The computer was beeping loud and rapidly. Peter was already on it hurrying over to Walter. "What's wrong? What happened?"
Walter kept shaking his head and was sweating. "I don't understand it. This reading indicates their activity in the void verse but it's completely blank. It's usually an indicator that Agent Dunham has returned…or has deceased."
"She has to be back," said Peter.
"But something's still wrong," said Walter as he looked at another screen. "Her fear level is still intact and has gone up."
This was definitely not turning out how either of them had expected. Peter grabbed his jacket. "I'm going to find them. They could've crossed back from someplace else."
"I do have something that will help," said Walter. He hurried to a cabinet and dug through for a minute until he pulled out what resembled a speed gun. "Agent Dunham still has the tank drug in her system. If she's still afraid and back in our universe we'll be able to track her and little Elvis by looking for Cortexiphan activity."
They grabbed the laptop they were working on and the ray gun and Peter started driving. They headed to their house first. When they got close Walter read some activity but it was not strong enough. "They were here," he said.
"Something did happen."
"They could be anywhere now," said Walter sadly.
"Now's not the time to give up," said Peter. "Just keep reading that thing. I'll drive all over Boston if I have to."
Olivia woke to sore limbs from lying on the hard cold floor of the warehouse. She could see everything around her including men in lab coats who were gathered around a small table. Upon seeing Ella lying there, the electrodes attached to her head, Olivia quickly leapt towards them only to be held back by the shackles to her legs and arms chaining her to the back wall.
"Ella!"
"Shut up." A nearby guard gave Olivia a bruising jab with the butt of his gun. "Or we'll put you to sleep."
"What are you doing to her?"
The guard said nothing. At the table, Ella was slowly waking up but was immobile. She was completely strapped and bound to the table and could barely move her head. All she could see was a strange looking video screen that hovered above her like those annoying lights that blinded her in the dentist's office.
She started to whimper and cry when she saw the faces…doctors who clearly had no interest in helping her but resembled the man who had tried to experiment on her and her aunt.
"Ella, just relax," said the doctor. He pulled out a syringe and injected the contents into Ella's arm.
"Don't touch her, you bastard!"
The sound of her aunt's voice echoed around Ella. "Aunt Liv?" But it was too late, the moment the needle went in, Ella felt a radiating pain throughout her body and suddenly she began to have irritating sensations. Her eyes were wide open and she couldn't close them, not even to blink. Her hearing became more aware and sensitive. She could only gasp. She was too scared to scream.
Olivia helplessly looked on overhearing what the doctor was telling Ella. "We've been looking for you, Ella. We're not going to hurt you. We need you to do something very important for us."
"What?" Ella said weakly.
"You're a special girl now. That means you can make things happen through your emotions. We need you to activate two powerful weapons for us and you're going do it through the power of terror."
Olivia felt her stomach churn. The very act of activating Ella's ability through terror, it was exactly how Olivia's own abilities worked, except she knew that Ella would prove to be a more powerful and more sensitive weapon due to her young age. This was even worse than what Walter did to her as a child. She couldn't let them do this to Ella.
The doctor nodded to another who turned on the machine that Ella was attached to. "Start midway than increase velocity on my signal." As soon as the machine started humming a large satellite dish inside of the warehouse began to turn. "This machine will turn your strongest emotion into waves of energy that will be sent to this satellite and to the powerful bombs in New York and Chicago."
Olivia and Ella both gasped. "Mommy…daddy…"
"I see. Your parents are in one of those cities? Well that won't matter. If this test succeeds you'll belong to us permanently. You're too valuable a weapon to lose."
"No! Ella!"
The guard struck Olivia again.
"Aunt Liv…"
"Little girl, if you want your aunt to live, you'll do exactly as we say!"
"Ella, don't you listen to them," cried Olivia. "Don't let them scare you into anything."
But everyone knew this wouldn't be easy given the situation. Everything was working in the favor of the doctors, as Ella was terrified beyond belief. A few more switches and the doctor brought the strange TV screen closer until it was all she could see. He then placed stereo headphones over her ears. The last thing she heard was the voice of her aunt pleading for her to fight back against fears.
The screen was turned on and Ella could see what looked like blood. Disturbing noises were coming in through the headphones. Her fear was already increasing. Not a good thing. The image changed to what looked like hands…with sharp bloody tools similar to the ones she saw the man was going to use on her aunt and they were opening up a human body. There was no rhyme and reason to what the hands were doing. They were just cutting and pulling out guts with no real intent. This was no operation. This was a sick murderous fiend who kept going further and further.
Because of the drug she was given, Ella couldn't close her eyes nor shut her ears from the disturbing noise, yet it was all her mind could focus on. Ella understood their malicious intent. The more terrified she was, the more likely those bombs were going to go off. But being here, having to see all of these things…her aunt not too, far away likely hurt…and her mom and dad in danger of getting blasted to smithereens along with millions of others…and she would be the one to cause it. How could she not shut her mind off from such terrifying thoughts?
The images of the bodies being cut up and their flesh coming out was giving Ella horrible flashbacks, nightmarish visions of her recent captivity and the doctor could see it. He gave the signal and the dial on the machine slowly turned.
"Ella!" Olivia kept crying out but it was no use. The satellite dish was slowly turning again.
Hopeless as it was, Olivia could see Ella's desperation as she struggled and squirmed about. The straps kept her restrained and the only place she had any freedom was in her hands but she could do very little with them.
But then Olivia saw Ella's hand reach for her pocket. Her fingers managed to dig in and grab hold of something. Peaking out from the pocket, Olivia could see the scrunched up flowers, tulips, carnations, and daisies that Ella had made grow in the void verse.
Ella could feel the flowers grasped in her fingers. Her thoughts turned to the void verse and what her aunt told her. She could make anything happened that she envisioned. Even the doctors knew this. With everything going on through her eyes and ears, her mind turned to those flowers and she held on to the memory as much as she could. She kept her mind on the comforting environment that she created in the strange place she traveled to, filled with even more daisies, carnations, and tulips and just about any other flower that she could think of. It was all she had left to hope for. Thinking of flowers was much better than thinking of bombs.
"It begins now," said the doctor.
In the depths of an underground sewage system in New York City, two workers were on duty when they turned a corner and saw the giant massive tank that was staring back at them.
"Nobody said anything about a treatment tank getting installed here."
"That's no treatment tank," said one of the workers. "Look!" He point to the side where a series of colorful massive bomb wires and explosives. The walls of the tank were starting to wobble and a cap on top slowly opened.
"S**t! That thing's gonna blow! Run!"
Both of the workers ran only a few feet before deciding on instinct to duck and cover. They were a blasting noise but neither of them were dead. No heat, no fire. Nothing.
They turned around and just sat there in complete puzzlement and bewilderment. From out of the cap of the tank came streams of flowers, colorful and various. They continued to spill out into the sewage water around them.
The two men could have stood there and scratch their heads over the sight of a giant bomb spewing out harmless flowers for hours, but it was best that they got out of there quickly and call in the bomb squad.