He had ducked just behind the broken window, and was peering in at her with a grin on his face.
Jane’s attention was immediately drawn to the strange device that was wrapped around his left ear. It was black, with a line running across it from where a blue light emitted. It appeared to be made of plastic, but Jane guessed it was likely composed of some other, more advanced material. Part of it stretched up and ran a few inches across the center of his forehead.
“Couldn’t see me coming, could you, Jane? It’s a prototype that shields my mind from your telepathic intrusions.” He smiled, proud. “Want to make me see a fearsome jungle creature again? Well, you can’t!”
She heard Morris grumble above her, but his eyes were still closed, and he didn’t look like he was going to be waking up anytime soon. The medical technician who had performed the procedure had now joined the first, and the two were backed into the far corner.
Jane got to her feet as Lucas ducked down once again. “No, Lucas. But I can still do this.” She raised her hands and sent a terrible volley of psychokinetic energy in his direction. The entire wall that encased the window buckled and cracked as the shockwave passed over it. The screens that lined the corridor outside shattered to pieces. She saw Lucas turn away from the space behind the wall and screech as he tried to shield himself from the falling glass. Then he yelled out in defiance, and jumping to his feet, he whirled around once more and aimed the weapon at her.
Her eyes grew wide as she watched the blue ball of light leave the tip of the weapon as if in slow motion. She raised her arms and pushed back with all her strength. The combined strength of her psychic power and the energy bolt created an explosion. Jane was lifted off her feet and carried backward toward the wall. She had time to see Lucas turn and run. The shockwave from the explosion caught him as well just as he turned, knocking him off his feet and sending a wave of fire and sparks after him.
Jane’s entire torso flared with pain, and the wind was knocked from her as she hit the wall hard. She fell to the floor, landed on her side, and turned over quickly until she was on all fours. She took a few deep breaths, feeling a pinch on the right side of her ribcage with each one. Lifting her right hand, she moved it under her shirt to feel that spot. Something was sticking out just slightly under her skin. She ran her fingers over the bump, and her eyes grew wide as the pain shot through her ribcage again. Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at the floor. For just a second, the glass that littered the ground seemed to multiply as she saw double.
She pushed the pain aside forcefully, blinked, and stood up quickly. She had only a moment to glance at Morris one last time before she saw that Lucas had already regained his footing. He turned toward the window and raised the weapon again.
Turning quickly, Jane bolted for the open doorway. She heard the shot and felt another one of the bolts of energy fly past her, and so she leaped into the air. She heard it hit the wall just a few feet behind, and the force of the shockwave carried her over the doorframe and into the hallway beyond, where she somehow landed safely on her feet. She grimaced and clutched her chest as the pain once again shot through her body. A barrage of debris fell down over her shoulders. She ignored the pain as much as she possibly could and glanced to her left and right. Deciding on the left turn, she stood up and ran to the end of the corridor, where it once again branched into aisles that led in two directions. Knowing Lucas would likely follow her, she decided to circle back around for Morris after.
She took a deep breath and took the right turn just as she heard Lucas approach the same passage behind her. At the end of the corridor was a window that overlooked the ocean. Instinctively, Jane ran toward this. At first, she could see only the ocean, which reflected golden light from the sun. Then she looked to her left and saw the gargantuan pieces of alien technology rising into the air. At first, she didn’t react, but then her mouth slowly gaped open.
“The Machine,” she said in a near whisper. With Lucas’s footsteps not far behind, though, she had no choice but to pull her attention away and continue. Backing up, she turned down another corridor on her right. Running to the end, she continued onward, trying to focus her psychic senses to find a way around Lucas and back to Morris.
***
Lucas stopped just a few moments after chasing Jane. He was directly in front of a computer terminal that was embedded in the wall, and as he input his command code, it came to life. He accessed the feed from the surveillance cameras that covered every inch of the ship, and after a few moments, saw Jane’s lithe figure running down a nearby walkway. He knew what to do almost immediately—had, in fact, known what he was going to do from the moment he saw her in the operating room. The question was, would he have the guts to go through with it? Marie would never have agreed to such a course of action, and so he, of course, was operating totally under his own rule.
“Seal off access to section fourteen,” he said, addressing the ship’s AI.
“Override key required.”
“Johnson dash zero zero four one.”
“Accepted.”
He watched the screen as thick metallic doors slid shut. In one of these images, Jane reached the end of a corridor just as the door there was closing. She practically crashed into it, and Lucas smiled, watching as she came to a sudden stop and slammed her fists against it.
“Go on,” he said, reveling in the trap she was about to walk into.
***
Jane ran toward the end of the corridor as she heard doors slam shut distantly in the other passages behind her. Her fear was compounded when she saw the door emerge from the recess in the wall at the end of the passage. She wasn’t able to stop herself in time, and ran straight into the door as it slammed against the other side of the wall. She banged her fists on it and yelled out. Then she turned and placed her back against the cold surface. She felt the pain strike through the right side of her chest again as she took a breath, and she reached up once again under her shirt. She leaned over as she ran her hand over the lump there.
“Rib,” she said aloud, acknowledging the reality of the wound. It was no minor bruise. That weapon Lucas had used had really done some damage. He had caught her off guard, but it would be the last time—she would make sure of it.
Jane looked up, and glancing back down in the direction she had come from, slowly retraced her steps. She passed by a number of doors, and beside each of them was a panel with a name. Some of them didn’t have names. Of particular interest to her was the panel marked “holographic testing room.” She stopped outside it for a moment and stared at the doorframe, wondering what it could mean. Surely the title didn’t imply exactly that?
She continued, and as she approached the end of the corridor, she heard the door open once again behind her. With an incredibly swift motion, she ducked behind a wall on her right into a short adjoining arch. It was a virtual dead end. It was dark, and it led to another blank doorframe just ten feet away. She leaned against the wall and took shallow, silent breaths. She heard the door slide shut once again, and the metallic clank echoed back up the long passageway toward her. Then there was silence, but this lasted only moments. The sound of footsteps—someone treading delicately—got louder.
Jane squinted, trying to get a telepathic signature of the person coming toward her, but there was nothing. Her brow furrowed. Instead, she closed her eyes, focused, and used her power to scan the environment. She was not as adept at using this faculty as Ciara, and she found she needed all her strength to do it. She pushed out and then found herself disembodied and in the corridor. She drifted left and turned, peering out into the long passageway. Lucas was standing there fifteen feet away from her. His weapon was down at his side, and he was looking at some digital device.
Jane’s gaze drifted upward. Just over him was a series of lights. She concentrated on them, and using the power, caused them to flicker and then smash. She watched for a moment as Lucas jumped backward, losing
his footing and falling toward the wall on his left.
She felt her body smile but continued to watch as the shower of sparks and glass rained down on him. She was surprised to find that he stopped paying attention to the light overhead and instead looked down toward the end of the corridor.
“Is that all you’ve got, Jane?” He lifted the weapon and began walking toward her.
Jane could hear his boots move toward her fast, the glass crunching beneath his feet. Her awareness returned to her body rapidly. She took off from the wall and headed back into the main hallway. She found herself facing Lucas directly. They both hesitated, and she was on the verge of summoning the power to attack him when he raised the weapon at her. On her right, just a few feet away, she saw that one of the doors had opened a few inches, and she could see the dim white light of a large room inside.
Acting on instinct, she ran toward it as Lucas fired. As she crossed the corridor, she managed to keep just ahead of the blue bolt of energy. It flew behind her and impacted the wall to her right just as she managed to throw her weight into the doorframe. She landed on the floor inside the room and tried to keep her thoughts steady. It took her only moments to realize which room she had entered: the one with the door marked “holographic testing room.”
Jane was face down on the ground, and ignoring the pain that shot through her rib cage, she pushed herself off the floor and stood up. She had only one quick moment to glance around at her new surroundings before the door slammed shut behind her, locking her in. Turning around, she saw three large metallic bolts lock into place. Running to it, she slammed her palms against it in anger, but she knew it would do no good; the door was three inches of thick steel. She was about to turn her power on it when the lights brightened behind her.
She spun on her heel and saw that the walls of the room were marked with a grid-like lattice structure of some kind. They bled a strange aura of energy—like light—that pulsated down onto the floor below, which was gray in color. Instinctively, she raised her hands. The only other features of note in the room were four black, spherical objects, which were held fixed to the ceiling in the four upper corners of the room. Jane frowned as she looked at these. They were about six inches in diameter each, and she couldn’t begin to imagine what their purpose was; no commercial holographic technology that she was aware of had this appearance.
Above her, a light came on, revealing another room just thirty feet over the one she found herself in. Here, Lucas was situated, and he had his arms outstretched to either side. He was staring down at her through a glass panel. He smiled at her, and it was a mocking, sick smile.
I’ve had enough of you, she found herself thinking, and was about to turn her power on him when he reached forward. His hands moved across some control surface that she couldn’t see, and after a moment, she could hear a whirring sound as the light that poured out of the walls began to intensify. A piercing sound filled the room as beams of light shot from the black devices that were positioned in the corners of the ceiling.
To Jane’s astonishment, the lights coalesced at a central point, and a cube formed in midair directly in front of her, motionless and hovering off the floor. She glared at it in astonishment, unable to respond. The laser-like beams of light ran across its surface until it had completely solidified, and then they disappeared, only to once again reach out to another section of the room.
Jane’s attention was drawn away from the moving beams of light as the cube began to move toward her rapidly in total silence. She wasn’t able to react in time. As she jumped to the side, the edge of the cube hit her square in the left cheek. She twirled around and fell to the floor. Reaching up, she grabbed the throbbing spot on her face, but knew there was no time to indulge the pain. She looked up in awe to see other shapes forming inside the room. The beams of light were scattering all over the open space rapidly, drawing new objects out of thin air into three-dimensional space.
“This room has a few purposes,” Lucas’s voice boomed from overhead. “Medical testing. Device testing. Scenario overview. This purpose is not on the books. I call it ‘drills.’ Enjoy, Jane!”
Her teeth came together, and she trembled with anger. A large sphere, which was now growing in size rapidly as the beams of light scattered around its surface, swung down toward her from the top of the room. Jumping back against the wall, she turned her face flat against the surface there, and the sphere swished past her, sending her blonde hair trailing up after it.
Jane looked up at him and saw that he was now absorbed in making these objects work. Glancing to her right, she saw that another large block was floating toward her. She didn’t think this time. Taking a deep breath and ignoring the pain, she ran toward it and vaulted onto it, grabbing its surface and using her own momentum to climb. She stood up, and the block continued to move through the air, circling the room.
She gazed at the other objects that circled around her. A smaller sphere that was near the top of the room stopped mid-trajectory and flew directly at her. She raised her hands reflexively and threw all the energy she had toward it. Her power locked with it, and she felt an incredible force on the other end. She was almost knocked backward off her feet as she pushed at it. But she was stronger, and as she threw one final volley of psychic energy at it, it flickered out of existence. There was a sound of immense static in the room, and the other objects momentarily flickered in and out of visibility. Jane took a breath and was thankful that the platform she was standing on remained intact.
Up to her left, she saw a pyramid structure rotating rapidly. Its points were sharp, and she knew she had to be ready to defend herself from it. But that didn’t matter as she turned toward Lucas and watched him place his hands into two holographic grips at the front of the window. She was ready to turn her power on him and crack the glass—or try to—when two large, arm-like appendages appeared on either side of the room, phasing into existence with a sound that reminded Jane of an exposed electrical circuit. After a few seconds, their shapes became more defined, and then they looked like fully formed fists with visible fingers.
Her eyes grew wide for a moment, but she did not indulge the impulse to lean toward fear. Instead, she looked up at Lucas, knowing what was coming. She saw him draw his left hand back and glare at her with hatred. This meant nothing to her anymore except for one thing: It was time to act. She leveled her gaze back toward the room and closed her eyes. Reaching out with her mind, she felt for the twenty or so solid shapes circling around above her. Then she felt the massive arm on the upper right corner of the room move from its position there, lurching outward toward her. For a second, she didn’t move, but only breathed, even though she knew the giant appendage was sailing toward her through the air like a battering ram.
A rectangular platform moved around behind her, and she turned and leaped off the block on which she stood with as much force as she could. She sailed through the air and saw the new platform she had selected move into place just underneath her feet as the giant arm collided with the first one and it disappeared, scattering into a haze of holographic fragments that vanished after a few seconds.
She landed safely, turned, and glanced up at Lucas. She grinned at him as wide as she could. Then, seeing another shape rush toward her, she jumped off the new platform as it neared the ground, rolled on the floor, and got to her knees. With one more defiant glance in his direction, she stood up. The holographic arm to her right was retracting back into position in the top right corner of the room.
Without warning, the ship lurched violently. Jane saw Lucas react with just as much shock as her. She tried to stay on her feet, but the ground was too unsteady, and she was forced to lower herself to the floor. For a few seconds, she could concentrate on nothing but the shaking, and missed the fact that Lucas had recovered. She looked up to her left just in time to see the second arm swing down through the room toward her. She had managed to stand back up and was moving to avoid it, but she was
too late; it hit her hard on the left side of the chest, and she screamed out as the previous injury reignited with fresh pain as the impact spread across to the other side of her ribcage. She flew sideways and landed on the ground hard, gasping for air and immediately feeling a new pinch in her ribs that she had little time to attend to now.
Jane got to her knees, and her hand automatically moved up under her shirt to nurse the wound there. Although she could not discern the extent of her injuries, the lump now appeared larger.
Her body trembled with rage as the pain from her ribcage flared across her torso with every breath she took, and a raw, primal scream erupted from her lips. Slowly, she turned her head up to face the window where Lucas was. He was still smiling, though at the sound of her roar, she saw a hint of hesitation—and perhaps even fear. She watched as he retracted his right arm, and she saw the holographic arm respond in kind. Then he slammed his arm forward, and the huge projection followed his trajectory—a solid fist heading straight for her.
Enough of this.
She whipped her head around and reached out toward the black, spherical device in the upper left corner of the room with her thoughts. She grasped at it, and a power that she had only felt once in her entire life / I can see the car sailing over the edge / came rushing through her veins and into her mind. Not only was the black device ripped free from its housing, but the entire corner of the wall there broke into pieces, and large chunks of plaster were pulled away. The device fell to the floor with a shower of sparks trailing behind it. As it hit the surface, it smashed into pieces. Smoking, black remains were all that was left.
The holographic arm that had been rushing through the air toward her began to flicker, and as it approached her, it passed right through her. Not solid anymore, it was now useless. Jane smiled, breathed a huge sigh of relief, and glanced at Lucas.
Rise (The Ethereal Vision Book 2) Page 18