Meteorite Strike by A. G. Taylor

Sometimes they got her to exercise while they monitored her heart-rate. Sometimes sensors were attached to her head that she had to wear while she slept.
    Other tests were stranger.
    On one occasion Sarah was taken to another room, identical to her own, except without a bed. She was left alone for ten minutes before the sound began. It started as a low hum, barely noticeable, and grew in intensity until it was an annoying ringing in her ears. Sarah shouted at the mirror, where the noise seemed to be coming from, but there was no response. The sound grew…and grew…and grew…
    Until it seemed to be splitting her skull.
    Finally, she’d curled up in the corner, trying to block the noise with her hands over her ears. At some point she passed out…
    Sarah awoke some time later in her own room again.
    â€œWhat happened?” she asked the mirror as aspirin and water were provided through the slot in the wall.
    â€œI know some of our procedures are difficult to understand, Sarah,” Mandy’s voice in the mirror reassured. “But you said you’d help us. Thousands and maybe millions of people can be saved by the tests we’re carrying out.”
    â€œI don’t understand how…”
    The reply was curt. “Sarah, we’re scientists. Trust us.”
    â€œI want to see Robert. And I want to speak to Colonel Moss.”
    â€œThat’s not possible right now. Please, Sarah. Be patient.”
    So she was. For the time being.
    Sarah could sense Robert close by and the feeling got stronger hour by hour. Often she would lie on the bed and close her eyes, focusing on the part of her mind where she could sense his presence. His room was only a hundred metres away, she could tell. Concentrating harder, she began to pick up his emotions: happiness, boredom, anger, fear. Very occasionally a thought of his would snap into her brain, like a voice shouting in her head, before it disappeared again.
    She couldn’t fully control the power yet, but it was coming.
    Again and again in her sleep she dreamed of Robert speaking to her and woke up shouting an answer to him.
    â€œIs everything okay?” Mandy would ask from the other side of the mirror.
    â€œJust a bad dream,” Sarah answered, turning over in the bed.
    Sometimes she’d cry in the night, thinking about how she would have given anything to see Mum again for just a few seconds. Mum would’ve known what to do and would have been strong for both her and Robert. Very much to her surprise, she also found herself wishing that Daniel was there – but he was gone too, lost to the virus. Sarah knew that she was the one who was going to have to be strong for her brother now. She buried her tears in the pillow.
    She wouldn’t let them see her cry.
    * * *
    â€œHow much further?” the Special Forces soldier in the driver’s seat of the truck grumbled as it bumped along the desert track.
    Beside him, his commander tapped the odometer and replied, “Another couple of klicks.”
    Major Bright had been precise with his instructions: the prisoner was to be dropped in the desert one hundred kilometres to the west of the base – no more, no less. Right now he was lying sedated in a sleeper casket in the back of the truck.
    A few moments later, the commander signalled for the truck to stop at the top of a dune.
    â€œOkay, helmet on,” he ordered and both men fitted on their mirror-masks before moving into the back of the cab. They stepped into the airlock and closed the hatch. The cab of the truck was completely sealed and took in air from the outside only once it was thoroughly filtered. The air outside was still contaminated with the airborne virus and would be for at least three more days according to the HIDRA scientists.
    Checking the internal door was thoroughly sealed, they opened the external door and stepped out into the forty-five degree heat of the desert. Their combat-model HAZMAT suits