Persistence of Vision

by Liesel K. Hill

  Maggie wished she could knock that condescending smirk off his face. Fear of what he would tell Marcus made her feet and fingertips numb.

  “I wish I could tell you your brother had betrayed you, Marcus. I know all about your little family drama. I’ve known since before I first became part of the team, but David did what he did believing it would save you. All we had to do was wait for you to cross the Concealment.”

  “For what?” Marcus growled.

  He didn’t elaborate, but Maggie saw Marcus and Nat exchange troubled glances.

  Maggie watched Marcus’s face. He’d been so sure Colin would tell him that David had led the team into a trap. Yet Colin’s answer was still vague.

  “So what?” Maggie said, causing all three men’s eyes to swivel to her. “You manipulated David into telling us to come here so you could enslave us?”

  Colin grinned. “Something like that.”

  Marcus frowned, and Maggie could guess his question. How was that possible? Collectivists shared thoughts, so how could David not know he was being manipulated?

  Colin read the question in their faces. “Come now, how incompetent do you think we are? Do you really think we didn’t know the second he decided to break away? The first instinct was to kill him. He intended to come to you, and he knew too much. But then we realized that we could use him to our advantage. He knew where this place was and that the Traveler, as well as the Council, resides here. We assumed the team would show up eventually to stop the Traveler. He delivered his message perfectly, even if he didn’t understand its consequences.”

  Maggie’s heart sank. If that was true, and there was no reason to think otherwise, then they were good and trapped. They had walked into their own demise.

  “So what now?” Marcus said after swallowing loudly. “You’ll force us into the collectives?”

  “If the rest of your team is here—and I assume they are—yes, you will all be absorbed. But Maggie, naturally, dies.”

  Maggie knew she should have seen that coming. David warned her that their enemies would kill her on sight. Her stomach still dropped though, and fear seeped into her joints.

  David. David had warned her. David! The ring!

  She hadn’t touched it since leaving Interchron. She was afraid one of the team would sense that she had it. She’d put it in the pocket of her jeans for safekeeping. She wondered if, using the ring, she would be able to transcend the sedative. Perhaps it was powerful enough that she could grasp her neurological powers despite the drug.

  Or…it would make her so violently sick that she’d vomit her innards onto the cargo bay floor. Still, he was going to kill her anyway, so it was worth a shot.

  The problem was that the horrible woman was still watching them. As Marcus had so painfully found out, any sudden movements were punished. Maggie had to stall and hope for a chance to grab the ring.

  “Who’s your lady friend?” Maggie nodded with her chin toward the woman behind him.

  “Of course. How rude of me.” Colin was being a courtly gentleman again. “I suppose I should introduce you all to Borna, especially as she’s the one who will change the world as we know it. You see, she’s a Traveler.”

  Chapter 30: The Taste of Blood

  Doc felt it coming even as the voice whispered in his ear. He knew what tactics they would use, because he had used them once; he had even taught them to others. He fought off the attack on his brain and kept it at bay as a dozen drones ambushed Karl.

  “Karl, watch out!”

  Karl whirled, pulled energy through his conduit stone, and knocked the tall, lean, Asian man coming toward him against the wall. The blow was hard enough to leave an Asian-man-shaped dent. The man crumpled to the ground.

  A woman tried to strike from behind Doc.

  “Karl, there!” Karl quickly took care of the situation.

  This went on for ten minutes before all the attackers were lying on the ground. Doc had been so focused on the six individualistic minds that resided in these rooms that he’d completely passed over the dozen or so collectivized ones that were also present. The collective drones were part of the background of this place. Doc assumed they acted as servants to the Council; it didn’t occur to him that they might be walking into an ambush.

  As the fight progressed, the feel of the six individual minds melted away. They’d used the drones as a diversion so they could escape.

  When the floor was littered with unconscious bodies and Karl’s chest was heaving, he swung around to look at Doc.

  “Where are the Six?”

  “Gone to other parts of the compound. These were a decoy.”

  “So what now?”

  “They said they knew we were coming. I’m not sure how, but if we were ambushed…”

  “Maggie, Marcus, and Nat might have been too. They may need help.”

  Doc nodded. “Let’s go.” He turned and headed for the door. Then he felt it—the whisper of something both achingly familiar and hauntingly evil. He shivered as the age-old sensation ran down his spine. Then he heard a dull thud. He hesitated out of fear but only for an instant. Then he whirled around. Karl was unconscious on the floor.

  The Asian man Karl had thrown into the wall had risen and clocked him in the head with a heavy vase. Doc could sense that Karl was all right, just knocked out.

  This was not the same man Karl had fought with earlier, though. The same body, yes, but not the same entity. He was a lean, lanky Asian man with black hair and dark brown eyes.

  Now the whites of his eyes glowed with an otherworldly light, and he was seething anger in a way that no man enslaved by a collective could. Collectivists couldn’t show that kind of passion; they were part of a whole that constantly monitored and mediated emotions. This man looked ready to attack.

  It was not the look but the earlier sensation that told Doc exactly who this was. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

  “It is me, Johann. It has been many years since we’ve spoken face to face.” His English was perfect, and there was an echo of a deeper voice over the top of his. The effect of the two voices together was a deep, dull, droning sound, like a voice echoing in a cave. It was all the more sinister for its droll quality.

  “You call this face to face?”

  The young man merely looked at him.

  “And was it also you that invaded Lila’s mind a few weeks ago?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why?”

  “To kill the Executioner.”

  Doc sighed. He had hoped this man didn’t know who Maggie was.

  “Come,” the unnatural voice said, seeing Doc’s sigh. “Did you really think I wouldn’t know her when I saw her, that I wouldn’t have people looking for her and know the moment she was found?”

  “I suppose I hoped you wouldn’t. Foolish hope.”

  “Indeed. But you were always foolish, Johann. It is foolish of you to come here. Aren’t you afraid I might kill you?”

  “I stopped fearing death long ago. Besides, if you had the power to kill me, you’d have done it already. So you still haven’t found an answer to the Binding.”

  The man didn’t answer for a time. When he did, the pompous smirk was on his face once more. “You are right, Johann, and I am impressed. Your…people are far better than any other time you’ve come against me. But they are still not good enough.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Indeed we will. I’ll make you watch them all die as you watched her die. Until we meet again, Johann. I pray that the next time will be the last.”

  “You always say that, but I seriously doubt that you pray.”

  “I’m always sincere. I always hope that the next time we meet will be the time I am finally able to kill you. Praying is merely a figure of speech.”

  “Nat is with me again.”

  The man barked a laugh. “The two brothers together again. How quaint.”

  “There were more than just the two.”

  “But not anymore, not for a long t
ime now. Good-bye, Johann. I wish you luck. You’re going to be in desperate need of it.”

  Karl was stirring, but whether he’d been awake for several seconds or had just awakened, Doc wasn’t sure. Either way, Karl was playing dead and listening closely.

  “One more question. You told Maggie to call you B. What does it mean?”

  “It stands for Beholder. I watch you more than you know and see more than you could possibly imagine. Remember that the next time you believe a rogue member of my collective.”

  He walked away, and as he did, the strange light left the young man’s eyes, and his body slumped forward, falling heavily and awkwardly onto the hard floor. B was gone.

  ***

  “She’s the Traveler?”

  Maggie had been throwing glances—glares, really—at the woman for the better part of fifteen minutes, but she hadn’t consciously taken the woman’s appearance in. She did now and found it to be strange.

  Borna had large eyes, full lips, and almond skin. She would have been strikingly beautiful had she made an effort to be, but she seemed to be doing the opposite. She had thick, silky black hair, like that of a native American, but it was cut close around her head in a disheveled, spiky do most often seen on teenage boys. The woman had an hourglass figure but it was hidden beneath a boxy, colorless tunic that looked like a pillowcase. She moved with a lithe, sinuous grace, and her gaze was both challenging and seductive.

  She was the epitome of femininity but sought to hide it behind the plain, blasé, and mediocre.

  “Yes, she is the Traveler. I will find and identify the minds we need to destroy. She will take me to them.”

  Marcus’s head came up at hearing this. “You’re a Seeker?”

  “I have many abilities you know nothing of. That’s what you get for trusting a Deceiver.”

  “But.” Marcus looked bewildered. “We had no choice. The prophecy says we must have one, and you fit the brain chemistry.”

  “I don’t know the answer to that one,” Colin cooed, “but know this: any Deceiver you trust will be hiding something from you. Perhaps it will be necessary to work with one—a necessary danger—but a danger nonetheless.”

  As they talked, the woman called Borna walked small circles around Maggie then Marcus then Nat, letting her eyes wander up and down their bodies.

  “I still don’t understand why you think this plan will work,” Maggie said. Her finger ran lightly over the stitching on the pocket of her jeans. The ring was in there, but she couldn’t get to it. “How do you know if you change the past you won’t change the future irrevocably? What if you accidently make it so you aren’t born?”

  Colin gave Maggie a pitying look. “My, you individualists are closed-minded. When we control the world in the past, we can control parentage. We will simply make certain that all the right people are born on schedule.”

  Marcus shook his head. “No one can trace their ancestry back even to Maggie’s time. Hundreds of years of records have been lost.”

  Colin turned his condescending smile on Marcus. “But we can Travel. We can go through, decade by decade, discovering and taking notes, until the lines are complete. We’ve thought of everything, and we will see our plans come to fruition.”

  Borna was still circling the three of them ominously. Maggie felt like the woman was trying to decide how best to cook them for supper.

  “We can change the past,” Colin continued, “control the present, and manipulate the future.” He stepped toward Maggie and tilted her chin up to look into her eyes. “Is it any wonder I have chosen the collectives over the individuals? They have become gods. And I will be one too.”

  “You are not gods,” Maggie spat. “You’re evil people with an insatiable desire to control others. You had no control over some part of your lives in the past, and now you’re addicted to the feelings of power and control because you’re scared to death of the lack of it. That does not make you God, not by a long shot.”

  Colin’s eyebrows rose slightly during her tirade, but that was the only reaction he gave. “Do you believe in God, Maggie?”

  Maggie thought about everything that had happened over the last few weeks, her life before, what her life would be now, especially if there wasn’t much of it left.

  “Yes,” she said. Her voice was solid and confident, which surprised her. “I didn’t realize it until just now, but I do. And you are nothing like Him.”

  Colin reached out to touch her face, and she found that, for some reason, she was less afraid than she’d been a moment ago.

  “Very soon, Maggie,” he whispered, “we’re going to kill you. Perhaps then you’ll realize the error of your beliefs. We’ll have the entire human race under our control. They will move as one mind and forget how to think for themselves or feel the emotions that make us all so pathetically human.”

  Rebellion flared in Maggie’s sternum. “And one day you’re going to wake up in hell and have the audacity to act surprised.”

  Colin gave her a long-suffering smile. Marcus and Doc looked at her with surprise and amusement, but they said nothing.

  “Why kill her, Colin?” Marcus asked quietly. “She would be a valuable asset to your collective. There’s no reason to kill her when you can catch her.”

  Despite his nonchalance, Maggie could tell that Marcus was scared. For her. He couldn’t protect her here, so he was pleading for her life.

  “Don’t insult my intelligence, Marcus.” Colin was annoyed again. “She’s far too important to let live. Or can you give me some other explanation for why, despite her memory loss and the hassle she’s caused, you went back and got her, and she’s with you again? The impression you make must be a powerful one.”

  Marcus looked at her with haunted eyes. He answered Colin in a calm voice. “She’s here because she’s an individual, and she wants to stop you. Anyway, the impression I had of you being trustworthy was wrong. Impressions are worthless things, apparently.”

  Colin looked amused, but he turned to Borna again. Maggie wanted to stop him before he could tell her to do any more harm. She decided to try a different approach.

  “Colin, I thought you believed in collectivism.”

  His face went hard. “I do.”

  “But you’re an individual. Your mind isn’t linked to the collective. How do you reconcile that?”

  He grinned. “Sometimes certain evils are necessary to obtain long-term goals. Once all individuals are under our control, we’ll all link together and be a worldwide collective. Imagine the power we’ll have. We’ll be unstoppable.”

  “But not powerful enough to bring the individuals under your control when you’re all linked,” Maggie said. “You have to have individuals to bring other reluctant individuals under your control. Doesn’t that put a hole in your argument?”

  “There won’t be any need for individuals once everyone is under our control.”

  “You’re wrong.” It was Nat speaking.

  When Colin’s gaze turned to him, he stared back with steady confidence.

  “David was under your control. He broke free.”

  Colin’s smug grin was gone now. He glared angrily at Nat. “Steps are being taken to make sure that doesn’t happen again. And like I already said, we let him go.”

  Nat shook his head. “You decided to let him get away once he was free, but you didn’t even know it was possible for a single individual to break away, did you? Do you think you can compensate for hundreds of thousands of minds? For that many different levels of will power? This is what collectivists don’t understand—there will always be someone who is so strong, who is such a force of rebellion against those that would oppress him that he will get away. There will always be a fight for freedom.”

  Colin’s glare grew darker as Nat spoke. By the last line, he was practically snarling, but his eyes shifted to Borna.

  She sauntered over to Nat, standing directly in front of him. She put her hand up, palm toward his face, and left it there, an inch in
front of him for several seconds. Then it traveled downward, running in front of his neck, chest, waist, and stopped in front of his groin.

  She never actually touched him, but Nat’s entire body went rigid. His head went back, the muscles in his jaw seizing up so he couldn’t scream. His body convulsed, but the shudders of opposing muscle groups were equal enough to keep him on his feet, quaking spastically. It looked excruciating.

  “Stop!” Maggie screamed. “What is she doing to him? Tell her to stop.”

  Colin wasn’t listening to her. He was looking at Nat with smug satisfaction.

  “Hey!” Maggie knew she couldn’t stop Borna from whatever she was doing, but the Traveler obviously took orders from Colin. She had to get his attention. She ran straight at him.

  When she reached the edge of the circles she, Nat, and Marcus were standing on, her vision blurred, and her senses went dull. When she came to, she was sitting on the floor on her backside, listening to Marcus calling to her from behind.

  It was as though she’d struck a brick wall, rebounded, and landed on the floor.

  “Maggie. Maggie. Answer me.”

  She turned toward Marcus.

  “These circles act as barriers. They’ve imprisoned us in them. That’s why they didn’t want us to touch each other. They wanted to put physical barriers between each of us.”

  Maggie put her hand out to touch him and found an invisible wall of air between them. She felt claustrophobic.

  “Don’t touch the barrier, Maggie. It’s toxic. It could affect your neurological powers.”

  Maggie dropped her hand and looked over at Nat, who was still being tortured. Tears welled up in her eyes. There was nothing they could do for him. The Traveler would kill him right in front of them, and there was nothing they could do about it.

  She looked up at Colin. “Please stop,” she whispered.

  Colin looked at her like she was a fascinating specimen to be studied, but after a moment, he looked at Borna, and as though obeying some unspoken command, she stopped. Nat dropped to the floor, his full weight hitting the ground hard.

  Borna walked slowly toward Maggie. Somehow the Traveler was able to walk through the barriers without any problem. When she reached Maggie, she fell into a crouch beside her then turned on her toe to arch an eyebrow at Colin. Borna was asking Colin if Maggie was next.