Retrospective

 

 

Dyna watched over Doctor Cross’ shoulder, not at all sure what she was looking at. A machine of some kind. The main body had three parts, all made from shiny silvery metal. A spherical chamber with several jutting canisters, a cylinder lit by a dozen bright green lasers shining into it, and a long narrow pipe connecting the two parts together. Cables, pipes, tubes, wires, and all manner of other dangling parts hung off the machine from nearly every point.

Dyna wasn’t sure what the day’s tests would bring for her. She had just arrived, waved in by Doctor Cross. This experiment had already been underway. The object being analyzed in the machine…

Felt familiar, somehow.

It was a circular disc, floating in the spherical chamber. Dyna wasn’t sure how it was floating or if there were just thin wires that she couldn’t see on the video feed. The disc slowly rotated. One side was fairly smooth, the other was covered in intricate carvings. Aztec, probably, or some other Mesoamerican artwork. Probably just a copy, though. Dyna’s mother used to have a replica Aztec calendar that looked fairly similar. Something she picked up from a street vendor during a trip to Mexico.

“Our most recently acquired artifact,” Harold said, walking over to Dyna with a small tablet in hand. “We are taking measurements of the psionic energy it releases in the hopes of determining what themes it might possess. And whether it is safe for general handling.”

“Are they… usually dangerous? Whenever you guys take it, people always handle my mirror while wearing those shiny silver suits. It’s safe to have here, isn’t it?”

“Psionic energy is somewhat like electromagnetic energy in that it is radiant and comes in several varieties across a spectrum. Some of that spectrum is like visible light where it is mostly harmless. Other parts are… less harmless, more akin to ultraviolet or gamma radiation. The suits, however, are a required protocol. Not just to protect the wearers, but to ensure that their own passive psionic emissions don’t cause any complications. We don’t want accidental binding of artifacts.”

“So… am I or am I not walking around leaking psychic radiation everywhere.”

“No. We wouldn’t have let you out of the facility if you were. The binding event has an odd effect on artifact emissions in that your own psionic emissions essentially cancel it out.”

“Oh. Good.”

“And,” Harold said, “for the record, we have never encountered a psychic that emits harmful psionic energy. That seems to be a trait of artifacts alone.”

That was also good. It seemed like it would be a pretty bad idea to bring a whole bunch of radioactive people together in one place. It seemed like it would just amplify the emissions. Though perhaps that was one reason why Psychodynamics was out in the middle of nowhere, several miles from the nearest city.

“What did you mean by themes?” Dyna asked.

Harold opened his mouth, but Doctor Cross beat him to actually speaking.

“Themes,” he said in his Eastern European accent, “are far more intricate than…” Cross trailed off, glancing behind him to look at Harold. “Than my research associate’s crude depiction of psionic emissions warrants.”

Harold shot Cross an absolutely nasty look. “It’s Harold. Harold. Or Porter.”

“Yes. Harold,” Cross said, turning back to a series of graphs. “And themes—”

“And she’s asking for a layman’s definition. Not a doctoral thesis.”

Letting out a small grunt, Cross started speaking again. “Themes are a marriage between intuition and science. The pure energy can only tell us so much. One must also take the object into consideration when determining the theme of an artifact. Your compact mirror, for example, should emit psionic energy that we can detect, but we can use its image as an espionage tool of observation to determine the themes of stealthy voyeurism.”

Harold shook his head with a frown. “Please don’t call it voyeurism. I’ve already submitted a revision of Dyna’s artifact report to use observation. Please approve it already.”

“Yes, yes,” Cross said, waving a hand. “But you see, I can also explain complex matters to a child.”

Dyna, a bit irritated, almost complained about being called a child. A look from Harold and another shake of his head told her that it would be entirely fruitless.

“As for this,” Cross continued, looking back at the video feed from inside the machine, “it is an Aztec calendar. Not a Mayan calendar, which entered into the collective zeitgeist over a decade ago as a portent of apocalypse, but I doubt the average individual would be able to distinguish the differences between the two. This artifact may be… dangerous.”

That ominous statement had an effect on the room. Everyone sort of stilled. Nobody had been talking, and yet it sounded like someone hit the mute button for the room, somehow going even quieter than mere silence. Cross just stared at the monitor. Harold had an intrigued look on his face.

Dyna shuddered, decided she was perfectly happy having a mirror and not a portent of apocalypse, and tried to not look too uncomfortable being in the same room as it.

“Well,” she said eventually, feeling a primal need to break the silence, “what plans did you have for me today?”

“You?”

“Yeah. Tests or…”

Something about Doctor Cross’ face caused a sinking sensation in Dyna’s heart.

Dyna didn’t think she was an idiot. She could observe, notice mannerisms, and recognize patterns. The patterns she saw now were familiar. She could feel the frustration coming from Doctor Cross and even his technicians. Not at this exact moment, but just in general when they interacted with her. It was the same frustration that Dyna had seen among the researchers outside Psychodynamics.

The frustration that had led to Dyna feeling overall neglected in comparison to the other psychics of the institute.

It was happening again. She had been invited to the Carroll Institute, told that she would do well as a psychic… only to wind up a talentless effective control subject. Now she had been brought down to Psychodynamics, told that she required a little help to be special… and she had yet to actually utilize the artifact outside her first day with it.

Tests came up negative or inconclusive. Even what Cross had just said about her artifact was evidence of that. He said that the mirror should emit psionic energy, not that it did.

Doubt crept through Dyna’s mind. She wasn’t quite sure when it had started, that niggling feeling that she was once again spiraling into irrelevancy and failure, but now that it had taken hold, she couldn’t shake it. Maybe it had always been there. Dyna would be the first to admit that her self-confidence wasn’t exactly the best. Maybe it had come from Walter and his comment about her artifact being a fake. She hadn’t paid much attention at the time and had practically forgotten about it—it had seemed so absurd given that she saw the mirror working in her own hands—but now, she had to wonder if he hadn’t been right.

The terminal in front of Doctor Cross beeped. Cross didn’t react or even move for a long minute. The lasers shining onto the machine behind the pane of psionically shielded glass faded as the whirring of machinery quieted. A cloud of white gas burst from a valve connected to the machine, which Dyna assumed was supposed to happen given that nobody else in the room panicked. Cross still didn’t react.

The doctor kept his eyes on the terminal in front of him. Or, more specifically, the graph. Dyna wasn’t sure what the graph had been measuring, only that it hadn’t measured much of it. While the test had been in progress, a line had slowly made its way from the left side of the screen to the right. Occasionally, it made tiny little jumps in height. Compared to the overall size of the graph, those little bumps were completely negligible.

Once again, that doubt swirled around in the back of Dyna’s mind.

“Doctor Cross?” Dyna said, keeping her voice soft. “Was there something you needed me to do today?”

Cross let out a long sigh. He reached up and fiddled with his rectangular glasses. Probably just a motion to buy him a moment to think given that they ended up in the same spot they had started with. “No,” he said slowly. “I have neglected testing this artifact. I meant to send you a message, but it must have slipped my mind.” Turning, he pointed toward one of the technicians. “You there, have the psionic spectrometer nulled and prepared again. And you, have them bring up oh-one-four-two from the Vault for calibration testing.”

“Yes, Doctor Cross.”

“You don’t think these readings are accurate?” Harold asked, looking down at his own tablet.

“Nothing Emerald or Ruby stated in their report would indicate that this should have such a high output.”

Harold hummed. He turned to the Aztec disc, staring at it for a long moment.

Cross, however, had other ideas. “Delta,” he started as he turned toward Dyna. He blinked twice, then frowned. “Dyna, apologies. You are free for the rest of the day.”

“Again?”

“Something wrong?”

“I just…” Dyna hunched her shoulders. “I’ve had a lot of free days in the past week. Shouldn’t I be… working? Testing? Trying things?”

Cross stared for a long moment before nodding his head slowly. “If you wish, you may work on your own. The rest of us have other duties. You are not our sole responsibility.”

Dyna turned with a flinch. There are other psychics here who need attention. The words rang clear in her mind. Even the test proctor had used a variation of the phrase to dismiss her. A researcher whose name she couldn’t even remember anymore had shooed her off with those words. That had been around the time she really realized that she wasn’t going to make it as a psychic.

Fingers running over the hard shell of the compact mirror in her pocket, Dyna sighed to herself. “Alright. Should I come back tomorrow?”

“I will have a message sent to your phone with details.”

Dyna forced a smile. “Don’t forget, this time.”

“I have already scheduled it into my calendar.”

“See you later then.”

Dyna kept her smile on her face right up until she heard the door hiss close behind her. Her smile vanished immediately. Pulling out the mirror, she looked over the plain reflection staring back at her.

It was different this time, wasn’t it? The mirror definitely, absolutely, positively did something in her hands. It had showed the perspective of those men chasing after her. It had saved her from… whatever they had intended. She still didn’t know. Nobody had actually told her anything regarding them or their intentions. The latest she had heard was that someone had broken a protocol and wound up sending an unsecured message that had resulted in her identity being leaked. Some careless technician sending a message to their grandmother or something like that. Walter apparently decided that she didn’t need to know.

To have gone through all that only to wind up in the same position she had been in before…

The mirror had done nothing since then.

Dyna stopped abruptly in the middle of the hall as a thought occurred to her.

What if it hadn’t been her or the mirror doing anything?

That would explain everything. Everything. If Dyna wasn’t the key to the compact mirror, that would explain all the failed tests around her. The mirror might not even be special at all, as Walter had mentioned immediately following the incident. Thus explaining why Cross was so frustrated with it and the results of all the tests.

And if it hadn’t been her doing anything, then it had been someone else.

“Beatrice,” Dyna called out to the empty hall. “Are you there?”

A pair of tones echoed down the hallway from a speaker set into the ceiling not far from Dyna. “This is Beatrice.”

“The two men who chased after me the other week… are they in this facility?”

“Access to the requested information is denied. Citation: Insufficient security clearance level.”

“Is Walter around at the moment?”

“Agent Walter is attending a meeting in Washington D.C. He will return Friday morning.”

Dyna adopted a scowl. “Does Doctor Cross have security clearance?”

“Yes.”

Spinning on her heel, Dyna rushed back the way she had come. Her reappearance in the psionic spectrometer control room caused a bit of a ruckus, but Dyna didn’t care. She couldn’t just sit around and watch movies again. There was a limit to how little she could do. And if she could do something on her own, then she definitely was going to do it.

Besides, Ruby tended to ruin every movie with constant chatter about how she would survive any given situation.

“Doctor Cross!”

The man jumped, stumbling as he bumped into the terminal. None of the computers in this room had chairs or benches to trip over, at least. “What!” he barked, spinning to the door.

“You said I should test things on my own just now, right?”

“What?”

“Well, I had an idea that I want to test. I asked Beatrice for help, but she says that I don’t have a high enough security clearance. But you do. Can you help me? Or maybe assign someone to help me if you’re too busy?”

Cross blinked twice, bleary-eyed. “Temper yourself,” he said. “Your tumultuous arrival is trying my patience. Explain clearly what it is you want.”

“I…” Dyna took a deep breath. She didn’t want to say exactly what she wanted. Partially out of fear for what it would mean if she, indeed, wasn’t the catalyst for any of that day’s events, but she still needed help testing out whether or not what she now suspected to be true.

It hadn’t been her or the mirror at all. It had been one of the two men. Like a reverse-clairvoyant, perhaps instead of gathering information from afar, he had somehow projected his perspective onto the mirror. Probably unintentionally, given that it hadn’t worked to their advantage at all. That would explain why she had seen their perspectives, why Walter suggested that the mirror was a fake, and maybe even why she had been able to see their perspectives when Emerald had been in trouble and Dyna had been nowhere nearby.

Still, she needed to get close to them to test that theory.

“I need to see the men who chased after me. Are they here in this facility?”

“Yes…” Cross said, eyes narrowing. “Why?”

“I… I just need to see them. Not to— I don’t want to be in the same room as them, I don’t think. I just want to test something nearby. And I would rather not waste your time explaining my ideas before seeing the outcome. I know you’re busy.”

Cross stared for a long moment before shrugging. “Very well.”

“Really?”

“Why ask if you thought I would deny your request?”

“I… didn’t think it would be that easy.”

“I know what it is like to have ideas stifled. Beatrice, give her whatever she wants.”

Two tones dinged over the speakers before Beatrice spoke. “Your authorization is required. Please check the nearest terminal, Doctor Cross.”

Cross turned around and typed out a few words on the keyboard before pausing and half-turning back to Dyna. “This will take a few minutes. Find Ruby or Emerald. You’ll only have authorization if one of them accompanies you.”

“Okay. Okay!” That was perfect. Emerald was probably still off in the city, but Dyna knew exactly where Ruby would be.

Back at the dormitories, preparing a trap of some kind to test Dyna. Maybe picking out a movie to watch today. Maybe planning some nightmare in the training rooms.

Over the last week, Dyna learned more about guns than she ever thought she would know. And that had only been three of the five days that they had gotten together. The other two days, following a movie, had been weight training exercises in the gym.

“Thank you,” Dyna called out as she left the control room. She didn’t bother walking all the way back to the dormitory. As soon as she got back into the hall, Dyna pulled out her new cell phone, scrolled down to Ruby’s name, and sent off a few quick text messages.

Dyna expected some arguing or complaints. She was, after all, breaking the routine of ambush, movie, then training that they had somehow kept up for the past few days. But she didn’t get a single word of complaint. The moment she mentioned going to see the captured men, Ruby responded with a simple, ‘omw’. Dyna quickly rushed over to the Psychodynamics main lobby to wait for the elevator’s arrival.

It felt like it took forever for Ruby to actually arrive. That was probably just her nerves. Dyna honestly wasn’t sure what she wanted from this. If the mirror changed and showed off the perspective of the captured men, what would that mean for her? At least she would know. Then again, surely she couldn’t be the first to think of this. Doctor Cross had to have already considered and dismissed the possibility. Perhaps she wasn’t treading new ground at all.

Ruby appeared before the doubt could fully set in. The elevator dinged, the doors slid aside, and the little girl stepped out with a butterfly knife spinning around her hand.

Dyna… stared for a moment. Ruby was definitely a tough little girl. Far tougher than she felt most little girls should be. And yet, certain things over the last week stuck out in Dyna’s mind as excessive. This, for example. Dyna would never believe that Ruby just played with knives for fun. It had to be a show. A show for Dyna, to reinforce that tough little girl image that she had going.

Case in point, Ruby stepped up to the bench Dyna sat at, flipped the knife around a few more times, and ended what had to be a practiced routine by slipping the knife into her pocket.

“What are you moping for? We’ve got skulls to crack.”

Dyna opened her mouth, then hesitated. Rather than say anything about the knife, she shook her head and said, “We’re not cracking any skulls. I just need to see them. And maybe let them see me.”

Ruby’s eyes narrowed. “You dragged me all the way down here to gawk at some idiots like we’re going to a zoo?”

“Doctor Cross said you have to come with me. I guess he trusts you?”

“Yay.” Ruby rolled her eyes. “Come on. I bet you don’t know where the detention cells are.”

Jumping to her feet, Dyna rushed after Ruby. The girl didn’t wait up in the slightest. Luckily, having much longer legs meant that she didn’t have to rush too much. As soon as she caught up, Dyna actually had to slow her natural pace just enough to be uncomfortable.

“Have you ever been to a zoo before?” Dyna had to ask, partially to fill the silence, partially because Ruby didn’t seem the kind of person to enjoy looking at animals.

“Emerald took me once while we were in New York. Said we needed to act normal for a day to try to throw people off our track. I think she was lying—I didn’t see anyone watching us the entire time.”

“Did you actually look at the animals at all?”

“Of course I did. I hate acting normal, but I still do it when she tells me.”

“I meant… Never mind.”

“Got something to say to me?”

Dyna shook her head. “No. I just—”

“Are you coming with us next time we go out on assignment?”

“I don’t think so? Nobody has said anything to me. And you two sound like you get up to a lot of things that I don’t want any part of.”

“You’re already part of them. I thought you realized that.” Ruby looked up with her red eyes, scanning over Dyna’s face for a few moments before looking down a hall that Dyna hadn’t ever been through before. “This way.”

A few doors, all thicker than normal, stood in their way. Each opened with far more weight. Not in a physical sense, but in gravitas. It was probably just Dyna’s imagination, but she felt like the halls were narrower in this wing of the facility. The fanciful wood and brass paneling stopped abruptly after one of the doors, leaving bare concrete walls in their place.

Two doors didn’t open automatically. Both had guards safely behind psionically shielded glass that had to manually press a button to allow passage. The second of the checkpoints even got them an additional escort. A burly man who might have been Walter’s twin save for his lighter skin and shaved hair.

Although the bare walls and floor looked far more like what Dyna pictured when she thought of a prison, it lacked the rows and rows of barred cells. Instead, beyond a large door fashioned after a bank vault, Dyna found herself faced with small cubicles made from glass panes. The psionically shielded glass.

“Is all this legal?” Dyna couldn’t help but ask as they passed an cell occupied by a man she didn’t recognize. He was fully restrained within an old-style straight jacket and didn’t look too happy with the situation.

Another inmate on the other side of the hall lacked the restraints, but stood in the far corner of her cell, staring at the wall like the Blair Witch had gotten to her.

Ruby didn’t answer. Neither did their escort. Instead, Beatrice’s two tone warning of an impending announcement sounded over the speakers. “The Carroll Institute maintains authority over all psionic matters occurring on territory belonging to the United States of America. No other facility is equipped to handle psionic entities.”

It sounded like an answer to her question, but Dyna noted that nobody actually said that yes, this prison buried deep underground is legal.

At least the next person they passed was just casually reading a book. The way he reclined on his bed made it look more like he was on vacation in a hotel room and not unlawfully imprisoned.

These people did get phone calls, didn’t they?

Ruby didn’t blink an eye at them. Neither did their escort. Both simply marched on past. Dyna expected the guard to know about everything that went on in here, but did Ruby know too? Or was she just being her usual tough self. Dyna hadn’t asked, but it was possible that Ruby could access this place without Doctor Cross’ approval. In fact, hadn’t it been Ruby who brought the two men down here in the first place?

Dyna didn’t pass any other inmates before reaching the end of the rather short hall. Two glass cells at the far end had been converted to being less cell-like and more like a hospital. The beds were larger and more comfortable, able to raise the legs of the beds. The two men inside had been stripped of their solid black clothes. Instead, they wore large gowns that didn’t quite cover the fact that both men had casts on each of their legs.

Emerald had mentioned that she shot out their kneecaps. Hopefully, they got some kind of surgery and medical attention down here beyond simply slapping a cast on their wounds.

Like the previous occupant of a cell, they had a stack of books, though both were watching televisions that were mounted inside the walls behind a pane of psionic glass.

Dyna hadn’t noticed with the other cells, but now that she had stopped and took a longer look, she spotted one of the five-lensed cameras in each corner of each cell. Constant surveillance. It did look like they had a toilet, and maybe even a shower, in a small separate room. That probably had cameras as well.

Before either could look over, Dyna pulled out the compact mirror. A proper scientist might have had various procedures and plans in place to ensure that the results were as accurate as possible. Having only come up with this idea this hour, Dyna had nothing along those lines. She felt she was much better at improvisation anyway.

She took a deep breath and flicked open the mirror.