Mind Over Matter

Chapter 24

"Agent Max is missing,"

came in a voice on Alex's walkie talkie. "Sounds like they made the first move to me," I said. "We're on our way," Alex said into his walkie talkie.

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We made it back to HQ. "So what are Maxine's powers?" I asked. "Who said she has powers?" replied Alex. "Let's see," I said, "I have powers, Don has powers, I'm ninety-five percent sure you have powers, Samson has powers..." "OK, I get it," he interrupted, "She can make anything explode." "Explode?!?!?!" I exclaimed. "We still can't explain how she does it," said Alex. "I guess we need to get her back before Shadow extracts her powers," I said. "Yep," he replied. "How do we get back?" I said. "I have an idea," said Alex, "Casper said he wanted us to trust him." Suddenly Casper appeared out of nowhere. "You called?" he said. "Yes," replied Alex, "We need you to help us save Maxine." "Gotcha," said Casper. "What about me?" Mark asked. "Sorry," said Alex, "But I think it's best you stay here." Casper grabbed us, and before Mark could argue we were in the Area 51 base. We saw Maxine, she was in a chair with a bunch of wires hooked up to her. Shadow was there, pushing buttons on a computer. "I caught these two trying to get back here," Casper said. "What?" Shadow said, looking at us, "They should have known better. In any case it's too late." He pushed a button on the computer. Maxine started screaming. I ran up to Shadow and punched him in the jaw, knocking him out. As soon as I did, the computer shut down. Maxine was still screaming in pain. It was still extracting her powers. I ran to the computer to see if I could turn it on. I pushed the power button. Nothing. I closed my eyes.

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I opened them. I looked at my finger. It was metal and in the shape of a USB plug-in. There was a USB port on the computer. I plugged my finger in. Weird, but cool. Somehow I forced the computer to start up. It showed a window with a bar at 78%. On top of it it said: Power Transfer 78% complete.

Then it went to 79%. There was a button under it that said "Revert Process." I clicked on it. Then, a box popped up that said "Waiting for authentication." Maxine had stopped screaming, but she was still groaning, and I think she was crying. It was at 86% now. I didn't know what to do. There wasn't a box to put in a password. I started downloading all of the files on the system into my memory. It felt weird.

It was at 99% and Maxine started screaming again. Then it went to 100%, and she stopped. I got most of the files. I unplugged my finger and ran over to Maxine. Alex and Casper were just standing there, looking at her. I took all of the wires off and picked her up. She was weak, and pale. Just like Mark.

Casper grabbed us and took us all back to the agency. We took Maxine to the medical section. Then we went and talked with Casper. "Once Shadow started that process, there was nothing you could do to save her," said Casper, "Only Shadow could stop it." "How does that work?" I asked. "Shadow has an implant in his brain," he replied, "That allows him to control all of our computers and the Ender's Box." "So the authentication was something he did in his mind," I said. "Exactly," he replied. "So the extraction room is in the Ender's Box?" asked Alex. "You're pretty observant," said Casper, "Well, I'd better go make up an excuse for this." He disappeared.

"Now that he's gone," I said, "I'll tell you what else I did on the computer." "I figured you were smart enough to do something," said Alex. "I broke into their archives and downloaded most of their files," I said. He smiled. "That will help us a whole lot," he said. I plugged my finger into one of our computers and uploaded all of the files. We looked at them for awhile. There were a lot. So far we hadn't found much. That's when the call came in.