by Pen
He climbed the stairs toward the main level. The sounds of the Siren Corporation Psi Laboratory filled his ears, punctuated by the accusatory tone of Pamela Madison, vice P.R.O. of Siren Corporation’s Psi Laboratory, who waited for him on a landing. “I insist we get a move on, Mr. Guard. I have a company jet on standby and I want out of this place before it gets any worse.” Madison paced back and forth, chewing on a finely-manicured fingernail.
“We don’t have everyone yet.” Rion gestured behind him. “I couldn’t get to one of your colleagues through the grating nor could I reach her through a psionic link.”
“She’s an acceptable loss. You evacuated the prisoners as well as the laboratory staff. Well above and beyond what you were contracted for, but you can’t save everyone. Your performance in Gemini Rescue has been outstanding, Mr. Guard, and that will reflect in my review. You can be assured of that. Now get me out of here.” She ascended the stairs.
“Kestrel, report.” Rion spoke sub-vocally into his comm. The throat mic built into his uniform should have picked it up but he got no response. “What’s going on with the comms?”
Madison ignored his question. “Control of mission comms has been transferred to Commander Davis of Siren Corp security. He’s in charge now.”
“Get him on the radio, I could use some—”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“Listen, lady you’ve been in my way this entire time and I’m over it.”
“Excuse me?” Madison spun around. “The evacuation order has been terminated, Mr. Guard. Your services are no longer required. You’ll receive your completion papers once we’re clear of the risk from the Psi Storm.” She turned to climb again, her high heels clacking on the steps.
“Will these completion papers explain why you clearly don’t want me to reach the other building? Will they explain why you don’t care about saving the life of a Siren Corporation executive?” Rion followed Madison up the stairs.
“I have no idea what you are talking about, Mr. Guard, but if you don’t shut your mouth I’ll have my attorney on a video call so fast your head will spin!” She turned and jabbed a finger at Rion’s chest. The psi shield that surrounded him sparked at her touch. She jerked her finger back in fear and surprise.
The stairs led up to the ground floor of an abandoned military depot appropriated by Siren Corporation the prior year. Large cracked stone tiles lined the floor, some completely crumbled and others downright missing. To Rion’s right was darkness so black that he could only see a few feet even with his enhanced vision through his psi shield. He knew that side of the building had suffered the largest amount of damage from some sort of explosion and falling debris from the Psi Storm just before his arrival. It was why he couldn’t use the tunnel to get to the other building.
Rion followed Madison as she struggled across the floor in those impractical heels. “I can’t just pick up and leave. You hired me to evacuate the executive staff and that is exactly what I’m going to do.” He couldn’t walk away now if he had a gun pointed at his head. The inductee interview vision generated in his head by Jenna had been too strong. Its residue kept making him see double, like two television signals overlapping.
“Mr. Guard, as far as Siren Corp is concerned, you’ve completed your contract.” Madison pulled her shoes off and threw both of them away in complete frustration. “We’re extremely satisfied with your performance, and we will compensate Gemini Rescue for your time and efforts, if you’ll just get me out of this installation right now.” Madison smiled at Rion like a shark, exposing her rows of perfectly aligned teeth as she rubbed one stocking foot while hopping on the other.
“I’ve established a psionic link with your colleague Jenna Strong.” Somewhere nearby, the sound of crumbling stonework suggested another portion of the building had collapsed under the stress of the building storm. “I can’t quit, not now, not ever. I won’t leave anyone behind.”
“Strong is only a junior associate in the Psi Lab. The company will pay out insurance proceeds to her designated beneficiaries. As for me, I’m not spending another minute in this building. I know she wouldn’t wait for me, believe me.” Madison produced a cigarette from a jacket pocket and searched herself for a lighter as she picked her path across the broken floor.
“There is still a survivor down there!” Rion shouted after her.
“There’s still a survivor up here, one who already has an exit strategy.” Madison stumbled on one of the tiles. In a flash, Rion was beside her, catching her before she could fall, moving far faster than humanly possible.
“You’re just leaving her down there?” Rion steadied the woman.
“Honestly, can you even get to her?” Madison pulled away from his touch.
“Not that way.” Rion motioned back into the sub-basement they’d just left.
“Can you guide her out with your Gemini power?”
“She’s stuck or blocked. Not receiving my psionic connection. It’s complicated.”
“Complicated? How do you know she’s even still alive down there? No, never mind, I don’t care.”
“So you just write her off? I’m sure there will be an investigation.” Rion took a stab in the dark, hoping to find some shred of human decency in the senior executive before him.
“That’s cute. You’re being cute. I don’t have time for this. Your contract is now terminated. Anything else you do is on your own.” Madison spotted an exit door, banging in the wind, and made for it.
“Wait—” Rion grabbed Madison’s arm and gripped it hard to keep her from leaving.
She screeched at the feel of his psionic shield and his physical touch. “Security, help me!”
Two men with semiautomatic pistols at the ready appeared at the door to the roof stairwell. “Release Ms. Madison, Guard, or we will fire upon you!” one shouted.
Rion hated being shot. He let go of Madison.
Jenna Strong’s psionic link overwhelmed his senses once again.
* * *
“Miss Strong, you’re in terrible danger. Please, you have to release me so I can help you.” Rion sat, confined in his chair in the interview chamber. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t move.
“Can you explain to us what the Psi Storm is and what your involvement in it is?” Jenna ignored his comment.
“It amplifies my natural abilities when it’s active and nearby, just like anyone else who comes into contact with it. Just like you.” Rion tried to force his way through the unseen force locking him down into the chair.
“And that’s true for all living creatures, is that correct?” Jenna shifted in her seat.
“Yes, it’s a current of psionic energy that ebbs and flows around the continent for a few months and then disappears for the rest of the year.” Without thinking, Rion shifted in his seat to match Jenna’s position. He couldn’t pierce the veil of psionic static that lay between them, but at least he’d regained his ability to move “Please, you have to release me. The Storm is coming.”
“And no one knows where it comes from, why it’s North America, or where it goes when it vanishes if anywhere, is that right?”
“Miss Strong, please! You’re in danger. This isn’t the time to talk about the stupid Storm. Nobody knows anything about it.” Rion struggled, once again frozen in place. Slow, steady movements seemed to work but anything fast was immediately blocked.
“That’s not entirely true now is it?” Jenna showed him her data pad, scrolling through Rion’s file. “You were at the Siege of Corax on the Canadian border. That was the origin of the Psi Storm. I think you know quite a bit about it.”
“Do you understand that you’re in grave danger and I’ve been sent here to rescue you?” Rion inched up to the edge of his seat. He reached out with slow precision and placed his hand on her data pad. Jenna clutched his hand to stop him and pulled the pad from his grip.
“We only have so much time to get through this, Mr. Guard, I suggest you answer my questions.” Je
nna smiled and tapped at the data pad again.
“Your records are wrong. I was only nine years old during the Siege.”
“There were many families with children, both at the Corax compound, and also traveling toward it. Nearly ten thousand people were migrating there using everything from private planes to walking across the continent on foot.” Jenna read the data directly from her pad.
“I remember believe me. Tribes of people traveled through Austringer on their way to the Corax compound. It was a nightmare.” Rion stopped himself from giving any additional data away. Strong was insinuating herself deeper and deeper into his mind. Her abilities seemed to bypass his shielding the same way his own could overrun a normal human’s mind.
“Tell me about being born and growing up in Austringer. Your file indicates you were a member of—” The intercom buzzed, stopping Jenna mid-sentence. “Excuse me.” Jenna stood up and walked over to the door. She activated the intercom sunk into the wall. Rion could hear only buzzing chirps from the box and only for a second or two before Jenna returned to her seat. “Let’s talk about something else. Tell me about Gemini.”
“Our mission at Gemini Rescue is to provide solutions and services that save lives and provide a safer environment for all of our clients. Like I’m trying to do here, for you.”
“You’re an integral part of Gemini Rescue?”
“Yes, I can be very effective in certain situations. Take now for instance—”
“You led Gemini in responding to the 2001 Gujarat Earthquake, the 2003 European Heat Wave, and the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.” Jenna read from a data stream on her pad.
“Yes, I did all those things.” It seemed that Jenna was laying his mind bare, peeling away all his layers of security. She was still unaware of the danger surrounding her, and he was growing afraid of what might happen if she died while her psionic abilities were running roughshod through his mind.
“Now you’re just being modest. You saved over six thousand lives all by yourself.”
“No I didn’t. Today I’m supposed to save yours.” Rion met her gaze. “Just you. One life.”
* * *
Rion staggered, lost his footing, and fell. He wanted to hit Madison, to punch her until she was unconscious. It didn’t matter to him she was a woman. There had been more than a few women who he’d gone to battle with in the streets and atop the roofs of Austringer when he was younger. There was something dark about Pamela Madison that put him right back to how he used to feel patrolling the Austringer streets of with the other Falconers for Nighthawk.
“As soon as I saw you were going to be trouble, I called for a private security detail, Mr. Guard.” Madison called over her shoulder as she reached the armed agents.
“Is everything okay, Ma’am?” asked one agent.
“Yes. Give me a moment.” Madison spun around to look down at Rion. “It didn’t have to be this way. You could have come along with me, gotten paid, and slept well tonight.” She looked at the agents. “Get me out of here.”
The security detail escorted Madison out of the building, keeping their weapons trained upon Rion until the last possible moment. A minute later, Rion heard distant screams over the roar of the Psi Storm pummeling the building.
He ran for the stairwell. Rion adjusted his psionic shield to scan everyone close to him for active psionic abilities. “Kestrel, come in?” He spoke into his throat mic. The line was still dead. He hoped there would be better reception outside.
By the time he reached the door, he’d picked up exactly nothing from Madison or her security team. The officers of Siren Corp, who had gone to such great lengths to develop psionic abilities they could market to the rest of the world, were all free of psionic abilities themselves. The irony wasn’t lost upon Rion. He placed his hand on the door and picked up a slight trail of fear response resonating from someone’s sympathetic nervous system. It was the fight or flight response and Rion had hoped it would be there.
Rion had worked with a lot of scared people over the years. He could use his psionic shield to filter the fight or flight response the way others filtered coffee beans. His abilities activated another person’s own latent psionics. With their new abilities, they could aid Rion in saving their own lives. It only worked with unpowered, untrained people. If he had to rescue a psion with their abilities already fully realized, he often couldn’t find a simple path to connect with them. It took time, and each path had to be developed in unique fashion. It was why he was having such a difficult time rescuing Jenna Strong.
Rion opened the door to the roof stairs a crack, revealing the stairwell was pitch black. He factored his psi shield to filter the light spectrum so he could ascend safely. Following the trail of the fight or flight instinct was like following a trail of smoke. At the top of the stairs, Rion re-modulated his psi shield. Ready, he placed his fists out directly in front of him as he burst through the door at the top of the stairwell, using his psi shield to blast his energy reserves out of his fists like cannons.
The sounds of the hurricane were deafening as the door blew outward like it was made of cardboard instead of steel. He found Madison and her security detail pinned down by the pilot of the escape jet, who was firing a pistol through the service window of the cockpit. They had little cover, and the corner of the building where they hid was threatening to crumble from the Psi Storm’s onslaught. Rion knew he had to act, but it wouldn’t do for him to be dodging shots from two different directions. He launched a psionic attack against them, not to hurt but to incapacitate. Tendrils of psionic energy reached out toward each of the three, making them collapse and drop their weapons.
While the rain sparked off his psi shield, he retrieved a dropped pistol and wedged it into his belt. To his left Pamela Madison laid out flat next to a fallen member of her security detail. Her long locks hung off of her head in stringy lines as the hurricane rains drenched her. One security officer was down beside her. The second member of the detail was farther down the roof on the other side of the jet. He also lay unconscious amid the debris.
The wind and rain had intensified since he’d last been outside. Rion knew the effects of the blast he’d generated wouldn’t last long. The pilot fired on Rion. Instinctively Rion enhanced his psi shield to protect himself and he found himself abruptly back in the chair confronting Jenna Strong.
* * *
“Now wait, either my research staff is off, or you’re just being modest.” Jenna swiped at her data pad. “Which is it? Thousands of lives saved or none?”
“Could it be that this is simply an illusion that you’ve created in your mind Miss Strong? Doesn’t this appear all a bit odd to you, ma’am?” Rion slowly sat back in his chair, crossed his leg over his knee, and attempted to appear non-threatening.
“Answer the question.”
“My abilities allow me to lend my powers to people in need or guide them in the use of their own powers upon manifestation. In the case of the European Heatwave of ‘03 I was able to help guide environmental psions to eliminate additional heat and create additional cool until French and Italian rescue personnel were able to respond and apply the necessary life saving techniques.”
Jenna looked up from her data pad and her eyes darted from Rion to that of the one way mirror. “That sounds pretty incredible to me. How many people did you personally save?”
“None. I never left the tiny French office in the admin center.” Rion had to get her out of here somehow. If he could just find the chink in her psionic armor that would let her see the danger for herself.
“What about the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami? You were reportedly—”
“I don’t rescue people in person. I help them to rescue themselves. Like I’m trying to do for you.”
“As someone who’s clearly had experience with the Psi Storm what can we expect upon its arrival this year?” Jenna returned to the earlier thread in her questioning. Rion began to see a pattern. Maybe it was something he could exploit.
�
�For normal homo sapiens, who’ve not manifested psionic abilities, there’s really nothing to it. The Psi Storm comes and goes. Most people in North America won’t feel effects from it at all.”
“But some do, even if they haven’t manifested. Is that right?”
“Yes. Minor effects. They might feel an extra charge of positive or negative emotion. Others experience additional physical energy or exhaustion.” Rion hoped to find a way through this psionic maze he’d become entangled in by giving her more of what she wanted. As long as the questions were aimed at the Psi Storm rather than him this was his chance.
“So like a tough day.” Jenna didn’t even look at Rion as she typed on the touch screen of the data pad.
“Exactly. Like today.” Rion stood slowly, discovering his movements were, for the moment, unhindered. He inspected the one-way mirror as a potential way out of the psionic fugue state. It was massive and occupied the entire wall.
“Can you hurt yourself or someone else during the Psi Storm?”
“Yes. People have gotten hurt.” Rion finished his inspection of the mirror wall. He found no creases or seams, nothing that would get him through Jenna’s own psi shield.
“How many psions are there in North America?”
“I don’t know.” Rion circled back to his chair.
“With the Psi storm looming I bet you’re pretty busy.”
“I’m trying to rescue a few people right now.” Rion pulled his chair close to Jenna. “Including you.”
“You’ve been doing this your entire life, haven’t you, Mr. Guard?”
“I’ve been psionic since I turned eight.” Rion felt the connection between them spark to life. He had finally begun to reach her.
“Doesn’t that pre-date the Psi Storm?”
“I need to get you to safety Miss Strong.” Rion placed his hand on Jenna’s chair.
“He’s reluctant to talk about it.” Jenna spoke directly to the unseen watchers behind the mirror but didn’t break her eye contact with Rion. “You were once a Falconer, yes? A disciple of the Nighthawk?”
