Sanctuary Falling Read online

  Sanctuary Falling

  A novel by, Pamela Foland

  © 2004 Pamela Foland

  All Rights Reserved

  Chapter 1

  Tripping

  ------------------------------------

  Annette Peterson felt, so small, so plain, like no one ever saw her. She knew they could see her, but sometimes it seemed like people put energy into not seeing her. It was because she couldn’t send telepathically, not even with a lot of amplification. They could hear her but she was telepathically deaf, handicapped, so that was how everyone treated her, sometimes even her parents, make that foster parents.

  Annette couldn’t remember her real parents. Both of them had been killed shortly before the factors rescued her and her brother, bringing them to Sanctuary. Annette’s brother, Morgan, and his wife were Annette’s only real family. Her brother was a telepath, if only a weak one, and his wife was an Agurian, a member of a shape shifting race that had lost the ability to shape shift. She didn’t see them often. They were tertiary factors, their job was observing an earth alternate that was somehow different from its neighbors.

  Annette adored the factors. They, out of all of the residents of Sanctuary, treated Annette like a real person, at least most of the factors did. Annette knew everything about them and about where they came from. She had studied the factors for years, from all the details about the foundation, to all about the different ranks that factors could attain.

  Annette’s most secret and private dream was that someday she would become a factor. She dreamed about it like kids on earth dream of becoming policemen or firefighters or top gun air force pilots. When Annette had been very small, she told her entire kindergarten class about her dream. Even Kevin, her only friend at the time, had laughed his head off at her. They hadn’t spoken since.

  When she finished the sixth grade, Annette had been old enough to enter pre-factor training classes. Since then she spent every morning and every evening before and after regular school in the special training class. Annette did the best she could to do everything Niri, the instructor, asked. Every day, Annette became ever more sure she would never live her dream. Niri pushed her so hard, sometimes it seemed like the woman wanted Annette to fail.

  Annette awoke that morning like any other morning, at five thirty. She dressed and ate breakfast from the food processor and left a smiley face note for her foster mom, who worked the late-night early-morning shift in the clinic. Then she woke her foster dad and left for class. Like always Annette was early, but this time, Niri wasn’t waiting in the huge training hall. Curious, Annette crossed the cavern and went looking for Niri in her office.

  Annette was just three doors down and noticed that voices were coming from inside. She almost retreated, having heard many lectures on how rude eavesdropping was, but she didn’t. Her curiosity was aroused by, Niri’s shouting, “Damn it Sinclair! You can’t just toss out the girl’s application before she even makes it! She deserves consideration! Heck it’s not like you’re swamped with applicants from this class, only five seem serious about applying right now! Most are going to wait to decide until they’ve graduated. That girl wants this so bad . . . I can taste it! Unlike some you’ve handpicked she isn’t afraid to work for it!”

  Sinclair, Annette thought that had to be Mr. Sinclair Chavez, the head of factor training. He spoke next in his perpetually smug tones, “Niri, hold your telepathic tongue! I’m the head of factor training. A big perk of the job is that I get to pick whom I train, and whom I don’t. I tell you that pathetic, Peterson-girl doesn’t have even one tenth of the potential of say, Simmons. It isn’t worth the time.”

  Annette finally understood who they were talking about. Tears welled to her eyes; they were talking about her. They had to be, and from the sounds of it she wasn’t going to make the cut. Annette heard footsteps, possibly the sound of someone leaving the office. She couldn’t let them know she heard. Annette raced off to the training area, tears blurring her path. She didn’t care. Closing her eyes, she raced blindly ahead, right into the support pole of part of the obstacle course. She saw stars and lost her balance, falling to the hard stone floor. Her head made contact and everything went black.

  Annette’s eyes slowly came back into focus. It didn’t take much to recognize the flat flawless white of the clinic ceiling. Her head throbbed and swam, with the ringing in her ears. Her first thought, other than that she was awake, was that she was late for class. Annette tried to shove herself up, but fell back, flattened by a wave of nausea. She briefly worried Niri would be angry, before the memories of how she lost consciousness came back to her.

  Annette lifted a hand to feel for a dent on her forehead from the pole. No dent, but she had a lump, and probably a matching one on the back. Annette sighed, she wasn’t going to be a factor. Her ringing ears played back every taunting word of the argument. Slowly something sunk into Annette’s mind. Niri had been defending her. She used to think the woman wanted her to fail, but she distinctly remembered Niri’s emphatic support. For a moment, Annette wished she had never been born. After Annette had proved Mr. Chavez’s point by running head first into a pole, Niri would never say anything nice about Annette again. She closed her eyes to the blank clinic ceiling and willed them not to open again. Blindly she heard the door hiss open.

  “How’s my patient?” A sickeningly upbeat female voice asked. Annette pressed her lips together, of course they had been monitoring her, waiting for her to awaken, “That good? Well, I can do something for the pain, if you’ll tell me where it hurts.”

  Annette seethed, the pain in her head was nothing compared to her disappointment. Besides couldn’t the stupid nurse just read her mind? Everyone else could!

  Again the saccharin voice chimed in, “Sweetie, you’ll have to tell me where it hurts. I’m not using my telepathy, just in case the nock to your noggin turned yours on high. It would hurt too much!”

  As if she had any telepathy. Annette frowned, “Me or you!”

  “Actually both of us a little, but more you. Now that you’re talking, where does it hurt?”

  “Duh, my head!”

  “Front or back,” The woman’s tone remained positive, ignoring Annette’s sarcasm.

  “In, general,” Annette spat finally opening her eyes. She regretted it the moment she saw the nurse’s soft, compassionate, blue-green eyes.

  The woman smiled and raised a scanner into Annette’s view. “That’s not surprising, you knocked yourself coming and going. Personally I think it’s impressive,” The woman’s voice didn’t hold even a hint of sarcasm, just gentle amusement.

  “My ears are ringing, and my head kinda throbs in tune.”

  The woman, nodded, put down the scanner and placed a small padded device on Annette’s forehead. It hurt where it touched her tender lump, until the nurse activated it then all the pain drained out and the ringing in Annette’s ears subsided.

  “Does that help?”

  Annette started to nod, then froze, “Yeah, a lot.”

  “Good, now, do you want to talk about why you ran yourself up a pole?” The woman asked.

  Annette pressed her lips together again.

  “I see, well my scans, not to mention the tear trails on your face, tell me you were crying, and Niri brought you in so that tells me this has something to do with. . . you wanting very badly to be a factor, and you finding out you can’t,” The woman said softly.

  Annette frowned, “I thought you weren’t going to use your telepathy.”

  “I’m not. I’m just very good at figuring out what’s wrong with a person, even on the inside. That’s why I became a doctor,” the woman answered.

  “I thought you were just a nurse,” Annette mumbled.

  “No,
you’re a high priority patient, you rated treatment by the assistant director of medical services,” The woman smiled.

  Annette’s eyes widened, then narrowed, and she wished she could believe the woman was something more than kidding.

  “Niri used to be my teacher too. She brought you directly to me,” The woman paused and pulled a vibrating pop-pad from her pocket. She tapped the screen and read the message. “Your mother is waiting outside, how about we sit you up to reassure her you’re okay?” The doctor lifted the device from Annette’s forehead and cranked the bed up so Annette was partially sitting. Nausea followed, and the throbbing returned until the doctor replaced the device. “Ready for me to let her in?” The doctor hesitated.

  After this her foster mother would probably not let her do much of anything, finally holding proof in hand that Annette was too weak and pathetic. Annette thought about it, her foster mother probably wouldn’t even let her go to Niri’s classes anymore, not that she had much point to going. “Not yet.”

  The doctor nodded and pulled a wheeled stool over by the bed. “According to your chart your mom is a night nurse. Does she talk about work much?”

  “She’s just my foster mom. My real mom and dad died. She doesn’t say much other than, >go to bed,’ or >eat your veggies,’ or >do your homework’,” Annette answered.

  “I’m sure she cares,” the doctor said, “generally if they don’t care they don’t bother to say any of that. Sometimes with parents they just don’t know how to tell you they love you. Whether or not a >foster’ comes up front.”

  “Did you have foster parents?”

  The woman smiled, and shook her head, “No, but sometimes I wished I did. There were times I would’ve traded my mom for anybody. You know about Penelope Harvey?”

  Know about her? Annette’s head spun, in a way totally unrelated to her lumps. Penelope Harvey was aunt to Angela, as in the founder of Sanctuary. Penelope was also one of Sanctuary’s most famous prime factors. She stopped the Riiad collective, almost single handed, and she was the mother of one of Annette’s all time heroes, Miranda. “Are you Penelope’s daughter?” Annette kicked herself, of course the woman was. The doctor had mentioned being assistant head of medical services. That meant her name was Tina, and she was Miranda’s little sister.

  Tina smiled benignly, “Yeah, and your reaction is exactly why sometimes I wished she wasn’t my mother. Everybody had expectations for me that I couldn’t live up to. I wasn’t born a telepath. Heck, I have a pet rock that’s more telepathic than I was! What’s worse, that was before some stuff happened which made talking fashionable again. Back then nobody talked. It was all telepathic.”

  “Yeah poor you! Then you got your telepathy and became a doctor and got everything you ever wanted!” Annette hissed.

  Tina nodded, “Except that I became a doctor before I became a telepath, and back then, that was unheard of. Except for Gene, but he was here from the beginning.”

  Annette’s eyes widened, that was a part of the story she’d somehow missed. Then again, she hadn’t much cared about learning about Tina after she decided not to be a factor. “So, you didn’t have any powers or anything, and you still got to follow your dream?”

  “Yeah! With the help of a . . .” Tina began but was halted as Annette’s mother rushed into the room.

  She ran to the bed and wrapped her arms around Annette, dislodging the soothing device. Vertigo and vomit threatened as her stepmother released Annette and carefully examined the device. “A stabilizer! That’s it? What about using a healing device, are you being negligent or just plain lazy . . .” Annette’s mother growled, until she turned and recognized just who was treating her daughter.

  “Lecee, I checked her charts before rushing to treatment. I think in her case it’s the best idea. She hasn’t had a recent full scan, and it might do more damage than good to use an improperly chosen or set device,” Tina answered calmly

  Despite, the threat of passing out, Annette felt strangely comforted her foster mother’s belligerent concern, “Just use a type one juvenile . . .”

  “Type one? You’re sure she’s fully human? That’s odd because I’m not, and according to his intake notes neither is Gene. She shows signs of being at least forty percent . . .” Annette struggled to cling to Tina’s words as she lost the battle and passed out.

  - - - - - - - - - -

  Angela braced herself just outside the conference room. She wished for the days of the informal morning briefings in the cafeteria over doughnuts and coffee. Back then a limited meeting meant Gene, Ralph, Corrine, Johnny, and Daniel (if she could pry him out of bed.) Now, it meant the heads of departments she hadn’t even dreamed up back then, their assistants, prime factors and a secretary to transcribe the proceedings for anybody who missed it. Worst of all, somehow, the coffee and doughnuts had been replaced with hardtack and stale ice water.

  Gene, now head of medical services, only showed up for the formal meetings. Ralph sent Dennis, the assistant tech he’d named department head over himself, just to avoid the meetings. Corrine had disappeared from Sanctuary all together after the shields came up. They wouldn’t let her symbiont through. Johnny died a martyr to the cause, and Daniel, her husband, rarely came in more than spirit. He was content to absorb only what information trickled to him through their pairbond.

  Angela dreaded going, only her sense of duty and the knowledge that they would search her out, forced her through the door. Faking a businesslike smile, she strode in, today defiantly bringing her own doughnut and coffee. No one noticed. She was the Chief. She could do anything she liked, except quit.

  Angela sighed softly and took her seat at the head of the table. Stalling she ate part of her doughnut, maybe today they’d start without her. No, everyone sat at quiet attention waiting for her to signify she was ready. Inside she screamed she quit, start without her! Outside she sipped at her coffee and nodded at each person, nominally noting attendance. You’d think in a room full of telepaths, someone would figure out how little she wanted to be there.

  Gene had shown up this morning, in front of him was balanced a stack of pop-pads, and he sat in Tina’s usual chair. Angela smiled at him and contemplated offering him a doughnut. No, everyone would take that the wrong way. Other than Gene, the table was filled with the usual suspects, except one empty chair. That tweaked Angela’s brain, usually chairs at the table didn’t stay empty. A quick check noted that Sinclair Chavez and his assistant Niri were still missing. Late, they must be running late, Chavez hadn’t missed a meeting since he’d been invited to his first.

  Angela sipped at her coffee and teleported herself another doughnut. Maybe if she stayed quiet long enough someone else would take over and run the meeting. Another thought came to her, if she waited people might think she was waiting for Chavez. She frowned internally at the thought, such consideration would give the blowhard twit entirely too much apparent status. Briefly she thought maybe with more status he would take over the meetings and the worries, but that thought didn’t last long. His interpersonal skills left a lot to be desired, and he was not fully capable of the job. Her vacation might last an hour. Then they would hunt her down redoubling their loyalties to her.

  Angela put down the doughnut and sighed, so who should she address first, “Gene, what have you got?”

  Gene jumped, knocking over his stack, finally turning his eyes on Angela. He was getting old, she noticed, passing from debonair to distinguished. “I have the readings and latest simulations of Yllera. My tests show’s her morphic gland is becoming increasingly active, and her hormonal levels may be building towards some sort of metamorphosis. Her Everett rating has doubled since her last checkup. She’s almost at the point of involuntary psychokinetic display. I project that by her next checkup she may be beginning to teleport. I can’t get anything clear on the morphic simulations though. It’s too much of an unknown. It’s been generations since the plague blocked the Agurian shape shifting abilities, and she’s not following
the pre-plague developmental patterns. Already she’s managing mimicry on the genetic- molecular level, but has shown no sign of physical shape shifting. That’s opposite to all of my pre-plague models.”

  Angela nodded. She liked reports from Gene and missed them; he didn’t couch them in incomprehensibly complex medical language. “What about Doctor Wilson, what does he think?”

  Gene shrugged, “He retired, six months ago. Tina thinks Yllera may have some kind of plague crisis to look forward to in the near future.”

  Angela blinked, setting her stock contemplative expression number one, it gave her a few minutes to respond. Wilson, retired? Lucky son-of-a-seahorse! “What kind of crisis?”

  Gene sorted through the pop-pads. Angela missed that too, most people just had one, and flipped through to the pages they wanted. When Gene found something he wanted, he froze it on screen and just grabbed another pad. It gave her some time to breathe while he found what he wanted.

  “Here it is!” Gene mumbled triumphantly, “Oh! Tina thinks that Yllera will become either a fully functional Agurian, or she’ll die.”

  “That would be a crisis,” Dennis, Ralph’s mouthpiece from R&D mumbled from across the table.

  Angela glared him down, more for not being Ralph than for his tasteless comment. Regardless, Dennis leaned back, silenced by her glare. She glanced around the table and found Erica, Yllera’s field supervisor. Angela smiled at her, “Erica, has Yllera reported anything relevant to her condition?”

  “Sorry, chief no mention, though it’s been a while since her last report. She should be sending the next one any time now. Last time she was beginning to grumble about her assignment. After the Miranda thing, I think she kind of expected more,” Erica answered, the adoring look in her eyes made it clear Angela was the uncomfortable object of residual hero worship.

  How in the heck would Angela ever manage to quit with people like Erica around? “We’ll talk promotion after her next report.”