Chapter 90

Time: Monday, June 11, 2019 6:58 PM GHT (Great Hexagon Time).

Fatima was not a person prone to asking rhetorical questions, but she felt so frustrated she didn’t stop herself. “What is going on here?!” she said loudly into the bridge. “With Alfonso we made a mistake. His mind had snapped and we didn’t recognize the risk. But this?! Don’t these people want to be rescued?!”

“For some reason, we’re being seen as invaders,” answered Carla.

Tom was sitting by her side and he added, “This was one slick operation. They picked the perfect zone for it, and they had just the right tactics to defeat us. What I don’t understand is how they knew so much about us.”

Carla turned to him and touched his leg. “Yes, that’s a very good point. Fatima?”

“Yes?”

“Do you see what Tom is saying? If these people were our superiors in numbers, why not just meet us at a transfer room and tell us to get lost? We never announced our size in our handout, and we certainly never advertised we were armed. Yet we’re being treated as if we are a superior enemy. Kidnapping is a guerilla tactic.”

“I guess that makes sense,” said Tom, “if they don’t know us. It’s less risky than a face to face confrontation.”

“They’re acting as if they’re angry with us, or afraid of us,” commented Suvarna. “Or both.”

Carla nodded. “Yes, that’s what it feels like. And to be afraid of us, that would imply they see us as a superior force, or at least a force that could hurt them.”

Fatima replied with a question. “Your opinion then, on how we proceed?”

Carla thought for a moment. “I think our current number here is about right. If we add more people and Aggie’s abductors somehow know about it, that will seem even more like an invasion. Thank God they took Aggie’s Leophone. They took her gear too. There’s a backup phone in her backpack. Perhaps they’ll try to contact us. That’s what I’m hoping.”

“Carla, as Aggie’s second in command, you’re in charge now. What are your plans?”

“For a little while at least, I don’t want to do anything too aggressive. These people have just won a battle with us. Their adrenalin is probably still pretty high. I’d like to spend a little time here and search for clues. What I’m hoping for is that our ... the other party contacts us. Let’s listen to what they have to say.”

“Sounds reasonable. Carla, anything or anyone you think you need, let me know.”

“Right. I appreciate that.” Carla could tell by Fatima’s tone that she was agreeable to letting Carla begin searching the current zone for clues. “Carla out.” It was a large space, seventy-two rooms. This would take a while. With Tom guarding the transfer room, the four women got to work.

Meanwhile, in a different section of the pyramid...

Aggie estimated she spent at least two minutes in the elevator carriage with her captors, enough for twenty jumps and perhaps more. Was there some issue with trying to disguise their trail with multiple jumps, or were these people taking the quickest jump route they knew to their desired destination? It seemed impossible to determine, so Aggie spent her time instead thinking about the motives of the people around her. Were they monsters, or just people doing what they felt they had to do? Aggie took heart in the thought that there had been no needless cruelty. Aggie’s nose and jaw hurt where they had hit the carpet, but otherwise she was unharmed. “It could be a lot worse,” she reminded herself, thinking of her neck. “That knife was sharp!”

After the carriage rides, she was walked through perhaps a dozen rooms and guided down roughly into a high-back chair. Hands encircled her neck and two thumbs lightly pressed against her throat. It was all the warning Aggie needed not to move. While she kept still, her hands were unbound and then rebound to the back of the chair. Aggie winced at how tightly the cords were pulled. She could also feel other hands pushing her legs apart and then lashing her ankles to the chair. Aggie hoped her interrogation would start soon. Having her shoulders pulled back like this would eventually give her a backache, and the tape covering her mouth had a really foul tasting adhesive.

Aggie heard her backpack being unzipped, and numerous hands began to pat her down for anything concealed she might be carrying. There was no respect for her modesty, but the hands weren’t humiliating either, and when they finally stopped probing her, Aggie decided being frisked wasn’t too bad. She was determined to treat her captivity as a simple misunderstanding.

A voice directly in front of Aggie pierced the blackness of her hood. “You ready to talk now, Samantha, or do you need to sit here for a while first?”

Aggie nodded her head vigorously while making humming noises to remind her captors that she was still gagged.

The voice in front of her paused for a moment and then said, “Oh, all right. Sydney, remove the tape. Keep the hood on though.”

Aggie felt the cord around her neck being loosened, and then a hand slipped into the hood and came to the side of her cheek. A moment later as the tape was pulled away, Aggie cried out, “Ouch! That hurt my lips!”

“Well you should have thought of that before you came hunting for us!”

“I ... My society wasn’t hunting. We were searching. We were trying to rescue you. And my name isn’t Samantha.”

A moment of absolute silence passed, and then the hood was pulled off her head. Aggie blinked from the bright lights around her.

“My God, she’s right,” said a woman holding the piece of tape. Aggie decided to assume that was Sydney.

Aggie licked her lips and was grateful she didn’t taste any blood. “My name’s Aggie and I’ve got a lot to tell you. How about you just let me talk for a while?”

It took more than an hour. Once Aggie got going, she felt overwhelmed with how many critical details there were to her story. But she could only talk so fast, and she didn’t know how these people would react if she tried to link with them. So she kept everything verbal and in normal time.

It was a sad meeting. In her heart Aggie knew these people deserved to know about the world’s fate, and she pulled no punches concerning Earth’s last days. After that, most of her speech was received in stony silence. Aggie did learn the names of her captors but very little else. It wasn’t until after 8 AM in local morning time (8 PM GHT) that Aggie finished her summary.

From the way the group interacted, Aggie deduced that the leader was Cordelia. The woman looked at Aggie thoughtfully and asked, “So you say your group can mind-read too?”

“Yes. We call it linking. And it’s more than communication for us. I didn’t stress it, but do you remember I mentioned boosting the mental ability at a Bee Park?” Aggie then went on to describe her enhanced abilities more fully.

For the first time, her captors seemed to be giving her skeptical looks. “You’re claiming you have super powers?” asked Cordelia. Her statement had just the hint of the inflection needed to be a question. The rest was pure disbelief.

“Hey, this is real,” replied Aggie a bit defensively. “It’s an enhancement, just like the first drug we all got was an enhancement.”

“So why don’t you try to seize control of our minds?!”

“Yeah, right! I’m sure that would have gone over like a ton of bricks!” Aggie took a deep breath. She was still strapped to the chair, and by this time her muscles were getting very stiff. “Besides, dream linking doesn’t work that way, and even besides that, it would be illegal for me to try it.”

Katelyn stared at their prisoner. “Illegal?!”

“We have laws. Think it through, Katelyn! For five months, we’ve had boosted people in our society living with unboosted people. We can’t have people seizing control other people’s minds!”

“It never happened?”

Another deep breath. “Not with me. In my society, it happened once under some very unusual circumstances. That was before we had laws about this. We have laws now, and besides, the thought is repugnant to me. I don’t know. If you were about to slit my throat, maybe I would try it, try to capture your mind in a dream. Maybe in self defense, I don’t know ... Invading another person’s mind, the concept is really horrible.”

“So where do we go from here?” asked the leader.

Aggie shrugged her shoulders, partially to relieve her cramps and partially as body language. “That depends on where you want to be, Cordelia. I have no idea why you’re so hostile to us, but I respect your right to privacy. If you want our society to leave you alone, that’s what we’ll do. Remember my description of the census counter? Six men and seventy-six women, that’s the count of the human species. A conflict between us would be insane. We would prefer to merge, but we’re not going to try to force it. That would be ridiculous.”

Aggie looked at her captors and pleaded with her eyes. “I’d love to tell the people I was with that I’m unharmed. They’re my family.”

Cordelia was silent for a moment and then glanced quickly at her team. “We’re not quite ready for that.”

“I’m willing to link with you, if you’ll permit me,” replied Aggie. “That would prove my sincerity. Within the link, there’s no room for lies.”

Cordelia cocked her head. “You admit you could trap me in a dream, and you’re asking me to agree to this?”

“Well ... Yeah, I guess I am. I will end the dream whenever you ask. You have my word.”

On a leap of faith, Cordelia decided to agree. “What do I have to do?”

“Just look me in my eyes and be receptive for a link. I’ll take it from there. I promise. If you start to pull back, I’ll stop immediately.” Cordelia nodded and complied, and a short moment later she gave out an incredulous gasp.

“Recognize the place?” a voice behind her said. Cordelia turned and saw Aggie standing behind her. Or at least she thought she did. “Can I touch you, or are you a ghost?”