35. Olly #2
This proclamation was met with a few more grumblings through the ballroom, and Jeff said, “Oh just hush up, Table 16. We all know it’s you.
” Grumblings turned to laughter, and people enjoyed a break in the lecture portion to help themselves to food that was being steadily brought out to every table.
Clark wanted to make this a memorable event, if it was going to be the death knell of the entire Organization.
He stepped down from the lectern, turned the mic off, and joined me in an also comfy chair right beside mine.
Jeff had previously been sitting there before wandering off for a beverage, and he could find somewhere else to sit.
“Great speech, Clark.” I reached out and gently punched his upper arm.
“You made everyone working here proud to think of you as the new boss in town.” I meant it.
He had been a great speaker in revealing the truth about the group assembled here today.
He almost forbade me from coming today, saying he felt something was ‘off,’ but I swatted him in the arm and I asked him how he would feel if I told him that?
“Thanks, but I’m still not certain we shouldn’t just shut the whole thing down, sometimes.
So you want to explain what Robert said back there?
That you’re shielding me because there’s something so important and I can’t shield myself?
” He was obviously in a half serious, half playful mood, because he didn’t believe for a moment that he was anything special, beyond the emergence of his rather basic powers. How did I explain it?
“What, do you need a saltshaker and a pepper mill? Some hot sauce?” he teased, tickling my side, which quickly turned into a neck massage. I hadn’t realized how tense I had been about this whole crazy endeavour. To just come out with the truth, and damn the consequences.
“No, no condiments are necessary. And this—a room full of hundreds of psychics?—is not the place to have this conversation or have those thoughts in your head. I’d have to shield twice as strong, and I can’t. We’ll wait until we get back to my apartment, okay?”
“Okay,” Clark said, and looked a tad abashed “Sorry I was poking fun at you. Do you want me to fix you up a plate? Or just get you a jug of apple juice to chug?”
“Apple juice jug me, please.” Just then, a server walked by and deposited a pitcher full of ice cold apple juice and two glasses on the table beside my chair. “Table 16 sends this over, with their regrets for earlier.”
“Do we employ you?” I narrowed my eyes and asked shrewdly. He smiled broadly and shook his head. “No, but I’m informed that for a sizeable tip, my memory of these hours working this event will be wiped, so I’m happy to help out where and when I can, ma’am.”
Just as I poured the juice, I saw a vision of the future, but it came too late.
Maybe. I screamed, “BOMBS! Below us!” and heaved myself under a buffet table near my chair, in as much a ball formation as possible to protect Bea.
Clark’s body landed on mine, covering from the back, as did Jeff’s, who was lying on my head and upper body.
We lie there in a strange pile as the building was rocked by a series of explosions.
I have known a lot of fear in my life. Fear from The Organization, fear when I lost my parents and Thomas, fear that I really was psychic and what on Earth would that mean?
I thought nothing could actually top the fear I had felt so recently, after being a lab rat again for the cult, and what impact their experiments might have on the baby that, despite me not wanting at first, had become my whole world.
But this, right here? This was full-on terror.
Instead of trying to understand what was happening, I stayed mentally locked with Bea, keeping her calm, and keeping her as safe as possible. The explosions stopped after three, and I heard Clark bark at Jeff, “Read the room and report!”
After a moment, Jeff said back, “A group your grandfather really pissed off knew we would be gathered here today, despite all of the discretion we took to make this a private event. Corporate espionage, basically. When they read from someone who was unshielded, the ass, that Clark Evans was giving a keynote address about the future of his company, they cooked up this little plan. They didn’t care about getting caught, they just wanted to inflict as much hurt as possible.
Luckily...oh fuck, my head, just a minute... Olive.”
“You can still call me Olly,” I said, taking his hand and squeezing it.
“You helped protect my daughter with your own body when I needed someone most. You didn’t seek shelter for yourself.
You provided shelter to my child. I won’t forget it.
This has been the shittiest time to make decisions about relationships or work.
After all, I am your ‘work wife,’ aren’t I?
” I knew that under any other circumstances, we’d be laughing, and the ghost of a smile that I saw on his face for the quickest of moments gave me hope we’d all get out of this alive.
“Okay, Olly. So what happened is, a group of telekinetics—that would be the Swedish delegation to whom we all owe our lives—with a peppering in of the Montréalers, formed a psychic shield around the second floor, which is where the bombs were placed. Just three, the three we felt. Their efforts were concentrated on surrounding the bombs, like putting them in psychic bubbles. Because of that, the bombs were contained and did minimal damage to the building and the only people who were killed were the five people who were in the stairwell by the second floor. They also happened to be responsible for placing the bombs. Funny that, how they were in the one spot where one of the bombs wasn’t fully contained, and the fire was so hot it just kind of... melted them.”
“Hilarious,” I said dryly, and I couldn’t help but remember that the Indiana Jones movies were among Clark’s favourites, as I visualized melting faces. Ugh.
Clark jumped in. “Okay, thanks for the...Jeff. Oh my, you’re bleeding.
How are you bleeding? I thought that the bombs were mostly on lockdown.
” Clark took out his trusty handkerchief and he pressed it to Jeff’s right ear, and then noticed blood coming out of the left, as well.
“I’ll let you have that handkerchief, and I want medics to check you out.
I’m serious. No working until I see a slip from EMS, a nurse, or a doctor.
Now, I need to call this in like I have no clue what happened, and we all have to act that way.
Olly are you strong enough to broadcast that to all of our people here?
That medics will be on the way, and no one has any idea why our event was sabotaged?
Oh, and to avoid talking to the press. We’ll get Robert and Susan on that. ”
I nodded, but said “Yes, doing it now, and I’ll call nine-one-one ,” rather unnecessarily, because he would be included in the Olly Emergency Alert Update.
I got back hundreds of responses that were in the affirmative, and no one was being a dick about pretending and hiding our powers, so that was one relief, anyway.
“Nine-one-one, do you require police, ambulance, or the fire department?” a perky woman answered at the other end.
“All of the above,” I said, hoping I sounded as shell-shocked as I felt.
I knew there would be an investigation and that this tape would be evidence.
“Bombs. Four bombs just went off in my office building, the newer Rose Financial building in the West End? Yeah, that one. Some people are hurt, the likely culprits are dead, and I think I’m in labour, but I’m only halfway through my eighth month.
It’s six weeks too soon. Sorry to pile this all on you but...
” I passed the phone to Clark, and said, “I hope you’re ready to become a surrogate father to this kid.
Because I’ve drawn a ton of pictures of the two of you, and you’re who I want to raise her if anything goes wrong.
It’s in my Will, Shepard should respect it. ”
“The three of us, you mean. You must have at least one image of the three of us you can visualise and cling to.”
I shook my head vehemently and said, “I’ve never drawn a picture of me with Bea. I have no evidence at all that I am going to survive this childbirth. Just keep her safe, Clark. And let Shepard see her whenever he wants, because he won’t be there much, okay?”
A bolt of pain rocked my body, and I fell onto the stage.
Still, my mind kept falling, down into the deep, looking at my pain-riddled body from outside of it—inside of it?
—and was instantly supported by a gathering of the most creatures in my body I had ever seen.
It’s like they had all come to witness Bea’s birth, and make sure I got through it okay.
As I started to sink, I didn't even have the strength to hold myself at a preferred depth.
I felt then a large tentacle rising up underneath me, pushing me back upward and giving me something to perch on, while a thinner tentacle wrapped itself gently around my body, grounding me.
It was the kraken, and he was finally at peace.
Together, we all waited and watched.