“If we wanted to brutalize you, we could. You are completely in our power. But we won’t, and that should tell you something.”
Tenessa sat up straighter and squared her shoulders. She glared unflinchingly into Karl’s face.
Marcus sighed. So much for intimidation. His temples began to throb.
“The separatist wants something from us. It is not heroic. If it had to choose between us and its companion,” she threw a glance toward Marcus, “it would save the companion, and kill us as quickly as it Healed us.”
The anger drained out of Karl. “We wouldn’t kill you except as a last resort of self-defense,” he said, “but you’re right. Between the two of you, I’d choose to save Marcus. He’s my best friend and you’re my enemy. I’d choose him every time.”
“Then the separatist is weak.”
Karl frowned and turned bewildered eyes on Marcus. Marcus shrugged. He was done arguing with a collectivist. Karl turned back to her again.
“Why does that make me weak?”
“Separatists are always blinded with notions of affection.”
“Notions of affection,” Karl asked, sounding incredulous.
“Yes. It’s all in the separatists’ heads. They delude themselves into thinking it exists.”
“So you think love is something we’ve made up?”
“Of course it is. It’s foolish to sacrifice anything for something that’s doomed.”
Karl leaned forward until his nose almost touched Tenessa’s. Marcus knew Karl was being defiant because Tenessa’s words angered him. He couldn’t blame his friend for that.
“That man over there,” Karl pointed in Marcus’s direction, “is my best friend. And I would die for him.”
Tenessa frowned. She glanced between Karl and Marcus several times. Marcus could almost see the wheels turning in her head. She was trying to figure something out and, despite his annoyance, he wondered what it was.
“Are the two separatists,” she looked at Karl, “lovers?”
The look of utter disbelief on Karl’s face would have been comical if Marcus’s head wasn’t pounding. He clapped a hand over his face, trying not to laugh, then slid it to the side to massage his temple. When he dropped it, Karl’s face hadn’t changed.
“Karl, this really isn’t a constructive conversation.”
Ignoring him, Karl turned back to Tenessa. “Of course not. Why would you ask that?”
“Separatists put themselves on the line for two things: sustenance and mating. If it’s willing to die for him, and assuming it doesn’t want to eat him...”
Karl looked more frustrated than ever, but Marcus grinned. One thing was certain: the woman’s logic was sharp as a whip, if flawed.
“There’s such thing as platonic love,” Karl said. “You know, like, brotherly love.” Tenessa stared at him blankly. “Do you know the word platonic?”
“Yes. It’s an outdated word. A delusional belief of an earlier time.”
Karl rolled his eyes. “Of course it is,” he muttered.
“Karl,” Marcus interrupted. “We need to get moving. Colin’s getting farther and farther away. Can we wrap this up, please?”
Karl nodded, his eyes still on Tenessa. “Well, at least one of your conclusions is...kind of...correct. We do sacrifice for those we care about.”
Tenessa gazed straight ahead of her, refusing to look at Karl. “The separatist is pathetic.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Karl got to his feet. “Let’s go.”
“We’re not going with the separatists.”
“You are going with us,” Marcus answered. “I can bind you with chords of energy and drag you along behind us. It would be rather undignified. I’d rather let you walk. If you don’t give us any trouble, I’ll leave you free to move around, so long as you keep up.”
“We want to go back to the Union!”
“And I’ve told you you’ll get there. After we get all the information we need.”
Her glare was all the answer she gave.
“I don’t suppose you want to tell me what abilities you have? Or where your leader is going?”
Tenessa glared sullenly at the ground.
“Fine,” Marcus said, “but stand up. We’re going.”
As Tenessa got grudgingly to her feet, Karl walked over to Marcus and lowered his voice. “Are we really going to let her roam around? What if her abilities suddenly surface and decapitate one of us or something?”
Marcus was already reaching into his pack. He pulled out a pre-packaged needle full of light blue liquid. Karl’s eyes widened when they fell on it.
“I didn’t know you had neurological sedatives.”
“I have a pretty decent stash, actually. I’m planning to use them on Colin when we catch up to him. This will keep her neurological abilities in check. Physically, she’s still too weak to run away. If she tries, it won’t be hard to catch her. I’m more worried about her being able to match our pace than being strong enough to get the drop on us.”
Karl nodded. “I’ll keep a close eye on her. You focus on Colin.”
Marcus nodded. He walked around behind Tenessa. Her body went rigid, but she didn’t complain or flinch when Marcus slid the needle into the outside of her upper arm. She peered down at it contemptuously, and Marcus had the feeling she knew exactly what it was.
He replaced the empty needle in his pack. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 8: Trapped
DAVID CARRIED KRISTEE to a small copse of trees Lila located. The circle of aspens was large enough to fit five or six people inside without feeling claustrophobic, but dense enough to hide those inside from any casual passersby.
“What do you think, Lila?” David asked after laying Kristee gently on the knobby ground.
“I think she’ll sleep for a long time. Even when she wakes up, she may be too weak to Travel, yet. We should plan on being here for a few days.”
David heaved a sigh and rubbed his forehead. “So what do we do if that thing shows up again? What did you call her?” He turned to Maggie with the question.
“Justine.”
“How long did it take her to find you?”
Maggie thought briefly. “From the time we fled the club to when she showed up this morning—uh, that morning,” she corrected, remembering they’d just jumped through time, “about twelve hours.”
David frowned.
“But,” Maggie added, “she was only looking for us across space, then. I don’t think she knows when we are. We don’t know when we are. Maybe that will buy us a few days.”
“Maybe.” David sounded doubtful.
“We’ll have to find supplies,” Lila said. “And she’ll recover faster in a warm bed than out here.”
Lila’s comment made Maggie aware of the temperature for the first time. It had been mid-summer when she and Jonah ventured out to the piano club. Now the air felt chilly, though not frigid. The sun was headed downward, which meant it would get colder. Whatever year they’d come to, the season was undoubtedly fall.
“Agreed,” David said. Both he and Lila turned eyes on Maggie. “What do you want to do?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“Neither Lila nor I,” he paused to glance at Jonah and Kristee. “Actually, none of us are officially part of the team.”
“That, and your abilities are much stronger than ours,” Lila put in.
“You’re the leader here, Maggie.” David said.
“I’m not that much stronger than David,” Maggie objected.
“No,” David said, “but you are stronger, and then there’s your place on the team.”
Maggie sighed. She didn’t want to be the leader. Her eyes swept over each of her companions, lingering on Jonah. She wished she knew what was going on in her brother’s head. Or heart. She turned and gazed toward the valley.
“I think two of us should stay with Kristee, and two should go down into the valley. See what we can find; if it’s even possible to secur
e food or a hotel room.”
David nodded. “I think you and I should do that. We’ll leave Lila and Jonah here.”
“Whoa,” Jonah put up a hand, “wait just a minute. I’m not okay with that.”
Maggie sighed. Of course Jonah didn’t want her going down into an alien world without him. She might have expected it from her brother, but David was right. The two of them were the best choice. They possessed the strongest neurochemical abilities and could protect themselves if need be. Lila could, too, no doubt, but she was the closest thing they had to a Healer, so she should stay with Kristee. Jonah was a decent-sized man and she didn’t doubt he could defend himself physically. If they’d jumped far enough into the future for neurochemical abilities to have already arisen, though, Jonah couldn’t defend against them.
“Jonah,” she said, “I think he’s right. It needs to be us.”
He studied her face. “Can I speak with you privately?”
She nodded. Leaving David and Lila to confer quietly over Kristee’s sleeping form, she and Jonah walked twenty feet away.
“I don’t like this, Maggie,” Jonah said, turning to face her.
“I know,” she sighed. “I’m so sorry you got pulled into this Jonah. I didn’t want that to happen—”
He put his hands up to stop her. “I’m not sorry I’m here. I’d rather be here with you than...not. I don’t like you going down there without me. I should be going with you.”
“Jonah, we don’t know when we are.”
He stared at her. “That’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
Maggie chuckled in spite of herself. “I know. Trust me, it’ll only get weirder from here on out.”
He smiled. It never reached his eyes.
“Jonah, you don’t have neurochemical abilities. Or rather, you do, but don’t know how to use them.”
“I still don’t like it.”
“We’ll only be gone a few hours. I can take care of myself, and David has my back. Stay here and keep Lila company. She’s cute, right?”
Jonah gave her a you-must-be-kidding-me look. “Are you actually trying to set me up with someone right now?”
Maggie opened her mouth, then thought better of what she’d been going to say. “Actually, no. Lila is Joan’s daughter—the woman that’s part of the team? She’s kind of a mother bear, so maybe leave Lila alone.”
Jonah rolled his eyes. “Thanks for that.”
Maggie grinned. “It’s what I’m here for. Besides, your last girlfriend tried to obliterate us with her evil mind powers. I’m thinking maybe I should choose your dates from now on.”
Jonah smirked, shaking his head, but the amusement remained superficial. His gaze wandered over to their companions. “You trust this guy?”
Maggie followed his gaze. Lila had seated herself beside Kristee on the ground. David stood, gazing toward the valley. He glanced at them, then away again, obviously waiting for her.
Maggie shrugged. “Yeah, I do. He wouldn’t hurt me, Jonah. And I think he’s more than proven he’s willing to protect me should I need it.”
Jonah barked a laugh. “Yeah, I guess he has done that.”
Maggie studied her brother, wondering what thoughts underlay that comment. She thought back over the events of the past few hours. It was the first time since she’d awakened this morning—that morning—that she’d stopped to think rationally about anything.
“Why did you think he was Marcus, Jonah?”
Jonah turned his gaze on her, not answering right away.
“I mean,” she pushed a stray wisp of hair from her eyes, “they look alike so I thought you mixed them up. It wasn’t rational, given that you’ve never met either of them. I was too preoccupied at the time to realize that.”
“It’s the way you two act together.”
Maggie frowned. “How do we act together?”
“Maybe it’s more the way he acts toward you; the way he looks at you, the way he touches you. He has a thing for you, Maggie. Tell me you know that.”
Maggie ran a hand through her hair. Leave it to Jonah to hit her over the head with problems she didn’t want to deal with. “Yeah, I know that. I just pretend I don’t.”
“Denial. How’s that working for you?”
Maggie glanced up to see the corners of Jonah’s mouth twitch. For the first time since the alley the night before, he seemed like himself again.
“Fabulously.”
“So you’re caught between two brothers who...look alike?”
“I’m not caught between anything. I told you last night, I remember most of it, now. There are still some glaring holes, but I remember Marcus. I have feelings for him. Besides, maybe David thinks he has feelings for me, but he doesn’t. We barely know each other.”
Jonah studied her in a calculating way. She didn’t like it.
“Anyway,” she muttered, “at least neither of them is going to grow facial tattoos and a forked tongue and try to eat us.”
“All right, can you stop now with the Justine jokes? It’s not like I knew what she was. If I had, I wouldn’t have been kissing her.”
“Sorry. David’s waiting. Will you be all right staying here?”
“Will you be all right going there?”
Maggie gave him her best blank stare before turning on her heel and heading back toward David.
SHE AND DAVID HIKED quickly down into the valley, scanning the area around them as they went. Only a few hours of daylight remained, and they wanted to be well on their way back before full dark. Maggie knew the area well enough to find her way back in the dark, but they didn’t know who or what else roamed around after the sun went down.
As they descended, Maggie swept her eyes over all she saw, trying to force herself to draw conclusions about the world around them.
As if sensing her thoughts, David asked, “What do you see, Maggie?”
They stopped where they were, on the lower slopes of the mountain, so Maggie could point. “See those buildings over there? They used to be a junior college.”
David raised an eyebrow and she realized he probably didn’t know what that was.
“A learning institution, but a small one,” she said. “Now it sprawls all over the place. In fact, I think the sky scraper we saw from the ridge is part of it. Maybe a museum or a research center of some kind?” She followed the horizon with her eyes. “And there used to be a refinery over there. I don’t see it at all. Maybe they’ve found an alternative fuel source by now.”
David nodded. “The air does feel cleaner.”
He was right. She hadn’t noticed it until now, but the air did feel...crisper somehow. They were headed into a heavily populated area that used to be next to a fuel refinery, yet the air smelled fresh, as if they stood on a mountain peak hundreds of miles from civilization.
They kept moving, heading for the metropolis. There would be supermarkets there, and possibly a bank. Maggie didn’t have any money on her, but Jonah had given her his wallet. She’d left all her plastic in her purse by the couch at Kaden’s cabin. Whether they would be able to make use of Jonah’s money remained to be seen. If they’d only jumped ten or twenty years into the future, well, money could sit in a bank account for a long time. If Maggie could access it, she could buy supplies and perhaps a place to stay for a few days until Kristee recovered enough to Travel. On the other hand, if they’d jumped a hundred or more years...Maggie doubted banks would work the same way at all.
As they came into the city, it became obvious that, whatever year this was, the technology had advanced far beyond Maggie’s time. The cars, even the obviously older models, appeared sleeker, more aerodynamic than the ones in her time. They made no noise. Or much less noise than the cars of her time, anyway. The streets looked new, though perhaps it was more that they were so clean—almost pristine. Everywhere she looked she saw a machine or gadget she didn’t recognize. The people on the street wore fashions completely alien to her: thin, flowing, shiny materials tha
t complimented every body type.
She wondered if she and David appeared as blatantly out of place as she felt—akin to cowboys in western getup, complete with chaps, spurs, and sweat-stained hats, suddenly deciding to clink around a clean, posh metropolis. They got a few odd stares. She wasn’t sure if it was their appearance, or the fact that David peered suspiciously at everything and everyone they passed.
The first supermarket she saw, she pulled David into. It looked big enough to belong to a chain, though she didn’t recognize the name.
“Where are you going?” David asked. “I thought we didn’t have any money yet.”
“We don’t. I need to get an idea of what currency people use here.”
She located the registers easily enough, and searched for a magazine to pretend to read while she watched people checking out. She couldn’t find one, so she picked up a stick of what she thought might be lip balm and pretended to read the label.
She realized David was scrutinizing people. She slugged him in the arm and motioned to the rack of items in front of them. Looking confused, David picked up a disposable lighter, but didn’t bother to look at it. Maggie sighed. They wouldn’t be able to stay for long; the security guards would think they were casing the place.
As Maggie watched the checkout process in front of her, it became clear that Jonah’s wallet wouldn’t do them any good. No one used plastic anymore. Totals didn’t show up on the register. Only product prices. The shoppers held out their arms, wrist down, and swiped them over the scanner. A zero balance would appear on the register to show the amount had been paid, much as a credit or debit card worked in Maggie’s time. She sighed. They weren’t set up to take cards or actual money at all.
A glance toward the entrance showed two men watching Maggie and David closely. Just as she’d feared, they’d been singled out by store security. These must be plain clothes officers. Deciding that being direct would be less suspicious than trying to slink away, Maggie grabbed David’s hand and started toward them.
David still held the lighter. She took it and set it on a shelf.
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