There is no time, The Advisor said.

He remembered that Bryan was downstairs, about to be killed by Smith or Harold.  He  knew he had to get Jess downstairs, had to help Bryan.  But he also had to know, had to have some hint as to why he'd been dragged into all of this, why he'd killed so many and saved others.

If the voices wouldn't tell him, he'd have to find it another way.  Earlier, when he'd pressed them for information and just moments ago before they had shown Jess the vision, there had been the wave of information and knowledge that had been painful to experience.  There had to be answers in there somewhere.

William turned away from the voices and brought the experience to mind.  He thought back from Jessica's vision to the message that more were coming and into the painful mass of information.  He closed his eyes tight as it built into a pressure all through his skull.

As soon as it started, it was over.  William opened his eyes and looked around.  He was standing in the white room, the same one in the institution from his memories of Jessica giving him that first dose of medication.

The fog was gone, but the voices stood around him, different than they had been before.  Their bodies were clear, sharper and without the heightened outlines that he was used to.  They looked human.

"Hello, William," The Advisor said.  "This is a good way to communicate.  Much quicker."

He looked at the three again, thought of Bryan downstairs.  "Quicker?"

"Are you in pain?" The Caretaker asked.

He flexed his elbow, looked down at his calf.  Everything, even the sense of hunger he'd felt all day was gone.  "This isn't physical."

The Advisor nodded.  "You are thinking through this.  In a way."

William thought about it a moment.  Was this how he could access all of that information, through the voices?  "I'm in that wave of information, aren't I?"

"Your mind is," The Advisor said.

"But I still see the three of you."

"This is the easiest way for you," The Caretaker said.  "More direct communication is painful for you at this point."

He remembered the pain from being hit with that much information, but didn't feel it. 

"And seeing us this way is something you can understand," The Advisor said.

Suddenly, that was clearer too.  The voices were really one voice, one consciousness that his mind translated into understandable shapes.  And now, in this mental space, they were clearer than ever.  Maybe they would finally give him answers like this.  "So tell me.  Why?"

The Hunter actually smiled at William as he shook his head.  The other two simply stared back.  But this time the frustration didn't rise.  He realized he was disconnected from the physical reactions of his body.  He looked back at the voices.  "Wrong question."

"One you already learned the answer to," The Advisor said.

The young woman from the diner, the boy that had saved him, then Jess, even Harold in his own way.  They were all changing, becoming something different.  There were more like him coming, and Jess was central to it.  Without either of them knowing it, Jessica was like William, she had an ability to perceive and change things that others didn't.  She had denied it to the point that it only worked subconsciously, but it was there, and it was something the voices thought necessary.  The whole time he had known her, she had closed herself off to anything like this, to anything she thought was broken.  The voices had needed her vulnerable so she would actually listen.

The voices were right.  That wasn't the right question.  It wasn't what he really needed to understand.

"I wasn't in her vision.  I've met others who are changing.  The woman I saw in the diner wasn't in the vision either.  Why not?" he asked.

"They will need a protector," The Hunter said.

The fighting.  It was nearly all that William had done since he had escaped.  He was protecting the others on a physical level.  That meant Jess was supposed to protect them some other way?  Mentally?  Spiritually?  She had seemed like a teacher in the vision, but it was much more than that.  He felt more of the wave of information taking shape in his understanding.

None of the new ones would survive without her.  And there was more.

He looked at each of the voices.  "You won't survive either," he said.

They nodded together.  "The change must happen now," The Advisor said.  “To all of them, and you.”  He pointed down to William’s leg.

He followed it and thought of what he had learned only moments ago, how to move his awareness down to those smaller levels and begin to heal the wound.  He had realized then how the connection between himself and the voices really worked.  In all his years with them, he hadn't understood what they really were until then.  He hadn't understood it until they had beaten him down near to death, and not until he'd been close enough to Jess to have her help.  Her presence, even from down the hall, had enabled him to grow and to realize what the voices really were.

They were something bigger.  Some larger system or entity of which he was only a component.  He was part of them.  The other people who were changing must be part of them as well.  It was like being part of a bigger body, a thought in a larger mind.  He had been something that they had used to their own ends without any thought to his wishes or needs.  They had pushed him where they had needed him to be.  And like a muscle cell that had to be torn apart to make way for new growth, William had been pushed beyond what he had thought possible.  "I was like Jessica.  You had to tear me down as well."

"Part of you needed to be out of the way," The Hunter said.

They were right, William knew that.  He had been so concerned with his own desires and suffering that he hadn't seen any of what was really going on.  He had put himself at the center, even when he thought he was there for Jess.  But he wasn't the center of anything.  He was a link in a chain: a vital link, but not one that the others revolved around.

And now he could choose which part of himself to identify with.  He had moved his consciousness down within his own body and into a mind larger than his own.  The voices had shown him that, as they'd shown Jess what she needed to do.

"I thought I was protecting her."  Even though he was disconnected from his body, he felt a mental weariness at the thought.  They had misled him, or allowed him to mislead himself throughout the ordeal.

"Motivations are different from consequences.  Your friend downstairs understands that," The Advisor said.

"And now you do have to protect her," The Hunter said.  "Just as you always thought."

William turned to him and the vision of the white room melted away.  The fog was thick around him and in the window it created in the floor, he saw Smith and Harold moving closer to Bryan.

Beside him, The Hunter pointed.  They are about to kill him.

And the others are here, The Advisor said.  The window swept up to the opposite corner of the room and William saw a crowd of men with guns rush into the downstairs door.  At a motion from Smith, they started up the stairs.

*

(Author’s note:  Uh oh!  How on earth can William deal with a crowd of gunmen while protecting Jess?  And Bryan is about to be killed?  How do you think they can get out of it?  All I can tell you is that this is going to be worse than anything William has faced yet…much worse.  Thanks for the votes and comments!  Please tell your friends about Schism and check out http://hopebooksllc.com/buy to see how you can get an autographed, personalized copy of Schism!)