Something shifted. The hairs on Doc’s neck tried to stand up. As one, all the people standing on Interchron’s slopes raised their chins to study the sky. The energies that had been wriggling there for a week now came together and solidified into a cylinder of energy. It pulsed like a living thing and refracted light like a prism.
Doc held his breath. He, and the last free community on earth watched the corridor of energy, waiting.
*******
David gazed down into the heart of the canyon. He’d taken up position in a thick stand of foliage that allowed him to lean out over the lip of the canyon and see everything happening below.
Six people, too far away to make out details, stood in a circle at the bottom of the canyon, their eyes trained on the energies in the heavens. The Council of Six. David prepared to attack them as soon as the Concealments and Protections went down. In theory, he possessed enough talent with Offensive energy to take them all out in one fell swoop. His ability equaled Maggie's.
In reality, the collectives weren’t foolish. They’d probably taken precautions against such things. He wouldn’t know what he was up against until he tried. Depending on the effect of his first attack, he’d be able to gauge where his best chance at success lay. If they'd set up enough precautions that he really couldn’t kill any of them—a likely scenario—he planned to simply hurl a barrage of attacks against them in hopes of distracting them long enough for Marcus and Karl to get the orb or Maggie to kill the Cimerian.
David had a little ability with Concealments and Protections. He might've been able to identify when the Concealments went down on his own, but to be safe, Doc sent Salla with him. A surprisingly insecure teenager, Salla could also Travel. She had a lot of talent with Concealments, so she’d be able to confirm when the Concealments went down, as well as Travel him to wherever he needed to go.
“You okay?” he asked, mostly just for something to say. She huddled nervously a few feet behind him, keeping away from the canyon’s edge, but waiting patiently for things to get underway. David wished he had her patience.
She shrugged. “Yes.”
Her answer didn’t sound particularly confident. Then he felt it. Something changed. David looked up at the energies in the firmament. They’d all formed themselves into a single cylinder of energy. It had begun.
*******
Karl peered around a large outcropping of rock to get a better look at the Cimerian. The white, glittering orb sat on a table created by the natural rock of the canyon. The Cimerian loomed nearby, the dark vapor around him ebbing and flowing, as if looking for things to suck in.
Karl had Traveled himself and Marcus to a spot on the canyon floor, roughly three miles from where they’d left Maggie, Jonah, and Joan.
"You ready, Marcus?" Karl whispered.
Marcus, crouching directly behind him and peering over his shoulder, nodded. Karl felt the response more than seeing it. He crept carefully back and around Marcus, clearing the way for Marcus to take his spot and peer around the rock outcropping himself. Karl walked back a dozen paces to where Tenessa stood.
"What is the Separatists’ plan?" she asked.
"As soon as the Concealments and Protections go down, Marcus will use his ability to hit the Cimerian and take out the enemy army." As they might have expected, a group of fifty or so Arachnimen, peppered with Trepid captions, stood between them and the orb.
"Does the Separatist truly believe it will work?"
Karl had hope they’d prevail overall. That didn’t mean he expected everything to go according to plan. He shrugged. "Probably not. I’m sure the collectives have taken measures against it. We’re hoping when Maggie disrupts the flow of energy, it will cause the same disorientation for him as for the rest of the collectivists. Assuming it does, I'm going to Travel myself down there and filch the orb."
"No," Marcus came up behind Karl.
Karl turned with a raised eyebrow. "No?"
"I want to get it, Karl. Take me with you. It burned Doc’s hands before, and I want to be the one to touch it."
Karl frowned. That didn't make any sense. "Marcus, after you do your wave-of-offensive-energy thing, you're going to be exhausted. I won't be. Let me get the orb."
"Which is why I need to be the one,” Marcus said firmly. “I'm going to be exhausted and completely useless anyway. You might as well preserve your strength by letting me handle the orb. You’ll need to Travel us down there and back, and back to Interchron eventually. Why risk us both being injured?"
Karl hesitated. Marcus's argument made a certain amount of sense, but they didn't know what would happen. He preferred not to have Marcus in the in the line of danger, so near to the Cimerian, and too exhausted to handle himself.
Marcus stared directly into Karl's eyes. "I'm doing this, Karl. You’ll be there to cover me if need be."
Karl sighed. Marcus sounded determined, and Karl didn't care to talk him out of it. If anything went wrong, he felt confident he could get Marcus to safety without trouble.
"We will accompany you too."
Karl spun toward Tenessa, feeling vague alarm. "You? Why?"
Tenessa gripped both sides of her waist with her hands. "We’ll not be left behind. If both Separatists move toward the orb, so will we. Besides, with close proximal observation of the Cimerian, we may learn about him."
Karl frowned. “Why would you want to know more about the Cimerian? Didn’t you learn everything from your Union?”
Tenessa gave him a scathing look, part anger, part wariness. “Our knowledge of him is quite complete, yet all comes from second-hand accounts. We have never observed him up close. Perhaps…we might make some observations that would…aid the Separatists in their mission.”
Karl scoffed. Tenessa render him aid? He doubted that. He wasn’t stupid enough to trust such an offer. Yet, her heartbeat—which he felt through the Cupola bond—stayed steady as she said it, which meant she probably wasn’t lying. Karl had no idea if such a thing was reliable or not. Tenessa could go anywhere she wanted and he’d be able to find her instantaneously because of the bond. He’d simply assumed she’d sit down somewhere and refuse to move until it was finished, one way or another. "And here I worried you’d run away. Instead, I can't get rid of you,” he muttered.
Tennessee glared at him. “The Separatist’s bond ensures we cannot run away. We might as well remain with him and attempt to be of some use."
Karl considered a moment before shrugging. "Okay."
Marcus went back to peer around the bolder again, leaving Karl and Tenessa relatively alone. Tenessa studied the rock wall of the canyon. Karl felt sure she’d gotten lost in thought. He wondered where her mind strayed. As if to answer his question, she spoke.
"This…feels wrong," Tenessa said. Her voice sounded soft but intense.
Karl wondered vaguely what to make of it. "How very free of you," he said dryly.
She didn't answer.
"Karl," Marcus said from near the stone outcropping. "I expected a larger army than this. They only have a few dozen Arachnimen and a couple of Trepids guarding the orb. There were more when we tried for it before."
Karl had the same thought when they first arrived. Strange for such a small force to be protecting the orb. And yet, maybe not. "They know no matter how many goons they put there, your wave can take them out. Truly more of a formality, isn't it? They know a physical army won't be much of a deterrent for us. I'm sure the neurochemical safeguards are much stronger."
Marcus nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, I guess. It’s just weird."
"Yeah,” Karl said, peering grimly into the sky. “Yeah, it is.”
Chapter 36: Dark Vortex
Joan stood at Maggie’s elbow. "Take a deep breath Maggie. Relax. You’ve got this. You can figure it out."
Maggie tried to tap into Joan's confidence in her. When Joan looked away from her, toward the Canyon, Maggie inconspicuously slid her fingers into the pocket of her jeans. Looping her middle finger around the delicate
gold band, she drew threw the gold to study energy above her, especially the pockets of dark matter.
Using the gold gave her a clarity of observation she hadn’t had before. The wiggling light energy that seemed to be flowing into the pockets of darkness suddenly looked…submissive to Maggie. As though they bent and flowed at the will of the dark pockets. The dark energy, on the other hand, seemed to welcome and absorb the light energy.
Clay said dark matter is easier to manipulate than light matter because it doesn't burn. Perhaps she couldn’t direct the dark energy as she did with light. Perhaps she must instead surrender to it.
Closing her eyes again, she found the vortex in the Dark Lands faster this time. Rather than try to bring the dark energy toward her, she maneuvered the particles of her mind to within its grasp. The dark vortex wrapped around the particles. She felt it as an invasion, and panic took over. Then it felt as though her brain was being yanked out of her head. For a moment, she thought it might rip her mind clean out of her body. Maggie’s heart slammed into her rib cage. She willed the dark matter invading her mind to slow down. It did, cocooning the particles of her mind in a cushion of soft, warm darkness. At least it wouldn’t come unbidden or try to take over her. She wasn’t sure that was even possible, but she knew next to nothing of what she dealt with here.
Maggie opened her eyes and gazed upward, to where the moon blocked out the sun.
Rather than dip into the vortex and pull the energy to her location, Maggie pulled her mind back to the present. The darkness came with her, keeping the distance she’d instructed. She felt it hovering around her brain cells, but not entering them.
She studied the sky, the tiny wriggling energies and pockets of dark matter. Telling herself this would work—it had to—she drew threw the gold ring and sent her mind up to them. The tiny vortexes of dark matter wrapped themselves around the particles of her mind, and she accepted them. The dark matter descended from the heavens and wrapped itself around Maggie’s body, around every part of who she was. It became a part of the energy that made her, her. Maggie opened her eyes. She knew what to do now. She could direct it.
The energies in the sky solidified into a column. To Maggie’s eyes, it appeared to be a column of crystal, reflecting light every which way, though she knew it was really the different forms of energy. Constructive and destructive, offensive and protective, the energies of Concealment and Travel. Dark matter wove its way through all of them in a complex pattern.
Still pulling through the ring, and relieved that David had thought to give it to her, because she wasn’t at all sure she could have done this without it, she used the dark energy around her brain to pull the tendrils of dark matter out of the loom and force them into straight, sharp lines. She slashed the dark matter spears viciously and simultaneously across all the other energies making up the crystal column, shearing through the weave.
The entire crystal column evaporated, the energies returning to their prior, wiggling state in the sky. They remained, just not together in the column anymore.
"I did it!" Maggie cried. "I disrupted the flow of energy. The backlash should be happening now." She whirled to face Tristan. "Tell Doc!"
Tristan nodded. His eyes glazed over, and Maggie detected the strange green energy around him. A far-away thought suggested she must be seeing the energy of telepathy.
"Uh oh," Joan said, sounding worried.
"What is it?" Maggie asked.
“It didn’t work, Maggie. The Protections are still in place.”
"Yes, it did," Maggie insisted. "I sheared through the corridor of energy. They still haven’t fused back together yet." She glanced at sky to see the energies still floating about, almost looking…disoriented.
"Maybe that worked," Joan said. "But there's no disorientation. It's like the disruption of the energy didn't affect them at all."
"Hey, Maggie? Mom?" Lila’s voice sounded wary. Or was that terror?
The sound of it frightened Maggie.
"What is it?" Jonah asked.
"All the drones just got a huge wave of emotion. I felt it. It’s so concentrated, some of them have collapsed under it. Some of them…” Lila shrugged her shoulders uncomfortably, her eyes fixed on something they couldn’t see in the distance. “Some of them are dying."
Oh no. Maggie’s stomach bottomed out. Somehow, the collectives had anticipated the group’s plan. They’d compensated by finding some way to pawn the negative emotional backlash onto the drones. It allowed them to keep their Concealments and Protections in place.
Maggie’s heart pounded in her chest, fear filling up her internal cavities. What did they do now? If the Protections and Concealments didn’t go down, the Council of Six couldn’t be killed. They were all about to become slaves.
“Uh, Maggie?”
Maggie spun. Jonah frowned worriedly at something in the distance.
Maggie stepped up beside him, following his gaze.
An army of Arachnimen, fifty or so strong, led by three Trepids, appeared over the rise. The collectives had obviously discovered their location. Maggie wondered why they didn't attack them neurologically. Perhaps all neurological energy needed to go toward the assimilation. Or perhaps they were just waiting for the right moment. They could lash out neurologically at any moment.
"Maggie?" Jonah said. "What you want us to do?" He stared grimly at the rise. "They're still a ways off, but me and Lila can’t handle that many on our own."
Maggie nodded, telling herself to think rationally. "If they get too close, I can take care of them.” She could sweep them away easily with a wave of Offensive energy, but she wanted to conserve her strength. She might still need it. “We have a bigger problem right now. We have to figure out how to kill the Council of Six, or we’re all going to get assimilated."
*******
Tristin's voice came as though from down a long tunnel. Doc listened patiently and caught every word.
Maggie figured out how to disrupt the energy. That part worked, but they experienced no disorientation. The Concealments and Protections are still up, so we can't move forward. Any idea why that would happen?
Doc sighed. He should have gone with the team to the Canyon. If he were there, he might be able to figure it out. From here it would be a blind guess.
He sent back. I don't. Tell me more!
*******
David huffed in frustration. Things were taking too long. The eclipse was in full force. Maggie must be attempting to disrupt the flow of energy, but hadn't managed it yet. If she didn't figure it out, they were all doomed. David turned his head to call over his shoulder to Salla. "What do you sense?"
"Something is happening," she said hesitantly. “I feel energies I can't identify—” She froze mid-sentence and gasped.
David’s eyes shifted automatically down into the canyon, looking for some sort of change, but he saw nothing. He spun on his toe to look at Salla. "What?"
"Something just happened," she furiously studied the foliage in front of her without actually seeing it.
“No,” she whispered, her eyes widening. "Oh, no."
After a quick look into the Canyon to be sure there were still no changes there, David lunged toward Salla and grabbed her arm. "What? What's happening?"
“A disruption in the energy," Salla whispered. “That group of drones felt the effects of it.”
David frowned, not sure why that would make Salla’s eyes so wide. It’s what they’d been waiting for. “Oh…kay?”
“The Protections and Concealments are still up." She blinked and looked David in the eye, terror in her face. “It didn't work. Maggie disrupted the flow of energy, but for some reason, the drones down there got the brunt of the emotion. It didn’t cause any disorientation."
Icy dread slit slithered into David's chest. He didn’t know how the collectives did it, but it made a twisted sort of sense. They would have tried to plan for any contingency, and chances were, they knew if Maggie managed to disrupt the energy, they wo
uld be vulnerable. They’d taken measures against that, using their own people as emotional garbage disposals.
David whirled back toward the Canyon. He had to do something. Needed to try. If they didn't figure something out, they would all be assimilated in a matter of minutes.
Straightening his spine and lifting his gaze, David gathered as much Offensive energy from the ether of the universe as he could manage. He molded it expertly into cannonballs that would explode when they hit their targets. Dividing the energy into six different units, he flung them toward the Council of Six, targeting each member independently.
Salla appeared at his shoulder, peering down the Canyon. David watched his energy, spinning as it went, until it hit and exploded twenty feet above the Council of Six. Some sort of dome-shaped shield lay over the top of them. His attack, though stronger than what most people on earth could manage, hadn't so much as dented the shield.
Of course it hadn't. Thousands upon thousands of drone minds held it in place. One man, no matter how strong, couldn't hope to infiltrate that shield. Still, he had to try. David gathered energy for second attack.
Something slammed into the side of his head, knocking him sideways. When he got his bearings, he found himself lying on his side in the grass. Sharp twigs and jagged rocks had drawn blood from his cheek. He sat up and rolled over to find Salla in the grass next to him. The blast had knocked her off her feet as well. She sat up and shook her head as if to clear it. A cut above her eyebrow leaked blood down the side of her face, but otherwise she seemed fine.
David looked around, trying to gauge the source of the attack. Some distance away, through the dense foliage, David made out the forms of two Arachnimen. Scouts no doubt. He and Salla's location had been discovered.
Dark Matter (Interchron Book 3) Page 45
