Chapter 29: Not So Safe Space
Space was still the final frontier but the space inside the orbit of Mars was under constant surveillance. However, in Earth or lunar orbit you could hide in plain sight. A standard ship would be like a single head in a GravBall stadium crowd. If you did not draw attention to yourself and went with the flow, you were, for all intents and purposes, invisible. You could move around, changing location in a random way, and not be detected. You just had to behave and look like everybody else. You could stay hidden like a single ant in an anthill of activity.
To her surprise, Jayne did not have to wait long. She had just pulled her feet underneath her, to give herself a little more height, when a man entered, put his hand to his face and rubbed his short beard. He looked at Jayne, walked to the side to get a better view and shook his head.
“This just won’t do. No, this won’t do at all,” he said, pursing his mouth in disapproval. “Please come with me!” He turned and walked out of the room.
Jayne found herself responding to his command. She was up and through the door before her caution asserted itself. She stopped and called after him, “Why, what is wrong?”
“Oh my. It is worse than I thought. She doesn’t even realize that she looks like a garbage waif. The most sought-after young lady in the known universe and she has no idea,” he said to the ether and shook his head back and forth. “Child, you have a meeting with the Sentinel Council. You cannot be in the same room with these people looking like you look and…” he paused and sniffed the air near her head, “smelling like you smell. Phew!” He waved his hand in front of his nose as if he could dispel the noxious odors.
Jayne sniffed herself.
He continued, “Oh, child, please don’t bother. Take my word—you stink. Follow me and my team will make you…” he paused again, inspected her and then continued, “presentable.”
Jayne had never been doted over in her whole life. She found it intrusive. Yet, in the end, she found herself heading back to the room she left, wearing new clothes that actually fit her, clean hair pinned up onto her head, some makeup covering the bruise on her cheek and light pink lipstick. She argued with the female stylist about cutting her hair. She wanted a plain braid down her back but the woman compromised by putting her hair up and not cutting it. Jayne looked at herself in the mirror. She saw a person that she did not recognize looking back. The only thing she really liked was the fact that she looked like she had grown 20 cm. The hair up on her head and the heels on her shoes had both contributed to the effect. She looked like a young woman and not a child.
The door opened to a conference room now filled with people—eight in all. At one end of the table was a single empty seat. Jayne was directed to sit there. She slipped into the seat and, to her surprise, she was at the correct height for the table. Someone had adjusted the seat for her or the seat adjusted itself. In any case, she did not feel tiny. She could see the large tabletop spread out before her. She looked from face to face. They were all smiling and they were all much older than most of the people Jayne had ever seen. Nothing was threatening. Jayne relaxed.
A man at the other end of the table spoke. “I hope you are feeling better. From what I understand, you have had quite an ordeal.”
Jayne nodded and looked at the symbol on the wall behind him. It looked like this:
ϴ
“That symbol was the one on the message you sent me. That is how I knew it was you. What does it mean?” she asked.
“It is our symbol. It is derived from an ancient language. It is pronounced ‘Theta’. It means ‘Thought.’ It encompasses life, change, wisdom and time. These are things that make up our purpose in life—things we hope you will embrace, Ms. Wu,” he said calmly.
Jayne had a sudden rush of fear. Maybe she was being manipulated and these people were not who they said they were. She tensed and placed both her hands on the table. She was about to stand when a man, who had been sitting back in his chair just out of sight, leaned forward. It was Professor Greenway.
He spoke gently, “Ms. Wu.”
She looked at him and relaxed a little.
“Please relax. You are safe here. This is Sentinel Section One. All these people are fixers like you and they have your best interest at heart.”
The man at the far end of the table spoke again. “What our guest, Professor Greenway, says is true. We would like to help you but we would also like to know just how you could help us. Which brings us to the real purpose of this meeting. We have not yet received any definitive information from all of our attempts to test your abilities. You are 13 years old. At your young age, it is unlikely your abilities have reached their full potential. It is also unlikely you fully understand them yourself. The Forevers obviously want to find that out and we are concerned that they have the results from the first Neuroscience Center tests. If this is so, then they have a much better idea of your skills than we do and that is very, very disconcerting, given their subsequent increased interest in you.”
Jayne’s face began to tense. “What are you talking about? The Forevers, whoever they are, are trying to kill me. I know who I am and what I can do and what I want to do. I know I am 13 years old but I am not a child. I will be a fully fledged TEM if I can ever get to my final practicum. Perhaps, if all of you Sentinels and Forevers just minded your own business, I could get on with it,” scolded Jayne.
Professor Greenway leaned forward again. “What we mean to say is that we are here to help you do just that.”
A number of the others around the table turned towards Professor Greenway with puzzled looks on their faces.
He stood up and addressed the group. He cleared his throat. “We are afraid.” He gestured to everyone at the table, including Jayne. “We are afraid that the Forevers will increase their activities in the biomes. We are afraid for the children of the biomes. We are afraid that more organs will be smuggled out. We are afraid that the biomes will become organ factories. We are afraid that if Ms. Wu, and others of her abilities, are controlled by the Forevers, that we will not be able to stop them. They are evil and we, in our effort to stop them, must not become like them. Therefore, I suggest that we protect Ms. Wu here and let her get on with her life. No more testing and no more manipulation. Let her be. If, at some future date, she is able to help us fight the good fight, then great. We cannot and should not force her to do something she is unwilling to do. Our protection must be given freely without strings.” He sat.
A woman at the table stood, looked at Greenway and said, “I really don’t think this is up to you. You are here because you are being paid for your services. We have a much larger issue than whether or not a 13-year-old apprentice fixer is happy. We have to stop the carnage in the biomes. We know that the Forevers are responsible and they want her.” She pointed at Jayne. “If they want her then we have to know why. We need to know this as much for her safety as the safety of the biomes. I don’t think any of us want to use her specifically; after all she is only 13. But we do need to know why they are so very interested in her.”
Jayne stood. Her face was turning red and tears were running down her cheeks. She wiped them away and smeared the makeup covering the bruise on her face. She sniffed. “I just want to go back to my quarters,” she stated flatly.
Professor Greenway stood and moved toward Jayne. “Jayne, please. Let me try to explain this to these people.”
He moved to her and put an arm around her shoulders. “You need rest. I, and a lot of other people,” he looked at the Sentinels around the table, “forget what you have been through. You must rest and I will try to explain to these people why the Forevers want you.”
Jayne faded into his shoulder. He was holding her up. He gestured to one of the aides standing in the corner of the room. “Please take her to one of the VIP quarters. She needs some TLC.”
The aide moved to support Jayne. He opened the door to the room and was about to step out when three men in black bodysuits appeared just outsid
e the conference room. One held a needler and pointed it at the startled table of Sentinels. The aide started to move back inside the room and close the door in the intruders’ faces. If he succeeded, the room would go into lockdown. Before the door could be moved, one of the intruders shot a sticky stinger that struck the aide in the forehead. He convulsed and dropped to the floor. His body continued to jerk spasmodically on the floor. Closing the door was now an impossibility.
Another intruder grabbed Jayne by the arm and pulled her into the hallway. Jayne screamed. The intruder holding Jayne slapped her hard across the face and pulled her closer. Jayne moaned and stopped struggling as the intruder backed out of the room, holding Jayne as a shield. The other two also backed away until all three stood in the hallway outside the conference room. Jayne was still held by the man who had dragged her from the room. Her face was red where she had been slapped. All the intruders turned to face each other, holding Jayne in the middle, like they were protecting her.
As they frantically centered her on a portable PUT pad that lay on the floor in the hallway, the Sentinels at the table stood up and rushed to the door. Greenway was in the lead. It was then that it happened.
Jayne felt a bubble swell in her head. She was not really conscious of the how. She was only sure of the need. Like before, in the foyer of the security station, a bubble swelled around her. This bubble was tight to her body. It made no attempt to fill the room. She felt time slow and then the possibilities popped into her head. One after the other she inspected them. Probable events, like red shirts in a crowd, popped into her head. Like heated corn kernels, the tiny unlikely possibilities exploded and faded into nothingness. She looked at the crowd of Sentinels in the conference room doorway. They were moving in such slow motion that it was almost impossible for Jayne to know who would exit first. It wouldn’t matter. What was going to happen would happen long before anyone ever actually got through the open doorway.
Then it appeared in Jayne’s mind. It was not the most likely event. It was the event that would stop the most likely event. It would alter the probabilities dramatically. Jayne smiled in her mind. She smiled a smile that would never appear on her face. That didn’t matter. She pushed the event and saw it flare out. She pushed the chosen event that would stop her from travelling on the portable PUT with the men in the black bodysuits. She watched the bubble that surrounded her harden and shatter with such force that the water vapor in the surrounding air condensed into a white fog. The fog was like a set of huge invisible hands that slapped each of the intruders outwards, away from Jayne. She watched in horror as the white mist turned crimson. A mist of blood fled from the crushed bodies before they slammed into the metal bulkheads of the ship.
Jayne fell to her knees and closed her eyes on the scene of the carnage. She could not look. She waited until the gasps of the Sentinels in the conference room faded.
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