Wormhole (The Rho Agenda #3)(75)

There it was again. Not really in his shoulder, but something about the feeling reminded him of Heather.

He turned to see her, but a mist shrouded his vision. He thought he could just make out her outline, but when he tried to reach out for her, she faded away. Mark stopped trying, letting the dream current carry him along.

The command deck on the Bandolier Ship materialized around him, his body enfolded by one of the four supple couches. Smoothly curving walls dissolved around him, leaving Mark hurtling through space, just like the first time he’d tried on the alien headset. They’d all tried on the alien headsets: Heather, Jennifer, and Mark. And in that state, they’d established a common link that enabled them to share each other’s thoughts and feelings. It was one of the things Jack had encouraged them to explore. It was one of the things they’d all learned to block.

But if he was linked into the ship, where were Heather and Jen? And where was the ship’s AI that had attacked his mind? He’d thrown up every block he could muster to try to protect them all from that attack. Mark ran through a quick mental diagnostic. Apparently, after releasing all his rage at the AI, he’d restored his own mental shields and left them in place. Maybe that was why he couldn’t feel the girls’ presence through his headset.

Remembering how it felt to touch Heather’s beautiful mind, Mark dropped his mental defenses. The vision of himself hurtling through the vast emptiness of space achieved a new level of clarity, so many stars in the blackness, tiny pinpoints of light, pulsing with an energy all their own. He could feel their energy ripples softly brush his awareness.

Suddenly, the surrounding space-time warped violently as a powerful vibration distorted the blackness. In a rush of realization, Mark knew...he wasn’t alone anymore.





She had him! The rush of joy almost broke the nascent mental link, but Heather wasn’t about to let that happen. She opened herself completely and their minds flowed together. As frightened as she’d been of letting Mark invade her innermost sanctuary, she now welcomed the sharing of all that was right and wrong about her. Neither was she repelled by Mark’s dark thoughts and embarrassments. After all, that mixture of good and evil, beauty and ugliness, was a big part of what it meant to be human.

“I love you,” Mark’s thoughts whispered in her mind.

Funny. Despite how they shared each other’s thoughts, mental conversation still came most naturally.

“Right back at you.” Heather felt Mark smile at her response. “Always have. Just didn’t know how much.”

“How’d you manage the mind link without our headsets?”

“Jen led me to it. I would have managed sooner if I hadn’t tried to overanalyze it.”

“You made my day. I’ve missed you.”

Heather’s eyes welled up. “Me too. But I feel you now.”

“So you ready to get the hell out of here?”

“I’m working on a plan.”

“They’ve turned on the laptops, at least one of them.”

A vision of Mark typing commands into the stolen cell phone played in their joint minds. The fact that the laptops had been turned on meant every electronic system in the building now had multiple back doors through which Heather, Mark, or Jen could take control of the system.

“We’ll need access to a networked computer. I need a facilities layout so I can see exactly where each of us is being held. Jennifer’s been playing her mind tricks with one of her handlers, but they’re drugging her so heavily she’s been fading in and out.”

Heather felt Mark scan her memory, his anger a gathering storm. “Heroin? They’re intentionally addicting her?”

“You thought they’d play nice?”

“Guess not. Still makes me mad as hell.”

“That’s fine. Use it, but don’t let it use you. Our chance is coming. One other thing, I think Jack’s nearby.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t. But it’s what my visions tell me. I think he’s out there waiting for us to make our move, putting himself in a supporting position.”

“And if we can’t break out?”

“Like I said. Our chance is coming.”

For two and a half hours, Heather laid out the details of what she had in mind, refining the plan with Mark’s feedback, playing through the scenarios in such vivid detail that they both experienced the same dreamworld rehearsals. But to make the scenarios complete, she was going to need a completely accurate layout. And she wasn’t likely to get that until their break was already under way.

Mentally exhausted, Heather terminated the last vision. As she felt her hold on their link fade away, Mark’s final thoughts brought a tired smile to her lips.

“So we’re just going to wing it. Sounds like my kind of plan.”





“You with me, Jen?” Heather’s mind reached out for her friend.

“Better than most days. Worse than some.”

Indeed, Heather felt far less haze in Jen’s mind than she’d felt in several days.

“Jen, I need you to get as much clarity as you can for the next few minutes, even if it costs you later.”

Heather knew that the effort of shunting the heroin effects away for a while would inflict a heavy penalty on Jennifer once she relaxed from the effort, as if she had endured a sudden overdose. Heather knew it, hated it, but asked her to do it anyway.