Chapter Seventy-seven

Another Brick in the Wall

"So. Talk," Kimberly said flatly, staring up at Tommy without looking either annoyed or interested. Apathy seemed to have taken her over, and Tommy was fairly certain that she wouldn't even bat an eye if she did manage to hit him with a large, heavy object.

Tommy opened his mouth, then realized exactly where they were standing—in an aisle showcasing lewd greeting cards, gag gifts that made rude noises, and sexually-themed board games. Not exactly the mood he was going for.

"Um… maybe we should move out of earshot of the…"

"Whatever." Kimberly grabbed his forearm and steered him to the back of the shop, which was dark and filled with neon posters, glow-in-the-dark bead curtains and wall stickers, and odd objects setting off electric lights that gave it all a vague feel of horror movies on acid trips. Like a really, really demented version of the Command Center.

Tommy wasn't sure the atmosphere was ideal, but it was better than lewd greeting cards and it wasn't like there were very many places for meaningful conversation in a Spencer's. The corner of day-glo and nightmare would have to do.

"Listen, Kimberly… I just want to say that I'm sorry."

Kimberly nodded, still completely dispassionate. "Uh-huh. That's nice." She turned to go.

"Kim, wait," Tommy said hastily. "I… kind of wanted to talk."

"So talk."

Tommy cleared his throat. "Could you, you know, stop being zombie girl for a second?"

"Sorry," Kimberly said dryly, "but I wasted most of my emotions for the day when some asshole threw a bunch of gerbils down my shirt."

Tommy winced, but he took the emotion creeping into her words as a good sign. "I can't apologize enough."

"Agreed."

"I guess I just… Kira really made me realize how immature and rude I've been acting."

"Nothing like being yelled at by a seventeen-year-old girl to make you realize how immature you are."

Tommy decided to ignore that. "It's just… everyone kept trying to get me to go after you and eventually I… well… Jason said something that really set me off."

Kimberly's eyebrows shot up, her interest piqued. "Jason?"

Tommy nodded and looked away. "Yesterday, on the merry-go-round… he pointed out that… well, that I gave up on you. And that's why, you know, we aren't together. Because, for the first time in my life… I quit. I gave up."

Kimberly took a deep breath and exhaled long and slowly, shaking her head slightly. "And that's why you've—"

"Declared war, yeah. It was stupid of me. I just… I couldn't take knowing that I gave up. That I just let go of something. Especially something as important to me… as you."

Kimberly looked away, but he could see how much his words meant to her, how touched she was, how she was already starting to forgive him now that she understood why he'd been acting so gung ho.

"I've just been so… so confused and stuck in the past that I wanted to rush things, repair things, reclaim the past, and that just made everything more difficult. We have a real shot, Kim—a shot to be friends again, to be what we were before… before everything. Before the letter, before that newspaper article that told you about Coach Schmidt, before Rita kidnapped me. We can go back to that, but we have to take things slow. I can see that now, Kim. And I'm really sorry. Please forgive me. Let me try to make things right between us. Let's start over, and try to have what both of us really want—a friendship."

Kimberly sighed and drew her hand across her face wearily. "Tommy… I need to slow down. I need to sort this out. See, before Jason showed up on my doorstep and told me about Power Rangers Day, it had been a long time since I thought about any of this. I'd just sort of… suppressed you. I went on with my life, yeah, but you were always there in the back of my head, in some little cage behind everything else. You and everything that ever bothered me about leaving Angel Grove—wondering if I could have kept the power from getting destroyed, if Zordon would still be alive, if the others secretly hated me for going off to Florida, if it was wrong of me to follow a dream that didn't include being Pink. And then Jason showed up on my porch and then you crashed into me with an ice bucket and now I'm finally starting to deal with it all. Visiting the Command Center again and seeing you again and… you're not the only thing that's bothering me right now. I'm trying to resolve a dozen different things and I can't do that if you're bouncing around being Psycho Ex-boyfriend."

Kimberly looked up at him for his reaction to this and was startled to see the compassionate and apologetic expression deepen, somehow becoming far more real than it had been before her speech. She didn't know what that meant, but she took it as a positive thing.

"I don't know what I want from you anymore, Tommy. I've never known. Not since I got on that stupid plane trip to Miami. But I do know that if we keep going like this—gerbils and carnivals and cinnamon buns and Kira asking me if you're a romantic—"

Tommy looked mortified. "Oh, god, what did you tell her?"

Kimberly ignored him. "—then it's not going to happen, Tommy. I'll stick you back in that little cage and go back to L.A. and if I have to I'll change my phone number and maybe even move until there's no way for you to find me, until you only exist in the back of my head. And I might not know what I want from you, but I know I don't want that. I don't want to be secretly glad that I didn't make my best friend's wedding because you were going to be there. I don't want to consider not showing up at a celebration in my honor just because it's in your honor, too. I don't want to come up with lame excuses for not going to a get-together with the gang because you'll be there. I don't want to be unsurprised that I didn't receive an invitation to your graduation. I don't know what we can be or what I want, but I know that I do want you around again."

"Kimberly," Tommy said slowly, "I swear to you, no matter what happens, I'll make sure that you never stick me back in that cage again."

Kimberly smiled up at him. She knew it wasn't a promise so much as a threat. She knew that he wasn't going to lie down and wait for her to get her head together. Yet strangely, the fact that he wasn't going to drop it, the fact that he wasn't going to give up on her a second time, made her feel better than she had all week. It was the exact same thing the guy she'd known ten years ago would have said. It was sweet and somehow combative at the same damn time. It was so incredibly Tommy. Her Tommy, not this new Tommy with short hair and a fondness for black and the nickname Dr. O.

Kimberly opened her mouth to respond, but before she could say anything a loud CLANG reverberated throughout the store. She saw Tommy's eyes widen in horror and spun around to see a large metal gate had descended and barricaded the entrance.

"What the hell?" Tommy shouted, rushing forward.

"Don't worry; it can't lock without the key," called an employee, picking up a ring of keys and moving for the gate. "I'll have it back up in a second.

"So, what—we just have to worry about it falling back down on our heads when we try to leave?" Kimberly asked crossly.

The employee now looked worried. "Um, we'll… prop it up."

Tommy slammed into the gate, grabbed hold, and pulled. The gate didn't budge.

"It's locked!" Tommy called angrily.

"It can't lock," the employee insisted, approaching the gate. Another coworker hurried over, as well as Kimberly and four teenaged customers in rather contrived punk outfits.

The employee reached the gate, bent down, and began to lift. The gate didn't even shudder. As one, Kimberly, Tommy, and the four punk kids seized hold of the gate and began yanking with all their might. Nothing happened.

"KIM!" someone screamed from beyond the crowd of gawking onlookers. "KIM! TOMMY!"

Jason, Trini, Zack and Billy were shoving their way through the crowd, all of them looking worried. "Are you guys okay?" Trini asked.

"No! We're trapped!" Kimberly shouted, straining to lift the metal.

Jason, Zack and Trini all grabbed it from the other side and began to help. Billy, however, backed up and examined the gate with a critical eye. The employee began fumbling with his keys.

"It's not locked!" the employee shouted.

"Like hell it isn't!" snapped one of the punk kids.

"It's not! My key turns fine!"

"The mechanism appears to be damaged," Billy called. "One would assume that—"

"Damaged?" Kimberly demanded furiously. "How did it get damaged?"

"Everyone back away!" Tommy shouted. No one really listened to him, save Kimberly, who moved back against a shelf. A few seconds later, Tommy's foot hit the gate not far above the crouching employee's head.

"HEY! HEY!" he yelped. "You can't just jump-kick the—"

"Watch me," Tommy said darkly, and backed up to start again.

"Tommy, don't!" Trini yelled. "It's not worth it! Look, I'll go get a maintenance guy, okay?" Trini ran off.

"Yes, because they were doing such a bang up job with the fountain!" Tommy shouted after her angrily.

"Billy, can you fix it?" Jason asked.

Billy shifted uncomfortably. "It's a security gate, Jason," he said in a low voice. "I can try, but…"

"Bull! You got into Tommy's room last night!" Kimberly yelled.

Tommy whipped his head around to look at her. "He did?"

Kimberly winced. "I—"

"Of course I can fix it. I think. All I meant was that it's a little suspicious, and given the week we've been having…" Billy let the sentence hang.

"Look, guys, don't freak," Zack said. "So the gate's broken. I'm sure they'll fix it and get you out of there eventually. Just hang tight and—"

Tommy and Kimberly both went very still. Simultaneously realization dawned on both of them, and their expressions went from angry, determined and anxious to angry, determined and deadly.

"And that's our exit," Jason said hastily, grabbing Billy and Zack's arms and yanking them backward as Tommy and Kimberly took a few steps back, then jump-kicked the gate in eerily perfect synchronization, causing it to rattle violently, a metallic clang sounding throughout the mall, as if a few million tuning forks had just been set off.

"Stop! Stop!" wailed the employee as he turned his keys fruitlessly in the lock, cowering beneath the spot where Tommy and Kimberly's feet had smacked. The four teenagers were now glaring at them and holding their ears.

"I'm gonna kill them," Kimberly growled.

"Not if I get there first," Tommy said shortly.

"I'll kill you too if I have to," Kimberly retorted, with the tone of one who'd like to be given a reason.

"I'd like to see you try," Tommy shot back.

"People, please," the employee called feebly. "Maintenance will be here any moment to remove the gate and if they can't manage it it's not like there isn't another exit—"

"There's another exit?" demanded one of the teenaged punks.

"Of course there is, but it's employees only, can't let you use it without managerial approval, unless there's a fire or something, so I'm sure in a few moments someone will be along to fix this—"

"Oh, please!" Tommy snapped. "Every last member of the maintenance crew in this place is either trying to fix the flood in the atrium or rounding up gerbils and hamsters! And if the gate's jammed, you can bet the back exit will… will…"

Tommy trailed off in horror and looked at Kimberly. Her expression mirrored his as they put two and two together. Jason, Trini, Zack and Billy had been outside by the gate… they probably hadn't thought to block the employee door, if they even knew it existed…

"This way," Kimberly said, and they bolted for the back room. As a frequent shopper and a generally likable girl, Kimberly had used the service hall on several occasions. It ran all along the mall, connecting the backs of the shops, allowing stores to receive shipments without delivery men having to bring products through the throngs of customers and letting employees move throughout the mall without getting hassled by customers. Friends of Kimberly who'd worked in the stores had met her in it on several occasions, store clerks who counted Kimberly among their favorites had sometimes let her go through the hall straight to the parking lot so she wouldn't have too far to walk with all her purchases, and her first kiss had actually been behind Unicorn Utopia back in sixth grade with Henry Jessup, whose mother owned a novelty tea shop up on the second floor. She'd even stolen some time with Tommy in the service hall when they'd gone shopping with their friends and they'd wanted to steal a few moments to themselves.

The Spencer's employee called angrily after them as they burst into the back room. They darted through narrow aisles of boxes, past another Spencer's employee who'd been making out with his girlfriend until Tommy and Kimberly's entrance made them jump guiltily apart. Kimberly got to the door first, seized the handle, yanked…

Nothing happened.

"DAMN!" she screamed, smacking the heel of her hand against the door in frustration.

"The Dino Rangers," Tommy growled, putting two and two together even as he threw his shoulder into the door, but it refused to budge. "Only Jason, Trini, Billy and Zack came to the gate. The others must have rushed into the service hall once everyone was staring at the gate and wondering why it came down. The Dino Rangers blocked it off."

"Kira wouldn't do that to me!" Kimberly insisted, scandalized.

"No, but Conner and Ethan would probably think it was funny. You heard what Trini said to Ethan—'We could use you on the creative team for our next evil plan.' She's recruiting my team for her harebrained scheme!"

Tommy was absolutely outraged at this revelation. Kimberly didn't know why it bothered him so much; it had been obvious to her that it was bound to happen at some point, what with Kira staying in their room and Ethan spending so much time with Billy and Conner beginning to idolize not just Jason but Zack as well…

"You have any idea how hard it is to get those four to do anything?" Tommy demanded of Kimberly, though she got the feeling he wasn't so much asking as ranting, and she was only being ranted to so that Tommy would feel slightly less insane, as ranting to one's self was far less socially acceptable than ranting to someone else. "Do your homework. Don't drink my fruit punch. Please knock before you enter my home. Conner never listens, and the others only listen when they're trying to pretend they're not annoying teenage whack jobs like Conner who think it's okay to make out in my lab, who think it's okay to turn in their homework late when it's my class, who think it's okay to lock me in a Spencer's with my ex-girlfriend!"

Tommy stood there for a moment, breathing so heavily he might as well have been an angry bull who couldn't quite figure out how to gore the matador, his fingers twitching as if he longed to put them around someone's throat. Kimberly waited for a few seconds for him to start up again, but he didn't.

"You through?" she asked, a little surprised at how quickly he'd finished.

"Yeah."

"Okay."

"Um, you're not supposed to be back here," said the confused employee, who was still standing with his girlfriend in the corner.

Kimberly ignored him. "Now then, let's figure out how to get out of here."

"Right," Tommy said, perfectly composed. "Could kick it open."

"They're probably ready for that."

Tommy nodded in agreement. "Unfortunately, yeah."

"They probably would have jammed this door even harder than the gate, figuring that since the exit's back here—"

"We could get them out of the back room and use a few more… extravagant methods," Tommy finished.

"Too risky. Could be people in the hallway who'd see us. Way too much of a risk."

"Yeah, you're right."

"Um, I'm going to have to ask you to leave," the employee tried again.

"So that leaves the gate," Kimberly mused.

"Yeah, but I'm sure Billy and Trini will have figured out how to jam the mechanism beyond anything we could fix."

"Jam what mechanism?" the employee asked suspiciously.

"Well, I'm not waiting for maintenance. They can't even fix a fountain."

"We could just wait," Tommy suggested hopefully. "I mean, they're obviously locking us in here because they want us to talk, hang out, get closer. So if we wait here, and we come out exactly the same as we were when they locked us in, then they'll know they can't—"

"We tried that when they locked us in the trunk together," Kimberly pointed out.

"Someone locked you in a trunk together?" the Spencer's employee asked incredulously.

"The gang won't give up," Kimberly continued. "It's just not going to happen. They probably thought we played right into their hands. We need to bust out of here, get revenge, and then split up."

"Look, do you two mind?" the employee's girlfriend burst out suddenly. "It's not like his break lasts forever! We're busy!"

"Terribly sorry," Tommy said dryly, and he ushered Kimberly out. "We'll have better luck in the store anyway. Merchandise might give us some ideas." He glanced around at the shelves, but all he saw were a few pairs of fuzzy handcuffs in various colors and a wall displaying T-shirts emblazoned with symbols of anarchy and sarcastic phrases.

The employee was on the phone, demanding to know how every maintenance worker in the entire mall could be busy fixing a flooding fountain or rounding up rodents. Tommy stepped up to the counter and waited for the call to end, but it just seemed to go on and on. Finally, the employee sulkily agreed to hold.

Tommy glanced at his nametag. "Excuse me, Ian?"

"Yeah?" the employee asked vaguely.

Tommy smiled at him pleasantly. "Just thought you should know," he said nonchalantly, "the back door's jammed too."

Ian's eyes bugged out in horror. "But… but… it's a fire door! It can't just jam! It's the emergency exit! It's important! What are we gonna do?"

Tommy shrugged. "Wait, and hope for no more emergencies."

"At least, that's what you're going to do," Kimberly muttered, raking her gaze over everything in sight.

Tommy glanced around as well. The four wannabe punks were standing sullenly by the gate, tugging on it absently and mumbling insults and idle threats directed at the mall staff. Ian began wandering around the store with the phone, pacing back and forth. Tommy's eyes searched the merchandise without much interest—he doubted posters of Insane Clown Posse and action figures of horror movie villains were going to be much help.

"Huh," Kimberly said, holding up something for him to see. It was a T-shirt with the Sharpie Graffiti Girls' logo on it. "Guess they're only part-time axe murderers."

Tommy chuckled and rolled his eyes at the ceiling, then froze. The ceiling. The ceiling. The tiled ceiling!

"I've got a plan," he hissed, grabbing Kimberly's elbow and steering her over to the counter. He pointed up.

"…Are you really thinking what I think you're thinking?" Kimberly asked, frowning.

"Why not? We won't have to go far. Just into the next store. Drop down into whatever's one shop over—"

"Fashion Bug or Claire's," Kimberly supplied automatically.

"—run out of there without buying anything," Tommy continued hastily, "and then go find the guys. They've probably split up by now; it'd be pretty funny if each of us just wandered over and said 'hi' to a different group."

"You don't think we'll get in trouble, do you?" she asked uncertainly.

"For escaping a locked-down store? Nah. If Conner can survive breaking a fountain and releasing a couple hundred hamsters, surely we can crawl through a ceiling. Especially since they can't ban you from the mall without twelve stores going out of business."

"Ha, ha," Kimberly said, rolling her eyes. "All right. I'll go first."

"Maybe I should—"

"No. If it's not strong enough to hold me, you've got a shot of catching me. I doubt I'll be able to catch you."

"But I could pull you up—"

"Gymnast, remember? I'm perfectly capable of getting up there on my own, so I'm going first. Besides, I can lead the way."

"You can navigate the ceiling of the mall?"

"No, but if there's one place I'd never get lost, it's the Angel Grove Mall. Come on."

Kimberly hopped up on the counter. No one noticed as she stood up on it and reached for the tiles, which were too far above her head to remove without jumping. "Come on up; it'll hold," she told Tommy. "I'm going to need a boost."

Tommy clambered up next to her, balancing precariously; the counter was barely wider than his feet and the wood creaked ominously under their combined weight. He bent down a bit; Kimberly put her hands on his shoulders and boosted herself up. Tommy caught her around the knees, holding her legs against his chest.

"Little to the left," Kimberly called. Tommy, who was currently busy thanking whatever deity had made Kimberly wear a miniskirt today, didn't hear her at first, and Kimberly swatted at his head. "Hey!"

"Hmm?"

"Move a little to the left, would you?"

Tommy looked up at her incredulously. "You're not serious, are you?"

"I need to be under the center of the tile to move it. I can't reach from here; if I try, I might send us both flying. Just do it, would you?"

Tommy slowly, cautiously took a step to the left. "No, no! Your other left!" Kimberly exclaimed.

"I only have one left!"

"My left! My left!"

"What are you doing?" demanded Ian, running over. He shook the phone up at them. "Get down from there!"

"Not now," Kimberly told him impatiently. "Left, Tommy!" Tommy sighed and carefully inched towards Kimberly's left. "Little more."

"That's what you said the first time!"

"Yeah, when you went right, not left! We're back where we started!"

"I mean it, get down! You're going to break the counter!"

"Do you mind?" Tommy demanded angrily. "This isn't as easy as it looks!"

Ian spluttered indignantly as Tommy inched to his right. Finally, Kimberly called for him to halt.

Tommy watched as she pushed up on the tile, because watching Kimberly move it was less distracting than thinking about Kimberly's miniskirt and something told him this wasn't a good time to be distracted. She carefully pushed the tile up and to Tommy's left, sliding it on top of another tile.

"Okay, let me down," Kimberly called.

"Let you down? How?"

"Just drop me."

"No!"

"I'll land just fine, Tommy—I do this sort of thing for a living."

"You climb into ceilings for a living?" Ian asked.

"I'm not dropping you! You could get hurt! Besides, why would I drop you just so you could get back up?"
"Fine! I need you to turn to the side."

"Which side?"

"The left."

"…Could you be more specific?"

"Face the gate."

Tommy slowly, carefully turned until he was facing the store's entrance. "Okay, now move backward. No, no, no, my backward!"

After a lot of shouted direction, muttered curses and near falls, Tommy managed to get Kimberly in position. She grabbed a support beam and disappeared easily into the ceiling.

"You okay?" Tommy called, moving as quickly as he dared to peer up into the hole in the ceiling.

"Fine," Kimberly called back. "Seems sturdy enough. Hey, why don't you stay here? I'll go check the back door and see if I can get it open."

"Oh, no. I'm coming with."

"Fine, but be careful. The tiles are kind of flimsy. Wait for me to get out of the way, okay?"

"All right, hurry up."

Tommy waited impatiently until Kimberly's distant yell of "Okay!" came down to him. "Look out above!" Tommy shouted, and leaped up, seizing the support beam and hauling himself upwards—until his head cracked on something above him.

"OW!"

"Tommy!"

Tommy suddenly found himself dangling from the ceiling, groaning. "I'm okay!" he shouted groggily. "I swear, I'm gonna kill Trini!"

His grip started to slip; he let himself drop down onto the counter and wiped his palms on his pants before starting over, this time ducking his head down as he pushed his upper body through the opening. This left him in a bit of a predicament; Kimberly had been gone so fast that he hadn't realized she'd pulled some tricky sort of maneuver to get herself into the ceiling without putting too much pressure on the tile directly in front of the opening. Unwilling to admit to Kimberly that he was having a bit of a problem-solving issue, but unable to come up with anything foolproof—thanks to his new head injury—he settled for angling his upper body forward and pulling his legs up, then pushing them back. Now he was on his hands and knees with a square, three-foot hole directly under his stomach. Sighing, Tommy swung one foot around and tested the beam alongside the hole to make sure it would hold. Satisfied with its strength, he braced his toes on either side of the opening. With difficulty, he managed to crab-walk over the hole, ignoring the plaintive wails of "Come back here!" from below.

When he was finally able to pull his legs back beneath him and resume the crawling position, he looked up to see Kimberly sitting cross-legged five feet away, pretending to examine her nails in the dim lighting and giving a fake yawn. She smirked at him. "Problems, Mr. Helpful?"

Tommy scowled playfully at her. "That's Dr. Helpful, thank you very much. Would you mind moving it along? This tile's starting to buckle."

Kimberly twisted around onto her hands and knees, the motion so fluid it was hard to follow, and began to crawl. Tommy was jealous of her flexibility for about a half-second before deciding it would be more fun to focus on the view instead.

Kimberly had a much easier time than Tommy did; there were wires hanging from overhead and the crawlspace wasn't very large and he was, after all, distracted. She was almost ten feet ahead of him when she stopped.

"End of the line," Kimberly called. "Hopefully we've reached the service hall."

"I thought we were going into the next store," Tommy said.

"Less people in the service hall. Don't want to land on a little old lady trying to buy a blouse. Come here and help me get this out; it's harder to move these stupid tiles from this side."

Tommy crawled over onto the tiles next to her and helped her pry up a corner. They almost had it when the tile under Tommy let out a sharp crack!

"Tommy!" Kimberly shrieked, clutching at him as he began to fall. He flung himself at her in a last-ditch attempt to keep from falling, one leg on the still-intact tile next to the one that had failed. Kimberly gave his arm a hard yank to pull him out of harm's way and the tile beneath her legs snapped under the strain. Kimberly's lower half fell through the wreckage before they knew what was happening.

"KIMBERLY!" Tommy bellowed, throwing his arms around her and trying to pull her back up, but one of his legs was still suspended over nothing, all of his weight on the leg that still had a tile under it, but then that tile snapped too. With no other available options, he kicked off of it as the tile fell, his foot smacking against the ceiling before following his other foot through the first shattered tile. Now he and Kimberly were hugging for dear life over a corner of a flimsy crossbar, their legs scrabbling for a foothold beneath them, only the fact that they were holding each other keeping them from falling.

Kimberly gave Tommy a wretched look. "This isn't going to end well," she said dryly, wincing as the bar bit into her ribs.

"Any ideas?" Tommy asked.

"Let me go and hold on to the bar. I'll land and help you down."

"No way."

"Tommy—"

"You don't know what's down there! It could be sharp or… or lumpy or…"

"Lumpy?"

"You know what I mean! You could get hurt!"

"Well, we can't stay here forev—"

There was a horrible ripping sound, like a Doberman shredding a dictionary. The next thing they knew they were falling, still clutching each other, the now-broken bar between them.

Tommy landed hard on his back, Kimberly falling on top of him and driving the air from his lungs. They'd landed on something somewhat firm that let out an ominous crunch and sank a few inches under their weight. Tommy didn't have time to ponder what it might be; the ceiling still had a few more issues to throw at them, this time literally. He rolled over, taking Kimberly with him, and flung his arms over his head, shielding Kimberly with his body and wondering how, exactly, he kept getting into these situations. At least this one didn't involve fire, though. The ones that involved fire always sucked the most. Although he supposed there was still time; there hadn't been fire back on the island until right before he'd jumped.

Plaster dust and miscellaneous debris poured down on them for a few moments, nothing too painful landing on him, his lungs protesting angrily about the screaming, Kimberly landing on him, and now the plaster dust. Tommy held perfectly still, hoping that if he played dead he might avoid provoking the ceiling into continuing its assault.

"—Forever," Kimberly finished wryly.

Tommy chuckled and cautiously looked up. They were lying on some boxes in the storeroom of Spencer's, as evidenced by the dust-covered employee and his girlfriend; he looked shocked, but she looked livid.

"What is wrong with you people?" she shouted. "He gets a half hour lunch break. HALF HOUR lunch break!"

"My bad," Tommy said sardonically, rolling off Kimberly. "Well. Looks like we're back where we started from."

Kimberly sat up. "Damn. I guess the ceiling in the service hall is higher than the stores or something."

"Just our luck," Tommy said, turning to glare resentfully at the fire door—

Just as it popped open.

"Whoa," said a skinny guy in an EB Games uniform as he surveyed the wreckage of the storeroom. "You guys really are having a bad day."

"You did it, George!" came Ian's voice from the entrance to the storefront. "Thank god! What was wrong with it?"

"Someone wedged it shut. Go get your customers; I'll lead them back into the mall on my way to come take a look at the gate. I still can't believe it got stuck; Phil and John and I were just telling our friend Trini about the time our gate broke. Hey!" George had caught sight of Kimberly. "Aren't you one of Trini's friends? The rat girl?"

"'Friend' might be too strong a word at the moment," Kimberly growled, hopping down off the slightly-crunched boxes. "Come on, Tommy—let's get out of here."

"With pleasure," Tommy said. He was almost to freedom when a hand clamped down on his shoulder. He turned to see Ian glaring up at him as menacingly as a pudgy, five-foot-six, acne-covered nineteen-year-old boy could do.

"Tell you what," Ian said dangerously. "I won't call security about the panicky customers who tried and failed to escape through the ceiling. I won't tell them that my buddy George told your buddy about how a gate at EB got broken. If, and only if, you pay for the hundreds of dollars of merchandise you landed on."

"Hundreds of dollars?" Kimberly repeated, wincing. She looked down at the dented and sagging boxes. "Great. Why couldn't we fall through a ceiling before I went power-shopping?"

"Don't worry, Kim," Tommy reassured her, smiling. He pulled Anton's credit card out of his wallet. "Thankfully, a billionaire owes me a favor. Or two. Or three."

"Thank you so much, Anton," Hayley said, watching Anton's temporary employees in amazement. They worked with a militant precision—hell, better than militant. Not one thing had been broken or spilled and not only were they efficient, they were polite and self-motivated.

"No problem, Hayley," Anton told her pleasantly. "I'm only too happy to help."

"They're frighteningly disciplined," said Elsa, slightly disappointed she was happiest when making people fall into line, which didn't work if everyone was already in line.

"Come on," Hayley said. "There's one more thing I want to show you."

They squeezed into the back room, then into the office. "What's this?" Anton asked, looking at the computer with interest.

"Remote alarm for Tommy's house and the lab—what's left of it, anyway," Hayley said. "Anyone tries to break in to anything that might lead to the lab, it'll go off. It'll give you options for how you want to set the security features. I suggest you choose 'detain' and 'incapacitate.' Call Tommy and let him know if someone's busted in. He might have an idea of who it is and why they've shown up."

Hayley sat down at the desk and began walking them through the computer options. "That's amazing," Elsa breathed. "Why on earth didn't Zeltrax set it off?"

"He did. We just weren't around to hear it; we were out of range of any of our alarms, in the Invisiportal. Anyway, you shouldn't have any incidents, but you're the only ones who will know what this means if it goes off while I'm gone. I know you guys aren't going to be here all the time, so keep the office door locked and instruct the temps to call you if they hear beeping from the office."

"Of course," Anton said.

"Didn't I tell you?" Elsa said, nudging Anton. "It definitely would have worked."

"Yes, because our other plans always did," Anton teased.

"What would have worked?" Hayley asked suspiciously.

"Oh, I wanted to kidnap you," Elsa said nonchalantly. "I figured we could use you to lure Tommy into a trap while depriving him of his technological genius, but Anton—that is, Mesogog—always said that you'd be more trouble than you were worth and you weren't the only technology buff Tommy knew."

Hayley stared at her. "Gee, Elsa, on the list of things I could have died without knowing…" Hayley said, but she wasn't truly annoyed. She knew the difference between that Elsa and this one.

Anton chuckled. "Don't worry, Hayley, I'm sure Tommy would have rescued you."

"Yes, good old Tommy," Hayley said dryly. She didn't find it comforting to hear that Tommy would have rescued her when she had spent the previous day rescuing him and was now about to go help him sort out his relationship issues.

Anton's cell phone rang, and he pulled it from his pocket and looked at the caller ID. "Speaking of Tommy," he said, raising his eyebrows.

"That's not Tommy's number," Elsa said, leaning over to look at the phone.

"No. It's the credit card company. They've been keeping me informed of his purchases on the card I loaned him. The unusual ones, anyway—here's hoping my son isn't ordering pornography again…"

Anton put the phone to his ear and hit the send button. "Dr. Anton Mercer."

"Good afternoon, Dr. Mercer. We were just calling to let you know that there's been some more… unusual… activity on your account."

"What is it this time?"

"Well, we have forty-nine pairs of handcuffs, ten pole-dancing kits—"

"I'm sorry—did you just say pole-dancing kits?" Anton demanded incredulously.

Hayley burst out laughing. "Good old Tommy. He just loves to keep you guessing."

End Notes: My version of Power Morphicon is now up on deabryn; link is in my profile, for those that want to read it.