4 Terramezic Energy (23 page)

Perry rose to his feet and went over to Bruce. He placed his hand on Bruce’s forehead and sent a gentle flow of light energy to him. After a moment, he returned to his seat.

“I’m sorry.” Bruce straightened in his chair and his expression turned apologetic. “I don’t remember anything.”

“It was worth a try.” Helen exchanged a disappointed look with Perry.

Chapter 29

Josephine, Maggie, and Alice panted with exertion as they continued their brisk pace in the deep night. Josephine gently grasped Alice’s left arm to help guide her. Josephine knew that her own night vision as well as Maggie’s would expire soon and then they would be forced to use their flashlights which would make them easier to find by the search parties.

“I can’t believe they’re still hunting for us in the middle of the night,” Alice grumbled. “Why don’t they wait until morning?”

Josephine glanced at her friend with bemusement although this did no good as her features were indistinguishable in the heavy darkness. Light energy stirred within her and she realized her magical network had just strengthened.

“I think the portal is open again. Have we really been here almost a day already?” Josephine asked.

“You’re kidding right?” Alice’s tone was grievous. “I think every muscle in my entire body is aching. I’m too old for this poppycock.”

“We have to keep moving,” Maggie said.

“I know,” Josephine said.

After a moment, she sensed Mark’s presence ‘knocking’ on the outer fringes of her mind.

“Josephine, I told Perry to close the portal and open it back up again in an hour. I’ve almost reached you,” Mark thought.

Before Josephine could respond, the portal closed and the magical network weakened again due to the loss of Perry and Helen. Her connection to Mark dissolved and she clenched her jaw with frustration. She took a deep, cleansing breath and reminded herself that Mark had given her good news. She shared it with Maggie and Alice.

“That’s great! I’m looking forward to seeing my brother safe and sound,” Maggie said.

“Me, too,” Alice chimed in.

“We need to go that way.” Maggie pointed to their right and slightly backwards.

Josephine could detect Maggie’s movements with her night vision but felt it slipping as psychic fatigue settled deeper into her. The three women turned and walked in that direction to avoid the search party.

“We need to hurry! They’re gaining on us.” Maggie’s voice conveyed renewed urgency.

Josephine tried jogging but Alice couldn’t see so she stumbled and fell. Josephine winced with empathy and stooped down to help her friend. The two of them rose to their feet but the group of six guards had finally found them. A bright light shone from two of the brass wands like lanterns. Josephine and Alice squinted as their eyes adjusted. The guards leveled their wands at the two women and launched knockout spells. Josephine reached out with her mind to activate her protection but her physical and psychic fatigue had finally caught up with her. She and Alice crumpled to the ground as they lost consciousness. Josephine awakened to find herself strapped to a chair that was slightly tilted back in a room filled with working tables and a dozen other chairs like hers. The blue, translucent walls glimmered with soft illumination. Light strips lined the ceiling along with a couple of simulated skylights. Josephine took stock of her surroundings and saw Alice strapped to a chair beside her.

A camera secured to the wall directly across the room pointed at the two women with a small red light blinking. A computer console lit up with rune-like symbols worked silently beside it. Josephine noticed a lack of anyone in their immediate vicinity so she assumed the guards monitored them through the surveillance system. Her head ached with psychic fatigue and she groaned softly. She wished her body had stayed asleep longer and recovered more.

“Alice, are you awake?” Josephine peered at her friend hopefully.

She decided to let her friend sleep for now. She pushed her legs tight against the straps that bound them and could feel her wands missing. She turned her head from side to side and made shrugging motions so her necklaces would rub against her skin. Her breath whooshed out with disappointment when she confirmed the guards had removed them. She carefully activated her psychic receptors just a little which sent sharp needles of pain arcing through her body and mind. She ignored the discomfort and scanned herself for any enchantments until she confirmed what she’d suspected. The guards had removed them all. She relaxed her psychic receptors and the pain immediately lessened to a dull throb that centered around her forehead.

The door to the room slid up into the ceiling and a tall, lean muscular man with black wavy hair and vivid cerulean eyes emerged. His purple uniform fit loose over his body and he radiated authority and power.

His lips formed a pleased smile as he took up a position in front of Josephine. “You’ve come to rescue Mark, I take it. What an unexpected bonus.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Josephine eyed him with a wary look.

“You’re an omnipoten but you’re pregnant with a child of the White Knight. Even when the White Court was still around, this was a very rare event. This phenomenon will give me a greater understanding of White Knights and what other weaknesses they have besides dark energy.”

“You must be Ludovic.” A cold shiver of dread crawled up Josephine’s spine as she watched the android.

His smile widened. “You’ve heard of me.”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“You’ve probably been told I’m a monster but I want to assure you that your child will come to no harm as long as you don’t turn him against me,” Ludovic said. “His power will burn out in a year or two after he’s born anyway. In that time, I will make observations of his abilities and you will take him to a medic who will take scans and blood samples. I will do everything in my power to make sure he lives. You do understand that a baby so young would likely die from burnout, don’t you?”

Josephine fought the rising panic that flooded through her. “He’s different. His connection to source energy will prevent his power from dying out.”

“You’re wrong. For centuries, there have been no White Knights who managed to escape this outcome. The resources to allow them to flourish don’t exist anymore.” Ludovic made his way over to a nearby computer console and the buttons lit up as if he were typing them. A panel beside it slid open and he withdrew a metallic syringe shaped like a gun. He eyed her with a regretful expression. “I’m sorry to have to do this but your White Knight friend must die.”

Josephine’s heart thudded wildly as he approached Alice. “You don’t have to kill Mark. You said it yourself that all White Knights lose their abilities.”

“They are a threat that must be extinguished.” Ludovic reached Alice’s chair and brought the syringe towards her arm.

“Wait! What are you doing to her?” Josephine shouted swiftly.

Ludovic paused as he regarded her with bafflement. “I just explained to you that she’s going to have to die. Don’t worry, it will be a fast and painless death.”

“She’s not a White Knight!”

“But she’s full of light energy.” The needle of the syringe remained poised several inches from Alice’s skin.

“That’s because she was cursed with immortality. Her consciousness was possessed by it and I had to cure her with a praesentia infinitus spell,” Josephine explained. “She can’t use white magic at all!”

Ludovic straightened to his full height and he lowered the syringe to his side. “I will continue scans of her to confirm your claim. It’s extremely difficult to get any kind of reading with the light energy interference but I will find out the truth and if it turns out she’s a White Knight, I will know soon enough and she will have to die.”

“She has no talent with source energy whatsoever.”

“It’s remarkable that you created a praesentia infinitus enchantment using mainstream magic. That’s extremely difficult to do. Very few could accomplish such a feat.” Ludovic’s eyes gleamed with interest. “I plan on making you a guard. My worlds are run like caste societies. There are laborers, scientists, guards, and leaders. The guards are considered part of the elite and form many functions besides just the obvious. I will use your talents to make advanced magic. Once you’ve passed basic training, I will assign you to a facility to work that is in close proximity to a vortex.”

“Why would you do that?” Josephine peered at him with frank disbelief and bewilderment.

“Because a society that is operated by satisfied and happy citizens are a stable and productive society. There is no poverty on any of my worlds. You’ll probably like it here better than Earth but I plan on seizing control of that little gem soon enough so you can always apply for a transfer,” Ludovic smirked.

Josephine wanted to tell him he was crazy and she’d like nothing better than to find his crystal skull and smash it into pieces. “I would be a lot happier working for you if you didn’t kill Mark.”

“I’m sorry but I simply can’t allow a White Knight to live.”

“Do you kill every single one of them?” Josephine demanded.

“Yes, it’s unfortunate but necessary.”

“You could just lock him up in a prison until he burns out,” Josephine argued.

“It’s too risky.”

Frustration and terror warred within her. “Why are White Knights such a threat to you? They can’t use their magic to attack! I just don’t get it!”

“It’s true they’re limited to defense but that’s the reason the World Wars lasted for so long. We fought for years against the humans because they cowered behind the shields of their White Knights. Entire cities were protected from our most potent weapons,” Ludovic said.

“But black magic always cuts off the light energy,” Josephine pointed out.

“Do you realize how difficult it is to produce enough dark magic to take down a shield protecting an entire city?” Ludovic moved past Alice’s chair and loomed over Josephine.

“I hadn’t realized they could do that,” she admitted.

“The war would have lasted even longer if the White Knights hadn’t made a critical error.”

Josephine tensed with anticipation and concern. “What did they do?”

“No one knows.” Ludovic’s gaze went distant with introspection. “They were working on something big. I had spies but they couldn’t give me specifics. My people had reason to believe it would be some sort of weapon but we had no idea how white magic could be used in such a way. There was lots of speculation but in the end, the White Knights failed. They cast the spell and all of their shields failed. Every single last one of them. And all of the White Knights vanished without a trace. It was just the kind of breakthrough we were waiting for. We seized control of half a dozen worlds within a matter of months.”

Josephine was struck speechless by this information. She mulled it over as a sense of horror dominated her mind.

“We rule twenty-one planets as of right now.” His lips curled in a self-satisfied smirk. “Eventually, we will control all of them.”

“The Kalos Confederacy is a group of AI’s, isn’t it? You’re not the king of all of those territories, are you?”

“Usually, the AI’s rule together in groups. I choose to run this government on my own,” Ludovic boasted.

“With a little help from your offspring.”

“I hope you’re not under the mistaken impression that Maggie is still free,” he said. Ludovic’s abrupt change in topic startled her. She had in fact assumed Maggie had escaped capture. “She’s in a different part of the facility. I couldn’t keep two omnipoten prisoners in the same room together. It would be much too risky. I’ve been performing continuous psychometric scans of you both and have gleaned some very useful information about APU 81. It’s interesting that it kept it’s sterile identity instead of coming up with its own after all these centuries.”

“I don’t understand how you have memories of the World Wars but Hermina doesn’t remember what happened.” Josephine leveled a curious gaze at him.

“A small percentage of my kind have the ability to inhabit humans. When they do so, there is a side-effect that they hadn’t noticed until it was too late – corruption of long-term memory. It has something to do with using the human brain for temporary storage. They can mitigate the effects by performing regular defragmentation sessions while controlling a host but it still doesn’t entirely prevent the unfortunate loss of memory. This can be a useful ability but they lack the natural talent that the rest of us have in hacking into computer systems and creating computer viruses. That’s the only reason APU 81 hasn’t seized control of Earth on its own,” Ludovic said.

“I suppose it’s one of your allies,” Josephine said with disgust.

“Yes, it is,” he agreed.

“Why are we having this conversation if you’re gathering information from me through a psychometric reading?” Josephine asked.

“It’s helping to fill in the gaps.” Ludovic shifted his stance as he gazed down at her. “It takes longer for our systems to gather data from omnipotens.”

“That’s true. We don’t give off very much readable psychic output.” Josephine took a small measure of comfort knowing that she caused this minor setback in his plans in spite of her capture.

“Tell me about Mark. How many teleportation enchantments does he have with him?” Ludovic’s gaze became more intense and focused.

Josephine’s heart raced as renewed fear for Mark’s safety coursed through her. “I’m not really sure.”

“You’re lying.” Ludovic stilled as he closely scrutinized her. “Your body gives you away. Just tell me what I ask.”