Chapter 29
Breakfast came. Two plastic containers of a tan colored liquid that they pumped into my stomach with little regard for my taste, or comfort. I felt like a balloon pumped full of air and the tech tried to squeeze in the last couple, I felt an instant nausea and all of it came back up through my nose and out my mouth in a stream that spewed across the room. He yelped and leapt out of the way, cursing me bitterly. "You can just go without," he snarled and left me in the mess. I sat in the stuff while it congealed, and fermented; there was little I could do to change the situation.
It wasn‘t until the Colonel and his cronies made an appearance that I was cleaned and cared for.
"What the hell happened?" He asked and no one answered. "He stinks. The least you can do is feed and keep him clean, can‘t you? Wash him off and put something on him. We‘re taking him to the blockhouse to see what happens when they trigger his…energy source. Wire him up."
Of course, they gave me a shot that made everything seem far away and hard to concentrate. I felt like I was flying and the strings around me were a tangled mess that I could not decipher not follow for more than a few feet; all along their length, they vibrated angrily, bouncing and snarling others, touching them until the entire mass was in chaos. Existence hovered on the brink of instant annihilation. I reached out a languid hand and stilled them; just enough to let them resonate like a hive on the edge of a s warm.
One snapped and flicked my face; I stared with one-half opened eye and knew the flavor of its owner. My bodyguard was searching for me. Grasping the slippery filament of light, energy and life force, I tugged gently; felt another join and another unt il I held an armful. I smiled. The Dursvan and the Celine authorities knew where I was. I let go, was abruptly on my back in a concrete box with video cameras arrayed around me, stark naked, cuffed and able to speak. The tube was still down my nose and with a cry of revulsion; I pulled it out, gagging as the thing came up coated with half-digested 2-cal and stomach acids. I threw it on the floor, got to my feet and held onto the wall as my head swam.
My ass hurt. They‘d stuck me with several needles after d ropping me in here. Wherever ’here‘ was.
7 foot high, painted cinder blocks, two small windows high up with a concrete step so you could look out. All I saw was the glistening of the sun off white sand as far as my eyes could see. It looked like the old atomic testing grounds at White Sands.
The rest of the room was bare, 12‘ x 16‘ of bare blank concrete blocks, no graffiti, no signs, and no evidence of a door out. I looked up and saw no trapdoors, just more concrete with reinforcing rebars showing in places. The floor was concrete and in the far corner, I found a steel hatch where a locking wheel had been on the inside and recently removed. When I stamped on it with bare feet, I heard only a muffled thud.
"Having fun?" Brightarm‘s amused voice came out near my head. I saw no sign of any audio links, but they could be as small as a fly with fiber optics.
"Why don‘t you come in here and join me, Colonel?" I asked and my voice sounded like gravel in a can.
"Side effects of the drugs and the tubes," he told me. I rubbed my throat and then grabbed at my chest as that burning sensation started under my breastbone.
"That, James is your pacemaker being tweaked. Feels like an elephant has your guts in a vice, doesn‘t it? Call your power."
Oh, I planned to only not how he expected. I broke one of the cameras and found a sharp piece, used to it to cut myself, watched as the blood floated upwards and created a gate before the watchers could understand what I was doing and before he could escalate the in my chest. He triggered it. As I jumped through, the pain dropped me in my tracks. I fell, screaming as my heart seized. I hit the tile floor of the lobby in a massive skyscraper to the accompanying boom of a small explosion. People rushed past me, until they realized there was a body lying there.
Someone‘s soft hand rolled me over and pulled my hands from my chest. I was white, covered in sweat and gritting my teeth so hard I couldn‘t get the words out, but Zip saw the a lump on my breast, and felt its heat. Murphy was with her, the Captain, Revenal and all the others I had gathered by their strings. Someone put a pillow under my head and covered me.
"Jade, what have they done?" He asked, his hands busy at my wrist. "Get the EMTs here!
Looks like a –"
"Heart," I gasped, clawing at my chest. "Implant!"
"Pacemaker?"
"Yargh," I grunted. "Hurry, Murph. I can‘t hold it long. Is the gate closed?"
He looked. "You used your own blood to open one?" He found the cut on my wrist and the cast. "Jadewyn and, what else did they do you?" His voice was trembling.
"Murph, I‘m dying," I said and close my eyes.