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Water hit Callan in the face. He jerked his head, slinging droplets from hair that clung to his neck.
He sat with his knees on the hard ground in an enclosed room. His arms stretched above his head, hanging from metal wrist cuffs attached to cables. Not just any metal, but one infused with an electronic component to interact with the grid outside that the TecKnati had used to capture him. After all these years, the TecKnati had finally designed something that would neutralize MystiK gifts like Callan’s kinetic and healing abilities.
But the laser grid had to be powered up high to completely shut down his kinetics and telepathy.
The thing had short-circuited once.
He’d either dreamed about a woman’s voice or the cuffs were running so low on power they weren’t preventing his telepathy. But when he opened his mind, the female voice he’d heard had been all wrong.
It hadn’t been Rayen’s.
When Rayen spoke, Callan felt her rich voice all the way to his heart.
He might just be hallucinating at times. Sleep had been impossible and Thylan, the TecKnati in charge, had taken great pleasure in driving up the grid power when the urge hit him. That was only when Thylan was too tired to use his electric whip on Callan, striking the minute Callan’s head lolled from exhaustion.
Who knew if it was telepathy he heard or if he was slowly losing his mind? He hadn’t been able to send or receive telepathy when he’d stood in the middle of the grid and the TeK in charge had turned up the power to the point of frying Callan from the inside out.
He had burn marks on his skin that ached intermittently.
The grid was buried just deep enough in the ground to hide it, so when Callan had entered an enclosure to rescue a pair of MystiK children and Tony, he hadn’t known it was there until the TecKnati activated the lasers in the grid.
How long ago?
He was losing track of time.
Icy water crashed into his head again.
He coughed and sputtered, slinging his hair like a soaked dog trying to shake off the excess. Water ran down his naked chest and pooled at the ragged skins he wore for pants.
When he stopped choking, he raised his head and looked through wet hair stringing over his eyes. His body hurt no matter how he tried to find a comfortable position and he couldn’t heal the cuts on his chest while bound by these cuffs.
“You awake?” Thylan chided. “No sleeping on my time.”
Callan said nothing, maintaining his silence just as he had since his capture. This was the leader of the TecKnati in the Sphere. Big man on a small pedestal. He was not SEOH, who ruled all the TeKs back home, but this one had SEOH’s arrogance.
Thylan stood just inside the door of Callan’s prison cell. He was decent size, but his soft middle bulged over the black belt strapped around the waist of his gray green TecKnati uniform. Not a warrior. His blended alloy belt buckle had a holographic element that showed the ANASKO triangle emblem one moment and the name SEOH II the next.
Ah. Now Callan understood. This was SEOH’s son. The II meant he was second born. This would be the middle son, the one often brought up on charges for abusive acts. A soulless predator.
SEOH’s genes ran true.
Thylan smoothed a hand over black hair cut close enough to expose his pale scalp, then he twisted his thin lips in a cruel smile. “I haven’t heard a word from your friends, or your girl.”
Callan could only hope that Rayen had made it back to the past and stayed there. She was too headstrong for her own good. She would battle anyone and anything to protect an innocent or someone she cared for ... and she cared for Callan.
He’d tried to convince her that he didn’t reciprocate her feelings, but he’d failed at that. More than failed. He’d climbed inside the kamara he’d made for her and spent the night with her. He was honest enough with himself to admit that he wanted to share his kamara with her, a major step toward bonding.
Regardless, he would be glad if she didn’t return.
Never seeing her again would hurt, and that pain would cut deep, but he would be content with her being safe.
She’d given him memories he’d treasure for a lifetime if he survived this.
Thylan snapped his fingers. “Pay attention, warrior boy.”
Callan lifted his chin. “Uncuff me and I’ll show you who is the boy in this room.”
A grin broke out on Thylan’s flat face. “He speaks. And here I thought you were silent because I intimidated you.”
“I would have to notice you first,” Callan pointed out.
Thylan’s thick black eyebrows drew together into one angry caterpillar. “You won’t be so arrogant once we get that computer.”
“She isn’t coming back.” Callan hoped. His chest felt empty without her nearby, but he didn’t have much longer to live. He could endure until then.
“Oh, yes, she’s coming back. I saw the look on her face. She’ll return and she won’t be empty handed.”
It pained Callan to realize there could be truth in Thylan’s words and, wrong as it was, a part of Callan admitted he would trade all his tomorrows for one minute to see Rayen again. But even if she came back, she wouldn’t hand over the actual Genera-Y computer. She knew the danger of the TecKnati using that computer to destroy the entire MystiK population on and off the Sphere.
No one really knew what this Genera-Y computer could do, but it was supposedly a computer built two millennia ago that could allow travel both ways through time. Was that the computer Rayen, Gabby, and Tony used to travel here or just the product of some mythological tale? Callan didn’t know and didn’t care so long as Rayen stayed safely in the past.
If she did return, Callan trusted Kaz to stop her from coming to this camp. But that was the extent of trust he would allow when it came to Kaz being around her.
Kaz had better keep his hands off Rayen.
The sole time Kaz had tried to gain her affections, Callan had considered skewering his best friend over a fire. But Kaz was still the friend that Callan could depend on, the one person who would do his duty.
Callan huffed a tired sigh he hoped sounded bored to Thylan. “Even if you get the computer, you won’t be able to operate it without a MystiK.”
Thylan leaned back on the closed door, overconfident at facing someone shackled. “You MystiKs have a high opinion of yourselves. We don’t need you. By now, you should have realized that SEOH is far superior to your MystiK leaders. Your people don’t even know how many of you are missing. They’d have to talk to each other to have an inkling of what’s going on.”
Shame flushed over Callan. He couldn’t deny that claim. The leaders of their seven MystiK Houses had once been close while rebuilding their world. A world devastated by a virus they were pretty sure had originated in outer space.
The K-Virus had been introduced to Earth because of an aggressive space program the TecKnati were still pushing.
But somewhere along the way, the MystiKs created as many problems for themselves as the TeKs presented.
Thylan was on a roll, chuckling. “SEOH kidnaps the majority of future MystiK leaders, G’ortians no less, and your people won’t realize how widespread it is until all your leaders meet to sign another treaty with us.” He grinned and studied Callan with condescension. “You’re one of those rare G’ortians with special powers, right? Look at you now.”
This TecKnati needed to have a dose of reality.
Callan slung his hair back so that Thylan had to stare into eyes promising his death. Even in these cuffs, Callan managed to summon enough power to shift his eyes from brown to a searing, glowing green. The ability to make that change had developed only in the past few days, along with many of his other G’ortian powers. Even the powers he’d had for a while had grown stronger as he approached his BIRG Day.
When Thylan paled, Callan nodded. “You would be wise to consider who you taunt. I am one of those. We are powerful, and when we join forces, we will destroy your dangerous space program and protect our world.”
Thylan puffed up at that. “You think so? You people kill me.” He thumped his chest as he spoke. “Our technology has created laser curtains to protect the ten cities where both TecKnati and MystiKs live. Our technology has created hospitals that are state-of-the-art facilities for all citizens. Our technology continues to develop programs that better our world for everyone, even for you miserable, unappreciative MystiKs.”
“I don’t disagree, TecKnati. I can acknowledge that there are benefits to both MystiK and TecKnati skills, but you are too ambitious and risk bringing another virus back to our planet. What if you do that again?”
Thylan hunched his shoulders, acting unconcerned. “There’s no proof we did that the first time.”
“There could be, but your people refuse to work with ours to screen what you bring back. And from what SEOH has done here, there will be no treaties in the future. Only war. And we will win.”
“You are so full of crap.” Thylan was getting louder, the way a person did when he was frightened or trying to prove an indefensible point, or both. “You don’t understand that you’ve already lost. You think the BIRG Con means a new treaty and the ascension of future MystiK leaders coming into power, but it doesn’t. Instead of your symbolic end-of-childhood ritual, this year’s BIRG Con will mark the death of all MystiKs. Why do you think we tested the grid on you?”
Callan hadn’t felt real fear until now.
“That’s right, warrior boy. We didn’t test it here just to see what it would do. That baby holding your power in check is just a taste of the big one that has been installed back home for the BIRG Con.” He snorted. “Basking In Reflective Glory Convention? Sounds like a summit for tarot readers.”
Callan ignored Thylan’s snide remarks. SEOH’s spawn had shared important information, but there was no way for Callan to get word to the MystiKs back home.
The TeKs intended to use that grid on MystiK leaders? Callan had experienced the grid eating his power during the times he’d been exposed to the activated lasers. If Thylan hadn’t backed off the power when he did, Callan was certain he would have eventually died as the grid continued attacking his gifts.
“Now you’re getting a clear picture,” Thylan chortled. “You people aren’t very smart, you know that? You haven’t even figured out that we have a hotline straight from your camp.”
A traitor in our village. Just as Callan had thought.
Someone shouted outside the door.
Thylan called back, “On my way.” Then he bent over with his hands on his knees, putting his face eye level with Callan’s. “You’re just a bunch of fanatics with a little power.”
Callan lunged at Thylan, who panicked and stumbled back, landing in the water that covered the floor. He scrambled to get to the door. When he made it back to his feet, he snarled, “I was going to kill you after we got the computer, but I’m going to hold off. Killing would be too easy for you.”
Callan vibrated with the need to get his hands on Thylan. He didn’t think he could harbor any more rage until Thylan explained, “I don’t want you to miss the show. Once your girl arrives and I capture her, I’m going to lay her out right here in front of you. Close enough for you to watch me take her.”
Callan lunged again, straining, and sounding like a furious animal. This time, the cables groaned. He spoke through teeth clenched hard enough to break a rock. “You touch her, and I will kill you with my bare hands.”
Thylan wisely rushed out and locked the door.
Callan fell back against the metal wall, breathing hard. His wrists bled where he’d punished them against the cuffs. His body shook, drowning in adrenaline and gut-wrenching worry over Rayen.
He prayed that she had not been able to find a computer or return.
