by Fox, Chris
"It doesn't work that way. Name your price, and I'll consider whether it's worth paying." Jillian's eyes hardened, less fire and more steel now. Yes, a very formidable agent--with the right molding, of course.
"There's no cost, because I don't believe I can do what you're asking." Usir gave a helpless shrug, a calculated gesture.
"What do you mean? David is important to you, or you wouldn't have gone after him. So how do we get him back?"
Usir sighed, this one quite genuine. "We pray, child. If his captors make a mistake, then we will find them. If David finds a way to contact us, we'll act instantly. Otherwise? There's nothing we can do."
"What about us?" Kali asked, speaking for the first time.
Usir turned his attention to her, eyes widening when he realized he'd missed something. One of his many talents allowed him to examine helixes with little more than a glance. The pattern in Kali's DNA was familiar. Her powers hadn't fully manifested, but Kali was a pyrokinetic. That might prove useful in the days to come. "About you? I'm not sure what you mean."
"Are you going to lock us up?" Kali asked, her eyes wide as dinner plates.
"Of course not," Usir said, smiling as warmly as he could. "It's up to you what you do from here. If you wish, I can put you up in a local hotel, or you can go your own way. What the grey men want, we seek to prevent. They want David, not you."
"We'll be on our way, then," Jillian said, stalking toward the door. Kali followed a moment later, and the pair stalked from the room. Jillian paused at the entrance, meeting his gaze. "We will get him back, and when we do you're going to give us some answers about who you are, and just what it is you want." Then she turned and left.
"Summers, contact Yuri. I want a conventional team standing by," Usir ordered, rising to his feet. He approached the window, watching the bay once more.
Chapter 14- Escape Plan
Dick left me lying on the table--typical dick move. I couldn't see a clock and there weren't any windows, but based on my increasing degree of discomfort, hours had passed. My neck was sore, one hand itched, and I had to pee. After a time, I forgot about my neck and hand because the urge to pee was becoming irresistible. So much so, the effort to resist caused me to sweat.
There was something terrible about finally releasing a warm wet puddle, especially since I just had to lie there in it. I'd spent the preceding hours straining against my bonds, and had even tried summoning electricity. It didn't take long to figure out why my hands had been wrapped in rubber.
So I started to cry. Yeah, I know, I had powers. That was supposed to make me a hero, but try laying in a puddle of your own piss while you wait for your mind-reading boss to turn you over to the aliens that have been experimenting on you since you were a kid.
I didn't know how long the tears lasted, but when they stopped I was at rock bottom. That made the choice easy. If I was going to get out of this, I'd have to use my brain. I wasn't Einstein, but I'd always been fairly bright. I'd focused mostly on computers, spending a lot of my childhood learning to build and repair them, and my brief time at SRJC had been spent learning to program them. Now I'd apparently manifested the power to interface directly with them.
How could I use that to my advantage?
I looked around the room and considered my options. There were lights, but since I couldn't fire electricity out of my ass that was out. Even if I could, putting out the lights wouldn't accomplish anything. There was a sprinkler head but even if I could figure out a way to start a fire, that would just get me really wet. If the fire department showed up, they wouldn't have the means to get down into the basement.
I closed my eyes, considering. Over the last few hours I'd made a few mental leaps, and I thought I'd figured out how my powers might work. I could interface directly with machines, which communicated in two ways. The first was through electricity. The second was through signals. Nearly every computer in the world now had a Wi-Fi card, and we were blanketed by signals whether we knew it or not. The big question mark, of course, was whether or not I could see and manipulate signals.
So I listened. Seconds turned into minutes, but all I could hear was the pounding of my own heart. I forced myself to breathe deeply, knowing that I was close to panic. The grey men could arrive any minute, and the only resource I had was my wits. I had to keep it together.
I tried again, but this time I thought about my situation and how much it pissed me off. How angry Dick made me, not just today, but over the entire time I'd worked for Initech. To my shock, I realized that I could hear something faint, so faint I wasn't even sure it was there at first. It was exactly the sort of pulsing I sometimes heard when a cellphone was too close to a speaker. Something bubbled up inside of me, and that noise grew louder. I imagined it like a binary version of morse code, and tried to focus on what the data was saying.
"Oh my god," I muttered aloud. "Those are data packets."
I'd been a sysadmin for my high school, and understood the TCP/IP protocol very, very well. That, combined with binary, meant I could mentally parse data. Well, it meant I could do it with the aid of whatever the grey men had done to me. I slowed my breathing, trying to envision the packets. Light exploded in my head, a river of data I could see in my mind's eye. It was rainbow colored, every light pulse a different length and composition. The sounds were a symphony of connected light, and if I focused on any specific part I found that I could read it.
I laughed until I nearly cried again. It wasn't much, but at least I'd accomplished something. I could feel the Wi-Fi signals around me, which meant I could listen to data. The life-saving question still loomed, though: could I send signals as well as receive them? I envisioned a data packet, structuring the request in assembly, the lowest-level programming language I knew. The code flowed in my head, almost like I was typing it on a screen. It was like having a built in computer, one that responded far faster than its real counterpart.
I broadcast my little packet, a simple ping request. It was the smallest, easiest form of communication over a local area network. There was no answer. I waited a few more seconds, but still nothing. Damn it. I could send data, but the signal I was broadcasting was too weak to reach any of the Wi-Fi routers in the building.
I gritted my teeth, wishing I had a hand free so I could punch the wall. Every time I made a little progress, there was another barrier. There had to be a way to do this. There must be some way to strengthen the signal. How did real computer hardware do it? Increasing the power. Stronger routers used better antennas, but they also used more juice. Did that mean I could do the same thing? Time to find out.
I closed my eyes again, composing another ping request. Then I concentrated, so hard that I began to shake. I could feel the blood rushing to my head, feel the beginning of a migraine competing with all the other aches and pains. Then I released my packet. I waited seven long seconds, but there was no response.
"Are you frigging kidding me?" I yelled, thrashing powerlessly in my bonds. "What the hell do you want from me, universe?"
It took maybe fifteen minutes for me to calm down enough to try again, and that only happened because I literally had nothing else to do. So I concentrated again, but this time I channeled all the rage, all the helplessness. I began to scream, forcing everything I had into the ability. A trickle of warmth leaked from my nose, and I didn't have to see it to know that it was blood. I didn't care. I tried harder.
The first data packet whizzed through the air, up through the ceiling, to the router on the first floor. My brain facilitated a quick handshake, and, just like that, I'd established a connection. The room faded away, and I was surrounded by an endless sea of light streams. Rivers that could carry me anywhere I wanted to go.
I smiled, gliding up the river until I found a cell phone. It belonged to a barista at the coffee shop across the street. I bit my lip, trying to decide how I could use it. I didn't have Jillian's email address, or even Kali's. I had no way of getting in touch wit
h Hateya.
Then it occurred to me. I could use social media. Kali was a seventeen-year-old girl, and most kids her age used Tumblr far more often than Facebook. So I started browsing, sifting through thousands of accounts almost instantaneously. Then I found her. Her username was TardisLover, and the picture matched her perfectly. So I sent her a message.
Kali. Need help. At 415 Howard Street. Please send help. Be careful. Initech works for grey men.
Chapter 15- Gun Battle
I must have dozed off. The door crashed open, and several figures burst into the room, the first a beefy dark-haired man in police-style body armor. He carried a large pistol in one hand, and a baton in the other. His thick goatee had a few strands of grey, and he moved like a professional.
Behind him came figures I recognized. Jillian, followed by Summers, her scary friend Marcus, and two other men in body armor. The first was short and stocky with a shock of red hair, the other one tall and blonde.
Jillian rushed over to me, withdrawing a pocket knife and sawing at the first of my bonds. Summers moved to another, and within seconds they had me free.
"I see you got my message," I said. I grunted as I rose stiffly to my feet. "Where's Kali?"
"She's with us," Jillian said, helping me to the door. "I got her out when they took you. She's driving our getaway van."
"You let a seventeen-year-old drive the getaway vehicle?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
"She was determined to help, and I didn't have time to argue."
"Quiet," the first man in body armor snapped. He had a thick Russian accent. "Is combat op. Could be assaulted at any time. Focus."
He waved his baton, and the other two figures in body armor started for the stairs. The red-headed one paused. He turned toward his taller companion and shot the guy in the face with a monstrous pistol identical to the one the Russian carried. Then the red-headed guy turned toward the rest of us.
Marcus was already moving as the man raised his pistol. He extended a hand, jerking it violently to the right. The soldier's neck snapped, and he collapsed bonelessly to the floor. Everyone was silent for a moment, staring.
"Telepath," Summers said, turning to Marcus. "I can feel him. He's upstairs, watching us through a camera."
"You killed Murphy," the Russian snarled, seizing Marcus by the shirt with one enormous fist. "Could have subdued."
"We can't take chances, Yuri," Marcus snarled back, knocking the Russian back a step with a casual gesture and an invisible wave of force. "We need to get out of here. Now."
The door to the stairwell slammed open, and something large bounded into the hallway. Something familiar, scaly, and very pissed off. The beast still had a scar where the four eyes on the right side of its head used to be.
"Down it," Marcus barked, waving his hand in the beast's direction.
The beast seemed to strain against a great force; Marcus grunted as he generated that force. The beast slid back a step, then its eyes flared green. It inhaled, then spat an enormous gob of sticky, putrid goo into Marcus's face.
Marcus screamed, collapsing in a heap as he flopped about in a vain attempt to remove the goo. The scent of cooked meat filled the basement hallway, nauseating me to the point of gagging.
Several things happened very nearly at once. Summers waved a hand over Marcus, and the goo levitated off of him. Summers gave a chopping motion, flinging it against the wall, where it sizzled and hissed as paint and plaster melted.
The beast fired a second wave of goo, this time in my direction. My legs refused my order to dive out of the way, leaving me to watch in horror as it sailed toward my chest. Then Jillian was there. She grabbed my arm, and cool energy washed over me. I winced, but the goo passed right through our suddenly ethereal forms.
Unfortunately, Yuri stood right behind us. Whatever the beast had vomited hit him square in the chest, and his Kevlar began smoking immediately. It gave off a sharp odor of burnt plastic, but he seemed otherwise unharmed.
"Go, go," Yuri roared, his thick Russian accent lending the words even more weight. He glided forward to meet the beast, which had began an ungainly charge in our direction. Yuri brought his baton down on its face, driving it back a step with a sharp crack.
He followed up the blow with a trio of rounds from his pistol, each aimed at the remaining eyes. The first two bounced off, each shot snapping the beast's head back. The third pierced an eye, drawing a howl of rage from the creature.
It bounded forward, tackling Yuri to the ground. He managed to get an arm up, which the beast gleefully seized between massive jaws.
Jillian hustled me up the hallway as fast as we could run. I glanced back to see Summers helping Marcus in the same direction. We made it into the dimly-lit stairwell where the beast had come from, belting up the stairs at a full run.
I stumbled around like a drunken frat kid, because my hands were still wrapped in duct tape and non-conductive rubber. I tripped more than once, and would have gone down, if not for Jillian.
We pounded up two flights of stairs. I slipped, my knee cracking on the concrete step. Jillian grabbed my arm and shoved me forward, which I guessed was a kind of assistance. I wanted to tell her that we needed to go through the door, but she was already opening it. It took entirely too long for me to figure out that she'd come in this way, so of course she knew how to get out.
"Move your ass, Marcus," Summers yelled from a few steps below me. I risked a glance back. Marcus was in bad shape, but still moving alongside her. Raw pink skin covered the left side of his face, and one eye had been seared shut. The other was unfocused.
We plowed into the hallway, and I skidded into a wall. Fifteen feet ahead lay the glass door I passed through every morning on the way in to work. Fifteen feet past that lay the steel door that led to the street. If we could make it thirty feet, we'd be safe.
I lurched forward, hobbling most of the distance to the glass door. Jillian had it halfway open, but she froze with her hand on the handle. Marcus and Summers had frozen as well. My own traitorous body refused to move, no matter how I railed at it.
Like a quartet of puppets, the four of us turned as one, against our will. We faced back the way we'd come, and when I realized why we'd stopped I started to tremble. Violently. A grey man stood in the hallway, just outside the doorway to the stairwell.
The halogen lights bathed its skin in an even more corpse-like pallor, and its razored teeth glinted. Those flat black eyes focused on me, and the thing began to chitter. Memories of the strange language brought me back to age fourteen, scared and alone inside their ship.
If I could have chosen to stop my own heart in that instant I would have, but even that was denied me. The grey man had complete control, and it raised a golden boomerang, gesturing at the stairwell. We began marching as one, the implant in my neck flaring painfully as it made demands on my nervous system. It was the first time I'd been conscious of the device, but I could feel the signal coming from it. I wanted to rip it out, even if that paralyzed me for life.
Then Yuri stepped into the hallway and shot the grey man in the face. He fired again and again, each shot sending a shell casing spinning into the air as the gun's roar stole what remained of my hearing.
The scent of hot gunpowder mixed with a terrible, musky scent--the grey man's blood, maybe. The thing collapsed to the floor, and Yuri sagged to his knees next to it.
I started in his direction, but Jillian seized my shoulder and tugged me the other way. We turned and ran, and the cool energy passed over me again. We passed through the glass door, then the metal one, rippling through both without pausing to open them,
A white van was parked just outside, the side door open ahead of us. I caught a glimpse of Kali's red hair in the front seat, and I heaved a sigh of relief as I dove face-first into the van's backseat.
Jillian landed a moment later, turning to haul the door closed. I blinked once at her. "What about the others?"
"They'll hav
e to fend for themselves," Jillian said, turning to Kali. "Get us the hell out of here, now!"
Kali floored it, and we sped off into the night, even as Summers and Marcus stumbled through the steel door and onto the street.
Chapter 16- Going Rogue
"Where am I taking us?" Kali yelled over her shoulder. She sped down Howard Street, turning right on 2nd. There were very few cars on the road, so it had to be after midnight.
"The Golden Gate Bridge," Jillian called back. She pulled out a pocket knife, slicing with expert precision through the duct tape wrapping my hands. "We need to get out of the city."
"Why not Tuolumne?" Kali asked, pausing at a red light. It turned green almost immediately, and we turned left onto Market.
"Because they'll expect that," I supplied, flexing stiff fingers now that my hands were finally free. I looked Jillian in the eye. "Thank you. I owe you more than my life. I can't believe you pulled that off."
Jillian seized me in a fierce hug. "I was terrified we wouldn't find you. Thank you for sending that message. We'd never have gotten you out otherwise."
"How did you get Mohn to help you?" I asked, glancing around the van. It wasn't the state-of-the-art vehicle I'd have expected from Mohn, just a plain van you might find at any Enterprise Car Rental.
"We met with Usir. He gave us that team to get you out," Jillian said, releasing me. I missed her touch immediately.
"So this van belongs to them, right?" I said, a sudden thought occurring to me.
"Yeah." Jillian eyed me curiously.
"They'll almost certainly be tracking it." I looked around me, trying to use the new senses I'd experimented with during my captivity. It look me several moments to find it, but there was a subsonic tone at the edge of my hearing.
I leaned down to peer under the passenger seat. "Aha!"