This choice: "...meet him at Protean Industries." • Go Back...Chapter #28Going Nova by: imaj   You sit patiently in the back of the unmarked white van as Hal goes to work. It’s parked somewhere just around the corner from Protean industries. You tilt your head back and lean it against the side of the van, closing your eyes as you wait. Charles turns round in one of the front seats to look back at you and Hal.
“You nearly done yet Hal,” he asks friendlily. Hal doesn’t look up from his laptop, but raises one hand, holding three fingers aloft. Three minutes? That must be what he means. “You holding up back there Will?”
You smile weakly at him. You are Will again, having remained in your near-original form since the encounter at the Straussler mansion. A set of Jon Straussler’s clothes, scavenged from a bedroom hang loosely on you. “Getting by sir,” you tell him. In truth, your near death experience has left you a little rattled.
“Almost done,” says Hal, still staring fixedly at his laptop screen. “I’m sliding everything into place now. Tying up the entire phone network in Saratoga Falls, no one will be speaking to anyone in a few minutes. Going to set a few alarms off on the other side of the town too. Should keep the police busy for a while.”
“Genuine emergencies,” interrupts Charles, his face showing concern.
“Got an adaptive filter in place, genuine emergencies should, hah, ‘miraculously’ get through,” explains Hal briskly. “Absolutely no traffic out of the Fane building though. Almost done.”
In the driver seat, Frank guns the engine of the van into life. It rumbles with a low growl. “Ready when you are sir,” he says to Charles.
“Haha” exclaims Hal, finally looking up from his laptop. “Gotcha!” He hammers the keyboard one last time. “We’ve got an hour.”
“Take us in son,” Charles instructs Frank.
You feel the van start to move, but from your position in the back you don’t see much. It turns a couple of corners and comes to a halt after a minute or so. You hoist yourself up a little to try and see out the window. The Protean Industries building is visible in the distance. You slip back down as you see Frank open the window.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to turn around sir,” comes a polite but firm voice from outside the van. You recognise it as one of the guards that has been checking your credentials as you entered Protean in the last couple of days.
Frank says nothing, simply staring ahead. Charles leans over to say something. “Can’t do that son,” he says simply. The guard repeats his request. You feel the power start to build up around Charles. “I’d take the rest of the day off if I was you,” he adds. The tone is nothing other than friendly, but you can feel the wake of the power of Charles’ will that went with it. You glance at Hal. From the look on his face, he felt it to.
You can’t quite hear what the security guard replies, but Frank steps on the gas again and the van lurches forwards into the parking lot. It doesn’t take long for him to bring it round to the front of the building. You feel the van come to a halt and Charles and Frank get out. A few moments later Frank opens the rear doors, helping you and Hal step down from inside the van.
You blink a couple of times as you step into the light. It’s late afternoon now, and the people working inside the building will be thinking about getting home. As you look around one detail catches your attention: A number of security cameras are mounted on top of tall poles around the parking lot. Not one of them points at you. In fact every single one faces directly away. Hal’s work, you think.
“I’ve still got Jon and Monique’s security passes,” you say turning round to where Charles stands by the locked doors that lead into the reception.
He stares at the doors intently. “Hmmm,” he murmurs. “No. I have something else in mind. It’s time we showed Fane why they shouldn’t push us,” he explains. You have only heard that anger in his voice once before, at Rosalie’s wedding. “You might want to cover your eyes son.”
Charles holds his hands out in front of himself, holding the palms about twenty centimetres apart. A little spark of light forms there, dancing about as it grows into a ball. Already you can feel the heat radiating there and you force yourself to look away as the fireball in Charles’ hands continues to expand. Even facing away from him, you are forced to shield your eyes as the brightness grows too intense.
For a moment there is a sudden sense of airlessness and you struggle to breath. Then a wave of almost scalding heat passes by you, followed by a lazy booming sound. The glow fades and you back to Charles.
A huge section of the front wall of Protean industries is gone, exposing the innards of the building for a dozen metres or so in each directions. Hot blobs of melted glass sizzle on the ground around you and twisted beams stick out of the building at odd angles.
By now, every alarm in the building should be going off, but Hal’s work holds good. As you follow Charles inside you are greeted with only silence. The receptionist, a young woman in a dark green uniform blazer and skirt crawls around on the floor beside her overturned desk. She whimpers a little as she feels out the ground in front of her.
“Blinded,” explains Charles quietly. “Temporarily. Put her to sleep Will, before she hurts herself. Check her memories too. We need to know who’s involved with Fane and who isn’t.”
You nod and step forward. It almost seems a kindness to send the receptionist to sleep and you lower her gently to the floor after letting your sigil do it’s work. You briefly review the memories you have absorbed from her. “Doesn’t know anything,” you say, purging her imago immediately.
Charles’ reply is cut off as a pair of double doors just beyond the receptionist’s desk burst open and two guards burst through. They’re unarmed, but that doesn’t stop them from seeming menacing. They flex their oversized hands, clenching them into ugly fists. Their skin is pale, almost grey and you realise that they must be clockwork men of Project Kardios.
You aren’t the only one to have made that realisation. Frank appears at your side a carbon fibre longbow in one hand. He quickly nocks an arrow and pulls the string back with practised ease. Frank tracks one of the unliving things fluidly before releasing the string.
The arrow flies through the air, doubtless guided by Frank’s Malacandran prodigies. It strikes the clockwork man square in the chest, right where the mechanical contraption that replaced their heart would be. The arrow slips through the creature’s armoured vest as if it wasn’t there. There is a muffled grinding noise and its limbs just freeze in place. Its momentum carries it on though, and it falls to the floor like a statue.
The other clockwork man takes a lumbering swing at Charles, but he just isn’t there when it lands, having somehow moved to the side just in time. He holds his hands out towards the beast and a jet of golden fire erupts from them, engulfing the clockwork man. The monster’s clothing fizzes away around from his chest in an instant, revealing the cogs and gears that have replaced its heart.
The fire fades away, having barely damaged the monster at all, but Charles follows it up with a second blast: A thin finger of intense light that leaps from his hands to the clockwork heart of the beast. The mechanical contraption melts in an instant and the unliving guard shudders to a halt. It totters in place for a few moments before slowly toppling over.
“Lock down the elevators Hal,” calls Charles without turning round.
“Right away,” replies Hal. He dashes forwards to the bank of elevators in one wall and produces a small screwdriver from inside the recesses of his ratty jacket. It doesn’t take him long to prise open the control panel and start fiddling about with the electronics within.
You however, have other things to worry about. Another guard has emerged from the double doors, this one entirely human. He’s produced a pistol and it aiming it shakily at Charles, all the while screaming for him to get on the floor.
The guard hasn’t spotted you yet though, so you pull up your cloak and let it flow around the guard, wiping your existence from his awareness. You jog briskly forward as Charles tries to reason with him. The guard is hysterical though, and listens to none of it. You reach him just as he is ready to pull the trigger. A touch is all you need to send the guard to the floor. His imago flowing inside you.
“Good job Will,” says Charles smoothly. “Did you pick up his imago,” he asks. You tell him that you did. “Change into the guard son, I’ve got something I want you to do.” You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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