THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

speed.
    She’d just dropped down on one side of the cloud bed and had placed one hand on the new child’s head when she heard the little boy’s internal screams of fear and pain.
    He was in a comatose state. His mind locked tightly with hers. She had to break away, but she couldn’t. Put up a wall. Not happening. What about her Batman vine watch? Why wasn’t that working?
    She snatched her hands away and covered her ears, but the screaming wouldn’t stop. She fought against the chaos. Losing.
    Jaxxson was saying something, shouting at her. But the words weren’t clear.
    Her brain felt like it was exploding.
    He swung away from the child and grabbed both of her arms, his voice shouting in her head. Stop it! You’re killing him!
     

CHAPTER 26
     
    I scratched at the wound that continued to heal on my stomach, still not clear on how I’d survived a mortal wound from the croggle.
    “Leave the scab alone,” Callan admonished.
    How had he known what I was doing when he walked ahead of me, navigating our way through the woods toward the village? “Itches.”
    “Of course. The skin is repairing.” 
    I kept pace close behind. Following him had been no hardship since I had an unobstructed view of all that toned body. “I still don’t understand how you healed me.”
    He tossed me another of his speculative glances, as if he just couldn’t make up his mind if I was telling the truth about landing here by accident in the pod without a TeK scout. “I did not heal you alone.”
    “Don’t look at me as if I’m hiding something from you. I told you I don’t know how this power inside me works. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have fixed my insides without your hands involved.”
    Pondering silently, he led us through the last fringe of woods before we reached the green fog wall coming into view. “Have to talk to V’ru. This is confusing.”
    V’ru, whose mind worked better than a Cyberprocessor. Was he Artificial Intelligence? Some kind of computer? That reminded me... “What’s the big deal about computers?”
    He slowed until I reached his side and turned to me. “There’s a myth about the very first computer from the sixteenth century. A technological creation with supernatural power that MystiKs and TecKnatis are searching for.”
    “Why? I thought MystiKs didn’t like technology.”
    “We don’t,” Callan admitted. “We just want to keep it out of SEOH’s hands, because he’ll use it to destroy all the MystiKs.” 
    A computer could do that? Maybe it was an AI unit. “Is he planning to use it here?”“If this computer actually exists and he gets his hands on it, I doubt it will matter where we are when he hits the destruct button. Let’s keep moving.” Callan led the way to the green fog, then he opened the tunnel through it.
    I stayed tight on his tracks, not touching the fog.
    The minute Callan stepped inside the compound and closed the fog tunnel, he stopped suddenly, staring straight ahead, eyes unfocused. One blink and he dashed forward.
    I caught up to him, striding step for step. “What’s wrong?”
    “The new boy we saved is reacting violently.”  He gave me a sharp look. “Your friend is killing him.”
    “Who?” 
    “The Hy’bridt.”
    “ Who? ”  I was panting.
    “The one with two eye colors.”
    “Gabby?” Not possible. “Hurt a child? You’ve got to be kidding.”
    Racing past a murky puddle of gray sludge and through hanging moss he slapped away from our faces, he said, “Do you hear humor in my words?”
    Annoyed-distrustful-stone-face Callan was back.
    When we entered deeper into the village, into a tented area I hadn’t seen before, Callan continued all the way to a pearl-white dome.
    Zilya stood in front of the dome, pounding on the curved wall that surprised me by not budging. “Let me inside. I’ll stop her.”
    I guessed Zilya meant Gabby. But how would she stop her? 
    Callan raced up to the dome. “Why can’t you enter?”
    Zilya stopped pounding. “I don’t know. Jaxxson called out that the child was dying and he had to stop Gabby from...something. That’s all I got. I can’t pass through the protective wall.”
    I placed my hand on the smooth, but shifting, surface that never appeared quite solid. The outer shell really didn’t give when I pushed on it. “What is this thing?”
    Frantic to get inside, Zilya gave me a straight answer for once. “A personal space some of us can create. This one’s for isolating new arrivals.”