Chapter One

“Trust”

“Come on, hurry.” Simon ran down the street and hung a left as Ellona carefully stepped out of the car. The incomprehensible flood of perception had returned just as she thought it would since her arrival. It made it difficult to concentrate at crucial moments like these but there was no avoiding it.

“I’m coming.” She began after him, as did the remainder of their team, and started to a jog. She ran around the corner and nearly screamed when she collided with Simon. He nearly fell but caught himself. He turned to make sure everyone was with him before continuing down the street and deeper into the city.

They slowed their pace to a walk as they came to the fifty-story building known as the Convention. “Is everyone ready now?”

Mike hoisted his bag in a motion letting Simon know to lead the way. The five of them entered the building casually in their jumpsuits.

“Hello, how may I be of service?” The man at the front desk walked around over to them.

“We were called in to perform maintenance on the Supercomputer.” Simon told the man.

He checked the building schedule and nodded his head. “Eddie,” He called over to a security officer, “could you show these people to Able.” The guard nodded and led them to an elevator where they ascended thirty-one floors. Upon exit they turned right and proceeded through an archway that read ‘Authorized Personnel Only’. After a short while later they were there.

“When you’re done let Paul know and he will take you back down. Eddie let them to get to work and left.

“Ok, lets get started.” Simon sat down at the control panel and accessed the maintenance schedule to find out what had previously been done by the last crew to come up here.

Ellona watched from a corner in the dark, cavernous room. The ceiling must be at least three stories high she thought. Mike sifted through his pack and pulled out a laser pen with an attachment to it. After turning it on he aimed it at the security camera in the top right corner of the room. On the attachment he dialed in three zero zero and pressed a button shooting a small pellet across the room, which stuck to the camera.

“All right,” he whispered, “three minutes more of surveillance.”

Simon nodded. “Hey Jill, think you can help me with this.” He pried off a panel allowing him access to Able’s internal hardware. Jill came over with her maintenance sack and began to tune-up the computer.

Ellona shook her head but remained unable to avoid the noise in her head. After two days on the planet it was definitely getting to her.

Simon saw her and called her over. “Don’t forget your roll Ellona.” She nodded and walked over to Danny. She collapsed to her knees and put a hand to her head.

“What’s wrong?” Danny asked hoisting her to her feet.

“I don’t know how much longer I can take this.”

He looked at her puzzled. “We’ve only been ten minutes into this.” Oh…she had only told Simon so far. He would understand. He alone understood what the static in her head was. Voices, voices from all over the planet each talking at once in her mind. Even the voices of Simon, Danny, Mike, and Jill were there, however they were mostly lost to her over the million others.

Simon looked over to her. “Think you’ll be OK?”

She nodded to him. “Just get me off this planet before I go crazy.” There was no sarcasm in her words and she got a nod out of him. He went back to work.

About twenty seconds later the pellet attached to the camera emitted an EMP blast sufficient to disable the camera. The pellet then fell and silently burst into a flame that disintegrated it before it hit the ground. It was a clean burn, no smoke or smell was emitted. In less than a minute the security guard came in to find everyone at work. He told them that he would have to perform periodic checks because there was a problem. He neglected to specify but that would have been unnecessary for them. When he left, they got down to business. Jill pulled from her bag a Yacolt Security Override panel, eleven alligator clips, a laptop computer, and a mutilated ninepin serial adapter with the male end removed exposing all of the wires in the cable. With the first two clips she connected the YSO panel to Able rendering it security systems inert. She then began to work on getting the nine clips connected to the adapter. She succeeded shortly thereafter.

“Okay, Danny its your turn.” She slide aside to let him over to the laptop.

He sat down and began to download files to their terabyte hard drive. “Since its just the core files,” he whispered, “It should only take about five minutes.” Simon nodded and out of the corner of his eye he saw Ellona, her back to him, shaking her head.

What…what is this? I don’t know. “I… I think someone is coming…” Jill walked to the door and peered out.

“I don’t see anyone.” Jill looked at Simon as to ask why Ellona was here in the first place.

“But…” Ellona shook her head in frustration. “There is something…”

Simon got up and stood there quizzically. “Ellona please talk coherently. We don’t understand.”

“Yeah, Ellona, you’re making this mission uncomfortable.” Mike began to walk over to her.

“Ahhhh!!.” Danny hoisted his gun behind the group.

“What?!” Mike turned around to receive a large, lethal packet of light to his chest. He collapsed to the floor as Danny turned the gun on the others.

“How the hell did you get that in here!” Simon stood in disbelief as Danny pulled the trigger sending light into Jill.

She fell beside Ellona who only whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Simon.”

Danny moved the gun towards Ellona and looked at Simon. “How does it feel, to lose everything? You remember don’t you? No, of coarse not.” Ellona looked at the door and returned her sight to Danny. He nearly pulled the trigger when the security guard entered through the door. Danny adjusted his aim and fired at the guard striking him head. Seizing the moment, Simon grabbed the gun and turned back on Danny. Caught off guard, he pulled the trigger before he realized the direction in which it was pointed, which sent the coherent light into himself. He doubled over and fell to the floor on his knees. His face twisted into shock, anger, and then nothing as life fled from him.

With the gun now in his hand Simon ran over to check Mike and Jill. They showed no vitals. The laptop’s monitor flashed indicating the download was complete. Simon ran over, disconnected it, tucked it under his arm, and grabbed Ellona’s wrist. “Lets go!” As he dragged her, she picked up Mike’s bag and proceeded at Simon’s pace.

She didn’t know what to think at that moment except that she had failed at realizing that Danny had a bad past with Simon. Sure she had called in the security guard and in effect saved both Simon and herself. But now four people were dead due to her lack of attention inward while she had only focused outward.

Simon looked at her as they ran down the hall. “Please concentrate. I would prefer not to run into the other guards in this level.” She nodded and began to focus.

“I believe there is one at the end of the hall to the left.” He turned right at the next corridor for the stairs. “I don’t sense anyone on the staircase.”

“Good. We’ll go that way.” Thank goodness that Danny had a light pistol. A projectile weapon would of made enough noise to bring all the guards in the Convention to this floor. It was an obvious choice of weapon however if Danny had planned to get away with the data himself. Ellona led him out of the building without any confrontations. In an ally they both removed their holographic masks and crushed them under foot. It was a relief to see Simon’s real face instead of the mechanic’s.

Ellona, anxious get out of there quickly tugged gently at Simon to remind him that they needed to get to the vehicle. They walked the rest of the way and threw their attire in the van.

“Yo, Simon where is everyone?” T.J. opened the van’s door as they walked to the front.

“They…Danny.” T.J. somewhat understood what he was getting at.

“Well, let’s get moving.” Alarms sounded in the distance. “It’s about to get uncomfortably active.”

Ellona got into the van, followed by Simon, while T.J. acquired the driver’s seat.

“I’m ready to go.” Ellona said. She pulled her feet up onto the seat and sat with her head on her knees. The van left the city minutes later.

Three hours later they were back on the ship leaving the system. Ellona reached for her chair and sat at the desk in front of her. Much to her appreciation nearly all of the voices were fading from her mind, fleeting from her conscious. She was alone now but she would soon be going to the bridge after she had completely cleared her mind of the day.