Dark Energy: The Mortal Fracture

CHAPTER NINE: UNWANTED ATTENTION

Anchorage, Alaska - 2011

The afternoon light faded to twilight as Wasi and Sade made their way through Anchorage in separate vehicles. Wasi was ahead of Sade in his rented truck. He constantly glanced up at the rearview mirror to track her progress. He was nervous about what just happened as he was unsure of its legitimacy. On the other hand, if Sade was right and electricity was the solution, then it meant that change was rapidly approaching him. He hated this part of an assignment as it was intense, full of uncertainties, bloody, and destructive. These realities ran through his mind, ricocheting off the sound of his breaks squealing as he pulled to a stop at a red light.

Sade came to a stop behind him, her mind racing with the distractions produced by her recent discovery. Her senses were bombarded with new sensations. Flashes of light pocked the sky and streaks of light whirled by her car. The traffic light also seemed to have a life of its own as its energy field pulsed and interacted with other energy fields that passed near the light setup. The light turned green and Sade watched as the energy field from the traffic light reached down towards Wasi’s truck, which seemed to slap away its groping tentacle. She released the brake slowly, allowing her vehicle to inch forward. She was apprehensive about passing under the traffic light, as it seemed starved for contact.

As they progressed out of the city limits, the traffic disappeared and soon the two vehicles were winding down the highway alone. The power lines that formed a century of guards along both sides of the street were covered in ice which insulated any further assaults on the vehicles as they passed by. Sade tried to focus on driving but the world around her became dark and foreign to her. The light beam from her headlights seemed to be absorbed by the darkness of the night so she slowed her car to a crawl. Soon all signs of Wasi’s truck had disappeared and Sade was left in her vehicle blind to everything except the dim light of her headlights.

She pulled to a stop in the middle of the road and stepped out of her vehicle. She felt disoriented and lost. There seemed to be an absence of time as she wandered in the space that stretched out before her. Sade tried to make sense of her location and her physical world, but something had changed within her at the acupuncture clinic, and it had robbed her of her past logic. Now she didn’t know how to interpret the stimuli that was around her.

Her eyes darted back and forth as she searched for something that made sense, something that she knew. The air was still and her senses were hypersensitive. She felt the cold on every centimeter of her body, she smelled the decay of a frozen deer carcass lying just off the side of the road, and she heard the heavy breathing of a large animal lurking in the forest. This sound was wet and hungry, and her heart rate increased in response to this threat. Sade knew she should get back into her vehicle, but she was petrified by her fear. Searching the brush that ran alongside the highway she desperately tried to locate the predator that was stalking her, but nothing was there but the sound of its hunger, that terrible sound.

Sade’s terror was cut short by the blaring squelch of a horn and the bright beams of light streaming from an oncoming truck. It was Wasi, who had turned around when he noticed that she was not behind him.

He pulled to a stop next to her and rolled down his window, “What are you doing in the middle of the street?”

Sade was jolted back to her known reality by Wasi’s question. Suddenly everything seemed “normal” again. There were dimensions, identifiable landmarks, light and there was Wasi.

“Sade,” he said trying to get a response from her, “what are you doing in the middle of the road?”

“I couldn’t…” she stammered as she searched for the predator that had called her out of her vehicle, but there was nothing there, not even the fear. “I don’t know.”

“Well get back in your car and let’s get back before something does happen.”

“Yes, of course,” Sade said as she slowly made her way back to her vehicle.

#

Sade’s Cabin

Sade pulled into her garage and closed the door. Wasi was waiting for her outside.

“So what happened out there? Why were you standing in the middle of the road?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I think I just got a little disoriented. Maybe I had a bad reaction to the pain in my arm,” Sade said.

Wasi had forgotten all about her arm in the excitement of the day. He felt guilty for this oversight, which was a new experience for him. He wondered why he cared that he had forgotten about her injury, and why he wanted nothing more than to help make things easier for her when his mission had a fatal exit clause.

“I’m sorry, I forgot,” he apologized. “Here let me take the box,” he said as he took the box of electro-acupuncture equipment from Sade and walked towards the door.

This move confused Sade, as Wasi had never offered to carry anything for her before.

“Are you okay?” she asked, wondering if something had happened that day that she didn’t know about.

Wasi didn’t answer this question. He just entered the security code in the keypad, inserted his key into the lock and turned it. Instead of opening the door, however, he paused and allowed his senses to take in the characteristics of his surroundings. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as his body responded to his sensing that something was off.

“What’s wrong?” Sade whispered in response to Wasi’s cautious behavior.

“I don’t know yet,” he said as he set down the box and started to examine the exterior of the cabin. He looked at the windows and at the snow that covered the ground around the walkway of the building. A disturbance near the covered breezeway between the cabin and the garage caught his attention. He slowly maneuvered around the corner and saw the window to the bathroom broken. He peered into the window to see if there was anyone inside the building, but it seemed quiet.

Wasi moved purposefully back to the front door. “Your bathroom window is broken out,” he said as he slowly opened the door and entered the house. “Stay out here.”

Wasi tuned in to the house feeling out every corner of the cabin for an anomaly that would signify an intruder. As he crept back to the point of entry, his ears strained for warnings of oncoming danger, but everything was quiet and still. Standing in front of Sade’s bedroom door he paused and held his breath. Then he pushed it open forcefully and sprung into the room like a bear bounding into the river after a salmon, but the room was empty. The only movement came from a corner of a curtain that was blowing in the wind which had been let in by the broken glass.

Wasi stood in the threshold of the bathroom and examined the damage. Broken glass sprayed across the floor and collected around a dead crow. He squatted down near the bird and evaluated the situation.

“What did you find?” Sade asked as she appeared over Wasi’s shoulder.

Wasi was startled from his investigation by her presence. “I thought I told you to stay outside.”

“You did,” she replied nonchalantly. “So what did you find?”

Wasi surrendered to Sade’s nature and pointed to the dead bird on the floor. “It looks like a bird crashed through your window.” He stood up, stretched his legs and exited the room.

Sade conducted her own evaluation of the situation as Wasi’s footsteps padded off into oblivion.

“No blood,” she said to herself as she looked around the room and at the bird.

Her curiosity drew her to her feet so she could get a better view of the bathroom. As she examined the contents of the room, something caught her attention. The door to the medicine cabinet was slightly ajar. She tried to push the door shut but it wouldn’t close all the way.

She turned off the light in the room and was about to leave when something urged her to look back. Even with the lights off, an energy field seemed to glow from around the mirror. She approached the mirror and touched the glass giving away the presence of a two-way mirror.

“Damn it,” she said as she closed the door and rushed to Wasi.

Wasi had made his way to the laboratory and was examining its integrity when Sade found him.

She was breathing hard from her discovery and asked him anxiously, “Is it secure?”

“It seems to be. Why?”

“I found something upstairs. My house has been compromised.”

“You’re being paranoid,” he said as he tried to calm her down. “Nothing was taken, no one was in your house. It was just a stupid bird that…”

“You and I both know that the bird did not break that window. We need to move the project out of here.”

Wasi started up the centrifuge and pulled Sade into the corner where their conversation would be muffled by the noise from the machine.

“I know the bird was a decoy, but it was too obvious. Ask yourself why someone would be so obvious? Why would they want you to think you were being watched?”

“The blackbird,” Sade said recognizing its significance. “We need to get out of here.” She began to pack up the lab using her one remaining healthy arm. “Can you call the air taxi and set up a flight for as soon as possible back to our camp, and then call Datz to let him know when we’ll be arriving?”

“Do you really think that it’s a good idea to leave? What about your arm?”

“The blackbird was a warning that we are being watched. We need to get out of here now.”

“Do you want me to call Kim to let him know that we’re heading north, then?” Wasi asked.

Sade tucked a box of papers under her arm. “He already knows.”

#

To be continued...