Persistence of Vision

  ***

  A short while later, they were in Medical. Maggie sat on one bed while Lila lay on her back on another. The rest of the team, along with Nat and David, clustered around the two beds, listening. Another woman from the compound had taken Nat’s wife and children to where they could wash up, get something to eat, and rest.

  “We were doing the exercise…and I’d located Marcus,” Maggie explained. “I was heading toward where you were, but then I heard my name. I saw it was Lila…and thought maybe she was looking for Joan…but her voice sounded strange.”

  “Strange how?” Karl asked.

  Maggie scratched her temple absently. “I don’t know. It was deeper…but not. It had an edge it doesn’t usually have—like an echo of a deeper voice.”

  “When you say deeper,” Clay interjected, “you mean…”

  “Like a man was speaking with her or over her. And he said, ‘You can call me B,’ and then there was just the pain.”

  “B?”

  Maggie nodded at Doc’s question.

  “What could that stand for?” Marcus furrowed his brow.

  “Bastard,” Karl muttered.

  Maggie tried to conceal a smile, but no one else reacted.

  After a moment, Doc spoke again. “Lila? Are you up to speaking to us?”

  Marcus’s healing of Lila had been impeccable. Physically she was fine. She was traumatized though. Her eyes were shifty, and her hands hadn’t stopped trembling. Joan hovered protectively around her daughter, daring anyone to get too close.

  Lila sat up shakily.

  “You don’t have to if you’re not ready, Lila.” Joan’s voice was quiet.

  Despite her trembling, Lila shook her head. “It’s all right. I want to know what just happened to me, Mom.” She straightened her spine and met Doc’s gaze levelly, though the bravado was ruined a bit by her quivering limbs.

  “I was going about my day. I don’t remember what I was doing, but then I felt something.”

  “Something?”

  “A presence I couldn’t identify. You know how you can sometimes tell who’s coming up behind you, how you learn to recognize their neurochemical signature?”

  “Did you recognize who it was, Lila?” Doc asked, nodding.

  She shook her head. “No, on the contrary, but I felt like someone was there, standing right beside me—someone completely unfamiliar. And then”—her voice grew heavy—“there was this intense pain, like someone was drilling into my skull with a metal pincer. I tried to fight it and did for a while, I think, but every time I pushed against it, it pushed back a hundred fold. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t breathe.”

  Her voice broke, and tears rolled down her cheeks. “He took over, and I was watching myself, riding around behind my own eyes, unable to control my movements.”

  The silence that followed was broken only by Lila’s dainty sobs. Joan put her arms around her daughter, and Maggie felt for her.

  “Lila,” Doc said gently, “you said he. He took over?”

  Lila nodded, wiping her tears away. “It was a man. I could tell that much.”

  “Were you able to get a sense of his purpose? What he wanted?”

  Lila nodded again. “Yes. I knew exactly what he was doing. But that made it all the more terrifying because I couldn’t stop him.”

  “From doing what?”

  “Killing Maggie.”

  Silence swept through the room again. Maggie shivered. Her fingers felt cold. Marcus’s hands were on her upper arms, and he squeezed with gentle reassurance. She glanced up at David to see him frowning. He was watching Marcus’s hands on her arms, and it seemed to disturb him for some reason.

  “But, Lila,” Karl said, “could you tell who he was? Where he was from? Why he wanted to hurt her?”

  Lila shook her head. “I couldn’t hear actual thoughts, so I can’t tell you any specific details about him. It was more a sense of purpose. He had a single purpose at any given time, and I could feel what it was. First, it was to overpower me. Then, it was to find Maggie, which he did through me. Once he saw Maggie, he said, ‘It’s you,’ and I knew right then that he would try to kill her.” Her voice grew thick again. “But I couldn’t stop him. I tried, but…”

  Maggie suddenly felt the urge to comfort Lila. She hopped off the bed and crossed the room, putting an arm around Lila. “Of course you couldn’t, Lila. It’s not your fault.”

  Lila cried into Maggie’s shoulder for a few moments. She glanced up to find David watching her. He looked…impressed.

  “Lila,” Doc said when Lila had gotten a hold of herself, “do you remember anything else, anything from when Nathaniel severed the link between you two?”

  Lila shook her head slowly, her eyes searching the ground. “Not really. I think you hurt him, though.”

  “What do you mean?” It was Strellend asking the question.

  “As I was blacking out, I think he screamed—like he was in pain. I think when you severed the flow of energy, he might have gotten some kind of backlash.”

  “Do you think it killed him?” Marcus asked.

  “No. It was a cry of pain, but it didn’t feel final enough to be obliterating. I felt him retreating. If he’d been killed, I think he would have just suddenly been gone.”

  Doc nodded. Then he turned to Strellend. “Well, Nat, old friend. How are you? It’s been many years.”

  Nat nodded. “It has.”

  “I wish you were back under better circumstances, but would you like to tell your view of the story?”

  “You said outside that you knew exactly what had just happened,” Karl said. “Well?”

  “Her mind was invaded,” Nat said it as if he were announcing what was for dinner, and David saw the others in the room shift uncomfortably.

  “I didn’t even know such a thing was possible,” Joan said quietly.

  “For the most part, it’s not,” Doc said. “I’ve heard of such things before, but they take a great deal of knowledge and skill. Most people don’t know how to do such a thing. Those who do wouldn’t, for the most part, have the ability to follow through with it.

  “We each have a great deal of control over our own minds. Trying to drill into someone else’s is a tremendous feat. The fact that he achieved it with so little time and trouble is worrisome. Especially because, as far as we can tell, he’s not here. We have a man who can force his way into someone else’s mind, a kind of neurological rape, if you will, from—who knows?—maybe hundreds of miles away. He must be very powerful.”

  “Very powerful, yes,” Lila murmured. “When this B attacked Maggie, the amount of energy he used…it was unreal. I’d never felt anything like it.”

  Marcus nodded. “He’d have to call on a lot of power to do the damage I felt.”

  Lila shook her head. “It was more than that. It was almost as if…I don’t know, as if he weren’t channeling it through another tool, but rather that he himself, I mean me, my body, was the conduit stone. The energy was flowing through me, and he was directing it. I thought all my organs were going to be cooked.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, Lila,” Karl said. “This energy can’t affect you physically.”

  Lila glared icicles at Karl. “I know that. I’m just saying that’s what it felt like.”

  “Is it possible, Doc? To use a human body as a conduit stone?” Maggie jumped in, hoping to forestall an argument.

  Doc’s gaze shifted, not settling on anyone. He didn’t look like he was going to answer.

  Marcus immediately jumped in. “Out with it, Doc. What do you know?”

  Doc flashed quick looks at Lila, Nat, and David. “We should give Nat and David a chance to freshen up. And Lila should rest. Perhaps we should move this into—”

  “No!” Lila jumped off the bed and shook her fist under Doc’s nose. “I’ve always tried not to pry into the team’s missions, Doc, but I was attacked today. I’m a part of this now, and I want to know what’s going on. I want to know what you kno
w.”

  “As do I,” Nathaniel said. “My family is here, and I feel I have a right to know what’s going on around us.”

  After a moment Doc sighed. “All right, then. Let’s lay it all out on the table.”