Touch of Danger (Three Worlds)

by Strickland, Carol A.

  She was beyond fear now. It was all or nothing. Damn that she hadn't gotten all the small guns! She'd just been using them for practice for the big ones. The branding finally stopped. She gasped as hard as she could, trying to expel the heat with her breath so she could concentrate.

  Shit, now it didn't hurt that much. That meant the nerves were burnt as well.

  Port the big guns, fast! One— Two— Three—

  A sudden shout went up in the clearing. “The guns! The guns!”

  Almost got them all, just four of the big ones left—

  And a sharp, acid blast hit her from an angle in the back. It struck the unsuspecting guard behind her as well and knocked her against Harry, who let her fall in surprise. The world blacked out for a second as she writhed in pain on the ground. Heat—heat— Must stay awake, get rid of them all!

  Clicks surrounded her, men trying to fire their nonworking guns. Warm liquid washed over her back and down the front of her shoulders. It was red: blood. She hoped it wasn't hers, but if her nerves were burned it could very well be. That big guy in back lay on top of her, pinning her to the ground.

  “Valiant!” someone cried almost immediately, followed by a lightning flash. This time it roared with thunder. Lina squinted against it, blinked against the white dots that bloomed in her eyes to see Lon stagger to his feet after being knocked down. Bodies fell around him, caught in the blast to lie bloody on the ground.

  In front of her, Harry shakily stood up to point his measly rifle at the advancing parahero. Harry's gun had been the first to be decommissioned, but he didn't know that. He swung the rifle down at Lina's head and Lon stopped.

  **It doesn't work,** Lina tried to tell him, but her mind was spinning. Maybe he didn't hear.

  Londo reached for Harry's throat—

  A slice of light split the air, so bright it cut Harry in half, cut through the guy on top of her, tried to cut through Londo. He fell back from it with a howl and sat down hard.

  From out of the glare Terry stood over her. Her eyes poured hate. “One more trick like that and he's dead.” She twisted to watch Londo, then turned again to kick Lina hard in the face, rolling her away from the man on top. “Filthy telepath,” she said. “Filthy teleporter!” She kicked Lina again in the stomach, up against the guard who fell back over her.

  Through it all Lina could feel the waves of jealousy emanating from Terry. She groaned in agony as she heard Terry's mind quickly considering options and probable outcomes.

  “Hit him again,” Terry finally barked, “until he's unconscious. He doesn't have to be awake for this, but I think he does have to be alive. That might not be a necessary condition,” she added for Lina's benefit. She ground her heel on Lina's scorched shoulder, cutting the burn in further where the nerves still held sensation. “Honey, you've just become expendable again.” She turned to point at the men with the big guns. “Again! Hit him!”

  Londo had pushed himself back up to stand. He began a squat that Lina recognized was a push-off to flight, but another beam shot out. Lon's knees wobbled, but he recovered, visibly gathering himself to try again.

  “The rocker! Use the rocker!”

  Lina's spirit guides shouted at her as loudly as if they'd been material beings. **Close your eyes!**

  She clenched them shut and prayed that Londo would be okay. Guides and angels, come to his defense! Please, please, God!

  The world ended.

  Chapter 4

  A roar—

  A thunderclap of a roar, the sound you'd hear from within a tornado with a thousand thunderstorms without, shattered the air. The island heaved.

  Behind Lina's eyelids, reality turned white, then red with neon purple ghosts. The world closed down to just the sharp stridor in her ears, a deafening blare that slashed her mind with decibels.

  She clutched the now-hot sand that flowed red and opened her eyes. On top of her, the soldier's head hung limply onto her own, something that was not blood flowing from it. When she brushed it aside, the head rolled away from her. She let out a soundless shriek and tried to shake off the body.

  Lina peered around. Londo! What had happened to Londo?!

  The island was still shaking. Earth herself keened within Lina's mind. No one was standing, and there were many she knew would never stand again. Partial bodies of those who had been in the way were strewn like roadside litter. A blackened hand and forearm lay on the sand in front of her. Harry? Perhaps. There wasn't anything else of him around.

  But where was—Oh! Oh god, was Londo still alive? He lay crumpled on the ground on the opposite side of the clearing. His indestructible vest hung in two pieces but was still intact otherwise. Maybe that meant that he was, too. He had blood all over him, but so did everyone: blood from the wounded, blood from the dead. Maybe that wasn't his blood. She didn't see any holes in him.

  **Londo! Londo!**

  No answer.

  A black glass crater gashed open from where he'd been to where he was now. Fire blazed around a stand of leveled palm trees. Slowly some of the few remaining mercenaries rose to yell at each other. Unable to hear over the ringing in their own ears, they began using sign language, pointing at Londo, trying their guns.

  She had to do something now while they were still regrouping. The headless wonder still lay on her back. Maybe they'd think she was dead, too.

  Get a feel for how Londo was. Memorial Hospital back home—could she port the two of them that far? Could Memorial even begin to handle what had happened to Londo? If he were still alive? He was, he had to be!

  Wait. That blue man and his futuristic lab. How had it felt? Where was it? No, that didn't matter. Just use imagination and clairvoyance to picture it. A lab, a little messy, a lot clean. Busy. Important—that suddenly occurred to her. An important place, a lab with the blue man's imprint.

  He was proud of his lab; it was his baby. It was as big as a warehouse and it was all his, no matter whose it technically was. There were important experiments going on everywhere, personal experiments hidden among them that no one would ever know were being done. Science for the sake of learning, of helping, of satisfying his curiosity. The symbol of a caduceus superimposed itself over the mind picture. That meant it must have medical facilities. There. She had it.

  She raised her head now to look at Londo. Get the feel of him, the space he took up in the universe, the signature that was his on Creation. Almost…almost…

  She screamed soundlessly as something blasted the body on her back off her and pummeled her own ribs as well. Hell flamed along her side. She rolled halfway into the crater, into a roasting oven. Her back was burning, burning! Burning through Lon's indestructible shirt!

  Someone grabbed her wrist and hauled her up, flinging her over his shoulder. To her shame, Lina cried from the pain. She shook her head violently to stop herself. It was all she could do to catch her breath while the heat still flashed through her flesh.

  From here she could see more pieces of men. Little packets of bleeding protoplasm that used to be organs or parts of bodies lay scattered like lumps of cherry Jell-O melting in the sun, Jell-O that had been put under a broiler, black and cracking on the outside but still jiggling as the very island quivered beneath it.

  Angels, help us! Help Londo, please help Londo! Ah God, help her so she could help Londo! It hurt, it hurt!

  The man dumped her onto sand and stones. She just lay on her stomach, twitching from the pain. Call down the light, heal herself to the point where she could concentrate and get the two of them out of here. Someone kicked her on her unburned side and sent her sprawling onto her back. Searing pain scalded her.

  She played dead. Maybe they'd think she truly was. Heal, cells. Release the heat, send it down into the earth. Bring cooling energy in. She had to breathe deeply for this and they'd notice—shit. But it was either heal herself a bit now or doom the both of them. Breathe for Londo, too. Breathe in healing blue, green and violet light, link him with her.

  Another kick, t
his time in her throat—she gagged—and another that caught her cheek. “You're awake, you tramp,” she could hear a woman say through the ringing. She must be shouting. “Don't pretend that you aren't!”

  A wave of saltwater crashed onto Lina. She gasped, snapping her eyes open. Someone had thrown a bucketful of water on her. She clenched her eyes for the next one, the salt sizzling in her sores as it washed part of the gore off her.

  Terry studied her with a look of sheer hatred. “Let's get this started,” Lina thought Terry said. Terry over-enunciated her words so her men could read her lips. “Backup operation commencing as of now. Men-lo. Menlo's backup.”

  One of the soldiers lifted Lina up like a wet dishrag as she shook her head to clear it.

  “Put her down here.”

  The mercenary lowered her carefully so she was lying on top of something: Londo. He was spread-eagled under her, completely unconscious but alive. Alive! She could feel his essence as he struggled to consciousness, but he was deep, deep down. She wanted to cry in relief.

  Somebody dragged her arms to match up against Londo's, her legs to do the same. A plastic netting snapped over the limbs, clamping them together.

  Concentrate, Lina, she told herself fiercely. But she couldn't! Through all the burning her jaw and gut throbbed. It was so hard to breathe. But she had to. Funnel the pain into anger.

  Dr. Menlo unlocked a long case by her feet. He rubbed his head gingerly now and again and once reached out a hand to steady himself. Then he drew out what looked like a slender metal rifle. Shit. What the hell were they going to do to them?

  Terry sneered down at her. She had black and gray roots. “And now we get to the interesting part.”

  The doctor took a measurement of Lina's arm and calibrated his rifle. She hissed against the pain of the burns on her back, her shoulder and legs, and of his hand on her arm. He looked at her face, then down to her bared breasts and closed her shirt for her. Then he rolled the sleeve of the shirt up her left arm.

  Standing back, he lifted the rifle and took aim. Her arm! He pressed the trigger and a red light bloomed in the barrel.

  Lina shrieked as the beam cooked her flesh. Good god! The blackness… She didn't know if she wanted to surrender to it or fight it. Fight! She shook her head, gasping and sobbing.

  Lon had heard her scream. He was coming out of it, fighting as hard as she was.

  A hole now gaped in her forearm, maybe an inch and a half, two inches, in diameter, perfectly round and blood-free. The sudden stench of scorched meat hung heavy all around. Hopefully the hole had missed the major artery going through her arm but probably it hadn't. It had been a laser, cauterizing the wound as it cut.

  Why? Why? Lina asked herself while blinking her tears away. Funnel away the haze of pain that would not stop. She had to see what was going on!

  Menlo scrutinized the hole. “How about that,” he said with a smile and turned away. “Score one for me, Terry. It worked.”

  Terry stared at the hole and then turned back to her. “Oh, it'll be just a little while longer.” She gave Lina a sickly smirk of triumph but couldn't hide her revulsion.

  Dr. Menlo now held curly clear tubing with a needle on one end of it, a plastic bag on the other. It looked like equipment Lina had seen at the Red Cross blood donation center. She tried to move her arm away from Lon's as a horrible thought entered her mind. The netting kept them firmly attached to each other.

  The top layer of Lon's skin underneath the hole in her arm had been burned. Burned. But Lon was supposed to be fairly invulnerable still.

  Was he able to be hurt because he was exhausted? A sickening suspicion said no. Lon's cells were now attuned to her. They were programmed not to put up resistance…as long as she was touching Londo. Oh god, what had they done?

  The hole in her forearm was directly over the inside of his elbow. She panted against the agony and tried to watch the doctor through the tears of pain. He slid the needle through the opening in her arm into Lon's arm. It went in easily. Menlo chuckled. Blood rushed through the tubing into the holding bag.

  “Take as much as you can,” Terry instructed the doctor.

  As much as you can. The blood wouldn't flow if Londo were…dead. They planned to kill him in a few minutes if he weren't dead from blood depletion.

  Lina began to writhe and groan with a passion. Cover up trying to concentrate, get it together enough to port them both out. Now.

  Under her, Lon stirred.

  **Quiet, Lon; we're going to port.** She hoped he heard her. Get the feel of Dr. Five-Minds' lab again. There it was.

  “Just a little painful, is it, dear?” Terry was standing over her, she knew. Lina groaned, only half acting. She caught a glimpse of Menlo attaching a new bag onto the tubing. Already!

  “Doctor, when you're through there, we can begin the sperm samples. You should be able to take the first directly from Ms. O'Kelly here. She should have plenty. Cutting her open wouldn't be the easiest way, but I'd enjoy it. As a favor to me?”

  Beneath her, attached to her, Lon suddenly rose up.

  “Fuck. Kill him!”

  Ready or not, Lina knew she had to port now. But a micro-second before she could do it, an instant of an instant before they left, the leading edge of the blast hit Lon in the back. Lina could feel shock more than pain fizzle through him like cascading firecrackers.

  They teleported.

  The blue man's lab—he'd had to be able to help Lon!

  She knew that they'd arrived instantaneously, and that there was something terribly wrong with Lon. Something was wrong here, too. There was a different electrical charge in the air, something she felt as if the hair on her arms stood up. There was different pressure, different air content. Different everything.

  They were in the lab but yet not there, someplace that was almost in real space but not quite; she didn't know. But she held them there as she tried to sort through the imbalances and finish the port. She decided to even out the electrical imbalance and pressure by feel and take her chances.

  They appeared on the blessedly cold laboratory floor, a clear space in an orderly ocean of tables and plastic domes and desks. Yes, something was horribly wrong with Londo. He lay like a sack of potatoes, not moving.

  And she couldn't feel his mind.

  Chapter 5

  “Help!” Lina cried, hoping someone was around. “Help! Oh, Londo— Help!!”

  Something noticed. Lights began to flash: yellow and red and strobing orange. A blue panel of solid light suddenly unrolled in the air next to them. Maybe those marks on it were words. Someone was talking loudly through a speaker, saying the same words over and over, while this blue light spoke with a different voice. It said “Valiant” at one point, so something recognized Lon, at least.

  “Help us!” she cried again. She directed what concentration she had left to porting the netting that bound them together. One net gone. Two. She rolled off Londo as best she could, still attached to him on one side as that blue man ran up, shock piquing his face as he saw the two of them and recognized Valiant, who was unconscious, maybe dead.

  Lina tried desperately to port the rest of the nettings off. There was blood and gore on Lon's face and chest. Running blood from the burned spot on his arm where the needle had gone in and she hadn't ported it with them. Someone rushed up behind the blue man. Lina was too dazed to concentrate on the final two nettings.

  “He's been hit by some kind of weapon,” she told the doctor. Wilder? Wilder Mem-something. “Can you understand English? He needs help. I think he's dying.” She looked at netting number three and managed to port it off to the floor.

  Her left arm could still move, but feebly. It hurt worse than hell, yet the fingers were going numb. It felt like it was going to fall off and she blinked the urge to faint out of her mind.

  “I understand you,” Five-Minds said in English. He crouched by Lon, holding some kind of tricorder in his hand and referring to its screen. “What type weapon did they use?�
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  “What? I can't hear you,” she said. He tried again, this time louder, and she could hear. “I don't know,” she replied helplessly. A marble floated through the air to hover next to her face, echoing her words in another language. “But they got him four… no, five times with it. Four with one kind of gun, and then once with something really big. They were energy weapons, not bullets. And then something ten times worse that they called a 'rocker.' It—it left a crater. They were firing again when we left; I think some of it may have—” she choked “—caught him.” Don't die, Londo! Don't die!

  The other man, a blond with normal tan skin tones, reached down to the final netting on their legs. It dissolved into a mist at his touch. He must be a para. Lina rolled off all the way, sprawling on the floor and catching her breath as the blond man helped Wilder pull Londo up to a clear table.

  The floor heaved and the room spun around her as she fought for consciousness. She couldn't control her trembling. Concentrate! Concentrate! Londo needed her!

  “Oh my god,” she breathed as she pulled herself up and stared at him. She had to hold her left arm with her right one. She'd automatically slipped into psychic healer mode, but she didn't need her usual visualization techniques to see what was happening. It stood out to her.

  “He's imploding!”

  “What?” Wilder didn't bother to look at her as he quickly arranged his equipment, peering through a square of smoky glass at Londo. He glanced to his side to examine floating displays: bar graphs, wire diagrams, virtual microscopic views, pulsating lines.

  “Computer,” he called loudly, “evacuate the building! Absolute priority. Get everyone out now!” In answer, orange lights started to flash and a siren began to scream in a pulsating wail that even hurt Lina's ears. “Puter, sound off in here!”

  How to explain to them? “His chakras… Do you understand chakras?” Lina looked at the two men uncertainly. The blond man nodded and said a strange word to Wilder, who also nodded. The marble next to her translated it back: “Biological energy centers,” it told her.