Broken Dreams (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 5) Read Free Page B

receptacle, and you eliminate the possibility.”
    At least technically. Of course that doesn’t take into account metaphysics.
    Dr. Canfield rolled her eyes and took a deep breath.
    Mara cocked a quizzical eyebrow at her.
    “Frankly I like better the solution where you take your friends and go home, but I don’t see how cutting the signals will do any harm. Give me a few minutes to wrap up here, and we’ll grab a technician and head over to the repository.”
    * * *
    Perry, a gregarious bald man who looked old enough to be considering retirement, opened the toolbox on the floor before the console to the transparent tube containing Abby. He squinted into the open top of the box, contemplating something and then looked up at the dim ceiling. The inset lighting just above the area brightened, and the man smiled. “That’s better,” he said. Reaching into the box, he extracted a device that looked like a tuning fork.
    Mara crouched next to him and asked, “What kind of tool is that?”
    Without looking up, he said, “It’s a depolarizer. I will use it to unseal the side of this control panel.”
    “How does it work?”
    “The inside surface is covered with a thin film that seals it in place. This tool changes the magnetic properties of that film, releasing the cover. Watch.”
    He positioned the tuning fork at the panel corner closest to the floor and moved the tool up the side of the console, across the top and down the other side to the floor again. After replacing the tool in the box, Perry grasped the edge of the panel with his fingertips and pulled it away from the console, revealing a maze of lights, fibers and mechanisms inside.
    “Mara?” Dr. Canfield, who stood a few feet away looking at a data pad, called to her. “Come take a look at this.”
    Mara straightened and went to her. As she approached, the doctor held out the pad. The screen displayed a chart with three lines on it. One of the lines was relatively flat while the other two climbed toward the upper right corner.
    “What’s this?” she asked.
    The doctor ran her finger along the flat line and said, “This is the level of anxiety hormones reported in your friend Abby. Normal, not elevated at all. These other two represent a cross-section of receptacle occupants. Virtually all are elevated to some degree.”
    “Are Sam and Ping in any danger?”
    “Not immediately but don’t you think it is odd that Abby is the only person not affected by the spike? That she’s the only one not feeling this fight-or-flight response?”
    “Not if she’s the one causing it,” Mara said.
    The doctor frowned at the pad. “I don’t know …”
    “I’m ready to pull the signal processor now,” Perry called out, his voice muffled because his head was inside the opened console. “Are you sure you want me to do it? Once it’s done, it can’t simply be plugged back in.”
    “Go ahead and pull it,” the doctor said, still staring at the line chart.
    Mara glanced up at Abby in the transparent tube, half expecting to see some kind of reaction on her face. Instead a blossom of bright light reflected off the glass. Mara turned to see several streaks of lightning shoot out the side of the console, arcing along Perry’s spasming body and jumping across the room, where they struck an unoccupied receptacle that exploded, spraying glass for several yards.
    Mara and the doctor ran to the open console and crouched next to the limp form lying there.
    “Don’t touch him!” the doctor ordered. “He might be carrying some kind of charge.”
    Perry rolled over to his side and removed his head from the console. “No, I won’t shock you, but that signal processor sure will. Whew!”
    “Are you okay?” Mara asked.
    The technician shook his head, as if to check for loose parts. Determining none, he smiled, sat up and said, “I think so.”
    “What happened?” the doctor asked.
    “When I touched the signal processor, it emitted some kind of electrical pulse.