Hero Born: Project Solaris Read online

  "You're right," Jillian said, exhaling a deep breath that frosted in front of her. "We need answers, and this is how we get them." She closed her eyes for a moment, calling forth her powers. A wave of chill energy washed over the three of us as our bodies faded from sight. Jillian's abilities were getting stronger, and she no longer needed to touch us.

  "Let's move," she said, starting towards the Mohn building at a brisk pace. I followed, with Kali trailing after.

  There was a little foot traffic on Market, but it was as light as I'd ever seen it. Perfect. Not much chance of anyone bumping into our invisible forms, and we crossed the street without incident. Jillian paused next to the building's south wall, waiting for us to join her.

  "How long can you keep us phased?" I whispered, despite the fact that there was no one around to hear.

  "I don't know. A few minutes? I haven't tried to do longer than that," her disembodied voice replied. "Why do you ask?"

  "It occurs to me that Mohn almost certainly has motion detectors. Being invisible will stop cameras, but motion detectors will still detect us. If we're phasing then the signal they broadcast will pass through us, and they'll be none the wiser," I said, quite proud of myself for figuring out the trick.

  "You can hack any computer in the world," Kali said. I could picture the eye roll, though I couldn't see it. "Why not just tell the motion detectors to turn off?"

  "You with all your damn logic and facts," I shot back. Sometimes I was only about half as bright as I thought I was. "Give me just a minute."

  I followed the Wi-Fi signal into the building, tracing it to Mohn's mainframe on B2. They had most of a floor devoted to servers, all of which had top-notch security. I was inside in a matter of seconds, and it didn't take long to find and disable the motion detectors.

  "Okay, we're clear. If someone checks the logs they'll see that the motion detectors went offline, but no alarm will be raised and the sysadmin won't be notified. They have an alert system that texts their IT and security managers, but I've disabled it," I said. I felt Jillian's hand rest on my shoulder, and assumed she was doing the same to Kali.

  "I'm going to phase us through the wall. We'll make our way to the elevators, then head down. After we're through the wall, I'll drop the phasing," she said.

  This was the first time I'd seen her use both powers at once, and passing through the wall while invisible really underscored just how powerful these abilities could be. No bank in the world would be safe from someone like Jillian. We were intangible, ghosts in every way that mattered. Jesus. Mohn had a bunch of people with powers just like ours. What could they do?

  Jillian dropped the phasing as we made our way quietly toward the elevator, though the occasional squeak of a shoe still split the silence. Thankfully, the lobby appeared deserted, just like any other after-hours building in San Francisco. Below ground, I knew it would be a different story.

  "You can see through security cameras, right?" Jillian whispered from somewhere to my right.

  "Yeah," I said, just as softly. "I can also control them. I'm going to cause a glitch when the elevator opens, and I'll scrub its activity from the log."

  "Can you see, like, guards and stuff downstairs?" Kali asked, so close to my ear I could feel her breath.

  Apparently all those late night Shadowrun games hadn't made me as good at this spy stuff as I'd thought. Kali's suggestion seemed like an incredibly obvious one, but it had never even occurred to me that I could see where other people in the building were. And I could track cell phones--if people below had them, I could find their locations.

  "Good idea, just a sec," I said, closing my eyes and extending my senses. Doing so probably wasn't necessary, but it felt easier.

  Within moments, my consciousness flowed through a series of lower-level floors. Most were deserted, but the last two most definitely were not. There were at least twenty people down there, and that was assuming everyone had a cell phone. Anyone who didn't would inflate that number further.

  I focused on security cameras, but found nothing important. It made sense. Guards were all monitoring them, not sitting in front of them.

  "There are quite a few people on the bottom floor, where we're going. We have to assume getting in is going to mean a fight," I said, pushing the elevator button. The down arrow lit up at the precise instant I killed the camera aimed in our vicinity.

  "I'll keep us invisible until we get down there," Jillian said. Her arm brushed mine. "We'll get the drop on them, but I don't know how long that will last. I know we're supers and all, but I doubt we're bulletproof. We need to put them down quickly. I guess that's up to the two of you."

  "I'm not comfortable killing innocent security guards," Kali said, much louder than a whisper.

  The doors to the elevator dinged open and we shuffled inside, bumping into each other since we couldn't see each other's bodies. The doors closed, and we gradually came back into view. I waited a moment then sent the elevator the signal that would bring us to the lowest level. It wasn't even marked on the panel with buttons for all the floors.

  "I don't want you to kill anyone unless you have to," I said, squeezing Kali's arm. "Defend yourself if you need to, but Jillian and I can take them down. If I hit them with electricity it should incapacitate without killing, and Jillian can just break them with that Kajukenbo crap."

  "Okay," Kali agreed. She looked small and terrified, a marked contrast to her earlier resolve.

  When the car reached Level 4 Jillian took us each by the arm. She closed her eyes for a moment and, by the time the elevator dinged and the doors slid open, we had vanished again. For the first time in my life I understood how Neo felt when he'd walked into the lobby to save Morpheus in The Matrix. I glided out of the elevator on the balls of my feet, one hand held out with my fingers splayed. I could feel the current just beyond my reach, waiting to flow down my arm and into anything conductive.

  Level 4 wasn't anything like I expected. The walls were oddly curved, cut from the same black stone I'd seen in the grey men's ships. Strange golden glyphs marked the walls. Signposts, maybe? Beyond the entryway, the room expanded into a deep pit ringed by a catwalk. The pit had steep, black walls, cut from black stone. I couldn't see the bottom.

  Two men waited behind a wall of glass between the elevator and the catwalk. Their little room had quite clearly been bolted on to the native alien architecture. It had been fitted between the walls of black stone, and provided an effective way for the guards to monitor traffic without exposing them to attack. They'd probably staffed it with guards after hours, just in case someone tried what we were about to.

  I tensed, but then remembered that they couldn't see us. One of the guards rose and started speaking into a bluetooth headpiece, clearly alarmed by the fact that no one had gotten out. I'd hoped they would assume it was a glitch, but Mohn was obviously smarter than that. Anyone guarding a level like this would know about supers, and might expect us to be invisible. I had to move quickly.

  I prowled to the far side of their little glass room, hoping Jillian was close enough behind me to maintain the invisibility. I touched the keycard reader next to the door. The door opened.

  One of the guards started turning toward me, but the other was still focused on the elevator. I took them both at the same time, firing quick arcs of electricity. The bolts hit them both, crackling from one to the other. They tensed, every muscle in their bodies rigid as the current pulsed through them. The one closest to the door took the brunt of the attack and slumped into the glass. Yes!

  The other narrowed his eyes and charged through the doorway I'd just opened.

  "Oh. Crap," I said, stumbling back as quickly as I could. Okay, maybe I wasn't Neo.

  Three hundred pounds of angry security guard came barreling at me. He didn't bother with the baton at his side. The beating I was about to receive was too personal for that.

  Jillian's form shimmered into sight to his right, just a split second before the punch landed. She hit him w
ith a vicious knife hand right to the throat. The move arrested his momentum, and he veered sharply to the left as he clutched the wall with one hand and his ruined throat with the other.

  "Hit him again. With the lightning," she said, cold in a way I'd never heard from her.

  I extended an arm and let loose with another quick bolt, this one aimed at the guard's face. Cruel, maybe, but definitely effective. He collapsed backwards, spasming once before he settled into a drooling pile.

  Kali had appeared at some point, and was now crouching behind a hunk of decorative black stone that jutted from the wall. She was ashen-faced, eyes anime-wide. She pointed up the catwalk at four more guards, these ones wearing Kevlar and carrying the kind of rifles you see in SWAT movies.

  The lead guard raised her rifle, aiming it right at my face. I knew there was no way I'd get out of the way, but I tried anyway, wincing as she squeezed the trigger. The report of the shot was impossibly loud in the confined space, the smell of burnt gunpowder almost preceding the bullet.

  Jillian knocked me out of the way, and I tumbled into the same stone outcrop Kali was hiding behind. Jillian took the bullet in the shoulder, and the force carried her back a good three feet before she crashed to the ground.

  "No," Kali shrieked, extending her hands toward the guards as she rose from hiding. A river of white flame roared down the catwalk, washing over all four guards. It only lasted for a few moments, bathing the guards in its lethal heat. Three of them fell from the catwalk into the pit, tumbling end over end like embers from a kicked campfire.

  The last slumped to the catwalk, twitching pitifully before going mercifully still. There was a long moment of silence as Kali and I stared at her handiwork. Smoke rose from the corpse still on the catwalk, and the smell of cooked meat thickened the longer we watched.

  The elevator dinged behind us, and I turned to see two figures emerging. Summers and Marcus.

  "Go," I roared, shoving Kali towards the catwalk. "We'll be right behind you."

  Then I turned and grabbed Jillian around the waist, hauling her to her feet. We stumbled forward, hobbling up the catwalk toward the intersection, where we could turn left and break line of sight.

  I heard footsteps pounding their way toward us, and I knew there was no way we'd be able to escape.

  Kali's head appeared from around the corner where she'd disappeared off the catwalk. Her arm followed, gesturing directly at us. "Down!"

  We dropped, Jillian giving a grunt of pain as her shoulder hit the stone. She very nearly toppled off and into the pit, but I grabbed her shirt and hauled her back. A whoosh of flame rushed over our heads and I heard a cry of, "Pyrokinetic!"

  I was already scrambling to my feet, helping Jillian regain hers as well. Then we ran. This time we kept our footing as we rounded the corner. We sprinted down the corridor, hauling ass towards a door with a large golden iris.

  I risked a glance behind us just as Summers rounded the corner, Marcus right on her heels. They looked pissed.

  We redoubled our pace, finally skidding to a halt outside the iris. The door hissed open at our approach and we tumbled inside, none of us eager to deal with our pursuers. The door whirred shut behind us and I willed it to stay shut.

  "We have to be quick," I said, scanning the room. "Summers might be able to steal my powers, which means she'll be able to open the door."

  Object 3 lay on the floor of an otherwise empty room. There it was in all its glory, magnificent in a way the pictures hadn't captured. The stone casing had sloped sides, like a miniature pyramid. Those sides ended abruptly about four feet above the floor, with a raised dais where the top of a pyramid would normally be. That dais looked like solid gold, and was large enough for a dozen people. I had no idea how they'd gotten something so large into a room whose door was clearly too small to allow it.

  I could feel the device in the same I could a phone or computer. The firmware was a little unfamiliar, but basic operation seemed simple. It was as if it wanted me to use it, and was explaining how best to do that. Apparently all I had to do was stand on the pad and will a destination. It would draw power from the surrounding alien installation to send us wherever I wanted to go.

  "Come on." I helped Jillian up as something slammed into the door. Kali scrambled up after us, aiming her hands for the door.

  The second blow landed as we stepped atop the pad, and the door exploded inward in a shower of golden fragments. Marcus came striding through, followed by Summers. Neither looked pleased, which was hardly surprising given that we'd abandoned them after they'd helped liberate me from Dick's clutches.

  "Don't do this, David. We can still talk things out," he called, adopting a defensive stance.

  Shit. I grabbed Jillian and Kali by their wrists and closed my eyes. I willed the pad to take us somewhere. Even as I sent it the message to get us out of here, I realized the ramifications of such a gamble, ending up at the bottom of the ocean or inside the middle of a mountain.

  Too late now. White light washed over us, followed by a feeling of weightlessness. Time seemed to freeze as the system explained itself to me.

  There were eight possible destinations, most at far-flung corners of the world. The one in the bay was both the closest and the easiest to reach. The system took more energy the further it transported us.

  Unfortunately seven of the eight destinations were blocked somehow, including the structure in the bay. I didn't know precisely why, just that Object 3 was unable to form a link. Only the eighth destination was available, something like six thousand miles away.

  It was deep under the ocean, some sort of city midway between Africa and South America. I had two choices. Abort the teleport and return to the pad with Marcus and Summers, or head to this strange city.

  The choice wasn't difficult.

  Chapter 22- Ka

  The white light intensified, enveloping the whole of Object 3, along with us, in a sea of clear, white brilliance. The air was pressed from my lungs as my body stretched impossibly thin, twisted, and turned, making me certain Object 3 had just suckered me into killing us. The brilliance faded and we found ourselves standing on another black stone platform. I clutched my gut, then patted my arms, looked down to make sure I was still all there and hadn't suffered some cataclysmic change, like a foot where my ear should be.

  "Oh my god," Kali said, catching Jillian as she sagged to the warm golden metal at the platform's center. "Help me, David. She's bleeding everywhere."

  My vision swam as I dropped down on one knee next to Jillian. "Let me see it, Jill."

  She clenched her eyes shut and gritted her teeth. One hand pressed against her shoulder. Blood had soaked through her shirt and squeezed itself out from between her fingers to run down the back of her hand.

  "Come on, Jill. Jill, look at me," I said, taking her hands in mine. She looked up, eyes glassy. "You're going to be all right."

  I pried her hands apart, then tore open the shirt around the wound. I knelt closer to inspect the wound, doing what I could to smear away blood.

  "You're just trying to get my shirt off," Jillian said, giving a laugh that turned into a cough. I couldn't help but join in when I realized what I was seeing. I sat there laughing, relief flooding me.

  "What the hell is wrong with you? She's hurt," Kali said, voice rising a full octave mid-sentence as she gave me a hard shove.

  "Look," I said, still smiling, as I nodded at the wound. "This must be one of her abilities."

  "Oh my god," Kali said again, jaw hanging open as she stared. Jillian's flesh had knitted itself back together; a thin scab now covering the wound. "That's amazing."

  "Let's keep moving," Jillian wheezed, trying to struggle back into a sitting position. I held her down. "Come on, David, we have work to do."

  "You can take a minute or two to catch your breath before we start exploring," I said, shifting my gaze back to Kali. "Make sure she doesn't try to get up. Sit on her if you have to."

  I finally took in the majesty aro
und me. The fluted columns with their ornate glyphs reminded me of Egypt, though nothing outside of Stargate glowed with their own inner light the way these did. They ringed the landing pad, with an opening that pointed down a hallway. I guessed this was their transporter room. This one was clearly of different make, its style more simplistic. The firmware, if that was what it was, was more primitive and easier to understand. Either it had been crafted much earlier, or by something more like humans, or both.

  "Be careful," Kali said, grabbing my hand as I stood. "We need you, okay?"

  "I promise. Wait here and keep an eye on Jillian." I released her hand and, turning toward the hallway, I started up the black marble ramp, noting the diamond-shaped lights set into the walls every ten feet. Each flickered grudgingly to life as I approached, shedding enough light to see a little further up the hallway.

  I emerged into a wide chamber with a single golden disk set in the center. It was raised about two inches off the floor, and an array of rubies, sapphires, and diamonds dotted the surface in elaborate patterns. Beyond the disk, six tunnels led off in different directions.

  I glanced up. The ceiling was made of glass and glowed faintly. It revealed the dark ocean, and, as I watched, a huge shape passed over the glass. I licked my lips, my breath coming in shallow little gasps. I was only a few feet from frigid, crushing death. We were so deep that not even light penetrated, and the only reason I'd been able to see the creature swimming above was the light being reflected from the room around me.

  "Welcome to the Nexus. I am the Ark Keeper Ka, former sentinel of the First Ark," a voice behind me said, curiously human. "You are not a Ka-Dun. Neither are you Deathless. Yet your helixes have been modified. You bear telltale markers of a master shaper. How is this possible?"