Talented (31 page)

I gave him the most dazzling smile that I could manage. 
Crane won’t mind.  I’m just a young girl, I won’t cause any trouble,
I coaxed.  His face relaxed and his thoughts returned to indecent.  He pressed the button opening the doors.  I walked around from my side and took his large meaty hand in my small one, calloused and scabbed from all my weapons and combat training.  I realized my mistake a moment too late.  His eyes grew wide as he ran his thumb across the pads of my palm. 
I told you that I worked on my parent’s farm,
I quickly covered.  His face smoothed as he recalled a memory that wasn’t his own – the one that I’d just implanted.

Kyle led me up a stone walkway to the back of the house, where a guard stood watch.  He had a large scoped rifle slung over one shoulder and two smaller guns holstered at his waist.

“Kyle,” he called.  “Who’s your friend?”

“Hey Dan, this is Anna,” Kyle called back.

“You know that you’re not supposed to bring visitors here,” his tone was disapproving, “even if they are cute little girls.”  He slowly ran his eyes up and down the length of my body.  I felt the overwhelming urge to shower.  Anger and annoyance bubbled up inside of me.  Little girl?  I understand that at just shy of five feet, I’m small, but little girl?  He was lucky that I had yet to get what I came for, or else I would show him who was a little girl.  I took several deep breaths to control my temper.

It will be okay just this once
, I directed towards both Dan the weaponed man and Kyle.

“I guess it will be okay just this once,” they said in unison.

“I will need to search you and your bag,” Dan insisted.  I had a feeling that this had more to do with his skeevy nature than fear that I might actually be armed.

Not necessary.  Just let us in
¸ I ordered.  Dan the guard moved aside, letting us pass, but not before giving me another once-over.  I shuddered.

The interior of the house was dark, but my eyes adjusted quickly.

Lead me to your room now
, I ordered more forcefully than I intended.   Kyle tripped over his own feet as he set off in the direction of his room at a near-run, dragging me along with him.

As soon as we walked through his room door, I mentally pushed the door shut and engaged the lock.  Kyle’s eyes widened.

Lay down on your bed and go to sleep
, I ordered. 
When you wake up, you will remember taking me home
.  I filled his head with a distorted mental image of myself.  Many of Crane’s men had seen us together and could describe me, but conflicting descriptions might buy me some time later.

Kyle obediently
laid on top of his blankets.  I waited until his breathing fell into an even rhythm, before creeping out of his room, locking the door behind me.

I envisioned the floor plans for the house that I’d painstakingly committed to memory.  Aware that my time was limited, I headed directly for Ian Crane’s office.  I blinked rapidly, taking pictures, as I jogged silently through the long hallways and up several flights of stairs.  I reached the heavy wooden door in under a minute.  Placing my hand on the wood panels, I opened my mind, searching for people inside.  There was no one.  I forced the lock and slid the door open, just enough for me to squeeze through.  Mentally, I closed and locked the door behind me.  I reminded myself to breathe.

Slowly, I scanned each wall with my eyes.  I opened and closed them at a slow, even pace, praying that the pictures would be useful.  After I was satisfied, I moved to Crane’s desk.  I was no Crypto, and my knowledge of computers was limited, but I followed Blaine’s instructions for uploading the contents of the computer to my communicator.  I connected my portable communicator to the computer and it turned it on.  A screen appeared on the monitor, asking for a password.  I typed a sequence of numbers into my communicator and waited while it thought.  Blaine had explained that the communicator was programmed with code-cracking software; several agonizing seconds later, a password box on Crane’s computer filled with a row of black dots.  It beeped loudly, three times, and then “password confirmed” appeared on the blue screen.  The screen went blank, then text, numbers, letters and symbols appeared, scrolling white against a now-black background.

Blaine had warned me that this might happen.  He’d explained that everything on the computer was likely encrypted, and to just download the information as-is and let the Cryptos sort it out.  I checked the screen of my communicator; the words “download started” appeared, followed by “download in progress.”

While the download ran, I rifled through Crane’s desk.  Most of the drawers were locked, so I mentally disengaged all of the bolts at once and drew them out on their runners.  I didn’t really know what, if anything, I was looking for.  Mac said to gather as much information as I could, so I began taking pictures of each and every document that I came across.  When the download finished, I decided that my next stop would be the basement.

The floor plans included underground dimensions that ran the length of the house.  The aerial and satellite images that Cryptos had weren’t able to determine what was down there.  The most likely answer was a laboratory.  Whatever it was, it had to be important
to warrant so much protection surrounding it; the Cryptos hadn’t been able to get images that were clear enough to determine what was down there, because the entire basement was shrouded in some type of image-blocking technology.

Opening my mind, I pinpointed all of the men in the house.  I tiptoed, moving as quickly as I dared, from Crane’s office down a lengthy hallway, and wound through the levels of the house until I found the door that led to the basement. I paused.

I couldn’t feel any active minds behind the door, but it wasn’t because there weren’t any.  When I opened my mind, I met resistance, but not the usual emptiness that indicated an absence of human brain activity.  I pushed harder, but it was like pushing against a brick wall.  Not good.  I placed my hand on the door to the basement, and tried to disengage the lock.  Nothing happened.  Really not good.  I tried once more, for good measure.  Nothing.  Crap.

At school, Donavon and I had often found our way into restricted areas.  Biometrically protected areas, I could handle. 
Security guards?  Not a problem for somebody like me.  But actual blocking technology?  This was more advanced than anything that Toxic utilized.  The School’s security measures were in place to keep out overly curious kids, but nothing like this.  Even Elite Headquarters didn’t employ such advanced security measures.

Brute force it was.  With my mental faculties rendered useless, I had no other option.  I was not super-humanly strong or anything, but I did train for physical combat almost every day of my life.  The door was definitely alarmed; once I broke the lock, I forfeited any element of surprise that I currently had.

Since I knew the general layout of the basement, I knew that there was an exit to the outside.  I weighed my options.  Whatever was behind this door was important.  I knew that it was important going into the Mission, but the fact there was some type of protection that rendered my Talents useless meant that whatever was down there was
really
important.  There was no question in my mind – the risk was worth it.  I would just get in, take as many pictures as I could, then make for the exit door.  I took several calming breaths, and then backed up several feet.  I closed my eyes, cleared my mind, and prepared myself for the worst.

I slipped off my sandals, before launching myself at the keypad next to the door.  My bare heel made contact, crushing the keypad in one blow.  Plastic cut the bottom of my foot, but I didn’t feel pain.  I pulled the dangling fragments of the keypad from the wall, exposing the wiring.  Reaching through the pocket of my dress, I withdrew a knife from the belt around my waist.  I began slicing through wires at random, praying that one would unlock the door.  I breathed a sigh of relief when the door let out a small whine and eased itself open.

Immediately behind the door was a set of metal steps, so steep that I couldn’t see the bottom in the dark.  I worried for a split-second that the security was in place wouldn’t allow me to focus my energy, but thankfully my fears were unfounded.  I concentrated on my sight.  My eyes adjusted to the absolute darkness in no time.  Fearing that I’d already wasted precious time that I didn’t have, I tore off down the staircase.

No alarms had gone off when I broke the keypad, but that only meant that they were silent.  There was no way that a facility with so much protection wasn’t also alarmed.

At the bottom of the steps, I made a snap decision and turned to the right.  I ran down the corridor, mentally trying to open the doors lining either side; I was surprised to find that the doors responded to my mental Talents.  The protections only worked to keep people outside from getting in.  I searched for human minds, but I’d waited too long.

Just as my mind registered a flurry of mental activity, in a room just ahead to my right, a huge man stepped through the door. I couldn’t stop myself in time, I barreled into him.  His
hands closed around my upper arms, gripping them so tightly I knew that I would bruise.  Instinct took over, and I brought my knee up, directly into his groin.  He groaned, but didn’t release me.  His vice-like grip let up just enough for me to maneuver my hand into my pocket.  I withdrew the first knife that my hand closed around, and I didn’t hesitate when I plunged it into his side.

This time he released me.  His hands sought the wound between his ribs.  I took the opportunity to take the offensive.  I kicked behind his left knee, his legs buckling and he fell over.  I aimed my next kick at his left kidney.  He fell over flat on his stomach.  I was on his back before he could react.  I wrapped my right arm around his neck cutting off his air supply.  He reached back, clawing at my face.  He tried to pry my arm from around his throat but he was quickly losing consciousness.  When his body finally went limp, I released my hold and eased his head to the floor.

Preoccupied with the large man on the floor, I didn’t sense the second man come out of the room until it was too late.  I craned my neck at the sound of his soft footfalls, just in time to see the glint of the silver needle before I felt the prick in the side of my neck.  I looked up into the bright green eyes of the man holding the syringe.  The metallic burn of chemicals filled my veins. So this was how I was going to die . . . I’d hoped it would be more dramatic.  I didn’t even lift a finger to save myself before everything went black.

Chapter Thirty-Two

I came to.  I wasn’t dead.  Although I kind of wished I was.  My head throbbed.  A metallic taste filled my mouth – not blood, a chemical of some kind.  I wished that it were blood.  My vision was fuzzy, and I blinked several times in rapid succession, trying to clear the haze from my eyes.  I was still wearing the lenses.  Frantically, I turned my head from side to side, getting as many pictures of the room as possible.  The room looked like it belonged in one of Toxic’s medical buildings.  Several hospital-type beds were evenly spaced across
the wall.  Each bed had electronic monitors and a tray of syringes set up next to it.  If I ever got out of here, these would be valuable.

I moved only my head from side to side because that was all I could move.  I looked down.  I was strapped to one of the gurneys, my wrists and ankles shackled to the railings.  Two leather straps, one across my chest, one across my hips, immobilized my body.  I tugged on the restraints, testing their strength.  They were pretty sturdy.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Talia,” a deep voice boomed.   A tall, thin man walked into the room.  His salt and pepper hair was cut close to his head, his coal-black eyes were small and beady in their deep sockets.  Three heavily armed guards trailed in his wake.

My blood turned to ice in my veins as I locked eyes with Ian Crane.  The chemical cocktail injection must’ve been playing tricks with my brain, because I thought I just heard him call me Talia.  He couldn’t know my name.  He couldn’t know who I was.

I was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack; my chest heaved against the leather strap.  I inhaled deeply through my nose.  When I blew out the breath, it hissed through my clenched teeth.

I mentally slapped myself. 
Control.  I needed to get control of myself.  Only then could I gain control of the situation.

“Yes, I know who you are Talia.  Natalia Lyons.  And I assume you know who I am?” Crane continued.  Who was the mind reader here?  When I didn’t respond, he pushed on, “Just hear me out Talia.  I think you might be interested in what I have to say.”

“I have nothing to say to you,” I spat, my temper flaring.  Crane nodded to the closest of his, armed men.  The man began walking towards me.

Fear gripped me again.  
I am going to die.  I am going to die.  I AM GOING TO DIE.

Long-buried memories clawed their way to the surface of my mind.  The shot claiming my father’s life rang in my ears.  The sight of my mother’s life pouring from her neck clouded my vision.  I was not going to die this way.  I might die tonight, but not before I killed Crane.

I yanked at my restraints, but they remained unyielding.  My eyes darted around the room, looking for something, anything to help me.  Crane’s man was leaning over me.

NO
, I mentally screamed at him.  He halted.  I concentrated, hard, filling his head with a noise so high-pitched that usually only dogs could hear it.  His hands flew to ears.  He dropped to his knees, blood trickling through the gaps between the fingers of one hand.  The other men looked at each other uncomfortably.  Crane gave me a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“You are quite Talented, as I believe Toxic calls it, Talia.”  The repetition of my name unnerved me, and I snapped.  I pushed my mental energies out towards everyone in the room.  Crane’s men collapsed to their knees around him, shrieking.  Only Crane himself seemed unaffected by my abilities, confirming my suspicion that he’d been conditioned against mental attack.

I gave another go at my restraints, this time with my mind.  The solid metal shackles split with a screech.  I yanked my wrists free, tearing a large jagged cut on my left wrist.  I concentrated on my ankle shackles until they tore cleanly down the seams.  Rolling on to my feet, I readied myself to attack Crane.

“No need to get physical, Talia, I just want to talk,” he said, holding his hands up as if to show me that he didn’t want trouble.

“I already told you, I have nothing to say to you,” I growled.

“You don’t need to say anything.  Just listen,” his smile faltered for the first time.

“You killed my parents,” I said in a low, even voice that was too cruel to be mine.

“Your parents’ deaths were a regrettable consequence of war,” he argued.  If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought that the expression in his beady little eyes was pain.

“Consequence of war? Is that what you’ll say about my death, it was a consequence of war?” I demanded.

“Isn’t that how Toxic justifies all their Kill Missions?” He asked lightly.

“Toxic doesn’t kill innocent people,” I fired back.

“Really?
You know nothing about what your Agency does to innocent people,” he shouted, his control slipping.

“Toxic has taught me to use my abilities, to become a more complete person.  You and your Coalition would subjugate Talents if you had your way,” I screamed back.

“And what do you think your Agency does, Talia?  What do you think the ‘Mandatory Talent Testing Law’ does?  It enslaves you.”  His black eyes burned into me, as if he was willing me to share his views.

“Mac has taught me to use my abilities for good,” I argued.

“Danbury McDonough?  You think he has taught you to use your abilities?  Talia, you don’t even realize how strong you are!  Or what you are capable of!  He has only taught you enough to make you compliant, to make you his minion.  Your powers are so much stronger than any Talents I’ve ever met,” he sounded almost reverent when he said the last part.

“Is this where you tell me that you can teach to use my Talents,” I asked sardonically. “You wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“I already know how to use your gifts better than you do!” he yelled.

“Really?
And who could have possibly taught you that?” I demanded, narrowing my eyes at him.

“Your father,” he spat.

I was momentarily speechless at the mention of my father.  My hands started to twitch, and the primal urge to attack overtook me.  I wasn’t going to stand here and listen to him tell lies about my family.  I lunged for Crane.

“Talia, please listen to me,” his tone held a note of desperation.  A red haze was already beginning in my peripheral vision; I was beyond listening.

He shielded himself with his hands, but didn’t try to fight back.  My bloodlust-filled screams mingled with the pained screams of Crane’s men, many of whom were still writhing in pain on the floor.

Colliding with Crane, I knocked him to the floor.  I landed on top of him, and he grabbed for my wrists to restrain me.  He managed to wrap one large hand around my injured arm.  I punched him with my free hand, my fist connecting with his cheekbone giving a satisfying crunch.  Crane didn’t even flinch.  I raised my hand to strike again as I
heard footsteps behind me.  I felt three more men rushed into the already too-crowded room.  The lead man raised his gun.

“NO!” Crane screamed, but it was too late – the man fired.  I deflected the bullets with my mind.  He fired again. 
And again.  And again.  He emptied the entire clip into the room but all of his bullets hung uselessly in mid-air until I let them drop harmlessly to the floor.  I turned my attention back to Crane.

“Talia, please,” he begged.  His eyes grew wide as saucers as he stared at something behind me.  I turned to see the first man locked and reloaded, poised to fire again.  I went for the gun
this time.  I mentally yanked it out of the man’s hand, but not before he squeezed the trigger with his index finger.

Pain exploded in my back, just above my left hip.  A bloodcurdling scream tore from my lips.  I stretched my mental muscles to the breaking point, making the men in the doorway to fall to the ground, incapacitated.  I jumped off of Crane.  Pain seared white-hot as I moved.

I was afraid to look at my wound.  I needed to leave.  I was using so much mental energy, I wouldn’t be able to keep it up much longer.  I needed to get to safety.  I needed to get out of Nevada.  I tried to formulate a plan, but the pain was excruciating, preventing me from thinking straight.  Erik did me no favors by easing my pain when I’d been stabbed; maybe if I’d learned how to think through the pain then I wouldn’t be so ineffectual now.

A thought struck me.  I fell to my knees next to Crane.  I grabbed his already-swelling face and locked his eyes with mine.  I tried boring into his mind, but it was like when I tried to mentally reach through the door upstairs.  His defenses were even better than I’d first thought.  Whoever had trained him was extremely Talented, at least as Talented as I was, maybe even more so.

“Let me in,” I growled.  Black spots dotted my vision.  I worried that I was going to pass out before I broke through his resistance.  Pure desperation fueled my last-ditch attempt to break Ian Crane.  Just as the blackness at the edge of my vision grew larger, threatening to render me blind, I felt the fight go out of Crane.  His mental barriers gave way, sending me toppling into his mind.

I focused on the physical pain, forcing the agony from my mind to his.  The pain slowly eased, before disappearing completely.  Crane’s face contorted.  He curled himself into the fetal position, screams escaping through his pursed lips.  I sat back on my heels, panting from the exertion.

I watched him for several seconds, our earlier conversation replaying in my mind:  his mention of my father.  His argument about the Mandatory Testing Laws. 
You don’t have time for this, MOVE.

I needed to stop the bleeding.  I mentally pulled cabinets and drawers open, searching for something, anything – this was a medical facility after all.  I found towels and gauze first.  I pressed the towel over the wound and Crane screamed louder.  I used the gauze to hold the towel in place as best I could.  Grabbing several extra towels and an extra roll of gauze, I stuffed them into my pouch.  The bag was now devoid of my gadgets, thanks, I assumed, to Crane’s men.

Bending over one of Crane’s men curled in a ball on the floor, unable to do anything but whimper, and I divested him of his own weapons.  Guns were not my first choice – despite all the target practice – I had horrible aim – but I was desperate and had no idea where my knife belt was.  I gave one last look at Crane, million questions burning in my mind.

“Talia, please listen to me,” he urged through my pain.

“You killed my parents,” I said softly.

“No, no.” He shook his head from side to side.  I heard faint footsteps and judged them to be coming down the metal steps.

Two options warred in my head.  I desperately wanted to kill Ian Crane, but I also desperately wanted to live to fight another day.  I couldn’t do both.  My abilities were already stretched to the breaking point, and it was unlikely that I’d be able to mentally control more people, if the new men caught me.

I may have transferred the pain to Crane, but I was still the one not-so-slowly bleeding to death.  I was physically too weak to fight.  My only chance of survival was to run, and if I ran, I needed to keep the pain at bay as long as possible.  I didn’t know how long I could hold Crane’s
mind.  I did know that if I killed him, I wouldn’t get as far as the door.  I chose self-preservation, a decision that would haunt me for a long time.  With one last glance down at Crane I turned and ran for the exit.

I easily navigated my way through the maze of corridors in the basement, and burst through the door that I knew to be the exit.  I found myself at the bottom of a concrete staircase.  I ran up the steps without hesitation, my eyes darting from side to side as I tried to get my bearings.  I was behind the stone house, not far from where Kyle had parked the vehicle.  I ran straight to the parking lot.

Luck was on my side – the first car that I tried was unlocked.  I threw open the door and fell in.  I mentally started the engine and took off, without bothering to determine whether I was being pursued.

The hover vehicle rose up and cleared the high fence, but as a high-pitched wailing noise went off as I passed.  If there had been any question about whether there was an intruder at Crane’s place, there wasn’t now.  I pushed the vehicle as fast as it would go.  My mental fatigue was threatening to consume me, and I let go of Crane’s men’s minds.  I was positive that I already had a slew of people pursuing me, what was eight more?

I clung desperately to Crane’s conscious.  My blood had already soaked through the towel and was working on the fabric of the seat.  My head and stomach were woozy.  I began to doubt whether I was going to live; I wasn’t sure how much more blood I could afford to lose.  Unfortunately, I was going to lose at least a little more before the night was over, and not from my gushing gunshot wound.

My only chance of survival was to be rescued; the only way I was getting rescued, since Crane’s men took my communicator, was to activate the tracker implanted in my hip.  I put the hover vehicle on autopilot and reached for the knife I’d taken off Crane’s man.  Hiking what was left of my short dress up, I felt for the small lump that marked the tracker.  I found it easily, but hesitated.  I hated the sight of my own blood.

My knife hand shook as I brought the tip close to my skin.  I started panting.  Scared that I was hyperventilating, I pulled the knife away from my hip and counted to ten.  Closing my eyes, I focused on calming my breathing.  Then, as if to psych myself out, I swiftly reached across my body and sliced the skin right over the tracker in one motion.  It didn’t hurt.  Well, it didn’t hurt me.  I hoped that Ian Crane felt like the skin on his hip tore open when I cut myself.