Avoiding the gondola, Dyna stuck to the road. It was… eerie. The entire trip had progressed in silence. Beatrice highlighted which turns to take but had stopped talking, wanting to allow Dyna full concentration. She wished she had Walter’s car here. Beatrice could have handled the road while Dyna kept her eyes to her mirror and watch.
The most eerie aspect of this trip was the utter lack of opposition. She had been driving for a little over one half hour. According to Beatrice, she was coming up on the Arecibo Psychic Radar Station in less than five minutes and she hadn’t passed a single other person since the small village at the base of the mountain.
“She had tulpa in the airport but not on the way to her base?”
“As I suggested, those may have been standard security, not tulpa.”
“Still, you would think she would protect herself better.”
“It may be wise to progress on foot from here. You will be better able to hide yourself among the vegetation outside a vehicle.”
Dyna slowed the car. There wasn’t really room to pull off to one side of the road. Given the amount of traffic, it probably wouldn’t matter. “How long will it take me to reach there on foot?”
“Depending on the route, following along the road or moving in a straight line, between five and ten minutes.”
Dyna looked over. The road ended abruptly, snaking alongside a few feet of dirt topped with trees and bushes and plants. The trees were thin but so densely packed that she she doubted she would be able to get far into them. Beatrice had been right earlier when she said that traveling all the way from the airport to here on foot would have been impossible. She had to wonder if Beatrice was overestimating her ability to squeeze between those branches and tree trunks.
Opening the door and stepping out, Dyna checked her mirror and then started walking right alongside the road. If her mirror lenses went dark, she could try to get behind cover. Until then, walking along the road would have to work. “I don’t have any weapons,” she said with a frown. “If this place is defended…”
“You underwent hand-to-hand combat training alongside Ruby and Emerald.”
“Up close? I might be able to do something. At the range PP-2000s operate, I’ll be riddled with bullets.”
Dyna had her laser pointer with her but it was useless without a projectile. Her bobby pin could open doors. Maybe create them under some circumstances. Her mirror gave her advance warning of threats and her watch let her observe a situation or stumble into a problem and have another chance to avoid it. Nothing she carried let her put down an army of angry tulpa.
Dyna pressed on anyway. With her power, she was sure she could figure something out. Manifest a weapon or at least find a way to steal one.
The wall of rock and dirt grew larger until it reached over her head. She could still jump off the road on the other side if something happened, but it looked like more trees.
Rounding a bend in the road, she froze. The lenses on her mirror turned dark just before she fully stepped around into view of the rest of the road.
Slowly, carefully, she edged her view around the tall wall of rock.
There was a gate up ahead, designed for vehicles. A small building, painted a gunmetal gray, sat just to the side with open windows facing down the road. There was obviously someone inside. The shadows and reflection from the glass didn’t let her see clearly.
The gondola station was just across a small parking lot. It was a rather small building. She couldn’t see any gondola inside, though the cables leading down the mountain were easily visible.
“Attention: this is a United States of America government facility. I have no data on posted guards.”
“Replaced with tulpa?”
“Possibly. My records may be incomplete. Proceed with caution.”
“Yeah. I’d rather not kill soldiers. Can’t you… I don’t know, phone ahead and let them know not to get in my way? Or better yet, arrest Alpha?”
“My access to the facility is limited. I believe Alpha took efforts to ensure my systems could not access anything beyond the radar data.”
“Lovely. Suggestions?”
“There is a restroom facility to the right of the gate. It will provide cover if you can reach it undetected. Alternatively, the fence does not extend far into the vegetation. It was deemed infeasible to fully encircle the facility.”
Dyna didn’t peek out further, not wanting to be seen by the guard. Trusting the accuracy of Beatrice’s information, she looked back down the road the way she had come. She moved until the wall of rock was back at her waist. Gritting her teeth, she grasped two of the trees and used them to pull herself up. Sucking in her stomach, she squeezed into the jungle.
“There is no way this would have taken me five minutes,” she said through clenched teeth, finding little room to shove through the vegetation. Five steps in and she could hardly tell which direction she had come from. The road was completely obstructed by leaves and branches. “How do I get through this?”
“Determining a path from my perspective is difficult,” Beatrice said.
“I don’t suppose you can give me a compass? I don’t want to get turned around.”
“Understood.”
In the upper periphery of her vision, a thin line appeared. Turning her head made the line scroll back and forth. A notch underneath turned from S to SE and back. A second marker appeared on the compass line.
“The marker is the direction of the gate. You will want to continue south.”
“Got you,” Dyna said, shoving her way through the trees once more. “How many are supposed to be stationed at this facility?”
“Outside anomalies or times of maintenance, the facility maintains a round-the-clock guard of only six. I do not have data on modifications Alpha may have made to the initial plan and cannot account for the possibility of mass tulpa guards.”
“So this place is pretty empty.”
“Correct. The radar is fully automated. No crew is needed to operate it.”
Dyna winced as some branches scraped her cheeks. She made it through, however. Just ahead, a pair of roads cut through the jungle. Turning her head, she spotted the guard station now behind her.
“The left road that continues south is the one you will want to take.”
Checking her mirror—black lenses but still no one with eyes on her—Dyna climbed out of the jungle and onto the road. A shake of her head loosed a few stray branches and leaves. There were probably more stuck in her hair—maybe she had brushed up against some sap too, since something felt sticky—but she tried to ignore it. Her appearance didn’t matter. Getting to Alpha did.
Trying to force her way through more on the other side of the road would take hours. She stepped carefully, watching both her mirror and the guard station. The windows weren’t designed to see behind it, however.
She took to the road, running along a small walkway built alongside the main road. Continuing along, not meeting anyone on the empty road, Dyna took a turn indicated by Beatrice and finally saw it. It stuck out above the trees. A tall spire stretching high into the air. Arms bent upward stretched out at various points along its body, rotating around the central shaft. A few red lights pulsed along the rotating arms and up at the high point of the spire. Although they were probably to warn aircraft, Dyna couldn’t help but think they looked a bit ominous.
“Alert: Alterations to base Psychic Detector designs detected. Purpose unknown. Analysis underway.”
“Anything to be worried about?”
“Unknown.”
“Lovely.”
“The former observatory station is up ahead. A small gondola is the main access point to reach the base of the radar.”
“Think Alpha is down there or at the station?”
“Unknown, but it is likely other guards are posted at the station.”
“No stairs down to the radar?”
“An old maintenance tunnel may still be accessible. It is also in the station.”
“So I’ve got to go inside no matter what,” Dyna said with a mental groan.
Shaking her head, she pressed on, keeping an eye on her mirror.
The station building was larger than she expected. Part of it must have been the original visitor’s center for the old telescope. It was painted a pale blue. Or had been a vibrant blue at one point in time and had since faded. The rest, reaching up two floors, looked more recent. It screamed of a military prefabricated building. Cheap metal walls that looked more like a portable trailer than a proper part of the structure.
There weren’t any guards standing around outside. Dyna did spot one of Beatrice’s five-lens security cameras mounted on the wall. The red light wasn’t lit.
“Just walk in the front door, I guess,” Dyna said, not seeing any other entrance. Hand on her watch just in case walking inside was a mistake, she pulled open the front door. “Still deserted?” she whispered, frowning at the lack of guards. There was a desk entryway where someone was supposed to sit. It looked like they had left in a hurry, leaving behind papers and a half-empty cup of coffee.
“Alpha—”
The phone on the desk started ringing. Dyna jolted, eyes wide as she stared around, expecting someone to come running to answer it. She grasped her watch, ready to throw herself back as soon as she saw someone.
No one came running.
The phone kept ringing.
“Think it is for me?”
“Unknown. This system does not have access to whatever internal network that phone is operating on.”
She stepped forward, hesitating with her hand over the phone’s handle. It wasn’t a typical VOIP phone. Rather, it looked older. Not quite rotary-dial old, but maybe something from the nineties. Or the kind of phone one might find on the wall of a prisoner’s visitor center.
A clattering noise from behind her made her jolt. She whirled around, watching as heavy metal bars fell from above, cutting off the door out of here.
Grasping her watch, she wrenched the bezel all the way around.
Following the familiar jolt, Dyna stared down at the ringing phone, a few feet from the desk. She was still in the room.
Turning back, Dyna took a single step toward the door.
The same shutters clattered down in an instant this time.
Dyna grasped the bezel again and spun it as far as it would go. Only a few seconds.
This time, she turned immediately.
The second she did so, the shudders clattered down over the door.
She stared, teeth grinding together. She started to go for the bobby pin in her pocket, hoping that it would somehow unlock the shutters, only to hear another sound back where the phone was ringing. She whirled, hands up and ready to strike.
A part of the wall slid aside, revealing a window into another room. Stepping closer, Dyna glared.
Alpha sat on a lounge chair, cigar in one hand and glass of red wine in the other. The older woman narrowed her eyes and curled her lips into a sneer. Throwing her cigar to the ground, she stood, stomping on it as she approached the window. She tossed the wine glass aside, moving a gloved hand to flick a lock of her graying blond hair out of her eyes.
The phone ringing stopped as she flipped a switch.
“Dyna Graves. Onyx. The Subject.” The woman’s voice came from a small speaker set next to the window. “I knew you were a fool, but to be this much of a fool?”
“Alpha,” Dyna said, teeth clenched. “I’ll give you one opportunity to turn yourself in.”
“Or what?” the woman said with a laugh. “You’re trapped. Don’t see any guns on you. This window is bullet proof anyway.”
Dyna looked around. It was true. There weren’t any other doors. At least no obvious ones. The layout of the structure didn’t make much sense if there weren’t doors, but they were either disguised or had been built over.
The bobby pin in her pocket could get her out. She was sure of it. Not sure of what kind of trap she had walked into just yet, Dyna refrained from trying to use it and triggering Alpha’s response.
A message appeared in her glasses. Beatrice was analyzing the room as best she could through the glasses, looking for exits, traps, and anything else of use.
“You should have brought Emerald. She would have torn through this place in an instant. I would already be dead. Or Ruby. At least she can take a hit. No. You come alone. So confident in yourself and your power. You think… you’re some kind of action movie hero?”
Dyna pressed her lips together, eyes darting about as Beatrice highlighted what was likely a hidden gun behind one of the walls. “I’m just a regular woman trying to get by without getting assassinated.”
“Any regular woman would have been dead ten times over from the things you’ve been through.”
“I like to think of myself as determined to survive.”
Alpha shook her head. “I’ve seen your pathetic attempts at experimentation. Conjuring items like you’re a Vegas magician. You still don’t understand your power, do you? It isn’t something you trigger and activate at will. It is a field. An aura that affects everything around you. Everything you think about, consciously or not.
“You’ve gotten it into your head that you’re an action movie star, so you keep getting into these action movie scenes. Yet, action heroes don’t get wounded or injured. Not seriously. So you walk away from everything with nothing more than a scratch. Hematite loses an entire arm mere inches from you but you walk away with a fake limp.”
“None of that would have happened if someone hadn’t tried to assassinate me,” Dyna ground out, fists clenching. “I know what Id said. I know what Walter said. My power doesn’t affect other people’s minds. Maybe some aspect of my power facilitated that situation—and others—but none would have happened if you hadn’t decided to kill me.”
“Of course I want you dead. You’re an abomination. A blind idiot god destroying and remaking the world to suit your needs in every instant.”
“That is obviously not true.”
“Is it? How would anyone know?” Alpha stepped closer, practically pressing her face against the glass of the window. “You think I made this… this… monologuing room just to have a chat with you? Where did the guards go? I don’t know. I doubt you do either. Are they alive? Dead? In some state of limbo where your power is still trying to decide whether they exist at all?” Alpha motioned down to the floor. “I don’t even smoke!”
Dyna’s eyes widened ever so slightly, eyes roaming down to follow Alpha’s motion. The angle made it so she couldn’t see the cigar, but Alpha had held the lit cigar up until a moment ago.
If she didn’t smoke…
“You manipulate everything, forcing people into positions and roles. You’ve clearly decided that I’m some kind of villain in your action movie. The villain has to have a moment to monologue, so here we are.”
Dyna stepped forward, boot knocking against the desk. “You think you aren’t the villain? You have a whole faceless army set on assassinating me! If it was just me, I might be able to understand, but it isn’t! You send them out kidnapping people, stealing things, and causing trouble. Trying to kill Id and Walter and—”
“They never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it.”
“They ambushed a civilian wedding.”
“No one got hurt,” Alpha said, drawing in a deep breath as she tucked a lock of hair back over her ear. “They’ve hurt nobody. No one who didn’t deserve it. Maybe frightened some people, true. The tulpa have a better track record than you.”
“I haven’t hurt anyone,” Dyna said, teeth grit. Tulpa, yes. They didn’t count. She had it on November’s authority that the tulpa Alpha used weren’t any more intelligent or aware than a dog. Less than that in most cases. “Apart from tulpa, I haven’t hurt anyone.”
“Liar.”
“I’m not—”
“I had children!” Alpha screamed, fist slamming against the glass. “Grandchildren.”
Dyna blinked, taking a step back. “I didn’t hurt any—”
“Walter found you,” she snarled, detest dripping from her mouth along with spittle. “He tried to explain what you are, what the Carroll Institute was. You flipped out. I don’t have the details. I don’t think anyone does. You’ve made sure of that.”
“I… I didn’t—”
“My name is Marybeth King. My husband, Angus, died five years ago. I had two daughters, Lizzie and Victoria. Lizzie married a man named Max Willard and had a son, Aron.” She paused, licking her lips. “Then the Incident happened. The Carroll Institute Administrative Council changed in an instant. None of us were really aware of it at first, but it quickly became apparent.
“I returned home that evening to a sterilized apartment. No trace of Angus. I tried calling Lizzie and Victoria. Those numbers had never been in service. My name doesn’t exist in any government database. None of the administrators have their former identities. We’re some… shadowy council of vague omniscience without real identities.” She scoffed. “The others didn’t mind so much. Only two of them had families, both estranged. I convinced about half to kill you right away. The rest wanted to use you, twist you to their own ends… Imagining the possibilities turned them greedy. Me?”
Alpha’s gray eyes looked up through the window, locking onto Dyna. “Where are my children?”
“I—”
“Where is my family?”
“I didn’t…”
“I know,” Alpha said, nodding. “I knew you didn’t know. I know this must seem incredibly unfair to you. You are, consciously, innocent.”
“I could try to—”
“Don’t you dare do anything more. You’ve done enough.” Alpha took in a breath, shoulders relaxing as if she had finally shrugged off a great weight. “I can only hope that they are out there somewhere, as confused as I am about how come their names aren’t right on any official documents. Darq was supposed to help me find them. Then you took him away too.”
“Doctor Darq? Of Tartarus?”
Alpha wrinkled her nose. She took another breath before squaring her shoulders. “It must seem incredibly unfair. I will kill you if only to keep what happened to me from happening to anyone else you interact with.”
“I…” Dyna took a breath of her own, straightening her back. “I’m sorry for what happened to you. I still don’t think I did it. I’m not going to lie down and let you kill me.”
“I’m not surprised. I didn’t expect you to, to be honest. That doesn’t change what will happen, but it does pose a problem. Luckily, I got what I needed from Tartarus earlier. How do we kill an action movie hero?” Her lips curled back into a cruel smile. “You take them out of the movie.
“Activate the Continuity Engine.”