"The Brainchildren do not share power with unicorns," said Claire coldly.
Greta's lifeless body, which had made a child-sized imprint in the concrete wall, slumped to the floor in a heap. Her eyes were fixed open, and her horn pointed upward at an odd angle. Her limbs were broken and twisted.
As the shock of her sudden death set in, the people in Frink's laboratory reacted in various ways. Some gasped in horror. April nearly fainted, and had to be propped up by the professor. Alan, for his part, gazed into space and expressed nothing.
"Greta! No!" shrieked D.W., racing to the side of her slain friend.
"Somebody call the police!" Arthur shouted.
"They're already here!" Lisa informed him.
"Don't just stand there!" Francine chided them both. "RUN!"
Before they could retreat, yet another atrocity was committed before their eyes.
Tegan, fully aware of what a telekinetic could do with the aid of the helmet, lunged forward, determined to tear it from Claire's head. The French girl merely waved her hand, and Tegan abruptly reversed direction, sailing across the lab and striking the back of her head against the edge of a metal table. The barrette, snapped in half, dropped to the floor at her side.
"No!" cried Claire in dismay. "I did not mean to kill you!"
Ashamed at what her careless use of force had done to her friend, she rushed over to Tegan and examined her for signs of life. Naturally, in Tegan's case, a "sign of life" would be the automatic activation of her mind-merging power. This had not happened.
Claire's concern for the fallen Tegan gave the others a chance to escape. Frink snapped his fingers in front of Alan's face, grabbed the awakening boy by the hand, and dragged him through the lab doorway. C.V., Iris, Victor, April, and Fern hurried away without bothering to see if anyone needed help, or even to watch where they were going.
This left only Arthur, Francine, D.W., and Lisa in the lab with Claire and her two victims.
"D.W., we've got to go!" Arthur urged his weeping sister.
"She's dead…she's dead…" sobbed the little aardvark girl, pressing her nose against Greta's cold, contorted chest.
"You can cry later," said Arthur, firmly grasping D.W.'s wrist.
"We've got to warn the police!" cried Lisa as she led Francine, Arthur, and the distraught, sniffling D.W. through the corridor to the Rosen Building's exit.
"You said the police were already here," said Francine.
"That's why we have to warn them," said Lisa, heaving open the glass doors. "It'll take more than a few cops to defeat the Brainchildren now."
"You're right," said Arthur. "We need the Army."
"Forget the Army," said Francine. "We need the Federation of Planets."
D.W., tears still running down her face, didn't say a word.
Taking the Elwood City officer's advice, Lisa didn't look back while running toward the spot where she had left him. To her relief, the rabbit policeman was rushing toward her, the barrel of his rifle pointed skyward.
"Don't go in there!" she shouted. "It's too dangerous!"
The officer's response surprised her. "Don't move!" he bellowed, sticking his weapon at Lisa and her companions. "Stay where you are!"
"It's okay," said Lisa reassuringly. "They're my friends. They're not Brainchildren."
"I said don't move!" barked the policeman. Arthur and Francine dutifully stuck up their hands, while D.W. wiped her nose on her sleeve.
"Listen to me!" Lisa pleaded. "You've got to get as far away as possible before all hell breaks…"
The Rosen Building exploded.
They weren't sure which came first—the deafening shock wave, the trembling of the ground, or the dust and rocks that cascaded down on their heads.
"Take cover!" cried Francine. Arthur, D.W., and Lisa raised their heads and saw large chunks of brick and concrete soaring through the sky. D.W. screamed with fright.
The flying debris also threatened Fern, April, and the Brainchildren, who had been accosted by other officers near the student union building. Guided by panic, they ran into the building's portico for shelter.
Once the children and officers had finished dodging the rain of stone, they looked toward the site where the Rosen Building had formerly stood. The sight they beheld was incredible—Claire was levitating into the air, her arms stretched out, the metal helmet on her head glowing with electricity.
"Take her down!" blared a voice on the rabbit policeman's walkie-talkie.
Seeing their chance to flee to safety, Arthur, D.W., Francine, and Lisa ran away from the scene as fast as their strength would allow. Rifle shots rang out behind them, but they refused to look over their shoulders.
One after another, the officers from both Springfield and Elwood City took aim at the hovering girl and fired. Not one of their shots took effect—the bullets simply slowed down and dropped into the ruins of the building.
The shooting tapered off and ceased. Arthur, thinking that the riflemen had either killed Claire or been killed by her, finally turned his head. He let out a gasp of horror.
The officers were still alive, but several of them were swirling in the air as if being swung on an invisible string. The unconcerned Claire floated above them, waving her hands and laughing. Bits of cement and plaster rose from the wrecked building and began to spin around, forming the outline of what appeared to be a whirlwind directly under the gloating girl.
"What is it?" said Francine, stopping to look behind her.
"Oh, my Buddha!" exclaimed Lisa. "She's creating a tornado!"
As the wind tossed Claire's hair around, she gazed down upon the campus buildings that she could demolish with a mere thought. My friends have been arrested, she thought, glaring at the policemen who were taking Fern, April, Victor, Iris, and C.V. away. I'll rescue them later, after I've destroyed the silly children who arrived with the unicorn.
Lisa, D.W., Francine, and Arthur were alarmed to see the whirlwind moving, expanding, approaching them. They could almost make out the burning anger in Claire's eyes. "She's coming this way!" cried Arthur. "Run!"
They began to retreat again, but Francine knew it was in vain. "We can't outrun a tornado!" she said sagely.
"Leave me behind!" said D.W. "I'm slower than the rest of you!"
"No way!" retorted Arthur—but as the roaring winds hounded him, he began to realize that he had no other ideas for survival.
He looked desperately in all directions. Two buildings were nearby, but their walls were made up of windows, which would certainly shatter and shred everything in their range. The only other place that offered any hope was a construction site, where bulldozers, back hoes, and piles of rocks and dirt flanked an excavation.
The wind tore at the back of Arthur's shirt. He struggled to keep running, sure that the end of them all was near.
Then he had an idea.
"Over there!" he shouted to the others, pointing at the work site. "We'll take cover behind that pile of gravel!"
"Gravel?" said Francine incredulously. "That won't protect us!"
"I think it will," said Arthur. "Come on!"
They could hear and feel nothing but the wind as they trudged, Arthur pushing his sister along, toward the huge mound of rocks. They reached the other side just as their feet were starting to lose contact with the ground.
"We're all gonna die," D.W. moaned above the gale. "She killed Greta, and now she's after us. What did we ever do to her?"
"For once D.W.'s right," said Francine dolefully. "We are all gonna die."
"Calm down!" Lisa urged her. "I know what Arthur's thinking!"
The pulling of the wind became almost unbearable, and then Claire appeared, towering above them, shrouded by a howling vortex of dust. They couldn't hear, but they could easily tell that she was laughing over their fate.
Jesus, Buddha, Spongebob, Lisa prayed silently. Please let this work…
Their hopes began to fade as cracks appeared at the top of the pile of gravel—the last barrier was giving way.
The whirling funnel began to fill with gravel. The small rocks swept through it in a spiral pattern, rising ever higher. D.W. screamed as the irresistible winds lifted her up the slope of the gravel mound. Arthur tried to save her by grabbing her leg, but an instant later he, Francine, and Lisa were being yanked helplessly from the ground…
to be continued