Flood Rising (Jenna Flood #1)

It also meant there was nothing she could do to avoid the shards of metal debris now raining down around her. While many of the large metal panels that made up the telescope’s dish fluttered awkwardly down from above, just as many descended like giant throwing stars, impaling the desert floor alongside a cloud of screws, nuts, bolts and smaller, sheared bits of framing.

All around her, the desert became littered by debris. Several of the large panels fell alongside the backwards-speeding truck, while one tore into the tracks right in front of her, where the truck had been just a second before. The truck shook with a shriek of metal as a four-foot metal beam impaled the roof and slid into the passenger seat cushion. Jenna shouted in surprise, but never let off the gas, and soon, she was out of range of the still-falling debris.

The truck swung onto the mainline, its rear pointing back toward the hub. Jenna pushed the gas pedal a little harder. The engine revved loudly and the tachometer jumped into the red, but the speedometer refused to climb past thirty miles per hour. To her front, she saw Jarrod running for the Jeep, one hand raised up toward the deadly falling debris, which somehow steered clear of him.

How is he doing that? Jenna wondered, but even as the thought crossed her mind, a single word came to her: psychokinesis—the ability to affect the physical world without actual contact. Better known as telekinesis, she always thought the ability was the stuff of science fiction and crackpots. Yet Jarrod seemed to have mastered the ability.

But I can’t do that, she thought, and then she realized that she was no longer the same Jenna she remembered. Maybe she could? As she searched her memory, she gasped. Had she been using psychokinesis all along? It could explain her influence over people, the drone crash in the Everglades, the impossible wall jump in Miami and the way Cort’s men lowered their weapons against their will. She had this ability before, she realized, but was it stronger now?

Movement pulled Jenna from her thoughts. and she whispered, “Shit.” In her haste to reach the antenna, it had not occurred to her to take the Jeep’s keys. As the Jeep lurched into motion, she looked behind her at the miniscule buildings of the VLA headquarters. How far out was she? Three or four miles?

Plenty of time for Jarrod to intercept her, and there wasn’t a thing she could do to fight back.





61



6:11 p.m.



Jarrod closed the distance in the first minute. Jenna could see the Jeep, trailing a monstrous dust cloud, racing toward her as if the track maintenance vehicle was standing still. He pulled alongside her and matched her speed, pacing her for another minute, as if trying to decide what to do next. Jenna hoped he would consider it a few minutes longer, putting her closer to the control building and safety.

The Jeep pulled away, moving several hundred feet ahead of the slower pickup, then it veered onto the rails, right in the path of the lumbering truck. Jenna grasped what Jarrod was attempting, but there was nothing she could do to counter the move.

The Jeep shuddered over the ties, shedding speed, growing large in the pickup’s rear view. Jenna kept her foot on the gas pedal, watching as the gap between the vehicles shrank to nothing. A sense of déjà vu swept through her. She was playing chicken yet again, only this time, swerving at the last second wasn’t an option. Neither was stopping. At the last instant, she turned forward and braced for the collision.

The pickup jolted with the impact. There was a dull thump, like an explosion, followed by the crunch of metal and fiberglass grinding together. The pickup’s engine strained against the added load, but the high gear ratio of ‘reverse’ was up to the challenge, and the truck pushed the SUV along, in spite of the locked brakes. The heavy steel undercarriage and metal wheels kept the truck on course, while the Jeep’s tires skipped and juddered over the ties. After just a few seconds of this punishing treatment, one of the SUV’s wheels snagged the ground and the entire vehicle spun sideways off the tracks, allowing the modified pickup to charge ahead once more.

Jarrod got the Jeep back under control and resumed the chase, but Jenna was nearly at her destination. Less than a quarter of a mile away stood the enormous hangar she had passed earlier. Beyond that was the rail maintenance yard, and just a little further past that was the control center. If she had to, she could run the rest of the way. Jarrod must have realized this, too. Instead of trying to get ahead of the pickup, he aimed the front end of the Jeep at the rail truck and punched the accelerator. Once again, there was nothing Jenna could do but watch the inevitable happen.

The world jumped sideways.