Suck in the Moment Ch. 02

"What happens to this person when we find him is none of your concern. We have reason to believe that he is in danger, and we need to protect him. Just give us his name, and we can make sure he stays safe." Agent Ellison offered in a patronizing tone. I bristled at the lie.

"I'm the one you were looking for." Molly lied. "I came with you out of good will, and to see what you wanted from me. You're treating me like I'm some sort of accomplice. It's like... because I'm woman that I can't be the guardian angel, there must be a man doing the real magic while I look pretty."

I felt the blood drain from my face in panic. Molly had just confessed to having a power that carried a death sentence, my power. I had thought that she could defuse the situation, talk her way out of it, or at least outlast them until they legally had to release her. Instead, she was digging the hole deeper.

I knew at that moment that I had to follow her lead, trusting that she knew what she was doing. I had seen no solution, and even if Molly wasn't handling it how I wanted her to, she seemed to have the confidence which I lacked.

The word 'lie' flashed across the computer screen, and Carter leaned into the microphone. "She's lying." He said softly. Agent Ellison reached up to tap the wire in his ear in acknowledgement.

"We know that's simply not true, Miss McGuiness. Even if it was, why would you chase a man, and then teleport him while you were teleporting 17 other strangers?"

"It is true! I moved him out of my way for personal reasons, and given that you aren't even listening to me, I don't think I need to explain myself to you. I am the one who teleported those people off the bus, and I can teleport out of here anytime I want. I'm only sticking around until I figure out what you want.

"For example... If I wanted your wallets in my hands right now..." Molly held both palms up.

The word 'lie' flashed across the thermal image of Molly again, and the tech leaned forward and spoke softly into a microphone "she's lying again." He said.

I stopped time, and slipped into the interrogation room. I fished both wallets out of their pockets and placed them in Molly's outstretched palms. I slipped back into the observation room, and restarted time.

"...then I'd have them." Molly said confidently, holding the agent's badges and personal wallets in the palms of her hands. She set them down, and opened one wallet. "Wow, that's an old photo, Agent Ellison." Molly smiled, opening the second wallet. "And agent Willis, you're only 26. You must be good to be an FBI agent at such a young age."

Both agents were silent. They faced away from me, but I imagined a dumbfounded stare on each of their faces. Molly dropped both wallets and badges to the table, and slid them across to their owners.

"Now then, are you done underestimating me? I tried to be a good girl. I tried not to use my talents, but I couldn't let those people die. If you let me go, you can trust me to only use them for good, but if you are determined to make an enemy out of me... Well, you wouldn't like me as an enemy."

I cringed as Molly antagonized the agents. I would have wished that she would try making peace with them, but then I remembered their plan for me. There would be no peace. I had promised to follow Molly's lead, and I would.

Molly was enjoying the power play; there was a satisfied smirk on her face. I could tell from the lie detector that she was clearly flushed, but the tech was furiously trying to figure out how the malfunction had happened, since she clearly hadn't been lying. I froze time, and started unplugging cords to his monitor, and took the battery out of his wireless mouse, then restarted time.

All of the tech's screens except the laptop went blank, though we still had audio. He started panicking, pressing buttons on the monitors, and hitting switches. "I don't have visual, she's doing something to my computers!" the tech cried into the microphone.

Through the window, I could see agent Willis look at agent Ellison. The younger man seemed unsure of himself, but agent Ellison tapped his earpiece and then stood and straightened his suit.

"Congratulations, Miss McGuiness, pickpocketing is a felony larceny charge, and since you stole from both of us, that's two counts. We can hold you overnight until we have to show you to a judge for a bond hearing." The man's voice was calm, and cruel.

"Pssht." Molly scoffed. "Are you absolutely sure this is the road you want to go down? I'll give you another chance to..."

Agent Ellison took a step away from the table in an aggressive stance, and agent Willis followed his lead, standing between Molly and the door.

"Resisting arrest, Miss McGuiness." Agent Ellison sneered. "You're just digging yourself a deeper hole now." He pulled back his jacket and pulled his gun from its holster. Agent Willis followed suit.

"Molly." Agent Willis pleaded. "We just want to talk. No one wants this to go any further."

"Aww, you wouldn't shoot little old me..." Molly faked sugary sweetness as she slowly rose from her chair.

I froze time, and walked once again into the interrogation room. The agents' weapons were pointed at the ground in a menacing way. I started with Agent Willis, taking his Glock from his hand, and dropping the magazine. He had 14 bullets in the magazine, and one in the chamber. I took them all, replaced the magazine, and put the weapon back in his hand.

I pushed all 15 bullets into Molly's hand, which was curled up at her side. I then repeated the process with agent Ellison, putting all 15 of his bullets in Molly's other fist. I then checked for a second clip, and took one from each man, putting those in Molly's back jeans pocket.

I snuck back to my corner in the dark observation room, and let time start up once again.

"...Or more accurately, you couldn't shoot little old me." She said triumphantly. "Not without any bullets in your guns." And she raised her fists, raining down the .40 caliber rounds to bounce dramatically off the table top.

Agent Willis watched Molly, his shoulders tense, while agent Ellison immediately dropped his clip, threw it aside when he saw it was empty, and then fished for his backup clip.

"Looking for this?" Molly said, pulling the magazines out of her back pocket. She tossed them behind her. "Now then, are we done here? All charges dropped, I can go back to being a 19 year-old college freshman, or are we at war?" She crossed her arms, challenging agent Ellison to make a declaration of war.

A little of the confidence came back into agent Ellison's face. "You think we'll just drop this? Walk away? Say 'Oh well, she didn't want to play, let's just go home?' You want to go back to your normal life? That's never going to happen. You're going to jail, and then you're going to a nice facility where we can find out how you are doing... that." Agent Ellison made a finger waving motion as though he was performing magic.

Molly sighed loudly. "So it's going to be war between you and me? Well, let's start with those handcuffs why don't we? How's about being good little G-men, and trying them on?" She taunted.

I was somewhat annoyed with Molly's overconfidence, but these men were plotting my demise just a few minutes earlier. I froze time, and left the observation room. Agent Margolis was standing right outside, his finger to his ear as though he was waiting for some cue to enter.

I opened the door and took the handcuffs, cuffing agent Willis first, bending his arms behind his back. Then I laced agent Ellison's cuffs through Willis's, so that the two men were bound together, arms behind their back, and handcuffs linked.

I returned to my corner, and restarted time, anxious to watch this play out.

Molly snorted when she saw the two men bound together.

"Aauugh! You stupid bitch!" Agent Ellison raged. "Do you have any idea who you're messing with? I will fucking take you apart!"

"No, agent Ellison. You wanted me to be a bad girl. You decided to measure dicks. Unfortunately for you, I'm swinging some major pipe, and you didn't see that coming..." Molly blushed and looked down. "Ha. Well, figuratively of course. You just started a war that you can't possibly win."

"Arrgh. MERCURY!" Agent Ellison cried. It was clearly some kind of code-word. The door burst open behind Molly. I saw a gun, and froze time right as it fired. My worst fear was coming true. Someone was about to get hurt because of me and my secret.

Agent Margolis stood, holding a pistol that didn't look like the FBI issue Glock that the other two carried. It was plastic with a long narrow barrel. A dart was visible coming out the barrel in a bubble of air, red feathers following a syringe topped with a sharp needle. I moved the two handcuffed agents between Molly and the dart, making sure that agent Ellison's neck was right in the line of fire for the dart.

I slunk back to my hiding spot, and restarted time, ready to freeze it at a moment's notice. Agent Ellison cried out as the dart struck him in the side of his neck "You fucking idiot, you... sh... you sho..." He struggled to find the words, and started swaying.

"Thanks!" Molly smirked at agent Margolis. "He was really starting to piss me off."

Agent Margolis cocked the pistol and took aim again. I watched his finger, and froze time right as it tensed.

This time I moved agent Willis into the path of the dart, and restarted time from my dark corner.

"Augh!" Willis shouted out as the dart struck hard.

"Aww, I did kind of like him though. So young... So handsome." Molly winked at agent Margolis. "Next one is going in your neck, you know."

The handcuffed agents swayed, and agent Ellison collapsed, dragging the younger man down with him as he fought to stay conscious.

Agent Margolis dropped the dart gun to the ground, and pulled out his Glock pistol, pointing it at Molly. I once again froze time and walked into the room, removing the bullets and putting them into Molly's left hand. I put the dropped dart gun into her right hand after cocking it the way agent Margolis had.

I closed the door behind me. I wanted Margolis to feel trapped, overpowered. Back in my corner, I restarted time. Molly seemed to be enjoying the excitement.

"Haven't we been over this already?" She dropped the handful of bullets. Agent Margolis's eyes went wide, looking around at the suddenly-closed door. He closed one eye, taking aim, and he squeezed the trigger, causing a click as the gun dry-fired.

"Wow, you actually would have shot me." Molly looked a little shaken for once, the confidence slipping from her face a little. "It makes me feel a little less bad about this." She pulled the trigger, and a red-tailed dart sprouted on Margolis's chest.

"Shit!" the tech yelled, jumping from his chair and running for the door. I froze time right as he reached it. He was heavy, but I managed to move him out of the observation room, and into the interrogation room. Agent Margolis wasn't going to need his handcuffs, so I put them on the tech, Carter, and laced them through a chair, so he would stay in place.

I also moved Molly out of the interrogation room, and into the observation room with me.

As time restarted, Molly blinked hard in the sudden darkness. "Ssshhh. You're safe." I whispered to her.

Carter was screaming out, horrified by the unconscious bodies of the three FBI agents on the ground, and his sudden impotence in the situation.

Molly's eyes adjusted, and she gave me a huge grin and launched herself into my arms. "I'm sorry. I know you were probably looking for a more diplomatic solution, I haven't ruined your life, have I?" She worried.

"No, but you probably just ruined your own life. They will stop at nothing to take you back to their lab and break you down for spare parts." I warned her. "That was my fate, and you took it from me without knowing what you were getting into." I said, then related the conversation that the four men had in the observation room when Molly had first been shown into the interrogation room.

Molly was shocked that the FBI was willing to pump me full of drugs and cart me off to be researched without even the façade of a fair trial. She was equally shocked that she had taken on that burden without knowing the stakes.

"Crap. I was so caught up in it I wasn't thinking. I may have just kicked the hornet's nest without knowing that they were hornets." Molly worried.

"What should we do now?" I asked.

"Keep kicking?" Molly asked.

"What do you have in mind?" I questioned, hoping she had more ideas than I did.

"How many people are in the building right now?" Molly wondered.

"This is just a branch office. There are three workers out in the cubicles on computers, but they're just analysts. I think we can leave them awake in there..." I pointed at the bright interrogation room. ..."without them bothering us. We could just go home."

"Yeah, but before we do, though, let's clean out every scrap of paper and electronic evidence in the place. I promised the FBI war, and the opening salvo will be to reduce this office to empty shell space." Molly smiled. "If we're lucky, we'll get everything they have on me... on us."

"What do we do with it all?" I asked. "I mean... they will have a server room full of hard drives, dozens of laptops, desktops and tablets."

"Can we burn it all?" She wondered.

"No, not without bringing the building down with everyone in it." I said, then I was struck with an idea. "Do you remember what I told you happened to my hamster? Stuck in the moment for all of eternity until his atoms flashed back into the ether?" I asked. Molly nodded, then I saw her understand.

"You can do that?" She asked. I nodded. "With something as big as a computer?"

"I... I think so. I've only done it once, by accident... but there's one way to find out." I said.

I crossed the room to the laptop that the tech had been using, and I picked it up in my gloved hands. I could feel it come through with me as I froze time. The tech was silent on the other side of the glass, his mouth frozen in a scream. Molly's face was frozen in a curious smirk. I set the laptop down on the frozen table, and stepped back, unfreezing time without it. I could feel a little thread between myself and the laptop break as I left the frozen moment. It vanished without a trace.

Carter was still yelling, but without the laptop's audio, the sound was muted through the glass wall.

"Yeah, I think I can handle that." I said.

"Can you please take me through with you?" Molly asked.

"I..." I was worried about feeling that thread, about accidentally leaving Molly behind, about losing her, freezing her for all of eternity without me. That was still my greatest fear.

"Just think about it, please. I really want to experience it with you. Just... don't leave me behind like you did with that laptop." Molly pleaded.

I wrapped my arms around her, and could feel the thread form, I knew that if I froze time, that she would be awake in it with me. The idea actually held a great deal of temptation, but I resisted it, pushing the thread away.

"Let me put the analysts in the holding room with Carter." I changed the subject, gesturing with my head to the tech still screaming in the interrogation room where he was handcuffed to the chair. Molly nodded.

I froze time, having firmly pushed Molly's thread away, so that she wasn't with me when it happened. I walked out, and rounded up the three analysts. It wasn't that hard, actually, since they were all sitting in rolling chairs, I simply wheeled them through the office and into the interrogation room. I locked the door behind me, leaving Molly and me as the only occupants of the office floor with complete freedom.

I looked around the room and saw several security cameras on the ceiling, pointed around the room. I pulled the wires from the back of each. Luckily I double checked them, as I had missed one the first time around.

We started gathering computers, and stacking them up in the dark observation room. Maybe seven minutes passed as we hauled hard drives and laptops down the hall and piled them up in the corner. I was carrying a stack of desktops, when I saw a gray cylinder come bouncing down the hallway at me. I stopped time as a reflex, having started and stopped it more times in the last hour than I had in my entire life.

I set the stack of computers down, feeling the thread connecting me to them. I walked forward, and saw a device, that I immediately recognized as a grenade. I picked it up and read it:

'Model 7290

flash bang

1.5 second delay."

I looked at the door in the direction from which it had come. It was the stairwell through which I had originally entered the floor. I carried the grenade over to the open door.

There were over a dozen men lined up on the staircase, all in black body armor. The initials 'FBI - HRT' were clear on their backs. One had spelled out 'FBI Hostage Rescue Team.' One of the techs must have been monitoring the situation with Molly in the interrogation room, and called for backup. I set the flashbang in the middle of the hallway, and closed the door.

With time still frozen, I entered the server room, where Molly had been busy pulling the dozens and dozens of hard drives out of a server rack, and piling them up on a cart.

I took over for the frozen redhead, making several trips with the cart until the room was full of empty silver racks and wires. The pile of computer gear was building up in the observation room, and I did a final sweep of the floor, looking for any device I may have missed.

I then started gathering papers, whole filing cabinets full of them. I emptied the contents onto the cart, and added them to the pile.

An hour must have passed in that frozen moment, as I lugged hundreds of pounds of FBI data into the room and threw it into the pile. I even took the little tablet out of the interrogation room that agent Ellison had used to show Molly the video. I took everyone's cell phones from the analysts and agents, and even from the members of the HRT force. I kept agent Ellison's cell phone, but placed agent Willis's cell phone back in his pocket. Finally convinced that I had everything, I restarted time, and felt the threads to the computers I had been carrying snap.

'BANG!' sounded in the hallway, followed by screams. I knew I was almost out of time. I climbed up onto the pile of papers and electronics, and reached out for everything, feeling threads connecting me to the pile of electronics and paper. I hit that switch in my head, and the sounds of screaming stopped. I hopped down off the pile, crossed the room, feeling a bundle of invisible threads. They snapped as I restarted time. The whole pile was gone, just vanished into thin air. The observation room now held a table with unplugged monitors, and a chair. I found the FBI windbreaker in the corner under the couch, and left the room.

Molly was coming down the hallway as I left the now-empty observation room. Panic and worry were clear on her face. The screams had turned to yelling, and I knew that our only exit was blocked by a stunned but regrouping HRT force. The elevator was too slow. There was only one way out for Molly and me. I hated it, but I had to accept it.

"Well Molly, I guess we're out of options. Are you ready to walk through a frozen moment with me?" I asked.

Nervous excitement bloomed over Molly's face. "You mean it?" She squealed.

"Come here." I said, holding my arms wide. I wrapped Molly up as she tentatively pressed herself against my body. I felt the thread form, tying Molly to me. I reached for the switch, and for only the second time in my life, I took a living being through with me into frozen time.

Molly coughed. "Oh my god, the air is so thick. She said, pulling back from me and waving her hands. She took a few tentative steps, feeling the new resistance as the air refused to move around her in currents. She picked up a pen off a desk in the nearest cubicle and dropped it. It fell to the floor.