by A. L. Knorr
“I would appreciate that,” I said, tapping a pencil nervously against the blank page under my hand.
“There’s a helicopter pad behind the fire station. We have clearance to pick you up there. Do you know where the fire station is?”
“Yes.” I’d never had reason to go there before, but…my brain was running a million miles a minute. I’d expected a bus ticket or maybe a cab. But she was talking about helicopter pads.
“A pilot will pick you up tomorrow at seven a.m.”
Inside, I was flabbergasted. A freaking helicopter would pick me up? This was unbelievable. Trying to recover, I asked, “Should I bring anything?”
“Just you. We’ll deliver you back home before nightfall. And Petra?”
“Yeah?”
“Try to book off work the next day. You’ll be tired.”
We passed over miles and miles of forested wilderness, the shadow of our small insectile helicopter skating over the tops of the trees like those little bugs that can float on water. Just as it seemed as though the woods would never end, I spotted something small and dark with sharp edges nestled in the forest. The sunlight reflected off tall square windows and flashed in my eyes, making me blink.
A modern looking building with a blacktop helicopter pad came into focus. The building looked as though it had been constructed out of dark gray modular blocks of sheet-metal. Whenever they'd needed more space, they'd simply tacked on another room, the way schools added portables to their parking lots.
Off in the distance I caught a glimpse of a large patch of deforested earth. I squinted to get a better view, thinking I could see earth-movers and the tiny forms of men moving about the bare ground. But as the helicopter landed, the patch disappeared behind the trees and out of view.
The helicopter landed gently on the pad and powered off. The whirring blades began to slow. A figure appeared in my window. A man in a suit jacket and jeans approached the helicopter. The small door to my right swung open and he held a hand toward me to help me down. We smiled at each other. I thanked the pilot, and he saluted me with a deadpan expression. I got out and followed the man to a set of steps leading down to a terrace.
"I'm Andrew Banks," said the man, holding a glass door open for me. "You can call me Banks. Everyone else does. How was your flight, Miss Kara?"
"Amazing," I replied, passing into an air-conditioned hallway lined with plain gray doors. "I'd never been on a helicopter before. You guys travel in style."
"Yes, we know how to do it right." Banks nodded politely to a woman in a dress suit as she passed us.
"So, you'll take me to Miss Marks?"
"Not today," replied Banks. "You'll meet with Hiroki Emoto today. He's one of our scientists."
"Oh. He'll do the testing?" That made sense, that a scientist would do it rather than a businesswoman. "This is a satellite office, right? Where are your headquarters?"
"Like most big tech firms, we're headquartered in Silicon Valley but we've got satellite offices all over the world."
Professionally dressed people (why they bothered to dress up when this whole set-up was in the middle of the wilderness was beyond me) walked this way and that, each of them on a mission. A few of them were in fatigues and looked as though they did the majority of their work out of doors and with their hands. They stood, heads bent and talking with their nicely dressed colleagues. No one noticed me in my jeans and plaid button-up shirt, trailing along behind Banks.
"Miss Kara, this is Hiroki Emoto," said Banks.
I stopped abruptly and with a flush of embarrassment. I'd been gawking everywhere and not watching where we were going.
A slim man with blue-black hair and a set of striking and familiar cheekbones said, "Hello, Miss Kara. Welcome to Field Station Eleven."
"You were in Libya!" I blurted, happy to see a face I recognized.
He gave me a close-mouthed smile. "Yes, I was." He held a hand out. "Wonderful to see you under better circumstances. Call me Hiroki."
I shook his hand. "You too. And call me Petra."
"You know each other. Good. I'll leave the two of you then," added Banks, and strode away.
"This way to the lab, Petra," said Hiroki, leading me through another set of double doors and down a long glass hallway that linked two modular buildings. We were suspended over the tops of trees and I gaped down through the glass under my feet, watching the tips of the pine trees pass by.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Of course," said Hiroki as we made our way through the halls.
"Is there some reason I haven't been able to contact one of my friends from the dig?"
Hiroki frowned. "No that I know of, why?"
"No reason. Just haven't been able to reach someone I really wanted to say goodbye to." I didn't say more to Hiroki, but I was still quite upset. Over the last week, I had called Jesse once a day, with no answer. I only had the service of a simple landline, I had never splurged on extras like voicemail. If he had called while I was away, I wouldn't have known it. I tried not to think that he was just going to vanish from my life, the way everyone else I’d ever cared about had done, but the thought was like a ghost in the corner of every room.
"You have an amazing office," I said, clearing my throat and pushing thoughts of Jesse out of my mind.
"Thank you," Hiroki replied. "We like it. No distractions. And our new chef is a master of filet mignon," he added over his shoulder. "Not like the last guy." He gave an exaggerated shudder.
The elevated glass hallway ended and we took stairs down to ground level where a set of metallic double doors barred the way.
Hiroki took off his glasses and peered into a glass square shining a dim blue light. A bell went off and a panel near his belly button lit up. He pressed a thumb to the lit pad and a loud click told us we could go inside.
"Welcome to my lab," Hiroki said with no small amount of pride. "This is my playground.”
I grinned at him as I stepped through the doors, eager to see what I was capable of. Noel hadn’t been able to help me, what seemed ages ago when I’d walked into his office, but these people knew supernaturals. With a feeling of homecoming, I stepped into the lab.
Chapter 19
I stood in the middle of a busy street. I was the only still thing, my feet in my white sneakers on wet pavement. It wasn't raining anymore, but the air felt thick and humid and clung to my skin, and it curled my hair. Faceless people, busy and paying no attention to the frozen girl, brushed by me. They carried groceries, brought cigarettes to their lips, laughed and talked as they rushed by. Children barely visible in the edges of my periphery carried balloons which bobbed along; the bright colors looked like big cartoon heads. The crowd moved so fast that my hair moved with their passing, their shoulders jostling mine.
Out of a faceless, heedless crowd, a man materialized. The same silver-gray eyes. My jawline. My brow. His every movement came as though he was walking through molasses, agonizingly slow. Even his expression changed only subtly, languidly. We locked eyes like we were crossing swords.
I know who you are, his eyes said. His face was relaxed.
And I know you.
His face began to change, slowly, from impassive to insistent. His brows drew together and down, his mouth opened and lips tightened.
My heart surged, as though our emotions were linked. I felt a panicked urgency, but didn't understand where the fear was coming from. My brow felt warm, my cheeks flushed. The crowd jostled me. Their bodies began to hit mine harder, striking me and pushing me back. I began to lose sight of the man I had come to think of as my father as the crowd came between us. His face appeared one more time, over someone’s shoulder. He seemed as one stuck in another dimension, where the seconds moved so much slower. The word finally formed on his lips and I did not want to read it.
Run.
I reached a hand out toward him and was horrified to discover that I couldn't move normally either. My arm lifted with intention to part the crowd, so I could fin
d him again. My own fingers appeared in my periphery, then my hand appeared. But it appeared not as a flesh and blood hand. I looked down, my horror deepening. My entire hand and arm were made of sand, and the sand was breaking apart and blowing away, making little eddies of dust in the air.
I jerked awake and sat bolt upright in bed. Spring rain sprayed against the windows like there was a firehose pointed at the side of my apartment building. My heart hammered and I put a hand to my chest. My mouth was as dry as the Sahara. I threw the covers back and went to my tiny bathroom, barely registering how cold the floor was. I turned on the water and dumped my toothbrush out of its cup. I filled the cup and drank deeply—one, two, three cups of water.
I looked into the mirror, almost afraid of what I would see there. Would I be made of sand? My worried eyes met the eyes of the girl in the mirror. She looked normal, made of flesh, only distressed and a bit damp around the edges. I brushed the moisture off my brow.
"Why?" I asked the girl in the mirror. "Why did I see him again? Why run? Run from what?"
I had defeated the militants in Libya and now I was home, oceans away. What did I still have to be scared of? Why did this vision still plague me?
Exhausted, I went back to my bed and crawled between the sheets, telling myself that Hiroki would have some answers for me soon. I had told him about the dream, and he had listened quietly and patiently. He didn’t seem surprised by it. He assured me that one day the meaning would come clear. I only hoped that it became clear before it was too late.
I tried to imagine what life might have been like for me if I had been left to figure out my abilities all on my own, and the thought of it sent red-eyed rats of terror running up and down my spine. As strange as it was to be thrust into this new world of supernaturals and a corporation who employed and developed them, I was grateful that I didn't have to face it alone.
Epilogue
Jody looked up from the papers on her desk as a knock sounded on her office door. Hiroki was visible through the glass window, looking pale. She waved him in. He stepped into the office and approached Jody's desk.
"So, what did you find? Was the testing of our asset a success?" Jody gestured that Hiroki should sit in the plush chair across from her. "Take a seat. How are you feeling? You look ill. You know there's been that bug going around."
Hiroki sat and took out a handkerchief to wipe his brow. "I wish you'd call her Petra, or Miss Kara at the very least."
Jody folded her hands on the desk in front of her. "We know where that can lead. Two years you've been working for us and you're still not accustomed to the language. We have it for a reason, you know."
Hiroki nodded. After a moment's thought, he rose and went to the water cooler in the corner. The nearby window overlooked miles of treetops, no civilization for a very long way. His hand shook as he took a cup and filled it.
"Are you all right?" Jody's voice was filled with real concern now, as though it had finally clicked that Hiroki was either very stressed or sick. "Did something happen?"
Hiroki gave a sarcastic laugh before chugging a full cup of water and filling a second.
"Hiroki, you're scaring me."
He arched a brow. "I thought nothing scared you."
"Figure of speech. Will you quit stalling, please? Does Devin need to be here for this?" Jody laid a hand on the mouse near her computer.
"You'll call him Devin, the billionaire owner of this cutting-edge tech company, but you won't call Petra by her name."
"Hiroki—" There was finally a warning in Jody's voice.
The scientist took his cup and returned to the chair to sit. He nailed Jody with a look and Jody's arms prickled at the fear she saw there.
"You're terrified," Jody said, quietly. Her tone was filled with wonder and respect. "She is everything we thought she would be?"
"She's more." Hiroki slammed the second cup of water back and crushed it in his fist. "I barely even know how to test her. She is way beyond anything I have ever seen. She's not like any of the other supernaturals we're tracking or have on staff.” He threw the broken cup into the trash can and put fingertips to his temple. “She defies categorization."
"No, she doesn't." Jody sat back and tented her fingers. "They are all definable. They always come with their own sets of rules. She'll be no different. As long as we understand those rules, we'll know how best to deploy her."
Hiroki dropped his eyes. "You don't know. You weren't there."
"So, tell me what you discovered." She shot him a warning look. "And don't give me any of that scientific gobbledygook. We all know you're smart. Layman's terms please."
"Well, we started with a simple EMF measurement—"
Jody held up her hand. "I don't need to know what you did, I need to know what you learned."
Hiroki chewed his lip, thinking about how best to explain. "I don't even know where to start."
Jody sighed. "How about with air? The Libyans called her Euroklydon. We already know she can manipulate winds. So why don't we start there?"
Hiroki nodded and rubbed his eyes vigorously and then held his hands out, tense. "Okay, yes. She can manipulate air, but here's the strange thing. That rock that she levitated in Libya..."
Jody nodded and leaned forward, eyes glittering. Now they were getting somewhere.
"You might think that she did that with the air, because after all air pressure, if there is enough of it, can lift a heavy load. But in order to do that she would have had to condense a huge amount of air into a very small space and then shoot it at the stone in a way that lifted and held it steady. She would have to take that air from somewhere, and everyone in the vicinity would have felt and heard that. But no one noticed a thing."
"So? How did she do it if it wasn't with air?"
"Sound."
Jody's face registered surprise, then understanding. "Sonic levitation?"
Hiroki nodded. "Even mainstream archaeology is becoming more open to the theory that the pyramids and other historic structures made with megaliths could have been built using acoustic levitation."
"But no one heard anything when she levitated that rock."
"Because the frequency she would have used to do it is outside the range of human hearing. Plus," his eyes narrowed, "scientifically, I don't know how this is possible, but I think she's able to dampen the sound of the frequencies she produces. Perhaps a self-preservation technique she's not even aware she has."
"Okay, so she can lift really really heavy things—"
"That's just the start of it." Hiroki paled again as he remembered the way the needle on the Geiger counter swung abruptly over to the right side of its face and quivered there as if it wished it could go further. "Our planet has a measurable frequency. It was discovered by Schumann and recorded at 7.83Hz. We also have the ability to record the frequency of waves transmitted by the human brain. The frequency of the planet and the frequency of alpha waves from the brain is the same — 7.83 has been shown to be the pulse of life itself. With me so far?"
"Think so."
"Petra is somehow able to detect and discharge any frequency she wants to." Hiroki sat back.
"So?"
"So?! She's like a supercharged cell phone tower with a powerful magnet inside it. Even that description falls far short of doing her any justice. If she wanted to, she could wipe out millions of humans with the right transmission.” He leaned forward to emphasise. “Into the air." Hiroki wiped an agitated hand across his mouth where sweat beaded on his upper lip. "She has freaking chryptochromes in her body!"
"What are those?"
"They're the protein found behind the eyes of birds. It’s responsible for sending their brain a visual of the earth's magnetic field. They see something like what a fighter pilot sees to help them fly. I don't think Petra actually sees it in her vision, but she is subconsciously aware of it.”
"How do you know she has chryptochromes? You'd have to dissect her to know that for sure. Wouldn’t you?"
"
They may not be exactly like the ones birds have, but there is no way she could do what she does without some kind of protein in her body that provides magnetic information to her brain."
"So," Jody began to count off on her fingers. "She's telekinetic—"
"Not technically," said Hiroki, holding up a palm. "She is in the sense that she can move things with her mind, but she's not actually moving the thing, she's using either the air around that thing, or sound to do it. It's got nothing to do with picking up or moving a solid object and everything to do with manipulating the environment around it."
"Okay." Jody continued counting. "She's aerokinetic. She’s able to sonically levitate large, heavy bodies. She can discharge or read any frequency she wants. She can ‘see’”—she made little quotation marks in the air with her long fingers—"the earth's magnetic field. Which means, what?"
"She's a catalyst for radioactivity." Hiroki’s voice was low and hoarse.
"You measured her radioactivity?"
Hiroki nodded. "I didn't think she could do it, but as soon as I explained the difference between sound and radio waves…" He opened and closed his mouth like a drowning fish before pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "She felt a heat spot on her right shoulder blade right before the needle jumped."
Jody cocked her head, confused. "A heat spot?"
"I know, I was confused by it at first too, until I realized that her back was angled toward magnetic north."
"Wow," Jody breathed, sitting back against her chair and putting her fingertips over her lips.
Hiroki sat back, finally satisfied that Jody seemed to be appreciating the immense discovery he'd made in Petra. "I haven't even told you yet that she can read minds."
"We knew that to be likely," Jody said, folding her hands together and letting out a long breath. "Please tell me you took the proper precautions?"
"I didn't fall off the back of a turnip truck yesterday, Jody," Hiroki snapped.
