CHAPTER 24 — WAR
Jane easily destroyed the lock on the final door that led to the main corridor. She found herself walking along a path bathed in red hues: a light that rose and fell on the walls around her as the klaxons blared overhead. She broke into a run and glanced quickly at the arboretum, which was now bathed in red light. The leaves on the oak tree momentarily turned red as she turned and reminded herself of some otherworldly trees she had once seen in a dream.
She took a left and literally crashed into Morris. The two of them grabbed at each other to keep from falling over. She stopped and looked in his eyes. They threw their arms around each other. She held his body close to hers for a moment. Then she pulled away and saw through the rising and falling light that his face was still covered with blood. She reached up and ran her hand over his cheek.
“I’m fine.”
“Good,” she said, smiling. “I got him.”
He smiled widely at her. “Thanks, Jane,” he said.
She turned and looked behind him, noticing that the others were with him, too. “How did you get out?” she asked.
“We don’t know,” Ciara said from over his shoulder. “The doors just opened.”
“And Jane…somebody took out the suppression device. Watch this,” Carl said. He turned towards the end of the corridor where the arboretum was and looked towards the ceiling. Jane watched as his brow furrowed and one of the klaxons exploded, creating a momentary flash that lit up the interior as though it were filled with daylight. Glass and sparks fell to the floor in a brief haze of gold. Then that section was dark again, with only the echoing sounds of falling glass filling it.
“I know,” she said, smiling. Some of them were giggling with a wild excitement. Even Sophia was smiling. “Who do you think it was?”
“Who cares?” Morris replied.
“Lucas is definitely out of the way?” Michael asked.
“Yes, for sure,” Jane replied. She turned to the rest of them. “I think it’s time to get out of here.” They all cheered in agreement. “Come on,” she said, moving down the corridor rapidly, automatically assuming a position of leadership. They followed behind her. She broke into a light run as they walked towards the second section. Then they entered the area that contained the metal door leading to the control room and the employee area. She paused briefly; Morris came up behind her.
“If we’re going to get out of here, we have to do it before they manage to get the field back up,” he warned her.
They walked surreptitiously towards the exit that they wanted: the steel door leading to the control room and, beyond it, the way out. As they approached it, Jane knew they would have to work together to break through. She was about to turn around to address her friends when the door slid open.
There was a figure standing on the other side. For a moment, as the red light dimmed, Jane couldn’t make out who it was. A second later she saw that it was Charlotte. Her demeanour struck Jane as entirely different. Before, she had appeared to be in bad shape. Now, her hair and makeup were done, and her suit looked good, too. She was smiling and she looked stronger; she even looked younger. Jane glanced down and saw a Taser in Charlotte’s hand.
She entered the room and saw that the man whom Lucas had referred to as Chris was cowering in the corner. Next to him, Jane saw what she could only presume was the primary psionic suppression device. It was still smouldering.
“You did that?” Jane asked.
“Yes. I met your friend,” Charlotte replied.
“Who?”
“Tall, black coat, goes by the name of…”
“Max.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Well, thanks for your help, Charlotte.”
“Oh no.”
The others had filed into the room behind Jane, and everyone turned to Chris when he said this. He was looking at the monitors as one of his hands flew to his face and covered his mouth. They turned to the main screen, which was now displaying an image of the gate at the perimeter of the grounds above. They saw a large vehicle approaching out of the blackness, its lights shining through the gaps in the giant iron gate.
It was the chimera Jane had felt coming all these years of her life: lingering underneath the surface like a huge trembling hand, and now reaching out of the darkness into full vision on the screen directly in front of her. The large vehicle smashed straight through the gate, taking out parts of the wall on either side and sending large chunks of rock and iron flying forward.
It stopped thirty feet inside the grounds and people began to file out onto the grass. They were all wearing uniforms of some sort and were carrying weapons. Other vehicles began to drive in through the destroyed gate; these took up positions on either side of the larger one.
Jane looked to one of the other monitors that displayed an image of the perimeter outside. The specialised security vehicles that had been called to protect the facility lay in ruins next to the wall; some of them were covered in flames. She could only guess what had become of the officers. The men and women of the faction continued to pour out of the vehicles until there was a wall of what looked like a hundred people lined up in front of them, weapons at their sides.
“How are we going to get out?” Charlotte asked.
Jane looked at her and then back at the screen. There were too many of them. She knew now that the occupants of the facility were probably cowering in the employee area beyond the control room and that their protection now lay in the hands of Jane and her friends.
She gasped when the idea came to her. She turned and looked at Michael as the notion formed in her mind. She couldn’t help but curl her lips in a smile. She was about to begin passing instructions to them when a voice boomed through the sound system overhead.
“This message is for any staff in the facility that we now stand upon. Your security personnel are either dead or in custody. Turn over the ethereals to us immediately, or we will be forced to overrun the facility. You have five minutes before we enter these premises and take what we have come for.”
They stared at each other as the voice came down over them. Their faces betrayed shock, but no longer fear.
“Thought I fixed that,” Chris muttered from the back somewhere, referring to whatever security loophole the group had found to enter their systems and send the message. He seemed more upset at that than anything the message had contained.
Morris looked at Jane. “It’s your call, Jane. What do we do?”
They exchanged questioning glances as she turned to them and began to transmit instructions telepathically.
As one, they turned their attention on the door and pushed. The metal in the frame, which was six inches in thickness, bulged and then buckled under the combined weight of their power. After five or six seconds, the door exploded from its frame and flew down the hallway. It turned end over end in an uncontrolled, cascading fashion, then finally clattered to the floor and lay silent.
They heard gasps and screams from the employees beyond the doorway, but ignored them completely. One by one, the ethereals went through the door, though now they were operating as one. Charlotte followed behind them.