A Question of Will (33 page)

The figure in the cloak led him down the sidewalk, back into the trees, and on a circuitous route through the small park. He emerged on the runway where the small aircraft carrying him and the Hunters had landed. The cloaked figure glanced about, and then darted into the hangar. Will followed. There, he found the same craft Athos and Porthos had used to bring him here. The figure pointed to what appeared to be a navigation system, showing his path. He’d been living on the northeastern edge of South America, and the island he was on was...inside the Bermuda Triangle.

Creepy.

With their hood still hiding their face, the guide pointed into the vehicle. “I should fly this back where I came from?” Will asked. A nod. “Will I be able to fly it? I’ve never flown anything before.” Another nod, but no words. “OK. Thank you.” He tried to duck down to get a glance under the hood, but his guide turned quickly and walked back out of the hangar. Will shrugged and climbed in.

As he sat, the top closed automatically. “
Select destination,
” said a soothing female voice. Will shrugged, and tried zeroing in on his old camp location on the screen. Once he found it, he tapped. “
Destination selected,
” the voice confirmed. With no further direction from Will, the craft backed out of the hangar, turned, and raced down the runway, gradually lifting into the air. Autopilot. Of course.

Will settled in for the journey, soon drifting off to sleep.

In the trees along the runway he’d just left, the hooded guide watched the vehicle soar from sight. The hood came down, and the woman underneath gave a gentle wave into the distance.

“Good luck, Will,” she whispered.

XXIII

Reunion

Will woke, feeling as if he’d had a full night’s sleep. He had answers to many of the mysteries of his past two months, and the basis for better questions. Like who had wiped his memory two centuries earlier, and why. Like how they’d kept him in suspended animation all that time, and why.

The craft had landed in the same clearing where the Hunters had found him earlier, showing that the autopilot feature in the vehicle was quite well-developed. He was back in the thick forests that were so familiar to him now, and it seemed that the trees remembered him as well. He could feel their Energy moving to him, and he responded in kind, feeling the now familiar intensification of the Energy flowing back to him. Perhaps trees had developed this capability in the past two centuries. Then again, he wouldn’t have known two centuries ago for purposes of comparison. He noted his clothing was yellowish-orange, and wondered if he’d start mutating at some point in the color progression.

Will thought through his actions carefully; acting impulsively in the past had caused problems. Will’s part in the stabbing of Aramis, and then his shooting of The Assassin, would be analyzed and discussed by the Aliomenti Elites. He expected that they’d provide whatever form of medical care existed in this future time to stabilize the injured men. He wasn’t sure if Aramis could be saved, though he couldn’t get himself to be upset about that. The man had been quite pleased to take Will somewhere to die, and tried to directly kill him in the distant past. Will had defended himself, without meaning for Aramis to be hurt. He didn’t feel the same way about The Assassin, though he doubted that the gunshot wounds would be fatal. He hadn’t made the shots with the intent of killing the man. If someone had told him he’d be more upset about the impending death of a man who’d tried to capture him, rather than one who had tried to kill Hope and Josh, he would have questioned their sanity.

Had The Assassin been telling the truth? Was he truly now a spy on behalf of the Alliance? And who was the master he’d spoken of? That would be another detail he’d need to learn. He ruled Angel out immediately. He’d been with Adam quite a bit, and the man seemed too stable to try something so rash and bold as to turn an Aliomenti Assassin to their cause. Fil seemed the type, or at least the most likely of the three he’d met. Of course, there were dozens of others in the camp, and every possibility that one of those men or women were responsible. Will simply didn’t know any of them well enough to make an assessment.

He needed to get back to them, his closest friends and confidants in the Alliance camp, if for no other reason than to warn them. But the last thing he wanted to do was to bring a wrathful team of Elites on them. If he was one of the Elites, he’d expect Will to go right back to the Alliance; then he’d follow Will Stark there with a truly massive attack force. Will had hurt two of their number badly, and now he needed to protect his closest friends in this future time, even if they’d been incredibly deceptive. Revenge was a powerful motivator, as Will well knew, and he couldn’t believe that his attack and escape would be forgotten. Focusing on all of this helped keep his mind on the
other
revelation from The Assassin; he needed to compartmentalize and deal with
that
information later.

He decided that he would not return to camp. He figured he was quite safe here, actually; the Elites would not be likely to come here and only get him. His best move all around was to stay here. Or move away from here, but to a site away from the camp. Perhaps he could mislead the Aliomenti into chasing him all over the planet. That would protect his core group, but what if he unintentionally led the Aliomenti to a
different
Alliance camp? He had no idea where those camps were located, or how many there were.

He needed to communicate with Angel, and Adam, and Fil. But how?

Then he realized that he had a rather untapped ability, the first he’d mastered here in this future world of people with nanos, personal flying craft, and incredible mental Energy abilities. Telepathy. And the person who’d taught him was Angel, the one he trusted above all others. It was a very low Energy ability, which meant that even Porthos shouldn’t be able to track it. And it was a risk that Will needed to take.

He directed his Energy in the direction of the camp, very low level, and thought of Angel. He hoped Angel would sense the Energy and contact him.

He didn’t have to wait long.
Mr. Stark? Is that you?
Angel’s voice projected into his mind.

Yes. I escaped from the Headquarters. A few of them got hurt in the process, including one of the Hunters, and he’s hurt very badly. I have a feeling they aren’t going to like that. I’m not risking coming back to camp and bringing all of them after you.

There was a pause.
Where are you?

I’m back in the forest near our old camp, right where they took me. I—

Angel, Adam, and Fil appeared in the clearing. “Drop your Shield. You need to flood this place with Energy,” Fil said.

“What?” It was the last thing Will ever expected to hear from Fil.

“Do it,” Adam said. Will did, and Adam explained the logic as the Energy flowed from his pupil. “We’re pretty well Shielded, outside the Energy remnants left from teleporting here. If you’re right, they already know
you’re
here. Our best bet is for you to kick off lots of Energy, which should mask ours, and make them think any surges they’ve detected are just you.”

That made sense. Will spread his Energy around, especially into the trees, and felt the strengthening of the return Energy. The trio watched him with great interest. “How are you getting stronger while you’re doing that?” Adam asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m seeing the Energy all around us, so clearly you’re sending quite a bit out. Yet your Energy levels are actually rising
faster
than that. They should be dipping, at least for a short while, until your body can regenerate its stores.” Adam seemed genuinely baffled at the phenomenon.

Will shrugged. “I don’t know how to explain it, either.” He told the story of seeing the young tree here, and feeling compelled to send it Energy, and that somehow this helped the tree grow rapidly and resulted in more Energy coming back to Will than he was sending. “I guess it’s like it is in nature. We breathe out carbon dioxide used by plants, and they send back oxygen we breathe in. Why it’s stronger than before, though, I can’t explain.”

Fil nodded. “As interesting as that is, we do need to focus on the problem at hand. Angel said that you escaped Headquarters in a manner likely to draw a violent response. True?”

“Correct. Aramis took me to The Assassin, but I was able to use my nanos to deflect the blow and Aramis was stabbed instead. I fought with The Assassin, and in the skirmish his gun fell free. I retrieved it, shot him, and teleported out.” Will frowned. “But I think I had help.”

“What do you mean?” Angel asked.

“The Assassin was talking to me in my head. Telling me what to do, how to beat him as we were fighting after Aramis was stabbed. Told me to throw him and the gun would fall; I didn’t know he carried a gun. Told me to shoot him non-fatally and make it seem like I was interested in him suffering more than killing him. He gave me an image of a place to teleport to in order to get out of the building.” Will looked at the men and woman standing with him. “He said to tell his master that he did as ordered. Any of you know what that means?”

“I have a hunch,” Fil said. “One of our members has a knack for creating specialized nanos. It sounds like something he would try.”

“But how did he get them into The Assassin?” Will asked. “When would they have met?”

“We picked up more than just you at the house that night,” Angel said. “The Assassin, the man sent to murder your family...we captured him and brought him back to hold as a captive.”

“It was a risky plan,” Fil said. “Like you, he brought inherent trouble, perhaps even more. You would only cause harm through inaction but without intent; The Assassin would willingly inflict great harm. If the devices meant to contain him didn’t hold, or the reprogramming didn’t work...it could have been a problem for all of us.”

“But it appears that it
did
work,” Adam noted. “We may be down to only two Hunters, and The Assassin will be unable to go on any official missions for a time if you shot him.”

Will pulled out the gun. “This looks familiar. Something else you pulled out of my house?”

Fil simply nodded.

“Anything else about that night you want to tell me?” Will asked, fixing a pointed stare at the trio.

Angel fidgeted. “Your dog survived. She’s back in camp right now.”

Will blinked, and a foggy memory of seeing the injured animal on Fil’s lap in the escape vehicle appeared in his mind. “Why didn’t you let me see her? What would be the harm in letting me see Smokey?”

“You would have wondered why we were able to save Smokey, and not... others.” Angel looked quite unhappy at saying this.

“Seems a fair question, though,” Will noted. “You rescued me from a beating, found my dog and the man sent to kill my family. Why could you not save my wife and son?”

“They were already gone when I got there,” Fil said. “I could get The Assassin and the dog. But not them.”

Will stared at the man. “With the technology I’ve seen here since I arrived, I dare say you could have saved them. Why not try?” The Energy coming from Will now was powerful enough that the air was sizzling, and it was doubtful to all present that the intensity was due solely to the interaction with the trees.

“They were
gone
.” Fil fixed him with what was likely a deadly stare through those sunglasses, as if offended at being challenged. “As in, they were not there. I could not find them. Therefore, I could not rescue them.”

“I thought you said that they were dead?” Will snarled, advancing on Fil.

“No. I’ve said they were
gone
every time you’ve asked. I cannot help you to comprehend what the word means.”

“You used a word commonly meant to indicate death, especially in the context of a raging house fire and an Assassin sent after those people. Any sane, decent person would know that and avoid using the expression.” Will jabbed a finger at Fil. “Unless you
wanted
me to think them dead.”

Fil shoved Will with both hands. “Take that back! There’s no reason whatsoever I’d want to deceive you!”

Angel jumped between them. “Both of you need to stop it! Right now!” The two men continued to glare at each other, but backed away. “Fil wasn’t clear, but there’s no reason to think he’d want to deceive you. I would know if he’d tried.”

“Shut up, sis,” Fil muttered.

Will’s eyes widened. “She’s your sister?” he asked Fil.

Fil nodded, and Angel elbowed Fil gently. “My overprotective big brother. Always playing the alpha male lest anyone try anything to hurt me.” Will was shocked to see a slight smile form on Fil’s face.

Will shook his head. “You people are full of surprises,” he said. He glanced at Adam. “What about you? You their cousin or something?”

Adam chuckled. “Thanks for not asking if I’m their uncle.” All four laughed.

“So, about that night you pulled me and others away from my burning house,” Will said. “Anybody care to tell me exactly
when
that was? Relative to, say, today?” He arched an eyebrow.