A Touch Of Lightning (COMPLETED!)

Chapter 1 Escape

Hi my AWESOME fans! I'm sooo excited ATOL book 1 is completed!!!!! I would love to hear your thoughts on the story!

Thanks!!!!!

CHAPTER 1

ESCAPE

Ronald hurried down the empty corridor, cursing himself for being late. He hated his current assignment, had put off heading into the lab area until the last moment. He even hated the heavy, dank smell of the entire underground facility.

The ever-present hum of the massive ventilation system bringing fresh air from a thousand feet above grated on his nerves, like an insistent, invisible presence, forcing its monotone message into his brain, into his bones. He had never imagined how purely wretched it would be to work underground. And he had certainly never imagined the depths of danger associated with taking this job...and the lethal danger with trying to leave it.

He entered Room 13B and, as always, carefully avoided looking at the Suspension Chamber. It unnerved him, seeing the strange teenage boy floating in the green fluid, inside what looked like a giant test tube. He knew protocol demanded he check each and every wire and tube that were attached to the boy at the beginning of his shift, but tonight he decided to ignore it. He did not want to go near the boy.

He shivered from more than the cool, sterile air, and quickly donned his heavy lab coat. He glanced nervously towards the banks of monitors, his attention drawn to the brain activity displays. The abnormal brain patterns were back, stronger and more defined than even the last two times. They seemed so purposeful, yet were totally alien to normal human brain activity. Ronald had never heard of such a thing, and wouldn't have believed it were physically possible, were it not here, in front of him.

Inside the chamber, a Change was happening. Chemicals coursing through the boys blood stream were being countered, resisted. The sensors and IV lines were being evicted, dropping away from the boys body as a primal force within began to wake.

Callin opened his eyes,  but confusion ran rampant through his mind and the sights he saw were twisted and tinged green. He couldn't form a coherent thought as pain had him stretched into a fragile blade of glass, shivering on the edge of consciousness.

Inside his tormented mind there rose from the shadows something equal to the pain. A rage so pure, so all consuming, that it overwhelmed any chance for rational thought. The animal within wanted freedom and it would have it, no matter the cost.

Ronald glanced over the boys chart, looking for any new data. The chart read: Callin Cross, Age 15, Height 5'7, Weight 136, Abilities: Telepathic variation, Rapid adaptable bone growth, Enhanced healing speed, Enhanced senses and level III MWA. Control algorithms and memory implants unstable. Total mental lockdown implemented, effectivity unknown. Omega class authorization required for activation. Subject to be kept sedated at all times.

Ronald shook his head for the hundredth time as he read the chart. MWA meant this boy had Military Weapon Abilities. He couldn't believe there was an unstable weapon here, in the Suspension Chamber lab. It should have stayed down in the lower levels, where the security and physical construction were built to withstand MWA subjects!

It was amazing, and more than a bit terrifying, that the subject had to be kept unconscious despite mental lockdowns in place. It was exactly situations like this that he would have left the underground lab long ago, if it hadn't been for his fear of what would happen to him if he actually dared to leave. The saying amongst those that worked in the underground lab was simple. Once in the lab, always in the lab. He hadn't appreciated how literally serious that saying was back when he had accepted the position.