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daydreams into any subject’s mind. Those untraceable commands could then be remotely triggered, inducing behavior—from forcing someone to wear a color they hated to compelling her to bring a gun into a crowded mall and open fire. The subject would be completely powerless to stop her programming and would have no memory of its source.
    His contact’s rhetoric about protecting innocents was a cover for the center’s real objective—long-range weaponry, where any mind, anywhere, could become a government-targeted time bomb. And with the Temples fully under center control, the government would have secured an unstoppable mechanism for breaching other legacies like theirs. Other legacies that had just been exposed.
    For the safety of humanity, Sarah’s and Madeline’s and Trinity’s minds had to be silenced for good.
    “Just make sure,” his contact instructed, “your councilallows Sarah Temple to continue her dream work. It’s time for you to earn your keep. Make it happen.”
    “Then my advice is to solidify the link between Sarah’s consciousness and Trinity’s as soon as possible. Metting’s going to be on a short leash. Even if the elders agree to risk another episode like today, their patience will be at the breaking point.”
    “As I said,” the voice agreed, “everything is proceeding exactly as planned.”

C HAPTER N INE
     
    “I felt something in Sarah’s dream,” Richard said to his second-in-command. He and Jeff had just arrived at the Brotherhood’s secure surveillance location in the woods surrounding the center’s main complex. It was less than an hour since Sarah’s dream, and Richard’s system was still battling the toxic aftereffects of the projection. “Something organized. Planned. It was the same consciousness that was trying to trap her in the dream. whatever it was, it’s not here.”
    A mile to their left, a stretch of Massachusetts highway was a daily conduit for suburban commuters who spent a quarter of their waking life driving to and from Boston. But the center’s ten-year-old facility had been constructed at the heart of a thousand acres of government-owned property that was kept under constant surveillance.
    Jeff’s finger went to the communicator clipped around his ear, adjusting his reception of the intel streaming from the bunker’s command center.
    “Are you saying you sensed the source of our leak in the nightmare?” he asked.
    “It wasn’t looking for Brotherhood intel,” Richardanswered. “It wanted Sarah, and it wasn’t happy when Madeline and I showed up to get her out.”
    “You completely sure?”
    Richard sighed. Being completely sure of anything could get a warrior killed.
    “You should have let me deal with her,” Jeff said. “Seeing Sarah’s hands around your neck was enough to convince me that she’s a risk we can’t continue to take.”
    “How would that have benefited the Brotherhood? Her mind is our only connection to whatever the center may be using Dream Weaver to do.” Richard stared at the complex through the leafless oaks, silently willing the building he’d infiltrated a year ago to reveal its secrets.
    “You didn’t win yourself any points with the council. You should have alerted them as soon as her rogue dream started.”
    Richard kept his mind tuned to the forest’s energy and to his faint connection to Sarah. “I’ve given them even more reason to question my loyalty to my oath.”
    “Should they question it?”
    “No.”
    He’d proven his allegiance to his Brotherhood long ago. When he’d had to choose between following his parents’ misguided use of his gifts or helping stop them. His fight for Sarah’s chance to embrace her legacy didn’t change his commitment to the path he’d chosen on that fateful night.
    “You have our reports.” Mike Donovan, the surveillance team’s lead, approached from Richard’s other side. “Nothing’s been missed here.”
    “Your intel is in order.” Richard refocused on