Discovery (Science of Psionics Book #1) (18 page)

“Yeah, let him bring in the state troopers,
SWAT teams, everything. We can sit back, relax, and let them round
up the lunatics.”

“You can sit here and relax. I’ll be heading
back to the cave. Linda needs help still.”

“Sorry, I almost forgot.”

“It’s ok. Enough chatter though. Let’s go
call up the cavalry and save the day, eh.”

I grabbed the backpack and slung it over my
shoulder. The police station was only a block away, so it wouldn’t
be long before this nightmare was over. As we walked down Main
Street I kept an eye open for anyone looking like they were in the
military. Being so early in the morning, I didn’t see any foot
traffic and only a few cars.

“One quick detour first,” Carl said, pointing
at a donut shop. “It could take a while at the cop shop, and I want
to hit the restroom first.”

“Fine, I’ll grab us a couple more coffees
then.”

Carl made a beeline for the washrooms and I
headed up to the counter. We were the only people in the place, so
I got our coffees fast, but to my chagrin, found that I didn’t have
any money. Embarrassed, I told the cashier that I forgot my wallet,
but my friend would cover it when he got out of the washroom.

He came out, tucking his shirt back in at the
same time as the bell rang at the door announcing another customer
entering.

“FREEZE,” I heard from behind me. “Keep your
hands away from that gun and get down on the floor! Do it now!”

I turned, startled, and saw a cop aiming his
gun at Carl. Carl had the pistol from Sara tucked into his
waistband and the officer saw it. He must have thought that Carl
was going to rob the place!

“They’re both together,” The cashier
squawked.

With Carl on the ground, he pointed his gun
at me. “You too then, you’re both under arrest.”

As I dropped down to the ground, I thought
that there was no way the cops would believe us now.

We were screwed.

Linda: An Astral Journey

My world had become darkness and pain. I was
trapped inside this world, yet was able to look out around me. It
was like a bad dream.

I could see myself lying on the ground, Sara
wiping blood from my forehead. I tried sinking my awareness back
into my body but the pain expelled me within moments. Is this what
death is like? It was surreal.

I could see that my body was alive. That was
good news, but I needed to figure out what was happening to me. The
last thing I could remember was fire and pain. Burnt flesh and
hair, followed by darkness. As I got used to the dark, I became
aware of the pain. Oh God, the pain!

It was like a glowing ember in my mind, I
would do anything to escape the horrible pain. Escape: That’s what
I did; I escaped from my body to flee the unbearable pain. How? How
didn’t matter, only the fact that by separating myself from my
flesh, I was able to disassociate myself from the pain.

Yes. I was still myself, even though I was
separate from myself. It sounded like bad Zen. Ok, so I’ve somehow
managed to separate my mind or spirit from my flesh. Can I do
anything like this? I looked around and saw that we were all in a
cave. Carl was tending to Mark, and Sara was now bandaging my
head.

Reaching out I found that I could ‘touch’ my
body mentally, so I probed my injuries. I could tell that although
my face looked like hell, the damage was actually minor. I checked
my body from head to toe and it seemed that I was mostly intact.
The various bruises and cuts seemed to glow a sickly orange to my
psychic sight. While I found it easy to mentally touch things, I
was unable to affect anything physically.

I used that sight to quickly check on Mark
and the others and was relieved to see that nobody was badly hurt.
I touched Mark’s awareness briefly and got an echo of his pain,
similar to my own. The extreme agony that forced me to flee my body
must have been caused by the psionic backlash of our destroyed
shields.

I guess I couldn’t complain. Better to suffer
mental pain than to have been blown to pieces. Perhaps I could wait
out the pain in my weird astral form. If so, would I be able to
merge back into my body? I had no answers. I needed answers. This
was all uncharted territory though, and it wasn’t like I could just
Google it.

Sara and Carl began a conversation, and while
I could hear them, I couldn’t speak to them. Sara seemed to think
that after the blast, I was able to keep flying and bring everyone
up to her cave. That didn’t seem likely to me. When the explosion
hit us, all I knew was pain and then darkness. With all the recent
practice I was getting pretty good at flying, but it still took a
lot of concentration. There was no way I could have lifted a single
pebble after that blast.

I had to do something. There were only so
many times that I could look at us inside the cave, so I decided to
take a look outside and see if I could spot anything. In my spirit
form, it involved almost no effort to glide outside and look
around. It must have been the middle of the night, but I could see
everything as plain as day.

It wasn’t quite the same though. The rocks
that made up the cliff face were a dull blue, trees and plants
seemed a pale green, and living creatures glowed with a bright
yellow aura. It was breathtakingly beautiful. It was like moving
through a fairyland setting. Even the night time bugs flying around
were beautiful. They made it seem like I was flying amongst the
stars.

I could clearly see two people in the trees
near the pool. They glowed brightly among the rocks and trees that
would shelter them from normal sight. Sara should know about this.
My weird out of body vision could beat the heck out of her mere
eyeballs. I brought myself back into the cave in an instant and
tried to communicate, but to no avail. After trying for a few
minutes, I gave up and steeled myself to try rejoining my body.

The pain was intense, but I strove to bear
it. I opened my eyes and groaned.

“Linda, you’re awake!” Sara exclaimed,
rushing quickly to my side. “How are ya doing, girl?”

“I’m cold, tired, and feel like my head is
about to explode.” I felt Mark beside me and placed my hand on his
wrist, taking comfort in his presence.

“Just try and relax. You had a nasty cut on
your head, but seem to be otherwise ok. What can you tell me about
any other injuries that you have?”

I tried to answer her, but the pain was too
much and I was overcome once again by the darkness.

I arose from the darkness slowly this time,
and as I separated myself from the pain, I separated myself from my
body also. I had failed to get my message out, but was consoled by
the fact that I would eventually be able to rejoin my body. It was
only a matter of time, but how much time did we really have?

There were people in the hills who were
trying to kill us. They had almost succeeded several times, and it
didn’t seem likely that they would give up any time soon. Several
times I tried to test the waters and rejoin with my body, but was
unable to regain control before the pain threatened to send me back
into darkness. All that I accomplished was to shuffle my body
slightly before I was forced to retreat.

I finally decided that I needed to either
stay in my body and deal with the pain, or stay out and wait for it
to end. Trying to go back and forth was accomplishing nothing at
this point. Wanting to stay current on what was happening, I stayed
astral for now. I would have to steel myself before rejoining and I
didn’t feel brave enough yet.

I went out for another scouting foray in
order to keep my mind occupied and when I returned, Mark was
sitting up and talking. I was ecstatic! I tried sending him a
loving message but it obviously got a busy signal, so to speak.
Apparently I needed my mind to be inside my brain for that kind of
stuff.

Deciding not to press the issue, I listened
to their plan and figured that there was no rush for me to rejoin.
I could take all day and night to let my physical mind heal. I
ached to let them know that I was ok, but decided to stick with my
plan and wait.

When the time came for them to leave, I
watched our watchers closely. Any sign of them spotting Mark, and I
would rejoin my body to warn them, despite the pain. I needn’t have
worried though. Mark came out of the cave like a cannon ball and
took off into the sky like a rocket. He was gone in mere moments,
and the watchers were none the wiser. I kept an eye on them for
about twenty minutes to make sure that things were safe, and they
never budged an inch.

Relieved, I went back to the cave to keep an
eye on Sara. It was always possible that, left to her own devices,
she would try something stupid. I’ve never known anyone who could
hold a grudge like she could.

When I got back, it was to see Sara kneeling
over my body with a wet rag, trying to get some water into my mouth
one drop at a time. It was rather touching actually, like a mother
bird with a new chick. She kept it up for about an hour before
crawling back to the entrance and resuming her post.

It was uncanny seeing how long she could lay
there without moving. I had thought her story about the enemy
sniper in Afghanistan was an exaggeration, but I no longer doubted
her. For someone with such a volatile temper, she could also show
incredible patience.

It was far more patience than I had. Itching
for something to do, I decided to see if I could locate anyone else
in the hills. The two people watching around the pool were still in
place, so I passed them with little more than a glance. I swept
back and forth down the ridge but found nobody else in our area.
Wanting to know how far I could go, I started down the stream path,
zigzagging over both sides as I went along.

I made it almost all the way down to my house
before I found anyone. There, in the trees on each side of the path
were some of Sid’s men. Slowing down to ensure that I didn’t miss
anything, I circled my house at the tree line to check for
others.

Two of them were watching the road leading up
to my house. Continuing, I saw another pair watching the road from
the other side. I finished the circle around my yard without
finding anyone else, so I went to check inside.

There was a man sitting in my kitchen
drinking coffee and holding a two way radio. A quick check in my
bedroom showed two wounded men lying on my bed, being tended by a
third. Scouting out the rest of my house only revealed one more:
Sid was resting in the guest bedroom!

Going by the numbers that Sara had guessed,
if she was right, then everyone was accounted for. She should know
about this so she can formulate a plan. Immediately after thinking
that, I found myself back inside the cave floating over my supine
body. I guess it’s true when they say that you learn something new
every day. I had just learned a new facet of this odd ability.

Firming up my resolve, I braced for the pain
and rejoined my spirit to my body. I awoke with a ragged gasp.

Hearing my gasp, Sara crawled quickly back to
me. “Hey girl, how’s tricks?” Without waiting for an answer she
shuffled behind my head and propped up my head in her lap. “Have
some water, you’re probably parched. Make sure you drink slowly
though.”

She only allowed me a small sip at a time,
but each one was like a blast of nectar to my mouth and throat.
Feeling much better, I whispered “thanks.” She helped me to sit up
fully and gave me the water bottle so I could drink as needed. I
took a few more sips and started into my tale of what happened
since the explosion.

“So the bastard set up his command camp in
your own home?” she asked indignantly.

Nodding, I replied “Yup. I think what
offended me most was the fact that he put two people who shot my
house up in my own bed.”

“He’s got balls, I’ll give him that.”

“What do you think we should do?” I asked.
“Should we wait for Mark to come back?”

“That depends. If Mark were to come straight
back to the cave, then all will be good. However, if he tries to
bring help back to the house, he’ll be leading them into a meat
grinder.”

“Ok – yeah, that would be bad,” I agreed.

“I suppose I should ask how you’re doing
first. Do you feel up to venturing out? Is your mumbo jumbo up to
the challenge of getting us out of here and engaging the
enemy?”

“Well, by waiting so long in spirit form the
worst of my headache has passed, but it’s still fairly bad. Not
knowing what Mark and Carl will do has me worried though. If I had
to make a guess, I would say that Mark would come here to the cave
since he was worried about me. Carl would probably bring people to
the house for proof that the attack was real, at the very
least.”

“Both could be dangerous plans. They got out
of here easily enough, but coming back he might be spotted. If Sid
went so far as to set up in your house, then it’s entirely possible
that he would attack Carl if he came with only one or two people. I
think that we need to go on the offensive if we want to ensure
their safety.”

“I don’t think I could kill anyone,” I said
with a shudder.

“I’m sure we can do this without extreme
violence. I’ve been thinking for a long time now on how to use your
ability in all kinds of offensive ways, and some of them are
non-lethal.”

“Alright, if you give me a little time to
gather my strength then I’ll do my part. Besides – you’re not the
only one who would like to see a little payback.”

Grinning evilly she said, “Payback is a
bitch, and the bastard will soon know how true that is.”

Mark: Arrested Development

“You’ve got it all wrong,” I said for the
twelfth time. “It wasn’t like you think.”