Quantum Entanglement

by Liesel K. Hill

  The two black men stepped forward. One was the tallest man Marcus had ever met. Gray ran through his beard and he examined Marcus with the most exotic blue eyes Marcus had ever seen on a black man. His biceps bulged, bigger around than Marcus’s waist. The younger one stood a head taller than Marcus and sported the same strange blue eyes.

  “Let me take the weight, son,” the older one said gently. “My son can help me carry him so you can rest.”

  “Marcus,” Doc said. “This is Dillon,” he indicated the heavy-set white man, “Miles,” the older black man, “and Joan,” the dark-haired woman. “And this young man,” he clapped the younger black man on the shoulder as he passed, “is Karl. He’s about your age, actually.”

  Miles took the front of the litter from Marcus and Karl picked up the end by Danic’s feet. Doc and Dillon led the way up the mountain while Joan put an arm around Marcus and guided him up.

  Under her gentle touch, he began to sob quietly.

  “Don’t worry, Marcus,” Karl jabbered as they climbed. “We’ll take good care of your dad. You’re gonna love it here. Interchron’s a great place to live. There’s nowhere safer than here...”

  The shadow of the mountain swallowed them.

  David passed two feet from where Marcus and Maggie knelt, wrapped around one another. Marcus’s first instinct was to ignore his brother’s passage. As David came level with them, Marcus half-turned and shot his arm out to grab his brother’s wrist. He still didn’t trust David any more than he’d trusted Colin, but David did something good today, and it deserved a few words.

  “Thank you.” Marcus’s voice came out a hoarse whisper.

  David gazed down at him with sad eyes. He gave a single bob of his head, then turned and walked away.

  Marcus wrapped his arms more tightly around Maggie, who buried her face in his chest. He dropped his face down to kiss her shoulder, breathing in her scent.

  She pulled back to look into his face. Her cheeks glistened with tears. “I remember, Marcus. The memories...they came back.”

  His exhaustion made him so groggy, he barely processed what she said. “The memories came...all of them?”

  She shook her head. “No, but most. I remember, Marcus.” A smiled shone through her tears. “I remember you.”

  Every worry he’d carried for the past five months melted away, and he kissed her. She kissed him back, wrapping her arms around his neck, and he tasted her tears on his lips. She wrapped herself more tightly around him and buried her face in his neck.

  Marcus sighed. She’d come back. Colin was gone. He’d never felt so much relief. Obviously she wasn’t any safer away from Interchron than she had been in it. He vowed not to send her away again. If it became unavoidable, he would simply go with her. No more distance, no more time, no more loneliness.

  He raised his head to look at where the other Maggie had disappeared. He didn’t know what the future held for them. Obviously it wasn’t all sunny days and medieval feasts. So be it. The future was coming at them faster than they could draw breath. The least they could do was face it together.

  And come what may.

  Chapter 30: Canyons and Corpses

  DOC LET HIS EYES SWEEP out over the canyon. It was narrow and deep enough that, from this height, he couldn’t see the bottom. He thought he heard water running through some part of it, so it had become a true canyon indeed.

  His gaze settled on Maggie and Marcus, who’d fallen into an embrace on the land bridge. David walked away from them, toward Doc. In the opposite direction, Doc couldn’t see the end of the canyon. Casting his mind out, he felt it nearly twelve miles away.

  Off to his right and slightly behind him, the dark-haired woman who’d saved Karl’s life stood, staring out over the precipice. Shock widened her eyes unnaturally. Karl saw her and crossed to her. He took her arm gently, and put a guiding hand to her waist, directing her to a cluster of boulders farther away from the edge. After sitting her down, Karl fell into a crouch in front of her, looking up into her face. He seemed to be asking her something. She didn’t answer him. She gazed up at Karl, but her eyes still seemed far away.

  Frowning, Karl straightened his legs. He turned and walked toward Doc.

  “It was you,” Karl said as he approached. When the black man stood right next to him, he towered nearly two feet over Doc.

  “What was?” Doc asked.

  “When we first Traveled here, I sensed four presences high up on the mountain. They felt calmer than anyone down here.”

  Doc nodded. “Yes. Our Traveler is...inexperienced. We landed up top and didn’t dare try to get any closer. We might have landed under a Trepid’s blade. Joan and I slid down the face of the mountain on foot. We observed most of what happened as we came.”

  “And can you explain any of it?”

  Doc gave Karl his best what-do-you-think look, and Karl nodded.

  “Where’d this other Traveler come from?”

  She and her sister came to Interchron not long after you and Marcus left. They told us only the older one, Kristee, could Travel. David took Kristee with him to get Maggie, and when they didn’t come back right away, Salla, the younger one, confessed her abilities to us. The Seekers pinpointed Maggie’s brain chemistry at this point on the timeline and here we are.”

  “Two sisters, huh?” Karl noticed a smear of blood from his fight with the Trepids on his arm. He used his hand to wipe it off and then onto his dirt-streaked pants.

  “Yes. They could use some mentoring. Perhaps you could take them on as pupils.”

  Karl froze mid-wipe. “I’m not good at teaching, Doc.”

  Doc gave him a scathing look and Karl withered under the gaze. “You could be if you tried.”

  Karl turned away and Doc glanced behind him. Joan and Lila stood together, talking in quiet tones. Joan practically bowled Doc out of the way to get to her daughter. Jonah—the fifth man in Maggie’s group, it turned out—helped Lila to her feet and received of scowl from Joan for his trouble. Since then, he’d given the two women plenty of space, sitting next to Kristee’s sleeping form and throwing worried glances toward Maggie and Marcus.

  “Who’s your friend?” Doc asked, indicating the woman with dark hair and olive skin. Blood smeared her hands, all the way up to her elbows. Some of it spattered the front of her shirt as well. She sat overlooking the newborn canyon with a pale face.

  Karl glanced back at her. “We call her Tenessa.”

  “Her mind is under-developed,” Doc said quietly. “Like David, she’s come out of the collective recently.”

  Karl shook his head. “Not like David. She wasn’t quite as...deliberate.”

  Doc frowned. “She came out by accident?”

  Karl shrugged. “In a manner of speaking. She was badly injured and left for dead. Marcus Healed her. He told her he’d let her go back to the collective if she helped him kill Colin.”

  “That’s risky.”

  Karl shrugged again. “Yeah, but at the time we were being careful what we said around her. We thought maybe we could get some good information out of her.”

  “And did you?”

  “Actually, yes. But it’s more than that, now. After the events of the last few days, she won’t be welcomed back into the collective anytime soon.”

  Doc nodded. “She’s welcome at Interchron, so long as she understands that once she’s been inside, there is no returning to the collective.”

  “I’ll make sure she understands.”

  Doc cast a furtive glance at Karl. “She saved your life.”

  Karl gazed out over the canyon and heaved a deep breath. “Yes. One of the many reasons they won’t welcome her back.”

  “And the others?”

  “We think she may have been high up in the collective hierarchy. Or being trained for some important mission, at least. Now that they’ve seen her give us aid...”

  Doc gazed at the strange, beautiful woman, wondering if her emergence was deeply fortunate, or just deeply dange
rous. “I think we may have found our honeybee,” he murmured.

  “Honeybee?” Karl frowned.

  “Doc?” Joan said. She and Lila stood at his shoulder, Jonah behind them. Doc hadn’t noticed their approach. “How...how...?”

  “I don’t know,” Doc said quietly.

  “That was Maggie, right?”

  Doc nodded. “Yes. The brain chemistry was hers. But she wasn’t our Maggie. She Traveled here from another time.”

  “My question is,” Karl said, “how did she Travel? I didn’t see anyone else with her. I suppose the Traveler could have been Concealed, but even if I can’t sense the brain chemistry, I can usually sense signature left by the Traveling.”

  “And you don’t?” Doc asked.

  “I do. I’m sure it came from Maggie. How is she doing that without a Traveler?”

  “I don’t think she needs one,” David said, reaching them.

  Doc and Karl turned to him and Nat came up beside them.

  “How’s Maggie?” Nat asked.

  “Injured,” David said. “But okay. She thinks she and the lizard woman were connected somehow. Whenever Maggie was injured, Justine got stronger. When Justine went into the pit, Maggie got a burst of vitality. She said she feels like she could run a marathon.”

  “Connected?” Joan said, more to herself than anyone else. “How would that have happened?”

  “The Frankenstein project,” Doc answered. “Remember?”

  “What’s that?” David asked.

  “It’s...” Doc rubbed his forehead. “A long story.”

  David nodded. “I thought it would have been some kind of entanglement.”

  Karl’s head snapped up.

  Doc raised a questioning eyebrow at him.

  “Yeah,” Karl said slowly, “we all need to swap stories. Marcus and I talked about entanglement last night.”

  “Entanglement definitely plays a role in the Frankenstein project,” Doc said. “What was your conversation about, Karl?”

  Karl opened his mouth, then clapped it shut. “It’s a long story, too. And not mine to tell,” he glanced out toward Marcus and Maggie. “Everything seems to be connected somehow, Doc. Ever since we brought Maggie back to Interchron five months ago, things are happening so quickly, like it’s all part of an intricate tapestry. Linked, but I’m not sure how.”

  Doc nodded. Karl’s analogy was alarmingly accurate, especially as concerned quantum entanglement. “Let’s get everyone back to Interchron. We’ll make sure everyone's all right medically. Then we’ll tell our stories.”

  “I think after this we could all use some serious R and R,” Karl said. “Why don’t you think Maggie needs a Traveler?” He directed the last at David.

  David sighed. Dark circles nested under his eyes. “Justine injured Kristee, so she couldn’t bring us directly back. With her injuries, she could only jump so far—fifty years at a time? One hundred? I’m not sure. She needed recuperation afterward before she could Travel again. It wouldn’t have been difficult if we hadn’t kept getting chased out by the governments of the times. Or had that fork-tongued assassin tracking us.”

  “You’ll have to give us all the details when we get back to Interchron,” Doc said. They’d been on more of an adventure than he’d realized. He turned to Karl, “Can you get us there? Are you well enough to Travel?”

  “I’m fine,” Karl said.

  David nodded and went on. “Maggie talked about seeing or feeling the energy Kristee used. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I always assumed that wasn’t possible. You can get used to the feel of something if you’re around it all the time, but I didn’t think you could actually see the energy, unless...”

  “You have the ability,” Doc finished for him, nodding. “So Maggie is a Traveler.”

  “Except she’s not,” Karl said, turning to them. “Doc, when she first came to us we tested her abilities thoroughly. If she’d been able to Travel back then, I would have known it. Traveling abilities are inborn. They don’t develop over time.”

  “She gained strength to rival Nat and David between the time she lost her memory and we took her home, and the time we brought her back,” Doc said quietly. “I don’t have an explanation for how, but somewhere along the line Maggie gained the ability.”

  “I think she gained more than one,” David said quietly.

  “What do you mean?” Nat asked.

  “She was in my head.”

  “In your head?” Karl raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  “After one of the jumps, Jonah and I went into the valley to look for supplies. Maggie and Lila stayed with Kristee. While Maggie slept, she rode around behind my eyes. She saw everything I did in the valley, but perceived it as her own dream.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “She got into my head...without meaning to, and without me realizing it.”

  Doc frowned. “And it wasn’t painful for you?”

  “Not at all. I didn’t know it had happened until the next day. I told her what we’d seen, and she came up with details I hadn’t shared yet.”

  “What does that mean, Doc?” Joan asked.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “B can get into people’s minds,” he cast an involuntary glance at Lila, who stared at the ground. Jonah glanced between the two of them in confusion, but asked no questions. “But,” Doc went on, “it’s painful for the one being invaded, and it takes a great deal of strength on the invader’s part. A great deal of power.”

  A heavy silence descended. Karl broke it with a forced smile. “Maybe this is a good thing. It proves Maggie can win against B.”

  Doc smiled, but didn’t answer. He didn’t want to contradict Karl. Why let the air out of the only hopeful thing anyone had to say? Still, he doubted it would be so simple.

  Jonah studied them all, watching each of their faces in turn. Because he didn’t know them well—most of them at all—he would be drawing conclusions based on their expressions and reactions.

  A look of frustration came over his face, and he swiveled at the waist to look toward his sister. All their gazes followed his.

  Maggie and Marcus still knelt together on the land bridge. Marcus held her face in his hands and their foreheads rested against one another. She spoke, her lips moving rapidly while he gazed down at her from half an inch away. He shut his eyes, as though something she’d said pained him. He kissed her deeply on the mouth. She kissed him back and after a moment his lips left hers, going to her neck. He wrapped his arms around her again and buried his face in her shoulder.

  Brows furrowing in pain, David tore his gaze away and walked toward the canyon’s edge. He stopped two feet back and let the wind blow his hair back from his face, taking a deep breath. When the first fat drops of water fell from the sky, he turned his face upward.

  “What now, Doc?” Joan asked. “What of the Frankenstein assassin? Will there be more?”

  Doc nodded grimly. “Most definitely. B wouldn’t have created only one. He’d have grown them in batches. More will strike at her.”

  “That other Maggie came from the future,” Joan said. “She killed Justine. Doesn’t that mean at some point, Maggie will learn how to kill them?”

  “The sooner the better,” David said, without turning from the canyon. “Justine said her abilities matched Maggie’s perfectly. As of right now, we can’t defend against them.”

  Doc nodded, processing all the information, the canyon, the landscape, everything he’d seen this day. “Now,” he said in answer to Joan’s first question, “we must train Maggie in her abilities. All her abilities. We’ve brought more individuals with more varied talents into Interchron in the past five months than we have in the past five years combined. We must hone all these abilities; make use of them.”

  “You’re talking about creating an army,” Nat said.

  “Yes,” Doc nodded. “Eventually we’ll have to meet the collectives on their own ground. And Maggie will lead us.”

  Minutes later Maggie and Marcus joined t
hem and a great many hugs were exchanged. Maggie hugged Karl who put his arms around her waist and picked her up off her feet. “I’m glad you’re back, Maggs,” he murmured, while Marcus hugged Joan and Lila, tugging playfully at Lila’s hair while she grinned and swatted him away.

  “You have things to tell me,” Doc said when he’d hugged Marcus.

  “Yes,” Marcus said, gazing across the chasm to where the Other Maggie had disappeared. “And we all have...about a thousand mysteries to solve.”

  Doc could only nod.

  David kept his distance, staring out across the canyon. Tenessa still sat on the boulder Karl had led her to. Marcus glanced at the two of them, but made no move to approach either one.

  Maggie came to Doc and he hugged her. A deep, quiet satisfaction at having the entire team around him again settled in Doc’s chest. “I understand you’ve had quite the journey,” he said into her hair.

  She pulled back with a sad smile. “Doc,” she said quietly, “you have no idea.” Her eyes and hand went to the necklace at his throat, fingering the pendant: an oval with a whirl on it. She gaped up at him in an uncomfortably discerning way. “Doc, how old are you?”

  His scalp went cold, but the next moment Marcus stepped close, his hand on Maggie’s back, and she stepped away from Doc, not pressing the question.

  The entire group huddled around Karl. The world lurched as he gathered energy around them and propelled them back into their own time.

  Then there was only the canyon, the corpses, and the rain.

  Epilogue

  “THE LIGHTHOUSE IS EMPTY, Highness,” Gothriel said with a bow. “The woman is nowhere to be found.”

  In the round room, B swept his gaze down over the people sitting around the conference table below. They were the Six, the most powerful minds in the world, next to him. They controlled more people than any group or individual in history. Yet, they could still make mistakes.

  “Why did we not know about it before?” B’s voice came in a low, raspy whisper.

  Gothriel had a husky build with broad-shoulders; physically powerful. But he licked his lips. B’s worshippers learned long ago that his calmer tones were the more dangerous ones.