Disclaimer: The main characters aren't mine.
Author's Note: Is it a good sign when you start naming your villains after your bosses? And is it me, or is Neil just a little, um, psychotic in this one?
OUT OF THE ASHES
Chapter Seven
When Nightmares Come True
"Did that sound a little sinister to any of you? 'I'd like a full report on these two.' General Ryder doesn't expect you to do something drastic like dissect us, does he?" After leaving the general's office, Neil had resumed his usual chatter. Ryan decided to ignore it and spoke to Aki over Neil's head.
"Guess you didn't need us after all," he said.
Aki nodded. "And with Dr. Sid gone, there's little we can do. I'm sorry I dragged you all the way here for nothing."
Neil finally realized no one was paying attention to him and decided to intrude. "Hey, that's all right, Doc. But isn't there anything you can do? You're a scientist, too!"
"I can take samples and make guesses, yes, but Dr. Sid has much more experience with spirits and Gaia. He's been studying this long before I was born. I'd trust his judgment before my own. But I would like to get you all into a lab, with your permission."
"Tonight?" Ryan asked. It had been a long day…
"No. We'll start tomorrow, when we're all more awake." Aki yawned as if to make a point. "There aren't many empty places to stay here, with all the New York refugees who did make it out of the city, so we can all use my apartment."
"Oh, a sleepover," Neil grinned. Ryan elbowed him in the ribs.
"Shouldn't we bring Jane?" Ryan asked.
"If she'll come," Aki said. "I'm a guest of honor in Houston; so there's more than enough room for us all in my apartment." From her wry tone, she seemed to think they were overdoing it with the hero worship.
"I'll get her," Ryan said. "We'll get her, I mean," he amended when Neil opened his mouth to protest.
"All right," Aki said. "I'll go dig up some spare bedding for you. I'm in the Hilton on the tenth floor, room 18."
Neil whistled appreciatively. "They really do treat you well, don't they?"
"It was the only building with vacancy near the USMF headquarters," Aki said. "And it's not as stylish as you'd expect." With that, Aki left them.
"How about that? Didn't that sound sinister to you?" Neil demanded.
Ryan just rolled his eyes.
* * *
The hangar was nearly deserted this late in the evening, and they were able to quickly make their way to where the Black Boa was berthed.
Ryan slowed as they came up to the ship. "Did we leave that hatch open?" he wondered aloud as Neil strode past him and clambered up the ladder to the hatch. Neil stopped and looked down at Ryan, then shrugged.
"It mighta been Jane. Maybe she saw us coming and opened the door." Neil ascended a couple more steps, then turned to Ryan. "You comin', Serge?"
Ryan followed quickly, ignoring the feeling of unease building inside him. It's nothing, he told himself. I'm just edgy because of what happened last time I was in a dark, silent hangar…
Neil seemed to feel the same way. "Am I the only one with déjà vu?" he asked when Ryan reached him. "I don't mean to sound like a chicken or anything, but let's hurry up and get Jane and get outta here."
Ryan silently agreed. "Why don't you call her over the intercom so we don't have to search for her?"
"Good idea." Neil led Ryan to the cockpit, making for the intercom speaker. Suddenly, he grinned. "Jane," he whispered, his voice deepened and echoing eerily throughout the ship. "This is the voice of God… I command you to provide a virgin sacrifice in the cockpit – Ouch!" he yelped when Ryan slapped him.
"So you want her to sacrifice you, is that it?" Ryan asked, bemused.
"You leave your sense of humor in the afterlife of something?" Neil muttered, rubbing the back of his head.
"If Jane doesn't hurry up, I'll send you to find it," Ryan warned.
They waited several moments, but there was no sign of Jane. Neil frowned. "Do you think I was too subtle?"
"Let me try." Ryan activated the intercom. "Jane? Would you come to the cockpit?"
There was still no response. "Maybe she's asleep," Neil suggested.
"Maybe… We'll search the ship. Take portside and I'll search starboard; we'll meet in the cargo hold." Ryan's feelings of unease intensified. He felt like he was about to go on a dangerous mission, and his weapons and armor were stored somewhere on the ship. If either he or Neil ran into trouble, they'd be defenseless…
They rapidly searched the ship, each finding signs that Jane had been there, but no clue as the where she'd gone.
"Did you find her?" Neil asked unnecessarily. Ryan shook his head.
"Searched everywhere," he said. "Unless she's sleeping under a bed or in a cabinet or something, Jane isn't here.
"Could she have gone looking for us?" Neil wondered.
Ryan turned, and his attention was caught by something just beyond Neil. "Check that out." A hole had been ripped through the wall. "Damn! What did this?"
Neil crouched down, where a pool of water was drying on the floor. His eyes followed the trail the water had made all the way up to the hole. He touched the water and shuddered at its chill. "I think Jane did it. You know, with her ice."
"Remind me not to get her angry. She said she was angry, but this…"
Neil backed away, his eyes scanning for other signs. "I hope Jane's powers didn't go nuts on her – Hey, look at this!" Another hole had been torn into the wall, but this one hadn't been caused by ice.
"A bullet," Ryan said grimly. "She was attacked."
Neil whirled around and raced towards the cockpit. "Neil, wait! They could still be around!"
"They had plenty of opportunity to attack while we were separated," Neil said, as he raced through the ship's corridors. It was all Ryan could do to keep up with him. "Whoever they are, they're long gone. I should never have left her…"
Reaching the cockpit, Neil accessed the ship's terminal. "What are you doing?" Ryan gasped out.
"The Black Boa's a USMF ship, right? All military vessels are equipped with surveillance cameras hidden in the most important rooms. They're kinda like the old flight recorders planes had, so information could be recovered from a downed craft, you know? Most people don't even know they're there, so any mutinies can be recorded. I bet our little battle aboard the Copperhead near the Tucson wasteland was some of the evidence used in our arrest. Anyway," Neil concluded, "if I can download the recordings, we should be able to figure out what happened to Jane."
"If they're secret, how do you know about the cameras?" Ryan asked.
Neil was silent for a moment, diverting his whole attention to the task at hand. Ryan thought he looked a little uneasy. Then, Neil suddenly winked. "A good tech never tells his secrets," he grinned. Then he held up a disk. "I got the recordings for the last five hours. Let's go – I'd rather look at them on Dr. Ross's computer than stay here any longer."
Together, they hurried out of the ship.
* * *
Jane paced the confines of the small cell she'd been taken to. There was little chance for escape at the moment, and the guards placed beyond the pulsonic lasers were uncommunicative. Damn, she hated captivity.
She'd had little choice but to accompany the soldiers who had taken her; there had been ten of them, all armored. Even if she'd had control over her powers, she didn't think she'd have a chance. That didn't mean she had to go without a fight. After all, they'd gone through a lot of effort to catch her alive, so she'd doubted that roughing them up a little would provoke them into killing her.
Of course, she had some rather interesting bruises now. But her struggles had given her a view of the one captor who had been hiding to the side, the one who had called her a "specimen."
The man who was coming down the hallway now, stopping in front of her prison and coldly examining her.
"Major Boyer," Jane said stiffly. "I hope you don't expect me to salute." Jane had met Boyer on one of her squad's missions. He was cold and arrogant, reminding her somewhat of General Hein when he wasn't using his "public" personality. Which is why it was no surprise that Hein and Boyer had been old friends.
"I won't be hurt," he answered mildly. "It's what else you can do with your hands that I'm interested in."
He knew… "What do you mean?" Jane asked, feigning puzzlement.
"You know what I mean," Boyer said. "Don't try to hide it. We know all about New York."
Who's we? she wondered, but knew it would do no good to ask. "What do you want with me?" she demanded.
Boyer's lips twisted into a smile. "Just to run a few tests. Something like what your friend Dr. Ross would do, but more thorough." Boyer gestured, and a handful of armored men came up to him. "Escort her to the lab. We'll begin right away."
Jane's blood ran cold as the soldiers again surrounded her, holding her so she couldn't fight. A lab… experiments…
Her worst fears had been realized.
* * *
It was the first time Aki had been alone since that morning. After scrambling around finding bedding for her guests, she was left with nothing to do, so now she sat on her couch, staring off into space. Guiltily, she realized she'd barely even thought of Gray in the excitement of the past few hours.
That was good, right? She shouldn't dwell on it. It would only make her more depressed, and that would distract her from the new mystery she'd found herself faced with.
Why were they alive? Was Gaia trying to put right what had gone wrong? But why bring back the Phantoms as well? And what was the deal with Jane's ability? It was almost like…
No. That's impossible, Aki chided herself. But she had to admit it: It was almost like magic.
Aki scowled at the direction of her thoughts. It was a foolish notion, and yet… magic would make a formidable weapon against the Phantoms. Perhaps that was why Gaia had given the powers to Jane and those others. But what about the Duos or Undeads? What point was there to them?
Aki sighed, pressing her hand to her forehead. She needed Dr. Sid. Her own thoughts were becoming foolish.
There was a knock at the door, and Aki surged to her feet. They were here. Aki had worried they may have had some trouble getting up here. The Hilton was no longer a high-class hotel since few people had traveled during the Phantom occupation, so it had changed to offering apartments. It still maintained its high standards, however, and she'd thought the scruffy soldiers would be stopped before they could come up.
Ryan and Neil stood at the door, and Jane was notably absent. The two soldiers had grim expressions on their faces as they entered.
"Where's Jane? What's wrong?" Aki asked.
"That's what we're gonna find out," Neil said. "Do you mind if we use your terminal?" He didn't wait for an answer, shouldering past Aki and activating the holographic components before booting up the system.
"She wasn't in the ship," Ryan said simply. He went to stand behind Neil as the tech loaded the disk.
"But someone else was," Neil said. Aki watched as the image of a familiar corridor came up, two soldiers in Deep Eyes gear creeping along its length.
"The military was aboard my ship?" Aki didn't ask where Neil had gotten the video. She didn't really care. What bothered her was the invasion evident on the screen, and by their own military! "You think they took Jane?"
"Yup," Neil said as he flipped through several more videos, finding one where Jane was assaulting the soldiers in the cargo bay before escaping.
"Maybe she got away," Ryan said hopefully, "and she'll find us."
Aki's eyes narrowed. First Dr. Sid seemed to vanish along with a fully trained Deep Eyes squad, and now more soldiers were after Jane. What was going on? Maybe her tired mind was making a mountain out of a molehill, but could the events be connected? "A conspiracy," she muttered. How had the soldiers known Jane was there? Did they know what she was? Someone must have told them…
"What did you say, Doctor?" Ryan asked.
"Nothing. Just talking to myself." I'm just paranoid, she thought, crossing her arms. Maybe they just wanted to talk to her.
A chill went down Aki's spine. She doubted it was that simple.
To Be Continued…
Author's Note: Is it a good sign when you start naming your villains after your bosses? And is it me, or is Neil just a little, um, psychotic in this one?
OUT OF THE ASHES
Chapter Seven
When Nightmares Come True
"Did that sound a little sinister to any of you? 'I'd like a full report on these two.' General Ryder doesn't expect you to do something drastic like dissect us, does he?" After leaving the general's office, Neil had resumed his usual chatter. Ryan decided to ignore it and spoke to Aki over Neil's head.
"Guess you didn't need us after all," he said.
Aki nodded. "And with Dr. Sid gone, there's little we can do. I'm sorry I dragged you all the way here for nothing."
Neil finally realized no one was paying attention to him and decided to intrude. "Hey, that's all right, Doc. But isn't there anything you can do? You're a scientist, too!"
"I can take samples and make guesses, yes, but Dr. Sid has much more experience with spirits and Gaia. He's been studying this long before I was born. I'd trust his judgment before my own. But I would like to get you all into a lab, with your permission."
"Tonight?" Ryan asked. It had been a long day…
"No. We'll start tomorrow, when we're all more awake." Aki yawned as if to make a point. "There aren't many empty places to stay here, with all the New York refugees who did make it out of the city, so we can all use my apartment."
"Oh, a sleepover," Neil grinned. Ryan elbowed him in the ribs.
"Shouldn't we bring Jane?" Ryan asked.
"If she'll come," Aki said. "I'm a guest of honor in Houston; so there's more than enough room for us all in my apartment." From her wry tone, she seemed to think they were overdoing it with the hero worship.
"I'll get her," Ryan said. "We'll get her, I mean," he amended when Neil opened his mouth to protest.
"All right," Aki said. "I'll go dig up some spare bedding for you. I'm in the Hilton on the tenth floor, room 18."
Neil whistled appreciatively. "They really do treat you well, don't they?"
"It was the only building with vacancy near the USMF headquarters," Aki said. "And it's not as stylish as you'd expect." With that, Aki left them.
"How about that? Didn't that sound sinister to you?" Neil demanded.
Ryan just rolled his eyes.
* * *
The hangar was nearly deserted this late in the evening, and they were able to quickly make their way to where the Black Boa was berthed.
Ryan slowed as they came up to the ship. "Did we leave that hatch open?" he wondered aloud as Neil strode past him and clambered up the ladder to the hatch. Neil stopped and looked down at Ryan, then shrugged.
"It mighta been Jane. Maybe she saw us coming and opened the door." Neil ascended a couple more steps, then turned to Ryan. "You comin', Serge?"
Ryan followed quickly, ignoring the feeling of unease building inside him. It's nothing, he told himself. I'm just edgy because of what happened last time I was in a dark, silent hangar…
Neil seemed to feel the same way. "Am I the only one with déjà vu?" he asked when Ryan reached him. "I don't mean to sound like a chicken or anything, but let's hurry up and get Jane and get outta here."
Ryan silently agreed. "Why don't you call her over the intercom so we don't have to search for her?"
"Good idea." Neil led Ryan to the cockpit, making for the intercom speaker. Suddenly, he grinned. "Jane," he whispered, his voice deepened and echoing eerily throughout the ship. "This is the voice of God… I command you to provide a virgin sacrifice in the cockpit – Ouch!" he yelped when Ryan slapped him.
"So you want her to sacrifice you, is that it?" Ryan asked, bemused.
"You leave your sense of humor in the afterlife of something?" Neil muttered, rubbing the back of his head.
"If Jane doesn't hurry up, I'll send you to find it," Ryan warned.
They waited several moments, but there was no sign of Jane. Neil frowned. "Do you think I was too subtle?"
"Let me try." Ryan activated the intercom. "Jane? Would you come to the cockpit?"
There was still no response. "Maybe she's asleep," Neil suggested.
"Maybe… We'll search the ship. Take portside and I'll search starboard; we'll meet in the cargo hold." Ryan's feelings of unease intensified. He felt like he was about to go on a dangerous mission, and his weapons and armor were stored somewhere on the ship. If either he or Neil ran into trouble, they'd be defenseless…
They rapidly searched the ship, each finding signs that Jane had been there, but no clue as the where she'd gone.
"Did you find her?" Neil asked unnecessarily. Ryan shook his head.
"Searched everywhere," he said. "Unless she's sleeping under a bed or in a cabinet or something, Jane isn't here.
"Could she have gone looking for us?" Neil wondered.
Ryan turned, and his attention was caught by something just beyond Neil. "Check that out." A hole had been ripped through the wall. "Damn! What did this?"
Neil crouched down, where a pool of water was drying on the floor. His eyes followed the trail the water had made all the way up to the hole. He touched the water and shuddered at its chill. "I think Jane did it. You know, with her ice."
"Remind me not to get her angry. She said she was angry, but this…"
Neil backed away, his eyes scanning for other signs. "I hope Jane's powers didn't go nuts on her – Hey, look at this!" Another hole had been torn into the wall, but this one hadn't been caused by ice.
"A bullet," Ryan said grimly. "She was attacked."
Neil whirled around and raced towards the cockpit. "Neil, wait! They could still be around!"
"They had plenty of opportunity to attack while we were separated," Neil said, as he raced through the ship's corridors. It was all Ryan could do to keep up with him. "Whoever they are, they're long gone. I should never have left her…"
Reaching the cockpit, Neil accessed the ship's terminal. "What are you doing?" Ryan gasped out.
"The Black Boa's a USMF ship, right? All military vessels are equipped with surveillance cameras hidden in the most important rooms. They're kinda like the old flight recorders planes had, so information could be recovered from a downed craft, you know? Most people don't even know they're there, so any mutinies can be recorded. I bet our little battle aboard the Copperhead near the Tucson wasteland was some of the evidence used in our arrest. Anyway," Neil concluded, "if I can download the recordings, we should be able to figure out what happened to Jane."
"If they're secret, how do you know about the cameras?" Ryan asked.
Neil was silent for a moment, diverting his whole attention to the task at hand. Ryan thought he looked a little uneasy. Then, Neil suddenly winked. "A good tech never tells his secrets," he grinned. Then he held up a disk. "I got the recordings for the last five hours. Let's go – I'd rather look at them on Dr. Ross's computer than stay here any longer."
Together, they hurried out of the ship.
* * *
Jane paced the confines of the small cell she'd been taken to. There was little chance for escape at the moment, and the guards placed beyond the pulsonic lasers were uncommunicative. Damn, she hated captivity.
She'd had little choice but to accompany the soldiers who had taken her; there had been ten of them, all armored. Even if she'd had control over her powers, she didn't think she'd have a chance. That didn't mean she had to go without a fight. After all, they'd gone through a lot of effort to catch her alive, so she'd doubted that roughing them up a little would provoke them into killing her.
Of course, she had some rather interesting bruises now. But her struggles had given her a view of the one captor who had been hiding to the side, the one who had called her a "specimen."
The man who was coming down the hallway now, stopping in front of her prison and coldly examining her.
"Major Boyer," Jane said stiffly. "I hope you don't expect me to salute." Jane had met Boyer on one of her squad's missions. He was cold and arrogant, reminding her somewhat of General Hein when he wasn't using his "public" personality. Which is why it was no surprise that Hein and Boyer had been old friends.
"I won't be hurt," he answered mildly. "It's what else you can do with your hands that I'm interested in."
He knew… "What do you mean?" Jane asked, feigning puzzlement.
"You know what I mean," Boyer said. "Don't try to hide it. We know all about New York."
Who's we? she wondered, but knew it would do no good to ask. "What do you want with me?" she demanded.
Boyer's lips twisted into a smile. "Just to run a few tests. Something like what your friend Dr. Ross would do, but more thorough." Boyer gestured, and a handful of armored men came up to him. "Escort her to the lab. We'll begin right away."
Jane's blood ran cold as the soldiers again surrounded her, holding her so she couldn't fight. A lab… experiments…
Her worst fears had been realized.
* * *
It was the first time Aki had been alone since that morning. After scrambling around finding bedding for her guests, she was left with nothing to do, so now she sat on her couch, staring off into space. Guiltily, she realized she'd barely even thought of Gray in the excitement of the past few hours.
That was good, right? She shouldn't dwell on it. It would only make her more depressed, and that would distract her from the new mystery she'd found herself faced with.
Why were they alive? Was Gaia trying to put right what had gone wrong? But why bring back the Phantoms as well? And what was the deal with Jane's ability? It was almost like…
No. That's impossible, Aki chided herself. But she had to admit it: It was almost like magic.
Aki scowled at the direction of her thoughts. It was a foolish notion, and yet… magic would make a formidable weapon against the Phantoms. Perhaps that was why Gaia had given the powers to Jane and those others. But what about the Duos or Undeads? What point was there to them?
Aki sighed, pressing her hand to her forehead. She needed Dr. Sid. Her own thoughts were becoming foolish.
There was a knock at the door, and Aki surged to her feet. They were here. Aki had worried they may have had some trouble getting up here. The Hilton was no longer a high-class hotel since few people had traveled during the Phantom occupation, so it had changed to offering apartments. It still maintained its high standards, however, and she'd thought the scruffy soldiers would be stopped before they could come up.
Ryan and Neil stood at the door, and Jane was notably absent. The two soldiers had grim expressions on their faces as they entered.
"Where's Jane? What's wrong?" Aki asked.
"That's what we're gonna find out," Neil said. "Do you mind if we use your terminal?" He didn't wait for an answer, shouldering past Aki and activating the holographic components before booting up the system.
"She wasn't in the ship," Ryan said simply. He went to stand behind Neil as the tech loaded the disk.
"But someone else was," Neil said. Aki watched as the image of a familiar corridor came up, two soldiers in Deep Eyes gear creeping along its length.
"The military was aboard my ship?" Aki didn't ask where Neil had gotten the video. She didn't really care. What bothered her was the invasion evident on the screen, and by their own military! "You think they took Jane?"
"Yup," Neil said as he flipped through several more videos, finding one where Jane was assaulting the soldiers in the cargo bay before escaping.
"Maybe she got away," Ryan said hopefully, "and she'll find us."
Aki's eyes narrowed. First Dr. Sid seemed to vanish along with a fully trained Deep Eyes squad, and now more soldiers were after Jane. What was going on? Maybe her tired mind was making a mountain out of a molehill, but could the events be connected? "A conspiracy," she muttered. How had the soldiers known Jane was there? Did they know what she was? Someone must have told them…
"What did you say, Doctor?" Ryan asked.
"Nothing. Just talking to myself." I'm just paranoid, she thought, crossing her arms. Maybe they just wanted to talk to her.
A chill went down Aki's spine. She doubted it was that simple.
To Be Continued…