The Crystal Tower

by Liam Donnelly

  Once he had stopped the waves, Zatera turned his attention toward the city of New York, knowing what he required next. He scanned the city, then lowered himself toward the surface until he was on one knee. As he brought his hands close to the crystal, tiny flecks of it moved and reached up to meet the underside of his palms. He glanced back up toward the city, and his eyes began glowing with piercing blue light. He concentrated, using the newly formed crystal to amplify his power.

  A flash of light moved rapidly over the structure, passing from one side to the other in less than a second. Other flashes followed, and the surface around his body began pulsating with energy. He glanced at the front section. Having scanned the terrain near New York City and already chosen a location, he started the growth process there. He watched this place in the distance, his face hardened with concentration and determination as the first flecks of crystal moved outward from the western edge. The surface lit up with more flares of light, which danced across it like molten electrical surges. They grew in both frequency and intensity until the entire surface was flashing with this otherworldly blaze.

  Then, just as it seemed the energy building across the structure would explode or ignite, he jerked his head forward and channeled the newly gathered energy through the structure. The crystal at the front, which heretofore had been reaching outward at a rate of only a few inches per second, lurched forward, quickly forming a secondary surface connected to the circular one on which he stood. Trey’s hands glowed with power as Zatera worked from within. Fierce beams of white light erupted from his palms as he channeled the energy into building this new surface.

  After a few moments, the newly forming crystal resembled the makings of a bridge. Focusing harder, his eyes flared as he channeled more of his power into the surface. The white-blue molten-like pulses dashed beneath the surface toward the edge and crested to an incredible storm of light there. Seconds later, as the power built up at the edge, the new section shot out across the ocean, growing so fast that the forward edge disappeared into the distance within a few seconds. All around, the cacophony of what sounded like breaking sheets of ice filled the air, as though the crystal was an ancient landmass itself, cracking in two.

  Now it had the undeniable appearance of a bridge, and he directed it, knowing exactly where he wanted it to connect with the land and what its purpose was. After several moments, from the direction of the city, a dim boom resounded back to where he stood on the platform. He stood and stared in that direction, the power around him declining and the dancing lights around him diminishing as he slowly rose to his feet.

  ***

  The bridge of crystal rushed across the water at a phenomenal speed, growing rapidly, its front edge pulsing with the energy Zatera had sent into it. Several people were walking along the boardwalk at Franklin Roosevelt Beach that morning. Most of them were oblivious to their surroundings, caught up in discussions on holographic interfaces and talking into barely visible earpieces. One of these people, Claudia Gellar, was well dressed for an interview, wearing a beautiful knee-length white spring coat and not connected to any digital device at that particular moment. The only significant thing that occupied her attention was the cardboard cup full of latte she held in a gloved right hand. It was only by sheer fate that she had been drawn to Staten Island the night before; she had had a single moment of hesitation and gone to stay with her mother, taking everything she would need for the interview the next day.

  She was focused on that interview now. She worked for a news organization, but wanted to change careers after she saw the leaks about the facilities pertaining to the Ethereals, which had been seen all around the world and were now accessible everywhere. The information had not drawn too much attention, but she thought it had been of great significance, and the fact that the world reacted with such indifference bewildered her. She had read every single file in detail. Yet despite her desperate desire to focus on the interview—a job that would bring in money while she researched the subject—she couldn’t get the names and the faces of the subjects out of her mind. Jane Connor. Telepathic and psychokinetic abilities. Escaped from the New York facility during a daring series of maneuvers with the people she had met there—Morris Ward, Michael Lucius, Ciara Bishop—and several others.

  Of course, the mainstream media was not reporting this kind of detail. It had taken her months to go through it all herself and put together the pieces. The information had not been released in an organized fashion, either; rather, it had come out in one large torrent of data. She planned to write a book about the subject, or perhaps sell a documentary to the networks to which she was connected, and when she released it, she planned to push it harder than anything else in her life. She would make every call and pull in every favor to bring it to mainstream awareness, regardless of the fallout for her. This Committee existed, and the world would know what it had been doing with the Ethereals, including what had happened in the Atlantic—the flash that had been seen on both sides of the ocean.

  On the west coast of Ireland, it had been reported as a dim glow on the horizon. In New York and the Eastern states, thousands of people had witnessed multiple bright flashes, followed by a single large flare of light, like an explosion. Claudia had enough connections to put together some of the dots, and she knew now that this incident had been connected to that organization—an organization that, according to the information leaks, appeared to be connected to various world governments. They had been doing something of serious import—or worse, something extremely dangerous—and she would do whatever it took to find out what it was.

  OK, focus, Claudia. You’ve got an interview coming up. You can think about all that later when—

  She stopped mid-thought, her expression blank as she stared at the cracked wood beneath her. Was it creaking? No. It was vibrating. What the hell? she thought. Slowly, she brought up her gaze and glanced around. The railing to her right began to move. As she glanced farther down the wooden walkway, she saw that both rails on either side were rattling along their entire lengths. Then the wooden frame—each and every plank—began to shake. The first word that came to her mind was earthquake. She shook her head as she stared around in wonder; her eyes wide and her breath shallow with growing apprehension. No, she thought. This isn’t an earthquake.

  She took a deep breath, and then, with a new calmness she had no reason to expect, took a step toward the side of the boardwalk nearest to the ocean. She slowly placed her palms on the handrail, feeling the vibrations run through her hands and into her forearms. She looked down, her attention caught by something on the beach. The sand itself was shaking up and down, millions of grains bouncing as though they had come to life. She half frowned, half winced. It seemed possible in that strange moment that the sand itself had come to life and was trying to escape something.

  She brought her gaze up to the sea, and her jaw slowly dropped open as she saw a glow on the horizon in the near distance.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered. Her eyes grew wide as the trembling became more vigorous. Then something else came into view. An object of some kind, glinting with incredible energy, was rushing across the water at immense velocity. It was still quite a distance away, but from where she stood, Claudia knew there would be no escaping it, as it was moving too quickly. Running would make no difference. Whatever the bright object was, it would reach her location in moments.

  She squinted, trying to see it more clearly, but within seconds she didn’t need to do so. It appeared as a giant wave composed of glowing white-blue energy that was blasting its way across the surface of the ocean. She gasped and jumped back as, within seconds, it closed the remaining six hundred feet to the shore. She leapt backward across the platform. Her latte fell out of her hand and hit the ground, splitting open on impact.

  She pushed her back against the frame of the boardwalk, trying to decide whether to turn and jump to the other side in the vain hope that she wouldn’t be injured. Before she could make the dec
ision, the wave of energy hit the shore. She felt a shockwave wash over her; her hair blew back over her shoulders and it felt as though her heart had stopped in her chest. The energy at the front of the wave expanded in a ball but came to a stop when it reached the edge of the water. Near its perimeter, the semicircular prominence had a light blue color that extended toward a golden-white hue at the very outer edge. At the center, the blue tone was darker, almost purple. Claudia watched in awe, one hand on her chest, trying to catch her breath as the energy began retracting into itself.

  Still taking gulps of air, she let go of the wooden rail and took a step forward toward the other side of the boardwalk. The ball of energy continued to shrink. Taking another tentative step forward, she approached the opposite handrail again. She frowned, squinting. Beneath the swirling mass, she could see something else, some other substance where the water met the sand. To her consternation, it glinted like diamonds. Her head tilted as she was immediately transfixed. It occurred to her that the energy meant little; intuitively, she knew that this substance, which appeared to still be moving underneath the energy, was the thing she needed to take note of.

  After another few moments, during which Claudia regained her composure and gripped the opposite guard rail, the ball of energy had almost completely dissipated. It became nothing more than a glittering mist floating above what she could now see was a massive structure stretching across the ocean. At the shore, it had connected with the sand, where the material of which it was composed was still moving slowly, seeming to meld with it.

  A bridge. It’s a bridge, she thought. The object itself glistened all the way into the distance, and as its image became clearer, she wondered momentarily if she might still be dreaming, for it was likely the strangest—and most beautiful—thing she had ever seen. A few glances at the only remaining people in the vicinity—most of them had fled in the few moments it took for all this happen—confirmed that, no, she probably was not dreaming. The experience was all too real.

  The cloud of energy had now almost completely disappeared, and Claudia stared in awe, her eyes wide and twinkling with wonder in the morning light. The structure itself—which her mind had identified as a bridge, for she could find no other accurate description—was about two hundred and fifty feet in width by her reckoning. As she began taking note of some of its features, someone dashed by behind her. She turned to see that a man in a black coat who had remained to watch the event unfold was now fleeing in the opposite direction. She frowned, watching as he left, because her own reaction was the complete opposite; she couldn’t leave the area until she found out what this object was.

  Now the haze of energy was gone completely, and the bridge sparkled out into the distance. Her awareness of her surroundings returned completely, and she noticed screeching sounds coming from behind her as, gradually, drivers took notice of the glimmering structure and stopped their cars. Claudia glanced around to see the first of them—a man—step out of his vehicle and stare open-mouthed at the object beyond the boardwalk. As she scanned the road, she saw that several other people were watching from their vehicles. Had they been there all along, outside her awareness?

  She had gone into silent mode so that she could mentally prepare for the interview, but now she turned her cell phone back on, pressing a button behind her ear. “Esme please,” she said. Waiting patiently, she turned around again to watch the crystalline object. It seemed to still be moving and shifting in places far in the distance, as though its formation was not yet complete. After a few moments, her coworker answered at the very office from which Claudia had been trying to get away. “Esme? It’s Claudia. Something serious is happening. I’m on Staten Island. At the Boardwalk.”

  Her brow creased as she glanced up and out at the bridge again, unsure how to explain any of this.

  “It’s hard to explain—no, I didn’t make the interview. Listen, you have to send a drone out here right now to get footage of this. Send a news team, too. I’m serious, Esme, you don’t want to miss this. Tell them whatever you have to. See for yourself.”

  Out of her pocket, Claudia took a transparent cell phone—which could just as well have been a small pane of glass—and held it up to the crystal bridge in front of her. She touched the controls, which came to life on the surface in great detail, and took a shot. Then she pushed upward on the screen and the image was transmitted to Esme.

  There was silence for a moment. Eventually, Esme’s response came in a low, awestruck voice. “Oh my God. It’s enormous! What on earth is that?”

  “I don’t know. Just get them down here now. Show them that picture. Whatever this is, it’s got to be pure luck that I was walking here this morning.” Claudia shook her head in disbelief. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. No, I’m going to wait here for them. OK. Good. I’ll talk to you then.”

  Claudia placed her cell phone back in her pocket and took a deep breath as she set her eyes on the ocean once more. She heard a buzzing sound nearby and spotted a drone in the distance, a few hundred feet away. It seemed to be scanning the bridge. It looked extremely advanced, but she knew by its design that it wasn’t military. Immediately, Claudia had her suspicions about whom it belonged to: the very Committee she had planned to write about and expose. She took a breath, exhaled, and watched as the drone drifted slowly around the area.

  ***

  When the growing structure had reached the shoreline—a place Zatera had never been, but one he had scanned extensively—he lifted his hands off the surface and stood up. The transit point was perfect in formation. It would provide the means for him to gather the Ethereals he would need to work his plans. He glanced around as though seeing the area for the first time. He looked out at the sea, then back to the shoreline, and then down at the crystal on which he stood. Finally, he took a breath, craned his neck, and closed his eyes. The crystalline structure beneath him trembled once. Then there was a flash of light in one of its quadrants beneath the surface. Another bright flash followed, covering a space that measured approximately three hundred square feet.

  The light beamed out from behind his closed eyelids as psionic energy built up around him. This time, it had a distinct and different resonance; it was a voice, and as the surface again flashed intermittently with light, the incredible command of his psychic song spread out across the ocean, falling over the stirring city of New York.

  CHAPTER 3

  DRONES

  Marie Donaldson sat on an expensive swivel stool—the same seat she had been forced to use on many previous occasions. She faced a bank of monitors, which covered the wall at the front of the room from one side to the other. Each of them displayed an image of a man or woman whose face had been blurred. Their voices—just like before—had also been altered sonically so that they were unrecognizable. She had asked Chris to try, and despite his extensive computer skills, he had been unable to unscramble the voice patterns and find a match in any recording anywhere on the Internet or in their well-secured network. Whomever these people she spoke to were, they had no intention of revealing their identities.

  This was not quite like the other meetings she had had with the higher order of the Committee; they were both interviewing her and interrogating her, but she had absolutely no intent of yielding to any of their accusations. In her mind, she had acted in the best interests of the Committee and possibly even saved the world from catastrophe. If she hadn’t acted as she did—if she hadn’t been there—that Machine could well have become more unstable and blown to pieces, taking half the ocean along with it. The resulting data they had collected—or what remained of it—proved this point. They knew quite well now that the elements of which the rings were composed were extremely volatile. Given the right conditions, certain catalysts could have produced a colossal explosion totally beyond their ability to contain.

  She wore a trim white suit and a thin silk scarf, accompanied by golden earrings. The man second to the far left addressed her now, as their c
onversation continued.

  “You caused the destruction of a three-hundred-million-dollar vessel, financed by various world governments.” He paused. Underneath the blotted-out portion of the screen, she could see him tapping a digital pen against a tablet of some kind on a desk just below. “They want answers.”

  Marie sighed and pursed her lips. She glanced down for a moment at the pristine white floor. Then she brought her gaze up again to meet the top portion of the screen. “Like I told you already, firstly, the device vanished from our sensors. The Ethereals got loose—through no fault of our own—and there was some man—”

  She stopped talking as she thought about the man whose name she could only presume was Max. Despite her revulsion at the thought of what had happened at sea, the image of the man in her mind still evoked a feeling of inexplicable warmth. Enigma was the word that came to mind when she thought of him, and she was quite surprised to find that it wasn’t a bad feeling. She winced when she recalled how she had initially ordered that weapons be trained on the unusual figure, who appeared to have access to extreme psionic abilities. Morris had intervened, and for that, at least, she was thankful. For some reason, she knew that if she had taken such an action and fired on the man, she would have regretted it for the rest of her life—and not simply because the retribution would likely have been catastrophic. No, she would have felt guilt, for some new feeling had been speaking inside her since her encounter with him. She was having intuitions that she had never experienced. These feelings and ideas, of course, were all left out of her report.