Young Offender, Part 31:
Ivan felt an acute sense of panic as he faced the young girl. He reached out with his mind to keep track his mother, the real threat. The girl stared at him blankly; her eyes were glowing a duller color of amber. He knew if he psychically attacked the girl, it'd leave him open for his mother to return an attack. Plus, Francoise lay at his feet, and he could only detect weak brain activity from Albert and Jet.
He just couldn't focus on the male cyborgs enough to grab them for teleportation. He couldn't bring himself, no matter how strongly he felt about Francoise, to just grab her and run. Ivan didn't waste time with useless questions. His mind cast about franticly for some leverage, but he just didn't know the girl in front of him. Somehow, he knew her, though; he just couldn't place her.
/Are you ready to come home, my son?/
/No, you won't take me back to them!/
/You're father is expecting you./
/I will not go see that butcher!/
He was careful to not take his eyes from the girl's for fear of a mental strike. His mother slowly moved towards his field of vision, her eyes glowed a dull amethyst. She was starting to gather her power for an attack if Ivan resisted.
/Don't make me hurt you./ She project into his mind. Her eyes narrowed and glowed brighter. Ivan steeled himself, but the strike came from the girl. She reached into his mind and ramped his emotions to their maximum.
He struggled for breath as he gripped his emotions back from her control, just barely. That's when his mother froze his body telekinetically. He was still feeling the girl within his mind, looking for a crack in his mental walls. His only chance was to go on the offense.
He reached into her mind and yanked her conscious out towards him. Her panic caused him to struggle horribly as he dragged her conscious into his mind. The girl was more powerful than he'd anticipated. She knocked him back into unconsciousness, but he was able to keep dragging her further into the deepest recesses of his mind.
"Good work, my love. We'll move now, and I'll expect you back within a few hours," Fyodr said before hanging up the black rotary dial phone. He felt his lips tug upwards into a wicked smile.
He dialed the internal security line and waited for the Duty Officer to answer, "Yes, sir?"
"This is, Gamo. Meet me downstairs in the aeronautics lab with three men. Be ready to issue an arrest."
"Who's name?"
"Doctor Issac Gilmore."
"On who's orders?"
Fyodr snapped, "Lord Scar's! Now move!" He slammed the phone and left his personal lab to meet them. Fyodr wouldn't miss this for the world.
Gilmore was sketching out a design on graph paper. It wasn't going as planned, and his frustration was mounting. He glanced up the cavernous, aeronautics laboratory that was a huge hanger bay with crafts in all stages of repair or build. Mechanics in green jumpsuits and scientists in white lab coats were everywhere, scrambling around giant robotic forms, flying saucers, and sleek rockets.
Gilmore snorted; no wonder he couldn't concentrate with all the noise. Not only that, he was getting pressure to finish recreating his portion of the acceleration device. To start with, it wasn't very simple. He also knew that old Doc Carrol's death had delayed the project only by weeks. Whoever the Black Ghost had hired in his stead was a fast worker, but to Gilmore, the person's identity was still a mystery.
Gilmore felt someone close by his back so he whirled around and looked slightly downwards at Fyodr Gamo. He didn't care for the gleaming in his eyes or the self-satisfied sneer. He really didn't care to see the four security guards behind him.
"Good news, Issac. My wife just capture the Double Zero Cyborgs and are bring them back here."
Gilmore felt the blood drain from his face; he struggled to maintain even breathing. "Good, now we can't start getting money rolling in from the Merchants of Death," Gilmore said numbly.
Fyodr put his hands behind his back and slowly paced, that horrible smile still in place. "Aren't you curious how Erika was able to track them?"
"She's a psychic, little mystery there."
"Aw, but it was deductive reasoning we used. Give it up, Issac! We know you allowed yourself to be Ivan's tool. Surrender now."
Gilmore scowled. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Well, Erika will be home soon enough, and we'll find out exactly how complicit you were with these cyborgs." Fyodr pointed a finger at Gilmore and said to the guards, "Take him away."
The captain stepped forwards, looking ready of a fight, but Gilmore held up his hands and gave over the red pencil he had been sketching with. They quickly cuffed him and escorted him down the hallways. He tried concentrating to see if Ivan lurked somewhere in his mind, but there was total silence.
Ivan cast his eyes around the mossy, desolate, boggy forest setting his mind conjured. Half-light illuminated his creation; it was complete with the lichen and peat smells of an arctic swamp. He was unnerved that the girl wasn't standing in front of him. She had some how slipped away from his control and was roaming his mind-scape.
A flash of amber caught his eyes. He walked on the soft ground towards a clump of trees. He made the trees vanish in a wisp of fog. Ivan was shocked to see a five-year-old girl with raven pigtails and fear in her eyes. She gasped, turned, and ran towards more trees.
"Wait!" he shouted and ran after her. He slowed when he saw the girl peek out from behind the tree; he could tell she was trembling. "Are you the girl I just fought?"
The girl nodded, her face appeared tear-stained. He crouched down and looked at her face. It was the same girl, only much younger. "What's your name?"
"Ann Ember," she whispered.
He nodded, remembering the girl's father. He held out his hand towards her. "Do you know where you are?"
The girl shook her head and buried her face against the mossy tree. He moved closer to her, very slowly. He was about to touch her shoulder with his finger tips when a golden light lashed out and popped his hand with extreme heat. He flinched back and scowled down at the little girl.
"Stop it! You're in my mind!" Ivan snapped. The girl turned and ran deep into an even darker, overgrown place. Ivan gasped realizing she was diving deeper into his own subconscious. He chased after her with gritted teeth.
The forest's tree gradually gave way into a less organic tangle. The roots faded into thick wires, the brackish water turned thick and oily, and the leaves above were now silver and coppery spikes. He saw a slight flash, and then he heard the girl scream.
He ran through the plastic and metal forest to find the girl being dragged into a blackish pool; a huge wire was wrapped around her throat. He tried using his telekinesis to stop it, but nothing happened. He shook off his shock and ran to the edge. He grasped her small wrist and tugged, to no avail. It was his own unconsciousness; he had no way of stopping his psyche's self-defenses. He was now being pulled with her, but he refused to let her be destroyed.
"No! Stop! She's not going to hurt me!" Ivan shouted to the peacock colored sky. A small amber light appeared above the girl's head. Ivan watched with wide eyes as it grew and took the shape of a ghostly woman with long, golden, flowing hair.
He looked down to see the wire recede. Ivan yanked the girl to the safety of a metallic floor riddled with bolts. He hovered over her, trying to revive her as the glowing, amber woman drifted down beside them.
He glanced up; this was someone he certainly knew, but recognition was far away because her long hair hid her oval face. He slid away and let the woman's long, tapered fingers trace over the girl's face.
"She'll be okay, Ivan." Her deep, rich voice startled him. He knew that voice! It used to sing lullabies to him. He reached over and slowly drew back some of the golden hair. Large, dark brown eyes looked back at him.
He knew those eyes, but he wasn't used to seeing them without the taint of madness. She smiled warmly at him and stretched out her arms.
/It's me, my little Ivan. Don't you remember me?/
/Katharina!/ Ivan's mind responded before he launched himself into his aunt's thin arms.
Albert woke up, his eyes were blurry. He tried to sit up from the hard metal surgical table and gave up with a groan; his head throbbed horribly. He had such trouble; he looked down and realized his right arm was gone as well as his legs from the knees down.
"Don't struggle too much. You're in the middle of an upgrade."
Albert's teeth clenched together as his head jerked around to see a bearded man with glasses. "Who are you?" Albert demanded.
"You don't remember me? I'm Doctor Gaia. Then again, you may have been on too many narcotics the first time you were under my knife," the man in a white lab coat said, preparing a syringe. "Don't worry, what we have planned for you will hurt a lot, but this should put you in bliss."
"Don't touch me," Albert warned, his throat was so dry.
"Guards!" Gaia called out. Instantly, Albert was swarmed by five, black uniformed guards. They forced his left arm over to Gaia, who then gave Albert the injection. Seconds later, Albert felt too heavy and too apathetic to move. Darkness set in as he caught the glare off a surgeon's knife.
Francoise started awake and stood slowly. Her heart thudded painfully when she realized she was in a plain cell with bars across the front of the room. She stumbled towards the bars and steadied herself. The hallway was dim and the cell across from her was an empty room with a surgical table and equipment. She stayed on her feet in spite of her deepest fear being realized.
"Ivan!" she called out.
"Frannie?"
"Jet!" She walked over to the left side of her cell, seeing his hand in front of the bars. She grabbed his hand too and squeeze it.
"I'm locked up. You too?"
"In the next cell. I'm alone. Is Albert with you? Or Ivan?" She asked.
"Naw, they took Albert." Jet's hand clenched hers hard. "I don't even know what they did to Ivan. I guess we're back on Ghost Island. At least, I overheard something."
"Yes," she whispered. "I'm so... wait! Jet, someone is coming. Don't let go," she begged, her eyes getting moist.
"No chance," he said in a low, threating growl.
A man appeared in front of Francoise's cell and looked down at her hands that were gripping Jet's. "It's time to recalibrate 002 and get the mapping for the acceleration device." Francoise shivered at the man's seemingly kind tone.
"No! I'm not going with you, you stupid fuck! I'll slice your head off if you come near me!" Jet shouted; she hung onto him tighter.
"You don't have a choice. Now, let go of 003 and stand up."
"No! Fuck off and die!" he shouted.
"Guards! Come and get 002."
Francoise watched a group of five men in olive colored uniforms with black batons go to the cell beside hers. Moments later Jet's hands were wrenched from hers and she heard the sounds of fighting beside her. She bit her lower lip as the fighting died down into the eerie sound of a battering.
"Come now, don't smash him up! He costs a small fortune," the doctor called out. Two of the guards dragged Jet between him. Jet, to his credit, was still conscious and struggling in spite of his battered appearance. Francoise reached and and grabbed his dangling hand. He responded and grabbed hers back with both of his.
"No! Let him go!" Francoise felt his finger tips slip away as the guards pulled him to the surgical room across from her cell. She swiped at the tears on her cheeks and glared at the doctor. "You're a monster!"
"For trying to help perfect humanity? My dear, you should be thanking us. You have virtual immortality. Why would you reject such a thing?"
"It wasn't my choice. You forced it on me."
The man, to his credit, actually looked thoughtful. A smile appeared and he nodded. "Even so, it's too late now. Accept the gift you've been given."
"Dr Yana," one of the guards called out after they wrestled Jet onto the surgical table and strapped him down.
Jet started cussing a blue-streak, which Francoise guessed was as much to bolster his own courage as it was to intimidate the guards.
"A friendly warning, if you don't start showing gratitude soon, your extremely long life will be lived in agony," Dr Yana said before he swirled around and went towards Jet.
The man brought a black mask over Jet nose and mouth. Soon the redhead fell into a deep sleep. Francoise sunk to her knees, unable to take her eyes off of Jet. All she had to cling to was the memory of Albert once telling her not to despair; it was the anchor she used to keep calm.
To be continued.