With marvelous agility the young woman leapt through 3 ft. of
open air and into the prison, the light of the room making two
extraordinary things immediately apparent: first, the short hair
above her delicate, beautiful features was a strange silver
color; and second, she held in her hands a device--presumably a
weapon--that was obviously more complex and sophisticated than any
handgun I'd ever seen.
The woman trained the device first on one officer and then the
other. Kuperman's man, Sweeney, had the good sense to drop his
gun and head for the still intact doorway out of the room. But
the second guard, Farkas, was foolish enough to let off a round
from his pistol, even though his apparent fear made an accurate
shot impossible. The bullet struck the wall above the woman, and
she ducked for an instant; then she fixed her gray eyes on the
guard with what seemed as much amusement as anger. Leveling the
device in her hands at the man, she appeared on the verge of
firing; but then she suddenly turned and trained the weapon on a
desk that sat near the room's exit. She pulled what looked like a
trigger, and then, without much of a sound, the desk was
bombarded by a series of high-speed projectiles, reducing it to
mere bits.
Had it been the guard's body she'd targeted, it would have
completely disintegrated--just as John Price's had done.
Sensibly accepting this warning, the guard Farkas dropped his
automatic and raced for the exit. Once he was gone, the woman
pointed her weapon in the air, shifted her shapely weight to one
side and smiled at Kuperman and me.
"Doctors," she said with a nod. Then she touched the high collar
of her bodysuit. "It's all right!" she called, looking at the
ceiling. "I've got them!" Turning to us again, she nodded toward
the hole in the wall. "I hate to rush you, Eli, but--"
"Yes, do hurry, Dr. Wolfe," the woman said, approaching me coyly.
"My brother's been anxious to meet you--and so have I." She
studied my face and smiled that feline little smirk of hers.
"You're not quite as attractive in person as in your author's
photo, are you?"
Still stunned, I could only mumble, "Who is?," which prompted the
woman to laugh devilishly and seize my hand.
"Can you make the jump?" she said. "Or do you want us to maneuver
closer?"
I shook my head, finally getting a grip on myself. "I can make
it," I answered. "But what--?"
"The jump first," she answered, pulling me at a run toward the
hole in the wall. "After that, everything will make a lot more
sense!"
And with her delicate but strong hand holding mine, I leapt out
over the narrow corridor of open air beyond the prison wall,
leaving the world and reality as I had always known them behind
me forever.
TO BE CONTINUED
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