by David Byrd
Micah stared intently at Elia. She was confused as he expected, but there was something more. She was one of the most powerful firstborn; at least she was before he learned to expand his power. No matter though, he thought since he could strip her mind of all its information if he chose to do so.
Parker, Corin and Julie watched from a distance helplessly as Elia was taken away into the forest.
“Now what do we do?” Julie asked.
“We really have no choice. We follow them and take them out if we have to because sooner or later Micah will break through the mental block and then he will know about all of us.” Parker said.
“Just so that we’re clear,” Corin said harshly. “I am going to kill him for what he did to Althea so please don’t get in my way.”
The three companions made sure their mental defenses were foremost in mind before discretely following the group into the forest.
Kai could wait no longer for backup to arrive at the canyon complex. Both he and Hollis had traveled back to the complex through the alcove to await their arrival but Kai felt that he had to go now.
“Hollis send me through right now and then the others when they arrive,” Kai said. “I’ve got to find out if Elia is alright.” Kai stepped into the alcove and Hollis brought up the display and selected the red station.
“Good luck my boy,” Hollis said.
As soon as Kai made the transit and the brief disorientation passed he dropped and rolled out of the alcove. The arrival chimes would have sounded already and anyone in the facility would already be on the way. He remained motionless for a minute and when he heard no sound he cautiously came to his feet. The room was exactly like the other Plakorii lower floor labs but this one had a lot of human equipment piled and thrown around. It looked like people had been living in the complex for a while. Kai heard voices come into the main floor of the complex. He reached out his senses and there were 4. Three were not giving off any mental emanations but the fourth…was Elia.
Kai attempted to merge with Elia but was blocked. She had erected a wall of sorts to block any intrusion into her mind but she knew her husband was there. She managed to send one thought his way and still keep up the mental defense and that thought was…HIDE.
Kai wasted no time in moving to one of the rooms opposite the cells and concealing himself but not before readying his pulse rifle and flipping the safety to off.
“Put her in one of the cells and then you two go back up and guard the lab,” Micah said to the two men. “We don’t want any interruptions.”
Elia was shocked when she saw the familiar cave leading up to a Plakorii lab. She realized when they were inside that the camp must have been planned to be near this site so Micah must have known about all the labs. She was even more shocked to feel Kai nearby and trying to merge but she couldn’t drop her defenses or Micah would surely know. She just managed to get one word out and then felt that he stopped trying to communicate. She was then led downstairs and couldn’t help but be amazed since she had never seen the lower level of a Plakorii complex and it was hard to maintain her nonchalant attitude. She was led to a cubicle type room they called a cell and then the door was closed. She could only hope that Kai could help her now.
“You’re probably wondering how I know about this lab and how I have been able to control all of these people,” Micah said. “I’m happy to describe that to you so you so you will…understand me better. You see I know you are not under my control yet…Oh you were for a short time but I can clearly see you have learned some new mental defenses so you can drop the pretense.”
“Fine Micah…how about you tell me just what the hell you think you are doing?”
“Oh the lady does have a stinger in there somewhere,” he said. ‘Well I do love a good challenge and you are going to be a great deal of fun. But first I will tell you how I came to be here. Hollis and your parents along with Max and Jean were very kind in distributing all the information learned at the first Plakorii lab back to everyone in Ancora. You see I used that information to learn as much as I could about them and then I came to this lab and learned a great deal more. More than any of you could possibly understand. And now I’m creating my own city and ensuring everyone will be loyal to me.”
Micah was smiling broadly at her through the transparent door, but she clearly saw that he was either delusional or had some kind of god complex but she had to keep him talking. She didn’t know how Kai had bypassed the shield to get here but he wouldn’t have come alone. Everyone must know by now that something was wrong here.
“Loyalty…Is that what you call abusing Althea?” She said with obvious anger and disgust.
“She was just a…plaything,” Micah said his gaze hardening and his jaw tightening up. “In a few minutes you won’t really care about Althea either. You will only want to follow every instruction I give you and I will like that very much indeed.”
Micah reached out with his mind to indoctrinate Elia like he had the others but a curious thing happened. He was blocked. She had erected a wall. In terms of mental abilities it was as if he was actually seeing a solid wall made of PlazSteel.
“I like a challenge,” he said grinning in a way that was more perverse that genuine.
Micah poured more power into the contact using the mental image she portrayed to his advantage. He sharpened his probe to appear like a steal pick, swinging and biting into the PlazSteel with every swing. Bit by bit the wall was being destroyed but she was strong…much stronger than anyone else had been. She fought him with every ounce she had but she knew in time he would break through.
Kai felt the mental pain she was feeling and he readied the pulse rifle and rose to take aim.
Micah poured on the power and he broke down the PlazSteel wall in her mind to be confronted with another barrier. This time it was a sphere, perfectly round with no seams. His probe hit the sphere and bounced off without a scratch. He changed tactics and changed his probe to appear to be a great vise enclosing the sphere. He slowly closed the vise as if cracking an egg.
Elia was losing ground and she knew it, he was much more powerful than she was and she couldn’t hold out much longer. Kai sensed this and she could see that he had taken aim.
“Did you really think that I didn’t know about your man behind me,” Micah said fiercely and his eyes blazed with power. The iris of both eyes glowing strongly and completely golden.
Kai was frozen in his tracks. He couldn’t move a muscle. Somehow Micah had reached out and paralyzed him.
Elia knew there were only seconds or they were both dead. She made a quick decision knowing it could be the last one she ever made.
“Alright I’ll do whatever you want!” She screamed. “Just don’t hurt Kai.”
Micah was startled by her sudden capitulation and stopped his attack on her mental block for just a moment and that was all the time she needed. She dropped the block and instantly connected to Kai and they merged. Their connection was incredibly strong and everything that had happened to both of them in the time they were apart flashed by in milliseconds. They combined their power and poured it into Micah making him stagger backwards with the sudden onslaught.
“See if you like this asshole,” Elia hissed as they mentally punched their way through his defenses. He was extremely powerful but together, they were stronger and little by little they chipped away until he passed out cold and fell to the floor.
Kai now freed from the paralysis ran over to the cell. “Don’t worry I know how these things work, I’ll have you out in a minute.”
Kai activated the cell door and Elia rushed to him embracing.
On the upper level shouts could be heard and then a shot was fired. Kai grabbed his rifle and they moved to a defensible position as two people came down the stairs.
Seeing who it was, Elia ran over to hug Julia and Corin when they reached the bottom of the stairs and tell them everything was alright. Kai came over and gripped Corin’s shoulder, glad to see his friend again.
Moments later four chimes were heard in the complex. Noel and several other men from Ancora appeared in the alcove. There were astonished looks from Julie and Corin.
“We’ll tell you all about that later,” Elia told them since she learned all about Kai’s experiences when they merged. “Where’s Parker?”
“He’s upstairs,” Julie said. “He took a hit in the leg from some weird gun that looked like a glass tube. He’s guarding the two goons upstairs.”
A happy reunion took place with everyone in the lower level and then it was down to the business at hand.
“Micah is out cold and should be for a while but we need to get him into that cell and confined while we figure out what to do with him,” Kai said.
Several of the group placed Micah on the shelf in a cell and Kai activated the door.
“We should kill him while we have the chance,” Corin said.
“Buddy I hear you…but think about it for a minute,” Kai said. “If we did that we would be no better than he is. Don’t get me wrong, when he was hurting Elia I would have killed him if I could have but we were in a fight.”
Corin simply nodded and stared intently at the cell and then went back upstairs…not satisfied but with nothing more to say about it. The rest of the group went up to disable the energy shield reactor and secure the other two men. Noel asked two security men from Ancora to stand guard over Micah but over by the stairs well away from his cell.
Chapter 9
Upstairs the two men acting as Micah’s bodyguards had been secured and Parkers wounds attended to. The KT reactor was shut down dissolving the energy field over the campsite.
What are we going to do with these two?” Noel asked.
“Dad, they will be alright after a few days,” Elia said. “They were victims of Micah just as all the rest of us were. Outside of his constant influence and the hypnotic drugs he was feeding everyone, they will all come to their senses eventually. But…there are a few who are going to need more than just time.”
“I know about Althea,” Noel said. “Kai told me and we will get her to a counselor back in Ancora to try and help.”
Most of the group left the lab and headed down to the campsite. There were quite a few people milling about confused. They helped Parker get to his hab so that he could rest. The wound on his leg would heal quickly as they always did. Elia and Kai went around to the different projects and told everyone that Micah had ordered a day of rest. It was the only way they could get everyone to stop working. Later that evening when everyone gathered for the ritual bonfire…Elia and Kai merged and went over to greet every person in the camp and probe to see what state their emotions were in. Most were just following whatever anyone told them to do and had a bit of confusion in their minds. A few others were still under heavy control so it would take a while to regain their wits.
Down in the cell, pain racked his mind. It was as if someone was physically stabbing his brain. His head throbbed painfully and he felt sick but he was alive. That was their first mistake.
Micah came back to consciousness slowly and he let his awareness flow into the surroundings. He knew he was in a cell and there were two people nearby but…they were not firstborn. Idiots he thought. That was their second mistake. He was easily able to master the firstborn in a couple of weeks. These fools had no inherent mental abilities. They were almost out of range…a good practical plan he thought but not good enough.
The two men guarding Micah by the stairs had been talking and were getting a bit bored with just standing around. After all, the man was in a locked room and they had no idea what he was capable of. They both started having thoughts about an empty cell. More and more, they kept thinking about the word escape and an empty cell…over and over. After a few minutes they were starting to think that somehow Micah had escaped, so they had to take a look.
When the men were in front of the cell Micah reached out with his mind and trapped both men in a viselike grip. Like a crocodile waits for its prey and clamps its jaws shut he captured them just as surely. He instructed them how to operate the control crystal and release his cell door and then ordered the two inside. “Pity I don’t have the time to kill you,” he said while walking over to the travel alcove. He activated the crystal, stepped inside and vanished.
After a moment of disorientation that came from being disassembled and being reassembled by the device, he left the alcove which was glowing with a soft golden color. He activated the control crystal and made several adjustments locking out this complex from the transport system.
“There…now there is no way that you can access this complex,” he said to the empty room. Micah had been to this base before and stockpiled the lower rooms with plenty of supplies in case he needed an exit strategy which obviously had happened. An old Earth motto from a young men’s organization he once read about…be prepared…and so he was…
South Pole
A spot appeared in the snow about the size of a pencil point. The spot seemed to melt downwards through the snow and a meter into the soil below. If you were to stare at the tiny hole you could see that it was gradually widening. Almost imperceptible but you could see the expansion if you watched very closely. The same process had also started at the North Pole. The final protocol that B’Noth had enacted for a second time on Trellis II had begun. Matter was being systematically reduced to sub-atomic particles. Atoms reduced to protons, electrons and neutrons which were then reduced to leptons and quarks. The freed particles remained in a suspended state waiting for the template to recombine into the forms the Plakorii had designated; Trees, rocks, grass, mountains…but no complex biological life forms. Several days later, the hole had widened to a meter in diameter and was still expanding like a slow motion ripple in a pond. If you were standing inside the circle it would appear to be slightly hazy…almost like the sensation of a whiteout in a snowstorm…with no references to mark perception the human brain could make sense of…blankness...emptiness. The freed particles suspended in flux.
Chapter 10
Elia, Kai and the others quickly discovered Micah’s escape. After searching the complex, Kai discovered the lockout on the south Plakorii complex in the transport alcove.
“Well…At least we know where he is but there is no way to get there,” Kai said. “That complex is thousands of kilometers south closest to the pole. All the other sites are within a few hundred kilometers near the equator.”
“We have no way to reach him without air power,” Noel said. “But the opposite is true also. He can’t reach us unless it’s through one of the three Plakorii transport stations. We need Hollis to find a way to restrict these stations to a list of people. In the meantime lets post guards at all three sites until Hollis can lock them out.”
Over the next few days, the firstborn, free of Micah’s influences came around and many were extremely angry. Kai and Elia were instrumental in helping the group deal with their feelings but there were many who were unable to express their anger especially knowing that Micah had escaped. Hollis was able to lockout the travel alcoves to restrict access and about half of the firstborn including Hannah and Julie had already gone back to Ancora, disillusioned with what had happened.
“Kai, I know you and Elia are about to leave and I just wanted to say thanks for all you have done,” Corin said. “If not for you…well there’s no telling what would have happened. You may have already heard but Althea and I are going to stay here at least for a while. The reasons we originally came out here are still the same and we have the basic infrastructure and the Plakorii complex in case we need help. Besides, you still need people to guard the complex and I plan to learn all that I can so that someday we can bring Micah to justice.”
“I did hear that buddy and you know you can always count on us if you ever need anything,” Kai said. “And we want you two to visit us when you can.”
Corin walked away and Kai returned to the complex meeting up with Elia as they prepared to travel back to the canyon complex.
Kai merged with her and in their special mind communication he relayed the feelings he perceived from his friend Corin. When Corin mentioned Micah, there was moment of fury and then it was gone behind a solid wall and nothing was escaping from it. He was very concerned because hate could be a powerful feeling that could eat you up inside. He knew from experience when his Mother and Father were killed. Fortunately he had Elia to help him through it. They activated the alcove now keyed to just a few people, and in a blink were back in the canyon complex.
Several days later, Elia and Kai were having their family over for dinner. It was the first time in several weeks they had all been together and to celebrate Max had come up with a new formula for Rum from some of the sugar beet crops.
“A toast to Kai and Elia for their courage and strength in setting right what could have been a very nasty situation,” Max said heartily holding up his glass.
“Cheers!” from the rest of the family as they held up their glasses. Hollis was the only member of the group still back at the canyon complex. It was understandable since they all knew that once Hollis had latched onto some idea or line of research, he would be steadfast in pursuing it to whatever end it reached. He did promise to link in by vid and participate in the celebration.
Kai and Elia were happily enjoying the warm feelings surrounding them from their family and it was quite a change from the last several weeks of stress they had endured.
Plakorii Canyon Complex
After making sure the transport system was secured against any further intrusion, Hollis set about learning all he could about the “teaching” system that B’Noth had employed on him when he was captive. He was still haunted by some of the scenes he witnessed of the depths the Plakorii had sunk to in their application of power, but humans were no less barbaric. The history of the human race would no doubt have caused the Plakorii to exterminate us as well.