Fired Up

LARRY BROWN COULD NOT HAVE BEEN MORE THAN EIGHTEEN years old, and he was dying. A bulked-up hunter held open the door of the small room. Chloe took one step inside and halted. She thought she had been prepared, but she was, nonetheless, truly horrified. She hugged herself against the chills wracking her body.

Brown was lying on a gurney, leather restraints on his wrists and ankles. He was flushed with fever. His eyes were squeezed shut against the fluorescent light. The sound of her soft voice sent a shudder through him. He whimpered.

Hulsey followed her into the room and assumed a pedantic air. “Subject A has had four doses of the newest version of my formula, the same amount that was given to Jack Winters. We halted the drug last night. Dream psi is now spilling chaotically across his senses. He is not yet insane, but he soon will be unless you can save him with the lamp.”

“That’s impossible,” she said quietly. It required everything she had to control her rage, but this was not the time to lose her temper. Hulsey might be quite mad, but he was, nevertheless, a scientist. Her only hope was that he would listen to reason. “I don’t think the lamp will work on anyone else the way it did on Jack. Only someone with his level and type of talent can handle the power.”

“Nonsense,” Hulsey snapped. For the first time he appeared annoyed. “Power is power. Subject A was initially a Level Three on the Jones Scale but he has received enough of the formula to elevate him to a seven. That should be more than enough to handle the radiation from the lamp.”

She bit back another argument. No one, including mad scientists, evidently, was immune to becoming obsessed with a theory. Hulsey was wrong, she was sure of it, but she knew that he was not going to listen to her.

She was careful to keep her voice as low and soothing as possible. Even so, Larry Brown shivered. His senses were in such chaos now that any type of stimulation was no doubt extremely painful. He did not speak, but he opened his eyes a little and looked up at her. She saw that he was drowning in fever and terror. Very gently she touched his bound hand. He jerked in response. His lips parted in a silent scream. She maintained the light contact and cautiously opened her senses.

The shock of energy that snapped and crackled across her senses was almost more than she could stand in her feverish, weakened condition. Larry Brown’s dreamlight was a dark storm of unstable psi. She managed to stay on her feet, but she had to grip the gurney rail to steady herself.

Another wave of outrage slashed through her when she saw the ravaging effects the formula had produced. Larry was well beyond being able to distinguish between his dreamscape and reality. He was living in a nightmare world.

There were voices at the door of the room. She looked up and saw two men. One of them was the hunter who had gone to fetch the lamp. He had it tucked under his thick arm.

The second man looked like a standard-issue corporate suit. He could have been an executive at an investment company. Rain dripped from his expensive coat. He wasn’t bulked up like the bodybuilder hunters, but there was an air of powerful energy about him. Her senses were still open. She glanced down at his footprints. They burned with unstable, acidic fire. Whoever he was, he was taking the Nightshade drug.

“I see you were able to make it here in time for the experiment, after all, Mr. Nash,” Hulsey said. He sounded sullen, even annoyed.

“There’s a storm in Portland,” Nash said coldly. “My plane was delayed. I told you I wanted to be on hand when you ran the test on the lamp. Why didn’t you wait until you were certain I could get here?”

“There wasn’t a moment to lose,” Hulsey said. “Subject A is failing rapidly. Another hour or two and it might well be too late to intervene with the lamp.”

There was no love lost between these two, Chloe thought, or even respect. Hulsey clearly despised Nash and, just as obviously, Nash could barely tolerate Hulsey. It was a marriage of convenience.

Nash examined Chloe for a few seconds. He did not appear impressed. She felt energy pulse and quicken in the atmosphere and knew that he had heightened his senses. She shivered again. Nash’s prints were too murky and smoky to read, but it was clear that whatever the nature of his talent, it was very, very dangerous. It was equally evident that he was struggling hard to control it.

“Yes.” Hulsey did not bother to conceal his impatience. He took the lamp from the hunter and bustled across the room with it. “We were able to acquire her without incident a short time ago.”

“Absolutely, certain. Everything went like clockwork. The para-hypnotist took care of the woman on Mercer Island.”

Hulsey set the lamp on the table next to the gurney. “Time to run our little experiment, Miss Harper. And let’s have no more nonsense about not being able to save Subject A. If you can’t manipulate the energy of the lamp in a useful manner, we will have no more use for you, and that would be a pity, wouldn’t it?”

She looked at the lamp. Power whispered in the atmosphere around it. Jack is looking for you. She knew that in her bones. Her only hope was to buy some time.

She put one hand on the lamp and pulsed a little psi into the waves of energy trapped inside the strange metal. Only Jack could access the full power of the artifact, but she could make it glow. That might be enough to convince Hulsey and Nash that she was activating it.

Energy stirred and shifted within the lamp. She knew everyone in the room could sense it. Larry Brown groaned and closed his eyes again.

Nash shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat and moved a little farther into the room. His attention was fixed on the lamp.

She gave the relic a couple more pulses of power and managed to make it shine with the light of a pale moon. It did not become transparent, though. The gray gemstones remained opaque and there was no rainbow, but the transformation was dramatic nonetheless. Hulsey and Nash were clearly fascinated.

She switched her attention to Larry Brown. Carefully she probed for the currents of his dreamstate, bracing herself against the searing, disorienting waves of his drug-infused energy. The only thing that made her able to hold on was the knowledge that Larry would surely die if she retreated. Waves of dark dreamlight washed across her senses for a few seconds while she struggled to find some semblance of a normal, healthy pattern.

The taint of the formula was everywhere, distorting and disturbing Larry’s natural rhythms. The chaos was growing because he lacked the strength to control the energy that the drug had released from the dream-psi end of the spectrum. The heavy, erratic waves would soon destroy his sanity and his para-senses.

But deep in the chaos there were still traces of his normal currents. She found them at last and set to work, easing calm, soothing energy into the fractured wavelengths.

There was no way to know if she was doing the right thing for Larry Brown. The experience with Jack was not applicable. His mind and body had fought off the effects of the drug and because of his genetic twist he was able to handle the currents of power unleashed from the dreamlight end of the spectrum.

But Larry Brown could not control the wild river of psi that was flooding his senses with an excess of paranormal stimulation. The only way to save him was to close down the channels that the drug had opened. It would not be the same thing as easing the disturbing currents of psi produced by her street clients’ nightmares. What she was doing now would have far more profound effects on Larry Brown’s senses, possibly permanent effects. She was winging it, going with her intuition, but that was all she had to work with.

Gradually she gained control. The raging, spiking currents began to respond to her careful, cautious counterpoint pattern. The wavelengths grew more stable and steady.

Larry was visibly calmer now. His breathing slowed to a more normal rate. He opened his eyes, revealing tears of exhaustion, relief and gratitude. His fingers closed tightly around Chloe’s hand.

He looked at her with something approaching adoration. She’d seen that expression before. She wondered if he would be feeling quite so grateful later when he discovered that in saving his sanity and his life she had destroyed his formula- enhanced abilities. In addition, there was no knowing if his mind would be strong enough to repair the damage done to his original talent. According to Hulsey, Larry Brown had come to Nightshade as a three on the Jones Scale. When he awakened he might not have any of his psychic senses left at all. Such a loss could be psychologically devastating.

With luck he would be out for a few hours. When he awoke Hulsey and Nash would realize that the experiment had failed. But she could not think of anything else to do. She needed to secure as much time as she could in order to give Jack a chance to find her.

Hulsey peered at the monitors on the wall. “Excellent, my dear. He is quite stable now. Precisely the effect I had hoped to achieve.”

Not quite, she thought. She glanced at the lamp. It still glowed faintly from the initial burst of energy she had used to ignite it, but it was dimming rapidly.

“Working the lamp creates a heavy psi drain,” she said. She did not have to fake the weariness in her words. “I’ve got to rest now. I’m ill.”

Hulsey gave her an approving look. “Yes, of course, my dear. I do hope you appreciate what I have accomplished here today. I have pushed the boundaries of para-biophysics beyond even what Sylvester and Nicholas dreamed of doing.”

“I’m thrilled for you.” She really did need to lie down and maybe take some aspirin. The feverish sensation was getting worse.

“Just one,” Hulsey said absently. He was busy making notes. “But it was the new, experimental version. Quite potent. I gave it to her immediately after they brought her here. She was still unconscious. I’ll give her another in two hours.”

Chloe thought about the sore place on her upper arm. Panic slammed through her. “You injected me with the formula?”

“Yes, of course,” Hulsey said, not looking up from his notes. “Mr. Nash, here, was afraid that you might not cooperate otherwise. I agreed with him. We wanted to make certain you were committed to the organization, as it were. From now on, you will need to take a dose twice a day. The good news is that after the first week you can switch to the tablets.”