Discovery (Science of Psionics Book #1) (16 page)

“What if we run into anyone?” I asked.

“Keep your distance, keep moving, and take a
roundabout route to the pool if you have to. If the pool area is
dangerous, then you and Mark will have to figure out a backup spot
to meet at. Also, if you’re forced out of the trees, try not to fly
in a straight line. Keep as evasive as you can and never ever stop
to give them a stationary target.”

Glancing at her watch she took a deep breath
and said, “It’s time. We need to go now or it’ll be too dark before
we get to the pool. Give us some shields and launch the dummy.”

I quickly built the shields around Sara and
myself and sent to Mark “
I’m ready if you are
.”

“
As ready as I’ll ever be. You take care,
you hear?
”

“
You take care too. I love you
.”

“
Love you too. I’m clearing the window
NOW!
”

On his ‘
NOW
’ I sent the dummy flying
out of the window and turned it straight toward the tree line.
Having only the mental ghost image of the forest to go by, I was
rather proud that I only bumped the dummy into one tree. I took it
into the forest for a good hundred yards before thinking that it
was good enough. Rather than just dropping it, I decided to park it
up high in the branches in case we managed to fool anyone. It was
possible that someone might watch that tree for quite a while
waiting for movement.

“The dummy made it safe,” I squawked. “Get
the door open and let’s do this before I chicken out.”

Sara quickly pulled the door away and drew
her pistol. “Go, go, go now!”

We each picked up our respective partner and
flew out of the door; Mark with Carl in the lead, Sara and I a few
seconds behind them. I noticed that Mark had separated himself from
Carl by a few yards, where I had stuck Sara almost on my back. I
wasn’t sure which way would be safer so I just left it like
that.

Keeping in mind Sara’s order to stay evasive,
I flew us in a random corkscrew pattern as I turned toward the
stream path. I kept it up as best as I could, but once inside the
trees it became fairly difficult. Risking a glance over at Mark, I
saw that he was having a difficult time of it. I had plenty of
experience flying with Sara up to the pool, but Mark had only taken
a passenger a couple of times.

He was forced to keep mostly to the open
area, but at least he was dodging around well. Neither one of us
tried taking our decoys into the woods. I was able to stay inside
the trees, and even with all of my extra darting around between
them, I kept up an even pace with Mark. Eventually this became
harder to do as we started losing what little light we had.
Reluctantly, I broke out of the tree cover and joined Mark above
the stream.

“
Almost there hon, I think we made
it!
” I sent.

“
We can slow down now. We’ll take a quick
break when we get there so Sara can tell us how to get to the spot
she picked out for our refuge
.”

I nodded my agreement, realizing after the
fact that he probably couldn’t see the gesture in what little light
we had left. Before I could correct myself we came over the last
rise into the pool clearing and the world exploded around us.

A bright light filled my eyes and a mighty
roar burst into my ears. It was instantly followed by intense pain,
until finally I fell into darkness.

Sara: Second Interlude

Our flight from the house was the scariest
thing that I’ve ever encountered. It was also the most
exhilarating. Flying through the trees at a high rate of speed
reminded me of that scene from Return of the Jedi where Luke and
Leia were racing through the forest on hover bikes. I thought that
my sidearm would be more useful during our flight, so I wore my
Dragunov slung on my back. I was so enthralled with the flight that
it made no difference.

I had asked Linda to use plenty of dodging on
our flight but
WOW
; she brought the art of evasion to a
whole new level. She kept spinning through the trees for far longer
than I could have hoped. I like to think I’ve got some guts, but if
I was the one flying, I would have given up on the trees long ago.
She damn near made it all the way to the pool.

I figured that the next part of our flight
would be slower, so I holstered my weapon so I could switch back to
my rifle once we landed. It was by that bit of luck that I was
looking away when we flew over the lip of the falls and into an
explosion.

I smelled burnt hair and felt wetness on my
face as I flew into Linda’s back. The salty metallic taste telling
me it was blood. We started falling, and I instinctively clenched
my arms around her. “Get control, bring us up,” I screamed in her
ear as I slid down around her.

She looked unconscious but we stopped
falling, so she must have been aware enough to hear me and react.
Heartened, I peered around and saw the guys lying in the water
below the pool. I wasn’t sure if they were alive or not, but we had
to try and help them. I pulled my head up as close to Linda’s as I
could and tried to push it over to indicate where to look. “Get the
guys out of the water, we need to move before Sid and his cronies
arrive.

That was a bad move on my part, as her blood
ran into my eyes and I desperately tried to blink them clear.
Frantic, I was about to repeat myself when I saw the guys start to
float up toward us. “Way to go, now get us up and over the next
cliff. We’re not safe here.”

Linda was still completely unresponsive in my
arms and I realized that the blood that covered my face had come
from her. As the four of us began rising as a group I felt like
cheering. Hurt or not, my girl was tough! I shouted out the
directions to the cliff side cave that I spotted last week, Linda
steering us as directed almost before the command left my
mouth.

It wasn’t far, but with my ears ringing,
blood in my eyes and mouth, and my arms going numb it seemed to
take ages. We finally made it into the cave, where Linda
unceremoniously dumped us to the floor. I crawled off of her,
pulled my mag-lite out of my jacket and rolled her over. She was
out cold with a badly bleeding gash across her forehead. I wiped
off the blood with the back of my hand to get a better look and it
didn’t look too terribly bad. Head wounds always seem to bleed a
lot and look worse than they really were. She was breathing and
that was the important thing.

I crawled over to the guys, stripping the
pack off my back as I went so I could get at the first aid kit
inside. Other than some minor burns and scrapes, Mark seemed to be
ok, just pale and unconscious. He looked sort of like he did after
the plastique test knocked him for a loop.

Carl started groaning at this point and began
trying to sit up. I started to help him and, giving him the once
over, noticed only a big bump on his forehead. “Are you all right?”
I asked, concerned.

“I think so,” he replied after taking
personal stock. “What happened?”

“Sid happened. We flew right into a trap.”
Taking out a roll of bandages, I crawled back to Linda. “Help
Mark,” I called back over my shoulder.

Needing a rag, I ripped open the front of my
shirt and cut out a large strip to use as a towel. I cleaned out
Linda’s head wound, rinsing it liberally and wrapped it tightly
with the bandage. She had bled quite a bit out of her nose as well,
but the flow seemed to be slowing on its own already. Finished with
the obvious wounds, I began inspecting her for other injuries. She
seemed to be mostly ok, so I allowed myself to marginally
relax.

“How ya making out over there,” I inquired,
wiping my own face with the makeshift towel.

“I think we’ll live, but Mark is still out
cold.”

“Same with Linda, and if it’s like I think,
they’ll both be down for a day or two.”

Nodding his understanding, he began rooting
through our gear. “Let’s see if we can get some beds or at least
pillows for them.”

“Good idea. Maybe that knock to your head
broke loose some common sense. By the way, you might have a
concussion so you shouldn’t go to sleep.”

“What exactly happened out there? Did someone
attack us or did we blunder into a trap?”

“It could have been either. Someone could
have been stationed there to watch for us and triggered the
explosion. We slowed down toward the end and that might have thrown
off their timing enough to keep us from eating the full force. It’s
also possible that it was an unmanned trap and we just triggered a
sensor, perhaps infrared. Either way, we underestimated the bastard
and were far luckier than we deserve to be.”

“Should we build a fire to help keep them
warm?”

“No, it’s too risky. This cave is too shallow
to hide it and I don’t want to lead the bastard right to us. If he
finds us before Mark or Linda are able to defend against him, then
we’re as good as dead.”

Carl stopped pulling stuff out of the packs
and sat up, looking at me speculatively. “You were the only one
conscious after the blast?” he asked.

“Yeah, I was hanging below Linda and holding
on for dear life the whole way here.”

“If they were both out, then who flew us
up?”

“I was shouting instructions into Linda’s ear
and she must have had enough awareness to follow my
directions.”

“Hmm, it’s possible but highly improbable.
Are you sure that you didn’t do it yourself?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Linda’s just a lot
tougher than you give her credit for. I think you must have cracked
your coconut harder than we thought.”

“Maybe,” he replied unconvinced. “If you
recall, I had a brush with telepathy earlier. If I can do it, then
it’s logical that you could too. Especially under stress, and I
think it’s safe to say that plummeting toward the ground qualifies
as stressful.”

“Flying is like a dream come true. I would do
anything to be able to fly, but I think you’re wrong. Linda was the
one who saved us.” Despite my words, I silently tried to lift
myself off the ground. I tried my hardest for several minutes but
without success. Crushed, I turned back to tending Linda.

Carl was surprisingly diplomatic and gave me
the time to myself that I needed right now. We all teased and
insulted him a lot, but that was just in good natured fun. He was
really very smart and there was no doubt that he knew what I was
thinking.

We spent the rest of the night tending our
charges. Linda’s blood was sticky and drying in my hair and I
desperately wanted to give it a good washing. I was reluctant to
use up our meager supply of drinking water though, no matter how
icky I felt. I was pretty sure that both Mark and Linda were in
shock, but there was nothing we could do for them tonight. Maybe
after they recovered we could retrieve our decoys and salvage the
clothes, if the coast was clear.

That was highly unlikely. By now the bastard
knew we had left the house, and the explosion up at the pool would
have been clear as day, even if there wasn’t a man at the scene. It
was frustrating as hell. By tomorrow morning, his men would be all
over the area and there wasn’t a single thing we could do other
than hunker down.

I was freezing with my shirt half gone and my
jacket covering Linda, but she needed it more than I did. With four
packs full of gear, why didn’t I bring a damn spare shirt? Carl and
Mark were worse off than I was, since they had gotten soaked from
landing in the water after the explosion.

Wet and cold was bad enough, but it could
have been worse. If we hadn’t slowed at the last minute, then we
would have either been at ground zero when the bomb went off, or we
could have flown right into the cliff at full speed. I was too
angry to feel lucky though; I wanted to murder the bastard with my
bare hands.

“It’ll be dawn soon,” I remarked quietly.

“What’s your plan?”

“I don’t know yet. There’s a bit of cover at
the mouth of the cave so I can keep watch, but that’s all I can do.
If I spot anyone, I can’t do anything or I’ll give away our
position. The bomb going off is bound to bring them up to the pool,
but hopefully we’re safe in here for a while.”

“So we’re basically screwed until Mark and
Linda are back to normal. That sucks.”

“You’re supposed to be the genius. Why don’t
you come up with a plan?”

“Fine, ask them nicely to hold off on
murdering us so I can properly research the problem.”

I had to laugh at the deadpan way he said
that. “Is Mark showing any sign of waking up?” I asked, changing
the subject.

“No, but if I had to make a guess, I would
say he’s resting a bit easier. What about Linda?”

“No change. She looks pretty rough.”

“I’m sure she’ll be ok,” he consoled me.

“I know it. As I said earlier, my girl’s far
tougher than y’all give her credit for. Anyway, let’s get back to
your question about my plan. I already mentioned that I’ll be
keeping a silent watch, but I’m prepared to fight if we’re spotted.
I have two full clips of ammo for my Dragunov and we also have the
two 9mm hand guns with a total of four clips for those. From our
position, we can hold them off in a firefight for quite a
while”

“What if they chuck a grenade at us or shoot
a rocket?”

“Then we’re screwed,” I said bluntly.

“If I was screwed, then it must have been a
marathon session,” Mark said weakly.

“Mark, you’re awake! How are you?” Carl asked
excitedly.

“I’ve been better. What the hell happened? I
feel like my head is going to explode. How’s Linda?”

I quickly assured him that Linda was a little
beat up, but otherwise fine. Carl helped him to sit up and drink
some water while I went through my explanations. Finished, I sat
back on my heels and waited for him to process everything.