Persistence of Vision

by Liesel K. Hill

  “But how could he target specific people? Members of the reconnaissance team were out there with him. All of us in the cave were only yards from him.”

  Doc shook his head. “You’re thinking too linearly. It’s not a matter of who he could see. He simply felt and identified all the malevolent energy that existed close by. The energy he called to him obliterated all of it within a mile’s radius. There were probably dozens of Trepids still making their way up the mountainside—many we couldn’t see yet—but he was able to decimate them all based on their neural signatures.”

  “What was the staff for?”

  “All organic things—things that are or once were alive—have a powerful energy of their own. Plants are second only to animals and humans in the power they engender. Marcus was using the staff as a conduit to focus and streamline the energy. It was simply a tool.”

  Maggie nodded, but the whole thing seemed bleak. This explanation did nothing to explain her flashback.

  “Maggie, what is it? What aren’t you saying?”

  Maggie looked from Doc to Joan and back again. She was afraid of what she’d seen, but she had no reason not to tell them.

  “I saw something.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When the shockwave, or whatever you call it, from his…energy hit me, I saw something. In my head.”

  Doc’s brows had furrowed, and Joan was looking at Maggie with concern.

  “What did you see, Maggie?”

  “I…I think it was a memory. I think it was from what happened before—when we were in the ships and I…was captured.”

  Doc’s eyes had gotten continuously wider as she spoke. Now they looked like tiny rotating planets. “Maggie, that’s not possible,” he whispered.

  Maggie shrugged. “Okay. I don’t know what it was, but now you’re telling me there’s something strange going on in the part of my brain that deals with memory.”

  “You’re memories can’t come back. They aren’t present in your brain to come back.”

  Maggie nodded. “Only Marcus can tell me if what I saw really happened. He was the only one there.”

  “Doc,” Joan said, “if it was a memory she saw, how could that have happened? Could someone else be planting it there?”

  “I don’t see how. It is doable, but she would have experienced intense pain upon the intrusion into her mind.” He looked at Maggie, eyebrow raised.

  Maggie shook her head. “No pain. Only a rush of images.”

  Doc nodded. “Maggie, I want you to write down everything you remember. You’ll have to forgive me if I’m afraid it might leave you again.”

  “Doc, I feel exactly the same way.”

  He gave her a brief smile. “When Marcus wakes up, we’ll ask him about it.”

  Chapter 12: Trap

  The monotony of the days was interminable. Every day he rose, walked, ate, and slept when it got dark. Each step forward was a battle with consuming loneliness. It was eating him alive. Just when he thought he’d gotten used to not having the voices around, he would have another nightmare or be awakened again by the silence.

  He knew the isolation would eventually drive him mad. Perhaps it already had. How long had he been travelling? The man he was looking for—it was a man, he now knew—could he be certain that man existed?

  He still couldn’t remember who the man was, but he knew he had to find him. That man had existed once, of that he was sure. He could only hope that the man was still alive. And that he could find him before his own madness set in. If only he could find even one other person…

  He crested a hill and started down the other side. His feet stopped dead, but his heart pounded against his rib cage. It was the most alive he’d felt in days.

  In the shallow valley between the hill he stood on and the next one farther on, a man crouched warily beside a small campfire. It gave off so little smoke, he hadn’t smelled it. Three dark mounds lay horizontal behind the man, unmoving. The man stood upon seeing him, hand clutching something that hung at his belt.

  The two of them regarded each other warily for several minutes. He concluded that if this man was going to kill him, there was nothing for it. He’d already been seen. All he could do was take the chance that the man would let him live. He was in no position to defend himself, much less attack.

  He limped crookedly to the fire—he’d fallen and injured his leg some days before. It wasn’t serious, but it hadn’t healed all the way either—and sat down hard in the dirt near the rock-lined pit. The man, who sported a shaggy, unkempt beard, watched him with wide eyes and furrowed brows until he sat down, but then the hand on the weapon—it looked like a crude hatchet—relaxed. After a moment the man bent his knees, falling into a crouch.

  Without a word, Shaggy Beard reached into a cloth bag beside him and pulled out a fist-sized bundle. The sight of real bread was mouthwatering. Shaggy Beard broke a chunk off and passed it to his guest.

  The man kept his eyes on Shaggy Beard as he devoured the bread, not caring if it could be poisoned. He hadn’t had enough to eat since leaving the Union to have the luxury of caution.

  “So,” Shaggy Beard said.

  It startled him so much he jumped. It was the first human voice he’d heard in more than ten years.

  “Where you from, mister?”

  He heard and understood, but he realized Shaggy Beard was expecting a verbal response. It had been ten years since he’d spoken as well. He hadn’t thought to practice on his journey. It simply hadn’t occurred to him. Now he tried to force air through his voice box but could only make a vague hissing noise.

  “Can’t you talk?”

  The man glanced at Shaggy Beard, considering how to answer.

  “Can you hear me? Do you understand?”

  He looked around for a way to communicate. It was so much easier in the Union when all minds were one. With a single glance, he and Shaggy Beard could have spoken, understood one another’s intentions, purpose, and entire life stories.

  Shaggy Beard shook his head, and the man recognized the gesture. He shook his head then nodded it, testing out the motion. It was easy enough. Shaggy Beard raised an eyebrow.

  He pointed to his own chest then his ears and nodded. Then he pointed to his throat and shook his head.

  Shaggy Beard nodded. “So you can hear and understand but can’t talk?”

  He nodded.

  “I don’t suppose you can tell me where you come from?”

  He considered but couldn’t think of a way to communicate it, so he shook his head.

  Shaggy Beard nodded. “Are you alone?”

  He nodded, sadness creeping over him. He knew that word—Alone—didn’t hold the same meaning for Shaggy Beard as it did for him.

  Shaggy Beard stared at him for a long time before speaking again. “As you can see, I’m not. My woman and our children are asleep. I usually wait until the sun is up before rousing them. We are headed west. There’s an organized resistance there.” He sighed and scratched his beard. “Look, mister. I don’t think it’s good for a man to be alone for too long. You can travel with us. You appear harmless enough. But understand this. If I so much as sense a threat of any kind from you, I won’t hesitate to protect my family. They are my only priority. You…understand?” He nodded.

  “I’ll expect you to pull your own weight. How have you been eating?”

  He pulled out one of his homemade vine traps. It was one of the few skills he remembered from his life before the Union. The small acts of creation in weaving the traps had kept him moving forward day after day through the bleak terrain.

  Shaggy Beard held out his hand, and the man tossed it to him across the fire. Shaggy Beard pulled it in every direction, testing its strength and efficiency.

  “It’s a well-constructed trap. Yes, this could come in handy for small game. I’m Nat. What should I call you?”

  The man frowned. He’d had a name once. It was lost to him when he joined the Union. He couldn’t remember i
t now. The memory of his former life was just behind a thin partition. He could feel it getting thinner and thinner. Eventually he’d break through it, but he couldn’t just yet.

  And simply having a conversation—even a verbal one—with another human being was enough to make him feel more grounded. He tried to force air through his throat again but didn’t produce any recognizable sounds.

  “How about if I just call you Trap?” He held up the vine-trap as explanation.

  He nodded. Trap. It was a good a name until he could remember his own.

  “I’ll wake my family, introduce you to them. Then we need to get moving.”

  ***

  “It sounds accurate to me.” Marcus nodded from where he was sitting up on a bed in Medical.

  Doc, Maggie, Joan, and Karl were standing around him. Karl had been filled in on Maggie’s flashback.

  “I walked into the room ahead of Joan and found you on the floor. Your eyes were open, and you weren’t moving. I couldn’t get you to respond, so I picked you up and eventually got you back here. You were awake for that?”

  “I don’t remember anything afterward. It’s a blur. I had an actual sensation of information—identity, memories—leaving me. I knew it was happening but couldn’t stop it.”

  An uncomfortable silence fell. Maggie shrugged her shoulders just for something to do. It was horrible. That’s what they all weren’t saying, and it had been—an overwhelming helplessness she never wanted to feel again.

  “What about before?”

  Maggie turned to Karl. “What?”

  “You said you don’t remember anything after Marcus picked you up, but do you remember anything before that?”

  She didn’t. It seemed like she should, but it was all blank. “No. Why?”

  Karl glanced at Marcus. “You were in the custody of these people for nearly three hours. We still haven’t accounted for what happened to you during that time. Whatever it was led to Colin’s death and your memory loss.”

  Maggie nodded. “Marcus told me.”

  Karl shrugged. “If you could remember the events of those hours, it might answer a lot of questions. It could give us some insight into the collectives themselves. Who knows how much you saw and…”

  “Enough, Karl.” Marcus’s voice wasn’t harsh, but it had a quiet finality that instantly silenced Karl.

  “N—no. Not enough,” Maggie sputtered. “What are you—what is he saying?”

  Silence answered her, and no one would meet her eyes except Marcus, who stared at her intently.

  Maggie rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to follow Karl’s thoughts. “What, you think that maybe the reason I lost my memories is because I saw something that would help us defeat them?”

  Marcus looked sad. “We don’t know anything for sure, Maggie. Which is why”— he glared at Karl—“we don’t want to jump to conclusions.” His gaze returned to Maggie. “We don’t want you to feel pressured, Maggie. You need to take this one day at a time.”

  “Ahem. Marcus?” It was Doc.

  Marcus looked at him.

  “Of course we don’t want to pressure Maggie, but I think we’ve got to face reality here, don’t you?”

  “How do you mean?”

  Doc rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t think any of us believes the attack today was coincidental. I’ve never seen this many Trepids together in a single group. They’ve never come this close to discovering Interchron before. And we’ve always thought it impossible for Maggie to regain her memories. We obviously have much less of a grasp of the situation than we previously thought.”

  “But Doc, what can we do about it?” Joan asked quietly.

  “First, I’d like Maggie to learn how to use a weapon. Things are too dangerous for her not to be able to defend herself. Second, I think we should get the entire team together and go over what happened before, piece by piece so it’s all fresh in our minds. And to see if there’s anything we missed before that we might pick up on now. I don’t like that things we don’t understand keep happening. If we don’t figure this out soon, we’re going to drown in it.”

  Chapter 13: Brain Power

  “Okay, Maggs. Time to learn this. Again.”

  She eyed Karl warily. “Is it hard?”

  He shrugged. “It took you a while to pick it up before, but you got it eventually.” Karl pulled up a crate and sat on it, motioning with his hands as he spoke. “There are two kinds of energy in the universe: potential and kinetic. Potential energy is stored energy, while kinetic is energy that is actively being used for something. Everything in the universe has potential energy stored in it that we can make use of. The instant you draw it out and direct it, it becomes kinetic.” He paused to raise an eyebrow. “Understand?”

  She nodded, remembering the same terminology from her high school science class.

  “Good. In terms of kinetic energy, there are two types. One is constructive, the other destructive. These terms have less to do with the nature of the energy and more to do with what you’ll be using it for. Constructive energy you pull to yourself and use to build something up. Destructive energy you send away from yourself and often use to tear something down.”

  Maggie was already feeling overwhelmed. “For example?”

  Karl nodded. “For example, if you pull energy to you to use as a shield—what we call Defensive energy—that’s an example of constructive: you build up a shield of protection around yourself. To use it as a weapon, you pull it to you but then lash out at others—strike at them with the intent of incapacitating them. That’s destructive energy. Understand?”

  Maggie nodded.

  “There are dozens of sub-categories, which you’ll pick up as you learn. Offensive and Defensive energy are only two. Then there’s the energy needed for Healing, Seeking, and other abilities—you get the idea.”

  “So what will I be doing?”

  “Destructive energy is easier to control, which is why we’re starting with constructive. I want you to build a force you can push the crates with. Use the stone I gave you to help you.”

  Maggie looked forebodingly at the wall of crates in front of her. She was in a large cavern in the upper part of the mountain. An array of boxes and crates were stacked against the far wall. Maggie would be using them for target practice with only a conduit stone for help. Conduit stones were used by everyone in the compound, but there were different sizes, densities, and types of stones.

  “Depending on your abilities and the type of stone being used, different amounts of energy can be controlled and concentrated,” Karl was saying. “Stones with fewer impurities are easier to use. Any crude rock can be used as a conduit, but it will be more difficult to use than unadulterated minerals. The characteristics of the stone will affect how much energy you can pull through it. Because granite is much denser than, say, sandstone, it is much harder to pull energy through. It takes a lot more effort. However, sandstone is soft and more likely to crumble if you put too much strain on it. So you have to be careful how much energy you’re using. If you’re defending yourself and your conduit stone crumbles, you’re toast.”

  “Thank you for that…astute explanation, Karl.”

  It was Joan’s dry voice. She came up behind Maggie. Trailing behind her was Clay.

  “We’re here to help.”

  “How?” Karl looked skeptical.

  Joan glared at him.

  “What she means,” Clay chimed in, “is that we’re here to observe.”

  Maggie sighed. Great. An audience.

  “Here, Maggs.”

  Karl pressed a flat rock, the circumference of a quarter but half an inch thick, into her palm. It was connected to two leather cords that could wrap around the user’s hand so that even if they weren’t curling their fingers around the stone, they wouldn’t drop it.

  “This is an average gravel rock. You won’t be able to pull much energy through it, but it’s a good practice tool.”

  “I have to be holding it then?
”

  “Actually, no. Once you get the hang of this, you can use any source as a magnifier, but since you’re still learning, it’s better if the stone is in contact with your skin. We often make these conduit stones from pure, powerful materials. They come in handy if you’re somewhere where the natural materials at your disposal are limited.”

  “What kinds of materials make powerful conduit stones?”

  “As I said before, hard stone like granite can handle a lot of energy. Obsidian would be phenomenal, if we had any. We even have a few that are made of pure elements, like gold and silver.”

  “How do they compare to rock?”

  “We only let seasoned experts use those. Pure elements are just that—pure. They can handle obscene amounts of energy. Something like gold is malleable, right?”

  Maggie shrugged.

  “In the same way, gold and such elements can be…unpredictable. The user can not only focus tons of energy through it, but can use the gold itself to direct the flow of energy. That kind of power is difficult to handle. There aren’t many people who can do it safely.

  “Now.” Karl positioned himself behind Maggie, placing hands on her shoulders, and turned her toward the wall of crates. “Close your eyes. Think about all the energy in the universe. There are vast quantities of it lying dormant—simply there for you to use. I want you to imagine pulling energy from somewhere. It doesn’t matter where you imagine it comes from—the earth, outer space, the very air around you, it’s all the same. Just visualize it.”

  Maggie obeyed; she didn’t feel any different. Karl’s hand left her shoulder and took her right hand, pressing the stone firmly into her palm.

  “Imagine bringing that energy to you. See it coming into a focal point inside your conduit stone.”

  Maggie nodded as Karl guided her hand out from her body, stopping at neck height with her palm facing outward.

  “Once you have a focal point in mind, I want you to think of that energy exploding outward from the stone. Think of it as a forward-sweeping force, one that will knock over anything in its path.”

  “You want me to explode something?”