***
Charlotte finished her day of work at the facility thinking of nothing except the conversation she had had with Jane in the arboretum. She found it had stressed her more than she thought it would. When she entered the facility earlier that day, she was sure that she wanted to help. Now she found herself hesitating.
The problem was Lucas. She was right to be scared. What exactly was she going to do? Maybe she could get away with carrying a weapon into the facility, but she also knew that if Lucas suspected any conspiring on her part, he would do anything to stop her.
She walked through the dark just outside the facility along a path that cut across the green area stretching all the way to the wall at the perimeter. Then she crossed the road on the right-hand side and walked through a separate gate that led to the employee parking lot. She had parked her car four rows in. When she passed the second row of cars, she stopped and gasped. She looked to her left and saw him. It was Lucas, standing just beyond the second row of cars, right in front of hers. He was looking straight at her.
“Miss Jenkins, how are you?”
“I’m good, thank you, sir,” she said, concealing the fact that her breath was catching in her throat. Her muscles tensed up, and she felt her heart begin to flutter in her chest as he stepped from behind the row of cars. His Taser was dangling in his left hand, which was down by his side, pointed at the ground.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you spend an extended time in the arboretum today with Jane Connor?”
Charlotte gripped the handle of her purse tightly as her mind searched frantically for something she could use as a weapon if she were to need one.
“Yes. I wanted to ask her about her time in the facility and how she was getting on. I asked her if she missed her home,” she said. She hadn’t planned on saying this last thing, but she thought it best to give him something rather than nothing.
“You asked her did she miss her home?” he asked, his eyebrows raised. He patted the weapon on his thigh.
“Yes, is there something wrong with that?” She turned towards him, not knowing where the surge of confidence came from. She had the distinct impression that there was a presence watching them from two rows over. Her eyes darted in that direction, and she thought she could see something that was more like a shadow than a person. She had looked for only a split second, though, and her thoughts had begun to swirl in a panic, so she dismissed it.
“Is there something wrong with that?” she said indignantly, her servile veneer finally breaking and impatience reaching the surface. It felt like her mind glowed for a second, as it was the first reproachful action she had taken against him. It felt wonderful.
He approached her then and she noticed his right fist clenched. She gasped, as she was sure he was going to hit her. The thought occurred to her that if he touched her, he would have a serious fight on his hands.
“You’re not to come back here tomorrow, Miss Jenkins, do you understand? You’re employment here is terminated, effective immediately,” he said, the words dripping from his lips in a near snarl.
“You can’t do that, Lucas, there are procedures to follow. I’ll contact the committee,” she said in a curt, flat tone. What the hell are you doing? a voice inside her said, but the new steel indignance was growing stronger. It was now like a ward of invisible armour around her. He had already turned his back and was walking away from her when he turned and looked at her again.
“You’ve worked for me long enough to know that I can bury you by barely lifting a finger. Don’t come back here, or I’ll muddy your history so much you won’t be able to get even an ATM card for the next twenty years.” He walked off into the night, ending any further discussion of the matter.
Now that she was outside the facility, Charlotte realised—perhaps more now that she had been barred from it—that she really did want to help the ethereals. But she wasn’t sure if she could. After a few moments during which she just stood in the parking lot, she walked to her car. She remembered the strange, shadow-like presence she thought she had seen. Charlotte looked to that location again, turning her head quickly, but nobody was there—just shadows and light. She glanced in that direction for a few more moments, the wind lifting the hair from her forehead. Then she got into her car and drove home.
She arrived one hour later and entered her dark apartment. She hung her coat and went into the kitchen to make tea. While standing at the counter, she pulled the top drawer out again and reached for the Taser, not quite knowing why she was doing it. She placed the Taser on the table while she waited for the kettle to boil.
She finished making tea and sat at the table. She sipped the drink silently in the dim light of the well-adorned kitchen, staring at the sophisticated, metallic weapon on the table in front of her. She wondered what to do. She knew she wanted to help, but she didn’t know how anymore. Lucas had terminated her employment, or so he had said. Would that mean that her access was immediately revoked, or would he take time to do it? She guessed the latter; he wasn’t concentrating too well as of late.
As she thought about the situation, a wave of relief came over her body and her muscles relaxed. In a way, although she hadn’t asked to be, she had been dealt out of the game. She had known for a while that if she continued working there, she probably would have had some kind of breakdown anyway. She had imagined herself, within a few months, crawling around in a bush somewhere half naked. Now at least she had an excuse to do nothing; she had an excuse to stop and let it be someone else’s problem for a while. Charlotte felt a monumental pressure she hadn’t known was there release from her shoulders. It felt as though every single cell in her upper body was breathing clearly again.
You’re just exhausted, she thought. That’s why you’re thinking like this. If you had three months on a beach somewhere, you’d come back in a heartbeat and hold up your sword and shield for them.
The lights seemed to dim around her at the same time she acquiesced to the idea that she probably would not be able to help them—that she didn’t believe she was strong enough. It was as though the space around her was slowly losing its power, like the electrical energy of the world itself was fading away. She could see her breath in front of her and found herself thinking, That’s odd. It’s winter but…the heat’s on. What’s happening? I feel like I’m froz…
The thought ended abruptly as she realised something had changed in her field of vision. She became aware that she had slipped into some kind of trance, and that somebody was sitting across from her at the kitchen table. She tried to move as the panic spread through her body, but she could not. She tried to speak, but she was unable.
She had managed to move only her eyes and was staring at him now: the figure in the black coat. So beautiful. The thought came to her mind, ghost-like, and was gone. She had the sudden impression that the figure sitting at the kitchen table in front of her was the same shadowy presence from the parking lot. She was staring right into his eyes as another thought came to her: He’s not human. Then he spoke directly into her mind.
Don’t be frightened. I’m not here to hurt you.
Her mind finally seemed to reconnect to her physical body; she found that it responded to her again. She saw her arms reach in front of her and pick up the weapon from the table. She pointed it at the man sitting across from her and stood, backing away into the corner of the kitchen. On the verge of hyperventilating, she knocked over the chair, which fell to the floor with a clatter as she backed up against the wall. To her surprise, the man looked at her and smiled.
“A gun won’t be of any use to you.”
“Are you an ethereal?” she asked, her voice low and ragged.
“No.”
“Then who are you? How the hell did you get into my apartment?”
The man looked up and around in a strange, half-interested fashion. “Well,” he responded, “I’m not exactly here. Just part of me is here.”
“Who…what are you?”
?
??Consider me…an entity. I believe that’s the word you have that comes closest to describing me.”
Charlotte immediately remembered several references to such beings in her research days. She had even made mention of them herself in her thesis. Pages from the book First Visions came to mind. Her hands lowered slowly as she let the Taser fall to her side.
“I think…I think I know what you mean. I think I know who you are.” A slight gasp escaped her lips as the reality of what she was facing dawned on her.
“Good,” he replied, the sound of his voice revealing honesty and sincerity.
“Do you have a name?”
“Max,” he said flatly. “I came here to encourage you, Charlotte.”
“Encourage me to do what?”
“To make the right decision about the people they’re holding in the facility you work at.”
“I don’t work there anymore.”
“Yes, I know. I was watching. Lucas terminated your employment. We can work out a way around that, if you’re willing. Of course, I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do. These are decisions you have to make.”
She tried to think for a moment, but found it tremendously difficult to find the right questions to ask. Finally, she located one. “What interest do you have in them?”
“Well, one of them is a friend of mine.”
Without thinking, she knew immediately who it was. “Jane,” she said. Charlotte didn’t know how she knew this, but immediately she was certain that was who he was referring to.
“Yes,” the strange man replied.
“How am I supposed to help? I’ve just lost my position there.”
“I can help get you back inside. There’s not much I can do from where I am, but I can certainly advise you, even though I can’t see inside the facility.”
“Because of the psionic dampening field?”
“Yes. I’ve scanned the minds of various personnel going into and coming out of the facility. I know quite a lot about it now.”
“And I presume you know that there’s a dangerous radical group that has threatened the facility?” she asked bluntly, the strength coming back into her voice. “They seem to want nothing more than the eradication of the ethereals.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that. They have their own plans, too. We have to try to get Jane and her new friends out before they get there. Failing that, there will be…an altercation. A dangerous one.”
Max looked at her through eyes that seemed to shine. They reminded her of Icelandic peaks and winter light. Through his eyes, she saw a flash—an image from somewhere else—of electrical cables being pulled free from their housing in a blaze of light. She gasped and put her hand to her forehead, not knowing where the image had come from. When she opened her eyes again, it was gone.
She put the weapon on the kitchen counter and walked back over to the table. She picked up the chair slowly, keeping her eyes on his. (Charlotte found it difficult, in fact, to pull her eyes away from him.) She sat down in front of him, placing her hands on the table.
“Okay. How can I help?” she asked.
“First of all, I’m sure you’re aware that Lucas is a dangerous individual. You need to avoid him if you can. You need to go back into the facility and do your best to get into the control room and disable the main generator. If you do that, the ethereals can probably escape on their own.”
“Okay,” she said, nodding.
“You should protect yourself as well.”
“Yes,” she said. “Most of them carry weapons.” She paused to think, and he continued to watch her. She could see encouragement in his eyes. “I’ll have to get through security. I know one of the guards, Wayne, quite well. If they’ve revoked my access, I think I can convince him to let me in. I’ll tell him I left something behind.”
“Good. You won’t be able to contact Jane or any of the others before you destroy the device, so go straight through the door to the control room and do that.”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“If you do this right, you won’t have to. If necessary, you can threaten them, or use that sophisticated electrical weapon you have there. Then destroy the device and wait there until the ethereals come. They’ll be able to protect you.”
“Are you sure about that?”
He regarded her for a second, and his eyes grew more intense. “Yes,” he replied.
She looked at him again, and a thought crossed her mind. She had been under severe stress lately, enough stress to vomit. “Are you really here?” she asked.
“Yes, I am.”
“Just shows how deep I’ve gone in, I suppose.”
“Yes it does,” he said, raising his eyebrows. He smiled at her, and she found it tremendously comforting. Then he pursed his lips. “This is only the beginning, Charlotte. There are powers beyond either of us now becoming involved in this situation. Just play your part, and don’t worry about the rest.”
“Does this have anything to do with the Atlantic Object?”
He stared at her, and for the first time, she saw what seemed like real human hesitation.
After a quiet moment during which he simply regarded her, he replied, “Yes.”
She stared at him, feeling as though their roles were suddenly reversed. She was no longer in the spotlight, and he was the one who had something to be concerned about.
“What is it?” she convinced herself to ask.
He took a moment to respond. “That’s beyond the scope of this discussion, but I think it’s best that you don’t involve yourself in such matters.”
“Right,” she said. She accepted this from him, but just barely. “But may I ask a question about it?”
He nodded.
“Does it come from you?”
“It did not come from me or my kind. It came from a race of beings older than us.”
“Where are they now?”
He looked at her, and again that strange silence ensued. “We don’t know,” he said, nodding his head.
He appeared to grow weary of the discussion then. She could detect a hint of despondency in his body language, as though the subject held regret for him in some fashion. She decided to take a chance with one more question.
“Where did they go?”
He looked at her sternly and a shudder went through her. “Like I said, it’s best that you don’t involve yourself in such matters.”
The room then appeared to brighten, and the space around her seemed to swirl a little, the air electrifying. He was leaving; she could tell.
“Go early tomorrow, Charlotte. Remember, the facility has been threatened by a dangerous force completely beyond Lucas’ control. He thinks he’ll be able to defend it, but he’s horribly mistaken.”
His image gradually faded and he was gone. The light returned to the kitchen as normal awareness overcame her senses. She could once again hear the sound of the world that had grown momentarily dark. She sat at the table and breathed deeply, trying to comprehend what had just happened. There was still steam rising from her cup of tea, and she took a sip. It seemed she would be going back to the facility tomorrow after all.
After a time, during which she merely sat in the darkness, she found herself smiling. It surprised her.