The Seven (14 page)

Sarah lay still, gasping for breath, feeling like every bone in her body was broken, her eardrums exploded, and her brain was jelly. She could see the searchlight of the helicopter overhead illuminating the yard. She could hear the shouts and commands of soldiers. She could hear the engine of the APC in the distance. John was still going. He was getting the others out of there. She had been successful.

There were several metallic clicks as a half-dozen rifles were suddenly locked, loaded, and pointed at her. She craned her head and saw a cadre of soldiers with guns leveled at her. The sonic cannon on the back of the APC targeted her again. A tall, powerfully built man in gray camouflage and a red beret was sneering at her, his hands behind his back. Half of his face was horribly scarred with burns and he wore an eye patch.

"What...what happened?" Sarah gasped. She tried to sit up, but the soldier in the beret put a foot to her shoulder and smashed her back to the ground. He stepped down hard with his toe, pressing into her collarbone painfully. He drew his sidearm, a particularly lethal looking semi-automatic handgun, and pointed it at her forehead.

"Subject Two. Codename: Blink. Do not attempt to get up. I will be forced to blow out your kneecaps. You were just hit with a prototype Sonic Cannon. If you attempt to flee, I will not hesitate to shoot you with it again. You are under arrest." The soldier nodded at one of the men with a rifle. "Cuff her. Hobble her ankles with the polywire, too."

"What? What are you doing?" Sarah tried to sit up again, but the toe of a combat boot dug hard into her clavicle and she could only choke out grunts of pain. "You're going to break...me."

"You'll heal," the soldier growled. Sarah felt thick cord wind around her ankles. Handcuffs were snapped on her wrists. "Throw her in the truck. One of you keep a hand on her at all times."

One of the soldiers, semi-toothless and sneering, gave Sarah a smile that made her skin crawl. He spoke with an accent that hinted toward Eastern Europe. "With pleasure."

"They got Sarah! They got Sarah!" Indigo watched out the back of the truck with horror as she saw Sarah's body hit the ground and spiral out of control. She shoved her head through the small window into the cab of the truck. "John! Sarah's down! What do we do?"

John didn't take his eyes from the road. "Now we need that distraction, Indigo. Take down the helicopter. Take out the lights. Darkness can help us."

Indigo went to the back of the truck and looked out. She could see the white bricks that surrounded the garden of the Home. One of those would work if she could get it airborne. The pen was a small, light object. The rocks would be a much greater challenge. Indigo could feel the ability within her now, a small spark in the center of her brain, but it was still difficult to control. The past two times, when she had been able to use it, she had been upset. When Cormair had called her a failure, she felt the tears crawling into her eyes, she felt the frustration of not being able to utilize her power and the frustration of feeling trapped and confined. Was her power was tied to emotion?

Gunfire burst around the metal sides of the APC, clanking against the thick body armor of the truck and sending up sparks where they connected. Indigo ducked back inside the truck, and covered her head with her arms. If there was ever a time to be under emotional stress, it was now.

She stuck her face back around the edge of the truck and focused on a single brick. She concentrated and struggled to grasp the brick. She could feel its heft, its solidity. Gritting her teeth, Indigo pulled back and saw the brick give way. She broke out in a cold sweat. The brick was heavier than it looked. She could feel the mental stress tearing through her brain; lightning strikes of pain exploded in her head. The pen had been so light, merely a tickle in her head. This was more like cat's claws digging into flesh, razor-sharp slashes of agony. Indigo swung the invisible arm and the brick flew into the air. Indigo took aim at the searchlight on the helicopter and flung the brick at it with her mental fist. The cement missile flew fast and true and smashed into the Plexiglas over the big, concave mirror shattering the searchlight. The yard was plunged into a dim light from the halogen lamps by the Home and the driveway. Two more bricks took those out quickly and efficiently and the yard was lit only by the headlights of trucks.

"Yes! Outstanding work, Indigo! Outstanding!" John called from the front of the truck. "Holly! I need you and a bat to guide us up here! I'm going to kill the lights! Indigo, I need you to take out the helicopter!"

Indigo slumped down. Her head was killing her. Waves of pain, the worst headache she had ever experienced, seethed from the center of her brain outward. She put her hands to her head and squeezed, trying to lessen the sensation of her skull splitting in half. "I don't know if I can!"

"Remember!" John cried. "Placement, not size!"

Dr. Sebbins crawled over to Indigo. "Indigo, I know it hurts. Your brain is doing something no one in the history of the world has ever done before. You are an advanced human, the next step in evolution. Your brain is still primitive compared to the power it now controls. You're going to experience pain! But, think small. Small items are easier for you to lift."

Indigo still had John's sharpened stick. She threw it into the air behind the truck and caught it with her mind. It was light, much lighter than the bricks. The cat scratches in her brain receded slightly. "John! Where's the gas tank on a helicopter?"

"Low! In the back!"

Indigo focused on the stick and aimed it at the swirling body of the helicopter. The lights on the copter's belly made it easy to spot. She waited until she had a clear shot and used every last ounce of energy in her body to hurl the stick. She could feel the stick snap from her telekinetic fist. The helicopter continued to churn the air overhead, its rotors cutting the night sky.

"I missed!" Indigo couldn't believe it. "What now?"

"I smell gas!" Holly shouted.

"What?"

"Gas! Do you smell it?"

"No," said Indigo, but after a second the chemically sweet smell of high octane fuel hit her nose. "Yes!"

"You hit the tank! It's got a leak!" Holly shouted.

"Well, a leak hasn't brought the helicopter down! Will it?"

As if it was answering her question, the helicopter's engines gave a wheeze and the helicopter moved away from the yard, lowering in altitude as it went.

"Now what?"

"A spark!" cried John from the cab of the APC. "Spark the grass! Get it to ignite! Fire is good for confusion and fear!"

"I can do that!" Indigo cried. She quickly picked up two small rocks, flat, black rocks from the garden, and sped them at the cast-off barrel of a rifle that Sarah had broken. The two stones hit the barrel with incredible force and two sparks leapt from the metal. The vapor of the gas ignited and there was an immediate cloudburst of flame throughout the yard. Soldiers were screaming and beating out small fires that seemed to cling to them in places where the helicopter fuel had doused them.

"Did I do that? Was that me?" Indigo felt weak. There was more fuel on the ground than she had thought. A wave of pain suddenly wheeled through the center of her head and stole her breath away. Indigo clapped her hands to her ears to steady herself. Overhead, the helicopter, losing fuel rapidly, began to move away to a safe spot to set down.

"Let's get Sarah," Andy said, his voice a low, rumbling avalanche.

"No time," John shouted back. "The fire's too thick and we've got to roll. The road is just ahead of us. We have to get Posey into a hyper-womb and we've only got a limited window to do it. Sarah will have to hold her own until we can come back. We will get her, though."

"Screw that, you go. I'm not leaving Sarah!" Andy cried.

"She would tell us to go," Dr. Sebbins said. "She wouldn't want us throwing effort after foolishness."

"No!" Andy yelled back. He started to get up from the ground, but Sebbins was quick. She pulled a hyper-needle loaded with sedative from her pocket and hit Andy in the neck. His eyes rolled back in his head and he flopped back onto the deck of the APC.

"That'll only last for a little while. His body is going to metabolize it very, very quickly."

"A little time is all we need, Doc," John called back. He wheeled the APC on the road and punched the gas to the floor. Indigo lost her balance and had to grab the canvas drape on the back of the truck to keep from falling out.

Indigo looked out the back of the truck at the yard of the Home. The yard was in flames, bathing the Victorian façade of the Home with eerie, dancing orange lights. There was something hellish about it, like a scene out of Dante's imagination. Soldiers were screaming, an ambulance was rolling down the road from the town to the east, and short, angry bursts of gunfire were still being blasted in the direction of the APC. Somewhere in the midst of all that, Sarah was being held by soldiers. Sarah, who had so valiantly defended them and helped them to escape. It didn't seem fair.

"How will she find us?" Indigo asked.

Dr. Sebbins looked up from Andy's side. "We'll find her after we've escaped. We can't help her if we all get captured."

"Am I supposed to believe you?"

"What do you mean by that, Indigo?" Dr. Sebbins pushed her hair out of her face, tucking it behind an ear. There was an edge to her voice. Indigo had never heard her speak like that.

"I mean, you're a doctor, Doctor. You're one of
them
, one of the people who have been putting us through experiments for the last ten years. How do I know you're leading us to safety? I have half a mind to just chuck you out the back of the truck right now. You might be bringing the soldiers to us."

"You do realize that I was being shot at just as much as you were."

"You realize that none of us were hit? How do I know the soldiers weren't aiming low?"

"Indigo, I had no idea that they were moving in on the Home."

"If my power was lie detecting instead of telekinesis, I bet you'd be in trouble right now."

"Indigo!" Sebbins' voice was tinged with anger and she was pursing her lips.

"Seriously, Doc! How am I supposed to believe you? Just last week you pushed a needle into my brain and told me it wasn't going to hurt. It was excruciating! And now you expect me to think you're trying to save us? You're just as bad as the soldiers."

Dr. Sebbins' face flared red. For a moment, Indigo thought she was going to stand up and punch her. But, Sebbins did the opposite. She sat back against the far wall of the APC and looked down at her own feet, utterly dejected. "That's fair."

"Fair?"

"You're right. You have no reason to trust me. For two years now, I've been breaking my Hippocratic Oath in the name of science. I justified it by thinking that I was a balance to Dr. Cormair. I thought I was there to protect you from him, but in reality, I was every bit as bad as he was, wasn't I? No, I was worse. I was worse because I thought I was treating you well. You have no reason to trust me, Indigo. You're right. However, I have to ask you trust me. I know where there's a safe house. That safe house has a hyper-womb. That tank is Posey's only chance to get through her transformation alive. Her body will not be able to handle the physical stress of the change. So, I have to ask you trust me."

Indigo glared at her. "Will you answer questions when we get there? Will you come straight?"

"Come straight?"

"I don't want to hear more lies, Doc. We've been lied to all our lives. I want to know about what you did to all of us and what our purpose was supposed to be. I want it straight and factual. I don't want half-truths and vague answers. We're all going to be legal adults soon. Some of us probably are already, but we had our birthdays taken away from us. We deserve to know the truth.

Dr. Sebbins rubbed her face with her hands. She looked ten years older. "Fair enough. I'll tell you everything I know, but you have to believe me when I tell you that what I know isn't much. I've read the dossiers on your powers. I know what you're supposed to be capable of doing. I know precious little else, though. Dr. Cormair kept me on a need-to-know basis."

Indigo sat down across from Dr. Sebbins and pulled her knees to her chin. "And you're going to help us, right?"

"You've got to trust me."

Indigo inhaled slowly. "All right. But, if I think you're screwing us over for a second, I'm going to use my telekinesis to push a Q-tip through your heart."

Dr. Sebbins nodded. "If that's how you feel."

"It is," Indigo said. And what scared her was that it was precisely how she felt.

Holly sat in nervous silence next to John. She gripped the handle on the door tightly to keep from bouncing around. Military vehicles are not known for their comfort. The bat that lead them through the tunnel, a plain little brown bat, had been mentally conscripted into service to lead them away from the Home. Holly gave directions to John as the bat flew rapid circles high above the truck and projected images and information into Holly's mind. At the same time, Holly had discovered a barn owl in the trees near the Home; most of the other animals had fled when the shooting began, but the barn owl was curious and watched the flames with great interest. Holly slipped into its brain, she could "feel" the heat radiating to the woods, collecting in its facial feathers. Holly gave the barn owl a little nudge and got it to fly above the Home, perching on one of the gables. Its eyesight was fantastic. It was able to give Holly mental pictures of Sarah. Holly could see Sarah seated in the back of a truck with a thick, green cable around her ankles, and her hands were bound behind her back with handcuffs. Sarah's face was contorted, not in pain, but for another reason. Holly used the eyes of the owl to zoom in on the scene. A soldier was seated in the back of the truck with Sarah. He was turned toward her, his hand roughly groping her breasts. In his other hand, he held a gun. Holly's stomach pitched. "John, we've got to go back!"