“And she’s gonna believe that?” Darius must be brain damaged from exhaustion. Anna, his direct supervisor and ultra-strict Tyon, was anything but stupid.
“I don’t see why Anna wouldn’t.”
“You don’t see why I wouldn’t what?” asked a familiar icy voice behind them.
4
Riley was so startled her orb slipped from her fingers and rolled off Alec’s back and under the beige sofa. She barely suppressed an outright scream.
A tall, slim woman wearing a grey one-piece overall and a tight, unhappy expression stood in the middle of the camper. An orb glowed in her hand. Her white-blond hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail. Her grey eyes rolled over Darius’s prostrate form, the unconscious body at Riley’s knees, the teenage driver who had yet to notice her arrival, and onto Riley. The eyes narrowed as the orb flared briefly.
“I assume you have a good explanation for this,” she said to Darius.
The camper momentarily swerved before Peter regained control over his surprise and pulled the wheel straight. In the rearview mirror, his eyes were huge. For a second his gaze connected with Riley’s. Then he focused back on driving.
Darius blinked several times but his facial expression didn’t give his shock away. “Hi Anna. Good to see you.”
“You have not responded to my summons,” Anna replied. Riley wrinkled her nose. She’d almost forgotten how much she disliked Anna’s highhanded attitude and precise manner of speaking. “Maintaining contact with a superior officer is a high priority, Darius. As you well know.”
“Don’t quote regulation at me,” Darius sighed. “I’ve had a hard day.”
“Doing what?”
“Oh, just saving lives left, right and center.” Darius tried for a lofty tone but missed. He struggled to sit upright.
“Explain.”
Darius poked his toe into Alec’s shoulder. “This one and his brother,” he nodded towards Peter, “are exceptionally strong Potentials. I’ve been following them for the last couple of days, studying their signal, while monitoring for signs of the Others. Riley here is Alec’s girlfriend,” he added with a slight smile. Riley tried not to bristle as he continued. “They’re never apart. That’s why she’s with us.”
“Non Potentials are not to be included nor should they witness Tyon power,” Anna said disapprovingly. Her expression seemed to ice over even further as she gave Riley a longer and more probing glance.
“She’s a Potential too,” Darius added hastily. “Funny that.”
“Indeed.”
Anna looked like she didn’t believe a word Darius was saying. Riley ducked her head and tucked her blood-covered hands between her knees to keep them out of sight. She’d have to remember to warn Alec that they were supposed to be a couple. Heaven only knew what he’d say. She could quite happily throttle Darius at the moment. She knew why he’d said it—the swine—and she was going to personally pay him back the minute she was able. But now, she had to cope with this new, imperious form of disaster.
“Have you teleported recently?” Anna continued the interrogation.
“Yeah,” Darius said. “We were all on a bus. I was tailing the boys, learning about them. They were attacked by a gang of hoodlums.”
Hoodlums? Riley rolled her eyes.
“Alec here was stabbed. There wasn’t time to do anything else. I had to get them out of harm’s way. Alec is too strong a Potential to lose. So I saw this vehicle at the side of the road and made an instant decision.”
“I see.” Anna bent over and placed her orb against Alec’s neck. She seemed to be thinking for a moment.
“I didn’t have time to summon the medical personnel of this society. Only instant orb application was going to help.”
“Witnesses?”
Darius winced. “A few.”
“How many?”
“Ah, twenty? But two of them were unconscious when I moved us and at least one was asleep.”
Anna’s frown deepened until several lines creased her forehead like fault lines. “An unacceptable number. Give me the coordinates and I will begin the modification process.”
Darius handed her his orb without further comment. She touched her orb to his and there was an almost imperceptible flash of blue light. She handed it back.
“I will return the instant I have completed this task. Begin regen, Darius. I will want a complete and detailed report when I return.” With one last annoyed look at Alec, Anna disappeared.
Darius flopped back onto the couch and groaned. He flung his arm up over his eye. “She’ll drown me in paperwork.”
“You guys don’t use paper,” Riley reminded him as she slumped against the sofa.
“It’s a figure of speech,” Darius sighed.
“Yeah, well, Tyon bureaucracy is the least of our problems,” Riley snapped as she reached over Alec and stuck her hand under the sofa. She wriggled her fingers but, other than a couple of tiny dust bunnies, found nothing. “You know Miss Super-Efficient-know-it-all. She’ll be back in ten minutes. Everyone in Scarborough will have had their memory wiped clean. And when she’s finished with them, she’ll start in on us.” Riley reached further, bracing herself over Alec with her free hand, and ran her searching fingers over the plush carpet. Where was that stupid orb? “I can’t resist her. You know I can’t. She’ll take one look into my brain and see the truth.”
“I’ll explain.”
“Darius, the woman is second in command on this mission. She’s single minded. She hasn’t met us before. She’s not going to buy any explanation you have cooked up.”
“She’ll understand.”
“She won’t.” Riley’s fingers touched the cool surface of the orb but it slipped away the instant she tried to close them around it. Groaning, she strained after it. “She’ll see your signature, add ours and put two and two together. The time travel thing. Remember?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Darius sighed.
“You’d better think of a good method of keeping her nose out of our business and fast. Or I will.” Riley said. A vision of pillows and a silently struggling Anna crossed her mind with dark pleasure.
“Tsk, tsk,” Darius lay back down on the sofa and closed his eyes. “And you look so sweet. Who’d believe it?”
Riley snorted but didn’t answer. He really didn’t look well. Riley bit her lip and applied the orb back onto Alec’s injury, focusing her attention. Time, as usual, was running out. Alec needed to heal a.s.a.p. and they needed to hit the road the second Anna learned the truth.
5
Alec was drifting. He had no idea where he was or what was happening to him. He couldn’t feel his body or see it, but strangely, it didn’t bother him. In fact, nothing did.
He was aware of his surroundings in a way that didn’t seem to be connected to his vision or touch or even sense of smell. An awareness borne of knowing without actual experience. There was something rather familiar as well, but he couldn’t quite remember what that might be. He was somewhere dark and vast and other; multi-coloured lights bloomed around him, flaring into something quite wonderful, then fading to nothingness, like a silent fireworks show surrounding him. The sounds were like nothing he had ever heard before; all the languages of all the worlds in creation, mixed together, muted and barely audible.
He drifted further, coming closer to the lights. They in turn receded, although whether in response to his approach or of their own accord, he wasn’t sure. Not that it mattered.
Time passed but had no meaning.
For a long while Alec had no cogent thoughts; he just was. But eventually, for no real reason, his memory began to return. Thoughts drifted from one thing to another. Most made no sense. A series of images drifted into awareness; a young man, irrepressible mischief in his eyes, reaching out a hand; a girl with navy eyes, lips curled into a smirk, laughing at him; a massive cloud of pulsing, sickening lights, coming closer.
Alec felt his emotional response as if it was someone else’s. The man w
as someone both admired and envied. The girl, longed for. The lights caused fear.
After a while those images faded. The glittering array of colour around him began to subside, slowly at first as to be almost imperceptible. Then quickly, the lights were gone. Alec became aware of pain. The pain grew. And grew. It absorbed him.
He became aware of his body again. His right arm was trapped underneath his stomach, the fingers burning with pins and needles. His face was pressed into something fibrous and scratchy. Dust tickled his nose. The back of his throat was dry and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. His chest hurt with every intake of breath, but the worst pain was in his back, just below his ribs. Something hard and implacable was pressed against his skin; the pressure of it worsening the dull throbbing pain that was coming from deep inside him.
He coughed and the pain quadrupled.
He cried out and the darkness around him rapidly receded.
Something touched his mind: an alien, distant, malevolent something. Then it was gone.
Alec was swamped with exhaustion unlike anything he had ever felt before. He couldn’t fight it. He didn't want to. He slept.
6
It took Anna much longer to modify all the memories than Riley thought it would. Evening had settled in. The windows in the houses they passed glowed warmly, and inside the RV, Riley had lit the lamps so she could see.
Peter was still driving east and hadn’t spoken a word since Anna had pulled her disappearing act. Toronto had long since been left behind and with it most of the traffic. They had passed the exits for Kingston only a few minutes before and already the landscape on either side of the road was essentially empty of dwellings. Darius had fallen fast asleep from exhaustion on the couch ages ago. One hand was still flung over his eyes.
Riley rolled her shoulders to ease the kinks out of the muscles. She was still sitting on the floor with her hand on Alec’s back, holding the orb in place. The second he was okay, she wanted him up and on his feet, ready to run. Anna was not to be trusted, no matter what Darius said, and likely their only hope would be to high-tail it out of there. Any extra healing she could do before ‘Annageddon’, she would.
However, she was getting hungry and the fridge—while well stocked with cola, mixes, and white wine—held nothing in the way of food. The cupboards contained only boxes of fancy crackers and tins of smoked oysters. Whoever owned this camper didn’t seem to plan on actually camping in it, or else had bizarre ideas about nutrition. If Darius had been awake she would have insisted that he have Peter take them to the nearest grocery store to stock up or, at minimum, pick up a pizza. For a second she remembered the pizza she and Alec had made together. It seemed like so long ago. She smiled.
Alec stirred underneath her hand and groaned. Riley jerked her hand away as if scorched. She leaned over Alec’s shoulder. His eyes were open but somewhat glazed.
“Everything is okay, Alec,” she said in the most soothing tone she could manage against the lump in her throat, “You’re fine.”
“What…?” Alec couldn’t seem to find the energy to continue.
“You got hurt but Darius and I fixed it. Don’t worry.”
“Oh.” Alec closed his eyes and his body relaxed. Riley saw the pain dissolve from his face as he slid back into unconsciousness. Hopefully a restful sleep now, instead of involuntary coma. She sat up straighter and chewed the inside of her lip. Should she chance instructing Peter to stop at the next gas station so she could buy something for them to eat and risk that the hold Darius had over Peter was enough to keep him from taking off the second the camper stopped? Or wait until Anna decided to return and ordered them to turn around? Her stomach growled and her eyes strayed to the cupboard. Oysters would have to do.
The orb buzzed painfully. Instinctively she dropped it onto Alec’s back. It buzzed again.
Darius groaned softly and, without opening his eyes, raised his own fist-clasped orb to his face and rested it against his forehead. There was a moment of silence before he muttered, “Yeah, no problem. We’ll wait.” He dropped his hand back to his side. “Anna wants us to stop moving and stay put for a while. It’s taking her longer to track down the witnesses.”
“We passed a sign for a campsite a couple of minutes ago. It should be just up ahead,” Riley suggested.
Darius didn’t open his eyes but he nodded. “Peter?” His voice was weak and there was no response. He cleared his throat and tried again, a bit louder. “Peter, pull into the next campsite. Park out of the way.”
There was a grunt from the driver’s seat.
“Riley,” Darius said quietly. “Use your orb to ensure no one remembers us.”
“Will do.” Riley got slowly to her feet. Muscles and joints protesting from too long in one position, she gingerly stepped over Alec and made her way to the front of the camper. She slid into the passenger seat beside Peter.
Peter’s face was unnaturally pale in the reflected headlights of the oncoming traffic. His lips were pulled back from his teeth in a snarl and his hands clasped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were bloodless. She noticed his quick sideways glance but stayed silent. She didn’t need her orb to pick up on his hatred and anger.
There was hardly any traffic and not much to look at. Just fields heading off into the distance, jagged rock cuts where the highway had been blasted out of hills, and a never-ending parade of signs: speed, deer, attractions, and distance markers. Boring as all get out.
“There,” Riley pointed ahead. The teepee-shaped sign was filled with block letters indicating that Riverview Camp Ground was a destination of unparalleled beauty and that there were vacancies.
Peter only grunted in response, but applied the brakes a bit too sharply and veered onto the shoulder just in time to make a hard right turn onto the dirt road.
“Are you trying to tip us over, you idiot?” Riley gasped, her hands braced against the dashboard. Behind them there was a thump and muffled “ow” as Darius rolled off the sofa.
Peter swore under his breath. He swung the wheel again as the lane dipped and bent around a clump of huge trees. Riley grimaced and focused on the road, which was lurching in and out of the camper’s headlights with every pothole. Clearly someone had thought the meandering pathway lent a holiday air, fooling travellers into thinking they were miles from nowhere, rather than thirty kilometers from a major city. Riley’s stomach made another unpleasant lurch towards her throat as the camper skidded around a crater in the road and made the final bend with inches between the hull and a massive boulder that had, “Your almost there” spray-painted in luminous misspelled script. Peter noticed the dark metal gate at the last second.
“You keep the motor running. I’ll get out and open it.” Riley’s hand was already unlocking her door as the RV skidded to a sharp stop. “Leave me behind and I’ll pull your nuts out through your ears. Got me?” she warned.
Peter didn’t speak but the tightening around his mouth acknowledged her threat.
Riley dropped down to the uneven ground and headed towards the gate. The darkness had deepened now and only the beams from the headlights behind her gave any illumination. There were lots of sounds though, above the purring of the camper’s German engineered motor and none of them soothing. Night creatures of the forest chirped, squawked, and rustled, somewhere just out of sight. Riley focused on the oily latch instead of the goosebumps that were taking up residence at the back of her neck. Who on earth would spend the night in a tent listening to this racket, she wondered as she lifted the lever and swung the heavy gate backwards, when you could have air conditioning, soundproof double-glazing, and Egyptian cotton sheets? She waved at Peter, indicating he was to pull the camper forward. She stepped lightly to the side as the big machine moved slowly through the gate. Waving the exhaust fumes from her nose, she latched the gate again and climbed up into the passenger seat. Peter put the RV into gear and headed at a more sedate pace down the final stretch of the laneway.
It wasn’t much
of a campground, Riley decided as they pulled into the reception parking lot. The only signs of civilization were one larger rundown building with “Office” hung over a screen door and a slightly smaller building with a long porch and faux old-west styling to the right. “Ye Old General Store” was written on a sign that swung over the porch. There were bluish lights flickering in the office but no one seemed to be around.
“Cut the engine and give me the keys,” Riley ordered.
Peter ground his teeth but complied.
“Leave the camper and I’ll hunt you down,” she added as she opened her door. A swarm of moths headed straight for her. With a grunt of disgust, she jumped down and slammed the door behind her. The moths battered against the window for a moment before heading back to the feeble naked bulb over the office door.
Riley opened the screen door and walked in. The office was larger on the inside than it had looked from the camper and the level of décor was significantly better than the outside of the building suggested. A colourful map was pinned to the wall between the two windows detailing a much larger campground than she’d expected. A long counter separated the guests from the staff, and behind it, several desks complete with computers and telephones sat vacant. The brightest light came from the private office at the back of the room. Inside it, a dark haired woman in her thirties was rising from a chair. She waved to Riley before leaning down and shutting off the television she was watching.
“Need a lot or a cabin?” she asked as she entered the main office and proceeded to sashay towards the counter in ridiculously high heels.
Riley bit down on the scathing footwear comment and smiled politely. “We have a camper. It’s pretty large.”
“No problem. We have lots of space,” the woman said, reaching for a smaller paper version of the wall map. She expertly turned it around so Riley could read the writing. “It’s still not our busy season. Would you like near the river, the pool, or the playground?”
Time of Treason Page 3
