With These Eyes (43 page)

"He is powerless against your valor."

Isabelle stood tall. She took a deep breath
and opened the door to the missile bay. Two steps forward and she
stood in what would become the arena for the battle between light
and darkness. Smoke from the burning power plant billowed through
the hallway outside the window. The missile bay's steel door flew
open. Surrounded by a cloud of smoke, Gene entered and flung the
door shut behind himself. With anger and darkness in his eyes, the
maniacal tyrant stared directly at the warrior of the light before
him. Without breaking their eye-contact, Gene reached into the
projectile's open access door. His hand explored the cavity that
was designed to hold the orb during travel. His fingers felt the
cold, wet beads, which had brought his whole operation to its
knees, like the thorn in a bear's paw. As soon as he pulled the
offending object out of the missile, the countdown clock reset to
the final ten minutes. That was how long it would take to generate
a new orb and cool the weapon to near absolute zero. A look at the
strand of faceted citrine and labradorite brought an expression of
great discontent to his face.

"So - Isabelle de Fleur thinks she can stop
my plan from fruition? You've got to be the most arrogant person
I've ever met."

A strong sense of confidence filled Isabelle.
She stood face to face with her adversary, who without his smoke
and mirrors seemed a lot less intimidating than she had expected.
She walked towards him, knowing that light is stronger than shadow
and replied, "It didn't take much to send your army scurrying. I'm
surprised you're man enough to face me yourself."

Although Gene wasn't used to getting his
hands dirty, he was not about to accept a single woman as a viable
threat to his elaborate plan of world domination. "I don't need
them to deal with you. Pity the cute ones are always so dumb."

Gene tossed Gemma's beads aside and swung at
Isabelle with both fists, which struck nothing but air. Fuji had
spent many years training his disciple in the defensive martial
arts. As a teenager, Isabelle became a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu, a
skill Tasha had experienced firsthand. Isabelle had enjoyed the
sport for its aspects of fitness and self discipline. She had never
seen the need to learn aggressive sports such as karate or boxing,
because she felt no need to know how to attack another individual.
Isabelle evaded several of Gene's attempts to punch her and quickly
wore down the evil elder who was not accustomed to physical
confrontation. Gene came at Isabelle with all his strength only to
find himself sailing through the air and landing flat on his back
after a skillful Jiu-Jitsu move by Isabelle.

Gene was gasping for air. He was losing the
fight with the fit defender of nature. Under normal circumstances,
his Troopers handled violence for him, so Gene didn’t see the need
to carry a weapon. He had to tip the balance in his favor somehow
and Isabelle was the superior fighter. Isabelle stood by Gene's
feet. Weakened and somewhat stunned from his fall, Gene braced
himself against the wall beside him as he rose up. The corner of
his eye caught a fire extinguisher on the wall. As he came back
onto his feet, the dark industrialist tore the red steel-cylinder
off its mount and with all his remaining strength, he flung around.
Isabelle was caught by surprise and failed to dodge Gene's blow.
The fire extinguisher struck her in the left temple. For the second
time since she had entered Gene's lair, Isabelle dropped to the
ground unconscious. Gene glanced at the launch clock that was
displayed prominently on the wall behind the last escape pod. Big
yellow letters were ticking down the remaining minutes to
lift-off.

4:37

A sinister smile spread across Gene's face,
but it too, was cut short by yet another alarm. The Napoleonic
hoarder of wealth angrily depressed the mute function on the
capacitor's warning panel. Tasha and Isabelle's interruptions to
the countdown had forced the increasing temperature of the lair's
energy storage past its tolerance. Millions of layers of graphite
dust in the hollowed-out granite cliff were slowly approaching
their flash point, the temperature at which a solid material
combusts. Gene could do little more than hope his missile was going
to be ready to launch before his underground bunker would burn in a
hellish inferno.

The glow from inside the reaction chamber had
increased to a blinding brightness, confirmation for Gene that the
orb was forming well. The weapon was mere minutes from its
automated lift-off. The time had come for Gene to go. He looked at
Isabelle as she laid unconsciously on the ground. He saw all his
discontent for nature and humanity in the lifeless lightworker. He
was disgusted at her audacity to penetrate into his sanctuary.
Leaving her to burn to death would be his way to deal with the
rebel.

"You're just like your mother."

The sinister grin returned as his wing-tip
smashed into Isabelle's left kidney. Certain in his arrogance that
she no longer posed a threat, Gene walked towards the remaining
escape pod. With little time left before the track would magnetize
for launch, he boarded the tungsten pod and closed the hatch. Gene
depressed the square, red button in the cockpit and the metal
capsule rolled along its auxiliary rails onto the launch track.

The sharp pain from Gene's kick to her kidney
had brought Isabelle back into consciousness. Her head was buzzing
with dizziness. She could hear the roller-coaster like rumbling of
the pod as it merged onto the launch track. Isabelle glanced at the
computer panel on the wall beside her. She saw the words
Pod
Ejecting
next to the still diminishing countdown. The effects
of her illness and injuries made it difficult for Isabelle to
react. In a great effort, she returned to her feet. A translucent
button that resembled the half of a grapefruit in the console was
marked
Electromagnetic Track Test.
Isabelle depressed the
luminous switch. A strong electrical hum filled the launch area as
the magnets along the track energized. The escape pod came to a
jarring halt just inside the launch tube.

While keeping the button depressed with one
hand, Isabelle turned towards the track to her left. She could see
Gene's face through the pod's window. It had turned to a painful
grimace. The powerful electromagnetic wave that would levitate and
propel the missile was now incapacitating Gene's synapses. Lights
in the launch bay dimmed under the track's severe power drain. The
sound of Gene's hate-filled voice emanated from the pod.

"Here's your chance for revenge."

Gene's darkness was projecting onto Isabelle.
Great sorrow flooded the young woman's mind. Suddenly, Isabelle was
face to face with the reason she lost both her parents. Anger
welled up in her face as Gene continued.

"Avenge your parents and experience the
thrill of killing. Spare me and be the one who unleashes the most
destructive weapon ever on mankind."

The orb generator and magnetic launch track
were consuming virtually all available power. Lights in the lair
and launch bay had gone dark. Isabelle's face was lit by the
control panel. She had become the only point of light in the
control room. She knew keeping Gene in such a strong magnetic field
would eventually paralyze his brain's electrical impulses and leave
him to die. The pod would also block the missile from being able to
lift off and save the world from Gene's attack. Dizzy and
disoriented, Gene continued his assault on Isabelle's positive
energy.

"I wonder if your father was thinking about
how you ruined him when he died alone."

Gene's neurons strained under the magnetic
field and he lost consciousness. All the darkness in her past was
coming together in this moment. Isabelle felt every bit of anger
she had ever experienced. Anger and the desire for revenge were
rampant in Isabelle's mind when Fuji's words rang true like a
bell.

“Only light can extinguish darkness.”

Isabelle looked at Gene's face as he sat
lifelessly, strapped into the escape pod. Just like in her previous
visions, Isabelle was seeing the hidden when Gene's face morphed to
become Tasha, then Ryan, Lionel and eventually Tonati. Despite his
massive darkness, Isabelle was able to see the humanity in Gene.
Fuji had taught her that all life on earth is of the same spirit.
His disciple was about to understand that any action guided by
darkness would spread more darkness. To win, her actions would have
to be guided by the light. No matter how unsavory Gene's actions
had been, Isabelle realized that killing her adversary would make
her as dark as him.

“It’s only a battle if I fight.”

As she uttered these words, Isabelle released
the button in the panel. The magnets shut off. Gene's escape pod
resumed its journey up the tube and ejected into the shallow water
above. The lights in the lair returned to normal. Isabelle saw the
orb in the generator had almost grown to full size. The containment
field in the hull of the missile was energizing. Elsewhere in the
lair, the graphite in the megalithic capacitor had reached its
flash-point. With explosive velocity, an increasing portion of the
mountain's energy storage burst into flames, engulfing the secret
facility in fire.

The inferno was expanding at blinding speed
across the lair. Shafts and tunnels were collapsing throughout as
their structural support burned or melted away. Bright yellow
flames shot down the hallway outside the launch bay. Like a
welder's torch, the fire shot through the hole that the quantum orb
had burned through the window. Papers, chairs and equipment were
catching on fire all over the room, forcing Isabelle back into the
compartment with the emergency equipment. There, she quickly
dressed in a silver fire-suit and boots.

On the other side of the closet's door, the
quantum orb had reached full size. Unaffected by the flames in the
launch bay, the containment field inside the ceramic hull of the
weapon was energizing. The now basket-ball size orb dropped into
the missile and the access door closed. With only seconds remaining
in the countdown, liquid helium was flowing into the weapon's
fuselage to cool it to the point of superconductivity. An eerie
shroud of fog enveloped the long ceramic cylinder as it neared
absolute zero. Smoke and fog filled the fiery room.

Isabelle grabbed a Kevlar fire-ax off the
wall and threw open the storage compartment's door. The fire hit
her like a gigantic fist. Isabelle pushed her way towards the
missile. Out of all her life's feats, this was the most demanding.
Isabelle's head was throbbing with the physical pain of the two
hits. She had to prevent the launch of this monstrous device at all
cost. There was no time to think of what would happen if the
missile reached its goal. That would only bring fear and get in the
way of success. There was no doubt, no fear. Isabelle knew that her
good intent would bring about the positive energy of the universe
she needed to be victorious. Her eyes were burning and her lungs
felt like they were filled with cement. Thick, chemical smoke from
the burning equipment had taken the place of the oxygen consumed by
the inferno. The virus she carried had also taken its toll on her
strength. Two more steps and she could make it to the missile's aft
section. If Isabelle could keep the weapon from reaching
superconductivity, it wouldn't be able to lift off. She swung the
heavy ax over her head and struck one of the five helium
supply-lines that were cooling the ceramic fuselage.

The flexible pipe separated, super fluid
helium-4 spilled onto the launch bay's tile floor. Freezing cold
helium vapors at her feet were heating up and rising to displace
what was left to breathe. Isabelle dropped the ax, reached for the
railing of the nearby escape-pod boarding platform, and pulled
herself to safety. Contact with the liquid would have brought a
gruesome end.

Liquid helium was lapping against the solidly
anchored steel door to the hallway. The sudden drop in its
temperature caused the door to constrict much faster than the
granite through which it lead. The resulting stress tore the
doorway off its hinges. The spilled liquid helium flooded the
hallway outside, extinguishing flames as it flowed down the decline
to the turbine room at the lowest point of the lair.

Isabelle suddenly knew her way out: The
lair's ceramic tile floor had been super-cooled. That meant, just
like the missile, it had become magnetic. Tremors from the
exploding energy storage shook the missile bay. The escape pod's
auxiliary track at the boarding platform broke apart. Isabelle
reached down and coughing from the corrosive smoke, she pulled up a
slab of the track's permanent magnets that were there to guide the
escape pods on their path to the main track.

Isabelle leapt off the platform and swung the
magnetic plate under the soles of her fire boots. She had a 50/50
chance that the magnet's bottom was the opposite polarity of the
lair's ceramic clay ground. If that was the case and if she could
keep her balance without sliding off, the magnetic force should
repel her. If she were to lose this magnetic coin-toss, Isabelle
would get pulled against the ground and be exposed to the flowing
helium. Fortune and good energy were on her side. Much like the
missile over the track, Isabelle's board hovered safely over the
deadly ground. With great momentum, she glided through the open
doorway and followed the flow of the frigid fluid. As it poured
down the corridor, heat from the ground and the many fires caused
the icy-cold liquid to evaporate.

Unseen by Isabelle, the launch door in the
shallow lake water sprang open as the weapon's automated liftoff
approached. The rushing helium gas was less dense than the
surrounding air and much like a child's balloon, it rose to the
highest point. This created a tremendous siphon effect. Where
earlier millions of liters of lake water had pushed over the
turbine blades, a jet of fresh air passed through the exposed inlet
of the destroyed turbine. The powerful suction cleared smoke and
helium from the area in mere moments. Isabelle gasped for air. She
took a deep breath to clear her lungs of the noxious fumes and the
resulting dizziness that had almost made her lose her balance. She
could see the entrance to the turbine room in the distance. With
nothing slowing her down but the rushing wind, Isabelle's impromptu
hover-board picked up respectable speed on the steep decline to the
bottom of the hollow cliff. The warm jungle air quickly heated the
super-frozen ground to frosty but not magnetic conditions. The
humidity from the tropical breeze condensed and formed a growing
layer of ice on which Isabelle slid towards the open door when her
board no longer hovered.