Maggie shrugged uncomfortably, not sure why she was embarrassed to have him see her vulnerable.
“Let me guess,” he went on, apparently not noticing her discomfort, “you felt like something metallic was drilling into your skull?”
Maggie’s eyes widened. “Yes. That’s a perfect description. How’d you know?”
“It’s been reported before. Arachnimen can assimilate with a touch. They drill into your head and attach you to the collective. It’s done without your consent, and it’s painful. I barely managed to keep it from happening to you.”
Maggie shivered. She elected not to tell Marcus that the ache at the back of her skull hadn’t completely gone away. She hoped it would after a good night’s sleep.
“How did you meet Doc?”
“After my brother David…was gone, it was just my dad and me.”
“What about your mother?”
Marcus shook his head. “I never knew her. My father said she died giving birth to my brother. I would have been five or six, but I have no memories of her.”
Maggie suddenly felt guilty for asking personal questions, but Marcus didn’t seem sad. He answered matter of factly.
“We traveled around, looking for others like us. It’s difficult when you can’t trust anyone. We happened upon a group of people who were traveling in the opposite direction. Everyone was supremely paranoid of one another, but we managed a few civilities and had a meal together. Doc was among them. He was scouting for people—not only for individualists, but those that fit the prophecy’s neurochemical requirements. Unbeknownst to my father, he scanned us and found that my chemistry matched that of the Healer. He waited until the others had moved on then approached us.
“My father was sick. He was hiding how bad it was from me. Doc was a godsend. My father knew he was dying and was relieved to be able to leave me with people who believed the same things we did—who were fighting for something.”
“When did he pass?”
“Six years ago.”
Maggie couldn’t imagine the sadness of burying your only two family members in a world that was so rife with danger.
“Sounds lonely.”
He smiled. “Only at first. This team has become my family. We live for each other and for our mission. We keep each other from getting lonely.”
“And you’ve been with them ever since?”
He nodded, staring at her with that disarming gaze again. After a moment he gathered their dishes onto the tray. “Any other questions?”
She sighed. “Tons. But I suppose they can wait.”
He stood, smiling down at her. “Get some rest, Maggie. You need it.”
“How will I know when it’s morning? There are no windows.”
“I’ll wake you with breakfast. You get used to it down here—learn to judge time by your internal clock.”
Maggie raised what she hoped was a skeptical eyebrow, but she was so tired she might have been grinning maniacally and she wouldn’t have known. She still didn’t relish being alone, but she found the idea of sleep appealing.
“I guess I’ll see you in the morning then.”
He nodded. “Good night, Maggie.” He walked to the door and paused, half turning. “Maggie?”
She could only see him in profile, but her eyes had adjusted enough to make out the details of his face. Creases raced across his forehead, making appearances in different places and combinations. He was trying to control his emotions. Something stirred in her when she saw it, and she stood up in alarm, about to ask what was wrong. She didn’t get the chance. He turned to her, completely in control again, and gave her an easy smile.
“It’s really good to see you again.”
Maggie couldn’t think of anything to say, so she remained silent. The vulnerability slipped through his smile just a bit before he disappeared into the corridor.
Chapter 8: More Forgotten Events
Maggie slept fitfully, plagued by dreams of being chased by men with spider web tattoos over their eyes. Sometimes they caught her and would delve into her mind—which felt like being stabbed behind the eyes with a hot poker—and then she was riding behind her own eyes with no control over her body. And thousands of voices would whisper in her ears until she thought she’d go mad. Sometimes she escaped. When she didn’t, she would wake in a sweat. When she did, it was because Marcus appeared and held his hand out to her.
The rap at the door was soft, but it drew her from her troubled respite.
“Morning.” Marcus smiled as he entered, holding a tray identical to the one they’d eaten from the night before. “How’d you sleep?”
“Fine,” she lied. She didn’t want him to know about the dreams, as he was in some of them. She hadn’t dreamed anything embarrassing, but the thought still made her face hot. She hoped he wouldn’t notice.
“I brought breakfast.”
She excused herself and went into the room that held the shower. She was able to figure out the toilet easily enough, though it looked different from what she was used to. She hoped it had a censor for the flusher. As soon as she thought it, the toilet flushed.
Leaning over a square sink, she wished she had a mirror. She also wondered how to get water to come out of the nozzle, as there were no knobs. As soon as she rested her hands on the counter, a mirror appeared in front of her.
Maggie jumped at her own reflection, wondering what button she’d pushed to make that happen. She looked haggard but not terribly so. Her makeup had collected in dark spots under her eyes as she slept, and it made her look tired. Deciding that perhaps the water functioned on a sensor, she put her hands under the nozzle, hoping for water. She got it. It was warm and felt good.
Splashing some on her face and arms, she washed the makeup from under her eyes and found a brush in a drawer. After running it through her hair, she looked decidedly better.
When she emerged from the bathroom, Marcus was sitting in the same place he’d occupied the night before at the foot of her bed.
“Hungry?” he asked, handing her a plate.
She nodded, not wanting to admit that she was ravenous. “So,” she said after a few well-controlled bites, “what’s on the docket today?”
He smiled. “I want you to meet the rest of the team. I’ve decided to give you an overview of what happened while you were here last time. That way you’ll have a frame of reference when I introduce you to them. As you spend time with each of them, they can fill in the details for you.”
Maggie nodded, studying her gray, flaky food.
“Don’t look so excited.”
She looked up at him, and he grinned. She smiled back.
“Sorry. I’m just still chewing through the last information overload.”
He nodded. “I promise there’s an end in sight. Once you know this, you’ll know most of it.”
Maggie nodded, taking a deep breath and heaving it out. “You might as well get started.”
“When you got here last time, we finally had someone to fill each of the positions the prophecy mentions.”
“How many?”
“Seven. I’m the Healer, as you know. Doc is the Witness. Joan is the Protector. Karl is the Traveler. Clay is the Concealer. And you are the Executioner.”
Maggie frowned. “That’s only six, isn’t it?” She counted mentally again.
Marcus smiled, though there was sadness in his face. “Yes, it’s only six. There is one more position, the Deceiver. When last you were here, it was filled. It no longer is.”
“What happened?” Maggie asked quietly.
“That’s part of what I need to tell you about.”
“Did someone die?”
“Yes.”
Maggie wondered what a Deceiver did. It didn’t sound like an asset to a secret team that was trying to work together to bring down a collective.
“Will you explain what each role does? Deceiver? And I’m…Executioner?”
He smiled. “I wish I could. Doc thinks each role is ma
ny-tiered. I can heal people physiologically, but Doc thinks my role may be bigger than that. Perhaps it has to do with psychological healing or healing the team as a whole.”
“Or humanity as whole?”
He winced. “I hope it’s not that all-encompassing. Anyway”—he shook his head—“Doc is the Witness. He’s a doctor by profession, but Doc is a genius in his own right. He sees the way things fit together. I don’t mean machines—though he does have a fascination with schematics and blueprints. He sees the way people fit together, the way a plan will play out even before it does. His role as Witness has so far been seeing all our missions and plans. He has a clear vision of contingencies, so he can make decisions about the best course of action. You might call him the engineer of the team, as he brought us all together. He deals with the logistics of our team and our missions.
“Joan is the Protector. I’ll let her tell you about her gifts, but she has powers that can protect all members of the team from harm.
“Karl is the Traveler. He can wrap the fabric of space-time around himself and then decide where he wants to go. He’s the reason we were able to come get you at all.”
“Clay is the Concealer. Like Joan, he has powers that can hide us from the collectives.”
“How is that different from Joan?”
“Joan’s powers can shield us from harm—from mental attack. Clay can hide us, keep us from being found at all.
“And you are Executioner.”
Maggie’s eyes went to her empty plate. She didn’t know why she was self-conscious about it, but she felt like a killer.
Marcus put his finger under her chin and tilted her face up to meet his. Her heart pounded against her rib cage when her gaze came level with his.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Maggie. Or afraid of. It simply is.”
“But what does it mean?” Her throat had gone dry, and the question came out in a raspy whisper.
He hesitated before answering. “We can’t be sure, but I don’t think it necessarily has anything to do with death.”
She looked up hopefully.
“Think about it. One can execute a plan or process. Perhaps it simply means that you are the one who must implement whatever plan or mission will eventually lead to the downfall of the collectives. We were operating under that assumption when we started looking for you. If that’s what the prophecy meant, then you’re absolutely necessary to our success. We had to fill the vacancy in the team.”
Maggie tore her gaze away from his. It was too hard to think when he was staring at her. Besides, sitting so close to him, she found herself staring at his scar. It wasn’t large or distracting, but, trying to avoid his eyes, her gaze just went there.
He took her hand. “Maggie, don’t stress over this. I think we should continue to operate under the assumption we did before until we have reason to think otherwise.”
After a moment, Maggie nodded. He was right. “So what about the last position? Deceiver doesn’t sound conducive to team work.”
Marcus chuckled. “We all thought the same thing for a long time, but when we found Colin, we knew he was perfect. He found us, actually. He believed in our cause and wanted to join us, even before anyone realized his brain chemistry matched one of those mentioned in the prophecy. When we realized he could fill the spot, we tested him to see what his abilities were. What we discovered was remarkable.”
“How so?”
“He had the ability to close off portions of his mind and keep them hidden from other telepaths. This meant that he could be part of a collective without completely submitting to them. They would think that he had, because they would absorb his mind, but the closed-off part would retain his individuality. We could now penetrate the collectives and study them. We had no idea what the collectives were like before Colin came to us. His role was deceiver not to his allies, but to his enemies.”
“So what happened to him?”
Marcus cleaned his plate and set it on top of hers on the tray.
“Before, you were here for almost a year. We had all members of the team but didn’t know how we were going to bring down the collectives. We tried several times to use Colin to infiltrate them. It sort of worked, but not really.”
“Why not?”
“As I said, Colin could keep a part of his brain private and individual from the rest of the collective, but it was difficult for him to do. It took tons of energy. Doc was afraid that he was lysing his brain cells.”
“Lysing?”
“Sorry. Destroying his brain cells. Simply put, it was killing him. He built up his strength as he went. The first time, he only stayed in for fifteen minutes. He got to where he could do it for several hours. The last time, he was under for two days. When he came out, he was in a coma for almost a week. The strain on his mind was too much.
“We kept trying but had only limited success. Each time Colin went under and came out, he brought valuable information but never anything that would tell us how to bring them down.
“A month before you left us, we discovered something. There were spacecraft in orbit around earth.”
Maggie felt her eyes round out. She couldn’t help it. “Spaceships?”
He smiled. “Yes. Before the world fell apart, the technology to build galaxy-traversing craft existed. It was never utilized to a great extent though, because the world came crashing down, and while the knowledge still existed, the materials and motivation didn’t.
“Doc was able to construct long-distance scanners. He originally built them so we could monitor the collectives but found that he could also scan the atmosphere of the planet. He discovered ships in orbit there.
“By that time, we’d scoured most of the earth’s surface, looking for where the leaders of the collectives were hiding, but without success. We thought the masterminds might be underground as we were, and we would just have to wait until they showed themselves. We never considered they might be above us instead.”
“So they were in the ships?”
“We’d searched everywhere else, but we couldn’t be sure what was in the ships until we looked. Our scanners didn’t penetrate their outer hulls—a weak Concealment that didn’t Conceal the ships themselves, but what was inside—so we knew we’d have to board. It was risky, because we had to go without any prior information and absolutely no idea what we’d find. We had no choice, though. If we wanted information about the ships, we had to observe it first hand.
“You, Colin, Joan, and I were the boarding party.”
“Why us?”
“You, being the Executioner, went on all of them. As Healer and Protector, so did Joan and I, for obvious reasons. We brought Colin in case we got a chance to infiltrate any enemy minds that might tell us something. The plan was to get aboard, look around, plant small censors that would allow us to scan the insides of the ships once we were off them, and get out. Preferably alive.”
“Things didn’t go smoothly?”
“No. There was one large ship and five smaller ones in orbit. We started with what we affectionately called the Mother Ship. We decided that would be our most important source of information. If there was enough time and things went smoothly, we would move on to the smaller vessels.
“The four of us split up once on board so that we could get censors quickly to each part of the ship. After that, you were captured, and Colin tried to save you. Neither Joan or I were privy to the details.”
Maggie leaned back, a sick feeling ballooning in her stomach. “He…died…trying to save me?”
Marcus gave her a sympathetic look. “Yes. An alarm was raised. Joan and I found each other. We were in communication with the rest of team on the ground, and once our censors were in place, they started getting readings and were able to direct us somewhat. You were in the custody of the Masterminds for three hours. When we found you, you were in a coma, and Colin was brain dead.
“Joan and I were both injured trying to get to you. I knew you could be healed and brought out o
f your coma. Colin couldn’t. His cerebral cortex had been destroyed. We couldn’t carry both of you. We could have dragged him, but we had to hurry if we were to get ourselves out, so we left Colin’s body behind.”
Marcus swallowed, his eyes searching the blank wall. Maggie could tell the memory was a painful one.
“I’m sorry, Marcus. Were you and Colin close?”
He looked up at her, surprised. “Yes. We all were. I don’t know if it’s a mercy that you don’t remember him or not, Maggie. You and him were especially close. If you had your memories, you’d miss him terribly.”
“Do you know what happened?”
Marcus shook his head. “Not in detail, though we can guess. The two of you found the Mastermind, an individual that could control the collective. Colin tried to infiltrate this person’s mind—to cut him off from the collectives or perhaps kill him.
“Colin was a hero, Maggie. Not only did he save your life—from what Doc could tell, your coma was caused by the Mastermind attacking your brain, trying to destroy it from the inside out. He nearly succeeded. Colin’s interference kept him from turning you into a vegetable—but Colin also managed to kill the Mastermind. Like Colin, the man we found was physically alive but brain dead. Colin destroyed his own mind to kill the man that was annihilating individualism.”
“So…” Maggie rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to process everything. “So then what happened? Why did you send me back? Why don’t I remember this? And why didn’t killing him work?”
“Doc and I worked on you when we got back to Interchron. Whatever that man did, it destroyed your memories. He didn’t destroy your entire mind, but he got some of it. That’s not something I can fix. If the memories had been blocked or clouded somehow, I could have helped, but no one can reconstruct memories for another person. An individual must construct memories for themselves.
“Yet we had killed the Mastermind. We dared to hope that we’d accomplished our mission. We kept you with us, sedated, for a week to see if anything changed.”
“And?”
“It did. Inside a week, the collectives started falling apart. We told you that they joined together until there was only two? A week after this happened, there were suddenly four. Then seven. Then more. Individuals were breaking away from the collectives by the hundreds. We had succeeded.”
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