Persistence of Vision

  ***

  Voices, heard from the end of a long tunnel, were the first thing Maggie was aware of. Then a collage of blurry colors swam in front of her eyes, and the voices were closer. What they were saying still wasn’t clear, but two of them sounded familiar.

  Maggie turned her head, and a wave of paralyzing nausea swept through her. It was so intense she was afraid she’d vomit, but there wasn’t anything in her stomach to get rid of. No matter how still she lay, she couldn’t bring the world to a standstill; it spun continually before her eyes.

  She focused on what the voices were saying, and that helped. After a few minutes the voices became clear, and the world stopped gyrating, though it was still on a slant.

  “I don’t understand.” It was Marcus. He was right above her. “How can this be? How can you be here?”

  “Of course you don’t understand, Marcus,” an unfamiliar voice sneered. “You individuals think you know enough to save yourselves, but you don’t. Your understanding doesn’t come close to ours. This is why you fail at every turn.”

  Maggie found the will to turn her torso toward the second voice. It was dripping with disdain. Not until she rotated her shoulder back did she realize there was a weight on it. It was Marcus’s hand. When she moved, he looked down at her.

  “How are you, Maggie? Are you okay?”

  “Take it slowly, now.” It was Nat’s voice. He was leaning over her too.

  The two men helped Maggie into a sitting position. She was having a hard time holding her head up. It felt like her neck was asleep. She let her head fall back to rest against Marcus’s arm. Her eyes, however, had no problem moving.

  They were still in the spacious room. The three of them were sitting against the wall opposite the door. The three circular rings she’d noticed earlier were beneath them. Two other people were in the room.

  The man, tall and dark of hair and eye, was standing with his feet planted and his arms crossed. He was the one talking to Marcus.

  A woman with dark, crew-cut hair, a plain face, and blasé, shapeless garb, was pacing back and forth behind him. Her eyes swept all corners of the room and the door in succession, like a human watchdog waiting for something to happen.

  It took several minutes for sensation to return to all parts of Maggie’s body. In the meantime, she tried to focus on what was being said.

  “Answer the question!” Marcus was yelling at the other man, and it was hurting Maggie’s head. “How are you here? What happened?”

  “Oh come, Marcus, let’s not be absurd. Surely you know most of it. The only obvious difference is that I wasn’t as deceased as you thought me to be.”

  “You were…playing dead?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Why?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? I wanted to be left behind.”

  There was silence for a few seconds, and Maggie took the opportunity to try to sit up. Marcus helped her shakily to her feet. She still felt groggy, like she’d just come out of a long, deep sleep, but things were getting clearer by the second.

  “You okay, Maggie?” Marcus’s mouth was very close to her ear.

  “What happened?” Her tongue felt thick and sluggish in her mouth. She sounded like she’d thrown back a few too many shots of something heavy.

  “They injected us with a neurological sedative.”

  It was like he was speaking Russian. Maggie couldn’t comprehend what he was saying. Her eyes fell to her hand where her conduit stone was still strapped. Instinctively, she tried to pull through it. A wave of vertigo washed over her, heaving her stomach. The sickly sensation of vomit tickled the back of her throat, and she almost collapsed, but Marcus caught her and kept her upright.

  When she recovered, the first thing she saw was the other man looking at her quizzically. He glanced at Nat, seeming mystified.

  “Why did she do that?”

  Nat kept a level gaze on the man, his mouth set in a hard line.

  Marcus’s lips were on her ear. “Don’t pull through the stone, Maggie. The sedative affects our neurological abilities. The physical sedative is wearing off, but the other will stay in place so we can’t use our abilities to escape. If you try, you’ll only make yourself sick.”

  His whisper had an air of desperation to it. Something was going on. There was a connection that she should be making. Why was he whispering? What didn’t he want the other man to know?

  The man in front of them clasped his hands together in mock delight, plastering a sickly-sweet smile on his face.

  “Maggie, how wonderful to see you conscious again. I had quite hoped we’d killed you last time, but you outsmarted everyone, didn’t you?”

  Maggie could feel the rage rolling off Marcus as he glared in the other man’s direction. She thought about all she’d heard in the last few minutes, and there seemed to be only one conclusion. She didn’t know how she came to it; she’d have to figure out her own line of reasoning later, but somehow she still understood.

  She looked up at the man standing in front of them. “Are you Colin?”

  His smile faded into a blank line then went in the opposite direction, ending in a frown. Marcus was still at Maggie’s back, his hands resting on her upper arms. His grip tightened as the man’s expression changed.

  “What do you mean, am I…” His expression swept over the three of them and an astonished understanding came into his face. He looked delighted over what he’d just realized, and that worried Maggie.

  He turned to the woman behind him. “She has no memory.” Then he looked back at her. “How extraordinary.” He paced in front of them, gawking at Maggie as though she was the newest exhibit at the local zoo. “But she didn’t know what the neurological sedative was either, so she’s lost not only her memory of me, but all of it? What did you do, Marcus, put her in hibernation for a year? Or did you actually send her back to her own time and then grow desperate and bring her back again?”

  The mocking tone of his voice made the question rhetorical, and Maggie wished she hadn’t said anything.

  “So I’m not the only one confused about what happened on that ship. Do you remember what happened the last time we saw each other?” He tilted his head inward, showing that he was speaking to Maggie.

  The cat was out of the bag, so why not get more information? She just had to be careful not to reveal anymore.

  “So you are Colin.”

  Putting one foot in front of the other and bending at the waist, he gave her a bow worthy of the medieval courts of Europe. “Colin Demigog at your service. You and I have much to discuss. It seems I’m not the only one confused about what happened that day. But we’ll worry about that later. Now—” He turned to the woman and nodded. She turned her full attention to Colin’s three prisoners and stared hard.

  Nat and Marcus fell to their knees, holding their heads and gasping in pain.

  “Stop!” Maggie screamed. “Leave them alone!” She turned to Marcus, but before she could touch him a hand closed around her wrist and dragged her away.

  Colin pulled her six feet from where Marcus was writhing on the floor and threw her down. She rolled, stopped only by the hard wall of the bay. The wind was knocked soundly from her lungs, and then she was gasping for air.

  When she raised her head, he smirked at her.

  Marcus and Nat had stopped squirming. They were breathing hard, the breath of relief. Marcus turned to where Maggie was laying against the wall, trying to catch her breath as well. He moved toward her.

  “Stay where you are, Marcus. If any of you tries to move toward one another, there will be more pain for both you and her next time.”

  Marcus glared lightning bolts at Colin, but he stayed where he was. Maggie put her hand up to show him she was okay, but she hadn’t totally recovered yet, so she remained on the floor, sitting.

  “Now.” Colin steepled his fingers like a teacher about to start class. “First things first. Maggie, stand up.”

  Maggie looked up in
surprise. Marcus and Nat were still on their knees. Why was he singling her out? Her back hurt from where she’d struck the wall, and she could take deep breaths now, but they were painful.

  “What?”

  “I said, get up.” His face and voice had gone hard.

  Maggie struggled shakily to her feet. Despite how pathetic she knew she must look, she put her shoulders back and raised her chin a few centimeters.

  Colin walked aggressively toward her until he was standing so close that she had to tilt her head far back to look up at him. Even from six feet away she could feel Marcus tense up. Maggie didn’t blame him. It almost seemed like Colin was preparing to kiss her.

  Then he did.

  He lowered his lips to hers. She gasped, turned her face away, and tried to step back, but he reached out and grabbed her chin, his fingers digging into the flesh of cheeks. She struggled but was no match for his strong hands. He forced his lips down over hers for several seconds.

  His kiss was slimy and smelled foul, and she supposed she ought to be glad he didn’t try to get inside her mouth. Still, when Colin shoved her backward so she fell against the wall, she wanted to spit.

  The instant he leaned in, Marcus lunged for him, but the creepy woman was still watching them like a hawk. Marcus covered all of six inches before collapsing to the floor, holding his head in his hands again and groaning in agony.

  Nat didn’t move at all. He struck Maggie as being a lot like Doc—too wise to be hasty. He didn’t try to defend Maggie because he knew he couldn’t. Yet his stance was like a hunting panther, poised to pounce at the first opportunity.

  “I’ve always wanted to do that.” Colin smirked, wiping his mouth theatrically. “You always were a little too possessive of her, Marcus.”

  “Stop it!” Maggie screamed as she struggled to her feet. “Stop hurting him!”

  The woman must have stopped, because Marcus sunk with relief to the ground, his chest heaving, but Colin turned to Maggie.

  “His pain will continue unless you do what I say.”

  Maggie regarded him warily. “Which is?”

  “First, you’d better give me a better kiss than that.”

  Sheer annoyance bubbled up in her. He was like a teenage trust-fund baby with a perverse streak. She’d had enough. “Really? Really? You have us utterly at your mercy, and this is what you decide to do with that kind of power?”

  Colin’s grin went from lascivious to genuine. “Still the same old Maggie, I see. You always did manage to make the rest of us feel like bumbling idiots. And no, this is not what I have planned for you.”

  “Then what?” It was Marcus’s rough voice. He was dragging himself to his feet again.

  Maggie could tell the pain the woman was inflicting was wiping him out. Much more and he wouldn’t be able to stand on his own.

  “Oh, Marcus, you’ve made this so easy for us.”

  Marcus’s eyes took on a dangerous cast. “What does that mean?”

  “You’ve walked blindly into our domain, put the key to our prophecy’s demise” —he indicated Maggie—“into my lap, and brought your entire team under our control. And you did it all of your own accord.”

  Marcus’s chest was heaving, but Maggie didn’t think it was a side effect of the pain he’d been in earlier.

  “Tell me what you’re getting at, Colin. How did you get us here? Was David sent to trap us?”

  Colin smirked but made no reply.

  “Answer me, Colin. Gloat all you want, but tell me the truth. After all this, you owe me at least that much.”

  Colin bowed his head a bit as though he were showing supreme magnanimity. “I suppose you’re right.”

  Maggie wished she could knock that condescending smirk off his face. Fear of what he would tell Marcus made her feet and fingertips numb.

  “I wish I could tell you your brother had betrayed you, Marcus. I know all about your little family drama. I’ve known since before I first became part of the team, but David did what he did believing it would save you. All we had to do was wait for you to cross the Concealment.”

  “For what?” Marcus growled.

  He didn’t elaborate, but Maggie saw Marcus and Nat exchange troubled glances.

  Maggie watched Marcus’s face. He’d been so sure Colin would tell him that David had led the team into a trap. Yet Colin’s answer was still vague.

  “So what?” Maggie said, causing all three men’s eyes to swivel to her. “You manipulated David into telling us to come here so you could enslave us?”

  Colin grinned. “Something like that.”

  Marcus frowned, and Maggie could guess his question. How was that possible? Collectivists shared thoughts, so how could David not know he was being manipulated?

  Colin read the question in their faces. “Come now, how incompetent do you think we are? Do you really think we didn’t know the second he decided to break away? The first instinct was to kill him. He intended to come to you, and he knew too much. But then we realized that we could use him to our advantage. He knew where this place was and that the Traveler, as well as the Council, resides here. We assumed the team would show up eventually to stop the Traveler. He delivered his message perfectly, even if he didn’t understand its consequences.”

  Maggie’s heart sank. If that was true, and there was no reason to think otherwise, then they were good and trapped. They had walked into their own demise.

  “So what now?” Marcus said after swallowing loudly. “You’ll force us into the collectives?”

  “If the rest of your team is here—and I assume they are—yes, you will all be absorbed. But Maggie, naturally, dies.”

  Maggie knew she should have seen that coming. David warned her that their enemies would kill her on sight. Her stomach still dropped though, and fear seeped into her joints.

  David. David had warned her. David! The ring!

  She hadn’t touched it since leaving Interchron. She was afraid one of the team would sense that she had it. She’d put it in the pocket of her jeans for safekeeping. She wondered if, using the ring, she would be able to transcend the sedative. Perhaps it was powerful enough that she could grasp her neurological powers despite the drug.

  Or…it would make her so violently sick that she’d vomit her innards onto the cargo bay floor. Still, he was going to kill her anyway, so it was worth a shot.

  The problem was that the horrible woman was still watching them. As Marcus had so painfully found out, any sudden movements were punished. Maggie had to stall and hope for a chance to grab the ring.

  “Who’s your lady friend?” Maggie nodded with her chin toward the woman behind him.

  “Of course. How rude of me.” Colin was being a courtly gentleman again. “I suppose I should introduce you all to Borna, especially as she’s the one who will change the world as we know it. You see, she’s a Traveler.”