Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Adam’s fingers curled tight into his fist, his heart thudding hard and slow as his focus coalesced to a single point as he fought to think, find answers…while knowing the best minds among the Psy had already been at the problem since the fall of Silence and failed in their quest. “Can she wake up without a shield?”
“Yes. But she’ll either have a seizure or fall unconscious again almost at once due to the overload.” A penetrating glance. “Imagine walking into a room of a thousand people where everyone is screaming at you, then multiply that by the population of a city and you’ll have some idea of what Eleri will experience if she wakes. There will never, ever be quiet in her mind—and each time she wakes, she’ll bruise her brain anew, wound on top of wound.”
Unspoken was that even if pieces of Adam’s J had survived, the nightmare of waking would tear those pieces into so many tiny fragments that she’d be gone even if she breathed and her heart yet beat.
Chapter 37
“Saoirse, will you build me a rocket ship?”
“Sure, Bear. I just have to collect a bit more money. Rocket ships are expensive to construct. But here, let’s plan it out, get the schematics ready for when we have the cash.”
—Conversation between Adam and Saoirse Garrett (circa summer 2063)
Something flashed on the large wall screen to the left of Eleri’s room, with Dr. Czajka’s name at the top of it. “I have to go look in on another patient,” she said after glancing at it. “I’ll be back to check hourly on Eleri, however.”
Adam pressed his hand to the glass, as beyond, the three nurses in Eleri’s room seemed to be going through a checklist to ensure they’d finished their tasks. Not interrupting them lest he break their concentration, he grabbed his phone and called Saoirse. “Malia?”
“She’s doing so good,” his sister said, her voice rough. “Hendricks drugged her before he broke her arm. She didn’t see or feel him break it, was in pain and scared when she woke with him looming over her in that hideous mask, but then she got angry.”
A sniffing laugh. “God, my baby is a tough cookie. She was planning how to semi-shift and use her talons on him, but then Eleri was there and—Adam, she saved our girl by letting Hendricks take her. We might not have found Malia in time without her. Please tell me she’ll be all right.”
“I need you to build her a shield, Saoirse.”
“What?”
“Eleri’s telepathic shields are gone. They were already failing before Hendricks attacked her and now she has nothing to protect her mind—she can’t heal without a shield.”
“Bear”—a careful, tender tone—“I’m a shield engineer, yes, but I engineer heat and radiation shields for jetcraft. I have zero idea about psychic shields.”
“You’re the smartest person I know, Chirp.” He swallowed hard. “And I figure psychic powers are a kind of energy, a kind of signal. Sound is a signal, and you build internal sound shields, too. And heat is energy. If you can block heat, you should be able to block telepathy.”
He talked over her when she tried to interrupt; he didn’t know if he was getting the science right, but his desperate mind was seeing the blurred whisper of a truth he needed his sister’s virtuoso engineering intellect to turn into reality. “Teleporters need a physical image lock—if anything changes in that image, they can’t arrive at their destination. That means psychic abilities aren’t divorced from the physical.
“And something in the Canyon stops them dead regardless. That means psychic energy can be stopped on a physical level. You just have to find the right element or the right frequency.”
Saoirse no longer sounded distressed or gently careful when she responded. “You say the craziest shit, Bear, and why am I always letting my little brother talk me into bad ideas?”
But despite her big-sister muttering, he could tell she was already sketching something on one of the pads she always had at hand. “Let me work on it. I’ll get Malia on it, too—it’ll keep her mind off things, and she’s always been one to come up with off-the-wall concepts. Gets that from her uncle.”
When she hung up without saying good-bye, he knew she was caught up in the undertaking. He also knew it was a near-impossible task he’d given her, a request from the little boy he’d once been who’d believed his big sister could build him a rocket ship.
Lifting his phone again, he called one of the few people who might know the effect of the blood bond on Eleri’s current status.
“Adam,” Lucas Hunter said when he answered. “How’s Jacques?”
“Naia says he’s rising through the levels of a coma and is close to the point where he might regain consciousness on his own.” The update he’d discovered on his phone after he came out of Eleri’s surgery had been the one bright spark in this hellish day. “Luc, I need to ask you about your blood-bonded network.”