The Breaks in Electricity

“When you said that we’d be breaking into the Medicinal Hall, I pictured a shit ton of people guarding the stuff. After all, it’s only in the Hall that this city’s most powerful drug, and most addictive one at that, is kept and made here. So tell me why there are barely any guards here. I brought all of my toys for a reason, y’know.” Jensen waves around his prized possession, a rifle that he’s improved over the years, in the air. I would’ve been annoyed by this behavior years ago, but at this point, I’m used to it. 

“I told you it wouldn’t be necessary. I know this place like the back of my hand, and I’ve memorized the guard rotations. If we move quickly, we’ll be in and out of here in 15 minutes.”

Jensen gruff, “That sounds boring, Vick.”

I chuckle at his attitude. He’s probably the worst person to bring in a stealth mission, but there’s no other person I would rely on to cover my back. We speed through the complex with ease. Years locked up in this laboratory does that to you. You can blindfold and spin me around, and I’ll still be able to find my way into any room. HOVAC took five years of my life to perfect the drug that the rich use daily while the poor are left to survive with the scraps. I’ll be damned if I don’t get a little payback. 

As we near the corner, I whisper, "We’re almost there. I can feel it.”

His silence assures me that he’s getting serious. I don’t have to be looking at him to know that he’s checking over his precious weapon to make sure that it shoots just as it’s supposed to. We’ve done countless missions like these for the past three years, so I’m not worried that he’ll miss. Each step that we take brings back memories, and I have to bite my tongue to keep myself in check. I hear faint voices from inside - they’re guards, no doubt about it - and I’m reminded of the Military Officer who kept us research assistants in check. The scars running down my back, given to me years ago, begin to burn. Oh, how I wish to see him again, to show him that I am not the same girl again. That I am not a power to be trifled with. 

Jensen’s voice stifles my shaking hands. “Would you like me to lead?” I stop in my tracks, and I turn back to look at him. Yes, he’s a gun-runner. Yes, he can and will lie out of any situation that will forever leave a bad taste in the mouths of others. Yes, he has stolen money out of the very cups of people who spent days begging for it. He has done many horrible things, but I refuse to let people believe that he is still a bad person. The Jensen I know has given the poor hundreds of gallons of water and pounds of food because the government was ‘punishing them.’ The Jensen I know has taken bullets for me when I wasn’t being careful. The Jensen I know stayed awake for hours tending to my near-fatal wounds. The Jensen I know has even sold his gun to the worst people in the world to keep me alive. 

“No. I’ll unlock the door and keep a shield up while you attack with all of your might.”

His expression tells me that he’s thinking about the time when I told him that I was a prisoner in this lab, a tool for the government to keep the rich happy. Before he can fight back, I cup his scarred face in my hands. With silent words, I tell him that I will be okay. He nudges into my palm, closes his eyes, and nods. With his approval, I can feel the electricity start to buzz through my veins. Sparks begin to find their way out of my body. Even as I hold his face in my hands, I know that I’m not hurting him. 

I turn away and place my hands on the sleek metal wall. My hand immediately misses Jensen’s warmth, but his reassuring hand on my shoulder is enough. With a steady breath, I allow the electricity to flow through my body. I would have never been able to control its flow while I was in the lab. It’s only right that I show the monsters who run the show all that I’ve learned.

In a literal sense, it all happens in a flash. The electricity that runs in my veins surges through the wall, leaving burn marks in its wake, and overvolts the power of the vault door. A loud click and sounds of the handle whirling open are heard, and hearing the shouts of the guards inside assures me that my powers worked. 

Both the sounds of the vault handle spinning open and the shouts of the guards inside tell me that my powers worked. I kick the door open with as much strength as I could muster, and the resistance against the door tells me that someone was behind it. 

Poor guy. 

The guards are slow to react, and within seconds I conjure a shield big enough for the both of us. From behind me, I can hear Jensen laugh as he mocks the guards shooting at us. Their bullets don’t mean a thing against my shield. 

“Look at ‘em! These stupid Lil Apes are really shootin’ at us like they can get through. Why don’t they try running at us?”

A guard, a young one at that, tries it out. Yelling his last war cry, he charges at us with a wild look. As beautiful as his heroic face looked like, the result of his foolishness is anything but pretty. The layer of electricity that veils my shield makes quick work of him, making his body spasm helplessly. The side that made contact first is horribly charred. The smell of burnt flesh fills the room, and I have to fight the urge to gag. Before Jensen makes a joke about cooking a barbeque, I order him to get rid of the others. He obliges with a grin and makes quick work of the other guards, each of them horrified at the sight of seeing someone electrified. Within moments, Jensen and I are the only living people in the lab room. 

“Your powers amaze me every day, Vic.”

I scoff and tell him to quit it with the flattery. “We got a job to do. Grab all that you can, and let’s get out of here. Another alarm is gonna go off any second, and I don’t wanna be here when more guards come. 

He laughs, and a sick grin is plastered in his face. “Oh, you’re no fun. Your wish is my command.” 

It’s been years since I’ve been in this very room, but everything looks the same. My hands fly to all of the containers, shoving every vial of HonE I can find into our bags and stuffing whatever else that we can make a profit off of. Vials of all colors and textures are thrown inside, along with pills of all sizes. The people running Medicinal Hall have been keeping their research assistants busy because there are some things that I don’t even recognize. No matter, I’ll find out what they’re making. 

I’m nearly done with this side of the vault when Jensen’s voice breaks through the silence. “Hey, what’s ‘LRes?’ There’s-” The very name of it drags a cold nail down my spine, and I can barely understand what Jensen is saying. I ask him again of the name, hoping it’s not what I think it is. When he dares saying it again, I snatch it out of his grasp. 

Before he can object, I shoot him a glare, telling him to shut up. Under its case, I read the papers attached to it and begin to explain. “LRes stands for ‘Last Resort.’ The idea was that if a lot of people were caught doing something against the City, then the City would… Look, it was never supposed to work because we simply never had the materials, but this -” I gesture to the papers. “This just goes to show that the City isn’t taking any chances. If the City is near completion on this gas, then-” 

“Lemme guess: The City will just have another weapon to control the poor with?” I nod. “That’s enough of an explanation for me. Let’s pack all this shit up and go.” 

With the speed of madmen, we shove every vial and bottle we can find into our bags. Granted, I did try to be careful about how I placed them in, but Jensen truly didn’t care. Right as we were finishing, the sounds of heavy boots and loud shots echo. They’re coming. Although he begins to argue, I force him out of the vault. If we’re cornered here, we’re goners. 

“Come on, lemme try out my new toy! I worked really hard on it and I’m just dying to try it out.”

I’m no runner, so talking while running tires me out even more. “There’s no time to be playing around. We’re leaving-” 

Why did I talk so soon? Right as we near a corner leading us into a hallway, at least seven soldiers are waiting for us, guns pointed to our bodies. Their black camouflage uniforms, the ones used way back when the world was still ‘manageable,’ cast a shadow on the exit. Our way out has been compromised. 

“There is no way out.” A soldier speaks out, his deep and gruff voice echoing down the hall. If he’s trying to be intimidating, he’s spot on. He’s probably practiced this speech for weeks, waiting for action. “Surrender now, or you will be shot. Drop the medicine. Drop your weapons. Drop to your knees with your arms raised. Fail to comply, and you will be shot.” When he notices that we do none of these things, he starts repeating the same speech, but it’s different this time. He adds more power to the word “shot.” It’s as though he wants to shoot us. I can’t call upon my electricity this time. For some reason, I feel drained. It has to be him. 

With Jensen at my side, he whispers softly, “How do you wanna play this out? Your call.”

Standing here before them all gives me the chance to count how many there are. There’s ten of them in total, but between them all, only the speaker looks like he has any fighting experience. The other ones look fresh out of training. Hell, the guns for three of them look bigger than they are. Yes, there are ten of them, but there are two of us. I like these odds. 

“You feel like having a little bit of fun?”

I don’t even have to look back at him to know that he’s smiling. Slowly, we crouch down to place our stuff to our side. “We surrender!” I cry, and from the corner of my eye, I see Jensen pulling out his ‘toy’ from his pocket. His hands, large and dark from the gloves on them, are made into fists as he hides his toy from view. 

The speaker yells to the other grunts to arrest us, like how all good soldiers do. Two of them, just boys not older than seventeen, make their way to us, their weapons shaking as they get closer with each step. I whisper to Jensen not to kill these two. They deserve to live. 

When they’re only a foot away, Jensen releases his ‘toy,’ letting it fall to the ground. The trigger happy one of the two shoots blindly at Jensen, but Jensen tackles me into the adjacent hallway. His shoulder’s shot, and as much as I try to tend to his wound by applying pressure to it, there’s a smile in his face that scares me. 

“It’s working!” 

I don’t dare peer out of our corner to see his toy in action. I don’t even have to. The shadows on the wall do that already. From the shadows, I can see the robot’s humanoid body absorbing the shots, only to have the same bullets recoil back at the soldiers. The shadows cast a story, a story in which the little robot moves forward without difficulty, ripping through the soldiers as if they too were toys. They’re losing. The whole ordeal ends within seconds. Even the cries of the speaker, shouting for backup, is no longer heard. The only noise left is the clunking of the robot. A small beep is heard, and with it, Jensen stands. 

“Let’s go see what lil old junior did.” 

I wished I shared his enthusiasm, but the feeling of vomiting is near the top of my throat at the sight of the tragic display. It’s not the pile of soldiers at the door that makes me want to cry. It’s the terrified corpses of the boys near us that do. Their faces, forever contorted in terror and pain, are still. If I was deaf, I would’ve thought that they were still screaming. 

“I said not to touch these two,” My voice is heavy as I shut their eyes closed. The last thing they ever saw was the sight of death staring back with unfeeling eyes. “These two were meant to live.” 

He walks past me to pick up the abomination, and there’s nothing but admiration in his voice when he says, “It worked so well. I didn’t think the programming would work so well. Sure, it didn’t follow instructions as planned, but it worked. Vic, aren’t ya-” I push him, and I can’t reel in the small flick of electricity that soars through my arm into him. His hair is a little frizzed out when he says, “You shocked me!” 

“You killed them!” 

“Technically, I didn’t. Little Junior did.” 

“Oh really?” I snatch ‘Junior’ out of his hands, and in my rage, I let my rage into the small robot. It’s powerless against me. It’s small body shakes, overwhelmed at my power, and soon enough, it explodes in my hand. Yes, it digs into my skin and burns me, but it’s nowhere near the fire in my heart. They weren’t supposed to die.