LOVE ME OR LET ME GO
By
KELLY LUCILLE
Text Copyright© 2019 Kelly Lucille
All Rights Reserved
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
PROLOGUE
It was really an accident, the discovery. Not to dispute the genius of the man working on it, he probably would have made the discovery himself in about 200 years. But like most really great technological advancements, like fire and penicillin, there was a certain amount of sheer dumb luck involved. And, of course, the ability to recognize what had been accomplished.
Today, January 7, 2007 a man who had been booted out of countless scientific organizations for his radical theories and lack of social skills had discovered by accident the answer to not one but two of the prevailing questions of our existence. What more is the brain capable of, and almost as important, are we alone in the universe?
The answer to the second was obvious after a freak chemical accident answered the first. Apparently, the brain is capable of quite a bit, and no, we are not alone.
Of course, the good doctor died almost as soon as he had figured this out, but his son, who himself showed greater promise and at least adequate social skills was home from MIT for his 23rd birthday. He was assisting and underwent the same transformation as the father with altogether different results. He survived. Which was a good thing, because whatever was on the other end of what he liked to think of as a mind meld (He watched a lot of science fiction), also had been aware and just as the boy felt when his father died, he also felt the creature on the other end smile and begin to make plans. Plans for finding Earth and conquering it.
For the first time in his existence young Seth Weer understood the truth of the old adage: "Ignorance is bliss."
But by then it was too late.
***
February 21, 2067 (56 years after first contact)
"That is unacceptable. Anyone with half a brain, hell even 1/3 should be able to work this device."
"Doctor Weer,” the older woman ground out with forced patience. “I assure you my team is working as hard as they can. For the most part they are new to the project and have barely finished their training."
"Doctor Cole, do you think it escapes my notice that you use the same excuse every time I visit. If you cannot come up with anything original in your lies, how can you hope to in your research?"
"I do not lie,” she bit out no longer attempting patience. “It is a sorry fact that every time you pay us a visit, we have a mass exodus of workers from the project. Then we have to begin training all over again. A Coincidence? As you are so much smarter than the rest of us, maybe you could figure it out for us."
There was a short pause. "If that is the case, it seems that the problem then is in the recruitment practices. Perhaps someone else should be in charge of finding people with enough backbone to do the job required of them."
"Someone else is in charge of that,” she gritted out, her brown eyes shooting irritated sparks at them both. “Go find them and leave us to do our jobs."
Doctor Cole was a 52-year-old genetic physicist known for her brilliant ideas and her ability to keep calm in all circumstances. She slammed the door quite forcefully on her way out of the meeting room. Leaving behind the two men who had watched her stocky figure stomp away with opposite reactions.
"Well, I can see why you work alone." Major Franks said with a touch of the humor he was suppressing. He shifted in his seat where he had been watching the argument with rapt attention. An old injury in his thigh had been cropping up at odd times in the last few years to give him an occasional ache. He was not looking forward to turning fifty.
"Exactly,” Doctor Weer said with some satisfaction that someone at least understood his frustrations. “These people have no concept of the importance of this project."
"I meant because no one would put up with you."
Weer turned and glared. The hair on his head was grey, his skin wrinkled and joints knobby and ached more days than not. The years had honed his always trim figure to near skeletal, and the skin around his eyes had begun to sag with age over the years. But none of that did anything to detract from the fierce and daunting light behind those faded blue eyes. His will and fierce intelligence were as dynamic and daunting as ever.
"I don't like being away from my lab, and to see incompetence while I am, is frustrating beyond belief."
"Believe me Doctor,” Major Franks spoke dryly leading the doctor out of the meeting room and through the hall toward his office. “No one wants to see you out of your lab. You are the one who insists on making this trip twice a year."
Dr. Weer gave him another glare. "The whole point of having a secondary lab is so that should something happen to me or the primary lab, someone, somewhere, will continue my work. How can they continue my work if they cannot grasp the simplest concepts of it?"
"The people recruited for this project are the best and brightest in their fields,” Franks reminded him. “They are, every one of them, geniuses in their own right.” He closed the door, cutting them off from anyone who would overhear. And finished dryly. “It's not their fault that you make them look like retarded children."
"I am not getting any younger." Weer reminded him as he found his usual chair and Franks went to the pot of coffee on the side board and poured them both a cup. He handed the doctor’s his black, as they both preferred then took his own seat across from him.
"I am aware of that sir." Franks leaned back and looked contemplative.
"If I don't find someone capable of continuing my work it may all be lost." Weer went on not paying any real attention to the other man.
"Perhaps if you would try to take an apprentice again." Franks started carefully.
"Out of this bunch?” Weer scoffed, not unexpectedly. His hand going up and then falling to his lap in clear dismissal of the dozens of brilliant researchers they had working for them. “You have to be joking."
Franks cleared his throat and met the doctor’s eyes. "I was thinking of the same one you had before."
The good doctor choked. The cup he held thumped to the desk with enough force to send coffee sloshing over the rim. They both ignored it as Franks met the glare that had returned to the old man’s eyes. "You can't be serious."
"He is familiar with the project. He's also smart, possibly as smart as you, and he is young enough to continue on for quite a few years." Franks recited the facts and watched them ignite Weer’s fury rather than appease it.
"He called me a neurotic machine without any redeeming qualities,” Weer reminded him hotly. “Told me he would rather bed down with a cobra than associate with the likes of me."
"He was 17 at the time,” Franks reminded him back. “Kids say the darndest things."
Weer was not amused. As evidenced by his voice lowering to frigid as he continued. "He said I was a sociopath with a complete inability to function in the real world and should never leave the cave in which I was spawned."
Franks waved a hand in dismissal. "He was angry about his mother’s funeral at the time you can hardly blame him for lashing out."
"He also said that if he walked into the lab and saw I was on fire he'd break out the s’mores.” Before he could say anything to that Weer pointed an angry finger at him. “And that was not after his mother’s funeral."
Franks ignored all of it a
nd took a sip of his coffee before speaking again. "Who better to follow in your footsteps?"
Weer threw up his hands, shaking his head at his lack of understanding. "You are missing the point. He does not want to follow in my footsteps. He studied paranormal studies for Christ sake. Is that even a science?"
Franks did not roll his eyes, but it was a close call. "You yourself had an experience some would say to be paranormal.” When Weer looked less than pleased at the reminder he went on. “The boy does have certain gifts; you cannot deny that.” He shrugged his big shoulders. “Besides he has also shown interest in physics and mechanical engineering. You can hardly fault those choices."
"None of which he studied long enough to actually get a degree. Like everything else in his life, he got bored and left. Which is what he would do here." Weer crossed his arms and sat back as if that was the end of the discussion.
"You and I both know it was not lack of ability that led to him leaving those fields of study,” Franks reminded him. “Even you cannot deny he is brilliant."
Dr. Weer snorted and glared at his oldest friend. He had no intention of denying or validating that fact. "Even if I agreed to take him back, he would never do it. He made his opinion of me obvious."
Franks sat back with a sigh and lowered his voice. "How long has it been?"
"10 years, 6 months and 4 days since he walked out of the project and did not look back." Weer answered instantly.
Not that he was counting, Franks thought with amusement, before he spoke brusquely and with finality. "Well, then it's about time he was reminded of the Spiderman creed."
"The what?" Weer asked looking at him as if he was an experiment that had gone horribly wrong.
"With great power comes great responsibility,” Franks said with the arrogant grin of a man used to making things happen. “We need him, and once he sees what you are accomplishing here, he will want to be a part of it."
"He'll never agree to come,” Weer said shaking his head. “So your plan will fail."
"Then we'll just have to find some other way to tempt him here."
"He'll know you’re coming for him,” Weer reminded him again of something he already knew. “If there is one thing he has it's a definite warning system. You won't get within a hundred feet of him and he will know all your plans and thwart them,” Weer continued, scoffing as he ran through all the reasons it would never work. “Even if you could force him here, he would be a danger to everyone as a prisoner and certainly no help to the project. Believe me, I know my son. You cannot force him and expect anything but resistance."
"I don't intend to force him,” Franks answered mildly. “If anything, he will be pounding on our doors to get in."
Weer looked at him as if he had lost his mind. "Just how do you intend to manage that?"
Franks just grinned, a very predatory smiled with a lot of teeth. "How do you catch a particularly hard to catch fish?"
"I have no idea. I don't fish."
"You use particularly tasty bait."
There was a moment of silence before the doctor asked quietly. "You have something he wants?"
"Exactly. You may have given up on him,” he told the doctor with some satisfaction as he sipped his coffee. “But I knew this day would come and have been keeping an eye on him. There is one thing he is incapable of staying away from, time after time."
"And what is that?"
"Not what,” Franks said leaning back in his chair and giving more of that old wolf smile. “Who."
CHAPTER ONE
"Dr. Miranda Fletcher?"
In the process of smoothing her closely fitted a-line skirt over her knees and wondering if her shoulder length dark brown hair was staying in the complicated braid bun she had forced the mass of it into, Mira looked up at the deep voice. And promptly stopped worrying about how whether she looked professional or not. She was sure her surprise showed in her green eyes when she took in the man who would be doing her interview. This was no scientist. And she should know, she had been in and out of labs since high school either getting her own education or, more recently, teaching in them.
This was supposed to be her chance to take everything she had learned and hypothesized out into the real world. Still in a lab setting, yes, but this time as an expert in her field using her knowledge and abilities rather than just talking about it. One look at the man who was to be her boss and she did not need her extra senses to tell her there was more going on than she could see. If this man was not active military and used to being in command, he was fresh from it.
Now she looked around the sparsely furnished office with its lack of windows and remembered the intense security the young man had led her through and had to wonder: What had she gotten herself into?
"Yes."
"I am Major Franks. I hope you have not been inconvenienced by the change in venue."
"Major, you could care less whether I have been inconvenienced or not. What is this about?" She nearly bit her lip when she heard that come out of her mouth. She was supposed to be here interviewing for a job. Not antagonizing the man who came to interview her. No matter that there was something about him that rang more than one alarm bell inside her.
"Don't you know? Can't you read my mind?"
Miranda froze and then carefully looked the major over, before looking around for possible escape routes. The fact that he would ask such a question meant he was privy to more than her working resume.
Now being brought to a top-secret lab that had what she had been thinking of as intense security suddenly had ominous possibilities.
"What exactly am I doing here?" She finally asked, ignoring his questions as if they would go away.
"Forgive me, I was under the impression you were psychic,” he said not looking the least bit sorry, or being subtle about it. “I assumed you would know all when you arrived."
"Lie,” she snapped out without thinking when the buzz flowed over her skin with wrongness. Then having already said that, she figured she might as well say it all and maybe knock some of that smugness off his face. “You are under the impression I am psychic but you are too curious to already have the facts, as you are hinting. You want to know what I can do? The extent of my abilities?"
"Yes, actually,” he answered quickly enough with a shrug. Then went on contemplatively. “So, you read minds?"
"No,” she answered with finality. But she was getting enough emotions from him to guess what was in his mind. “I have no idea why I was brought here or what you have in your head that you are so scared I will read."
"I'm confused,’ he muttered, finally looking uneasy and sitting down across from her to study her face.
"That makes two of us,” she answered dryly. “Why would you bring me here if you are worried I will find out your secrets?" because he was worried, she knew, and his worry had only grown the longer they talked.
"A necessary evil." He moved to a chair, sat, and motioned to her coffee cup. The one she had been sipping before he came in. "Please be comfortable."
"Because we are going to be here for a while?” she asked with that same dry tone. Not even attempting to return to her coffee. As if she would drink it when she had no idea what he wanted, or to what lengths he would go to get it. “What is this about?"
"First, can you tell me what your abilities are, specifically?” His tone carried a milder version of the curiosity she could feel across her skin. “If not telepathy."
"I didn't say I was not telepathic,” she finally answered after a short pause where she tasted his emotions, sifting through for more hints of his intentions. “I just said I can't read minds."
She was surprised at what she found in his emotions. Surprised enough that she answered him truthfully, which was her defunct response anyway. Hearing the lies in others made her more inclined to the truth whenever possible. That did not mean she couldn’t lie. Just that she was not very good at it. And she got the feeling, this man was almost as good as her at detecting prevarication
.
"An interesting distinction,” he said as if he was tasting her words, much the same as she had his emotions, and like her, had come back with more questions. “Care to explain?"
"No offense Major,” she said as politely as she could. “But I don't explain, not to anyone, why would I do so for you?"
He studied her and then sat back in his chair and spoke the complete truth. "Because I mean you no harm and because it is a matter of survival."
Her brow arched up coolly, wondering if that was his way of threatening her. "Mine?"
"Everyone's."
His answer had her blinking in confusion. "Everyone in this place?"
"Everyone on this planet."
"Oh,” she said, the breath leaving her lungs in one fail swoop. “That everyone."
She sucked in air as soon as she could, her stomach suddenly forming knots where before she had only been curious. She had felt no real danger from the man, even if his military bearing and the secure facility they had brought her to had unnerved her. But she knew the truth when she heard it, and while she was almost positive the danger he was referencing was not an imminent one, the Major at least, believed what he was saying was true.
"I can't deflect asteroids with my mind or anything remotely close.” She told him; in case he had some crazy ideas about her abilities. “I am not all that advanced where telekinesis is concerned. So, if you brought me here to save the planet you got the wrong girl. My field is psychology, specifically the connections between emotions and work output in a scientific environment."
"I know what your field is, I am more curious at the moment of the other things you can do.” Again, he studied her a long moment before he spoke again. “So, you have some telekinesis and are somewhat telepathic, but you cannot read minds. Anything else?"
Miranda huffed out a breath at his ability to completely ignore what he did not want to hear and focus on what interested him. "I am an empath."
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