Born to Darkness (23 page)

Diaz smiled briefly, ruefully, and Elliot’s heart actually sped up. “Busted,” he admitted. “The guy I brought in … I didn’t want to have to help move him from the car to the holding cell. The temptation to snap his neck was a little too strong. I was really just giving myself a time-out.”

Now Elliot couldn’t help but think about the way he’d found Diaz, sitting on the floor in the corner of that darkened exam room. Had that been a
time-out
, too?

Across the hall, Diaz’s body language got even tighter. He was perceptive enough to know just where Elliot’s thoughts had gone, even without telepathic assistance.

And Elliot didn’t have to be a Greater-Than to know that if he mentioned that earlier incident at all, Diaz would run away. So instead he said, “I’m doing some preliminaries on a promising new Potential, but I’m thinking he might be experiencing a significant block, due to massive disbelief. I was hoping to grab Dr. Bach to do a little demo, but as long as you’re here and looking for a distraction …?” He gestured toward the exam room door.

“Oh,” Diaz said, looking again down the hall, as if wishing he had the power to be rude and just walk away. “Yeah. Sure.”

“It’ll only take two minutes,” Elliot reassured him, leading the way back into the room where Shane Laughlin was pretending that he hadn’t been messing with the comm-station on the wall.

“Oh, it’s you,” Diaz said as he shook Shane’s hand, and Elliot introduced the two men.

Elliot was watching closely, and Shane
wasn’t
flung against the far wall the way Elliot had been earlier when he’d touched the Fifty.

So … maybe that power had been Elliot’s. And wasn’t
that
a ridiculous theory, since he was as un-special as they came.

“I, um, saw Lieutenant Laughlin come in,” Diaz told Elliot, a tad self-consciously.

And yes, it made sense that Diaz would have noticed Shane Laughlin. Kind of hard not to. Elliot thought of himself as a fairly good-looking man, but standing beside both Diaz and Shane, he felt both dweebish and nearly invisible.
And
simultaneously flabby and skinny—which came with the knowledge that it was both time to hit the gym
and
time to accept the fact that he should never bother going to the gym again, because why make the effort?

Shane nodded coolly as he greeted Diaz. “You were going someplace in a hurry. With your … friend.”

“Shane’s former military and still a little suspicious of us,” Elliot told Diaz, leaving Mac out of it, since Shane had done the same. Although that use of the word
friend
was certainly interesting.

He hit the button that turned the med scanners on, using the keyboard to call up Diaz’s profile, too—no point in announcing it, though. While it wasn’t standard to scan Greater-Thans who were participating in an experiment, Diaz was still looking tired and as if he were under some kind of physical strain.
Long night
was an understatement.

And even though both men were in motion and fully clothed, Elliot could still program the computer to make a partial or jot scan—which, here at OI, included a readout of their neural integration levels.

Diaz was smiling at Shane. “You ready for a demonstration?” he asked.

“What the fuck …?” the Potential said. He took a step forward, but then jerked to a stop. “What is this?” He then said something more, but his words were muffled and indiscernible, as if he were trying to talk with his lips tightly shut.

“First I bound your arms,” Diaz told him evenly, “then your legs, then I gave you a mental gag. I’m going to release you now. You need to relax, stop fighting me and regain your balance, or you’ll fall over. Ready?”

Shane nodded, his eyes almost wild with a mix of disbelief, frustration, and what on another man might have been fear. And maybe it
was
fear. Elliot had been used as a training dummy a time or two hundred. Being bound and gagged by telekinetic power was not for the claustrophobic or faint of heart.

“On one,” Diaz said. “Three … two … one.”

“Holy shit!” Shane fell forward and would have landed hard on his knees if Diaz hadn’t caught him. He turned to Elliot. “How the fuck did you do that?”

“Typical,” Elliot said to Diaz with mock disappointment. “Blame the guy who runs the fancy equipment.” He held out both of his hands as he turned to Shane. “I’m not doing anything. Didn’t touch the comm-station. Didn’t give the computer a vocal command. It’s all him.” He gestured toward Diaz with his head.

Now, with Elliot’s empty hands still held out in full view, Diaz used his power to pick up Shane, and deposit him over on the other side of the small room. Not as impressive as moving him across one of the main meeting rooms, but still astonishing to the former SEAL.

“I bound you before I picked you up,” Diaz told the Potential, “because the initial reaction to being moved like that is to flail, and I didn’t want to dump you on your butt. Be ready to really relax this time, because I’m going to release you on three … two … one.”

This time Shane only wobbled slightly. He’d caught on fast, but he still wasn’t completely convinced. He opened the exam room door. “I want to see you do that again, out in the hall,” he challenged Diaz, who followed him out and did just that as Elliot reviewed
the information on the computer from both men’s jot scans and …

Okay,
that
was weird. Shane hadn’t budged from seventeen percent integrated, which was exactly where he’d started. His reading hadn’t changed at all, out to three decimal points.

Instead
Diaz
was the one who’d popped. He usually scanned at anywhere from forty-eight to fifty percent. His scan from earlier tonight had had him at a higher than usual fifty-point-nine-two-five. But right now? He was showing an
amazing
fifty-eight. Fifty-eight-point-four-three-nine, to be painstakingly precise.

Elliot was just about to call Diaz back into the room—he’d recalibrated the equipment and was going to give the Greater-Than another scan—a full this time—when the overhead speakers began to trumpet an alarm.

They ran drills every month, so he easily identified the three-blast pattern. His “What the heck …?” was meant as more of a rhetorical question.

But Diaz answered as if he were serious—or maybe he was responding to Shane’s questioning look. “Intruder alert. Compound’s going into lockdown.” He came over to Elliot’s computer and all but hipchecked him aside, working the controls himself, overriding the medical file with one from security.

“The prisoner we just brought in,” Diaz announced as he scrolled through the reports on the computer screen. “He jokered. He’s going one-on-one with Mac, downstairs. She needs help.”

Most newcomers wouldn’t have understood half of what he’d said, but Shane, despite his Alice-in-Wonderland status, followed completely. He got all Alpha male and naval officer and said, “Where is she?” and “I’m going, too.”

“No, you’re not,” Diaz said, tossing Elliot a “Keep him here,” as he headed for the door.

But Elliot reached to stop Diaz with a hand on the bigger man’s arm—and the world went weird. He was suddenly bathed in warmth, and his vision seemed sharper. Colors were brighter, but they had a slightly yellow hue, as if he were wearing those tinted glasses that fighter pilots sometimes wore.

Diaz froze. Elliot did, too—which was stupid. He’d stopped the Fifty because he had to warn him. Diaz needed to be told that he was suddenly integrated at nearly sixty percent, that his powers were enormously enhanced. He had to be made aware of this. If he used his ability to manipulate electricity to control the joker, he could well kill the man with his augmented talents.

Seriously? I’m at sixty percent?

Holy crap, was that …?

Yeah, and I’m reading your thoughts, too. Very clearly. Holy crap, indeed
. That was definitely Diaz, deep inside of Elliot’s mind.
I’m not sixty, I’m fifty-eight-point-four-three-nine
.

Close enough.

No, it’s not. Two percentage points is … All right, I’m not gonna … You really think it’s …
Shane
who’s doing this to me?

Elliot did. His theory was that Shane had the power to somehow enhance or augment the Greater-Thans—the way he’d done with Mac, to help her heal herself and …

Mac really had sex with him? Okay, I don’t want to know that. Shit, he’s heading for the elevators
.

Diaz pulled his arm away, and without the contact, it was all gone—the warmth, the tint, and Diaz’s powerful presence inside of Elliot’s head. The shock of the sudden withdrawal made Elliot grab for the comm-station’s keyboard to hold himself upright. He clung to it as Diaz used his power to bring Shane all the way back into the room, to place him on the examination table, and to lock the physical restraints firmly around the former SEAL’s arms and legs.

“Don’t you goddamn do this!” Shane was saying. “I can help! For Christ’s sake, let me
help
!”

Diaz looked back at Elliot as he went out the door. “Lock this behind me,” he said, and then he was gone.

“God
damn
it!” Shane was practically foaming at the mouth and as Elliot turned to look at him, he could see the man visibly working to calm himself down. “Okay. Okay. Dr. Zerkowski. Elliot. Let’s be reasonable. I
can
help. Whatever’s going on, I can be an asset, with my training. So, look, we can make a deal. Unlock
me and let me go down there, and I’ll do whatever tests you want me to do and …”

He kept talking, but Elliot had already turned back to the comm-station, because the thought suddenly occurred to him that Shane’s
presence
might be necessary for him to enhance both of the Fifties’ power.

Elliot quickly keyed in the command for the computer to find Diaz and to jot scan him from a distance. The results would be less than accurate, but it would be better than guessing and …

Crap, according to the computer, Diaz’s integration level was already down to fifty-three and continuing to drop.

If Elliot’s theory was right, Shane’s presence downstairs in security would not only boost Diaz’s power, but Mac’s and Bach’s, too.

And since this was a brand-new scenario—they’d never had to deal with a jokering addict here at OI before—Elliot wanted to give Diaz more than a mere home court advantage. And Mac and Bach, too, of course. He turned to the table and unlocked Shane’s restraints. “Come on,” he told the former SEAL. “Let’s do this.”

And they both headed for the elevators at a run.

“This facility is in lockdown!” one of a crowd of ten guards shouted as Shane rounded the corner, with Elliot on his heels. The security team was positioned in front of what looked like a heavy steel door. “Containment shields are in place!”

According to Elliot, who’d gasped out the information as they ran through the brightly lit tunnels that connected the buildings in the compound, the Obermeyer Institute had never had an incident like this before. All of the jokering addicts they’d dealt with had already been in medical distress before arriving at the facility’s med-wing.

And while OI had holding cells in a designated brig, in a building close to but separate from Old Main, they’d rarely used it.

OI was, first and foremost, a research and training center.

Which meant that even if their security detail was carefully trained, they were inexperienced.

The intruder they were facing, however, was deadly.

He’d broken free from the brig area of the main security building, and had been trapped up on a higher floor.

That building, Elliot had informed Shane, was an older structure that also housed OI’s theater, and a ballroom-sized function room that was being set up to hold today’s meet-and-greet luncheon for the newly arriving Potentials.

“Sirs!” another guard started yelling, too, as neither man
slowed down. Her stress was evident in her strained voice. “This is not a drill! Turn around immediately! Seek shelter—”

“Research override,” Elliot bellowed over her. “Computer, access EZ! Jot scan and identify! Vocal verify!”

The computer’s voice—male and bland—clicked on through the overhead speakers as Shane and Elliot skidded to a stop. “Dr. Elliot Zerkowski and newly processed Potential Shane Laughlin,” the computer reported. “Warning—”

“Warnings received and understood,” Elliot said, then looked at Shane and nodded.

“Warnings received and understood,” Shane repeated, adding, “Open the fucking door.
Now
.”

“Do it,” Elliot ordered the stressed young woman who was obviously the detail’s CO. She obeyed, but didn’t look happy. “Computer, continuous jot scan of myself, Laughlin, Joseph Bach, Stephen Diaz, Michelle Mackenzie, and any other Greater-Than in the immediate vicinity of the altercation with the intruder.”

“
Michelle
Mackenzie?” Shane repeated as they went through the door. Doing so put them in a small, airlock-like holding area that had another heavy steel door on the other end.

“You didn’t know that?” Elliot asked, glancing at him as they waited impatiently for the first door to lock and the second door to open.

“Nope,” Shane said, heavy on the P. “Mac. She only volunteered
Mac
. How do we get the computer to give us a sit-rep—situation report?”

“I know what a sit-rep is,” Elliot said as he moved toward the comm-station on the wall. “Our system’s not designed for that kind of information.” He raised his voice. “Computer, visual of Mackenzie. For what it’s worth, I think Stephen Diaz might be the only one who calls her Michelle.”

And that made sense, going with Shane’s earlier hypothesis. Although if Mac had a boyfriend or—shit—a husband who was fricking Captain America, why the hell was she stepping out on the man? But there would be plenty of time to think about that later. Hopefully he could ask her that question to her face.

On the computer screen, Shane could see a grainy picture, no doubt from that ballroom where … “What the
fuck
was that?”

“Crap, this joker’s a flier,” Elliot said. “And—shit!—it looks like he’s already taken Mac down.”