Dinner is done and everyone is escorted back to their rooms. Elle is led to her room, as usual, by the Director.“I’m tired. Can I go to bed?” Elle fakes saying.“Sure, pumpkin. Have a good night.” He has his assistant follow her to her room next door.“Do you need anything before you go to bed?” She asks Elle.

  Elle just shakes her head. Miss Carlton smiles and leaves.About time.Elle goes and switches off the lights and gets ready. She quickly yanks the dress off and removes the butter knife which had adhered itself to her. She itches frantically. The damned thing left an imprint too. Ouch!

  Once done with her itching relief, Elle puts on some normal clothes. Just more stuff that the Director had gotten for her.She pulls a chair over to the wall next to her bed. Just bellow the ventition duct. Taking the knife she works it around the edges of the vent. Loosening the caulking, then undoes the screws. She takes extra care when taking down the vent, trying to be as quiet as possible. Once it’s down on the bed, Elle pockets the knife in her back pocket, takes a deep breath and hops up. It’s a tight fit but nothing she can’t maneuver in. If she was much older she’d be in trouble. And it was solid too which meant no creaks, no noise.

  The vent goes left and right. She goes right first. Not to far from her vent is the vent for another room. The Director was not there. Must be pying with his pet, Tetra. The next vent gives Elle a view into Miss Carlton’s room. She’s busy combing her wet hair and is wrapped in a towel. Elle moves on slowly. She comes to the next grate. It was the office they were all captured in. On ahead were the other offices. And the generator room. She had to make a note of where this was. They definitely needed to remember.

  The vent curved to the right and led to the storage room and branched off. To the right was the bs. No need to go there. Elle never wanted to go there again. On ahead, the vent system curved right some more till she found the first vent into the dorms. The first one was empty though. On up the vent splits off; straight, left and right. She moves left and finds Mr. and Mrs. Talvert. She hears them talking quietly with each other. Mrs. Talvert was resting her head on her husbands shoulder.

  “Psst!” Elle draws their attention. Mr. Talvert looks around then spots the vent. “It’s me Elle.”“Elle? How in the…?” Mr. Talvert gets up along with his wife.“Hey. I’m pnning on get the boys and shutting off that inhibitor, so we can get the heck outta here.”The couple ugh. “Sounds great, Elle.” Mrs. Talvert says. “How are you gonna do that?”

  “I passed by a generator room I think may have the controls for the whole pce. I’m gonna go get the boys and we’re gonna crawl there and shut this pce down.”“Any pn is a good pn at this point. Good luck Elle.” Mr. Talvert says. “One st thing. How did you get in there anyway?” He chuckles.“Before you guys showed up, I slipped that ‘missing’ butter knife into my dress top when the Director wasn’t looking.”

  The Talvert’s ugh.She says goodbye and moves back to the intersection, heading right she finds Jerry’s room.“Butthead.” She whispers.Jerry looks around.

  “Boulder brain.” She whispers again. Feeling a lot better for getting a chance to pester him.“Oh great. I must be going nuts, Elle’s in my head.”“And I’m gonna smack you upside your head if you don’t get over here.”Jerry looks at the vent and his eyes go wide. “No way! How’d you get out?”

  “Top secret. Now take this and get this vent off, we’re busting out. Hurry.” She slips the knife through the grating and Jerry begins working the vent off.Once he gets it off, Elle moves on ahead. “Follow me.” She says as Jerry lifts himself up into the vent. He was belly aching about how small the vent was.“Damn it. I’m not gonna make it, sis.” He grunts and groans.

  “Well then stay here fatty. I’m going to go get Chris and Jackson. Once we turn the inhibitor off we’ll come get you through the big boy door.”She hears Jerry drop back out of the vent grumbling. “Hurry up then.”She moves ahead and tries the next intersection and turns left again. Her parents were in there quietly talking. She had an idea, of surprising them buy meeting them at the door into the room. Elle really wanted to talk to them before continuing the mission but she was already wasting time. Plus she wanted to see their faces ter on.

  Across the intersection was Chris’ room.“Chris!” She whispers softly. “Turn the lights out.”Once Chris spots her in the vent he runs and turns the lights go out, He then climbs up onto the bed. “Elle? How’d you get into the ventition?”

  “Here.” She slides the knife through the grate to him. “Hurry up we’re bustin’ out.”While Chris works he asks, “You know how to get out?”“First things first. We’re shutting down that inhibitor. Then getting everyone else to the elevator.”“Sounds good to me.” Chris says as he starts unscrewing the bolts and pops the vent off.

  Elle backs up to let Chris up into the vent. She has to swing her feet around at the intersection so she can move forward. But she stops. Chris bonks his head into hers.“Sorry. Why’d you stop?” Chris says.“Chris. I’m sorry I got upset about you doing what you did to Rex and all that.”

  He smiles. “It’s okay, Elle. I forgive you. And I apologize for getting us all into this mess.” He puts his hand on hers.“It’s okay. Life’s an adventure right? Why not have a good one.” She smiles wide and puts her hand on his.She doesn’t feel the spark, most likely due to the inhibitor, but she feels her heart warm again. Filling her with the strength to go on.“Elle?”

  “Yeah?”Chris hesitates a bit. “Would you be my girlfriend?”She was all smiles. “Yes. But only if you’d be my boyfriend?” She sticks her tongue out a bit.“Absolutely.” He smiles wide.

  She leans forward and kisses him. This time it was meaningful, something she knew she wanted to do. Instead of something they happened to do due to their Spark thing. There’s no flying, no clouds, but its good to have him back. She giggles a bit and continues.“So how did you get the knife?” He says after they separate.“I hid it in my…,” she feels a little embarrassed, “dress top.”

  “Oh…” She catches him staring down her shirt.She clears her throat and smirks. He apologizes, but smiles with her.She situates herself and leads Chris on to talk with Jackson. She gives him the mission her and Chris were undergoing and he tells them to go on ahead. It’d be quicker if they went alone. Elle and Chris agree and move back to the generator room.

  Elle works the bde of the knife around and cuts most of the caulking from the vent. But can’t get to the bolts.“Now what?” Chris asks.“Back up a bit.” Elle tells Chris. He slides back down the vent a bit. Elle moves up and starts kicking the vent.“Elle?!”

  “Well? How else do you think we’re gonna get it off?” She keeps kicking it. There wasn’t much room to draw her foot back to get a good kick in, but it was enough. “Look. We’ll get this off, drop down and switch off the inhibitor. We’ll get our powers back and when someone busts through the door you bst them hard. Got it?” She keeps kicking.“Sounds like a pn to me.”

  The banging reverberated through the area, who knows how many heard it. Soon the vent gives way and it breaks loose except for one bolt. The vent drops down and scrapes the wall beneath.Elle slides her feet through the vent and drops down. “Come on, quick!”

  She begins searching the room. It looked like something out of a science fiction show. A central pilr with a keypad in the center stood out the most. Along the walls were bck gss panels.“Either Axus is a Star Trek fan or the Director is.” Chris mentions.

  Elle goes to the column. “Maybe this is it?” She pushes a few buttons. The panels on the walls spring to life. They show various things; water and power for the facility, some odd charts and numbers, and profiles of…them. All in vibrant color and detail. Far better then Elle’s parents computers. Far better.“Whoa.” Chris says. “Looks like the computers back home they were just coming out with before we left.”

  Elle looks at Chris marvel at the screens. “Do you miss your home?”Chris looks longingly at her. “Yeah. I do miss it. And sometimes I dream about going home. But then I remember the friends I have here.” He smiles. “I’ll go back someday, even if it’s just a visit.”“And I’ll go with you.” Elle tells him.

  Chris smiles wide.They keep searching and messing with the touch activated screens. It was just like Star Trek.“I found it!” Chris excims. “And the locks for the dorms.”“Really?” Elle hops over. “Shall I do the honor’s Captain?” She points to the inhibitor, sounding like an officer from Starfleet.

  “Make it so.” Chris says doing his best Captain Picard.Elle ughs as she presses the off on the screen for the inhibitor.They stand in silence and wait for…something. Nothing. Elle tries her power. Nothing.

  “Uhm. Maybe it takes a moment for the inhibitor to wind down?” Elle tells him.“Yeah, maybe. Let‘s unlock all the doors in the dorm.” Chris says as he picks which doors to unlock by touching each dorm room on the screen. The rooms go from red to green. “Good to go?Elle looks around the room some more and spots a tch in the floor. “What’s this?” She bends down and takes the tch in her hand. She notices a line running around the floor. “Trap door?”

  Chris comes over and looks down. “Open it.” He shrugs.She pulls and strains from the weight. Chris squats down an helps her lift up the heavy trap door. They let the door lean open as they look down the hole.

  Whatever was down there was glowing blue. Elle takes the initiative and hops down the dder. Chris following behind. The room looked like the one above, but smaller and no pilr in the middle. Only the wall opposite the dder had a screen on it. Below the screen was a terminal like nothing they’ve seen before. The whole unit was touch sensitive. The screen was glowing blue with what looked like water rippling. Elle touches the terminal. A series of keyboard like panels light up and the screen.

  “Funky.” Chris mutters.Elle snickers as she touches a few of the key-panels. On the screen a list of files comes up. Reading through the list she makes out a few of the things listed. Cybernetic enhancement, anti-gravity drive, trans-dimensional wormhole. And several other things she doesn’t get.“I think we found the mother load.” She says as she touches the folder for the trans-dimensional wormhole. A series of blueprint like pictures fill the screen.

  “Our dad’s would love to see this.” Chris leans in close.Elle touches a few panels and the system returns back to the original mode. “Let’s go. We’ll get our families out, take this pce over and get this data to our dads. Besides, we could turn the tables on that Axus guy, teach him for dealing with the enemy.”Chris agrees and the both of them head back up and leave to reunite with their families.