Quantum Entanglement

by Liesel K. Hill

  Four more minds had settled high on the mountain above, looking down. These four felt familiar and cautious, yet calm. A few hundred yards away, another thousand people stood. These were underdeveloped minds, surrounding Maggie and David’s group.

  Karl and Marcus made their way to the edge of tree line. One look showed a horde of milling Trepids. This was Colin’s army, no doubt, which meant the man himself stood out there somewhere among them.

  Karl surveyed the landscape, trying to figure out what the best mode of attack would be while Marcus did the same thing from beside him. Behind them, the mountain rose in a steep slope. Trees and shrubs covered the face, along with plenty of rocks and loose gravel. Any attempt at ascent would be treacherous. They’d arrived in a thickly wooded area at the base of the slope. A screen of foliage separated them from a flat expanse. The absence of grass and trees said it wasn’t truly a meadow. Only dirt-clods, sagebrush, and peppermint shrubs littered the ground. In other words, the perfect, flat space for Colin’s army to occupy.

  Marcus turned to the four people crouching six feet away behind some shrubs. Karl sensed him gathering massive amounts of energy for an assault.

  Karl didn’t use neurochemical energy for fighting, or at least not much. He could call on a small amount so his punches landed harder, but no more. His fighting was all physical prowess. Traveling and Scanning were his neurochemical gifts.

  Future-Maggie put a hand on Marcus’s arm. “It’s all right. They aren’t a threat.”

  A middle-aged man and three teenagers peered through the shrubs at the clearing below when Karl, Marcus, Maggie and Tenessa arrived, no doubt scaring the tar out of them. Now they emerged. The man put up a shield. From what Karl could tell, it wasn’t made of Constructive energy. Rather, he’d used weather elements, and the shield felt unstable. Maggie could have broken through it easily.

  Karl scanned their minds, as he’d felt Marcus do a moment before. His scan confirmed what he’d figured: this was a group of individuals.

  Two teenaged boys and one girl stared at Karl and Marcus, midway between hatred and fear. The oldest one—or at least Karl assumed he was because of his height—stepped toward them and snarled, “Stay out of our minds!”

  Marcus and Karl exchanged glances. Marcus stepped forward. “My apologies. I was trying to identify you. You’re obviously not collectivists. Neither are we. We’re not your enemies.”

  “You, my friend,” Karl said, stepping toward the man, “are in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Do you know who they are?” Marcus jerked his head toward Colin’s army. They’d formed a massive circle in the clearing and all faced inward, as if a dog fight Karl couldn’t see occupied the center.

  “We know Trepids when we see them,” the man answered.

  “Good,” Marcus said. “Then you know how dangerous they are. You need to get your family out of here.”

  Looking relieved, the man nodded. “Tell us which way to go.”

  “East, which means up the mountain. Do the best you can. Stay out of sight. Chances are this group already has scouts circling outward. Travel east for three days, then start using your neurochemical abilities. A lot.”

  The man frowned at Marcus. “Why?”

  “We come from a community called Interchron. After three days, you’ll be in the right vicinity, but Interchron is hidden, so you won’t be able to find it. We have Scanners. If you use your abilities, they’ll find you.”

  “Interchron is a safe place,” Karl added. “Safe from Arachnimen and free from the collectives. You’d be welcome there if you’re so inclined. If you’re not, that’s your choice, but travel east either way, until you’re far away from this.” He jerked his head toward the scum-bag army again.

  The man nodded. “Thank you.” He turned and herded his children further into the upward-sloping forest.

  Karl turned back to Marcus. “Okay, so from what I can tell—”

  A cry from behind brought his head around. He cast his mind out instantaneously to scan and cursed. The man and his children had run into a Trepid.

  Karl started toward them, but Marcus grabbed his arm. “Karl, we need to help Maggie.” Without looking, Marcus motioned out toward Colin’s army which wasn’t paying any heed to anything except whatever went on in their center.

  “It’s just a scout, Marcus. Let’s get this guy and his kids on their way. Then we can focus on the bigger picture.”

  Karl shook out of Marcus’s grasp and headed toward the thudding sounds of combat coming through the trees.

  Future-Maggie’s voice drifted to him from behind. “Go with him, Marcus. It’s important.” After a moment’s hesitation, Marcus’s footsteps stalked after him. He didn’t know if Tenessa stayed with them or not. She could run away at any point, but too much was happening to worry about keeping tabs on her. If her neurological sedative hadn’t worn off yet, it surely would in the next few minutes.

  When Karl reached the man and his family, he found he’d been wrong. They hadn’t run into a scout. They’d run into three. All Trepids. The man and oldest boy fought them off, barely keeping them at bay. The girl and other boy—he had to be the youngest—huddled, trembling behind a tree, watching their father and older brother do battle.

  Karl jumped in to help the father, who had two of the three focused on him. One of the Trepids turned his attention to Karl. Karl was bigger than most men, standing six and a half feet tall. Large enough to always be conscientious of his strength so he didn’t accidentally hurt anyone. Despite that, this Trepid stood head and shoulders over him, arms nearly as big around as Karl’s lean waist.

  Making a decision, Karl gathered what Offensive energy he could and channeled it into a kick aimed at the Trepid’s knee. It worked. The man went down hard enough for Karl to feel the vibration in the ground below his feet. The middle-aged father hit the ground beside him and Karl stepped back, elbowing the other, slightly smaller Trepid in the nose. That one staggered backward, blood escaping between the fingers he’d clamped over his face.

  “Get out of the way!” Marcus’s voice came from behind him. “Move! Get them out of the way, Karl!”

  Karl grabbed the middle-aged man, hauled him to his feet, and pushed him toward his two younger kids. When Marcus used his staff, he targeted malevolent energy. Assuming this man wasn’t a murderer or rapist—highly unlikely—Marcus’s assault wouldn’t kill him, but a man couldn’t help having a few malevolent thoughts when he fought monsters targeting his children. That kind of negative energy could absorb enough of Marcus’s assault to cause injury, sometimes serious injury. Those at Interchron knew of Marcus’s abilities. They either got out of the way or focused their thoughts carefully if they couldn’t. People who knew nothing of Marcus or this kind of assault didn’t know to do that, so they’d be safer out of the way.

  Karl moved toward the man’s older boy, who still fought his own Trepid ten feet away. The tattoo-faced goon grabbed the young man’s wrist, twisted it out and around until he cried out, then kicked his foot out from under him. The young man fell to one knee. The Trepid produced a bowie knife with a sinister edge and, all in one motion, shoved it through the boy’s throat.

  Karl was only four feet away.

  The instant the knife hit the boy’s throat, Marcus’s wave of energy hit Karl. Marcus must have realized Karl wouldn’t get there in time and launched his assault anyway. Even he was too late.

  The three Trepid scouts hit the ground, dead the moment Marcus’s energy hit them. The young man struggled to stay up on one knee, gargling blood, eyes wide and face pale. The middle-aged man ran past Karl to catch his son as the boy collapsed.

  Karl spun to look back at Marcus. Future-Maggie stood beside him. Marcus moved forward, but Maggie grabbed his arm.

  “You won’t be able to Heal him, Marcus,” she said quietly. “It’s already too late.”

  Marcus stared down at Maggie for several seconds, eyes searching hers. “I have to try,” he answered.
He brushed past Karl to kneel over the boy.

  The father knelt, tearless and pale, obviously in shock. His two younger children came up beside Karl, weeping softly.

  Chest tight, Karl felt another presence at his right elbow. He turned to find Tenessa beside him, frowning at the scene in front of her.

  “You can Heal him?” the man asked in response to something Marcus said. Hope filled his face. Karl wished it wouldn’t. The way Marcus frowned suggested he didn’t think he could.

  “Sir, I’ll try, but I can’t promise you.”

  This Healing would be tricky. The hole a knife that size would leave in the boy’s throat would be gargantuan. The instant Marcus drew the knife out, blood would gush from the wound faster than anyone could stifle it. Marcus would have to Heal as he went, inch by agonizing inch. Not only was the Healing not a sure thing, the boy would be in unfathomable pain. Going only a small distance at a time, the shock alone could kill him.

  Marcus pulled the knife back a quarter inch, concentrating. After a moment, he pulled it back some more. After three inches, the young man’s body began to convulse in his father’s arms. Marcus concentrated harder, sweat beading on his brow. Sixty seconds later, the convulsions stopped. The young man let out one final expiration and went still.

  Marcus remained rigid over the young man’s body for a full two minutes, trying to revive the boy, no doubt, trying to restart his heart before his brain functions ceased. After a time, Marcus’s shoulders slumped. He raised agonized eyes to the middle-aged man. “I’m so sorry.” He pulled the knife the rest of the way out, probably so the family didn’t have to look at it sticking out of their loved one’s throat. Taking off his coat, Marcus draped it over the young man’s neck to cover the gaping, gushing hole.

  The man clutched his son’s body to his chest and sobbed while the two younger children knelt around their deceased brother. The man’s sobs turned to keening, then all-out wails.

  Beside Karl, Tenessa flinched. When he glanced down at her, she looked disturbed. More than that, she seemed on the verge of tears. Abruptly she turned on her heel and walked back the way they’d come. She stopped beside future Maggie, looking angry.

  “Why do you do nothing?” she spat at Future Maggie. “You are powerful enough.”

  Future Maggie merely gazed back at Tenessa. “I can’t interfere. This is not my true time.”

  With a sound of disgust, Tenessa stalked toward the clearing and the Trepid army. Karl followed her.

  “Where are you going?” he asked when they were out of earshot of the grieving family.

  Tenessa turned to face him so suddenly, he nearly mowed her down. “This is what we mean! This is why the Union is preferable! Grief of this nature does not exist within the Union.”

  “Your Union caused this grief,” Karl said, stepping closer to her.

  “Mortality and stupidity caused this grief, and we do not wish to see it,” she shot back.

  Karl’s anger flared. “What’s the matter, Tenessa? Afraid to feel a little compassion for us poor, misguided separatists?”

  “We do not wish to see it,” she repeated.

  Karl took her by the elbow and yanked her back to where they could see the family through the foliage, huddled and sobbing around the dead boy. Karl didn’t care if he was being too rough with her. Future-Maggie could probably hear everything he and Tenessa said, but he didn’t care about that either. For the family’s sake, he kept his voice low.

  “You will see it. You will bear witness to what happens here today, whether you like it or not.”

  “To what end?” Tenessa growled between clenched teeth. She glared stubbornly up at him, refusing to turn her head toward the grief scene.

  “That you might understand—”

  “Understand what? How tragic and lonely Separatist living is? All the Separatist’s examples only serve to push us back toward the Union.”

  Karl gazed into her face. All the anger drained out of him. He’d never believed anyone was truly a lost cause. Everyone could be shown truth, if you persisted long enough. Now, for the first time in his life, he wondered if he was wrong. He didn’t want to try anymore. The grieving family didn’t have her sympathy, so she didn’t have his.

  “My son!” the father wailed. “Please, not my son!”

  A soft wind blew through the trees and it grew perceptibly darker as storm clouds gathered overhead, muting the afternoon light. The wind blew a lock of Tenessa’s hair across her face and it stuck to her lips.

  Karl pushed it behind her ear with his fingertips. “Can you not fathom what it must be like to be loved,” he jutted his chin toward the father hugging his dead son and weeping, “that much?”

  She did look over at the man this time and a different look came into her eyes. If Karl wanted to put a name to it, it would have been terror.

  “If you want to go back to your Union, go,” he said. “I won’t stop you, now. But that,” he nodded toward the scene again, “does not exist in the Union. Pick a side, Tenessa. And remember this day, this moment, when the time for fence-sitting became a thing of the past.”

  He turned his back on her and strode to Future-Maggie’s side.

  Chapter 26: Saving What Would Have Been Gone

  MARCUS PUT A HAND ON the man’s shuddering shoulder. Maggie had been right. The boy’s fate was sealed the instant the knife pierced his throat. Marcus’s best Healing skills couldn’t save him. The other two children clustered around their departed brother, weeping.

  The memory the Remembrancer had dug up lurked in the back of Marcus’s mind. He pushed it away. He leaned down and murmured condolences to the family, not sure they registered anything he said. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he strode to the tree line to join Karl and White-Haired Maggie.

  Maggie gave him an empathetic look, and it brought tears to his eyes. Karl looked sad. Strange for him. A few yards away, Tenessa looked shell-shocked.

  “So it’s just Colin and his goons out there?” he asked Maggie.

  She shook her head. “There’s another. I only ever knew her as Justine. An assassin the collective sent after me. She’s the reason David and Lila went to get me in the first place. Interchron intercepted a transmission about her being sent. Marcus,” she stepped closer to him, placing a hand on his chest, “she’s extremely powerful. As strong as I am. Don’t take her on. Do your thing and get rid of the Trepids. Then you two,” she included Karl in her gaze, “can focus on Colin. I’ll deal with Justine.”

  Marcus nodded, trying to wrap his head around the entire situation. “So, you came back in time to save yourself, and us, from this Justine? Why?”

  Maggie’s eyes filled with tears. Marcus put a hand on her neck and she stepped back. “Because,” she said, voice thick, “at this moment in time, I wasn’t prepared. I wasn’t strong enough to save us. This is the moment the rebellion would have died. The human race would have become entirely enslaved and lost the most precious parts of its humanity. It had to be this way, or everything would have been gone.”

  “But,” Marcus studied her face, the fear spreading through his veins once again, “how did you...know to...”

  “I knew to be here because it happened this way the first time. Karl’s the Traveler. Maybe he can explain the physics of it.” She threw Karl an affectionate look. “In hindsight, I realize it was the only way to ensure the battle for individual freedom would go on.” She met his eyes and stepped close to him. “Marcus, I’m so sorry.”

  Panic sped his pulse and Marcus put his hands on either side of her face, digging his fingers into her hair, refusing to let her step away again. He put his face close to hers. “For what?” he whispered. “Maggie, you’re scaring me.”

  She didn’t try to step away, but dropped her eyes, resting her forehead against his chest.

  Marcus wrapped his arms around her, crushing her against him, and exchanged glances with Karl, who looked about as terrified as Marcus felt.

  Marcus dropped his mouth
down near her ear. “Maggie—”

  Pain lanced through him, so intense that he cried out, falling to his knees. His vision grew fuzzy and it felt like a fire-kissed poker jabbed the inner wall of his chest. On his hands and knees, gasping against the searing pain, Marcus raised his head.

  Maggie staggered back from him, looking stricken, but the pain did not emanate from her.

  “They’re hurting you,” Marcus whispered.

  White-haired Maggie nodded, understanding he meant the other her. He supposed she was the only one who truly could understand. “Yes,” she whispered.

  Maggie—his Maggie—was screaming, down in the midst of the Trepid army. Marcus didn’t know if he heard or only felt it, but it dug deep into the most vulnerable parts of his soul. He tried to get up. The pain didn’t lessen. He fought the intensity of it with every movement. Suddenly Karl stood beside him, jamming his shoulder under Marcus’s arm and hauling him to his feet.

  “Get him out there, Karl,” Maggie said. “I need him.”

  “Maggie!” Marcus forced his voice through gritted teeth as the pain clamped more tightly down on his organs. “What about you?” He wanted to go to her, grab her hand, make her stay and explain, but the second he let go of his best friend he’d be eating dirt again.

  Maggie had turned to look at something behind her. Now she turned back and took a step toward them, not close enough for Marcus to reach her. Her eyes brimmed again. A tear squeezed out of the corner of one and slid over her cheek. She brushed it way. “No more worrying about me. I have work to do.”

  She turned away.

  “And then?” Karl asked, voice harsh.

  She turned back. “And then...it will be done.”

  The pain intensified, clanging down Marcus’s spinal cord and up into his brain stem. His ears rang and his vision died, collapsing like a bombed tunnel. The shapes and colors reared up again a moment later, but his Maggie lay in such debilitating pain, he feared her heart would give out if he didn’t help her.