A Plain Jane Book One (12 page)

Jane had not killed them,
she had only stunned them, and both would be awake in under an
hour, though probably with considerable headaches.

Yet
even though Jane had not killed them, she
hardly felt that she had shot them either. Something else –
whatever had control of her body – had done that. Never in her life
had she showed such agility, speed, and strength. In fact, many
doctors had told her that her general mobility was slightly below
that of the average human. Yet what Jane had just done was not
average in any sense. She’d just overcome tough, incredibly
well-trained guards. And she wasn’t even
sweating.

‘
Oh my god,’ she said to herself
quickly, swallowing heavily as she did. ‘What have I done? What
have I done? What's going on?’ Yet no matter how often she pleaded
with herself to stop, turn around and go back to bed, her limbs had
a completely different idea. The gun was still lightly and expertly
clutched in her right hand. With the other hand she reached up to
the panel that was on the side of the door that led into the
research lab beyond. The panel and the door would be locked out –
the second Jane had fired a weapon, the whole defensive net in this
section would have snapped on. In fact, Jane had little doubt that
an entire team of security officers were on their way now. No doubt
her gun would no longer work too, an interference field likely in
place in the corridor by now.

As if to confirm her
suspicions, the lighting in the corridor flickered and then cut to
about half illumination. Then a blaring siren echoed through the
hall.

R
ather than turn around, put the gun on the
ground, crumple up against a wall, and wait to be dragged off to
prison, Jane just watched as one of her hands reached out to the
panel and she started typing something blindingly fast. She had no
idea what she was typing, and in a second she stopped and latched
her fingers onto the side of the panel. In a neat and even move she
easily pulled it away from the wall. Then she turned the gun around
in her grip, ripped off the panel that led to the energy node that
powered it within, and pulled out some kind of glowing crystal. She
expertly managed to put the crystal into the exposed panel and
hooked it up to the system core. Then she put the panel back onto
the wall and typed something extra into it, her fingers still
blisteringly fast.

Suddenly the doors
opened.

‘
My god, my god, what's
happening?’ Jane kept on asking. In another second she was walking
through the door to the scene of three security officers with
plasma rifles, not stun guns, trained right at her, and several
other scientists standing off carefully to the side.

It was now far too late to
turn around and go back to bed. Jane had just attacked two security
officers and had apparently hacked right into the Galactic Force
computer. Nope, she wouldn't be going back to bed for a long time
yet, but a quick trip to the morgue wasn't out of the
question.

Filled with horror at what
she was doing, she waited to be shot. However her body had other
plans.

Lucas Stone

By the time he made it to
the Galactic Force, it was in full shutdown. Lucas, via his armor,
was getting live security feeds telling him that two shots had been
fired on the research level, and that an interference field was now
in place. While the research level was not where Specimen 14 was,
the Paran Artifact was being kept there.

Lucas paused for barely a
moment, his head actually swiveling from the different buildings
that held Specimen 14 and the Paran Artifact.

‘
What's going on? What's
happening?’ he asked through his live com-line, directing his
message right to the Head of Security.

‘
We have massive energy drain in
Basement Level One. We have had two shots fired outside Research
Lab Two,’ the Security Chief said, her breath heavy and loud. She
was obviously midway through running or chasing
something.

‘
Direct me,’ Lucas said
immediately.

‘
They have just hacked – Prack.
They’ve just hacked through the Galactic Force computer. They are
into Research Lab Two.’

That made his mind up for
him. Without waiting for another word, he set his priorities. And
his priority was to get the hell to Research Lab Two as fast as his
armor could manage. As he ran, he sent a quick message to Alex,
telling him to get his butt down to Basement Level One as soon as
he arrived.

Lucas had absolutely no
idea what he was up against, but something or someone who could
hack so easily and quickly into the Galactic Force, was something
he needed to stop.

So Lucas ran.

Chapter 8

Jane

She didn't even pause. One
of the security officers told her to halt, but she did the exact
opposite. She ducked down, snapped onto the floor and did an
automatic and quick roll, coming up and pressing into a full and
neat somersault until she had landed right behind a
console.

In another second two
blistering rifle shots slammed into the side of the
console.

She didn't hold her breath
or scream; whatever had control of her body apparently didn't want
to waste the energy.

There was absolutely no
doubt that it was in full control now.

Jane somehow still had the
ability to speak, and she was now mumbling to herself frantically,
begging with herself to stop it.

Yet
her body had something else in
mind.

The research lab was a big
one, and though Jane had never had much to do with them, she had
seen a couple in her time. This one was almost the size of a
hanger, and had several banks of highly-sophisticated computer
terminals, with rows and rows of different holographic pictures and
images swirling over them.

Beyond the bank of
computers and floating holograms, right at the back of the room,
was something else. It was surrounded by a heavy circle of yellow
light, no doubt a sophisticated containment field of some sort, or
perhaps a security field. Really, she’d never had much to do with
anything like this, so she was just guessing.

Within the field was a
simple black box. It was neat, it was even, it had no markings, it
appeared to be perfectly flat on every side, and it was jet
black.

The second Jane saw it,
was the second a powerful shock of recognition blazed through her
stomach. Though she could not control her limbs, she could still
feel the sensation as it ran through them.

Several more plasma blasts
ate into the side of the console beside her, and in another moment
she heard a clicking sound. Before she could wonder what it was,
she practically scooted to the side, dug her hand into the panel of
one of the consoles beside her, and then brought it up above her
head as an object slammed down. There was a great electrical
discharge that was absorbed by the panel casing, and then Jane
found herself throwing the casing to the side.

She looked down briefly to
notice that something looking suspiciously like a shock grenade was
lying on the ground.

Dear god, they had thrown
a shock grenade at her, and she’d ripped the panel off a computer
console to protect herself. She’d had no idea what they were
throwing at her, and yet her body had reacted before the thing had
come into sight.

‘
Oh no, oh no, oh no,’ was all
she could repeat to herself.

She waited, still pressed
up against the bank of consoles behind her, and she could now hear
the footsteps of someone coming up behind. Perhaps they believed
the shock grenade had stunned her, because the cadence of their
step was easy but still suspicious.

She waited, or more
accurately, her body waited, until the steps almost drew parallel
with the bank of consoles. Then she flipped up, faster than she had
ever moved in her life, and she brought a hand right up and twisted
it over the grip of the security guard's gun, using her leg to push
between his, and then flicking up her ankle, making the security
guard lose balance as she forced his leg off the ground. She pushed
heavily into him, grabbed the gun, and then dived back behind the
security console.

‘
Good god, what the prack is
going on?’ she heard somebody ask desperately from the other side
of the room, perhaps one of the scientists.

She absolutely and
completely shared their sentiment. Jane desperately needed to know
what was going on too.

Once again, her body had
other plans.

Before she could wait for
the two remaining security guards to come up with another plan to
disable or kill her, she felt her arm lift up behind her and twist
until her palm was resting against the console panel above. She was
still sitting there with her back pressed against the console, her
legs still pulled up in front of her, her free hand still holding
the gun. Then, without even looking at the panel, she started to
feel her fingers dance across it, as they typed something quickly
and efficiently. She had no idea what she was doing, but obviously
that didn't matter. In another moment, there was a low hum, and
then a quick click, and finally she let herself stand up. Well, not
that she let herself do anything; her body decided that it could
stand up. When it did, Jane noted that all three security guards
and all of the scientists were now locked in place with security
fields.

They were all looking at
her, human or alien, with expressions of absolute horror on their
faces.

‘
Who the hell are you?’ one of
the security guards snapped out in a gruff growl. ‘You won't get
away with this. You would have triggered the security alarms,
they'll be coming for you. There's nowhere to go.’

‘
Who are you?’ one of the
scientists repeated, a human female, her expression perhaps the
most horrified of all.

‘
I work in admin,’ Jane said
simply, her voice shaking, but her body remaining absolutely still
and controlled. Then she felt herself turning, felt her grip
tighten around the rifle as she brought it up, her other hand
holding it firmly in place.

She started to walk
towards the little black box on the far side of the
room.

Jane was aware of a large
commotion outside of the research lab doors; she could feel
something shaking under her feet, and though the doors were
soundproof, she still fancied she could hear the shouts and screams
of what was no doubt the entire security corps of the Galactic
Force waiting to burst through and shoot her dead.

Jane didn't wait to find
out, what she did was walk towards the field on the other side of
the room, and she started shooting. She would take one easy step
forward, her finger squeezed down on the trigger of the plasma
rifle, with shot after shot slamming into the field. At first, it
buzzed as the shots had little effect, but with every step she took
closer, and every blistering round she fired, it started to weaken,
it started to crackle, and then, when Jane was almost upon it, it
changed color to a deep red.

There was a massive bang
as the doors behind her exploded. Before Jane could turn around and
watch herself get shot, she felt herself twist the rifle in her
grip and she lunged towards the security field, using the butt of
the rifle to strike it. That strike was all it took. The security
field suddenly blanked out.

There were several screams
from the other side of the room, and she could hear round after
round being shot at something. Out of the corner of her eye, as her
body lunged towards the box on the ground, she saw a flickering
blue security field in front of the door. Apparently when her body
had expertly managed to fool the computer into putting security
fields around all of the people in the room, it had also, quite
smartly, put one right in front of the door. But as Jane had been
able to shoot through the security field containing the box, the
people in front of the door would be able to do the same. The
second they did, was the second they would shoot her.

Once again she did not
stop to wait and find out. She felt her body collapse to the ground
as she grabbed quickly at the box. She slammed one of her palms
right down onto the underside of it and then twisted it in her grip
and slammed her other palm down on the top.

There was a great snapping
sound and an enormous crackling, and Jane was sure that the
security field in front of the door had finally failed.

Suddenly something
happened to the box. Something surprising, something quick. In the
blink of an eye it was no longer a box. In the blink of an eye it
was something else entirely. It jumped right out of her hand and
landed on the ground, and then it morphed and grew. In a second it
was a creature, a tall, incredible looking, completely black
creature. It looked like a robot with a large barrel chest, but it
seemed to have human, almost organic eyes.

Suddenly it moved. It
moved faster than anything Jane had ever seen. It flipped right
over her and landed behind her, just as a shot slammed into it, a
shot that was meant for her. The shot did not affect it in the
least, and it snapped down and jammed its hand right into the edge
of the yellow ring that had been producing the security field. As
several more shots slammed into it, the security field buzzed back
into place. Yet this time it was different; it now crackled with
energy. It was also no longer a simple yellow; it was now a
dynamic, electric blue.