Again, all mine. I hope you like it, plus, I figured out how to separate the chapters, a special thanks to my bestie, VVB! 3
Later that night, Katrina was grounded from the basement for a month, along with no internet, movies, or general fun activities. She didn't care. The internet was crappy on her guardians' computer, and the movies were old and poorly directed. But to be banned from the basement was a different matter altogether. The basement held everything. Her photos, robotic parts, actual working robots, plants and animals that needed daily study and care. Back home, in Georgia, in her own house, she had had a room in the backyard, as there were no basements. Georgia was known for floods, not tornados, so basements were pretty much unnecessary. This room had so many amazing things that it would've shocked anyone who decided to enter. But it was strictly under lock and key. It was three stories, going into the ground of course, as a three-story shed was likely to attract attention. Fully functioning robots she called "Silver Bullets" maintained order in her little home away from home. She built them herself, from the time when she was ten on up to fourteen. That was before the flood. Before she was ten, however, she liked to study biology. Not just capturing crickets and putting them in a jar to see what would happen. Actual biology, a good ten or twenty years ahead of her time. She dissected them in a sterile environment, put certain things in jars, took journals full of notes, tested certain environments and reactions, even cross-breeding a few plants and animals to get a desired effect. Age ten, mind you.
Much like how dogs were originally bred, Katrina wanted to make a perfectly safe pet that would possess a dangerous quality. So, Katrina searched and searched for mild-tempered poisonous snakes. She bred them, their offspring being mild as well. On and on she went, until she finally had a snake that had just as much poison as the others, but practically no fighting instinct. She kept this snake as her pet, called it Tallulah, and went from biology to botany to robotics. She expanded through the years, dabbling in astronomy and psychology, but really, she should have been studying meteorology. Eleven months ago, fourteen-year-old Katrina had looked casually out of an upper-story greenhouse window. Dark, black-tinted storm clouds threatened lots of rain. Paying this no heed, she did not warn her family, and instead retreated underground to study some rare plants a man had gotten to grow. She took just two from his personal garden, so she could pollinate them, and spent at least six days underground, trying to get some sort of effect. When it proved fruitless, she ventured back up.
Being three stories underground and surrounded by six-foot thick walls of concrete, her laboratory was completely sound-proof. And water proof. The light she received came from a special type of phosphorescent fungus kept in magnifying chambers at regular intervals. No exhaust. Perfect lighting. When she traveled upwards in her large elevator, she noticed how thick and humid the air had become. It was not normal rainy humidity. It was heavy, without the customary freshness of a rain shower, and the air smelled old, muddy. Still unsuspecting, she exited through the elevator's double doors, proceeding purposefully to the door of the shed hiding her lab. As the elevator sank back into hiding, wooden floorboards covering the hole, she tugged on the door knob. The door would not open. Again she tried, and again, until she was forced to get a Silver Bullet to come away from its preset duty to help twist the door knob. With more effort than should've been necessary, the door slid open.
Gallons of water had rushed in, dousing the average shed equipment. The Silver Bullet propelled itself onto a table. Katrina was not so lucky. She was knocked off of her feet and slammed into a wall. Dark blots spotted her vision, and she had hastily tried to blink them away. Standing shakily to her feet, Katrina shuffled out the door. The sight that greeted her was more than anyone should ever have to see. Two police cars, one ambulance, and about ten news vans were around the property. The entire lawn was underwater. Katrina, though five-foot-two, had to wade to reach a newswoman. She had had fake written all over her. Fake hair, fake nails, and fake sympathy. At first, the woman barely glanced at the bedraggled, sopping, tired-looking youth. Indeed, she tried to shoo her away. Then, the penny dropped. In a comical double-take, the woman recognized Katrina, and she wrapped the teenager in a hug that could have made a bear whimper. Standing up straight as a board, the newscaster turned back to the camera. The next words she said went world-wide for three days.
"Ladies and gentlemen," she began, much like a ringleader. A fake tear appeared and landed on the collar of her raincoat, "Katrina Fiore Silver, daughter of Doctor and Mrs. Everett Silver, has been found alive!" The camera basically went up Katrina's nose before "alive" had been fully spoken. Katrina, though fourteen, felt five. She looked at the fake woman, pleading in her eyes, begging to be wrong.
"Where is my family?" she asked, letting her voice crack. The newscaster let out what sounded like an actual sob. She hugged Katrina again.
"Oh, you poor, sweet thing. They're… they… gone, sweetheart. I'm so sorry," Katrina had refused to believe it. She had run to her house, which was completely mutilated and underwater up to the second story. The Silver home was built in a bowl, a bowl that had filled. Katrina's father had said that if it ever rained during the summer, they wouldn't have to leave their house to swim. A bit ironic. Katrina had almost reached the house when she was picked up by a burly police officer and was carried back to the news van. Katrina was gone the instant she set foot on the ground. She passed reporters everywhere, trying to block out their seemingly heart-felt comments.
"-the late Doctor Silver and his wife and six year-old-daughter-"
"-discovered dead-"
"Katrina Silver was found just now, miraculously alive-"
"-drowned, trapped under the first-floor ceiling-
"-Silver, known for his extensive research in cancerous diseases-"
"- found yesterday-"
"-flooded for five days straight-"
"-heavy rains-"
"-fatal-"
On she ran, stopping at the ambulance. The siren lights were off. Three indistinguishable mounds on gurneys made Katrina retch. Two were large, and one was very, very small. Alyssa. Katrina fell to her knees, water going up to her waist, sobbing uncontrollably. The ambulance doors closed. She was not allowed to go with her family. Three strong police officers and a cameraman had to drag her away from the scene, screaming and wailing. The next month was spent with people pretending to be her friends, trying to find someone to take her, and "attempting" to keep the media away. The story was front page for six weeks before a new diet pill came out. She had sat silently the entire time. Her eyes did not brighten for three months straight.
Then Uncle Jerry and Aunt Felicia showed up with little Sammy. He looked so much like Alyssa, so much like her little sister. They immediately took to each other. She spent every possible moment with them, and there came a day when they popped in and Sammy held in his hand a piece of paper. He handed it shyly to Katrina, who accepted it graciously. On it was a drawing of a stick person. The person wore no clothes and had one curvy red line on each side of its head to represent hair. The stick figure was smiling, holding hands with a smaller, bald stick figure that was holding hands with… well, it looked like two boxes stacked on top of each other with circles and bright colors decorating it. The box figure had a face. A happy face. Katrina's eyes had brightened; nearly lime-green.
"This is you," Sammy said, pointing with his little fingers to the red-haired character, "and this is me," he explained, motioning towards the bald figure.
"Who's this?" Katrina asked, indicating the boxy figure. Sammy shrugged.
"Robot," he said simply, popping his thumb in his mouth. Katrina's brows furrowed. Her mind began to work. Sammy left the picture with her, along with three well-used crayons. Katrina stayed, alone and silent, for three hours, staring at the piece of paper. A desire sparked in her heart.
She wanted to. She was a genius. It was in her blood. But could she? In a way, she felt that it was her own fault her family had died. Though she could not have prevented it, if she had not been quite so intelligent, she would not have been safely underground. She would have died, too. And yet… she needed to create. To build. She had to. Fingers shaking, she picked up a rounded black crayon. Flipping over the piece of paper, she created a new design. A new Silver Bullet. A new Katrina.
When Jeremy and Felicia Silver had arrived the next day, Katrina's bare, temporary room was covered in designs. Many were scratched out, some crumpled up, some torn to shreds, but a few were kept in one piece, in a neat pile by the sleeping Katrina's form. Under her folded arms that she was using as a make-shift pillow was Sammy's drawing. An exact copy, actually. Save one change to a character. The boxy, uneven robot had been replaced with a sleek, silver, torpedo-shaped machine. Around the smiling being was an assortment of blueprints and measurements, including a small memo, written in Katrina's neat, tilted penmanship:
Get more crayons
After signing a few papers, Katrina was eagerly turned over to her aunt and uncle. Once packed, she glanced at the pile of papers on the small side table.
"I'm taking them," she said, not rudely, but leaving no room for discussion. Her family nodded. Katrina had carried Sammy all the way to the van.
Her thoughts drifted to this time every once in a while. She owed Sammy more than he would ever know. He had given her a reason to live. He was her little guardian angel. So, she guarded him. Without smothering him, she made every possible activity as enjoyable as possible while at the same time, remaining safe. She had once fractured a man's wrist when the man had decided to shove Sammy out of the way at a fair. Seeing her little cousin sprawled in the dirt without his large father around, tears in his big blue eyes, Katrina had taken the matter into her own hands. Grabbing the man's wrist, she twisted and yanked upwards, pinning the arm behind the man's back. She heard something snap, and from her studies of anatomy, she knew she had definitely fractured something, and maybe a few tendons were gone in the elbow, too. With her being small, the fat man could not work an arm around his own girth to swat her away. When she did let go, the man was a little more than a huge groaning lump lying on the ground. She received no cotton candy for her achievement.
Katrina drifted upstairs to her room, sorry that her aunt was unhappy, but glad that there was one less chauvinistic jack-ass in the world. She peered out the enormous window that covered an entire wall. She had done this renovation herself. When she first arrived in her new home, the little bedroom had been tasteless, and had but one small fifteen-by-fifteen window. She fixed that up with her newest Silver Bullets. This was about the time her aunt and uncle had allowed her free-run of the basement. But now, no renovations could be done; no ideas could be put to the test. Katrina was thoroughly bored.
Banishment from the basement meant banishment from her new lab, one she was struggling to build. It was hard enough to get a fully functioning lab to be completely undetectable without with her wretched memories haunting her. She crossed her arms, drumming her fingers on her forearm, a habit she only did when she was comfortable. When her parents were alive, she would do it all the time around them. Here, outside her ever-so-beautiful Georgia, she hadn't done it in a long time. Her eyes focused to take in the scene outside her window.
A thin tree-line created beautiful shadows on the ground, the cause of which was the gorgeous orange and purple twilight. How Katrina loved dark, rusty oranges and deep purples. No other colors would work for her. Except silver, of course. Maybe green. But no pink, if it could be avoided. She walked over to the continuous pane of glass, gazing out over the trees. From this vantage point, she could see the next-door neighbors' house, another neighbor's garage, and, further down, the roof of another's. So, it wasn't a Hollywood view. It suited her just fine. A soft knock was heard from behind her. Katrina, trying not to be more of bother, hurriedly opened the door, finding no one other than her aunt. Felicia looked more motherly than ever, anger gone. Katrina knew why. She knew what Felicia was going to talk about. She knew her own answer, too.
"I'm not going," she said. Her fingers had stopped tapping. She was no longer content. Felicia's face drooped, but somehow maintained an encouraging smile. She moved into the room, quietly closing the door. Katrina, standing rigid, looked back at her aunt, stubbornness and a touch of pleading in her eyes.
"Katrina," Aunt Felicia said, sitting down on Katrina's purple and orange comforter, "you know you can't avoid this. If you think you had a chance getting out of that dinner, you've know hope for side-winding out of tomorrow. You're going to school," Katrina did not flinch at the mention of the dinner, but her nose twitched at the mention of school, as though it preferred to be turned up at something so far beneath it.
"Why school? Why me? You know that there's nothing they can possibly teach me that I don't already know." Katrina pointed out. Felicia nodded. It was true, but not the point.
"That's not the point," she said, "The point is: you need someone, anyone, to get along with. Someone your age." Katrina had heard this speech so often before, it had become something of a cliché.
"I don't require any such companionship," she replied for what must have been the fifth time.
"You do,"
"I won't know anyone,"
"You will eventually,"
"You can't make me go,"
"I can," This comment was met with a minute of silent stubbornness. Katrina put her arms to her sides, much like an officer. She would not go. It simply was not going to happen. When her parents made her go, she had fought with them, as well. But, being her parents, and what with them knowing practically everything about their daughter, her mother and father had found a way to bribe (or blackmail) Katrina to force her to go. No shed for a month, no iPod for three weeks, or even the threat to send her to a neighbor's house every night for a week so her parents could go out. And this Mrs. Silver was no pushover, either. Felicia was not going to roll over for Katrina. She was going to maintain the peace, but there would have to be authority.
"You will go to school," Felicia said, smarter than she appeared, "or the media will escort you there." Katrina stared. The media? Her aunt would tell the media where she was going to school? Not possible.
"You wouldn't dare," Katrina breathed. Felicia's face was straight and serious.
"I would. Once they catch wind of it, they'll stake out the school as though it were a campsite. This family will again be front page, and whatever hope you possessed for a relatively normal life will be shattered," Felicia finished calmly. Katrina was shocked, to say the least.
"The paparazzi will eventually find out, anyway. Look at it this way, Katrina: my way, you get a good two months of normal school-time fun. Your way, the prospect of being under the radar will never come true, and you will instantly be sucked back into the drama. Front page. Again." Aunt Felicia was not cruel. She loved Katrina; so much in fact, she was willing to trade her niece's comfortable existence for the prospect of real happiness. To see a truly happy Katrina for the first time in a long, long time was more powerful than her guilt. Call it blackmail, or a persuading argument. Aunt Felicia was a clever bitty, no doubt. Katrina groaned, something she only did when faced with an obvious yet painful decision. Felicia took this as a yes, an agreement to go.
"Oh, it won't be so bad, sugar. You'll know someone. Well, you won't know him, but you'll recognize him," she said encouragingly, walking to the door.
When it was shut Katrina locked it. School. School required things she did not care about. Clothes, makeup, gossip… boys. Katrina's face turned pink. It was just that age. Ignoring the last item on the list, Miss Silver proceeded to her closet, a large space filled with clothing, and that was just for the spring season. Aunt Felicia adored fashion, and she finally had a girl to shop for. There must have been close to a thousand dollars in spring and summer clothes alone hanging up in there. Selecting the simplest outfit possible, a pair of whitewashed jeans and a dark purple quarter-sleeved top with a pair of white cork flats, Katrina created a complete outfit. She was all about quick-to-find when it came to clothes. At least the colors didn't clash. And it had purple. Dressing for bed in white pajamas, Katrina let out her long hair, feeling the pressure ease off of her skull. She brushed her hair thoughtfully, wondering who she could possibly know at the school. She was in a completely different time-zone, for goodness sakes! She brushed her teeth and scrubbed her face in her own personal bathroom, replaying her aunt's past conversations, looking for a hint in her words at the mysterious person she should recognize, but not know. She crawled into bed, snapping the side table lamp off. Darkness slowly engulfed her vision as her eyes got used to the sudden lack of light.
Then she nearly went blind as a flash of white light filled the room, blocking out the trees' silhouettes outside. It did not help that an entire wall was completely transparent. A boom that could have matched a warhead going off at close range followed just half a second later. Then it was dark and silent again. A dog barked somewhere outside. Getting up, Katrina rushed to the window and looked outside, blinking spots away from her eyes. The next-door neighbors' house looked like a light bulb, with the same white light coming from their basement windows, slowly receding. Their house was definitely the source. She wished she knew who lived there. She would have written a letter of complaint. Sometimes lines had to be drawn, even for nightlights. Nobody was that scared of the dark.
She heard the sound of a voice in some sort of accent. It seemed to be cursing. She also heard the sound of hssht… hssht… as though someone was using a fire extinguisher. When the light from the basement was completely gone, she saw the dim yellow and white glow of electrical lights. The entire neighborhood seemed to have awoken. Men and women lined the street in front of the house, shouting. Katrina pressed a button on a side panel on her wall. A window as big as hers could not be lifted up or opened out. She was glad she thought ahead of time for an opening mechanism, watching as the glass slid silently sideways into the wall, disappearing. She recognized a few neighbors.
There was Elaine and her husband, both looking rumpled in matching red-striped pajamas yet still surprisingly clean, and Anita, in a yellow fluorescent nightgown, of all things. After a few moments of shouting, a light came on upstairs next door. Katrina watched as the lights flicked on one after another in the house. A man emerged from the house, looking extremely tired. Katrina recognized him as the man who had first greeted her uncle at the restaurant. Katrina could hear some of the louder neighbors over the general ranting.
"Not again!"
"What do we have to do to get some sleep?"
"Be more courteous!"
"Keep that boy of yours in line, or we'll get the police down here again!" This shout was followed by choruses of "yeah!" and "again!" in quick succession. The man who had come out of the house held his hands up in front of him in an apologetic way. After a moment, the neighbors stopped shouting, and took to simply walking away, a few throwing the "I'm watching you" signal over their shoulders, in which they took two fingers to indicate their eyes and pointed with the same fingers at the man and his house in general. The man nodded to show he understood. He went back inside, and a loud command could be heard. Katrina could not understand what was said, but when the lights were turned off in the basement, then the first floor, then the second, she assumed that the man who had come out had gone back to bed, and that whoever was in the basement had been chewed out. Katrina waited, predicting what would happen next. She was not disappointed. A light came on in the basement just moments after the entire episode. Katrina hoped there would be no more explosions tonight. She seemed to have very troublesome neighbors. Closing her window, she put an eye mask on her face and earplugs in her ears, drowning out the night noises with music.
Dexter waved the smoke away from his face. Even though he was working with familiar chemicals, the late hour and poor lighting of the basement did nothing to help his need to remain unnoticed. Normally, he would handle chemistry in his laboratory, but he did not exactly know what would happen if the chemicals were mixed in that environment. As clean as it was, spotless, in fact, explosions and mishaps had happened before. He was glad he had moved to the basement for the initial mixing. It might have caused some serious damage. However, he failed to take into account the fact that the basement had hardly been used. Ever. Dust and volatile chemicals are not things that mix particularly well. One speck of dust happened to land in the beaker, and something exploded in a very tiny area. It created something of a vacuum, sucking in the air and spitting out light. It blinded him, and robbed him of his air, effectively knocking him to the floor. An explosion loud enough to crack the walls erupted from nowhere.
When the light had vanished, making a whoosh sound as it dissipated, and the ringing in is ears had stopped, Dexter realized that the table had caught on fire. He cursed without thinking. Proceeding to the ancient fire extinguisher conveniently located to his right, he put out the flames. Readjusting his glasses, he silently hoped the incident had been contained by the brick walls. No such luck. He could already hear the neighbors lining up outside. Dexter could easily imagine them with pitchforks this time. It had been a rather large explosion. He could hear his father coming downstairs. He knew he was busted then. He was not even supposed to be up at this hour. He had school tomorrow. Dexter nearly scoffed. School. Right. He thought he could handle ninth grade math, thank you. He heard walking above him, and the sound of a door opening. He stood on a table to peer out of the high basement windows. Honestly, who puts windows as wide as a textbook all the way up to a seven-foot ceiling? He saw lots of people. Every one of them looked very hostile. He watched the silhouette of his father in the light ray of the front door. He heard mumbling.
All at once, the neighbors started shouting, no doubt concerning the wake-up call. An old lady with a pair of blinding pajamas threatened to call the police. Again. Dexter winced. Not another search. They had come before, looking over the house from top to bottom, as though the family was hiding pipe-bombs or C4, planning to attack the mayor or something. His father's shadow raised its hands, looking tired even then. The neighbors accepted this less than graciously. Walking away, muttering under their breath, the angry mob retreated back to their homes. The front door closed. Dexter jumped off of the table, waiting for the inevitable. It wasn't a long wait.
"LIGHT. OFF." The command from upstairs came. Dexter practically flew to the switch, listening to his father's retreating footsteps. One…two…three…four…silence. Dexter breathed again. Shutting the basement door tightly, he turned the light back on. He walked back to the table, hopping on it to check for more unsettled neighbors. What he saw instead was a flash of moonlight on thin air. Thin air? He looked again. A pane of smooth glass seemed to seal up a wall on his neighbor's house. An entire wall of glass. That was not common in houses, certainly not houses in this neighborhood. A light was on in the room that the large window protected. Dexter could see a figure move around, flicking off a lamp. He stared for a few more seconds, wondering who lived there, then he, too, headed upstairs to bed. After all, it was a school night.
