Lt. Brody stood at rigid attention as his XO paced slowly. The two of them were alone in the wardroom, and the tension was nearly unbearable. Ford's dark eyes flashed with anger, and his stern frown did not relax in the slightest. After a moment he stopped pacing.
“Every member of this crew is aware of what happened on this boat yesterday,” Ford began. “There is no excuse for it. None.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “At 1600 hours yesterday, a guest aboard seaQuest compromised the security of the U.E.O.'s most powerful warheads. He also kidnapped two crew members, both of whom nearly lost their lives in the attempt to keep those warheads safe.”
Ford paused, trying not to clench his jaw as he spoke again. “Clay Marshall abducted Lucas and Dagwood from their quarters, and walked them all the way to the weapons dock. This boat is nearly a mile long, Lieutenant. This guy moved two civilian hostages nearly a mile, and not one member of your security crew was aware of it until it was too late.” At this, he turned and started the vidscreen with a remote. It displayed security camera footage of Marshall, Dagwood, and Lucas traversing the boat's corridors from stem to stern.
Brody remembered his training, keeping his eyes focused straight ahead. He did not watch Commander Ford, who had begun to pace again. Jim let the words slip over him, hearing them but concentrating instead on not reacting. He choked back retorts as Johnathan continued the humiliating dressing-down. Brody knew all these facts. In fact, he had written the report that the Commander continued to quote.
“Lieutenant, with those warheads on board, we needed to be at peak efficiency. That means standing alert at guard duty. That means a vid-monitoring shift is spent monitoring the vids.” He paused the security footage, which showed Marshall ushering his hostages into the missile bay. Ford was silent for a moment as he forced somber eye contact with the head of security. “This will not happen again. For the next two months, your team will be actively retraining outside of your the shifts to ensure that this will not happen again.”
He was right; damn it, he was right. Brody seethed in anger--not at Ford, but at himself. They all had known Clay's abilities before he came aboard the seaQuest. Why had they let him on board at all? Once he was on board, why hadn't he been monitored more closely? Had Marshall used his psychic abilities to tweak Brody's judgement? Or had it simply been his own incompetence, once again.
Jim usually tried to be upbeat about his career, but lately his major
security missions had ended up as failures. Although he'd come to the seaQuest
well-recommended, Brody felt as though he hadn't been keeping up his reputation.
All starting with his stint at "Dagger Island." He was glad that the GELF
uprising had succeeded, but it still reflected badly on his record and
his self-esteem. Some security officer! He couldn't stop a takeover of
the most heavily fortified U.E.O. prison facility in the world. He couldn't
even stop one man from taking over the U.E.O. flagship. He couldn't even
protect his friends.
Ford's curt command drew him out of his reverie of guilt. “Dismissed.”
A knock at the hatch interrupted her rambling thoughts. It was not unexpected; she had left strict orders with her medbay staff to send Captain Bridger to her office before he was allowed to see Lucas. “Come in, Captain,” she called. Normally she would have scanned first, to ensure that it really was Nathan, but this time she went on assumption. This whole mess with Clay had left her psychic abilities "sore." It had left her a little numb, emotionally, as well. Perhaps that would make this task easier.
She opened her eyes and watched him enter and close the hatch. He did not take the chair as she beckoned for him to sit, but instead stood opposite her desk. “Doctor.” The word was partly a curt greeting, partly a question as to why he had been directed here. Despite his reasonable tone, his brows were raised and his eyes were wide--a sure sign that he was not in the mood to take orders from the medical staff.
This man was not the cool commanding officer of the U.E.O. flagship, nor was he the focused scientist who had designed that boat. The man who stood before her could barely stand still. Never a patient man, Bridger wanted to see Lucas right now. His agitated state beat against her mind, and she knew that her task would be difficult. She had to see to it that the man who left this room would be briefed on the situation and ready to control the seaQuest.
Cringing inwardly at the unwanted responsibility, she leaned forward in her chair. “Have a seat, Captain.”
“How is he? What happened in there?”
“Sit down, Nathan.”
He sat in a huff of thwarted stubbornness, eyes sharply daring her to try issuing him another order.
Not wishing to push her luck, she got down to business. “With some rest and some time, Lucas will recover from his physical injuries. He has two broken ribs from Clay's initial assault in Lucas' room. Less importantly, he has a lot of bruises, including a bruised cheekbone from falling in the weapons bay.” Noting Bridger's confused expression, she explained. “Marshall exerted such force on Lucas' mind that he lost consciousness while standing. He wasn't able to reach out and catch himself,” Wendy demonstrated, two arms held up as if to absorb the shock of a fall.
Bridger had calmed somewhat. Presented with some information, he followed his training and began to analyze it. He nodded, wincing a little. “But none of those injuries is debilitating. . . .” He took a breath. “Wendy, what about his--mental condition? What happened in that room?”
She wanted to take his hand and offer her support--wanted him to offer her his support--but she forced herself to be professional. In order for the Captain to be in control, she had to be in control. “Are you aware how psychic abilities work?”
Seeing that he was not, she continued. “Nobody knows the whole of it, but we do know this much: Each of us is surrounded by an electromagnetic field. It is associated with the electrical impulses that allow our nervous system to function. This field is not a new discovery. If you take a look at cultures around the world, many believe in psychic or spiritual energy.”
He nodded understanding, and she went on, “At the institute, we called this field an 'aura.' Some people--psychics--are sensitive to the flows of energy in auras. Nobody really knows why. The weakest psychics can only sense changes in the aura; they are empaths and mind-readers. Stronger psychics can manipulate the aura; they can manipulate the flow of electrochemical stimuli in the human body. In other words, manipulate thoughts and actions. They are the true telepaths. Extremely strong psychics can manipulate auras outside of the body to move small objects. With a lot of effort, a strong psychic would be able to mentally lift a fifty-pound object from the floor to waist height.”
Bridger swallowed. “Clay Marshall was able to hurl a 130-pound boy across the room without breaking a sweat.”
Wendy nodded wryly. “Exactly. Clay is--was--the strongest psychic the world has ever seen. And in order to obtain the security codes for the warheads, he used his full powers in altering the electrochemical signals in Lucas' brain. He caused neural changes--at least semipermanent ones. Lucas probably won't be himself until his normal thought patterns override the ones that Marshall forged. It will take time.”
“What thoughts did he . . . invoke?”
“I've been too weak to scan him,” she said aloud. And too scared of what I might find, she admitted silently. “Knowing Clay, I'd say . . . probably intimidating images, ones meant to frighten and overpower.” There was a silent pause as they tried to absorb what had happened.
The knock at the door brought them both alert. “Dr. Smith? Are you in there?”
The voice brought two small smiles to the grim room. “Yes, come in, Dagwood,” she invited. He did so, and stopped nervously when he saw Bridger.
“Captain. I mean Captain Bridger. Sir.” Nervously, he bounced a little in the door frame. His multicolored skin had a pinkish cast to it.
“Well, it's our hero!” Bridger forced his tone to be light. “You're looking rather active, for a man who just took a chemical blast.”
Dr. Smith cut in, “Fortunately, only a small portion of the chemicals in the warhead reacted. Clay's bionic body took most of the impact. Dagwood got away with bruises and second degree burns.” She wished he wasn't here--after all this time, his mind still felt strange to her. Even stranger than Darwin's. Trying to read Dagwood's thoughts was like trying to grasp smoke. How had Clay been able to manipulate him? On a good day, all Wendy could get from him were fleeting, nonsensical images. Today, Dagwood's bizarre aura grated against her exhausted mind, and the images were even weirder. Had the geneticist who'd spawned him engineered this odd aura, or was that just a coincidence? She shook her head a little and remembered to ask, “How are you feeling, Dagwood?”
“Better.” He shifted position uncertainly. “The other doctors won't let Dagwood see Lucas.”
“We were just going to see him,” she replied. “You can come with us.” Dagwood stepped down into the room, and she led them both through the short passage that connected the lab to the patient area. To Bridger, she said, “It's really amazing how fast he's healed, even for a dagger.”
Bridger's spine stiffened, but Dagwood continued alongside them, unperturbed. “GELF abilities are often underestimated, aren't they, Dagwood?” he said, emphasizing the term.
The tall GELF shrugged in reply, all his attention focused on seeing Lucas.
They arrived and looked around the small area. “I gave him some space behind the curtain back there, sir,” said a med tech, gesturing toward the end of the room. “I figured it'd be easier for him to rest with some private space.” Bridger thanked the young woman, and the three of them proceeded.
Bridger led the group, anxious at what he might find. Drawing back the curtain, his mouth went dry with fear. The cot was empty. Lucas was nowhere to be found.