Scorched

by Britt Ringel

  Sadler raised the gun instinctively up to aim but Kat pressed his arm down below the window and looked around nervously. The alley they had landed in was deserted. “Just point and shoot. That’s a Jamison Series D. It fires nine flechette rounds, kind of like a shotgun but way more wicked. Anything in the general direction of the mini-barrels will be destroyed.” She paused before adding, “Make sure Maggie and I aren’t behind your target, okay?”

  Sadler was still staring at the pistol.

  “In fact, don’t fire until I do,” Kat ordered. “Maybe we can do this without firing a shot. After all, we didn’t come here to kill anyone. We came to rescue Maggie.”

  Sadler looked at the bottom of the gun’s grip. “How many shots do I have?”

  “More than you’ll need,” she answered. She pressed the door release and the gull-wing opened gracefully. “Time to go.”

  The couple padded down the alley like thieves in the night. When they reached the end, Kat looked both ways for other pedestrians. The back street was empty. They trotted quickly across the band of pavement and onto the opposite sidewalk that led to the convention center. Aircar traffic soared sporadically overhead without concern.

  Kat’s instincts had her looking up for security cameras but she found none. It’s just an old convention center that gets rented out, she told herself. It’s not a fortress. Sadler was walking too closely behind her and she could feel his breath on the back of her neck.

  They arrived unnoticed at a back door on the building’s corner. Kat tested the handle to be sure but two security locks made it clear the door wouldn’t open. Probably a digital lock backed up with an old-fashioned deadbolt.

  “Okay,” Sadler said nervously, pausing to look around. “What now?” He dramatically wiggled his pistol. “Will this open it?”

  Kat’s stomach clenched at his careless treatment of the weapon. “Probably,” she nodded, “but I know a quieter way.” She tucked her pistol into her waistband and pressed both hands to the door. Focus, she commanded.

  She pushed with her hands softly at first, letting the pressure build gradually. As she pressed harder, she felt a similar pressure growing inside her head. “Forward,” she grunted while beginning to strain. The pressure quickly escalated and she fought the accompanying tide of disorientation. Still, she pushed harder. Finally, she felt the door go and stumbled several steps into the back hall of the convention center before regaining her balance. She shook her head, willing the disorientation away before turning to Sadler. “Hurry,” she whispered as she waved him forward. “It comes back quickly.”

  Sadler stood slack-jawed at the doorway.

  “Sadler!” she snapped while grabbing his hand and pulling him through the opening.

  When they were both inside, she released her grip and pulled her pistol. Her ears popped painfully and the back door reappeared.

  “Holy shit,” Sadler muttered in disbelief, gaping at the door. He swallowed once. “So that just happened.”

  Kat offered him an impish shrug.

  “How did you do that?”

  “I don’t know,” Kat answered. “All I can say is that I feel whatever it is working when I think of pushing something forward.” She threw her empty hand up into the air. “I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense but what about tonight does?”

  Sadler took Kat’s hand into his own. “Kat, I have to be honest. I had my doubts when you were talking in the car. But after seeing that?” He raised his eyebrows and smiled mischievously. “As freaky as that was, I have to admit that I’m feeling a little more optimistic about our chances right now.”

  She turned down the dark hallway and pulled him along. “Let’s go get Maggie.”

  “Where is she going to be?”

  “Upstairs, I think.” Kat crept to an intersection and peered cautiously around the corner. The hall continued straight but also branched off toward the front of the building. Down that branch, the long corridor led all the way to the grand foyer at the front entrance. She could see light from the tall windows reflecting on the glossy floor. Straight ahead of her, a sign depicting a staircase hung on a closed door.

  “Sometimes we’d rent out convention halls under fake corporation names and use the smaller rooms as offices and our base of operations,” Kat explained matter-of-factly. “We never stayed in regular hotels, they’re too obvious.”

  “You remember doing this?” Sadler asked.

  “I’m getting bits and pieces,” she answered vaguely. “For example, I know I’ve pushed doors like that before.”

  They slipped across the open hallway to the staircase door. Kat tested the handle. “Locked? Why would a staircase door be locked?”

  “My guess is the lock really doesn’t matter,” Sadler quipped while taking several steps back.

  Thirty seconds later, they were standing on the steps in the stairwell. In the glow of a soft, red light, Sadler leaned close to Kat’s ear. “Hey, you’re bleeding.”

  Kat swiped at her ear and wiped her hand on her pants. “It’s kind of a side effect.” She looked curiously up at him and asked, “Do my hands glow or am I backlit when I’m doing it or anything like that?”

  “No more than usual,” Sadler remarked with a smile but quickly grew serious. “No, you look exactly the same. There might be the faintest feeling of pressure, like when you descend from high altitude in an aircar too rapidly.”

  “I feel that too,” Kat observed. “Except it’s a lot more than faint pressure for me.” She looked up the stairs. “Let’s go. I’m guessing the next door won’t be locked from the inside.”

  They climbed the stairs silently and tested the second floor door. The latch pulled back, granting access. Kat stuck her head out, first searching for cameras and then for likely routes to travel before ducking back inside the stairwell. “It’s a long hall that leads to the front of the building. No doors except at the very end. I bet this hall and another one like it on the opposite side of the building run down the sides of the second floor to serve as fire escape routes for the rooms up front.”

  They stepped out of the stairwell and into the hallway. Before Kat released the door, she grumbled, “Damn, I wish I had something to keep this open.”

  “Here!” Sadler whispered excitedly. He fished out his handheld from a front pocket and placed it on the floor against the door’s frame. Kat let the door ease shut and it wedged on the small device. “You’re such a useful boyfriend.”

  “Well, I want to demonstrate my value now before I cower in fear during the gunfight.”

  They quietly glided down the darkened hall to find the door at the far end unlocked. When it silently pulled open, bright, artificial light streamed through the crack. Kat poked her head out, performed her rudimentary surveillance and reported, “It’s just a single hall that goes all the way to the other end of the building. There are five doors then a pair of double doors opposite a bank of elevators and probably a staircase near the center. After the elevators, my guess is five more doors and then that side’s fire exit. The layouts are usually symmetrical.”

  Sadler took a breath. He seemed to be concentrating very hard. “What’s the plan?”

  Kat noticed a slight tremble in his hands. Curiously, her nerves were calm. “Sadler, thank you for coming with me tonight. I’ll try to make it up to you.” She blew out a cleansing breath. “You stick behind me. I’ll test the doors as we go. Do exactly what I’m doing with my pistol. If mine’s pointed toward the floor, so is yours. If it’s pointing as someone, yours is too. If it’s firing, yours is firing.” She looked gravely at him and said slowly, “Do not shoot me.”

  When she was sure he understood she opened the door. She aimed her pistol at the floor, not because she was worried about her own fire discipline but because she was terrified that Sadler would accidently pull his trigger before identifying his target, or worse, shoot through her in a rush. A fleeting memory of a trainee firing through a barricade at a gun range passed through her mind. The trainee
had ducked his head around the barricade but not brought his pistol around with it and had fired accidentally into the barrier.

  The first door was numbered “11” and was unlocked. She positioned Sadler on the opposite side of the doorway and gestured for him to follow her in. She made an exaggerated motion that he would cover the left side of the room while she covered the right. He nodded after wiping at his brow and the sweat trickling down his face. Kat switched her safety off in a similarly exaggerated fashion. Sadler quickly did the same.

  Kat didn’t kick the door open, instead she smoothly but quietly pushed it out of her way and concentrated on her section of the room. The light from the hallway was enough to present an empty chamber to her. Nonetheless, she finished sweeping her side of the dark room and felt a rush of pride as Sadler did the same. That was a good test run.

  “Good work, Sadler,” she praised quietly. “Keep your focus and make one hundred percent sure your part of the room is clear.” She waggled her index finger at him and cautioned, “Keep your finger off the trigger though. You don’t want to shoot Maggie by mistake.”

  The next four rooms were unoccupied though not empty. Obvious signs of habitation made it abundantly clear that people were using the rooms. She wanted to search for clues to their identities but felt she was running out of time. Do what you came here to do, she told herself.

  They had worked their way down to the center bank of elevators. Across the hallway, opposite of the elevators, a pair of double doors stood closed with the placard “Meeting Room” affixed near the right door’s frame. Kat’s tension spiked.

  “If she isn’t in the auditorium, then this room is as good as any,” she warned Sadler. He had taken his position on the other side of the doors. She motioned him closer and whispered, “We’ll only use my door. Ready?”

  He checked his safety quickly before nodding. Stealing a glance at his Aegiscore t-shirt, he whispered, “I hope I make you proud.”

  Kat soundlessly opened the door. The lights were on and she immediately knew they had found the right room. There was no entryway, the door simply opened into a large rectangular space. A sturdy, wooden conference table dominated the center of the room. Maggie Reynolds was lying on top of it, eyes closed and jaw slack. To Kat’s right, near the head of the room, an oak podium stood in front of a wide, glass screen inlaid into the wall. A smaller, metal table sat near a corner to Kat’s left at the room’s rear.

  Standing next to Reynolds’ immobile form was the woman in red and her two guardians, guns holstered. Their backs were to the door. Kat raised her Jamison and pointed directly at the woman’s center. She took a quick sidestep to her right and caught Sadler mimicking her posture as he moved left. Sadler coughed politely and the threesome at the table turned to stare at them in utter shock.

  Several seconds of silence played between both parties. Kat was a wound spring, waiting for the slightest movement to release a coil of gunfire. She shook her head slightly, I can’t fire yet. I might hit Maggie. “Step away from the table,” she ground out through clenched teeth.

  One of the agents in black body armor blurted in insistent frustration, “Well, overload them! What are you waiting for?”

  The woman in red stated simply, “I can’t because—”

  “It only works on one at a time,” Kat finished for the blue-eyed stranger.

  Chapter 33

  The petite woman inhaled sharply in surprise before her face lit up, as if delighted. “You remember? That’s not supposed to happen.” A look of curiosity flickered over her face. “What else do you remember, Cat?”

  Kat ignored the question and instead asked, “My picture you showed the woman on the table, why did it have the name Kallista Pendleton under it?”

  The woman’s blue eyes flashed. “Because that’s your real name… Cat. I take it then, that you did suffer memory loss from the scorch?”

  “So, if I’m Kallista, why are you calling me Kat?”

  “Because that’s your nickname,” the woman explained. “Well, some called you Pre-Cat but that really doesn’t fit.”

  “I don’t understand,” Sadler said from behind his pistol. His hands were beginning to shake slightly.

  The woman turned her full attention on him. Her lips peeled back into an open smile and she stared at him for several moments. Finally, she slowly raised her open hands to her waist while saying, “See? There’s nothing in my hands. I don’t even like guns. I’m just going to lift up the corner of my shirt and show you something. Don’t shoot me, okay?”

  Kat nodded but the woman seemed focused squarely on Sadler. “You’re not going to shoot, right?” she said insistently while pinching the bottom of her blouse with a thumb and index finger. “When we manifest and get assigned, they give us our tattoos.” She slowly lifted the fabric until the bare skin of her waist was exposed. Kat realized the location was the same spot where she wore her own, ugly scar. “Our nicknames typically come from them.”

  Kat’s eyes tracked from the woman’s navel to her bare waist. A luminous subdermal wafer glowed faintly beneath the skin. It read: TLOL-9. The woman smiled. “My nickname is—”

  “Lolz,” Kat finished. “I remember that name. I think I remember you.”

  Lolz let the smooth fabric drop and nodded almost remorsefully. “We didn’t think you’d remember anything. The scorch should have not only rendered you psi-null but a side effect is catastrophic memory loss. Those areas of the brain are almost collocated and the scorch doesn’t burn out before it reaches the memory centers.” She regarded Kat with sad eyes. “It’s going to be more personal now, Cat. I’d much rather have just killed a stranger.”

  “Psi-null?” Sadler said. “Are you saying that Kat is psychic?”

  “Psionic,” Lolz corrected. “And was, not is. A psi-positive permanently loses all such abilities after a scorch. That is, after all, its purpose.”

  Sadler’s brow furrowed. “But—”

  “But why?” Kat blurted, cutting him off.

  “For the same reason I call you Cat,” Lolz answered vaguely. “You see, my tattoo denotes me as the ninth telepath ever enrolled into the Pelletier’s Society.”

  “Pelletier’s Syndrome is a fatal disease,” Kat stated.

  Lolz snorted derisively. “That’s a cover story,” she explained. “For the last seventy years, the Society has been testing newborns for psionic potential. Burcet Pelletier derived the test and they’ve searched the entire megacorp for infants who test positive ever since. The cover story of the disease is a convenient excuse to take the ones they find.” She raised a hand up casually and stated mock-condolences with a flood of manufactured sympathy. “So sorry, your child has a fatal disease that demands we take him to a classified containment center. Better luck next time, Mrs. Clueless.”

  The agent nearest Kat turned to Lolz and angrily barked, “Are you deranged? Why are you telling her all this? We need to kill her! Fry her brain!”

  Lolz spun toward the man and answered savagely, “There are two of them, you idiot. Tell you what. Decide who you want to be shot by because as soon as I overload one, you can bet we’ll be shredded by the other.” She malevolently regarded the agent until her unbalanced smile reappeared. “Did you know that ‘deranged’ originally meant ‘to cause mayhem’ in Old French? I think I like that.”

  “The Society won’t like you spilling its secrets,” the agent persisted.

  Lolz waved a hand casually in the air. “Oh, give me a break. Cat already knew all this and besides, one side of this room is going to be very dead by the end of the night anyway.” She turned back to Kat with her unhinged grin. “Now, where were we?” Her eyes widened. “Oh, my tattoo! Well, it took me a while to get mine. Our powers don’t manifest until we hit puberty and, like you, I was a late bloomer. And our powers don’t reach their full potential until we finish puberty but sometimes, with the late bloomers, we manifest a second psionic power related to our first.”

  She tapped at her covered wai
st and spelled, “T-L, O-L. Telepath, Overload. Besides being able to create a mental link with another person, I developed the ability to send so much stimulus to my target that I can effectively shut him down.” She sighed. “I suppose that’s why they made me a leader of one of the d-teams sent to find you. We knew you’d lost your powers but you’ve always been a good athlete.” She brought a hand up to her mouth and whispered as if sharing a secret. “But it’s hard to run away when you’re curled up in a fetal position.” Her red lips turned down into a pout. “But it only works on one at a time.”

  “So,” Sadler asked, “Kat has a tattoo like yours?”

  Lolz tittered maniacally while nodding. “Had a tattoo, but not like mine. And before she escaped, she took a medical dremel tool and ground the subdermal wafer out of her body.” She cocked her head to the side and stated with wide eyes to Sadler, “And people call me a little unstable. Your girlfriend, don’t deny it, I can tell how infatuated you are even without a link, she had the tattoo P-C-A-T dash Two.”

  “What did it stand for?” Sadler questioned. He removed a hand from his pistol and shook it out quickly before placing it back to the weapon.

  “Cat had the distinction of being only the second ever pre-cognitive.” Lolz looked at Kat wistfully. “Other than the first one, the closest we ever had before Cat was Peecho.” She looked at Kat with disappointment. “His team didn’t return last night. I assume you had something to do with that.”

  “What’s pre-cognitive mean?”

  Lolz sighed at Sadler. “It means that Cat could see the future. When she manifested, the Society knew that Cat was their golden goose. Imagine knowing revenue reports ahead of release. Imagine knowing military plans or new technologies being developed ahead of time.” She appraised Kat with narrowing eyes. “And they treated you with kid gloves because of it. You were pampered while the rest of us suffered all through puberty.”

  “Why?” Kat asked. “Because of my ability?”