Alien Research

CHAPTER 31

WATER GUSHED FORTH. Prayed there was nothing “extra” in it, but I was a lot more focused on holding on.

The water’s force shoved the hatch fully open. This was great, only Gower was trapped behind the hatch now. And White’s grip on his handhold was slipping. We were in the process, as we so often were, of redefining the term “really bad.”

“Kitty, catch!” Adriana said, as she threw the flashlight at me.

Taking the mitt was proven to have been prescient. Adriana’s toss wasn’t accurate, but the mitt gave me just enough extra grabbing reach and power that I caught the flashlight. Barely, but I caught it. There were benefits to having been, as Jeff would have put it, a jock for all of high school and college.

Adriana caught White as he lost his grip. There were a few frightening moments when it wasn’t clear if she was going to hold on, or if they were both going to slip. If they did, they’d knock into me and take me with them back down the pipe.

If we fit, that is. But if we didn’t fit, we’d get knocked out. Heck, we could get knocked out whether we fit through the pipe or not. And if a body got knocked out and blocked the pipe, then the water in this metal room would fill up fast.

But White was able to grab a metal handhold. This jostled Adriana enough that she lost her grip. White hauled her back. They went back and forth with this for a little bit. It had the potential to be humorous. When we were out of here and dry. Maybe.

Meanwhile, I had a flashlight held precariously in a baseball mitt, Gower was trapped, and the water wasn’t slowing down.

The only saving grace was that we weren’t all on our hands and knees, trying to breathe the water. This was mitigated by the fact that there was a lot more water coming out than the pipe could send through all at once. Our heads were above the water line—for now. How long that lasted was going to be dependent upon how much water was going to come out of whatever we’d opened and how long it would take for the smaller pipe to send it all out into the wash. I didn’t need Chuckie here to tell me that things weren’t looking rosy.

White and Adriana finally both got a firm hold on separate handholds. They held onto each other still, just in case. Couldn’t blame them. Sort of wished I was near enough to Gower to be holding onto him and vice versa.

Of course, as I thought of it, I had no idea if Gower was drowning or not. The way I had the flashlight held, the light was pointing toward the ceiling near to where White and Adriana were. I could try to move the flashlight toward where I thought Gower was, but I was barely holding onto it as it was. Didn’t think I could manage moving it without losing my tenuous grip.

Went for the next best option. “Paul! Paul, can you hear me? Are you okay?”

“Sort of,” he called back. “I’m pinned. I can breathe, but I can’t move.”

“Pinned is better than drowned. Everyone just hang on. This can’t go on forever.” I hoped.

“Based on water flow, I believe we’ll be underwater soon,” Adriana said. She sounded fairly calm. Which was good. One of us should be.

There was nothing for it. We could hang around here and potentially drown, or one of us could try becoming a salmon and give swimming upstream the old college try.

If Jeff was with us, I’d have honestly suggested he be the one to try, because he had the Surcenthumain boost and was the strongest. Plus, based on when I went swimming in the Potomac during Operation Assassination, he could hold his breath for a long time.

I knew if I mentioned my plan White would suggest he be the one to try. He was awesome and all, but he was still Christopher’s dad. I didn’t want to have to tell Christopher I’d told his only remaining parent to swim into whatever the hell was on the other side of the hatch, especially if that sole remaining parent didn’t make it.

Gower was trapped, Adriana was a full human. That really left only me.

“Adriana, can you grab the flashlight?”

She reached out, White still holding her. “No. You have to toss it back to me.”

“Be ready.” The mitt was on my left hand, and I was right-handed. However, I couldn’t swim and take the flashlight with me. And if I mentioned what I was going to do, White would, for sure, leap off to go ahead of me.

Let this be like firing a gun from a moving vehicle. I focused on relaxing, on becoming one with the movements, choppy though they were. Then, once it felt like I wasn’t really moving, that it was Adriana who was bobbing back and forth, pinpointed where I wanted the flashlight to land and lobbed it over to her.

She caught it, which was definitely a big one for the win column. “Shine it slowly around the part of the room without water, and then at the hatch,” I told her.

Adriana obliged. There were plenty of handholds, but it was going to take me a while to get from one to another in order to get to the hatch. It was hard to be certain, but the water didn’t appear to be stopping, meaning I probably didn’t have the luxury of wall climbing over.

“Mister White, if I’m not back in about two minutes, then and only then can you or anyone else come after me. I’m saying this as the Head of Field and all that jazz. Top girl order sort of thing.”

“What are you doing, Kitty?” Gower asked.

“Something you won’t like that has a ton of risk but could save the day.”

“Ah. Routine.”

“You got it, Paul. Adriana, keep the light on the hatch, please and thank you.” With that, took a deep breath, held it, and shoved off against the wall, down and toward the hatch.

Track was great for improving lung capacity and my lifestyle ensured I somehow always ended up running with scary people sporting guns or worse chasing me. The strength I’d reverse inherited from Jamie came in just as handy, though—the water pressure wasn’t letting up and I needed to use a lot of effort.

Those regular Adjust To Being A Super workouts with Christopher were really paying off. Normally I had to be enraged in order to really get the A-C skills going. I wasn’t enraged right now, and scared really didn’t do the trick for me. But I’d worked on my abilities enough that I could bring forth the hyperspeed and use it for swimming. Or as I was thinking of it, running in the water.

Managed to get down and grabbed the lip of the hatch’s opening. I’d kept the glove on, and it was working like a really big water wing. My purse was a hindrance, but there was no way in hell I was going to let it wash away. Some of its contents might be salvageable and for all I knew Jeff would need his adrenaline somewhere along the way.

Once through the hatch, the real issue was if I could find the top, or an air pocket, before my lungs exploded. Kicked up hard, keeping the mitt above my head, just in case I hit something. I had to keep on kicking to go up—the water wanted to suck me right back down and through the hatch.

The will to live is strong. The will to ensure that I had a sliver of a prayer that my iPod was still going to work was stronger. Flutter kicked like I was in the Olympic Trials and was rewarded with seeing what looked like light above me. Far above me, but above me nonetheless. So either that was where the air was, or the golden light was calling me to Heaven. Figured it was air, and kicked harder still.

Had to let the air out of my lungs slowly in order to make it, but managed to surface just before I had to take a breath or die. After some serious gasping for a couple of seconds, realized I was in a big tank. The water had been clear, so was hopeful I was in the clean water tank.

I also wasn’t alone. There was someone at the edge of the tank, standing on a metal platform, looking at me.

“A little help?”

He shrugged.

“I have three friends who are probably drowning or about to in that little metal room down below.”

“Shouldn’t have come in the back way, should you?”

Several things were registering. He was good looking, but not A-C gorgeous, with an unruly mop of brown, wavy hair and a scruffy goatee that looked good on him. Green eyes, but not green like Mahin’s or Christopher’s. Green like a cartoon character’s. He had a devilish expression, but in the cute guy way, not in the red lobster suit with horns way.

He was also extremely short but his torso and head looked perfectly normal, meaning he was most likely a dwarf. And he had an accent. As with Mahin’s it was familiar, though nothing like hers, but I couldn’t place it.

“Look, charge us with breaking and entering later. I need to ensure that the current and former Pontifexes and one of our friends all don’t drown to death. I’m the current Head of Field, and I’m giving the official ‘save our butts’ order.”

He smiled. “Oh, I know who you are. You’re the one who likes to ask for twenty different obscure types of soda pop while you’re in a jet at thirty thousand feet. But not to worry. Can’t have you losing both the current and former Pontifex on my watch.” With that he snapped his fingers.

White, Gower, and Adriana appeared on the platform next to him, gasping.

I said the only thing that came to mind. “Who the hell are you?”