Three hours later, her bladder woke her.
“Hey you, how are you feeling?”
Meg looked up and into the light hazel eyes of Gideon.
“A little better thanks, but I need to use the restroom.”
“I’d better help you,” he said, unbuckling his belt and hers.
“I can do it myself!” Meg squeaked, embarrassed.
“I know you can, but we need to keep up appearances,” he nodded toward the flight attendant talking to a passenger a few seats behind them.
Meg scowled, but nodded remembering the wheelchair that brought her to the plane.
“Gideon?”
“Yeah?”
“Just checking,” Meg said softly.
“Weird,” he smiled and leaned down to lift her easily. As first class passengers, they were seated in the front of the plane near the restrooms. He carried her to the tiny door and set her carefully back on her legs. She watched his face, trying to remember her dream. He was definitely in it. She saw him flinch as he opened the door reading “vacant” and glanced back at Gideon as he leaned against the wall.
“You okay?” she asked in a whisper.
Gideon held up his bandaged hand. “You don’t have rabies, do you?”
Meg blushed. “I’m not sure I owe you an apology about that. You were holding me down. I don’t handle being restrained very well.”
He nodded to the bathroom. “I’ll be right here,” he said with a smirk.
“Great,” she sighed.
Five minutes later, they were back in their seats.
“I need to talk with you.”
“I figured as much.”
“What was Williams doing with me all these months?”
“You have no memories at all?”
Meg closed her eyes and tried to think again, only finding blackness where memories should be. “The last thing I remember is getting into an argument with my family in a motel room then going for a run. The next thing I remember is waking in the chateau connected to all those monitors and machines.”
“I don’t remember a lot of things, too.” Gideon stared at a small fray in the leather armrest of his seat.
“What do you mean?” Meg asked, too curious about his multiple personalities not to allow the change of subject.
“I mean parts of days are completely lost on me.”
“You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
Gideon’s whole body shuddered violently.
When he looked up, his face looked as different as his eye color. “You’re going to have to stop now, Naya.” For the first time, Meg realized Sirus’ voice was deeper than Gideon’s.
“Sirus, don’t you think he deserves to know the truth? That it’s not normal to lose time as he does. Heck, he doesn’t even take what happened to me seriously because he’s so desensitized to losing chunks of his life.”
“I follow orders. I make the others follow orders. If anyone deviates from the plan, it is my job to put it right.” Sirus crossed his thick arms and stared at Meg angrily.
“What happens if someone gets out of line?”
“I stop them before that happens,” he narrowed his black eyes.
“But hypothetically, what if someone deviates from the plan?”
“They are punished.”
“How?”
“They’ll be reminded of the training we went through. We will experience extremely painful body memories. We were created for a purpose. We must obey our controller or suffer. That’s the way of it, Naya. You may as well get used to it and stop trying to talk Gideon into something he’ll never be able to do.”
“And what’s that?”
“Take over, of course.”
“Take over?”
“The system. He isn’t strong enough to rule us all. That’s why I’m here. I decide what information goes to whom and when.”
“Is that why you came out now?”
“Gideon pushed me forward just now, Naya. He doesn’t want to know what you were going to tell him. He can’t handle it—shouldn’t have to. Like I said, that is my job.”
Meg sighed deeply, “You have to appreciate how difficult this is for me to understand.”
“Your mind isn’t as flexible as ours.”
“That’s not flexibility, Sirus. That’s shattered.”
“Call it what you want. It is all we know.”
“Who made you this way?”
“That is not your concern.”
“Okay, then why are you the way you are?”
“Gideon handles the simple day-to-day tasks, and I handle controller’s orders.”
“So your ‘controller’ made you this way?” Meg was rubbing her temples. “That would be Arkdone?”
“Stop trying to make sense of us. We just are.” Sirus caught the waitress on her way past and ordered a soda for himself and Meg.
“Would you mind telling me where we’re going?”
“Kentucky.”
“What’s in Kentucky?”
“Senator Arkdone, of course.”
“What does he want with me?” Meg’s eyes were wide with a newfound fear of the Senator also known as “controller” to the man (men?) beside her.