Free Ghosting the Hero by Viola Grace Page A

where she could see the mental pattern.
    She hooked onto that pattern and pulled herself through space, solar radiation and the tiny objects that would shred her physical form. She corkscrewed through the phenomenal distances, hauling herself along the surface of the empty world until she found the strongest point on the surface. Freshly disturbed stone proved that he had been buried. Now came the point of personal strength. She needed to pull herself to the mind under the surface, and he was quite the distance in.
    She hated the idea of being buried alive, but she imagined it was worse if you actually were.
    Simry dove into the rock and kept going until she reached the room deep in the skin of the world. She walked around and found the man she was looking for. He was kneeling motionless against the wall and his eyes were open wide.
    She stepped into his field of vision and waved at him. “Hello.”
    His mind should interpret her voice, but he didn’t move.
    She paced back and forth as she debated her next move. Diving into a living being was rarely comfortable. If he had mental damage, she needed to find out quickly before she waited for him to wake up from his wide-eyed nap.
    Simry hesitated for ten more seconds before she turned her back to him and reversed until her ghost was inside the space his physical form occupied. With a psychological deep breath, she merged herself into his body and entered his mind.
     
    “Oh my.”
    Simry was standing on a windswept plain and there was nothing around her. The sky above was pale and sandy; the ground was a darker shade but the same colouration. Normally, she would have been greeted by the being she had just broken into. Here, there was nothing.
    “Damn it.” She scowled and looked around. She had options, but they would not be comfortable for him.
    She looked out through his eyes and tried to calculate the amount of air he had. If he wasn’t moving, he probably had twelve hours. It had taken her three to get there.
    Simry cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Hey! Wake up. Or at least come and talk to me!”
    She stamped her foot on the ground and clapped her hands. “Hey! Sleeping beauty, over here!”
    There was still no reply. She looked around at the featureless landscape and sighed. “Fine. You want to do it the hard way?”
    She generated two sabers, and with a flourish, she stabbed the ground beneath her with both blades, twisting them deep.
    The ground under her shuddered, and a figure appeared twenty feet away.
    “Who are you?”
    She stood straight but kept her hands on the swords. “I am Citadel Specialist Simry of Teklan, monitor and ghost.”
    He was still blurry and his features were not stable. That wasn’t good. If he didn’t have a sense of self, it was dangerous. If he let his mind go completely while she was in here, she would be bound to his body and that wasn’t a situation she was in favour of.
    He blinked. “Do you know who I am?”
    She smiled. “My assignment.”
    “You are joking.”
    “No. I am here to keep you alive until the rescue team arrives.”
    “No one is coming for me.” He began to fade into the background once again.
    She pulled a saber out and threw it to nick his upper arm. “Get back here. I am here to rescue you. Well, sort of. They sent me here to keep you stable. Will you tell me what happened?”
    His body solidified under the small attack. “How did you do that?”
    “Practice. Now, why have you given up?”
    He was in front of her in the blink of an eye, solidifying and glaring down at her through glowing purple eyes. “I have not given up. I have been discarded.”
    “Not by me. Not by my people. We don’t want you to work for us, but we do want you alive.”
    He looked down at her and exhaled. “How will you get me out of here?”
    “I won’t. Rescuers are coming. I am not even really here. Your body seems a little stuck.”
    “I was given a paralyzing toxin. It has numbed my motor cortex, and