Page 53 of I Dream of Danger
She’d made a successful life for herself, rarely thinking of him, and at the moment of her direst need who did she think of? Nick Ross. Damn him! Wasting time wanting him was dangerous. Folly of the highest order.
Though there really wasn’t anyone to call. Maybe that was it. Most of her friends were fellow research scientists, and lately, members of the experimental protocol. There was no one capable of fighting those men in black, certainly not the men she knew.
Slope-shouldered, near-sighted, pale and thin. No, Paul Mela, Alex Karras, or Thomas Chu—even if she could contact them, even if they came, they’d be massacred.
She’d been right not to call them.
It was so hard to be in the dark, in every sense. She’d seen the men and disappeared. She needed more information. A scientist dealt with data, and she had none.
What was happening?
Could she—dare she check?
Elle was only beginning to test the boundaries of her gift. Today’s projection of herself halfway around the world—that had been the first time she’d tried to deliberately project herself to an unknown place far away. It had left her so depleted she’d felt half dead.
She could do short distances. She’d tested that, over and over. But she didn’t have total control over where she went. It was like being in a Porsche with only the accelerator, no brakes and no steering wheel. Heady and dangerous.
Those men had moved with the professional grace of athletes or military men. They were heavily armed. She needed to know where they were.
The decision was made.
She slid down until she was lying on her back on the dirty carpet, grabbing a pillow from the bed and putting it under her head. Close to the floor, the smell of grime intensified. She shut it from her mind, along with the lumpiness of the carpet and the lint she could see under the bed. She wasn’t here for comfort, she was here for safety. A little dirt and a few smells were a small price to pay.
She closed her eyes and willed herself to start shutting down. Slow down her pounding heart, will her hands to still, her breathing to slow.
It was all so very new. She’d only gone on four voluntary trips before. All her life, her dreams had taken her away when they wanted, where they wanted. There’d never been any question of directing herself, projecting herself where she wanted to go.
Hell, she’d been 21 and still heartbroken over Nick before she realized that what happened to her sometimes wasn’t merely crazy dreams. It had been in San Francisco, working hard to pay tuition before the grants and scholarships had kicked in. Desperate for reading material, she’d taken the bus to Clement Street and gone to Green Apple, a huge bookstore with tons of used books and a friendly staff that didn’t mind if you spent hours there. On the second floor, browsing the Paranormal section she’d seen a book, dusty and badly printed, and it had changed her life.
A simple title—Astral Projection. But she’d recognized instantly that it spoke directly to her, to what she’d always been able to do but had been unable to recognize. She learned she wasn’t alone. A number of people were able to astrally project, and Elle started to make it her business to know everything about it. That semester, she switched to biology, aiming at a PhD in neuroscience and it had led her straight to Corona, which was studying extrasensory powers.
Until she’d actually enrolled in the Delphi Protocol, she’d never been able to control her projections. They just…happened. Maybe more when she was stressed than when she was relaxed, but there’d been very little relaxation in her life after her father became ill, so that wasn’t a big help.
Some nights her trips were brief. A few minutes in an unfamiliar landscape and then she’d be back. One constant—the longer the trip, the more exhausted she was when she woke up.
The Delphi Protocol was controlled in every aspect. From the drugs in the IV line to the monitors checking her status. And still, she’d been told her vital signs had gone dangerously low in today’s experiment. What would happen if her vital signs started plummeting? She was alone here. She could lapse into a coma, even die.
But she could die anyway. Those men had been armed and Sophie’s call had been a panic call. Sophie had said some people had been killed. In all likelihood, for whatever reason, something highly dangerous was going on, and it was entirely possible that the men in black had orders to shoot her on sight.
So staying here, in the dark, wasn’t going to save her.
They’d know she hadn’t hailed a taxi, and there was only so far anyone could get on foot. If they had the right resources they would find her, no question. She’d signed in under another name, but presumably they’d have a photo of her. That bored and stoned young man at the front desk might remember her.
They could break in her door at any minute.
The Delphi Protocol had been exact and precise. Elle tried to duplicate it, though she had no equipment at all except her body and her mind. First, she’d been told to lie flat on her back, arm out for the IV. Silly as it seemed, she lay there flat on her back and put her arm out from her body. There hadn’t been a pillow so she removed it from under her head.
What had Sophie done next? Inserted the needle. It was the new generation of hypodermics—thin as a human hair while inserted, it expanded once in a vein. It hadn’t hurt at all going in, and she’d felt only the lightest whisper of sensation when it expanded. But the drug had burned a little when it started flowing in her veins.
Corona had refused to give the exact molecular structure of the drug, citing patent concerns, but Sophie had told her that though she didn’t know its exact composition either, it had been tested thoroughly on animals and had never had an adverse effect.
So Elle lay still and imagined the whisper of the super-thin needle being inserted into the vein of her right arm, the slight sensation of fullness as the needle expanded, the feeling of warmth as the drug began to course through her system.
There must have been a light sedative in the drug because she had instantly relaxed, and had felt so light that it was as if she floated an inch or two above the mattress.
She felt herself relax, as if she’d been perfused with the drug. It had been a wholly pleasant sensation and she willed herself into feeling it. Feeling weightless, as if gravity had suddenly been revoked. So light that she rose a little, hovered, then continued up, up, up…
It was pitch black outside, the darkness broken only by the few intact streetlights. Palo Alto was a prosperous community, and further east, she could see well-lit streets and cars whishing by, brightly lit storefronts and restaurants and bars. But in this small corner of town, darkness reigned.
