Chapter Fourteen #2
“We don’t have the time for that,” the other man said impatiently. “I thought you psychics could control things like that.”
“I’m not a psychic, sir,” he told them, feeling somewhat indignant. What, did they think he was just someone they picked up from the Yellow Pages? “I was being trained in surveillance when I was reassigned by the director. I don’t have any psychic abilities at all. We’re specially trained for—”
“Oh, cut the crap. Just get back into whatever you want to call it. You’re a trained professional, right? You can suck in that piss for a while longer. Go on, 51, show us your tricks.”
He didn’t care whether this guy was one of his monitors or not. His attitude was pissing him off. A monitor was supposed to be the guiding hand, a person he could trust to help him if he encountered problems while remote viewing, and this man just wanted to use him.
Fine. He had been desperate to help because he wanted that drug so much, but now that he had some, he felt he was in control again.
He could play them the way they played him; he could withhold information from them until absolutely necessary.
Why not? The idea was brilliant! That way, he could get more of the serum because they would want him to help them.
Ignoring his pressing hard-on, he took in a deep breath and focused inward. He’d just have to figure a way to get off while he was in the ether.
Switch to Channel Three. Set programming time. Set channel.
Timer on. Record.
“I’m ready,” he said.
“We’ll talk quietly, 51, promise,” the first agent, the one who seemed to be more understanding, said. “What do you see?”
Hot damn. The key’s coordinates weren’t the same. It was being moved! “I’m zooming in,” he said. “Many people milling around the ground floor. I have to concentrate on which ones are your targets. Give me a few minutes.”
“Good. We know they have operatives watching on the perimeters. We’re keeping our eyes on them. We need to know which exit point they’re taking so we can mount a surprise attack of our own.”
“Okay,” he said. Change channel. Change channel.
He was back in that vaultlike place where the electronic key exchanged hands.
Except that this time, the two men who were working on them were dead.
He didn’t move nearer. He could feel emptiness in them—no energy.
One was lying on the floor. The other was sitting down, hands tied, a piece of tape hanging off the side of his mouth.
He hovered closer to the one in the chair. This one was recently dead, the last one to go. There was still a little energy left but he was careful not to go too near and touch it. Out of curiosity, he had done it once before. He shuddered at the memory. No, that kind of energy wasn’t beautiful.
However, this man was probably the last to see what had happened to the electronic key and he needed to touch something close to him that he’d used prior to death. The chair? No, too close.
The blinking light from the intercom on the desk.
Someone was trying to contact him and from the looks of it, he had probably been trying to be rescued…
hmm…when he was interrupted by his killer.
Well, too late for him. The last thing he touched was probably the button answering the intercom. Where was it?
He hovered closer, warily, making sure he didn’t get too close. He saw the electronic pad dangling by its wires on the side of the desk toward the dead man. Slowly, carefully, he reached out and touched each of the buttons on it.
He withdrew his hand quickly. Death energy.
Yeah, the man was talking into the intercom when he was interrupted.
But he didn’t understand German, so he had no idea what the words yelling in his mind were about.
And he didn’t particularly care. He’d caught the image of a hand pulling the key out of the decoding device.
Record. Where was it? He saw stairs. Someone was moving it up…no, down a long flight of steps. Many, many flights. A stairwell. He would go there.
Change channel.
Monotonously running down flight after flight of stairs freed Helen’s mind to quickly review what had taken place.
She was totally focused on the exercise at hand, very aware of each turn of the stairway, yet a part of her appeared to be observing herself.
The more she hurried, the more cut-off that part seemed to be.
She found herself thinking calmly, as if she was not running at all. It had to do with the serum, of course. She was injured. The drug was somehow kicking in.
The serum had an unusual dichotomy. On one hand, it impeded sensation.
Helen couldn’t feel any pain, even though she knew, from the way her right leg wasn’t properly supporting her weight, that she was hurting.
On the other hand, it didn’t totally block out all emotions.
Her usual warped sense of humor was still there.
Also, she had reacted to Number Nine’s presence quite strongly.
He had pissed her off, standing there like that, not doing a damn thing to help her.
Not that she needed his help. It was those eyes looking at her with disdain, like he knew she would be a problem.
And then to find out he was going back down for “unfinished” business—that irked her the most, that he’d been sent to do something she hadn’t been capable of doing.
It was her fault that the operation had gone somewhat chaotic.
If she had cancelled that man in the vault, there wouldn’t have been any alert about what was happening and she wouldn’t have had to fight with that operative in the elevator, and this Number Nine fellow wouldn’t have had to move from whatever position he was in so he could save her ass.
She supposed she had to thank him for that. The idea of saying that to his face filled her with dismay. Maybe she could send him a postcard.
Dear Number Nine, thank you for saving my ass.
Helen chuckled quietly as she jumped down the last few steps. She didn’t even know his name.
“Are you all right, Hell?” De Clerq asked.
They were probably wondering why she was laughing when she was supposed to be urgently running down the stairs. “I’m almost down at the ground floor,” she told him. “Then I’ll look for the emergency exit that was on the blueprint we were looking at in the plane, over.”
“Copy that. How’s the leg?”
She almost stopped in surprise. How did he know? “Did Number Nine tell you about my leg?” she asked.
“Affirmative. He said you might need help if you were required to jump into the van, over.”
Need help to jump—Helen felt like turning around and running back upstairs to find the man. “Please tell him that I rolled down the last ten flights of stairs,” she retorted, trying to keep the edge of anger from her voice. “I could probably roll myself into the van, thank you very much.”
“He was just reporting in on your condition when Dr. Kirkland asked.”
“Dr. K. could just have asked me,” Helen pointed out.
“I’m doing good. Serum working like the eighth wonder. No pain.”
And let out an involuntary gasp as she tried not to fall down the stairs.
“What is it, Hell?” De Clerq demanded.
“I don’t…know,” she managed. Her heart was beating erratically and she could barely think clearly. “Danger. I just sense danger.”
“Is someone in the stairwell after you?”
“No.” She gasped again, her breathing uneven. “No one. I can’t explain this, De Clerq.”
She felt the hair on the back of her neck standing. Her “warning” sense had never been so alarming before. Goose pimples. Heart pumping as if she were in fear, but she wasn’t feeling scared at all.
“You’re nearly there, Hell. Come on, you can do it. The exit isn’t too far,” De Clerq urged.
Helen stumbled down, trying to concentrate while trying to control her breathing. One of her eyelids fluttered uncontrollably. What the hell was happening to her?
Shit! Pause! Pause!
The images running in his head were muddled, crisscrossed with lines. His eyes hurt.
“Agent 51, what’s wrong? Your hands are covering your eyes and you’re moaning.”
“Pain.” He had changed channels and had appeared on what was a stairwell. He had felt the electronic key and had zapped down that flight of stairs in his phantom body. Then he’d slammed into—something hard. But that was impossible. “I can’t see!”
“What do you mean you can’t see? What are you doing, 51?” his monitor demanded. “We need you to focus. Are you with the key?”
He could feel all the precious recorded images melting inside him. No!
Pause! Pause!
He had to fight through this, get back his sight, so he could get out of here. His head pounded. He could hear his monitor talking about him.
“He’s shaking like a leaf. It’s the serum.”
“Fuck! We’re so damn close, we can’t lose the key now! What do we do?”
“Another shot will kill him. Agent 51, listen to my voice. Focus on my voice. Focus. Change channel. Change channel and come back. Do you hear me?”
He heard the guiding voice in the chaotic darkness and focused on it like a man drowning. “Yes,” he said obediently.
“Go to the closest exit and tell me where you are then come back.”
He let his senses reach out to see which direction to go. Down. The vice around his head tightened and he screamed. He had to go down! But that thing was down there, too.
Change channel. Change… He screamed again at the pain in his head and he felt himself tumbling like a drunk acrobat. Down, down, down, somersaulting through the ether.
There was a glimpse…he could see something.
“What do you see, Agent 51?”
“The sign…says…” He tried to pronounce the German, panting the words out. “Westlicher Ausgang.”
“Good. Now come back.”
He gratefully did so, opening his eyes, and looking around at the interior of the van.
His monitors weren’t paying attention to him anymore as one shouted to the driver.
The pain was receding, but he was still shaking from whatever it was that had attacked him.
He looked down. He’d wet his pants. For the first time ever, he was afraid.