Quantum Entanglement

by Liesel K. Hill

  Maggie shook her head. “In order to reach the Canyon Room, we have to go through Interchron. Unless you’re holding out an invisibility cloak on us, it wouldn’t be any different than walking right up to Doc for help. Besides, without a Concealment, I think Justine’s going to be able to find me sooner or later. I won’t put Interchron in that kind of danger.”

  Lila had the right idea, though. Maggie wracked her brain for possible solutions. “I need to figure out how Justine suppressed my abilities. Do either of you have any ideas?” She addressed David and Lila. Unfortunately, Jonah wouldn’t be much help in this area.

  Both of them shook their heads.

  “Okay, what about Concealments? Are either of you good at them?”

  Again, unanimous head shaking.

  “I can Conceal myself,” David said, “but only because I know my own brain so well. I wouldn’t know how to begin to Conceal another person.”

  “I don’t know anything about Concealments,” Lila said.

  Maggie sighed. “I can Conceal myself, but not for long. I could possibly do it for one other person, but it’s a stretch for me. No way I could Conceal us all.”

  For some reason, they all looked at Jonah. He shrugged. “Sorry. Wish I had any idea at all what you guys are talking about.”

  Maggie paced again, fighting the rising panic in her chest. She commanded her hands to stay by her sides to keep from wringing them. Justine would be here any moment and they were sitting ducks. They were about to reach crisis point with no way to defend themselves.

  She swept her eyes across the landscape, vaguely remembering it. They’d passed through this part of the world while traveling toward the Pacific island five months ago— two months ago. Whatever.

  The location made Maggie feel...calm somehow. “I’m glad we’re here,” she murmured.

  “What?” David came to stand beside her.

  “I feel calmer, here. More confident.”

  David glanced around the landscape. “Why? Does this place mean something to you?”

  Maggie shook her head. “Not in particular. We passed this place on the way to the island a few months ago.”

  David nodded slowly, still looking mildly disturbed. “You’re right. I was following you at the time. I didn’t recognize it right away. Why do you feel confident here?”

  “I don’t know. I just do.”

  Then she felt it: a host of malevolent energy over the far rise. Sucking in a breath, she turned toward it and threw a shield up around them, not sure what else to do.

  David instantly stood beside her. “What is it? Is she here?”

  “Yes,” Maggie said slowly, trying to define what she sensed. “It’s not just her this time. There are hundreds of them.”

  David’s face turned serious. She was learning that, for him, the expression meant fear. “Hundreds?”

  As he spoke, a single man appeared at the top of the rise, stalking down toward them. Behind him, an army of Arachnimen sprinkled with Trepid generals marched.

  “Colin,” Maggie whispered.

  “What’s he doing here?” Lila asked.

  Beside her, David groaned. “I forgot about him.”

  “So did I,” Maggie murmured. What now?

  “Is this the Colin from our present, or from this one?” David asked.

  Maggie shook her head. “I don’t think this is the Colin from this time. I think he’s from your present. He just arrived here, as we did. I felt it.”

  David gazed at her in a calculating way. “You felt it?”

  “Colin’s not a Traveler,” Lila put in. “How’d he get here?”

  In answer to her question, Justine appeared over the rise, leading a host consisting entirely of black-faced Trepids.

  “They’re working together?” Lila’s voice held bitterness. “Great.”

  “Geez, Maggs,” Jonah ran his hand through his hair, “how many people do you have after you? Darth Vador roaming around here somewhere too?”

  David and Lila both frowned at Jonah. “Who?” they asked at the same time.

  Maggie rolled her eyes. “Unless there’s something wrong with my shield, it should hold against Colin, but Justine’s another story.”

  “I’ll try to wake Kristee again.” Lila said.

  “No, don’t,” Maggie said.

  Lila frowned at her like she’d announced the desert was wet.

  “I don’t want to run again. I’m sick of it.” She glanced at David. “After our first jump, when you and I went into the valley and got captured?”

  He nodded.

  “I watched something on the television. An early member of the B.C.O. talking about what neurochemical abilities ought to be used for.”

  Maggie tried to remember all the man said. You have it within yourself to become whatever you wish. You are the tool. When you try to do or think of or become something positive, you’re manipulating positive energy. The molecules that make up positive energy are inherently more powerful than those that make up negative energy, so the good will always win out. But you must believe it will.

  “He said good intentions are more powerful than negative ones. Belief plays a role too, like choice does.”

  David frowned. “Okay.”

  “So, if I stand here and believe I can defeat her, that somehow I’ll find away, then I will. I’ll have to be able to. It’s like a...rule.”

  “As in, a rule of the universe?” Jonah chimed in, voice skeptical.

  If she’d had something to throw at him, she would have. “Yes, actually. According to this guy, that’s how it works.”

  Colin and his army marched closer and Maggie’s stomach did gymnastics.

  “This guy might not have known what he was talking about, Maggs.” Jonah asked, worry creasing his brow.

  “He was a member of the B.C.O. They’re the ancestors of Interchron. Probably Doc’s great-great-grandfather or something. I’m telling you, this will work. I’ll figure it out somehow. I have to.”

  Colin had already covered half the distance to them and Justine wasn’t far behind. They were coming too fast. They had no time to form a more specific plan.

  David stepped closer to her, face grim. Jonah stepped up on her other side. Lila stayed a few steps behind him, casting worried glances to where Kristee lay unconscious on the ground.

  Maggie’s gaze rushed around the landscape, searching for a solution. Plenty of organic materials she could draw energy from laced the surrounding hills, but she was beat. She wouldn’t have the strength to sustain anything. Even if she could, Justine had figured out some way to keep her from using her abilities.

  Fear twisted her gut into knots. She told herself to be positive; they’d find a way through this.

  Then Colin arrived. He stopped not six feet in front of them and gave one of his theatrical bows. “Hello, Maggie. So good to see you again. I’ve missed you so!”

  Chapter 24: Questions of Identity

  JUSTINE’S EYES BORED into Maggie’s, and Maggie found she couldn’t look away. Justine’s black-tattooed face looked immensely pleased with itself and every so often her forked tongue peeked out from between her lips, a lizard smelling the air. Maggie wondered how she’d gotten the tattoo so dark. Most “black” tattoos ended up looking gray in daylight. Justine’s skin shone in the daylight, the color of wet tar.

  Justine halted beside Colin. The Arachnimen and Trepids didn’t. They milled forward slowly until Maggie, David, Jonah, Lila, and Kristee were surrounded by a wall of tattooed goons, ten deep.

  Maggie wondered what on earth Justine’s endgame was. She supposed it didn’t matter. Justine, or whatever her true name, worked for the collectives. Nothing else mattered. Still, Maggie needed to find a way to stall.

  “What is it you want?” she asked.

  Colin barked a laugh. “After all this time, don’t you know?”

  “Not you, Colin. I’m talking to her. You’re a chauvinist pig and obviously you want what all male-supremacist, chauvinis
t pigs want. No great mystery, really.”

  Colin laughed as though she’d said the funniest thing in the world. “You always think that mouth of yours will save you, somehow, Maggie.” His expression went from jolly to sinister. “Trust me, it won’t.”

  Out of comebacks, Maggie’s eyes shifted to Justine. “How are you suppressing my abilities?”

  Justine managed to smile without moving her lips. Maggie saw it in the way her eyes crinkled at the corners, the way the skin of her cheeks drew back, and the sinister delight emanating from the snake-woman. “The same way you create them.”

  Maggie frowned. “What does that mean?”

  Justine came close enough to reach out and touch Maggie. She paced around the five of them. It reminded Maggie of the female Traveler she’d met five months before on the island. That woman paced around Maggie, Marcus and Nat the way a hungry wolf would around an incapacitated deer: practically licking her chops. Now Justine did the same thing.

  “I will always get through your shields, Maggie,” Justine’s voice was soft, feminine, almost cooing. It made Maggie’s skin crawl. “My abilities will always be equal to yours.” She completed her circle and came to stand in front of Maggie. “So what’s the use of fighting against me?”

  Maggie glared at her. She hated that. “There’s always use in fighting evil snake-bitches.”

  Justine took several slow steps backward, toward Colin. “You say that as though I’m so different from you.”

  Maggie glanced from side to side. “Uh, you are.”

  “No, Maggie. I am you.”

  Maggie wracked her brain, trying to get a few steps ahead of the conversation...what on earth did that mean?

  “In...what way?” Maggie asked, feeling lame.

  “In every way. I’m your match, your equal, your other half. I am you.”

  Maggie frowned. She addressed Colin for lack of anyone better to ask. “What’s she talking about?”

  Jonah leaned toward her. “Is she hitting on you.”

  “Ew.”

  Colin gazed at them for a few moments. Then his eyes danced, as though he’d thought of something ingenious. “Don’t you see, Maggie? She’s you. This is what you become in the future. She’s you, come back to correct mistakes when she was young.”

  Maggie rolled her eyes. Disturbing as the idea was, it rang false to her. Colin wanted to mess with her head. Yet, something about what Justine implied felt significant. She couldn’t fathom what.

  “She looks nothing like me, Colin.” That wasn’t true. While she was far from being a doppelganger, Justine did strongly resemble Maggie. “Besides, why would I choose to devolve into something reptilian, then come back in time to kill myself? Can we all say Grandfather Paradox? The collectives have more sense than that.”

  Colin chuckled, obviously enjoying himself. “What do looks have to do with anything? In another twenty or thirty years, we may all be able to change our appearances as Justine does.”

  Maggie noted the neat side-step of her other, more scientific points. Justine grinned smugly. “Why couldn’t I be you?” she hissed.

  Maggie sighed. “Well, for one thing you dated my brother for several weeks, which would mean I kissed my brother. And the only people who do that are, you know, Jedi.”

  David turned to arch a questioning eyebrow at her. Maggie ignored him.

  “Always pretending you’re smarter than everyone else, aren’t you Maggie?” Colin asked. “You’re farther behind than you could possibly imagine.”

  “Go to hell, Colin.”

  Colin leered at her. “There is no hell, Maggie. Nor heaven. There’s only the tranquil existence of the Union, and the futility of resistance.”

  “By ‘tranquility’ you mean no emotion. No passion.”

  “No war,” he said.

  “Then no peace either,” she shot back.

  He glared at her. “No inequality.”

  “No uniqueness, no creativity.” She glanced at David, remembering what he’d told her about the first sunset he’d seen after freeing himself. “No beauty.”

  “I can see we have a lot of work to do with you, Maggie,” Colin said, eyes flashing dangerously. “But not to worry. We’ll hone you into what you need to be.”

  “The Union has decided to give you a chance, Maggie,” Justine said. “If you agree to work for them, they’ll let you live.”

  David stepped forward, his shoulder brushing hers. “The Union’s prophecy calls for her death. Does the Union now denounce it?”

  Justine’s eyes flashed toward David. “The Vanished One has nothing to say.”

  David’s stance became rigid. “I am not Vanished.” His voice sounded cold and quiet, like the ring of iron.

  “Of course you are,” Colin cut in. “How could you not be?”

  David opened his mouth, but Justine talked first. “We have found a way around the prophecy. It calls for the Executioner’s death because she works against us, tries to annihilate the Union. If instead she works for us, ceases to be the Executioner, then she cannot fulfill the prophecy.”

  “How can she cease to be the Executioner?” Lila asked from behind Jonah. “That’s what her brain chemistry is.”

  Justine glanced in Lila’s direction, but gave Maggie a pointed look.

  Maggie sighed. “You want me to put myself under your control so you can change my brain chemistry?”

  “You would live,” Justine said.

  “I’d be a slave. My identity would be changed.”

  “You would be part of the Union,” Colin corrected. “You’d rather be dead?” he asked when Maggie glared at him.

  “I’d rather be an earthworm.”

  Colin flashed his sinister half-smile again, the one that made Maggie’s blood run arctic in her veins. “I told you before, Maggie. Death is not an option for you. Not yet, anyway.”

  “Enough of this,” Justine aimed her hiss at Colin.

  He nodded. “Very well. Last chance to accept our offer, Maggie. No? So be it. Justine will overpower you. She’ll give you to me—” Jonah and David tensed on either side of her, “—for a while. Your friends will be drilled and assimilated. When I’m finished with you, you’ll be taken back to the Union, where you’ll be executed.”

  Maggie grappled for words. Anything to keep them talking. She wracked her brain for a solution. She believed she could defeat Justine. She would! Somehow, she would. She didn’t have the strength to fight the snake-woman, and something about the way Justine said her abilities would always match Maggie’s made her afraid. Justine wasn’t lying about that.

  She’d figure it out. She would. Somehow.

  “You tried this once before, Colin. On the island. I vaporized your friend. What makes you so sure you’ll prevail this time?”

  Colin chuckled. “Why do you always assume I’m so in the dark about things, Maggie? You’re exhausted, as are your friends. You have no strength to fight. Justine is not Borna. She’s you; Borna wasn’t. And you don’t have any pure metals on you. I already scanned for them.”

  “There are plenty of other things around I could pull from.” Desperation tinged Maggie’s voice.

  “Not at that magnitude. And not when you haven’t eaten or slept in days.” He looked toward Justine, who began gathering energy about her fingertips.

  In desperation, Maggie sucked what energy she could toward her and hurled it at Justine. She actually managed some. Surprising, given Justine’s proximity, but only a small amount. When Maggie released it, it withered to a weak cord. Justine slapped it aside as she would a gnat, with a look of mild amusement.

  The fact that they were all about to die settled around Maggie’s shoulders with utter finality. “Uh, guys? This would be a good time to embrace your inner track star and get the hell out of Dodge.”

  “We’re not leaving you, Maggie.” Jonah took her hand.

  Maggie could see the energy gathering around Justine’s hands in swirls of color, predominantly shades of burgundy, f
uchsia, and wagon-red. Justine held one hand up, fingers pointed toward the sky, and swirled it in a circle, as though using her hand to mix an upside-down potion. The red energy eddied around her hand like a whirlpool. She flicked it out toward Maggie and the energy followed, surrounding the five of them, churning around them like a huge, deranged hula hoop.

  Maggie told herself to be calm. She could do this. She could save them all. She believed she could. She just needed to figure out how.

  She studied the energy, trying to comprehend its purpose. To imprison them? Perhaps. Maggie considered trying to walk through the energy. As she thought it, the energy began to change. The swirls of color solidified into long, whip-like projections, barbed with sharp, nasty-looking hooks.

  Then it clicked. In a way she couldn’t explain, Maggie knew exactly what this energy would be used for: to inflict pain.

  The thorny whips attacked.

  The energy converged on them with spider-swiftness. It mowed through David, Jonah, and Lila and clung to Maggie. White-hot pain exploded from every nerve in her body, blinding her and driving her to her knees.

  From far away, as though down a long tunnel, she could hear a woman screaming. It was her.

  Chapter 25: The Grief of a Parent

  AS SOON AS THEY LANDED, Karl went into battle mode. Five things happened all at once, and four of them he couldn’t explain. He’d Traveled to the place where Future Maggie said the canyon would be formed. He’d done that part intentionally.

  Once they got there, though, they were instantly surrounded by people. Four presences hunched nearby in the brush, the ones Future Maggie told him to aim for. Five more, including Lila, David, and Other Maggie, stood several hundred feet away. Before Traveling, Karl scanned the spot—Traveling across space was much more exact than Traveling across time, so long as one knew the terrain—and the plain stood empty except for those nine. Between the time they Traveled away from where they’d been, and the time they landed in this spot, the area became crowded.