Chapter 21: The Question of Memories
Maggie stood on the mountainside just outside the cargo bay entrance to the compound, letting the cold wind blow her hair back over her shoulders. Marcus and David were arguing behind her.
“But you may need me, Marcus,” David said. “Karl said it: I’m a wealth of information. If you get into a tight spot, I may be the only hope of getting you out again.”
Marcus was shaking his head. “We’ve been over this, David. You’ve only been with us a few days. We don’t trust you yet. Maybe it’s harsh, but there it is. If you want to prove your loyalty, stay here and lay low. Let us do this mission. We can all get better acquainted when we return.”
“But I—”
“No, David. This discussion is over. It’s not like it was my decision alone. The team has decided.”
The rest of the team remained silent with heads lowered. It was true that they had come to a unanimous decision to leave David behind—there was too much potential for him to double cross them when they were behind enemy lines. It felt like a personal argument, so everyone was staying out of it and letting Marcus take the lead.
Doc stepped forward. “What he says is true, David. You must understand our reasoning. Try not to take it personally.”
“I do understand your reasoning, and I’m not taking it personally. I know you don’t trust me, but that doesn’t change the fact that I ought to be going with…you. If anything goes wrong, if you’re detected or captured, I may be your only hope. I know how these people think, how they run things. Can…you afford to leave me behind?”
Doc gave David a sympathetic smile. “We are confident that our team is well-rounded and can deal with any contingency that arises.”
David opened his mouth, but Doc put up a hand.
“Please. Your argument is sound. It is true that you might be a great asset to us, but you could also be a major liability. We’ve decided we will go as a team and nothing more.”
“But you aren’t well rounded. Deceiver is still vacant…the team is vulnerable.”
Doc cocked his head to the side. “Do you have the Deception ability, David?”
“I…no, but—”
“Then what difference does it make?”
For the first time in half an hour, David seemed to be out of arguments, but he looked deeply frustrated.
“David”—Doc put a hand on his shoulder—“you have given us more information than we’ve had in”—he waved a hand around—“in Marcus’s lifetime. If this mission works the way we hope it will, we will owe our success almost exclusively to you. Be content with that.”
David didn’t answer. He didn’t look content, but he didn’t argue again.
“Now.” Doc turned to the team. “We should be on our way by morning. The vehicles are being loaded up. It won’t be a difficult journey, but it will be a long one, so I suggest everyone stretch their legs for as long as possible before we leave. Perhaps go through a mental checklist one more time and make sure you have everything.”
Everyone went in their separate directions, and Maggie sighed. She had been through her “mental checklist” at least six hundred times in the past twenty-four hours and didn’t need to go through it again. Anything she didn’t have was long forgotten already.
She wished they could just leave. She’d been practicing with Nat for three days and had made great strides. The team was right; even she was impressed with how quickly she’d learned under Nat’s tutelage. With just a bit of time and concentration, she could control her flow of energy fairly well now. Of course, she was not at all convinced she would have either luxury if caught in a battle with a member of the Council or the Traveler.
All the time cooped up, practicing for a fight that didn’t seem real had made her stir crazy. The adrenaline built and built but had nowhere to go.
To make matters worse, everyone was worried about the Tracking team that had been sent out. Dillon had led a team of himself and three other Trackers out to find Nat. Marcus explained that they had neurological abilities that allowed them to trace the abilities of others, like a hound dog on a scent. Using certain abilities left a signature, and the Trackers could focus on it and follow the path of the person they came from.
Doc had told Dillon what to look for—what abilities Nat had—so that Dillon could feel for them and use their signature to track Nat. Normally, the Seekers would have been consulted to find out what general location Nat was in, but Doc knew where he was and told Dillon, so the Seekers weren’t needed.
What Doc hadn’t counted on was that Nat was coming to Interchron and was already almost there when the Tracking team left. He wasn’t worried, because he knew Dillon would feel Nat’s abilities close by, and while they might make a superfluous circuit, they would undoubtedly make their way back to Interchron in a few days.
It had been over a week since the Tracking party left, and there were still no sign of them. The Seekers couldn’t feel their neurological signatures anywhere nearby, and though they didn’t voice it, Maggie knew the team feared the worst. There was nothing they could do, though, except wait and hope.
And they couldn’t wait for word of Dillon to leave on the mission to the island. Dillon wasn’t part of the team, so there was no point. They would head out without knowing his or the other Trackers’ whereabouts. They could only hope that when the team returned, Dillon would be there waiting for them.
It would take two days to get to the coast. From there they would take a watercraft of some sort to the island where the Council and the Traveler resided. Apparently the team had a watercraft somewhere along the California beach. They hid it so the collectives wouldn’t find it, but it was there when they needed it.
Once they reached the island, the real danger would begin.
The best Scanners could map out a place from far away. Several such talented people lived at Interchron, including Doc. But it didn’t matter. The island had a shield around it that was impenetrable to Doc’s scans. Doc said it felt like a void in the ocean. It was a Concealment of sorts, as the ships had before. This time it was Concealing the entire island, though. If David hadn’t shown them where to look for the void, they wouldn’t have known the island was there.
Until they got inside the shield’s barrier and could properly scan the island, they wouldn’t know what they were up against.
Maggie walked to a small stand of trees she was fond of. Half a dozen aspens grew close together in a near-perfect circle, creating a small, shaded cocoon of space. The sound of the wind through the aspen leaves was like nature’s lullaby. She always felt peaceful here.
Inside the copse of trees, she leaned her head back against the thickest one and shut her eyes, willing the weight to leave her chest. It worked. Sort of. As long as she didn’t think about a single thing going on in her life, she felt pretty peaceful.
“Maggie.”
She jumped.
“Sorry,” David said. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
She smiled to let him know he was forgiven.
“You like this place, don’t you?” He glanced around at the quaking trees.
She shrugged. “Come on in.”
He turned sideways to fit between two of the trees. Then he was standing in front of her. The copse was small, but she wasn’t nervous. She was more comfortable around David than around Marcus. With Marcus there was always the awkwardness of the relationship she couldn’t remember. She didn’t have to worry about that with David.
“I need to talk to you. Marcus doesn’t want me with the team, but—”
Maggie held her hand up. “David, if you’re here to try and get me to talk to the team about changing their minds—”
“I’m not. It’s not that.”
Maggie eyed him warily. “Okay, then what?”
“You asked me if there was anything I had felt since leaving the collective that I’d like to feel again—that would make me want to remain an individual.”
“Yes.?
?? Maggie tried not to let her delight show. She hadn’t expected him to bring this subject up again.
“There is one thing I thought of. When I first came out of the collective—the first few minutes that I was Alone, I saw the sun come up. I’d seen it many times in my life, but for some reason when I was in the collective it never affected me the same way. It was bright and colorful, and…I cried. I’m not even sure why. I haven’t been touched by something like that since…since…”
“Since the last time you were an individual?”
David frowned. He seemed to struggle with himself, and when he didn’t respond, Maggie went on, hoping an explanation would help him.
“That’s exactly the kind of example I hoped you’d come up with. In a collective, no one can be higher than another in any sense. Don’t you see how wrong that is?”
“People ought to be equal.”
“No. People ought to be treated equally and given equal opportunities, but no two people are exactly alike. They exude their own kind of beauty—strong in some areas, weak in others, and just as beautiful for their weaknesses as for their strengths.”
David frowned, but whether because he was confused or simply didn’t agree with her, she didn’t know.
“When you saw the sunset, you thought it was beautiful.”
“Beautiful.” He said it as though he’d never heard the word before.
“Yes. You were seeing beauty—perhaps for the first time in seventeen years. It was the first time you had the ability to appreciate it in that long. Do you really believe that the sun should not be allowed to be beautiful simply because it’s brighter than the moon?”
David’s brow was furrowed again. “The moon is not as bright…but it’s a different color…more subdued…”
“Exactly. They are beautiful in different ways but equally magnificent in their spheres. Should they be punished and not allowed to show their beauty simply because they are not equal?”
A light of understanding came into David’s eyes, and Maggie’s chest swelled with satisfaction. This was what teachers must feel like when their pupils finally grasp a difficult concept.
“People are the same way, David. They ought to be allowed to show their individual beauty, no matter what form it takes. The collective robs them of that.”
David was staring at her levelly, his unreadable amber eyes never flickering from her face. She shrugged uncomfortably, not able to hold his gaze.
Then he stepped toward her. “I don’t like you going into this without me.”
“You mean the team?”
“No, I mean you, specifically. I told the team the first day I was here that you were the key to the prophecy, but I don’t think I impressed upon everyone the full extent of what I mean. None of you realize how much they want to find you, what lengths they’ll go to, or what they’ll do to you if they capture you.”
Maggie sighed, all semblance of peace long gone. “So why don’t you tell me?”
He took a deep breath, eyes searching the dirt for where to begin. “Maggie, you are the only thing standing between them and world domination—for all time. It’s not a matter of not telling them who you are. They’ll know you the instant they sense you. You will bring down the collectives. You’re too important to put at such risk.”
“And what happens, David, if they do capture me? What will they do?”
He pressed his lips together and looked away.
Maggie’s annoyance flared. “If you aren’t going to tell me everything, then why tell me anything?”
He still didn’t answer but looked distressed.
She decided to prod him along; maybe if she began the thought, he’d finish it. “The last time I was captured, they killed Colin and took my memories.”
David gave her a guarded look, but his face was unreadable, and he stared at her for several seconds before speaking again. “Maggie, I don’t think they did that.”
“What?”
“It’s not something they would do. They would have killed you or forced their way into your mind and taken over. It’s all or nothing with them—complete control or death. Why would they erase your memory and let you go?”
Maggie frowned. “They didn’t let me go. Marcus came in and got me.”
David shook his head. “Joan told me what she remembers about that.”
Maggie noted that David hadn’t asked Marcus.
“She said they were looking for you. Blindly. They stumbled into some random area of the ship and found you lying on the ground. From the way she described it, I think it was a storage space, not a place they would have kept you in captivity. If you were there, someone put you there, meant for them to find you.”
Maggie put a hand to her forehead. “But if they didn’t take my memories, then who did?”
“All I can tell you is that they knew who you were back then too. They would have tried to kill you. Maybe you fought back. Maybe it was something this Colin person did. Either way, you getting out of there was luck. It may not work that way this time.”
“David, why are you telling me all this? What do you expect me to do with it?”
He sighed then dug into a pocket on the outside of his pants. He pulled out a small, gold-colored ring. “This is a conduit. I took it from the collective. I want you to take it with you.”
Maggie regarded it warily. “What’s it made of?”
“Gold. Fourteen karat.”
“Karl said only people with special training are allowed to use pure elements like that. They’re too unpredictable. I don’t think I can—”
“You can. Most people can’t control them because they don’t have the strength. You do. You’ll be fine. With the power you can wield through this, you can protect yourself and the team.”
“That’s not my job, David.”
“Make it your job, and get yourself home safe.”
Maggie looked up at him, and their eyes locked. She saw distress there and desperation. She saw something more than his wish to preserve her for the prophecy’s sake. His eyes were pleading, his hand thrusting the ring out toward her.
“You’re in danger, Maggie. Take it to keep yourself safe.”
In that moment when the cool breeze blew through the mountain foliage, a chill rolled down between Maggie’s shoulder blades, and it wasn’t a pleasant one. In that moment, she believed him utterly; not just that he believed it, but that it was something he knew and was trying desperately to warn her about.
She looked down at the ring he was holding out, wondering if even that would keep her safe now. Not knowing what else to do, she took it. It felt no different from an ordinary ring. She rolled the simple gold band around on her palm. It felt like a brick.
She’d assumed the conversation was over, but David stepped closer, their arms brushing, and when he spoke, his breath fell directly onto her face.
“Keep this in touch with your skin. Don’t wear it on your finger, but put it on a chain or something. Don’t let the team know. You’re right. They won’t let you use it. If anyone other than one of them recognizes you, attacks you, looks at you strangely, pull through the ring and lash out. Don’t hesitate.” He tilted her chin up to meet his eyes. “Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“I’ve experienced the kind of punishments the collectives dole out. I wouldn’t have that happen to you.”
He brushed his fingers through her hair before turning and striding away.