A Coming Of Age

"Yes," Lisa's muffled voice answered. Not surprisingly, she sounded scared.

"Good." Omega finished his work in silence and got to his feet, checking the knots one last time. "Well, that should keep you here long enough for us to get safely away," he said with satisfaction. "Don't bother trying to break the rope, by the way; it's mountaineer's line and tests at just over two tons. Doctor, if you're ready...?"

Jarvis hesitated, stepped forward to touch Lisa's shoulder. "Lisa... I know you and Detective Tirrell don't think much of me, but please believe that I do care very much for Colin. I don't know if you can picture me in the role of a loving parent, but—well, I just wanted you to know." He turned back to Omega and nodded. "All right, I guess I'm ready."

"Axel, take the doctor and send him on with the others—they should head southeast," Omega ordered. "You and I will go collect anyone who's still looking for that damn righthand and catch up with them later."

Axel nodded, and suddenly Jarvis felt the floor fall away beneath him. This is it, he told himself bleakly as he was threaded skillfully through the doorway. I've done all I could. It's up to Tirrell and Lisa now.

He wondered if he would ever see any of them again.

Chapter 25

The faint sounds of conversation and movement faded into silence. Trapped for the second time that day in blindness and solitude, Lisa made no effort to stop the tears rolling freely down her cheeks. Omega's promises hadn't fooled her; she'd already had a sample of his version of truth. This time, she felt certain, she was going to die.

"Lisa?" Tirrell's voice, though muffled by the bag, was nevertheless understandable. "I think they're gone. Are you okay?"

"What difference does it make?" she moaned, her silent sobs doubling in intensity.

"Lisa, pull yourself together!" the detective snapped. "We may still have a chance."

He was only trying to console her, she knew, but nevertheless she sniffed hard and managed to bring herself under some kind of control. "I'm okay now, she told him.

"Good girl. The first thing to do is get you out of whatever they've got over your head. Describe it to me and tell me how it's fastened."

She did the best she could. "I can't see anything at all through it," she finished.

"All right. Now, it's tight around your neck, so you should be able to use teekay on it there. Try teeking it outward in all directions and see if you can break the rope."

She tried; but there was just enough give in the rope to move it off her skin before breaking, and the instant that happened she lost the ability to teek it. "I can't do it," she admitted after several frustrating tries. "It keeps moving away."

"All right, don't get excited. Try this: throw your head back suddenly so that the bag is resting against your face. Use the contacts with your forehead and chin—or stick out your tongue—and teek the material at those points in opposite directions. If you can open up even a small tear, it'll be right in front of your eyes and the rest should be easy.

Taking a deep breath, she tried it. It took two tries to get the bag touching forehead and chin solidly enough, and several seconds of careful teeking before the first tiny tear appeared like a lighted jewel just past her nose. But with the edges of the tear visible... the sound of the bag shredding was perhaps the most satisfying sound she'd ever heard. "I did it!" she called, blinking in the sudden light.

"Great! Now, look carefully under you and see how that booby-trap line is attached to the floor. Don't move the chair in the process."

She didn't need the reminder. Leaning gingerly over as far as the restraining ropes would permit, she looked beneath the chair. "The rope goes through a hole cut in the rug," she said. "Should I tear the rug more and see where it goes?"

"Better not," Tirrell said quickly. "You might nudge the rope, or he might even have set things to go off if the tension decreases."

Lisa swallowed. She'd almost torn the rug without bothering to ask about it.... "Now what do we do?"

"Take a good look around the room. See if there's anything at all sharp enough to slice your ropes. There's a picture on the wall, isn't there?" he asked suddenly.

"Y-yes," Lisa said, frowning at the question. "It's a picture of the ocean."

"Teek it over to you and search it for a hidden knife or sharp edges. Hurry—I don't know how much time we've got."

"But why should there be anything like that on a picture?" Lisa asked, teeking the painting off its nail and bringing it to her.

"Remember Jarvis's last words to you? It seemed to me he went out of his way to use the word 'picture'—'picture me in the role of a parent,' or something like that. I think he might have been trying to tell us something."

"But there's nothing here," she told him, turning the picture over for the fifth time. "Just a normal picture in a wood frame. There's some writing on the back, but it doesn't say anything that'll help."

"Damn." There was a long pause. "All right, then there's just one thing left to try. Remember—just before Martel's gang broke in—Jarvis said that Colin wasn't drugged but only in a hypnotic sleep? We're going to have to try and bring him out of it. He's not tied up or anything, is he?"

"No... but if he's slept through all the noise that everyone's been making in here, how are we going to wake him?"

"Ideally, you'd use the key phrase that he's been told to respond to. In this case... the only other way I know of is to make the subject so uncomfortable that he wakes up on his own. You're going to have to hurt him a little, I'm afraid."

Lisa's stomach knotted up. "I can't do that. He's just a little kid!"

"If you don't, he's going to die with the rest of us," Tirrell snapped. "Just use teekay to squeeze his arms or chest a little—see if that'll do it."

Timidly, Lisa tried it. "It's not working," she said a moment later.

"Lisa, you're going to have to grit your teeth and bear down. Martel isn't going to just leave us here—we know too much about both him and Jarvis's work. If he's not coming back to kill us personally, he'll have set something up to do it automatically, probably with more of his dynamite."

"Isn't there some other way?" Lisa pleaded. "Douse him with water or something?"

"If you can get to any supply of water go ahead and try it. Otherwise—" Tirrell broke off suddenly. "Damn! What am I using for brains? Lisa—you said there was writing on the back of that picture? Read it out loud."

Lisa teeked the painting back up. " 'To my darling Matt,' " she read laboriously, fighting her way through the flowing handwriting. " 'From Miribel. Christmas, three-oh-one.' That's all there is."

"Any response from Colin?"

Lisa peered over the picture at the boy's face, looking in vain for some indication of life. "I don't see any," she said, feeling panic rising up her throat. "He's still just lying there."

"Hold on; let me think." For a moment there was silence from the other room. Lisa looked desperately around the room again, searching for anything she could use to cut her ropes. The windows, their glass knocked outside and out of reach by the other preteens, seemed to mock her with their useless offer of escape; the trees beyond seemed almost part of another world. Turning back to Colin, she clenched her jaw, fear making her decision for her. If hurting an i

"Ha!" Tirrell said suddenly. " 'The role of a loving parent'—of course! Miribel Oriana!"

And on the couch Colin stirred and opened his eyes.

"Colin!" Lisa all but shrieked in her relief. "Come here—quickly."