Rise (The Ethereal Vision Book 2)

by Liam Donnelly

  She was glad when Lucas finally joined her. She swiped her hand down, and the screen cleared, leaving the blank blue terminal in front of her. Sighing, she took off her glasses and turned around, wiping them on her cardigan.

  Lucas closed the door behind him and stepped inside, folding his arms. “So?” he asked.

  “We’re initiating the recall signal shortly. He should be here tomorrow at the earliest. We expect her to arrive within the following two days.”

  “And what if she doesn’t?” he asked, incredulous.

  “They’re confident that she will.”

  “What about you, Marie?”

  “Oh. I’m quite sure she will.” She smiled and sat down at her desk, leaning back and placing her hands behind her head.

  “And why is that?” Lucas asked, touching a hand to his chin, raising his eyebrows in flagrant incredulity.

  Marie laughed. “Lucas. They’re teenagers.”

  He glared at her. “Good point. OK.”

  “Yes. She’ll come after him. There’s no doubt about that.”

  Lucas folded his arms and began to pace the room.

  “What is it?” she asked, her eyes following him.

  “I just feel like we’re missing something.”

  “I didn’t think you were one for intuition, Lucas.”

  “Well, whatever. I just feel like…” He stopped walking and turned to face her. “Something’s off.”

  She glared at him, but offered no further thought on the subject.

  “When are we pushing the button?” Lucas asked.

  She stood up out of her chair. “Right now. Care to join me?”

  After a moment, he nodded and then followed her out of the room. In the main control room, twenty people sat behind holographic displays, many of them talking into earpieces. The door closed behind Marie and Lucas, and they walked to the center of the room where there was a gap in the desks. Marie then walked up the central aisle toward the main monitor, where information ran across the screen. It was comprised of video feeds from various different cameras, both in and around the facility. Some of the footage was also moving, as the camera feeds came from various drones. The technicians in the room were monitoring these, and some of them were flying over the labyrinthine streets of New York City, continuously searching for signals that might lead them to the escapees.

  Marie walked toward Ranger, the officer who was left in command of the room in her absence. He stood up from his desk as she approached and nodded at her, then she turned to face the room. One by one, each of the agents turned toward her and stopped what they were doing.

  “Initiate recall on subject NY dash zero four,” she said out loud.

  The technicians briefly looked at each other before returning to their monitors. Now, the air in the room was filled with apprehension.

  Marie turned around as most of the information on the screen disappeared and was replaced with an image of Morris’s face.

  CHAPTER 6

  HORIZON

  Zoe was resting on the sofa in her beautiful Parisian apartment. The blinds were open, and the Paris skyline stretched before her, both black and light. Her back was propped up against the sofa, and she had a decaf latte sitting on the table to her right. She sighed, turning to look at the coffee. Reaching for it, she took a sip and placed it back on the table. She had bought the apartment because of the skyline‌—‌the moment she had seen it, she made an internal commitment to purchase it. It was horrendously expensive, but she had felt it would be worth it.

  At the moment, though, the skyline was doing nothing to ease her mind. It reminded her of Trey; just as he said he kept himself fixed to the ceiling in order to remain focused, the skyline once had a similar effect on her. Now, she couldn’t stop herself from thinking about him. Her mind raced, but eventually, her thinking slowed, her eyes grew heavy, and she slept with the dim light from the Parisian lights on her face.

  After a time, a low beep came from the large monitor on the wall at the front of the room. She sat up quickly, brushing her hand through her hair.

  “What is it?” she asked, addressing the apartment’s AI assistant‌—‌a basic, much more limited program than Lucy.

  “Incoming call from Noah at the facility.”

  First, she frowned, then her heart immediately quickened as she realized that such a call was likely to mean only one thing. She glanced at the corner of the monitor, where the time was displayed. It was eleven thirty p.m. He had never contacted her this late before. “Bring the lights up twenty percent, please, and put the call through,” she said, standing up and brushing her hair with her hands again. The monitor came to life just as she turned to face it. Noah’s face appeared on the screen, and he looked distraught. In fact, his face was quite pale.

  “Noah? What’s happened?”

  “He’s gone,” he said, obviously distressed. “Trey’s gone. His room’s empty and we have him on camera leaving the facility.”

  “Was there a power cut? Did the suppression field fail?”

  “No. Nothing went wrong. He just walked right out. The field had no effect at all.”

  “Security guards?”

  “Nothing on the camera feeds. We don’t know how he got past them.”

  “But they’re OK?”

  “Yes, they’re fine. Annoyed, but fine.”

  She was about to speak again when a noise came from the bedroom in the far corner of the open-plan apartment. Her head jerked toward that direction now, and she scanned the darkness.

  “Is everything all right?” Noah asked, his voice lowering as he clearly sensed the danger.

  “I heard a noise.”

  He frowned, obviously worried.

  “I’ll call you back,” she said, glancing at the screen briefly. Then she returned her attention to the dark corner where the corridor that ran the length of the apartment connected to her bedroom and the other rooms. She could see that Noah was about to protest, but sensing that this was something she needed to face alone, she swiped her hand aside, ending the call. The monitor reverted to the standard interface and then went dark. She began to walk toward the bedroom. She stopped after a few seconds, frozen, realizing the source of the sound was much closer than she realized.

  Slowly, she tilted her head up to see Trey sitting cross-legged on her ceiling. She gasped, and her breath caught in her throat. Jumping backward, she barely managed to avoid falling over. Still, she couldn’t take her eyes off him as he looked over her shoulder and nodded in that direction. Despite the fear that caused her eyes to grow wide, she turned and looked toward the window, out at the skyline. It took her a moment to understand what she was seeing. Then, she was utterly transfixed. Standing just at Place de l’Étoile, about a mile from her apartment, where the Arc de Triomphe stood, there was a massive cuboid structure. It was dark, and the dim lights of the Paris skyline glinted off its surface as it rotated slowly. It must have been more than a hundred feet across.

  She frowned, and she thought to turn to Trey for answers, but when she turned around, he was gone. The space where he had been sitting was now occupied by a formless black mass that had the rough shape of a human. It appeared as though eyes stared out from it. Every cell in her body had screamed before she had a chance to even find her voice. It glared at her as her hands reached for her face.

  Zoe woke up screaming and jumped off the sofa. Tears came immediately, and then uncontrollable sobbing. She ran toward the hallway, past the spot where Trey had been sitting in her dream. She ran down the dark, narrow interior and toward the bathroom.

  “Lights!” she managed to yell barely. The lights flickered on. Reaching her hands down toward the sink, she cupped them, and despite them shaking tremendously, she managed to fill them up just enough to splash some water onto her face. She did this a few times, but it wasn’t enough. She looked in the mirror just as her stomach turned, then she turned around to the toilet and immediately vomited, en
tirely emptying the contents of her stomach. She shook for a full half a minute after the small amount of food was thrown up. She stayed there for a moment after, gasping for breath with one hand gripping her chest.

  “Are you all right, Miss Delahunt?” came the reassuring voice of the apartment’s AI.

  “I’m fine,” she managed to say, gasping, sputtering, and managing a few deep breaths in between. Knowing what the answer would be, she asked the question anyway. “Is there anyone else in the apartment?”

  “No.”

  “Good,” she said. She stood up, still trembling, and walked back into the hallway, making her way to the living room. She walked across to the large window at the front of the apartment and looked out at the skyline. She glanced in the direction of Place de l’Étoile; what greeted her now was no extraordinary cuboid structure but merely the ordinary skyline of Paris. She sighed and wiped her eyes. Turning back around, she walked to the monitor with the intention of contacting Noah immediately. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but she would confide in him about her concerns for sure. That, at least, might help.

  ***

  The evening after Morris had shown Jane the lump on his neck, Morris, Ciara, Jane, and Mike were sitting on the large, comfortable, white sofas in the room nearest the back of the house. A sitcom was playing on the large flat screen that covered 60 percent of the wall in front, but Jane was paying it very little attention. Her psychic senses had detected changes in Morris that the others seemed not to have noticed as of yet. He seemed to be growing more distant, and now and then his gaze would drift, as though he was hearing a distant voice, inaudible to the rest of them.

  Jane had seen him stop in the hallway earlier that day and stare at the ceiling. Then, he looked toward the door and nodded his head, as if acknowledging something. Her eyes narrowed to slits when she saw this, and he turned around and noticed she was watching him. She’d smiled warily, and after a moment, he smiled back. She had been unable to hide this intrusion from him, and wondered if she had already tipped her hand. Perhaps none of that mattered, though. Jane’s deepest suspicion was that Morris was, in some sense, losing his mind.

  Now, Jane was sitting in the corner farthest from him, her shoes off, her legs drawn up beneath her. Usually, she would lie on the sofa, nestled in his arms, but that was no longer an option, for Morris was no longer himself. She had had no time to break the news to the others because she feared he would hear her telepathic communication. Her heart raced quietly as she saw in her peripheral vision as he turned slowly and glanced at her.

  That was when the shock occurred, and their reality altered once again. She heard the sound psychically‌—‌in her mind‌—‌and she saw his head jerk sideways, once again facing the front of the room. He was gone at that moment, and she knew it. It was as though someone had flicked a switch, and whatever personality radiated out from Morris on the psychic plane had now been turned off.

  Jane didn’t move. She didn’t turn her head to look at him to find out what had happened. Instead, she continued to stare straight at the television and remained absolutely still. When Morris began to move out of his chair, she turned to watch as he stood up and walked toward the door. She watched him leave the room, then turned to her friends, letting her legs slide quickly down off the sofa and onto the floor. Their heads turned toward her as she began her communication with them quickly, doing her absolute best to shield their conversation from Morris.

  Morris left the room and ascended the stairs. Up until just moments ago, he had known there was something off, but he hadn’t been able to fix it. He had thought of communicating his fears to Jane, but he kept forgetting. Now, the chance was lost as he struggled to maintain any semblance of thought amid the control signal that was taking over his mind. He felt his legs go unwillingly up the stairs, and he tried forcing them to stop, but as he exerted his will, he could feel the device at the back of his neck exert its own pressure on him. It was as if an electric current was transmitting from it, pushing his thoughts toward a very particular direction, and he was rapidly losing control. He watched his hand reach for the banister and willed it to pull away, but it would not move. His movements became film-like in front of him; he was there, but he was not in control.

  He reached the top of the steps and then the command of the device forced him to turn toward the room where he and Jane had slept. Spent so many wonderful days with you, Jane. Is it over? Is it‌—‌

  “AHHHH!” he screamed as a surge of electricity ran down his back and through his solar plexus. There was less thought remaining then. Jane, he thought, but that was all that was left‌—‌her name, her face, and her flowing blonde hair. Even that though was fading now too, as, after a few more seconds, all he could see was a vague image of a girl with light, golden hair, turning her head and looking away from him.

  He looked down and watched his feet move, once again completely out of his control, toward the room at the front left of the house. He walked inside and made his way around the bed, sitting there, facing the window.

  Static was rising in his mind, and the small semblance of awareness he had left produced only sweat on his brow, a beating heart, and eyes that betrayed terrible fear. He stared out at the dim light coming in from the window, but the static rose to a crescendo, and then he was gone completely, lost among the noise of the device’s control.

  ***

  Jane left the sitting room and walked down the hallway slowly, making her way step by step on the beautiful oak floor. She was suddenly very aware that she was barefoot, and she wished that she were wearing shoes. When she reached the foot of the staircase, she looked up, but she could not see Morris.

  Mor? she called in the gentlest voice she could. There was no response. MOR? she called again, this time shouting into the ethereal world. Still, there was no reply. She reached for the banister and placed one foot on the first step. As she looked up toward the cavernous ceiling at the top of the staircase, she was about to ascend when she heard the floorboards creak above.

  She backed away toward the front door that was only five feet from the staircase. Taking deep breaths now, she looked between the staircase and the entrance to the room where Mike and Ciara were standing in the doorway. They looked both shocked and ill prepared with the little information she had managed to convey to them.

  Jane looked back toward the stairs, where the floorboards continued to creak. Finally, Morris appeared there in the darkness and immediately began to descend. She gasped when she saw him, for it was as though she was looking at a completely different person. He was not looking at her, but glaring beyond her vacantly toward the front door behind her. When he neared the bottom step, it seemed that he was not going to stop, and she automatically began to raise her hands toward him.

  “Morris?” she asked in surprise.

  He didn’t stop walking as he reached the bottom step and continued straight toward her.

  “What the hell?” Jane said, frowning as he approached. He reached out one strong arm and grasped her right side, pushing her hard. He was strong‌—‌in fact, it seemed he had become stronger somehow in the weeks since their escape‌—‌and Jane was sent flying into the wall of the hallway. She hit her head‌—‌just barely‌—‌and sank to the floor.

  Dazed, she glanced up to see him glaring down at her. In his eyes, she saw nothing; it was the blank expression of a robot. She watched as he then turned once again toward the door and began to walk toward it. He reached out a hand toward the locks, but now anger rose up inside Jane, as though from a buried pit of fire, billowing up toward the surface of her mind, and the power exploded from her, even in her weakened physical state. She grasped his arm with what felt to her like an invisible, snake-like appendage, wrapping her psychic grip around it and holding it in place.

  His teeth came together in an audible clack as he squirmed. There was a pained expression on his face as he stared down at his hand, as though it was taking him a trem
endous effort to understand what was happening to him. After a moment, he stopped struggling and slowly turned toward her.

  “Stop it,” he said, his voice a low growl.

  For a moment, his hand shook free of her grasp, but as it did, she reached out again and gripped it even tighter, turning it away from the handle.

  “I’ll stop it if you tell me where you’re going,” she said, struggling to speak with the mild dizziness that clouded her mind.

  Instead of answering, he turned toward the upper part of the door, where a sophisticated lock was. Jane watched as the brass and metal began to buckle. She heard some part break off and crash onto the ground outside as the wooden frame began to splinter. At the same time, a crack appeared in the glass in the colored pane that covered the upper part of the door. Chips of wood fell down around them.

  “Morris!” she yelled, gripping him tighter as she felt his body move toward the door.

  She had no time to prepare for what came next as he turned his head rapidly and glared at her. She felt him grip her, and she gasped as she rose quickly to her feet, held by his power. Then his grip tightened on her, and her feet rose up off the floor. She reached out with her own psychic senses, and she felt both of their wills intersect in the hallway. A light arose there, and it grew brighter with each passing second. Its striations stretched out from a central point between them, sending streaming, curving arcs of ethereal energy outward in all directions. Jane grunted as their opposing wills became more intertwined, and the pressure became immense.

  The panels of wood that lined the walls began to creak around them, and as the energy continued to build, some of them started to buckle. Then, the chandelier above them began to shake. Slowly, the hallway was illuminated tremendously by the energy of their cascading wills, and the light grew until it seemed like a separate sun was forming there.