"You don't even love her, Bart. I'm sure you'll find another —"
"It's not about that!" He snarled. "It's about you not choosing me." He seemed to gather himself, and after a moment, spoke again, seeming much more his normal, collected self.
"I will find a way around your Binding, Johann. I will find a way to strike you. I will save the world from your pathetic, old-fashioned, emotional way of living."
"Your plan is to save the world by making it live without emotions?" I asked.
"I plan to keep people from feeling the pain I’ve felt in my life. Pain kills. So yes, Johann. I plan to save the world by taking away its emotion."
Before I could respond, the sound of heavy breathing accompanied by fast, light footsteps reached my ears. A single person, running toward us. It was Adaiah. She must have realized I’d left the yard and followed.
She slowed down as she neared us, coming to a halt at my shoulder. "You all right, Johann?" she whispered, resting a hand on my arm.
I reached covered her hand with mine. "Yes, darling. I'm fine."
"Big surprise," Bart grated angrily. "The bitch called the backup."
Anger flared in my gut. "Don't call her that,” I growled.
Bart scoffed. "Why not? It's what she is. As foolish as you for choosing an outdated way of living." His eyes shifted to Adaiah’s face. "I'm glad you didn't choose me. I wanted it once, but it would have made me weak. My revenge will reach past space and time, until one day your hearts burst in your chests."
He swiveled and stocked away. After two paces, he froze and turned. He’d moved out from under the shelter of the poplar trees, and I saw his face more clearly in the moonlight. He wore a sinister smirk. It struck fear into my heart, though at the time, I didn’t know why.
“Perhaps I can make you see right now,” he breathed.
"Remember Bart," I said. “Anything you do to me also happens to you."
"I understand Johann," he said with a smug little grin. "Truly, I do." He raised his hands and I felt the buzz of an energy I couldn’t see.
The next moment, Adaiah gasped She gripped her biceps with her hands, crossing her forearms over her chest and fell to her knees. Naturally, I turned to help her, falling into a squat. "Adaiah, what is it?"
Her breathing became rapid, her chest heaving as though she’d run a great distance. Her eyes glossed over with the cataracts of prophecy. She began to scream.
"Adaiah, my love, what is wrong?" I cried, laying her down gently on the road. Terror gripped my limbs. What had Bart done to her? I took her face in my hands, trying to comfort her. She continued to scream, as though she couldn’t hear me at all. The cataracts of Prophecy covered her eyes
I’ve seen Adaiah Prophesy a time or two, and the milky white coverings always appear. In the past, they’ve been just that: milky, faint. Even somewhat transparent. This time they were completely opaque. I could see no trace at all of her actual eye or its color. It frightened me more than I can convey.
Adaiah’s screams brought neighbors running down the lane from my yard. They helped me carry her back to the house.
I looked back toward Bart, and found only an empty lane. I thought I discerned shadowy movement in the distance. It might have merely been shades shifting in the moonlight. Since then, others have told me they didn’t see anyone walking down the lane. Perhaps I recognized the swing of his gait. Perhaps I felt the familiar presence of my brother, whom I had known all my life, moving away, and just couldn’t consciously acknowledge it. Or perhaps it was just a gut feeling. But I knew it was him.
As our friends picked Adaiah up, I tried to run after Bart. I wanted to find him. Strangle him with my bare hands for hurting her. Somewhere in the chaos, Nat arrived and held me back, arguing that Adaiah needed me. He was right, of course, but I turned and screamed into the woods, believing Bart would hear me.
“Bartholomew!” Nat held me by the elbows where I fought with him, trying to get away. “Never call yourself my brother again! You’re a devil who’s turned his back on family. Who’ll never understand loyalty! How could you hurt the woman your brother loves?!”
A fresh shriek from Adaiah brought me around to where our neighbors had already carried her halfway to the house. I stopped struggling with Nat and ran to her.
Adaiah’s screams faded to tears, then whimpers. The ordeal lasted nearly two hours. When she finally calmed, she fell into a fitful sleep that lasted nearly three days. My fear of losing my beloved ran so deep, I couldn’t bring myself to write down the experience. This morning, to my immense and inexpressible relief, she woke. After taking some water and broth, she told me what happened.
All she's told me is that she saw into Bart’s mind. She witnessed his plans for the world, and they terrified her. Because his abilities bring out her gift of Prophecy, she also saw many outcomes of those plans.
Adaiah tells me one day Bart will rule most of the minds on earth. He’ll force them into slavery. She says he will try to enslave the human race, and, whether he accomplishes it or not, he’ll come frighteningly close. She couldn’t see whether he would ultimately be successful, but it will come down to a moment.
A single, inappreciable moment in time, when the freedom of humankind will balance on the tip of a knife, and only the strength of the free individuals involved will be able to push it one way, or the other.
Since then, Adaiah has babbled constantly about wanting to create a prophecy for future generations. A guide for how to bring down the collectives.
I don't want her to prophesy anymore. A white streak appeared in her hair after this encounter with Bart. I fear creating an entire prophecy encompassing hundreds of years into the future might kill her. She's not insisting on doing it right away, but maintains she will do it eventually, when she's recovered. I shall endeavor to talk her out of it.
In the meantime, I fear my war with my brother has only begun.
Chapter 40: Hearts
With a gasp, Maggie opened her eyes. She still knelt on the ground of the meadow beside the Canyon. Her hand no longer dug into her pocket. It had come out at some point, but the ring had come with it. The tiny gold band sat loosely around the fingernail of her middle hand.
Maggie took in the details of the scene around her in her periphery, registering them without focusing on them.
Jonah and Lila fought the advancing Arachnimen army. The goons came in a slow enough trickle that Jonah and Lila could hold them off, but that wouldn’t continue much longer. The two of them were already sweating and breathing heavily. More Arachnimen and Trepids flooded continually toward them. In another few minutes, Jonah and Lila would face a dozen each, rather than just one or two, and then more.
Joan stood at Maggie’s back. Maggie felt the shields Joan had fashioned against neurological attacks. They were the only thing keeping the collectives from attacking Maggie’s brain, or anyone else’s for that matter. A sheen of sweat covered Joan’s skin, and Maggie could feel the exertion it took for Joan to maintain the shields.
Tristan stood a few feet away, his eyes glazed over in his telepathy trance, obviously speaking with Doc.
The Cimerian stood in front of Maggie. As always, the stone face with eyes and lips sewn shut looked placid, but something about it seemed shocked to Maggie. She got slowly to her feet.
The Cimerian whirled away from her, turned his face to the sky and raised his hands. Streams of dark matter flowed to him, through his hands and then up into the heavens. The wriggling energies began moving, coalescing, fusing together.
Something had changed. Something about Maggie herself. She saw all the energy swirling around her: the energy of her abilities. She saw an energy around people that showed their emotions. And she saw the gray tendrils of dark matter swirling around her arms and fingertips. She didn't have to focus on the energies all the time. They weren’t distracting, but she could focus on them when she wanted to.
Getting slowly to her feet, Maggie allowed the gold ring to drop into th
e grass. She no longer needed it.
Willing the dark matter to obey her, she manipulated it into the form of a hand. She needed to do something her physical arm couldn't do, but the dark energy could. She knew inherently that she could make the energy take any form she wanted, and this form made the most sense.
Using the hand made of dark matter, she reached through the Cimerian's chest and took hold of his heart.
He froze, gasping and grabbing his chest with both hands.
Maggie felt its slimy, squishiness as though she held his heart in her physical hand. The sensations were identical. The dark matter had become an extension of her.
"Stop," she demanded. "Right now, or I’ll kill you.”
The Cimerian twisted his head around to stare at her, still clutching his chest. He didn't move physically, yet the dark matter swirling around him kept at its task, gray strands snaking into the sky. Maggie imagined the dark matter melting the minds into one conglomerate, as heat turns sand into glass.
"You heard me!" Maggie screamed. “Stop what you're doing or you’re dead!"
The Cimerian's voice whispered in inside Maggie's head. Do you think I care about death? Do you think this body belongs to me? That there aren’t countless others like it I can inhabit? Death is not a deterrent. I would die to ensure this assimilation.
Something in the ether of the air changed. It felt like cold and darkness. It felt like a cry of terror. Not one she heard or even felt in her belly. Rather, it was something dimly sensed. Whispered at a cellular level. Maggie gazed skyward. The column of wriggling energies that, a moment ago, had been made of hundreds of distinct energies, had now fused into a single cohesive unit.
They were too late. The collectives had merged. The minds within them were forever trapped, with no option to break away.
The team had failed.
Maggie squeezed the hand made of dark matter viciously. The Cimerian's heart popped in her hand.
The Cimerian’s face showed absolutely no reaction. He merely stared, not even falling over. Maggie noted the lack of energy around him anymore. No more dark matter. No more auras. No light energy or thought. The Cimerian was no longer a living, sentient being.
His physical form faded, until Maggie could see the meadow and far trees through him. Then his transparent shell simply blew away, like a thick column of smoke.
It took Maggie a moment to register the noise. Someone was screaming. When the final remnants of the Cimerian drifted skyward on the wind, it left a young, screaming girl in its wake. She wore a tattered, red-floral headscarf and a faded brown leggings. The girl knelt in the space the black column had disappeared from, hands gripping her ears, and screaming.
*******
Tenessa dropped to one knee, grasped her head in her hands and shrieked.
Karl's mouth fell open. He froze, so shocked he could only gape at her.
Several seconds passed. Her screaming ceased. Tenessa remained on one knee, chest heaving, for several more breaths. Finally, she lowered her hands to her sides—as though pushing through gelatin—and rose shakily to her feet. When her eyes met Karl’s, they looked haunted. "The Cimerian is dead."
Karl stared at her. The Cimerian, dead? Maggie succeeded. Or someone had. Karl stepped toward Tenessa and reached out a hand. “Are you okay?"
“We are fine!” she snapped.
The pound of dozens of feet distracted Karl. Still a hundred yards away, the Arachniman army had seen them and now barreled forward, closing the intervening space rapidly. "We have to move!" He jammed his shoulder under Marcus's arm and yanked him to his feet. "Come on, Tenessa. Now!"
They jogged along the canyon, the Arachnimen coming faster than Karl could drag Marcus along. He noticed a cave up ahead, but dismissed it. It would do them no good. Two large boulders mostly obscured the entrance, but when the Arachnimen got to where he now stood, they'd be able to see it. Even if he, Marcus and Tenessa hid at the back of the cave, the Arachnimen would only have to peer in to see them.
A heavy weight fell onto Karl’s back, knocking the wind out of him. He dropped Marcus and his chin scraped the ground. Karl lunged into action, putting his hands beneath his chest and pushing upward viciously. Despite what must have been two hundred pounds on his back, he managed to knock the weight to the side enough to twist part way around and catch a glimpse of the Arachniman who’d jumped him.
The Arachniman shoved Karl downward again and twisted his arm behind his back. Karl fought to get up, making little headway. The spider-webbed man raised a balled, meat hook of a fist. He brought it down in the middle of Karl’s back, and pain lanced through Karl’s nerves. He cried out. The second blow smashed his kidney. The third felt like it might have cracked ribs.
In his pain, Karl twisted around, searching for a way to gain the upper hand. The familiar sight of Tenessa’s shoes, a foot in front of his nose, met his eyes. He craned his neck upward to look at her, wanting to tell her to run. She gazed at the Arachniman still sitting on Karl’s back with the darkest look he’d ever seen her give anyone. Karl felt the shift of movement from the man atop him and steeled himself for a fourth blow.
Tenessa snapped her fingers. The man on top of Karl evaporated.
*******
Salla landed them on the lip of the canyon, overlooking where the Council of Six stood, manipulating energies in the sky. Trying to fuse human minds, no doubt. Doc turned to Kristee.
"You didn’t take us directly to Maggie?"
Salla shook her head. "I couldn't have. You forget, I'm not Karl. Maggie’s surrounded by an army of Arachnimen and I might have accidentally plunked us down in the middle of that Army. Now that we’re here, I can take small, more precise jumps. Just tell me what you want to go."
Doc.
Doc froze. “One moment,” he told Salla and David. “Tristan is communicating again.”
Is everything all right? Doc sent.
The Cimerian tried to Drill Maggie, but she seems okay now. I think she just killed him.
Doc felt a small bloom of hope in his chest.
A rustle of bushes brought everyone's head around as what was clearly a collective drone by his colorless, boxy attire, stumbled out of the bushes. The young man, not more than eighteen or nineteen, sported olive skin and jet black hair, and carried knives in both hands.
Doc took one look at the drone’s face and blinked. He cocked his head to one side, not sure he was seeing correctly. But no. His original impression proved correct. This drone was crying. Tears streaked his olive cheeks and each heaving sob brought more.
David stepped in front of Doc, body tensed and arms raised.
“What’s going on?” Doc asked.
Salla answered. “It’s because the drones got the emotional overload. They aren’t handling it well.”
Doc sighed. Of course they weren’t. They’d grown accustomed to watered down emotions in the collective. This emotional load was much heavier than even most individuals experienced most days. Most likely akin to what Maggie experienced when her memories flooded back.
The drone stumbled toward them, and David’s attack stance didn’t change. His knife came up higher, hovering at his waist. Ready to kill the drone if it came too close.
Abruptly, the drone straightened his spine. His tears ceased and his face smoothed out. His eyes glowed as an eerie yellow light appeared in them. A now-familiar sensation whispered down Doc’s spine. Something achingly familiar and hauntingly evil: his brother. No, his brother occupying the body of a slave.
Doc put a hand on David’s shoulder. "Wait."
The drone stopped six feet in front of David, staring directly at Doc. When it spoke, a raspy, gravelly voice came from its throat. "So, you’ve come at last, brother. You tried to play the coward and stay safe inside your mountain, but even you couldn't escape this. Your people aren’t good enough. They're all dying, and here you are to save the day. But you can't save anything, can you?
Anger and grief flooded Doc’s chest. Tears
pooled in his eyes. "How dare you call me ‘brother’ after all you've done. First Adaiah. Now you’ve killed the little brother we both loved, grew up beside, and protected. You lost the right call me ‘brother’ long ago. For centuries now, you’ve been nothing but a devil who turned his back on family. On love. On forgiveness. On everything that gives a person any soul.”
The Bartholomew drone snorted. "Say what you wish. It's of little consequence to me. This long war is about to end, and you’re on the losing side. I told you I would find a way around your Binding, Johann. That I would strike at you and save the world from your emotional way of living. The Binding is no more." He swept his arm upward to indicate the sky where the eclipse and assimilation were in full swing. “Behold, my revenge.”
Doc’s rebellion flared hotter. "The war will never end, even if you assimilate us. We will not lie still. Individuals may remain enslaved for a long time, but not forever. Restless minds who want freedom will always find a way." Doc sniffed and wiped water from his face, steeling his voice. "And I will never forgive you for Nat's death. If the call of freedom does not keep me fighting, and the need for justice will."
Above them, the energies changed. Doc looked up in time to see all the tiny, wriggling energies fuse into a single cohesive cylinder.
Doc’s stomach bottomed out. The Merging was complete. Those trapped in the collective would remain trapped. Forever.
Abruptly, the sky darkened. The wind picked up, howling through the Canyon. Somewhere, far behind him, a woman screamed. Doc whirled, but saw nothing except trees and foliage, bent horizontal by the ruthless wind. It couldn’t have been Maggie or Joan or Lila. No, the scream had come from closer to where Doc knew Marcus and Karl were stationed.
The Bartholomew drone looked skyward, yellow-glowing eyes studying the fused cylinder. His gaze returned to Doc with a look of glittering triumph. "All your people will die. Perhaps we cannot assimilate all of you at once now, because your Executioner has killed my Cimerian, but your rebellion is done.”
Dark Matter (Interchron Book 3) Page 48