The Astral Traveler's Daughter

by K. C. Archer

  Marysue glared at her. “We had a deal. This was supposed to be my last mission, and then I was done. I’d be allowed to be with”—a short breath, as though she didn’t want to say any more but couldn’t help it—“we had a deal.”

  Nilsson’s pale brows rose fractionally. “Come now. Did you really think he would ever let you go? Daughter or no.”

  Marysue’s eyes blazed. And time, for Teddy, stood still. And not because she made it. Marysue had become a member of the PC for Teddy. To save Teddy. She’d been the reason her mother had blown up buildings? Killed people? Nausea curled through her stomach, and Teddy was sure that in her body, years and miles away, the physical response echoed tenfold. She’d been the reason for everything.

  “I’m done,” Marysue said. “Whether the colonel keeps his word or not, I’m leaving.” Marysue made to move to the door, but as soon as she tried to open it, Stanton lunged forward and stretched his arm over her head, slamming one beefy palm against the door to hold it shut. Apparently, the move was not unexpected. Marysue twisted around, and Teddy caught the flash of a steel blade in her right hand. Marysue drew her arm back, clearly intent on driving Stanton away from the door.

  Absolutely the wrong move. Boyd would have gone apoplectic if she’d seen it. Teddy knew against an opponent like Stanton—who was a foot taller and likely two hundred pounds heavier—a knife to the thigh would have been most effective. Marysue didn’t know how to wield her weapon. Part of Teddy was happy, since her mother wasn’t a killing machine; the other part was very nervous for what was about to unfold.

  Stanton did exactly what Teddy predicted he would: caught Marysue’s slender wrist and squeezed hard. Marysue gave a cry of pain and dropped the blade. It clattered uselessly to the floor.

  He shoved Marysue against the door. His face pink with unspent rage, he lifted her until her toes were dangling off the floor and terror flooded her eyes.

  Teddy shot forward. She didn’t think, didn’t plan, just reacted. She lunged for the knife, intent on driving it into Stanton’s left kidney. She gripped the knife and drew it back and screamed, throat raw.

  “Don’t you dare hurt my mother!” she said, and prepared to drive the blade through Stanton’s flesh. Something burned hot in her pocket. Seared. The necklace.

  Teddy saw Marysue’s eyes go wide with realization, then heard her yell: “No!” before Teddy was propelled back with such force that she felt like she’d tumble through the astral plane forever.

  * * *

  Teddy couldn’t breathe. Her lungs felt like they’d collapsed. If she couldn’t breathe—

  But she coughed. Once, twice.

  Stop. Open your eyes. Breathe.

  Some voice deep within her guided her back into her physical body. A moment ago, she’d been about to change the course of history forever. She had been in the same room with Marysue, the same time line. And Teddy had choked.

  Now she was waking up unconscious in another room without knowing how the hell she’d gotten here. On some kind of a gurney, with her wrists in restraints. It hurt like a bitch. She was definitely on earth. Otherwise, her body wouldn’t feel like she’d been hit by a Mack truck. Mack truck, her friends—

  Teddy scanned the room. Above her was the white-tiled ceiling with its rows of fluorescent lights. Only now, instead of the lone desk and chairs, there was a row of hospital beds. Floor-to-ceiling medicinal cabinets occupied the far-right wall.

  She turned her head to the left and saw someone in the bed next to hers.

  Miles. He lay utterly still, his long limbs neatly arrayed beneath a white cotton sheet. His eyes closed, his lips shut. His skin so pale it looked almost waxen. A fine sheen of perspiration plastered his hair to his forehead. No movement at all—not even the slight rise and fall of his chest to indicate breathing. Teddy’s heart slammed against her ribs. Everything within her screamed. “Miles,” she yelled, her voice hoarse with pain, dehydration, desperation, Teddy didn’t know. “Miles, wake up.”

  He didn’t stir.

  Please, don’t let him be dead.

  “He’s not—yet,” a cool female voice said.

  Teddy pulled her mental shields up with whatever energy she had left. The door slammed, and Teddy saw Nilsson. Twenty years older but the same cold eyes. The same woman who had—for Teddy, just moments ago—informed her mother that she was sentenced to serve the PC forever.

  Teddy fought an urge to propel every psychic attack she could in Nilsson’s direction. But she had to be smart. She had to save her energy. She also had to quell the desire to find out more about her mother, to know what had happened that day and why. She pushed aside her fury.

  “What have you done to Miles? What have you done to my friends?” she demanded.

  Nilsson shook her head, then—with the same languid confidence from all those years ago—walked to a cabinet and withdrew a pair of blue rubber gloves. “Don’t worry, Ms. Cannon,” she said, as she snapped on the gloves. “Miles Whitfield is alive for now. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for that other young man, Eli Nevin. Pity. He proved very useful to the cause.”

  Teddy’s breath caught. She stared hard at Nilsson, searching for any signs of a bluff.

  If Eli was dead, it would be Teddy’s fault. She’d seen how dangerous the situation was, but she’d let it play out. She’d used Eli as a pawn to draw out the PC. Hadn’t involved Clint or asked for help until it was too late. Then another thought struck her: Jillian. If Eli was dead, how would Jillian bear it? It would destroy her. Teddy yanked against her restraints, desperate to free herself and do something, anything.

  Nilsson continued, “Even if we’d planted it, it couldn’t have worked better. Eli was an easy target for mental influence. And he had a connection to you. After we identified that he had it in for Hyle Pharmaceuticals, he made a convenient tool. And HEAT? We couldn’t have asked for a better cover.”

  “You manipulated Eli from the start,” Teddy said, furious at herself for not having looked to other members of the PC instead of Yates. She’d been blind in her hurt over his manipulation, and she’d failed to see other forces at work. “You blamed the bombing on HEAT when the PC was behind it the whole time.”

  Nilsson stepped closer and tilted her head to study Teddy. She hadn’t confirmed or denied anything. She didn’t have to. “When I saw you last year, I was struck by how much you resemble your mother.”

  “Last year?” Teddy scanned her memory for when she might have crossed paths with Nilsson before their brief encounter in Tahoe. Then, in a flash, it hit her, a memory from the deep recesses in her brain, quicksilver and fleeting, just like Nilsson’s hair. Every time she tried to catch the memory, it dissipated. “A hospital.”

  Nilsson’s eyes flickered. “I’m impressed you remember that. But I know your mind is strong. Stronger than your friend’s. Usually, I make people forget. That’s what I can do. I block powers. Get in your mind so—”

  The more she talked, the more came back to Teddy, not from memory but from logic. If Nilsson was at a hospital, that meant . . . her friend. Molly. “Where is she?” she demanded. “What have you done with her?”

  But Nilsson continued, ignoring Teddy, “And I thought maybe this young woman could be an asset, like her mother. Maybe we can persuade her to work for us.”

  As if on cue, Stanton entered the room, accompanied by Jeremy Lee. Teddy stared at her former classmate and understood for the first time how it was possible to be sickened by the sight of someone.

  “Teddy. I would say good to see you, but you look terrible.” He spoke with chilling casualness, as if they had run into each other after a few months off for summer vacation. As if her situation—strapped to a bed with restraining cuffs—were normal.

  She wanted to tell him to go throw himself off a bridge. But Teddy was desperate. If Teddy knew Jeremy at all, she knew he cared for Molly. That could be a way to appeal to him for help. “Jeremy. Please. It’s not too late. Molly tried to help me. She would have wanted
you to help, too. Please.”

  The mention of Molly made him pause.

  “They’ve done something to her. We have to stop them,” Teddy said.

  “I—” Jeremy started.

  “Enough,” Nilsson said sharply. “We have work to do.” She opened the cabinet, took out an empty syringe and a small vial of yellow liquid. She poked the syringe through the stopper and drew back the plunger.

  Teddy’s heart slammed against her ribs and started beating at triple its normal tempo. It wasn’t Xantal. Xantal was clear. What was in the syringe, and what did Nilsson plan to do with it?

  Nilsson walked straight to Miles and laid her other hand gently on his chest. Teddy yanked desperately against her restraints. “Don’t touch him!”

  Nilsson smiled. “If you would like to save your friends, you have one more chance to reconsider. Join us, save your friend. It’s an entry deal we like to make here. You know, kind of like an email signup for fifteen percent off your first order.”

  The same choice Marysue had faced. Join the PC or lose someone she loved. But her mother had been terrified and alone. Out of options. That wasn’t entirely true for Teddy. Even though they weren’t with her, Teddy knew that her friends wouldn’t want her to make this choice. Teddy could—and would—think of some other way. She looked Nilsson straight in the eye. “Go to hell.”

  Nilsson flicked the syringe with her forefinger.

  Teddy mustered the last of her courage, one more try, one last ounce of begging: “If you hurt Miles, his grandfather will never rest until you are caught. Everyone at the Whitfield Institute knows we’re here. The FBI does, too. And the U.S. military. In fact, General Maddux will be here any minute with the force of a real army. When he finds out the PC is using a military base, there will be hell to pay. I promise you.”

  Nilsson laughed. With her hand still on Miles, she glanced at Jeremy. “I thought you said she was smart. The general will be so disappointed.”

  The general.

  What?

  Jeremy shrugged and turned away. He pushed open the door. “Sir. She’s ready to see you.”

  Black boots, polished to a sheen. His barrel chest blocked much of her vision. But she didn’t have to look up to know that General Maddux had walked into the room.

  Teddy scanned the three individuals standing before her. Jeremy, Nilsson, and Maddux stood shoulder to shoulder. She blinked as she attempted to process what she saw. Then the ugly reality sank in.

  General Maddux was the leader of the Patriot Corps.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  TEDDY’S UTTER SHOCK TOOK ABOUT .03 seconds to turn into seething rage. The leader of the Patriot Corps had been under their noses the entire time. The man responsible for her father’s death. The man who’d blackmailed Marysue and held her against her will for years. The man who’d made her mother complicit in horrible crimes in return for her safety. The man they had called the colonel before he’d moved up the ranks. Of course. If Teddy hadn’t been so blind, so invested in a narrative that surrounded Yates and the blame that she’d placed on Clint and her parents’ past, she may have been able to see the larger mechanics of Maddux’s scheme at work.

  Yates had been trying to help her, but once again she had misjudged his intentions.

  She strained against the cuffs that bound her to the bed. She wanted to kill Maddux. Rip him apart. But she couldn’t move. Nor could she summon enough telekinetic energy to blast apart the restraints or astral-project. “What have you done to my friends? My mother?”

  Nilsson watched Teddy struggle. “So many questions,” she said. “But you’re in no position to demand answers, are you?”

  “I disagree,” Maddux answered. “This young lady has helped the cause so much already.” He held up Miles’s satchel. The Xantal. She thought of Yates’s warning. She’d brought it right to Maddux. “The least we could do is give her some answers.”

  Teddy looked at the satchel. She knew that Xantal wouldn’t be dangerous on its own, but it was a key to genetic research that would be lethal. But that could take months, even years, for Maddux to unravel. For now, she just needed to buy time. Time to gather her strength. Time for save her friends. Nick must be tracking them from San Francisco. Or Yates.

  So she stalled. “Xantal blocks psychic ability. Why would you want it?”

  Maddux said, “We had the same question as Whitfield. What if you could isolate the genetic information that made someone psychic?” He walked around Teddy’s bed, and she jerked against her restraints in response. His teeth flashed in what Teddy supposed was a smile. “As you know, Eversley spent years developing this drug. Gene therapy is a subtle science. But the breakthrough was the virus. Eversley created one that affected psychics. We thought it was impossible. But this drug changes everything.”

  “Changes everything how?”

  This time it was Nilsson who answered. “What if we could make psychics more psychic? More powerful?” Her pale eyes gleamed in the fluorescent lights. “What if this virus could deliver genetic material from other psychics to meld abilities? What if we could turn humans into—”

  Maddux’s gruff voice cut through Nilsson’s speech. “That’s enough.”

  No. Sector Three all over again but worse. So much worse. “You can’t.”

  “But I can,” Maddux said. “Thanks to you. For bringing this to me.”

  “Someone will stop you,” Teddy said, heart pounding. “Clint will stop you.” Her eyes stung, her throat burned. Every part of her felt like she was on fire.

  Maddux passed the satchel to Stanton, then returned his attention to Teddy. “I’m afraid you’re wrong again. As we speak, Clint Corbett and your friends are being loaded into a helicopter. I will inform Whitfield that Corbett was the head of the PC. An undercover agent recruiting from the institution he led. Convenient, really.” That sharp smile again, like he was congratulating himself on his own sick genius. “That I found him fleeing after I discovered he and a small group of recruits were the ones behind Miles’s kidnapping. Unfortunately, their attempt at escape will be met with tragedy when their helicopter malfunctions and explodes over the desert.”

  Teddy’s stomach flipped. This was Dara’s death warning. The explosion. Teddy couldn’t allow it. Couldn’t bear it. Her mind raced, but in frantic, empty circles. She had trained for this moment, and yet she had no idea what to do next.

  “Once Corbett’s gone,” Maddux continued, “Hollis will install me as permanent head of Whitfield Institute. With a steady flow of new recruits and a drug to make them even more powerful, I will have the strongest army in the world at my disposal.”

  Teddy looked at him. “You’re out of your mind.”

  “Visionaries are often misunderstood.”

  “Visionary?” Teddy spat. “You’re no visionary. This is about power.”

  “Just the opposite,” he corrected. “When I put on this uniform, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I am committed to that oath, to protecting this country from any person or organization meaning to threaten our democratic way of life.”

  “By subverting the processes that protect us all. Making yourself judge, jury, and executioner.”

  “This country faces daily threats. Threats that must be put down with equal force and determination. We are at war, whether our politicians in Washington want to acknowledge it or not. These vials contain the next step in modern warfare. The creation of a small, elite force trained to target and disable insurgencies before lives are lost. Sounds very similar to Whitfield, now that I think about it. We just have different methods.”

  Teddy scrambled for words. If no one was coming, she had to at least keep that helicopter from taking off. She sent a mental cry of distress to search out any of her friends’ consciousness, but if they had tuned in to any channels, the frequencies were painfully silent. “That virus is dangerous. Xantal’s not stable. We saw what it did to lab animals.
To Miles.”

  “True,” Maddux allowed. “In a perfect world, I would have preferred more time for testing. But as you know, this world is far from perfect.” He gave a loose shrug. “At least now there will be no shortage of human subjects to test it on.”

  A chill shot down Teddy’s spine. Exactly what Yates had warned. “You saw Sector Three. This will only end in disaster.”

  Maddux tilted his head as he considered that. “No. It won’t end in disaster. I wasn’t in charge at Sector Three.”

  Teddy opened her mouth to speak, but Jeremy stepped forward. “Sir,” he said, “the helicopter is ready.”

  A rush of fresh panic tore through her. No. She had to stop it from taking off. “Don’t do this,” she said.

  Maddux took a step back. He studied Teddy. “You’re reasonably intelligent,” he said. “It should be fairly clear that you have no options here. Don’t forfeit your life. Work for the Patriot Corps. Devote yourself to fighting for the right side of history. Protect this country. And I’ll give you all the answers you seek.”

  Teddy stared back, unable to hide her loathing. This wasn’t a choice; it was blackmail. Her mother had been blackmailed into joining the PC. She’d done it in a desperate bid to protect her daughter. And yet here Teddy was, in Maddux’s grasp nonetheless. She had spent so long looking: for Molly, for Marysue, for the answers Maddux dangled in front of her. Only now she recognized that the truth about the past came at a greater expense than she was prepared to pay: her friends, her freedom, her future.

  Teddy did the only thing she could think of. She spat in Maddux’s direction.

  Maddux stiffened, took a pressed handkerchief out of his pocket, and wiped Teddy’s answer off his uniform. “Very well. Then die here in the desert, as your friends will.”

  He turned to Nilsson and nodded. The woman lifted a syringe. She moved toward Teddy.

  Teddy braced herself for the sharp pinch of the needle piercing her skin. Instead, the blonde pivoted at the last moment and injected the unconscious Miles with the syringe.