PSI/Net

by Rob MacGregor

  "Don't move him," the trooper said. "Just stay right here. The emergency medical team is landing."

  Several sleepy reporters and cameramen peered into the Humvee. "Hey, Camila," one of them said. "What happened? What's going on?"

  Calloway pushed through the reporters and opened the back door. He told Camila that he'd like to be with Perez before the medics arrived. Camila patted Perez's bloodied arm. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She crawled out the vehicle and moved away, trailed by several reporters.

  Calloway held on to Perez's hand and tried to reach him. He knew Perez had been badly wounded. To his surprise, he heard Perez's voice in his head.

  Now you can crack the net. With me gone, the web has a hole. Go through it. You can still stop Wiley. You can do it.

  "But how, Eduardo?" He didn't know whether he spoke the words or communicated them telepathically.

  Hands fell on Calloway's shoulders and the connection broke. Men and women in green jumpsuits moved in and eased Calloway out of the Humvee. "We'll take it from here," one of them said. "We'll do everything we can for him."

  Calloway stumbled away, Perez's words still in his mind. A state trooper escorted him through the gate and into the entryway of the house. He leaned against the wall amid a flurry of activity.

  Camila appeared out of nowhere, her T-shirt stained with blood, her face streaked with tears. "Trent, you remember Agent Clarke?"

  He nodded, forcing himself to snap out of the disjointed space he'd drifted into after his contact with Perez.

  Clarke moved forward. "We can track any private jets coming into Washington, but there's very little we can do unless the plane lands."

  "You're looking at the end of Washington, at the end of the United States the way we know it, and you're telling me you can't do anything?"

  Clarke raised a hand, then touched his ear, listening through a tiny transmitter. After several seconds, he looked up. "We just contacted La Plata County Airport in Durango. No private jet filed a flight plan for Washington, D.C., during the last eight hours. However, a Gulfstream jet took off at nine-twenty-five this evening. It filed a flight plan for Great Falls, Montana, and it's an hour overdue."

  "That must be it."

  Clarke nodded. "We're working on that possibility." He listened again, then spoke softly into a wrist transmitter, acknowledging that he'd received the information.

  "Okay, here's what we know. A Gulfstream jet's cruising speed is 459 knots. A direct flight from Durango to Dulles would take approximately five hours. So, it's possible that he could arrive over the capital by two-twenty."

  "That's less than an hour," Camila gasped.

  Calloway heard the helicopter carrying Perez lift off. Too late, he thought. Perez would be dead on arrival. He pushed away the thought, not wanting to believe it.

  He remembered Perez's final message to him. He turned to Camila. "Is there some place quiet we could go so I can work?"

  She looked to Clarke, who nodded. They followed him outside, past the swimming pool, and into the library where Calloway had worked hours earlier.

  "What's your plan, Trent?" Camila asked.

  "I don't have one. But I'll see if I can find Wiley. What else can I do?"

  "I'll monitor you," Camila said. This time there was no hesitation on her part.

  He found a comfortable chair and began to relax himself. In spite of everything that he'd been through tonight, he quickly sank down into his zone. He signaled with his hand when he was ready.

  "Go to George Wiley and describe his surroundings," Camila said.

  He felt swift movement, the sensation of flight. For a moment, he glimpsed the interior of a private jet. Three men and a woman were aboard, including the pilot. Then the image vanished as if invisible blinders had cut off his vision.

  "I got a brief look. Wiley's in flight."

  "Is Maxwell with him?" she asked.

  "I don't think so. I didn't sense him there."

  Maxwell has disappeared from the radar.

  An odd thought. Not his own. Then he felt the presence of the others.

  Hey there, Trent. Long time no see. What happened to Perez? I don't feel him around."

  Is that you again, Ritter?

  We're all here—watching you. By the way, too bad about Doc.

  I know you did it. You pulled that trigger, Steve. The blood's on your hands.

  Don't see any. Ritter cackled in Calloway’s head. So what are you up to? Looking for someone? Hope it not Maxwell. He'd dead, too. We killed him. He taught us well.

  Then you can stop Wiley, too, before it's too late.

  Stop him? We're helping him, Trent. Protecting him. That's why you can't see anything."

  In spite of his variety of experiences in the psychic world, communicating in a telepathic mode, as if he were on a conference call, was new and strange. The powers of Maxwell's creation—the PSI/NET—as Perez had described it, astonished him. In Wiley's hands, the possibilities were utterly frightening.

  Your block isn't working very well, Steve. Wiley's flying in a Gulfstream jet. He left the Durango airport at about nine-twenty-five. He'll pass over Washington, D. C, within the hour.

  Not bad, Trent. Not bad. You're good. You're one of us. But you can't stop us.

  He and Ritter had never been close, even when they saw each other every day. Ritter had always struck him as more competitive than personable. He'd always considered himself the best of the team and Calloway his main competition.

  "Trent, can you tell us what you're seeing now?" Camila asked.

  Tell her to stick it up her twat and go look for a UFO. That was clever back at the ranch, Trent. Very clever. But what was your point? That was you playing with her, wasn't it?

  He ignored Ritter. "I'm communing with the bad guys, Camila. They're trying to block me from zeroing in on Wiley. You could say that they are right here with us."

  "Do you want to come back?"

  "No, not yet."

  "Fly with us, Trent-o. It's a free trip. Your last journey to D. C."

  Calloway pushed harder. For a moment, he glimpsed the interior of the eight-passenger plane again. He saw Ritter sitting across the aisle from Wiley, who sat next to a woman he didn't recognize.

  You're up there with him.

  Guessing or seeing?

  He ignored Ritter. The mind chatter formed part of the block. We can kill you, Trent. We will kill you.

  He felt pressure on his temples. He willed them away, but the pressure increased. Invisible hammers pounded on either side of his head from the inside out.

  You won't kill me. It would weaken the net.

  We can do without you. The net molds exactly to our needs.

  He pushed back, but they were too strong. He pushed again. Desperate this time. He sank beneath their weight, his resistance weakening. He saw their eyes now, glowering, searing into his brain. He gasped for air, but they had stolen his breath. He heard Camila calling to him, calling from far, far away. He couldn't come back. They wouldn't let him. He'd misjudged their strength, their ability, their willingness to destroy a part of their net. He'd escaped Wiley's militia only to fall to his own kind.

  All at once, the pressure vanished. He sucked in a deep, reviving breath of air. He opened his eyes, expecting to see Camila in front of him. Instead, he found himself aboard the jet, no longer peering in from afar, but fully fixed in his surrounding. They'd let go of him. Something had distracted them and he'd done just as Perez had said to. He'd fallen through a hole in the net.

  Wiley and the woman peered intently out the window. Ritter looked around, confused. Calloway, baffled by the sudden shift and still apprehensive from the attack, just wanted out. He drifted up, up through the top of the plane and that was when he saw what had caught Wiley's attention. A disk-shaped object, no, two of them, accompanied the plane, one off each wing.

  At the same time, Calloway remained aware of himself sitting in the chair in the library, where Ritter's voice had whispered i
n his head. He was vaguely cognizant of Camila kneeling in front of him, a hand on his knee, attempting gently to bring him back. She was talking in a firm voice, but her words didn't register. Instead, he heard Ritter again.

  Now I see why you created the UFO for your ex-wife. You were practicing for this trip. Very clever. I've totally underestimated you, Trent. But if we kill you, the UFOs vanish, right?"

  Calloway realized that Ritter actually believed that the crafts were his creation. He didn't disagree. He shifted his focus back to the plane and moved into the cabin again, hoping to make the best of the distraction.

  "They're locked on us," the pilot said. "I can't move. They're controlling our movements."

  "No!" Ritter shouted. "They're not real. It's implanted in your head."

  "Bullshit!" Wiley snapped. "Cut the double-talk. I see what I see. Those things are out there. I bet they're secret military crafts. Put out your antennae. How do we break away from them? What do we do?"

  "I'm already in contact with their creator. It's just Calloway. They're not real."

  "I don't know what the fuck you're talking about." Wiley dismissed Ritter and yelled to the pilot. "Where are we now? How close?"

  "Three minutes out of Washington."

  "Perfect."

  The woman pointed at something outside the window. "What, Marlys? What is it now?" Wiley asked.

  "We've got more company," she responded.

  "Two air force fighters are coming up fast," the pilot reported. "They're trying to make radio contact."

  "For chrissake." Wiley moved aft and dragged a backpack from behind the last seat. He ripped away the floor covering, revealing the emergency exit, a hatch in the floor. He took hold of the lever, pulled on it.

  Calloway pushed harder, moving up to Wiley, working his way inside him. Ritter, preoccupied, no longer blocked him, and he easily read Wiley's thoughts as he zipped open the backpack.

  An SS-22 primary with a plutonium core and a trigger detonator. Hit the switch on the right side for activation and the core's ready to go into nuclear yield. Enough power to demolish twelve square blocks and kill half a million people in the capital and surrounding area. That'll wake them up.

  Calloway needed to nudge Wiley now, change his mind, delay his response. Something. But then he struck a wall. The others—Johnstone, Timmons, Henderson—were there waiting, protecting, blocking. And they came directly at him, dark psychic knights charging with poison lances, aiming for his mind.

  Calloway dodged them as best he could, sending them terrifying images of the plane on fire, spinning out of control, and of Wiley's head in flames. The effort seemed to distract them momentarily. He remained hovering just outside of Wiley, aware of his thoughts.

  He directed Wiley to close the hatch. But the others blocked him again, pushed him away. He threw out an image of Wiley tumbling out the hatch, but they didn't buy it. A distorted chorus of voices echoed in his head.

  No, Trent. No, Trent. We know your tricks. We know them now. You can't get to him. Not now. Not ever. It's all over.

  Wiley zipped up the backpack, slid open the hatch a few inches. He clung to a handle on the wall as he felt the suction. He pulled the hatch open several more inches, then kicked the backpack. The bomb tottered a moment.

  "Crossing the Potomac now," the pilot announced.

  Wiley touched the backpack with the toe of his shoe and the bomb vanished through the hatch. Calloway looked on, helpless, still in the grip of the others. Wiley deftly pushed the hatch closed, locked it, then hurried back to his seat.

  He opened a briefcase and took out the triggering device. "Bon voyage, Washington, D.C," he shouted. "Dustin, your next."

  He tapped in the activation code. One click and Calloway knew that his vision of a destroyed capital would be real. He pushed on Wiley again, pushed harder. Again, he felt of wave of energy blocking him. He couldn't get to him, couldn't change his mind, couldn't stop him.

  "They're real," Ritter yelled. "It's not Calloway; it's not the military, either. Those things out there are real."

  "Shut up!" Wiley yelled. "One thing at a time."

  Ritter's shout momentarily distracted the others. Calloway pushed at the triggering device, pushed with everything he had left. He glimpsed the tiny circuit board, poured heat into it. Melted it. Fried the circuit.

  Wiley pressed the red button. Waited. He pressed again. He looked out the window waiting for a bright flash, an eruption far below. Nothing. "What the hell's wrong? Why doesn't it blow?"

  "Oh, no!" Ritter said. "He got in. Somehow, the fucker got in. He got the trigger."

  ''What!"

  Wiley hurled the box at Ritter. It bounced off his shoulder, fell harmlessly to the floor.

  "The disks are gone," the pilot reported. "I don't see them anywhere."

  Calloway moved back, away from the jet, and saw the fighters moving closer, closing in on their prey. This time, Wiley wouldn't get away.

  "Trent, can you hear me?"

  The image faded. He blinked, rubbed his face with his hands, then opened his eyes to see Camila crouched in front of him, staring intently at him. He took her hands. "I'm back. It's okay. We beat 'em. Barely, but we did it."

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  FIVE WEEKS LATER

  Calloway guided the raft out of the white water and along a curving sandstone wall. The choppy water settled as they eased into a quiet pool. The familiar sandy beach, the place where he'd briefly reached across time and glimpsed a scene from the ancient past, marked the end point for the trip.

  They would picnic here and browse along the pale brown cliffs that had once served as a canvas for Anasazi artists. Then the president, his press secretary, and the rest of the entourage would depart in a helicopter that waited above the cliffs.

  Camila leaped out as the raft touched shore. "This has been great, Trent. I really needed this break."

  In the weeks since a nuclear bomb had fallen harmlessly into a tree in Arlington and George Wiley, the bomber, had been captured, the resulting media frenzy had overwhelmed all other events. Each day, it seemed, new revelations came out: the deaths of Fielding and Tyler were connected to Wiley and Freedom Nation. Wiley was linked to remote viewing and questions were being raised about the deaths of two former CIA remote viewers—Maxwell and Perez. Even the buzz surrounding the president's comments about aliens faded until Steve Ritter boasted from his jail cell that he and other remote viewers had engineered Dustin's alien encounters.

  "I'm just glad that you've been kept out of it," Camila said after a pause.

  "I've noticed that nothing has been said about the UFOs that attracted the fighter jets to Wiley's plane," Calloway said.

  "I'm sure that it'll spill out at some point. There's just been so much being exposed about the psychic-induced encounters that no one is ready to look at the possibility of a real UFO. Whatever that is."

  "I don't know what it was, either," Calloway conceded. "But I think it was related to your own encounter, Camila."

  She frowned. "I thought that was Ritter's work."

  "He thought it was my work." Calloway shrugged. "So I don't know. Except, I keep thinking about something Maxwell told me a long time ago. He thought that aliens would make themselves known when people believed they were here. Maybe the president's false experience created the real thing—at least for a few minutes."

  She laughed. "I'll have to think about that one."

  Calloway looked up as Dustin approached him. "Trent, this has been fantastic. Just fantastic. I'd like to do it again sometime."

  "It's been an honor, sir. Anytime you're ready, let us know."

  "I'd like to have you out to my house for dinner one of these nights, too." He smiled. "You know, that big white place on Pennsylvania Avenue."

  Calloway smiled. "I've seen pictures of it. I'd like to get out there when I've got some time. My new RV arrives next week."

  "A remote viewer living in an RV. I like that. Why don't you drive it and p
ark it in my backyard. Just don't drive on the roses." They laughed, then Dustin added: "I know Camila would like you to spend some time with us."

  "I want to spend some time with her, too, and I'd like to visit Doc. I heard she's recovering nicely."

  Dustin took a step closer and lowered his voice. "In spite of what happened regarding my alien encounters, I still believe there's something to the phenomenon. Those UFOs that showed up before the bomb was dropped were tracked on radar. I think your talents could be used to find out a lot more about the source of those vessels."

  "That could be," Calloway said.

  Camila held up a hand. "Hold on. David, if you want me as your permanent spokesperson, then I would really prefer if you waited until you were out of office before you take that path again."

  Dustin laughed. "Maybe so."

  "Hey, you guys!" Ed Miller called out from a picnic table that he'd set up. "Lunch is all ready."

  They walked back to the table and he took Camila's hand. "How's it been, living with Ed?" she asked.

  "He's okay. But I'll be glad to get my own place again." "It was real nice of him to make you his partner."

  "Yeah, now I've got more work to do. But I enjoy it."

  "What about remote viewing?" she asked.

  "It's dangerous stuff. But under the right circumstances, and for the right reasons, I'm ready. . . as long as either you or Doc, when she's ready, monitor me."

  She smiled, hugged him. "That's a deal. It's a new tool. We need to explore it more thoroughly."

  At that moment, Calloway glimpsed an Indian man walking along the base of the cliff near the walls of petroglyphs where ancient shamans had entered trances and traveled to other worlds. The man looked up at Calloway and he recognized him as the one he'd seen before. A shaman. A warrior. A remote viewer. The man walked on and faded away.

  "Agreed. Except, one thing. It's not exactly a new tool, Camila. It's been around a long time."

  Look for JUST/IN TIME, the sequel to PSI/NET, wherever eBooks are sold

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