“What happened to the video?” Marie asked.
“Probably electromagnetic interference. Should be coming back shortly.”
Finally the drone re-established its well-patterned flight. The image cleared and the high-definition video feed resumed. Marie could see that in those few moments, during which the image had become slightly unstable, the bulge of energy—which had appeared dark blue at the center, with a white corona around the edges that was tinged with shades of blue and gold—was now gone. In its place was what appeared to be a veil of mist in the air above the water and sand. This twinkled as though tiny diamonds were suspended within it.
Marie squinted, leaning in closer to examine what was happening below the mist. The crystalline substance appeared to have reached the sand; that’s what was hidden behind the bulge of energy, and this white, blue-tinged material was now moving at its front edge, where the water met the shore. She took a step closer and focused on that particular section of the image, noticing that Chris had turned to look at her as she did. She reached out and pointed a finger, tracing a large rectangular portion in the center of which was a section of the water at the shoreline.
“Magnify this section,” she said.
Chris worked the controls dutifully. Seconds later, the image was replaced with a close-up of the rough area Marie had outlined. Now her eyes crossed as she could see what was happening up close. The crystal was melding with the sand and solidifying into a single substance. She shook her head gently, trying to stop her mind from reeling so that she could focus on what she was seeing.
“OK, bring the drone up higher and zoom back out, give me a full view of this…bridge or…whatever it is.”
Chris worked the controls on his console once more, and the view changed again. This time, the display revealed a high angle from the drone. They could see the bridge stretch out until it reached a narrow point in the distance and disappeared. For a moment, they watched it in silence. Now and again, flashes of light erupted along its surface. Some of these were far in the distance, looking like small streaks of lightning on the horizon.
Something else beeped on Chris’s console. Marie glanced in his direction. “What is it?”
“I’ve got a drone approaching the main structure off the coast.”
“Do you have video feed?”
“Yes, arrival in five seconds. Putting it on screen…now.”
Marie glanced up. This time, the image was in much higher definition. There was a greater focus to it, and in the center she could clearly see that a young man stood in the center of the circular object, which took up the entire field of view.
“Zoom in on the individual in the center.” Marie’s eyes had narrowed to slits, and she felt the blood pulse in her veins as her anticipation grew. Seconds later, a close-up image of the person appeared on the screen. By this zoom factor, they were only fifty feet away from the young man, and she could make out his appearance. He was dressed entirely in loose white clothing, which flapped against his body in the breeze. She glanced down a couple of inches and saw that he was barefoot. At his feet, muted flashes of energy pulsed beneath and around him, though these were now diminishing in strength. She frowned, and her jaw gaped open. A muted gasp escaped her lips as a strange feeling of familiarity washed over her: she had been right—she knew this person.
“Something’s familiar about him,” she said with a deadening tone.
Chris looked at her, then glanced back to the screen. “How can you tell?” he asked incredulously.
She shook her head in an absentminded fashion. “I don’t know.” She watched as the young man slowly turned toward the drone, lifted his head, and glared directly into the camera. A few sounds of alarm came from behind her, but Marie’s gaze remained fixed firmly on the man. “Are we recording?”
“Yes.”
“Not just to the drone. Make sure everything is copied onto the network and backed up locally. Don’t lose this information. Now, run facial recognition.”
“Working on it,” he said.
Marie didn’t take her eyes off the young man as Chris carried out her commands, the last of which was both the most important and the most troubling to her. Even though the distance was still great and she hadn’t looked at his face in a long time, a deep suspicion was growing within her about this person and his identity. But how can this be possible? she wondered, her head tilting as she stared at the screen.
Now the screen split into two large sections. On the left side, the video feed from the drone remained, and on the right, a piece of software was scanning the image of the young man standing on the surface of the structure. It picked out multiple points of reference on his face and highlighted them in green. Next to that, in another box, a series of faces began to flash in front of them. It took the computer only three seconds to find a match.
Reflexively, Marie’s hand covered her mouth as the shot from Trey Rousseau’s file was displayed on the screen.
“Who’s he?” Chris asked, squinting at the matched image.
For a moment, Marie didn’t speak. Then she took a deep breath. Turning around to face the other occupants, she addressed the entire room. “Anyone below level four clearance, clear the room immediately.” Without so much as a pause, three men and two women stood up from their consoles, took their jackets, and made swift departures through the heavily sealed doors at the back of the room. Marie turned back around, but this time, her gaze lowered to the floor.
Chris was staring at her now, his brow crossed. He leaned forward, trying to catch her eye. “What is this?” he asked, his face bearing an expression of complete obliviousness.
She took a few steps toward him, rubbing her chin, her gaze still facing the floor. Eventually, she looked up at him. “Trey was an occupant of the Paris facility. Undocumented on most of the network. An extremely powerful Ethereal—the most powerful we ever found.”
“Why was he sent to Paris? That place is like a playpen for superhumans.”
“It is. But he wasn’t much of a threat. For whatever reason, he exhibited no response to the Atlantic Object. Not only that, he wasn’t particularly dangerous.” She glanced to her side. A swivel chair sat in the corner of the room, just to the left of the large screen. Slowly, she walked toward it, retrieved it, and brought it back to where she had been standing. Taking a deep breath, she sank into it and lowered her head into her hands. After a moment, she continued. “They uh…fabricated a few ‘incidents’ so they would have reason to contain him.” She glanced back up at the screen, her exhausted face once again bathed in the white light that shone from it. “At the time, the Committee was far more interested in discovering what was at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Trey’s power was interesting, but secondary. So they sent him there and had Zoe Delahunt run standard tests in a non-threatening environment, determining that they would learn whatever they needed to in a straightforward manner.”
“What were their ultimate plans for him?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. But if I were forced to conjecture…” She paused and squinted at the image of Trey. “I’d say weaponization. That is,” she continued, turning back to face him, “once they had transferred him out of that…playpen, as you put it.”
At that moment, a blue light began glowing in Trey’s eyes. It spread out at the sides, as though bright daggers were intersecting his eyeline. Everyone turned back to face the screen. Marie felt the tension build in the room behind her. Chris squirmed as though he wanted to run, but she remained fixed in her chair, staring at the display, now unafraid. A few seconds later, the image began wobbling. Then there was a very brief flash of what appeared to be fire. After that, the image cut out and was replaced by a blank screen. Now only the right side of the monitor was illuminated with details from Trey’s file.
Chris stared down at his console. “We lost the video feed.”
“He destroyed it.”
“Yes.” Chris had been looking
at the terminal, and now he turned to her again. “It sure looks that way. The drone’s sensors registered psionic activity in its direct vicinity—extreme activity—just before we lost contact. It’s definitely gone; I’d say pieces of it are landing on the surface of the ocean right now.” Chris glanced back at the monitor. He sighed and crossed his arms, almost seeming glad to be over with it. “Should I dispatch another?” he asked with a barely concealed hint of resignation.
Marie shook her head. “No.” Instead of engaging him further, she ran her hands through her hair and stared at Trey’s image on the screen. One question was repeating in her mind like a mantra that wouldn’t shut off: Who are you? After a moment, during which no answer was revealed, she said, “Get me Zoe Delahunt at the Paris facility.”
“You want a private line?”
“Yes,” Marie said as she touched a finger to her earpiece, activating it.
Chris turned to his terminal. After just a few moments, Marie detected his slight recoil. “Uh, the Paris facility is not responsive,” he said. He worked the controls faster, his fingers rapidly moving across the virtual keypad. “They’ve been completely disconnected from the network.”
“Check the redundancy report system.” There was a separate, final way for any facility to send a notification to the main control center should something catastrophic occur, which in this instance appeared to have been the case. This system was disconnected from the main Committee network and powered by a separate power source connected to them through the Internet in a much less secure fashion. Still, if a message was in the redundancy report, they would pick it up easily.
“Got it. There’s a report.” He looked up at her. “Should I read it?”
Marie took a brief glance around the room behind her at the ten or so remaining staff, then turned back around. “Go ahead,” she said.
Chris began. “Main power is down and we can’t re-establish connection to the Committee network. All systems are offline. Trey Rousseau escaped, trapping several security members in a sphere of glass, which we had to break to free them. We have managed to release the locks; some of the doors were jammed shut and had sealed people in their rooms. There is no sign of Trey inside or outside the facility, and no reports of him anywhere in the city. A strange flash of light was reported around the Arc de Triomphe less than an hour after his escape, but we know nothing more about that. The area was largely unoccupied at the time, and as of this moment, no video footage has surfaced that might indicate exactly what happened there. Zoe Delahunt and Noah Sullivan are unaccounted for. It seems they managed to escape and followed Trey into the city. We are trying to restore main power.”
Chris paused and looked up. “That’s it. There’s nothing else.”
“Redundancy reports shouldn’t be that short. Maybe that system was damaged too,” Marie croaked back, staring at the beige carpet below her.
Chris nodded and rubbed the stubble on his chin.
“Chris, try to find Zoe Delahunt. We need to speak to her.” Marie glanced up at the monitor once more, slowly elevating her gaze to meet the image of the attractive young man on the screen. “We need to find out what happened.”
Chris didn’t turn to face her again. He just nodded and began his search.
CHAPTER 5
DANIEL’S HOME
It was dawn in San Francisco, and a pink-hued bubble was rising on the horizon to the east. The birds had woken hours before, and were now tweeting with delight in the warmer spring weather. Daniel was asleep in his room, lying on his stomach. His face was flat against the mattress, and his half-naked torso was only partially covered by the sheets. His room was eerily silent; it seemed as though the inanimate objects that occupied the relatively large living space had somehow developed awareness and were terrified of what was about to unfold. For a moment, he breathed in near darkness, with only dim traces of dawn light coming through the terrace window. Otherwise, his room was bathed in a blackness that was, this morning, particularly eerie.
A ringing sound built up, emanating from the very center of the room. It continued building in intensity until an old ornamental Buddha—a gift from his girlfriend—rattled for a few seconds where it sat on a bookcase across the room. Then if fell silent. A moment later, as the ringing continued, a thin filament of blue energy appeared on the terrace. It was elongated and looked as though it was composed of millions of miniscule sparkling lights. It moved slowly through the terrace doors, coming straight through the paned glass framed with old, varnished wood, and approached the center of his room. The ringing continued, and as the ethereal filament of energy entered Daniels’ living space, the sound increased in intensity. Several other objects began vibrating and rattling in the space, resonating with the sound.
When the film of energy had reached the center of his room, it stopped and began changing form. It coalesced into a luminescent ball that filled the room with an eerie blue glow. Next, thin tendrils—appearing to be made of nothing but this odd light—protruded from the amorphous sphere at the center, reaching into the space around them. They appeared alive, as if they were exploring their environment. One of them snaked across the room, hovering over Daniel’s bed. Another followed, and then a few seconds after that, another. A cacophony of whispers built up in the room, rushing from near total silence to overwhelming volume in a matter of moments. It was Zatera’s voice, and it was repeating Daniel’s name over and over again.
The filaments of energy were now over the back of his head. As the whispering reached a crescendo, it suddenly stopped.
Then one word was spoken aloud: “Danny.” The rattling objects settled immediately. The intense, piercing ring, which had made it seem as though something was about to explode at any moment, stopped. Daniel’s eyes shot open, and from them came the same piercing blue light—the same color as the tendrils of energy that hovered over the back of his head, except brighter.
Daniel’s face slowly contorted into an expression of shock and terror. His mouth opened wide as he craned his neck upward and turned onto his back. It was as though he wanted to scream, but all that came from his mouth was a frightened gurgle. He shut his eyes and reached his hands to his forehead, but the light still protruded from them in striking arcs. Indeed, the light appeared to be growing stronger. A vibration built up in the floorboards. It started as a few planks rattling, then continued until every single one of them was shaking. This energy began to spread. It moved upward and the double door that opened onto the terrace began vibrating, the glass rattling in the old wooden frame. Soon, every object in the room was moving. The bookcase shook up and down with the motion of the floorboards, and the overhead light swung wildly from side to side. After a few moments, the entire room was shaking.
Daniel’s body contorted again. He sat up straight in bed, sticking his torso out and bending his head back so that he was facing the ceiling. Another arc of blue light—this one much brighter than before—shot from his eyes. The glass in the frame of the double door reached its limit and shattered, fragments exploding both into and outside the room. None of them touched Daniel. Some of them came close, but stopped completely in their motion and fell near the bottom of his bed or just next to it.
The bookcase rose half a foot off the floor and slammed back down onto it, sending most of the old paperbacks and ornaments flying onto the surface below. A beautiful, ornate cabinet which his mother had bought him, and which had been rattling in the far left corner of the room, exploded, sending fragments of wood flying across the entire space.
Daniel squirmed. A muted, primal scream came from him as he pressed his hands to each temple. His eyes were wide open now, and the light that beamed from them illuminated the entire room with the same stark, bright blue. “No,” he said in a low, guttural tone. “Stay out of my head! I know who you are!” he yelled. “I know what you are! I don’t want you in—”
He screamed one more time as he craned his neck back even further in a disturbing, conto
rted fashion. At this angle, he could have easily injured himself severely. The light from his eyes grew in intensity, pulsating and flashing against the ceiling. The entire room shook violently, as though an earthquake was rocking the ground beneath the house. A loud crack boomed across the space, cutting through the sounds of the other objects as they rattled and slammed up and down on the floor. A large crack had appeared in the wall behind Daniel’s bed, and now it spread over him, cleaving the wall in two. Another crack sounded, this one coming from the other side of the room to the right of the bookcase. It moved rapidly up the wall. The two widening fissures met at the upper edges of the ceiling and paused as though in negotiation. Then the ceiling began splitting with them. The two jagged cracks continued tracing their way across the white plaster. Finally, they met at the center and the light fixture there fell to the floor with a crash, smashing to pieces.
Daniel’s chest protruded so that every bone and muscle in his well-toned torso was visible, although it seemed almost like the act of a contortionist at this point. He screamed one final time, a scream that went beyond the physical and intersected with the psychic plane. The scream grew in intensity, and as its volume increased, the level of destruction in the room grew. The bookcase was pulled forward, as though jerked by an invisible rope, and slammed onto the floor. The double door, which led to the terrace, both sides of which were now devoid of the glass that had been previously held in frames, was torn from its hinges. Ripped apart, the door separated, each side sent flying into the garden below, turning end over end in the air. Finally, the entire floor beneath Daniel rose, the terrible heaving sound reverberating around the room, rising above the other sounds and drowning them out as though some invisible master was purposely silencing them.
After a few terse seconds, during which every floating piece of debris in the room remained motionless, the arcs of light from Daniel’s eyes rapidly receded. He let out a stark breath, his body relaxed, and he fell backward onto the bed with a flop, his head hitting the pillow. The floor beneath him dropped and every piece of debris, wood, and glass fell from the grasp of his besieged mind, crashing back onto the floor.
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