Page 18 of I Dream of Danger (Ghost Ops #2)
Chapter Six
Palo Alto, California
Ten years later
The view was muddy, as if underwater in a swamp. Men moved quickly, their movements exaggerated, like ants in an anthill which a stick has just stirred. A wailing siren sounded, filling the air.
She was following one man in particular, not tall but immensely strong, with thick shoulders and a barrel chest, with three red stars on his collar. He was in charge, his body language that of dominance, the body language of those around him that of extreme subservience.
The man in charge pointed imperiously but she couldn’t make out at what.
There were two doors, side by side, and a huge sign in the middle with two arrows, one pointing right and one pointing left.
The writing was strange, a completely foreign alphabet, the words running up and down not left to right.
The column of soldiers didn’t hesitate. They poured through the right-hand door at a dead run. Disciplined and fast.
I must follow them, she thought, but the scene was already shifting as she moved past the door and down a white corridor.
The men were already at the end of the corridor, in front of a steel door like a bank vault.
A screen was to the right with odd markings.
The commander of the soldiers pulled back his sleeve, punched in numbers on a skin keypad, slapped his palm against the screen.
Even over the wailing siren, the hydraulic hiss of a releasing lock was loud.
Two dull clangs and the door started opening slowly outward.
There was a massive change in air pressure from the corridor into what lay behind the door.
The air behind the door was at a much lower pressure, and it was as if a sudden wind pressed against the soldier’s backs, the high-pressure air flowing into the room behind the door.
She couldn’t feel the difference in air pressure, of course, but the soldiers’ uniforms flattened against their backs. One soldier, taken unawares, stumbled.
The bank vault door continued its smooth progression outward.
What lay beyond the door would be visible in a moment or two.
She mentally leaned forward, anxious. She’d travelled 15,000 miles to see behind that door.
It reached midpoint and started swinging to the right and she could see two huge rails with an electromagnetic engine at the back.
The soldiers ran into the room and took up stations around the huge piece of machinery, back to it, rifles pointed outward. Their leader stepped forward and
BLACKNESS
Deep swirling blackness.
A sickening rush…
“—all right?” A tapping of her cheek. “Elle? Elle? Talk to me!”
She was weak, unable to move. Hands, feet, neck—all unresponsive. Her eyes fluttered open to see a pretty face hovering anxiously over her.
“Elle? Can you hear me?”
“Yes.” It came out an unintelligible croak. She coughed. “I can hear you.” The features of the anxious face were familiar—they worked together, her best friend… “Sophie.” Sophie’s face smoothed out instantly, the lines of anxiety disappearing.
“Wow, you scared me. We couldn’t get you to wake up.” Sophie looked around, tapped on the counter to connect her to the adjoining room where the control panels were. “Dr. Connelly’s awake. Did the fMRI show a change of status?”
A disembodied voice answered. “Yes. Subdural involvement. Parahippocampal gyrus lit up like a Christmas tree.”
“Thanks, Rahjiv. Save the data, we’ll collate with the other data tomorrow. I think we can wrap this up for today. You guys can go home.”
“What—” Elle’s mouth was so dry she had trouble articulating. “What time is it?”
“Seven thirty. PM. You’ve been out for almost six hours.”
Elle closed her eyes, trying to absorb that information. Six hours outside her body. This was the third controlled experiment of an out-of-body experience. This time with specific coordinates. She’d gone far away, and it had taken her a long time to get there and a long time to get back.
It was all coming back. The injection of SL-61, an experimental drug to enhance psychic abilities.
She’d been hooked up to blood monitors, to an ECG and a mini functional-MRI, and she was restrained.
Before she could think to resent them, fight them, the wrist, ankle and neck restraints were released with a loud click.
Firm hands supported her back and she fought the dizziness sitting up. Disorientation, nausea…they were part of the mix. The price to be paid.
“What are the—” Elle’s tongue was too thick to complete the words. Sophie held her head and brought a glass of water to her mouth. Ice cold water, going down like a dream. “What are the readouts saying?”
“Brain activity massive. But your body went into lockdown. BP 80 over 60, heart rate 60, temperature 96°. No change whatsoever for the six hours.” Sophie’s deep-blue eyes, warm and sharp, examined her carefully, the anxiety back. “We were really worried.”
Six hours. Wow. Elle’s recorded journeys so far—to San Francisco and to Boston—had taken just a few hours. And she hadn’t felt as wiped out as she did now. “That new iteration of SL is powerful.”
Sophie blew out a breath. “We need to tweak it. Not everybody would react as well as you have.”
They were working on ground-breaking research. A young intern on the team joked about working on a project that would win the Nobel in twenty years. No one had laughed.
Elle and Sophie had both earned their PhDs from Stanford—Elle in neurobiology and Sophie in virology—with dissertations that formed the backbone of the Delphi Project.
It was run by a small specialized lab called Corona Labs, funded by a major pharmaceutical corporation, Arka Pharmaceuticals, which owned a majority share.
Sophie came from a wealthy family, but Arka had paid for Elle’s studies from her junior year on. To pay back her scholarships, she undertook to work for Arka for four years.
The work was fascinating and no hardship, except for the head of the project and CEO of Arka, Dr. Charles Lee.
He took a personal interest in the study they were conducting.
Very personal. Though he worked at the Arka Pharmaceutical Corporation headquarters in the Financial District of San Francisco, these past few weeks saw him here at the research lab in Palo Alto more often than not.
His interest was keen, almost feverish, and he was pushing for them to keep a pace that was almost unscientific.
Sophie had several times gently suggested that ‘given the controversial nature’ of the study, progress should be made step by step, making sure that they were on solid ground before going forward.
They were investigating what used to be known as ESP, or paranormal abilities, though the field was now being folded into general neuroscience.
Some of their data was irrefutable, but science progressed slowly, and there were always those whose entire careers were spent in one paradigm and would fight to the death before admitting that another paradigm could apply.
Elle had tried to recuse herself when an fMRI showed that she had the same enhanced part of her brain that the other test subjects had, but Lee would have none of it.
He wanted her as part of the protocol and part of the scientific team at the same time.
And then, she and Sophie had found out that a number of the researchers had similar fMRIs.
Elle knew that she was jeopardizing her scientific reputation, but she wasn’t unhappy at playing both roles. For the first time in her life, she was beginning to suspect that her Dreams were true out-of-body experiences and not some horrible pathological form of subconscious escape.
That she could think of them as journeys and not as dream craziness was a huge step forward. This had been the subject of her doctoral dissertation, funded entirely by Arka. She’d been very lucky at Stanford in finding a professor who didn’t chuck her out for harboring dangerously lunatic ideas.
And then, another miracle, in the form of the brand-new Department of Psychic Sciences at Stanford. It was predicated on the existence of extrasensory perceptions, studied at a neuronal cell level, and had been established thanks to a huge grant by Arka.
Elle swung her legs over the side of the cot, carefully planting her feet on the ground and testing whether her legs would carry her weight. She’d nearly given herself a concussion at the last test, trying to stand up and dropping straight to the floor.
Her out-of-body experiences took an enormous amount of energy. The enzymes in her body showed that it was the equivalent of running a marathon, and in one test she’d actually lost half a kilo.
She tried to stand up, but her legs wouldn’t hold her. Sophie tried and failed to keep scientific detachment in her voice. She glanced down at her tablet then back up. “Well?” She cleared her throat, bit her lips. “Did you do it? Did you get there?”
This was the longest trip in Elle’s experience, the longest trip in recorded projection history. Halfway around the world, to a specific point Elle had never seen, and could hardly imagine. Merely on the basis of GPS coordinates and a Keyhole 16 photograph of a complex that was mostly underground.
“I did,” Elle answered softly. She waggled her head left then right, feeling tendons pop. Coming back was always hard. Much harder this time, considering where she’d gone.
“Yes!” Sophie beamed, and held her fist up for a fist bump, then sobered. She looked around uneasily. Every word was being recorded. “Honey, protocol says that I need to debrief you immediately, but you’re looking pale. Maybe we could do this tomorrow?”
“No.” As long as she was sitting, Elle could do this. She wanted to stick to the protocol as much as possible. Besides, she needed to get something out. Sophie would understand.