Chapter Eight #2
He cursed silently, trying to concentrate. “Yeah, hang on. I see the target. I have to get closer, though, to sense.”
“Go ahead.”
Like he fucking needed permission. He took another step closer, uncaring, releasing all his channels.
Record. Record it all. There was white noise interrupting him.
He turned and looked to his right. Some guy in black walking quickly toward him.
If he turned the corner, he would see the couple.
He didn’t sense anything unusual about him.
No thoughts of Macedonia...something urgent, though.
What the fuck was this white noise? He couldn’t filter the thoughts from the noise.
No time. His woman was walking down the hallway toward him, a frown on her face. Could she feel his presence? Of course not. No, no, she was listening to the other man’s footsteps and telling her companion that someone was coming.
He mentally shrugged. Who cared what they were up to? He was going to drop in on her aura and wrap her energy around him and happily feed. She owed him.
“I’m almost there,” he told his monitor, trying to curb the excitement in his voice. “Wait while I search for information.”
“Affirmative, Five-One.”
He smiled. Hello, supersoldier-spy. So what sexy thing have you been up to with your boyfriend lately? I want it all, bitch.
He started toward her. Record. Full speed.
“WHAT’S WRONG?” JED asked again. Something was bothering her and it wasn’t just her sensitized state.
“Danger,” she whispered. She gripped his upper arm. “Can’t explain it. I just sense this feeling.”
“Now?” Jed asked, looking around again.
“Suddenly. I get this warning...it’s...”
She raked her hair restlessly. She started walking, heading toward where the corridor split to the left and right. Jed reached out, wanting to tell her to stay back behind him. She put up her hand to signal stop, her head cocked, listening.
Footsteps approached. He was about to step in front of Helen when Armando appeared in their left corridor, with his boots clicking noisily. He was in a hurry, as if he was late for something. His eyes widened at the sight of them.
“Timing is very important in an illusion,” he said, his strides gathering speed as he broke into a run toward them.
Before Jed could say anything to stop him, Armando crashed into Helen, bringing her down.
As one part of his mind registered that Helen didn’t attempt to avoid Armando at all, falling onto the carpeted floor without a fight or a gasp, another part, trained from years of instinctive reaction, instantly pushed his own body forward into a defensive stance, to face whatever it was that prompted one of his team to rush them like that.
A few seconds went by. Not a sound. Nothing came from around either corner. From behind him, he sensed Armando and Helen moving on the floor, getting up.
“What were you running from, Armando?” Jed asked, still looking at the empty corridor ahead.
WHAT THE FUCK? THAT man in black was running. The stupid Asian was going to run through him while he had all his channels on record! All that white noise! Oh fuck!
No time! He couldn’t command and pull back all the channels at once. He mentally pushed his shadow self down the corridor, going for the woman, focusing only on her. No way any man could go faster than a bilocated remote viewer. Only ten feet or so separated him from his beloved treasure.
He sped forward and yelled in agony as his whole being smacked into some kind of invisible wall in front of the couple.
He felt his insides crumple into dark swirls, as if he had a lit candle there and it was rapidly melting, coating everything in hot wax.
It was horrible. His heartbeat churned and echoed.
His eyeballs burned. Melted. He couldn’t move quickly. Fear engulfed him. What was happening?
He screamed. It felt like he’d been sliced in half. The running man, who had been way behind him, caught up, and ran right through his shadow self at top speed. His remaining open channels...recording...
This wasn’t possible. A remote viewer could pass through anything...
“What the hell? Five-One, what’s happening? Why are you screaming?”
He couldn’t answer his monitor. The serum, the acceleration of which he’d been so addicted to, was pulling in everything from the man who’d just passed through him.
Pain. The agony dropped him to his knees.
Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t get up. The gooey mass that had stopped him before had now penetrated into his “body”, blocking sight, blocking air. He fought for breath. Gasped for help.
“Five-One! Five-One! Calm down! Listen to my voice. Disengage. Change channel, disengage and return here. Do you hear me?”
Disengage. Change channel. Yes, yes, yes, disengage! His monitor’s use of his trigger released the mass that was holding him captive.
“Disengage,” he whimpered, pushing with his hands, trying to crawl backwards from all that white noise, that invading thickness in his head. “Change channels.” Change all the fucking channels.
He opened his eyes. He was curled into a ball. He screamed when someone touched him.
“What’s wrong, Five-One? What happened there?” his monitor’s voice asked in the distance.
“He’s fucking losing it,” another voice said.
He squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t explain to these morons about recording energies, that he was after their precious super spy’s sexual aura.
He couldn’t explain what had just happened.
He didn’t know what had caught hold of him and squeezed the life out of him like that.
He had had every available channel open on record and he’d absorbed the running man’s energy as he went through him.
Pain and shame. Amplified dozens of times.
He curled tighter into a ball. And wept.
“SHE CAN’T STAND UP properly,” Armando said.
After making sure no one was coming around both corners, Jed turned to look behind him. Armando was on his feet, trying to help Helen up. She looked pale.
Jed checked the corridors again and tapped at the intercom by the wall. “Eight Ball,” he said. “There was no warning of any intruders. Are you sure the micro-eyes haven’t been compromised?”
“Nothing’s compromised, dude. I saw everything.
There were no hostiles involved except for Armando running toward you guys,” the computer reported back.
“Checking all entranceways. Every known body one hundred percent accounted for. Nice leap, Bruce Lee-style, dude, with all that killer hair flying around.”
Jed relaxed just a little. If Eight Ball had seen what happened, then the signals hadn’t been switched. If so, then what was that all about? Just before it happened, Helen had felt something...but she wasn’t herself today. “Make copies of the whole incident for review,” he ordered.
“Done, dude.”
He turned back to Armando and Helen. She was leaning on Armando for support.
“I think I reinjured my leg when I fell,” she explained. “It’s just feeling a bit tender.”
Jed gave her a quick look-over. Other than her favoring one leg, she seemed okay. He wanted to know more about what preceded Armando charging them, but first things first.
“Why did you run toward Helen like that, Armando?” he asked quietly. The man had acted as if he knew Helen was in danger. “Were you looking for her?”
“I was chasing the Cheshire Cat,” Armando said solemnly, “and he led me here.”
“I don’t have time for puzzles right now, Chang,” Jed warned. He wasn’t chancing anything happening to Helen.
Armando shrugged. “I’m explaining it the only way that could be understood. I’m always after the Cheshire Cat. I see parts of something and I want to see the rest. This time, the Cat’s tail ran ahead and I felt danger, so I decided to chase him. And there you two were at the end of my tunnel.”
“But there was no danger,” Jed pointed out. Except Helen had said she felt danger...
“I felt something was wrong too,” Helen said, echoing his thoughts.
“That you could see,” Armando chimed in at the same time. He flicked his hair back and shrugged. “I don’t know any other analogy to explain what was happening to me.”
“So you two sensed danger and somehow crossed paths right here,” Jed said, eyeing both of them speculatively.
Was it coincidental that these two, who had used the latest version of the serum, had sensed something that wasn’t there?
“Simultaneously? Eight Ball, track back to the earliest shot of Armando in the hallway.”
“Program initiated,” Eight Ball replied. “Location?”
“Where were you exactly?” Jed asked.