After a few minutes Liz became impatient. Where were Wil and Vi? She felt pretty stupid to sit here all alone now. She sighed and tried to calm herself. Probably it was nothing. Vi and Wilbur would certainly come back at any moment, after all they didn't want to miss the movie, right? And Liz would end up laughing about the fact that she had been so worried.
For some time she was distracted by the plot of the film. When she looked at her watch the next time, the two were gone for fifteen minutes already. What could take them so long?
Slowly, her mood became bad, and the movie started to annoy her. If something had happened, was it too much to tell her about it, rather then leaving her alone to waste away in here?
She thought about the recent events. Somehow everything felt very strange. Why did Violet leave? She had been very silent the whole evening already... and now, when Liz thought about it, she realized that Violet had already behaved strangely yesterday evening... Maybe she had trouble. But why didn't she tell Liz about it? Perhaps Wilbur knew what it was, and that's why he had followed Violet...
Just speculations, she thought, annoyed. Sure nothing was going on, except that Vi had a bad day and now Liz was the one who suffered because of it. She looked at the watch again and put herself a deadline. If the two - or at least Wilbur - wouldn't be back in five minutes, she would go home. Just when she had made this decision, one of the doors opened suddenly, light shone into the darkness and a hysterical voice filled the spacious hall.
"Out there! You have to see this! A bank is being robbed!"
Everyone turned to the gaunt man standing in the door, he was completely out of breath. Liz also stood up from seat to get a better view. The moviegoers began to whisper, most of them were confused or astonished, some of them thought it was just a joke. But through the open door everybody could hear the noise of sirens and excited people. Some people stood up and left the hall to see what was going on outside.
Liz had a hunch that this might have something to do with Wilbur's and Violet's disappearance. She left her seat and walked out. Though it was already dark night, she was still blinded when she stepped in front of the cinema. Helicopters with searchlights flew in the air and lit the streets, countless people stood around speculating about the events in the Bank, that was two blocks away. The street was blocked off for pedestrians because police and press vehicles incessantly took off and landed there.
Liz stood on her tiptoes to glance at the other side of the street. Perhaps the two were over there and couldn't come back over the street. And even if they were still on her side - she looked around - in this crowd of onlookers it would take forever to find them. She sighed, her anger disappeared, her mood, however, was not really better.
All right. They probably had a good excuse for just leaving her there, on the other hand, where was the problem to simply come and pick her up? Anyway ... Vi and Wilbur were now certainly somewhere and enjoyed themselves magnificently, while she was standing around here all alone. Now she had finally gathered all her courage to talk to Wilbur Robinson, and now somebody simply decided to rob a bank to ruin everything for her...
She didn't really care what was going on here actually, and because she had no hope to find Vi or Wil here, she decided to go home. She could look what had happened tomorrow in the news, instead of standing here in this cold and growing roots.
It was cool. She pulled the coat tighter around her as she made her way home. Somehow, she felt very lonely among all these gawking people.
The pavements of the main streets were so crowded that it was difficult to come forward. She turned and took a detour down a narrow alley.
Here she was finally alone. Between the large towers, none the hustle and bustle could be seen or heard anyway, so no onlookers were here. Liz somehow felt melancholic ... Violet was her only real friend, that wasn't a lot... and to be disappointed by this one friend was particularly painful.
Maybe she had expected too much tonight... she had dumped Pete only yesterday, and now she had already to hit on the next one... It was better to wait until the matter with Pete had cooled down a bit - he certainly wouldn' be thrilled when she would come together with his best friend directly. Oh, she was so excited! She had really made the first move, she had spoken to Wilbur. And it wasn't that hard actually! Although the evening wasn't much as planned, a small smile formed on her lips as she thought of the cute black-haired boy. She was sure that everything would turn out better from now on.
... she had no idea what was yet to come.
Suddenly she heard a buzzing noise behind her, she was shocked, and when she turned around, she was dazzled by a blinding green light, that was floating in the air! She backed off against a wall, terrified. Petrified she whatched how this light grew, until it formed a circle, hovering in the air, inside she could see some blurry schemes... It looked like a room. She was so frightened that she wasn't even able to scream. Suddenly two masked people jumped out of this floating cricle! They were armed and one of them was holding a device with which he shut the portal once they had passed it.
"Damn, where are we?!" the first one cursed and looked around frantically.
"No idea! I didn't have the time to enter the right coordinates!" said the second one, and immediately began to type something in the strange device.
"Good thing we didn't land in jail, you moron!" the first cried angrily and gave the other one a clout. The other one got furious.
"Watch out!" He threatened and raised his fist.
Suddenly distant police sirens could be heard; they were approaching! The two masked guys jerked around and froze, watching the sky. A floating police car flew over them, but without noticing the two. The criminals hadn't discovered Liz yet. Liz looked up to the vehicle, and struggled with herself: should they call for help? Then the two guys would definitely notice her, and maybe they would shoot her before the police car had landed ... So she remained silent, and hoped that the two wouldn't discover her. The two men waited in silence, without moving, until the police vehicle was gone.
"Come on, let's get out of here!" urged the first, with a frantic whisper.
"Wait a minute!" hissed the other one, "I have to enter a course that they can't trace back."
"Nice, but hurry!"
The robbers seemed so busy that they wouldn't notice if Liz ran through the alley back to the main street – finally, she was in good shape, the two would hardly be able to catch up with her... but if they would shoot, Liz could run so fast she wanted, she wouldn't get away, after all the alley was so narrow, that there was not really a place to take cover... but they might also discover her at any moment; then it would be over anyway. What should she do?
She decided for the option with the greatest chance of success. She ran. Her feet almost flew over the ground, her steps echoed from the narrow walls of the alley, but she barely heard it because her heart was pounding in her ears. Therefore, she also didn't hear the surprised, angry curses of the bank robbers. But she did hear the shot that was fired. Her heart skipped a beat! She threw herself on the floor to take cover, but before she reached the ground, she was grazed by the shot!
Luckily, it caught only her thick down coat - but the relief didn't last for long. She suddenly felt a tremendous heat! The grazing shot had put her coat on fire. She tore the thing from my body and wanted to run on, but when she stood up she was already grabbed from behind -
At first she was surprised at how quickly he had cought up with her, but when he pulled her up and dragged her back to his accomplice, she realized that she hadn't come that far at all. For a moment she was angry about her distorted cognition. She had really thought that she had made it much further.
Only then she realized the fatality of her situation! And immediately she was paralyzed by a gigantic shock. That was a nightmare! This couldn't really happen...!
The guy, who held her, had turned her arms painfully behind her back with one hand, and with the other hand he had grabbed her hair, dragging her back to the spot where his buddy was standing with the portal device. Of course, Liz started to panic. Now she was no longer able to weigh what was the best option, she simply tried to pull away to escape somehow from this situation. She was rewarded with a hard blow to her head - for a moment she felt so dizzy that she collapsed. This effect didn't last as long as desired though. Just when one of the bandits wanted to say something, Liz started to beat around with hands and feet like crazy. Now it was just the pure will to survive. She hit the guy, who was holding her, in a sensitive spot between his legs so that he gasped in pain. The other one laughed derisively, while her jacket burned down silently in the distance.
"Now let her leave," he said, still chuckling.
"So she can tell the police about us?!" cried the other one irritated, still in pain as he grabbed Liz' hair again, "I surely won't -"
He was interrupted by another police siren. All of them froze. Liz wanted to use the opportunity to escape and began sreaming frantically - but just when the frist sound left her lips, a hand was pressed over her mouth and nose so that she thought to suffocate.
"Hurry up, I can't hold her for long," she heard a hissing voice right behind her ear, and she felt the warm breath on her neck. How could she ever get out of this mess? Would she make it at all? In her mind's eye she could see the headline of her death. She was terrified and her eyes filled with tears.
The other criminal continued to operate the device, then he held it in the air and the bright light appeared again. The portal opened, inside something like a catwalk was visible, which led through a large room, the lighting seemed artificial. Whatever this place was, Liz didn't want to go there! Again she tried to free herself, but before she had a chance to break free, the two tore her through the floating circle. She passed the portal, without really realizing it. It felt like the penetration of the water surface. She only felt that it was warmer in this enclosed room. The guy had taken his hand from her nose so that she could breathe again, but she was dazed and disoriented. She barely heard the footsteps on the grit balustrade echoing through the huge space, because everything was filled with an extremely loud humming. The air seemed to vibrate from it. Only after a few weary steps, she realized that it was a familiar place: the magnetic power plant! She had already been here on a school trip. She looked down, to be sure. Under her several giant magnets moved and generated energy. They were all circular and had different sizes, so that they all rotated around a common center, however, in different directions. It was one giant Corona Mobile. So, she really was in the power plant. Then the exit was right behind them! There were security guards and surveillance cameras! In here, there was no monitoring. You could only stay briefly here because of the strong magnetism, and cameras didn't worke inside here. At the other end of the bridge another portal opened already.
With her last, desperate power she tried to pull away once more. She slammed the guy, who held her, both elbows painfully in the ribs. Then she twisted out of his grip, and turned to run to the door behind them.
"That's enough!" The guy shouted angrily, and pointed his gun at her.
"No!" cried the other one, who had ran ahead in order to establish the next portal, so he was too far away to do anything.
Liz was startled when she saw the gun directly in front of her, and reacted instinctively when she knocked this thing out of his hand with her fist. The gun flew down between the giant rotating magnets and was torn to tatters by the immense magnetic powers. Liz, however, had no time to examine this interesting phenomenon. Once this guy had lost his gun, she turned around and ran away, but she had underestimated his strength. He grabbed her and pulled her towards the portal. She fought with all her strength. Suddenly he grabbed her by the hair, tore her head back and then slammed her face at the iron railing with brute force. For a second she had a blackout. She regained consciousness quickly, but she was no longer able to defend herself. Blood was heavily dripping from a deep laceration in her face. Suddenly she felt how she was grabbed by her belt and lifted up... and an ultimate certainty overcame her.
"Are you crazy?!" She heard the bewildered voice of the other robber roaring through the room. At that moment she was thrown over the railing. When she fell, she fell face upwards and could see how the catwalk was getting smaller. Hundred feet seemed to be much higher from below than from the top... then her body smashed on cold, magnetic steel.
The girl lay there motionless, while the magnets calmly rotated further, as if nothing happened. The bank robber rubbed his hands.
"Now this snitch won't reveal us for sure!" he said with satisfaction.
After the two had disappeared through the portal, it closed. So the only people were gone, who knew what had happened here.
