Broken Pixels (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 4) (31 page)

“I have no desire to hurt them. They are my comrades in arms, true believers in the cause.”

“No desire to hurt them? That’s why you dismantled dozens of them in that church and discarded their remains like so much trash? Why you got them hooked on those little diodes of yours and caused them to set themselves on fire?” Mara asked.

Abby rolled her eyes. “Collateral damage for the cause of progress. I needed to find out what made these people tick to see if they had what it would take to join me. As far as setting themselves on fire, that was simply a case of misplaced enthusiasm and lack of understanding. Poor souls confused about
being the light
with
being consumed by fire
. Unfortunate, but all part of the learning curve, I suppose.”

Mara scanned the crowd and was taken aback that everyone stared at her, and everyone shimmered in that light-pulsing way. All had been transfigured. She willed herself to look past that and raised her voice to them. “Do you hear that? Your friends and family were just collateral damage, unfortunate victims of progress. Is that a cause that you can follow?”

No one responded. They just stared at her, an odd blissful expression on their faces.

Pushing Cam ahead of her, keeping a firm grip on his arm, Abby walked to the middle of the room, now only fifty feet away from Mara. “They won’t listen to you. They see this transition as the next logical step in their evolution. Their scientists had even begun the preliminary research on how to accomplish it technologically. Where do you think I got the idea? I just gave them a little metaphysical boost, as it were.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you’re doing it. Certainly not out of the kindness of your heart.”

“No, kindness isn’t part of the equation, I’m afraid.”

“So why?”

“You’ll understand soon enough.” Her gaze slid away and over the crowd.

“Then tell me why you’re holding Cam. Why didn’t you come after me?”

“That would have resulted in a messy battle, and all I needed was to hold you at bay for a time. There will be plenty of time for fighting later,” she said.

Cam subtly tilted his head and shifted his eyes up and down. It caught Mara’s attention, and she looked in the direction he seemed to be pointing with his forehead yet saw nothing but shining people in the crowd. While in normal circumstances they would have been an odd sight, in this context nothing was distinctive about them. When Mara’s gaze shifted to Cam, his eyes were round, and his lips were compressed into a line, frustrated.

Abby continued talking when Mara didn’t respond. “Cam is my insurance policy while we finish our work.”

Mara felt something vibrate in her pocket. Her phone. Since she couldn’t just slip it out right there, she made a show of dropping the book bag off her shoulder, as if it were an accident. Turning away from Abby, she slipped out the phone and bent over in one smooth move. On the screen was a text message:
Signal me. – Cam
. Picking up the book bag, she slipped the phone back into her pocket and spun around. Cam had an expectant look on his face.

Abby seemed to have moved on from talking to Mara to addressing the crowd. Mara wondered if she had missed something. If so, her distraction did not appear to be drawing attention from Abby.

“As Adam and Meagan have shared their experience with each of you, now each of you will have the opportunity to share what you have learned with the rest of the world,” Abby said, slowing turning as she addressed those around her.

Mara nodded toward Cam as she visualized a signal connecting them through the phone in her pocket. His head twitched, and his lips turned up in a small smile.

In her head, Mara heard Cam’s voice. “You have to stop her.”

“I can’t do anything until I figure out how to get you away from her,” Mara thought back at him.

“You don’t understand. They are getting ready to transmit the transfiguration experience across the transceiver array. If you don’t stop them soon, I’ll be one of those human glow sticks, and so will everyone else in the world.”

“How can they do that? I thought you said the light they were emitting from their bodies was how they shared part of the experience.”

“I’m not sure, but, from the communications I’m picking up on the Sig-net, the folks in the control room are prepping this node to send out something called the transfiguration package, and I don’t think it’s a video of the pretty shiny people here in the atrium.”

“What should I do?” Mara asked.

“I don’t know but don’t worry about me. I’m a goner if we just stand around and do nothing.”

Mara focused on Abby again, now leading Cam toward the risers. There, she left Cam standing between Adam and Megan, which struck Mara as odd. It’s not as if the couple had Abby’s ability to make life painful for Cam as a deterrent to Mara. Of course Abby was standing just a few feet away, so maybe she didn’t feel the short distance was too much of a risk. Still, it made Mara suspicious, and she decided not to make a move toward rescuing Cam, at least not immediately.

Abby stepped to the edge of the risers and raised her hands, once again taking on the persona of a conductor. “See the light. Share the light,” Abby chanted, turning her face up toward the heavens.

Not a cult, my foot.

“It’s time to share your gifts, the experience of transfiguration with the rest of the world,” Abby said, stretching her arms higher. The gathering followed suit. Everyone turned their faces skyward and raised their arms, chanting,
See the light! Share the light!
Luminous bands poured from the bodies of the crowd, producing that streaming morning-sun effect Mara had seen from the couple earlier. They were sharing what Cam had called their ecstasy of the transition.

But sharing it with whom?

Mara’s gaze followed the flood of light upward. She eyed the open floors above the atrium and saw no people. The sphere suspended at the top of the atrium pulsed brightly, reflecting the light that poured onto it from below.

Cam’s voice cut into Mara’s consciousness. “They are doing it! They are sharing their transition experience with the world through the node. They are tapping into the transceiver array. You have to stop them! Hurry, I am beginning to feel it myself, the allure of what they are experiencing.”

Mara froze Time. Or at least she thought she did.

The gathering still chanted softly, and light flooded toward the energetic globe above. She glanced at Cam. A look of panic was frozen on his face. He wasn’t moving. She then looked at Abby, who also seemed motionless, her arms stuck in mid-wave while conducting the crowd. Motion from the center of the risers caught Mara’s eye.

Adam lowered his shimmering head and glared at Mara. Pointing an accusing finger at her, he yelled, “Release the Aphotis!” To the crowd he said, “Seize her!”

Every face in the room except Abby’s and Cam’s turned toward Mara. The crowd closed in on her, stepping in unison, each with a look of determination. Again she tried to stop them, to stop Time. They continued to advance.

Why wasn’t it working?

Mara backed away toward the door leading to the hall. A large man wearing a blue flannel shirt and work pants broke from the crowd and leaped at her. Mara splayed her hands before her, and he exploded into a blinding sunburst, like an exploding star, his iridescent pixels pancaked into a bright ring and flared to fill the room, passing through the crowd behind him. The mob stopped their advance.

For a second Mara felt a spark of hope.

Then the ring of pixels collapsed in on itself, and, in a second blinding burst, the man in flannel reappeared, intact.

Backing up, Mara felt her book bag hit the door, and she reached for the handle. The crowd closed in on her as she pressed down on it. The handle wouldn’t budge. It was locked. Out of desperation, she jiggled it once more. Nothing.

She extended her palm toward the flannel-shirt-clad man who was just a few feet away, sending a bolt of lightning right through him into the crowd. His body distorted for a moment like an old black-and-white television losing its horizontal hold. Bringing his hands up to his chest, he paused for a moment and seemed to gather himself somehow. He glared at Mara, and the crowd pushed forward. Just as they reached for Mara, she disappeared in a flash of light.

In another burst on the risers, next to Abby, Mara reappeared.

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

Mara reached out and grabbed Abby’s neck. To the crowd now with its back to her and pushing toward the far side of the atrium, Mara yelled, “Stop what you’re doing or your Aphotis buddy here is toast.”

Megan, who stood several feet away, seemed to
project
herself at Mara, moving so fast she appeared to blur, coming to a stop just inches from Mara. Balling up her fist, Megan thrust it into Mara’s face where it seemed to pass through her skull and exploded inside her eyes. Stars melted into blackness, and Mara felt herself spiraling downward, only vaguely aware of her head landing on the risers.

In the distance—no, in her head—she heard Cam’s voice, “The sphere, destroy the sphere!”

Mara blinked but couldn’t get the blackness to go away.

“It’s the only way to stop them!”

She reached into the air above her, visualized the spinning rivers of plasma churning in the glowing sphere suspended above the atrium. Shaking her head, she tried to clear her eyes. Again she saw nothing but darkness.

“Do it now!” Cam screamed in her head.

Lightning shot from her palm, up the atrium, past the three floors and into the center of the sphere suspended in the dome. The jolt of it cleared her eyesight, and she found herself looking straight up as the bolt made contact. The sphere exploded, rocking the entire building and sending a flood of luminescent goo pouring down toward the floor of the atrium. Screams of panic faded quickly as the shimmering crowd disappeared in a blur. Anticipating being smothered in plasma, Mara cringed and was in the process of curling into a ball when a strange hissing sound pierced the air. Looking up, she saw the plasma had turned into a massive cloud of neon yellow gas. It slammed into the floor of the atrium with a soft
whoosh
and billowed into the air.

Pushing herself up, Mara waved at the air with an arm, sending yellow whorls dancing through the air.
Finally caught a break
. Looking around, she seemed to be the only person left in the atrium. She hadn’t seen which way Abby and Cam had gone. The immediate danger seemed to have passed.
Or had it?
Warily she looked up.

Dangling from the center of the dome were the remains of the fractured sphere, now just a large cracked globe hanging askew, like a broken Christmas ornament. Intermittent sparks spewed from it, snapping and sizzling. Above it, rising yellow gas wisped and gathered at the top of the dome, accumulating in a cloud that thickened and pressed downward. Once the dome was filled with gas, it seeped into and accumulated inside the remains of the sphere.

“Get out, Mara! It’s going to explode!” Cam’s voice reverberated inside her head.

As Mara ran for the door, one spark, barely visible in the thick gas, ignited the cloud, sending a fireball hurtling toward the floor of the atrium while blowing the dome off the top of the roof. A tremor shook the building, sending debris falling from above. Mara staggered to the door just as the open air of the atrium burst into flames. A wide band of fire, smoke and hot air slammed her into a wall that crumpled on top of her.

She had returned to the darkness. This time there were no voices.

Consciousness came back to Mara, but the darkness did not go away, nor could she move a muscle. She felt bound—constricted somehow—as if someone had tied down her arms, legs and torso to a table. Add her head to that. Her neck did not respond when she attempted to turn it. Even her eyelids refused to respond. An overwhelming claustrophobia swept over her. For a second she thought she might be in a coffin. Her pulse quickened inside her head, and, as panic set in, she wasn’t even sure if she could breathe.

From somewhere a voice said, “I’m detecting beta wave activity. She’s coming to.”

“Mara? Can you hear me?” It sounded like Ping.

She tried to call out to him, but her mouth would not respond. She gritted her teeth and constricted her throat, physically forcing out the words. Then she felt something snap, as if her brain just discovered a connection to her diaphragm and provided enough energy to speak.

“Ping! Help me! I’m trapped!” she blurted out, and the connection was lost. She could not expel more words.

She felt pressure on her shoulder. “Mara, this is Dr. Canfield. Just relax for a moment. Can you do that? Don’t move or speak. Just relax and listen to the sound of my voice. I want you to look straight ahead. I know it looks dark to you right now, but, if you focus directly ahead, you’ll notice a small point of light.”

Mara clung to the voice and tried to relax. She peered through the darkness, not seeing anything at first. Then a tiny speck of whiteness winked into existence in the distance.

“Reach out to the light, Mara, and it will come to you,” Dr. Canfield’s voice said. “Don’t force it. Just reach out to the light with your mind and let it come to you.”

Resisting the urge to claw her way forward, Mara first willed herself to calm down. She focused on the speck of light in the distance.
Come to me
. The light rushed forward like a train in a tunnel, enveloping her in a white brightness that startled her and made her blink.

A beige blur hung in the air over her. A couple more blinks and the blur consolidated into a familiar but gauzy face, Ping bending over her with a smile on his lips but concern in his eyes.

“You had us worried there for a little while,” he said. “The doctor said she wasn’t sure if you would make it.”

“I feel so strange. Why can’t I move? Am I paralyzed?” Mara asked.

The doctor stepped into view, bending over Mara and placing a lit instrument to her eye. “No, you’re not paralyzed. I disabled your motor neurons to prevent you from hurting yourself in the event that you didn’t react well to the transition.”