Persistence of Vision

by Liesel K. Hill

  “It’s not your fault,” Marcus said softly.

  “Yes, it is. Every bit as much as it is his.” She indicated David.

  There was a brief silence, which Doc broke. “Marcus, sit down. I have some things to explain.”

  Marcus lowered himself into his seat, looking reluctant to do so.

  “It’s true that Maggie has the ability to use the kind of power the ring afforded her. If she hadn’t, she would certainly have vaporized us all. That she didn’t means that David was right in his assumption that she could handle it.”

  Marcus opened his mouth but Doc threw a hand up, forestalling him.

  “It is also true, however, that Maggie is completely untrained in this regard. As such, it was wrong to send her into battle with such a weapon, no matter your certainty of her abilities.”

  David looked chastised but made no comment.

  “Now, as to the accusations the man I spoke to made.” Doc drew a deep breath. “Karl’s right. I do know this man, B, or did a long time ago.”

  “More things you haven’t told us, Doc?” Joan’s voice was quiet.

  Doc spread his hands. “Please understand. I’m certain there are things I haven’t told you, but not because I’m trying to keep anything from you. I wouldn’t have thought this would be…relevant to the mission.”

  “So who is he? What does he want?” Karl asked.

  “Didn’t you know who he was when he attacked Lila?” Joan said.

  “I suspected when Lila was attacked, but he said so little, and it was so ambiguous that there was no way to be sure. After all, as David had told us, there are many people who might want to kill Maggie.

  “As to who he is, I don’t think the details are important just now. I knew him a long time ago, but we had different beliefs. I believed in freedom and individualism, while he leaned more toward collectivism. It was this core difference that tore our friendship apart. I haven’t seen him since. Obviously he is a powerful man in the collectivist world. He simply wanted me to know that he’s still around and watching.”

  “What was he saying about brothers?” Karl asked.

  Doc was staring very hard at the ceiling. Maggie could swear, though no twitch of his face or wet gleam in his eye betrayed it, that he was fighting with his emotions. He finally brought his gaze to their level.

  “Just an old figure of speech—a private understanding between us.” His voice was a whisper. “The only reason he brought it up was so I would know his identity, unequivocally.” He cleared his throat and thudded his palms on the table. “More to the point, because I know this man so well, I know him to be deceptive. He would do anything to plant doubts among us, turn us against one another.

  “That he tried to tell me that David was his pawn is what makes me more certain than ever that David is and always has told us the truth. If David were doing his bidding, B would have tried to convince me of how trustworthy David was, and I would have known it to be a lie.”

  “But Doc,” Maggie said, “how do you know that he doesn’t know you as well as you know him? What if he’s manipulating you because he knows you’ll believe the opposite of anything he says?”

  Doc smiled. “Maggie, that’s one of the things I love about you. You have such a fantastic mind that you can think in extremely complicated equations.”

  Maggie rolled her eyes. “Is that your way of saying I’m over thinking it?”

  Doc chuckled. “No, but you’re giving him too much credit.” He leaned back in his chair. “Evil men are always narrow minded. They can’t see beyond their own intentions. Those of us who are both more educated and more compassionate often can’t comprehend their stupidity. We think that if only they would do x, y, and z they could manipulate us, but they rarely do. They don’t have the capacity for it.

  “Oh, there are plenty of evil geniuses in the world, but even they are limited in their own way. I daresay B is quite the genius himself, but it would never occur to him to use my own understanding to manipulate me. He wants to deceive, because it will cause us to doubt each other. He wouldn’t think of layers of deception or psychological manipulation. He doesn’t have the intelligence for it.”

  Maggie was silent, letting the information sink in. So David was not a traitor, Clay was really gone, Colin was going to find Maggie sooner or later, and they were no closer to bringing down the collectives, regardless of the fact that they had succeeded in killing the Traveler.

  “Do you think he—this B guy, I mean—was the one that killed Clay?”

  Doc gazed at Marcus for a long time before answering. “What makes you ask that?”

  “Whatever Clay was hit with, and whatever neurological energy was attacking us in that courtyard, it wasn’t coming from the drones. It was coming from somewhere else. I could feel it. I just couldn’t identify the source. I don’t think the drones have the ability to attack us that way. They were being directed by someone else—by the collective. But someone was leveling a neurological attack at us from somewhere.”

  “I can vouch for that,” Joan said. “I had to throw up shield after shield against the barrage of Offensive energy coming our way. It was difficult because the attack was so powerful. I couldn’t tell where the energy was coming from either. I hadn’t really thought about it until now. What do you think, Doc?”

  Doc was quiet for a minute before answering, and no one was willing to break into his thoughts, so they waited for him to speak again. Joan looked to be on the edge of tears. Karl’s expression was a mixture of worry and anger. Nat was lost in his own thoughts. David looked haunted. Marcus was studying Doc’s face intently, as though to discern his thoughts by studying the emotions running across Doc’s face. When Doc spoke again, they raised their faces to his in unison.

  “I don’t know the answer to that. It may have been B. Or the Council of Six. There’s no way to tell.”

  “You aren’t telling us everything you know, Doc.” Joan’s voice was soft and dangerous.

  Maggie was beginning to see what Joan saw when Doc was withholding something. It wasn’t anything he did that was the tell; it was the way he studied the table in front of him, and the skin around his eyes took on a look of tension.

  Doc sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I’m thinking of something the prophecy says, but I want to go back and read it again. I’ll share what I know with you when I’m sure of what it is myself.”

  Silence followed, and Maggie ran through everything that had been said in the cargo bay. “So, we’re assuming that B is lying, but we’ve said that Colin was telling the truth about things, right?”

  “Why do you ask, Maggie?” Doc leaned forward.

  “He implied that their barrier—the one our scans couldn’t penetrate—was booby trapped somehow—that they knew when we’d crossed the border.”

  Doc’s eyebrows went up, and his eyes whipped to Karl and Marcus. Marcus nodded.

  “She’s right. That’s something we both forgot, but Colin did say that they were just waiting for us to cross the Concealment. I’d assumed the barrier was some kind of Concealment, like the one over the lighthouse. Is it possible to put some sort of alert system on a Concealment that way?”

  Doc thought for a time. “I don’t know. Perhaps. Or perhaps it isn’t actually a Concealment but something else. What was everyone else’s impression?”

  No one had any insight to offer. There had been too much going on at the time for them to study the barrier. It was a secondary concern. If it had been a Concealment, Clay could have offered the most insight, but again…

  “So what now?” Joan asked. “Do we even have anywhere to go from here?”

  “Of course we do,” Doc said resolutely. “Thanks to David’s information, we have more to work from than we ever have. We’ll have to do something about Colin, of course. But we know there are six minds that are controlling the collectives. We don’t know where they’re going next, but the simple fact that we know they exist is a starting point. We’ll hunt Colin a
nd start gathering information on the Council of Six.”

  Sensing that the meeting was nearing its close, Maggie cleared her throat. “Anyone care to tell me why I have guards following me around?”

  Maggie had assumed there was a logical, benign explanation for the guards, but the way everyone turned away from her made her afraid.

  “They aren’t guarding you, Maggie,” Joan said. “They are acting as bodyguards to you. They are Concealers.”

  Suddenly it made sense. Why hadn’t she thought of it? Colin was looking for her. These people were making sure he couldn’t find her for the present.

  Doc looked weary. “Maggie, I don’t think you’ve been given a complete run down on what happened after you passed out, but any one of us can tell you. For now, we need to focus on your safety.”

  Maggie swallowed. “Okay.”

  Doc leaned forward, clasping his hands together. “It takes two Concealers together to do what Clay could have done alone. Clay could Conceal a person for days at a time without tiring. When he grew tired, we could have had these other Concealers take over so he could rest. It only took two to three hours of recuperation for Clay, and he’d be good as new. But Clay…isn’t here anymore.”

  Doc sighed. “What you must understand, Maggie, is that we don’t have the power to protect you here. There are six people in Interchron that can participate in protecting you this way. Two work at a time in eight-hour shifts. That means they always have sixteen hours to refresh themselves. That is not enough time.”

  “Not enough time for what?”

  “For them to recuperate. They’ve been guarding you for several days already since you returned to the compound. They sleep away the entire sixteen hours they have off, and when they come back for their next shift, they’re still not one hundred percent. I give it a week before we’ve exhausted them completely. At that point, they’ll all need a week’s worth of rest before they’re themselves. Even then we’ll only have them until they wear out again.”

  Maggie nodded, understanding what he was getting at. “And when they’re abilities fail, Colin will be able to point straight to where I am.”

  Doc smiled without humor. “I’m afraid so.”

  Maggie studied her hands on the table. The thought of coming face to face with Colin again terrified her, but she couldn’t let him find her here amongst friends.

  “Then I have to leave Interchron.”

  The clicking of tongues and other sounds of protest came from around the table.

  “Maggie, that won’t work,” Karl said. “You can’t hide from him. He’ll find you wherever you go.”

  “Exactly. So the least I can do is be far away. If he’s going to find me anyway, I have to protect the people living here.”

  “And what will you do when he finds you?” Marcus looked earnestly into her eyes.

  “I…I don’t know, but—”

  “You could always give her the ring.” David’s voice was tinged with irony.

  The team immediately turned on him.

  “I can’t believe you just suggested that!”

  “That’s irresponsible, and you know it!”

  “Absolutely not. Not an option!”

  David shrugged, seeming unperturbed by the onslaught of criticism aimed at him.

  Maggie held up her hands. “I’m not saying I want the ring. I don’t want to deal with that kind of power again. It terrifies me. But I’m not sure I understand why you’re all so against it.”

  “This kind of power is extremely dangerous, Maggie,” Joan said. “We can’t control it. We don’t understand its full consequences. You have the potential to be able to control it, but we don’t have any way to train you, because no one’s ever done it before. This kind of power can change the physical structure of the planet. Used improperly, it may even rip a hole in space-time itself. Consider this. What if, in your century, someone discovered the ability of mind control?”

  “Like brainwashing?”

  “No. That’s a form of psychological manipulation. I’m talking about controlling someone by taking over their mind, getting into someone’s head and telling them to…scratch their nose, and they do it.”

  Maggie thought about the mess society already was in her century. “That would be disastrous.”

  “Why?” Joan asked. “With such power your society could control the minds of those who are criminals. They could make it so that murderers, rapists, pedophiles, and even just petty thieves saw the error of their ways. Society could be completely peaceful.”

  “Yeah,” Maggie admitted, “but at what cost? There is always someone willing to use a good tool for a bad thing. People would use it incorruptly. We would never know if our thoughts were our own or someone else’s.”

  “Precisely, Maggie.” Doc took over. “The power pulled through pure, supple elements, such as gold and silver, could have vast consequences, including some we know nothing about. It’s irresponsible to wield a power of that magnitude when we don’t understand it. The risks outweigh the potential rewards.”

  “Okay.” Maggie sighed. “So what do you propose? You don’t want me to leave, but I can’t stay, and I have a week before Colin will be able to find me anywhere on the planet. I’m assuming you have a plan.”

  Everyone looked at their hands. Even Marcus studied the table in front of him, and when she turned to fully look at him, he turned his head away from her.

  Alarm reverberated in Maggie’s chest. What could be so terrible?

  “It’s hardly a plan, Maggie,” Doc said. “It’s just the only option we have left.”

  “Which is?”

  “We’re going to send you back to your own time.”

  The words hit Maggie in the chest like a ton of Kevlar. The fear of facing Colin was nothing to the fear that knotted her stomach at the thought of leaving.

  “Wh…what?”

  “We have no way to protect you. Colin can still find you, because he is a Seeker, but without the Traveler he is impotent. He has no way to navigate time. He’ll know where you are, but you’ll just be a ray on the horizon to him, completely unreachable.”

  “But…how can I…”

  “Karl will take you back, of course. Marcus, I’m sure, will accompany you.”

  “Doc, I’ve been on this insane mission for months now. You expect me to go back and try to live my life again, knowing what I know? This is exactly what happened before—I was here for a time. Then you sent me back. Don’t you think this back and forth between my time and yours is getting old?” Maggie spoke at lightning speed and was out of breath by the time she finished.

  Doc gave her a sad smile. “It’s not the same as before, Maggie. You’ll retain your memories this time. You may even have recovered a few of the old ones before you see us again, if the Remembrancer is to be believed. Besides, when we took you back the first time, we had every intention of leaving you to your life. This time, we’ll be planning on coming back for you.”

  “Which will be when?”

  “When we find a way to deal with Colin or otherwise keep you safe.”

  Maggie looked around the table for help. Surely they couldn’t want this.

  “This is the only way, Maggie,” Nat said. “Not the easiest way or the most efficient way—the only way.”

  “The team is in pieces, Maggie,” Joan said. “Clay is gone, and we still have no one to fill the Deceiver role. We must regroup and gear up for the next step.”

  “Exactly. You need me here.”

  “We need you period, Maggie,” Karl said from beside her. “We need you alive. We need you safe and protected. To our shame, we cannot accomplish that here, but we can’t afford to lose another team member, logistically or emotionally. When it’s safe, we’ll come back for you.”

  Maggie turned misty eyes on Marcus. He was staring at his hands, but when she turned to him, he shut his eyes, and she realized this was painful for him.

  “Marcus?”

  He turned his body to her
. “No one wants you to go, Maggie, least of all me. I hate this. But I won’t let Colin have you, either.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I just won’t.” He reached up and touched her cheek with his index finger.

  After a short pause, Doc spoke again, and Maggie’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “We’re all exhausted. We need to chew over all the information we’ve gotten. And we need rest. Karl will take Maggie back in three days. Before she goes we’ll have another meeting to talk specifics on what we’ll do next.”

  “One more question?” Maggie asked timidly, and Doc nodded at her. She’d been thinking over everything that had happened, and she remembered something she’d forgotten completely about for the last week.

  “Dillon and the Tracking team, did they ever make it back?”

  Doc’s face slid from curiosity at her question into a mournful droop. “No. There’s still no sign of them. Nothing at all.”

  Maggie hung her head. She felt as though a hundred-pound weight was sitting on her chest and more on her shoulders as well. Why hadn’t they returned? Were they as gone as Clay was? Or worse—forced into enslavement in one of the collectives? Maggie put her hands on her upper arms. An inexplicable cold settled on her.

  The meeting went for another twenty minutes, but Maggie wasn’t listening. She felt numb. Marcus participated in the discussion, seeming nonplussed, but his hand stole slowly over to cover both of hers in her lap. He clutched her hands tightly in his, almost to the point of pain, but she didn’t care.

  The fact that he was as upset about her going as she was made the pain worse, but it also afforded some small spark of relief.

  Chapter 34: Attractive Forces

  Two days later, Maggie worked with Marcus in a supply room. They had talked little about her leaving. By unspoken consent, neither of them wanted to draw out the good-byes, so they left them for the last possible moment. Maggie was not looking forward to that moment. The Concealers, shadowing her in pairs, were a constant reminder of the burden she was to the team and to the entire rebellion effort.