Lay Off

                 Chapter One

 

 

Hanna had taken the bus as usual from the college campus to get to work. Though she had been tempted to take out her skateboard to ride down the hills to where the government office was situated, she didn’t want to get a citation for being a public nuisance so she stowed the board into her bag. Glancing at the riders that also sat with her on the public transit, she sighed. One was reading out of the superhero comic book Electricity. The cover held up over his face displayed the svelte and sexy super-heroine that could shoot lightening bolts out of her fingers and fly in the air, all done in a skintight black and lightening yellow costume. The heroine’s midnight black hair hung long down her back in a pony tail. Electricity was her brother’s invention. He had patterned the character’s looks after her, which was why the other guy sitting across the comic book reader was blinking at Hanna, then looking back at the cover in disbelief.

She ignored it. It was part of being the sister of Saul Christian Eber, the famous comic book artist. There were other complications to being his sister, but being the body model for a superhero was the most difficult part of it. It drew in unwanted attention.

Reaching up to the pull cord, she hardly set her fingers to it before the light signaling she wanted off flashed on with a ding. Frowning, Hanna glanced at her hands, wondering if she had gathered static again without meaning to. It was a family trait, one her brother had based the super-heroine’s powers off of.

The bus halted. Hanna stood up and walked to the back door. Someone else did the same, stepping off after her onto the curb. Yawning with a look to the sky as she stretched, Hanna then turned in the direction of the office, marching along the street. Traffic passed here and there, pedestrians going by without a look up from their paths and cell phones. Shoppers gossiped on spiked heels, click, click, clicking along with bags on both arms, going to their BMWs and Mercedes. And behind her she heard the even-paced steps of the man who had followed her off the bus and was now following her towards the alley between the deli and the photocopy shop. The friction of his shoes, his sleeves against his jacket sides as he moved, and the electrical charge of his watch humming as the seconds ticked by only reinforced the already warm neuro-electrical signature Hanna felt as he got closer.

He grabbed her arm, jerking her into the alley, shoving up against her back. “Give me your wallet.”

Something cocked, poking her side like a gun.

“You don’t want to do that,” Hanna said, straining as he shoved her face first against the wall. She didn’t see his face, only his hat. His jacket covered most of him.

He shoved his gun harder into her side. “Shut up and just give it to me!”

Hanna clenched her teeth together, extending her hand into her side pocket to pull it out. He reached over and took it from her, opening it. Almost immediately he let it go, jolted by a shock that nearly clawed up his arm.

The wallet dropped to the ground.

“What is this?” He snapped at her, shoving her against wall again. “What did you put in that wallet?”

“Nothing,” Hanna said, still holding back the urge to really hurt him.

He bent over to pick it up, still holding the gun.

But Hanna spun around, kneeing him right in the face then kicking back his hand as he pulled the trigger.

The gun didn’t go off. It jammed. Which was great because it kept things quiet for the both of them just as Hanna had wanted. With the heel of her foot, she nailed the man in his chest then picked up her wallet, flashing the ID inside at him.

“FBI. You are under arrest.”

 

“Hanna, Hanna, Hanna…when are you going to learn to not make yourself a target?” Agent Johnson said as the police carried off the mugger in cuffs. He strolled to where she was watching the perpetrator with a smug grin on her lips.

Hanna merely shrugged.

“Do you like drawing people after you on the way to work?” he asked.

This time she shook her head, glancing at the police car as it drove off. “No. Of course not. But look at me. Everyone thinks I am an easy target. Single Asian chick whom they always assume is some foreigner lost in the city. Why do you guys have to have the office down in this area, anyway? If anything, that is to blame.”

Agent Johnson chuckled, waving her over to walk along side him back to the small branch office for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “What? You think they figure you can’t find your way back to China Town?”

Hanna cast him a dirty glare. “I’m only half Chinese. You’d think people would be able to tell the difference.”

But Hanna really did look more Asian than Jewish, the other half to her already interesting heritage. Her black eyes were beautifully shaped, her fair yet yellowish skin complimenting her straight black hair. She wore it in a professional shoulder length cut meant to give the impression of seriousness. However even with her larger Caucasian build she just came across as cute rather than adult, even with her more angular nose. Maybe it was how she preferred tennis shoes to heels and wore them with her work slacks, though it was more likely due to the backpack that carried her skateboard, the wheels sticking out.

“Well, that aside,” Agent Johnson said as they strolled to the steps just five doors from the mugging site, “I am glad I got called out to see you before go in today. You should know the inspector is in today.”

Hanna froze, halting on the second step. “Today?”

He nodded, meeting her gaze. “That’s right. So remember, you are a secretary. Got it?”

Nodding back, Hanna cautiously started up again. Her mind was already going over what that implied. Since the recession, the government has been making cutbacks in all its programs, including in some security programs, mostly to get rid of superfluous staff. She wondered where that put her. She had only been hired two years ago.

Agent Johnson opened the door, letting her in first.

Immediately she could feel the mood in the office. The static tension in every person, the beating of their hearts and running of their minds, was tight, busy. A few looked up at her with painful smiles, unable to greet her in their usual way. The regular day secretary only looked slightly relieved since at least Hanna’s arrival marked that she could escape the office for the day.

“Hi,” Hanna said to her, keeping her voice low with a glance at the other office workers. “How bad is it?”

The secretary cringed, watching Agent Johnson pass by without another word. She held off until she was sure he was gone then said, “I don’t know. It has been tense all day. I don’t think they will lay off any of our field agents, but I hear a rumor about some consolidating. A few offices will be closed down to keep overhead low. That means mostly staff will be let go.”

Cringing, Hanna looked up. She was staff. Not that she couldn’t find another job somewhere else, though the economy sucked enough that she would probably have to flip burgers for a while, but that she wondered how that would affect her other standing with the bureau. They had an agreement. Would they uphold it, or had something changed?

“You’d better clock in,” the secretary said to Hanna, nodding towards the break room.

Heaving an exhale, Hanna nodded back and headed straight to the room. What else was there to do? Agent Johnson had said it.  She was a secretary. She ought to act like one.

After she put away her bag and cell phone, the passing of the guard (as Hanna saw it) went quickly. The moment the other secretary vacated her seat so Hanna could take over, Hanna went straight to work finishing the filing and data entry tasks that remained on the desk. She answered the phones, transferring only two calls before the back office door opened. A man unfamiliar to her stepped out after Julio Mendoza, one of their cleaning staff members. Julio looked devastated. Wringing his hands, Julio hardly glanced at her when he dropped his pass card on her desk. Then he went out.

“Hanna Evyline Eber?” the unfamiliar man standing in the back office doorway called into the room, peering over the office lobby before his eyes fixed on her.

Hanna rose, trying to control her breathing. Keep calm. Keep calm, she told herself as she walked over to the room. She looked at the man only once as he let her in gesturing to the vacant chair.

She sat down. Somehow the room felt so stark, even with all the maps and pictures of wanted criminals on the walls. Clenching her hands together, she kept telling herself she would be able to get by. It wasn’t like she had that job for the money anyway. Her parents had left her and her brother a substantial stash to use when they had died. Besides that, she was in college on an academic scholarship. She could just throw herself into her studies full time.

The man closed the door then sat across from her. He pulled from off the stack a file then opened it, peering first at the picture then Hanna’s face to make sure she was the right person. Then perusing the writing there for a while, not speaking a word or even emitting a grunt to show his thoughts, he then set it down. Looking up to Hanna’s worried face, he said, “You have only been working for the FBI as a secretary for two years. Is that correct?”

Hanna nodded. “Yes sir.”

“You were hired while still high school though,” he added, peering at the paper. “Why was that?”

Glancing at the door, she could see the lit up electrical signatures much akin to a string of Christmas lights of those standing near it trying to listen in. Hanna said, “My mother was a cryptographer for the FBI. She was killed in a plane crash with my father. Agent Johnson, who works here, was a friend of my mom and—”

“I see.” The man set the paper down, folding his hands on top of the desk, looking straight at her. “Ms Eber, as much as I sympathize with your grief, you must understand that nepotism is not a practice the U.S. government condones in its hiring practices.”

“I also showed extremely high aptitude with the computer,” Hanna said, her nervousness losing out to irritation. “If you notice there, I type ninety words per minute. I keep the files in good order, better than they ever had it, and—”

“This is nothing personal, Ms Eber,” he said. His voice lowered to remind her who he was. “But we need to let go untrained civilians unessential to the bureau.”

She frowned, keeping her lips pressed in a line.

“You are a talented young lady,” he said, relaxing only a little in his attempts to reassure her. “I am sure you will be able to find an equally well-paying office job within a private corporation, though it would be better that you focus on your studies rather than on outside work. We are aware of your financial, uh, situation.”

The clock behind her hummed, clicking to place as the fluorescent lights flickered slightly.

“I like the environment here,” Hanna said, still frowning. “And I don’t think anybody would let me hang around here unless I was doing something useful. Can’t I just take a pay cut?”

He blinked at her.

“I’m sure Julio would agree with me that having a job is better than no job,” she added.

He frowned.

Gathering up the papers, he then closed up the folder. “I’m sorry. A letter of recommendation will be given to you with your letter of dismissal. You can clean out your locker this afternoon. We won’t be needing your services for—”

But the door opened before either of them could get up. Both Hanna and the inspector looked up to see who was interrupting them. She didn’t recognize the man, ordinary brown hair, and dressed in a formal suit though he did not button it closed; but the inspector did, and he rose from his seat almost immediately. He then glanced to Hanna.

“Agent Laughlin,” the stranger said, giving the inspector a nod. He then looked to Hanna. “Hello Miss Eber. I’m glad to finally meet you.”

Hanna blinked then rose, wondering more intensely who he was.

The inspector gestured to the desk without taking his eyes off the newcomer. “I was just finishing up layoffs for—”

The stranger nodded, returning his eyes to the flustered inspector’s face. “Yes, I can see that. And you are doing an excellent job. But we’ll be taking over Miss Eber’s file from here. You don’t have to deal with her paperwork. We’ll do that.”

Nodding, though Hanna was sure she saw him sweating, the inspector cast her a fleeting glance before picking up the other files and carrying them immediately out the room. The stranger shut the door.

There were two others who had come in with him, a pair of silent men which stood in the back of the room behind Hanna. Both nondescript characters in suits with stony faces, they were built like navy seals. Hanna turned her gaze to the stranger, her eyes following him as he sat in the inspector’s chair with comfort, flipping open the file once more. His eyes were intelligent, icy blue and intent on the things he looked at. They flickered to her face, his mouth curling up at the ends in a smirk as he tried to read her expression.

He said, “You have nothing to say?”

Hanna blinked once. “I’m waiting for you to introduce yourself.”

He chuckled, lowering his eyes. “You sound like your mother.”

She just stared. “You knew my mother?”

Hanna could see the impulses in his brain running a mile a minute, though his heart beat steadily, the electrical pulses regular. The men behind her were similarly calm.

Nodding, the man said, “I also knew your father. Though… they have been keeping you from me.”

Blinking at him again, Hanna leaned back. “Who are you?”

He grinned.

“So they didn’t talk about me.” Setting the file down, the man then produced another file from within his coat. He dropped it onto the desk, flipping it open to read with an amused glance up at her. “It figures. That is so like them.”

She didn’t know what he was trying to do. With a glance at the door she then blinked. The usual electrical signatures she saw through it which marked live bodies were no longer there. No one was listening, though there was one large lit up and active nervous system she saw showing a huge man standing in front of the door. This stranger had brought three men with him, at least, though it was possible there were more. Hanna returned her gaze to the man. He was still smiling.

“My name is Gerald N. Pipps. I am one of the many directors in charge of the Omega project,” he said, watching her expression. “Have you heard your parents speak of it?”

Hanna shook her head only a little. “No. They never talked about their work.”

He leaned in, somewhat amused. “Not even a little?”

She clenched her teeth, fighting the urge to shock him then blow a way out of there. There was something sinister in his mirth, something she didn’t like.

Mr. Pipps leaned back. “How interesting. You mean to say that your mother and father never told you how they got together? How they were matched up?”

“I don’t know what you mean by that.” Hanna leaned her back against the chair as if she could get further from him by doing so. “They met in New York. My father was a missionary for our church in China Town, Mandarin speaking. My mother was going to NYU. They said nothing about some government project. They wrote each other for years before they actually got married.”

He chuckled, glancing down at the file before him. “So that’s been their cover story. Interesting.”

“It’s not a cover story!” Hanna argued back. She then looked to the men behind her. They hadn’t moved. “Look. I don’t who you are or what you are doing here. But if I am going to be fired, then fine. I’ll find another job. But don’t you mess with the memory I have of my parents. They were good people. I know you government people are sarcastic, paranoid misery workers, but I am not about to listen to this drivel and—”

“Drivel?” He nearly shouted, his expression changed to that of offence as he leaned towards her. “Do you really not know why I’m here, Hanna Eber?”

Hanna closed her mouth, glaring at him. Then she rose. “No. I don’t. I just thought I was going to get laid off today. And I’d like to go home now.”

She started for the door. This time one of the large men moved, blocking her way out. Hanna stepped back, gazing at him wearily. Then she looked back to the strange man who stood there. His smug expression had returned.

“Tell him to let me out,” she said.

Mr. Pipps shook his head. “I’m sorry. But our discussion has barely even started. Now take a seat.”

Hanna remained where she was, contemplating the amount of physical force it would take to knock out the thug-sized man and then the man on the other side. Though she was taller and broader than the average Chinese girl, she was still not built to take on beefy men. In the back of her mind, she wished that she had not passed on the kung fu lessons her mother had offered to take her to when she was a child. As for her alternative methods of escape, in that particular circumstance it would be unmentionable. She dragged herself back to the chair, dropping in.

“Good.”

He sat back down also, lifting the file.

Leaning over the desk towards him, Hanna said, “What do you want? If you aren’t firing me, then what is this?”

Mr. Pipps lifted his eyes to her face. “You really want to play this game?”

Hanna just blinked at him.

He sighed, leaning back to get a clearer look at her. “You really do just want to play around, don’t you? Hmm.” Mr. Pipps started to peruse through the papers in the file, taking out one sheet the moment he found what he was looking for. He lifted it up for Hanna to see but not touch yet. “Here. But let me warn you, I am not here to play a game. This will tell you my purpose. But don’t jump out the window when you read it.”

Hanna plucked the paper from his fingers, shaking her head at him. “We’re on the first floor.”

He cast back a wry smirk as she lowered the paper so she could read what was there.

It was a report; formal with dates and names much like the many forms she had filed into the computer database. The date was before either she or her older brother Saul were born. There was the name of a doctor on it, one Hanna recognized as her mother’s gynecologist, a man who had occasionally visited when she was very young but quit coming after a while. Along with it was recorded data, including sperm count and number of healthy eggs. Such things only reminded her of when her mother had remarked that it took a while for her and her husband to get pregnant. They had seen experts. Been tested. It was a common story for most couples those days.

Hanna lifted her eyes from the paper. “So?”

He took it back, huffing. “So, didn’t you know that you were genetically engineered?”

Blinking at him, Hanna snorted. “Genetically what? Oh for pity’s sake, they saw a fertility doctor.”

The man shook his head, plucking out another sheet from the file. “Alright. How about this then? What do you make of this information?”

Snatching it from his hands, Hanna gazed down at the file. Just like the other one, marked up like any FBI report of forensic data, she read the date, time, doctors and others involved then facts revealed. Only this one looked like a progress report listing the genetic code for several zygotes to choose from. However, unlike any other fertility sheet, the characteristics listed were not things normal parents looked for in healthy children. Nothing about isolating diseases or about eye color, height, weight or gender, but instead it was like reading some fictional description for one of her brother’s comic book characters.

She lifted her eyes to the stranger’s face. Mr. Pipps was smiling again, his grin a closed mouth line that curled with perverse pleasure.

“Uncanny, isn’t it,” he said, taking the paper from her. “You should know, though that you aren’t the only one who has been engineered. The Omega project has created several different genetic types from Alpha material like your parents.”

Hanna just blinked at him. “Are you nuts?”

He cast a dry look at her, setting the paper down. “Are you still going to be difficult?”

“You are quoting garbage from comic books at me,” she said with disgust, hardly looking at the file now. “Genetically engineered babies for superpowers? Give me a break. What drug are you on?”

“You would know about superpowers,” he replied, his dry look fixing on her with a stubborn set of his jaw. “Electricity.”

She immediately moaned, slumping against the table. Hanna didn’t even look up when she said, “Oh please! Not you too! I have had it up to here with idiots thinking I’m just like that comic book character my brother invented. For the record, I am not Electricity! She’s fiction!”

Mr. Pipps emitted a sigh then gestured to one of his guards. “So, you really are determined to be difficult. Fine. Then let me inform you, Hanna Eber, that you cannot play me as you do the others. I have seen all the files the FBI has kept on you, including the ones Agents Johnson and Greenwald tried to keep out of our hands. We know what you are, Miss Eber. We know what you can do.”

Hanna lifted her head, looking right at him, though her expression remained puzzled at his stupidity. “And what is that? What could you possibly have on file about me that is even remotely like that comic book character?”

His grin returned. He pulled out another file.

“Oh no.” Hanna sat up, shoving it away. “Just because some loon writes a thing on paper does not make it real. My brother has been making up the adventures of Electricity since he was in high school, and it still is just pulp entertainment.”

Lifting his chin a little higher, Mr. Pipps gazed down at her silently. He still held the paper out. However, after a few seconds he set it back into the file. “You’re right. A written paper isn’t proof. After all, your own parents falsified their reports to us. They claimed you were a failed experiment, just a normal child, not unlike your brother—but oh! That’s right, whenever your brother gets upset the lights flicker. Am I right? And oh! Everybody in your family gives off sparks. And, oh! That’s right, you nearly blew up your Home Ec. class in high school when you sparked near the gas stove there.”

“I didn’t do any such thing!” Hanna snapped back. “My classmate turned the stove on when one of the pipes had been disconnected.”

The man leaned back, smirking. “True. But when the flames burst out, and you tried to save her, it set your back on fire—yet you have no scars.”

Hanna slowly recoiled from him, her eyes staring harder at his face.

“Let’s try another one.” He glanced at the sheet. “What about the time you survived the plane crash that killed everybody but you and six others? I have several medical witnesses that say you healed from crushed organs, broken bones, and burned off skin in just a matter of hours. Or what about the man who claimed to see you get struck by lightening only to get up and walk away as if nothing had happened? Or one witness, who it was a devil of a time trying to get from him the fact that he saw you get shot in the head at your Junior Prom, then rise up like the walking dead to electrocute those who shot you.”

“He was probably on drugs,” Hanna murmured, her eyes fixed on his face.

“Huh.” He peered at the paper again. “The photographer? On drugs. While at the dance… taking pictures.”

“It happens,” Hanna said.

He leaned closer, grinning too wide to make her comfortable. “Miss Eber, do you realize you can’t pull the wool over my eyes?”

She said nothing.

Mr. Pipps leaned back. “Now, you have two choices. You can come with us willingly, easily and painlessly as a walk to the car. Or, we can do this the hard way.”

“What’s the hard way?” Hanna asked, watching the flicker in his eyes as the impulses in his brain were excited in activity. She could see it all, and had been able to since the plane crash that had changed her life.

Grinning, he lifted his eyebrows. “Do you really want to know?”

She bit her lower lip, looked down at her lap, thinking. Then lifting her eyes, she said, “If I really were as powerful as that superhero that you think I’m like, then what makes you think you could possibly force me to go anywhere with you?”

His grin stiffened as he leaned in. “Every superhero has his kryptonite.”

Hanna closed her eyes and sighed.

“And what if I go with you,” she said, clearly thinking over her options. “Buy this crazy notion that you genetically engineered me, and you discover that I’m exactly what my parents said I was—just a normal kid? What then?”

“A normal kid with sparks?” he asked.

Opening her eyes, Hanna said, “Some kids play with matches. Others, with electricity. My father was an electrical engineer.”

Mr. Pipps merely smirked, gesturing to the two men to escort Hanna out of the room.

She hardly fought them when they did. She also didn’t say another word even as they pidgin-walked her out the door into the empty office foyer then out the front steps to the waiting automobile. Her eyes did search for Agent Johnson though the walls, but the building itself looked emptied. Hanna wondered where he had gone.

Mr. Pipps picked up the two files, tucking them back into his coat, sighing as he strolled out after them, watching his men duck Hanna’s head down as they put her into the back seat of the car. 

“So,” Mr. Pipps said to himself as he trotted down the steps. “You are going to keep playing that game. Hmph. Fine with me.”

Testing, Testing 1, 2, 3

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Two

 

 

The ride was long and uncomfortable, first sandwiched between two thugs in the back seat of that sedan, then shoved into a seat in a private jet that had odd rubber cushions that made her skin sweat. After that it was back inside another car, squished once more between two unresponsive guards. Mr. Pipps was the only one who wanted to talk and all he wanted to talk about was how her parents’ marriage was arranged by the government for the Omega project because… How he put it? ‘They had prime genetic material, Alpha quality stock.’

“What does that mean anyway? Alpha quality?” Hanna had been irritable the entire way, especially since they had not allowed her to call her brother Saul or go to the restroom alone.

Mr. Pipps was sitting at an angle so he could look at her and talk from the front seat. “Alpha quality means extraordinary genetic capability. Certainly you know about your mother’s natural electrical charge and your father’s near indestructibility.”

Hanna clenched her mouth closed, glowering. Then she growled back, “My father was not indestructible. He died in the plane right next to me.”

To that, Mr. Pipps lifted his eyebrows, considering it while nodding. “Yes…. That was unfortunate.”

He seemed to contemplate it for a while, almost mourning over the loss of her father though Hanna doubted this man cared any more than about losing great breeding stock. His next words proved it.

“But you must have known that he rarely got sick, healed fast from wounds, and his brain was amazing. With your mother’s equally intriguing genetics, you and your brother were to be the poster children for the Omega project.”

“Does that mean you picked up my brother too?” Hanna said, her dark look on him only getting tired.

Lifting his eyes to her face, Mr. Pipps sighed. “No. We tested him several times, especially since he exhibited influence on ambient electricity and a strong aptitude for his father’s own field. But he proved as disappointing as your parents reported. He has no control over the electrical powers with just an above average brain.”

“Tested him?” Hanna tried to lean forward, but the guards’ bodies kept her pinned to the back seat. “How? What did you do to him?”

“He’s fine.” Mr. Pipps waved it off with a shrug. “We just set up mild shocks when he wasn’t expecting them. He reacted like any person would—unlike you.”

Hanna blinked at him.

Mr. Pipps smiled, nodding slowly. “That’s right. We’ve been testing you unawares also. Mild shocks. Nothing to them, really. But you reacted as if they were even less than, say, accidentally bumping into something that didn’t hurt. Either you have an incredibly high pain tolerance, or electrical currents are nothing to you.”

She didn’t respond. Hanna maintained her stare at this strange man that had intimidated every FBI agent they had met along the way. Whoever Mr. Pipps was, he did have the authority to do what he was doing. While traveling, she saw him flash his badge only to those that did not recognize him. Those that did know him practically scurried to get out of his way.

“Tell me,” she at last said, feeling her throat constrict some, “If my parents really did agree to this… genetic project thing, and they told the truth about Saul not meeting your… your standards, then why would they lie to you about me? Why don’t you just take them at their word?”

Already she could see his reaction in the speeding up electric pulses in his brain going over a safe answer to give her. He wanted something from her. That was clear. He didn’t just want to tell her straight facts about her parents’ involvement. It was like he wanted her to lose faith in them. It was the bent of his words, the way he twisted the information he had shown her. After all, even she knew her parents had been friends long before they decided to get married, and both of them had been working for the government by that time. She refused to believe that their relationship was nothing more than a calculated plot to create super-soldiers, as Mr. Pipps had explained it.

After a while, Mr. Pipps said, “Your parents proved to be more clandestine and cunning than we realized.”

Hanna rolled her eyes.

“Fine.” Mr. Pipps looked annoyed. “When you were born they thought you were so cute they didn’t want you part of the Omega project, so they did everything within their power to conceal your real capacity. It that what you want to hear?”

Her dry look was all the response he needed, though she said, “No. I’d rather hear that they were right, and you should let me go.”

“Huh.” He gave a short laugh. “I bet you wish.”

The man turned around to face front the rest of the trip.

They traveled through farmland. Hanna guessed it was somewhere on the plains, Nebraska, Kansas, or Wyoming. There were trees along the road in little wooded areas, then stretches of farmland with far off houses surrounded by clumps of trees. No cows or sheep, so it wasn’t pasture land. The sky was somewhat gray, the air muggy. On the road, occasionally she spotted a squished squirrel or flattened raccoon. Wherever they were going, it wasn’t near any city that she knew.

The car at last pulled into a long semi-paved driveway. Partway up they hit gravel where they crunched over at a slower speed to a farmhouse. The building was old, brick, two stories with a gabled roof. Next to it stood a red barn. Some of the paint was peeling. It was like out of some nostalgic Americana illustration.

“We’re here.”

Hanna looked out. A farmer in blue overalls strolled from the house to greet Mr. Pipps. His wife remained inside their screened patio in the back, peering at them as the two thugs maneuvered Hanna out of the vehicle as if she were their pet puppy. Hanna looked up at the light blue shrouded in gray in the sky above, breathing in the fragrant air then gazing around at the surroundings.

Birds, a scent of manure not far off, the tinkle-tinkle of wind chimes hanging in from the front porch, and a distant sound of a mower going in the neighboring field; there was no unusual static in the air. With the moisture, it wasn’t as possible. Hanna frowned.

After patting Mr. Pipps on the back like a brother or at least a dear friend in a hug, the farmer then gestured to Hanna. “Wha‘choo got there? Is that my niece?”

Leaning back on one foot as her hips cocked, Hanna gave him a dry look. “We aren’t related, buddy.”

The two thugs pushed her along to the house, making sure she did not turn around.

“No. Foster child. She’s a runaway, actually,” Mr. Pipps said.

Hanna rolled her eyes as her escorts led her up the steps. The woman of the house already opened the door, standing aside with a typical stern farmer’s wife expression on her face. But Hanna doubted this woman was a farmer’s wife any more than the farmer was a real farmer. She did not hear much of the conversation he had with Mr. Pipps, even as both men walked into the house to the kitchen where the two men held Hanna in place. A lanky farmhand peered into the room at the company then walked in to get something from the fridge, scratching his stomach under his flannel shirt. He then walked out again. By all appearances it was just an ordinary family-run farm. Rather stereotypical, actually. Almost a caricature.

Mr. Pipps stepped over to the kitchen table with the farmer, glancing once at Hanna before saying, “Ok, after a ten minutes, invite my driver in for a drink. The car will leave in twenty. Don’t expect anybody to come up except those two gentlemen, unless you have been given other notice that I am not aware of.” He then gestured to Hanna. “Come here.”

She didn’t want to, but what choice did she really have? Her guards nudged her a little too hard. Hanna scuffed her feet towards him.

“A disobedient child,” the farmer murmured. His dry blue eyes were piercing with mockery.

Hanna stomped forward. “I’m a college student! An adult! An abducted adult!”

The farmer only smirked, turning immediately away.

The two thugs pushed her further out of the way then lifted the table to the side. Hanna stepped back, watching them gather the chairs off the rag rug that covered the center of the kitchen floor. They rolled that up.

“Abducted adult,” Mr. Pipps muttered with a snort, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. “What were trying for? Sympathy?”

“Humanity,” Hanna said, clenching her fists with no way to exert effort in escape.

He chuckled once. “Cute. But remember, you went with us willingly.”

Hanna lifted her eyes at the thugs to remark that it was hardly willing with such minions at his beck and call, but when her eyes set on them she saw the old linoleum floor crack open then lift up. A shaft, the size perfect for an elevator, was under it.

“Holy crap.”

“It’s even worse,” Mr. Pipps said, nodding to one of the men.

Hanna glanced to see what was going on, but immediately a bag went over her head. She screamed, trying to push them off without success.

“No one is going to hear you out here,” Mr. Pipps said as the thug tightened the bag around her neck. She could feel him tie it. “Why don’t you try to escape?”

The beefy men were all over her, cuffing her wrists behind her back, then her ankles so that she couldn’t kick out. Not that she could physically hurt them with kicking and punching, but they did it to make it easier to haul her into the shaft over their shoulders without her flailing about, though she did try.

“Get bent!” she said through the bag.

Mr. Pipps rolled his eyes at her.

His thugs hauled her down the ladder first. He went in after. Hanna didn’t bother struggling. The first reason was obvious. She had seen the shaft drop into nothingness. If she fell, her bones would break, if not also her back and her skull. And that would hurt. But second, she had played along that far, gone willingly with the understanding that Mr. Pipps would not let her go until she proved she was not some kind of electric superhero. If she wanted to have a life again, she had to prove it.

They carried her down and down in the darkness. Small lights illuminated their path only a little, though for Hanna she could see the trail of electricity that ran through the wires down to the bottom where there was a larger complex full of electrical activity. It buzzed and swarmed like a hive of bees, though the currents she could see were lit up in strings like Christmas in the mall. Already she could count the number of bodies that were just below them, waiting for them to get past the initial security doors.

The thugs set her down on a floor, standing her up. She heard them both set foot on hollow metal, then Mr. Pipps’s feet. Immediately above her head something scraped then slid, shutting hard. Only a few sparks could she see. Then the floor they were on lowered. If bagging her head and carrying her down a straight shaft was meant to disorient her, she was highly disappointed in their efforts. But then the floor below her shifted, sliding to the side rather than down, carrying them over larger cavern space that Hanna could see only by the electric currents flowing. They went too fast for her to pick out the fainter biological signatures of people, but as the platform moved straight, then shifted and went forward then down, she found herself breathing hard as the air filled even more with electric static. It didn’t block her vision any, but it was like looking through smoke at someone. The static groped at her, almost caressing her scalp, reaching in.

“Stop it!” Hanna shook it off.

“We didn’t do anything,” Mr. Pipps said, though his voice sounded intrigued.

The static in the air reached in again, feeling into her thoughts. So Hanna thought back: go away.

It almost immediately retracted, though it felt in one last time as if teasing with a thought placed there. It wasn’t her own, but Hanna was familiar with that also. It said: welcome to the cellar.

Hanna shivered, pulling her arms closer to her body.

The platform they were on shifted again, to the right, then dropped, emitting a gaseous halt that eased the brakes so that her stomach did not jolt into her shoes. The thugs pulled the bag off her head.

Blinking at the light, Hanna lifted her cuffed hands to block it out.

“Here, let me.” A fair-haired young man in a white medical coat reached out and took hold of her wrists, unlocking the cuffs. With her wrists loose, Hanna rubbed where they had chaffed, still squinting at the bright light around her. The light overwhelmed her ability to see many of the electrical signatures, muting others. The room she was standing in was pristine. No dirt, and most of the people inside it were dressed like lab staff. Mr. Pipps and her escorts stood out among the white coats.

“Do you make it blinding on purpose?” Hanna murmured.

The young technician that had helped her chuckled. “No. But it is set up to give the impression of space.”

She turned to look at him. “I’d hate to tell you this, but space is black with stars. You need to get out more.”

He chuckled more, nodding thought not meeting her gaze. “Good. It is nice to see you have a sense of humor about this. Now come this way.”

There were others with him, also beckoning her to walk. The other thug had already uncuffed her ankles, so she was now free to move about. In fact, the two guards with Mr. Pipps immediately turned to walk in another direction. Hanna watched Mr. Pipps go off also, taking yet another route.

“Hey!” Hanna started after him.

Almost immediately from the walls, she saw other thug-like men emerge, though these were in white and obviously had blended in to the background. They surrounded her, blocking her.

Mr. Pipps looked back, raising his eyebrows in amusement. “Well, you heard the man. Go with him.”

“Don’t I get some kind of orientation?” Hanna snapped.

His mouth curled up higher in a smirk. “After the tests.”

“Tests?” Hanna felt the thugs shove her back towards the technicians who also gently pulled her to follow them. “I thought you already did your stupid tests.”

Mr. Pipps’s smile cracked open. “Oh no. Those were just samplings. After all, like you said, what if your parents are right? What if they did report true?”

Hanna’s face closed into a frown. She turned then walked with the technicians in coats to where they were beckoning her.

It was down a hall, then to the left into another corridor, then again to the left where she found herself in a wide white room, large enough to play volleyball in. The technician was right. The whiteness made the room feel larger. As she stood there, the thugs that had followed her remained, while the technicians went out the other side. The fair-haired one that had initially spoken to her ordered her to stand where she was.

Then the brutes left.

Standing alone in the room, Hanna rocked on her heels, stuffing her hands into her pockets. Nothing happened for several minutes.

“You know, it is really boring in here,” she called out with a slightly louder voice so they could hear her.

She couldn’t see anything beyond the walls, not with that kind of whiteness. In fact, she wondered what was going on. Perhaps the only thing she could sense was the growing static groping along her scalp as if reaching for something out of her brain. Stroking her forehead, she wiped it off. It reached out again.

“Stop it!” Hanna looked up, trying to feel out where it was coming from.

<< We haven’t started yet. >> the intercom buzzed.

“It’s about time,” Hanna murmured under her breath. Then she said aloud, “What am I doing here? What is this supposed to prove?”

<< Hold on just one more minute. >>

Hanna rolled her eyes to the ceiling, setting her hands on her hips. “Do you count minutes like I count minutes? You know, sixty seconds?”

There was no response for a while.

<< One moment. >>

She rolled her eyes again.

<< And counting… ten… nine… eight… seven… >>

Panels in the walls on both sides of her opened up.

<< Six… five… >>

Coming out of them were equally intimidating metallic nodules to huge electric conductors. A shiver of terror ran through her.

<< four… three… two… >>

“Let me out of here!” Hanna started towards where she remembered the door was.

<< One. >>

Whiter than the light in the room, thicker and more powerful than the electrical currents she had seen that entire trip, two jolting bolts of electricity grabbed onto her body, fixing Hanna where she was. It rippled through her arms across her chest and all throughout for three seconds then shut off. Hanna toppled over.

Her shoes smoked.

Silence.

<< Miss Eber? >>

Nothing.

<< Hanna Eber? >>

She groaned, but kept her eyes closed.

Something was going on beyond her room. It took a while before the doors opened up. When they did, those that came in were wearing rubberized suits, each carrying rods that they tapped into the machinery there. The other end they touched to Hanna’s skin.

Almost immediately the electricity in her body grounded out into the machines, diverting back into the huge nodules. Then one man nudged her with his foot, rolling her over.

Her shirt was singed along the edges. Her digital watch was melted. The soles on the tennis shoes were pulling from the ground like chewing gum. One of the technicians felt her neck for a pulse.

“She’s alive.”

Immediately the others in the room exhaled with relief, then gestured for the thugs in white to carry her out of the room. One slapped her face to wake her.

“Try water,” one of the technicians suggested. “Electrics don’t like water.”

Someone sprayed her from a canister he was carrying. Hanna came up coughing, lifting her hands to block off the torrent. He shut it off.

Looking up, she glared at them. “Are you all insane?”

“Hmm.” One of the technicians stepped back. “Water has no effect.”

Hanna peered over herself, lifting up her now sopping arms. She then peered at her ruined watch. Shaking her head, she looked up at the people that surrounded her. “Are you satisfied now?”

<< Not at all. >> Mr. Pipps’s voice came out on the loudspeaker. << Do you know how many volts you took? And survived? >>

She wished he were near so she could kick him in the nuts.

<< Next test. >>

The technicians immediately stood back. Hanna looked up, wondering how many more volts of electricity they were going to shoot her with—but not one person left the room this time. In fact, the thugs surrounded her more.

“What’s going on?” Hanna tried to get up but felt dizzy.

One thug seized her, lifting Hanna right off her feet. Then the most impossible thing happened, or at least it seemed counter to whatever reason they had to bring her in there. That thug head-butted her. Then another rammed his fist into her gut. Ganging up on her, one grabbed her arm, wrenching it nearly out of its socket, while another literally broke her leg over his knee. Each one seemed to be taking a part of her to demolish, smashing her ribs into her back, one breaking her spine in three places, another crushing her hand and wrist, snapping her radius and ulna so that they stuck through her skin. Then they stepped back, dropping her.

Blood puddle around her out of her open wounds.

Wheezing for breath as every bit of her body hurt, Hanna stared at the ceiling. But she knew what would happen next. It was involuntary. She didn’t need to beckon it, and she could not stop it not even if she wanted to. The lights all around her flickered. The white lit ceiling itself started to shatter, panel after panel, electricity shooting straight to her like a many legged spider, each bulb going pop, pop, pop one after the other as the technicians and thugs ducked back from the shower of glass. Hanna twitched and jerked as each electrical current struck her. One leg shot out, almost pulling it back straight, the bones setting into a clean line again. The compound fracture in her arm, she grabbed herself and pulled it into place again, cringing against the pain until her skin sealed and her spine straightened. Hanna sat up then cracked her neck with a look back at the people staring at her, her face contorting into realized dislike for all of them. Then she flopped back down on the floor.

<< Good. Next test. >>

“Next test?” Hanna popped her head up again. Then sat up. “What do you mean next test? That hurt!”

But already the technicians rounded on her. One pulled out what looked like a small flamethrower.

Hanna leapt to her feet, lifting up her arms. “No! No fire! The last time I was on fire, I lost all my hair! It doesn’t just grow back, you know!”

<< It will grow back. >>

Glaring to where she heard the voice she snapped. “In years! I don’t want to be bald again! Ok? Fine! I survived that plane crash, alright? I caught fire in that stupid Home Ec. class! Are you happy? It took forever to not look like a freak anymore!”

But the man with the flamethrower came closer.

<< Put it down. That won’t be necessary. >>

The technician smirked, lowering the machine. Hanna then realized the one holding it was the fair-haired technician that she had thought was nice. She really wanted to kick in his teeth then.

<< Fine. Final test for today. >>

“What?” Hanna turned, looking again at the space where she thought she had heard him. The speaker seemed to mysteriously move, though the room was not so pristine with the ceiling shattered lessening the effect. “What do you mean final test? And for today?”

But he did not answer at all. Instead, she heard two muted pops then felt two stinging sensations—one in the chest and another splitting her head. Blinking, she dropped to her knees then face-first to the floor. Blood pooled out from both wounds.

<< Interesting. >>

The air crackled again.

Like a net, the electrical currents jolted all around Hanna, wrapping around her almost protectively for a full minute before they heard the light clink of metal drop to the floor.

Moaning, Hanna rolled over.

<< Very interesting. >>

She didn’t dare open her eyes. They would be glowing now. She knew it. Hanna also knew that this man was not going to let her go.

Quarters and Pennies

 

 

                

 

Chapter Three

 

 

Losing blood had made her lightheaded. It wasn’t a concept the so-called geneticists seemed to understand as they tried to make her walk from the ‘testing room’ to the quarters they had ‘arranged’ for her. It was doubly difficult to walk since the soles of her shoes were nearly gone anyway. But the trip was enlightening.

First off, the quarters were on a higher level separate from the lab. She learned this when the meathead thugs walked her back up stairs then to an elevator that lifted her through the floor. From there they took her through more security.

That was the second thing she learned. The entire place was security, security, security. The voice recognition panels, the thumbprint keypads, the eye scanners, the blood drop turnstiles, all with codes upon codes to keep out (or perhaps keep in) the ruffians. Every piece of machinery was state of the art, a billion times more complex than bank vaults and inundated with traps. Of course that only intrigued her more, since that was the very thing her father had toyed with when he was alive. Not quite his expertise, but certainly a hobby.

The last eye-opening discovery was the living areas themselves. They were in color.

“Oh snap! What happened to her?” a young man just a little younger than Saul hopped up from the cushy bench, his green eyes rapidly swirling into a strong blue. His skin also flushed from a peachy pale to a darker shade more like tan rather than simply going red. He followed along as Hanna struggled to walk, though the behemoth escorts mostly held her up.

“Go back to what you were doing, Lou,” one of the thugs said with hardly a look at him. 

“Keep following, Lou,” Hanna said back, though she cringed from the aches she still felt. Despite having accelerated healing, it still hurt. The memory of the acute pain remained vivid.

Grinning, Lou did follow, though this time it was ahead of them, him walking backwards. “Great! So you are from another base or something? Returned from training maybe?”

“She’s a newbie.” A red haired guy suddenly popped out from a doorway, a grin already spread across his face as his eyes set on Hanna. She could see fuzzy neuro-electrical activity going on around his brain, though most of it was reaching out everywhere, some of it stroking the side of her face. He grinned wider.

Her mouth popped open as her escorts dragged her onward. “Are you the creep that—”

“Not me!” he raised his hands, though his

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 04.05.2022
ISBN: 978-3-7554-7913-0

Alle Rechte vorbehalten