Silence ensued. The only sound that punctuated it was Daniel’s relaxed breathing. Slowly, as the light of the sun struck his face, he sat up, raised his head, and opened his eyes. They still shone with the same blue light. After a few moments, he lifted his legs and lowered them over the side of the bed. He glanced around at the room, appearing to survey the destruction he had caused. Then, robot-like, he stood and began to dress.
Daniel himself, however, was already locked in a cage, swirling through the astral world, seeing everything, and knowing what had happened. From the first seconds he had been thrown—against his will—into this swirling void, he had begun to focus; he would chip away at this being’s defenses and find a way to gain control of his mind again. Nothing in the world would stop him from exacting revenge on the being that had violated him to such a degree. In the distance, among formless blue and orange clouds that appeared to stretch into a strange, desolate infinity, he could see through his own eyes and witnessed the depth of destruction this being had caused. He wept silently, suddenly regretting having taken everything in his life so lightly. As the being dressed, he watched as the door to his room—now no longer on its hinges—was pulled open. Daniel’s eyes grew wide at this, as the staircase in the hallway outside came into view. Dad! he thought desperately. His father was downstairs, probably preparing breakfast. Daniel slammed his fists against the transparent bubble in which he found himself, but only minute ripples of energy spread out from where his fists impacted it. For now, at least, he was trapped.
Then the window through which he could see the world began closing as the entity that had commandeered his body turned its attention back toward him and noticed the gap it had left open. Through the thin connection he still had to his physical body, Daniel felt his own lips curl upward into a smile—the smile of the entity—that he could sense had come from the deepest reaches of time and space, through an infinity of darkness, to claim something from this world. NO! he screamed as the liquid-like, iridescent clouds closed in around the only window he had on the world outside. He reached out with his mind and grasped at them, trying to hold them back. For a moment, he was successful and he felt the entity recoil, shocked at the might of his mind. However, then the being that had taken him pushed harder and the window continued to close. Eventually, the clouds met at the center and the outside world was closed off from Daniel as he drifted through that strange, formless world of color. He turned and looked in the other direction, but could see nothing save for those same bubbling clouds, drifting across each other into forever. Denying himself a chance to panic, he closed his eyes and focused. After a few moments, he found a trickle of power—like a tether—and latched onto it.
***
Daniel’s father, Joe, had been making breakfast downstairs. When the rumbling sounds began from above, he had stopped and walked to the center of the open-plan living room, leaving a pan full of bacon on low heat on the kitchen counter. The comforting smell and thought of eating with his son was replaced first by wonder, then fear as he heard objects slamming down onto the floorboards in Daniel’s room directly above him. After a few moments of listening and trying to determine for certain that the sounds were coming from his son’s room, Daniel’s father dashed toward the door that led to the hallway only to stop, mid-stride, as he heard what sounded like an all-out explosion. His eyes darted around, and he found himself automatically turned toward the far back of the room, where a double door led to the garden. A shower of glass rained down from over Daniel’s terrace. His father’s eyes crossed in an expression of horror, and his body froze as he could now only listen to the sounds as they increased in volume and intensity.
Just when it seemed the downstairs portion of the house would begin to shake as the upper floor was, a final series of crashes resounded, and then everything stopped. The silence that followed was almost worse than what had come before it, for in the silence was a demand for action. Still, Joe didn’t move. He had turned back around to face the door that led to the hallway. There, a staircase led to the upper floor. The door swung open a couple of inches, breaking the silence with an ominous creaking sound. Joe stared at it in awestruck silence, knowing without even thinking that it had been moved by some trace of psychic power—an aftereffect of what had just happened. He knew his son was unusually gifted—an Ethereal, as they were called—but he also knew Daniel could take care of himself, and so he had never felt any real reason to worry about his safety. Daniel’s loneliness, on the other hand—the stark alienation his abilities seemed to create—troubled Joe greatly, and so he spent as much time as he could with his son. They were best friends.
But now, Joe couldn’t find the will to move even a single inch. He heard movement upstairs, this time the comforting movements to which he had grown accustomed over the years—the sound of creaking floorboards as his son got dressed. However, somewhere in the back of his mind, Joe had the strange feeling that his son was actually far away, trapped in some strange place and receding from him with every passing second. He had no logical reason to think this; the knowledge was in his heart.
The door to Daniel’s room opened, making a disjointed sound and creaking as though partially broken. Then Joe heard footsteps creak across the wooden floor above him. His brow creased as he listened. Something in the sound of these movements caused new fear to creep into him. He took an automatic step backward, keeping his eyes on the staircase through the open doorway directly in front of him.
After a few more footfalls, he saw Daniel’s legs appear on the upper steps, descending them. That’s not my son, Joe thought, an insight that went through his mind without any forethought. He continued watching as more of Daniel’s person came into view. His clothes were the same: his faded blue jeans were entirely recognizable, and the thin, brown suede coat he had recently brought home after buying it at great expense adorned his torso. However, his movements were robot-like, and his gait was completely alien. Joe frowned, for he had the distinct impression that Daniel was being controlled remotely. But how could such a thing be possible?
A gasp escaped his lips as his son reached the bottom step. Their hallway was large, and the front door was ten feet away. Daniel was staring at it, and then, he walked straight toward it.
Trembling with the fear that he was about to lose his son, Joe spoke. “Danny?” he whimpered. He took a sharp breath, realizing he could have made a huge mistake by drawing attention to his presence. Daniel looked upward, staring at a space somewhere between the top of the door and the ceiling. Then, slowly, his body turned a little and he pulled his head around to face his father. It seemed that power was leaking out of him in waves. Joe could practically feel it at this distance. It was like a mild, invisible force pushing against him. As Daniel’s gaze turned in his direction, the wood enclosing the doorframe in front of him creaked again. It was pushed open another foot or so, and then the power spread farther into the surrounding wood and into the ceiling, where those otherworldly psychic energies, about which Joe knew little, caused the entire structure surrounding the doorframe to creak loudly. A minute trembling passed through the floor beneath Joe’s feet. At this, he finally noticed that his pulse was racing as he took deep, shallow breaths.
Joe recoiled at the sight of the piercing blue light in his son’s eyes. He wanted to run. The eyes flashed once, and with that brief blaze came a piercing sound that sent chills down Joe’s spine. Then Daniel turned back to face the door, seeming completely unmoved by his father’s presence.
Joe could still hear the ringing, and although it was no longer directed in his vicinity, it was rapidly building up around the hallway. Then he watched as Danny reached his hands in front of him, just a few inches in front of his waist, palms facing upward and stretched out toward the door. Pools of light gathered in each hand and a second later, the entire doorframe exploded onto the street, pelting the garden and the road beyond with chips of wood and glass. The barrage flew so fast, Joe could barely comprehend it.
Joe didn’t move for a full five minutes; his first thought was that doing so would draw attention of some kind. He knew what his son could do, but Daniel had never—to Joe’s knowledge—done anything like this. Daniel had once told him that his power could be tracked. News of the facilities and what had gone on within them had spread quickly among those who wanted to read about them, and Joe was in no mood to be detained and questioned by a secretive agency about which he knew practically nothing.
Finally finding the strength to move, Joe grabbed a large backpack and started packing, planning to go to his sister’s cabin farther down the coast. He knew on some deep, instinctive level that he couldn’t help his son by following him, so he didn’t. He could help Daniel in other ways, though, and he planned to exercise them fully.
When his pack was full, he grabbed his keys, some essential personal belongings, and old family photographs. Then he got in his car and left just as neighbors began congregating on the street. When Joe was a mile from his home, he saw a group of highly advanced, weaponized drones overhead, and he knew they were moving directly to his house. His heart skipped a beat as he waited to see if one of them would break formation and follow his car, having identified the registration number. Thankfully, this didn’t happen, and after another ten seconds or so, the drones were out of sight. Joe’s shoulders slumped as he fell back into the seat and took a deep breath. When he reached the open road, he let the car run as fast as the speed limit would allow
***
Jane, Morris, Ciara, and Mike had been traveling for an hour when Ciara began showing signs of being troubled. Jane was taking in every single second of the countryside, as she had never seen it before. Max had brought them to a beach a good distance south of New York City, but beyond that, they knew very little about the location where the escape pod had come ashore. Now they were twenty miles from that location, traveling close to the coast at Jane’s request, though at times, they had moved inward toward roads that took them away from the view of the beach. She had glimpses of it on occasion, and sand still littered some of the roads on their route.
Jane had spent much of the time holding Morris’s hand, and she relished the warmth that came from this simple touch. It had been some time now since they had been together, and something told her such a time wouldn’t be coming again soon. She took every ounce of strength from him that she could and tried to return the same to him, despite the many worries swimming through her mind.
Mike had fallen into a pensive silence and appeared to be thinking intently as he stared out the window. Ciara, on the other hand, seemed to have retreated entirely: she had drawn her legs underneath her and placed her forehead against the glass, staring at the moving landscape beyond. It didn’t seem that she was looking at it, though; it appeared as though her gaze was peering into a much deeper place. Beneath Ciara’s blank expression and trace of a frown, Jane could sense some new great fear growing within. It seemed as though Ciara was listening for something far away—as if she was waiting for a siren to sound, and eventually, it did.
Jane glanced in the rearview mirror as she heard Ciara groan in pain from the backseat. Jane immediately whipped her head around to look at Ciara as her hand smacked against the window. Then she watched as her friend doubled over in pain. All three of them were looking at her now.
“Oh my God,” she said, her voice strained. “Danny.”
“Ciara? What is it?” Morris asked, his voice laden with dread.
“Pull the car over, please,” she croaked. Ciara made a choking sound, as though she was going to vomit.
“Ciara?” Jane asked, turning fully in her seat and reaching out a hand for her. Immediately, Ciara grasped Jane’s palm, holding it in a viselike grip. A surge of power shot through Jane, and she saw a flash of images: streaks of lightning, the surface of the sun, and what looked like a nebula igniting in the deepest realms of space with tremendous, beautiful light. Then came an image of a door exploding from its wooden frame. This picture was of particular strength. Ciara glanced up and looked into Jane’s eyes as it played in her thoughts. Jane realized its importance as the name flashed in her mind: Daniel. Danny. Still, she couldn’t make out the details in the image. She saw the young man as a silhouette, and even though this doorway was now a wide-open space into the world beyond—which was also unclear, as she could not make out any details—it was dark, as was the outer rim of the image.
Ciara let go and returned her attention to the window, taking a deep breath.
Jane turned back around and sat flat against the seat, allowing her body to relax into it again. She took slow, deep breaths as the images faded from her mind. Thankfully, the feelings they evoked faded along with them. After a few more seconds, Jane reached her hand over and took Morris gently by the arm. “Pull the car over.”
Morris looked at her intently, his brow creased into an expression of concern. He glanced at Ciara for a moment before returning his attention to the road. He nodded and addressed the vehicle’s interface. “Please stop the car immediately,” he said in a commanding voice.
“Certainly,” said the pleasant but artificial female voice of the car’s AI system.
Jane watched as the car weaved through traffic, 90 percent of which was automated. It communicated with the other vehicles. As the car approached the left side of the road, it began slowing down. Left side—that’s important, but I don’t know why, Jane thought, her eyes wide open as she looked at the land beyond. The car was coming to a stop; they were pulling up next to a dusty, barren stretch of land that was mostly bare earth with only sparse patches of grass here and there. Jane looked out the window and stared into the distance. Then it hit her. She was looking west, where Max had been going. Whatever business he had to attend to, that’s where it was—or would be—taking place. Jane wondered if what Ciara was experiencing could be connected to what Max had been talking about. Daniel. She thought about the name. Was he the key to this? She recalled Max telling them about him on the beach, and she remembered Ciara mentioning someone named Daniel prior to that; that was when Jane and Ciara had met at the first facility in New York.
Ciara coughed and opened the door just before the car came to a complete stop. She practically fell out onto the dusty brown surface and stumbled away from it.
In one swift motion, Jane opened her door, stepped out, and rushed to Ciara’s side. Jane put her left arm around her, standing next to her for support, concerned that her friend would fall over. “Ciara, what’s going on?” she asked.
Ciara was staring at the ground, and Jane could feel her body trembling against her own. “Can’t you feel it?” Ciara asked in a near whisper. Slowly, she raised her head to a slant, as though protecting her eyes from some unseen light, and looked out into the distance over the flat earth beyond them. Nearby, as she followed Ciara’s gaze, Jane could see only another stretch of barren earth, followed by green trees and a thick wooded area. The entire region in front of them was devoid of evidence of human interference.
Jane cleared her mind and focused, her eyes narrowing as she concentrated.
“Listen,” Ciara said. The urgency in her voice caused Jane to jerk her head in Ciara’s direction. She regarded Ciara for a moment, then looked out again and continued to concentrate. After a few more seconds had passed, some of the same images Jane had seen in the car entered her mind once again, this time with more clarity. However, Jane realized she couldn’t feel the depth of what Ciara was feeling. Ciara had an emotional connection to Daniel, so she would undoubtedly feel what was happening more distinctly. Nonetheless, Jane knew then that he had been taken. S
he squinted as she listened, her head tilted to the side. She thought for a second that she could hear him screaming, banging on the distant wall of some prison, trying desperately to get out. In that impression was the distinct feeling of the young man’s fear, but also, for Jane, a glimmer of hope.
I feel him, Jane said. He’s been taken.
Occupied. Suppressed. Imprisoned. He has control of him now.
They both stared into the distance in silence, their shadows elongated on the dusty earth in front of them.
Maybe. But it’s up to Max now, Ciara.
Jane looked at her, and slowly Ciara brought up her gaze to meet hers. Ciara’s eyes seemed to brighten, and after a moment, she nodded. Yes. You’re right.
Despite losing her friend in this manner, and sensing his pain telepathically from this distance, the simple knowledge that the matter was in Max’s hands seemed to bring Ciara just as much comfort as it brought Jane. They slowly turned and returned to the car. Jane helped Ciara get back into her seat and watched as she fell down on it, taking deep breaths. Jane stayed there for a moment, watching until her friend looked up at her and nodded with half-closed eyes. Jane then closed the door and took her place in the front passenger seat.
Morris had his eyes on her from the moment she sat down. Everything OK?
She glanced over at him. He had tried to keep the telepathic contact private, creating a strong connection between himself and Jane, but Jane doubted, even in Ciara’s weakened state, that the words would fall below her awareness. Indeed, her telepathic reach appeared to be expanding so fast that it was becoming a matter of small concern to Jane. It made her think of Mike and the light beneath his palms, just ready to explode. If Ciara’s telepathic abilities were growing stronger, what would happen to Mike? Further, what could happen to Morris? Or her? Jane was suddenly very aware of her right hand and the new warmth that sometimes radiated from there. Reflexively, she lowered it below her leg, wincing a little as she did.
The Crystal Tower Page 10