As he spoke, I wondered how I could reply, but then realized that I felt the familiar feeling of being in the in-between space I’d used to take lessons from Kee.

I thought back, “I’d been wondering where you were. I was told you’d returned to Earth after working with Kee for a while, but I hadn’t seen you.”

“Yeah, well. I solved a small mystery I’d been worrying about, but that meant visiting this place and now I can’t get out. How long has it been for you?”

I thought back to what Dayton had said. They’d ridden back with Lee, “Since you came back to Earth? Three months or so.”

“Really?” Lee paused, “That could be a lot worse. This place exists outside time to a degree. So anyone who’s ever visited is still kind of here. Most of the time you exit at almost the same time you got in, though I can exit more or less when I want to provided it’s later than I came in. At least most of the time. Right now I can’t leave at all.”

I thought about it, “If you can leave in the future, can you check ahead for when you’ll next be able to?”

Lee laughed, “Not a bad idea, but that’s not how it works. The pocket universe is connected to the galaxy core device and right now someone has control of the first layer—which I’d need to control if I wanted to leave. Whoever it is, it’s one of you. If it were one of us, I’d be fighting for my life already.”

“Magnus,” I said.

A whiff of irritation came through the connection, “That guy? I’ve thought about killing him a couple of different times in the past thousand years. I guess I should’ve.”

“Maybe,” I said, “what can he do with the first layer? From what I’ve seen, he can create a global field. Rachel felt the hum as she reentered.”

Silence came from the other end, but I could feel Lee’s presence. After a time he said, “It’s hard to say. He can’t get full control of the first layer without coming in here and taking control of the second and third. And then he’d be facing me plus a few additional surprises.”

He paused again, “Well unless he recovered something from the Abominators that would allow him to get around that. They got around a few things Destroy didn’t expect they’d get around. We almost decided to destroy them despite how much of a success they were overall. Kee persuaded us not to… That looks different in hindsight. Anyway, on a purely human level, a lot. The Abominators put enough of our tech into you that he should be able to use it directly for fighting—though that won’t put him on the level of one of us.

“He’ll be a challenge for one of you though. Worse, he might be able to fix himself.”

I closed my eyes as a wave of fear passed through me.

Rachel looked over at me, “Is something wrong?”

“Lee’s one of the voices. He’s trapped. We’re talking.”

I tried to think of anything else I could add that wouldn’t start a second conversation to pay attention to.

Turning away from the door Marcus said, “Lee’s trapped? Does he need us to get him out?”

Seeing an exit, I said, “Yes. We’re discussing that.”

Eyeing Marcus, Jaclyn said, “Don’t let us distract you then.”

“Fix himself?” I thought back at Lee.

“Magnus became annoying,” Lee said. “He united the Dominators. He couldn’t do exactly what they can—tell people to do something or force them to accept some fact is true. He can’t fully control it, but people around him start to believe things that benefit him. He can’t tell people what to do, but given time he gathers people around himself. Even the people that don’t like him start to believe it’s impossible to stop him.”

The first time we’d talked, Magnus mentioned that he used to have powered people around him, “How is it that he doesn’t rule the world?”

“Heh,” Lee snorted, “you know the line about not being able to fool all of the people all of the time? Someone noticed his ability a while back and burned it out. I was barely involved at all. If I had been, I’d have killed him. After that, he wasn’t a threat. Sure, he was still involved with the Cabal, but he couldn’t do as much. He’s immune to the Dominators’ influence as a side effect, but that’s less of a problem.”

I felt his sigh rather than heard it, “Unfortunately, there are still embers of his ability left, just enough to affect maybe one person at a time and not much. With the device’s strength behind him, it’s going to be worse. If he taps it, he can power up himself and his followers—permanently. I’ve done it a few times myself.”