“Give me your hand,” Kristee said. “Now close your eyes and think of the memory you want to bring to light. Focus on what you already know, what you can see. Try to see it as vividly as possible for a few moments.”
A flash of purple light. A rock formation. Brown boots walking across a room at eye level. Two large hands covering hers. A hand with an ugly black burn on the back. A woman standing in front of a broken lighthouse. Blood on her hands. A whisper of a voice. The one called B cornering her in a glass room. Karl washed up on some jagged rocks, bleeding from the neck. Joan holding a baby. Clay on his knees, mouth open in a silent scream. Lila curled up in a ball, crying. Doc burning parchment by candlelight. Gasping, clawing for breath...
Maggie didn’t know which one to focus on. She wanted to focus on them all. The dream of being with Jonah still loomed fresh in her head, and the part about the man they called Chain Eyes evoked a certain one...
The one called B cornering her in a glass room.
Something itched inside Maggie’s skull, in a place so deep she couldn’t have pointed to it. Then it nettled. The stinging turned into rawness, and then the pain came in earnest. Maggie gasped, trying to get a handle on the pain, trying to focus on the memory, but nothing was—
Maggie lunged forward...and pulled up short. The room she’d entered was circular. No corners, no flat walls, no door she could see. The cylindrical walls were made of mirrors, or was it glass? It threw her reflection back at her. In it she appeared murky, foggy somehow. Her appearance was...different than it used to be. She couldn’t think why.
B came up behind her. She whirled to meet him, couldn’t see his face clearly. It was warped, blurry. Like water droplets on a photograph; phasing in and out as the light moved. But it was B. She was sure of it.
Tall and imposing with something dark on his head—she couldn’t tell if it was his hair or a cap—a delicate chain hung from his neck. On it hung a pendant. One she’d seen before.
“What do you want?” she asked, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.
“Isn’t it obvious?” his voice came out a soft, sinister hiss.
“No,” she said warily.
When he spoke again, his voice grew dropped an octave and slowed down. An old vinyl record left in the sun for too long. Maggie strained to understand. This was vital. She knew it was.
Something pounded on the inside of her skull, louder and louder until she couldn’t concentrate. The images around her melted together, and then...
She sucked air through her passages so hard it hurt. Her throat felt so raw, she wondered if it was bleeding. The pain intensified and she wanted to scream. Her voice wouldn’t come. Then it occurred to her: she’d already screamed herself hoarse.
“Maggie! Maggie,” a faraway voice called. Blurry images and random colors raced across her plane of vision. A flash of purple light. A pair of hands rested on the sides of her face, digging firmly into her hair.
They weren’t Lila’s.
Maggie gasped, jerked her head from side to side and blinked rapidly, trying to clear her vision. When it coalesced into concrete images, she found herself looking into David’s face. He squatted in front of her. His hands covered her ears, thumbs resting against her neck.
“Maggie! Maggie!”
She shook her head again, trying to clear it. Her neck muscles felt weak. When she dropped her chin, David leaned down and put his face under hers so he could see her eyes. He kept doing it until she focused on him.
“Maggie? Are you okay?”
She nodded shakily and he dropped his hands, resting them on the rock she sat on to either side of her. He leaned forward so far she had to lean back to keep their noses from bumping.
“Good. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Maggie glanced around. Jonah stood behind David, eyes wide as saucers. Lila stood next to him, arms crossed over her chest and weight on one leg. Kristee sat a foot from Maggie, gazing determinedly at the ground.
When Maggie realized David was waiting for an answer, she tried to find voice enough to give it, only managed a hoarse whisper. “Recovering memories.”
David’s eyes widened perceptibly. “You can’t do it that way, Maggie. It’s not safe. You’ll do damage.”
“I told you,” Lila glared accusingly at Kristee. The girl only shrugged, not meeting anyone’s gaze.
“When did you two get here?” Maggie whispered, including Jonah in the question.
“A few minutes ago,” Jonah answered when David didn’t. “We heard you screaming from a quarter mile down the mountain.”
Maggie’s face heated and she dropped her gaze. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, Maggie,” David said firmly. “Don’t do it again. Ever.” He turned his eyes on Kristee. “Either of you. Understand?”
Kristee withered under his gaze and Maggie didn’t blame her. “It worked,” Maggie wheezed. “I saw more of a memory I’ve been trying to recover.”
David sat back on his heels, still gazing at her with worry. “You may have corrupted it, Maggie. When you force a memory, you go deep into your subconscious. Anything and everything around you can influence you. Everything your physical senses pick up could color the memory. It’s like a...post-hypnotic suggestion. After that, you won’t be sure if the memory is true, or simply what you made it later on.”
“It worked for my sister.” Kristee sounded stubborn, but she still kept her eyes down.
When he answered, David’s voice dripped with disdain. “And you’ll probably never know whether the memories she recovered were warped by the forcing.”
Maggie rubbed her eyes. Why did this have to be so complicated? Why couldn’t there be concrete answers to anything? “I don’t accept that,” she rasped. “There must be a way to Heal memories. There must be absolute truth in them somewhere.”
David gazed at her until she dropped her eyes. She rubbed the bridge of her nose as a pretense to look away.
“Of course there is absolute truth, Maggie,” he said quietly, “but individuals only see it through the lens of their own understanding. Only a collective has the logic and objectivity to see things for what they truly are.”
Maggie glared at him, hoping her gaze was hostile.
When he saw her face, he dropped his eyes. “Sorry. Old habits.” He straightened his legs. “We can talk about this more later. We have to go.”
“Go?” Lila’s eyes widened. “Why? Did you get any food?”
“Yes, but not much.” Jonah held up a cloth bag, digging into it. He produced two loaves of dark bread. “We can split this. It’s only one meal’s worth. They saw us and knew we were intruders. They’re getting a group together to come after us.”
“Kristee’s not well enough yet,” Lila objected. “What if we climbed higher up the mountain and hid? She needs another day’s rest at least.”
“We don’t want to be here when these guys get here, Lila,” Jonah said gently. “Trust me. What we saw down there was...sick. It’ll be a posse, complete with hemp rope and pitch forks.”
“We need to go,” David repeated, staring pointedly at Lila.
“She won’t be able to get us the entire way,” Lila sighed.
David nodded. “As before, simply getting us away from here will suffice. She can rest again afterwards.”
“Maybe we can make the food last,” Maggie offered, “so we won’t have to go anywhere next time. We can just hide and sleep for two days and then go back to Interchron.”
“Maybe,” Lila eyed the bread doubtfully.
“It’s all right, Lila,” Kristee said, getting to her feet. “Staying safe is our number one concern right now. I can take us quite a ways.”
They formed a circle around Kristee and Maggie thought she could hear voices and the barking of dogs from farther down the mountain. Jonah came to stand beside her and put an arm firmly around her waist. She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile.
The blue and white ribbons spun arou
nd them again as Kristee called on her neurochemical abilities. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Maggie breathed.
“What is?” David asked from beside her.
“The energy. When she Travels.” She glanced over to find him gaping at her. “Don’t you...see it?” She asked.
His frown deepened. His voice said she was crazy. “No.”
The world lurched.
Chapter 19: To Cleave a Mind
SWIMMING AMIDST THE chaos of a million minds felt much like swimming in a pool with a million other swimmers: so much going on, it was hard to focus on any one thing or even move around. Doc managed because they didn’t know he was there. He remained an invisible intruder among them, listening in but not participating.
A murmur of voices reached his ears. They were not collective voices. After days of doing this, he could tell the difference between the thoughts he heard from the collective and the concrete voices resonating from where his body sat knee to knee with the captive Arachniman. Someone had entered the hidden cavern where he and Joan had been holed up for the past week and now spoke in hush tones.
Doc ignored those voices, focusing instead on the thoughts emanating from the collective. At any moment he’d be yanked from his work to deal with whatever news the new voice brought, but he wanted to stay within the collective ether as long as possible.
Since hearing the tidbits about Maggie the day before, nothing new or helpful had surfaced. He continued to hear about efforts to replace the honeybee colony that had been destroyed and discussions about how there were other colonies to make up for the lost work. Hundreds of other mundane details were talked about as the drones went about their daily lives, but Doc heard nothing of Maggie, the team, individuals, the prophecy, or anything else relevant. He couldn’t even find the invisible wall he’d hit.
He thought back to what he’d done the day before, hoping to hear the information he wanted. He’d...relaxed somehow, letting the information come to him, revealing itself rather than trying to force it. He hadn’t been able to make it work again. He hoped for the information again and took a deep breath. For the next half an hour, he attempted every kind of relaxation he could think of: physical, emotional, mental. Nothing worked.
He admitted to himself that trying to replicate his earlier experience might not be the smartest course of action. He’d ‘relaxed,’ found an important conversation, and the next moment run into a powerful wall of energy. Perhaps whatever he’d done to relax had made the collective aware of his existence, and they’d put up walls to stop him. Relaxing could be dangerous. If the collectives could put up walls, they might be able to do other things as well, like capture him.
Dread filled him at the thought, but it was only a theory. He’d have to test it to be sure. Telling himself to open his mind to the information he needed, Doc didn’t concentrate on any one thing, but rather floated through the ether of thoughts, listening without any particular purpose. It lasted all of five seconds.
Then he felt it.
A mind, one of the collective drones, came toward him. Strange. It felt so focused. The minds of the drones swirled around him in the collective ether. One might randomly head in his direction, but they wouldn’t come toward him with intent. They couldn’t.
This one did. It honed in on him, singling him out somehow. It seemed...familiar. He focused on the ball of neurological energy moving toward him. Someone he’d met before they entered the collective, perhaps? He sensed the mind, but couldn’t identify it.
The familiar mind’s neurochemical energy converged on Doc. He ought to flee. Even if he’d met this person before, they were part of the collective now. Perhaps they’d been able to identify his presence because they’d met him before. They might betray him.
Doc retreated. Back toward the hidden cavern; back toward the hushed voices murmuring around his semi-conscious body.
He didn’t get far.
Something plunged violently into his brain. If the ether had allowed him a voice box, he would have screamed. He fought against the intrusion, trying to throw up shields against a collective invasion, but the intruder pushed forward determinedly. Panic gripped him at the thought of forced assimilation. Then the drone was inside his head, the barrier of his brain shattered. The thoughts of the drone who’d sought him out thundered in his head.
Doc! It screamed inside his head. The bees. Look to the bees!
A pang of sorrow hit him as Doc realized who the mind communicating with him belonged to. A bar of searing, white hot energy came from somewhere and nowhere at once. It cleaved the drone’s mind cleanly in half. Yet the energy was not merely a crude weapon. After the cleaving, something exploded. The energy of the drone’s life force burst outward like the shockwave of a bomb.
As the wave hit him, searing his meninges around the edges, Doc became fully aware of his body again. This time, he did scream.
When he came to, he found himself on the floor of the cavern. Joan and Nat hovered over him.
“What happened?” he asked. The back of his head throbbed and he reached behind to palpate it. His fingers came away bloody.
“Nat came with news,” Joan said, looking shaken. “We shook you to try and bring you back from the subject’s mind. You wouldn’t wake. You started screaming and some force knocked you backward, chair and all. You hit your head.”
Doc stared past Joan at the Arachniman subject. The man’s chin rested on his chest, his tongue lolling out of his mouth grotesquely. A thin trail of blood dripped from one nostril. Yet, Doc could feel that the subject still lived. His heart still contracted, his lungs still expanding regularly.
“Is he gone?” Doc asked quietly, allowing Nat to help him into a sitting position. “Did I destroy his mind?”
“His mind is gone,” Nat said nodding. “His brain, destroyed beyond repair, but I don’t think you did it.”
“No?” Doc asked, doubting anything Nat could say would bring him comfort.
“It wasn’t until after you fell out of the chair and were unconscious that his mind was destroyed. I felt it.”
Doc sighed. That surely proved his theory. The collective detected him enough to identify the channel he’d used to enter. They’d destroyed that channel. The Arachniman’s mind was collateral damage. His window into the collective had disappeared. He only prayed it hadn’t been wasted.
“Doc, what’s wrong?” Joan asked, placing a hand on his arm. “Why are you crying?”
Doc didn’t realize he was until she asked. He wiped moisture from his cheeks and stared at it, uncomprehending. “Dillon.”
Joan immediately took on a look of alarm. Her breathing deepened perceptibly. “What about him?”
“He made contact with me. From inside the collective. And they killed him for it.”
Joan knelt beside him. She sat back on her knees, looking dismayed. “Doc, are you sure?”
“Positive. He gave me a message, and then...”
“I’m sorry,” Nat said quietly, “but who’s Dillon?”
“He was our chief of security here at Interchron before you arrived,” Joan explained. “One of the best men I ever knew. He led a team of Trackers out to look for you a few weeks before you got here. Do you remember us asking you if Dillon had found you? You said he hadn’t?”
“I remember,” Nat nodded.
“When a team goes out and doesn’t return, it’s not hard to guess what’s happened to them,” she went on. “But without proof, there’s always the hope they’ll return...” Joan put a hand to her mouth, horror in her countenance. Nat laid a hand on her arm. “What did he tell you, Doc?” Joan asked, misty-eyed.
“The bees,” Doc said. His voice sounded far away. “He said look to the bees.”
Nat looked at Doc like he’d announced bears hibernate. “The...bees? What’s the significance of that?”
“Doc’s heard a lot of talk about a colony of honeybees destroyed in a storm a few nights ago,” Joan explained. “It seemed suspicious to me. Obvious
ly I was right to wonder.”
Nat’s brow furrowed, his eyes taking on a worried cast. “Why were you suspicious?” he asked, tone wary.
“I knew of no storms a few days ago. Last night I went back to Interchron while you slept, Doc. I went to the Command Center and checked the weather sensors. There weren’t any storms over any part of any of the collective population over the past week and a half. The weather’s been calm. It must be a code for something.”
“Of course it’s a code for something,” Nat said, sounding vexed. “There are no honeybees anymore. The species became extinct in the early twenty-first century.”
Doc dropped his forehead into his palm and massaged with his fingertips. Of course they were. And he’d known that, he simply wasn’t thinking about it. The sheer volume of talk about the so-called honeybees should have tipped him off, but he’d been so preoccupied with what he wanted to hear that he hadn’t paid attention to what revealed itself to him; trying so hard to see the forest, he hadn’t noticed the trees.
“You were at Interchron last night?” Nat asked Joan.
“For an hour or so. I went to the CC, got some more foodstuffs for us, then came right back. Why?”
“Dillon died to tell me this,” Doc murmured. “Now I don’t have a way to go back in and explore it.”
“Maybe it’s just as well,” Nat said. “This is dangerous work. If I’d known this is what you two were up to, I’d have insisted on being here, team member or no. If this Dillon drilled you, the collective will know it. They’ll move into the space he created in a heartbeat.”
“Nat’s right, Doc,” Joan said. “This is work for a Deceiver to do, someone who can wall off part of their mind and protect their individuality while still becoming part of the collective. You don’t have that ability. If you go back in they could assimilate you before you take a breath.”
“We have no Deceiver,” Doc argued weakly. He couldn’t get the sensation of Dillon’s energy exploding out of his mind. “Dillon rebelled. And David broke away, so...” He couldn’t force his thoughts into any coherent order.
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