“Your visions?” He wondered after the kiss. “Your father?”
Her head moved side to side slowly, as her eyes never left his. “I’ve seen enough of the truth there, enough to know that if we bring down the shield and I never see another thing without the use of my own eyes, I’ll be happier. Some things are best left unknown.”
He felt a swelling in his throat. Not just for her experience rising to his level, for the maturity and wisdom she’d achieved just in such a brief time, but for what she had implied.
“I know what’s blocking you.”
Her eyes finally left his, going to the same place he now looked: at his feet. At the bag.
At the sphere inside it.
“Seeing too much blue?” he ventured.
She nodded, but still held his cheek. “I don’t want this. Don’t want to pry, but I have so many questions. So many… fears.”
“About me.”
A tear welled up and threatened to drop along her cheek. “I’m sorry, I can’t help it. We met, and you were so mysterious…”
He smiled at the memory. “Swooping in on a hand glider. Gotta admit, not bad as far as first meeting stories go.”
“Not bad at all.”
He gazed into her eyes and saw there a host of memories — not visions, but pure, powerful memories. Of their adventures, of quiet moments, of dinners, of drinks or cups of coffee and runs at sunrise. Of pondering the density of distant stars, the geology of the closest mountains, or the mystery of the soul and what comes after.
Reaching down, he hefted the bag, set it on his lap. “I’m far from an open book, Diana.”
“I know, and you don’t have to…”
“There are some secrets, as you’ve just said, that are better left unlearned.”
“I know, and I really don’t want to know everything. But I try to focus on our mission, and I see you, and I go there — and it’s blocked like you’ve got a door in your house that I can’t enter.”
“Or the west wing. That’s forbidden,” he chimed, quoting Beauty and the Beast, her favorite Disney film.
“Yeah, or that.” She clenched her eyes shut. “I’m trying, but…”
When she opened them again, he was standing. Or, returning to her. The guard behind him had the satchel and was heading for the door.
“About ten yards out there should do it,” Xavier called over his shoulder. “And don’t let it out of your grasp until I tell you to come back.”
Diana swallowed hard, sighing. “You didn’t have to.”
“I did,” he said, and sat and took her hands.
“But now we’re in danger. They could…”
“They always could,” he said. “It’s not that great a secret, if they wanted to find us, whoever ‘they’ are. But believe me, we have much worse fates in store if you don’t succeed. If you don’t…”
“Oh my god!” she shouted, standing up and shoving his chest. Her eyes were wide, pupils up, leaving almost all white. She trembled and jittered like being electrocuted, then as he came toward her, she held out both hands.
Doubled over, heaving, she urged him away.
“I’m sorry,” he stammered. “Damn, you must be good. I don’t know what you saw, but really I can explain.”
“No.”
“Yes, please. Trust me. I was an asshole, especially early on, but what I did — all the bad shit — it wasn’t just to save my own skin. It was everyone, I had to…”
“Shut up.”
She looked up, and her features were not what he expected.
No recrimination. No anger or condemnation.
Nothing… but excitement.
“I saw it!”
He blinked at her. “What? Just like that?” He took a tentative step forward. “Was I doing something noble, then?”
She rolled her eyes as she spun around, took her seat and started tapping out passwords and accessing systems. “It’s not always about you, dear. But thank you for your trust in me. Call back your man.”
“But…?”
“You’re right. I don’t want or need to know everything. And what I might be curious about?” She turned to him quick. “I’ll fucking ask. And you better answer.”
Floored, he could only nod, and mouth the words, I love you.
“So, you saw it? The past, the shield?”
“—coming down hard!” She was bent back over the keyboard. “Accessing HAARP now, and this better work. We’ve got the clearance?”
He came up behind her and peered over her shoulder as she worked, and as he motioned to the guard to call his colleague back inside.
“That’s what Edgerrin promised. Loaded us up with everything we might need.”
“HAARP it is,” she said. “Your old friend. Scalar wave tech from the arrays. I heard the sound, saw the notes in my head, the high priestesses had them all designed out on some massive tapestry, and these crazy sonic cannons I think they were, all aimed at one point in the sky.”
Xavier leaned down, watching her work, watching her type in the frequency delineations for the array, and then highlight a target location.
“I think it only needs one big rip in its makeup to bring it all down, to resonate across the continually-phasing shield and disrupt it, but…” She grinned. “Because I can, and because the arrays are built that way and we don’t want to take chances, I’m going to hit a dozen spots across the northern hemisphere.”
“I love you,” he whispered in her left ear, then stood and watched the projection on the main screen as she highlighted the remote cameras for the HAARP facility on one screen, and then accessed the satellite over New York for another, while other screens around them were showing riots, massive protests, flames and fury and chaos across the world.
“Now or never,” she said, looking back at him as she pressed the button to start the sequence. “And, Xavier?”
He met her eyes, and for a moment as she spoke the next words, everything was right, and going to be just fine again.
“I love you too…”
Before he could lean in and kiss her the way he wanted to, one last vision pulverized his emotions and drilled into his sight:
The one bone-chilling prophetic vision he couldn’t shake, the one that stood victorious as the other visions of doom all now faded into oblivion.
The hooded figure in black, with the emerald gem around his neck, astride the stars, floating amidst the wreckage of the earth and the moon as the sun burnt out and the stars shredded themselves into oblivion…
Xavier came to on his back, with Diana over him, looking ashen.
“What did you see? Where’d you go? You just fell, and it’s been ten minutes.”
He tried to lift his head, but barely had the energy.
“I saw…”
“What?”
“Behind the hood.”
“What hood? Whose?”
He struggled to rise. Shook off her restraining hand. Got to his knees. “No, we won’t be able to warn them by conventional means. They’re already in the pyramid.”
“What? Who?”
“Our team.” He took her shoulders, stared at her with loss and absolute terror. “It’s all for nothing unless I can warn them before he gets the gem.”
“Before who gets it?”
“I saw behind the hood,” Xavier mumbled. “That little shit…”
“What?”
He got himself into a cross-legged position. “I don’t know if I have the strength for much when I project there — or if I even can get myself there, but I have to try. Maybe just a few words, one maybe would be enough, if I can make them understand.”
He thought for a moment while breathing deeply, calming himself, preparing to separate his soul again and send it on one last, desperate and all-important flight.