From her vantage point, she could see that large rocks had been placed around the perimeter of the prison, probably for decoration, though possibly also to discourage anyone trying to smash through the fence with a vehicle. Interesting. It gave her an idea.
An idiot might have teleported straight to the ground, forgetting that the momentum she had built up by falling would still be in effect, and would kill her by smashing her body straight into the ground. But Jean was no idiot. She teleported to a new orientation that was rotated 180 degrees, and instead of falling she was suddenly shooting up like a rocket, thrown against gravity by the kinetic energy of her free fall. Gravity gradually took hold again, slowing her and bleeding away her momentum.
When she reached the peak, she teleported to the ground close to one of the rocks. It wasn’t perfect. She lost her balance and fell but was unharmed. Grinning, she wrapped her arms around the rock. It was the size of a refrigerator, easily a hundred times her weight.
The visual interface for the Higgs projector had an object edge recognition algorithm built in, indicating what would come along when she teleported. This appeared in her view as a greenish highlight, and automatically included her clothing and any small items she was holding. She adjusted the controls until the highlight snapped out to include the rock as well. Time to see what this technology could do.
She teleported again, back to a point a mile above the prison. The rock, despite its size, came with her. Almost immediately, before she could build up much momentum, she teleported back again, leaving the rock behind in free fall. She was pretty certain the effects of wind at that height would be negligible, but just to be sure, she did it again with one of the other rocks. And again. Seventeen seconds later, the first rock struck the roof of the prison complex traveling over four hundred miles an hour and packing the punch of a truck full of dynamite. It hit dead center, driving straight through the building and into the ground like a meteor.
Debris catapulted into the air as the foundation buckled, tearing the building apart. Then the second rock hit, and the third. Watching from nearby, Jean felt the ground lurch with each impact as if from an earthquake. Sirens blared. With an ironic, parting salute at the building that had stolen the last fifteen years of her life, Jean Massey disappeared.
It only took a few moments for Angel to realize that something was wrong. It should have taken no time at all for Sandra to teleport back with Jean Massey, but she hadn’t returned. “I’m going in,” he said. He thought of just following her last coordinates, but that seemed foolish. Something had happened at those coordinates to prevent her return, and it wouldn’t help her to get himself caught in the same trap.
“I can help. I need a Higgs projector,” Alex said.
“No time,” Angel said. “Just stay here.” He strode across the field toward the prison, calling his quadcopters to him. He was nervous about sending a quadcopter after Sandra, because of the risk of killing her, but he settled for sending it in several feet above her last location, near the ceiling. It arrived and spun, and Angel saw her, lying on the floor, her head bright with blood. No!
He teleported into the cell just as the first explosion hit. It was like having his ears boxed by a giant. The concussion knocked him down, and he couldn’t hear, couldn’t tell for a moment which way was up. He thought at first he had made a mistake and materialized inside a wall, that this was what it was like to die. But no, his body was whole. Something had happened.
Ears ringing, he got his bearings and saw Sandra, unconscious. He was no doctor, but it looked bad. There was blood everywhere. It made his head spin and his vision narrow. He had to get her out of here. He put his arms around her and teleported, just as a second blast went off, throwing them through the air. They appeared back on the hillside just as another sound like an explosion went off behind him.
Angel looked back at the prison. It was as if a bomb had gone off. Large portions of the structure had collapsed, including one whole wall of the original limestone building. Police were rushing toward it, guns drawn, calling for backup.
Alex rushed over. “What did you do?”
“Nothing.” Angel didn’t understand it. Oronzi had predicted a varcolac attack, but this destruction didn’t seem anything like what had happened at the baseball stadium. There was no time to figure it out. Angel summoned the quadcopters back to their case. Two of them didn’t return, presumably destroyed in the prison. Sandra needed to get to a hospital. He held out a hand to Alex. “We need to go.” She took his hand. He sat on the quadcopter case, gripping it with his knees, and grasped Sandra’s with his other hand, hoping he could bring them all at once.
He closed his eyes and teleported. When he opened them, however, he was not back in his lab, as he had intended. He looked around in confusion. He was in a large open space: the central yard of the prison complex. The building and walls around them were demolished, and debris blocked any easy exit. “What did you do?” Alex shouted. “Get us away from here!”
Angel closed his eyes and tried again, double-checking the coordinates for his lab. They didn’t move. He tried the top of Hawk Mountain; again with no result.
“Oh, no,” Alex said.
Angel looked. Out of the wreckage, a jumpsuited figure was crawling. She hauled herself to her feet and walked unsteadily toward them. She had no eyes.
“Get us out of here!” Alex shouted.
“I can’t. It’s not working.”
They backed away from the approaching varcolac, but more prisoners were coming from the other direction, all of them without eyes. Some of them were clearly injured, blood streaming from injuries, or with an arm hanging limply. They pressed on, closing in from all directions. There was no escape.
“You’d better fix it quick,” Alex said.
“I think the varcolac is blocking it somehow.”
Angel flipped open the box, and his quadcopters lifted buzzing into the air. He controlled them through his eyejack interface, indicating places in space where they should hover, forming a circle around the humans. The varcolac-controlled prisoners raised their hands, sending out pulses of heart-stopping energy, but the quadcopters reflexively shielded against it, causing flashes of silver light.
The prisoners, now several dozen strong, bellowed at the same instant, shouting the varcolac’s frustration. It attacked again and again, but the quadcopters swerved and blocked. Fortunately, the energy to create the shield was being drawn from the fabric of the universe itself, but the energy to keep each copter flying was a standard chemical battery. And Angel knew they couldn’t have much power left.
Not only that, but the clock display in the corner of his vision read 05:43, only three minutes before the time Oronzi had predicted the varcolac would completely obliterate the prison. Whatever they did, they would have to do it fast.
“Give me control,” Alex said.
“What? No.”
“I won’t be able to explain in time. Just give me some eyejacks.”
Angel had never met this woman before, and now she wanted him to hand over his only possible weapon? But she was on his side, and she apparently knew more about how all this crazy physics worked than he did. Besides, she looked like Sandra. Angel dug out the extra pair of contacts they had brought for Alex and handed them over. The copters flashed again as the prisoners drew closer. Two of them were starting to sag in the air, their movements growing sluggish. Angel handed over his phone and sent the signal to synch it to the second pair of contacts.
“Two and a half minutes,” he said.
“Just hold on to both of us and keep trying to teleport,” Alex said.