Chapter 2

      Situated in the heart of Gemini Corporation headquarters was System Room Twelve, an innocuous title, given the room’s impressive contents and size. It was over twenty-five meters high and fifty meters in length with polished, metal walls and flooring that infinitely reflected warped images. Sitting like rows of stainless steel giants, the furnaces, blowers, and other equipment whirled and hummed with their hidden activities. But the enormous machines were not the only ones with hidden agendas. Grace knew there were four souls circling the room, invisible to sight. With their footsteps masked by the omnipresent droning of the machines, it would be impossible to know where they patrolled.

      “Are you sure she’s here?” asked a voice that seemed to come from empty air.

      “She’s here,” answered another empty space.

      A shot of plasma burst out, from what seemed like nowhere, singed a black mark on the gleaming wall, and left a trail of swirling, grey smoke.

      “What the hell you doing?!”

      “Damn, I thought I saw her.”

      Grace could see the smoke where the voices emanated but nothing else. Nifty little gadget they had on, she thought, and slipped down from her hiding place. She had been listening and watching from her lofty perch, but now, it was time to act.

      “Okay, boys, I give up,” she called out from her hiding place.

      “She’s surrendering, request instructions,” said another empty spot, a spot she was now fixed on.

      They were all in front of her, at least two, but could there be more? Before stepping out from her cover, she gently rolled a small, thin metal canister out to the center of the corridor. The machine noise hid the canister’s bell-like sound, and the shadows obscured its movement.

      “Keep your hands out where I can see them,” the voice ordered. It was about ten feet away.

      With her hands out, she walked slowly to where the canister rested. She smiled at the wall because that was all she could see. They were in “whisper” suits. The suit was made of fiber optics that transmitted the image from back to front and from front to back, making the wearer invisible. It was a very handy new invention of her father’s, but it had one little flaw.

      She raised her heel over the metal canister and shifted her weight heavily onto it, eyes tightly closed. There was a loud bang like a firecracker and then cursing and screams as the flash caused all three whisper suits to short out in a colorful display of blue electricity. The men yelped and danced as the electricity went from the suits to their bodies, singeing hair and flesh.

      She ran past the burning men and through the doorway behind them. She tried not to get too jazzed by her small victory. She wasn’t free of this building yet. It was a fortress surrounded by a mile of the Mediterranean Sea. Once out the door, she saw two men pointing their impressive weaponry in her direction. She leapt into the air with a savage scream as their weapons went off below her. Airborne, she tucked and rolled between them before landing on her knees. She twisted her shoulder as she flew and spun around to face them. Two sharp knives in each hand, she sent one at each of them. Both hit; one man was struck between the shoulder blades, the other had turned with her and got it in the Adam’s apple. His gun went off, hitting the plastic window with twenty rounds of armor-piercing fire.

      Grace scrambled away from the blast. Her black leather pants and jacket protected her from the shards flying all around. There was a moment of silence as she skidded down the hall, until she heard a rocket launcher whistle towards her.

      “Oh man!” she yelled. “Fuck you, Luther!”

      Her yell followed her out of the window as she plummeted with her arms covering her face. The wall behind her exploded, sending metal and concrete after her. Grace fell ten stories, then started bouncing on the sloped side of the building. The bottom twenty floors flared out like a skirt with the last three straightening into the massive foundation that supported and protected the building from the water. She stopped tumbling head over heels but couldn’t quite stop her downward slide. When she reached the foundation, she was airborne again, falling the last thirty feet into the water. Her body disappeared into the choppy Mediterranean Sea. The eyes watching from the window never saw her resurface.

      “Get the boats,” Luther said to the man next to him. “She isn’t getting away that easily.”

      • • •

      When the dreams came, Yuri had no sense of time. He didn’t know when the warehouse incident ended and the dreams began creeping into his consciousness. They were awful dreams: he was drowning, his lungs filling with fluid as he was sucked into dark water. He gagged, but that only allowed more water down his throat. That dream merged into others, flowing within the loose, logical progression that the dream realm allows.

      He could hear voices that came and went as if from a poorly connected television.

      “What a mess! Is there anything that isn’t broken?”

      “Is it worth all the effort? He’s just a country bumpkin.”

      “From Velsk? Never heard of the place.”

      “Shit, another peasant. I hope we didn’t have to pay too much for him.”

      “Orders are orders.”

      “He’s strong, nice muscle tone — a perfect breeding ground for our little process. Besides, if he dies, it isn’t as if we killed him. With our current