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Phoenix Ascendant ~*~ "Smoldering Embers" Part Two
He watched careful to stay silent. Silent as if he was nothing. No thoughts. Only eyes. Only a feedback loop to the others while he sat silently, so silently in that booth. They wanted to see, to know, to hear, and to be present, without the endangerment.~~~~In this fleshly, oily, sweaty body, he adjusted himself, with the idea of cutting off the bodily feelings and influences. He didn't like this one so much as the last one. It wasn't as good taken care of and it was run down, it was weathered, beaten, and unnoticeable. Which was exactly what he needed right now, not what he wanted though.
Ah, there she was finally.
She looked gathered, but unhappy. Not in an obvious way at all, just in the way she carried herself and seemed more withdrawn than she had before. Or perhaps it was the almost visible red cloud that hovered around her mentally. That gave out these warnings signs for feet in every direction. She was a thousand thunderstorms packed into such a small amount of space, giving off such an intensity it was a marvel everyone who was near her didn't feel it.
It gave him shivers down this oddly made body even and made him wonder why he'd ventured to be the one to come be here this early morning. No one had seen much of her for two days since the...incident. He hadn't been specifically involved in it, he was only involved by association really. He would have loved to have done it though. He wanted to. The thought made him grin slowly, crooked, and drooling.
He would have made more of a mess. Done all sorts of dirty things to her room. They had been so tame with what they had done. They could have done so much better. They could have done it to where it would have hurt her more. After raping her of something she spent her life seeking, they could have decimated more, hit her even harder. They need to inspire more-
Moving again, to follow her, but not close. Not close at all. Have to let her stay focused on her anger and her impatience. But whom was she waiting on? And why had she stayed hidden most of the last two days? And the crews that came and went in her old room, what were they needed for? And the new room, why was it buffered so completely?
Calming his thoughts he watched the line that trickled out of people from the newest arrival flight. She stood there, glued to her spot waiting. She might be talking to whoever it was, but to try and get into her mind to listen was too dangerous. It was whispered too much about how easy it would be for her to do anything from that point, and how no one knew just exactly how powerful she really was.
Especially after that explosion at Psi-Corps that was supposed to have killed her under floors and floors of rubble. The rumor was that out of hundreds she alone surface alive and unscratched, covered in white dust from everything, looking like an angel on a battle field.
Ah. Ha. Companion. Long dark brown hair. Blue Earth Force uniform. Rank? Huh. That was a pretty hard string to pull no matter who you were? How was this woman involved with the little red haired teep twit? And why?
Heh. It wouldn't matter anyway. He liked the fact they were talking quietly to each other with concerned and angry expression. It made him feel hot. He knew they were talking about what they'd stolen from them. What they'd taken and that they could never get-
{BASTARD!}
Shudders ran through his body suddenly. His vision blurred, his mind was a complete spasm of pain and red light and it all came back with instant shock. The voice had been like the power of thunder warmed over by a thousand, so much so that he hadn't heard the word so much as inhaled the meaning from the voice as it almost forced him to pass out. He wished he had when he could see finally.
The flamed haired whore was staring at him from across the entire floor, her eyes black and the air all around her black, stream lining toward him. He realized just about then he couldn't move his entire body. He felt like he was in a well of gravity that kept getting stronger and stronger. He felt incredibly scared and without even realizing it, he wet the dingy pants he had on.
He had to let go before he couldn't. He had to get back to the others. He had to let go before she killed him. He had to get back to his body. He had....He had....
He screamed out, the sound ripping through all the hustle of the large area between them, and fell to the floor.
~*~*~
( An hour later )
She waited with an impatience that wasn't limited. In fact, it actually seemed to grow with the passage of time that it took for the waiting to finish up. Sitting in her chair, she filed through bureaucratic paperwork like someone who'd done it since they'd been born. It wasn't calming her. It seemed really only to get her more and more annoyed at the entire situation.
Why was there no paperwork on this?
Why hadn't she been informed the moment it was known?
She looked up as someone cleared their throat to find herself meeting the eyes of her Security Chief, Zack Allan. Just perfect. The one person she wanted to see. She stood up as he shifted leaving one arm at his side.
"You needed to see me?"
"Yes, I wanted to ask you a few questions," Elizabeth said, walking to toward one wall. She called out to the room. "Computer Screen on."
She didn't look at the picture on the wall, but the vague wince that touched his face, said that it got the message across just as fast as saying it. So she turned back to the wall.
"Run picture sequence." The was a sequence of security shots of a certain individual. Arriving at a certain gate. Walking near the Zocalo with a certain Security Chief. Standing at a dinner talking to certain ambassadors.
"Perhaps you can clear something up for me, Mr. Allan," Captain Lockley said turning around to face him. "Do you know who this woman is?"
"Yes, ma'am." Zack said reluctantly, knowing he was in for it now. "That's Lyta Alexander."
"Good, Mr. Allan. Then can you tell me why she's not in a holding cell right now?"
Her eyes drilled into him as she watched him think. It was as if it all passed across his face and she started to talk as he opened his mouth to give her what she guessed would be a feeble, and unwanted excuse. She'd been steaming too long over this. It had been almost an entire week since Lyta got here!
"That's what I thought," she said crossing her arms. "What about why I wasn't informed of her arrival, presence, or the dealings with and of who she had in the time she's been here? After all the woman could be a damn clone, or a million other things, for all we know, she's supposed be-"
"She's not dead," Zack finished like steel, in rebuttal, trampling right over the end of her sentence.
"And you'd know? Because you know her so well? This is no time for school boy crushes, Mr. Allan. I have a station to run," she said turning to point at the screen, not caring how hard she stepped on his toes, and look back at him, "And that woman, even more so if it is her, is a danger to this station."
"She hasn't done anything to merit being-"
"The hell she hasn't," Lockley swore at him, as she rounded her desk. "All of what we went though the last time she was here. She swore never to return and that was her one and only way out of returning to Psi-Corps to face charges on their account and ours. Do I need to remind you of what she's done in the past, if it is her? Or the dangers to the station, if it isn't?"
"No." Zack said, steeling himself. This was going to be hell. He knew what was coming, he hadn't a way to stop it, and didn't know how he was going to do it.
"Have you read the security report your guys did for the past hour yet?" She said throwing it at him with a bite, when he shook his head, she had to keep from yelling again.
"Let me see if I can phrase this properly. There was a 'disturbance'," she said using her fingers to emphasize the word even as she was getting quieter and louder as she went about telling the story. "With the arrivals. After the arrival of one of our Earth Force Generals, the late commander of Babylon 5, Susan Ivanova -who I also wasn't informed was coming aboard prior to arrival and is mysteriously missing now- a man started screaming. It lasted for about two minutes and then he passed out due to strange circumstances."
"Strange circumstance involving this woman, whoever she, he or it might be; there are over thirty witness that can claim to have seen her and seen that she wasn't acting normal at this same time," Lockley finished, placing her hands behind her, her face flushed and expression angry.
"I want her taken into custody now. If you can't do it, I'll find someone else. Do you understand me?"
~*~*~
( About the same time, give or take, twenty minutes)
"You do realize just vanishing, isn't going to help your case, right?"
"It's not like you up and offered to stay and give a statement, yourself," Lyta responded from the kitchen, where she couldn't see her at present. "Cream? Sugar? Anything?"
"Just straight black," Susan replied, as she shook her head, thinking that the stupidity of that stunt needed to earn some vodka in her coffee. "That'll get me in trouble soon enough."
"I don't have any vodka, or any anything, since switching rooms yesterday." Lyta said airly, as she walked out with two cups, and handed Susan the one with coffee. She took a single chair to herself, her two bare hands holding the cup with tea above her knees. "So hopefully the coffee will suffice for now."
"Thank you. It's not going to be easy to explain vanishing with you," Susan said after taking a sip of her coffee. "That I'm not a hostage, there was a reason I didn't inform Captain Lockley of my arrival beforehand and a sensible reason for not staying to make a statement the moment something happened upon my arrival. Earth Force will want a report covering the reasons for all of this and my disappearance at the scene of a-"
"Disturbance?" the red haired woman near her offered with a rue laugh. "Crime scene?"
Susan forfeited her intensely troubled look when Lyta suddenly smiled. She guessed it was from her expression, but she wasn't quiet sure. When Lyta was actually, fully comfortable, she sometimes had the habit of almost behaving like someone younger.
"Won't be half as bad as my results," Lyta said, the odd smile staying, even as she contemplated her tea. "I'd done well at not making myself too known. When I heard him, all those thoughts about stealing TEEP, hot and heavy wanting to have done worse, I just wanted to--wanted to-"
"But you didn't," Susan said firmly, though she wondered if the woman sitting catty corner from her could be pushed far enough at one point to. After all she'd seen already, the idea was bad enough to hope she never saw it reach fruition. "Did you get anything else from him?"
"Yes," Lyta said softly, like a slow sigh. She pulled her teacup up to her lips and took a long sip from the cup. She'd learned too much and nothing from his mind, all the bad thought jumbled with the self-preservation ones, all tinted with anger and darkness from hers, as it festered. "I know where his body is, and where their sanctuary is."
"Why didn't you say that before now?" She asked, launching up with her cup. "We could have-"
"Done nothing," Lyta said frankly, as she adjusted her hands around the warm mug, liking the warmth it placed in her skin. Long ago during that traveling she'd realized some parts of her deep inside would never be warm. Never again so long as she lived. "They’re gone now, if they weren't the moment I realized who he was."
"How can you sit there so calmly after what they've done? Don't you just want to," Ivanova broke off, her hands clenched, having moved from a position that looked like a chokehold.
"You haven't seen the state of disarray my original room is in," Lyta replied watching the fiery Russian in her swinging movements before she started pacing with her coffee cup. The first room had some minor problems in it now. Nothing fatal or life threatening to the station, but there were some structural damages to the place that weren't easy to explain.
"That bad?"
Lyta shrugged, but didn't look away from her companion's eyes, when she responded openly with, "I've done worse to a place."
The memory of a large explosion sat between them only jarred when the door beeped and Susan looked toward it.
"The security chief and two of his officers," she spat. Her lips formed a thin line for a second, one hand clutching her cup with coffee in it.
Lyta took a slow, deep breath in through half clenched teeth and nodded her head very vaguely. She knew what was coming. She'd known this was coming when she'd step on the station. It wasn't enough to hope that it wouldn't happen, especially once she'd been found out. She'd been surprised it had lasted this long without happening.
"Open," she called out, her voice neutral but her mind tinted with annoyance. Only one other person in the room could hear the long string of curse words in varying languages she didn't say out loud. It was the intent that got that person through on the languages they didn't know, too. Looking up to Zack and the two other men in the door, she must have looked the least dangerous thing in the room. A woman sitting in a living room chair sipping from a cup.
Her one winning point though was the self-recrimination that sat in Zack's eyes even as he stood in the doorway focused on what he was there for. The other two she didn't know, didn't care about, mostly she was meeting only his eyes. Egging him further on in a task he felt so ill suited for that he felt physically sick. He didn't like doing this. He regretted doing this. Yet, he was there, in person, himself, doing it.
All over again.
"Lyta, we need to-"
You need? Why is it always about what 'you' need? What about what I need? I have bigger problems than you do right now. I have problems so big you haven't even an idea how big it gets. I am missing the biggest discovery of my people, possibly one of the biggest discovery of time, and it's always about the same thing;
What you need.
"I know," she said, looking away from them, her voice completely lacking emotion, though her brown eyes narrowed on the trio in the door. Standing up and holding her cup to Susan, who as she caught her eye, was shaking her head. As she took the cup, Lyta didn't look away from her to them, as if she were ignoring the other three people in the room.
"You don't have a room yet, do you?" Lyta asked, as if everything was fine. She didn't look away and she asked for nothing the way her expression sat. It was only the echoes behind her thoughts that were darker. She didn't look around the room, only brushed her bare palms against each other, and laced her fingers together.
"I'd like you stay here, since I have a feeling I won't be needing it for a while." Turning, just barely toward them, she reached out to Susan. Her touch was even tentative after years of knowing her mind, and perhaps it was because she knew her that she touched so softly, speaking in the faintest echo.
{When I'm gone, take him there.}
{Lyta!}
{Take him.}
~*~*~
( Two Hours Later )
She was there and she wasn't; all at once.
Physically she was still sitting in that chair, in perfect posture, with her hands together on her lap, her eyes open staring foreword. Metaphysically she was everywhere else, near and far, stretched out to her furthest limit, free of the mortal coil that she clung to only by a thread.
If you looked at her through the monitor it seemed she barely moved. Her chest rose and fell in such a very small movement. Her eyes never blinked. Her hands never trembled, and her crossed legs never swayed even slightly. Aside from the smallest movement of her chest, she could have been a marble statue sitting in the room.
She was where she wished; somewhere very far away and never gone all at once.
Painstakingly questioned by Zack, till she though he might break through the line of superficial red tape standing between them when she wouldn't answer certain questions but he didn't, she was more than annoyed at the entire situation. He kept dancing around the situation, like a moth and a flame.
She always knew she made him edgy, so why had he played at being fine till today? Was it simply a game? Or was it just that he'd stayed by her side so he could keep tabs on her till they decreed to not let her out of this room again?
Days and hours and minutes being lost in this charade. The knowledge of how easy it would be to break this room in the palm of her hand. The room hadn't changed any. A new picture, a different type of chair, several different psionic echoes and the memory that every inch of the wall, every inch of this prison cell, hadn't changed in all the years she'd been gone.
Here it was always noisy, whether it was the people, or the echoes of the people, but where she fled to, there was silence. Brief but completely silent, and staggering in a limbo between the two was a soft form of hell, a shattered comfort. She listened to the lull of that which only she was privy to hearing now.
Stars sang in the long endless night and no one listened to their songs anymore that she knew, save herself. All those races that had learned how, vanished into the night, beyond the rim. And, yet, the stars sang on. As they had before life, as they knew it, had begun and as they would when life, as they knew it, was gone forever.
{Do you ever stop and list to yourself and realize just how depressive you can sound?}
Her eyes blinked suddenly, which was accompanied by a discordant sensation inside of her, and a sudden long string of swearing.
{I'm not sure what you just said, aside from the fact I know it would have burnt me black, but right back at you.}
Lyta stretched in the chair realizing her back hurt on one side and she shifted her hands, her expression growing rather annoyed. {Why are you here?}
{Well, see, I'm stuck on this floating mass of metal in the middle of space, where this group of people has just happened to take captive, like, one of the most important people left in my life, and, well, I decided the only good answer to that was a strike.}
Lyta raised a hand to her head, and rubbed over her left temple and eyes softly, even as she swore in more known languages. {Go back down below, Melissa. This isn't a game. Get away from the security area, before I remove you.}
{That is so not a fair threat!}
{Then stop acting like a child playing the penny game. They're serious about their rules.} Lyta frowned and stood up, as she pretended not to listen to the girl giggle at her thoughts on exactly what their rules really stood for. Sometimes between the human term a pile of beans and a narsak term of endearment for someone about to die.
{I'm serious, too!}
{You're rarely serious, Melissa, even when you’re trying to be.} Lyta walked around the circular table in the center of the running, running her fingertips along the edge of it. Echoes of voices and thoughts permeated her touch and thoughts, even as they were dismissed for her irascible conversation. {What are you doing?}
{Come see!}
Vision framed by flame red hair that was hanging loose, an image unfolded before her eyes. Correction, Melissa's eyes, which she was seeing through. Three juggling balls were hovering in the air, slowly rotating back and forth through the routine of juggling, every few seconds a small spec of color would appear and vanish on them. She couldn't get the colors to stay yet and no one aside from the air was juggling them.
{Your control with them is improving, but that still doesn't give you the right to stage a strike outside this door. What do you think your going to accomplish? Aside from letting everyone know your a telekinetic and that there are more of us here, Melissa? Think!}
{I am!} The girl retreated stubbornly with a burst of anger under Lyta's hand as she let the balls fall to the ground and collected them in her hands. {I want you to come out! I want them to let you out! I want you to break out! I want you to stop hiding behind that door and walk out! I know you can! Everyone does! Why are you staying there?}
{Might makes right? How old are you? Do you think that if you start pounding on the door, they'll just let you in, and then let me out? Do you think they won't just take you in and lock you up, too, just for disturbing the peace out there and staging your silly little strike?} Lyta asked, as her fingers curled into a fist and she tapped her knuckles on the table, wanting to punch the table.
Last time it had been Byron. Everything had almost worked out, if they'd only let it all work out. She refused to see everything and everyone be lost that way again. She didn't need more problems!
{Ooohhh, is that what I am now? Am I just your problem, miss I can do everything and I don't need anyone??? Fine! Fine! Well, just rot in there! I didn't care anyway!}
As she watched, and felt, the girl storm away, she raised her fist, feeling it tremble. She closed her eyes, tightened it still, and shot it back down. It stopped only about two inches from striking the table.
The table shuddered anyway.
~*~*~
( About the Same Time )
"This one right here?" he asked as they got to the door.
"That's what she said," she responded, agitated. Her movements were sharp and quick, unlike when she was relaxed. She was tense and pent up, angry and impatient. She hadn't liked having to wait so long either and not knowing what was happening.
Zack tapped on the pad, just to get it to respond with the fact the door was sealed. He called into the room; nothing happened. Once more. Then he began an override. It didn't take too long, it was habit by now. When he was done, the door hung open. An inky darkness filled everything inside, and he pulled a flash light off his belt.
"Lights," he called as he waved the light into the room. Nothing happened. He inched in slowly, flash light in one hand and gun in the other. "Anyone in here?"
This aspect was very hated of all of them. This wasn't a large room by any scape of the imagination, but in the dark, all these places seems so much larger than they really were. It seemed like every time you wanded the light across the darkness you were suddenly going to come upon something gut stomping and heart wrenching. More often than not, it happened.
A second beam of light only minorly distracted him for a second, when Susan said, "I'll check the back room."
He nodded, and replied, "Just be careful."
Zack wandered through empty spaces everywhere, feeling creeped out by the fact he couldn't find any furniture anywhere. The kitchen was sparsely stocked. The room seemed to be this big void of space and nothing else. No furniture, no belongs, no nothing.
Making his way to the back room, he called out, "Find anything?"
"A man," Susan replied, as her flashlight was joined by another. He was tall and thin, and he looked like he was in a deep sleep from what they could see at the doorway, on a bright white unmade pallet.
"Is he?"
"Dead? No," she said, as she took her fingers away from his neck. "I'm not sure how much longer he would will be alive though. His pulse is weak and so is his breathing, but he's definitely alive."
He nodded and raised the arm with the flashlight, it sprayed light across another empty wall as he tapped his communicator. **Med Lab One, We need a stat team down here at once.**
He got an acknowledgement and then it beeped out. The darkness of the room save two beams of light seem to devour them in blackness, even more so when Invanova's flashlight started flickering.
"Stupid, faulty machine," she hit her flashlight on the side of it's head lightly trying to make it work, when suddenly it failed. A clicking noise followed as she tried to flip it on and off.
"We'll have to get a team in here. To fix up the lights," Zack said after a moment, moving the light around the room. "I didn't see much out there. Did you see anything else in here?"
"Just the man and the bed," Susan said, having to admit she didn't really feel like cooperating with Zack at that moment. After what Lyta had said earlier, she had thought Zack was helping them, but now, who knew where Zack stood.
In his normal place in line, in the chain of command, a little voice sniggled at her inside. Like you're supposed to be.
The silence grew thicker with passing time as neither of them said anything. It was a maddening silence in the darkness. Shadows deepened and lightened as their eyes adjusted to the darkness with one light source, and the room behind them where light poured in through the doorway.
"It's completely empty save for the bed," Susan remarked breaking the silence after a moment. "Doesn't that strike you as rather odd that there aren't any clothes or anything anywhere?"
"Yeah," he replied, as he shone the light down at the floor, not needing it so much anymore. He shifted uncomfortably as he said, "I've only seen a few others like this before and only one with nothing else."
She didn't respond for a long time. Not concentrating on him, she found whips of words that seemed to pour out of him. He reminded her of a dripping bucket sometimes, brimming over his edges and leaking everywhere. It was strange to hear Lyta's name on it so often at the moment.
The empty room reminded him of the day he'd found Lyta in a room almost exactly like this.
"When?"
"The other one like this? Well, I'm not sure I should really talk about," Zack said, reluctantly. "It's really her place to say if she-"
He remembered she'd said something about the second Kosh making her live that way. It seemed a terrible way to live and yet she'd endured it. Alone, too. Clear shown in his mind though most of all he remembered the tears in Lyta's eyes and the shame that filled her entire expression when he'd arrived that night as a surprise.
"Her?" Susan's voice in the darkness asked curiously.
There was a pause, as Zack cleared his thoughts, and said barely about the sound of a hum, "Lyta's."
"Lyta had a room like this?"
"I'm not really sure I should be telling you this. It's her place to say and it was long ago," he rambled. Silence took for a moment, and then he let out a sigh. If he did get in trouble for it, it was just another thing to add to the string of things after the way she stared at him angrily for over an hour already. "See Kosh, the second one, not the first, gave her these explicit instructions that she shouldn't have anything in her room. He said that it was all a distraction. She couldn't have anything in her room. No decorations, pictures, comforts; nothing at all. The one time I saw it, she was so ashamed she almost didn't even want to let me come in."
"Damn," he heard her swear lightly, and barely made out the murmur of; "Damnit, what else has she seen and lived though, making sure not to tell anyone?"
"It didn't last for long and then it was over, so the problem was gone," he said.
"Still, no one did anything about it, Zack." He heard the anger starting to creep into her voice. "No one ever did anything about her, even when we did know. Not a one of us."
"Yeah, well, it's over now," Zack said, trying to sound a little lighter in his speech. "This room just looks the same."
When Susan didn't reply for a few seconds, he guessed she wouldn't, and then she did. But it was quiet again, more like a whisper, which he had to struggle to hear as the med staff poured into the room.
"The more things change, the more they stay the same."
~*~*~
( One Hour Later )
Stomping down the hallway, her coat swishing behind her, she swore angrily at the top of her thoughts. She didn't care if she could still hear her. She even hoped she could hear it. She hoped they left her in there to rot. Stupid woman. Playing by their stupid rules. Sniffling once, she reached up to wipe the wetness from her eyes.
She wasn't just a child to be moved around when she was told to. She'd show her. She would! She'd figure it all out and have it handed back. She'd be helpful. She'd show that she could be more helpful than just being something in the way. No one ever gave her the chance anymore. They just patted her on the head and expected her to run along and play. She wasn't even a child, either. She was in her early twenties and some of the teenagers got more freedom.
It was down right unfair.
But no one questioned Lyta's judgements.
Besides it wasn't like she'd come here alone in the beginning anyway. Why had she been the only one yelled at? It wasn't like she'd known right away that she'd planned it all along and talked the other people into it. It was just her. Always only just her. It wasn't fair. Not at all.
Sneaking past a guard set by one of the walls, she reached into his mind and made it so she was covered and unseen at all. It wasn't fair to them, but they could take a leap out an air lock for all she cared. They were part of the people who ruined her life and anyone she'd cared about. They were trying to ruin another life she cared about now. Not that she hadn't tried to help fight against that system.
She just had been pushed away from helping.
Once again.
Looking left and right, she triggered the sensor that opened the door, and ducked under the yellow caution and red off limits tape and into the room. The door closed behind her, the security guard looking oddly at the door one wall away, as he'd seen it open and close. He was calling to report it, but he wasn't coming toward the door. That was terrific. No one would get in her way.
{That's right. No one will get in our way.}
The voice haunted her mind even as her head screamed in pain and she was lost in complete and utter darkness.
~*~*~
( Two Hours Later )
The door came open with a whooshing sound and she walked into the room. It looked like most singular holding cells. If you'd seen one, you'd seen them all. The person sitting in it was faced away from her. The chair was beside the table, sideways. Her long red hair hung over the back of the chair and her left hand was out on the table, her fingers moving in an odd pattern.
She stood there a moment, tapping one of her feet, as if waiting. Then she cleared her throat loudly.
"Do you ever think of just announcing yourself? Or is a simple hello too much for you still, Captain Lockley?"
"Do you realize the situation you've put me in?" The dark haired woman started walking toward her, where she sat facing away with no designed movement to make it easier.
"Lets see, I've jeopardized your station and your millions of people by walking out a space dock and being overtly nice to everyone for days," The woman in the chair said with a chilly air to her words.
"Overly nice? You call what you did this morning being overly nice?" Lockley rounded on her around the chair, a look at her calm and completely chiseled expression rubbing her all the wrong ways. "Or are you still denying that you attacked a man this morning?"
"No. I did not attack a 'man' this morning," Lyta tilted her chin and raised her eyes to meet the frantic and feisty captain hovering so close to her, not giving her an inch even with that movement, as she emphasized the word man.
"I see," Lockley said putting her hands on her waist. "So the two men in a coma in med lab three are just mysteriously linked to you, because you haven't done anything?"
"If you'd stop putting words in my mouth, captain," she rebuttaled, her voice growing colder, the color in her eyes reddening slightly. "Maybe you'd learn something. But we both know how well that goes over, don't we?"
"So, now you have something to say? When three hours ago you were blatantly silent when asked to give your side of the story?"
Lyta narrowed her eyes on the woman, even as her left hand continued to tap out a weird rhythm with her fingers. It didn't seem to stay the same, Elizabeth realized, as she also realized that the strange movement was driving her further and further along her growing aggravation of this moment.
"If you don't let me out of here more people are going to die," she said calmly, her eyes not wavering from the Captains. "Then it will be on your hands, as well."
"Earth-Force-does-not-make-deals-with-terrorists!" Lockley announced loudly.
"So first I'm an attacker? And now I'm a terrorist? Do have any other names you'd like to call me before we continue on to a civilized conversation, Captain?"
Lockley gritted her teeth. She had hated dealing with this woman the first time. Her grandeur shows of power, her flighty wit, her rebellious and haughty attitude. There was a reason she made a deal with her originally saying she'd never be allowed back on the station if she agreed to leave. And why was she still tapping her hand? Was it some show of power? Something to just annoy the crap out of her?
"You did attack a man this morning, there are witness who can corroborate the story. He probably could, too, were he not in a coma. Last known whereabouts when you left the station you were a terrorists linked to several bombings of small Psi-corps related incidents. You were rumored dead in an explosion that took out the main base of Psi-Corps. Also rumored to be the reason it blew up."
"Rumors can be such fickle things, can't they?" Lyta asked staring straight into her eyes, no give or take at all, just unending rebellion and tightly held anger. "It's nice to know you were such an avid follower of my life. I'm sure you cried your heart out over my supposed death."
"I'm growing tired of these games," she said hotly at the woman sitting down. "At the best you're a terrorist, and worst, you're a mass murderer."
Whatever it was, it was started to get to her so much she wanted to slam her hand down and stop her. Letting out an exclamation and tossing her hands out slightly, she shook her head. "If it wasn't for the fact you seem to have made friends in high places while you were gone, I'd be content to leave you here for the duration of figuring out what to do with you. Mr. Allan and General Ivanova, seem to be vying for your safe return from confinement. Do you know why that might be, Ms. Alexander?"
"Because you don't know who or what is killing the men down in brown sector, and I do, and without me you'll never be able to stop them. They're already getting ready to do it again. But, of course, you already knew that, didn't you?" Lyta phrased her words mockingly, stating her knowledge, where Lockley lacked it.
So what she said was a half-truth. It was obvious by her face, it was more than she hadn't known already. Besides why fuel the fire by telling her they were probably on the station because of her voyage there? It brought up to many other unanswered questions that the caffeine wired captain would jump on in less than a few seconds. White lies didn't bother her in the slightest. She still had some big lies stored up from the past anyway. The little ones didn't seem like anything compared to those.
"You're a danger to this station," Elizabeth said like she was swearing. "I'd be insane to let you out knowing what you can do."
And I could have the next death on my hands if I don't, she heard the thought slip out. A rare thing, but it happened, especially when people tended to be in emotional states. They screamed things in their heads and never realized. It was a triumphant moment though, she'd gotten under Lockley's skin and inside her logic at the moment.
"It's your decision then," Lyta said sitting back in the chair and adjusting her right hand in her lap, still playing an invisible piano with her other hand. One of the last twenty people to stay in this room had been a man condemned for murder. He'd studied piano growing up on Earth and moved his fingers to one of Beethoven's symphonies to keep himself busy in here. It didn't so much calm her, as it distracted a section of her mind that free floated always, and, also, she admit to a secret part of herself, she enjoyed the torment over the woman in front of her.
"There's been almost one a day since this started, do you really need another before you’re convinced?"
"Why is it you? Why do you only know?" Lockley raised her voice turning to face her and the door behind her trying to decided if she saw a predatory grin slip across Lyta's face in the space of less than a second and vanish just as fast. "Is that why you came here? Or did it come here because you?"
"That's a silly question to ask," she said, gathering a smug smile. "The murders started days before I even arrived."
"And you think, because you just know what they are, that you can simply sweep into this place, with apologies abounding from everyone for your past transgressions, and we'll let you just wipe away our little problem?" Elizabeth shot at her and shook her head. "It doesn't work like that."
"Because I've dealt with them before," the red haired woman replied, completely ignoring the last question, her voice thick like a knife slicing through velvet. "And know better than you what they can do. You still think the deaths are aneurysms, don't you? Or have you even figured that the blood to brain was stopped without severing anything inducing death in seconds? The carteroid artery is a very small object that only needs to be pinched a few seconds-"
Lockley stared at her blank faced for a second and then her mouth opened suddenly, "You can't reach the carteroid-"
"You can if you're telekinetic," Lyta said firmly and watched Lockley's face pale slightly, and her mental state get more unruly. She really did seem to have distaste for anyone she couldn't completely control, and who might have abilities she herself couldn't use. "That's not even the worst of it, Ms. Lockley. Not only are they dangerous because of this, but also because they were a pet project that was controlled by Psi-Corps. When the Psi-Corps was gone they were free to do whatever they wanted."
"They were an experiment not just to see how long telepaths could truly leave their bodies but how long they could inhabit other people. They were tested and trained from birth, denied many of the privileges or rights of any normal person growing up in the Corps. They were nicknamed Leapers as a type of joke on what they did. They were twisted, and tainted, straight from their dark genesis in that hell. And now, now they're free to wreck havoc on the entire galaxy."
"You'll never be able to tell who they are on your own," Lyta said, staring at Lockley still with utter contempt. Except now it wasn't just contempt for the woman in front of her, but also for the organization which she referred to. One that had tried one time too many to kill her and everyone she ever cared about. "You won't know what bodies they've taken over or have a way to remove them, temporarily or permanently. You won't know who to trust the moment you walk out of this room, because they could be inside anyone. Your first officer, your security staff, anyone."
"You may not like it and you might not like me in the slightest, but," A strange twinkle entered Lyta's red-green eyes as she finished her words, "You need me."
~*~*~
( The Next Morning )
"Let me get this straight, you just talked to her and she let you walk out?" Susan asked, still looking baffled.
"I just pointed out that she needed my help," Lyta replied, walking down the hallway between Susan and a strangely silent Zack, "she simply acceded to high logic, after a nudge in the right direction. And it's not like she let me walk out without her thinking she was completely in control of the situation. She wanted me to swear not to use my powers except in the capture of the murders."
"Did you?" she asked, sounded affronted and surprised.
She didn't respond right away, the end of that conversation still on replay in her mind, every detail as crisp and sure as the moment it happened in. Talking to an irrational person, and getting them to think the way you wanted, was like playing poker and having to change cards in the middle of the game. She was used to paranoid high-strung people at this point, she already knew how to maneuver Micheal pretty well, and Lockley had been so much easier.
She stopped walking, causing the other two to stop, and she looked to Susan at her side, her words soft but her eyes focused hard. "How much would you give up for TEEP, Susan?"
Her brown eyes softened, and darkened, all at once. She had promised, for the only main thing Lockley didn't know, and Lyta would do anything to avoid admitting she would die for. She shook her head, and took Lyta's hand for a moment, feeling the wash of her friends' emotions at that moment. Even the fatalist doubt, buried back in the back of her mind, that wondered if she'd ever see, again, the sunlight of what all her hard worked years had earned her.
"We'll get it back," Susan said fiercely. "It doesn't matter who or what we have to go through, but we'll get it back."
Lyta nodded, pulling her hand back, and starting to walk down the corridor again. She glanced at Zack out of the corner of her eyes and wondered what was going on with him. He'd been detailed to stay with her and make sure she kept her word, but aside from agreeing and asking where she'd like to go first, he hadn't made a peep. She had decided against looking in his mind, once more, and came to the conclusion she'd simply broken his little white bubble around herself again.
He was just disappointed in her.
She could deal with disappointment. Everyone seemed to get disappointed at her at one time or another, proving to her once again she didn't need them, and then returning just when they needed her again, as if nothing had happened. She refused to let that happen again. If he wanted to stew and sulk and be disappointed and be shut off in her presence, she was just going to let him. It didn't bother her.
It didn't!
It did.
Lyta blew a deep sigh at her bangs and snapped her head over to Susan, who she had thought for a second might be laughing, but she decided against it, when Susan met her eyes inquiringly.
"That's the room," Zack said evenly as they stopped about ten feet from a door. "But I've already told you there's nothing in it."
"That depends on what you're looking for actually," Lyta corrected him, as she walked toward the open door. "What I'm looking for will be there. I don't want a distraction, so just stay here and keep each other company, I shouldn't be long."
Zack watched her walk in and kicked himself once again. He was certain she didn't want him near by now. She didn't care. She was angry. It was his entire fault somehow, even if it wasn't. He should have handled it all better. He didn't know how, but he should have. His mind kept screaming that at him, even as he glanced at Ivanova with raised eyebrows and asked;
"Do you have any idea what she's talking about?"
"Psionic echoes," she replied looking from the doorway where Lyta vanished to Zack's face. "They're recorded psychic reflections of everything that's ever happened in the room. She wants to see if the room has an imprint of anything important she could use to help her."
"But wouldn't-," he started, not sure where to take that sentence, so he tried so equally as stupid and sheepishly said. "And you're-?"
"Yes," Susan said, not comfortable talking about it out in the open and in such a public place. She still hid her gifts. Even having anyone know who might jeopardize her career...she could have it all terminated in the blink of an eye. Speculation on how long she lied and what else she could be lying to them about. Her mind shuddered and she jumped.
"What? What's wrong?"
"She's screaming," she said catching her breath, her hands going to her head.
"I don't hear anything."
"Not out loud," she said, shaking her head sharply and heading in at a fast pace. "Something's wrong."
Pulling out his gun he ran after her, and fell in behind both of them. They were both standing in the center of the bedroom, staring around them. It looked completely the same to him, nothing different. "Am I missing something here?"
"They've got her," Lyta whispered almost too quietly, the timbre of her voice growing angrier. The entire room was becoming rapidly warmer, especially near her.
"Who?"
"Melissa," she replied, though all she seemed to be able to hear was the two echoes dramatically staged to be the main things she noticed. One of a man saying over and over and over in a mantra of dark laughter "you will regret your actions" and the other of Melissa screaming in pure terror.
Concluded in Arise the Flames