Situational Awareness

 

The Men’s Wearhouse was, as far as Dyna and Emerald could tell, a perfectly average men’s clothing store.

They had gone around the building a few times, both inside and outside, to ensure that it wasn’t some front for Ignotus-33 or a trap for them. Emerald had been snooping about in stopped time, checking employee only areas and snooping about. She had been unable to locate any secret passages, hidden rooms, or scraps of paper that didn’t look like they belonged.

Dyna didn’t have much in the way of supernatural powers or equipment that would help search like that. All she really had was her mirror. However, if this was an Ignotus front or even just a place where some people planned on ambushing any investigators, she felt like they would have triggered her mirror. With it in its normal reflective state, Dyna doubted there was any trouble.

“To be perfectly honest,” Dyna said as Emerald picked up a fancy suit from one of the racks, “if this was an ambush, they wouldn’t have left a clue so obscure that it required a literal mind reader to figure out. Harold would have dropped it on the floor for us to find or something.”

“Do you think I would look good in a suit?”

“Yes,” Dyna said without looking at the other woman. Her eyes were solidly glued on a clerk as he walked around the store, helping a customer pick clothes. “And this shouldn’t be a secret hideout either. From all the reports, Ignotus seems to be able to travel anywhere in the world. They don’t need to risk themselves by putting a center of operations in the Carroll Institute’s backyard.”

“Solid or patterned?”

“Depends on the color,” Dyna said, waving a dismissive hand at the suit in Emerald’s hands. “Solid black makes you look like you’re going to a funeral.”

“Not a secret agent?”

Dyna stared a moment and slowly shook her head. “Should we talk to the clerks now?”

Emerald set the suit back on the rack, found a pinstripe suit, and held it up to herself. “You ran away before Sapphire could finish, so maybe you missed the memo, but we don’t need to talk to anyone ourselves. We just need to provide some familiar minds for Sapphire to home in on so he can figure out whose minds he needs to check.”

“Seems like they could have sent anyone to do that,” Dyna said, frowning as Emerald shifted back and forth in front of the mirror. “Pinstripe looks nice, but might make you look like an old-timey mobster. Are you actually looking for a new outfit, or are we just trying to look inconspicuous?”

“Eh… both?” Emerald shrugged. “Watching myself on the security footage I stole from the Korean bunker made me realize that I would probably look more intimidating and impressive if I were wearing something slick rather than this.”

“I thought the cardigan and simple clothes were deliberate attempts at being an unassuming, mild-mannered woman?”

Emerald didn’t answer before they were interrupted by a polite, attention-grabbing cough from an employee.

“Can I help you ladies?”

Dyna turned with a smile. “We’re just browsing while waiting for our boyfriends,” she lied, smoothly and without hesitation. Pulling out her phone, she tapped it and angled it toward the employee. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to have seen them, would you have? This is Harold. He might have been here earlier—he gets nervous easily and likes to check out places we go on his own before coming as a group.”

“Oh. Oh yeah. This guy.” The employee spoke with confidence, nodding his head. “Came in yesterday, kept glancing over his shoulder like someone was going to jump him.”

“Like I said, he gets nervous easily.”

“Bought a suit yesterday too. Said he was going to a wedding.”

“As guests,” Dyna hastily said. “We’re… He bought it yesterday? Without me?”

“He didn’t even tell you afterwards?” Emerald said, looking positively affronted with a hand on her hip. “Girl, you are too good for that man. Begs you to help him pick out a suit and goes and does it himself? I’da dumped him on his momma’s front porch months ago. Can’t believe you put up with him.”

The employee, now speaking with significantly less confidence, glanced around as if looking for assistance before saying, “Maybe he wanted to surprise you?”

“Well color me surprised. Why did we even come here today?”

“Can’t even call you to cancel? C’mon Becky, let’s get out of here.”

“Hold up,” Dyna said, fighting a grin. Hopefully she looked more angry than nervously excited. “What time was this? You remember when he was here?”

“Uh, right before closing. About eight.”

“Was he with anyone else?”

“Nope. No one.”

“Do you remember how he arrived? Was it car? A taxi? Do you remember the license plate—”

Emerald hooked an arm under Dyna’s and turned her around. “Let’s go, honey. Give him a piece of our minds.”

Dyna clamped her mouth shut and didn’t protest. As soon as they got outside the store, Dyna glanced over. “Becky?”

Emerald just laughed. “That wasn’t bad, though you kind of sounded like a cop at the end rather than an irate girlfriend.”

“I… nerves,” Dyna said, then decided to expand on her one-word explanation. “I’ve seen Ruby do things like that a hundred times, but it’s a bit nerve-wracking to do it myself.”

“Ruby is an excellent actor,” Emerald said, nodding her head. “Her abilities give her a subtle yet powerful advantage. She can control even her unconscious microexpressions when concentrating.”

“Maybe I’ll cheat too. A theater mask that makes everyone think I am who I say I am sounds nice.”

Emerald laughed again, though Dyna might have been a little more serious than the other woman thought.

“So what now?” Emerald asked. “Harold was there yesterday evening. And if he goes back to return the jacket while that employee is there, he’ll probably get tipped off that we were looking for him. Sapphire probably already has that information without that little complication.”

“I…” Dyna grimaced. “I didn’t think about that.”

“It’s fine. You’re inexperienced. All we have to do is find him and there won’t be any problem.”

“Well,” Dyna took a breath. “There wasn’t too much of a plan. It was kind of an impulse panic explanation for why two women were hanging around the Men’s Wearhouse that got carried away.”

Dyna pulled out her phone and started typing out a message. “I have learned that the administrators are far more willing to elevate Beatrice’s operational abilities if there are restrictions on her. Time limits or scope. So, hopefully, scanning security footage of the Men’s Wearhouse entrances for Howard at around eight yesterday is limited enough for them. I guess it isn’t anything we couldn’t have done with Sapphire, but it is something.”

“You just have the administrators in your contact list?”

“Only Theta.” Noting the expression on Emerald’s face, Dyna raised an eyebrow. “You don’t? I thought you knew that Gamma person.”

“Gamma is the only administrator I’ve ever met. And that was once. I’m not actually sure about the hierarchal organization of the administrators or whether they have dedicated duties, but from what I’ve gathered, she is some kind of head of security for the Carroll Institute. Focuses a lot on external threats.”

“Oh. Huh…” Dyna… wasn’t sure what to think of that. Having met with Gamma earlier today, that made for two administrators that she had seen in-person. Theta, she had seen a number of times. Sometimes hanging around Doctor West’s office, sometimes in his office for brief progress reports on her therapy sessions.

Emerald, having been at this longer than Dyna and with all her… everything about her, it struck Dyna as odd that the administrators seemed to have taken a special interest in her.

It was her ability, wasn’t it. Emerald was an artificer and a powerful one at that. The ability to stop time seemed like an instant ‘win’ condition in most situations. And yet, she was only one person with one artifact that could do a single thing.

Dyna, on the other hand, didn’t have all that much special about her on an individual level, but her power let her empower others. From making glasses that non-psionic individuals like Doctor Cross could use to full-on artifacts tailor made for specific powers such as the fog machine for Mel.

And then there was something else going on with her powers.

“It was a coil gun. Not a lightning gun.”

Dyna had been thinking about that incident a great deal. Despite her requests, she had not been allowed near the weapon Walter had used that night. But the more she thought about it, the less it seemed to be related to psionics. A lightning gun shot lightning. No psionics involved. A coil gun shot metal pellets or rods or discs. No psionics involved.

Therefore, the weapon was not a gadget or an artifact. It was something else.

The strangest part was the way Walter had looked to her immediately after he used the weapon. The way he had wanted to say something to her after talking with the administrators. But he never had. And now, today, another administrator implied that he wanted to tell her something but that the rest of the administrators were holding his tongue.

A weapon acting oddly wasn’t that big of a surprise. There were a dozen artifacts in the Psychodynamics Vault that would augment or alter firearms. Dyna’s laser pointer was a perfect example of that in action.

But why say all that to her if some enemy artifact caused the oddity?

No.

Dyna was more certain than ever.

She had made a mundane, technological alteration to a mundane, technological weapon. No psionics, artifacts, or gadgets involved. Or, at least, Walter and the administrators believed that she had done so.

But they weren’t telling her about it.

While Dyna felt there was more she knew than ever before, about herself and about everything else around the Carroll Institute, she also felt that there was more to know. And she didn’t know a lot of that.

But none of that was an imperative at the moment.

Harold was. She could experiment later.

For now, she smiled as her phone vibrated with an incoming text message. “Authorization for Beatrice has been approved,” Dyna said aloud.

“Really?” Emerald narrowed her eyes. She was still smiling, but she looked a bit pained somehow. “They stripped me of my elevation privileges a few weeks before I left for Korea.”

“I…” Dyna didn’t know what to say to that. That the administrators were keeping an eye on her because she could do strange things with her mind? “I don’t think I have privileges. I just have Theta’s number.” Dyna looked down at her phone, then held it out for Emerald. “Want it?”

Emerald’s pained expression vanished, replaced with… something just a little sadistic. “Of course.”

“Uh… maybe don’t share where you got it from.” Dyna pulled her phone back to herself as it buzzed with a message from Beatrice. “Beatrice found him. Based on facial analysis and other factors, Beatrice’s confidence that he is our Harold is 87%. She’s following him both backward and forward in time to try to figure out where he came from and where he is going.”

“Only 87%?”

Dyna shrugged. “Maybe he lost weight during his time on the run.”

“Huh.”

Phone buzzing again, Dyna looked down. “Ah. I think we have an address. Want to race?” she asked, placing a hand on her watch.

Emerald grabbed both of her hands, ensuring that she couldn’t twist the bezel. “As amusing as it was to see your expression the first time around, walking halfway across the city on foot isn’t that fun.”

“I think you’re just afraid you’ll lose.”

“The only way I would lose is if you didn’t tell me the address until after you had already arrived.”

“Sounds like a loss to me,” Dyna said. But she let go of her watch. Emerald let go of her hands. Just in time to receive another text on her phone. She expected a follow up from Beatrice, letting them know some extra details. Instead, however, Dyna felt cold iron grip her stomach. An unknown number sent her a simple text.

Check your mirror.

Dyna’s hand was in and out of her pocket in the blink of an eye.

Each mirror had a crosshair obstructing the view. Each crosshair was centered on—

Something hit Emerald in the head, snapping her neck in a spray of blood as her body flew through the air with enough force to crack the brick wall of the building before Dyna could say a single word. Dyna tried jumping out of the way, leaping to the side, only to feel a hot, searing pain slam into her chest. She crumpled. Tunnel vision settled in immediately, the kind of lightheadedness that came with standing up too quickly except intensified a thousand times over.

Fingers slick with blood slipped around the bezel of her watch. With the last of her strength, she pinched as hard as she could and twisted.

Dyna slammed back, rough bricks of the Men’s Wearhouse walls scraping at her back as she clutched at her chest.

Emerald, head intact, was instantly on alert, but she wasn’t moving.

“Snipers,” Dyna gasped out. She tried to remember everything she saw in her mirror. It was hazy. She hadn’t been hit, not yet, but her heart was beating hard enough that it was knocking against her ribs. She could still remember it. Her lungs burned as she tried to gasp in more air for her formerly ruined heart to pump around her body. “Vehicle, white,” she said between gasps. “Van, maybe.”

Emerald disappeared without a word. In the same instant, Dyna heard two gunshots.

Reflexively, Dyna grimaced, expecting to have her chest ripped open by a large caliber bullet again. But… as she slowly regained control of her own breathing, she started to remember not having heard any gunshots the first time around. Just the bullets hitting her.

And Emerald.

Emerald reappeared, blood splattered over her dress. She grabbed hold of Dyna and forced her down before practically dragging her off behind a truck parked in the parking lot.

Although she kept her reassuring smile, Emerald’s eyes were pinpricks, scanning everywhere around them, searching for any sign of additional targets.

“Are you alright?” Dyna asked, still breathing hard and barely able to put strength in her legs.

“Super green,” she said, then slowly moved to peel Dyna’s hand away from where she had a death-grip on her chest. “Where did you get hit?”

“They blew a hole in my chest,” Dyna said, coughing for some inexplicable reason. It was all in her head. None of it had happened. She tried to tell herself that. “I grabbed my watch.”

“Good thing you made that. I checked the area, everywhere with line of sight on us. Only saw the ones in the van. Are there any others?”

Hand no longer gripping her chest, Dyna pulled her mirror from her pocket. She couldn’t keep it steady. Her hand shook like mad. But, flipping open the mirror, she had to breathe a sigh of relief at the normal, reflective lenses. “No.”

Emerald didn’t relax.

“Ignotus?”

“Looked like it.” Emerald hooked her arm around Dyna, lifting her completely off the ground. “Let’s get you to the car. It’s armored.”

Dyna didn’t complain. She didn’t quite know what had hit them—the mountain man’s gun probably wouldn’t have left much of the wall Emerald had hit, but at the same time, she didn’t recall seeing blood on Emerald at all. For herself, she was pretty sure that her entire chest had turned to chunky salsa. Emerald’s armored car would hopefully provide some protection. At least enough to keep that from happening again.

“Seems like someone doesn’t want us looking into our friend,” Emerald said, setting Dyna down on the rear seat. When she pulled back, Dyna caught a glimpse of Emerald. More specifically, her smile.

She’s the worst of them all, Ruby had said. She smiles.

Maybe it was because she didn’t know. She hadn’t been hit in this… timeline? This go-around? Whatever it was, Emerald had gotten the drop on the enemy thanks to Dyna. Thanks to…

“Someone,” Dyna said, “tried to help us. My phone… I… I dropped it…”

Emerald disappeared and reappeared, handing Dyna her phone back.

If that person hadn’t sent that text, who knows what might have happened. Dyna might have only possessed the strength to grip her watch thanks to the adrenaline that message had sent through her system. They could have warned her a little earlier, but…

“Someone told me to check my mirror right before we got hit.”

“I got hit?” Emerald let out a disturbing laugh. “Guess that’s what I get for letting my guard down. Hmm… You look like you could do with some tea. Calm down, Dyna. We’re alright. We got them. Take a nice deep breath. In,” she said, breathing in. “And then back out.”

Dyna followed along with Emerald’s words. Each breath did make her feel better. But, perhaps at the same time, each breath had her feeling angrier. “They shot me. Out of nowhere. In public, in broad daylight.”

“They’re dead.”

“The tulpa are. Whoever sent them is still breathing.”

“As long as we are breathing, we have the opportunity to make them… see the error of their ways.”

Dyna slowly nodded. Emerald was right. She didn’t have time to sit around, clutching at phantom pain. “They don’t want us looking into Harold? Sorry for them, Beatrice thinks she knows where he is.”

“Just give me an address. I’ll call Walter en route.”

Finding the strength to check her phone, Dyna looked over her messages. She quickly repeated the address, then kept scrolling, looking for an unknown number. Only responses from Beatrice were in her history.

Whoever had sent that text wouldn’t have needed to if they weren’t in danger. Unfortunately, there was nothing for Beatrice to chase.

Who had it been? Id was really the only name that sprung to Dyna’s mind. The only one who would use an unknown number. The lack of a signature on the message made sense that way too. If Dyna had seen Id’s name, she might have been suspicious, slowing her reaction time in a situation where she really had none.

Still, she had to hope that it hadn’t been Id. That would mean that she would have to say thanks to that creep.

Her growing anger turned to a twinge of annoyance at that thought.