Sampson Ventura
He’d made it out of the accommodation block. He hadn’t gone back to his apartment. Something told him that Forest was keeping watch on it. He doubted she’d installed security cameras, just assets that would know when he came and went. Obviously Forest thought that despite his promises, Sampson wouldn’t drop Diana Fenton.
And Forest was 150 percent right.
Sampson clutched Diana’s diary harder to his chest, hiding it with the bulk of his arm as he strode through the Academy grounds. He didn’t know where he was going. Somewhere private, somewhere away from the watchful eye of officers. He needed to sit down, carefully open this book, and stare at the soulfully drawn features of Diana’s father once more.
Sampson had to take this in. He had to take it in before it robbed him of all his resolve.
You would think a man as trained as him wouldn’t be able to lose his tenacity – not this easily. But this wasn’t easy or simple. The death of his brother tracked back to the circumstances that had sealed Sampson’s fate and made him a psychic warrior. Though an ordinary soldier could rise above their past, it was different with him. The devastating moment he’d become a psychic had been sealed in his mind like a door he could not go through, because it was a door that would lead him straight back to his 13-year-old self.
Beads of sweat slid down Sampson’s brow as he navigated through the grounds. He had to be careful. Though some cadets had clearly been let out of their accommodation, there was hardly anybody around. A few lieutenants stopped him and asked what he was doing, and Sampson had to cook up believable lies.
He just needed to get somewhere private. He just needed to open her book and—
Sampson Ventura stopped himself. The psychic soldier finally rose in his mind, silencing the terrified boy who’d been threatening to take Sampson over since he’d opened this diary.
He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t open this journal and stare at William Ray’s features. He couldn’t undermine his own psychic sanity.
He couldn’t let Forest down. He couldn’t let the Coalition down. And he goddamn couldn’t let Diana down, wherever she was.
Sampson had a task to do, and that hadn’t changed – it’d only gotten more important.
“What are you doing? Dump the diary and find the terrorists,” he whispered, his lips barely stretching around the words, ensuring that even if a competent lip reader were in range, they wouldn’t be able to discern what he was saying.
He drove his eyes closed, squeezing the skin tightly shut as he brought up his free hand and shoved his thumb and forefinger against his temples. It was the equivalent of throwing a metal bar in front of a closed door to ensure that no one, no matter how hard they tried, could open it again.
But the thing about doors? Ah, the thing about doors is that they are built to be opened.
And in a split second, Sampson swore a door was thrown open right in his head.
A sudden spike of fear flooded him. It was sharp, it was violent, and it was undeniable as it rushed from the top of his head and raced down to the tips of his toes. It left a nervous, dense tingling that felt like fire burning his blood. It forced his head to jerk up, his eyes to open, and his senses to unfurl like hands getting ready to grasp whatever they could.
Sampson had intuition, sure. This was different. This was like a warning from beyond space itself.
As his head jerked up to the side, his eyes focused, and he saw a cadet marching through the grounds. It didn’t take him long to recognize the cadet was from E Club – it was the guy who’d sat next to Sampson only yesterday and disparaged Diana after Sparx had taken her out of class.
The cadet was walking with a stiff back, rigid shoulders, and a body that spoke only of determination.
And yet, his emotions were blank. The cadet’s mind was unreadable. There was nothing about it that would have piqued Sampson’s concern had some external force not suddenly forced him to lock onto the guy.
And now Sampson felt the cadet’s impossible lack of emotions, more fear pulsed through his body until it felt it would tear every muscle in two.
Nobody had a mind that blank unless they were actively hiding it.
Sampson jolted forward, his body moving of its own accord as his fear turned quickly and sharply into justified worry. There was no reason to believe that Commander Sparx had been the only asset the terrorists had at the Academy. In fact, it was downright foolish to conclude that. Sampson had already pointed out that in order to get a Barbarian scope into the Academy and to shut down the command building’s shields, you’d need help. You would need help in every quarter.
As he threw himself forward, the inevitable conclusion formed in his mind that that cadet was one of the terrorists.
Though all Sampson wanted to do was barrel into the guy, lock an arm around his middle, and dump him on the grass in a violent rugby tackle, he slowed as he reached the bastard. He locked his full psychic senses on him, practically using his mind like a drill to get into the cadet’s brain.
And still there was nothing. No emotion. No thoughts. Nothing. It was like the cadet’s head had been scrubbed clean.
“Hey, you’re that guy from class yesterday. From the E Club,” Sampson said, taking a step in front of the guy and looking him right in the eye.
This was it – if Sampson could look this bastard right in his pupils and see no emotion staring back, then the cadet wasn’t just a probable terrorist – he was an enemy asset on a scale Sampson had rarely seen before.
Yes, some people could whitewash their emotion, hiding their true thoughts and feelings under a wall no one else could penetrate without a team of trained psychics. There were very few people in the Milky Way who could do that, however.
Though Sampson had been admittedly distracted yesterday when he’d been sitting next to this guy, he would’ve felt if the guy was a psychic on that level. Right?
Or had Sampson lost all sense of duty and allowed himself to freefall down the rabbit hole that was Diana Fenton? And had that meant he’d failed to do his job when it was literally right in front of his face?
The guy took a few seconds to register shock. It was almost as if the emotion had to bubble up from under the surface. No, that was the wrong analogy. It was like he had to remember that he should feel shock in the first place.
Nerves darted through Sampson’s stomach, snagging hold of his intestines and feeling as if they’d strangle them.
“Yeah. My name’s Lawson. You’re Mark, right?” the guy answered.
“Sure am. Where are you headed? It’s crazy what’s going on, isn’t it?”
The guy brought up a hand, locked it on his mouth, and dragged his sweaty fingers down his chin.
Suddenly, he was emotional. Suddenly, he looked like an ordinary cadet who’d just gone through hell.
… But nothing felt right. As Sampson stared him right in the eye, he realized the cadet was reacting to cues – almost as if something was ordering him to feel emotion.
“Where are you headed?” Sampson asked.
“A couple of us senior cadets from the E Club have been given leave to prepare communications for the students. The Academy officers are too busy. Plus, they want this coming from fellow students.”
“What?”
“An explanation of events and an assurance that everything will get back to normal soon.”
“Assurance, ha? Do they even know what’s going on?” Every word Sampson asked was like a scalpel. It was designed to cut further into Lawson to see if anywhere within his fractured mind was real emotion. Or if somehow, for whatever reason, this kid had turned into the emotional equivalent of a cadaver – a walking zombie.
But zombies didn’t exist in the real world, did they?
That only made Sampson think of one thing. A memory more miserable and powerful than any other. Infection Zero proved that walking corpses weren’t just possible – they were real in every sense.
The cadet brought up his hand and locked it on the side of his head, digging his palm in and dragging his fingers down his temples until he left red scratch marks. “I don’t honestly know.”
“Hey, I know I’m not part of the E Club – but do you want a hand?”
“No. You’re not part of the E Club,” Lawson answered automatically. “Do you even have leave to be out of your apartment?”
Hell yes Sampson had leave. He also had leave to track this bastard down and find out exactly what he had planned. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
Sampson could play this one of two ways. He could drop this, but if he wanted to find out exactly what kind of asset Lawson was, it was time to go fishing. And there was one hook he knew could draw any terrorist out. “I was involved in the incident. I was up on the accommodation roof when the command building was attacked.”
The guy’s cheeks twitched. It was a micro-movement. You’d be able to pick it up with advanced medical equipment but little else – save for a psychic mind, of course.
Sampson felt it, felt it right down to his bones. And yet, he doubted Lawson was aware of it. It was like his mind was somehow disconnected from his body.
Lawson’s lips opened seemingly of their own accord. “You were involved? In that case, sure, come along and give me a hand.” He turned sharply on his foot and walked away.
Sampson followed in the cadet’s wake, a quick wind ripping through the Academy grounds, catching the leaves of the massive oaks and sending them rustling like a chorus of whispered warnings.
He kept his mind locked on the cadet as they made it into the science block. They had to walk past four commissioned officers to get in there, and it was only when Lawson pointed out that Sampson was with him that they let him through.
Sampson scanned every single person he passed. He did so with such a precise, sharp mind, he could have tracked a tortured psyche half a planet away.
Lawson led him through the barren, eerily quiet halls of the first floor, then up to the second. He stopped in front of a door that led to some kind of lab. “We’re recording in here. Come on.”
Sampson could guarantee that there was no recording equipment in there. It wasn’t that he’d suddenly gained the ability to see through matter. It was that, despite the fact the cadet had been nothing but a blank slate, now Sampson felt Lawson’s muscles tightening with anticipation. Sampson didn’t have to try hard to appreciate the anticipation was of violence, not the honor of contacting the student body.
As soon as the doors closed behind Lawson, the guy snapped up his wristwatch and slid his thumb over the surface.
Sampson bristled as a distinct crackle of energy slipped over his skin and cascaded down his body. It was his holographic armor warning him that it had just detected a massive discharge of energy.
An invisible shield had just secured the entire room. A shield that would presumably stop both Sampson from getting out and any of his screams echoing beyond the door.
In a moment he would never forget, Lawson’s face cracked like someone had just taken a sledgehammer to it. That veneer of control shattered, and in a wave of pure emotional force, Sampson felt Lawson’s rage. Violence. Hatred. This unending, powerful blast of the darkest emotions the human body could create. And it was all directed at Sampson.
“Tell me what happened on the roof,” Lawson said in a forced, monotonous voice as if something within him was trying to remember how to speak.
Sampson locked his gaze on Lawson and calculated his next move.
Lawson didn’t ask twice. He jerked toward Sampson, bringing up his hand so quickly, it was a blur.
Sampson could have easily dodged to the side, rounded his shoulder, and slammed his elbow into Lawson’s face. Or he could have flipped the bastard on his back. He could have done any number of things. Instead, Sampson let Lawson grab him.
The cadet’s body was strong, and he easily snagged hold of Sampson’s face, digging his fingers either side of Sampson’s eyes.
It was a psychic grab.
As soon as Lawson’s nails dug hard into Sampson’s face, drawing trickles of blood that splashed down his cheeks, a wave of psychic force slammed into Sampson.
It felt like standing in the path of an asteroid storm.
As a psychic soldier, you were trained to deal with attacks like this. Your classmates sparred with you every other day to ensure that when it happened out in the real world, you could cope. It was only because of that rigorous training that he wasn’t beaten in a single attack.
Lawson parted his lips back, showing licks of saliva sliding off his gums as it appeared his body used every single ounce of energy it had to attack Sampson.
“Show me what happened on the roof,” Lawson spat. His voice might’ve come out harshly, but sliding between each syllable like a snake was psychic mesmer control. His tone didn’t pitch – it stayed precisely even like a long, straight sword Lawson intended to stab right into Sampson’s mind.
It was time for Sampson to parry. He brought his arms up, pressed them together, and shoved them out wide, forcing Lawson’s grip off his face.
Though Lawson tried to redouble his grip, he couldn’t fight against Sampson in his armor.
As Lawson was thrown back, Sampson rounded on him, pulsing a hand into a fist and snaking it across Lawson’s jaw with so much vicious speed, there was a crack as his knuckles struck bone.
Lawson was thrown back. He didn’t stay down. He sprang to his feet, his muscles snapping so fast, it was like something had programmed them to act at their top speed.
That wasn’t the only indication Sampson got that every move Lawson made felt like a computer controlling his moves rather than a biological brain acting to ensure self-preservation.
It was like something had broken in Lawson’s head and he’d forgotten that he wanted to live. It seemed he would do anything – break any bone or blast through any last energy reserve – all to get into Sampson’s mind.
Lawson’s boots skidded on the ground as he threw himself at Sampson again.
Sampson ducked back, keeping lithely on his feet as he twisted to the side. Lawson rolled, punched to his feet in a trained move, and swept one of his large arms around.
Sampson couldn’t jerk back quickly enough, and Lawson managed to grab a handful of his tunic. The cadet ripped a chunk of Sampson’s top off with all the ease of someone pulling a petal from a rose. It served to force Sampson to skid forward. It was Lawson’s turn to punch. And the cadet was not going to hold back as he practically fired his fist into Sampson’s jaw.
The punch landed. But it did nothing. Sampson’s holographic armor kicked into gear, distributing the force of the punch until he felt nothing more than a light tingle of energy tracing down his jaw.
Lawson’s eyes blasted wide as surprise flooded him. It was just the chance Sampson needed. He threw himself forward, and with a scream breaking from his throat, tackled Lawson to the ground. Both men slammed into the polished metal, their bodies clanging, and the sound echoing around the room like the toll of a heavy bell. Sampson dug his hands into the floor. Literally. He didn’t just press his fingers in – he slammed his fists down into the metal plating until it didn’t just warp but cracked like dry bone. He anchored his fingers in as he pressed his shoulder against Lawson, locking the man down.
More surprise pulsed through Lawson’s gaze, but as Sampson got up close to the guy’s face, he concluded once again that the reaction was programmed, not real.
What the hell had happened to this man?
Lawson tried to wriggle free from under the weight of Sampson’s body. Sampson just pinned him harder. Lawson wasn’t wearing holographic armor – he was wearing no armor as far as Sampson could tell. His body was simply churning through all its force as the cadet bucked and heaved.
Most biological entities are genetically programmed to protect themselves. It’s an instinct that can only be overcome through disease or the urge to sacrifice for the group. Lawson didn’t seem to agree with that natural rule, because as he heaved once more, there was a crack as his shoulder broke.
The cadet didn’t even notice. He kept trying to attack Sampson psychically, despite the fact it wouldn’t work.
Sampson got the image of a lemming throwing itself off a cliff.
“What the hell happened to you?” Sampson spat.
The cadet wouldn’t answer. He kept screaming in Sampson’s face as he pulsed wave after wave of psychic attacks Sampson’s way.
Sampson gritted his teeth, steeled his nerves, and controlled his every action. More than that, he centered his thoughts, going back to that position of control he’d been taught by his teachers.
Even in periods of total chaos, you can find a point in your mind that does not move. And if you retreat to that point, it will anchor you. It will show you that even as the world around you crumbles, there’s a place where you can stand safely and watch.
“Psychic,” Lawson spat, blood covering his lips and splashing onto his chin from the sheer effort of slamming his body against Sampson’s hold.
“Yeah, I’m a goddamn psychic. Congratulations for figuring that out. And I’m stronger than you. So it’s time to tell me what you know.” With that, Sampson suddenly removed his grip on the floor and rolled onto his back. He instantly pinned his arm against Lawson’s chest and held the cadet there. He brought his hand up and slammed it onto the side of Lawson’s face, anchoring his fingers in so tightly, no one would’ve been able to break his grip.
Lawson screamed.
The hair on the back of Sampson’s neck stood on end as a race of true fear slammed down his spine and blasted through his body like a live charge.
That scream wasn’t human. Hell, that scream didn’t even sound like it was biological. For as it echoed through the room, it sounded like it came from someone – or something – beyond.
That terrifying realization could have been enough to weaken Sampson’s grip, but something forced him to hold on. Though the last thing he wanted to do right now was distract himself, a part of him appreciated he could feel Diana’s presence, however diffuse. He’d been carrying her journal when he’d entered the room. It had been tucked safely under his arm, but when Lawson had attacked him, it had gone flying. As Sampson scrabbled on the floor, trying to get not just a bodily grip but a psychic grip on the cadet, his shoulder banged up against the journal.
He… he swore Diana was reaching out to him. Helping him somehow. Telling him what to do, begging him to hold on.
“Psychics will go first,” Lawson spat.
Again, the words didn’t sound as if they came from him. It wasn’t just the guttural, croaky way they rushed out of his throat as if someone carved them out of the air with chaos itself. It was the energy that blasted through the room. It seemed to come from Hell, despite the fact Sampson didn’t believe in such places. He couldn’t help but believe in superstition in that moment. Hell was the only concept humanity had that came close to the sheer malevolence washing off Lawson.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Sampson spat.
Lawson didn’t answer – he just kept bucking in Sampson’s grip. He kept breaking his bones, but that didn’t matter – the cadet threw himself against Sampson like a bird repeatedly slamming itself against a closed window.
Though Sampson’s scanners had to continually scan his environment to ensure there were no other traps in here, he ensured some of its processing power was locked on Lawson, and it told him the cadet’s body was rapidly breaking itself in two.
“Psychics will go first,” Lawson promised again.
If there’d ever been any doubt in Sampson’s mind that this cadet was somehow being controlled by a force beyond him, it broke. As Sampson flattened his hand against Lawson’s head, locking his palm over the cadet’s sweaty, cold flesh, Sampson finally found what he was looking for.
There was a door in Lawson’s head. It was like a hole had been driven right down the center of his psyche. One that allowed something from beyond him to reach forward and control the cadet’s body.
Psychic control wasn’t impossible. It was just highly improbable. You needed a team of trained psychics to be able to generate anywhere near the force required to control another person’s mind. The damage it did to that person would never be healed. It would destroy them.
It should be impossible – especially in the Milky Way. It wasn’t. It was happening right now, right here on Academy grounds.
Psychic interrogation was illegal. Forcing your mind against another’s was a violent, deplorable act. But in times of war, the first things to crumble aren’t your cities, but your morals.
Sampson had no choice. He closed his eyes, and he slammed his psyche into Lawson’s. The damage was already done. Even if the force controlling Lawson retreated, Lawson wouldn’t live. His body would crumble out from underneath him like a clay doll hit by a bat.
Lawson screamed. The wail went on and on as it bounced off the walls, clanging like metal plates being slammed together. It wasn’t human – it wasn’t anywhere close. It sounded like someone forcibly trying to close some door – like a heavy cruiser desperately shutting an airlock before the vacuum of space ripped it apart.
“Whoever the hell you are, I’m gonna make you pay for what you did to this cadet,” Sampson spat.
He shored up his grip, using the strength of his holographic armor as Lawson bucked with all his might. The desperate cadet no longer tried to throw himself against Sampson’s grip – the kid tried to strangle his own throat. He shoved his arms up and went to snap his fingers around his neck, but Sampson wouldn’t let him.
“No way,” Sampson spat as he drove his arm down, locking the cadet’s hands against his waist. “Now you show me what the hell you are.”
Sampson concentrated again, letting all his power loose in a wave of anger and despair.
Lawson only tried harder to escape by killing himself.
As Sampson drove his mind against Lawson’s, he started to see things. Shadows. They blasted into his head like bullets. They were dark – darker than anything Sampson had ever come across.
He could have and should have crumbled, but he didn’t. His shoulder banged against Diana’s diary again, pushing it away. Before it could skid out of his reach, he twisted his head to the side and pinned it with his cheek.
He felt her. Felt her like she’d suddenly transported right beside him. Felt her like she’d never been taken from his side.
If Sampson had been provided the opportunity and breathing space to think, he would’ve recognized how crazy that sounded. He’d only known Diana Fenton for a little over two days. And someone you’d only known for a little over two days could not have such an emotional, profound impact on you.
But she had and she was. As he rested his face against her diary, pinning it there and ensuring it couldn’t slip out from underneath him again, it anchored his mind against the storm.
Whatever force was in Lawson’s head turned against Sampson, throwing all its power his way in one last attack.
Sampson screamed. His body shook. It felt like his mind blared. But he held on.
He pushed past one last wall in Lawson’s head.
In a snap like a fist breaking through a paper wall, Sampson accessed Lawson’s memories. It was like ripping open the casing of a computer, reaching in, and pulling out a recording as if the images were trapped in the computer like snow in a snow globe.
One after one, second by second, Sampson saw Lawson’s memories.
He watched Lawson hacking into the Academy’s security system using some unknown device. He watched Lawson transporting in the Barbarian gun. And he saw as the cadet met up with Sparx and handed the weapon over.
It was as if every memory was happening to Sampson. As if his hands were carrying the gun and his mouth was being used to give Sparx the order to assassinate Admiral Fenton.
Though all Sampson wanted to do was dig further, something stopped him.
Lawson died.
Right there in Sampson’s arms. Sampson didn’t kill him, though – that force, that goddamn parasite in Lawson’s head suddenly reached in and snapped his mind like massive hands cracking a dry, cooked bone.
Sampson was snapped out of Lawson’s psyche so quickly, it was like a punch to his gut. He coughed, and splatters of blood splashed over his chin and chest, striking his holographic armor and sizzling.
It took several shaking moments to follow what had just happened, and as Lawson’s body lay limply against Sampson’s, disgust, fear, and total shock rocked him.
Shakily, he dropped his grip on the cadet and pushed him to the side. Lawson’s lifeless body rolled off him, the cadet’s open, sightless eyes staring at Sampson like two once full lakes suddenly drying up.
Sampson locked the back of his hand against his mouth, breathing around it as more blood spluttered up from his throat.
His armor warned him he was injured but it wasn’t critical.
At least his body was fine. As he crunched forward, locking his sweaty palms against his face, he closed his eyes and pressed in until he saw stars.
He’d just been in a dying man’s mind.
A cadet had just perished in his goddamn arms, and there hadn’t been anything Sampson could do.
Though all he wanted was to rock back and forth and let fear and revulsion sweep through him like fire, he couldn’t. From beyond, something reminded him he had to move. He had to stand. He had to contact Forest.
He had to let her know that this situation was way larger than she could ever have imagined. Though it was hard for Sampson to sift through the thoughts he’d gotten out of Lawson’s head before the cadet had died, one was clear. It was the moment Lawson had handed Sparx the rifle. It was so clear, so visceral, Sampson could squeeze his eyes closed and re-create it.
And as he did, he saw one thing that shook him to his core. Just like Lawson, Sparx had been an automaton too.
The moment he’d accepted that tetra rifle off Lawson, Sparx had looked like nothing more than a drone or a golem from out of old Earth mythology. A creature that acted only on orders that were coming, not from their own mind, but from something buried in their head like a parasite.
Sampson pressed his hand even further into his lips until they crumpled against his teeth. Any harder, and he’d cut them. Any harder than that, and he’d goddamn swallow them.
He didn’t care.
Finally, he went to push to his feet, but as he did, his hand touched Diana’s diary. He snapped it up, clutching hold of the book as if it was his only lifeline now.
He unashamedly pressed it against his chest, his torso rocking against it with every shaking, deep breath.
He dropped his hand from his mouth. It fell limply to his side, transferring slicks of blood against his torn pants.
As he let his gaze trace over the empty lab, he saw more splatters of blood and scuff marks across the once polished metal. His stare was drawn back until it fell on Lawson like a weak hand resting on the dead cadet’s shoulder.
Grief at what had happened to the cadet swamped Sampson. But he still turned. He still forced a breath through his teeth as he brought up his hand and locked it on his brow.
He forced that move to anchor him as he concentrated. He accessed his neural implant. Or at least he tried to.
He needed to contact Forest and tell her what he’d found. He couldn’t.
As his eyes opened wide, he realized there was still a shield in place around the room. It was invisible, but it was very effective. It wasn’t just keeping him locked in place – it was preventing him from making any communications, despite the fact the comms power of his armor was considerable.
“What the hell?” He took a jerked step forward. Fear rose in him, promising him this wasn’t over. It washed away the guilt. For now.
He rushed over to the door, experimentally bringing up a hand then spreading his finger forward. His armor’s sensors couldn’t confirm whether he could push through that field, but at least they told him that touching it wouldn’t kill him.
And it didn’t, but it did send him jolting back as a surge of energy slammed into him. He skidded to the ground, rolled, and forced himself to his feet as quickly as he could. There was no indication of an imminent attack. But there would be one.
Lawson might’ve died, but whatever had forced its way into his mind sure as hell hadn’t. And if it had infected more officers and cadets throughout the Academy, Sampson could guarantee that they would be on their way here to deal with him.
He had to get out. And he had to get out now.
He closed his eyes and concentrated on his armor, begging it to find a weakness in the shield.
It could find nothing. He could only just detect the shield. He knew that although that fight had been frenetic, it hadn’t damaged his armor – so it’s inability to properly detect the shield couldn’t be down to an operational flaw.
It was almost as if that shield – whatever it was – was beyond the scanner’s ability to detect.
That thought sent a fresh new wave of gut-shaking fear blasting through him. It pushed him several steps back, every move staggered as he warily stared around the room.
Realizing time was of the essence, and without a better plan at hand, he threw himself forward, rounded a hand into a fist, and punched it right at the door. He used the full force of his holographic armor, pitting it against the shield.
It didn’t matter. He was thrown back. This time a lot further. His body tumbled and tumbled over the floor until his back struck a console. If he hadn’t been in his armor, he would’ve been knocked out.
Warily, he pressed a hand into the floor and rose.
The one thing he never did was let go of Diana’s diary. As he pressed it to his chest, it was almost as if he was trying to shove it right through his torso and lock it safely in his heart.
“I have to get out of here,” he whispered aloud again.
In his head, his thoughts ran wild. Fearful, nightmarish visions chased themselves around his mind, promising him that the Academy could be crumbling out there. Whatever had infected Lawson would’ve infected more minds – guaranteed – and right now, those cadets and officers could be taking over the Academy in one swift attack.
“Dammit, I have to—” he began, about to scream at the walls that he had to get out.
Something stopped him. He felt a heat gathering from the diary, pressing into his chest, and rushing down his body. It was the only thing that could thaw the frozen sense of despair sinking its hooks into his muscles.
Slowly, jerkily, he let his head fall and his gaze slip toward the journal.
Now wasn’t the time to come to terms with his past. Though technically this place was private enough, he really couldn’t afford to sit down and quietly open the diary.
He needed his mind – as sharp as it had ever been – to break a way out of here.
That didn’t stop him as he brought the diary up. He was like a man acting on a dream and not a thought as he opened it. He saw another carefully drawn picture of William Ray. Sampson brought up a hand and let his fingers slowly trace down the ink.
He felt Diana stronger than ever as if she was right there beside him.
He swore he could see her, feel her, smell her, touch her. The sensations were so sharp, they had to be real. That, or his mind was imploding. Which wasn’t impossible considering what he’d just endured.
Sampson chose to instead believe that somehow Diana was reaching out to him.
She was a psychic – he’d confirmed that. But to reach out to someone over a distance – especially when you didn’t know where they were – was a fiendishly difficult skill and not something Diana could do without training, even if she had that kind of raw power.
“Stop denying it. Stop goddamn rationalizing it. Something’s happening to you – you can feel her,” he snapped as his panic peaked. There was no other way to get out of here, save for relying on this mysterious connection with her. And though his armor’s scanners couldn’t penetrate that shield, he swore his intuition could. People were rushing down the corridor to get to him, and he could guarantee that they didn’t have his best wishes at heart.
It was now or never. Rather than run at the wall again and pound his fist against the door in the hope he could finally blast through, he gripped Diana’s diary, settled his palm flat on his chest, and tried to grasp hold of that connection he had with her. It was strange to describe, let alone try. He didn’t have the vocabulary to define what his mind did as he groped toward her in the dark. It felt like trying to swim in a formless sea of potential – like he’d somehow been plunged back into the very heart of the Big Bang and his task was to find Diana through the chaos.
Just when he thought he couldn’t do it – and just when his intuition rose like a klaxon warning him people were at the door – he saw something. With his eyes riveted closed, he swore a hand reached through the blackness of his consciousness and grabbed hold of him.
The next thing he knew, he staggered forward, his eyes blasting wide. As they opened, he saw. Just not what was actually there. In a moment that would define his life going forward, Sampson Ventura saw between matter.
It wasn’t as if his vision suddenly possessed the capacity to drill down between atoms and stare at the space they occupied. He couldn’t split objects into their molecular constituents. He hadn’t turned into a scanner. He could just see from a completely different perspective, one that enabled him to look past the ordinary into the extraordinary.
Though all he wanted to do was stand there and try to take in whatever was happening to him, the diary wouldn’t let him. Diana’s presence in it seemed to rise up through his chest until, the next thing he knew, it grabbed hold of his face. He felt his head being jerked to the side. And there, using whatever specialized vision had taken hold of him, he saw a gap in the wall.
It wasn’t in the physical world so much as between it. He could see through the apparently invisible, crackling shield protecting this room to a miniature gap that led to the shield’s circuitry. If he damaged them, he could short the force field and get out of here.
He wasted no more time. He couldn’t; that same presence that had clutched hold of his chin and dragged his eyes to the side shoved him in the back. It was like Diana was beside him and was using her petite form to force him onward, no matter what it took.
His boots skidded across the floor as he flung himself at the wall with all his might. He didn’t have a weapon. He didn’t need one. He clutched a hand into a fist, and this time, he did it with all his knuckles’ popping force until it felt as if he would grind the bone to dust. With a roar splitting his lips and echoing through the room, Sampson Ventura punched the wall.
And the energy shield cracked. The force of his blast slammed against that minuscule rip in the shield, reaching through and flattening the circuits on the opposite side. It caused a greater crack in the shield, and as Sampson screamed again, he brought his hand back and punched it once, twice, three times. It worked, and a three-meter section of the shield blinked out.
For the first time, Sampson could actually see it with his ordinary vision. Sheets of energy crackled over the smart concrete of the walls, tumbling down and eating into the floor like burning chunks of steel.
There was a beep from the door.
There was no more time. No more goddamn time.
Sampson launched himself at the wall. He brought both fists forward, planted his feet on the ground, and thrust with all his might. It was a devastating blow, one that would’ve toppled any enemy, including a solid, 30-centimeters-thick chunk of smart concrete. It didn’t matter that the wall was reinforced – so was his armor.
As chunks of concrete crumbled at his feet and scattered around him, dust rising up in choking wafts, the door opened.
He rolled through the hole, reaching the room beyond just as someone opened fire. Bullets blasted into the wall, sending massive chunks of rubble spewing through to the other side. They slammed against Sampson’s back and cheeks and arms as he punched to his feet. He skidded, pivoted, located the door to this room, and threw himself in the opposite direction.
Whoever had just fired on him would have reinforcements, and they’d be out in the corridor. Though he was relatively confident that with his holographic armor he’d be able to take them on, he didn’t know how long the secret of his armor could last. He didn’t even know if it was already out.
… That virus, or whatever it was that had infected Lawson’s mind, had been a force Sampson had never encountered. Though he wanted to believe that it hadn’t figured out he had holographic armor, there was no way to know that for sure.
So it was time to blast through another wall. He launched himself at the concrete, not even blinking as he dive-rolled through it, punching his legs out at the arc of the roll and slamming them into the concrete until it obliterated around him in chunks.
He reached the room on the other side, and he kept running.
He had to get out of here. He had to get to Forest. And he had to stop whatever the hell was going on here.
Every second would count. From now on, time was all he had.
Time, and a connection. For as Sampson fought for his life, he kept Diana’s diary pressed against his chest. It gave him not just a link to her, but the ability to access that second sight. Even now as he concentrated, blasting through another chunk of wall and obliterating a console on the other side in a sea of sparks, he could still do it. If he narrowed his gaze, if he sharpened his mind, he could literally see through matter.
Something was happening to him. Something was happening to the Academy. Something was happening to the greater Coalition. And very soon, those three things would crash together in a moment that would define everyone’s futures and the whole Milky Way.