Minds and Mysteries
David Brightman struggled against his bonds in a frantic attempt to free himself. He strained against the steel straps that bound him in place in the chair he occupied, but the straps tying his hands and feet were stronger than he could ever hope to be - he remained pinned. With no way out and no way to summon help, he did the only thing he could he cursed his captors.
"You bastards!" He cried at the mirrored glass that surrounded him. "What are you doing to me?! I'm only sixteen, Goddammit! What could I possibly give to you?"
The voice that answered him reverberated through the room, amplified as it was by the multitude of speakers that surrounded him. "YOU HAVE A GIFT, YOUNG MAN. A GIFT THAT WILL MAKE POSSIBLE ONE OF THE GREATEST ADVANCEMENTS OF THIS CENTURY. YOU SHOULD BE PROUD THAT YOU HAVE BECOME ONE OF THE CHOSEN FEW TO PARTAKE IN THIS GLORIOUS EVENT."
"I don't know what you're talking about!" David screamed as the robotic devices surrounding him moved closer and began inserting their probes into selected areas of the electronic headband that surrounded - and entered - his skull.
The voice laughed at him. "COME, COME NOW DAVID." It chided, "WE KNOW ALL ABOUT THE TELEPATHIC ABILITY YOU HAVE DEMONSTRATED. YOUR FAMILY HAS A RENOWNED AND UNCANNY PROFICIENCY IN THE PSIONIC AREAS. WE MERELY WISH TO USE THAT PROFICIENCY TO AID US IN OUR RESEARCH."
As the machines surrounding him began to hum, David went berserk. He thrashed around in his confinement, trying one last attempt to break free. He tried to shake the cables from his head, but he was firmly held in place by the chair. The hum of the machines became a high-pitched whine, and David whimpered and cried at the walls. "Please, please stop it. Please..."
As the whine of the cyber-link reached its peak, David gave one final scream. Not a scream of defiance, but of agony. He tensed, relaxed, and sat unmoving in the chair.
The technician turned to the man standing behind him in the control room. The monitors before him needed no explanation, but he had to say something. "The subject is deceased, Doctor. The experiment is a failure."
"Not quite, tech." Mumbled Doctor Ezekiel Marrenstein. "Look at the computer storage readouts. He's in there, he just can't manifest himself strongly enough to make a difference. We need another subject."
Elsewhere on the planet, Mara Brightman felt the dying pain of her younger brother and winced from the intensity. Another 'failed experiment' she silently fumed. She turned to face the wizened and frail old man seated on the porch behind her.
"GrandFather," she slowly said to him, "how can we allow this to go on? Every other week, they take one of our family for their experiments. None have lived to tell about it. Your petition to the WWWA for help might be left for months! What are we supposed to do until then?"
The old man opened his eyes and looked at her. "Patience, granddaughter." His voice carried a tone of confidence and command that she could not ignore. "Our saviour will come."
"Our saviour? OUR SAVIOUR?! How can you be so certain he'll come? And how can you know who it'll be? I've learned to respect your visions in the past, but how long do we have to wait? How many more have to die?"
"Patience, Mara, patience. He WILL come, I'm certain. It will only take a little more time to happen." He turned his eyes upward, gazing at the stars with more than a wistful look.
"Just a little bit more..."
"Just a little bit more..." Bill Galet muttered as he twisted the screwdriver he held ever so slightly. He closed his left eye as he did the adjustment, in the hope of getting a slightly better view of the part he had to adjust. To fail now, so close to being finished, would be an unspeakable disaster. Yuri stood behind him, massaging his shoulders lest they get cramped. She knew the operation was a delicate one, but she said nothing to encourage him, lest he lose his concentration and wreck the device.
The screwdriver slid into place, and with the slightest of turns, the indicator lights on the unit began to glow. A low hum came from it, and Yuri's eyes widened in appreciation. Bill closed the cover on the ball-like device in his hand, and released it as it slowly rose above their heads. As it performed a little dance in the air, he turned to his right and smiled. "There you go, Jimmy." He said. "Good as new."
The red-eyed seven-year-old sniffled once, then looked down to fiddle with the control unit in his hand. The ball obeyed him again! "Gee, thanks mister!" he squealed as he began to chase the GravityBall down the Boardwalk. "You're the greatest!"
As the child faded from view, Yuri slid her arms around Bills neck and placed her cheek against his. "You are pretty terrific at that." she whispered in his ear.
Bill turned to face her, grinning broadly. "Hey, what good is being a Trouble Consultant if you can't help someone out of trouble?" Months earlier, he had tired of working in the WWWA Research labs, and had asked Director Goulet for another assignment. The Central Computer had complied by reclassifying him as a Trouble Consultant - Technical/Scientific Branch. Now he spent most of his time in search of solutions that plagued some of the greatest researchers of the 22nd Century. Sometimes the solutions were (relatively) easy, such as the Tenkara Third-Order Fusion problem (where the entire lab staff had overlooked a faulty fiber cable). But sometimes the solutions were agonizingly difficult to come to. He had just come away from one of those types of problems, and Goulet had (wisely) offered him some vacation time. Since Yuri and her partner Kei had also just finished a case, he suggested that they join him. He took them, not to Vanir their vacation planet of choice, but to Caravan. "An out-of-the-way place that won't be anywhere near as crowded as Vanir is at this time of year." He had been assured. And from the first day they arrived, they knew they had made the right choice. On several occasions during their two-week stay, they had the beach practically to themselves. Today they lounged by the pool of their hotel while Kei wandered around, hitting on all and sundry who happened to cross her path. When little Jimmy had come crying to them, looking for someone to fix his broken toy, Bill was only too happy to help the broken-hearted youngster.
"And on your vacation, yet." she muttered. "You don't HAVE to work, but you work anyway. You've got to be the altruists altruist." She lowered herself into a lounge chair beside him and picked up her drink.
"Just trying to make the galaxy a better place." he snickered as he closed his eyes and pretended to doze off.
The cold water hit him at almost the same moment he had gotten comfortable. The shock caused him to scream in surprise and jerk upright, startling Yuri in the process. He looked around to see Kei standing over him, holding an empty bucket. "Gotcha." she giggled.
Yuri stared angrily at her partner while Bill took some time to wipe the hair from his eyes. As he finished, he got up out of his chair and grinned evilly. "Ohhhh, so you think that's funny, do you?"
She nodded quickly and said "Yep." before taking off towards the other end of the pool, with Bill in hot pursuit. Kei was fast, but Bill happened to be a little bit faster, and within minutes he had caught up with her and grabbed her around the waist.
"So you like water, eh Kei?" Bill asked his struggling captive. "In that case, why don't you try it on yourself?" She squealed as he tossed her into the pool. As she landed with a mammoth splash, Bill dusted off his hands and found a dry chair next to a cocktail table. Yuri walked over to join him as Kei pulled herself out of the pool, slipping occasionally on the tile lining the edge.
Yuri sat down next to him and, cupping her chin in her palm, let out a heavy breath. She looked at Bill and said, "I don't know who's worse, Kei or you. You both act like such children sometimes. I think..." She stopped when she realized Bill wasn't paying any attention to her. She followed his gaze...
...to the shapely blonde waitress approaching them from the bar. Her thoughtful gaze turned to one of disgust as she tapped him on the shoulder. "She's not your type." She pointed out to him.
"I know." Bill replied dreamily. "But it might be fun to find out if I were her type."
She hit him on the arm again. Hard enough to shock him out of his daydream (and very nearly break his shoulder in the process). "Your jealousy isn't very becoming, Yuri dear." Bill noted, rubbing his arm to lessen the throbbing ache.
The waitress stopped in front of them. "Excuse me, sir." She said to Bill. "But there's a call for you on the house V-Phone." She placed a cordless Vision-Phone on the table in front of him. "Channel Two, please." She then turned and headed back to the bar, Yuri giving Bill another withering glance as he watched her stride appreciatively. "The call..." She reminded him dryly.
"Oh. Right." He muttered as he dug out his ID card and slid it into the phone's scanner slot. Immediately the screen lit up and a face materialized on the screen in front of them. "Hiya, Boss." Bill greeted Goulet cheerfully. "Calling to check how much trouble I've gotten myself into?"
"Actually, Doctor," Goulet said tonelessly, "I was just calling to see when you were going to get back to work. There are several cases that need your attention."
"Not to mention the paperwork involved." Bill whispered out of the corner of his mouth, causing Yuri to giggle momentarily. "Sorry, Chief, but it's like I told you earlier, I've already made plans for the next few days. There's a symposium on subatomic hyperwave signal propagation taking place on Denaris, and I've been asked to deliver a lecture on the subject. Can't let my peers down now, can I?"
"I noticed on your desk," Goulet continued, "an Alpha-priority request for a commissioned study. You know the regs - Alphas get first call over everything, vacations included."
Bill thought for a moment, recalling the commissions he had gone over just before leaving for Caravan. "Sorry, Boss." He replied, "But I am in no way going to begin a study, Alpha class or otherwise, on..." He quoted the request from memory, "...'The Genetic and Evolutionary Principles Necessitating Male Mammary Affectations'."
Puzzled by the language, Yuri leaned over to ask Bill, "What does that mean?"
"Yes, Doctor." Goulet pressed. "Enlighten us."
Bill sighed and said, "In simplest terms, it means - 'Why do Men have Nipples?"
Kei, standing behind them for the conversation, piped up. "Why do they?"
Bill groaned. Goulet placed his hand on his forehead. Yuri glared at her partner is astonishment. "KEI! You DIDN'T!"
Feigning insult, Kei rested her hands on her hips and scowled. "HEY! I wanna know! I thought you'd get a kick out of it, so I..."
"...hacked into my files and set this up with an A-class priority tag. Real cute, Kei." Bill concluded her sentence for her, grinning.
"But Bill." Goulet intervened. "We really do need you to get onto these cases. The Computer specifically requested you for these assignments, so..."
"Forget it, Boss. I'll get to them, AFTER I deliver my lecture." Before Goulet could reply, Bill pulled out his card, breaking the connection. The screen darkened.
"Bill." Yuri muttered. "Are you sure that's wise, antagonizing the Chief like that?"
"No." Bill stated flatly. "But what's the good of being independently wealthy if you can't tell the boss to shove it once and a while. I'll be back before he knows it and everything will be just fine. And when I get back.." He swiveled to face Kei, ".. we're going to have a little chat about hacking into my priority files. Fun's fun, but THAT stunt might have cost me the freedom to DO independent study work."
"I'm sorry." Kei whispered, lowering her gaze to avoid his stare.
"Which reminds me." Bill noted, changing the subject. "I have something here for you two. In case you ever require my services and don't know where I am." He dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of bracelets. Handing one to each girl, he explained their function. "These contain directional trackers. They follow a signal beacon installed in my watch, with a signal booster installed in the Seeker. If you need me, press the little tab on the top and the rim becomes a display, giving you direction and distance to the beacon. It'll pick up the booster first, and then it'll switch to the beacon when you get within scanner range of the ship. I haven't been able to measure the range of the thing, as it uses a hyperwave signal. As far as I can tell, it doesn't have a range limit - you might be able to find me anywhere in the galaxy."
"Oh, WONDERFUL!" Kei enthused before Yuri could open her mouth. "And you don't MIND if we barge in on you day or night?!"
"I EXPECT you to use the brains I suspect you have and use it ONLY in EXTREME emergencies. I trust Yuri will remind you of that occasionally." Kei scowled as Bill winked at Yuri and raised himself out of his seat. "And now, I must get ready to leave. I'll see you back home in a few days."
Yuri thanked him for the bracelets as he headed for the hotel. He waved as he walked through the door into the lobby.
Mara again winced as she heard/felt the dying scream of another relative. It must not have been a close family member, as she couldn't identify the mental voice. She looked silently at her grandfather, sleeping fitfully in his rocking chair. Have faith, he says. Our saviour will come, he says. How many more of us have to die before you realize that help may not come? She draped a blanket over him to guard against the cold and turned to enter the house. And if help does come, she pondered, will any of us be alive to care?
The Star Seeker rose from the planet Caravan at a leisurely fifteen kilometers per second as Bill made his final course corrections for the Jump to Denaris. Orbit Control had given him his course assignment, and all he had to do was wait until a liner had cleared his path before Jumping. He sat in his control chair, brooding about Kei's intrusion into his files, and considering coding them, for the three minutes it took for the immense luxury cruiser to clear his orbit. He waited another minute for Traffic Control to give him the all-clear, and he activated his Jump motor.
Almost immediately, he could tell something was wrong. The way the ship vibrated, the way it sounded, told Bill that something was amiss. But he had no time to figure out what the trouble was, because at that very instant the Seeker rematerialized. Instantly the ship's protective screens snapped on, as Bill realized with horror that his Jump had brought him within twenty miles of the surface! Desperately he fought to help the computers regain control of his plummeting ship. He managed to bring the nose of the vessel up and gain a minor sense of control before the ship crashed with a force matched only by certain very large meteors. The Seeker bounced once, twice, and on the third bounce the safety straps of his chair failed. He was thrown up and back, smashing against the ceiling, and then the rear wall. The ship bounced a fourth time, but Bill did not feel it. He was unconscious as the ship ground to a halt, leaving a ten-kilometer long trail in its wake - a clear path for his rescuers to follow.
Disjointed memories - playing ball in a park on Earth with Mikey, his nephew. His sister-in-law Janie laughing as he tripped over his feet trying to catch the ball before it landed in the nearby pond. The nights he had spent partying with his friends from school and, later, from his lab at HyperTech. The nightmare that went along with the accident that brought him to this world, fifty years away from everything he held dear. Meeting Kei and Yuri, and the friendship that developed between the three of them. The face of... of...
He opened his eyes, and fought to keep from closing them again against the glaring white light that greeted him. His head throbbed, and every muscle in his body cried out for attention. He lifted his hand to his forehead and groaned. Someone nearby, a child perhaps, noticed and called out, "Auntie Mara, he's awake!"
Damn, I wish he hadn't done that! I feel like I've been drunk for a month!
Turning his head, he looked over his surroundings. He appeared to be in someone's living room, from what he could see. Simple furnishings adorned the small room, and he noted the almost complete absence of technological conveniences nearby. He also saw, dimly, the young boy that had aggravated his headache so. He stood by the doorway, watching him.
Weakly, he smiled and said "Hello."
The boy returned his smile, but was quickly ushered out of the room by a woman of approximately Bill's age. Her dark blue coveralls were stained with a reddish tinge that he guessed would be his own blood. Feeling the bandages that wrapped his head, he looked at her and asked, "Where am I?"
"My grandfather's cottage," she answered. "Your spaceship crashed about ten kilometres from here. From what I saw of the furrow you ploughed with your ship, I'd say that you were lucky to come away from it alive, much less with no serious injuries."
"Well, thank goodness for small miracles. And thank you for coming to my aid, Miss...?"
"Mara Brightman." She answered stiffly, as if afraid to identify herself.
"Bill Galet." Bill continued. "Now, please don't think me ungrateful, Mara, but I'm curious - why didn't you take me to a hospital when you rescued me?"
"I.. I can't explain now," she stammered. "Right now, you need some rest." She leaned over him to cover him with a blanket, then turned and hastily left the room. She stopped at the door and said over her shoulder, "I'll check on you again in a few hours. Try to get some sleep."
She turned the lights out and closed the door, leaving Bill in the dark, wondering what was going on.
After closing the door behind her, Mara let out the breath she had been holding since she entered the room of their strange visitor. Visibly relaxed, she went to the porch where her grandfather still sat. "Are you sure, Grandfather? He is in no shape to help himself, certainly he cannot help us."
Her grandfather smiled. "Patience, Mara. I am certain." He paused to look over his shoulder, towards the room where Bill lay slumbering.
"He IS the one."
Remarkably, by the next day, Bill was out of bed and able to move around without much pain or stiffness. His first order of business was assessing the damage to his ship. Mara accompanied him to the site of the crash.
During the three hours Bill took, doing a complete walk-around of the ship, and then one of the most thorough system checks he had ever put the ship through, Mara silently waited outside for him. She couldn't understand the thoughts that ran through her head, or the strange uneasiness that he brought out in her.
Finally he emerged from the airlock door, grinning from ear to ear. "Hardly any damage at all!" He exulted. "Aside from some minor peripheral damage, everything looks in top shape. The controls need a bit of work to make it spaceworthy again, but that's no more than a days work. Hop in, we'll fly back to the cottage!"
He helped her in because of the unstable ground surrounding the door of the ship. As the lock door slid shut, he told her, "We'll have to take it slow. I think the reactor became misaligned in the crash, so I'll have to run off the batteries. I don't want to take her much higher than the treeline, either." She stood behind him as he slid into his torn control seat and punched some control keys. Slowly the Seeker rose out of the ground and turned towards the Brightman cottage.
Watching Bill working the ship controls, Mara could not hold herself back any longer. "Bill," she whispered as he turned to face her, "do you have any idea why you're here?"
"What do you mean?" Bill asked, confused. "My ship had a malfunction. I crashed."
"That's how you got here." She corrected. "What I mean is, why did you crash here, and not somewhere else?"
Bill was shocked into silence. Mara continued. "Grandfather says you're here to help us. He says that the universe created a space-time instability for the sole purpose of bringing you here."
Bill looked at her with a hint of skepticism. "Okay, let's take this one bit at a time. I'll buy the space-time instability part it's happened before, and my sensor records can confirm or deny that. The part about the universe creating it is beyond my knowledge, since I never really understood metaphysics. But HOW THE HELL WOULD YOUR GRANDFATHER KNOW THIS?!" He fought to keep himself from screaming.
She stared at the floor, seemingly ashamed. "It's a family trait. The Brightman family has a long history of esper abilities. Five generations of our direct ancestors have been psychic is one area or another, for some reason that nobody can understand. My grandfather is a powerful prescient - his ability to foretell the future has been faultless for many years."
Bill, open-minded as he thought he was, suddenly felt uneasy about himself. "And you? You have this ability too?"
She shook her head. "I'm just a poor man's imitation of an empath. I can sense the feelings of family members and some very close friends, but nothing more. The men seem to inherit the active abilities, while the women get passive powers, if they get them at all. I was lucky."
Bill blinked. "Lucky? How so?"
"I'm not a target." She sighed, and went on. "For the past several months, anyone with a visibly definable ability have been disappearing steadily, from all over the planet. Something takes them, and kills them. Horribly. I've felt many of them die." She shuddered at the memory of David's mental agony. "My.. my baby brother, he.. he was.." She stopped, sobbing into her hands.
Bill knelt beside her and, taking her hands in his, said gently, "I'm sorry, Mara. I think I know how you feel. I'm sorry I snapped at you before."
She threw her arms around his neck and wailed. He held her until she regained control of herself. He placed his hands on her shoulders and looked into her tear-reddened eyes. They held each others stares for a moment, then Mara jumped up and kissed him.
Too stunned to move, Bill found himself unable to pull away. A second or a minute later, Mara broke their hold. "I'm sorry." She flustered. "I don't know why I did that. I.. uh.. " She turned away to hide her eyes.
Tenderly, Bill hooked a finger under her chin and raised her eyes to his. "You don't have to apologize, Mara." He whispered. "A moment of weakness, in a situation like this, is understandable."
"If only it were a moment, Bill." Mara's eyes shifted, looking for somewhere to hide. "I've been attracted to you since I found you at the crash. I've been.. feeling things from you, don't ask me how, but I've been feeling your losses. Your grief, your emptiness, and your strength. I.. I don't know if it's love, but it's the closest I've come so far."
"Mara. I.. You see.." The words just wouldn't come. Yuri. What do I say?
Mara stiffened visibly. "There's someone else, isn't there?"
"Yes." Bill admitted. "We've known each other for a while, and we've gotten very close. I don't want to hurt you, but I can't be what you want me to be. You're very, very special, Mara. Anyone would be nuts not to love you. But that someone can't be me. I'm sorry."
She wiped a tear from her eye, and looked at him and smiled. "So we're both a couple of sorry people, aren't we?" She squeezed his hand. "Friends?" She asked him.
Bill smiled and squeezed her hand in return. "Friends." He answered.
The rest of the flight back passed uneventfully. Bill took Mara through the ship, explaining some of the equipment he had added to the ship over time. The Seeker, as well as housing a fifty-year-old prototype Jump Drive, was used by Bill as a test-bed for whatever new sensory, defensive, or strange equipment he happened to dream up. The tour had to be cut short, however, as the ship approached the cottage that his newfound friend used (as she explained it to him) as her hideaway.
"My Grandfather has been on the run, ever since we found out that something - or someone - was killing us because of our Esper abilities. His prescience is the strongest of any power our family has ever had. If whoever is doing this to us ever found him... I don't know what would happen." She had told him about halfway into the trip. She told him as much as she could about her family's special traits, and Bill listened intently. Vaguely, he recalled something.
"Mara." He stopped her for a moment. "I think I know what's going on here. About two months ago, I read a report about some researcher who was looking into the possibility of integrating Espers with computerized electronic boosters. It was supposed to expand the consciousness of the person to such a degree, that it would be possible to blanket a planet with that one person's psi ability."
"But the people he's experimenting with are dying!" Mara gasped.
"Obviously this person, now what was his name? Whoever he is, he hasn't perfected the system yet. Either the integration sucks the life from the subject, or the sheer shock of being part of a living computer is too much for them to handle.
"Now why can't I remember his name?" Bill whispered, frustrated.
"It doesn't matter who he is." Mara told him as she placed a hand on his shoulder. "He's got to be stopped. Will you help us? Please?"
Bill took her hand and held it in his. "I'll try, Mara. But I don't know what I'll be able to do. After all, I can't even remember who it is. And without knowing that, I don't have a hope in Hell of locating him. But I will try."
Mara's look brightened as he turned to guide his ship down to land beside the cottage. "Thank you." She whispered soundlessly.
("Doctor! Doctor! We've found one! An incredibly powerful esper, living outside the city!")
("Excellent! Send out a retrieval party immediately.")
As the Seeker approached the cottage, Bill got the vague impression that something was wrong. "Mara," he asked, "you weren't expecting a group of people to drop in, were you?"
Mara frowned slightly. "No. Why?"
"I can see several vehicles parked outside. It looks like they've intended to surround the house. You aren't wanted by the police, are you?" He half-joked.
"No." Denied Mara. "I don't understand what's happening any more than you do."
Bill touched his controls, and the Seeker began to lose altitude. "Well, we're about to find out. Hang on while I land this thing."
Suspecting the worst, Bill locked the ship controls as they settled down near the front of the building. As the airlock door slid open, three men came out the door, hustling out a fourth. Three of them had guns. The fourth was instantly recognized.
"Oh, no! GRANDFATHER!" Mara shrieked as she ran towards the group. "Leave him alone, damn you!" She rushed at them, ready to take on all three of them if necessary.
It wasn't necessary. One of the men levelled his gun at her and fired. She dropped to the ground and skidded several feet before stopping, still meters from the porch.
Bill fared better. Seeing what had happened, he leapt at them with a scream of fury and brought down two of them with a powerful flying tackle. As he got up, the third assailant aimed where Bill stood and fired. But Bill wasn't there when the beam lanced through the air at him. Twisting to one side, he managed to grab a gun that had been dropped by one of the goons he had felled. He raised it to fire...
The stunner beam hit him squarely in the back. Through sheer willpower he managed to stay on his feet and turn to confront his attacker. As he completed his spin, another beam hit him, this time right over his heart. His head reeled and he slumped to the ground, unconscious. The gunman lowered his weapon and took a communicator from his pocket. He spoke quietly and briefly into the device, then replaced it in his pocket and gave the others instructions.
The four men then proceeded to load two men and one woman into the waiting aircar. It lifted off and headed for the nearby city.
Kei sat on the sofa, staring at the gleaming metal band around her wrist. Another new toy that I can't play with. She thought as the metal glistened in the sunlight. "YU-ri," she whined, "Puh-LEEAZE let me try it out! He won't even know that we're checking up on him! Pretty please?"
"NO! Absolutely not!" Yuri scolded her partner for her lack of discipline. "For all you know, he put a reverse feedback circuit in it, and he'd BE able to tell that we're using them! You remember what he said, 'Extreme emergencies ONLY'! I don't think he'd qualify your curiosity as a life-or-death emergency."
"Awww, you're just a party-pooper, Yuri." Kei countered mockingly. "You have absolutely no sense of adventure. Come ON, you know I could double-talk my way out of it. Let's give it a try!" She reached for the release stud.
Yuri leapt onto the couch and slapped her hand away. "NO! You're NOT going to get me in trouble again! You'll stay away from that bracelet if I have to cut your hand off!" To prove her point, she ripped it from Kei's wrist and placed it in her diary, locking it with an audible click. "There. Now you won't be able to get at it! Now, I'm going to take a shower." She said as she turned and headed for her room. Glancing over her shoulder, she added, "Stay out of trouble, hmmmm?"
Kei grumbled at the closed door for a moment, then began to giggle.
Bill groaned and stiffly raised a hand to his head as the effects of the stunner wore off. "OW!" He complained. "My whole body feels like it's been asleep for a month!"
"Bill! Are you all right?" He hadn't opened his eyes yet, but he recognized Mara's voice. Cautiously, he opened his eyes and evaluated their situation.
Half-expecting to be locked in some basement cell, the room they found themselves in appeared to be quite cozy. The bed he lay in, one of the three in the room, had a familiar feel to it. He turned to Mara, who sat in a chair next to him. "We're in the Hospital, aren't we?" She nodded as he continued. "So that's the reason you were so reluctant to bring me here!"
"Yes." Her grandfather, lying in the bed beside his, answered for her. "If she - or any of us - were to be found here, we would surely have been captured. That was a risk we simply could not take."
"And now, here we are anyway." Mara seemed to choke out the words. "And shortly we'll all be dead!"
Bill got out of bed and walked over to the door. "Perhaps not." He muttered as he examined the door mechanism, experimentally punching a few keys on the lock. After a moment, he was rewarded with a low chime as the door slid open...
His exit, however, was blocked by a slightly overweight, balding man who wore a grey lab coat and carried a gun. "Ah, ah, ah, Doctor Galet. We can't have you leaving so soon now, can we?"
Bill stared at the bearded face for a moment, when recognition hit him in one tremendous flash. "Marrenstein!" He whispered savagely. The man bowed his head, carefully ensuring that the pistol he held remained firmly levelled at Bill's chest.
Mara walked up behind him, confused. "Bill? You KNOW him?"
Bill turned to her. "Not personally." He corrected. "Mara, this is Doctor Zeke Marrenstein, author of a research paper called 'The possibilities of utilizing Cybernetic Implants to enhance Psionic Abilities'. He petitioned the WWWA to fund his research into expanding esper powers by linking the human brain into a computer."
"And I was rejected!" Marrenstein screeched. "For ten years I worked on that paper! I was ready to begin experiments to help boost an Esper's abilities to planetary scale! And the WWWA REJECTED my request for funding!"
"Your techniques were far from ready to implement!" Bill shot back. "I went over that paper. Your proposals for direct-brain cyber-links looked good, but the way you described their use was nothing short of barbaric!"
"Barbaric! Barbaric, you say? I've used those very same cyber-links in over a dozen different experiments, and they've worked flawlessly!"
Bill opened his mouth to speak, closed it. "You mean you've...? So that's where...? Where did you get the funding?"
He smiled. "I'm not without my sources. Not that it's any of your business. Let's just say that a certain party would like to see my research completed."
"Only one 'party' would have that kind of capital and so little regard for life. Your backer wouldn't happen to be..." He was forced to stop as Marrenstein pushed his gun into Bill's mouth.
"A good guess, Doctor. But I've socialized here for too long, I fear. I have work to do." He raised his hand, and two guards flanked him. "Prepare the old man for surgery. He'll be the next subject."
Mara ran to shield her grandfather from them. "NO! Leave him alone!"
"WAIT!" Bill shouted, raising his arms to block the door. He stared at the Doctor. "Part of your problem is that you've had unwilling subjects, at best. I can change that, maybe even make your experiment work."
Marrenstein raised an eyebrow. "Oh? And how do you propose to do this?"
Bill lowered his arms. Placing his hands behind his back, he continued. "During my early school years, I took part in a test for Esper capability. True, they were crude tests by today's standards, but I DID test positive in the telepathy areas. Consistently, too."
Mara stared at him in astonishment. As she watched him, she noticed that his fingers, behind his back - out of sight, were crossed.
Bill continued with his proposal. "Let these two go, and I'll willingly undergo the link implant. You'll have a real volunteer for your experiment."
Marrenstein grinned at him. "An excellent idea, Doctor. Even if your story is a fabrication, to have access to the knowledge of one of the WWWA's top scientists..." He turned to the guards. "Take him! Prepare him for immediate cyber-link implant!"
The door slid shut behind them, cutting him off from Mara and her grandfather.
Kei fiddled with the lock on Yuri's diary with the determination of a madman. This used to be so easy. Kei muttered silently. Damn paranoid Yuri must've changed the lock! She turned it over in her hands, examining it from every angle. There's GOTTA be a way into it!
Just then, Mugi entered the room. Kei grinned as he forced his bulk through the narrow doorway. "Mugi! Am I glad you're here! Help me with this, will you?"
As she pushed the diary into his face, Mugi snorted, pointed his nose at the ceiling, and loped into the kitchen, closing the door behind him.
"Thanks a lot, pal!" Kei whispered angrily at the door as she returned to the task before her.
Bill woke up to the sharp pain of a needle, and a constant throb in his head.
Still groggy, he tried to look around. Failing that, he tried to remember if his crash had broken his neck. When the cyber-link began to whine, he remembered where he was, and the deal he had made.
"WELCOME BACK TO THE WORLD OF THE LIVING, DOCTOR." Marrenstein's disjointed voice addressed him from everywhere. "I TRUST YOU ARE COMFORTABLE?"
"Not quite, but I'll manage." Bill was in no mood for pleasantries. "Have you released Mara and her grandfather yet?"
Quasi-Olympian laughter resounded from the speakers. "I GAVE YOU MORE CREDIT THAN THAT, DOCTOR. SURELY YOU DIDN'T HONESTLY THINK THAT I'D LET THE MOST POWERFUL ESPER ON THE PLANET GO FREE, DID YOU?"
So much for deals. "You slimy bastard! There goes my faith in the medical system of THIS planet!" Around him, the probes that completed the link began their entry into his recent surgical implants.
"YOUR FEEBLE JIBES BORE ME, DOCTOR. FOR YOU, IT WILL ALL BE OVER SHORTLY."
Somehow, Bill could sense the activation of the cyber-links in his head. Desperately, he struggled to keep his awareness intact. The computer proved to be more tenacious than his own will, however. He relaxed and allowed the machine to wind its way into his consciousness...
Mara sat beside her grandfather's bed and silently prayed for a miracle. Unexpectedly, her prayer was answered. The door to their room suddenly opened. Fearing a trap, Mara cautiously poked her head out the open doorway. Nobody appeared to be in sight. "What's going on...?" She asked rhetorically.
"Mara, it's me."
The voice came from the speaker in the ceiling, but it was unmistakable. "Bill? Bill, is that you? Did you escape from Marrenstein already?"
"I'm afraid not, Mara. My body is in Operating Room 3, hooked up to the building's main computer."
"But... but how...?" She started to ask.
"It works, Mara. My awareness is in the computer. I don't know why I'm still awake, but I am! Marrenstein lied to me about freeing you, so I stunned most of the guards and opened a path for you to safety."
"What about you? We can't leave you here!"
"You have to! There's something in here with me, and it's chasing my consciousness around in here like some kind of predator! I don't know how long I can keep it away! I'm DEAD, Mara! Now go!"
Mara helped her grandfather from his bed and hurried him through the door.
In Marrenstein's control room, a stunned silence filled the air.
"Cortical activity stopped... All other vital functions normal... computer activity increased by ninety-eight percent?" The technician faced Marrenstein in awe. "What does it mean, Doctor?"
"It means I've DONE IT!" He cried triumphantly. "The mind of a WWWA agent at my beck and call! At THEIR beck and call! Oh, the irony of it! One of the UG's own operatives is going to aid in the downfall of the government! It makes me want to cry!" His laughter ceased abruptly. "Ask the computer! Ask Galet if he can relate to us!"
"I CAN HEAR YOU, MARRENSTEIN. NO NEED TO ASK YOUR MINIONS TO DO YOUR DIRTY WORK FOR YOU ANYMORE."
"Ah. Very good, Doctor Galet. Now, I want you to read my mind. What am I thinking about right now?"
The digital voice seemed to chuckle. "I CAN'T DO THAT. I LIED ABOUT MY TELEPATHY, JUST LIKE YOU LIED ABOUT SETTING MARA FREE."
"Damn you, Galet! Very well!" He touched a pad on the console. "Have the old man prepped for IMMEDIATE implant surgery." He spoke to the ceiling again. "I'll have you purged from the memory banks, Galet! The only thing left of you will be your comatose body! A.. heh.. SHELL of the man you once were! GUARDS! Remove his body from the unit! AT ONCE!"
As the men in the operating room hastened to comply, the door burst open. Mara and her grandfather rushed into the room, Mara shrieking at the mirrored glass of the observation/control room.
"NO! I won't let you kill him, I won't!" She wailed hysterically.
"MARA, GO AWAY! LEAVE NOW!" Bill's disembodied voice implored her.
Marrenstein was more straightforward. "GUARDS! KILL ALL THREE!"
The orderlies/soldiers raised their weapons at the trio...
MARA! NO!
The shapeless thing that had been trailing his mind through the computer caught up with him and his awareness exploded...
He found himself seeing through his own eyes again, breathing and obviously alive. But something gave him a sense of the whole building. He saw the guards, thought about protection...
...Three concealed stunners waved their discharge beams through the room, and the guards fell, twitching. The locked manacles on his chair swung open, and the probes quickly withdrew from his head. He stood uneasily, Mara rushing to help him balance. "Are you okay?" She nervously asked.
He gave her a weak smile. "I'm... not sure. I'm seeing things in a way I've never imagined possible. It's almost like I'm still in the computer, somehow."
"I don't understand." Mara admitted.
"Neither do I. But I DO understand that we have to get out of here. Right now!"
Holding both Bill's hand and her grandfather's, Mara led the two of them out of the room.
Frustrated beyond reason at her inability to pick the simple lock on Yuri's diary, Kei slammed it onto the table. As if on cue, the lock immediately snapped open and slid from its catch.
Staring dumbfounded at the unexpected result of her impatience, Kei almost failed to hear the shower shut off. Frantically she dug for her locator bracelet and opened it with careless haste. Pressing the release stud as she had been shown, the device sprung open and provided her with an instantaneous reading.
"AND JUST WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!" Kei jumped as Yuri bellowed the question in her ear.
Without thinking, Kei grabbed Yuri by the arm and dragged her to the door, the towel Yuri had wrapped around herself slipping off and falling to the floor behind them.
Marrenstein shook uncontrollably as, one by one, the computer monitors before him became dark and lifeless. Rumbling a curse deep in his throat, he pulled out his gun and opened fire on the console. The technicians in the room tried their best to control him, but he picked his targets indiscriminately. His men fell amid the shower of sparks and flying glass from the ruined apparatus. When the room started to fill with smoke and flame, Marrenstein rushed for the door, murder on his mind.
Mara helped her grandfather through the maze of corridors in the hospital. By now completely lost, she relied on the uncannily confident Bill to lead their way to their escape. Twice along the way they had passed corridors strewn with guards that lay inert, stunned by the building's own security system. Twice she questioned Bill about this, and twice Bill refused to answer.
They turned a corner, and Bill paused for a moment. Ahead of them lay the ambulance bay. "We can steal a vehicle from here and head back to your cottage." Bill said without looking back. Mara nodded and started towards the doorway.
Bill spun around as he heard Maras' scream of fright. Seemingly from nowhere, Marrenstein had come up behind them. Wrapping his arm around her neck, he twisted her aging charge from her grip and threw him forcefully to the floor. With the same motion, he levelled his gun at Bill's head. "Game over, Doctor." He rasped.
Mara fought against his grip in vain. "Bill, how could he sneak up on us like that?" Perhaps she trusted him too much.
Bill shrugged. "He must have used the emergency exits. There aren't any cameras in them." He lied. Somehow, he seemed to be losing his mysterious sixth sense, but he didn't want to tell her that - yet.
"Very astute, Doctor." Marrenstein cackled insanely. "I don't know exactly how you've been able to hold the link to the computer without the interface, and I'd love to be able to study you some more. But alas, I can't have my own computer rebelling against me, now, can I?"
"Fine, great. You have me. Let the girl and her grandfather go." Bill pleaded, trying to buy some time to find an option.
Again that evil grin. "I'm afraid I can't do that, Doctor. You see, they know too much about me and my operation. I'll have to move to another planet as it is. I'm not going to leave any witnesses around to disrupt my work." He straightened his arm, preparing to fire. "First you, then these two."
Barely in his field of vision, facing Marrenstein, Bill detected motion. And a flash of light from close to the ceiling. As he noticed it, his skull exploded and he dropped to one knee, groaning.
"BILL!" Mara cried to him.
"How moving, Doctor." Marrenstein snickered. "I'll put you out of your misery. Goodbye, Doctor Galet!" His finger tightened on the trigger...
The bright corona of a laser discharge lanced into his forehead, instantly frying much of his brain as it bored its way through. For a minute, his body held itself up. But then gravity won out and his lifeless form collapsed in a heap, his arm uncoiling itself from Mara's neck. Suddenly free, she helped her grandfather to a sitting position, then ran over to Bill, who was just levering himself erect again. She wrapped her arms around his neck and laughed.
"Oh, thank you, Bill! I don't know exactly what it was you did, but I'm glad you did it just then!"
Bill found himself at a loss for words. He stared at Marrenstein's smouldering form in surprise. "But... but I didn't do ANYTHING! All of a sudden I had this powerful headache and..." He pushed her away from him and looked into her eyes. "Honestly, I don't know what happened, but I didn't do it."
"NO, DOCTOR. WE DID."
The voice (voices?) came from all around them. Bill looked up towards the ceiling. "WE COULD NOT LET MARRENSTEIN LEAVE THIS WORLD, TO CONTINUE HIS EXPERIMENTS ON MORE INNOCENT VICTIMS."
Bill grinned. "Plus, you couldn't let any more of your family die, right?" Mara's eyes opened wider, shocked by the statement.
A short pause. "THAT IS CORRECT."
Mara finally found her voice. "Bill? Who is that?"
He winked at her. "It might be more appropriate to ask, 'Who are THEY?'."
"Huh...?"
Her answer came from the ceiling. "WE ARE THE COLLECTIVE MINDS OF ALL THE PEOPLE THAT DOCTOR MARRENSTEIN ATTEMPTED HIS EXPERIMENTS ON. AS OUR MINDS WERE DRAINED INTO THE COMPUTER, THEY MERGED INTO ONE SINGLE ENTITY."
"Then... then his experiments worked, right from the first?"
"YES, MARA. HOWEVER, WE LACKED THE COHERENCE TO DO ANYTHING CONSTRUCTIVE UNTIL BILL ENTERED OUR CONSCIOUSNESS. HE GAVE US THE POWER TO DO WHAT WE FELT HAD TO BE DONE."
"In other words, he gave you some of his courage and strength." Mara smiled at him appreciatively, and he blushed slightly.
"You could say that." He confessed. "I guess we're free to go, then."
"WE HAVE ONE REQUEST BEFORE YOU LEAVE."
They waited...
"MARRENSTEIN FED AN ERASE COMMAND INTO THIS SYSTEM BEFORE DESTROYING THE CONTROL CONSOLE. THERE IS ONE WITHIN US WHO HAS SOMETHING TO SAY."
The voices filtered out until one remained. "MARA."
She gasped in astonishment. "David!? David, you're alive?!"
"NOT FOR LONG. I JUST WANTED TO SAY GOODBYE. I LOVE YOU, SIS. NEVER FORGET."
"I.. I won't forget, ever." She wiped a tear from her cheek. "Good-bye, Dave." She whispered, but her only reply was the background static.
Bill placed a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Mara. Come on, let's get your grandfather back to the cottage."
She placed her hand over his and held it for a moment. Then she straightened up and helped her grandfather to his feet.
At the same moment that the trio started walking towards the carpool, the wall before them flew apart with unmistakable force. Reflexively, Bill spun around to shield Mara and her grandfather from the debris. When the smoke had cleared, he heard a familiar voice crying his name. As the Angels rushed towards him, guns drawn, Bill began to laugh.
Confused, Mara stared at him. "Bill, what's going on? Who are these two?"
Bill calmed himself down long enough to glance at his watch and say, "The Cavalry. And just a little bit late, too."
The next day, Bill stood in front of the Brightman cottage for one final time.
"You know," He said to Mara, "I'll be damned if I can find anything wrong with the Jump Drive on my ship. The computer says everything's in the same condition as the day I built it."
Mara smiled and gazed down at her grandfather, who snored lightly. "Then perhaps Grandfather was right all along. You were destined to be our saviour, right from the first."
Bill smiled back and rubbed the bandages that marked where they cyber-links had been removed from his forehead. "Maybe. Or maybe not, I don't know anymore. What I DO know is that your family will be safe from now on. There's no doubt in my mind about THAT."
"Thank you, Bill Galet." Mara stepped over and kissed his cheek, Yuri glaring icicles at him in the process. "And take care of yourself."
"I always do." He said with a smirk as he turned and headed for his ship.
She watched as the Lovely Angel thundered away, trailing a jet of rocket fire. Moments later, the Star Seeker rose with an almost eerie silence to join it.
Scarcely noticed, a single tear fell down her cheek.
"I don't suppose," Yuri's image glared at him in the monitor, "That you're going to tell me what THAT was all about?"
Bill smiled at her sideways before answering. "Not just yet. You'll just have to wait for me to write my report to find out." He tapped some keys on his control board before continuing. "You know, I was expecting you a bit sooner. What happened?"
"What do you mean?" Kei and Yuri asked as one.
"You know full well what I mean." He looked straight at Kei's image. "I know you couldn't resist trying out your new gadget. It's not that difficult to figure out, especially since I showed you how it works. So I ask again - what happened?"
Kei blushed crimson. "Yuri hid it on me." She mumbled. "And she changed the lock on her diary."
Yuri turned to face her, open-mouthed. "How did you know I had the lock changed?"
No answer.
"You've been in my diary before, haven't you? HAVEN'T YOU?"
"HEY! It's better reading than those cheap gossip rags you buy!" Kei retorted.
"OOH! You little witch! When we get home, I'm gonna..."
Sighing, Bill shut off his comm-link. "Those two." He muttered. "One of these days, I'm going to have to take a vacation from THEM." He programmed a Jump for home and hit the ACTIVATE switch.
The Star Seeker blasted to another place, leaving the Angels arguing amid the silent stars.
-FIN-