Claudia was bored. Of course, she was often stuck at the Warehouse by herself, but this was a new record on the boredom scale. It was like, a 9.6. If it were the Richter scale, it would have been a catastrophic earthquake. Pete and Myka were off looking for some knife that belonged to Hernan Cortes, which apparently had a nasty habit of turning people to gold. Artie was at a meeting with the Regents, HG was God knows where, and of course, Jinksy was in bed with a nasty head cold. So, Claudia had been left at the Warehouse with a list of chores, and the never ending inventory hovering over her head. Along with completing everything on her to-do list, Claudia had also managed to play twelve games of solitaire and score twelve-million on pinball.
Having exhausted the entertainment value of computer games, she browsed over her list once again, flicking each item on the list as she did so, and speaking them out loud in turn.
"Update firewalls, repair autovac - again - install Tesla coil," she paused, looking over at the miniaturized version of the Tesla coil they used for target practice. After Pete had accidentally discharged his Tesla in the office and frazzled some of the computer hardware, there had been a mutual agreement that a safety coil should be installed. Thankfully, Claudia had been able to save the system, but she had been forced to pull an all nighter to do so. Pete of course, had been humbled by the near disaster. This particular coil was small, but it would attract any electrical energy that wasn't running through the computers, and hopefully keep them safe. She'd also rigged it as a gigantic surge protector as well, so if by some strange and terrible miracle the Warehouse had a power outage, the computers and all their data would be safe.
Claudia had already tested it with her mini-Tesla, but her bored and overactive brain was itching to try out her full sized one. She knew Artie would disapprove of her firing a Tesla all over the office, but she had to fend off the boredom in some way or another. Besides, she could slide the blame off her own shoulders and onto his; he'd dropped her off at the Warehouse at six in the morning, all alone, and without a car. She'd begged him to let her take the car, but after her little fender bender a few weeks ago, Artie was convinced that Claudia would never hold the keys to her lovely Prius again.
"God Artie, it wasn't even my fault," she grumbled aloud, as if that settled her decision. By her reckoning, the deer had materialized magically in front of her car. It may have even been an artifact.
Jumping up from Artie's chair, the youth bounded over to her bag and fished out her Tesla. Thankfully it was fully charged, so she took a moment to select a target in the room. Her eyes landed on the old suit of armor, and a grin crept onto her face. The stupid thing had been blown up numerous times before and still managed to put itself back together again; it could handle it. She raised her Tesla.
"Target acquired. Locked on," she whispered dramatically. She fired the Tesla, and the air was filled with crackling electricity. Her aim was perfect, but to her immense satisfaction, the electrical current bowed midair, and changed course, bouncing lightly off the the suit of armor and into the coil. Claudia punched the air in triumph, and turned her Tesla up to full power. She fired again, with the same results. Oh how she loved the Warehouse and it's weird ways with technology.
"Uh, who's fabulous?" Claudia asked the suit of armor. She grinned, firing a shot at the computer. White hot energy bounced into the Tesla coil, leaving the computer completely unharmed. "Oh yes, that would be moi." Needless to say, she got no response or praise from either the suit of armor or the computer. Already bored with her newfound entertainment, she tossed her Tesla onto the desk again and flopped back into Artie's chair, staring up at the ceiling.
"Artie, if I go crazy in here, I'm blaming you," she told the sheetrock sternly. It didn't respond, and the twenty-two year old narrowed her eyes and groaned aloud. "Please, there's got to be something else to do other than inventory."
She had almost put the question to the Warehouse itself, as if daring it to entertain her. However, it would be just her luck that on the one day she didn't have anything to do, nothing happened. If Jinksy were here, she would at least be able to talk to him, but he had been sniffing and coughing nonstop when they'd been doing inventory yesterday, and the last thing Claudia wanted was to come down with something.
She was considering making her way to the pillow isle to take a nap when something suddenly caught her attention. Jerking herself upright, Claudia cocked her head to one side, like a dog listening to a whistle. Something was off.
"Is it just me or..." she stopped as her voice rang through the room, and then dissolved into silence. She looked around. "Of course..." she breathed.
Silence.
The Warehouse was never silent. It was always making noises, whether the whirr of the air conditioning, or the crackling of static electricity, or the low, distant rumble of the Neutralizer Processing Center (although that was such a long word, she usually just called it the Gooery). However, just at the moment, it was frighteningly still and calm. Of course, it was impossible to completely silence the Warehouse; Claudia could still hear the distant crackles and rumbling, yet for some reason, they seemed subdued. Almost as if they shouldn't have been there, or were some sort of memory of a sound. It was like the ringing, oddly peaceful, yet terrifying calm before a massive thunderstorm.
As if on cue, there was a foreboding rumble overhead that made Claudia start so terribly that she nearly fell out of her seat. She looked around wildly, as if to locate the source of the sound.
"I didn't mean it!" she said, her voice rising a notch. "I really don't mind being bored! I can do inventory! Or take a nap! Or even look up an artifact that throws deer in front of cars!"
Her plea was answered by another resounding boom. Finally, the young tech got her wits together and raced to the office window, looking out into the Warehouse. Everything appeared normal, so there was nothing wrong with the Gooery - which was good, seeing as it was it's responsibility to keep all of the artifacts in check - and there were no alarms going off, nor were the computers telling her anything. No artifact disturbance, no nothing.
It appeared that there was a genuine storm building outside.
Suddenly, there was a flash as the Tesla coil lit up like a Christmas tree, followed by a crash of thunder that seemed to reverberate throughout the whole Warehouse. Claudia gripped the desk uneasily as she watched the three foot coil tremble and flicker. It was almost as if it was the source of the storm, yet the very idea was impossible. There was another blinding flash and deafening crack, at last sending the young agent under the desk in a panic.
Part of her mind was confused: why was a thunderstorm so frightening to her? Odds were it was just another misbehaving artifact that needed to be bagged or neutralized, as it was impossible that a normal thunderstorm could build so quickly. Everything in the Warehouse had a mind of it's own, and sometimes they just acted up. The coil was taking the brute force of the lightning, so the odds of her being fried were slim. She'd been in far worse situations and remained calmer than she was now.
Yet as the office shook with another powerful thunderclap, Claudia pulled out her phone with trembling fingers, and dialed Steve.
"Come on Jinksy, please pick up," she whispered desperately. "Please please please!"
However, when her friend's steady, reassuring voice answered, it was a recording, politely asking her to leave her name and number.
"Damn it, Jinksy!" she yelled. She was about to hang up when all of a sudden, the lights in the Warehouse shut off. It was an emergency protocol to protect the artifacts from static electricity in the event of a highly charged atmosphere. Claudia froze momentarily, holding her breath in fear. She didn't notice the beep of the answering machine. Blinking furiously, she tried to squint through the darkness, but it was useless. For a moment, all she could hear was the pounding of her heart.
In a split seconds, the office was like an inferno. The coil burned with furious light that blazed white hot, thunderclaps shook the office like some sort of cage, and Claudia dropped her phone as her hands clapped over her ears, a terrified scream escaping her lips. Bunching her knees up to her chest, she squeezed her eyes shut and ducked her head between her legs as heat rolled off the coil in vicious waves. She wasn't aware of anything other than her fear, and even as the light subsided and the thunderclaps became distant, Claudia remained where she was, trembling underneath the desk.