Persistence of Vision by Liesel Hill
***
“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 Tr
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.
Out of sheer desperation, Maggie looked at Borna. “Why are you doing this? You aren’t tied to the collective either. Have you ever been?”
Borna turned cold, calculating eyes on her. Her eyes were black and deep. Marcus’s eyes were deep too, but they held a wealth of warmth and integrity. This woman’s eyes held only darkness, like a dim room where something is lurking in the shadows, waiting to suck up all the light.
“No,” Borna said. Her voice was solid and chilly. “I was found as an individual and recruited by the collective when they realized my talents.”
Maggie got up onto her knees. “I know your life must have been tremendously hard before. You were probably alone and scared. I’m sure they promised you the world if you’d help them, but it doesn’t have to be that way. We can—”
The woman held up one finger, and Maggie stopped speaking.
“Don’t think that you can talk me out of my loyalties or appeal to my sense of decency or try to make me listen because we are both female. It won’t work.”
The way she said it was angry and final. Maggie thought it odd, robot-like that she said female rather than women.
“Because we’re both…female?”
“Gender is irrelevant, a trick of genetics. It has no bearing on anything. When you enter the collective, your sense of gender identity will be annihilated.”
Maggie took in what Borna said along with how she looked and made deductions.
“You are trying to look the part of one who has no gender, but underneath you are feminine, and you use it to manipulate men.”
The woman’s snake eyes bored into Maggie, unblinking. “Sometimes we must do things we don’t condone to achieve our aims.”
“But it’s all a lie, an illusion, a contradiction. How can you hope to make a stand anywhere when you have one foot on either side of the fence?”
The woman smiled, and it chilled Maggie’s blood. “You think we are just going to randomly go through history and take over any mind we come across, but we won’t. We have a meticulously laid-out plan, a step-by-step process that will bring all the world—past, present, and future—under our control. By the time history gets around to birthing you, Maggie, you won’t care about any of this. You’ll be a good little drone and do exactly as you’re told.”
Colin came to squat next to Borna.
“Terrifying, isn’t it?” he said. “That someone could forcibly change your identity, your fate, the person you were meant to become, and there’s nothing in the world you can do about it?”
He crawled forward, putting one hand on either side of Maggie. She put her palms on the floor behind her and tried to scoot back away from him, but he moved too quickly. He put his hands over hers so she couldn’t retreat any farther. When he leaned forward, he was practically on top of her.
“Colin.” Marcus’s voice had a deadly warning in it.
“What?” Colin looked up at Marcus like an annoyed child.
“Leave her alone.”
“Do you think you can stop me, Marcus? Gender may be a trick of genetics and our…desires merely a byproduct of our hormones, but while our minds are still individualistic, they have needs. And I mean to fulfill mine.”
With that last phrase, his eyes returned to Maggie, running down the length of her body.
“I’d rather be dead,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Oh, I know you would.” He smiled and leaned down to whisper in her ear. The forced, fraudulent intimacy of it made her wince. “But that is not an option for you.”
He produced a knife from somewhere, and Maggie yelped as he administered a swift, stinging slice across her cheek.
Marcus was growling softly, clenching and unclenching his fists, but encased behind the barrier, there was nothing he could do.
Then Colin did the strangest thing he’d done yet. He leaned down and licked the blood from Maggie’s cheek, gulping theatrically.
“Ugh.” Maggie wiped the saliva off her face.
Nat was still unconscious, but Marcus’s anger had faded somewhat in favor of disgust.
“What?” Maggie said. “You fancy yourself a vampire now?”
Colin grinned. “Not at all. But why do you think the legend of vampires was born? Human blood has power people in your time only guessed at. The qualities in our blood are remarkable, powerful, and addicting.”
Despite her disgust, Maggie was interested in what he was saying. “What qualities?”
“Our ability to reason. We have logic, can solve complex problems, but still have all the passion and emotion of the ages.”
“Yes.” Maggie nodded. “That’s what makes us human.”
“Exactly. An animal lives on instinct but has no higher reasoning capabilities. A computer can solve complex problems but feels no passion or attachment. Humans have the best of all possible worlds in them. Why do you think that men who taste human blood crave it forever afterward? Why do you think animals that taste the blood of man must be put down and never return to hunting their natural prey? The blood calls to them, compels them on a neurological level. They’ve ingested something their minds are too small to understand and their bodies too primitive to absorb, but they become drunk with the power of human life, with the feel of it all.”
Maggie took a shuddering breath. She tried to concentrate on what he was saying while not trembling and also keeping an eye out for a good time to grab the ring.
“What you speak of is perversion of the human spirit—a spirit you want to destroy by taking away emotion and individuality in the collectives—yet you speak of it with awe and admiration. Why destroy it, then?”
He leaned forward until his nose was almost touching hers. “Because collective minds feel no passion—good, bad, or otherwise. And people with no passion can be controlled.”
“S-so what? You think by drinking my blood you’ll be able to leech away my passion?”
“No. You’re too independent for that, Maggie. But I am a Seeker, and this is merely a precaution. By tasting your blood I establish a link between my brain and your body. From now on I’ll be able to zero in on your location. I’ll be able to point right to where you are, no matter where in the world, or off it for that matter, you go. After your little stunt last time, I’ve learned to be cautious. If by some miracle you escape for a
Shivers raced along Maggie’s veins as Colin looked up at Borna and some silent communication passed between them. Borna stood and walked through the barriers toward Marcus.
Maggie needed to distract Colin to buy Marcus more time. She didn’t know if Nat was dead or not, but the woman was going to hurt Marcus now, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She rambled, grasping for straws.
“What is she doing? Because for wanting so much to absorb them into the collective, I gotta say, it looks like you’re killing them instead.”
“Your friend is not dead,” Colin said, eyes shifting briefly to Nat. “For now she is only inflicting pain.”
He turned to Maggie then, and she wanted nothing more than to escape his drilling eyes.
“But don’t think for one second that she couldn’t do it. She could destroy their masculinity with the flick of her wrist. She could destroy your femininity, your memories, your frontal lobe, the way you perceive the world. She could annihilate any part of any person with a mere thought. And she will, if called upon.”
Marcus got to his feet as Borna approached. He didn’t back away from her, but his body was tense with caution. She walked right up to him and did the same thing she’d done to Nat, palm starting at his face and moving downward. When she got to his waistline he tried to grab her hand in an attempt to fend off what he knew was coming, but it did no good.
Just as Nat had done, Marcus’s head went back and every muscle in his body went into micro spasms of intense pain. His jaw locked up, and his eyes rolled back in his head. He made no sound except for dangerously irregular rasping breaths.
Something in Maggie snapped. She no longer cared about anything except killing this woman and helping Marcus.
Forgetting to be inconspicuous, she jammed her hand into the pocket of her jeans. Colin was watching Marcus’s torture with that smug grin again, but he must have registered Maggie’s movement because one hand went up absently, as though to swat her attempts at escape away.
Maggie’s fingers found the metallic surface of the ring, and she looped it around her index finger.
Using the ring as a conduit stone, Maggie immediately felt vast amounts of energy at her fingertips. Oceans of power flooded toward her, ready to do her bidding. She understood why precious metals were only given to experts. Even as she drew more deeply on the energy, scooping as much toward her as she could, she wondered whether she would be able to control it or whether she was about to incinerate them all.
As though struck by the fiery tongue of a whip, Colin shuddered then retreated. He crawled off her and backward, trembling visibly. The arrogant, condescending expression had been replaced with bewilderment and, could that be fear? Borna too was retreating. The instant Maggie’s finger found the ring, Borna dropped Marcus and backed away. The expression of utter shock on her face was one Maggie could see clearly, though not with her eyes.
Maggie didn’t know if Marcus was still alive. She didn’t see him at all. She didn’t see Nat, who had begun to stir and now was trying to sit up.
She only had eyes for the Traveler, who had to be stopped, and the secondary threat of Colin.
They were backing into opposite corners of the room. Colin’s corner held the door. The only thing in Borna’s corner was a cabinet of some sort, built into the wall. She was moving cautiously toward it.
Maggie was good at finding light. She focused on the closest, most accessible, most gargantuan local source. It was encased in the earth beneath them—volcanic activity dormant for thousands of years.
She found she could control thousands of tendrils of liquid fire and could elongate and manipulate them. She used the energy she was pulling through the ring to raise the lava to her, sucking both pure energy and volcanic rock toward her while the Traveler moved closer to the cabinet.
As the volcanic material neared the surface, Maggie drew more energy through the ring. She had to attack her enemies while protecting her friends. Liquid fire broke the surface, shooting upward in a molten pillar and desiccating the one individual in its path, and white-hot light broke in Maggie’s head, searing the image into the retinas of her eyes and the back walls of her mind.
And then her sensory perception went too. She witnessed but did not retain—just another forgotten memory.