Chapter Nineteen
The world slowly began to come into sharp focus and so did the throbbing in Jenny’s head. She looked up at the ceiling above and wondered where she was. Fighting back a heavy jolt of overwhelming panic the disorientation brought, she tried to sit up. The thunder in her head quickly ballooned to monumental proportions. The roar of blood in her ears and the concussions joined, turning the room into a twisting kaleidoscope of flashing lights and searing pain. She sagged back onto the pillows.
Okay, bad idea.
She took several deep breaths, lying still long enough for the swirling cloud of electric sparks to subside. She forced her swelling apprehension under control and tried to engage her rational mind, analyzing her surroundings.
The room she found herself in was very posh. On the far-away wall, an inlaid door beckoned from the end of a long marble platform, apparently thousands of miles away. Heavy drapes covered the windows, their velvet length shimmering in an elegant green and gold paisley design. Jenny lay in the king-sized bed for several minutes before daring a second attempt at sitting up. The results were the same. The dancing sparks returned, followed by a flash-fire of burning pain that threatened to pop her eyes from their sockets. She grimaced, riding out the internal torture and waiting for her head to clear.
While rubbing her temples, she began to remember some of what happened. She recalled climbing stairs at the Tower building, events now returning in disconnected waves. As she continued to piece together her jigsaw puzzle of memories, the door opened and a man entered the room. She eyed the stranger, a large forty-ish, man, warily as the reality of her situation began to coalesce.
My God! They found me. I’ve been kidnapped!
Still a little too woozy to be truly terrified, she stared at the new arrival as he approached her bed. The unidentified man placed the tray he carried on the gold-leafed night table. He looked at her for several seconds and then spoke.
“I see you’re awake. How do you feel?” He asked, his clear, strong voice filling the room.
She ignored the question, instead asking one of her own. “Where am I?”
She watched him intently as he contemplated an answer. The man moved slowly back to the foot of the bed and stopped. He turned to look back at her, the icy gaze sending tendrils of dread crawling over her skin.
“Let’s just say you’re under my protection and, provided you give me the information I want, you’ll stay that way.”
“Who are you?” she asked, her voice shaking. “And what do you want from me?”
“My name is unimportant, and what I want is very simple. You developed a device called the ‘Ever-cell’, and I want it.”
A hot spike of adrenaline blazed in her veins, her mouth dropping open in shock.
How did this man know about Ever-cell?
She stalled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“My dear Doctor Ryan,” he turned back to face her again, his artificial kindness disappearing. “I will have the Ever-cell project. We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. It’s your choice. You eat, and when I come back you can tell me what you’ve decided.”
He spun on his heel and headed for the door. Alone again in the unsettling quiet, Jenny listened to the ticking of the clock on the wall. She tried to steady her trembling hands and thought about what her captor had said, searching in vain for a way to control her mounting panic.
Thirty minutes later he returned, this time with a woman, one Jenny didn’t immediately recognize. Her eyes widened as she followed the woman’s movement toward her.
“Hello, Dr. Ryan.” the new-comer said.
Walking to the table next to the bed, Trish Davenport picked up the untouched tray, examined it briefly, then set it down again.
“I see that you didn’t eat anything, I’m sorry the cuisine couldn’t be more to your liking.”
“Why are you keeping me here?” Jenny demanded.
“You already know the answer to that, now don’t you?” Trish answered, the condescending tone sending shivers of repugnance down her spine.
Using false bravado as a front, she struggled with the growing terror threatening to run away with her mind. Trying to appear confident, she went on the offensive. “You know, you won’t get away with this! The police will be looking for me!”
Trish correctly saw through the captive’s mask, her stoic expression not changing as she spoke.
“Actually, they already are. You see, they think you stole the plans for the Ever-cell project and fled. So I wouldn’t count on getting help from them any time soon.”
Jenny’s face turned a pale ash and her eyes widened in disbelief, the false bravery deflating with an almost audible pop. A red veil tinged her vision as her anger rose. In a last-ditch effort to gain some control she lashed out. “You’re lying,” she yelled. “They wouldn’t…couldn’t…think I’d steal my own research!”
Trish just smiled slightly at her captive. “Well, Dr. Ryan, in a strange way the police are right. You see, you are going to give us the plans for the battery.”
Jenny listened as the shock, anger and fear mixed in her head, becoming one giant porcupine of jagged emotion.
She drew a deep breath. “You’re the one who’s wrong. I couldn’t give you the designs even if I wanted to. They’re far too complicated. Even if I told you everything, there are volumes of data that make up the project. They’re unfinished. They aren’t any good to anyone but me.”
Trish approached the head of the bed and stopped, looking down at her captive.
“We will be the judges of what’s good to us or not.” Her tone, cold and menacing, chilled Jenny to the bone as a new wave of fright raced over her.
In a sudden flash of movement, Trish produced a syringe from her pocket, grabbed Jenny’s right arm, and injected the contents before she could offer even token resistance.
In a desperate, useless, act of defiance, Jenny slapped Trish with a stiff right cross, the crack resounding through the room. Clark, standing on the other side of the bed, grinned at the exchange.
Jenny pulled her arm away from the needle, only too late. “You bitch! What the hell was that?!”
Trish backed away from the bed, rubbing her stinging cheek. “Don’t worry doctor. It’s just a little something to help us communicate better.”
She suddenly felt a fiery warmth moving in her body, horror spreading right along with it. She watched with a detached, morbid fascination as the room began to bend and twist. Distorted into heaving, undulating waves, the walls shifted and rolled before her eyes.
Part Three - Into The Lion's Den
"Chain Reaction" Power Failure Book I Page 25