Persistence of Vision

  ***

  Two days later, no decision had been made about Clay. He wasn’t dead, so no one wanted to bury him. And his wife, Kara, wouldn’t have it. No one blamed her for not wanting the finality of burial.

  Maggie sat with Joan in medical while Marcus and Karl paced nearby. The team hovered continually near Clay’s bedside but tried to give Kara space. As a result, they’d spent the better part of two days huddled in the room adjacent to Clay’s, staring at each other and listening to Kara’s intermittent weeping.

  Two people—sometimes the two who’d been there when she woke up, sometimes others—were always around Maggie. They followed her around like armed guards, staying a short distance behind her as she moved through the corridors, standing outside the rooms she was in. They didn’t seem to disconcert anyone else. The team acted like they couldn’t see them. A few times Maggie caught Marcus’s eye and nodded toward the guards, raising an eyebrow. He always looked away, though, not offering any explanation. Sadness over Clay hung thick in the air, and Maggie didn’t press the issue.

  Doc was with them first thing that day, but he’d ducked out midmorning without explanation. Now he re-entered the room.

  “Will all of you please follow me? It’s time we talked.” He kept his voice quiet enough not to disturb Kara, who had fallen asleep holding Clay’s hand.

  Doc led Maggie, Marcus, Joan, and Karl through the quiet corridors of Interchron. He turned into the conference room they’d used before just after David arrived.

  The five of them filed in. David and Nat were already inside. David stood leaning against the wall, arms folded across his chest. Nat sat at one end of the table, staring at his steepled fingers. He looked strangely reminiscent of Doc in that pose.

  Marcus threw a glare in David’s direction, and Maggie knew her premonition was correct—this would not be a pleasant meeting.

  Marcus pulled out Maggie’s chair then sat beside her. The others took seats around the table. David took one on the other end away from the rest of them, just as he had when he first arrived. It was a strange, lonely sort of déjà vu, especially in light of the vacant seat Clay had occupied before.

  “I know this is going to be difficult,” Doc began, his eyes on the table in front of him, “but it’s been days, and we need to talk about what happened, what we know, and what we’re going to do next.”

  “What about Clay?” Joan asked quietly.

  Doc sighed. “I honestly don’t know what to do.”

  “Doc.” Maggie felt their eyes turn to her but couldn’t bring herself to meet them. “I’m sure you’ve already thought of this, so maybe it’s a dumb question, but can’t we search for some way to Heal him?”

  She glanced up to see Doc frowning at her. “I know we don’t know how, that Marcus can’t regenerate tissue, but what if the answer’s out there and we just haven’t found it yet? Karl’s a Traveler. Can’t you look in the future for the answer?”

  “I have, Maggie.”

  Maggie turned to find Karl’s face grave. He’d taken the seat on the other side of her.

  “As soon as the ability of Traveling became known, we Travelers began walking through almost all periods of human history. I’ve taken Seekers to the future in search of certain abilities and technologies, but I’ve never found anything that would help us heal Clay. I’ve never seen a time or place in which human beings can regenerate what’s been lost. I think that’s God’s work.”

  “We need to talk about what happened on the island,” Doc said, then ran his hands through his thick, white hair. “But where to begin?”

  “How about with the fact that Colin is alive and always has been?”

  Bitterness seeped into Karl’s voice, and Maggie was surprised he already knew. He must have spoken to Marcus or Nat before this. Her surprise must have shown, because when Doc spoke, he directed his comments at her.

  “Marcus, Nat, and David have told us what happened in the cargo bay. We all know everything Colin said and did, unless you have anything to add?”

  Maggie shook her head. “I don’t see that I would. We were all in the same room the entire time.”

  “Maybe you should tell us what you remember, anyway,” Karl said. “Everyone was under stress, and a conversation is difficult to remember word for word. Maybe you would remember something the other two forgot.”

  The thought of trying to repeat her entire conversation with Colin was daunting. She was afraid she’d get emotional, which would be embarrassing.

  Joan saved her from having to try.

  “One thing I don’t understand,” she said. “Colin wants to find and kill us all. So why doesn’t he? He knows where the compound is and how to get in. Why not just lead them here? Is there a chance that he was putting on an evil show for the Traveler’s benefit?”

  Nat shook his head, but it was Marcus who spoke.

  “No. I understand why you want to believe that. We all trusted him. But if you could’ve seen him—the things he said, the look in his eye—he’s one of them through and through. He was never as decent as he led us to believe.” Marcus heaved a sigh. “As to the first question, I can’t be sure, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot.”

  Maggie was glad someone had been. The conundrum hadn’t occurred to her.

  “When he realized Maggie had no memories of him, Colin was surprised. Happy, but surprised nonetheless. He said something about not being the only one who didn’t know what happened aboard that ship. He may have simply been referring to the fact that Maggie escaped, but I don’t think so.” Marcus turned to her. “I think some part of what you did, of what happened to your memories, affected him. Now I don’t think he can remember where Interchron is.”

  Maggie thought about that for a few seconds, but it didn’t compute for her. “But that doesn’t make sense. Colin was a member of the team before I ever arrived here, wasn’t he?”

  Marcus looked confused but nodded. “He was with us for about a year before we found you.”

  “So if his memory of the compound is gone, then he wouldn’t have remembered me at all. He wouldn’t have remembered anything about being on the ship.”

  All the men around the table looked confused by her argument, but Joan, as usual, understood.

  “You’re thinking too linearly again, Maggie. Remember when I explained to you how Marcus could send out a wave of Offensive energy and kill all the Trepids without hurting any of the individual minds that were out in front of him?”

  Maggie nodded. “You said he honed in on antagonistic energy. He could select who he wanted to target.”

  “Yes. And this is similar. With neurological abilities, choice is always a factor. If Colin’s memory loss is the result of a neurological ability, especially if it’s something you did, it might have been a matter of choosing specifically what someone didn’t want him to remember.”

  “But how would I…do that?”

  “I don’t know.” Marcus passed a hand across his eyes. “I’ve never heard of anyone doing it before. Has anyone else?”

  Around the table, heads shook slowly.

  “But either way,” Maggie said, “we’re talking about selective memory loss?”

  Marcus shrugged. “Like I said, there’s no way to be sure, but it’s the only thing that makes sense to me. Unless anyone else has any thoughts?”

  Silence greeted the question, and Maggie supposed it was the only explanation they had for the present. She didn’t like it, though. It placed even greater responsibility for what had happened on her shoulders. She had found something out, decided not to trust the team with it, dumped her memories, knowing full well she might never recover them, then she’d also blocked or stolen some of Colin’s memories?

  “The only reason to hide the location of the compound is to protect those that live here,” Joan said. “It stands to reason, then, that Maggie was afraid he’d come after them. So perhaps some of what she found out was Colin’s true nature.”

  Silence followed as
that sunk in.

  “So,” Karl said after several minutes, “we don’t know anything for certain about his memory, but then there’s the question of what he did—this whole drinking-Maggie’s-blood thing.”

  Maggie shuddered at the memory, and Marcus reached over and took her hand under the table. She gave him what she hoped was a grateful smile. That he understood the fear, the exploitation she’d felt at what Colin had done, that he could see how much it still bothered her, was a great comfort.

  “I’m not sure I even believe it’s true,” Karl said. “I’ve never heard of drinking someone’s blood to find them. Maybe he was just screwing with us.”

  “I don’t think so.” It was David’s voice, and they all turned toward him.

  “You know something of this?” Marcus’s voice was iron when he addressed his brother.

  David hesitated a moment before answering. “I could not speak of it with any authority, but I’ve heard rumors of it.”

  “Rumors?” Karl asked. “There’s such thing as gossip in the collectives?”

  David shook his head. “Not in the way you’re thinking of it. Sometimes a new idea will be introduced into the collective mind. It comes through a single person who’s heard or observed it. Then it travels along the collective pathways. We are no different from individuals in the way we observe and process information. Ideas and experiences are introduced through a single person, but then they are shared and processed by the entire collective mind. If the ideas and experiences are good, the collective absorbs and makes use of them. If they are negative, they are put down.”

  Karl frowned at David. “Put down by who?”

  “By the collective. It is agreed and understood that something is negative, vile, or forbidden, and everyone simply stops thinking about it. So the rumor is no more.”

  It was not lost on Maggie that David said we like he was still part of the collective. Even after all these weeks, he was not far removed from the collective in his own mind.

  Karl turned his head to frown at Doc, and they shared a knowing look.

  “How do you know”—Karl turned back to David—“that it’s the drones in the collective making the decision to squelch the rumor?”

  “Who else would it be?”

  “What’s this got to do with Colin…tasting Maggie’s blood?” Marcus cut in.

  David heaved a deep breath. “I’ve heard of it before. I don’t know any details. It was just a rumor that once floated through the collective. This kind of thing was forbidden to know or think about because it was dark and evil, not to mention unsavory. But what you describe…it has the ring of truth to me.”

  “He’s right.”

  All heads swung toward Doc.

  “I too have heard of this before. Consuming blood is an evil thing because it exerts a pull over the drinker. I think it’s true of all blood—drinking the blood of a turkey it would have a certain amount of pull on you to drink more. I also believe the strength of the leveraging force increases with the intelligence of the creature whose blood you are drinking, which is why human blood has the greatest pull of all. Unfortunately, Colin was telling the truth. By tasting Maggie’s blood, he’ll be able to come straight to her.”

  Maggie’s eyes dropped to the table. She was hoping Doc would tell her that what Colin said was rubbish—that he’d just been trying to scare her. Hearing Doc speak of it now with such finality made it all too real. An unpleasant cold settled in her stomach, making her want to pull her knees into her chest and hide.

  Maggie wanted to ask what they were to do next, but she couldn’t force the words out. No one else seemed to want to either. After several moments of silence, David spoke, addressing Karl.

  “What did you mean about the collective not making its own decisions? Who else would make them?”

  “The Counsel of Six,” Karl said, as though it was obvious.

  David shook his head. “They only have final say.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve been part of it.”

  “I don’t think you’re as informed as you think you are, David.”

  The rest of the team was following the conversation with confusion, but with Karl’s last comment, Marcus’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

  “What do mean, Karl?”

  Karl looked at Doc, who nodded at him.

  “The person that invaded Lila’s mind, who called himself B? Doc spoke with him while we were on the island.”

  Gasps and exclamations came from around the table. Nat didn’t look particularly alarmed. Joan, on the other hand, was suddenly very attentive.

  “What did he say?” she asked.

  Doc spoke. “We haven’t had a chance to talk about it since getting back. How much did you hear, Karl?”

  Karl’s brow furrowed. “Not much. I got hit on the head,” he explained to the others. “It seemed like the two of you knew each other. I know he said something about some brothers. Then Doc asked what B stood for. He said it was for Beholder, because he was watching us. And he implied”—his eyes shifted accusingly to David—“that he had sent you here to spy on us.”

  David’s eyes widened. “I don’t know what he means.”

  No one else spoke, but Marcus stood. He simply planted his feet and straightened his legs, his stance lithe and dangerous. He addressed Doc. “You’ve known this the entire time since we left the island and you haven’t…restrained him?”

  Doc put up a weary hand. “Marcus, listen—”

  “No. Don’t tell me to listen. Clay is dead!”

  It was a word no one had voiced about Clay, as though using euphemisms might keep him with them longer. Marcus’s voice made the word crack like a whip, and the entire team shuddered as though slapped.

  A tear escaped over the rim of Maggie’s eye, but she wiped it away quickly. She thought David might have seen it—he was the only one looking at her—but she pretended he hadn’t.

  “For all intents and purposes, he is!” Marcus was still shouting. “They were ready for us. They knew we were coming. You have a testament that David is a spy and yet you let him roam freely around Interchron? You let him near Clay? ”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the man I spoke to was lying.”

  Marcus’s anger withered a bit under Doc’s glare. Maggie knew Marcus couldn’t contradict Doc. He loved him like a father and trusted him implicitly. Still, Marcus didn’t sit. Rather, he turned slowly toward David, who wore a disturbed frown.

  “Marcus.” David gave him a pleading look. “What I did, I did on my own. It was my choice, just as I told you before. You must believe me.”

  “I don’t suppose you can prove that,” Marcus snapped.

  David shook his head. “Only to myself.”

  “Meaning what?” Karl asked.

  “It was painful. Terribly painful. If they had wanted me to go—to spy and infiltrate—they would have just let me go. I had to rip myself, physically and neurologically, out of the collective body. And when I did, they tried to pull me back to them. I could feel them—thousands of minds digging into mine, trying to reunite me with the collective. This B is lying. When I got away, they tried to claw me back. Does that sound like them letting me go to come and trap you?”

  Marcus stared at David for a few seconds, chest heaving. “Why did you give Maggie that ring?”

  Maggie lowered her head and hunched her shoulders, waiting for an explosion. So they had finally come to the crux of it.

  David looked surprised. “I…I was afraid…of exactly what happened. I thought you might be going into a trap.”

  “Then why didn’t you just say so?”

  David looked frustrated. “I couldn’t. I didn’t have the words. I have more words now than when I got here, but they’re coming slowly. I tried to tell you how much danger she was in—that they were looking for her and would kill her without mercy. I could tell that I wasn’t being clear, that you didn’t understand me. So I gave Ma
ggie the ring as a precaution.”

  “You could have killed her.” Marcus spat. “You could have killed all of us.”

  “You mean she could have?”

  Marcus looked like he was ready to strangle David, but Karl answered. “Yes, she could have. And it would have been your fault.”

  David shrugged. “She didn’t. She saved your lives and gave you the chance to escape. Not to mention, she killed the Traveler, which was our principle aim.”

  “You gave her a dangerous weapon,” Marcus said, “an obscene amount of power she had no hope of controlling. Everything else was just luck, and you’re defending your actions?”

  “It wasn’t luck.” David snapped, raising his voice. “I knew she’d be able to handle it. Both her brain chemistry and the prophecy say so. I was being practical, not irresponsible.”

  Marcus looked angrier by the minute. David’s arguments were not pacifying him.

  It occurred to Maggie that, despite still placing himself somewhat in the collective mind, David had come a long way since they’d first met him. He was not only saying I, but giving forceful opinions in opposition to everyone else at the table. He wouldn’t have been able to do that at first.

  Maggie reached up and touched Marcus’s arm. He looked down at her.

  “If you’re going to be mad at David for this, you’ll have to be mad at me too. I accepted the ring. I knew”—she spread her gaze around the room—“none of you would approve. I kept it from you.”

  “Why did you do that, Maggie?” Karl asked quietly.

  “Because, I…I was affected by what David said to me.”

  Marcus glared accusingly at David, as if David had tricked her somehow.

  “Why didn’t you say something, Maggie?” Joan asked, taking Maggie’s hands across the table.

  “I…I don’t know. Maybe it was more a feeling than a conscious thought. I felt that David was afraid for us, and that made me afraid. I was never planning on using the ring. I had it, but I figured if we got ourselves into a dire situation, I’d give it to one of you to use. I never thought…” Her voice cracked, and she trailed off.

  “It’s not your fault,” Marcus said softly.

  “Yes, it is. Every bit as much as it is his.” She indicated David.

  There was a brief silence, which Doc broke. “Marcus, sit down. I have some things to explain.”

  Marcus lowered himself into his seat, looking reluctant to do so.

  “It’s true that Maggie has the ability to use the kind of power the ring afforded her. If she hadn’t, she would certainly have vaporized us all. That she didn’t means that David was right in his assumption that she could handle it.”

  Marcus opened his mouth but Doc threw a hand up, forestalling him.

  “It is also true, however, that Maggie is completely untrained in this regard. As such, it was wrong to send her into battle with such a weapon, no matter your certainty of her abilities.”

  David looked chastised but made no comment.

  “Now, as to the accusations the man I spoke to made.” Doc drew a deep breath. “Karl’s right. I do know this man, B, or did a long time ago.”

  “More things you haven’t told us, Doc?” Joan’s voice was quiet.

  Doc spread his hands. “Please understand. I’m certain there are things I haven’t told you, but not because I’m trying to keep anything from you. I wouldn’t have thought this would be…relevant to the mission.”

  “So who is he? What does he want?” Karl asked.

  “Didn’t you know who he was when he attacked Lila?” Joan said.

  “I suspected when Lila was attacked, but he said so little, and it was so ambiguous that there was no way to be sure. After all, as David had told us, there are many people who might want to kill Maggie.

  “As to who he is, I don’t think the details are important just now. I knew him a long time ago, but we had different beliefs. I believed in freedom and individualism, while he leaned more toward collectivism. It was this core difference that tore our friendship apart. I haven’t seen him since. Obviously he is a powerful man in the collectivist world. He simply wanted me to know that he’s still around and watching.”

  “What was he saying about brothers?” Karl asked.

  Doc was staring very hard at the ceiling. Maggie could swear, though no twitch of his face or wet gleam in his eye betrayed it, that he was fighting with his emotions. He finally brought his gaze to their level.

  “Just an old figure of speech—a private understanding between us.” His voice was a whisper. “The only reason he brought it up was so I would know his identity, unequivocally.” He cleared his throat and thudded his palms on the table. “More to the point, because I know this man so well, I know him to be deceptive. He would do anything to plant doubts among us, turn us against one another.

  “That he tried to tell me that David was his pawn is what makes me more certain than ever that David is and always has told us the truth. If David were doing his bidding, B would have tried to convince me of how trustworthy David was, and I would have known it to be a lie.”

  “But Doc,” Maggie said, “how do you know that he doesn’t know you as well as you know him? What if he’s manipulating you because he knows you’ll believe the opposite of anything he says?”

  Doc smiled. “Maggie, that’s one of the things I love about you. You have such a fantastic mind that you can think in extremely complicated equations.”

  Maggie rolled her eyes. “Is that your way of saying I’m over thinking it?”

  Doc chuckled. “No, but you’re giving him too much credit.” He leaned back in his chair. “Evil men are always narrow minded. They can’t see beyond their own intentions. Those of us who are both more educated and more compassionate often can’t comprehend their stupidity. We think that if only they would do x, y, and z they could manipulate us, but they rarely do. They don’t have the capacity for it.

  “Oh, there are plenty of evil geniuses in the world, but even they are limited in their own way. I daresay B is quite the genius himself, but it would never occur to him to use my own understanding to manipulate me. He wants to deceive, because it will cause us to doubt each other. He wouldn’t think of layers of deception or psychological manipulation. He doesn’t have the intelligence for it.”

  Maggie was silent, letting the information sink in. So David was not a traitor, Clay was really gone, Colin was going to find Maggie sooner or later, and they were no closer to bringing down the collectives, regardless of the fact that they had succeeded in killing the Traveler.

  “Do you think he—this B guy, I mean—was the one that killed Clay?”

  Doc gazed at Marcus for a long time before answering. “What makes you ask that?”

  “Whatever Clay was hit with, and whatever neurological energy was attacking us in that courtyard, it wasn’t coming from the drones. It was coming from somewhere else. I could feel it. I just couldn’t identify the source. I don’t think the drones have the ability to attack us that way. They were being directed by someone else—by the collective. But someone was leveling a neurological attack at us from somewhere.”

  “I can vouch for that,” Joan said. “I had to throw up shield after shield against the barrage of Offensive energy coming our way. It was difficult because the attack was so powerful. I couldn’t tell where the energy was coming from either. I hadn’t really thought about it until now. What do you think, Doc?”

  Doc was quiet for a minute before answering, and no one was willing to break into his thoughts, so they waited for him to speak again. Joan looked to be on the edge of tears. Karl’s expression was a mixture of worry and anger. Nat was lost in his own thoughts. David looked haunted. Marcus was studying Doc’s face intently, as though to discern his thoughts by studying the emotions running across Doc’s face. When Doc spoke again, they raised their faces to his in unison.

  “I don’t know the answer to that. It may have been B. Or the Council of Six. There’s no way to tell.??
?

  “You aren’t telling us everything you know, Doc.” Joan’s voice was soft and dangerous.

  Maggie was beginning to see what Joan saw when Doc was withholding something. It wasn’t anything he did that was the tell; it was the way he studied the table in front of him, and the skin around his eyes took on a look of tension.

  Doc sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I’m thinking of something the prophecy says, but I want to go back and read it again. I’ll share what I know with you when I’m sure of what it is myself.”

  Silence followed, and Maggie ran through everything that had been said in the cargo bay. “So, we’re assuming that B is lying, but we’ve said that Colin was telling the truth about things, right?”

  “Why do you ask, Maggie?” Doc leaned forward.

  “He implied that their barrier—the one our scans couldn’t penetrate—was booby trapped somehow—that they knew when we’d crossed the border.”

  Doc’s eyebrows went up, and his eyes whipped to Karl and Marcus. Marcus nodded.

  “She’s right. That’s something we both forgot, but Colin did say that they were just waiting for us to cross the Concealment. I’d assumed the barrier was some kind of Concealment, like the one over the lighthouse. Is it possible to put some sort of alert system on a Concealment that way?”

  Doc thought for a time. “I don’t know. Perhaps. Or perhaps it isn’t actually a Concealment but something else. What was everyone else’s impression?”

  No one had any insight to offer. There had been too much going on at the time for them to study the barrier. It was a secondary concern. If it had been a Concealment, Clay could have offered the most insight, but again…

  “So what now?” Joan asked. “Do we even have anywhere to go from here?”

  “Of course we do,” Doc said resolutely. “Thanks to David’s information, we have more to work from than we ever have. We’ll have to do something about Colin, of course. But we know there are six minds that are controlling the collectives. We don’t know where they’re going next, but the simple fact that we know they exist is a starting point. We’ll hunt Colin and start gathering information on the Council of Six.”

  Sensing that the meeting was nearing its close, Maggie cleared her throat. “Anyone care to tell me why I have guards following me around?”

  Maggie had assumed there was a logical, benign explanation for the guards, but the way everyone turned away from her made her afraid.

  “They aren’t guarding you, Maggie,” Joan said. “They are acting as bodyguards to you. They are Concealers.”

  Suddenly it made sense. Why hadn’t she thought of it? Colin was looking for her. These people were making sure he couldn’t find her for the present.

  Doc looked weary. “Maggie, I don’t think you’ve been given a complete run down on what happened after you passed out, but any one of us can tell you. For now, we need to focus on your safety.”

  Maggie swallowed. “Okay.”

  Doc leaned forward, clasping his hands together. “It takes two Concealers together to do what Clay could have done alone. Clay could Conceal a person for days at a time without tiring. When he grew tired, we could have had these other Concealers take over so he could rest. It only took two to three hours of recuperation for Clay, and he’d be good as new. But Clay…isn’t here anymore.”

  Doc sighed. “What you must understand, Maggie, is that we don’t have the power to protect you here. There are six people in Interchron that can participate in protecting you this way. Two work at a time in eight-hour shifts. That means they always have sixteen hours to refresh themselves. That is not enough time.”

  “Not enough time for what?”

  “For them to recuperate. They’ve been guarding you for several days already since you returned to the compound. They sleep away the entire sixteen hours they have off, and when they come back for their next shift, they’re still not one hundred percent. I give it a week before we’ve exhausted them completely. At that point, they’ll all need a week’s worth of rest before they’re themselves. Even then we’ll only have them until they wear out again.”

  Maggie nodded, understanding what he was getting at. “And when they’re abilities fail, Colin will be able to point straight to where I am.”

  Doc smiled without humor. “I’m afraid so.”

  Maggie studied her hands on the table. The thought of coming face to face with Colin again terrified her, but she couldn’t let him find her here amongst friends.

  “Then I have to leave Interchron.”

  The clicking of tongues and other sounds of protest came from around the table.

  “Maggie, that won’t work,” Karl said. “You can’t hide from him. He’ll find you wherever you go.”

  “Exactly. So the least I can do is be far away. If he’s going to find me anyway, I have to protect the people living here.”

  “And what will you do when he finds you?” Marcus looked earnestly into her eyes.

  “I…I don’t know, but—”

  “You could always give her the ring.” David’s voice was tinged with irony.

  The team immediately turned on him.

  “I can’t believe you just suggested that!”

  “That’s irresponsible, and you know it!”

  “Absolutely not. Not an option!”

  David shrugged, seeming unperturbed by the onslaught of criticism aimed at him.

  Maggie held up her hands. “I’m not saying I want the ring. I don’t want to deal with that kind of power again. It terrifies me. But I’m not sure I understand why you’re all so against it.”

  “This kind of power is extremely dangerous, Maggie,” Joan said. “We can’t control it. We don’t understand its full consequences. You have the potential to be able to control it, but we don’t have any way to train you, because no one’s ever done it before. This kind of power can change the physical structure of the planet. Used improperly, it may even rip a hole in space-time itself. Consider this. What if, in your century, someone discovered the ability of mind control?”

  “Like brain-washing?”

  “No. That’s a form of psychological manipulation. I’m talking about controlling someone by taking over their mind, getting into someone’s head and telling them to…scratch their nose, and they do it.”

  Maggie thought about the mess society already was in her century. “That would be disastrous.”

  “Why?” Joan asked. “With such power your society could control the minds of those who are criminals. They could make it so that murderers, rapists, pedophiles, and even just petty thieves saw the error of their ways. Society could be completely peaceful.”

  “Yeah,” Maggie admitted, “but at what cost? There is always someone willing to use a good tool for a bad thing. People would use it incorruptly. We would never know if our thoughts were our own or someone else’s.”

  “Precisely, Maggie.” Doc took over. “The power pulled through pure, supple elements, such as gold and silver, could have vast consequences, including some we know nothing about. It’s irresponsible to wield a power of that magnitude when we don’t understand it. The risks outweigh the potential rewards.”

  “Okay.” Maggie sighed. “So what do you propose? You don’t want me to leave, but I can’t stay, and I have a week before Colin will be able to find me anywhere on the planet. I’m assuming you have a plan.”

  Everyone looked at their hands. Even Marcus studied the table in front of him, and when she turned to fully look at him, he turned his head away from her.

  Alarm reverberated in Maggie’s chest. What could be so terrible?

  “It’s hardly a plan, Maggie,” Doc said. “It’s just the only option we have left.”

  “Which is?”

  “We’re going to send you back to your own time.”

  The words hit Maggie in the chest like a ton of Kevlar. The fear of facing Colin was nothing to the fear that knotted her stomach at the thought of leaving.

  “Wh…wh
at?”

  “We have no way to protect you. Colin can still find you, because he is a Seeker, but without the Traveler he is impotent. He has no way to navigate time. He’ll know where you are, but you’ll just be a ray on the horizon to him, completely unreachable.”

  “But…how can I…”

  “Karl will take you back, of course. Marcus, I’m sure, will accompany you.”

  “Doc, I’ve been on this insane mission for months now. You expect me to go back and try to live my life again, knowing what I know? This is exactly what happened before—I was here for a time. Then you sent me back. Don’t you think this back and forth between my time and yours is getting old?” Maggie spoke at lightning speed and was out of breath by the time she finished.

  Doc gave her a sad smile. “It’s not the same as before, Maggie. You’ll retain your memories this time. You may even have recovered a few of the old ones before you see us again, if the Remembrancer is to be believed. Besides, when we took you back the first time, we had every intention of leaving you to your life. This time, we’ll be planning on coming back for you.”

  “Which will be when?”

  “When we find a way to deal with Colin or otherwise keep you safe.”

  Maggie looked around the table for help. Surely they couldn’t want this.

  “This is the only way, Maggie,” Nat said. “Not the easiest way or the most efficient way—the only way.”

  “The team is in pieces, Maggie,” Joan said. “Clay is gone, and we still have no one to fill the Deceiver role. We must regroup and gear up for the next step.”

  “Exactly. You need me here.”

  “We need you period, Maggie,” Karl said from beside her. “We need you alive. We need you safe and protected. To our shame, we cannot accomplish that here, but we can’t afford to lose another team member, logistically or emotionally. When it’s safe, we’ll come back for you.”

  Maggie turned misty eyes on Marcus. He was staring at his hands, but when she turned to him, he shut his eyes, and she realized this was painful for him.

  “Marcus?”

  He turned his body to her. “No one wants you to go, Maggie, least of all me. I hate this. But I won’t let Colin have you, either.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I just won’t.” He reached up and touched her cheek with his index finger.

  After a short pause, Doc spoke again, and Maggie’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “We’re all exhausted. We need to chew over all the information we’ve gotten. And we need rest. Karl will take Maggie back in three days. Before she goes we’ll have another meeting to talk specifics on what we’ll do next.”

  “One more question?” Maggie asked timidly, and Doc nodded at her. She’d been thinking over everything that had happened, and she remembered something she’d forgotten completely about for the last week.

  “Dillon and the Tracking team, did they ever make it back?”

  Doc’s face slid from curiosity at her question into a mournful droop. “No. There’s still no sign of them. Nothing at all.”

  Maggie hung her head. She felt as though a hundred-pound weight was sitting on her chest and more on her shoulders as well. Why hadn’t they returned? Were they as gone as Clay was? Or worse—forced into enslavement in one of the collectives? Maggie put her hands on her upper arms. An inexplicable cold settled on her.

  The meeting went for another twenty minutes, but Maggie wasn’t listening. She felt numb. Marcus participated in the discussion, seeming nonplussed, but his hand stole slowly over to cover both of hers in her lap. He clutched her hands tightly in his, almost to the point of pain, but she didn’t care.

  The fact that he was as upset about her going as she was made the pain worse, but it also afforded some small spark of relief.