The Nexus

Chapter 33

Fear pierced Emma's heart when the Agency guard entered the room and walked towards baby Josephine, who was cradled in Isabelle's arms. Sophia was sitting near them on one of the other long benches in the room and stood up. She had noticed the direction the guard was going in and quickly jumped in front of her sister and the baby only to be slammed to the ground.

The suited man easily plucked Josephine out of Isabelle's hysterical arms. And then time slowed down.

Emma watched the scene frame by frame. A gear switched in her brain and sparkling lights flickered in various locations around the room. The fear flowed through her and the next frame was her taking a breath while the man moved Josephine an inch closer to his body. His meaty paws under both of her arms.

Click click click, the gears in her brain started working faster, while the world around her slowed even further. She scene came to her like one giant game of chess. This was familiar; this was how she operated. Along with the peace that her usual emptiness held there was something else back that she didn't even know she was missing. This other piece to the puzzle was her unwavering confidence.

The emptiness had been put there by Alexis, but was filled with the light that she had generated earlier. The walls were gone in her now, so she could process everything her body signaled to her. There wasn't anymore shutting down now. He had broken her, rebuilt her, then the "nexus" had broken her again. Now she was whole and had more tools than she knew what to do with. Aranda had plan to ruin her, but instead this moment was defining her.

She turned to the guard that was in the room with her. To the normal human eye it was lightening fast. The white sparks that had been floating around in her field of vision began to make sense to her and made everything glow in a golden light at varying levels.

Her guard's light was shaking and vibrating as he tried to react to her. In a slow instant one of his hands moved but there was no hope for him. She had leaped onto his back, feet standing on his shoulders, and had used her handcuffs to begin to strangle him.

It was something out of a freak show, the way she balanced on the guard's shoulders while squatting and choking him. Alexis's shock was instantaneous and he turned to run.

Emma casually unfolded her body and the guard hit the ground and she stood on his back. From her perception of time and space, Alexis was making a snail's crawl for the door. She snapped her head from him to the picture window.

The guard in the room with Josephine did not know what was happening in this room. Josephine was now against his chest with his left arm wrapped around her body. His right hand was moving to the confused baby's neck. Her face was starting to crumple.

Emma bent and picked up her guard's gun. She shot out the glass, aiming at no one, just as Josephine's guard's hand brushed the soft perfect neck of the baby. Emma was through the window before anyone in the room had time to react to the blast of the gun and the shock of falling glass. To the Alliance members it looked like she actually flew through the window, like a human bullet, curled up into a ball and hit the guard with her shoulder. This knocked Josephine out of his surprised hands and Emma caught her within an inch of the ground.

Emma jumped up and punched out her cuffed hands at the guard's face. He flew back against the wall by the door and slumped to the ground.

By now an alarm had been sounded. Emma slowed herself down to human speed and handed Josephine to Sophia. The room was chaos and there were two other rooms of prisoners she had to take care of.

She hadn't seen Thomas yet, but felt sure that he was in one of the other two rooms. "Stay quiet and follow me," she said.

Then she did something she had never done, but now knew that she had always had the potential to do. She relaxed and pulled her hands and feet out of the cuffs. Maybe not exactly out of the cuffs but through the cuffs, like a ghost walking through a wall. The cuffs went through her wrists and ankles. To do this she has to allow herself to come apart on an atomic level and then call all of her cells back together. Audible gasps came from some people in the room. She could feel a gasp in herself, as well.

Controlling her feelings enough to get far away from here was one precarious thing, but this group of frenzied people would not be so easy to protect if they did not follow exactly what Emma asked them to do and she didn't even really know what to do herself. She turned to Sophia, who was staring with her mouth agape and said, "We need to get everyone out of here, but I'm not exactly sure where to go. We probably don't have much time before there will be more guards than I can handle."

Sophia nodded and yelled at the group, "Everyone needs to be focused and quiet!!" All eyes turned to her and the noise started to fall to a low chatter.

Emma turned and faced the guard on the ground. "He will lead us out." She turned to Sophia, "Go and let the others out of their rooms."

"How will you get the guard to let us out?" Sophia asked.

"I'm going to do a little experiment on him," Emma replied.

Sophia shivered a little and stepped back while Emma put a had on the mans arm.