The control room is large and high ceilinged and must take up the whole central quarter of the building. You've rarely seen a room this large except in pictures of huge old banqueting halls in castles. Around the walls a balcony overhangs the room as if this was once a sports hall with some kind of spectator's gallery. If it was, there's no other sign of that left. For a moment the gallery catches your eye as if some half-seen movement distracted you but then your attention moves on - there's far too much else to see.
The room is filled with computers and equipment like a cross between a school science lab and a mad scientist's dungeon. The place is lit with the fierce white light of a hundred fluorescent tubes. They make everyone in the room look wan and tired. The tubes aren't the only source of illumination though.
The center of the room is defined by four metal pillars of electronics, each about five feet tall. Together they mark out the corners of a huge square, twenty feet to a side and the centre of that square is filled with something wondrous. Or perhaps monstrous would be a better word.
It's a cube of light, glimmering purple, silver and blue. Colours streak past on the shimmering surface faster than your eyes can follow and looking at it leaves you feeling sick and afraid.
You glance from side to side but everyone else's attention seems fixed on the cube so you take the opportunity to duck behind a free standing computer server box before anyone notices you moving. It's not until you're out of sight that you let yourself think about what you've just seen.
The psi-damper. The piece of equipment that stopped you breaking out properly, that almost killed you. Even with the waistcoat you're wearing hot against your chest, you can feel the huge weight of the thing at the back of your head. You know you should hate it. You know you should want to see it destroyed but, as you sit with your back against the cold metal of the server's case, you can see the shimmering reflections on the white painted wall in front of you.
This is a thing of beauty as well as a thing of power and to your chagrin your thoughts about it are confused.
"Director Thomas!" Someone is calling, a man in a white suit. "It's getting unstable. There must be more telepaths in the building, not just the new one we've been trying to track down. It cant handle all the excess power. It's got nowhere to put it."
More telepaths. Adam, Megabyte and Kevin are all around here somewhere, you know and, as if summoned by the thought of them, all three burst into the room. They're on the other side of the room, halfway around the cube from you and they come to a halt, staring at it, just as you did.
The Tomorrow People have gone pale and Adam has a hand to his head as if trying to feel for what was wrong there. The cube is pulsing more rapidly now as, with increasing proximity, it can suck more and more of their psionic energy out of your friends.
You step out from behind the console and Kevin looks relieved as he sees you.
"Jay!" He calls and now Thomas and the others turn towards you as if seeing you for the first time. For a moment things pause, on the knife edge of confusion, and then chaos breaks out.
Men in black cat suits and armed with pistols burst into the control room from every door and more abseil down from the balcony all around you. They look intimidating with their blackened faces and grenades and spare cartridges strapped to their belts. You begin to run towards the other Tomorrow People as short-lived scuffles break out between the well trained commandos and the scientists. One of the dangerous looking intruders is running towards the other Tomorrow People too and they're looking too weak to run away.
Then Megabyte yells "Dad!" and you realise for the first time that the Men in black jumpsuits are on your side.
All is confusion as Adam grabs Dr Thomas and shakes the confused scientist.
"How do we shut it off?" Adam is shouting. "We can't teleport out while it's on and it's getting stronger by the minute!"
Kevin grabs your shoulders as you arrive at the group but pulls back sharply as if just touching the waistcoat you're wearing burns him.
"Jay, are you okay?"
You just nod, more interested in Thomas's reply to Adam.
"We can't shut the thing off." He's telling the oldest Tomorrow person urgently. "That's what we've been trying to tell you."
Around you the one-sided fight is coming to an end as time passes in slow motion. You, the other three Tomorrow People, Damon and Thomas are all staring at the rippling, angry-looking energy cube when the catastrophe happens.
One of the scientists is scared, not knowing or caring where these strange invaders have come from. He's fighting and the wrestling match between him and the WorldEx agent drags them both forwards and backwards across the floor. Suddenly the WorldEx agent drops and sweeps his legs around, knocking the scientist's legs out from under him. The scientist falls and rolls, out of control. Both men slam into one of the columns of electrical equipment that are constraining the energy cube.
In slow motion, the column begins to fall as both men scramble away.
"It's going to blow!" Someone yells as the cube is twisted, distorted. It begins to flux inwards and then bows outwards.
"Is there any way to shut it down?" Adam shouts again. "Any way at all? If it explodes it will kill us all."
Thomas shrugs helplessly.
"A massive flux of energy released inside it?" He guesses. "It might just fuse the system and turn the energy inwards. I really don't know! How can we get an energy burst into that?"
An idea comes to you as you glance down at the waistcoat you're wearing. You know that it's protecting you. Your friends are very pale now and Kevin seems barely able to stand as his energy is sucked away.
If there's anything you can do, if your idea has any chance of working, you have to act now.
Do you feel:
a) Noble?
b) Brave?
c) Scared?
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