And there were bars.
Acacia moved me through one set of bars, into a small room. I became aware of the air on my skin again; it was a neutral temperature, not hot or cold. I could turn my head and flex my fingers. I saw Acacia as she walked back through the bars the same way we’d entered, like a ghost. I saw the green light on her fingernails fade as she gripped the bars—which seemed quite solid—for a moment. “I’m sorry, Joe,” she said, and walked away.
I could move again. And I was a prisoner of TimeWatch.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“SHE’S TRYING TO HELP you.”
My guard was a man who didn’t look like me at all, which had taken some getting used to. Actually, he looked like a normal guy, the kind I might’ve seen walking down the street in my world, the kind who may have been a policeman or a businessman. He stood up tall, and hadn’t looked at me even once since he’d planted himself as an immovable object in front of my cell.
I didn’t say “door” because there wasn’t one, from what I could tell. The bars were simple, went from the floor to the ceiling, and I didn’t see anything resembling hinges anywhere. When I’d first entered, the cell had seemed quite complex; I’d felt my passage through it like a moment of cold fog, and when Acacia had left me I’d seen the bars ripple for an instant, like disturbed water.
I’d been stuck here for hours, unable to do anything but pace, and my guard had—until now—not lent himself very well to conversation.
“Why do you say that?” At his silence, I felt my temper—which was precarious to begin with—slip a notch. “Oh, come on. You’ve been doing that statue routine for hours; now that you’ve started talking, you don’t get to just stop again. Why do you think she’s trying to help me?”
“She said so.”
I gestured at my surroundings. “How is this helping, exactly?”
“You’re safe here.”
“I didn’t ask to be kept safe!”
“It’s her job.”
I couldn’t help thinking of what Jay had told me through Hue, and I took a deep breath before asking. “Which is, exactly?”
“To protect you.”
“It’s her job to protect the future,” I snapped. “Where does that include electrocuting me and shoving me in a cell?”
He turned to face me at that, meeting my gaze for the first time since he’d come down here. “You are the future, Joseph Harker.”
Something in my stomach knotted into a hard ball, and my tongue suddenly felt too big for my mouth. I was just one in an army—an army of me, yes, but that was just the point. They were all me. He had to mean all of us. He had to mean InterWorld, right?
I have no idea what I would have said to that, if I’d gotten the chance to respond. Right at that moment, however, a large man in a black suit came up behind the guard, clapping a hand on his shoulder. The guard jumped—for a moment I thought, from his expression, that he was under attack. He took a single step back, turning and bowing his head, then left without another word to me.
The man in the suit was tall and well muscled, wearing black sunglasses with reflective lenses and some kind of earpiece. Honestly, he looked so much like a stereotypical bodyguard that I expected to see someone else with him, maybe a small, important-looking man or a woman in a jeweled tiara. He was alone, though, and I could tell he was looking at me as he made a gesture, and a door-sized portion of the bars simply evaporated.
“You are to come with me, Joseph Harker.” His mouth hadn’t moved, but I knew the words had come from him. How, I wasn’t sure, but I’d seen far stranger things in my time at InterWorld.
“Where’s Acacia?”
“You will not find her here if you attempt to run. Do not bother.”
I nodded my acquiescence. As he raised his hand to make another gesture toward the bars, I ducked around him, darting through. I put my hand to the shield disk at my belt, activating it in case he attempted to stop me with a blaster or something even as I wondered why Acacia had let me keep it—and then I was on my back, staring up at him. He’d just suddenly been there, in front of me, with no indication of how he’d gotten there. Almost like he’d Walked, though I hadn’t sensed a portal…
“Do not bother attempting to run,” he said again, in the exact same tone he’d used before. He sounded bored.
He reached toward me. I rolled sideways, only to feel his fingers close about the back of my tunic—and he lifted me, as though I weighed nothing. I wasn’t even surrounded by the green light this time; it wasn’t a gravity repulsor field, or whatever Acacia had used. I kicked at him, not sure what I was expecting this time. I figured he’d have some fancy trick to counter it, but why not give it a shot anyway?
My foot struck what should have been a nerve bundle on his thigh, but he simply…didn’t react. At all. I felt flesh beneath his clothing, but there was not a flinch, not a wince, not an exhalation of breath in response to my attack. Finally, figuring I should do the smart thing and give up for real this time, I spread my hands in surrender.
He set me down but did not release my shirt. I didn’t much care; I wasn’t really interested in attempting to run again. Not if I were likely to run into more like him, which I imagined I was. Best to gather information about where I was first.
“Where am I going?” At his silence, I persisted. “You said I was to come with you. Where are we going?”