STUCK: IT'S ABOUT TO GET VERY WEIRD

CHAPTER 12 - The Wall

"Did you try making a circuit, a loop for the power to flow through?" I ask, and Ben just stares at me. Then he says, "Um, once I did connect both ends of a big wire, but then the whole wire just melted.

Too much power, I think to myself. "Okay, so first thing, we need to make the same circuit Mom did, then we have to find wire big enough for lightning."

I begin to dig around in the rubble to find a place where there is evidence of a circuit to the fort. I find a strange black line burned into the ground leading into the fort. I run around the front of the building and inside. Sure enough, there's a burned black ring all around the fort along the wall.

Ben is standing at the door watching me. "What did you find, find something?" he asks.

"Was this black line here the morning Mom went away?" I ask. "Yes sir," he answers. "The wall sparkled for a second, and then the wire was gone, just gone."

"What color was the wire, Ben? This is important."

"It was gold. Gold for sure. But I don't remember how big, and the biggest wire I can find isn't gold, not gold at all."

I realize it was Potentium wire. Mom had made a ring of Potentium around the fort, in a loop from the tower. The lightning strike powered up the loop just enough to pull her out, and in the process it melted the remaining wire. But Ben hadn't kept the piece of wire in his pocket, so he wasn't connected. Mom couldn't have known what happened until it was too late, and the circuit was destroyed, so Ben was never able to get it going.

"Ben, I figured it out. We need wire, but not just for our pockets. We need lots. I can get us out of here."

Ben just stares at me for a second, and then he throws everything he has in his hands in the air, lets out a squealing whoop, and dives into the fort and starts ripping into his supplies. "We're going! Oh, we are, we are!! Sierra knows! She's a Bee, she is the Bee, that's for sure! Need weapons, need shoes, need water, need pack, big pack, we're going, seeya burned Aspen, oh yeah seeya, that's right, you suck and we're outta here, me and little Bee!"

Ben continues to rummage and pack and ramble on excitedly to himself as I watch in amazement. Soon I begin to pack my own backpack with some basic supplies.

When Ben is done, he suddenly stops, sets his pack down, and flops on his nest. He looks around at everything thoughtfully, then he gets up and goes over to the shelf and pulls out a crayon drawing that he clearly drew when he was very young. It's a little stick boy with a stick woman smiling and eating a rabbit.

Ben rubs the drawing for a second and then stuffs it in his pack.

"We're really going, Sierra, aren't we, just going for real?"

"Yes Ben, we are."

"I packed my picture of Bee for us, so when we meet her again, we'll recognize her, because...I...I sort of forget what she looks like."

"It's okay," I say, "sometimes I forget too. Get some sleep, we have a big day tomorrow."

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I wake up to the blurry sight of Ben's face two inches from mine.

Startled, I pull back my head. "Wha??"

"Okay, here is the deal right now, just now. We go to the factory. One side only, the wall side. It was a fence but they made a wall during the wars. The other side is the destroyed factory and the Crunchers live in there, so we gotta be quick and quiet. The wire is just over the wall but I didn't ever see long pieces, we might have trouble finding that, it's a fact."