Discovery (Science of Psionics Book #1) (12 page)

Energetically will I meet the enemies of my
country. I shall defeat them on the field of battle for I am better
trained and will fight with all my might. Surrender is not a Ranger
word. I will never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of
the enemy and under no circumstances will I ever embarrass my
country.

Readily will I display the intestinal
fortitude required to fight on to the Ranger objective and complete
the mission, though I be the lone survivor.

Comforted by my reaffirmation of the Rangers
Creed, I rose and tried to decide if I should slaughter my wife or
my friends first.

Mark: The Morning After

I awoke slowly, so as to not disturb the
percussion band marching around inside my skull. Crawling out of
bed, I made my way to the shower where I stood soaking until I felt
partially human again. I didn’t feel like shaving, so I just put on
some sweats. I was amazed that the clock said it was almost noon. I
haven’t overslept so much since my college days.

Leaving the bedroom, I heard voices coming
from the kitchen so I made my way there. I wanted about a gallon of
hot strong coffee. Conversation stopped as I rounded the corner and
they all turned to look at me.

“Morning,” I mumbled. “Gimme coffee … lots of
coffee.”

Linda jumped up to give me a hug, while Carl
went to fetch me a mug.

Linda guided me to a chair and said, “After
you went to bed last night, we got into an argument with Sid. He
got pissed off and left.”

“Gone where,” I asked, taking my first sip of
the glorious coffee.

Linda filled me in on the details of what
transpired after I crashed, with occasional interjections from Carl
and Sara. Carl kept my coffee mug topped up and became a candidate
for sainthood as far as I was concerned. When they finished, I
leaned back and tried to organize my thoughts.

“So you don’t think he’ll spill the beans?” I
asked Sara.

“Nope,” she replied firmly. “He’ll go out and
blow off some steam for a day or two, but he’ll be back.”

“Alright, I guess it’s too late to stop him
anyway, so we might as well just carry on.”

“What did you have in mind for today?” Carl
eagerly asked.

“I want to test the effects of sitting on my
ass in the hot sun, while my friends dote over me and bring me food
and drink on demand.”

Linda and Sara laughed but Carl looked
confused for a few seconds before joining in.

“Ok, I guess we can take a day off and just
relax,” he conceded.

Despite the unpleasantness from yesterday, we
had a very nice day. I alternated between the patio lounge and the
hot tub, with the others joining me off and on. We talked of
trivialities, Carl and Sara threw a football around for a while,
and Linda played the role of hostess with good grace. It was a good
day indeed.

Usually I would be bored by now. I was always
one of those people who had to keep busy, but getting a big scare
like I did yesterday made me appreciate the little things in life.
A wonderful baked chicken dinner crowned the day for me.

Afterward, we sat around the living room
watching movies, except for Carl who disappeared into the office
once dinner was finished. In between movies we had a bit of a break
while Linda went to make some popcorn. I went to see what Carl was
up to, thinking that he might like to watch the next one with
us.

“Hey hoser,” I said, stepping into the
office. “We’re about to put
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
on. Care to join us?”

“Sure. I was just messing around, hoping that
inspiration would strike if I let my mind go fallow.”

He was sitting in Linda’s favorite chair by
the window with his laptop on his legs. “Hoping that events might
duplicate themselves for you, eh?”

Smiling weakly he replied, “One can always
hope, eh!”

“Well take off, eh! Come join us in the
living room.”

“Ok, eh! I’ll be right there.”

Smiling, I wandered back to the living room.
I always had fun teasing Carl about his Canuck vocabulary, and he
usually played along with good grace.

***

The next few days went by about the same, but
a little more strained. Nobody spoke of it, but we were all
wondering when Sid was going to come back. I felt like I was back
to normal after the first day of rest and relaxation, but didn’t do
much with my ability. I kept having visions of news trucks pulling
up to the house as we were flying around the yard.

On the fourth day, the weather turned foul,
and a nasty thunderstorm kept us inside. Carl had become an almost
permanent fixture in the office window seat, and with a storm on
the horizon for today, he looked hopeful. Or maybe that was
desperation.

Sara had taken to joining Carl in the office
sometimes, which was a bit surprising since they usually didn’t
have much in common to talk about. She even played a few games with
Carl, borrowing Linda’s computer since she never brought one of her
own down here. Even as we did mundane things around the house, my
mind kept working on the problem of how our abilities could be
shared with others.

If I thought about it, I could feel the
background hum that I associated with the power. With the storm
overhead, I tried to
reach out
to it and see if I could feel
anything stronger, but couldn’t notice anything different. Today’s
storm felt
normal
, for lack of a better word. Carl would be
disappointed.

I put together a quick lunch for us all and
brought it into the office where everyone else had congregated. I
had just finished doling out the sandwiches when Sara’s phone
rang.

“It’s Sid,” she cried, looking at the number
before answering. “Hello?” A pause before, “Where are you?”

“Sid, slow down … wait a minute … calm down a
sec and listen. We’re gonna figure it out here, it just takes time.
Why don’t you come on back?”

She began pacing in front of the table. “Whoa
there, what gives you the right to demand that? … I see … you don’t
need to be an asshole about it.”

She threw me an exasperated look. “Fine, I’ll
tell them,” she said curtly, hanging up.

“Well, as you know, that was Sid. It appears
that he’s gone around the bend over this whole thing and is
demanding full disclosure from us.”

“Disclose to whom, the media?” Carl
asked.

“Not to the media, the military. He wants us
to give them everything, and issued us a twenty-four hour deadline
to comply. He also warned that there would be consequences to our
refusal.”

“I’m not about to give up my freedom and
become an experimental lab rat!” Linda replied indignantly.

“He’s bluffing,” Sara said with certainty.
“Since he doesn’t like the press any more than we do, what’s the
worst that could happen?”

***

We talked about it through the rest of the
night, as well as the next morning, but nobody was willing to
change plans to accommodate Sid’s presumptuous demands. As near as
I can figure, it was twenty-four hours to the second when Sid
called back for our answer.

“Hello?” Sara answered. “Yes, we talked about
it, and the answer is still no. Come back and I promise that we’ll
figure it … Hello? Hello? He hung up,” she told us crossly.

“Now what do we do?” Linda asked.

“I guess we wait,” Sara began. “If we don’t
want to play his game then all we can do is see what his next move
is, then plan our own.”

“I hate waiting games,” I commented. “By
definition, they’re a waste of time.”

“Hey, what’s that?” Carl asked, jumping up
and peering out the window. “It looks like some kind of bright
flare.”

“GET AWAY FROM THE WINDOW!” Sara screamed as
she jumped up from her seat and tackled Carl.

Just as she hit him, I heard the sound of
breaking glass, followed by Carl crying out in pain.

“Everybody get down and stay away from the
windows,” she continued frantically. “That was a rifle shot.”

“He wouldn’t dare!” I replied indignantly.
But as I threw myself down to the ground, I thought, “I guess he
does
dare, the bastard.”

“My leg,” Carl sputtered, “I think I’ve been
shot!”

“Stay back, don’t cross the window. I got
this,” Sara said.

I watched Sara drag Carl into the corner away
from the window as I tried to think of how I could help. “The first
aid kit dummy, reach out for the kit.” As I reached out with my
mind to find it, I watched Sara pull out a folding buck knife from
her hip pocket. She wasted no time and started to cut away the
jeans from around Carl’s wound.

Once I had the kit, I dropped it next to her
and turned my attention to the window. A few mental tugs later, and
I had the window blinds in place to block the snipers view of us.
Feeling slightly safer, I made the move over to Carl to see how
badly he was hurt.

“Careful with that knife,” Carl said
nervously. “You’re pretty close to some sensitive bits.”

“Shut up and hold still,” Sara ordered
curtly. “If my knife ever slips down there it won’t be by
accident.” Wiping blood away from the wound she said, “It doesn’t
look too bad. It’s a simple graze with a bit of shrapnel from
something.”

Grabbing the kit, she quickly cleaned and
dressed the wound. Finished, she crawled over to the window and
reached out with the tip of her knife to rattle the blinds. Nothing
happened, so she crawled closer and peeked out of the lower corner
where there was a small opening.

“I can’t see anything. Take care of the other
windows, make sure the doors are all locked, and keep out of sight
at all times. Move now!”

I was a bit offended by her abrupt orders,
but quickly dismissed that thought as childish. Someone had just
shot Carl, and with her military background, Sara was the best one
of us to take command.

“
I’ll take the south side, you go
north
,” Linda sent to me.

“
On my way
,” I shot back, already
moving. “
Take care to wait a sec before moving past any window
or door that you touch, and keep low
.”

“
I’m way ahead of ya. Don’t forget the
garage
.”

It only took a few minutes to block all of
the windows and make sure everything was locked tight. With that
done, I tried to think of what else we should do. “
We need
barricades
,” I sent to Linda. Without waiting for a reply, I
started moving the heavier furniture pieces around to block off as
much as I could.

Hearing the banging of the furniture, Sara
rushed out to the living room expecting to find combat in progress.
Seeing what we were doing, she skidded to a halt and cheered. “Now
that’s quick thinking, securing the access points. Did you build
any shields?”

Cursing myself for not thinking of it sooner,
I started building up layered shields in front of each window and
door. Linda ran back to the bedrooms, presumably to do the same.
Once we had the house as safe as we could make it, we all
reconvened back into the office.

“The bastard sent me a text message,” Sara
said fuming.

HOPE YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND SOON. LOVE YA.

Linda: Under Siege

I couldn’t believe this was happening. Who in
their right mind does this kind of thing? Mark and Sara were both
pacing back and forth, one on each side of the office, like twin
metronomes. Sara kept pulling out her phone, starting to type, then
putting it away again swearing. She suddenly bolted out of the
room, returning a few moments later with a hand gun and a couple of
clips.

“I just remembered that we had this in the
bag from our mountain trip,” she said happily.

Mark looked thoughtful but fairly calm
considering what just happened, and that helped calm me down a
little bit. I decided to check on how Carl was doing. He looked
pretty bummed out, sitting there in the corner still nursing his
wound.

“Care for a dance?” I asked, squatting next
to him.

“Not funny,” he whined. “I’m dying here and
you’re making bad jokes.”

“Can I get you anything?”

“A glass of water would rock, maybe a pillow
too.”

“I think you can crawl out of your corner if
you want to,” Sara interjected. “What I got out of the assholes
last message is that he wants us to change our minds, so he’ll give
us some time to stew.”

“How long do you think?” Mark queried.

“I dunno, it could be an hour or it could be
a full day. Either way, we need to come up with a plan in a
hurry.”

“Son of a bitch,” Carl exclaimed. “The
bastard shot my laptop when he got me.”

Glancing over to where it lay abandoned next
to the window, I saw that he was right. The bullet had gone right
through the keyboard. That must have been the source of the
shrapnel that Sara had removed from around his wound.

“That gives me an idea,” Mark said. He
started digging through his knapsack. “Here it is, my little travel
webcam. Let’s set this up in the window so we can get a view
outside without poking our noses into the line of fire.”

“Excellent idea,” Sara proclaimed. Turning
her head back and forth between Carl and me she asked “Do either of
you have one also?”

“Mine was built into my laptop,” Carl said,
shaking his head.

“Same with mine, but I might have an old one
that I used with my old machine. Let me check.” I pulled my box of
old computer stuff out of the closet and started rifling through it
quickly. “Here it is,” I said in triumph. “Where do you want
it?”

“Let’s try the patio doors. That’s probably
our weakest point, and Mark’s cam should get a good view of the
front side from here.”

Agreeing, I grabbed my laptop and followed
her over to the patio door. Even though we had the house sealed,
Sara was cautious at the corners and I wondered if this was how she
acted when in a war zone. “
Maybe we are in a war zone
,” I
thought to myself as we set things up.