A Warrior's Return (24 page)

Wiping her mouth off with a rag that was
handed to her she set the wastebasket down and straightened up to
see them both expectantly looking at her.

“What?”

Sparky gestured around him to the room and
said, “Can you handle all this and direct us from here?”

Ellanara looked around at all the blinking
lights and computer monitor displays and thought how similar it
appeared to the place where she spent most of her time.

“Yes I’ll manage.”

She went to what looked like the main
control station and sat down in a chair trying to ignore the still
figure on the floor beside her as she did so.

The similar comparison between her lab and
this one ended as her fingers began to tap the keys, as she sought
to find her way around in the archaic technology before her.

She shook her head in frustration after
several minutes of fast paced typing.

Talaric leaned over to Sparky and whispered
a question to the wide-eyed Sparky, “What’s the matter can’t she
get into the system?”

Slack-jawed Sparky shook his head no, “No,
she owns the system! She’s waiting for it to catch up with
her!”

Talaric looked up in shock at the blazing
fast flip of menus that were flashing by on all the computer
screens faster than the eye could read.

“She can’t have sparked all this just from
her typing could she?”

Sparky shook his head his eyes full of
wonder, as if he was grappling with a completely alien concept to
his line of reasoning.

Slowly as if talking in a daze he said,
“Impossible to elicit so much with just a few minutes of typing.
She has to be doing most of it in…” He trailed off, as if he didn’t
believe it himself.

“My head.” Ellanara finished for him
softly.

“But how is that possible? How are you
relaying the information?”

She glanced at the screen in front of her
for a moment and then to Sparky, “It’s not very easy to explain,
but I’ll simply say this. God created humanity with an amazing
capacity to reason and create. Humans today rarely access more than
eight to ten percent of the creative capacity we were gifted with.
Some are born with more awareness than others. I was born with
twenty percent and through vigorous process of continuing to learn
I have increased my capability to well over sixty percent. The
human body is such an engineering marvel of creation Sparky! I’m
learning more and more all the time and no matter how much I learn
there is still always more to find out. God truly is the master of
all creation and I give Him the glory for what He has enabled me to
become and allowed me to see. Mysteries that I can’t fully
comprehend, if I ever will. Please don’t be jealous of me
Sparky!”

“Oh my dear it isn’t that! I’m not sure I
would want the responsibility of what you know my dear. I grapple
enough as it is with what I do know. But why so much effort to gain
control of this facility? That I can’t understand. You have three
supercomputers completely maxed out past capacity!”

Her expression darkened, “I’ll tell you
about it later. Let’s just say things are worse than we thought and
that I have bought us some time to find the bar-Seth. The way to
Eleanor’s cell is through there. The crystals they took have
already been shielded. They will be delivered to you. You’d better
hurry; they’re trying to trace the location of the breach in their
network, when they find it they’ll be here in force.”

Talaric and Sparky shared a telling look at
each other and broke out of the trance they had been under, as they
tried to puzzle out how the crystals would be brought to them. They
headed for the part of the facility where Ellanara had indicated
that Eleanor was being held.

“Talaric?”

Talaric looked back at his sister, “Remember
to pull your hat down low to shield your face.”

He nodded and then they left her alone, as
they headed for Eleanor’s holding area. Doors opened before them as
they came near them. Long glass lined laboratories were arrayed to
either side of the hall as they walked.

Researchers and scientists alike pounded on
the glass their voices muffled beyond recognition as they screamed
to be let out of their prisons. The hall was empty and they soon
entered an area of what looked like holding cells. A door opened
and they stepped through it. Eleanor was laying on a cot.

A look of relief washed across her bruised
face at the sight of them, but the persistent rowdy Britt in her
said, “Took you bloody well long enough. They were about to start
hacking off limbs!”

Talaric had to do everything he could to
restrain himself as he saw the sorry condition that she was in. She
had fingers missing off both hands and it was apparent that what
she had said hadn’t really been a joke.

He picked her up into his arms as gently as
he could and carried her toward the door the blood pounding hard in
his veins, as he focused on getting her to safety and not acting
out in the consuming desire to destroy these people.

Eleanor tapped the two remaining fingers of
one hand against his chest consolingly, “It’s alright Captain.”

“No it’s not!” Talaric bit out from between
gritted teeth.

There was a woman, as white as a sheet,
standing in the hall outside with a briefcase in one hand.

She held it out to Sparky quivering like a
leaf, “The crystals and the map.”

Sparky took the case and opened it briefly
and studied the contents. Nodding he shut the case and brought up
his pistol and shot the woman.

She slunk down to the floor slowly, as she
clutched at her middle her eyes unbelieving, “But I brought you the
case?”

“Yes you brought me the case and this
morning you were no doubt lined up outside this cell taking bets
with your coworkers as to how many fingers would come off today
just as you have done countless times in the past no doubt. Your
work and your life have been a complete waste! Shame on you for
your heartlessness! Now go and collect your reward!”

The woman’s head sagged bitterly forward, as
Sparky turned and followed after Talaric.

Reaching the control room they found
Ellanara standing ready to depart with them.

Sparky looked at her questioningly, “This
facility, I want it destroyed! Nothing good has come of this place
for many years now.”

Ellanara nodded, “Already taken care of
Sparky, we need to get out of here!”

She led the way and soon they were passing
fallen guards.

“Knockout gas.” Was all Ellanara gave by way
of explanation for the collapsed guards.

They stepped through the cleverly hidden
false wall door and into the chalet above. They could hear that the
ball was in full swing.

Eleanor lifted her head off of Talaric’s
chest tiredly and looked around at the fine furnishings all around
them, “You’ve got to be joking! They’re having a blinking
party!”

“Shhh!” Ellanara whispered putting a hand
over Eleanor’s mouth.

Sparky touched an earbud in his ear, “Eva is
everything okay?”

A few seconds passed and Talaric started to
feel the beat of his heart pick up. Her voice came in clear over
the com in their ears.

“The packages are delivered and we are
waiting with guest in the northwestern sitting room ground
floor.”

“We’re on our way dear.” Sparky said.

He opened the briefcase again and took out
its contents, which he put into a small metallic looking bag that
he had brought out from beneath his coat. He reclosed the case and
locked it.

They made their way through the chalet by
way of side rooms, avoiding the ballroom and its increasingly drunk
and rowdy occupants.

The sitting room door opened and Roric
stepped to the side holding it open. Talaric stepped inside to see
Sparky’s mirrored self trussed up in a chair and gagged, with a
pair of earphones on his head. Eva stood off to the side of him
with a little canon clutched in her hand.

Finally they were here and we could leave.
What a relief that would be!

I saw Eleanor and I stepped forward to her.
I saw her hands and tears came to my eyes.

She had a sudden desperate look in her eyes
and asked, “Raffi you found him safe?”

“Yes! He’s safe all because of you Eleanor.
He’s waiting for you.” I said as I leaned forward and gave her a
kiss on her cheek softly.

She seemed to fall into a relieved sleep
against Talaric’s chest. I brushed some of her hair out of the way
from her bruised face. She was still beautiful.

My eyes rose to Talaric’s and we shared an
unspoken emotion at how good it was to see each other safe
again.

I heard Sparky talking behind me, “Did he
give you much of a fuss?”

Roric snorted and started to say something,
but I wheeled around and cut him off.

“Not one word! Not one word!” I said
forcefully, my cheeks completely red.

Roric couldn’t help but crack a smile and
said, “We managed Sparky.”

Sparky didn’t seem to care about what the
underlying story to my embarrassment might be thankfully. He had
eyes only for his brother.

He set the case down and pulled a syringe
with a clear looking fluid inside of it out of his breast pocket.
His brother’s eyes lit up with fear at the sight of the needle and
what it contained. Sparky reached forward and pulled the headphones
off his brother.

“You remember what this is don’t you Evon?
You should, after how many of them you stuck me with over the
years. After all this treatment is one of your defining
achievements.”

Sparky stuck the needle in as his brother
violently fought against his restraints his eyes wide and panicked.
He abruptly went completely slack as the solution in the needle was
fully injected. His eyes rolled around and his breathing was
shallow.

“Untie him.” Sparky said calmly.

As Roric went about releasing Evon, Sparky
exchanged the memory chip in the headset player for another, which
he took from his pocket.

Talaric who was watching the scene that was
unfolding was mildly irritated, because this entire setup hadn’t
been in the planning that he was aware of, “What’s in that stuff?”
He asked.

“It’s a lie serum of sorts I suppose you
could say. It scrambles the subject’s memories temporarily and
makes the subject open to influence through programming. It’s most
often used to change a key witnesses testimony or turn an enemy
agent back on their own side in a suicide bomb attempt.”

Sparky picked up the empty case and sat it
on his brother’s lap.

“When he awakens in twenty minutes or so he
will believe that he is a secret agent tasked with carrying the
case to safety and to avoid capture at all costs. The case no doubt
has a tracking feature to it. He’ll lead them on a merry chase for
a while at least. When he comes around it’s doubtful that they’ll
believe him anyway and instead believe him to be a traitor. Come
let’s go. Eva is the smoke ready?”

“Yes.”

“Trigger it then dear and the bombs if you
would, Talaric.”

I reached up to the arranged piles of
decoratively laid up hair on my head. My thumb found the end of the
hairpin I was in search of and I pressed it. Screams erupted from
the ballroom floor as billowing clouds of smoke filled the brightly
lit scene, closely followed by the dull thumps of the floor beneath
them, as Talaric detonated the bomb on the shelf at the military
base and the one under the seat of the rail car that Ellanara had
placed.

In a mass panic everyone fled for the
outdoors and their vehicles. We joined the flood of panicked
humanity fleeing outside. Once outside we avoided the vehicles and
headed towards an old observation point on the chalet grounds.

The road leading down the mountainside would
be shut off within moments by security forces stationed there. We
arrived at the observation point and to some extent began to strip
off some of our clothes.

The skirt part of my dress tore away where
it was designed to. My dress now gone my legs were bared to the
chilly night breeze. I did not like the cold of this place at
all!

I much preferred my native jungle like
atmosphere than the sharp cold of this place. Quickly I went about
ripping the two harnesses off of the inside of my dress where they
had been artfully sewn into it. I slipped into mine clicking it
into place and then I helped Talaric slip the extra one onto
Eleanor. I caught his gaze traveling up my bare legs to land on the
holster strapped high up on my left thigh.

“Nice!” Was all he said, but I felt myself
turn several shades of red in the aftermath of his comment and I
was glad it was dark, except for the glimmer of the half moon.

I wasn’t at all sure about this next part of
the plan. At some point in the past one mode of transportation to
the castle chalet had been by the use of a cable car that was no
longer in use, but the cables for it still hung stretched down over
the gorge below. If we didn’t all die, some of us certainly would,
that was for sure.

Even if I made it safely to the bottom I
would surely perish from frostbite. I wasn’t ready when I was
abruptly lifted off of my feet and hooked onto the little wheel
contraption that someone had already snapped onto the old rusty
cable. With a half choked off scream I started out over the edge as
someone pushed me away with a hand to the small of my back.

Oh God! Oh God please!

I picked up speed and heard the grinding of
the little breaks in the pulley contraption overhead, as it tried
to slow me down as sparks kicked out into the night air.

It was so cold and I was so going to die. I
watched the ground looming up closer and closer and I had to close
my eyes. I didn’t want to see my end come. It was bad enough that I
was going to have to briefly feel it.

Strong hands jerked me out of midair to an
abrupt stop and I grudgingly opened my eyes, which was hard because
it felt like my tears of fright had frozen my eyes shut.