The Source (The Mindbender Series Book 1)

  The Source

  C.S. Luis

  Copyright (C) 2019 C.S. Luis

  Layout design and Copyright (C) 2019 by Next Chapter

  Published 2019 by Shadow City – A Next Chapter Imprint

  Edited by Kathrin Hutson

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

  Table of Contents

  Proem: Extraction

  Chapter 1: Belle's Ring

  Chapter 2: Arrival

  Chapter 3: A New Home

  Chapter 4: Presence

  Chapter 5: The Gift

  Chapter 6: Family History

  Chapter 7: The Balance

  Chapter 8: The Shadow in the Hall

  Chapter 9: High School Acquaintance

  Chapter 10: The Man in the Black Suit and Red Tie

  Chapter 11: The End is Always the Beginning

  Chapter 12: Michael McClellan

  Chapter 13: Goodbye

  Chapter 14: Milton High in Mourning

  Chapter 15: The Lecture

  Chapter 16: Lunch Group

  Chapter 17: Among Friends

  Chapter 18: Goth Girl

  Chapter 19: The Eerie Sound

  Chapter 20: Invited Guest

  Chapter 21: The Mysterious Quentin

  Chapter 22: The Morning After

  Chapter 23: The Absent

  Chapter 24: Troublemaker

  Chapter 25: At the Principal's Office

  Chapter 26: Denial

  Chapter 27: Memories

  Proem:

  Extraction

  Glass prison cells lined the long white corridors, the lights of sensor mechanisms blinking on and off. In one such cell, a young woman with smooth skin untouched by the sunlight lay upon a bed. Strands of long black hair draped across the white linen pillow. Within her diamond-shaped face, delicate cheekbones rose above full, rosy lips.

  She lay far too still, dressed in a white, long-sleeved shirt and pants. Only when she took a breath and the sheets shifted did she reveal any sign of being alive. A steel collar hugged her neck, tiny green lights along the outer edge flashing across the surface with her breathing pattern. This blinking also mimicked the pattern of similar lights in the corner of the room, near the entrance. When the green flashed to yellow, the woman's her body seemed to relax. Her once stiff muscles eased, allowing movement once again.

  Her eyes opened.

  “Hello?” the woman whispered, staring up at the white ceiling. She was alone, but something had awakened her. She looked around, now remembering where she was with an unagonizing certainty. Her dreams provided the only release from this reality.

  The same day repeated itself—tests and challenges. She recalled a flash of her earlier days, sitting across from a man in white. Her sisters called them the Whitecoats. Some wore a black or blue uniform with strange red emblems on the side of the arm. Those were the guards, who brought her to the room for conducted tests.

  The tests were always the same.

  There was always a wall between them, the lower half solid and the upper half glass. The Whitecoat asked questions using only his mind and allowed her to read his thoughts. She thought it a boring game; she always answered correctly.

  Sometimes, she was unstable; that was what they called it. His nose would bleed, a smile wrinkling her lip until a violent shock raced through her body. Then she dropped. That was what the collar did when they activated it. It had happened the day before, and she'd stayed in her quarters, still as a board and unable to move. Perhaps it was her punishment. Of course, they wanted control over those in containment.

  She was, after all, a prisoner of the men in white coats. She was special, they said. She was among the few others who could talk to them—the creatures in the containers, those same beings she found in her dreams.

  Had she heard a voice calling to her just before she opened her eyes, or was it all inside her head? She pulled the cotton sheet off her body, crawled to the side of the bed, swung her legs over the edge, and sat up.

  'Maya.' This time, she was sure she heard it. A whisper somewhere, hidden behind or even traveling through the vents. No, it was in her head.

  The small room she occupied had no windows, only the clear glass door revealing the outside hall—stark and sterilized. She knew the corridor's dimensions by heart. She saw it in her dreams.

  'Maya.' The voice was clearly in her head. Someone was trying to reach her.

  'Quinn?'

  'Yes…'

  'I hear you. Where are you?'

  * * *

  'Who are you?' she'd asked.

  'Someone who loves you. Do you not sense it?'

  The collar's shock set her upright. A needle pierced her skin, and his voice faded.

  He found her mind during tests and experiments—her first indication he was real. The collar and their needles subdued both her skills and their link with each other. Control. He taught her the skill, the craft of their connection, and with time, she had mastered certain movements.

  'You're getting stronger,' he'd told her with pride.

  Their life unfolded in her mind, and a vast civilization flourished; she was part of that world. He stood beside her, holding her in his arms and observing the world with her.

  “We once had a life together,” he said. “We came from the stars. A lot was lost. Including loved ones.” He turned to look at her. “But I found you again.”

  “What happen to our world?” She knew this was now what she saw before them—a once lively and beautiful planet, diminished, depleted resources and vast, cluttered landfills of waste. The air had thinned, becoming unbearable. Fires took the place of green fields, destroying the few remaining crops. Skies darkened, and storms increased. They stood watching it unfold.

  “We took and took until there was nothing more to use. We killed everything for power, and on the brink of finding a solution—our breakthrough—we created more chaos.”

  Crystals lit the corridors of a vessel traveling in the deep expanse of space, the corner line with a black tar stain the surface of the space's floor and hibernation chambers.

  “They're beautiful,” she said.

  “They're deadly…” he whispered. “We destroyed our only home. The crystals only brought disease, and the tar came after.” She found sadness in his voice, disappointment in his purple eyes.

  When they were together, it seemed they existed alone in another plane; their connection had achieved a deeper bond not even the Whitecoats could detect or possibly understand. The world he had once known was now gone; she knew this because he did. His people's search for a new home had brought them to earth—and to her.

  'I'm close. Closer than you think, my love… Come to me. It's time.' His words brought her back to this reality—a reality she hated.

  She rose from the side of the bed, the dressings of a white linen uniform caressing her form. The red markings on her collar was identical to his. The bed's metal frame had been etched with single lines to record her time there. How many days had it been? How many years? She'd scratched eighteen lines in the metal before he found her, and then she'd stopped counting the days; she couldn't be sure how many more she'd spent within these walls.

  'Come to me, Maya. Please,' he begged. 'I need you more than eve
r. Don't let them keep us apart any longer. I want you close. Come to me. Please…' She missed his arms around her and yearned for the comfort of his presence in this reality.

  'I miss you too. I love you.' A surge of energy flooded her body, reaching out from an unknown place where he dwelled in the darkness, like a current racing from one end to the other until they were linked, mentally and spiritually. “The genetic disorder,” the Whitecoats called it. For her, it was love.

  'How? I can't—' She froze.

  'Yes, you can. Trust me,' he said.

  She pressed her face against the glass of the door, feeling the energy run through her fingertips. The lock above the door was electrically charged, the mechanism operating just like the collar around her neck. She reached out to touch the metal choker. Her fully charged fingers sent a shock through it, and it dropped with a clang at her feet.

  'Together we are stronger,' he whispered. They had practiced the act repeatedly; several times, she'd taken the brunt of the powerful force, leaving her immobile for the rest of the day. They'd learned how to change the pattern. Then she'd discovered a brief moment when the collar was less active inside the cell.

  'Together we are stronger. They don't know the strength of our power.'

  The switch above blinked off, and the locked door popped open.

  She stepped into the corridor, white ceilings and walls stretching in each direction. Rooms like hers lined the hallway.

  'Don't be afraid,' he said. 'Maya, hurry. There's no time to waste…'

  She raced to one end of the corridor; above her, the air vent rattled. The screws slowly fell from their sockets onto the floor, each landing with a light thud in her open palm. The grate over the vent followed. Maya caught it quickly and placed it on the floor. Then she leaped to grasp the lip of the ventilation shaft, pulled herself up, and disappeared into the darkness.

  “I'm coming,” she whispered.

  The vents composed a vast a labyrinth, made of so many twists and turns to open into other corridors where guards patrolled the halls. Maya despised those brutes.

  She crawled forward, his voice leading the way. 'Don't be afraid. Once you are here, we will be together forever, and no one will separate us,' he encouraged.

  An image of a young man dressed in black leather attire flashed in her mind; he waited. He was there in her dreams and in her thoughts. His face was creamy white, locks of dark hair cut short and practical. His purple, almond-shaped eyes gazed back at her from some dark place.

  Her uniform caught on a loose screw in the vent walls, ripping when she pulled it away. Distant voices caught her attention, carried up to her by a nearby vent. She leaned toward the grate for a closer look.

  The room was large and white, filled with lab equipment. A large container held a figure, dressed in a scaly, leather uniform, sitting within it. She recognized the uniform. Quinn wore one just like it.

  “Careful,” a male voice warned. At the far side of the room, she caught the movement of a mechanical arm. She couldn't clearly see what was happening.

  “The cells are splitting. It's working!” another man exclaimed from the other end of the room. “Congratulations, Dr. Nicholson. It appears the procedure was a success.”

  “I never doubted it,” a third, much darker voice replied.

  “Do you realize what you've created here, sir? We must notify The Company immediately…”

  Their conversation filtered away as Maya lost interest and prepared to move on through the vent. She couldn't gauge the full scope of what had happened from her position in the ventilation shaft, no matter how closely she looked.

  She stopped when a loud thump followed by the crackle of shattering glass rose from the room, and she glanced behind her to peer through the grate once more. A body lay on the floor below her, then she heard another loud crash. Sparks flew and smoke billowed in the room.

  A stifled cry squeezed through her throat, but she covered it with her hand. Another figure now stood over the motionless body as flames rose, consuming and destroying everything inside the white walls.

  The figure, barely visible, looked up at the vent. Maya felt sure he saw her, could feel him staring hard into her deep, dark eyes. For a moment, she couldn't move; her lip quivered. Then the man was gone.

  Maya hurried through the vent. An alarm wailed and lights flashed from all directions. “Warning! Alien life forms have been detected.” The mechanical sound of the computer's warning system echoed through the vents. “Alien life forms have been detected in Sector 10. Warning! Possible contamination…”

  She reached the end of the vent and knocked open the grate before dropping down. A large, darkened space spread before her, the ceiling lamps above giving dim, ineffective light. In every direction, row upon row of containers held lifeless figures, floating in a liquid substance within the clear glass.

  'Maya,' he called. She moved swiftly through the containers, which rattled when she passed them.

  The alarms still sounded in every direction.

  She hurried, sensing him closer than ever before. For a moment, she had to stop and drop to her knees, feeling suddenly weak. The containers shook and wobbled, cracks splintering in sections of glass. Steam and fluid spilled through the fissures, which snapped and sprayed more liquid through quickly widening cracks.

  Maya whirled around to watch the other containers smoke and hiss. Then, one after the other exploded into countless pieces, filling the facility's room with an icy mist.

  The voice on the intercom spoke again:

  “Warning! All containers in Sector 12 have been breached. Alien life forms have been detected. Warning all personnel. Evacuation protocol is in effect. All personnel, evacuation protocol is in effect. Warning! Alien life forms have been detected.”

  Beautiful, pale faces with matted locks of hair and dressed in dark leather uniforms emerged from behind her. Maya struggled to rise but couldn't lift herself, fear paralyzing her at the sight.

  'Maya.' He emerged from the surrounding figures and extended his hand toward her. The others scattered away into the corridors.

  “Maya,” Quinn said aloud. “We've been kept apart for far too long, my love.”

  She reached for his hand, and he pulled her close.

  “Alien life forms detected in Sector 10. All prisoners' cells have been breached.”

  “I've waited for this moment for far too long. To feel you in my arms, to have you by my side. My beloved Maya. They will pay for keeping us apart.” He lifted her in his arms as the ceiling above them began to crumble.

  “Burn it down! Destroy everything!” he shouted. The ceiling fell away, and through the gap, beings ascended into the sky. In their arms rested the women they'd rescued—prisoners like Maya—friends, sisters.

  Quinn ascended with them while the building, her prison, crumbled and burned. The skies crowded with the angels of her dreams. Maya closed her eyes, clinging to Quinn's embrace as he lifted her into the heavens.

  Chapter 1:

  Belle's Ring

  March, Present Day

  The plane landed in Houston, Texas. Father said he and Mother would arrive later that day. I thought it was strange, that I would go alone. I didn't like it. But I couldn't question it. I'd learned at a very early age never to question my parents' ways.

  “A car will be there to collect you,” he'd said. He'd handed my luggage to the chauffeur, who placed it in the trunk. “Just wait outside.”

  Then the chauffeur open the front passenger door to the black Range Rover, and my father ushered me toward it.

  “You won't be there?” I'd asked. This was sudden. Why was I just hearing about this now? My father gave me a stern look. I knew better then to keep pressing him, but I was angry.

  “I have business to attend to in the morning…”

  “What sort of business?” I said. “Can't it wait? I thought we were going on a cruise. You said we were finally doing something together as a family.”

  “Don't argue w
ith me. You know I have no choice in the matter. If I'm requested there, I have to be there.”

  “And what's Mother's excuse? She doesn't want to be alone with me?”

  His brows furrowed. “If you're trying to start a fight with me, it isn't going to change my mind. You'll be fine… until we arrive. As I instructed, a vehicle will be there to collect you.”

  And that was that…

  Now that I'd landed, I collected my bags from the baggage claim and made my way to the airport entrance. Outside, other travelers crowded the sidewalks, vehicles backed up in the lane to pick up friends and family.

  I sat waiting, like my father instructed, until a Lincoln with tinted windows pulled to the curb. I wondered how pitiful I looked, sitting there waiting like an abandoned child. The door slowly opened, and for a moment I expected my father, even though he hated American cars.

  A man in his thirties wearing a black suit and a pastel green tie stepped out. He was tall and slightly chubby. He didn't smile. The nest of his dark hair sat in disarray, and the dark circles beneath his eyes seemed to indicate he'd been up late. My first impression of him was that of a highly unprofessional and disorganized person. His suit was a little too big, the pant legs were far too loose around his calves and ankles, and his tie was an ugly color.

  He knew who I was before I could introduce myself. “Miss Claudia Belle?” he asked as he approached.

  Curiously, I looked up at his face, afraid of what he would reveal.

  He dipped his head slightly; his eyes took on a deep sadness. I already knew long before he told me.

  I answered, “Yes?”

  He took a breath. “I'm Mr. West, a friend of your father's.” The world continued around us without the slightest care.

  For a long moment, I didn't say a word, afraid to see his thoughts plastered across his tired face. Tears pooled in the corners of my eyes, and a tiny gasp escaped me.

  “He asked me to come.” Mr. West paused like he also found it hard to talk. “I'm afraid I have some terrible news,” he added, and I choked back a sob. “Your parents have been in an accident,” he finally managed. A tear rolled down my cheek. I gazed at him, my eyes wide open. “I'm sorry.”