He arrived over the island, looking down from the virtual plane. Then he descended, through the building to the underground chamber. Souris was waiting for him. Along with the Russian. And there was someone else with her. They had Aura turned on. Raisor tapped into the power.
Sergeant Lambier started. He rolled to his side, half expecting guards to come through the door firing. But there was only the sound of the others sleeping. His eyes darted about the room, searching for what had awakened him. Whatever had penetrated his sleeping brain was gone.
Barnes found the site of the battle without much trouble. He hovered over the rail line, noting that it had already been repaired, the derailed cars gone.
There was nothing on the virtual plane that he could pick up. No sign of the men of his team who had been “killed” by the Russian avatar.
Barnes jumped several times, in an ever widening circle, searching, but in vain. It was as if the men had never existed.
Hammond had one eye on the screen that showed the status of the three deployed Psychic Warriors and one eye on the lines of programming code and data files for Sybyl that she was slowly scrolling through. Her right index finger rested on the “up” key, tapping to reveal the lines one by one. She was working her way backward, trying to find the source of the virus and the exact nature of it.
Her finger paused in midair as something caught her attention.
“What happened to your predecessor?”
Dr. Hammond spun about in surprise at the unexpected question. Kirtley was right behind her and she had not heard him enter the control room. She had been alone with the three bodies in the isolation tanks, monitoring the data. She could read the numbers that Sybyl was displaying on the monitor and translate them into information. What they were telling her was that one of the Psychic Warriors-Barnes-was not with the other two. Indeed, he was a long way from them. And she knew that wasn’t what the mission called for.
“My what?” Hammond stammered.
“The person who ran Bright Gate before you,” Kirtley said. “What happened to him?”
“You mean Dr. Jenkins. He was killed in an accident.”
“Really?” Kirtley glanced at the computer monitor that showed Sybyl’s data files, then back at her. “Something wrong?”
“No. No. Everything’s going fine.”
“And the first team? What happened to them?”
“The first team?”
“The CIA team,” Kirtley amplified.
“I wasn’t here then,” Hammond said.
Kirtley sat down, steepling his fingers. “You’re not very inquisitive, are you, Doctor?”
“I do my job.”
“I’ve put safeguards in place,” Kirtley said, “to guarantee that if you do to my team what happened to the first one, you’ll be killed. I’m very serious about this. Do you understand?”
Hammond swallowed, then nodded.
Barnes was back at the battle site, his search fruitless. He was just above a high, craggy peak overlooking the rail line and the site of the battle against Chyort. He was ready to make the first jump to head back to Bright Gate when he picked something up, the slightest of presences on the virtual plane. Not an avatar, nothing he could see. But there was something, someone, nearby. He could feel it. He waited, hoping the presence would get stronger, that it would be one of his teammates, but it was gone, just as quickly as it had appeared. He wondered if what he had felt was real-as real as anything could be on the virtual plane. For all he knew, it could have been a disturbance in Sybyl’s programming.
He prepared to jump when he sensed the presence again. He turned, scanning. Out of the east came two forms, pure white, the shapes shifting faster than he could follow, but roughly man-sized.
The only thing he was certain of was that they were not his teammates.
Barnes willed his right arm into the firing tube. He fired at the form to the right. The bolt of power hit. The white glowed red, absorbing the strike, then returned to its original color and continued coming.
Barnes fired once again at the form to the left with the same negligible effect. He didn’t wait to try a third shot. He jumped to the point his team had used as the emergency rally point. Arriving, he prepared to jump once more when the forms appeared above him.
He paused, mesmerized as the two merged into one, becoming a white parachute that floated down on top of his avatar, enveloping it.
Belatedly, Barnes tried to jump, but nothing happened.
12
Valika spun about, pistol clearing holster as she moved.
“That won’t do you any good,” Raisor said.
Valika could see through his form, to the other side of the chamber. Slowly she put the gun back.
“Who are you?” Cesar had not moved at the sudden apparition.
They were in the Aura operations center, Cesar in his chair, Valika behind him, and Souris hooked to her computer, projecting the field that allowed Raisor to take his form.
“They told you who I am.” Raisor’s voice had an echo to it, as if coming through a speaker. He was looking at his hands, as if seeing them for the first time, slowly rotating them in front of his face.
“They told me a name,” Cesar said. “Perhaps I should ask what are you?”
“First, I want an answer,” Raisor said. “Where is HAARP located?”
“I thought you were American,” Cesar said. “You told Valika you were CIA. Surely you know about HAARP.”
“I am-was-CIA, but I never heard of HAARP.”
“Tell him the location,” Cesar ordered Souris.
Her voice echoed out of a speaker on top of the computer she was facing. “ Alaska. In the middle of the Wrangell Range.”
Raisor walked right through a chair until he was opposite Cesar. “How is HAARP different than Aura?”
“It has greater power but is fixed in place,” Souris said. “Aura is smaller and transportable but has less power. Aura also is directional.”
“Why should we trust you?” Cesar asked, signaling for Souris to be quiet.
Valika wasn’t sure what exactly Souris was seeing. Although the American scientist’s eyes were open, they had a vacant stare.
“You don’t have to trust me,” Raisor said. “We just need to work together. I can give you information you need. For example, the Americans know some of the men on their Special Forces team are alive, and they know where they are being held. At your villa. In the basement.”
“How are you aware of that?” Cesar demanded.
“Call your villa,” Raisor said. “Have them check the bodies in the freezer. You’ll discover that they’ve been removed from the meat hooks and covered. One of the American Psychic Warriors did that.”
“ ‘Psychic Warrior’?” Cesar repeated. He signaled for Valika to make the call. She left the room.
Souris answered. “The program is called Bright Gate and headquartered in Colorado. A program that sends avatars into the virtual plane-like we’ve done here with Aura-but also allows those avatars to re-form on the real plane at a distant site.”
“Why did you not tell me about this?” Cesar demanded of Souris.
“It was only in the first phases when I left the States,” Souris answered. “I was not aware that it had gone operational.”
“If you could get the master computer from Bright Gate,” Raisor said, “and use it in conjunction with what you’ve developed here, you would have the same capability.” He indicated his form and then reached out and put his hand through a chair. “This is just an apparition with no substance. With Bright Gate I would have a real form here that could affect the physical world around me.”