Free King of the Dark Mountain by Galili Black

you, I wouldn’t give this project one chance in hell. But I’ve had a feeling for a long time that we would do some important work together. I hope that doesn’t sound too pretentious or anything.”
    A big smile lit his face and he patted her on the back. “No, it sounds like the Ellie that I used to know. Come on let’s go catch up with those fellows.” He headed off at a quicker pace; she had to do the same to keep up. She kept her head down and tried not to think of Hez and how difficult it would be for him to find her.
    They had driven a long way into the forest. From what she had gathered, this particular mountain was chosen for two reasons, its high mass of granite at the summit and its remoteness. How in the world would he ever find it? Would he be willing to wait patiently at Ted’s house for them to return? She doubted that. Would Irena be able to give him directions? “Does Irena know the exact mountain we’re headed to?” she asked Ted.
    “Yes, for a while we had played with the idea of using Irena in the experiment. Some preliminary tests were run, but the numbers were off. They thought the problem was with using a spouse. They said there was too much flat space, as they called it. They thought our long years of intimate contact, not just sexual but living together and all that goes with it, made us unresponsive to certain stimuli that needed to be engaged for the process to work. Aleister thinks the fact that you and I have been out of touch will augment the experiment for the same reason.” He threw her a glance, “Sounds rather intriguing, doesn’t it?”
    She smiled and shook her head. “I’ll say. It reminds me of pheromones. I heard that they put them in perfume back in the day; you know bottling something that has always just been a mysterious force between people.”
    “I never thought of it like that. I remember when that was a minor craze back when I first met Irena.” He looked, suddenly chagrined, “Not that I would ever resort to, or needed to resort to … I think those things are silly,”
    She laughed, “Yeh but you’re willing to go traipsing off searching for magic energy sources with dubious quasi-government agents.”
    “They’re not a bit dubious, but highly credentialed. They both have Ph.D.’s in their field.”
    She gave him a startled look, “And what fields would that be?”
    “Oh something you haven’t heard of, new fields.”
    “Where did they get their degrees?”
    “I believe Ian went to a famous college in the middle of England, Newcastle perhaps. Aleister in the U.S. I forget exactly where, but it is all on the up and up.”
    “That’s funny I thought they were both Swedish or something.”
    “Aleister is from a little Norwegian fishing village originally, as for Ian Germany I think. I don’t know; it doesn’t matter. The people I’ve met who are doing serious research in the field of alternative energy sources tend to have affiliations with various nationalities. It’s the world we’re moving in to, where many people will have spent time living in more than one country, like you Ellie. It’s part of the whole globalization process, I believe. It’s a good thing. It may even have the effect of moving us away from war mongering and such.”
    “I hope you’re right. Those two,” she motioned with her head towards them, “they seem oddly un-cosmopolitan, especially considering what you’ve just told me about them.”
    He shrugged, “The consequence of spending so much time in the laboratory, no doubt.”
    “Well, there’s always a price to pay, isn’t there?” she asked. “We probably should stop talking about them; they might have super hearing skills or something.” He laughed.
    Ian suddenly stopped and turned around. “We have to check the GSP to make sure we’re still on track,” he yelled down to them. Ellie and Ted caught up to him.
    “This looks right to me,” Ted said, “We never ventured off the trail the last time we