The Elementals: An Elemental Origins Novel

by A. L. Knorr

  He splayed his hands at the mess on the floor. "Just more of the same, but no real answers. What are you doing?"

  I grabbed my car keys and headed for the door when a thought struck.

  "Petra?" Jesse sounded nervous. He got to his feet. "Where are you going?"

  "Can you make copies of all of TNC's data?"

  "I already have," he said, then shrugged one shoulder. "Well, not all of it because the company is massive and has servers all over the world."

  "Start with Field Station Eleven," I said. "Make copies of everything you find there. I want to know what's behind Project Expansion. Are you able to make all this information public?"

  "I can, but it'll take time."

  "Good." I headed down the stairs.

  "Petra, wait." Jesse scrambled to his feet. "I'm coming with you."

  "No.” I turned back to him as I snagged his coat from its hook. It would be too big but at least it was dry. “Can I borrow this?”

  “Oh…kay.” He looked confused.

  “I have to do this alone,” I explained, pulling his coat on. “If you want to help, do what you're good at. Make a virus that will handicap their technology or better yet, bring their whole system down. Bring them down from the inside."

  "What are you going to do?"

  I barely paused to answer as I headed out the door. "I’m going to bring them down from the outside."

  17

  Saxony

  My phone buzzed against my side on my bed where I lay with my laptop, scrolling through UK government pages and making notes on everything I needed to gather for my student visa application. I still hadn't made a decision about TNC's Project, but I thought it smart to apply for my visa so that there would be no delay if we decided against the job.

  Feeling sleepy and only half paying attention to what I was reading, my brain was still in the wilderness, replaying the events of the time at the field station over and over. I picked up my phone and answered it absently.

  "Hello?"

  "Saxony?"

  "Petra?" I sat up quickly, alarmed. "Are you all right? You sound upset." She'd only said my name but her voice was saturated with something…something not good. Anger? Panic? I didn't know her well enough to guess.

  "I'm fine. Listen." Her voice was so flinty, so determined.

  My skin prickled. "I'm listening."

  "Tell the other girls I'm really sorry, but the whole thing is off."

  "Off? What do you mean?"

  "Project Expansion. It’s not happening anymore. I can't talk now but I learned some things about TNC." Petra sucked in a breath. "Let's just say they don't play well with others. We should not only not trust them, we should trust that they have nasty intentions."

  "What do you mean? Like what?"

  "I can't go into it right now, and honestly, you'd be better off just going back to your original plans, whatever they were, before we met. Just move on with your life. Forget about TNC."

  How was I supposed to forget about the incredible experience of creating a viable place to live out of nonviable land? What was it Petra had learned? Whatever it was, it sounded bad. "You're scaring me, Petra. What can I do? Do you want to meet and we can talk this through? I want to help."

  "That's very sweet of you, but I have to deal with them on my own, my way. Pass on my apologies to the other girls. I'm really sorry I dragged you guys into this mess."

  Mess? "What mess?"

  I heard a car door slam. "I gotta go, Saxony. I wish you the best, I really do. Maybe one day we can meet up and I'll be able to explain it better."

  Why did she sound like she was certain that day would never come? Curiosity and concern surged like waves inside of me. "Petra, wait! Where are you? I'll come to you!"

  The phone went dead.

  "Ugh." I let out a frustrated sigh. Chewing my lip with frustration, I hit dial and hoped to get her back on the line. Her ringtone just droned on without answer.

  I pounded out a text: What's going on, Petra? I want to help. Please.

  I waited, but there was no response.

  I checked the time. It was almost midnight. But I couldn't wait to tell my friends what had just happened so I sent the group an SOS.

  I just got the weirdest call from Petra. Either the Project is off, or Petra just made our decisions for us.

  Georjie wrote back immediately. What do you mean?

  Me: She didn't say, but she sounded upset. She's not picking up or answering my texts. Something has gone horribly wrong. I have to submit my application tomorrow, but meet you guys at school at mid-morning break?

  Georjie: No prob, see you then.

  Targa: I'll be there.

  Akiko chimed in with: I'm doing a little work at the library in the morning but I'll meet you at lunch hour.

  Me: Sounds good. See you guys tomorrow.

  18

  Petra

  I turned my car down an unmarked road thickly lined with pines. I looked at my phone and watched the blinking light that represented me and how I was drawing closer and closer to the GPS coordinates for FS11 I'd taken from Jesse's notes. It was just shy of four a.m.

  I'd had several calls from Saxony when I'd first left Saltford, but when I didn't answer, she'd given up. I would call her when I was done with FS11, as I knew she'd told the others right away and they'd be dying of curiosity. It was better not to tell them any more until I'd executed my plan.

  I tossed my phone into the glove compartment and went on without it. It would be no good to me anyway, from the first moment I threw out an EMP.

  The forest was familiar, the same kind that we had driven through to get to the plot of clear cut land where the Elemental girls and I had built the prototype.

  As a clearing along the side of the road came into view, I pulled my car off the double track and parked it. After killing the engine, I got out, closed the door, and took a deep breath of the fresh night air. I continued down the road on foot.

  I felt something in the pocket of the coat I’d borrowed from Jesse and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. I tucked them into a chest pocket inside the coat so I didn't lose them, then pulled up the zipper against the bite in the air.

  It had not rained here the way it had in Saltford. It was cold and humid, but the ground was dry.

  It was the darkest part of night, the time of night when sleep was deepest, when even dreams had ceased and the weary drew renewal from profound slumber.

  Though the world was asleep, I was wide awake and I expected TNC's security would be wide awake as well.

  I expected I'd meet someone soon.

  A tall and solid wall came into view, running through the trees to my left and right, cutting off the rest of the world from FS11. I'd reached the compound proper, but I had never approached it from the ground before. Every time I'd come here I had been flown in by helicopter.

  My sneakers were silent on the needle-carpeted road but as I rounded a gentle curve, a bright coin of light came on and threw a beam which swung from side to side. It fell on me, paused, then passed back and forth over me as though determining I was alone. It settled on me again.

  "Miss Kara?!"

  The voice was not familiar to me, and it sounded both surprised and relieved.

  "What are you doing out here? You'd better stop there and let me check with Miss Marks. I don't have any intel that you're due to enter this side of the station, or even due here at all this morning."

  I continued to walk until the light was so bright it made me squint. I waved a hand and the beam of light moved off to the side and out of my eyes. I'd given the light a gentle mental shove, but there was a thud and the sound of thick plastic breaking.

  "Hey!" the voice protested. "Was that…was that you?" There was indiscernible muttering, probably cursing supernaturals…unless he was one, of course.

  Like Jesse had implied, Ibby and I could be the only supernaturals in the whole corporation, or this compound could be riddled with them. Whatever was on the other
side of these gates, I wouldn't be letting it stand in my way.

  The booth and gate sharpened in my vision, also the single guard they'd stationed at this entrance. Even in the short time I had worked for TNC, I had learned that they were anything but slack on security. I could only see one guard, but others would not be far away.

  There was the sound of footsteps on metallic stairs as the guard descended from the booth to the ground.

  The hum in my cortex began as I threw my force-field out around me in a bubble wide enough that if something incendiary hit, I wouldn't be totally blinded by the blast.

  The guard came to stand in front of me on the other side of the gate, which was a grid of thick, welded wire. He had a weapon in a holster at his hip, but he'd not drawn it. I was an employee, after all, and that knowledge gave me some benefit of the doubt. His face was a pale apparition in the darkness of the night.

  "What's going on? Why are you here?"

  "What's your name?" I asked calmly.

  "Pete." He seemed to take some comfort from this familiar interaction. Some of the anxiety went out of his eyes.

  "Pete, I've terminated my contract with TNC and you should do the same. Please open the gate. I'll only ask once."

  His eyes widened and he lifted the radio in his hand to his mouth. "Requesting backup at—"

  I flicked my fingers and the radio flew sideways. It landed out of sight behind the wall.

  Pete stared at me, wide-eyed, before saying, "Oh, boy."

  Allowing the gate to pass through my force-field, I stepped up and put my hand on the metal. I had allowed the gate to pass through the force-field without really thinking about it, and as I did, a realization struck which both amazed and delighted me. I could fracture my own force-field into sections without compromising the strength of the pieces I wanted to keep working. I could move the fractured pieces about as I wished, and the sections were just as strong as the bubble when it was whole.

  "…not without losing my job…" Pete was saying.

  I had been so startled by the revelation about my force-field that I'd missed part of what he'd said. It didn't matter, he wasn't going to open the gate, and I hadn’t expected him to.

  "Stand back, please."

  Pete put up a hand, palm out, while the other went half-heartedly to the weapon at his hip. I felt sorry for him. He didn't want any trouble. "Please, don't,” he said. “Whatever you're doing, don't—"

  With a flick of my fingers, I sent a piece of the field up to protect Pete from shrapnel, and with the other hand I sent a wave of energy through the gate.

  With a loud crack, the gate shattered into millions of metal fragments which should have seriously injured if not killed both of us. I heard the spray skitter across the fields in front of Pete and me. The multitude of blue ripples, like freckles, illustrated exactly where the fields began and ended.

  Pete had crouched and brought his hands up when the gate exploded, but was now peeking out from between his arms, focused on the diminishing ripples in the air in front of his face. His expression was one of amazement. The blue ripples revealed an invisible oval barrier between his flesh and the deadly slivers of metal. It was just the same as the oval barrier in front of me.

  I walked by him, letting the field in front of Pete vanish. I sealed myself in, closing the field behind me.

  "Send instructions to evacuate," I said over my shoulder as I continued down the double track, "and then go home."

  Without waiting for his response, I began to jog through the trees.

  There was silence behind me, and then footsteps pounding on the stairs. I could hear the urgent drone of Pete's voice through the glass of the booth. He wasn't going to listen to me. Of course, he wasn't. There was nothing I could do about that.

  What I hadn't expected was for him to fire at my back.

  When the barks of his weapon came, they made me jump with surprise. I turned as the first bullet ricocheted and the second and third shattered in two bright pulses of light. Blue ripples crisscrossed over me, cross-hatching and revealing my field momentarily.

  I heard Pete calling for backup, sounding more frantic than ever. I turned my back and kept jogging as he fired more bullets. Underneath my calm and rational words, rage seethed like an angry bear. I kept it caged. What I was doing needed to be calculated, not emotional. I had to keep my wits about me.

  My heart was pounding a quick but steady rhythm, and the vortex running through my center was humming like a generator as I closed the distance between myself and my target: the TNC labs and offices, where the schemes that destroyed my parents and goodness knew how many other lives, had been staged.

  I moved off the path and into the trees, making a beeline for the first modular building. I recognized it and reoriented myself on my mental map, putting the Atlantic ahead and off to the left. The building I was approaching was the one just behind the lab where Sy had always landed the helicopter. The rear of the building was a windowless block of concrete. On either side there was a glow of light.

  The distant sounds of engines and indistinct shouting came to me from the front of the building.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and sent out an electromagnetic pulse. There was a deep sonic boom and the artificial lights on either side of the building went out. The sound of engines ceased immediately, and so did the sounds of human voices.

  Then they swept up stronger than ever, shouting and hurling commands.

  I rounded the corner of the building and into the parking lot and gravel roundabout in front. Everything was shades of blue and gray under the dim light of a setting moon. A couple of yellow flashlight beams could be seen through the trees in between the building nearest me and Hiroki's lab. I headed for the front doors. These were offices, where servers were kept.

  "Stop right there," a woman's voice called sharply.

  I turned, my hand outstretched, ready to blow out the door.

  A woman with close-cropped dark hair stood alone on the pavement in a half-crouch. Her eyes were lit like embers, and she held up both hands, which flickered with red flames. Saxony had looked much like this when she'd created the artificial sun for the prototype.

  "Hello, mage." I faced her, unafraid.

  "I'm not alone," she said as three more people, eyes lit in the same way, hands aflame, emerged from the trees and joined her, ready for a fight.

  I turned my back on them, reaching for the door again.

  A blast of fire hit my force-field and lit the world around me so brightly I squinted. When the blast ceased, I turned to face the woman, who was now only a few feet from me. With a flick of my fingers I lifted her into the air and threw her back into one of her friends, who caught her and staggered back before the two of them fell to the ground in a heap.

  Facing front again, I put a hand on the door and cracked the metal. Kicking the door in, I stepped inside.

  The building was empty, locked down for the night. Behind me the mages were talking fiercely, arguing. I wondered how much they knew about who I was and what I could do.

  "You made a mistake with me, TNC," I muttered to myself. I looked right, then left, and headed down the carpeted hall. "Big mistake."

  It didn't take long to find what I was looking for. It was underground, as I knew it would be: a small room housing several Faraday cages. These cages were meant to protect the servers inside from electromagnetic radiation. Lines of blinking blue light confirmed that my EMP had not damaged the servers.

  The cages on both sides of the room peeled back and folded like an accordion under my mental control, leaving the servers exposed.

  Shattering them to bits took mere seconds.

  I turned my back on a room that was filled with nothing but broken plastic, twisted metal, and fried electronics. The acrid stench of electricity and smoke hung in the air.

  I emerged from underground and went through the offices room by room, destroying laptops, computers, phones, anything electronic I could find.

  No one
entered the building to stop me, and I wondered what TNC forces were up to. Still trying to recover from my EMP? Reaching out to other supernaturals in their employ who might be able to face off with the Euroklydon?

  Hiroki had made the mistake of inflating my confidence, telling me there was no one like me in the world of supernaturals. He’d said I was not just rare, I was one-of-a-kind. Was it just lip-service? Was there someone out there who could get through my force-field? I pushed these thoughts aside and moved faster, destroying everything and anything I could find until I had gone through every room.

  On the front steps of the building, when I emerged, I had something of an answer.

  A group of about two dozen people in full combat gear stood in the clearing in front of the building. They'd formed a semicircle and every one of them had some kind of weapon leveled at me. The two people on the outer edges of the half-circle each hefted short, huge-barreled things on their shoulders, which, based only on movies I'd seen, might be actual bazookas.

  "So," I said as I took the steps down to the ground. "We finally get the ammo test you guys have been looking forward to."

  Two notions materialized in my mind. The first was that I could mentally bat their weapons out of their hands and smack them over the heads with them. The second thought stayed my hand. I wanted to see what was going to happen when they leveled all the firepower they had at me. The assault would either be too much for me and I'd die, or it would prove to both them and to me that my barrier was as indestructible as Hiroki had me believing it was.

  "I intend to destroy every single piece of technology I can find in this field station. And after that, I intend to visit every single other lab, office, field station, battle-ship, tank, freaking zeppelin that TNC owns, and destroy them too." I took a step forward. "After that, I'll visit the personal residences of everyone with enough clearance to know what TNC has been up to since it first killed all those people in India after the second World War."