“Interrogation.”
“You were asked to make sure they were detained. Nothing more.”
Lucas exhaled and lowered his head submissively.
The woman glanced at Morris. “Get him out of here,” she said, but she seemed to have a particular interest in Jane herself, and her gaze kept returning to her.
Lucas walked toward the door, still glaring at Jane as his eyes narrowed to slits. Then he turned to Morris. “Come on,” he said. Morris looked at him, and as Lucas left the room, he followed him out without a second glance. The door closed behind them once again.
The woman, whom Jane had never met, walked to the center of the room and faced her. She backed away a couple of steps and leaned against the glass, placing her palms on the rim that ran along the bottom of it, resting her hands there.
“Jane. It’s nice to meet you.”
“I wish I could say the same,” Jane said, frowning. “Who are you?”
“My name is Marie Donaldson, and I’m the leader of this expedition.”
“What expedition? What are you talking about?”
“I’m sure you have an inkling already, Jane.” She raised her head and looked down her nose at Jane.
It was true. Jane did have a decent idea about what the woman was referring to, but she had no idea about the specifics.
“Where are my friends?”
“They’re safe, but we’re not taking any chances this time.”
Jane sighed. “And what do you need from me? Word has it you got what you wanted. Lucas said so.”
The woman shook her head and let out an exasperated sigh. “That man…” she said. She glanced back up at Jane. “Do you have any idea how important this discovery is?”
“More than you know,” Jane said, and despite her reservation, she couldn’t help but laugh for a moment. “Probably more than you want to know.”
Marie looked at her, shocked. “What is it that you know?” she asked as she stepped away from the glass, frowning as she approached Jane.
Damn, Jane thought. Way too much info. “I mean, I just get the impression that it’s not wise to be tinkering with something that we know so little about. From what I know, this…object…is still very much unknown to us. Right? I mean, it could be very dangerous.” She was playing as close to dumb as she thought Marie would accept, and she waited to see if her performance was good enough. The very last thing she needed was for this strange woman—whom Jane could already tell was obsessed with the object—to know about Max and what he had already revealed to her.
The woman looked in her eyes for a lie but seemed to find none. “You do have a point. But the people that run this planet disagree.”
“The people that run this planet are the governments of the world. Mostly hard-working, well-intentioned people.”
The woman glared at her. Then a grin appeared on her face. Within seconds, she began to laugh, and then it became a cackle that filled the room. After what appeared to Jane to be a moment of over-indulgence, Marie looked back at her. “Of course, Jane.” Reaching up a hand, she scratched her forehead. “It doesn’t matter now, anyway. The Committee is in control. I mean, does it matter where their power comes from?” she asked, gesticulating with her hands.
“I suppose not,” Jane said. “But it matters what they do with it, doesn’t it? Let’s cut to the chase, Miss Donaldson. You’re talking about the object in the ocean, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” she said after a brief pause.
“Then you’re right. It doesn’t matter where the power came from. What matters is what happens after the orders are given. How do you know you’re not opening Pandora’s Box?”
Marie regarded her calmly with those same piercing eyes. “Are you sure there’s not something else you’re withholding from me? Because this is going ahead whether you want it to or not, Jane.”
Jane didn’t say anything else.
The woman pursed her lips and nodded. “Fine,” she said. “We leave tomorrow—with all of you on board.”
“On board?”
“Yes. We’re taking you to a vessel; it’s already been positioned above the Atlantic Object’s coordinates. We plan to raise the object, and you’ll be there, just in case we fail.”
“Fail? To do what?”
The woman clasped her hands together in front of her. “Fail to ignite whatever power source causes it to work.” Marie turned and walked toward the door. She reached up her wrist toward the security panel, but before she scanned it, she stopped and glanced back over her shoulder at Jane. “Who’s the man in the black cloak, Jane?”
Jane breathed in sharply, unable to help herself. She glared defiantly at the woman.
Marie grinned and ran her hand over the scanning device. The door opened, and she left without another word.
Nobody else came into the room that night, and Jane was surprised when the lights dimmed. She sat on the floor cross-legged for a while, and eventually, lay on her side and went to sleep.
***
Marie Donaldson sat at her desk with her eyes on the door directly in front of it. It was late, and she only had a few final preparations to make before they departed for the vessels that were already waiting for them in the middle of the Atlantic. Finally, she heard the chime. “Enter,” she said, knowing it was Lucas.
The door hissed open, and he stepped inside. It closed behind him with a hiss, and he stood with his back to it, hands clasped behind him.
“What the hell were you going to do in there, Lucas?”
“When?”
She tilted her head. “Don’t waste my time,” she said, her voice dripping with venom.
He didn’t respond.
“I don’t have time for vendettas. Our goal is to raise, study, and report about the object. Activate it if possible. That’s it. Everything else is secondary. If I catch you doing anything suspicious again, I’m going to the Committee.”
“Sure. Just remember, they’re fickle.” He grinned. “I could do the same thing.”
Her head tilted upward, and her mind drifted to the pulse rifle under her desk. It was a nonlethal, energy-based weapon with which she had trained extensively. If it were any other situation, she would have shot him right there. “That may be true. But I’m a powerful woman. My reach extends beyond the Committee. Yours doesn’t. If anything untoward happens here, I can disappear like smoke. If anything happens to you, well…” she finished, pursing her lips. “From now on, you do what I say, when I say it. Nothing more.” After a brief moment, she nodded toward the door behind him. “Get out.”
He turned and left.
***
Jane woke the next morning to the sound of the door chiming and lights flickering on overhead. The door opened, and two men walked inside. They were bulky, and they were both carrying long-form, sophisticated-looking Tasers. She stood up, shaking off any tiredness she felt as quickly as she could. Soon after, more men appeared in the hallway outside. Then Marie approached and stood in the open doorframe.
For a moment, the woman merely glared at Jane. “Come with me,” she finally said.
Jane paused and took a breath. She glanced at the two well-built men who were standing just inside the door staring at her. Then she looked further beyond Marie out into the corridor where more of these guards waited. Realizing she had little choice, she frowned and walked toward the door, past the two guards, and Marie stood aside as she stepped into the hallway. Jane stopped and looked at her.
Marie pointed to the left side of the corridor and nodded.
Jane turned and looked in that direction now. She saw a long passage that led to an elevator about seventy feet away. Glancing back at Marie, she found the woman was already walking that way. Jane followed quickly. She heard the six guards who had surrounded them on all sides begin to walk behind her as she fell in line with Marie.
They entered the large elevator. Jane and Marie stood in the center
; the guards fell in behind them, and two remained on either side at the front. The doors slid closed, and as they did, Marie reached her hand forward toward a panel on the front wall to the right. She pressed her fingers against it and it came to life, glowing with blue light. “Roof, please,” Marie said, as though she was addressing the lowliest subordinate one could possibly imagine.
“DNA and voice match confirmed,” a pleasant male voice said from overhead.
Jane felt the elevator lurch as they began to ascend. She glanced at Marie, who didn’t look back at her as she returned to her position, standing just next to Jane with her hands clasped in front of her. Jane frowned and wondered what could be waiting on the roof, but after a few tense moments, the elevator stopped, the doors opened, and light poured in. Then her questions were answered, and her jaw gaped open at what she saw.
Directly in front of them, a hundred and fifty feet away, was a large craft, which, although it had rotary blades on the roof, barely resembled a helicopter. It was sleek, massive, black, and extremely advanced looking, easily large enough to carry all of them comfortably. There were more men and women in fatigues waiting around the exterior of the craft.
“Don’t bother trying to escape,” Marie said as she exited the elevator. “There’s still a psionic-suppression field surrounding this section of the building. You won’t get far.” She laughed cruelly. “Well, fifty feet maybe.” As she turned and glanced at Jane, she nodded in the direction of the incredible vehicle, indicating for her to follow.
Jane began to walk forward slowly, realizing that Marie was correct; she could not feel her supernormal abilities at all. As she walked ahead, she heard the men in the elevator fall in behind them.
Jane knew then that she would be traveling in that vehicle shortly, leaving land for a destination that caused fear to creep into her. It was not the thought of traveling over the sea that frightened her; Jane loved the water. It was the distant humming, the vibration of the Machine in the background of her mind that she had until this moment refused to acknowledge. Mom, she thought wistfully. A distant, otherworldly light pierced her thoughts, and she gasped, surprised.
Marie glanced back at her.
Jane squinted, refusing to stop for a second—denying Marie the possibility of seeing something that might give her insight into what she was thinking. Instead, she continued moving ahead, resolving to give thought to what she had seen later. For a brief second, though, she had felt incredible motion and energy—the colossal and alien energies of the Machine.
“Where are my friends?” she asked as she reached Marie and matched her pace. They were now only sixty feet from the incredible vehicle.
“They’re following us up right now, Jane. They should be here any moment.”
Jane looked again at the advanced helicopter ahead. Steps led up to its interior, and armed guards stood on either side of the entrance. As they approached, the two guards stood aside, and Marie walked up the steps casually and entered the craft. Jane took a deep breath and looked back toward the elevator just as it once again reached the roof after having descended to the lower floors. As the doors opened, Jane could see Mike, Ciara, and Morris being escorted by another group of guards.
Jane’s heart jumped at the sight of Morris, but as the group began to move forward, he appeared to still be on autopilot. Ciara and Mike looked confused as they exited the lift, blinking at the stark daylight. After a moment, Jane caught Mike’s eye. She nodded at him and turned back around to face the entrance of the vehicle. Then, with one quick glance to the female guard on her left, she walked up the steps and went inside.
Looking around, she saw that the walls on either side of the interior were covered with plush seats. This was no military craft, Jane thought. No, this had been designed for a specific purpose.
Marie had already taken a seat near the front section of the vehicle, close to the wall that separated this area from the cockpit. “Things are moving quickly now, Jane,” she said. “There may come a time when I need you to be cooperative. Do I have any reason to expect that that’s a possibility?”
“No,” Jane replied flatly.
Marie folded her arms, shaking her head lightly as her gaze fell away from Jane.
Jane glanced over at her, and after a moment, she sighed. “Look, Miss Donaldson. I get why you’re so fanatical about this thing—I understand the dynamics of the situation. But I want no part of it. I’m here because you manipulated me into coming here by putting that thing in my boyfriend’s neck.”
Marie nodded. “Fine. But how do you know you’re going to have control?”
Jane opened her mouth to speak again but hesitated. She had looked away for a moment, but then her eyes slowly drifted back toward Marie’s gaze.
“You’ve already felt its pull, haven’t you?” The woman was grinning now. “I suspected as much.”
The helicopter shook as some huge piece of machinery began to move overhead. Jane guessed it was the rotary blades unlocking, though she could not hear them spinning yet. “What is it precisely that you’re expecting?” she asked.
“That your proximity to the device might have some automatic effect on it.”
Jane had no response to this. Secretly, she worried that Marie was right. She had felt the pull of the Machine—both in her sleep and sometimes in her waking life. At those times, it had felt like the gravity of a fading dream—as though some terribly important message lay within her grasp, but it would then disappear like grains of sand flowing through her fingertips on a hot day at the beach.
“I guess we’ll see, won’t we, Marie?” she said, ending the conversation in an act of defiance that had a terrible, almost deadly finality to it, like the throwing down of a gauntlet: something that could have no peaceful end, and therefore, would end dramatically for at least one party.
Marie was no longer grinning. In fact, there was a hint of hesitation in her face.
Jane took a seat on the opposite side of the large doorway, from where she could look out. She watched her friends approach in the sunlight outside and took a deep breath as the rotary blades really began to spin above them. As her friends climbed up the steps, their hair was tossed aside by the growing wind. Mike and Ciara sat right next to her, and she took both of their hands in hers for a moment.
Jane returned her attention to the other side of the craft to see Morris being taken gently by the arm and escorted by one of the male guards to the other side of the interior, where he was directed to sit on a chair. Unquestioningly, he turned, took a seat, and proceeded to stare directly ahead of him with a vacant expression.
Jane’s chest felt light at the sight of him, and she wanted to run across the vehicle and lunge at the guard—and she would have if she had not seen a familiar presence walking around outside. She thought it was Lucas, and she craned her neck to see, but couldn’t quite make out the figure that took a seat in the front section of the helicopter, out of their sight.
Once the remaining personnel were inside and had taken seats all around the craft—mostly sitting as far from Jane and her friends as they could—a series of harnesses automatically sprung from the sides of the chairs and secured them in place. Moments later, the door in front of her shut tight, and the craft lifted off the ground as though it was lighter than air.
Jane looked over her shoulder at the passing concrete below, and within minutes, they were sailing over incredibly blue water. Five minutes later, Jane felt a shudder, and she glanced above as a vibration came from overhead—the craft was speeding up. As she glanced out the window one last time, she gaped upon realizing the speed they were moving at. The ocean was now just a dark blur below them; no features at all could be seen on the surface.
After several hours of featureless ocean passing by below them, the craft appeared to slow down, and once again, Jane glanced over her shoulder. In the distance, she could see four vessels, roughly forming a squar
e. There was one vessel that caught Jane’s attention and drew her toward it far more than the others. One of the ships was almost twice the size of the others and clearly far more advanced. It became clear to her quickly then that that was the ship they were approaching.
She rose up in the seat as much as her harness would allow and watched as they approached the craft.
Her friends sat up and craned their necks too.
There was a large helipad at the front of the ship. All over the deck, Jane could see incredible technology that she knew nothing about. They hovered over the vessel for a few moments before hitting the helipad with barely a thud, and immediately Jane heard the blades above them begin to slow down.
After a silent, tense moment, the doors opened and light poured in. Just outside, a small troop of men armed with advanced Tasers was waiting for them, forming a line.
The harnesses that had previously held them in place clicked open and snapped back. Marie stood up and nodded her head in the direction of the open doorway. Slowly, tentatively, Jane stood and walked toward the exterior. Marie hurried in front of her and headed for the steps. Jane caught sight of her nodding toward her right at the guard who was sitting next to Morris. She followed her gaze and saw the man acknowledge this and nod back.
Jane frowned, and despite her reluctance to leave Morris there, she followed Marie, stepping down and walking among the men who held weapons on her. She checked behind to make sure her friends were following. Then she caught up with Marie quickly. “What about Morris?” she asked, yelling to be heard over the sound of the blades, which was decreasing.
“He’ll be right behind us, Jane. He’s coming with a separate escort. This way,” she said over her shoulder as she walked toward an open door that led to the interior of the ship.
Having no other option, Jane and her friends followed her.
They entered through the doorway, and then were led through the corridors of the ship. Its interior was highly sophisticated. There were screens everywhere, and some sections opened onto lower decks where scientists walked about working with complex applications. At one of these stations, Jane looked down to see a bunch of them standing over a large surface computer, manipulating the controls frantically and arguing. Jane caught a quick glance at the images on the surface and could only make out some kind of circular shapes, like the broken sections of a ring. There were many of these, and they were scattered across the table.
Rise (The Ethereal Vision Book 2) Page 11
