Immune (The Rho Agenda #2)(47)

Heather sighed. “I don’t know. I’ll be doing something, and the next thing I know, it’s like a déjà vu moment, like a rewind. Only part of it wasn’t real, just a waking dream.”

Jennifer’s eyes narrowed. “And before the rewind, what do you see?”

Heather stood up and began pacing back and forth in front of the couch. “I’m not really sure.”

“You can’t remember?” Mark asked.

Heather stopped. “That’s not it. I remember just fine. It’s like I’m seeing the future or something, not the distant future but something that is about to happen very soon.”

“And does it come true?” Jennifer asked, leaning forward.

“Yes.” Heather’s chest felt as if it had been wrapped in chains. “Not exactly the same as my vision, but so close that it’s unreal. Close enough to scare the crap out of me.”

Mark chewed his lower lip. “Maybe it’s another side effect from the Second Ship. We’ve already experienced some amazing things.”

“Seeing the future?” Heather shook her head.

“I don’t think that’s what’s really happening,” Jennifer said. “Think about it. Each of us has had our brains turned on to the max. You already had savant mathematical abilities. Maybe this is just an extension of the mathematics.

“Three-dimensional computer games are done with math. What if your brain is just working out the probabilities of stuff happening and painting a 3D picture of the projected outcome for you?”

Heather started to answer but paused. Something about what Jennifer hypothesized had a ring of truth to it. After all, it had been weeks since mathematical equations had dominated her thinking. The thought that perhaps her brain had moved to the next stage of development had already occurred to her.

“I know what you are becoming.”

The thought of what the Rag Man had said in her dreams leaped, unbidden, into her mind. Heather shook her head to clear the thought.

“If that’s true, then how do I stop it?”

Jennifer shrugged. “I don’t know, but right now, that’s not our biggest problem. We can’t let the doctors discover your abnormal brain activity.”

Just then, Mark interrupted. “I have an idea. Do you remember when I tried the biofeedback meditation using the medical table on the ship?”

“You mean when you almost stopped your heart?” Heather asked.

“I didn’t almost stop it. I just slowed it way down. With the biofeedback I was getting from the medical table, I was able to adjust my body response.”

Heather sat down again. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that if I could do that, we might be able to learn to relax our brain activity so that it appears normal.”

Jennifer clapped her hands. “Brilliant.”

Heather rolled the thought around in her mind. With superior biofeedback like they got on the medical table, it might just be possible to learn how to do that. More than possible, it felt probable. She stood up and headed toward the door.

“I’m going to tell Mom we’re going for a bike ride. I’ll meet you out front in ten minutes.”

Jennifer shook her head. “Better make it twenty. I want to look up some information on the Internet about what normal CT scans and EEG readouts look like.”

“Good idea.”

As the screen door slammed shut behind her, for the first time in days, Heather felt a glimmer of hope.





46


Heather had almost forgotten how good the alien headset felt on her temples. As soon as she entered the cave, climbed up into the ship, and slid the elastic metal band in place, a warm feeling engulfed her, almost like coming home.

She was the first to enter the room they called the medical lab, followed closely by Jennifer and then Mark, each wearing their own headset. Almost as if the ship knew what she was feeling, the colors in the room shifted to a softer shade, which highlighted the smoothly flowing elegance of each of the pedestals. Dear Lord, it was beautiful.

“I’ll go first,” Mark said.

Heather turned to face him. “Why you?”

Mark’s grin was ear to ear. “Because I’m the man.”

“Really?”

“Besides, I already know how to manipulate the biofeedback. It’s too bad we don’t have more than one of these tentacle tables or I could talk you through things as I’m doing it.”

As if in response to his wish, the door in the far wall dematerialized, the one through which they had never been able to gain entry.

Heather gasped, then rushed forward, as if any hesitation might close off the newly opened doorway before she could peer inside. Mark beat her to it, leaving only Jennifer hanging back. No shock there. Jennifer had always been the only one in the group with any sense.

The room was smaller than the medical lab, with a single large couch amidst a forest of the clear tentacle tubes they had experienced on the table in the medical lab. These were bigger, though, filled with moving lights, almost like soap bubbles moving through a viscous fluid. If she hadn’t been so excited by this new discovery, Heather could have just sat down and watched.

Mark stepped into the room, the clear tubes melting away from his path as he advanced toward the couch.