The Ethereal Vision

  ***

  Jane and Ciara sat in the recreation room later, relaxing on the sofas, mostly in silence. After a while, the power came back on to its full extent and bright white light filled the room. Jane squinted and Ciara rushed to turn off some of the lights. They had a brief conversation about what Lucas had done when he had last brought Jane into the testing room; Ciara recoiled in shock at what Jane told her. Now, however, Jane knew it was time to tell Ciara about Max.

  “So…” Jane looked over to her. “I need to tell you something. I have this friend. His name is Max.”

  Ciara looked at her, confused. “But he’s not in here?” she asked.

  “No,” Jane replied, then began to tell Ciara about the various visitations she had received from Max. After a few minutes of explanation, Ciara turned to Jane and asked the obvious question.

  “So he can’t contact you…telepathically…through the suppression field?’ Ciara’s gaze fell to the right as she considered this. “I suppose that makes sense,” she said.

  “I haven’t been in contact with him since I entered the facility. I get the sense that he’s tremendously powerful. But he once told me that he couldn’t affect the physical world because he isn’t a part of it.”

  “So whoever he is, he can’t help us in any way?”

  “Well, not much. I think he can guide us, but that’s about it—for now, anyway. There’s another issue,” Jane said. “Well, a couple actually.”

  “What?”

  “There’s a woman here, named Charlotte. She’s some kind of assistant to Lucas.”

  “Yes, I know who she is.”

  Jane described how she and Charlotte had discussed the possibility of her helping them escape.

  “How long do we have until this faction comes to the facility?” Ciara asked.

  “They don’t really know. And they don’t know which facility they’re going to go for.”

  “Well, we have to find a way out then, Jane. We don’t have any other choice now. We can’t wait for this woman to make up her mind. We have to try.”

  “But our abilities…”

  “Are virtually zero, yes, but it doesn’t matter anymore. We have to do something. If Lucas doesn’t hurt us or damage us in some way that we can’t recover from, or if that damn field doesn’t give us cancer or something, then those guys who are planning on storming the gates sooner or later will most certainly kill us.”

  “So what do we do?” Jane asked, but Ciara seemed to have no answer. Jane looked ahead and thought for a moment. She wished that Max was there to help her. “Get Michael and Morris,” she said finally. “We’ll have to bring the others in, too. We need a new plan.”