Broken Pixels (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 4) (34 page)

As soon as the doors slid open, Mara burst from the elevator and jogged toward the circumference of the circular platform, heading for the bridgeway. Though her eyes were fixed straight ahead in a look of determination, her attention was on figuring out what to do next. She didn’t notice that the mesh metal causeway was gone, until she was teetering at the edge, staring into the dark chasm of the silo that held the repository structure.

It took Cam a few seconds to catch up to her. When he did, he took her elbow, pulled her back from the edge and said, “I suspected we might not be able to get across. The announcement said that all entrances and exits were in lockdown. Even if we could get across, the doors to the tunnel would not open. We’ll just have to wait here until the lockdown is over.”

Mara turned on him. “I won’t just stand here while those, those—”

“Shimmers,” Cam interjected.

“While those shimmers walk away with my body. I’m not spending the rest of my life like this.” She held her hands out to her sides, like she wore an ugly outfit. After a second, her face softened, and she said, “No offense.”

“None taken. But I’m not sure there’s much you can do, until we can get access to the bridgeway,” he said.

“There’s more than one way to get around,” she said. Closing her eyes, she visualized the room in which her biological body was being cared for. She could see the bed, herself and the monitors. She willed herself to be there.

She opened her eyes. Cam stared at her with a confused look. “What are you talking about? More than one way to get around what?”

Mara’s eyes widened. “It didn’t work. I don’t have my abilities.”

“I’m sorry?”

She grabbed Cam and shook him. “I’ve not only lost my body, I’ve lost my ability to manipulate Space.” She attempted to freeze Time.

Cam cocked his head and narrowed his eyes, concern reshaped his features. “Are you all right?”

“No, I’m not all right. Don’t you know what this means? If I’ve lost my abilities, there’s no way for us to get home. Sam and Ping will be stuck in those tubes forever, and I’ll be like this …” Her voice trailed off.

“There’s probably just an adjustment period. You said your abilities were metaphysical in nature, so wouldn’t they be tied more to your consciousness than your physical body?”

“I would think so, but, somehow, being in this body has affected me.”

“You’re just unsettled. All the changes you have been through have caused you to doubt yourself. I’m sure, with a little time and practice, you’ll develop your abilities again.”

“Maybe.” She was only half listening to Cam as she stared across the yawning space to the tunnel doors mounted into the wall of the massive shaft in which they stood.

“How did you develop your abilities in the first place?” Cam asked.

Mara shook her head. “What?”

“What was the process you went through to use your powers the first time? You weren’t just born with these abilities, were you?”

“No. Until a few months ago, I was unaware of these abilities, didn’t know they existed. At first, Ping tricked me into using them. Then I sort of got into situations where I had no choice but to use them.”

“I’m sure that will happen again. It’s just a matter of time.” He turned and walked toward the elevator, but Mara did not move. He stopped and looked at her expectantly.

She peered over the edge of the platform into the seemingly bottomless depths of the cavern. “… where I had no choice but to use them.” She came out of her reverie and pointed at Cam’s chest. “I want to you stay right there for a moment.”

He frowned at her but didn’t move or say anything.

Mara turned away from him, toward the edge of the platform. Without comment, she bolted. Running with all her might, she leaped into the open chasm toward the distant wall of the cavern in the direction of the fire-escape-like landing in front of the tunnel doors. She flew in a slight arc, lifted by her momentum, but she was not under any delusion that she would clear the yawning space that had been connected by the bridgeway. It took less than three seconds for her to lose velocity and begin the forty-story plunge into the darkness below.

With her hair streaming straight up and her jacket ballooning out around her torso, Mara tried to ignore the pressure building in her lungs and the air whipping across her face as she scrunched her eyes closed and visualized the room where she’d last seen her body.

Her throat went dry and caught when she tried to swallow.
It’s not working
. Her collar flapped against her neck.
Just visualize the room. The bed. The hook on the wall where the robe was. The monitors. My body
.

The bottom loomed. She could sense it rushing up to meet her.
I wonder if they’ll build me another body
.

She crashed with a muffled thud that forced the air from her lungs and rebounded with a loud series of squeaks. When she tried to inhale, she found her mouth full of cloth and something spongy. Lifting herself, she felt the ground beneath her give way and sway slightly.

“How in the world did you get in here?” asked a woman, her voice behind Mara’s right shoulder.

Mara flipped onto her back and opened her eyes. She was on a hospital bed, staring across the room at Dr. Canfield, who stood next to the door, looking like she had been interrupted while leaving.

The doctor shook her head, as if dismissing something she had imagined. “For a moment I thought perhaps someone had returned your biological body, but it’s you. I thought you and Cam were at the repository visiting your brother.”

Mara sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “We were. We got trapped over there in the lockdown.”

“So how did you get back here? And how did you get in here without coming through this door?” she asked.

Mara held up a hand. “Just a second.” She looked past the doctor for a second and visualized Cam standing on the circular platform, looking over the edge, calling her name. He disappeared in a burst of light and reappeared in another, standing next to the doctor.

Cam staggered in one direction, and the doctor cowered in the opposite. After steadying himself by holding out an arm to the wall, he took in a deep, tired breath and said, “Are you trying to kill yourself or kill me?”

“Sorry,” Mara said. “I needed to find out if I had my abilities, and I didn’t have the luxury of sitting around convincing myself. I hope I didn’t startle you too much.”

Dr. Canfield straightened and brushed off her lab coat. “What exactly is happening here? Did you make him appear here? Is that how you got in this room?”

Cam looked at the doctor and said, “She jumped off the roof of the repository while the bridgeway was retracted.”

“What?” The doctor reached out and placed her hand on the side of Mara’s face. With a thumb, she held open Mara’s left eye and tilted her head back. “Your pupils aren’t dilated. Are you feeling suicidal, or did you have some kind of perceptual malfunction?”

Mara pushed away the doctor’s hand from her face and said, “I am not suicidal. And what do my pupils have to do with anything?”

“A cognitive malfunction will reset your pupils noticeably wider,” the doctor said.

“Apart from the complete insanity that my life has turned into, I am not having a malfunction, cognitive or otherwise. Now, can you tell me what happened to my body—my
real
body?”

The doctor pointed to the bed behind Mara and said, “As you saw before you went to the repository, your original body was here in this bed. Two men—shimmers—entered the room and carried her out. They got into the room before we knew it, but we chased as they made their escape.”

“How did they get in here?” Mara asked.

“Considering how quickly and stealthily shimmers can move, it would not have been difficult for them to get into the room. To be honest with you, I’m surprised there hasn’t been a breach earlier. I suppose, until now, they didn’t have a real need to break in.”

“
How quickly and stealthily they move
?”

Cam pushed off from the wall, approached and said, “Don’t you remember how they moved in the blink of an eye back at the atrium? They seem to project themselves long distances effortlessly.”

Dr. Canfield added, “Some witnesses who’ve observed the phenomenon think the shimmers can move in a straight line, and it must be an unobstructed path. But it still provides a huge advantage over those of us who use traditional means of locomotion.”

“But they were seen leaving with my body?”

“I don’t think they can project when they are in contact with matter, such as carrying a body,” the doctor said.

“Where did they go?” Mara asked.

“Security says they were last seen heading toward the railcar tunnel,” the doctor said.

To Cam, Mara asked, “Did you see what happened to the book bag I was carrying before the explosion?”

He pointed to Mara’s right, toward the ground. “I put it under the foot of the bed.”

Mara crouched next to the bed and looked underneath. Alongside one of the bed’s legs was the book bag, scorched and scratched but intact. When she lifted it, she could feel the weight of the items inside. Standing up, she slung it over her shoulder and turned to face Cam and the doctor.

“What are you doing?” Cam asked.

“I’m going to get my body back,” she said.

Mara flung open the swinging doors to the parking lot outside the repository’s offices, not waiting for Cam, who was trailing behind her. Without pausing or noticing how much dimmer the light was in the outer portions of the facility, she headed for the tunnel entrance that led to the railcar tracks. As they approached, the darkened opening was barely visible in the rough-hewn rock wall.

Jogging up alongside her, Cam said, “Mara, the tunnels have no power. The rail system has been shut down to conserve energy. How do you expect to find the people who took your body?”

Without breaking stride, Mara said, “These people are made from light. Don’t you think they would be easy enough to see in a dark tunnel? If anything, the darkness should be an advantage for us. We’ll see them a lot sooner than they’ll see us.”

They stepped into the tunnel, and Cam said, “I suppose there’s a certain amount of logic to that, but look around you. It’s pitch dark in here. How will we find our way around?”

Mara jiggled the book bag and said, “I’ve got a flashlight in here, and, if we need it, I have a few more creative ways of producing some light. Now, if you want to tag along, I need you to do something other than raise doubts. I won’t let these shimmers just waltz in and grab my body without a fight.”

“I understand. I’m only concerned you may be leaping before you look,” he said.

“I just jumped off a forty-story building to scare myself into getting my abilities back. Do you really think a few dark tunnels will stop me?”

“I suppose not,” he said.

The ground beneath them flattened out, and Mara reached to her right, until she felt the wall. She walked her fingers along its cool, hard surface until she felt a corner. They were now at the end of the tunnel, stepping onto the railcar platform. It was so dark that she could see no features or shadows. If it weren’t for her passing memory of this place, she could have been walking into a wall or stepping into a pit. She juggled the book bag for a second, and a loud zipping sound bounced off the walls. She felt around inside the bag for a moment, confirmed that the Chronicle was still there and extracted the flashlight. Pressing the button on its side, a weak beam shot out across the open air above the single rail at the end of the platform. Now she had enough ambient light to see Cam’s features.

“What is it you want me to do?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You said you needed me to do something other than raise doubts. What is it?”

She walked to the end of the platform and swung the light in each direction, following the metallic monorail as it disappeared into the passageways on either side.

“If the shimmers did come here, they could have gone in either direction. I don’t see any light in either passage, but it looks like they bend, so that might not mean anything. But I need your help deciding which way we should go.”

“Okay. How would you like me to do that?”

“Are you familiar with the stops along the rail system, the places where they could enter and exit from aboveground?”

“Yes. I accessed the system map the first time we rode the railcar. It’s a simple design. One rail runs in a wide oval covering most of the valley and is bisected by another that crosses through downtown Portland and acts as a connection to other railcar systems outside the immediate area.”

“That’s a little more high-level than I was looking for. I’m interested in stops nearby. They are carrying a lot of dead weight. I’m assuming they get tired the same way the rest of us do, so it’s most likely they are headed for a stop close by. I would think it would have to be accessible, using stairs or a ramp, since elevators are probably not working.”

“Hold on. Let me see what I can come up with.” His eyes shifted up and slid back and forth under his brow. After a moment he mumbled something Mara could not understand and then said clearly, “No, that won’t work. Maybe to the east. Yes, that must be it.”

“What? What must be it?” she asked, pointing the flashlight directly in his face.

“There’s a stop in the industrial district almost a mile from here. Because the water table rises in that area, the track is much closer to the surface. The stop is a short flight of stairs beneath a small storage building that appears abandoned. If I wanted to sneak up on the repository through the rail tunnels, that’s where I’d enter the system.”

“You said east?” Mara asked.

Cam nodded and pointed to the left. “Go down that passage.”

* * *

Mara and Cam walked on either side of the single rail that split the tunnel floor. Because the ground was raised in the center and sloped slightly toward the walls, they compensated by leaning toward the rail. That and the complete darkness of the tunnel made Mara feel like she was always on the verge of pitching over. Her ankles were also beginning to ache.