I told her about Gemma Markham, and the device, and what they were doing at Lark Hill.
“Where the hell did she come from?” said Ammonia. She sounded honestly startled, even shocked. “I never even heard of the woman! And I know, or know of, everyone on the psionic scene. If only in self-defence . . . Telepaths that powerful don’t just appear out of nowhere, Eddie. Could she have been artificially produced? Her mind and powers strengthened by this device, whatever it is?”
“Looks that way,” I said. “I remember a scientist who was supposed to have made some real breakthroughs in the mind/machine interface. A Herr Doktor Herman Koenig. Molly and I fought over him, back in the day, when we were on different sides. But he’s been dead for years.”
“Can’t be him, then,” said Ammonia. “But others could have carried on his work. Found a way to produce their own telepath and make a slave out of them. That was always my greatest fear . . .”
I remembered when the Great Satanic Conspiracy kidnapped Ammonia and held her prisoner in Castle Shreck. They did bad things to her before my family rescued her.
“The Commander has been talking about . . . controlling Gemma,” I said. “He used the word lobotomy, and not in a good way.”
“That’s it!” said Ammonia, her harsh voice painfully loud inside my head. “I am going to mind-wipe everyone at Lark Hill!”
“Please don’t,” I said quickly. “Most people here don’t even know Gemma exists! They’re doing important work—discovering terrorist plots, saving lives. I just want to help Gemma, not shut the place down. I could do that myself. I was hoping you might have some other idea . . .”
“Hold everything,” said Ammonia. “I’ve been looking the base over, and I’ve just locked on to what the Commander is thinking. Eddie, you have to get to Gemma, right now! The Commander has decided to kill her! He believes you’re going to take her away, and he’d rather have her dead than share his secrets with the Droods. He’s heading there now . . . No. I’ve lost him. I can’t read him any more; he’s shielded somehow. You have to save Gemma!”
I was already off and running, charging through brightly lit corridors at inhuman speed, drawing on all the speed my armour could generate. My pounding metal feet made dents and holes in the floor. I shot past people so quickly they seemed like statues to me, frozen in place. I called up the centre’s floor plans on the inside of my mask again, to calculate the quickest route to Gemma’s locked-down room. It took me only a moment to realise she was just too far away. I’d never get to her before the Commander did. So I changed direction, smashing through the intervening corridor walls, hammering through the fragile physical world in a straight line to Gemma’s room. When I take the power of my armour upon me, the world might as well be made of paper.
I blasted through the last wall, and there was Gemma’s room, right before me. The door had been left open. The Commander was already there. I ran straight for the door, not even trying to avoid triggering the pressure pads in the floor. Gun emplacements swung out from inside the walls and opened fire on me. Gas nozzles emerged from the ceiling and filled the corridor with a thick yellow smoke. And acid sprays I hadn’t even noticed doused me with steaming fluids. My armour took it all in its stride. I didn’t even slow down. My armour absorbed the bullets, while the acid rolled harmlessly off, dripping down to eat ragged holes in the floor. My mask protected me from the curling yellow gas. I hit the door with my shoulder, and slammed it right off its hinges. It hit the floor hard, and I walked right over it. I needed to make a big entrance to distract the Commander from whatever he was doing.
I finally came to a halt, not even breathing hard, just inside the room. The Commander was standing beside Gemma Markham, who was still sitting calmly in her chair, her knitting in her lap. She seemed entirely unconcerned by the Commander’s presence or my sudden entrance. The Commander’s head whipped round, and he glared at me silently. There was something not quite right about his cold, unblinking gaze and the taut, strained way he held himself. As though he was nerving himself to