Dangerous Minds: A Cyrus Cooper Thriller: Book One

by Xander Weaver

  Contents

  Copyright

  Title Page

  Dedication

  - Prologue

  - Chapter 1

  - Chapter 2

  - Chapter 3

  - Chapter 4

  - Chapter 5

  - Chapter 6

  - Chapter 7

  - Chapter 8

  - Chapter 9

  - Chapter 10

  - Chapter 11

  - Chapter 12

  - Chapter 13

  - Chapter 14

  - Chapter 15

  - Chapter 16

  - Chapter 17

  - Chapter 18

  - Chapter 19

  - Chapter 20

  - Chapter 21

  - Chapter 22

  - Chapter 23

  - Chapter 24

  - Chapter 25

  - Chapter 26

  - Chapter 27

  - Chapter 28

  - Chapter 29

  - Chapter 30

  - Chapter 31

  - Chapter 32

  - Epilogue

  Cyrus Cooper Will Return...

  - Acknowledgments

  - About the Author

  Copyright © 2014 by Xander Weaver

  ISBN 978-0-9904394-0-0 (eBook)

  www.XanderWeaver.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design by Lee Roesner, Paradigm Graphic Design

  Image sources by alexfiodorov/bigstockphoto.com and flynt/bigstockphoto.com

  Release version: 1.03

  DANGEROUS MINDS

  Xander Weaver

  I dedicate this novel to the love of my life, and the most loving and caring person I’ve ever met.

  I love you, Carrie!

  Prologue

  Unknown location,

  Eastern United States

  46 Days Ago

  11:14 p.m.

  With her heart lodged in her throat, the only sound Keegan Porter could hear was the frantic beat as she slipped from the darkened stairwell and into the main corridor of the building’s first floor. She was out of breath, her body almost numb with the panic within, but her determination grew—she would not stop until her escape was made and freedom was won. After all, Keegan knew that if this attempt failed, she wouldn’t have a chance at another.

  The wide hallway was dimly lit, and being after hours, the building was silent and still. Almost no one entered or exited the facility at the late hour, so she was alone. Every other light running the length of the hall was extinguished, adding to the desolate feeling that chilled Keegan to her core. Even though no shadows moved, she knew she was never alone. They were already aware of her escape and would capture her once more.

  The pair of glass doors at the end of the hall was her goal, though they were far from the finish line. Escaping the building was only the beginning of her plan. But if she could make it that far, she stood a chance. It was more of an opportunity than she’d had in the nine months she’d been confined.

  Darting for the goal, Keegan focused on the glow of the empty city street beyond. Her bare feet slapped against the cold tile as she sprinted the last forty yards. Only the sound of her own rapid footfalls could be heard in the deafening silence of the building, yet she knew…they were coming. Even without a noise, without a scream or a command, Keegan sensed them as strongly as she sensed freedom. The experienced armed response team was mobilizing just two floors above her head.

  As she drew closer to the doors, Keegan’s own reflection stared back from the glass. The dark blue of the institutional pajama-style scrubs hung from her thin form like a layer of skin, and her jet black hair framed a face so pale that it barely shown with detail. It was a startling reminder that she hadn’t seen her own reflection since arriving in this horrible place.

  As her hands slammed against the door’s release bar, Keegan’s focus shifted away from the image to the street outside, but the barrier was steadfast. Her world spun unexpectedly when the doors refused to budge an inch—the collision of her body against metal and glass sent her ricocheting, skidding down the high-gloss hallway where she slid to a stop on her backside.

  Locked—Of course!

  In her mind, she was tracking the movements of the men sent to retrieve her. They’d split into teams, with one following her path directly and heading down the stairs. That group would make it to the first floor and be on her in a matter of seconds. The second team was moving through the back of the building, an area she wasn’t familiar with. But if Keegan had to guess, they were likely going for the garage and their vehicles, ready to pursue if, by some miracle, she managed to evade the first team.

  Still sitting on the cold floor, Keegan looked back at the thick glass doors that separated her from the chance to bury herself in a city that would provide the perfect camouflage with people, lights and noise.

  Taking a calming breath, she closed her eyes and let her mind explore the locking mechanism that secured the doors. It was strong and industrial; the sort of lock designed to protect the entire building from the dangers of the streets outside. Ironic, Keegan thought, since there were far more sinister forces at work inside the fortress’s sturdy walls.

  Her mind went further…dug deeper. The door’s heavy metal push bar met with thick, long tooth gears that were hidden behind a heavy plate. She could see it clearly in her mind, as though the components of the door’s lock were made of glass themselves. The gears met with another rod that passed behind the plate in the push bar; a rod that ran the width of the door where it met with another set of thick gears canted at forty-five degree angles. Those gears mated with a pair of rods that projected up and down the leading edge of the door where they extended into plates set deep into the door’s frame, bracing it in place.

  The wrong way, she realized.

  Her mind backtracked over the image, studying the schematic in her mind to find the weakness, the way out, desperately trying to block out the men she knew were coming closer with every second. As if walking the mechanical path, Keegan followed the vertical metal bars down, past the canted gears, past the long rod behind the protective plate, through another set of gears, and along another set of solid rods before meeting with a substantial cylinder lined with narrow pins. It was the door’s locking mechanism, and its three dimensional form materialized with perfect clarity. Without another thought, the pins inside the lock retracted into the walls of the housing and the central cylinder within the mechanism spun a hundred and eighty degrees.

  Keegan launched herself up from the floor, smashed through the door, and skidded onto the sidewalk beyond. Her first instinct was to run, but she had to be smarter than that. She threw a shoulder against the slowly closing door to speed the slow pneumatic dampener that prevented the door from slamming shut. The moment the door reconnected, the lock clicked into place once again, and she was off and running, sprinting down the empty city street like an Olympic champion.

  Nearly one hundred yards were behind her when a crash suddenly splintered the silent night. The unmistakable sound of shattering glass brought a renewed surge of adrenaline to her body. Keegan didn’t need to extend her senses to know what had happened behind her, or the mistake she’d ultimately made. While she’d assumed the locked doors would slow her pursuers, they’d caused only a second’s delay to the team in pursuit. With her lead quickly dwindling, she needed to get off the street and find cover in the darkness promised by
the nooks and crannies of the vast city.

  Turning right into the nearest alley, Keegan reached the back wall of the narrow corridor before her eyes could fully adjust to the near total blackness. The moon was nearly three quarters full, but the buildings on both sides were four stories tall, doing their part for her by leaving the narrow passage engulfed in shadow. Having no faith that the area would be able to conceal her for long, Keegan cast out her senses, frightened that she‘d wasted precious time by cowering and not running further into the world. The shock was too much. The three-man team was headed directly for the mouth of the alley, as if they knew her exact position. It didn’t make sense. Even they, with their talents and experience, should’ve at least had to search—

  Oh, no…

  Realization struck, leaving her breathless and her mouth dry. Her mind flashed back to the recovery period that followed the brutal medical procedure she’d endured only nine months earlier. Trying to avoid the truth, Keegan raised an unsteady hand. Her fingers carefully probed the scar tissue at the base of her skull as she attempted with all her might to delude herself…forget the painful period of recovery that followed the unorthodox procedure. But it was impossible. Though the pain soon faded, that horrific operation had led to imprisonment, not to mention the onset of her truly unusual abilities. And she tried desperately to deny the fact that the team was coming after her with ease for a reason.

  She just couldn’t give up. As Keegan’s eyes adjusted to the low light of the alley, the fire escape scaffolds suspended from one of the brick walls came into view. There were four different platforms connected by ladders leading up the side of the building. The first floor’s platform was raised at least twenty feet off the ground and well beyond reach.

  Focusing on the long set of stairs that extended from the bottom of the lowest platform, she saw that the stairs were drawn up flush against the bottom of the fire escape and would extend if someone tried to descend upon them. When that happened, the person would offset a counterweight and lower the staircase. Yet again, a mechanical contraption that could be manipulated. Reaching out, Keegan focused her abilities on the very end of the outstretched staircase. With a horrible shriek from the rusted metal hinge, the end of the staircase dropped quickly to the ground.

  The second floor was behind her before Keegan even felt the painful bite of the rough, oxidized iron beneath her bare feet as she climbed. The moment she’d reached the first platform, the staircase’s counterweight had kicked in and returned it to a stowed position, leaving no trace of the path she’d taken. It was a small victory, though she knew her attackers were closing in as she climbed higher.

  They must have implanted some sort of tracking device while she was under anesthesia, she reasoned. It was a thought that shook her to her very core. After all, if that was the case, how could she ever hope to escape?

  Reaching the third floor, Keegan looked through a wide window, taking in the brightly lit hallway. Golden numbers on each door represented the line of apartments.

  She tried to lift the window but found it secured, yet another blockade. Looking more closely, Keegan found a pair of latches along the top of the double-hung frame. Bringing her mind to life once again, she triggered both latches simultaneously, and the window slid open without a sound, closing again just two seconds later.

  The temptation to barge though one of the apartment doors was great. If she could get to a phone, she could call for help; there had to be someone who would believe her in this world. If they could only see the men who were pursuing her: heavily armed, with two of them smiling wide, looking forward to dragging her back to a windowless locked room. She could sense the desire coming off those men, and it chilled her to the bone.

  Desperate or not, Keegan couldn’t risk barging into an apartment just to beg for help. Besides, calling for help was out of the question. It would never arrive in time, and the agony of knowing that innocent people would be hurt was too much for her. Especially since she knew her capture would be inevitable if she slowed for even a moment.

  Racing to the end of the hall, Keegan located a stairway. Making for the street was out of the question—her assailants had already been joined by the second half of their team. Three men were in the process of picking the locks on the building’s front entrance, while the two remaining men had somehow managed to retrieve the fire escape staircase and were already beginning their ascent. She could see it all in her mind as clearly as if she were monitoring the teams via a closed circuit security system, and the image was terrifying.

  Lacking a better option, she made for the roof. The door at the top of the stairs was protected by a simple deadbolt lock—trivial, given everything she’d already bypassed. Stepping out onto the asphalt lined roof, Keegan pushed the door shut behind her and heard the deadbolt slip into place with a satisfying snap.

  But as she jogged around the open expanse of roof, her worst fear was realized. She was trapped. There was no access to an adjoining building, and her hope of jumping to the fourth floor fire escape below had been crushed. An armed pursuer had already taken up a position, just waiting for her.

  It mattered little, she realized. The tracking device made it impossible for her to escape. If there was any chance at freedom, Keegan knew she needed to find the device and disable it.

  But how?

  She didn’t have the time, or the technology. Then again, maybe technology wasn’t a problem, considering her abilities. Thinking hard, Keegan considered the easy way she’d been able to manipulate the complicated locks during her escape. With nothing she could do about time, Keegan chose to find the tracking chip and defeat it the same way she’d defeated the locks.

  Dropping to her knees, Keegan closed her eyes. With that, the sounds and smells of the world around her slipped into nothingness. She sensed no more than her own heartbeat; nothing else existed except a young woman willing to fight. Starting at her toes, Keegan began a thorough examination, visualizing her body in her mind. The pads of her feet were sliced; the coating of blood was thick and dirty. There was inflammation in her ankles from her reckless run through the dark streets. And in her right knee, what remained of a tree climbing accident when she was just twelve-years-old came to light. Three pins and seven screws were used to rebuild her knee and leg following the accident. Now, she literally marveled at the way the bone had grown, fusing and enveloping the screws over the years, as if her body had chosen to become one with the hardware.

  The clarity was amazing.

  As Keegan’s examination reached the base of her own skull, she took a deep breath, sensing the scar tissue that existed on the surface of her skin. It was hidden beneath her hairline, but the long winding ridge of twisted, pierced flesh reminded her of how recent the surgery had been. What she found beneath the surface sucked the breath from her lungs.

  Following the long, deep incision in her flesh as it twisted past deadened nerve endings and penetrated the surface of her brain, she found the nearly microscopic chip buried deep in the tissue. Small wires extended from the chip and snaked in different directions, delving further into her brain. At first shocked by what she was seeing, Keegan realized she didn’t have time for distractions. Adjusting her focus and doing her best to set her fear and anger aside, she focused on the chip and assessed its scale. It was tiny, and the fiber-like wires extending from it were even smaller, fractionally thinner than a human hair, and they seemed to twist and turn, running to a half-dozen different parts of her brain.

  There!

  Tracking one of the thin wires, Keegan found that it headed toward the surface of her brain where it met with a marginally larger flat disc. Though she couldn’t be sure why, she felt certain that this was the component being used to track her. The fear sparked inside her as she hoped that severing wire would be enough to terminate the signal she was transmitting. It was a desperate and reckless gamble, but she had no other choice.

  A giant blast of air suddenly crashed into Keegan’s back, toppling h
er from her knees, and sending her sprawling to the asphalt roof. She wasn’t sure what had happened; all she knew was that her hearing had been erased by a ringing sensation. The world around her spun as she fought to catch her breath. Her mind reached out to the surroundings as her instincts struggled to understand what had just happened.

  But there was nothing. She couldn’t hear a word, a sound, a movement…her senses were completely mute. It was as if her extrasensory perception had been stripped away along with her hearing, her freedom, and her last glimmer of hope.

  Propping herself up on an elbow, Keegan fought to focus. As far as she could tell, she was unharmed. But her mind was scrambled and her body felt numb.

  As the tall figure stepped from the dark doorway, time stopped. He cradled a strange looking rifle in his arms. She stared at the small bowl-shaped protrusion at the end where the muzzle of the gun should be.

  A sonic weapon, Keegan guessed, based on the dizziness that seemed rooted in her very core.

  The man walked slowly closer. Two more men took positions at his flanks as he advanced. Those men seemed cautious, but the leader exuded confidence and determination, not seeming to share in or care about whatever concerned his friends.

  The man’s mouth moved as he stood over her, but Keegan had no idea what he was saying. With so many of her senses stripped away, she was shocked to realize that she couldn’t even manage to read his lips in her current state.

  There was a glint in the man’s eyes, and she struggled to understand what it meant.

  But with the glint came an anger that made the image even more confusing. His eyes were dark, completely cold and devoid of sympathy. The ridge of an old scar split the brow over his left eye cleanly in two before running down the outer corner of the eye until it disappeared, fading back into his skin. A once vicious war wound was etched into his skin. Professional work had been done to conceal the injury but it was still obvious.