Page 31 of Wired Ghost

The much larger energy signature beneath her had once been a vibrant orange, but it was darkening fast.

Connor opened his eyes. “I know where they are. Six feet and ten feet down from us, about eight feet to the left. The only way to reach them is to open this crack enough to drop to the bottom of the cavern. They are on the side wall, unconscious—probably from the toxic air.”

“Merde!” Raveaux redoubled his attack on the ground with the pickaxe. “How do you know this?”

Connor didn’t bother to answer. “We’re going to be too late,” he told Nine. “Unless . . .”

“You can do it, Number One. You’ve just never tried,” Nine guessed what he was thinking as the man often did, while never slowing in spading away the rock and soil that Raveaux loosened with the pickaxe.

Connor shut his eyes again.

Just because he’d never tried it didn’t mean it was impossible.He’d only ever sloweddowntime before—but maybe he could speed it up. “Anything’s possible to those who believe,” the Master’s resonant voice said in his mind.

Connor went inward.

He pictured Raveaux hitting the ground with the pickaxe as fast as the needle on a sewing machine. Pictured Nine removing the debris, both of them moving a thousand times faster. Every detail was etched in his mind.

He opened his eyes.

His compatriots looked like a film loop set on top speed, dirt flying everywhere. Interesting. He experienced time as normal. Connor stood, hurried to the chopper, and took out the stretcher and the spare O2 tanks, along with a large coil of rope.

When he returned with the rescue equipment, the two men had opened a big enough gap to slip through. Connor slowed time back down, and handed the rope to Nine. “Lower me in.”

He carried two extra O2 tanks tucked inside hisgiand breathed through his mask, oxygenating his lungs, as the men lowered him down the narrow opening into what became a large, dark cavern filled with steam and noxious gas.

Visibility was poor, but he spotted Sophie immediately, sprawled on a stone ledge closest to the ceiling. Her white energy field glowed like moonlight.

Jake lay on a ledge below her. His energy field had gone a deep red.Jake was close to death.

The men lowered him to the floor of the chamber. Connor climbed the wall’s irregular layers rapidly, reaching Jake first. His former friend’s skin was white and clammy and he wasn’t breathing—probably too late to save him.

“If only I could go back in time,” Connor murmured, but from what he could tell so far, he could only affect the moments he currently occupied.

Connor began CPR, sucking O2 from the canister and blowing it into Jake’s mouth. He remembered doing this all too well from that other time he’d brought Jake back—was it worth doing this time?Jake could be a vegetable already from oxygen deprivation.

Steam thickened around them, and so did the smell of sulfur. The rock walls trembled ominously.He had to try to save Sophie while there was still time!

Connor blew one last blast of O2 into Jake’s unresponsive mouth and tied the rope around his chest, making a loop under the man’s arms. “Pull Jake up! He’s not breathing, but I’ve got the O2 on him. I have to get Sophie out, too. It’s getting bad down here!”

The rope, tight with Jake’s heavy body, seemed to ascend too slowly. Connor shut his eyes and increased the speed; Jake shot up and out of sight.

The conditions in the cave and the energy he was expending had begun to weaken Connor. He had to concentrate hard on keeping time moving faster as he climbed up to Sophie’s rocky ledge.

She lay sprawled face down, unconscious but breathing. Hopefully, she’d been able to get enough oxygen at the top of the chamber, with the air slit nearby. He put the second mask on over her nose and mouth, and turned on the unit.

“Grab the rope!” Raveaux yelled from above as the rope dropped down, swinging back and forth with a rock now tied to the bottom of it.

Connor caught hold after a few tries. He tied the rope under Sophie’s armpits, tucked the small tank into the rope loop and yanked on it.

“Pull her up and then get me as soon as you can!” Connor yelled back up to the surface. A yellow indicator light blinked near the control knob of the tank. “My O2 is running low.”

“Copy that!” Raveaux called back down. The men hauled Sophie up and out of sight.

Connor sat down on the ledge, suddenly exhausted and dizzy. He tried to speed up the time that the rope came back down to him, but nothing happened. The tunnel above remained stubbornly empty.

Spots circled his vision. He lay down on the ledge, still warm from Sophie’s body.

Chapter Twenty-Two

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