“What baby?” Jeff said.
“He would be about one, now. I want to know where he is. Tell me all that you know, and I might let you live.”
Jeff was truly perplexed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I walked away a year ago. I figured since Tempest had made him a freak, he couldn’t be part of my life. But the child is mine and I intend to take it with me. Tempest can’t have it.”
“Wait,” Chloe said, suddenly looking at Jeff as though she were seeing him for the first time. “He has tech in him.”
“Tech?” Mandy said. “I thought you knew this kid.”
“Yeah. I do. I don’t know how I never noticed it before. But when he stepped between me and that robot guy, I felt it. Some kind of tech. In his head.”
“Something they put in him? One of Tempest’s sick experiments?”
“I don’t know. It could have been there all along, for all I know. I really don’t know.”
Chloe started toward Jeff.
He said, “Stay away from me.”
Jeff glanced toward Sammy, who was still on his knees but staring blankly ahead. He would be of no help.
Jeff did not know what Chloe was talking about. Tech inside him? Tech was always the term she used for computers and electronics. He had nothing like that inside of him.
He began backing away from her. She said, “Hold still, Jeff. This shouldn’t hurt. I just want to try to figure out whatever it is they put in you.”
Jeff did not know what they were talking about, but he knew crazy when he saw it, and he saw it in the eyes of this Mandy woman.
He continued backing up, though he knew there was really nowhere for him to go. He thought of trying to escape by slipping away into the time stream. But to do this he needed to concentrate. And to concentrate, he needed to be calm, not scared out of his wits.
Who were these people with Chloe? Bad guys, obviously. But why was Chloe with them?
Sammy was disabled, possibly permanently. Scott and Dad had disappeared. Jeff was alone here. Thirteen years old, and totally at their mercy.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Jeff bumped into the chair Sammy had been using in the computer alcove, and realized he could back up no further.
“Chloe,” he said. “Please. Don’t do this.”
Chloe reached out with one hand toward the terrified boy. “It’s here. In the side of his head. Emitting some sort of electronic pulse into his brain.”
“Shut it off,” Mandy said. “Whatever sick experiment they’re doing to him, shut it off.”
The man with the Egyptian haircut had run to Akila’s side. Akila was sitting up, trying to shake the cobwebs out of her head from when Sammy had thrown her into the concrete wall. Cosmo was also standing to one side, lighting a cigarette from a flame dancing at the end of one finger.
“What are you talking about?” Jeff said to Chloe. “I don’t have anything electronic in my head.”
Chloe, ignoring him, activated her ability. There was nothing visible, simply some sort of energy field she generated. At least that was what Snake had called it. And to Jeff’s surprise, he did feel a little tingle at one side of his head, just above his ear.
“It’s about the size of a triscuit,” Chloe said. “Jeff, what did these people do to you?”
“Nothing,” he said. “They didn’t do –“
His words were cut off by what felt like a sudden jolt of energy shooting through him. The tingling in his scalp went away, and he realized he suddenly felt healthier, stronger, more alive than he ever had before. His eyes widened with surprise.
“What’s happening to him?” Mandy asked.
“I don’t know,” Chloe said. “Jeff, are you all right?”
Jeff realized he was smiling. His senses were increasing. He could hear Chloe’s heart pumping. And the floor was taking on a strange, brittle feel, as though gravity itself was losing its hold on him.
Chloe grabbed him by his shoulder. He brushed her away with one hand as though he were swatting at a fly, and she was tossed backward and landed hard on the floor.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Mandy said, “but stop him.”
She looked back to Hasani and Cosmo. “Do something!”
Cosmo held up his hands. “Hey, I came along to help you get your baby back, but I didn’t sign on to hurt anyone.”
Akila was now on her feet, wobbly but functional, and she ran toward Jeff and drove a kick into his chest. He merely stood his ground, and when her foot made contact, she felt something crunch in her ankle. She was knocked back, but he didn’t move.
She howled in pain, falling to the floor. Her entire foot was numb. “I think he broke my ankle!”
What’s happening to me, Jeff asked himself. Whatever it was, it felt great. He was stronger, tougher. He realized he had stopped breathing, but it was all right. He no longer seemed to need oxygen.
Hasani glanced at Cosmo, then said to Mandy, “Come on, we should get out of here.”
“No,” Mandy said. “Not without my baby. This kid is not going to stop us. I’ll kill him if I have to.”
Akila was kneeling and holding her broken ankle. “Kill him? Hold on. You didn’t say anything about killing anyone.”
Chloe said, “We’re not here to kill anyone. We’re here to stop these people from hurting anyone else. That’s what you said.”
“I’m here to get my baby,” Mandy said. “You listen to Quentin too much. I can’t just leave my child in the hands of the freaks who run this place. And I’ll go through anyone who gets in my way.”
Mandy approached the boy, and stretched her hand toward his chest. “Ill just reach inside and grab your beating heart and squeeze, unless you stop whatever it is you’re doing and tell me where my baby is.”
Jeff felt like his strength was increasing geometrically by the moment. He wondered if this was what his father felt like when he powered-up. And then, with that question, he realized what must be happening to him. Like father, like son. Zeta energy, Scott and Sammy had called it. But why had it never happened before?
Mandy thrust her hand at him, her hand suddenly becoming immaterial, and phased it into his chest. But then she screamed and pulled her hand out. She staggered back, gripping her hand with the other.
“Get us out of here!” she cried out.
Hasani reached out with his hands, and Jeff could feel tachyon waves starting up. He realized this man was the teleporter.
“I’m trying,” he said. “I can’t seem to grab hold of all of you. There’s something disrupting my energy field.”
The female computer voice said over the loud speakers, “Warning, hazardous build-up of zeta energy in progress. Recommend discontinuing tachyon field.”
I knew it, Jeff thought. He was somehow powering-up. Like his dad.
“Try harder!” Mandy screamed to Hasani.
With Hasani’s eyes shut, his hands shaking, the tachyon wave build-up increased. He, Cosmo, Mandy and Chloe began to fade from view. Then, they faded back into full existence.
“I can’t grab all of you!” he called out.
Mandy screamed, still holding onto her hand, “Just get who you can!”
She and Cosmo and Hasani disappeared, leaving Chloe and Akila behind.
Chloe looked at Jeff, seeing him as if for the first time. Tech in his head, and apparently generating some sort of energy wave that disrupted Hasani’s ability to teleport. “Jeff, what are you?”
“You had better reactivate Sammy,” he said. “And even though you have always been nice to me, believe me when I tell you this. You don’t want to piss me off.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Quentin Jeffries was attempting to hold Scott Tempest in place and keep Jake Calder unconscious, but the strain was becoming a little much. He had thought he could hold them both, but was now starting to wonder. Jake Calder, despite his enormous power, was not the problem. After all, Calder’s mind was only human. What Quentin had
not counted on was Tempest’s mind. Human was hardly the word. Tempest had always said he thought in four dimensions, and Quentin was now experiencing it fully, first hand. When he had touched Tempest’s mind before, it had been only briefly. For a couple of seconds. It had not been enough to prepare him for this. The sense of time distortion, the previous moment seeming to still exist, and the moment to come somehow existing in the past. He felt like the disorientation was beginning to sweep him away.
He found his knees growing a little weak. He staggered a bit. Or was the floor shifting beneath his feet? He felt like he was suddenly becoming taller, more stretched out. No, he realized. He was simply losing his three-dimensional perspective.
How could Tempest even function like this?
If Mandy and the others did not get back soon, he believed he might be in trouble, because he did not know how much longer he could keep this up.
Was it starting to get darker in here? He did not think so. Probably some bizarre affect of Tempest’s freaky four-dimensional mind.
What was Quentin to do when Mandy returned? She had full intentions of killing both Tempest and Calder. Murder had never been Quentin’s intention. Stopping them had been his goal, though he had never put a lot of thought into what his end game would be.
Quentin did not feel he was the villain in any of this. Tempest and Calder were. He was simply trying to protect the world from them. Because of his lack of resources, he was having to side with those who were little better than criminals.
It pained him to have to admit Mandy was indeed a sociopath. She showed no regret at all about what she did to Peter LaSalle, and seemed to find it almost amusing. Sure, LaSalle had been out of line and needed to have his face slapped, but the attack she had conducted on him, phasing her hand into his cranium and squeezing his brain until she induced a seizure and coma, was a bit over the proverbial top. The fact that LaSalle was alive at all was something of a small miracle.
Wait, he thought. It was indeed growing darker in here. What was happening? The overheard lights were growing dimmer. Something wrong with the wiring, perhaps. Or a circuit breaker. This was an old warehouse, not in use anymore. But he could not go check it out, because he did not dare risk having his concentration disrupted.
It was growing dark enough that he could no longer see across the room. That was when he heard the voice.
“You may not have heard of me,” it said. Male, baritone. It seemed to be coming from all around him. “Some are coming to call me Midnight. Others are calling me the Darkness. I think it is that which I prefer.”
“Who are you?” Quentin called out, then realized the absurdity of the question, considering what the voice had just said. He decided to change the question. “What do you want with me?”
“You are to release the two you are holding.”
“Or what?”
Quentin became aware of a humanoid shape seeming to coalesce at the center of the room, in the deepening darkness. Though the voice seemed to come from all around Quentin, as though it came from the darkness itself.
“You are a telekinetic and a telepath,” the voice said. “The most powerful I have encountered. Yet you will find you are no match for me. Very few can experience the effect of absolute darkness and retain their sanity.”
“Darkness? Is that all you’ve got? You mean, you can turn out the lights? Get out of here, you pretender, before you make me angry. I am not afraid of the dark.”
“You fool. I am not speaking of an absence of luminescence. I am speaking of a total darkness I can project into your mind. I can make your mind go dark. A few seconds of this can send the strongest man cowering in fear. A few minutes, and your mind will be wiped clean.”
Quentin gave a huffing sigh out of frustration. Things seemed to be going from bad to worse, and in a hurry. Not only did he have to be afraid of what the woman he loved would do to Tempest and Calder, but now he had to deal with this lunatic.
Quentin reached out to him telepathically in an attempt to maybe gain a grip on the man. After all, despite this darkness thing the man had going on, he had to be, at the core of his being, just a man. Probably a meta-human.
Yet as he reached out, Quentin found there was no mind to grab hold of. It was as though there were no entity for him to read the mind of. Simply an empty room.
He then realized his mistake. He had released his grip too much on Scott and Jake. Scott pulled free of Quentin’s control, literally taking a step backward. Jake was also free and began to stir, consciousness quickly returning to him. Scott pressed a button on his belt and a force field was generated, enveloping himself and Jake.
“We’re safe from you,” Scott said. “This force field operates on a modulation you can’t penetrate.”
“Of course,” Quentin said. “You recorded my brainwaves while I was at your complex a year ago. You created your force field to operate against the modulation of my brainwaves.”
Scott nodded. He then looked off toward the center of the room, where the dark humanoid silhouette seemed to stand.
Scott said, “Don’t challenge this being, Quentin. He’s a meta-human, I believe, but I know little about him.”
The voice said, “Do not interfere, Scott Tempest.”
Scott said to the being, “I know very little about what you are. But I can’t let you simply wipe the mind of this man.”
“You defend him? Even after he was holding you prisoner?”
“He did what he believed was right. Despite everything, I believe him to be a good man at heart.”
As Scott spoke, he was working the controls on his wrist band reconnecting with the central computer at the mountain complex, giving it his and Jake’s current coordinates. The girl Chloe had neutralized the connection, but not fully disabled the wristband. “Whoever you are, you can be stopped. All we have to do is gain an understanding of your ability.”
“It is not I who need to be stopped, Tempest. I am the protector of the innocent. I tolerate no violence. No abuse. This is my town, and you will both stand down. I have in fact been watching all three of you for some time. I have been convinced you and Jake Calder mean no harm. I am still deliberating about the telekinetic.”
“You operate out of New York, also?”
“Indeed. I can travel from one city to another instantly.”
“You have speed, also?”
“I move with the speed of darkness, Tempest. I am darkness. Remember that. Both of you. And remember, I am always out there. There is no place that is beyond me. I am letting you off the hook this time, Jeffries, but I have very little patience. Remember.”
Quentin said, a little indignant, “No need to be so cryptic.”
“I am what I am. Heed my warning.”
And with that, the humanoid figure seemed to fade away, and the darkness the room had been submerged into began to dissipate. Quentin realized the overhead lights were still on. This Darkness person had not shut off the lights, he had merely drowned out their luminescence.
Quentin said, “He speaks very melodramatically, doesn’t he?”
“I would take him seriously,” Scott said. “His ability must be to generate some sort of energy field that drowns out light.”
Jake was now on his feet, and had heard the entire exchange. He said, “Sort of like the reverse of April’s ability.”
“So it would seem. Which is fascinating, because darkness isn’t really energy like light is. It’s actually the absence of energy. Or so I thought.”
Quentin said, “Regardless of what he is, though, he seems to be very powerful. And so it would seem a truce between us is being enforced.”
Scott let down his force field. “I would hope you might realize we’re not the evil creatures you seem to think we are.”
Jake said, “The first thing Scott did, when he was free of your control, was to try to defend you.”
Scott said, “Our mission is not to conquer. We’re explorers. Discoverers.”
Quentin shook
his head. “I never said you were evil. It’s simply your power, which between the two of you is nearly absolute. This, combined with the human weaknesses we all have, is what makes you so dangerous. I never said you would intentionally harm anyone. But with your power, even accidentally you could wreak irreparable havoc. Look at the damage you have already caused, accidentally, both here and in the neighboring universe.”
Scott did not know what to say. He thought he had worked all of this out in his own mind. Yet as he stood here, listening to Quentin, he found it difficult to argue.
Quentin continued. “I was trying to set myself up as the opposing force to you. The yin to your yang, so to speak. But I have had enough. I am clearly in over my head. You are on your own. And God help the human race.”
Quentin strode across the floor to the warehouse door.
Scott said, “Quentin, where are you going?”
Quentin stopped, but did not look back to him. “I really don’t know. For the first time, there is nowhere for me to go.”
And he stepped through the doorway, and out into the night.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Sammy quickly triangulated on the signal coming from Scott’s wristband and contacted them, as well as the team waiting at the hospital in Boston.
Sammy’s voice came through the audio field now surrounding Scott and Jake. “You mean you actually just let him walk out the door?”
“What were we to do?” Scott said. “It has been made very clear to me by this Darkness being that there is to be a sort of truce between Quentin and us. And I don’t want to risk opposing this being until we know more about his darkness power.”
Jake said, “So, we’ve got to live under an Organian Peace Treaty.”
Scott chuckled. “Apparently. You know, the very fact that you know what the Organian Peace Treaty is qualifies you as at least an honorary geek.”
“I’ve been living with you too long. I’m becoming infected.”
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