With These Eyes (42 page)

"Time to get tough," Tasha said to
herself.

The brave warrior in the cockpit wasn't
thinking about what might happen to her over the course of the next
few minutes. Saving her family was the sole reason for this fight.
Tasha was not used to losing. Determined to win this most important
battle of her life, she reached down beside her seat for the
pilot's oxygen tank. Within seconds, she had clipped the green
steel container onto her belt and placed the mask over her nose and
mouth. Tasha turned the valve and took a deep breath. She saw only
one way out. She reached behind the seat for her parachute and
pulled it towards herself. Tasha released the seat restraints,
bracing herself not to fall through the windshield below her as the
plane continued its vertical dive. Tasha was thinking back to her
training for Gene's elite forces where she had learned to escape
from a failing plane. In a somewhat awkward-looking position
between seat and control panel, she managed to get the pack secured
to herself.

Tasha released the cabin doors’ safety and
extended the rear hatch through which she had entered the aircraft.
The door had opened only slightly when in an explosive
decompression, the force of the air inside tore the entire
staircase off its support. The cockpit door flew open as the
plane's interior decompressed. Flight manuals, a first-aid kit and
several smaller items were sucked out the back.

With oxygen and parachute strapped to her
person, Tasha climbed up past her seat and to the cockpit door that
was still straight above her. A gaping hole in the aft section
towered high above her at the other end of the plane. She entered
the main cabin. Tasha could see the purple chemicals slush around
in the rows of opaque white plastic-tanks above her. Tasha reached
down next to her feet and ripped a second oxygen tank from its
mounts on the inverted cabin wall. Tasha dropped the heavy steel
cylinder into the cockpit where it shattered the windshield. Air
was now rushing through the craft like in a wind tunnel.

The emergency kit provided her with a fire
ax. Tasha took a deep breath. The rubbery smell of the mask
lingered in her nose as the oxygen traveled to her blood. With the
strength of a horse, the lone warrior climbed to the first row of
tanks and found her footing on the edge of one of the plastic
containers. A swing of the ax and cloud-seeding chemicals poured
from the tank. The stream of air rushing through the cabin pulled
the purple flood out the aft in a powerful jet. Tasha axed the
adjacent tank and climbed to the next row where she repeated the
process. By the time she had reached the last row in the aft
section, an immense funnel cloud was forming above her. The strong
winds that had dissipated her patterns before where now quickly
distributing the thick mass of cloud seeds.

The chemical from the last tank had no
effect. Tasha had left the effective altitude for cloud formation.
It was time to go. She pulled her rip cord. The strong air current
dragged her parachute through the opening in the fuselage above
her. As the silk deployed clear of the aircraft, it yanked Tasha
out of the cabin. She watched the plane and the nearby drone race
away from her towards the quickly approaching jungle. The two
airliners carried enough jet fuel to start an inferno of tremendous
proportions. Tasha was still too close to steer clear, when in
complete synchronicity, both of the enormous planes smashed into
the ground. Each caused a massive explosion. The pressure wave
flung the young woman back up like a plastic toy-soldier. Stress
and heat tore holes into the parachute’s fabric, causing her to
plummet towards the cliff by the trickling waterfall, away from the
inferno. In an instant, Tasha reached for the red metal ring just
below her chest. She screamed at the top of her lungs as the pull
of her hand released what had slowed her descent. Free-falling
towards the jagged rock face of the cliff, her hand found the
yellow rip-cord that deployed her back-up chute. As it filled with
air, the lifesaving length of silk tugged on her harness
abruptly.

Tasha slowed her fall enough to steer clear
the cliff and make for the newly formed lake at its feet.

55 ISABELLE ENTERS GENE’S BATTLE ARENA

Isabelle was gaining consciousness. The cold
of the metal launch tube had chilled her weakened body to the bone.
Frost had formed on some parts of her dive-suit. The blunt headache
from her impact somewhat masked the pain from her dislocated ankle.
Her surroundings were dark, except for the light at the end of the
tunnel that originated in the missile bay. Isabelle was looking
across the silhouette of her grotesquely bent ankle directly at the
tip of the enormous ballistic weapon. It was resting on its
supports just outside the launch tube. A blindingly-bright glow
from the right side of the bay reminded Isabelle of something. The
picture at Fuji's retreat had the same glow shining from the open
door behind her mother. It could only be the light of a quantum
orb. She knew once the sphere had reached its full power, it would
only be stable for a minute before falling apart into regular air.
Gene must have been ready to fire his weapon any moment. The whole
of her mission had become
do or die
for Isabelle.

The injured lightbearer tried to stand but
went right back down under the pain from her ankle. Her foot was
bent to the side in a right angle. Sitting on her behind, the
fearless journalist explored her ankle with both hands. Her foot
had snapped right out of its socket. She could feel the cup-like
indentation by the heel of her foot which normally connected to the
fibula. Isabelle was somewhat surprised that she had suffered such
a severe injury. Just like the wave had saved her from getting
crushed by the launch door, Isabelle had gotten used to Nature's
protection on her quest. Her years of chanting and a life close to
Nature had put Isabelle in the rhythm of the universe so she would
tread safely. The silhouette of her foot sticking out to the side
came as a painful reminder of her mortality. Could it be her brief
thoughts of avenging her parents made the protective forces
retreat? Isabelle had to be careful, particularly in Gene's own
lair.

Despite the fact that she had been
unconscious for almost ten minutes, the swelling was minimal. The
cold of the launch tube's wall had constricted the blood vessels in
her extremities. This would make it possible to
pop
the foot
back into place. With both hands, she grabbed her foot by its heal.
Isabelle yelled out in pain as, with all her strength, she snapped
the separated joint back together. She felt the relief of having
repaired her injury and rose with the determination of a
warrior.

"Orb ready for insertion."

The Trooper's voice pounded from the missile
bay's loudspeakers through the pipe. The luminous ball of energy
dropped out of the generator into an open door in the weapon's
fuselage. Isabelle caught a glimpse of the brilliant object just
before it disappeared into the missile. She ran towards the opening
as fast as she could. The voice of the Trooper underlined the
urgency for action.

"Energizing containment field."

The door to the warhead was closing. Isabelle
was still too far to reach the missile. The lone lightwarrior
searched herself for a weapon. After she had dropped her dive gear,
she had little left on her person. Isabelle reached into the
dive-suit's key pocket and pulled out her mother's beads. She leapt
forward towards the launch tube's opening and flung the string of
citrine and labradorite into the missile's closing door. A bright
blue flash was the sign that the delicate electromagnetic
containment field had been disrupted. The orb squeezed through the
narrowing gap in the fuselage like a balloon and shot across the
launch bay.

Isabelle's hands caught the ground below the
missile's track. She tucked and rolled, landing without the risk of
popping her foot back out of its inflamed socket. The blinding
light of the orb caught her vision as it flew past her head, merely
inches away. What a strange sensation. Isabelle closed her eyes to
protect them from the phenomenon's blinding light, yet she felt no
heat radiating from it. Then a sting, like one would expect from a
sunburn, flooded across her face. The brightness faded. Isabelle
opened her eyes to see the orb smash into the observation window in
the missile bay's wall. Within a moment's time, the soccer-ball
size orb had cut a hole the size of a coin into the thick pane of
glass. In an almost cartoonish fashion, the orb squeezed through
the tiny opening only to return to its shape in the hallway
outside. Isabelle could see it rush along a thick set of cables on
the opposing wall down an incline.

A deafening evacuation alarm echoed
throughout the underground facility.

56 HENCHMEN GO, GENE STAYS

Pandemonium, rather than triumph defined the
lair's control room. Underlined by the barking of the evacuation
alert, the oversize screens were filled with images of the aborted
missile and the renegade orb shooting down the hallway towards the
facility's active hydroelectric plant. An agitated Trooper at the
console turned his head back towards a fumingly angry Gene.

"Sir, if the orb hits the generating plant,
an electric arc could trigger a photon explosion. We're also facing
risk of a flash flame across the entire facility, should the orb's
incendiary properties ignite the graphite powder in the capacitor
or any other part of the mine."

Henchmen all around were scrambling for the
exit. Thick, blue veins were bulging on Gene's temples, the rest of
his head was red with furious anger. He shouted back at the
Trooper.

"I'm not evacuating. We stay and reload the
warhead."

The Trooper showed little reaction and just
stared at Gene who jumped from his seat and rushed towards the
console. The determined industrialist brushed his underling aside
as he bullied his way to the controls. The disgruntled warrior saw
no reason to stay by Gene's side and followed his brothers-in-arms
to the exit. Gene muted the evacuation alarm and accessed the
controls for the hydroelectric plant. A rectangle at the bottom of
the schematic of pipes and turbine generators glowed in red.

Emergency Shut-Off

Gene's sweaty palm smudged the screen as he
rubbed across the bright-red panel. Large valves at the head of the
four enormous feed-pipes closed. The flood of rushing water had
stopped. The turbine room at the lower level of the lair was filled
with the whining sound of the blades spinning down. The lake was no
longer providing the lair with electricity. Gene's eyes quickly
moved to the display for the mountain's enormous graphite capacitor
that had been storing the energy produced by the power plant. It
confirmed a charge of 75%. Although the launch of the test missile
had depleted about half its energy, much had been recharged in the
time since its lift-off. There was more than enough energy at hand
for the launch of the live weapon.

As energy tends to revert to its simplest
form - heat, elsewhere on the lair's operations panel, the
capacitor's temperature was nearing critical numbers. Gene had to
act quickly before the temperature would rise high enough to ignite
the finely ground graphite. Since the interior of the entire
mountain was heating up, it would be very likely that all of it
would combust at once in a massive flash. It was time for Gene to
prepare another quantum orb for insertion into his malicious
weapon, so countdown and launch could resume. A message flashed
across the orb generator's display.

Foreign Object in Containment Field. Orb
Generation Not Permitted.

Gene hurried to the control room's exit.

The quantum orb had found its way along the
lair's power mains into the turbine room of the power plant. With
nothing left to push the turbines' blades, their revolutions
dwindled to a stop.

Drawn in by the generating coils'
electromagnetic field, the orb shot across the large tile-enclosed
cavern and towards the
number-three
turbine. Just as the
heavy brass and copper construction came to a halt, the energy ball
collided with its top portion. A small explosion dislodged the
turbine from its anchors, exposing the drain pipe below the turbine
blades.

The explosion was one of the results of the
orb's sudden impact. The other was that the orb shattered into
nearly fifty smaller spheres. The emerging golf-ball size energy
balls scattered across the turbine room, setting equipment and
furniture ablaze. Thick, black smoke billowed where moments ago
computer panels showed the schematics of the slowing generators.
Chairs and desks were instantly set on fire. The yelping of a fire
siren was taking the place of the muted evacuation alert. Computer
panels and flashing red and yellow lights throughout the facility
reminded of the evacuation in progress and the raging fire.
Hallways and the many circular stairways that connected the
multiple levels of the lair where filled with Troopers scrambling
for the missile bay. Isabelle knew the lair's evacuation would lead
its staff through the launch bay from seeing the pod eject for the
assault on Tasha.

Images of the missiles striking one after
another of Tasha's planes were flashing through Isabelle's head.
Isabelle felt little chance that her former adversary's action
would have created much cloud cover. All alone, she ducked into an
emergency supply closet in the missile bay. Through the utility
room's cracked door, she watched the lair's personnel burst into
the launch area and board a seemingly endless supply of escape
pods. As quickly as the Troopers could board, their hatches closed
and the cylindrical tungsten-vehicles ejected through the launch
tube. The missile laid inactive in its pre-launch position outside
the tube. Within a minute's time, the last of Gene's forces had
ejected and left a lone pod remaining on the track beside the
missile. Isabelle knew for whom this pod was meant. She could feel
in every part of her body that she was about to face the most
difficult and the most important confrontation of her life. Fuji's
words rang strong through her mind.