To Overthrow the Guardians

Chapter 7: What They Didn't Know

Matt watched Fiona's face lose color as she sat in the desk chair in front of him and Haven. Whisper was still watching, pressing herself into the corner like she was trying to become one with the wall, her eyes glistening with tears. Matt had told Fiona about Mallory stealing her map when they began, but she had apparently lost her agitation since hearing about it. "Say that again?" she said.

"That we think the whole Indicator thing might have to do with time travel, but we don't know of anything that could do that?" Matt repeated.

Fiona took a shaky breath, her blue-tipped black braid moving up and down. "I've...actually been working on a time travel device. I thought I could stop Mallory from having voices in his head if I just went back and protected him from Pitch."

"I thought you were working on a sentinel," Haven said.

Fiona shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "I was. I finished it a week ago. But when Mallory's voices started getting worse, I had an idea... I didn't want to tell you all at first because I thought you would have doubts. I wanted to wait until I had something that could actually do something."

"Bunny would stop you from messing with the past," Haven said. "In the books, he did it to someone."

"He's different now," Fiona said. "I thought that since he's changed since then, he might not have the ability to do it anymore. Or at least not try to stop it. But I wasn't going to do anything bad that would cause two times to exist at once, I promise!" She narrowed her green eyes and crossed her arms. "I usually don't make mistakes with these kinds of things. I know what I'm doing."

"We're not doubting your intelligence, Fiona..." Haven said.

"But the device needs to be destroyed," Matt said. "Or 'both times will fall,' whatever that means. Can't be anything good."

"I think it's fine," Whisper said. "The Indicator means nothing, as I've told you. Fiona, you can keep working on it. The Indicator is not a Monitor, so it holds no value."

A grin crept back into Fiona's face.

"I still think we should take necessary precautions," Matt said. "No more working on time travel."

"But it could solve one of our main problems!" Fiona said. "We could stop Mallory from being corrupted, and we'd have a friend and worker back! We wouldn't have to worry about him anymore and could put him back where he belongs!" Whisper immediately perked up, letting her arms relax to her sides.

"We need you to work on a cure!" Matt said. "Haven, Whisper, and the other cured people are also becoming corrupted again."

"And we need you to work on the time travel device as well," Whisper said, her eyes less shiny than they had been earlier. "We need to get Mallory back."

"No!" Haven said. "We could...our times could 'fall'!"

"But if we have that time travel device..." Whisper said.

"Whisper, you're not in charge here," Haven said with a surprising amount of force.

"I'm a Prophecy Person. I know more about this kind of thing than all of you do!"

Not in regards to time travel, but Matt held his tongue. Now was not the time for insults. They wouldn't help convince Whisper of his and Haven's point at all but would only make things worse.

"What about us, Whisper?" Haven said. "We need to be cured first."

"How are we more important than Mallory?"

"We're not, we're just...we're just..." Haven didn't have an answer. "I just don't want to hurt people again, okay?" Matt looked over at Haven. Her eyes were wide in presumably fear, and it jabbed at Matt's heart. "Fiona, do you think you could set up the sentinel to protect everyone from Whisper and me?" Poor, poor Haven. So kind that she was still thinking of others as she descended to mad- no, Matt would make sure she was saved before then!

"That, I could do quickly," Fiona replied. "I've actually already made four. The first one might have some defects, but..."

"You've made four already?" Matt asked.

"Yeah, I like jumping from project to project, so I made a few extras while working on the time travel device. Which I'm continuing to work on, by the way."

"Set them up to be wary of Mallory as well," Matt said.

"And you need to work on a cure after you set them up!" Haven said.

"Whisper says that it's fine to work on the time travel device," Fiona said. "I could save you too, Haven. I could go back and stop you from becoming a Fearling. I could make sure you still met Mallory and Whisper and got your money, but I could stop you from going completely Fearling." That shut Matt's wife up.

"Fine," Haven then said.

"But if something still goes wrong with the whole Indicator thing, we're blaming you," Matt told Fiona. But still, how could time travel make two times exist at once?

It was the only lead they had, but it didn't make complete sense, either.

*/*/*/*

Beth stared at the brunette in front of her in one of the front corners of the training room near the treadmills. Irene and Graham stood at Beth's sides. "You don't get it, do you?" Beth said. "We can't overthrow the Guardians. They'll die from the lack of belief."

"And you don't get it either," the woman, whom Beth didn't know the name of, said. "If we don't take down the Guardians, we'll die."

"But I'm not gonna be responsible for their losing their lives," Beth said. "I'm not gonna help plan to overthrow them. They're people, too."

"She's right," Graham said. He had told Beth what Bennett did with him earlier, and what he and the others said about Beth and Irene, but it didn't help anything. "We have to come to some sort of compromise."

"Compromise? Any sort of compromise is gonna result in death," the woman said.

"The Sloans'll come up with a plan," Beth said. "We just have to wait."

"Plans don't get made by waiting. They get made by doing something. Like overthrowing the Guardians. The Sloans' 'plan' might be to shut us down."

"If you try, you're gonna have us working against you," Beth spat. Couldn't this idiot see her point? No, Beth had to calm her anger. "Look, my dad's an ER doctor. He's been there when some people died, and it left an effe-"

"And you have to hurt the Guardians now, or we'll die," the woman said.

"No. And that's final. I'm gonna tell the Sloans about you guys, and they're not gonna be happy."

"You think that's gonna stop us? We're fighting for our lives here, Howard. We're not gonna stop just because they tell us to." The woman stormed off. A few people working out cast glances at them.

"What are we gonna do?" Irene asked.

"I don't know. I'm gonna tell the Sloans about this, and hopefully they'll put an end to it," Beth replied.

"I'm sorry, but I don't think that's gonna work," Graham said. "Look at how desperate everyone's behaving. We'll have to do something else."

"Some people will stand with us," Beth said. There had to be others who would agree with them. Hopefully, word about the Guardians' lives being in danger would spread around.

"But how many?" Irene asked. "If I wasn't your friend, I would probably stand with them. I wouldn't like it, but I would think that it's the only way to protect myself."

Beth frowned. "I don't know how many people will be on our side. Hopefully, we can keep those who disagree with us from doing anything until the Sloans come up with a solution."

"If they come up with one," Irene whispered.

"They will," Beth said. "I'll help them. There has to be some way we can get out of this."