Project Aura

The captain once more keyed his SATCOM handset. “ Key West, this is Warde. Over.”

There was just static, but he transmitted anyway. “Identity of vessel is the Aura II. Not listed in registry. We are-” There was another sharp break in the transmission and Foster almost dropped the handset as a shock went up his arm. “What the hell?”

“Sir-” Caprice was next to him.

“What?”

“Something’s wrong. Don’t you feel it?”

“ ‘Feel it,’” Foster repeated. “What do you mean?”

“There’s something-” Caprice began but then they all felt it.

Just above the slight swell of the blue Caribbean Sea between the Warde and the Aura II, immense power rode on electromagnetic waves at the speed of light. It washed over the Warde, penetrating the hull and every person on board.

Caprice dropped to her knees, hands pressed against her ears, mouth opened in a silent scream. Foster staggered back, feeling a spike of red-hot pain ripping through his brain. Blood seeped out of his ears, nose, and eyes. Within seconds, he collapsed on the steel plating. The body twitched once, again, and then was still.

With a dead crew, the Warde continued straight on course, cutting across the wake of the other ship and disappearing into the darkness.

The Aura II slowed to a halt. Two Zodiacs were lowered over the side, each filled with a load of cocaine. The rubber boats headed directly for shore. As soon as the boats were clear, the yacht’s engines powered up and it cut a wide turn, heading back to the southeast.

There was no where, no when, no form, no substance. Time and space, the two linchpins of human existence in the real world, were a vague memory, like the taste of an exotic food that he could not recall the name of and didn’t know whether he had really tasted or merely dreamed of.

The entity that was the psychic projection of Jonathan Raisor was trying to form something that he might call self. It was one step worse than that feeling of being between sleep and consciousness, when one was somewhat aware of the outer world, but commands from the brain couldn’t make it through the nervous system to move the body, and the mind, the self, was frozen in place unable to influence the real world. Raisor was having a difficult time co

All he knew was gray, stretching in all directions around him. Even his psychic essence was gray-a formless fog of gray inside a limitless cloud of gray. Where did he end and the outside begin? And what was the outside in this virtual plane? And where was the real world-beyond, below, outside, inside of-with respect to the virtual?

The one thing Raisor’s psychic essence clung to, one overriding emotion, was revenge. This had been done to his sister. His body, like hers, now floated inside an isolation tank at Bright Gate. If he still existed, and there were moments when even he doubted it, that meant she still might exist somewhere on the psychic plane.

The way he was, he knew he could not do what he needed. He had to find Bright Gate. That was one firm thought that echoed in his psyche. But to find Bright Gate, he needed Bright Gate’s power and computer to give him form and substance, and for the ability to move along the virtual plane and then reenter the real world.

He went back to the only thing keeping him from dissipating: He had been betrayed, his power and co

Every so often he sensed something in the grayness. Something or perhaps even someone. But always at a distance, as if avoiding his presence. Perhaps the disembodied psyches of others like him, spirits lost without being able to get back to their bodies; maybe even his sister. Or perhaps Psychic Warriors from Bright Gate, going about their business. But somehow he picked up that these distant presences were something entirely different. And that they sensed him and avoided him deliberately. The remote viewers at Bright Gate had reported such presences from the very begi

Like a high-power searchlight, a beam pierced the gray. Raisor turned toward it, willing his essence to move, uncertain if it was possible. He wrapped himself around the hate he felt for those who had abandoned him. For those who had betrayed his sister. He was unable to judge the distance, but almost imperceptibly the beam of light drew closer.

Just as quickly, the light was gone and he was in the gray once more. If he had lungs and a mouth, he would have screamed his dismay, but he could only feel the despair. Whatever it was, the beam was the only change he had experienced in however long he had been lost here.

If it had come once, it would come again. Raisor’s entity had nothing other to do than to wait and be ready. He was a man lost at sea waiting for a life preserver that had come tantalizingly close.

2

Against the darkness of space, a sliver of light appeared as the payload doors of the shuttle Endeavourbegan opening. On the seventh day of an eight-day mission, the crew of the Endeavour had already accomplished all the tasks that NASA had publicly a

Each cargo bay door was sixty feet long and fifteen in diameter. They locked in the open position, opening the bay to space. The bay was practically empty, the three civilian satellites the shuttle had brought into orbit with it already deployed.

In the airlock at the lower bottom of the flight deck, a single man was do

Eagle Six was the most experienced astronaut at EVA, extravehicular activity, in the United States, having done twelve similar missions, yet he wasn’t a member of NASA. Officially, he was a member of the National Security Agency, at least according to government records.

Once Eagle Six insured that all the seals were secure, his assistant placed the PLSS-Primary Life Support System-on his back. Once that was working, the astronaut cleared the airlock, sealing the door to the crew compartment behind him. He was breathing pure oxygen now, and would for several minutes. He waited patiently, reviewing in his mind the actions he would be taking. He had learned the importance of being certain of every movement he was going to make before he made it. Space was a completely unforgiving environment.

The pilot, on the upper flight deck, had their target in sight. The first thing he had spotted was the large solar panels. As they got closer he could make out the main body of the long, rectangular satellite perpendicular to the panels. It was dotted with several circular parabolic ante