Tremor by Patrick Carman

coming, did ja?” one of them said. Unfortunately, the slab rose up in the air like a magic carpet; and before they could react, it was back up through the hole from which it had come, trapping all ten of them on the second story, which was closed off from the training room.
    Wade and Clara held the ceiling where it belonged while they walked toward the exit. They may as well have been walking in slow motion; they had all the time in the world. When they approached Gretchen near the exit, they let the slab of ceiling free-fall and almost wished the single pulses had been wise enough to move. It was a twenty-foot drop that caught them all off guard, and only some of them started flying in time to miss the landing.
    The flamethrower bounced free, and Clara yanked it through the air with her mind, trained it on Gretchen, and fired. But Gretchen was lightning fast, jumping up in the air and flipping once, landing on the opposite side of them both.
    â€œI do like this weapon,” Clara said. She looked at Wade and imagined burning the clothes off his body.
    â€œDon’t even think about it.”
    Gretchen took two steps toward her children. When it came to relations between first and second pulses, she was having many of the same challenges Meredith was. “They’re no good to us if they’re hurt. And you should appreciate them more. We’re in this together.”
    Clara and Wade kept walking, barely acknowledging that Gretchen had spoken at all.
    â€œGive them back their guns,” Wade said. “At least then it was fun.”
    Gretchen was ready to unload on both of them when the sound of a frantic voice came from her Tablet. She pulled the Tablet out of her pocket.
    â€œWe’re under attack!” the unit captain on watch yelled. “Incoming!”
    Wade and Clara didn’t wait for instructions. They were flying through the compound as fast as they could, heading for one of the exits. The place was full of security measures; and, reaching the first of several, they found themselves held back by a giant door that looked as if it belonged at the entrance of a bank vault.
    â€œLet’s take it down,” Clara said.
    â€œYeah but—” Wade said.
    â€œNow!” Clara said. She was crazy for some real action, and if it meant using their combined forces to escape from a maximum-security prison, then that’s what they were going to do. She looked at Wade, who nodded, and the two of them put every ounce of mental energy into ripping an iron door out of a wall made of solid marble.
    Clara and Wade had focused as much pure mental force on other things lately, but the door and the wall were like one immovable object. Clara shot a bead of fire across the hall, knowing it would have no effect, then dropped the flamethrower in disgust.
    â€œWhat a useless piece of garbage.”
    â€œCome on, Clara!” Wade yelled. He thought he could hear the door start to bend under the pressure of their combined power. He could definitely hear something that sounded like a very heavy door being moved. Being an Intel and, by far, the smarter of the two, Clara figured out what was going on before Wade did. She stopped exerting any kind of force and turned around just in time to see Gretchen smiling as the security door at the other end of the short hallway they were in closed.
    â€œWade,” Clara said.
    His eyes were glued shut as he kept at it, fully immersed in the effort of moving an immovable object.
    â€œWade!” Clara yelled again.
    This time Wade opened his eyes and shook his head back and forth a few times.
    Gretchen’s voice filled the room from speakers embedded in the ceiling, and behind her voice, Wade and Clara could hear first pulses cheering.
    â€œYou’re in the most secure part of the entire supermax,” she said. “The walls are impenetrable marble on the outside, with two feet of reinforced steel hidden behind that. The door you’re