untie themselves their hands were pistol-whipped sharply. The others could hear Amy yelping at least once a minute. At last their abductor grew tired of reminding her and gave her head a hearty *wallop.* They had silence for the rest of the long arduous journey. The limo drove for miles, though most of it was in circles to prevent the captives from remembering their way and to throw off pursuit - as if there would be any for four hapless, luckless teenagers. It was very dark inside the limo. At last the limo pulled to a final halt. They were pushed out of the car and their blindfolds and bonds were stripped off them. Amy was carried out. They stood dazedly before an immense building of steel and green-tinted glass. A number of stone steps ran up to the entrance. The sun's rays, burning down on their heads and intensified by the glass, left them as blind as when they had the blindfolds. The only place where the sun was dulled was on the name of the building, scrawled across the side in big cursive letters. They spelled, "Oswald Corporation." As the guards were busy with Amy, Jess let out the loudest, most blood-curdling scream he could manage under the circumstances. Though physically he could not take down men half their size, he would refuse to cooperate as long as it took them to break him. Justin started, then began screaming too, waving his arms franticly to attract attention. Chris sprinted left, focusing on running. He just couldn't see where 'left' would lead.

Justin immediately felt an incredibly heavy arm clamp down on his windpipe, cutting off all sound (and air). Jess felt the muzzle being clapped to her forehead. That was enough for her. Chris didn't stop running until a shoe hit him square in the back. More properly, it was an army combat boot. He collapsed on the pavement. He was hauled upwards, and a rough voice snarled in his ear as the man pulled his boot back on. It seemed he was more angry about ruining his sock than Chris trying to escape. In this manner they were hauled bodily up the stairs into the building.

They were pushed roughly through a metal detector manned by nonchalantly smoking guards, then ushered into the freight elevator. The man had still not let go of Justin's wind pipe, and Jess still had the gun to her head. Those facts didn't seem to bother anyone they passed, not even Amy, draped in a gorilla's arms, or the unnaturally high angle Chris' arm was being held at. He winced every time the big man moved.

The door slid open onto a well-padded hallway. They were hauled roughly down it, past a room full of coffee-drinking workers, who waved lackadaisically to the big men. They were pushed into a large conference room, tables and chairs pulled up. The men did not go inside. They didn't really have to. More men, these ones uniformed like army officers, stood silently around the edges of the room. It was dominated by a large recessed TV at the opposite end of the room. Four folders were placed in the seats closest to the monitor. Nervously the four teens sat down at the seats so indicated. They had no other choice. The officers around the room did not mind making it slightly more than obvious that they were carrying side arms. By picking the rather odd moment for cleaning them.

Then the TV flickered to life. The scene that greeted them looked like one straight from out of a Bond movie. The man might have been bald, but since he was firmly hidden in the shadows, it was hard to tell. He sat at the end of a conference table like the one they were at, but the camera was zoomed in on him and him alone. His presence filled the room.

Justin felt a flash of loathing. He longed to reach out, strike at the man, strike him dead with his power. He couldn't reach him. He couldn't even feel him. Must be very, very far away, Justin decided. Smart bastard.

The man smiled. His teeth glinted in the light suddenly, just as another man's teeth had glinted ominously over an hour before.

"Ahh," he said. His voice was deep and husky. "I see you all made it. I hope the trip was comfortable?"

Justin made a very rude gesture. Then he suggested the man perform an impossible anatomical feat.

The man laughed. "Good. I see you still have your spirit. That is most excellent." Here he smiled again. Amy shivered involuntarily. "You will need that - and a good more besides - before I'm done with you."

Justin suggested the man utilize a very painful method of locomotion.

The man laughed again. "I hope my men weren't too rough on you. They needed to get your attention."

"Oh, don't worry," spoke Chris through gritted teeth, still rubbing his shoulder, "I'm sure my disjointed limbs will pop back in their sockets eventually."

The man had a very bad habit of laughing when no one else that it was very funny. "I'm sure right now you're wondering why you're here."

Jess too had gritted teeth. "Actually, I'm only interested in how to get out of here."

The man only smiled this time. A relief; his laughter was pounding into their wildly beating skulls. I hope you know what I mean when I say their skulls were beating. "You'll accomplish that by doing what I say."

"Like Simon Says?"

He smiled indulgently at Amy, who was just regaining consciousness. "No. Not exactly."

"Who the hell are you, anyway?" Justin demanded. To his relief the man did not laugh or smile this time.

"My name is unimportant. You can call me Doctor."

"Should I bow?" Justin's sarcasm never left him.

The man, unfortunately, laughed. "Your sense of humor was always amusing, Justin." He didn't like the way the man talked about him like he already knew him.

Jess, always the practical one, said: "You called yourself a doctor. Do you care to enlighten us as to which field?" Using a large vocabulary, she found, tended to get adults talking. If they understood her, that is.

"Psychiatry. Rare psychogenitical diseases. In this case, yours."

Needless to say, Jess knew what that meant. Justin was good at putting things together, but all he heard was psycho- and genitical, which sounded like genes.

"Yeah. Our disease. The incredible bad luck to be captured by mutant gorilla-men who work for a psychopathic CEO. Uh-huh. Some disease. Sure you're not a hypochondriac?"

The Doctor smiled. "Let's take that word for example."

"Which? Hypochondriac? Or motherfucker? I can't tell which one you mean," Justin broke in. He was sweating under his lame macho cover.

The Doctor continued as if there had been no interruption. "Psychopathic. Psycho-pathic. Of, pertaining to, or affected with psychopathy. Psychopathy. 1. A character or personality disorder distinguished by chronic amoral or antisocial behavior without feelings of remorse. 2. Any mental disease. Webster's' Dictionary. The second one applies here."

To give you an idea of how much the four teens knew what was going on, Jess understood every word of it. Justin understood almost all, and those he didn't know, he could readily guess. Chris got at least the gist of it. All Amy understood were the words "any" and "dictionary."

"What disease? ADHD?" Justin had become something of the unofficial spokesperson of the group.

"Psychism."

There was silence for a moment or two.

"Enough psychobabble," Jess now, knowing she didn't understand that last bit so the other's had certainly missed it too, "explain yourself."

"Do you know what the word you just used means, psych? It has an interesting history. It is Latin. Psýche, meaning soul, mind, from the Greek psýche, breath, in turn from psÿchein, to breath, blow. Psychism, in turn, means affliction from the psychical."

There was utter silence following this announcement.

Jess puzzled it out first. "So … you're saying we're psychic."

"Yes."

This was greeted with an even longer silence. The three friends looked grim. Amy alone of the four was still skeptical.

"If I'm psychic, what exactly is it I can do?"

"You can see the future, little one," the Doctor said.

"I don't believe it," she said obstinately.

"I know."

"That's crazy! Next you're going to tell me Jess is a mindreader, Chris is a doppelganger, and Justin can control people by thinking at them!" she burst out.

"Those were my exact words, yes."

"Amy, do you even know what a doppelganger is?" Chris asked uncertainly. It sounded remarkably like a Dr. Seuss insult, like fop. And this doctor might very well be the self-same, cause he certainly didn't act very sane.

"Shapeshifter," Jess muttered.

"Aah. 'Kay." He did know what that meant.

"I still don't believe you."

"Here's another example: do you always win at poker?"

"No; I always lose horribly."

"But you always know how you'll lose."

"Well, there is that. But what about Jess?"

"Yes, she does read minds."

"I don't believe it."

[I'm telepathic, too.]

With a start Amy turned to Jess. She looked back, a little sad, perhaps.

[That might be why I don't talk much.]

Now it was Justin's turn. He took a deep breath (or psýchê) and faced the screen.

"So you're saying I have mind control."

"Did you not seemingly stop time for Amy's benefit?"

"I didn't stop time."

"That's right. She only thought you did."

This line of reasoning left Justin confused. Chris still hadn't spoken.

"Justin: Chris is a tomato."

Justin looked at Chris. Chris looked at Justin. Their eyes said, isn't this horrible? We must humor him until we can get away.

Justin said, "Right."

"No, Justin: Chris is a tomato."

Justin continued to look at Chris from out of the corner of his eye. "I'm sorry, but you're Jedi mind trick? It isn't working."

"No, Justin, I want you to turn to Chris and tell him plainly that he is a tomato."

With a look that plainly stated how truly sorry he was, he faced Chris and said, clearly: "Chris, you're a tomato."

And then Chris was.

The sound of Justin blinking was audible.

"Chris is not a tomato!! Chris is not a tomato!! Chris is not a tomato!!"

POOF! And he wasn't.

He yawned. "What happened?"

Jess was staring at him as if he had sprouted donkey ears. "You were a tomato."

That checked his yawn. "What??"

Ignoring him, the Doctor spoke to Justin. "Now do you believe?"

"So my power ..." Justin said shakily, "is turning people into vegetables?"

"No ... you make them believe what you wish them to believe. Anyone else would have done their best to pretend they were a tomato. Chris, however, is a shapeshifter. He can alter his physique to match that of anyone and anything. So when compelled to turn into a tomato, his mind obeyed." The children's guards had started to look pale before this. Now you could see through them.

"Wait a minute … I was a tomato?" Chris felt he hadn't gotten a straight answer on this point. Jess told him yes, he was. When he finally got this straight he swung at Justin. The guards pulled him off.

Justin took the opportunity to thrust his will, a huge, throbbing, red thing, like a heart, full on into a budding lieutenant's brain.

Except that it didn't work. His mental, shimmering ego slid repeatedly off the man's helmet, like he was cracking an egg over the top of a bucket covered with Pam. His power refused to stick.

"Don't bother, Justin," Doctor observed. "Their helmets protect them."

When all this had been cleared up, Doctor directed them to open the folders before them.

The first page was marked Confidential in faint letters running diagonally across. The first line said if you were unauthorized personnel, you should report to your senior at once, who would probably shoot you for reading such stuff. Then there was a whole lotta official mishmash, followed by:

Directives:

• Kill Scientists A and B.
• Abduct Scientist C.
• Destroy underground facility.

They looked up at each other. Their faces had grown considerably paler. Chris first voiced what was on all of their minds. "So… you want us to do this … mission … thingie … for you?"

Jess flipped ahead. The packet was really thick.

"Yes."

This announcement was greeted with silence. Clearly, Doctor no doubt was thinking, silence was their standard means of communication.

"If we refuse… ?"

"You die." Direct statements like that always have a profound effect.

"Oh." Justin managed at last.

"If you will read your packets," here he indicated an identical pile of papers before him, "you will understand better what is required of you."

"How about you explain it to me." Chris couldn't stand dense text. Furthermore, he preferred it from Doctor's mouth. Amy listened too. She didn't know how to read.

Just kidding. Not very well.

"There is an underground facility located under a deserted mansion far from all other signs of humanity. You don't need to know where, or what they do there, you just need to know it is operated by terrorists. That should suffice."

"What are we going to do there?" Amy asked. Jess was already halfway through her packet. Justin pretended to skim his, but mostly he listened to the Doctor. There was no lack of information. Partial blueprints, wiring set-ups, patrol routes, rooms of targets clearly marked, ventilation shafts … unfortunately, they only exposed maybe half the building. The rest were just faint outlines trailing off. She wondered what was in the rest of them.

"You are to assassinate Codename Scientist A and Codename Scientist B…"

"Assassinate?"

"'Means kill," Chris told her.

"Oh."

"…abduct Codename Scientist C, I don't know or care how…"

"Abduct?"

"Kidnap."

"Oh." She didn't know why the man wanted a kid's nap, but she supposed he could have hers. She wasn't using it.

"…then destroy the facility."

"How?" Chris had played enough video games to be able to guess, but he wanted it straight anyhow.

"Bombs, fifteen of them." Justin said, still thumbing through his report. The Doctor looked like he had been about to say something, then nodded.

"By the by," Justin added, tearing his gaze away, "what kind of bombs?"

"Explosive ones."

"I knew that. But what's in them?"

"Explosives."

"But what kind of explosives?"

"The kind that explode."

He tried another tact. "But how big is the blast radius?"

Doctor stared at him. "Big."

He tried once more. "How big? Really big, very big, medium big, kinda big, or sort'f big?"

Doctor cleared his throat. "Big."

Justin gave up.

Chris spoke up now. "What are the scientists real names?"

"Doctors Anderson, Barth, and Carl."

Chris sniggered. "A, B, and C. Very original."

Doctor seemed not to hear.

"You will leave the files here. They will be returned to you when you start your mission."

"We're not going now?"

"No."

"When?"

Doctor looked at her as if she was an idiot. "When we come for you."

Then everything whirled and they were back in the black car. They weren't being pushed around nearly as much, but the men were still brisk. They also had stopped resisting.

They were dropped off at the same place. No one felt like talking much. When they got to Justin's house, no one felt like playing videogames much, either. They all sat around Justin's table, drinking soda, each wrapped in their own thoughts until Justin's mom mentioned how quiet and sad they all looked and asked if they had had a fight. They assured her they hadn't. One by one, then, they drifted off to their own houses where blessed sleep rid their memory of the afternoon.

A week later he was walking home from the rec center, tired and inconsolable. It was the weekend, and he had to clean a large chunk of his room. He complained that he knew where everything was, of course to no avail. He was so absorbed in his own thoughts he never heard or saw the dark vehicle slip quietly up.

The door opened. A voice called out.

"Justin. It is time."

He looked in. He could just make out Jess' outline.

He stepped in, out of the cold.

The door closed.

And the car drove off.

TOUCH-DOWN

The four teenagers spent the slow helicopter ride in utter silence, each in their own little world contemplating what the task ahead of them meant. Each was lost in their own thoughts: Jess: "I wonder what the others are thinking? Wait - better not…." Justin: "I wonder if there will be killing?" Amy: "I wonder if the others will like me?" Chris: "I wonder if I'll ever get fed?" But one thought was in everybody's mind (including the pilot). Namely: "I wonder if they pay us for this crazy shit?"

Chris looked out the window at the approaching mansion. It looked almost exactly like the typical stereotype haunted mansion, only skinnier, and every window and door that could be broken or open, was. Usually in haunted mansions they had the runny-glass windows so the ghosts inside looked even weirder. A long sloping overgrown lawn led up to the ramshackle porch, going back down to a small stream before heading back up. The property (what they could tell was part of the property) was flanked on either side by a dense forbidding woods. The whole image was framed by a large purple mountain range, towering over the landscape in their potency. "Are we just going to rappel down into the front yard?" he yelled over the whirring rotors. Jess shook the cobwebs from her brain. "What?" Amy yawned, then bounced up in her seat. "Are we theeeerre yet?"

The co-pilot ignored her. "No, we're going to settle down for a nice easy landing on this pleasant grassy slope."

"No, really," Justin moaned. He hated having his dreams interrupted. In this one he had a really big gun, and was running around toasting people. Then he would die, but all he had to do was hit reset and he was back in the game. Sweet.

"Let me ask you something. Can you rappel?"

"No," Chris admitted.

"Does it look -like anyone's in there?"

"No," Chris repeated.

"We're landing." The co-pilot's decision was final. Chris gave up.

"I had a funny dream," Amy chirped. "I dreamed I was watching someone running around with a gun shooting people, but they mustn't have been very good because they kept dying."

Justin stopped rubbing his eyes to shoot her a particularly nasty look.

The stealth chopper landed gently. If you're ever at grass level when a copter landed, you know it feels like Hurricane Grace landed instead. Noise included. The co-pilot headed aft towards the kids and started yelling to be heard over the noise.

"WE BELIEVE THE UNDERGROUND BASE IS UNDER-GROUND!!" Justin and Chris rolled their eyes. "THERE SHOULD BE A TRAPDOOR SOMEWHERE! JUST GO THROUGH THE MAIN ENTRANCE AND FIND THE HATCH! IT SHOULD BE JUST INSIDE! THERE SHOULDN'T BE ANYONE ON THE TOP FLOOR, BUT IF THERE IS, YOU'RE JUST A BUNCH OF KIDS ON A DARE!" Rolling of the eyes, revisited. Even Jess snorted - a rare event. They could see that now. "Why yes Mr. Heavily-Armed Global Conspiracy Security Guard Man, my friends and I were just doing a little dare. We were just sitting around when we said to ourselves, we said, 'Let's dare ourselves to go into the old abandoned mansion thingie!' So we all jumped into our private stealth helicopter and here we are! Can you show us the bathroom?" That would go over real well. "IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG, PRESS THIS BUTTON," handing Jess a miniature device that fit in the palm of her hand with a small red button in the middle. "What's it do?" Amy yelled back, trying to grab it and press. She had a crazed love of red buttons. "NOTHING!!" the co-pilot shouted, grinning from ear to ear. Chris grabbed the gizmo and bounced it off the asshole's head.

ENTRANCE

They jumped quietly into the tall grass and fanned out, working silently towards the house as the copter took off. It wasn't that they had had any training or the like, they simply had seen enough movies to know that was how you approached large suspicious looking buildings. Even if your approach was given away by the landing of the helicopter. Amy reached the door first. Justin yanked her back. "Wait." She stuck her tongue out and ducked in. He rolled his eyes and gave up. By that time the others had arrived and they crept in. Amy was waiting in the second room off the main corridor. The mansion was well-lit from the sunlight streaming in and felt very warm. Stifling, really. "Come on. What took you guys so long?" Jess went down on one knee and brushed dust away. Finding the lateral cracks she blew the dust out. Clever, but not clever enough. She looked up and nodded. Justin stared at Amy. "How did you find this so fast?"

"That's easy. I saw us going through the floor, and there it was."

Justin winced. Confusing statements drove him crazy, especially because he was so hard to confuse. He gave up and decided to puzzle it out later.

"Great. So now how do we open it?" Chris had been studying it, and now attempted to find a place to get his fingers in. Jess moved to let him at it. Chris pounded on top of the door.

"Hey! Beat it, you dumb kids!"

"Open up!" Chris answered, and pounded harder. How do they know we're kids? Justin wondered. Is there a camera?

[They probably just assumed it was kids. How many adults would be stupid enough to sneak into a deserted house?] Jess's voice answered in his head. She was still busy trying to open the door. That makes sense, he thought.

"Don't make me come up there!" the muffled voice yelled. The clang of boots on metal rungs sounded. Jess found a ring and nodded to Chris. To Amy's surprise Chris had changed. Yellow brown hair covered his body. He had swelled several times, particularly his arms. His face was distorted and his nose was flattened. Muscles rippled dangerously underneath his taught T-shirt. Justin calmly stepped back. Amy nervously did the same. Jess yanked hard and jumped back, giving Chris a clear run at the unfortunate gentleman on the ladder and the equally unfortunate gentleman directly below the first. The last thing the unlucky guard clearly remembered was a big hairy arm reaching down for him. Then he was swung aloft and Chris bonked the guards' heads together like cartoon people. He jumped down with animal-like ease.

Chris felt pumped. He had suddenly wished he was stronger so he could bash in the skull of the dumbass yelling at him so they could go down. Like, gorilla-strong. Just like that, he was. Muscles rippled into his skin like they had always been there. His face flattened and distorted. Hair sprouted everywhere. He suddenly felt shockingly powerful. He marveled at his muscles and felt the transformation stop. Oh, he thought, this is so cool. I can keep thinking about gorillas and turn into one, or I can turn into whatever I want. Jess had nodded and he cracked his knuckles. It sounded like rifle-shots. Oh, yeah, he had thought, here comes the monkey.

Justin slid down the ladder with practiced grace. "Nice one, Chris," he acknowledged with a grin. Chris, with his twisted ape-face, grinned back. Not pretty. Then he turned back into Chris, hair sucking back in, muscles fading, nose realigning, shrinking, twisting, bending, the smile never leaving. Better. Amy leaped to the cold linoleum floor and looked attentively around the place. Jess came down last, pulling the hatch closed behind them. The four teenagers quickly started down the corridor, disappearing into the maze of white-washed hallways.

WALKING

"Look out for that door." Amy pointed. It immediately popped open and a guard rushed out, gun in hand. Instinctively Justin jabbed a hand at the man and hissed, "Cauliflower!" The unfortunate man collapsed, doing his best cauliflower impersonation.

"What the hell-?" was quickly replaced by "Oh my god!" as unfortunate man's partner ran out at top speed, unzipping his fly as he went. He ignored the children and didn't stop until he reached the bathroom where, to his confusion, his bladder was bone-dry. Chris blew the air out of the side of his mouth. "That was close."

Amy kept grinning, then it disappeared and she yelled, "Don't move!"

"Whh-yyyyyy?" Chris asked.

"Because that's a camera," and she pointed. One more step and Chris would have been on pay-per-view. He pulled out the sharkie grin he rarely used.

"Nuthin' to it. Mind over matter."

[Mind over matter, huh? Pretty slick. Make that up yourself?]

Chris just grinned and leaped at the wall. By the time he hit it he was a beetle the size of your palm. By the time he had scurried to the camera he was the size of the nail on your pinky. He disappeared into the crack between the camera and the niche. Moments later he reappeared. As soon as his mouth was back he was grinning more. "Camera no longer a problem." Sparks immediately flew from the damaged apparatus. Chris' grin spread wider. He was having the time of his life.

"Guard." Amy said it that way a 4th grader says, "It's raining," the nnth time on a Saturday. Silently they ducked into an open broom closet. Chris started bulging when Jess' elbow connected with his eye.

[Sorry.]

He stopped. They watched breathlessly as the guard strolled past, blissfully unaware. Justin might have had something to do with that, or he might not have. Chris reached out an orangutan arm and socked him. Justin ducked out and performed a quick thief's check while Chris studied the man's face. Justin ripped off his ID and wallet, found the badge, took that as well. Chris had already become an almost perfect image of the unconscious soldier. Justin glanced up.

"More hair around the jowls. Bit lighter too." He turned down and found an extra magazine. He grabbed that too. He looked up again. "Perfect." He handed Chris the articles and started dragging the man off. Chris snagged the rifle and coat, finished off his appearance. Jess, Amy, and Justin started stuffing him into the closet. Jess gave Chris some last-minute advice.

[Since we conveniently have a doppelganger to disarm security, we're going to use it. Head down the corridor. There's a door you'll have to get through. Try to handle as many guards as you can. There should be a security center around here somewhere. I'll get to work on that. We'll find a place to hide and back you up. If you want to talk, just think.]

"Got it." Chris fine-tuned his shoulders to make the coat fit. "Anything else?"

[Just lifted this from his memory patterns. This guy was a well-known gay.]

"You're choking. I mean, joking."

[No, I'm not.]

"Yeah, I thought you knew Jess better than that," Justin grunted. It's hard to talk normal while jamming stray arms into broom closets. Chris responded with something that could be considered blasphemy if Chris wasn't an atheist.

Chris started walking. From a barricaded office, Jess called out. [There's a guard on the other side of the door directly in front of you. He expects you to say hi.]

|Um, Jess? Slight problem. I didn't absorb any of… ,| here he squinted at his name tag. |…Peter Stanley's voice.|

[That's okay, because I have a sample here.] Immediately a strange voice flooded Chris's head with groggy half-repeated gibberish. [Sorry it's not very good, but the man's unconscious, so we can't expect much.]

|Okay…| He tried to get the voice into his mind. He felt his voice box shifting.

"Hello." The door slid open.

"Hi-COUGHCOUGHCOUGH-HMHRRM." Chris squinted apologetically at the worried guard. His voice still hadn't aligned.

"Are you alright?"

[Chris, are you all right?]

"Yeah, I'm fine." His voice slid up the scale to a closer range. "Voice broke."

The man looked puzzled. "You're a little old to have your voice breaking."

"Yeah, well, technically I shouldn't get zits anymore, so there you have it." Chris resorted to Justin's face for a person whose voice might break. It convinced the guard. He laughed and continued. He could hear Justin gritting his teeth while Jess was relating. Moments after the door closed Chris heard the guard slamming himself violently into the wall until blackness consumed him. To cover this and the broad grin spreading across his face Chris leaned on a nearby lens and coughed loudly, then jerked as if he had just realized that was a camera he had broken. "Sorry." Whistling he strolled down the whitewashed corridor.

[Peter couldn't whistle.]

|Sorry.|

[Just make sure it doesn't happen again.]

|Humming?|

[Only '80s retro.]

|Never mind. Not worth it.|

[Almost to the door.]

|God, let this nightmare end!|

[Not likely. I've found the security center.]

|Yes! Where?|

[Through the door.]

|How did I know?|

[Justin says, 'it's because it's the fastest route to hell.']

|Ha ha.|

[This will take precise timing. Remember, we're following after you.]

|Right. I'm listening.|

[Put your card in the slot. Good. Grin in a particularly scary manner at the gentleman on your right. Good. Close the automatic door behind you. Good. Hang on - wait - ]

[Alright. Check out this mug.] A face appeared in Chris's mind. Not a particularly pleasant one either.

|Who the hell is that?|

[Head of security. Think you turn into him?]

|Yeah, but I'll need to know what the rest of him looks like. Where are you getting this stuff from?|

[First question: don't worry. Don't talk. Just punch. Second question: one of the security officers in the room directly ahead of you. Your key won't work, so don't try it. By the way, technically you're not supposed to be there, so hurry up.]

|Great. How do I get in?|

[By turning yourself into a keycard, of course.]

|Of course.|

[It's not that hard. Just stick your fingernail in and turn into a keycard.]

|How do I get it right?|

[Trial and error.]

|Oh great. Why the hell did I sign up for this?|

[Once you get the door open, pop out and turn into Doug.]

|Doug?|

[Mad Man Morris?]

|Oh, him. That was Justin's name, wasn't it?|

[Yes. Stroll in and punch out the guards inside. You'll be happy to know that they're unarmed.]

|Wonderful.|

[Justin is asking where your sense of humor is coming from.]

|I'm trying to needle him by mimicking him.|

[He says you're doing splendidly. Anyway, once you've subdued the guards we need you to knock out the security system.] Chris was already locking into the door mechanism, changing himself to try and match the parameters.

|Is there a button I should push? I'm not exactly technologically savvy.|

[Just punch anything that looks valuable. Shouldn't be too hard, considering it's you.]

|Where are you getting your sense of humor?|

[Justin. Where else?]

|Go figure.|

[Just passing on the office jokes. You might want to lock and bar the door when you get in. We'll come get you.]

|Right.| The final locking mechanism was clicking into place.

[One more thing.]

He slid out as the door ejected him, turning into a Pete with Doug's face. |Yes?|

[Hurry up. You're behind schedule.]

"I'm going to kill Justin when I get out of here."

[I'll pass that along.]

Chris/Peter/Doug strode quickly and confidently into the room. The security guard glanced at the reflection in his monitor. "Sir, we seem to have some sort of security breach. Seems a couple of kids have snuck into one of the offices…" Chris punched the man in the base of the skull so hard you could hear the crack as his forehead bounced off the monitor, sending spider web cracks scurrying across the surface. It sounded like a gunshot from a cheap western where a thump of a stick on a can followed by a zing was all you got in the way of gunfights. The other guard looked up. Chris broke his nose. Then he piled the chairs and their occupants against the door. Cracking his overlarge knuckles, he got to work.

|I'm in.| Jess nodded. They shifted the barricade and Justin sprang the door. Three armed guards were waiting for them.

"Surprise!" Chief Sergeant Michaels cried. After all, they're just a coupla lousy kids. But Chief Sergeant Michaels was the one to be surprised when Private First Class Robinson clapped the muzzle of his gun to Michaels' head and squeezed off a round. Private Second Class Johnson shot Private Robinson three times in the base of the neck before turning into a tangerine.

"That's not fair," Amy pointed out, "those two other men get shot, but he just gets his mind blown."

"Yeah, but he's the small fry. Can't you count the stripes?"

"Still, it's not fair."

"Oh, fine." Justin hefted one of the assault rifles and sighted. BLAM-BLAM-BLAM! "Do your silly morals feel justified?"

"Yes, thank you." Justin rolled his eyes. Most people would say that a moral code should demand you not kill anyone, but this little psychopath was screaming for more blood. Whacked. Jess managed not to have seen any of it.

Chris punched out the screens showing scenes he recognized, giving special attention to the one showing Steven. Then he noticed the joysticks. He tapped one experimentally. The view in one of the screens jerked. He was just about to beef up to rip it out when he noticed the crosshairs in the picture. And the trigger button on the joystick. He wrapped his hands around the joystick. Oh yeah, time to meet the monkey.

Frank was finishing off a ham-and-cheese sandwich when the security camera in front of him jerked sideways. Now that's funny, he thought, I wonder why they're activating the gun cameras. Then the gun swung on him. The sleek, liquid-cooled barrel glistened as it rolled experimentally. If Frank had an IQ of, say, 70, he would have been understandably worried. Any higher and he would have been terrified. As it was, Frank was only puzzled. Then he just wasn't. A six-barrel Vulcan shifting 350 RPMs has that effect on people. Especially when it's four feet from your chest.

Chris started hooting like an owl. He grabbed one joystick, splattered two hapless fools, leaped to the next, continued spraying rounds. This is better than a video game! Sirens started going off. Discoordinated soldiers stumbled groggily out of their bunks. If he had the time, he could figure out which cameras showed which corridors so he could coordinate his attacks a little better. As it was, he was having too much fun grabbing one joystick, blasting, grabbing the next, and continuing the splattering. He had already nailed seven. More were spilling out of their bunks. The rest just didn't matter. He grinned. This was even better than real life!!

Even Justin, the least psychically aware of the threesome, could clearly hear the gunfire. It sounded like hell had broken open. The two friends and the hanger-on broke into a trot, then a run. They pulled short right in front of the blast doors. [Chris, open up!]

|Is that you trying to blow the door?|

They're trying to blow the door? Uh-oh. [Chris, we're outside the blast doors! There should be a remote access trigger! Hurry up and find it!]

|What does it look like?|

Jess concentrated on the brain of the unconscious officer. She used his brain to conjure up an image of the console. [Blue button. On your left.] Then she became aware of the thoughts in Chris' brain. [Chris, what the hell are you doing? Are you beating the poor guard to death?!]

|Just having a little fun, that's all.| Chris glanced up from a headless soldier in the monitor. |Oh, shit.|

[What happened?]

|The little blue button? Next to a really small joystick?|

[Yes.] Jess could feel Justin's amazement that she could remain calm after everything. Well, tough. She just didn't get excited.

|With the red grips?|

[Yes.]

|I think I broke that one.|

[He says he broke it.]

"Piece of shit! … Stand back."

Chris leaned back. No one else was coming. Everyone that wanted to come had either run the gauntlet or was grinning at him from one of the monitors. Now that he had come down from his bloodlust he felt slightly sickened by the bodies. And he felt fear. A faint, gnawing sensation that they would blow the doors and run in and eat him. Alright, not eat, but pretty close. He spun around in his chair, now turned back into a kid. It felt good to be back in his old duds again. A red light started blinking next to a small mike. He was about to turn it off when the mike spoke. "Crawley, Crawley, are you in there? We need your help tracking down an insider. Somebody impersonated one of the guards to get into your section. We need you to give us all the video feeds from all equipment from the last 20 minutes. Do you read, Crawley?"

Chris picked up the mike and clicked. "Wasssssssuuuuuuuupp!" Then he proceeded to rip up all the wires attached to the radio. Then he felt better. Not a lot better, but just a little.

Jess was concentrating very hard, putting her great intellect to work on how to open the door. It was actually very easy, but at the same time very difficult. Could the door be opened on the inside? One would think. She was searching minds of the impromptu demolition team when she heard Justin say, "Stand back." Without really hearing him, she glanced at him.

The yelling started right away. A huge bulge exploded into being in the blast door. A blast door. That was designed to withstand gunfire. Gunfire, screams, and explosions. The door was rocking on its metaphoric hinges. Jess covered her eyes with her arm. An earsplitting explosion rent the air. The door disappeared. It didn't come off and bounce around like a deadly wall or fly into hundreds of shards or anything - it was like it just dissolved. Amy had been too goggle-eyed to shield herself. Now she rocketed backwards. Jess pitied her. Smoke billowed out. Something whizzed out and struck Justin's shoulder. "FUCK!!!" He slammed into the linoleum, his head making a loud crack. Jess was at his side at a split second. She wished she knew more about first aid. From the sound he might have a concussion. Frustration welled up in her. It wasn't that she had a special attachment with Justin - she felt more akin with the new girl, Amy, despite her being a total scatterbrain - it was someone she knew being hurt. It was one thing with total strangers. It was another when someone she saw every day dying and her being helpless. A guard ran out of the smoke, coughing and hacking. His timing couldn't have been worse if Justin had been awake. Jess threw everything she had at his cranium. He jack-knifed, his gun landing on the floor with a clunk. He twisted and writhed on the floor. What am I doing? she thought. Finishing the job so I can live and go home, the rest of her answered. She clenched. Immediately the man jerked farther -then lay still. She stared at her handiwork. Grisly. She didn't know she could do that. Mind over matter, truly. Her mind, his veins. She looked away. Amy had started trying to revive Justin by stomping forcefully on his chest. With each stomp he buckled and heaved.

"Stop that! Stop that! You're going to kill him!"

"I'm doing CPR!" As if in answer to her words, Justin rolled over and puked all over the linoleum. "Cro-oooaaggkh-URLLGH!" Jess pulled Amy off. The last thing they needed was this psychopath to kill their one and only puppetmaster. "Are you all right?"

"PLURGH!!"

"I see. Just hang on."

"Wow. You talk." If Jess didn't believe it was morally wrong, she would slap Amy silly. One minute she has pity. Next minute she foolishly opens her mouth. Jeez.

Justin sat up. He dry-wretched for a minute or two. Then he looked up. "What the fucking hell hit me?"

"Dunno. How you feel?"

"Empty." He stood, wobbling slightly. "What the hell hit them?"

Body parts and broken guns littered the intersection. A large trolley had been ripped apart and broken wires were melted onto the frame. The bomb, for that was what it had been, had ripped the inner door to shreds and put a huge, twisted dent in the security door. Half an assault rifle was wedged inside.

"You."

"I see. What hit him?"

A huge purple stain was spreading across the man's head.

"Me."

"You popped his blood vessel? Nice. Didn't know you could do that."

"Neither did I. You seriously don't remember what you did to them?"

"No. I just remember making them all very, very angry. I think they did the rest. The power of testosterone and adrenaline." He wiped spittle from his cheek. "Who made me sick?"

"She did."

"What the hell did you do, stomp on my chest!?"

"Yeah."

Jess suddenly felt very tired as she knocked Justin's arm back. "Stop. Just…stop."

|What the hell just happened?|

Jess jerked. Oh. Right. Chris. She'd forgotten about him. [Justin just gave everyone an anger management crash course, I just blew someone's brain out, J got nailed in the shoulder, and Justin and Amy had a hissy-fit.]

|Oh. Can I come out now?|

"Can we open the door?" she asked, turning to Justin. He grinned. It looked like an effort. "Give me a minute."

[Justin says to give him a moment, then you can rip the door into confetti. Is the security equipment destroyed yet?]

|Oh. Yeah. Right.|

"Take your time, Just."

He shook his head. "Miracle we didn't trigger an alarm."

"We did. You just didn't hear it."

"And you did?"

"No. I foresaw it."

"Did you also foresee my getting nailed in the shoulder?"

"Yes."

Justin ground his teeth. Lord, let her lips grow together, please.

"What? You were too busy frying them to listen to me anyway."

"I didn't fry anyone. I just made them all really, really angry."

"True. Point taken."

SPLITTING UP

Justin snapped off a mock salute. "Right. Surveillance equipment destroyed, entrance to Section B secured. Now what?"

Jess ignored him and slipped back into telepathy, her most comfortable means of communication. Talking. Bleh. Gives you dry-mouth. Who ever heard of dry-brain? [Okay. As we all know, the corridors branch off from this room. Somewhere down the line are Doctor Anderson and Barth.]

"Don't you mean Doctors?"

[I stand corrected. Doctors Anderson and Barth. We don't know which corridor, however. They might be in different ones. Am I right so far, Justin?]

"Yes." He tried to hide the fact that he couldn't even remember the Doctor's names, let alone what to do with them.

[We need to eliminate them both.]

"Eliminate?" Amy queried. Justin and Chris rolled their eyes.

[Terminate. Liquidate. Exterminate. Or, in layman's terms, kill.]

"Oh."

"Oh is right." Justin sniggered. Amy glared at Chris.

[After that we need to reach Sector C. Considering it's high security, they're can't be more than one door, so keep an eye out.]

How does she know these things? Justin wondered.

[Because I read the report. Didn't you?]

Embarrassed at having forgotten Jess could read his mind, Justin countered "Yes. But I don't remember everything in it. Do you?"

[Yes.]

"Oh."

"Yes, oh." Justin restrained his tongue from forming the shape, 'lettuce.'

[Any suggestions as to how we should go about this?]

"Yes." Justin immediately regretted speaking up.

[What?]

"Well…um…I was thinking we should split up."

[And?]

Why didn't I think that she'd already thought of that? "And that me and Chris should be in different groups. Seeing as how we're the muscle in this operation."

[I see.] Why didn't I think of that? [That makes sense. Chris is with me. Amy, you're with Justin.] Jess was getting tired of being with Justin. She wanted a change of scene.

"What?" Justin was getting tired of being with Amy. He also wanted a change of scene.

"Alright, cool. Let's go." Chris was already bulging. He ran out the door on his knuckles.

[Stay in touch.] Jess was gone after him before Justin could complain.

"Great!" He viciously kicked a nearby chin and squinted down his corridor. "Let's do this."

"So hrmhwrar wrmghff? Fworry." Chris morphed his mouth back into shape. "So how do we go about this?"

[Easy. Smash up security, find the labs, bully some poor coward into revealing the location of Dr. Barth, then we punish him.]

"Now you're talking." Chris' grin was split by the horns sprouting from his forehead and nose.

[I was just trying to find a dialect I thought you would understand.]

"You," |succeeded.|

"Are there guards ahead?"

"I don't know. You're the one with mind control."

Justin's fuse burned a little shorter. "I control them. I never said I found them."

"Well, I don't know."

Shit. "All right. You open the door, I'll blast."

"How do I do that?"

Justin smacked himself in the forehead. Hard. Don't kill her, don't kill her, don't kill her. "You know, you'd never make a successful terrorist."

"I don't understand."

"If they put you in a car, put a bomb in the backseat, pointed you at the Pentagon and told you to drive into the side, you'd put it in reverse and smash into a utility pole."

Amy's brow furrowed. Finally she said, "Which one is reverse? Is that the one with the little R that makes you go fast?"

"LORD, TAKE ME NOW!!" The fluorescent lights would have shifted uncomfortably at being the target of such anguished hormone out-letting if they could.

|So what's the guard status?|

Jess glanced at Chris. Oh. He was a rhino. That explained the language barrier.

[Six guards in the hallway.]

|Anything else?|

[Almost two dozen personnel in off shooting rooms. I can't tell which are guards and which are office workers and scientists at a glance.]

|But the ones in the hall are guards?|

[Correct.]

Chris had already started towards the door…

In frustration, desperation, and boredom, Justin decided to spring the door himself. Having a partner like Amy was almost as bad as having no partner at all.

He threw himself into the niche between the switch and the wall. He gestured urgently for Amy to follow. She ambled up with a look like a bovine. Taking a deep breath, he threw the switch. He leaped sideways into space.

The four guards on the other side were surprised, but not surprised enough to prevent them from firing. Bullets whizzed around Justin at dizzying velocities. Cool! he thought, This is just like The Matrix! He hit the ground very hard on his shoulder. The same one hit by debris. A red-hot knife was wedged between his shoulder-blades. A bullet pinged just below his knee, pain screaming through his bones. Dude! he thought. This is so much suckier than The Matrix! Ow!!

Amy, of course, saw all of this coming. She also saw Justin being shot to death. She ran out of cover, waving her arms like a deranged chicken. Justin often thought back to this moment years later, especially when he was a desk jockey listening to some moron exercising his jaw. Why, he wondered, why could three highly-trained professional guards fire off an entire magazine apiece at one little girl running in front of them like a shooting gallery duck and hit nothing but air, yet fire 10 rounds at a boy flying sideways in midair like a crazy clay rabbit and nail him just below the kneecap? The obvious answer, that fortune favored fools, terrified him, because that meant he wouldn't live past the age of 30, and Jess wouldn't get past 25.

Whatever the reason, Amy ran out with the idea of getting in front of Justin and kept running with the idea of preserving her skin, screaming like a banshee all the way. The three guards, all of which had had to spin around and strike a target the size of a quarter from a 100 yards on the first try as a qualifying test, expended almost 300 bullets between them and hit…nothing. Justin, pain forgotten, stared in amazement. Bullets fell like rain and yet, like some sort of angel of moronicy, she passed through unharmed, her arms tracing small circles in the air. She was past Justin…reaching the doorway…

And slammed full speed into a 3-inch concrete wall, arms waving and everything. She bounced off and came to rest 4 feet away. Her body tried to keep up the running/waving pattern for a minute or two, then gave up. Justin smacked himself in the forehead with his good arm. Moron! Gibbering idiot! He looked towards his death and saw…three professional, trained guards reloading their professional, trained assault rifles. Unfortunately, neither being professionals nor being trained had prepared them for pretending to be brussel sprouts. Boo!

Justin stared intently at Amy's eyes. Her facial muscles were twitching like she was running a marathon. So stupid, and yet, so brilliant. He collapsed back on the floor. Before he did though, the three guards took careful aim at each other's heads. Each pulled the trigger once. A coincidence, since each simultaneously died once.

There was only one soldier around when Chris exploded through the fragile door. It was a pressure-sensor door, but it didn't open fast enough for Chris. The guard moved, but not fast enough for Chris. As Chris steamrolled the unfortunate his gun went off, but that too was not fast enough for Chris. The skin of a rhino can and has survived much worse than machine gun fire. A rhino's ancestors had to be jabbed by twin needles the size of bananas propelled by a cat going 60 MPH and live. A few puny bullets didn't make much difference, even to a kid pretending to be a rhino.

The two guards through the next door heard the sounds of John's skull compressing, but it's kinda hard to outrun a charging rhino. Chris hit the first one full on with his knobby forehead and kicked him down the hallway, trampling him on the way down. His partner stared in amazement as the runaway freight train crashed down the hallway, throwing the last two guards over his shoulder with his mammoth horn. Guard number 6 apparently bailed in time. Just barely. When the survivor finally tore his gaze away he was staring straight down into the eyes of a very determined (in his eyes) little girl. His daughter sometimes looked like that, particularly when whining and demanding some ice cream or some new toy. He almost laughed, but a crushing migraine cut into his merriment.

By the time some more guards ran up, Justin was ready. He wished he had a crutch or a stick, but it was too late for that. When the guards rounded the corner, what was really in front of them was an injured but barely upright boy, a spastic girl, and three dead soldiers. What they really saw were their dead companions, jerking and jumping like marionettes on a string, grinning skull-like heads bouncing from one shoulder to the next, with billowing black fog around their ankles., and an endless corridor behind them.

Have you ever seen grown men try to run through a wall? It's rather humorous, depending on how close to the wall you are.

Justin started running. Amy had woken up, and he hated to be behind schedule. The thought that the others might already be all done and waiting for him was more than he could bear. He rounded the next corridor, and pulled short as he spotted a guard lounging against the wall. He looked like he was gently decomposing. Justin pointed, spread his fingers wide, and …

"Don't do that." He almost had a heart-attack. Rather, he almost convinced everyone in a 50 meter radius they were having a heart attack.

"Don't do what?" Amy was starting to frazzle him. Really badly.

"What you were about to do."

Justin looked doubtfully at the guard. Most turds showed more activity.

"If you scared him with a gnoll he would give out a small yell before fainting. That yell would attract a guard, who would pull the alarm."

Justin analyzed the information. Then he analyzed Amy. Nope. Better not to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Where's the alarm?"

"Dunno." She pointed. "Through that door?"

He tried to memorize which one she pointed at. He'd need to navigate it in a hurry. "Okay. Find a place to hide."

Quickly and silently, Justin crept out of cover and hurried past the guard. He didn't move. He couldn't. Justin reached out for the door.

"Watcha doin'?"

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHT?" The 'dead' guard sneezed. Violently.

"Didn't I just tell you to hide? Or weren't you listening?" She shook her head innocently, her ponytail bouncing like, well, like a pony's. Justin gripped his right arm with his left. Must…kill…Care…Bears™… AGGGGHH!

"Let me make it easy for you." He walked to the nearest door and swung it open.

The office worker was very surprised. Amy was not. She grabbed his clipboard. BAPBAPBAPBAPBAPBAPBAPPITYBAPPITYBAPPITYBAPPITYBAPPITYBAPPITYBAPPITYBAPPITYBAPPITYPOW!!

Pause.

"That's different."

Pause.

"I think the knee to the jaw was a nice touch."

"Why, thank you."

Justin closed the door and left, shaking his head the whole time. Maybe she was a brown belt. He headed to the door Amy had pointed out. He whipped it open.

"What the…" The guard immediately pretended to be violently sick. Justin broke the glass, gripped the handle, and yanked.

Chris thought that being a rhino would be fun. He liked being a gorilla and punching people, right? Why did being a rhino suck so much?

Must be the guns, he decided as another doomed guard sprayed his side with fire. It stung a little, like being shot with a paintball gun. Chris swung his head. Thump. "Oof!" BA-CRASH! -bump. No more guard. Chris ripped through a wall like it was one of the streamers that cheer leaders hold to trip up the football players when they run out of the locker room. As if they haven't caught on by now. Chris blearily stared at rows and rows of cubicles. He tried to beef up his eyesight, but he didn't know how. People were standing up and staring over the partitions at him. What? he thought, haven't they ever seen a rhino/kodo beast hybrid, better known as a rhido?

[I doubt it. Just what is a kodo beast?]

|Oh…video game thing.|

[I see. Remember, we need to know where the good doctor is, so keep at least one of these well-paid stoogies alive and breathing.]

|I see.| Chris twisted his mouth into he felt comfortable in slipping back into human speech.

"Does anyone know where Doctors Anderson and Bathroom's are? Barth's rooms, Anderson and Barth's rooms. Sorry."

Chris swore. Damn. Six people down, and he hadn't even done anything scary yet. Just to test the waters, Chris roared. A full twenty people passed out.

[Chris? Stop.]

|Sorry.|

Why, oh why didn't I go with Justin? Jess asked. Because you were starting to sound like him, the other half answered. Right. I concede.

The siren went off like air raid klaxons between Jess' ears. [Chris!! Is that you?! What the hell did you do this time, set off the sprinkler system?]

|I swear, it wasn't me.|

[Justin?]

|Justin here.|

[Are you all right?]

|Hang on. I'm listening to something.|

[Do you need backup?]

|What? No, I'm fine.|

[What's up with the alarm?]

|It's a diversion.|

[You set it off?!]

|Yes. It's quite simple. I pull the handle, people come running. By the time they're there, I'm not. When I get back there, they won't be.|

[I think I know what you're saying, but your wording is confusing.]

|What? I'm trying to listen in.]

[I said, 'What the hell?' And by the way, he's debating the use of chemical or nerve agents.]

|Thanks. The idea is, they all come to one easy, centrally-located spot where I can eliminate them all at once.|

[Amy?]

|He'll live.|

[You're sure?]

|Positive.|

Jess sighed. Why the hell did I ever get involved with this crazy shit? Because you ran out of books, that's why. Fine. Carry on.

"What happened here? Who pulled the alarm? Who's on shift? Hurry up and answer me, boy, don't just stand there with your mouth open like I keep interrupting you."

"Skid-eye and Possum are on duty, sir."

"Not their nicknames, private, their real names!"

"Um…I don't know them, sir."

"I'm sur-rounded by fools," the old colonel muttered. Justin couldn't hear them yet, but Amy already knew what would be said.

The colonel caught sight of the soldier trying to puke. "What the hell happened to you, sah?"

"Don' know col'n'l." HUCK! "Just min'in' me own bus-" HRGGH! "so'y, sih."

A lieutenant materialized.

"Sir. The guard in the next block claims to have seen something."

The southern colonel spun around and accidentally whacked the messenger in the nose. "Where?"

"T'rough dat door," talking through a noseful of blood.

Sweat popped out on Justin's eyebrow. Every officer approaching the door suddenly thought they had never seen a more unremarkable door in their lives. He had convinced seven so far, on top of controlling two other men. The strain was taking its toll.

"Tell the colonel what happened, Possum."

"I was jus' minding my own business, co'nel …" Possum drawled.

"Now where've Ah heahd that one before." The colonel drawled. Justin ground his teeth. He couldn't take the accents anymore.

"As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, I thought I saw a gnoll run through that wall there," he pointed, "and go through that one thahr."

"So you triggered the alarm … because you'd been drinking?"

"Tha's just the thing, co'nel, ah haven't had a drop all week. So I figured, if I'm seein' somethin', and Skunk-eyes not feelin' too hot, well, somethin's up."

The colonel was smarter than his lieutenants, who tried to criticize Possum's story. After all, he's a colonel. In this case, though, the lieutenants were right. The story gave Possum too much credit for brains.

"Ah want every one of these rooms searched. Ah have reason to believe a biological or chemical agent has been released, possibly of a nerve agent status." This sounded pretty funny with his heavy accent.

Justin timed his moment perfectly. He pulled the plug on Possum and summoned up his final reserves. He let his energy build for a critical moment and then unleashed it…

Outside, Possum slumped. Reverting to his normal state, he was asleep by the time he hit the floor. Sitting up groggily, he said, "What ha'pened?"

"Are you all right, private?" One the lieutenants leaned down. The colonel's staff hovered by for one more critical moment…

"Ah'm a sergeant, ah am, an' I'd prefer it if ya cahled meh by ma proper tatle, thank 'e kindly."

Boom. A blinding white flash, seen only in the mind. Justin opened the door. A score of uniformed officers lay unconscious on the floor, the victims of their own imaginations of what happens after a white flash. One projection, mass unconsciousness. Amy followed him down the corridor.

The only one not affected was Skunk-eyes. He looked up from his dry-retching in time to spot Justin before he started puking invisible slugs.

Jess finally caught up with Chris. As she passed through the door into the room of cubicles, a very scared office worker tried to run past her. BONK! A keyboard laid him flat on the ground. A small furry thing was standing with a small pile of keyboards, monitors, and unopened sticky pads - the kind that come three inches thick with saran wrap. He skillfully balanced a small modem. It looked like a cross between an orangutan and a chimpanzee. She was painfully aware of its gender. "Hi." Jess nodded.

[Flawless English. You're getting better.]

|I've only said one word. You should hear me try to say, "where's the bathroom."|

[Some other time perhaps. Just exactly what are you doing?]v

At that moment the strange furry creature let fly. Pentium 3's are a lot heavier than they look. The man attempting to climb out the ventilation window was unconscious instantly. Chris grinned. "I never miss."

[Excellent. But while you've been playing Babe Ruth, has it ever occurred to you that probably every single one of the frightened employees cowering behind their cubicles have had their cell phones, pagers, and internet up for the past 15 minutes?]

"Babe Ruth wasn't a pitcher."

[Whatever.]

"But so what? What could they do?"

[Evacuate the building, put all crucial areas into lockdown, and call in an entire company to seal off the exits.]

"Oh." Chris dropped the Macintosh. The screen shattered. "That's bad."

[Yes. Very.]

"So what do we do?"

[Well…we only need one of them…]

|Gotcha.|

Chris' face swelled. The flesh on his forehead bulged, then burst open like a blister. A pair of horns slid out, razor sharp and very pointy. He shifted to all fours. His mouth elongated, filled with teeth. He bellowed. Someone screamed. Chris shifted the bleary rhido's eyes.

|You're first.|

[Justin! We need help!]

|What happened?|

[Is the second security center in your area?]

|Yeah…I think so.| Justin was lying. Then again, Jess probably already knew that.

[Can you tie up the security center for awhile?]

|Sure thing. Piece o' cake.|

"You'll need her help to do this," Amy remarked.

"Haven't you ever heard of, 'if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all?'"

"No. What does it mean?"

Justin rubbed his knuckles against his forehead. "Never mind."

"I knew you would say that."

He started to say something, then changed his mind and began jogging instead.

RUNNING

Jefferson was getting inundated with e-mails, phone calls, and buzzers from Room 138. He hated Room 138. He had never seen much point in it. Why hire a bunch of desk rats anyway? So they can take phone calls and release public announcements? Yeah, right.

The first ones he was willing to write off as a practical joke. I mean, come on. A rhino? After the 300 and 9th, though, he was willing to believe. No one took a joke this far. "Hey, Tommy, I think we got…"

Tommy never got a chance to hear what Jefferson thought they had, because Jefferson was convinced he was choking. Tommy grabbed the mike. "All units, all units, we may have a breach. All units, all units, …" If Justin could read minds, Tommy would never have gotten the chance. As it was, at that moment Jefferson straightened, whipped out his semi-automatic, and blasted Tommy Roberto across the room.

Mr. Nibbles pressed the button on his pager again. The colonel's pager and cell phone had been going non-stop for some time then. Too bad he wasn't awake to hear it. Nibbles' looked up in time to be thrown against the wall by a charging rhino. He felt his ribs crack. The rhino crushed the desk like a tinder box. The dividers were like papier-mâché to him. If someone had equipped a freight train with a heat seeker it would not be more deadly.

Tommy wasn't quite as dead as Jefferson thought. His pistol fell from his holster as he hit the ground. From the dust where he lay he struggled to make sense of the swirling madness before his eyes. Jefferson's outline was suddenly vividly clear, silhouetted in the doorway. Roberto went down to the firing range on his own time every weekend. He did not miss. Jefferson went down, an entire clip punched through his back. Tommy struggled upright, clutching his bleeding stomach. The wound might be fatal. He didn't know. He didn't care. He was Italian! Italians didn't die of blood loss! Did they? He grabbed the mike. "This is Officer Roberto. Officer Jefferson is down, I repeat, Officer Jefferson is down. Code Five, Code Five!" Tommy wished he had some real iron in his hands. He'd need it to face whatever was out there doing god knew what. No time now. He stumbled into the corridor.

The last thing Roberto thought he saw was a man in a dark flowing garment with sunglasses whip around and fire two clips from a pair of matching automatics. Tommy fell as if dead, which he believed he was. If he had seen more movies instead of going to the range all the time, he would have recognized Neo.

Nibbles was grabbed and slammed back against the wall. Red stars gave way to a post-apocalyptic world, everything stomped flat equally, wall, computer, human. The rhido's horn was sticking up his torn shirt, inches from his heaving chest. It blinked at him, bored.

[Where is Barth?]

What on earth is going on, he thought. Mr. Nibbles stared desperately into the rhido's eyes. Nope. No answers there.

Despite his best intentions, the answer was rising to the surface of his mind. Jess waited until it was fully formed.

[Got it. Room 178.] Chris put him down gently. He gasped for a moment or too. Chris snorted. Nibbles was instantly senseless.

What an easy fool to trap, she thought. Speaking of easy fools, how was Amy?

|I think Justin wants to talk to you.|

[Okay…] Jess was getting tired of finishing sentences with triple dots.

|Jess! Go! Go now! If you want to get the good doctor anytime soon, it will have to be now!|

[Justin, what the hell is going on!] Justin sounded scared. That was worrisome. It was more than Justin's ego was worth to let it slip that he was scared, she knew. Men.

|Remember the security center?|

[Yeah.]

|I found it.|

[Oh god.] She'd heard him talk that way before. When the bouts of SMB Melee broke down and Justin and Chris started playing a First-Person Shooter she would usually read a book. Sometimes she couldn't help listening in. That was the tone one or the other of them used minutes before setting dozens of explosives and hitting "detonate," clearing a path and blowing themselves apart in the process.

|I guarantee you every guard and comms system in this building will be very busy for at least,| he grabbed Amy's arm and squinted, |ten minutes. Best get cracking. After that…|

[You're dead?]

|No. No guarantees.|

[No guarantees?]

|Correct. I may have to blow up the security center.|

[You're bluffing.]

|No, I'm not. There's a self destruct mechanism in the security center.|

[Why would they put that there?]

|Who knows? I gave it special note because it seemed a convenient way to eliminate a serious pain-in-the-ass.|

Jess cut the connection. She still didn't remember anything about any self-destruct. She did think it unlikely she and Chris would be able to get out alone. She would have to hurry before Justin did something suicidal.

"Chris."

"Yeah?"

"Turn back into a rhibbo. We've gotta move."

"Rhido."

"Rhido, whatever."

"Why?"

"Because Justin thinks he's 007 on a mission to kill."

Chris didn't know how to respond to that. His lips started morphing. Right. Time to meet the monk- I mean, rhido.

Armed guards spilled out of the adjacent office. Dozens of them. Perfect. Justin started to crack his knuckles. Wait. I don't crack my knuckles. That's Chris' thing. He stopped. He turned to Amy. "Ready?"

She nodded. Her power rippled out from her, invisible, like waves, spreading over everything with an invisible blanket.

Justin drew his lips back in a snarl, exposing his teeth. No one was passing while he still drew breath. And he didn't have enough left in him for another crowd stopper. This would get ugly. He whipped 'round the corner for a moment and let loose his first shot. Let the games begin.

Chris thundered down hallways, Jess holding close to him. He blew through a door. A startled secretary stared back. Noncombatant=ignore her. He thundered to his right. Not there either. He doubled back and almost ran over Jess. This wasn't working.

|Can you ride?|

[I can try.]

As soon as she was up Jess regretted it. It felt like riding a stegosaurus.

|Here we go!|

Correction: stegos don't run through walls.

The secretary phoned security. Too bad there was no one there to take the call.

A hail of bullets rained down the hall. Justin didn't care. He used the corner as cover. The fire lulled. He ignored it, concentrating on Amy. The fire picked up again. He waited. Amy snapped her hand down. In an instant, Justin whipped out for a brief instant. One more man began vegetating. He was safely back an instant before deadly fire ripped the spot he had been a moment before. He breathed deeply. He was tired. So very tired. He wanted so badly to rest. Just drop down. Focus, dammit, focus. There's a war going on, and you're a soldier. Focus. Amy held up a finger. One guard coming down the hallway. Shit. He couldn't take much more. His mind was slipping. Control!! Control!! The veggies were stirring. He couldn't put their minds into total lockdown anymore, and he was being forced to hold on to their craniums to keep them out, not enough energy to put each one out of commission singularly. Exhausting. Amy was blurring. Was that one finger or three? CONTROL!!! She snapped her hand down. He whipped around, his motor skills deteriating as his last strength ebbed out of him. The guard had already turned the corner. Justin was too tired to swear.

[I've found him. Left here.]

|En route. Hold on.|

Justin poured every ounce of his frustration into the unlucky, but convenient target immediately in front of him. The man slammed into the wall. The eyes rolled back into his head. Justin dropped the other threads of humanity in his hand. He was sick to death of them. His victim started frothing and chattering uncontrollably. He started slamming himself violently into the wall, whipping around, getting up, arms and legs jerking and getting in the way, like a puppet a sulky brat was kicking into the corner. The rate of fire had dropped to zero. The man, whose name was Sid, gripped his right arm and tried as hard as he could to prevent himself from poking out his own eyes, which bulged out of their sockets as "The Claw" ascended toward his features. Amy was giggling uncontrollably. She knew what Justin would do. She also saw something that Justin couldn't. The facial expressions of the onlookers. Justin would have given his eyeteeth to see that. The giggling filled him with fresh inspiration. He threw his arms to the side. Sid flew to the side. He fell to the ground and began running slowly in circles on his side, frothing and distorting all the while. While he went around back on Justin and Amy's side, Justin snagged the small automatic pistol on his side. Sid leaped back up. Like a zombie, he shuffled towards the soldiers, blood dripping freely from his broken nose and face and mangled limbs. ZIIIIIIICK-CLICK! DEDGEDEDGEDEDGEDEDGEDEDGEDEDGEDEDGEDEDGEDEDGE!!!! Sid fell as if dead, which, of course, he was.

[Turn right! Office at the end of the hall!]

|Got it!| Jess was bumping like a sack of potatoes. A guard popped out of nowhere. "FUCK-ing HELL??" The plastic cup went all over his pristine, military boots. He fired.

|Detour!|

Jess ducked. Chris' horn had just punched out enough of the frame for her to not be unseated violently. She felt something wet and sticky running down over her ankle. She leaned over, starting slightly as the water cooler imploded at Chris' approach, vapor passing over the neck frill to reach her. Neck frill? Thank you, Chris, she thought. He probably grew that for her protection. In fact, she guessed the whole large thing was to create s bullet shield for her. The guard went straight out the window into the locked courtyard, his screams silenced as he impacted the wall on the other side with a WUMP! Jess touched the liquid and brought it up to her face. Blood… [Chris, you're bleeding!]

|What else is new up there?| The sarcasm was obvious.

[This isn't new to you?]

|If you dismounted, not that you should, but if you did, you'd see my side looks like it was attacked with huge leeches.|

[It doesn't bother you?]

|Not especially.|

She shook her head. Right. Let him suffer in silence, if that's his wish. [You're getting off-track. Down this hall, to the right, and you're there.]

|That's okay. I know a shortcut.|

Shortcut? Uh-oh.

The wall was thick. Chris was thicker.

Justin was totally spent. But that didn't matter as much anymore. Now he had a gun. Timing on Amy's hand motions, he swung out for a moment. He spun violently to jinx the gunners and sprayed molten lead all over. He was safely back long before the magazines were snapped back into the chambers. He breathed deeply. He looked at Amy again. She shook her head.

"Dammit!" He'd have to try again. No hits.

1…2…3!

Chris spun into the curve with every pound of his three-ton body. As he came through the wall his ass kept going past his horned head and beyond. The secretary's desk was nestled in that fateful corner. She looked up from the keyboard just in time to spot his enormous flanks bearing down on her. The alphabetized filing cabinet popped like a blister. The filing cabinet was in the nether corner behind the desk. What happened to the secretary doesn't bear mentioning. His bulging sides ripped through the wall, leaving a gouge for terrified office workers to stare through in bewilderment.

Chris barreled down the hall. Two guards were nervously trying to decide whether to guard the door or desert their posts. As if they could get past the charging trhicodo, or rhinoceros/kodo beast/triceratops hybrid. Right. [Guards in the office! FYI, this guy is pretty sick. Sadisticly.]

Chris didn't even have time to grunt out an answer. He was morphing his horns into the sturdy, sharper, curveted death-dealing weapons he wanted them to be. Blowing Barth's door off it's hinges was too conventional, too elementary for Chris at that point. He turned the entire wall into a cloud of blinding sawdust.

"RRWWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAG!!!!!" Grown men wet themselves at that sound. Some men's bladders, however, were preoccupied in emptying themselves as splinters the size of small beams skewered them. Others were skewered by the deadly tri-pointed lances ripping into the air. Those that weren't trampled to death.

"BOOOOOM!!!! ARGHOHMYGODBLSHKBOOMBSHCRNCHBPW FLLLGRAGAGAGAGPSHLITBOOMF" etc.

[Alright, Chris, now let's get out of here!]

|Right. Sucks for you Barth, you stupid dead bastard.|

Justin was running out of bullets. It was a semi-automatic, but it still didn't have unlimited ammo. He popped out for another quick moment. BLAMBLAMBLAM! The poor bastard never even reached the corner. Instead, he lay sedately in a pool of his own blood. The clips were slammed home and sights taken. Justin ducked. More plaster and concrete dust showered down on him. He popped the magazine. Half a dozen shots left at the most. Damn. He popped it back in. TINK! TINK-TINK-Tink-tinktink. Justin dove out of the way seconds before the grenade filled the hall with smoke and flame. Amy gave a small yell. Justin was on his back, trying to follow her finger. He squeezed. He was rewarded with a scream and a CLICK as the gun jammed. "Shit!" He'd read enough novels to know what could happen when your gun jammed. It either fired at the worst possible moment, or exploded and blew your hand off. He threw it away. Out of options, out of options…

The self-destruct. He'd almost forgotten. He summoned the final shreds of power from the far reaches of his cranium…

Justin peaked around the corner. He was on his stomach, breathing through his shirt. The smoke was fully that bad. His

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"Do what?" Justin pivoted around. Of course, Amy had had her ears covered well in advance of the actual explosion. Of course.

In that crucial moment with his attention divided, fully automatic fire ripped the corridor like a thousand demons unleashed.

"Shit!" Justin flew backwards he was going so fast. Semi-autos was one thing. Assault rifles were another. He squeezed his eyes shut. He concentrated so hard he could feel the veins in his head. Nothing. He was bone dry. Something touched his shoulder. He jerked out of his daze fully expecting to be shot full in the face a moment later. It was Amy, her face close to his. "I know where Doctor Anderson is."

Not exactly pretty, but absolutely marvelous considering the alternative. For the first time he felt genuinely glad having her around. "Where? How do you know?"

"He'll be evacuating maybe, oh, five to thirty minutes from now."

"That's a pretty broad estimate."

She shrugged. "How long do you expect the corridor to be filled with gas-mask wearing commandos and smoke?"

"Point taken." He groaned. He was starting to ache all over. Any minute now the elitists would round the corner and it would be curtains. "Where?"

"It would be easier for me to show you."

"Hang on while I contact Jess." He just hoped she was listening.

|JESS!!!!|

If someone had put a pistol to her temple, her brain would not have been so utterly wiped of all thoughts. Someone screaming in their heads is actually a lot louder than most people credit.

|JESS!!!!|

[Justin! Calm down! And stop screaming! I can't think!]

|MAYDAY, MAYDAY!! CAN YOU HEAR ME, JESS?!|

[YES, I CAN HEAR YOU! STOP YELLING!]

|JESS! ARE YOU THERE? WHERE ARE YOU?|

He was obviously panicking. Stress did that to people. She would have to cut straight to his cerebral functions, and fast. Time for something she hated doing. Yelling.

[SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!]

Silence.

|Thanks. I needed that.|

[Anytime.] Chris was staring at her. Well, let him. Something had spooked Justin. Nothing personal, but Justin was in danger, Chris was not. Priorities.

|I have elite troopers, I repeat, elite troopers coming down the hallway. Request immediate back-up.|

That was the Justin she knew. Always talking in military code phrases almost indecipherable to her. The words were crystal clear, their meanings were far from.

"Justin just freaked. Then he claimed 'elite troopers' were attacking him."

|'Elite troopers?' You're sure those were his exact words, 'elite troopers?'|

"Yes. That's what he said."

|Oh, no.| Chris was already morphing back into a form with a bit more punch.

"Is that bad?"

Chris had known Justin for far longer than Jess. He also spoke fluent Militarese and Machoese. The fact that Justin hadn't said, 'bogies,' 'freaks,' 'punks,' or 'scumballs' was, by itself, a bad sign. Chris understood military jargon, and spoke it readily. The words 'elite troopers' worried him also, because it was a term of respect. In war, the enemy was never 'elite,' 'professional,' etc. The enemy was a 'chino,' 'jap,' 'kraut,' 'Jerry,' 'froglegs,' 'lobsterback,' and 'rebel scum.' 'Trooper' was a hyped-up word of the type that made Chris think of sci-fi cannon fodder and aristocratic cannon fodder from circa 1500. Justin hated both. So, that meant he was scared, disoriented, and facing total annihilation from superior forces, worthy of the respect of a disdainful 14-year old. He wondered again that Jess couldn't read that into the phrase. Girls. You're not dieing, Justin, until I arrive for the party, Chris swore. Then you can die.

[What shall I tell him?]

|Tell him the cavalry is on the way.|

The word cavalry was echoing through Justin's brain hollowly. All intellect and sanity had momentarily deserted him. Cavalry…? But in war, he thought, the cavalry were always the guys who were never around when you needed them and were involved in light probing actions only. The whole 'Here comes the cavalry' thing was just another Hollywood invention. Where on earth did that thought come from…?

[Focus, Justin, focus! I didn't save you so you could die again later! Breathe dammit, breathe!]

He did. Jess didn't curse lightly.

Amy knew something had to be done, and soon. She hefted the fire extinguisher and let loose a small spray. Justin sputtered back to life, hacking and spitting. The first heavily armed walking switchblade rounded the corner. He got a hearty puff in the face. Unfortunately he still had his gas mask on. No effect. PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!

The sheer pressure from the nozzle forced him back. Foam was stuck in his air holes. He dropped the gun and tried the rip the mask off. Oh no you don't. Amy somehow got the fire ax over her head and…

Justin's body was going into shock. He just knew it somehow. He also knew, from his Boy Scout training, how to treat for shock. Unfortunately he couldn't treat himself. Don't fall asleep, he told himself. Don't…

The poor sonovabitch who got the axe blade to the skull was destined to be the last. Amy tugged as hard as she could to pull the axe free. Sickening squelching sounds were her only reward. She got some leverage on his chest and pulled again. Her hands slipped suddenly and he rocketed back into the wall, safe behind an invisible wall of fire. She watched him slump. Was he really fully dead? No time for that. The axe was outside her reach. She hefted the fire extinguisher again and bit her lip. She couldn't predict where the bullets would go very well. And she was too slow to move out of the way. Oh well. She'd just have to chance it. She stepped into the open and held down the spray…

Justin was out. Fully out. If someone had CAT-scanned his head at that moment, the results would convince them they were seeing spontaneous human combustion at work, or their equipment was faulty. Justin's brain was lit up like a switchboard. Sparks fairly flew across his cranium, leaping from one half to the other. Electricity pulsed through his body, but he neither thought, nor felt.

Chris smashed through yet another desk. Were there even any more desks in the entire building he hadn't smashed in an explosion of splinters, sticky notes, and pens? Dammit, he thought, I'm coming!!

A blinding smoke screen went up. The elite troops backed up and took better cover. Smoke grenades had two uses: covering an escape, or blinding the enemy before the big guns went in. Better safe than mangled.

"Thermal imaging - on." They flicked the switch on their goggles.

"Good god…"

"Moron."

A girl was waving a container of liquid sodium bicarbonate in the air. Futile.

They opened fire.

Amy didn't like the gun fire. It was so loud, and she couldn't see anything. She hated the way it went BLAM in front of her and then PING directly behind her. It awoke something old and animal in her. The desperate need to run away. Her future sight was worthless. She could only see endless impenetrable rolling fog from which echoed faint flashes. She couldn't detect any bullets at all. Her eyes were squeezed tight shut and she held the extinguisher in front of her like a weapon, waving it wildly. She loved extreme rides (especially because her brother didn't) but this was the pits.

"I can't hit her!"

"Damn goggles are defective!"

Amy couldn't hear. She was holding as still as possible.

Jess was running as fast as she could. Being left behind was not on her list of things to do.

Amy felt more than saw the bullet puncture the fire extinguisher. Normally she would have held onto it until her arms were blown out of their sockets. Her future sight, however, told her what would happen if she did. She threw, than walked back to try to awaken Justin, for lack of something better to do.

"Wake up."

Nothing.

She shook him. "Wake-up."

"Your party has rested for 16 hours…" he mumbled.

"Huh?" She started slapping him from one hand to the other.

"…Regidian has healed for 22 health points…"

She slapped harder.

"…Thorian has healed for 3,679 health points…"

She started jerking her knee violently into his jaw.

Whatever he tried to say then was cut off by his teeth slamming violently on his tongue twice - once when kneed, twice when his head slammed into the wall with a particularly hard crack.

THUMPKRACK!! THUMPKRACK!! THUMPKRACK!!

He came around.

"You're awake! That's a good thing too, because for a minute or two there I thought you wouldn't, and then I'd have to do CPR, only I don't know how…"

Justin just squinted at her with his good eye, then spit his tooth into her iris like a bulls-eye. Then he fumbled around for his glasses. Having to ask for help, getting knocked out twice, burning shoulder, constricted chest, pained leg, cut tongue, mild concussion, getting woken twice by the same butcher; and the day had started out so well too. When the day had started, he'd been asleep.

A small red fire engine flew out of nowhere and struck Corporal Greenwaters over the head. Clunk!

FOOOOOOOM!!!!

If they had gotten the chance, those closest would have yelled. Loud. Lucky them, liquid sodium bicarbonate, even exploding, is far from lethal. Unless it gets clogged in the airholes of your gasmask. Which it did.

Justin stretched. The guards were still down the corridor, or else his ears were still ringing, and he felt absolutely pumped. Well, not exactly. He still felt tired. But his body was feeling better even after such a short time. The crushing exhaustion was gone. His mind was more or less clear, beaten with a hammer, perhaps, but clear. His powers had returned. Inexplicable as it seemed, he was fresher than before. He looked at Amy. That's it, he thought, I'm going to eat her to rejuvenate hearts.

[Hurry, Chris! He says he's going to eat Amy!]

|What?! Isn't he a little young?|

[No, as in, 'partake of her flesh.']

|Oh.| Must mean eat, he decided.

Nah, she might still be of some use, pathetic though it be. Anderson! Of course! At the very least, he owed it to the man to kill him before the others arrived.

"Has he left yet?"

"Who?"l

If Justin's eyelids weren't twitching, he would've rolled his eyes.

"Anderson."

"He decided to remain where he is. Too much shooting."

"Can you pinpoint him?"

"Not exactly. I know what room he should be in, though."

Justin nodded, slipping his fingers up to his temple. Felt the power dribbling speedily through the veins under his fingertips. "Go ahead."

Doctor Anderson looked up at his gerbil. Now, that's funny. The gerbil was in an absolute panic, running around squealing like the devil. Now it was trying to crush it's head in the gerbil wheel. It slumped suddenly. It stood up, wobbly, and tottered to the water bowl. It should be alright now. Wait, no, it's trying to drown itself.

"Shit." Justin repositioned his hands and tried again.

Anderson sighed and turned back to his paperwork.

"Gotcha."

Jess was looking through Chris' eyes. It was weird. She hadn't known she could do that. It also required her to stand still, because if she walked she would bump into things. It was disconcerting, really, you were moving but you were standing still. When you walked, the other didn't necessarily go in the same direction. It wasn't at all like a movie, because Chris' vision extended beyond those of a camera lens.

That's the security room, she whispered. So there was a self-destruct. Smoke and broken, burned out screens flashed through her mind for an instant. Then s/he went through the cracked doorway. It was too small. Chris made it big enough. Foam stung Chris' eyes. Several guards were still standing. No longer.

|JUSTIN!| Chris bellowed in his mind. It just seemed like the movie-correct procedure, to call the name of the rescued party while rescuing, even if they couldn't hear.

[Anderson is that way.]

|Which?|

[Justin?]

A sullen silence followed on Jess' end. Chris, who wouldn't have heard a reply even if there was one, waited patiently. A door turned green.

|Cool.|

[Hurry up- make sure it's the right one.]

|Why wouldn't it be?|

[Because Justin is having what he would term a 'huffy-fit.']

|Now you're quoting him.|

[My term for it would just go over your head.]

|True.| Chris smashed the door down. His brain stopped registering it as green. That looked like an elderly man (as in 45, old for a 14-year old) gagging himself with a pocketknife through the throat - a normally impossible feat - but it could just be Justin playing tricks on him. Scary thought. POW! Hologram dead.

[That's one objective down.]

|How can you be sure?|

[Justin's brain is like an open book to me.]

|Damn straight,| Justin muttered.

"Now what?" Justin queried.

[We'll have to destroy some blast doors to reach the next section. Then we can get to work on Carl.]

"So where are these accursed blast doors we need to wipe out?"

[Think you're up to it?]

"Nothing to it." He tapped his bubbling cranium. "Mind over matter."

POWER

The End