“Marie,” he practically yelled.
Detecting the new, gruffer tone in his voice, she slowly turned to face him. She knew immediately that this new, brusque presence he was projecting was an unconscious defense. Secretly, she knew that on some level he felt ashamed about the way he had acted on the ship. She also knew he would never admit that to himself—or anyone else.
“I’ve got new orders.”
“Yes, it seems you do,” she said. She wanted to say more. She wanted to say how cowardly it was of him to abandon the vessel in the manner he did. She wanted to punch him for his direct attack on Connor, but she bit her tongue and kept her tone level. “You’ve been assigned to New York City.”
“Yes. My unit is ready and waiting.” He turned to Chris. “I believe you have some new weaponry for me?”
Chris hesitated and folded his arms, clearly more uncomfortable in the man’s presence than he had ever been in the past. “Uh, yes sir,” he said. “Psionic grenades.” These last two words he spoke in a near whisper, leaning a few inches closer to Lucas.
“How many do you have?”
“Nine,” Marie said.
Lucas turned and shifted toward her, glaring. “I was told there would be ten.”
“Well, your information is incorrect, Lucas.” She turned to Chris. “You constructed only nine prototypes, isn’t that right, Chris?”
Chris hesitated again, then caught on quickly and nodded as he saw Marie’s right brow rise just a fraction of an inch. “Yes.”
Lucas’s eyes darted between the two of them, looking for signs of subterfuge. After a moment, he stopped and stared at Marie. Now it was her turn to glare. She held his gaze firmly, without faltering, until he looked away.
“Let’s go,” he said as he turned his attention back to Chris and then immediately began walking back toward the main door.
With one nervous glance at Marie, to which he received a reassuring nod, Chris followed him out. Marie folded her arms as she watched them leave and then sighed deeply. When the heavy doors slid shut, she walked to the control panel at the front of the room and resumed the feed of the large circular object that had so recently appeared off the cost of New York City. Acting on instinct, she instructed another drone to return to the area. This time, she kept the craft at a distance of half a mile, hoping it would stay out of reach of Trey’s influence. Switching the feed on the main monitor to the drone’s camera and using its advanced instruments, she enhanced the zoom factor until she could see the surface of the object in much greater detail.
Something glinted at the far right corner of the screen, where the rounded edge of the structure could be seen. Her eyes darted in that direction now, and she squinted, trying to see what had caused this particular, minute flash of light. She didn’t see anything of great significance there. She pushed the zoom factor further, until the magnified section that covered the screen was probably only thirty feet across, and its larger circumference could no longer be made out. Marie took a sharp breath at what she saw. She had been leaning over the controls, and now she stood up straight and took a step back. Her jaw quivered slightly at the realization of what was happening at the edges of the structure.
“It’s growing,” she said. She watched as slowly, inch by inch, the crystalline substance crawled upward, appearing out of thin air, arising from apparently nothing, for there was no other matter there or anywhere else in the vicinity to draw on, other than the wide ocean and air.
***
Chris led Lucas to the armory, although he was well aware that the man already knew the way there. Lucas’s footsteps encroached upon Chris’s personal space in a manner that caused a new and surprising anger to build up in him. Marie had been right. Chris knew a maniac when he met one, for he had encountered several unhinged people in his life. Lucas was indeed spinning out of control, and Chris was glad that Marie had offered him a part in her escape plans, though for the moment, he had no idea what they were.
They reached the door and Chris opened it. Upon entering, Lucas brushed past Chris briskly, almost knocking him against the left shelf in the twelve-foot-wide space. The room stretched back about fifty feet and opened just past the entrance. It was better stocked than most of the facilities. Stun weapons, Tasers, tranquilizing agents, and other prototype devices sat on the various shelves lining the room.
Lucas walked to the center, glanced around, and then turned back to Chris. “I was in here earlier,” he said, “but I couldn’t find them. Where are they?”
“Over here,” Chris said. He was surprised to find his fear had mostly vanished. He walked to the central section of the room and then veered toward the left. There, a secured partition contained a small corridor about twenty feet long. A door made of thick, bulletproof glass served as the entrance to this passageway, separating it from the rest of the room. Inside, more shelving units were lined with large storage cases. As Chris approached the door, he heard Lucas fall in directly behind him, once again encroaching on his personal space in a manner unbecoming of a well-secured personality.
“Lucas, this is level-five access only. I’ll bring the grenades out to you.”
“Let me in. You don’t have level five, Chris.”
Chris gritted his teeth for a second before answering in as clear a voice as he could, “Lucas, I have conditional access. You don’t. You can’t come in. The door will slide shut behind me immediately. If you try to follow me, an alarm will sound in the control room.” Chris had been staring at the floor where the glass met the surface. Now he glanced back up and looked at Lucas’s reflection in the glass directly in front of him. “As I understand it, that could jeopardize your authority here, couldn’t it?”
He felt Lucas approach behind him. For a moment, he didn’t speak. “But you can disable that alarm, can’t you?” Lucas asked in an alluring tone after a terribly terse moment.
“No sir. I can’t. Please stay here.” Chris ran his wrist over the security panel and stepped deftly through the partition as the glass slid open in front of him. A second later, he was across the threshold. He turned and the door immediately sealed shut, locking him inside. Lucas approached, glaring at him, and for a second, Chris thought he would try to break in. Chris gulped, but after a moment, Lucas backed down; he stepped back and stood with his arms crossed.
Taking a breath, Chris turned and walked down the short passage. He went to the second partition, which contained two shelving units on either side. Stepping in, he looked to the right, where he remembered placing the grenades. He had put them there a year ago, thinking he would never see them again. He shook his head at what he now felt was his own stupidity. He found the box where he’d left the prototypes on the second tier. He lifted the box and placed it in an empty space on the third shelf just above, which was mostly empty. He took a breath and then pulled the lid off the sealed container.
Looking inside the box, he took a second to glance through the open space just between the containers on the shelf at his eye level. On his right, he could see that Lucas was now standing a single inch from the glass door. He was glaring in at him, and Chris could tell that he was already suspicious.
Taking a deep, concealed breath, Chris drew his eyes away from Lucas’s and once again looked inside the container at the prototype devices. Ten spheres constructed of a metallic alloy lay inside the box. Why on earth did I make these? he wondered. He frowned for a moment, then pushed the thought from his mind. With another quick glance at Lucas, Chris looked back down at the box. Then, in one fast motion, he lifted it off the third shelf by wrapping his right arm around the container. He turned, and as he did, he reached his left hand into the box and retrieved one of the grenades. He continued in his motion and, as he passed the end of the shelving space, he placed the single device Marie had instructed him to retain between two of the other crates on the second shelf opposite. As Chris approached the door, he prayed that Lucas wouldn’t hear the sound of it hitting the floor, havin
g rolled off the shelf.
Chris scanned his wrist over the security panel. Without waiting for Lucas to step back, he walked straight through the door. Surprised, Lucas jerked backward a few steps, and the door slid shut behind. Chris pursed his lips and lifted the crate out to him. Lucas was glaring at him now, and his eyes darted between Chris and the sealed hallway to which he didn’t have access. After a tense moment, during which Chris felt his heart pound in his chest, Lucas reached out and grabbed the box from his hands. The devices shook inside and Chris reached out both hands reflexively.
“Uh, be careful with those, sir. They’re delicate. Do you know how to use them?”
Lucas looked up at him, frowning, as though Chris had just asked him if he knew how to use a toilet.
Chris’s mouth gaped open, and his eyes followed Lucas as he turned abruptly and left the room. When the main door slid shut, sealing Chris inside the armory, he leaned over and placed his hands to his temples, taking deep breaths. Standing, he took a few steps to the left and placed a hand on the wall next to a large shelving unit where weapons were stacked. “Put me through to Marie Donaldson, please,” he said.
“Chris? Report,” he heard her say over the internal communications system.
“He took the grenades. I managed to hide one of them.”
“Well done, Chris. Now get back up here.”
***
After receiving a report directly from Chris in the control room—and feeling a moment of pride in him—Marie returned to her office ten minutes later so that she could take one more look at the exterior parking lot. Her view of it was partially obscured by the main building on the left. However, now that they had begun to move toward the heavily secured gates that marked the exit, she could clearly see the vehicles her AI assistant had mentioned earlier. Her eyes grew wide at the sight. She had never seen anything quite like them. They looked like a cross between a tank and a large SUV. Each was equipped with various kinds of external weaponry.
What on earth are they going to do? she wondered.
CHAPTER 9
FIRE AND LIGHT
Daniel quickly reached the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. As he crossed it, the support cables, which lined it from end to end, had swayed and creaked simply from being in the vicinity of his newly expanded power. As his body had adjusted to this new level of ability, his mind had worked to order itself as a second, more powerful presence attempted to overcome Daniel’s own strong, resistant personality. Because of this, there had been side effects. Cars had come to abrupt screeching halts, resulting in minor accidents. Large pools of water, seemingly from nowhere, had opened on the surface below him. At one point, as he set his foot down, the concrete had cracked, and the resulting sound had rolled across the bridge, drawing the attention of the occupants of various vehicles.
When Daniel reached the other side, he walked through throngs of tourists who automatically—unconsciously—cut a wide berth around him, as though they were cattle, avoiding some strange disturbance that came from the many unknown things in the human world.
The sun was up now, and the city of San Francisco beckoned in the distance. He was called to it inexorably, though he had no idea why.
***
Jane, Morris, Mike, and Ciara were still running. The streets of the city had become almost completely clear, save for the small amount of remaining pedestrian traffic—people who didn’t seem to feel or understand what was going on. The group saw these people as they ran, and Jane wished they would just go back inside and leave the streets. However, these people were so far below the level of any psychic activity, they detected nothing amiss at all. Conversely, most others had detected intuitively that something of great magnitude was happening in and around the city, and so they had left the streets mostly clear. By now, just these few civilians remained, as did various Ethereals, who walked ghostlike, their eyes glowing with blue light.
Initially, they had been pursued by a single Ethereal—the one with the stained black T-shirt. Others had joined him quickly, and now, they were being chased by a group of at least twenty. The four friends communicated telepathically, as their labored breathing was affecting their ability to hold a conversation. They had turned and taken shots at the Ethereals. Morris had torn a large neon signpost from its housing, hoping to distract them, but one of them had reached up a hand and caught it in midair. With one swipe of his hand, he had thrown it back behind them, where it had crashed into the ground. Still, they came.
Passing a fire hydrant, Jane detected running water inside it. Using all her strength, she pried open the seals as they ran past, releasing a torrent of water onto the street. After gaining another fifty feet on them, the four turned to see the result, but it had little effect on the group following them. Most of the Ethereals ran through the stream of water as if it weren’t there. One or two were temporarily thrown from their feet and caught in the flow.
As they continued moving, just before she turned back around, Jane noticed that even those who fell in the gush of water were recovering quickly and getting back up. From the corner of her eye, she saw one of the older, stronger ones wave his arm left, toward her side of the street. She whipped her head in that direction and saw several large window frames. She gasped as she saw her reflection flutter for a moment in the glass, but there was no time to react, as the windows exploded out onto the road. She ducked to the right, as did her friends, running toward the other side of the street as the barrage of deadly, broken splinters flew toward them. Deftly, she raised her hand and managed, just in time, to deflect most of the glass.
Somehow still on their feet, they continued running. Despite their growing exhaustion, they ran even faster now.
Morris glanced at her. She turned and caught his worried gaze.
We have to do something to stop them, Ciara said. If we keep running like this, eventually, they’ll whittle us down.
Jane knew she was right.
The cars! Morris yelled abruptly.
Jane glanced at the vehicles parked on either side of the street. What about them? she asked.
I have a feeling that if we can stop their pursuit, they’ll return to where they were originally headed. Ciara, are you still protecting us from Zatera’s influence?
Yes, I’ve got it under control for now. In fact, I’m not sure he’ll be able to affect you anymore, not unless he comes into direct contact with you, or if you’re in his vicinity. As far as we know, he’s still five miles off the coast. The tower—whatever it is—is too important to him.
OK, Morris, the cars, Mike said, staring at him. What do you want us to do?
On the count of three, we drag two of them to the center of the street in front of us, then jump through the center. Mike, can you start a fire?
What? Where?
We need you to set the cars on fire.
Mike looked ahead of them, thinking. I guess I can make the batteries explode. Won’t be enough to stop them, though. He thought for a minute more, and then his expression lit up with hope. Once the flame is there, I can spread it quickly.
Just make sure there’s no space left at the side for them to get through. And Mike? It has to be a pretty big fire to stop them, so don’t hold back. Ciara, I’ve spotted two cars ahead. Do you see them on either side? White and blue.
Yes, I see them.
Jane and you take the white car on the left. Mike and I will take the other one. Check the buildings around there. Are they occupied?
Ciara glanced down the street and quickly checked both sides. Nobody’s in the front sections—they’ll be fine. The back exits lead to other alleyways, too.
OK. He took a quick glance at Jane. Jane, you know what you have to do. She nodded sternly. Everyone ready? he asked.
Knowing there was no time for further debate, they nodded in unison.
Do it, Morris commanded.
Seeing that the road ahead was clear, Jane closed her eyes and immediately fell i
nto deep concentration. Inside her, she pushed the switch, which she had found much easier to access as time went on, and felt the glow expand outward in a bubble, enveloping her friends and expanding the scope of their abilities.
Nice going, Jane, Mike said, grinning at the new expanse of his power.
Jane and Ciara focused together on the car to the left. On instinct, Jane reached out a hand and grasped Ciara’s. Using their combined strength, they pulled fiercely, watching as the white car was drawn from its parking space and slid toward the center of the road, its tires screeching on the hard surface.
At the same time, Morris and Mike were focusing on the blue car at the other side. It rocked at first, then slowly began moving from its stationary position.
Jane winced as she once again felt that expansion of her powers that she couldn’t understand. She experienced a burning sensation in her right hand and looked down at it. Something beneath the skin was glowing there, and small pulses of light moved down the surface of her hand and into her fingers.
Ciara whelped. “Ouch!” she said. She let go of Jane’s hand, shaking her own to ward off the pain. She glanced at Jane, frowning, her focus having completely fallen from the task at hand, though she managed to keep running.
Jane didn’t need Ciara, though. As she returned her attention to the car, she exerted all her will on it. Feeling its entire surface in her mind’s eye, she dragged it to the middle of the street, where it met the car that Morris and Mike were pushing. The two vehicles collided at the center, their bumpers crashing into each other. Then they came to a sudden stop and the sound of grinding metal disappeared.
Jane lifted her hand and looked at it. She had only a second to see the pulsing light at the center of her palm, and then it vanished. In the corner of her eye, she detected bewildered stares from her friends. For now, all she could do was ignore them, though she did pick up one stray thought from Morris: What the hell was that? But it wasn’t directed at anyone, and almost immediately, Jane felt his attention return to the task at hand.
The Crystal Tower (The Ethereal Vision Book 3) Page 17
