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“Don’t call me queen!” Lucienne said. “Ash, I’ll treat you as a friend. You saved my life. I’ll not hurt you; not the way you imagine. But we need to decode the data inside you, so that we can learn more about the Eye of Time. Don’t you want to solve the puzzle?”

“That’s exactly what the TimeDust wants us to do.” Ashburn gritted his teeth. “If we open the door to the dark side, we’ll become part of it. We’ll walk down the path of destruction that has been paved for both of us.”

“What if it’s the door to enlightenment?

” Lucienne’s eyes sparkled brightly, and in her enthusiasm, she let down her defences against the lure.

She crossed the room and sat on the edge of Ashburn’s bed.

“We could lead the human race into the age of quantum evolution.” Her rich voice was full of passion and hope. “That is what we’d do, together. ”

Ashburn removed his hands from behind his head and sat up, facing Lucienne. His eyes swayed between shades of silver and grey as he gazed into her rich brown eyes.

Lucienne could hear her heart stuttering. Her body heated, responding to Ashburn’s desires. She warned herself to move away from this dangerously beautiful boy, but her body rebelled and stayed.

“You don’t understand,” Ashburn said, his eyes locking on hers.

“I am programmed for evil. I felt its menace when I activated the Eye of Time, so I broke free before it could upload all of its data into me. Seraphen said it’d happened before, and it caused the flood that almost wiped out all humankind.

Now it has started again, with us—you and me.

If we go with the TimeDust, we’ll cause the apocalypse.

It would be worse than the flood. Seraphen isn’t the bad guy here.

He is doing whatever it takes to preserve the human race.

I can’t undo what the Eye of Time did to me, but I can resist the TimeDust in me, so the world will be safe from us. ”

“Knowledge is never evil.” Lucienne reached out and laid her hand on Ashburn’s.

“Our hearts decide the course. We can build a new world, with ancient knowledge at our disposal. Seraphen is wrong. Even he admitted parts of his memories were damaged. How do we know they weren’t twisted or altered?

You saw how crazy he was when he tried to kill me, and he still wants to murder me, though I’ve done nothing to deserve it. ”

Ashburn looked at Lucienne’s hand curving around his.

“It isn’t just Seraphen. When the Eye of Time transmitted the data to me, a subprogram that was secretly built inside the mainframe and hidden from the Eye also reached me.

The subprogram opposes the TimeDust, and it’s been trying to get in touch with me to unveil the truth.

It also warned me to stay away from you, but I’m not doing too well listening to that counsel. ”

“Ash,” Lucienne whispered, “I’m on your side. It isn’t our fault we’re connected, and it doesn’t mean we have to serve that dreadful purpose. We can fight it, together.”

“We can’t fight it. It wants us to be together, but if we are, we’ll lose the battle.

We wouldn’t succeed in building a new world; we’d destroy it.

I don’t know how or why, but I’ve sensed a terrible fate lurking ahead.

” Ashburn extracted his hand from under Lucienne’s and put his head in his hands.

“It’s already begun, Lucienne. I can no longer fight whatever it is that draws me to you. It hurts so much!”

“Listen, Ash.” Lucienne caught his cool hands, pressing them between her warm ones. “I’m a warrior. I promise you we’ll not go down—”

“You still don’t understand what lies ahead.” Ashburn pulled his hands out again and pressed them firmly against Lucienne’s cheeks.

“Ashburn, what are we doing?” Lucienne tried to pull away. Her soft voice and light touch were meant to persuade him to go along with her plan, not to lead him on.

Just then a bolt of black lightning exploded in her mind. Lucienne cried out in shock, but the dark lightning didn’t burn her. It opened a channel, a tapestry of images flowing like an electrical current in front of her. Lucienne was experiencing what Ashburn had gone through—

Ashburn entered the terrain of Hell Gate on his wheelchair. Thick fog and howling winds traveled over the wilderness. Ashburn switched on a light bar, but its light couldn’t penetrate the mist. An eerie noise clicked on and off around him.

Lucienne felt unmistakable viciousness from the place.

“Who’s there?” Ashburn’s voice quavered. “Don’t get any closer! I have weapons.”

Something that sounded like sharp metal closed in on him, then the fog lifted. A silvery gate materialized, rising high into the sky. A hollow, metallic noise echoed from the gate. Strange symbols, numbers, and alien characters flashed on it—the same symbols Lucienne had seen in the Eye of Time.

Ashburn veered his chair around the gate, reading the streaming numbers and symbols in amazement. After a while, he seemed to awaken from a trance. His face sank. “Violet!” he shouted, veering his wheelchair away from the gate.

“Wait!” a voice called. Lucienne recognized the voice of the Eye of Time.

An intense light blinded Ashburn, and Lucienne blinked.

A metallic eye blazed on the gate at Ashburn’s eye level. “I am the Eye of Time. I am Xρ?νο?. I am beyond time and space,” it said. “I am a species of the highest intelligence. I am the first and the last.”

“If you say so,” Ashburn said with a shrug.

Nothing impresses this kid, Lucienne thought.

“Where are you from?” Ashburn asked politely.

A chart of an unknown star system twirled inside the dark mirror of the Eye. Ashburn leaned forward to study the chart, but jerked back as a wave of light surged toward him. The expanding band of light transformed into a holographic chart of stars.

Lucienne widened her eyes. The star chart consisted of part of what she saw on the forehead of the image on the Rabbit Hole’s pillar.

“So you’re from far away.” Ashburn sounded a little stupid.

The holofield vanished. “I have been waiting for you for millions of years,” the Eye of Time said.

“But I’m only seventeen,” said Ashburn.

“I searched generation after generation to find you. I tested you when you were still in your mother’s womb,” said the Eye.

“Now I understand why everyone is afraid of this place,” murmured Ashburn. “But on second thought, if you’re so smart, do you know who built the Ghost House and Nirvana? And where’s the path to the outside world? ”

“They are your playground. They were built for you millions of years ago, to prepare you,” the Eye said.

“To prepare me for what?” Ashburn asked sharply. “I’m not just some little pig you prepare for a fine meal!”

“For a great purpose. Activate me,” the Eye urged, “and the knowledge of the universe will open to you.”

“So I’ll know everything?” Ashburn sounded more motivated.

“Yesss.” the Eye let out a shrill cry. “Free me now. I will wait no longer.”

Ashburn was taken aback by its desperation.

“I’ll have to think about this. I don’t like to rush into decisions,” he said, steering his wheelchair away from the gate.

But an unseen force drew his chair back.

Ashburn punched the button on the arm of his chair, but his chair kept moving toward the Eye.

Ashburn grabbed a wand from his wheelchair and fired at the Eye, but nothing shot out of the weapon.

“No weapon can harm me,” said the Eye.

Ashburn tried again to steer his chair away, but it was glued to the ground. “No matter what you do, crazy Eye, I will not free you.” Ashburn’s face reddened with anger and humiliation.

The Eye exhaled sinisterly. “I need your free will to begin. It is one of the rules I have to follow.”

“Believe me, you’re not getting it. Now let me go!”

“You came for a human girl, even though you knew it was a trap,” the Eye of Time said. “I know where she is.” Violet’s image and her agonized cry appeared on a hologram before Ashburn.

“Where is she?” Ashburn’s voice cracked, his fists clenched. “Is she safe?”

“If you want to save the girl, you must activate me.” The Eye paused for a compelling effect. “You are running out of time, Ashburn Fury.”

Lucienne instantly knew that was the Eye’s manipulation. Ashburn, however, took the bait. “How do I activate you?” he asked.

“I need the code. ”

“What code? I don’t have it.”

“You’re the code. It’s in your DNA.”

“What? What is it?”

“Touch me. My data will recognize the code encrypted in your DNA.”

“You’re talking nonsense.”

“After you touch me, you will know. You will have infinite knowledge. Do it now. We do not have a minute to lose,” the Eye pressed. “The girl is in mortal danger. Prince Felix will murder her to get you.”

Staring into the Eye’s hypnotic depths, Ashburn flinched, sensing great evil again. But Violet’s safety outweighed any danger to himself and the whole world. Despite a wave of terror washing over him, Ashburn stretched his hand and touched the Eye of Time.

Lucienne gasped as a firestorm appeared, a vortex encircling Ashburn and the Eye, guarding the being and imprisoning the human boy. A skeletal bolt of lightning erupted from the Eye and pierced Ashburn.

Lucienne felt the burning sensation sear through her veins just as Ashburn must have felt it.

With a cry, Ashburn struggled to yank away, but he was bound to the force.

Ancient, alien music, a mix of inhuman whispers and mechanical noises, blasted inside Ashburn’s head.

While he tried to exorcize the horrible sounds with shouts and punches in the air, millions of human voices speaking in different languages joined the invasion, forcing their way into the front of his skull.

The cacophony echoed relentlessly in his ears.

Ashburn cursed the Eye and begged it to turn off the sounds.