Strangers and Shadows

by John Kowalsky

“Hey!” The young guard looked like he was fresh off the boat.

  Celia quickly turned and ran around the last corner she had taken and waited. The sound of footsteps drew closer. He was running after her, hard. As he entered the jammer’s range, Celia could feel his precise location as he ran down the hallway. She lashed out with a stiff arm that caught the guard in the throat as he turned the corner. A muffled gasp escaped as the man fell and then he was silent, knocked unconscious by Celia’s boot to his head.

  She dragged the body off to the side. There was no time to hide it properly, and little point to it as well. She continued toward the detention center, picking up her pace to a brisk walk.

  Ahead of her there was a group of guards patrolling the hall.

  “Well, now’s as good a time as any,” Celia said to herself. She ran full speed at the nearest guards.

  They instinctively crouched as they drew their weapons. One of them called for backup. “We have an intruder outside the detention center. Requesting backup. Over.” The guard listened to the reply and then responded. “Copy that.”

  Celia breached the distance between them, and as they came into the radius of her jammer, she influenced their minds.

  “Holy shit!”

  “She just disappeared!”

  “Where’d she go?” The last guard in line watched as one by one his squad was taken down by an invisible assailant.

  Celia crouched, ready to deliver a kick that would dispatch the last man into slumber, but it was unnecessary. The man turned and ran for his life instead of trying to face her blindly.

  That’s right, run. Celia smiled to herself. But she had to keep moving. Soon more guards would be coming from both directions and her little invisibility trick wouldn’t work if they weren’t within the jammer’s range. Jack ought to have his distraction by now, she thought. Every guard in the Embassy would be bearing down on her.

  She turned the final corner and found two more armed guards guarding the entrance to the holding cells. They brought their weapons up as soon as they saw her.

  Celia sprinted the last few feet to get the men within range of the jammer. Both guards fired just as the jammer’s range encompassed them. Celia dropped down into a slide, and the stun bolts zipped overhead. As she slid, Celia grabbed for their minds. She smiled as she found them.

  They were weak.

  She watched as they turned their stun guns on each other, both men’s eyes were wide with horror as they pulled the trigger. She felt their confusion as the stun bolts slammed into them, delivering darkness.

  Celia stepped over their bodies and into the detention center. It was comprised of one long hall containing cell after cell. To her left, there was a control desk, manned by three officers. They all rose to meet the intruder.

  Celia instantly made herself unseen to their eyes. She ducked as the men pulled their blasters and began to fire blindly. She had to close the distance between them or find some cover before one of the bastards got lucky and hit her with a stray bolt.

  “Where did she go?” The men were in a panic.

  “I don’t know! Back up should be here any second!”

  Celia didn’t have any time to waste. She reached out and probed the men’s minds for the location of her father. As it turned out, they had a cell, just for him, and it was singled out from the others at the end of the corridor.

  She knew that she had maybe a minute or two, at best, before more guards arrived. She needed something to keep the guards attention pointed away from her father’s cell. Once she was out of range of the men, she would be visible again, something that she did not wish for herself. The guards were trigger-happy enough with an unseen target to shoot at.

  Celia reached out into all three of the men’s minds and planted a scene there. To them, it appeared that Celia was ducking behind the doorway, out in the hall, firing random shots at them.

  She waited long enough to be certain that the men’s attention was on the door and not anywhere else, before she crept silently down the corridor. Once she was past the view of the guard station she sprinted down the hall toward the place she had seen her father in the guard’s mind.

  She wasn’t sure if the men would be fooled by her planted vision or not. No doubt it had faded from their minds as soon as Celia was out of range. Hopefully, they would think she had given up and was retreating further down the hall.

  Even if her ruse was successful, she would only have a minute or so before their backup arrived and pointed out that they had not seen anyone slinking down the halls.

  Her father’s cell was a large room. There was medical equipment lining the walls, and after a moment Celia realized that this wasn’t a cell after all, it was the sick bay. That should make breaking in significantly easier.

  The door was plate glass, maybe an inch thick. Behind it, in the middle of the sick bay, her father was strapped down to a table, much like she was not so long ago. She knew that he would be using all of his energy and focus to keep the nanites out of his nervous system. If they got to his brain stem, they would be able to control most, if not all of his bodily functions.

  She expected the door to be locked as she reached her hand forth and delivered a telekinetic push. The door flew open, bending the hinges and wedging the door open.

  It would take her father more time than they had to come back to full consciousness. She could hear the boots pounding down the hallway. She didn’t wait to see how many reinforcements there were. She grabbed hold of her father and activated the jump-watch.

  Back Among The Living

  Jack waited for what felt like forever, crouched in the storage closet. He was about to move out when he heard the sound of footsteps running down the hallway. That must be Celia’s doing, Jack thought. He hoped she was okay.

  A second wave of footsteps followed the first. “Are we clear to go?” Jack asked.

  Wizard studied his display for a moment, made a few taps on the screen, and replied. “You should be clear. Whatever commotion Celia is causing seems to have drawn guards from all over the Embassy.” The old man looked up from the datapad. “You do know where you’re going, right?”

  “Yeah, I remember the layout,” Jack said as he tapped the side of his head.

  “Just checking. I’ll be here to help if you need me, just use your comm. Don’t waste anytime. If you don’t find anything—jump out, and we’ll all rendezvous back in Cairo.” Wizard once more buried his head in the data stream, watching for anything alarming.

  Jack opened the door just enough to peek out and saw no one outside. He stepped out into the hall with Asher close behind him. They walked fast, but not fast enough to appear unnatural. Not that there was anyone around to see them, and any cameras would be taken care of by Wizard.

  Every few feet they passed empty offices with abandoned chairs pushed away from work stations. Jack wondered if maybe there had been an evacuation, but they soon ran into offices that were still occupied, with the people inside busy at work. No one paid Jack or Asher any attention as they walked by.

  The offices soon thinned out, giving way to larger conference rooms. Before long, they came upon the reception area to the outer chambers of the prime minister’s office. Jack held his hand up and Asher halted.

  Jack instructed him to keep an eye on the hallway behind them as he scanned ahead.

  There was a receptionist sitting behind a large desk. Beyond the desk, he saw no activity. Surely there had to be some guards left behind. Would they all be sent to deal with Celia?

  The receptionist was a young woman—attractive, but not overly so. She wouldn’t turn heads like a model, but she would never be kicked out of bed either. Her dirty blonde hair was done up behind her head, with what looked like a pair of chopsticks. A plan formed in his head.

  “Stay close, and follow my lead,” Jack instructed Asher.

  Asher rolled his eyes. “Great,” he muttered under his breath as he followed Jack toward the receptionist.

  The young
woman looked up and smiled. “Hello, gentlemen. How can I help you today?”

  Jack flashed a grin back at her. “Hi, yes… I’m looking for a friend of mine. He’s a young boy, maybe twelve years old… I’m embarrassed, but I seem to have lost him. You see… we were visiting his mother—she works here, and while we were leaving we got a little turned around, and then there was a bunch of guards that came running down the hall and we got separated. Have you seen him?”

  The young lady looked behind him. “Is it that young man behind you?”

  Jack turned around and looked at Asher before turning back with a laugh. “Uh, no… That’s the boy’s older brother.”

  “I see…” the receptionist replied. “Well, I’m terribly sorry, but I haven’t seen anyone matching that description come by this way. If you’d like, I’d be more than happy to call security for you. They may have already found this boy you’re looking for.”

  Jack’s pulse raced. “No that’s alright,” he blurted out quickly. “Could he have sneaked by when you weren’t looking?”

  “I assure you, sir, no one has come this way in the last half hour.” She was annoyed.

  Jack was beginning to seriously dislike this woman. “Well, we’re just going to take a look around if that’s alright with you.” Jack put a hand on the door leading to the offices when he heard the woman’s chair hit the wall behind it.

  He turned to see her standing with a pistol in her right hand. “Actually, it’s not alright with me.” She brought the weapon up as if to fire.

  Asher reacted without thinking. He dove for the gun arm, slamming into the woman’s elbow. The weapon flew through the air.

  Asher was elated—he’d done it! What he hadn’t done, however, was think about what to do next. The young woman helped him out there with a kick to his solar plexus from her high heel. Asher made an awkward squeal as the air forcefully exited his lungs.

  Jack fumbled for his blaster as he watched the events unfold. He had just managed to clear the pistol of its holster when Asher’s body crashed into him. He lost his grip on the blaster as he fell.

  He rolled Asher off of him and got to his feet. He looked around for his weapon, only to be interrupted by the shriek of the receptionist as she flew through the air with a kick aimed at his head.

  He barely side-stepped in time. The wind from her foot brushed his hair back. She followed the kick with a straight punch to the stomach which Jack took with a grunt. He managed to block her next punch, countering with a heel strike to her neck.

  Stunned, and unable to draw air down her throat, she stumbled backwards. Jack wasted no time delivering a knock out blow to her head. She slumped down onto the floor next to her desk.

  Jack straightened up, took a deep breath, and checked for any injuries that he might have missed due to adrenaline. To his relief, nothing caused any serious pain, just a little tightness where he’d taken the blow to his midsection. He found his blaster and holstered it before helping Asher to his feet.

  “You alright?” he asked.

  “I’ll live,” Asher panted.

  “Good.” Jack walked around behind the reception desk. “I think she tripped some kind of silent alarm. We should get moving.”

  Asher walked up behind him. “What makes you say that?”

  “My psychic powers,” Jack replied. He walked off toward the outer chambers.

  Asher looked at the display screen of the desk and saw INTRUDER ALERT flashing over and over again. “Cute,” he said.

  The offices were empty. More like deserted, Jack thought. “You think they knew we were coming?”

  “I don’t know,” Asher said. “Maybe they’re just closed for the day.”

  Jack tapped his comm unit. “Wizard, we seem to have hit a dead end. There’s no one here, and no sign of Kid or Desmond.”

  “Alright, Jack. Best if you two jump out and meet me back at the rendezvous. And try not to take too long—there are a lot of troops moving very quickly back your way.”

  “Copy that.”

  Jack was about to tell Asher they were leaving when he heard the sound of the lift. Asher was between him and the lift. Asher looked up at Jack, and Jack motioned for him to get against the wall.

  Asher flattened himself against the wall and waited. Jack held his breath. The whirring of the lift’s motors slowly grew fainter until they stopped.

  The lift door opened. Two guards dressed in white stepped out, followed by a woman in a long, flowing, white dress. The guards spotted them almost immediately and made a move for their weapons, but Jack didn’t give them the time. His blaster was already drawn and he fired two shots, bringing down both guards.

  The woman in white froze. With the ringing of the weapons fire still in his ears, Jack ran for the woman. He passed Asher, still frozen against the wall. The woman tried to escape back into the lift, but Jack caught hold of her arm and held her fast. She tried to struggle but Jack wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug and yelled back to Asher. “Jump out!”

  There was a flash of light as Jack jumped out, leaving Asher alone in the Outer Chambers, his ears still ringing. As he started to come out of the shock he could hear the pounding of footsteps running down the hall, leading to his position. It took a moment for Asher to remember his jump-watch. He put a hand in his pocket and pulled it out. As the guards came into his peripheral vision, he activated the key.

  The lead guard had his pistol drawn. Asher saw the flash of light from the weapon’s discharge as he jumped out. Time seemed to slow down. The blast from the weapon stretched into a beam of light ten feet long, and then there was darkness for a single instant before the lights of Desmond’s office flashed into existence.

  He looked at Jack and the woman in white. Celia was there too, with her father and Wizard. And then Asher felt a burning in his side. He looked down, pulling his hand away from his torso. He saw blood. As he fell to the ground he finally placed where he’d seen the woman before. It was the White lady. He felt a surge of hatred, and then nothing, as he slipped into unconsciousness.

  How Bad Is It?

  Desmond had just opened his eyes when Asher collapsed.

  Celia left her father’s side and rushed over. She turned Asher on his back and immediately noticed the red stain on his shirt. He was bleeding from his left side. “Help me get this shirt off! I need to see how bad it is.”

  “Keep an eye on her,” Jack said to Wizard. He went to Celia’s side and helped with the shirt. He tore here and there, being careful not to disturb Asher’s body too much. Asher never so much as stirred. Jack was concerned.

  With the shirt off, Celia could see the blaster wound clearly. The bleeding had stopped on the outside, burned by the heat of the blaster beam. She quickly rolled him on his side and checked his back for an exit wound. She found none. This was a bad sign. If the shot had gone clean through, it would have cauterized itself, and unless vital organs were hit, it would have been nothing more than a minor flesh wound. But with the beam stopping, a whole new realm of possibilities could have occurred.

  “How bad is it?” Jack asked.

  Celia looked worried. “Pretty bad… It’s hard to say for sure.” She sat back from the wound. “He’s immune to my powers, so there’s no way for me to probe his injuries exactly. There could be internal bleeding, his lung might have been hit, or his kidney, or worse his heart. It depends on the angle of the blast, and it’s hard to make out for sure without an exit wound. My best guess would be that the beam punctured a lung. What I need to find out immediately, is whether the wound burned itself closed, or if he’s still bleeding in there.” She turned to Wizard. “Do you have a body scanner with you?”

  The old man shook his head with regret. “No, I never thought to bring one here. I have one back at my house, but with what we just did, I think the Seventh will be locked down quite tightly, especially my house.”

  “I may be able to help you,” the voice belonged to Julia White, Celia’s mother. She had been put in rest
raints, but was still standing in the room, watching the scene unfold.

  “Not a chance, lady,” Jack said. He turned to Desmond, who was still recovering from his own problems. “Can we get her out of here?”

  Desmond nodded as he coughed up phlegm into his hand. “I’ve made arrangements, the men should be here for her in a few seconds.”

  Indeed only a few seconds had passed when there was a knock at the door. Desmond’s men came in and took the prime minister of the Seventh away.

  “Dad, I’m worried,” Celia said. “We don’t have the means to treat one of his kind here.”

  “What do you propose we do?”

  Jack spoke up. “The Third. They have medical facilities that can treat him and make sure he’s alright.”

  Celia nodded her vote.

  Desmond considered the options for a moment. If the young man stayed here, his condition would almost certainly worsen. The Seventh was out of the question, and the Fifth was a little too advanced. They would ask questions about the burn wounds that no one wanted to answer. That left either the Third or the Fourth. “The Third then.”

  “Don’t worry,” Jack said. “I think we might know someone there who can help.” Celia shot him a questioning look. “He sorta helped out when you were out of it.”

  “Alright, but we need to go now,” Celia said.

  Jack nodded, punching in the coordinates. There was a flash of light as he jumped out with Asher. Celia followed close behind.

  Desmond and Wizard were alone in the room. “You feeling okay?” Wizard asked.

  “I am. Thank you,” Desmond replied. He’d just finished removing the last of the nanites from his body and destroying them with the help of the jammer. Energy rushed back into his limbs. “I’m going to go have a talk with Julia. Would you mind coming along and keeping an eye on everything for me?”

  “Not at all,” Wizard beamed. Though Desmond appeared to be in his mid-thirties, maybe early forties, he was much much older, and Wizard, who looked twice as old as Desmond, felt honored to be asked along.