Superheroine - Chapter 9
Stanley’s lock pick device worked as planned at the rear door of the Fizzure building. Seconds after holding the device to the pad at the door, Beth heard a click. She pulled the door open and slipped inside.
As the door closed behind her and darkness surrounded her, the reality of the situation hit home. Beth was here, on her own, facing unknown danger. She was equipped with amazing powers and clad in a costume straight out of a comic book. Two days earlier this would have seemed like a dream. Or a nightmare.
With a resigned shake of the head, she pressed the button on Stanley’s device, shooting a beam of light down the stairs. The place was silent and still. She crept down the steps, unsure if someone lurked in the basement. Every footfall sounded like a deafening boom to her.
Beth continued to the bottom of the steps and pointed the flashlight down the hall. She remembered shivering in the cold basement air during her last visit. Now she felt as comfortable as if she were outside on a warm spring day, even in her skimpy outfit.
Three doors lined one side of the hall and two doors lined the other. She had ignored the side doors on her visit with John, but not now. Beth moved to the first one, pulling her blond hair over her ear and listening for any sounds inside, before testing the handle. It was unlocked. She pushed the door open and peered into a small room with concrete walls. The room was empty except for a computer on a metal desk along the left wall.
This seemed as good a place as any for Stanley’s USB drive. Beth entered the room, closed the door behind her, and hurried to the machine. It only took a moment for her to find the USB ports behind the machine. She inserted the USB drive and waited. Nothing happened. Perhaps nothing was supposed to happen.
With a shrug, she left the USB drive in the computer and slinked to the room across the hall. There she found a group of computer towers on the floor, with display monitors on the tables above them. The sterile room was otherwise empty and uncluttered, with no papers or cabinets. Upon testing the monitors, she found that the computers were powered down. Dare she turn one on?
Beth shook her head. It certainly would require a password of some sort. Stanley had given her a device to unlock doors, but not computers. She also wanted to leave as small a trace of her intrusion as possible. She had already planted Stanley’s USB device on the computer in the other room, anyway. If it worked, he would be on the network soon.
Beth stepped back into the hall, crossing to the middle door on the opposite side. Yet again the door was unlocked. She opened it and shined her light in. Three clothing racks sat in the middle of the room, extending to the rear wall. White jumpsuits hung from the racks, and eye goggles sat on top.
Intrigued, Beth stepped forward for a closer look. Her jaw dropped. The white garments weren’t jumpsuits at all. They were hazmat suits. And what she had thought to be goggles were actually respirators and full face masks.
Beth reached up a gloved handed and played with a strand of her smooth hair and bit her lip. Was the air here safe? She and John hadn’t seen any dangerous chemicals, but she still had two more rooms to examine. John had certainly felt the effects of something.
Was it possible his illness and her strength were a reaction to something in the air? John’s comic books, and her disdain for their clichés, seemed to be taunting her. The possibility her life was mirroring those books was too ironic to contemplate. No, not ironic. Tragic.
The slender woman eyed the hazmat suits and considered wearing one, but decided it would take too long to suit up. The greater risk would be if she encountered anyone. She needed to keep moving, and hope that either the air was clean, or her necklace would protect her from any contaminants. Or that the air in this place had already done to her what it was going to do.
Beth moved out of the room and opened the second door on the opposite side. The room was dark, and she had to fumble for the light switch near the door. Before she found the switch, a smell came to her nose, reminding her of the biology lab in high school. Thoughts of dead frogs, stretched out and cut open, intruded into her brain. Beth gritted her teeth and turned on the switch, afraid of what she might see.
Instead of a room full of laboratory animals, she was greeted with shelves. Rows and rows of wooden shelves. The sleeves were stacked high with boxes and bottles of all shapes and sizes. Beth walked to the nearest shelf and studied its contents. Most of the boxes and bottles were filled with powders, crystals, or colored liquids. They were all labeled, but the text meant nothing to her. The letters seemed to be chemical abbreviations, but she had barely paid attention during Chemistry class in high school so she couldn't be sure.
Remembering the camera on her device, she moved back and forth between the rows, taking several photographs. Maybe Stanley could make sense of this. Some boxes contained metal gears and pieces. Again, they meant nothing to the young woman, so she took more photographs.
After several minutes wandering up and down the rows of shelves and snapping photographs, Beth decided it was time to explore the last room. That door was also unlocked, and she found it sparked the least interest or curiosity of all the rooms — just a long table, surrounded by eight padded chairs. In the interest of thoroughness, she crept around the table, peering under it, and examined each chair. In the end, though, it was just a table and chairs.
It was time to see the part of the facility that really interested her — the room where she had obtained her powers. The police had found nothing, but she knew what she and John had seen.
Stanley's device unlocked the large door at the end of the hall. Beth held her breath and waited in anticipation as she pushed the door open. The room beyond was much as she remembered it. Dimly lit. A door on the opposite wall. Sterile walls. And a large, glass cylinder in the center of the room.
She clenched her fists in vindication. Either the police had given Stanley incorrect information, which wasn't likely, or the cylinder had somehow been moved, and returned after the investigation had ended. The device was much as she remembered it, except now the lights in the base weren't illuminated.
This time she would get evidence. Beth held up Stanley's device and moved around the device, capturing images from all angles. Within two minutes, she figured she had at least twenty photos.
She started taking more photographs when she heard the creaking of a door opening. It was the door opposite the one through which she had entered. Beth‘s head whipped around, looking for an escape, but the entrance door was too far. The base of the cylinder was closed, eliminating her previous hiding spot. The costumed woman backed up toward the door, getting as close to an escape route as possible.
Five men entered the room across from her. The three men in front wore the grey uniforms and badges of the guards she and John had encountered the previous night. Their eyes wandering over the breathtaking woman before them, taking in her supermodel legs, her slender body in a shimmering costume, and her innocent face. A mix of curiosity and awe was evident in their eyes.
The three guards recovered from their stupor, fanning out in an arc. They pulled handguns from their holsters but didn‘t raise them. The man behind them wore a similar uniform, but his was fancier, with trim adorning the shoulders. The fifth man was strangest of all, wearing a long black robe. His head was bald and his skin pale, but that wasn't what stood out to her. Silver eyes. Beth noticed them immediately. They were dull and lifeless, but at the same time they filled the room with their presence. She would never forget those eyes.
"So, you do exist," the man with the fancy uniform said.
Beth gave a forced smile. "In the flesh."
"Surrender now. We have a few questions, and then you can go."
Beth surprised herself with a snort. They had shot at her and John. They weren‘t going to let her go.
"Not a chance," she replied. She spoke to the man in uniform, but her eyes were drawn to the man with the silver eyes. He stood in the rear, his gaze narrow as he appraised her. She felt the eyes going right through her, stripping her bare. She shivered.
The man in uniform frowned and shook his head. "You're outnumbered," he said.
"I was outnumbered the last time," she answered. "And look how that turned out."
Beth's voice was even and calm, but inside she was shaking. She was just a college girl, still learning how to fight, and yet here she stood, ready to take on five men.
The man studied her for a few moments before nodding. "So be it," he said. "Kill her."
The three guards raised their weapons. Beth took a tentative step back and stifled a cry just as they fired. A split-second later bullets jingled to the hard floor around her.
Beth was surprised, but since this had happened to her once before, the guards were more surprised. That meant they reacted slower than she did. The agile woman leapt across the distance to them. Two punches, and two of the three guards were flying backward, crashing into the cylinder, and dropping to the floor. The robed man stood in place, but the remaining two men swung wildly at the graceful woman in their midst. Beth ducked under their blows, coming up with a kick to the jaw of the one man, and a backhand to the face of the other.
The eyes of the first man went blank on impact. As he crumpled, the other man staggered back. She whirled, leading with a foot, and drilled him in the chest. He flew through the air, hit the wall, and collapsed to the floor.
Beth turned to face the silver-eyed man but didn’t see him. She whipped her head back and forth, but there was no sign of him. He must have exited through the opposite door, but she hadn't even seen it open. She ran to it and tugged at the handle. Locked. She thought about trying to rip it off its hinges, but instead held Stanley's device to the lock pad. She heard the click of the door unlocking and pulled it open.
The long hall beyond was empty, with several doors on each side. He could be behind any of the doors, but she didn't have time to look. He could be calling for reinforcements. She was confident in her newfound abilities, but she didn't want to press her luck. It was time to leave.