Author: Patricia Ray (AlexXZ@Aol.com)

It was starting off as an interesting day. My partner, well one of them anyway, having two can be confusing, was doing her best to convince a certain slime ball thathe should cough up the information we were looking for and were pretty sure he had. Yes, I said she. One of my partners was ninety-five pounds of mean, nasty, gorgeous wrath in black leather.

There's just something about redheads in black leather.

She was currently holding the two hundred plus pound lump about three feet in the air much to his surprise and fear. Course the fact that she was doing it without touching him may have had something to do with it. Did I mention my partner had a few extra talents?

Hobbes, that's my other partner, stuck his head out the passenger window of the van. "Hey kid, he might answer if you let him breathe."

She just glared back at him, but the guy stopped turning blue and began to talk. Its amazing how persuasive sheer terror can be.

When she had the information she turned her back on the goon and let him drop to the ground. Joining us at the van she said "Shall we?"

Franklin D. Roosevelt said "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." He never met Alyx. Some days she scares even me.

Our current job had taken us to L.A. Home of the stars, gang violence and apparently cyber terrorists. Some bored mail room clerk had figured out how to shut down the US Government with an e-mail virus. After some successful test on runs on smaller government. departments. the Agency was called in to fix the problem. It didn't have anything at all to do with the fact that the Department of Fish and Game had been one of the test subjects. No, not at all. Lucky for the Official Alyx was damn good at data recovery. She'd even been able to trace the e-mail back to its source. A high rise in downtown L.A.

That's where we were. Fifteenth floor, middle of the night, invisible. The plan was to sneak in and deal with the virus before he sent it and get out. Simple, right. Well the best laid plans of mice and men and all that. They were waiting for us. Yes, I said they. Our bored mail clerk had turned into a group of a dozen very irritated bad guys. They couldn't have seen us, but all of a sudden the room was filled with smoke. Technically they still couldn't see us but since we displaced the smoke they had themselves a nice set of targets.

"Aw, crap." Was the only thing I could think of as they started shooting. We ran for the door, darts, yes darts hitting the wall near my head. Apparently they were shooting tranquilizer darts at us. Heaven knows why. We stayed invisible until we made it into the safety of the elevator. The quicksilver dust fell to the floor of the car with a musical sound and I looked over at Alyx. She was pulling a couple of the trank darts out of her leg with a look of irritation on her face.

Sometimes if she concentrates very hard she can heal herself, weird benefit of her gift, so I guessed she was going to try to neutralize the drug if she could. Her eyes closed for a moment then opened. She dropped prone to the bottom of the car with a curse. At first I thought it was the drug affecting her. But changed my mind when the lights went out and the car dropped several floors slowing to a stop as the brakes kicked in. The entire building was shaking like a leaf during a hurricane. The earthquake lasted maybe forty-five seconds but left us stuck between the ninth and tenth floors in the dark. After a few moments the emergency lights came on with an eerie red glow.

Normally being stuck wouldn't be a problem. With her mind Alyx can manipulate almost anything, which has proven to be very useful in the past. Today was not ending as well as it had started. With a curse that usually gets a snappy come back from me involving various positions, Alyx got to her feet and swayed. This was not a good thing.

"I think we have a problem." She said leaning against the rear wall of the car.

Usually it would be me making that statement, but I'd had a shot just the day before and Alyx carried more in case of an emergency. Okay so we had an emergency, just not one the counter agent would help.

The first aftershock hit and the elevator car shifted again, dropping only a few feet this time and killing the emergency lights.

I asked. "Can you get us to the next floor and out of this thing?"

She shook her head, "No, I've lost control."

"What?" Was my oh so intelligent comment. Several months ago she had finally mastered the control needed for her gifts and nothing had shaken it since.

"What ever was in those tranks is interfering will my abilities. I'm picking up the terror of half the city. The quake was real bad. And its not the elevators brakes holding us here, its me, barely." Alyx said.

"Can you do something about the lights? You may be able to see in the dark but I can't." I asked. I know it sounds stupid to ask her to do something after being told she was barely in control, but the idea was to distract her, change her concentration away from her problems. I could hear her moving and then see her, the lights came up at about half power. Good enough.

I moved over to her to help support her, but she flinched away and the car dropped again. She closed her eyes in concentration and jerked us to a stop. We'd lost another couple of floors.

"Darien. I don't how much longer I can do this." She said opening her eyes.

I thought about it. First I did a control exercise that she had taught me. If her mental control was gone then my very presence would be a irritant, she'd be picking up my thoughts and emotions foremost. So I did what she had taught me and she responding by sighing in relief.

"Thanks. That helps." She said.

Now I went over to her and touched her arm, there was a tingle like a mild electric shock and her emotions and all she was picking up washed over me. She swallowed hard and managed to regain some control. I got one thing out of the mental tumult that washed across me, the bad guys from upstairs were still looking for us.

"Alyx, focus for me. We need to get out of this elevator."

"I'll try." She replied in a shaky voice. "How far? Next floor or try for the basement."

I really looked at her. She was shaking and sweating in effort and her eyes were glazing over from the narcotic effects from the drugs. I figured given the quake no one would really care what we were doing in the building, so get out of the elevator first figure out how to get of the building later. "Next floor." I said to her.

Clenching her fists she pried open the interior door with her mind. The car then shifted, dropping suddenly then stopping. "Alyx?"

"Sorry, my control is on or off right now. I can't just move us slowly." She said through clenched teeth.

Three more drops and stops and she had us close enough to the next floor that we could get out. Prying open the second set of doors I climbed out and turned around to help her. Once in the hallway, the seventh floor I noticed, Alyx groaned. "Oh god, another one."

Alyx's gifts affect energy fields, so I assumed she was feeling the aftershocks because of the energy released. Normally this would not be a problem, but her control was gone and her shielding nonexistent. As the shockwave it, it disrupted what little control she still had. She arched back in my arms and the elevator she had been holding dropped into basement with a thunderous crash. Then every light in the hall flared to sudden life and then burst with a shower of sparks. All this while the building rattled and groaned.

It ended with her gasping for breath as I held her. I lowered her to a sitting position on the floor. Keeping my own mind as calm as I could I tried get her to focus on me. She moaned and grabbed her head. I knew she was picking up the panic and terror of half the town so I tried to distract her. "Well this is fun don't you think?"

She laughed caught off guard by the inanity of my statement. "Idiot." she said then her head cocked to the side like she was listening to something. "We've got to get out of here. They're coming down. And they want us, badly."

"Can you stand?" I asked.

"No, but I will." She said pushing herself up off the floor. I did my best to support her. The hallway was lit with that annoying red emergency lighting and we walked down it looking for the stairwell.

Two floors of stairs down and way too many more to go. My legs were already beginning to ache and I was sure it was worse for Alyx. Above us I heard voices and they were not happy. At this floor's exit I grabbed Alyx and pulled her through the doorway. "Can you jam it shut?" I asked hopefully . She nodded. All she did was look at it and the door seemed to ripple, like a heat haze. I tested it, not only was it still warm to the touch it was not going anywhere. It looked like she had melted it into the doorframe. "Good work. Lets find the other stairs and get out of here." We had just turned the corner of the hall when they started to bang on the stairwell door.

This was taking to long. Alyx was getting more exhausted by the moment. Its hard work trying to remember who you are when the voices of thousands of other people were in your head. She had let me experience it once at my request. I know, dumb move. I agree. I never want to go through that again. So I did my best to keep my mind out of hers and help her focus on who she was.

We made it to the next stairwell and I was all set to open the door and head down when she stopped me. She was shaking her head. "Can't, they're out there waiting. Down one floor. Trap."

She began to fall so I reached out to steady her. "Sorry." She managed to say. "I'll make it."

We moved down the hall and around a corner in case they came back up a floor. We had three ways down to the ground two stairwells both of which apparently had nasties in them looking for us and the elevators which had no power. I suppose we could climb down the shafts if we had to. Made me wish I been breaking in here to steal something, I might have brought my climbing gear.

Alyx went pale as I watched, impressive trick in this lighting, and grabbed her head in pain. I moved to her and took her hands into mine, for an instant when I touched her I heard everything she did. A roar, wild, intelligible. Take the sound of Niagara Falls and and the screaming fans from every sporting event ever and you might have some hint of how loud it was. Now add emotions to it , pain, terror, panic, anger. It was all encompassing and unendurable. For me it lasted less than a second, it was trapped inside her head.

I decided to try an emergency measure. I said, "Pattern."

Alyx went stiff and said "Acknowledged." Then she slumped and I caught her. It was the only thing I could think of to do. Left over from when she was a Ôguest' of the agency was a set of unconscious commands that were used to help her control her then newly developed powers. Once she had gained complete control on her own they'd become unnecessary, but they'd never been removed. I hoped like hell it helped, otherwise she was going to hurt me very badly when she awoke.

I held her in my arms, waiting, hoping the goons from the fifteenth didn't decide to search this floor. Maybe I should have gotten us someplace a bit safer first. Too late now. Alyx groaned and opened her eyes. I helped her sit up. "Better?" I asked hopefully. She stood up slowly. "For now."

We headed back to the stairwell and after Alyx checked as best she could she deemed it safe enough. We went down as quietly as we could. Gained another two floors before they found us. They were coming up from the first so we bailed onto the second floor and headed back across the building to the other stairwell. It was Alyx's "Aw, crap." that made me stop and turn around. Bad move as it turned out. I felt the building shudder and knew it was another aftershock. Alyx didn't take it well at all. What little control the programming had given her shattered. The energy wave from the quake played havoc with her system, for a moment it looked like she might keep control, then her body snapped erect and power exploded from her. Every window on the floor shattered in one spectacular burst of raw energy.

I found myself against a wall several, okay twenty, feet down the hall. Alyx had collapsed into a tumbled heap on the floor where she had been standing. I hurt but nothing serious. I know full well she could have killed me. As I bent down to brush the hair from her forehead I was astonished by her once again. The amount of power she controlled was mind boggling. Yet every day she was there with a smile. Every day she took it for granted that once again she would not break, not unleash the massive power she controlled. Dealing with being able to turn invisible was, even I would admit, too much responsibility for me. And she dealt with that and more every day, heck for her turning invisible was the easy part. And yet she rarely complained, just dealt with it. Yes indeed, she amazed me.

I picked her up noticing that her breathing was a bit erratic. She needed out of here and now. One stupid floor and we'd be outside where Hobbes should still be with the van. I mean, we did just go through an earthquake, where would he go? I shifted her in my arms and headed to the stairwell. Handling the invisibility for both of us would be tiring but seemed to be the best choice. There were days I hated the gland in my head and all the crap that had come with it. Today I thanked it. I might yet get us out of here because of it.

I kicked open the door to the stairs figuring it was better to hit anyone behind the door and gain the element of surprise than to try and sneak by and play invisible target. Luck was finally on our side, we ran into no one as I went down and exited out onto the ground floor. I waded through the mess of the lobby area and out the shattered front doors. I didn't drop the quicksilver until we were across the street. I was amazed at the destruction. Hydrants were shooting water into the air, glass and other building debris littered the ground and if I was right that orange glow lighting the sky was one hell of a fire. Sirens and shouts could be heard from all over. Boy had it become on hell of a day.

Alyx shifted in my arms finally coming to. "Ouch." she mumbled. I gently set her on her feet ready to catch her if she couldn't manage to stand on her own. Then she looked about her. "Wow." she said in astonishment at the destruction. "How's the head." I asked.

"It'll do, the worst of the effects seem to have passed. Its shaky, but I have control."

"Good cause we still have to get out of here. They'll figure out where we went eventually." I said.

It didn't take them but another moment. With a shout about six guys with guns charged across the street at us. I tried to decide where to run, grabbing Alyx's arm intending to pull her along with me. She apparently had other ideas. Her hand came up in a circular motion and she said, "What's this?" Hanging the air in front of her were six of those annoying trank darts that had given us such an interesting evening. They suddenly flew back at the guys who had fired them. A couple of them attempted to dodge the darts only to discover that you can't dodge something being controlled by a very pisssed off woman. Within moments all six of the goons were sound asleep, victims of there own darts.

That's when Hobbes pulled up. "Took you two long enough." He complained. "Did you know there was an earthquake? Powers out all over, and buildings keep exploding out here."

"Sorry, next time we'll hurry it up for you, partner." Alyx said sarcastically as she climbed into the van.

Oh yes, it had been one helluva day and it was only Monday. I was afraid to find out what the rest of the week would be like.