by K. L. Nelson
She reached out to touch the pearlescent white silk on the inside of the gown. It seemed to melt around her fingers. On the outside, the silk was deep indigo in color. It reflected the light as if it were giving off its own energy. Skye couldn’t stop looking at the mesmerizing radiance of the incredible flowing substance the gown was made of. Only when the light reflected just right could Skye see the delicate design present in the silk. ‘Fabric’ was too profane a word to describe it, Skye thought. It looked more like molten metal.
The sleeves of the robe fell loosely to the elbows. The collar rose up behind the neck and crested with intricate solid gold ornamentation. In front the collar fell to the chest, where it closed with a silver clasp. The edges were hemmed with gold thread. A tulle scarf fell from behind the neck down the front, reaching to the knee.
Myna held the robe open as Skye slipped her arms in the sleeves and let the garment rest on her shoulders. She was not used to the comfort of tailored clothing. It made her smile.
“It’s not khaki,” Myna said, “but I think it suits someone so beautiful.”
Skye laughed. “I’m pretty Myna, but not beautiful.”
“You’d better check the mirror again,” Myna rejoined. She turned Skye to face the full length mirror in the corner of the room. Skye gasped when she saw her reflection. She almost didn’t recognize herself. She’d never seen such elegance.
“It’s gorgeous,” Skye said. She wished she could enjoy it. Things seemed so surreal to her at that moment. She almost forgot she’d been kidnapped by murderous thugs. “It’s too bad I won’t be wearing it,” she said coldly.
“My dear, I’m not sure how to tell you this. You will wear it, one way or another. The director will drug you if you defy him. He has set his mind to the coronation. It will happen, and you will be there. I tell you this for your own good. You do not want to be dressed by someone else while you are unconscious.”
“You know he’s quite insane,” Skye said. She could hardly quell the rage she felt at having lost her freedom.
Myna nodded. “I think we’re all a little insane here. It’s almost like a dream. But you wake up and you’re still here.”
“How did you get wrapped up in this?” Skye asked.
“Oh, I applied for it!” Myna said. “It was more money than I deserved, and I got to use my talents like I’d always dreamed of. Slowly I started to realize what I’d gotten myself into, but by then it was too late. I went to the police, but they brought me back here.”
“I’d say more of a nightmare than a dream,” Skye commented. “That must have been horrifying.”
“It’s not bad if I stay out of trouble. I have everything I need and much of what I want.”
“Except freedom,” Skye said.
“There is that…” Myna replied. “But one could do a lot worse. And many would kill to be in your shoes. I know you’re put off by all this. But you really should stop and take another look at where you are. Not many people in history have been in your position. You could make a real difference. You could help people.”
Skye looked at Myna and saw a different person now. Myna had more to complain about than anyone she knew, but her thought was not for herself. Skye thought of her father’s words when she was a child, after the spelling bee. Myna seemed to exemplify what her father had spoken of: using her talents to make a difference for others. She could do amazing things if she wasn’t cooped up here. She wondered what the world would be like if there were more Mynas in it.
“My friend,” Skye said, “you make more of a difference than any Empress Matriarch ever could.”
She wanted to tell Myna to keep her head down. She knew the FBI would storm the building at some point. If Emmett were alive, he would leave a trail of blood through the whole compound. If he was dead, Dax would level the place. Either way, Skye didn’t want to see the woman get hurt. But she still wasn’t sure how much of what she said would make it back to the director. She had to be discrete.
Skye realized her plan of escape now seemed hopelessly inadequate. A different plan was now presenting itself to her mind. Perhaps a more direct approach was needed.
Skye removed the robe and set it aside. Then she picked up a cloth and removed the makeup from her face.
“Myna,” she said, “inform the director I am ready to see him.”
Something happens when priorities suddenly realign within a person. They get a look. It means things have become clearer; one goal has emerged above everything else. Myna had become adept at recognizing this look in people because it meant they were willing to pay the price to achieve what they wanted. Skye had that look now.
Myna simply replied, “Yes ma’am,” and left the room. She knew it wouldn’t do any good to raise issues with the professor, who was looking more like an Empress Matriarch all the time.
Skye walked to the window and stared out in thought. She had never felt so out of control. She’d always been able to reason her way out of anything, but this situation was all wrong. What was her problem? Fighting against these people had gotten her nowhere. She needed more facts. It was time to take charge and see what she could find out. It was better than being locked up in a room trying to plan an ill-fated escape attempt. She knew things were going to get intense at some point. She could either wait for it to happen, or she could help it along when it all went down. It was time to think what she could do, not what she couldn’t.
Not that she looked forward to talking to an insane egomaniac. The director was a first class lunatic. Skye was afraid he would crack at any moment.
But she had access to him. And he had the one thing she needed most of all: information.
At length the muscle arrived to escort Skye to the director. As they walked the hallways, things looked different. It was darker. A single recessed LED lit the corridors every fifteen feet. Skye could see the men’s faces as they approached the next light, and when they passed it their faces went dark and only their backs were visible. Over and over the light went from front to back as the company proceeded down each corridor.
“Forget to pay the power bill?” Skye asked. She wasn’t surprised they didn’t respond. The light continued front to back as they walked through the beams.
“The first thing I’m going to do as Empress Matriarch is give you guys a vacation. You seem a bit high-strung.”
The men were still silent as they walked, but one of them glanced at the professor when the light was at his back. He wondered what would happen in the coming months. There seemed to be so much change lately. The director was running the organization into the ground, though no one would dare say it. Criticism was not tolerated. But there were so many hasty decisions, so many miscalculations. The stock market takedown was a fiasco, and many operatives who had not been killed or captured by the authorities were simply shot by the director. That included the director’s own son Nikolai, the top assassin in the organization. If he wanted to send a message, he certainly sent one. But it was probably not the one he wanted to send. Things were not right at the top.
And now this woman. Why was she here? It had cost The Pact dearly to capture her. If she was to be the Empress Matriarch, what would that spell for the organization? How could this transition of power ever go smoothly? What was the director’s plan? The interviews were happening behind closed doors. The High Committee was not even consulted, let alone included in the discussions. That could not possibly be good.
The company arrived at the director’s office and the men were excused. As Skye waited the director stood with his back turned, staring out the large picture window behind his desk. It was actually three large windows forming a bay that the desk sat inside of.
Neither spoke for a long time. Skye had spoken first on their last meeting, and she guessed that was part of the director’s method. If you make the other person speak first, you inevitably learn something about that person. You force their hand. While they waited each other out, Skye noticed the handgun sitting in its usual p
lace on the desk. She was tantalizingly close to it. The director’s back was turned. There was no way he could…
Silently Skye inched closer to the desk. It was too bright outside and too dark in the room for him to be watching her reflection in the glass. She picked up the weapon, aimed it at the back of his head and squeezed the trigger.
“I have a luxury few men have. I know the precise moment my death is to take place,” the director said when he heard the click of the gun. He turned around and faced Skye, examining the desperation in her eyes. It told him much about her. “As you have just discovered, that moment was not it.”
“One can only hope,” Skye said with a sigh as she replaced the gun. “I think it’s time you told me the truth. What exactly do you expect of me?”
“You have proven yourself formidable in many ways. Very well, I will answer any question you pose in as forthright and honest a way as I can. Question one: What exactly do I expect of you? Answer: To be the Empress Matriarch upon my death. Next question.”
Skye didn’t think for a second that the director was capable of being honest and forthright, but she began asking the questions anyway.
“You must know that I will never cooperate. How do you intend to coerce me?”
“I am hoping a woman of your intelligence will come to her senses. But yes, I am able to ensure your cooperation if that is not the case.”
The director typed on his keyboard and an image came up on a screen on the wall. It was the most horrible thing Skye had ever seen, a medieval invention of bondage. It consisted of an iron rack with shackles hanging from it to bind one’s wrists and ankles.
“They were digging not far from here and found this intriguing artifact. A person of your profession can appreciate such a remarkable find, so ancient and yet so well preserved. It seems the ancients understood that the best solutions are often the simplest ones. You see professor; you don’t need to cooperate to be coronated. You just need to hold reasonably still.”
Skye wondered how things could get any weirder.
“Fine,” she replied. “But I won’t be much of an Empress Matriarch chained up like that. Eventually you will have to free me, will you not?”
“Yes, it will be interesting to see how the prophecy unfolds. I suppose an element of trust must come into play. However, there is one more thing that will become a profound influence upon you. You see, something incredible happens when a person points a weapon at another person and pulls the trigger. There comes a sudden transformation.” The man became sullen and distant, as if savoring a cherished memory. “Oh, it is so liberating!” he exclaimed with a passion Skye did not see in him before.
“You want me to kill someone?” Skye asked hesitantly.
“That would be understating the matter, but yes. The Empress Matriarch of The Pact must have certain qualifications. Many of these can be satisfied with your hands at the controls of something we have been developing over the years. Allow me to show you…”
The director and the men outside accompanied Skye down the hall to another wing of the building.
“You notice our lighting is different in this facility today,” the director said as they walked down the hall, the light going front to back as before. “That signifies a state of readiness. It seems a certain band of Americans has taken an interest in raiding our compound. But I am afraid what they don’t know in this case will definitely hurt them.”
They came to a massive steel door that slid open when one of the men typed the security code and placed his hand on a fingerprint scanner.
Skye gasped, for what was beyond the door was truly unexpected. Originally built as a rotunda in the center of the building, the massive multistory room had been converted into a silo. The floor had been dug out and walled in concrete to form lower levels that extended down into the earth. Utility had replaced elegance. Instead of a marble mezzanine, steel catwalks ringed the perimeter of the open vertical shaft. Machinery and equipment covered the walls instead of fine art. The dome above had been reconstructed in arched steel panels that retracted mechanically to open the room to the sky. And in the center of the room, extending down into the earth below and reaching almost to the top of the dome, was a machine unlike anything Skye had ever seen. It was tubular in shape, with a slight taper that narrowed toward the top. High pressure hydraulic lines and cooling fins covered the massive cylinder, with blinking lights here and there indicating the readiness of various systems. A circular frame was mounted near the top, which held a large reflective diverter. Steam was emanating from cooling ports at intervals up the sides, and there was a steady hum that belied the great power this machine must have.
“What is that?” Skye asked skeptically as she stared up at the monstrosity.
“That,” the director replied, “is the superweapon of the future. It will ensure The Pact will obtain world domination in the very near future. Imagine being able to vaporize satellites in the sky with the touch of a button. And the best part is we only have to destroy a few to create a debris field large enough to eliminate the rest. Without satellite communications, the world will descend into darkness. Data will be forced to channel through finite cables. They will instantly be overloaded, hopelessly jamming the flow of information. Weapons systems will cease to function. The world’s militaries will be crippled. Think of it professor: While the world foolishly prepares for a crude EMP burst, we will quietly eliminate the weak link circling above us.”
In the middle of the man’s oration, Skye shifted her attention to watch his expression. He seemed completely satisfied with himself at that moment. The male ego had always fascinated her. Many times she had observed men fall victim to their unrelenting sense of superiority. The thought occurred to her that she had just discovered a weakness. She let out a sigh.
“Well I gotta hand it to you,” she said when the man finished his monologue, “that is impressive. What do you call this thing?”
“It is called Fidach One. It is a one terawatt laser!” he exclaimed proudly.
Skye raised her brow. “All that power will bring down the grid the first time you hit the button!” she exclaimed. “You’re going to black out half of Europe.”
“Not so my dear,” the director explained confidently. “We are not even on the grid. You see, in order to power our little science project we have developed a way to unlock the greatest untapped energy source on Earth. For centuries, man has viewed the sea as an obstacle, something to be feared and overcome. But we have seen it in its true light: A giant lake of pure electrolyte! While the governments of the world seek to enslave their populations by using fear and guilt, we have taken hold of the virtually limitless energy source that has been right under their noses the whole time.”
“You’re using sea water?” Skye asked incredulously. She let out a laugh. “This thing runs on water! I’m afraid you’ve been spending way too much time on the internet.”
The director stood with his hands folded behind his back, staring at her coldly. It was working. He was visibly irritated at the professor’s disbelief.
“Perhaps a demonstration is in order,” he said. “Allow me to show you to the control room.”
They entered an adjoining room. A dozen people sat at workstations arranged in rows, keeping track of every function of the weapon. Blue light from the holographic interfaces lit each person’s face as they tapped virtual keys suspended before them in the air. At the head of the room was a twenty foot screen that was configured to provide the immense quantity of data necessary to keep the weapon in a state of readiness.
Skye followed the director to the screen, and an image of the meadow outside the compound appeared.
“Select your target,” the director said.
Skye looked at the screen, and then at the director. “You must be joking,” she said.
“I assure you professor, I am deadly serious. Put your hand on the screen at the image of anything you would like to see disintegrated; a tree, a rock, anything.”
“Now step this way and I will show you how to fire the weapon.”
He took Skye to a holographic console. Skye smiled when she saw the buttons suspended before her. One of them was at least five times larger than the others and colored red.
“Let me guess,” she said. “I just push the big red button.”
“Essentially, yes,” the director replied, “whenever you are ready.”
Skye looked at the tree on the screen and back at the button. She reached up and placed her finger in the red holographic octagon. Instantly the screen went completely white as the flash from the laser overcame the camera’s ability to capture light. The whole building vibrated as one trillion watts of energy was released in a tremendous stream. Gradually the light faded and the image returned to the screen. But it was not the same as before. Not only was the tree completely gone, but everything around it. The foliage for hundreds of feet was cleared away, leaving only a smoldering trench of bare soil.
It was a grisly sight. Terror filled the professor’s heart as she contemplated what she would be forced to do. It was one thing to vaporize a tree. But the terrorist director was going to force her to push that button to eliminate people, the very people who were coming to save her. If she refused the button would be pushed anyway, and who knows what would become of her. She knew that nothing was too despicable for him.
It didn’t matter. No amount of torture would make her kill her friends. She emotionally braced herself for what lay ahead.
Staring at the horrible smoking scar in the meadow, Skye didn’t dare voice the words in her head.