The Dark Edge Chronicles - Hardwire

Wet Banks

Of course, that meant he needed to have Preacher's access codes. Stepping back out of range of the bank's telepathic access code request, Mordecai fast-scanned the records the watcher had downloaded into his mind for what could possibly be Preacher's access codes.

But, after a few tight seconds of searching, Mordecai could find no instance where the watcher observed Preacher going to the bar to access the banks. As he pondered his lack of success, another thought inserted itself into Mordecai's mind: Preacher could be accessing the banks covertly on some sort of shielded band. The big man grimaced. That would be hard to detect and was only a remote possibility. Unfortunately it was all he had to go on at this point.

Swiftly Mordecai switched to the watcher's telepathic recordings, to see if it had observed any sort of shielded communication between Preacher and the banks. And was almost instant rewarded when he found that the watcher had detected the presence of a shielded link on several occasions where Preacher was either walking by the bar, or looking directly at it.

Mordecai grimly dug a little deeper into the watcher's data. There should be enough on the surface, . . . There! The access codes, being beamed as a series of telepathic pulses. And, as luck continued to smile on him, for both wet banks. The man in black stepped back into range of the bank's probe and, after the telepathic request, he sent the scanned codes.

It took only an instant for the banks to scan the person-specific codes before Mordecai felt himself being psionically pulled forward. For a brief moment he resisted, not understanding what was going on. It was only when he realized that the bank was somehow tapping into his sensory centers to create whatever interface it had with its users, that he let go.

The sensation could only be described by suggesting he had somehow been caught in a vortex of the senses. For a moment the room itself seemed to swirl around him, the muted colors of the darkened chamber blurring together into a multi-hued morass that spun dizzyingly around him at an ever increasing rate. Then, with the blink of his eyes, he found himself floating inside a vast globe. Or, rather, he found his perception floating there, the inner surface of the globe a veritable universe of sparkling lights that seemed distant, yet so close he could reach out and touch one without even trying.

Like the trailing of fingers across the back of his neck, Mordecai without warning felt the hairs on his neck and arms rise; there was another presence here in this place, sharing the vast empty space with him. Looking over to his left, Mordecai found himself staring at the graceful form of a woman.

She was dressed in white, her long blonde hair moving with the force of some unseeable and unfelt wind, as did her clothing. Which was no more than a diaphanous dress of an almost transparent material which left just enough to the big man's imagination that his heart began to pound in his chest at her more than beautiful figure. Her face, calm and serene, while not as gut wrenchingly beautiful as Jeriko, was lovely enough to have been plucked from the runways of the fashion capitals of the world. Her eyes were closed as a slight smile played on her full and moist lips. Then those lips were moving.

"It's been a long time since you've visited me here, Ethan," she spoke in that same melodic voice that had greeted him with the access request. Her words carried easily in this strangely energetic place, the power racing along Mordecai's skin like the static discharge before a great storm. She was roughly ten metres away and hovered half a metre above the gray substance underfoot that passed for ground, facing half way away from him.

"Not since you, ..." she began to continue as she opened her eyes to begin to turn her head in Mordecai's direction. Then, as her eyes caught sight of the powerful psionic standing carefully some distance away, her voice faded as her expression changed from that of pleasant surprise to open dismay.