Einstein’s equation defining special relativity shows that energy is directly proportional to mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. An increase in energy could mean only one thing. A proportional increase in mass must also have occurred. Not enough to give his astral being substance, but the implications were clear and extremely troubling. Given enough added energy, an astral being could acquire a physical presence. In theory, they could become solid. They could become real. If any being achieved that power, they would be near invincible.
Chapter 21
The colonel had the laboratory transformed into a command centre for the supposed retaliation against his perceived enemy. Emmy was past arguing against his assumption that the Chinese had been behind the breach in the first place. She knew the best thing she could do was to co-operate and hope for the best. Whilst the idea of assisting the military was bad enough, the thought of them launching a mission without her involvement was too terrible to even consider.
Satellite surveillance had highlighted three sites that could potentially house an astral base. Two of these were in the North of the country, and the third was located on the border between Tibet and Nepal. It was decided to systematically search all three of them starting from the top down. Any sign the facility in question was being used as a base for astral research and Emmy’s instructions were to take it offline instantly. Thanks to the lessons learnt during Esteban’s training, she did not expect this to be too difficult. All she had to do was locate the primary power source, and the rest would be taken care of as an act of will. The trickiest part would be reaching the targets in the first place.
Astral travelling is far from an exact science. The ethereal plain is particularly difficult to navigate at a terrestrial level. Focusing one’s energy on a planet or a star is one thing, but on an acute scale it is all too easy to overshoot a target destination by many miles. Both Emmy and Esteban had spent hours poring over maps and satellite imagery in order to construct as concise and accurate a picture as possible at which to target their thoughts. The planning for this mission had to be perfect as they were relying on the element of surprise. There would not be the luxury of having a second chance to fall back on.
Once they had taken the initial jump from their physical bodies, they connected their consciousness and made the next, greater leap together. Their metaphysical journey was traversed like they were a single entity. For just a fraction of a moment, they really were as one.
Although the transition from point to point is to all practicalities instantaneous, time behaves curiously at the quantum level. Like it is with a dream, the subconscious mind can process information at a rate far beyond conscious comprehension. During the brief time Emmy spent connected to Esteban, their thoughts, emotions and memories were also intertwined.
Flashes of the soldier’s past entered Emmy’s consciousness. She saw more terror and tragedy than she thought possible. She saw many acts of great violence. But she also saw the intent behind those acts. Force was used sparingly and only when it served to mitigate a situation rather than to inflame it. Each life taken was to save a life. At times, Esteban walked a fine line, but he had never crossed it. Without his deeds, a great deal more pain would have been inflicted upon the world.
She now knew beyond doubt that he was honourable even if his masters were not. If it came down to it, she believed he would do what was right even if it meant disobeying his military chain of command. He had done this before. It had been for a woman, though she could not tell if there was a romantic link involved. She also sensed that whoever this woman had been, Esteban saw a resemblance in her. Whether this would be a help or a hindrance she could only wait and see.
As the first location came into view, she knew instantly that it was not what they were looking for. There were far too many people on site and she was sensing nothing from below ground. If the Chinese were dealing with the radiation problem in the same way as the Americans, they would have to have a silo at least half a mile beneath the surface in which to channel it. Here, there was nothing.
She reconnected with Esteban.
‘This isn’t the one. We should move on.’
‘Shouldn’t we shut it down just in case?’
‘Follow me for a moment.’
She led him to a small annexe at the back of the facility. Though translucent, they could still make out the basic form and structure of the building. There was a strong electrical presence here, running through a wide range of machinery. Once they were past this they could see that the building housed several rows of what appeared to be beds, all of them occupied by the distinctive diamond sparkle of living beings.
‘What is this place?’ asked Esteban.
‘My best guess is a hospital or at least some kind of sick bay. Look at the people in the beds. They don’t glow with the same intensity exhibited by those around them. They’re weak. Do you really want to cut the power here?’
He thought about the devastation a power cut could cause within a hospital. When the Australian base had suffered a power outage, the emergency generators had taken over instantly. If such a failsafe had not been in place the consequences for the coma patients would have been dire, possibly fatal.
‘You have a point,’ he told her. ‘What shall we tell base when we report back?’
‘The truth. It was too dangerous, so we got the hell out. You do not want to spend too much time around the sick when you are astral travelling, believe me. If any of them were to die, it could attract interest. Hopefully, it won’t matter anyway. We could still find what we’re looking for in either of the next locations.’
Esteban nodded. He wanted to get out of there before any of Emmy’s interested parties cared to show themselves. Too many strange and unnatural practices had occurred since he signed up for this mission. He had barely come to terms with what Jimmy was able to do, and what he witnessed in Emmy’s cell also weighed heavily on his mind. What he saw that night went well beyond science or even superstition. It defied all logic. Even the ability to peek inside of her mind did little to answer his questions. It just proved that he was not imagining things, which would have been a far more welcome explanation if that were the case.
The second site they approached was clearer cut. This one was definitely a military facility. Esteban easily identified the munitions compounds and heavy artillery stockpiles. They saw nothing to indicate it may be used for astral travelling.
‘What do you think?’ asked Esteban.
‘It’s a possibility. I want to be sure though. Let’s get a little closer. They may be on alert for intruders. If this is the place, they’ll have some sort of sensors to detect our presence.’
They effortlessly floated down and into the structure of the building itself. As they passed through room after room they received no reaction. Nothing changed to indicate that their presence had been noticed.
‘Strike two?’ Esteban queried, as they met back up at the centre of the compound.
‘I would say so. Let’s just hope it’s a case of third time lucky, or the colonel is going to be pissed when we have nothing to report back.’
The third facility was a little harder to find. The mountainous terrain was difficult to navigate and they overshot their target by two miles, finding themselves high in the Himalayan mountain range. Isolated pockets of energy were dotted around the lower levels of the mountainsides indicating the local wildlife population. Nestled inside one mountain was what appeared to be a human settlement, but it possessed no telltale signs of technology. The two astral travellers assumed it was a primitive indigenous camp.
‘Go high,’ said Emmy, before breaking away from the soldier and rising up above the highest mountain peak.
Esteban followed the scientist’s lead. By rising higher, they could more easily spot the Chinese base should it be close by. In such a remote locality, the energy signature given off by any form of electricity would be impossible to miss.
Sure enough, it was not long be
fore a mountain peak gave way to an almost blinding conflagration of energy. A faint thread of light was cast out from the centre of the complex, extending out towards the stars. As soon as she saw this, Emmy re-established direct contact with her partner.
‘Do you see it’? she asked. ‘At 11 o’clock, heading skywards. It’s a silver cord. That has to be Charlie, my old lab partner.’
‘What happens if we cut the power whilst he is out there?’
‘In theory, he wakes up with a really bad headache. I’m not sure I want to take that risk though.’
‘Abort or hold back until he returns?’
‘We’ll continue. If he is astral travelling it means the sensors will be active. They will almost certainly pick us up too. When that happens they will pull him back instantly.’
‘And then?’
‘And then we can blow this place and go home.’
They separated once again. Emmy descended on the complex first, with Esteban following closely behind. As she neared her target she realised for the first time the full implications of what they planned to do. Due to the covert nature of the astral programme there was no official record of its existence. Therefore, there were no laws or regulations to govern its application. To use the technology against a foreign nation was unprecedented, but that did not mean it was not an act of war. There would be serious ramifications.
Emotions are faint and difficult to define when astral travelling. They are connected to physical changes in the body so have no bearing on a disembodied consciousness. Emmy did not feel fear as such, but she knew she needed to be cautious. If either her cord or Esteban’s cord was cut, they would have to find their way back home on their own, without a psychic bond to guide them. They would also be exposed to whatever had taken Sam Carlton.
‘I see the primary generators,’ Esteban said.
‘Good,’ Emmy replied. ‘I will leave them to you. I am going straight for the lab. I may be able to overload the computers or perhaps even wipe them clean.’
As they went in different directions, the cord stretching overhead blinked out. The traveller had returned. She now had to assume that their presence was known. They had to act quickly.
The attack was spontaneous and worked with text book accuracy. Unfortunately, it did not come from either Emmy or Esteban. The Chinese had pre-empted them. Emmy had wondered just how far Charlie would have advanced in her absence and she was about to find out.
A tremendous flash in the centre of the compound sent a sphere of energy radiating outwards unlike anything she had seen before. It was like an explosion in space. The moment it collided with her essence she felt intense pain. But feeling pain was impossible. Unless, of course, she was back inside of her body.
She opened her eyes, but her other senses overwhelmed her vision. An alarm was sounding, she could taste smoke in the air and feel heat against her skin. All around her the laboratory was in complete chaos.
Dr Stark pulled her out of the chamber. Her pod was sparking and she could only watch on with bewilderment as Paul let loose with an extinguisher.
‘What about Esteban?’ she asked, turning in the direction of the second projection chamber.
His pod was undamaged. By reprogramming the computer to tie his projection to hers, it had meant that his journey had instantly been cut short at the same time as hers, before the mysterious energy had time to hit him too.
‘I’m fine,’ he told her. ‘I am more concerned about you, Emmy. What just happened– was that some sort of weapon?’
‘Damn right it was some sort of weapon!’ shouted the colonel, who had been monitoring the mission from his newly constructed command post within the laboratory. ‘Why the Hell didn’t we see that coming?’
Rather than answer him, those present instead turned their attention to the one person who really had been in a position to see it coming, yet had done nothing to stop it.
‘Jimmy, did you foresee this?’ asked Esteban, who had developed a protective, big brotherly affection for the young psychic.
‘Does it really matter?’ replied Jimmy. ‘Even if I had, I couldn’t have changed it.’
‘You damn well could have tried,’ said the colonel. ‘We almost lost two good men tonight.’
Emmy coughed, but was ignored by everyone. Jimmy, meanwhile, was wishing his powers extended to granting him invisibility. During the mission he had been standing with his eyes closed whilst singing silently inside of his head, creating his own internal sensory deprivation chamber. It had worked. Although it was far from a permanent solution to his problems, it could at least offer him the chance of temporary respite when he sought it the most.
‘Fortunately, we didn’t lose anybody,’ said Esteban. ‘Jimmy is right, there’s no harm done so it’s pointless to discuss it further. We have much greater concerns right now. I may not have born its brunt, but I have no doubt that what zapped Emmy out of her journey was a weapon. They knew we were coming.’
‘Nonsense,’ said the colonel. ‘They couldn’t have known. It isn’t possible.’
‘Trust me, they knew,’ said Esteban.
‘What makes you so sure,’ asked Emmy.
‘We’re still alive, that’s what. If they’d been caught by surprise they wouldn’t have acted with such restraint. Tonight was a warning. They wanted us to see what they’re capable of.’
Chapter 22
Charlie had never felt such dishonour. Whilst he accepted that the Americans could not be allowed to carry on Jackson Fox’s work, using Emmy in the way they had done weighed heavily on his conscience. She was not only his former partner, but also his best friend. With hindsight, he wondered if he should have warned her about what his masters had planned.
The set up could not have been easier. Satellite images of the complex along with the two decoys had been deliberately leaked to American spies. It might have taken years for them to be discovered otherwise. During that time their rivals would have continued to work on their own technology and with Emmy Rayne on board there was no telling how quickly they would catch up.
His only consolation was that nobody was hurt during the confrontation. The energy pulse they emitted was at the exact frequency of the disembodied consciousness of an astral traveller, but at a sufficiently low output that would cause said traveller to wake up, rather than lose their cord and ultimately, therefore, their life. It had also carried a secondary signal embedded within, which followed the target all the way back to its source. Once uploaded into the host computer this parasitic piece of code would get to work rewriting and deleting files upon command.
General Tao continued to hang around the laboratory after the test, which made Charlie nervous. The scientist was well aware of the irony in trying to prevent the Americans from militarising the technology by turning it into a weapon themselves. It was a dangerous tactic and if it back-fired the consequences did not bear thinking about.
‘Excellent work, Professor,’ the general said. ‘You bring much honour to the Motherland.’
There was an air of prejudice in the general’s voice. The emphasis he placed on referring to China as the Motherland served to remind Charlie that he was an outsider. Born in Australia to mixed Chinese and Vietnamese parentage, if not for his undoubted brilliance and experience in the field, the general would never have tolerated him on his team.
‘It will take them months to rebuild,’ Charlie replied. ‘If we are lucky, Emmy will find a way out during that time. Without her, their project is dead in the water.’
‘That is not something we need to worry about.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Is it not obvious? Dr Rayne will come to us.’
The icy confidence in the general’s voice filled Charlie with dread. He had not encountered such coldness since confronting his late mentor, Jackson Fox. The full extent of the trap he had helped to set was finally setting in. Tao did not want to simply stop Emmy Rayne, he wanted to capture her.
***
A
team worked through the night in an attempt to combat and assess the damage. They managed to quarantine the virus, but only after losing nearly sixty percent of the infected files. This rendered the astral projection units completely unusable and they were expected to remain out of action for some time. Emmy was relieved to be given a respite from her contract with the Americans, but another part of her thought that she should be more concerned than ever.
She often wondered why her grandfather had spared Charlie’s life when he had not hesitated in trying to take hers. The old man was not the type to act out of sentimentality. Even in his final days, when driven crazy by the radiation poisoning, he had to have had a reason. If her instincts were correct and that reason was what she now suspected, they were in more danger than ever.
She arranged to meet Esteban in his quarters as hers were still subject to 24 hour surveillance. His room was sparse, even more so than her own. He had no personal possessions on display, not even a photograph of a relative or a loved one. There were a few books, but none appeared to be for pleasure reading. They mostly consisted of a selection of works on astrophysics and quantum mechanics. There was one, however, which caught her eye. It was on Tibetan philosophy.
‘I take it you didn’t come here to socialise,’ said Esteban.
‘Your powers of deduction are impressive,’ Emmy replied. ‘Have you ever considered a career in science rather than the military?’
‘Very funny, Dr Rayne, but I could probably say the reverse of you. Dozens of soldiers lost their lives in Jackson’s Hill, yet you survived. Something tells me this was down to more than just luck.’
Esteban was seated on the end of his bed. He made no effort to accommodate his visitor. There was one chair in the room, but she did not take it, she preferred instead to lean against the doorframe.
Emerald Sky Page 13