“And Justin?” Barbara asked, her throat working. Her last glimpse of the boy had been strapped in a stretcher being wheeled to a waiting helicopter with his mother.
Cole sighed. “Helen had him from birth. She had been using him as a conduit to find out the plans of the council from day one, even the raid tonight.”
“Then why didn’t she—“ Meg said, her confusion writ plainly on her face. It was Barbara who answered.
“She was prepared for us,” she said. “And it was really a brilliant plan. The whole army of Seekers and Soldiers that stood in her way was right where she wanted. I was no match for her, and Gerard was dead. She didn’t know about Rosalie.”
Cole nodded. “She knew there was another Seeker who could be a threat, that’s why she moved up her plans. Rowina never sent Ned instructions for tonight. Helen did that.”
“Through Justin,” Meg stated flatly.
Again Cole nodded. “I sent Rowina my instructions, but it wasn’t about the raid. I learned about it too late to call it off, and all I could do was to come as quick as I could. I was almost too late.”
“What will happen to Justin?” Barbara asked.
“The boy is lost to us. Helen’s thoughts are his thoughts.”
“No.”
The syllable came from the bed, where Rosalie was watching them with exhausted eyes.
“Rosalie, honey, are you okay?” Meg asked, hurrying to her side. Rosalie kept her eyes locked on Cole’s.
“I saw him,” Rosalie said. “He was young, maybe two years old. He asked me to help him. He’s trapped in there. Trapped in her mind.”
Meg and Barbara exchanged looks. Cole looked thoughtful.
“You have to help him,” Rosalie insisted, as the silence continued. Her voice was a mere thread, but it was firm.
“How do we do that?” Cole asked.
Rosalie moved her head restlessly as she badgered her poor brain for an answer, but it felt like it as packed in cotton wool. “I don’t know!” she burst out. “I’m new here!”
Meg suppressed a smile, and gave Cole a helpless glance. Cole sent out a suggestion, and soon Rosalie was sleeping deeply. Cole motioned for them to step outside.
Barbara softly closed the door, and then asked urgently. “Is it possible? Can it be she snatched his mind away?”
“That would be very difficult, but not impossible,” Cole said, his eyes thoughtful. “We can take over the minds of people for short periods of time, but to actually trap another person’s essence…”
“He was very young, not yet formed,” Barbara suggested.
Cole looked unconvinced, yet he was intrigued by the possibilities. “It has to be carefully studied. We’ll do everything we can to help the boy.” He straightened up, putting the issue away for another day.
“In the meantime, take care of the little lady in there. She has great potential, but so did Helen. She can go either way, and I have an idea that she is even more powerful than Helen ever was.”
***
Rosalie recovered quickly, but she was listless and quiet. She had again withdrawn into her shell.
She had talked to her parents the following day, and assured them that she was okay. She didn’t tell them about Justin and Helen, and was disinclined to talk with Barbara or Meg about what had happened. Cole had flown out to Eden and promised to send them updates about the council and Helen.
Brandon was gone for the whole week, and came back stolid as ever, but his eyes were dull with exhaustion. He gave Meg a brief hug, and nodded at Barbara with a laconic, “It’s done.” He then headed for his room where he stayed for the rest of the day.
He came out as the sun was coming down, and saw Rosalie watching the sunset from the balcony that ran the length of the second floor. He stood next to her, saying nothing.
“I’m sorry,” Rosalie whispered, not looking at him as tears trickled down her cheeks. Brandon looked down at her, his eyes inscrutable.
“For what?” he asked. “You had nothing to do with it.” He looked back at the sunset.
Rosalie didn’t know how she felt. She felt so badly about what had happened. She thought she was training to help fight against some anonymous bad guys. Instead she had effectively helped put away half of Brandon’s family.
She was haunted by the image of the lost boy, trapped in the tangled forest of Helen’s mind. She ached to help him, but she didn’t know how. She sighed.
“I guess I just feel bad for you,” Rosalie said in a low tone. Brandon felt rather than saw him shrug.
“I’ll get over it.”
They stood in silence, watching as the sun finally disappeared over the horizon.
Chapter Eighteen - A Plan
One day followed another with startling quickness. Rosalie had not wasted time brooding over what had happened with Helen and Justin, but had approached her training with single-minded purpose.
At night she had the same dream over and over again. She was in the same tangled forest where she had seen the little boy, and no matter how hard she tried, he faded away each time she reached out to fold him into her arms and take him away. She always woke up exhausted and with tears drying on her cheeks.
During her mental training, she slanted more and more towards going higher up the planes than she needed to for mind reading and suggestion. She was intrigued by her momentary glimpse of the vista that lay beyond the normal Seeker perception, one that carried her into that vast emptiness where the darkness called to her like a living being. She wanted to go back, but she had to be ready for the power that she sensed might be beyond what her mind could comprehend without preparation.
She had a plan.
Barbara had listened to what she had in mind in silence. Rosalie waited with some nervousness for her reaction but Barbara had merely nodded her head thoughtfully. After a moment, she stood up.
“I’m not sure if it can be done, but I’ll find out,” Barbara promised, and there the matter rested.
In the meantime, Rosalie continued her physical training with Brandon. She did this more to condition her body to withstand what she needed it to do than for any real skills training. She had an idea that physical prowess would count for little once she got hold of the minds of those who would go against her. But the mind could not exist without a physical body, and the mind exercises she engaged in drained her body’s store of energy with alarming rapidity. Despite eating more than she really wanted, she continued to slowly lose weight.
Brandon noted this but said nothing. Rosalie had become more intense and quiet, still quick with a smile but never losing the haunted, determined look in her eyes. He had liked Rosalie from the start, but kept her at a distance. She had made friendly overtures during that first week they had been at Stronghold, but he had kept his distance. She had been a little hurt by this, but there was something about her he knew that made it necessary for him to keep her at arm’s length.
It was getting harder for him to do this, especially now that he sensed her distress over the young Justin she had seen in his mother’s mind. He wasn’t sure if what she had seen was a projection or the actual essence of his young brother, but she obviously thought he needed rescuing.
Brandon dropped his guard once after a particularly gruelling work out, and Rosalie seemed particularly pale with dark circles under her eyes.
“I shouldn’t mind so much, if I were you,” he said abruptly. Rosalie had looked up, a question in her eyes. “Cole is working on both of them, and if anything can be done to help Justin, he’ll do it.”
Rosalie was silent for a minute, her eyes searching his face for clues. She could delve into his mind, but she didn’t like to do it for no good reason. It felt like trespassing, and she liked Brandon. A lot.
“Do you miss him?” she asked, curious.
There was no expression on Brandon’s face, but he did mind about Justin, and felt a sullen anger at his mother. They were as different as chalk and cheese, and the life they had led had not fostere
d an easy camaraderie that might have developed between brothers, but he had always felt a fierce protectiveness for his little brother. The fact that he could do nothing to help Justin right now made him furious. But all he said was a bald “Yes.”
“Then wouldn’t you do anything to get him back?”
“I’m not sure exactly what we would be getting back,” Brandon said, a bitter note in his voice. “Would it really be Justin, or an extension of my mother? How could I ever trust him again?” With that he turned away, clearly signalling the end to further confidences.
Rosalie bit her lip, acknowledging the justice of what he said. She had serious misgivings about what she wanted to do, and hoped she didn’t make bad to worse. But she knew in her heart that she had to try.
***
Cole studied the graphs of the brain activity of both Helen and Justin, who were being kept sedated and constantly monitored. Rowina stood slightly to the side, watching her father.
He had marked off the section where he had done some exploratory forays into both minds, trying to find the link that bound them together. The human mind is highly complex, and the subconscious is even more so. It roamed free and made connections that had nothing to do with the discipline of the conscious mind, and this is where he hoped to find the solution to the problem of Justin. He noted with a chill that in Helen’s graphs during those forays, the graph showed unihemispheric slow wave sleep patterns. He had believed she was in a deep sleep, but apparently she had been well aware of his investigations. That could explain why he could find no trace of the link between mother and son.
Rowina saw his frown and was immediately alert. “What is it?”
Cole gave her a rueful glance. “It’s time to bring in the big guns.”
***
Barbara had not discussed Rosalie’s plan with her after that first time, but a month to the day she had first set foot on Stronghold, she had called her from her work out.
“Cole wants you to go to Eden,” Barbara said as Rosalie walked up to her, towelling her sweating face. “Just as soon as you’re ready.”
Rosalie didn’t waste time asking questions. She nodded quickly and hurried up to he room. Within 10 minutes she was stepping into the same car that had brought her to Stronghold, and Brandon was again behind the wheel, looking grim.
They were silent on the way to the small airport that serviced the area ten minutes away, where Cole’s helicopter was waiting for her. Rosalie was swept by a feeling of sadness and loss, and she looked back at Stronghold as if for the last time. She sighed as the house at last became hidden from view, and sat forward again. She looked at Brandon’s profile and felt an overwhelming need to have some physical contact with him, to hold his hand and feel their comforting warmth. She had an idea that when she stepped out of the car, nothing would ever be the same again between them. But she was afraid to take the initiative, fearing his rejection.
Unreasonably afraid that he would somehow divine her thoughts, she looked out her window and dwelled on the thought that she was leaving Brandon behind. A lead weight seemed to settle on her heart, and she tried to dismiss it as a schoolgirl crush, understandable enough given that the strong, silent man beside her was pretty much the embodiment of her ideal. She didn’t really believe it, but she had almost convinced herself that she would soon get over it when they drove into the hangar.
Rosalie turned head to thank Brandon for bringing her, but her voice died in her throat. He was looking at her with a strange mix of anger and longing, and Rosalie’s heart, freed from its lead weight, began to hammer in her ribs. Brandon cupped her face and neck with his right hand, and she was immediately aware of the pulse that was making his hand shake slightly. She leaned forward, her lips parting a little, and his eyes dropped to them before leaning forward himself, as if drawn in.
The kiss was soft, their lips barely touching. Rosalie uttered a frustrated moan and moved in closer, her own hand stealing to his neck and for a moment the kiss deepened. Then Brandon moved back, breaking all contact and Rosalie reluctantly opened her eyes. He was looking straight ahead again, his face rigid.
Confused, Rosalie waited for him to say something, but his profile was like something carved in stone. She wanted to say something, but couldn’t think of anything that didn’t sound asinine.
He liked her; you didn’t have to be a mind reader to know it. But he was acting as if what he was doing was wrong. Was it because she was only sixteen? He was nineteen, but could easily pass for someone in his mid-20s. But Rosalie didn’t think that was it. There was something he was holding back.
Soldiers had impressive blocks that made a good defense against Seeker intrusion, but Rosalie had to try just a little bit harder to get around them during her mental exercises. But with Brandon, while she may get through the major block, there was a certain section, represented as a safe, that she couldn’t get to, and it was something that involved her. What it was exactly, she didn’t know. She dared to hope it was his feelings for her, but reluctantly decided that it was something else.
Finally, after what seemed like a long time, Rosalie turned away and opened the door. She put one foot out, shooting him a glance before finally stepping out completely and shutting the door. Brandon drove off, leaving her standing there. Before the car was completely out of sight, Rosalie sent him a powerful thought.
The car’s brake lights flashed on and the car tipped slightly at the sudden stop. Rosalie waited with bated breath, certain that he would come back and say something, anything, before leaving, but the car’s brake lights blinked off after a moment of indecision and the car continued on its way.
Chapter Nineteen - Eden
Rosalie arrived in Eden still brooding over the abrupt way she and Brandon had parted. She almost wished she hadn’t had to leave, but she resolutely put the thought aside. She had to help Justin, or she would never get peace of mind.
She was escorted to the library, where the guard indicated that she would wait. She just had time to register that it was a lovely room, with a good collection of both contemporary and classical authors, when Gerard Cole walked in.
He greeted her with somber friendliness, but it was clear that he was worried. She asked her to sit down at one of the high chairs flanking the ornate office desk, and took the chair behind it.
Cole began without preamble. “What you’re proposing to do has only been tried once before, and the results had not been happy. In that instance, insanity resulted as the host mind struggled to reconcile what has become two separate ways of thinking. In the end, the host mind just gave up, and sank into a catatonic state.”
He gave her a small smile. “What has convinced me to try this time is mainly two things: one, your abilities are infinitely superior to that of the Seeker who made the first attempt, and two, Justin is a powerful Seeker in his own right. He just may be able to assert control and make a successful reconciliation.”
“That’s something I’ve been wondering about,” Rosalie said. “If Helen was using the young Justin as a conduit to the physical Justin, wouldn’t it mean that he was merely being manipulated?” Cole was shaking his head even before she finished.
“We don’t think so. Justin was certainly being influenced, but he knew what he was doing. He followed his mother’s orders of his own free will.”
Rosalie’s brow furrowed, trying to comprehend how that could be. “But if that’s so...”
“What Helen did to Justin was to feed her consciousness directly into his subconscious,” Cole explained. “She short-circuited his own system of morality by imposing her own, and as a result he sees nothing wrong with her way of doing this. You saw a young child because it represented the good, if you will, in Justin that has never been allowed to develop.”
“So what we must do is to stop her from suppressing his own sense of morality,” she said, tasting the idea.
“If we can,” Cole agreed. “We need to find the link between them, and cut it.”
He lea
ned forward, fixing her with a searching stare. “But even then, we may not be able to undo the damage that has been done. Helen has had 12 years with him, and it may be too late. You understand?”
Rosalie nodded. “I have to at least try.”
***
Cole led Rosalie to the basement, which had been fitted up as a hospital room. There were two beds separated by a variety of machines that beeped and whooshed contentedly as the occupants dreamed on, oblivious to their surroundings.
Rosalie looked down at Helen’s face. In repose, she had an elusive, gamine quality that could almost be called sweet if not for the slight downward turn of the mouth. She also looked vaguely familiar. Rosalie glanced over to Justin, and decided that the similarity in face could be it.
“She’s lovely, isn’t she?” Cole said beside her, looking down as well. “She married Paul Mandrake after her “death” and inherited Mandrake Electronics. She’s been on the cover of a lot of business magazines. It says a lot about her abilities that not one of us recognized her.”
“I suppose it was an obscurity of expectations,” Rosalie mused. “Everyone thought she was dead, so no one saw what was in plain sight.”
Cole returned no reply, lost in his own reflections. Rosalie turned to him after a moment.
“When can I go in?” she asked.
“Anytime you’re ready.”
Rosalie nodded, and taking a deep breath, leaned forward to place the fingertips of both hands on either side of Helen’s head.
She slipped easily into the thought stream that made her fingertips tingle with energy. It was sluggish, sleepy, lazy and she allowed herself to be swept along. It was nothing like the stormy, tangled labyrinth of her previous experience, but that had been when Helen was in full battle alert. Her conscious mind at rest was curiously serene, almost…empty.
Rosalie plunged below the surface and found herself in a dimmer, more turbulent place, like the undertow of a seemingly placid river. There were pockets of thoughts or dreams that drifted past, and the drug-induced sleep hardly penetrated to this level. She felt that Helen was aware she was in her head, and was watching her closely.
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