Hero Born: Project Solaris (9 page)

Summers didn't answer, instead stalking to stand next to Marcus near the door. Usir allowed the insubordination, but filed it away to be dealt with later. Summers had one of the rarest lineages, nearly as rare as David's, or David's mother. Yet even that might not make her worth the effort. She was becoming a liability, and the day was fast approaching when Usir would mete out the fate she seemed to crave.

"How do we get him back, and exactly what is that going to cost me?" Jillian asked.
 

"What are you prepared to offer?" Usir asked, raising an eyebrow.

That took the girl aback. Her eyes smoldered, but she contained her anger. A good sign, that. She was young, but already possessed self-control. Probably from her martial arts training. She'd make a formidable agent, if she could be recruited.

"It doesn't work that way. Name your price, and I'll consider whether it's worth paying." Jillian's eyes hardened, less fire and more steel now. Yes, a very formidable agent--with the right molding, of course.

"There's no cost, because I don't believe I can do what you're asking." Usir gave a helpless shrug, a calculated gesture.

"What do you mean? David is important to you, or you wouldn't have gone after him. So how do we get him back?"

Usir sighed, this one quite genuine. "We pray, child. If his captors make a mistake, then we will find them. If David finds a way to contact us, we'll act instantly. Otherwise? There's nothing we can do."

"What about us?" Kali asked, speaking for the first time.
 

Usir turned his attention to her, eyes widening when he realized he'd missed something. One of his many talents allowed him to examine helixes with little more than a glance. The pattern in Kali's DNA was familiar. Her powers hadn't fully manifested, but Kali was a pyrokinetic. That might prove useful in the days to come. "About you? I'm not sure what you mean."

"Are you going to lock us up?" Kali asked, her eyes wide as dinner plates.

"Of course not," Usir said, smiling as warmly as he could. "It's up to you what you do from here. If you wish, I can put you up in a local hotel, or you can go your own way. What the grey men want, we seek to prevent. They want David, not you."

"We'll be on our way, then," Jillian said, stalking toward the door. Kali followed a moment later, and the pair stalked from the room. Jillian paused at the entrance, meeting his gaze. "We will get him back, and when we do you're going to give us some answers about who you are, and just what it is you want." Then she turned and left.

"Summers, contact Yuri. I want a conventional team standing by," Usir ordered, rising to his feet. He approached the window, watching the bay once more.

Chapter 14- Escape Plan

Dick left me lying on the table--typical dick move. I couldn't see a clock and there weren't any windows, but based on my increasing degree of discomfort, hours had passed. My neck was sore, one hand itched, and I had to pee. After a time, I forgot about my neck and hand because the urge to pee was becoming irresistible. So much so, the effort to resist caused me to sweat.

There was something terrible about finally releasing a warm wet puddle, especially since I just had to lie there in it. I'd spent the preceding hours straining against my bonds, and had even tried summoning electricity. It didn't take long to figure out why my hands had been wrapped in rubber.
 

So I started to cry. Yeah, I know, I had powers. That was supposed to make me a hero, but try laying in a puddle of your own piss while you wait for your mind-reading boss to turn you over to the aliens that have been experimenting on you since you were a kid.
 

I didn't know how long the tears lasted, but when they stopped I was at rock bottom. That made the choice easy. If I was going to get out of this, I'd have to use my brain. I wasn't Einstein, but I'd always been fairly bright. I'd focused mostly on computers, spending a lot of my childhood learning to build and repair them, and my brief time at SRJC had been spent learning to program them. Now I'd apparently manifested the power to interface directly with them.

How could I use that to my advantage?
 

I looked around the room and considered my options. There were lights, but since I couldn't fire electricity out of my ass that was out. Even if I could, putting out the lights wouldn't accomplish anything. There was a sprinkler head but even if I could figure out a way to start a fire, that would just get me really wet. If the fire department showed up, they wouldn't have the means to get down into the basement.

I closed my eyes, considering. Over the last few hours I'd made a few mental leaps, and I thought I'd figured out how my powers might work. I could interface directly with machines, which communicated in two ways. The first was through electricity. The second was through signals. Nearly every computer in the world now had a Wi-Fi card, and we were blanketed by signals whether we knew it or not. The big question mark, of course, was whether or not I could see and manipulate signals.

So I listened. Seconds turned into minutes, but all I could hear was the pounding of my own heart. I forced myself to breathe deeply, knowing that I was close to panic. The grey men could arrive any minute, and the only resource I had was my wits. I had to keep it together.

I tried again, but this time I thought about my situation and how much it pissed me off. How angry Dick made me, not just today, but over the entire time I'd worked for Initech. To my shock, I realized that I could hear something faint, so faint I wasn't even sure it was there at first. It was exactly the sort of pulsing I sometimes heard when a cellphone was too close to a speaker. Something bubbled up inside of me, and that noise grew louder. I imagined it like a binary version of morse code, and tried to focus on what the data was saying.

"Oh my god," I muttered aloud. "Those are data packets."

I'd been a sysadmin for my high school, and understood the TCP/IP protocol very, very well. That, combined with binary, meant I could mentally parse data. Well, it meant I could do it with the aid of whatever the grey men had done to me. I slowed my breathing, trying to envision the packets. Light exploded in my head, a river of data I could see in my mind's eye. It was rainbow colored, every light pulse a different length and composition. The sounds were a symphony of connected light, and if I focused on any specific part I found that I could read it.
 

I laughed until I nearly cried again. It wasn't much, but at least I'd accomplished something. I could feel the Wi-Fi signals around me, which meant I could listen to data. The life-saving question still loomed, though: could I send signals as well as receive them? I envisioned a data packet, structuring the request in assembly, the lowest-level programming language I knew. The code flowed in my head, almost like I was typing it on a screen. It was like having a built in computer, one that responded far faster than its real counterpart.

I broadcast my little packet, a simple ping request. It was the smallest, easiest form of communication over a local area network. There was no answer. I waited a few more seconds, but still nothing. Damn it. I could send data, but the signal I was broadcasting was too weak to reach any of the Wi-Fi routers in the building.
 

I gritted my teeth, wishing I had a hand free so I could punch the wall. Every time I made a little progress, there was another barrier. There had to be a way to do this. There must be some way to strengthen the signal. How did real computer hardware do it? Increasing the power. Stronger routers used better antennas, but they also used more juice. Did that mean I could do the same thing? Time to find out.

I closed my eyes again, composing another ping request. Then I concentrated, so hard that I began to shake. I could feel the blood rushing to my head, feel the beginning of a migraine competing with all the other aches and pains. Then I released my packet. I waited seven long seconds, but there was no response.

"Are you frigging kidding me?" I yelled, thrashing powerlessly in my bonds. "What the hell do you want from me, universe?"

It took maybe fifteen minutes for me to calm down enough to try again, and that only happened because I literally had nothing else to do. So I concentrated again, but this time I channeled all the rage, all the helplessness. I began to scream, forcing everything I had into the ability. A trickle of warmth leaked from my nose, and I didn't have to see it to know that it was blood. I didn't care. I tried harder.

The first data packet whizzed through the air, up through the ceiling, to the router on the first floor. My brain facilitated a quick handshake, and, just like that, I'd established a connection. The room faded away, and I was surrounded by an endless sea of light streams. Rivers that could carry me anywhere I wanted to go.

I smiled, gliding up the river until I found a cell phone. It belonged to a barista at the coffee shop across the street. I bit my lip, trying to decide how I could use it. I didn't have Jillian's email address, or even Kali's. I had no way of getting in touch with Hateya.

Then it occurred to me. I could use social media. Kali was a seventeen-year-old girl, and most kids her age used Tumblr far more often than Facebook. So I started browsing, sifting through thousands of accounts almost instantaneously. Then I found her. Her username was TardisLover, and the picture matched her perfectly. So I sent her a message.

Kali. Need help. At 415 Howard Street. Please send help. Be careful. Initech works for grey men.

Chapter 15- Gun Battle

I must have dozed off. The door crashed open, and several figures burst into the room, the first a beefy dark-haired man in police-style body armor. He carried a large pistol in one hand, and a baton in the other. His thick goatee had a few strands of grey, and he moved like a professional.

Behind him came figures I recognized. Jillian, followed by Summers, her scary friend Marcus, and two other men in body armor. The first was short and stocky with a shock of red hair, the other one tall and blonde.

Jillian rushed over to me, withdrawing a pocket knife and sawing at the first of my bonds. Summers moved to another, and within seconds they had me free.
 

"I see you got my message," I said. I grunted as I rose stiffly to my feet. "Where's Kali?"

"She's with us," Jillian said, helping me to the door. "I got her out when they took you. She's driving our getaway van."

"You let a seventeen-year-old drive the getaway vehicle?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"She was determined to help, and I didn't have time to argue."
 

"Quiet," the first man in body armor snapped. He had a thick Russian accent. "Is combat op. Could be assaulted at any time. Focus."

He waved his baton, and the other two figures in body armor started for the stairs. The red-headed one paused. He turned toward his taller companion and shot the guy in the face with a monstrous pistol identical to the one the Russian carried. Then the red-headed guy turned toward the rest of us.

Marcus was already moving as the man raised his pistol. He extended a hand, jerking it violently to the right. The soldier's neck snapped, and he collapsed bonelessly to the floor. Everyone was silent for a moment, staring.

"Telepath," Summers said, turning to Marcus. "I can feel him. He's upstairs, watching us through a camera."

"You killed Murphy," the Russian snarled, seizing Marcus by the shirt with one enormous fist. "Could have subdued."

"We can't take chances, Yuri," Marcus snarled back, knocking the Russian back a step with a casual gesture and an invisible wave of force. "We need to get out of here. Now."

The door to the stairwell slammed open, and something large bounded into the hallway. Something familiar, scaly, and very pissed off. The beast still had a scar where the four eyes on the right side of its head used to be.

"Down it," Marcus barked, waving his hand in the beast's direction.

The beast seemed to strain against a great force; Marcus grunted as he generated that force. The beast slid back a step, then its eyes flared green. It inhaled, then spat an enormous gob of sticky, putrid goo into Marcus's face.
 

Marcus screamed, collapsing in a heap as he flopped about in a vain attempt to remove the goo. The scent of cooked meat filled the basement hallway, nauseating me to the point of gagging.

Several things happened very nearly at once. Summers waved a hand over Marcus, and the goo levitated off of him. Summers gave a chopping motion, flinging it against the wall, where it sizzled and hissed as paint and plaster melted.

The beast fired a second wave of goo, this time in my direction. My legs refused my order to dive out of the way, leaving me to watch in horror as it sailed toward my chest. Then Jillian was there. She grabbed my arm, and cool energy washed over me. I winced, but the goo passed right through our suddenly ethereal forms.

Unfortunately, Yuri stood right behind us. Whatever the beast had vomited hit him square in the chest, and his Kevlar began smoking immediately. It gave off a sharp odor of burnt plastic, but he seemed otherwise unharmed.

"Go, go," Yuri roared, his thick Russian accent lending the words even more weight. He glided forward to meet the beast, which had began an ungainly charge in our direction. Yuri brought his baton down on its face, driving it back a step with a sharp crack.