NHI, page 32
He opened his eyes. The spotlights in the chamber were still active, so he could see clearly. His rifle bobbed up and down beside him, still slung over one shoulder. He gazed at Isabel and James floating underwater beside him. They were holding their respective breaths, and their eyes were filled with fear. Bubbles occasionally floated from their nostrils.
As a Navy SEAL, Garrett knew a thing or two about water, having trained and operated extensively in its depths over the years. The chamber had flooded too quickly: there had to be air pockets somewhere.
He ran his gaze across the ceiling, searching… there. A large pocket stood out, looking like a dollop of liquid mercury thanks to its mirrored sheen; its boundaries waved to and fro, reflecting the spotlights in a mesmerizing dance as it clung to the overhead surface.
Using hand gestures, Garrett caught the attention of his companions and then pointed at the precious air. With large sweeping motions, he pulled himself through the water to the pocket, then pressed his lips to it and inhaled deeply.
Isabel and James crowded in beside him, their faces touching his own.
Garrett took only as much as he needed for that one moment, and then shoved away from the ceiling so that James and Isabel could share the rest.
As he slowly descended, watching the two of them struggle to stay alive above him, his own survival instincts began to ebb away, replaced by acceptance, and almost… peace?
He had done his best. That was all anyone could have asked of him. He’d failed, yes, but he’d tried. He’d been close to giving up a few times, but he’d managed to see this one through. His only regret was that Isabel and her brother would go with him.
Death would come momentarily. When he could no longer suppress the urge to breathe, his final inhale would be agonizing as his lungs flooded with water—it would feel like his insides burned away.
But it would be over mercifully quickly.
Wasn’t that what he wanted?
The death he had long sought would be his at last.
No.
He didn’t want the peace of death anymore. Not yet.
But what could he do? He’d done everything possible. Everything.
Or had he?
Have to save Isabel. Have to save Isabel no matter what.
He didn’t care if he died. But he had to save her. And her brother.
He wouldn’t give up. Not until every last bit of air was used up inside of him.
There had to be a way to do this. During the briefing, Blackwell had spoken of achieving their true potential. He had said the drugs might help them unlock some amazing abilities. Well, in that moment of utmost need, everything that Blackwell had told them they might be able to do, Garrett would do.
He would.
His spidey senses in Iraq were not coincidence. Not imagined. He had a power inside of him, a power all humans shared but kept buried deep within.
A power that he would fucking unleash.
He closed his eyes and visualized the center door. All other thoughts faded away.
He felt someone grasp his hand. Without opening his eyes, he knew it was Isabel. He could feel the electricity flowing from her touch.
He squeezed her hand tight.
The door will open.
His lungs began to burn in their need for oxygen. He ignored it.
The door will open.
As oxygen continued to ebb away inside of him, depriving his brain of that most crucial element necessary to function, something odd happened.
The drug cocktail must have finally kicked in. Either that, or he’d found the once-in-a-lifetime focus that came with utter need. Because though his eyes were closed, he could see. And around him, he saw blue lines of force emerge from his energy centers. They appeared as long, thin lines tethering him to his surroundings and joining him to the doors, walls, ceiling, and floor—some even terminated inside the water itself—altogether forming an intricate web of energy.
He was also linked to Isabel and to a lesser extent James, the tendrils of energy intertwining between them like the roots of a tree. He was still holding her hand, and the lines of force swirled around the exterior of his arm to hers, where they wrapped around the blue tendrils coming from her own body.
He focused his attention on the middle door, and visualized a giant sledgehammer slamming down upon it, shattering the metal door into a thousand pieces. The tendrils of energy that connected his energy centers to the door flared brighter for a moment, but the door did not move.
He slammed the sledgehammer again, this time upward, striking at the door from underneath, and imagined the impact ramming the metal up into its frame.
At the same time he focused on his handhold with Isabel, concentrating on the threads of energy from his arm that intermingled with hers.
Give me strength.
All at once energy seemed to flow into him from her, and once again the lines of force connecting him to the middle door intensified. Other tendrils from his body entered the steel wall just above the door, and they too flashed with an almost blinding amount of energy.
And then, incredibly, the middle door began to slide upward.
But was it all only in his imagination?
He opened his eyes.
His view remained the same: the door was opening. The water level receding. Wispy tendrils connected him to everything.
The burning sensation in his lungs reached a fever pitch: he knew he would inhale any second and fill his lungs with water.
He glanced at Isabel, who floated above him and still gripped his hand. He saw that her head was already above the water line, as was her brother’s, so Garrett wouldn’t have to worry about hauling them to the surface with him.
He wrenched his hand free of Isabel’s, severing their connection. He quickly sliced his arms through the water and kicked his feet. As he approached the surface he inhaled a second too soon and breathed in a good mouthful of water, burning his throat before he emerged into the growing gap between surface and ceiling. He continued that frantic, rasping inhale for a good five seconds, and then coughed for the next five seconds before inhaling again.
And so he continued coughing and breathing in turns like that as the room drained. He had the presence of mind to search for Isabel and James during all that: he saw that they were all right, treading water beside him. Isabel gazed at him, and she had a strange expression on her face. It seemed to be some mixture of concern for him, and… bliss?
The levels continued to fall as the chamber drained through the opening door, and Garrett, Isabel and James were quickly sucked into the new room and deposited sprawling across another steel floor. The water was venting out through grills situated all along the outer edges of the room.
Garrett lay there for several moments, collapsed, alternately gasping for air and coughing uncontrollably. The lines of force had vanished so that he vaguely wondered if he had seen them at all.
While he was coughing there on the floor, rough hands rudely slid the rifle down from his shoulder and took away the weapon. He didn’t resist—he had no fight in him at the moment.
Finally, when he had expelled most of the water and was coughing only sporadically, he pushed his upper body upright.
Only to find Jackson standing before him, wearing a wide smirk. Jackson had several armed men with him. The dark fatigues covering their lower bodies were wet.
Garrett surveyed the chamber beyond. They resided in a vaulted room similar to the last, except instead this time the walls were made of gold, not steel. At first he’d mistakenly thought the floor here was steel, but it proved to be gold as well, polished to a sheen.
On the far side was a rotating cube of some kind, also crafted of gold. Subtly humming, it floated four feet in the air and seemed to grow and shrink in size as Garrett watched, as if rotating in some higher dimension at the same time. It also alternately flattened and elongated. It was actually quite unsettling to watch.
That was their target.
“A tesseract,” James said in awe. “It’s beautiful.”
“I see the look of triumph on your face,” Jackson told Garrett. “You think you beat the trap? I’m the one who allowed you to enter.”
Garrett was disappointed for a moment, until he saw the momentary flicker of doubt on Jackson’s face. Garrett immediately understood that Jackson was only saying that to save face in front of his men, and to sow uncertainty in Garrett’s mind about what he’d just done.
“I wanted you to bear witness to the activation of the greatest machine humanity has ever seen,” Jackson continued. “A machine that will simultaneously destroy man and yet elevate him. Welcome to the future of all that is, and all that will be.”
Garrett gauged the distance between himself and Jackson. He was certain he’d be able to tackle the man before any of his lackeys could get a shot off.
Garrett attempted to leap to his feet, but instead only managed a weary clamber. He’d underestimated the toll almost drowning had taken on him. Not to mention the effort of manipulating those lines of force to open the door.
Assuming he had actually done the latter...
Jackson had already taken a step back. At the same time, his men had lifted their assault rifles so that every last one of them was pointed at Garrett.
Damn. He wasn’t going to reach Jackson now, at least not do it and survive. He gave Isabel one last glance, but she wasn’t even looking at him. She appeared lost in her own world as she knelt there on the floor with her eyes defocused. She had to be in shock.
James, meanwhile, seemed to understand what Garrett intended, because when their eyes met, James subtly shook his head.
Garrett ignored her brother. He’d made up his mind.
He gathered his strength…
But before Garrett could leap at Jackson, all of the rifle barrels pointed at him twisted into corkscrews at the same time, as if subjected to unseen forces.
Jackson stared at the ruined weapons in surprise. “How—”
“Don’t point guns at my friends,” Isabel said calmly.
40
Isabel stared at the vivid scene before her. She saw everything in raw, incredible detail. The colors around her were sharp, vibrant. Every sound seemed somehow enhanced. But most beautiful of all were the tendrils of blue light connecting her energy centers to everything in the room: to the rifles, the golden walls, the rotating cube, and even the other men. And though the colors were sharp and vibrant, everything seemed semi-transparent, somehow, as did the gold walls themselves. She could look right through the men to the gold walls behind them, and beyond those walls to the rock past them.
She probably should have been afraid, but she felt only joy, oddly enough. It was obvious to her she’d somehow attained some altered state of consciousness.
Something had happened the moment before the doors had opened. What exactly, she wasn’t quite sure. But it was something…. extraordinary.
She had been close to drowning, and in a last ditch effort, she’d tried to fill her mind with love for her brother and for Garrett. She was willing to sacrifice herself for them in body, spirit and soul. She let go of all fear of dying, of all fear period, and thanked the world for allowing her to exist up until she had.
In that state, she suddenly felt Garrett asking for strength, through the bond of touch they shared. That’s the only way to describe it.
So she offered him her energy. All of it. She had envisioned a resonant sphere around her, drawing in all the positive forces of the world, and she’d redirected it to Garrett through their touch. She’d also given her own, internal energy to him, wanting him to have it all, even if it meant she had none left for herself.
That act of sacrifice had somehow changed her. Or changed reality. Because just like that she’d spontaneously attuned to a higher state. Her mind had cleared, her thoughts replaced by absolute clarity and bliss, so that she felt only oneness and connection to the Source.
And she could see the real reality. A reality of blue, interlinked energy, showing how each and every one of us was inexorably linked to the other. A reality that existed regardless of whether her eyes were opened or closed.
She had watched Garrett redirect this energy to open the door, and when she washed up on the golden floor of the adjacent room, she had suddenly understood how to manipulate the force lines that connected her to everything. It had been a trivial matter to twist the barrels of those weapons. Child’s play, really.
She turned her attention toward the rotating gold cube, their target. Like everything else, it too had tendrils of energy emerging from it. Some of those connected it to the floor, others to her and everyone else. It was hard to believe something so seemingly innocuous could destroy so many. She wouldn’t allow it. She refused to.
Garrett suddenly leaped at Jackson and wrestled him to the floor. Other men tossed aside their ruined rifles and instead drew backup pistols; Isabel immediately twirled the threads of energy that connected her to those pistols, corkscrewing the barrels just like she’d done to their previous weapons.
Two of the men suddenly piled on top of Garrett in an effort to aid Jackson. Another two ran straight for her.
“No,” Isabel pronounced.
She sent her intent down the strands connecting her to the men, along with positive energy. The pair that ran toward her froze in their tracks. The other two who had leaped onto Garrett broke away.
Garrett had been choking Jackson, but he released his hold and looked down at his hands as if he didn’t recognize them. He stood up, stepping away from Jackson. When he met Isabel’s gaze, he seemed… relaxed, and content.
Isabel approached Jackson. Garrett had broken Jackson’s wrist in the struggle—everything still appeared translucent to her, including human bodies, and she could see right through his flesh to the bones underneath, and the broken part of his wrist was obvious, at least to her.
Jackson winced as she held up his hand to give the break a closer look. She focused her consciousness on it.
Heal.
Her human mind had no idea how to set and heal a bone, but her higher consciousness did. Strands of energy from her fingertips intertwined around the broken bone and gently positioned it back into place. The tendrils flared around the break, and when she withdrew them the severed bone was whole.
She surveyed his body, and saw other ailments that needed tending; she further directed healing tendrils across his being and in moments cured him of every bodily sickness. This, for the man who wanted to destroy her and so much of humanity. Perhaps by showing him love and the path of healing, he would come to understand the folly of his ways. Everyone deserved a second chance, no matter who they were.
When it was done, she withdrew her energy and looked directly into Jackson’s eyes, through his cornea and brain, and into the depths of who he really was.
“Turn the machine off,” she instructed him.
Jackson shook his head sadly. “I can’t. Once it’s activated, there’s no way to turn it off.”
She smiled. “There’s always a way.”
She turned from him and headed toward the gold cube. The mercenaries standing in her way instantly side-stepped so that she had a clear path to the device.
SHE MUST PREVAIL.
She didn’t so much hear that voice, but rather felt it. From somewhere deep inside her consciousness.
She didn’t slow, and the words didn’t faze or otherwise influence her in any way. She refused fear, doubt, and confusion, and only allowed joy to fill her as she approached that cube.
As it rotated, the gold structure alternately shrank and grew and stretched in periodic spurts as its four-dimensional structure interacted with our three-dimensional realm.
Slowly, methodologically, as if in a trance, she retrieved the inter-dimensional storage device from a vest pocket and held it beneath the floating machine.
“What are you doing?” Jackson asked urgently from somewhere behind her.
She ignored him, knowing that Garrett would ensure he didn’t interfere.
Plan A called for capturing the machine via the inter-dimensional storage device. Every thirty seconds when the storage time limit was exceeded and the cube returned to our reality, she would simply move it back into the pocket dimension. In that manner she would proceed to carry the device outside of the mountain base. Once they reached the surface, the Entity with her was supposed to guide her to an appropriate vehicle, either a van or preferably a helicopter, while other Verndari would protect her and her companions from attack by the Nesut.
She activated the tracking component of the device as Blackwell had taught her, but it proved unable to latch onto the inter-dimensional cube. A lock was required to select and transport an object into the pocket universe of the device, but the only valid lock displayed on the miniature screen was herself.
Worried that her body might be interfering with the tracking, she set the device down directly underneath the floating cube and activated the tracking component again. This time she stepped back.
As soon as she was three feet distant, her signature vanished from the tiny display entirely so that the storage device had no objects eligible for a lock at all.
She attempted several more configurations and positions, even trying Garrett’s device—which he tossed to her—but couldn’t get a lock. The trackers embedded in the storage devices were simply unable to detect the cube machine, probably because of its higher dimension status.
Plan B, then.
She carefully unfastened a demolition brick from her vest, unwrapped the protective covering that had shielded it from the water, removed the backing, and attached it to one of the ever-changing faces of the cube as it slowly rotated past. She was careful to place the brick in the center of the face, well within the boundary of the cube’s smallest size, so that the charge wouldn’t be cut off at any point during the growing and shrinking cycle.
