Author: Tower Curator

 

Emerald’s car was the sort of thing that Dyna expected from an overly prepared doomsday prepper. She had seen the armory of weapons in the back before, which ranged from a dozen pistols of varying makes to high precision sniper rifles, but was still surprised with the sheer amount of stuff that she had to dig through to get to Emerald’s stash of ballistic vests. Long-lasting food, mostly in the form of Meals Ready-to-Eat, literal kegs of water, wilderness survival gear, first-aid and other emergency medical supplies, and, of course, more weapons.

Having a ballistic vest securely in place did made her feel a little more comfortable. Not in a physical sense, but in a mental sense. The largest injury Dyna had physically suffered was a small scrape from when she stumbled back against the rough brick wall of the Men’s Wearhouse building. The more time that passed, the more the gaping hole in her chest felt distant. Like a nightmare she had woken up from and was now starting to forget.

While she welcomed the phantom pain fading away, Dyna did not forget that people were after her. No matter what Doctor West said, it was obviously not paranoia. In fact, she would say that she hadn’t been attentive enough. She should walk around with her mirror in hand constantly, never letting it out of her sight.

Dyna, noticing the aside glance she was getting from Emerald as the latter drove the car, forced a smile. “I’m fine.”

“Walter wants us back with him.”

“I’m fine,” Dyna said again. “We’re closer to Harold than he is. If Ignotus was tipped off because of my mistake in opening my big mouth, or simply because they were watching the store for whatever reason, then he’ll have heard as well. We need to hurry before he can disappear again.”

“I agree. That is why I haven’t turned the car around. I just want to ensure that you are alright.”

Dyna didn’t bother saying that she was fine a third time. Instead, she kept her eyes moving from her mirror to the windows of the vehicle. “Should I drive?”

“After your ordeal?”

“There was no ordeal. It never happened.” In her adrenaline-fueled agitation, Dyna had said everything that she could remember happening in that aborted timeline. Including how grievous she believed her injuries to have been and how Emerald had probably died. Now, however, she was regretting that.

Dyna didn’t want to be coddled. She wanted to find out who was trying to kill her and end the threat. At the moment, her greatest lead was Harold.

The man knew something. Letting him slip through their fingers…

“I say I should drive,” Dyna said, “so that you can use your pocket watch and reach Harold in an instant.”

Emerald pulled the car over without hesitation. “I thought about it, but figured I shouldn’t leave you on your own. If you’re feeling well enough…” Leaving the keys in the ignition, Emerald opened the driver’s side door.

Hand in her pocket, presumably holding her pocket watch, she disappeared before even stepping outside.

Dyna felt a sudden queasy sensation well within her stomach. She was sitting still. A still target was easier to hit than one in motion. Her mirror, however, showed no observers. Not willing to give in to a panic attack over literally nothing, Dyna clenched her teeth and clambered over to the driver seat. She set the case containing her submachine gun on the passenger seat, loaded and ready to fire the moment she needed it.

Slamming the driver side door closed, Dyna pulled out her phone. Ignoring the small crack in the glass from where she dropped it, she quickly dialed a number.

“This is Beatrice.”

“Give me directions to Harold’s position.”

“Understood.”

Now moving, mirror wedged into the dashboard so that she could see it, Dyna calmed down a great deal.

Calming down carried with it a vague sensation of defeat. Emerald wouldn’t have balked. In fact, her natural ability, if Dyna remembered correctly, was seeing into distant alternate realities. Perhaps somehow related to the tulpa, perhaps not. Either way, she had likely seen herself die before. Something like this wouldn’t have phased her. She would just smile and carry on.

Ruby wouldn’t have smiled, but she would have carried on regardless. Even losing limbs wouldn’t keep her down unless she literally couldn’t move. And then, she would only be down until she fixed herself.

Dyna wanted to be more like them. Instead, her thoughts drifted to Hematite.

Hematite’s ability, by all accounts, was strong. Near overwhelmingly so. It didn’t really look like that from Dyna’s perspective, with Hematite having been injured so grievously. But she had theories about that. It could have been Dyna’s fault. Between the Ouija board and Dyna’s actions, Hematite’s intuition and subsequent luck manipulation may have been impossible to facilitate. The exact specifications of Hematite’s abilities were difficult to measure and test. Dyna had sat through a few exercises to try to determine whether she or the Ouija board interfered with them.

They had all come back inconclusive.

However, a simpler solution put forth by Hematite herself was that she simply wished to retire but didn’t want to let Walter and the other artificers down by saying so. Thus events conspired to take her out of commission.

Dyna didn’t think less of Hematite for that. Hematite was a normal person who had gotten wrapped up in all this psychic business. Dyna felt the same when it all first started. But now?

Hematite had never gotten used to it. She didn’t like getting dropped into a war zone to recover artifacts. She didn’t like using her abilities to their fullest potential.

Dyna did. Dyna wanted to use her abilities and to show them off. It had been a bit frightening at the start, but the more she engaged in the life of an artificer, the more she wanted to continue.

And then comes a little bullet to her chest and she finds herself shaken?

It didn’t feel good.

Dyna set her features into a look of grim determination. If she had nearly died, it just meant that she wasn’t good enough yet. She needed to make better gadgets. As long as she stayed alive, she could fix that. Other people didn’t have the luxury of simply making things for themselves, but she did.

Considering Ruby’s ruby, Dyna wondered just what it would take to make something like that.

“You have arrived at your destination.”

Dyna pulled the car to a stop, looking out the window at truck stop motel on the outskirts of Idaho Falls. “Thank you, Beatrice,” she said, double-checking her firearms as she spoke. “Harold is here?”

“Nearby street cameras place him entering Room 3 sixteen minutes ago.”

That would have been just before Dyna and Emerald were attacked by the tulpa. “He still here?”

“He was not spotted leaving.” Beatrice paused for a moment before adding, “Emerald’s transponder signal is vanishing and reappearing randomly around the premises. I believe she is searching for him.”

Made sense. Dyna, exiting the station wagon, grabbed her APC9K and kept it down, yet ready. She probably shouldn’t be walking around with such a large firearm on open display, but she had just taken a bullet to the chest in an alternate timeline. She wasn’t going to go around unprepared.

Emerald was surely aware of her presence. The motel wasn’t a large place, just a few rooms lined up alongside a narrow parking lot. A simple peek out the window would have been met with a familiar station wagon. She wasn’t appearing before Dyna, which Dyna took to mean that she had yet to find anything.

Although Dyna figured Emerald had already searched it, Dyna started out heading to Room 3. There were no perspectives on her mirror, but she remained cautious as she moved anyway. The door was already open, hanging ajar.

The motel room wasn’t large. There was a single bed, a narrow dresser with an old television on top, and a tiny bathroom. Given the open door and Emerald’s presence in the area, Dyna would have expected it to be a bit messier than it was. Something like the blankets being torn off the bed, the drawers flung open, the mattress upturned, and so on. But it looked rather ready to be used.

Perhaps that would have taken too much time. Emerald couldn’t affect things while time was stopped, thus she would have been inside the room turning it inside out while Harold ran away.

Shrugging, Dyna started moving about the room. Ruby talking about traps back when they had been hunting the Hatman had her wary of opening drawers haphazardly, but taking care, she opened the end table, the drawers under the television, and two bathroom drawers. Aside from an empty notepad that looked as if it had never been used, a bible that looked as if it had never been used, and a television remote that had been used enough times to wear out most of the buttons. Nothing odd at all. And nothing that indicated anyone had been here.

At least not until she looked in the shower.

Most motels supplied shampoo and soap in little tiny bottles. Very few supplied large bottles, shaving cream, and fancy razors. It was the one piece of evidence Dyna had found that someone had used the room recently. Knowing a little more about the Carroll Institute’s information-gathering psychics, she knew objects like these could help track down Harold. So she stepped into the shower to collect them.

The moment she did, Dyna felt a chill run down her spine.

Some sound, maybe just the hum of the distant city on the wind, cut off completely. Aside from her own breathing, she could hear nothing. The light changed as well, turning from bright daylight coming in through the open motel door to a near-twilight.

The bottle she had been reaching for vanished, replaced with a tiny bottle of shampoo that she expected to find in an unoccupied motel room. Except something was wrong with it. It clearly had words written across the front, but she couldn’t read any of them. They were just gibberish. Moving gibberish. The letters shifted and merged into one another.

Feeling more than hearing something behind her, Dyna spun on her heel and raised her APC9K.

A soldier stood staring at her, having come from around the corner. With most of his face covered in a balaclava, she could only just see the surprise in his raised eyebrows. Clad in black and with a PP-2000 in his hand, Dyna didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger before he could raise his weapon. With the laser pointer aimed firmly in his direction, the causality-violating bullets ignored his armor, taking him down in an instant.

He didn’t stay down. Unlike other tulpa Dyna had shot, his form shimmered and twisted, looking more like a shadow than the solid body he had appeared with a moment ago.

Bullets ripped through the shadow as it scurried back, clinging to walls and corners of the motel room. Yet, Dyna noticed, the bullets made no sound. The walls, floor, and even ceiling definitely got hit as the bullets phased through the shadowy creature, yet didn’t get so much as scraped. No bullet holes appeared in the glass mirror over the bathroom sink. The porcelain of the toilet remained intact.

Dyna put together what had happened in a mere second, recalling all the reports she had read from November and Ruby.

This was the other side. The world of the tulpa. The plane of reality that the scientists were starting to call the ‘noosphere’. The text being unreadable was the biggest clue. Ruby had been quite insistent that no signs or other text she had seen while trapped in the other world had been legible. And the shadows… This was a world of thought, not physical form. Tulpa, beings of thought, might need a physical form in the real world, but here?

Dyna peered around the side of the bathroom wall with her mirror, watching other shadowy figures lurk and move in impossible motions. Some had more physical bodies. Others were pure shadow.

There must have been a spatial anomaly in that shower. A subtle one, less obvious than the one in the wedding hall.

She glanced back toward the shower. Maybe she could see it now, vaguely. Kit Maple had stepped through one back at that abandoned school’s auditorium. She could do the same, walk back and find Emerald for backup. But before she could…

Movement in her mirror drew her attention to one human-looking figure.

One familiar human-looking figure.

The shadowy creature that Dyna had chased off slunk up to Harold. Dyna didn’t hear anything, but she watched as Harold’s eyes widened. He looked back to the room.

Dyna jumped around the side of the bathroom wall, opening fire on the tulpa without reservation.

This was evidence enough. Harold was in league with Ignotus-33. She didn’t know why he had crashed that wedding. Frankly, she didn’t care at the moment. If he didn’t escape, he could tell all about it in interrogation.

Dyna expected him to run. Her plan was to dispatch the tulpa, or disrupt them to the point where they wouldn’t be threats, then to drag him back.

Run he did, but the tulpa didn’t go down quite as easily as expected. The first tulpa must have let it happen, intending to warn the rest of them. Beings of thought in a world of thought didn’t care quite so much about bullets ripping into them. Dyna, a being of flesh in a world of thought, didn’t think she could shrug bullets off quite so easily. She had to duck back behind the wall in a hurry when one of the tulpa she had hit first got right back up and leveled its PP-2000 in her direction.

Dyna felt the bullets impact the wall. Until that very moment, she hadn’t even thought about the harrowing possibility that thought-based walls wouldn’t stop bullets. But they did. Thankfully. In fact, perhaps they stopped the bullets better than the actual walls would have given that they were probably just thin slabs of drywall.

As soon as the hail of bullets stopped, Dyna turned the corner and quickly fired off a few more shots.

It wasn’t doing any good. And Harold was nowhere to be seen anymore. Gone, rushed off, probably to find another spatial anomaly. If she could just get past these tulpa…

Tulpa could die. She had talked with November plenty about the subject. They killed each other all the time. Or… ate each other. Ripped each other apart and integrated them into themselves.

Dyna didn’t know how to do that.

But an idea popped into her mind.

What was it that November had said? Dyna had a lot of stray thoughts?

She could sure use a stray thought right now. One that would go integrate all these tulpa and leave her free to chase down Harold.

The moment she thought that, something peeled away from her body. Dyna couldn’t quite explain the feeling. It was a bit like the mental equivalent of peeling the protective plastic off new electronics. Somewhat satisfying, yet as the last little bit peeled away, the snap made her shudder.

A shadow stood in front of her. One shaped vaguely like Dyna, complete with body armor, weapons, and even her eye-shaped pendant. It had no face, however. Just a flat, smooth surface with a few bumps where eyes and a nose should have been.

After regarding Dyna for a mere moment, it vanished around the corner.

Dyna couldn’t follow right away. Bullets were still hitting the wall.

They stopped quickly enough, however, allowing Dyna to peer around the side.

Her… doppelganger? Her tulpa? Whatever it was, it was ripping through the room. Its featureless face now sported a maw of sharp, interlocking teeth. Teeth it was rapidly shoving the remains of one of the tulpa into. The other tulpa were now firing at Dyna’s mental clone, but they were doing about as much damage to it as Dyna had done to them.

Dyna watched in a bout of morbid fascination as her clone didn’t even finish shoveling one tulpa into its mouth before diving after another. It ate that one, slurping it up, and moved on.

In short order, there was only one enemy tulpa left. And it apparently decided not to stick around. But Dyna’s clone grasped hold of its shadow, lifted it up, and slammed it down to the ground before diving into the ground after it. One large mass of shadow thrashed and twisted in the twilight of the motel room until there was nothing left but Dyna and her own clone.

The clone looked around the room once. Finding nothing else to attack, it turned to Dyna.

Dyna didn’t tense up. It was a frightful sight, this clone of hers with its shark-toothed grin, but something about the situation didn’t scream danger. Rather, the tulpa clone walked over to her, moving almost hesitantly. Then, it held out a hand as if to shake.

It wasn’t a greeting, an acknowledgment, or anything else of the sort.

Dyna took her clone’s hand.

The moment she did, her clone lunged at her, diving into her.

Dyna reeled back as a dozen fragmented shards of memory stabbed into her mind. A soldier in the Middle East moving from adobe to adobe, clearing corridors. A cook disappointed in his latest attempt a simple soufflé falling through. A woman, reaching forward to light up a red light. A swordsman fighting on the Basilica’s steps during the sack of Rome. A loving embrace of a man knowing he was going to die and a woman trying to tie a white cloth around his arm…

Grinding her teeth together, Dyna staggered back, shoulder hitting the wall. She squeezed her eyes shut, warring with memories that weren’t her own. Stray thoughts that had made up the tulpa here. The worst, however, came in the form of herself.

Dyna could see herself, watching herself stare at herself.

She took off, special, unique. She knew what she had to do.

And she did it well, eating and consuming, ripping and tearing. Nothing could stop her because that was what she had been made for. She knew with absolute certainty that no tulpa, no matter how experienced, would integrate her instead. That was simply how it was.

Until she finished. Purpose spent in under a minute, she had nothing else to do but return. She didn’t want to return, but she knew that it was what she had to do. There was only ever one way her brief existence was going to end. If she stayed separate too long, she would diverge too much, become too much of her own person. And that, quite simply, was unacceptable.

Dyna had done what was best for Dyna.

They were, after all, one and the same.

 

 

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.

 

 

 

Dyna didn’t often leave the Carroll Institute these days. It wasn’t that she was afraid or anything. In fact, she was pretty sure a small part of her wanted Ignotus to show up. But the simple fact was that her excursions out of the institute in the past had been to experiment with her ability in an environment where the administrators wouldn’t try to shut her down.

Now that she had permission, there simply was little reason to head into Idaho Falls on the regular.

Most days, anyway.

Today, Dyna found herself among a rather colorful group. Ruby walked ahead of the group, walking backwards to face everyone else. Dyna and Emerald followed up at the rear along with Mel, who looked both excited to be included and a bit confused as to why she was here at all. Between them, Matt and November casually chatted with one another in low tones. If someone had seen them walking, they would probably think that there were just a few young adults heading to a movie theater or restaurant. Along with someone’s little sister.

At least until they noticed the armed guards escorting them and the large building up ahead completely covered in a black and gold tent. The latter might have been mistaken for a building undergoing fumigation, but the former? The group of scientists, dressed in protective gear, might stick out even more than the armed guards.

Dyna had to wonder what the people of Idaho Falls thought of everything that went on. The airport had been attacked by ‘terrorists’, then a few months later, a whole bunch of stuff happened. A partial blackout of the city, cannon fire from the mountain man’s gun, and a shootout in a department store. And now…

A few local police officers moved aside, allowing the Carroll Institute team entrance to the striped tent.

The Willard Arts Center, just down the road from the art museum where Dyna and Walter had stopped the tulpa from escaping with the Ouija board, was a large venue building that hosted business meetings, film festivals, and parties. At least according to the report Dyna had read on the way over.

Today, it had been set up for a wedding. White sheer curtains and drapes were arranged against a fairly old-looking brick wall. Flowers and bouquets were stationed around a small platform with an array of uncomfortable-looking chairs set about in two distinct groups. White sheets hung across the ceiling, leaving them loose in the middles which created a pillow-like pattern. Probably to disguise a rather unflattering drop tile ceiling that poked through near the room’s entrance.

A large cake, one of those multi-tiered towers that looked entirely impractical to make, move, and consume, had toppled over, spilling across the wooden floor. Military boot prints had stomped through the cake, leaving imprints and tracking food across the floor. One of the legs of a gift table had broken, leaving wrapped presents in a pile near the toppled table.

Between the two sets of chairs, opposite from the wedding platform area, a large archway made from white plastic slats and fake vines stood tall in the room. The Carroll Institute’s first responders stood around it. The reason wasn’t immediately apparent, but quickly became so the longer Dyna stared.

Within the archway, a shimmering, barely-noticeable field occupied the area.

A spatial anomaly.

“I don’t like looking at that,” Matt mumbled.

“Really?” November said. “It’s quite beautiful. Nostalgic in a way. And there is a lot leaking through. You feel that, Ruby?”

Ruby nodded slowly, keeping her narrowed eyes on the archway as the group approached.

Walter and Sapphire, having already arrived, stood near it. Though Sapphire didn’t exactly stand, but rather floated a few inches off the ground looking like a hanged man without a noose. Strange as always. Walter glanced over at the arrival of the group, but didn’t do much besides offer a small nod of his head before turning back to a woman that Dyna didn’t recognize.

Dyna wasn’t quite sure if she was a scientist or a soldier. She was dressed like the former, wearing a long white coat with thick gloves, several vials of glowing liquid strapped to her hip and a bandoleer on her chest. A mask covered her nose and mouth while transparent yet high-tech goggles covered her eyes. However, she had the posture of someone trained in fighting and a very visible sidearm. While any doctor could carry a pistol, it was her bearing that really tripped Dyna up.

Perhaps it was stereotypical, but there were a great many scientists, doctors, and researchers at the Carroll Institute. Very few of them looked like they could run fifty feet without gasping for breath and even fewer looked like they could lift any amount of weights.

Where Walter turned away almost immediately, the woman stopped and stared at the group once she noticed them. Her eyes, visible behind her goggles, darted from one to the next in a familiar search for threats. Even though Emerald was right beside her, Dyna felt like the woman’s eyes stopped on her for a longer than anyone else.

“November, Matthew. The subject for today,” the woman said in a quick yet polite tone, motioning toward the archway. “The Phrenomorphics team is at your disposal. Any input you can provide as well, Ruby, will not go ignored.”

November didn’t look like she was paying much attention. She wandered away, slowly circling around the archway the way a tiger might circle its prey, looking for the opportune angle to pounce.

Ruby’s face lit up at being included by special mention, though she quickly tried to hide it. Apparently taking a cue from November, she started circling the archway as well.

Matt, on the other hand, tried to avoid looking at it still, focusing on the woman. “Director Gamma? I read the report, but—”

“At oh-nine-five-eight, interrupting a wedding ceremony, three armed soldiers matching Ignotus-33 reports emerged from the spatial anomaly within the archway, moved directly to the table of gifts, removed one, and exited the area through the archway. No civilians were harmed, but many panicked and fled the area before we could contain them. At this time, we are unsure what gift was taken. Interviews with remaining guests are being conducted by Haskwell in an adjacent room,” the woman said, pointing to a closed door. She swept her hand across the room, gesturing toward a white-haired man crouched over the remains of the cake. “However, Stroker requested you meet with him before anything else.”

Matt kept far from the archway as he rounded it to reach the cake. Just before Dyna turned away, she noticed a little plastic statue sliding across the cake-stained floor on its own. The white haired scientist swung a camera over immediately, bristling with visible excitement.

“What are we here for?” Mel whispered, leaning close to Dyna.

“Security,” Dyna said, then motioned between herself and Emerald. “At least we are.”

Mel had no weapon on her person. With the fog machine, she could create one instantly but as far as Dyna knew, Mel had not been training in combat. Emerald and Ruby clearly enjoyed their jobs, but after having met Hematite, Dyna was quite positive that it wasn’t for everyone. Based on everything she knew about Mel, it probably wasn’t for her either.

Gamma stepped closer, looking over the remaining three. “You are Melanie Murdoch? Phrenomorphics is a new division of the Carroll Institute. We are not quite sure of all of our needs at this time, thus, given your ability, we requested your presence. Doctor Gimball, the man in protective gear near the gift table, will inform you of needs. Please do your best to fulfill them.”

Mel puffed up a bit, inflating her chest as she gave a serious nod of her head. She… liked making things. Real things. Maybe it stemmed from her past, but she was always asking everyone around if they needed anything that she could provide. To Dyna, instant equipment manufacturer seemed like a job that would become frustrating and dull after ten minutes. Mel enjoyed it, however.

“Miss Onyx,” Gamma said as Mel hurried over to her spot. “Exciting to finally meet you.”

“Is it?”

“More than you can imagine. Or…” she paused, letting out a muffled laugh behind her mask. “Perhaps exactly as you can imagine.”

Dyna blinked twice, feeling like she was missing a joke.

“Administrator,” Walter said, mild warning in his tone.

“Oh?” Gamma turned. “I thought you wanted to tell?” The skin around her eyes wrinkled before she shook her head. “Ah well, the others would castigate me if I said anything more on the matter. In time, in time, I look forward to seeing what you do with yourself, Onyx.”

“You’re an administrator?” Dyna said, now narrowing her eyes. She had a whole list of things she wanted to complain about. Although… most of her complaints had actually been resolved in recent weeks.

“Administrator Gamma and temporary head of Phrenomorphics until I find a suitable replacement. At your service.” She paused and glanced over to Dyna’s side. “Emerald. Staying out of trouble?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“So long as the trouble is directed outside the institute,” Gamma said, hard voice taking on a resigned tinge. A series of beeps coming from a blinking light on the wrist of one of her gloves, echoed from a number of the other scientists around the room, had her sighing. “I’d love to stay and learn more about you, Onyx, but duty calls.”

“Right…”

With a curt nod of her head, Gamma stalked off, following a few of the other doctors who had beeped. November joined them, interestingly enough.

“Onyx, Emerald,” Walter said, turning to them fully. “I have a job for the two of you.”

“Oh? Something beyond standing about like a tin soldier?” Emerald asked with a smile. She turned her head slightly to where one of the Carroll Institute security team stood guard next to the archway in a silver protective suit. “No offense.”

The guard shrugged. “Didn’t sign up for the uniform, that’s for sure,” he said with a tinge of humor in his tone.

Dyna ignored the byplay, focusing on Walter. It irked a little, being called for security. She had been the first person to engage with tulpa, both the Hatman and November, and had been the first person to witness a spatial anomaly as well. Unfortunately, for all that experience, she wasn’t an expert. She hadn’t even read all the reports that Emerald went through; there were far too many reports for anyone who didn’t have a dedicated job of reading reports… or could stop time.

Her thumb brushed over the glass of the watch on her wrist. In the week since she had created it, Dyna had lived—or experienced—a few more hours than everyone else. She could throw her current self backward up to sixty seconds. Not much time. And she couldn’t go back further than sixty seconds from her current perspective. After throwing herself backward, the bezel would only turn up until that point.

It was not convenient for something like reading reports.

Fighting, however?

She hadn’t tried it out in training yet, but it was the gadget she was most excited about. Even more so than the causality-breaking laser aim assist. Using it outside of controlled testing situations…

“First, do either of you detect any artifacts in the vicinity?”

Emerald sniffed at the air twice despite her having said that the sense of smell was purely psychosomatic. Maybe it helped her concentrate. Dyna, for her part, simply took a moment of self-reflection, looking for that unnatural feeling of calm. She hadn’t been particularly agitated today, but didn’t feel especially soothed by anything either.

“No.”

“Can’t say that I do.”

Walter nodded his head and glanced to Sapphire. Neither said anything and Walter quickly turned back. “Sapphire read the minds of those present for the incident,” he said, speaking quietly. “One of the individuals in attendance, who none of the minds present recognized but all assumed someone else knew, matched the description of Harold Porter. He fled before our team arrived, but Sapphire’s intel suggests that he was the one to have brought the stolen gift.”

Dyna narrowed her eyes, glaring toward the toppled gift table. Harold Porter was the hypnotist who used to work as Doctor Cross’ assistant. The man who had tried to sell her out to Id’s people and then later stole the Aztec calendar artifact while defecting. Needless to say, Dyna had a bit of personal beef with him ever since he disappeared that night.

They had thought for a time that he had gone to work with Id, but during the Hatman incident, Id had specifically requested he be released from the Carroll Institute’s cells.

With him having been a part of the institute, Dyna wasn’t surprised that he had evaded them. He knew protocols and methodology. She was, however, surprised that he had reappeared so close by. If she were him, she would have been on the other side of the world by now.

“Is he involved with Ignotus?” Dyna asked.

“Unknown.”

“None of the wedding guests knew him?” Emerald asked, looking to Sapphire. The way he shook his head while still floating limp was a tad disturbing. “And yet he brought a gift. A gift that was stolen.”

“He probably brought it for Ignotus,” Dyna said. “Whatever deal he had with Id must have fallen through. He can’t come back to the institute. Ignotus is probably the new power on the block that caught his eyes.” Frowning, Dyna thought back to the brief conversation in the car after capturing him. “He told me he didn’t want to hurt anyone,” she added more to herself than anyone else present. “Then he goes and joins up with the guys literally opening fire with cannons in public streets.”

“Nothing is confirmed,” Walter stressed. “Even his presence here is uncertain. No one knew him by name and memories of his face faded rapidly. Especially with all the chaos of Ignotus charging in.”

“Investigation time, huh?” Emerald said, rubbing her hands together. “Unfortunately, I’m going to need a little bit more than he was here but isn’t now.”

Sapphire’s head lifted slightly. “None of the wedding guests recognized him.” “Hardly any remember him.” “One spotted a tag poking out of his suit.”

Sapphire’s voices, as usual, came from impossible directions that were probably all in Dyna’s head.

“Oh?” Emerald said, not reacting in the slightest. “Couldn’t get a proper rental? Had to tuck the tags so he could return it later? Not very classy, Harold.”

“Would he even go return it after everything that happened?”

“If he doesn’t have a job, he probably doesn’t have proper income. He’ll want to keep what he can.”

Dyna wasn’t so convinced. “Counterpoint: he is a hypnotist. A good one. He’ll just say something like ‘I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle,’ and people will give it to him.”

Emerald raised an eyebrow, then shook her head. “Why not cut off the tag then? Unless you’ve got a different lead, Sapphire, then we’ll have to check it out.”

“No leads.” “There are too many minds—” “Noisy minds.” “—to focus on a store clerk in the city.” “We can focus on you.” “Find our lead and call.” “We—I will read his mind and discover his secrets.”

“Right. Where to?”

“Men’s Wearhouse. East 17th Street.”

Emerald looked over to Dyna and winked. “Race you there?” she said.

Dyna didn’t get a chance to respond before Emerald simply vanished.

“Hold—” Walter started.

He didn’t get a chance to finish before Dyna grabbed her watch bezel and rotated it a full sixty seconds.

“None of the wedding guests knew him?” Emerald asked, looking to Sapphire.

Unlike the previous time around when Sapphire gave a disturbing shake of his head, this time Sapphire shook. His whole body underwent a little seizure for just an instant.

“Disturbing.” “Disjointed.” “Continuity broken.”

“Excuse me?” Emerald asked, smile turning concerned.

Dyna had been planning on running away immediately, but with both Emerald and Walter looking at Sapphire, she couldn’t help her own concern. “Are you alright?” she asked.

“You know?” “She heard me.” “We didn’t speak.” “Didn’t we?” “She heard us.”

Dyna made a mental note not to use the watch around Sapphire in the future. “Sorry,” she said aloud. “I—”

“Foolish competition.” “Emerald started it.” “We’ll wait five minutes.”

“Five minutes?” Walter asked.

Dyna took a moment to realize what Sapphire meant. Once she did, she turned around. “Sorry again,” she said, pulling out her phone to check how far away 17th was.

“Wait, where—” Walter started, only for Sapphire to lift a hand and grab the sleeve of his shirt.

Maybe Sapphire was a bit upset with Emerald for causing this, but Dyna would take it. Unfortunately, the location was bit far. And she couldn’t use her watch again. It threw her thoughts back to her physical location and she couldn’t go beyond sixty seconds. Thus, she would never actually physically progress toward her goal.

For a moment, she considered calling Beatrice for help. But that seemed a bit much for a, as Sapphire put it, foolish competition. A small part of her wondered if she was being incredibly immature, but, as Sapphire had said, Emerald started it. Besides, she was leaving a minute earlier than she otherwise would have. So she was still going to get there sooner than if this hadn’t happened.

Justifying that to herself, Dyna headed straight toward their vehicle. Emerald had driven their little group in her old station wagon. She had the keys, but Dyna had something a little better. Pulling out the bobby pin from her pocket, she slipped inside and started the engine without trouble.

She probably should have driven a little slower. A little more carefully.

Yet, when Dyna pulled up to the Men’s Wearhouse, she couldn’t help but scowl.

Emerald shoved off the wall near the entrance and sauntered over to the station wagon’s open window. “What kept you?”

 

 

 

Having Emerald back changed a few things in Dyna’s life. Training sessions were rougher. More intense. Dyna had no idea how she would have kept up were it not for the multitude of gadgets that she was cycling through. Before Emerald left for Korea, she had participated in training. At the time, she must have been going easy.

Either that or she was especially upset about taking a paintball to the face. It was hard to tell. Emerald almost perpetually had a serene smile on.

Ruby acted differently as well. Although she pretended otherwise, she was clearly happy to have Emerald around. Normally, Ruby didn’t like anyone barging into movie nights. Not November, not Matt, and certainly not Hematite. She tolerated Mel, but likely only because Mel didn’t stick around to watch movies for long before heading off to do her own thing.

Then Dyna went out to invite Emerald along for a movie, only to find out that Ruby had already done so.

The little things aside, however, the biggest change was a strange undercurrent of tension that followed Emerald around. It wasn’t directed at the Carroll Institute or anyone inside it. Emerald wasn’t angry with anyone or ready to start a fight over nothing. She was just… ready. Every moment of every day, she was ready for the call that the institute had narrowed down a base of operations for Ignotus-33. It was inspiring in a way. And a bit frustrating.

Dyna had her own beef with the group. If word came in about Ignotus and Emerald vanished to go handle it before Dyna could even grab her jacket…

Well, perhaps Emerald’s constant state of readiness had been rubbing off on Dyna.

Dyna sat at the large table of the artificer ready-room wearing combat boots, a combat knife, two pistols, and a few pouches attached to her belt that contained a small first-aid kit, a pair of spare magazines, ballistic glasses, ear protection, and, most importantly, a few of her gadgets. She never used to sit around armed to the teeth. Especially not within the Carroll Institute where she hadn’t even carried a gun for self-defense purposes.

Now, she wanted to be ready to go at any moment.

Tossing an oil-covered rag to the side, Dyna quickly reassembled her APC9K submachine gun. The actual gun, not a paint pellet variant for training. Following cleaning and maintenance, she placed it into its small carrying case. That was ready as well.

Now if only it was easier to carry around. Encumbrance, Dyna had decided, was quickly becoming a problem. Emerald could leave her gear wherever and, thanks to her ability to stop time, gather it up effectively instantly. So far, Dyna couldn’t say the same.

Though not for a lack of trying.

While cleaning her guns, she had kept the rest of the table covered with a plethora of items. A dozen timepieces, pocket watches, wristwatches, one mantle clock, and even a cuckoo clock. On the other half of the table, a series of bags, boxes, containers, and other storage-themed objects were arrayed out.

Making new gadgets, Dyna discovered, was something of a hit-or-miss affair. No matter how much she sat and stared at something, there wasn’t a guarantee that it would demonstrate any anomalous activity. So gathering a large number of similar items increased the chance that she could turn one of them into something special. For the clock-like items, Dyna didn’t know if she would be able to craft an ability to completely stop time as Emerald did. Manipulating time felt like an incredibly powerful ability to have, which was why she was trying to get anything working, and yet, seemed a bit out of scope compared to other gadgets she had created. The laser pointer, which made bullets from the attached gun hit so long as she had aimed it at her target at some point in the immediate past, seemed closest and it still wasn’t quite there.

The containers, on the other hand, came from a concept described by Matt of a ‘bag of holding’. A container that was basically larger on the inside than it was on the outside that would hopefully weigh no more than the container itself. Dyna didn’t know if that was achievable, but also didn’t know that it wasn’t achievable. Artifacts, and her gadgets, did a great many strange things. The concept sounded too good to simply ignore.

At least she didn’t feel too much of a need to sneak around behind the institute’s back. There were no objections to the creation of gadgets, or artifacts if Dyna could manage, but they were limiting the number she could carry at once. Security reasons. They didn’t want a hundred items falling into enemy hands if something unfortunate happened. Dyna had to write a full report on every object she created, detailing everything she figured out from using it, as well as submitting it to Doctor Cross for further testing and analysis. Following that, she had to file innumerable forms justifying why she should be able to carry around that particular item. Even then, a few requests had still been denied.

The most common cause of denial was a simple phrase. ‘Usable by many.’ If something she created was only for Dyna, it presented far less of a security risk than something anyone could pick up and make use of.

Emerald entered the artificer ready-room. Dyna perked up. She had been hoping to see the other woman today. Dyna hadn’t really thought of creating something that manipulated time before her return, but now that she was back…

“Dyna,” Emerald said, tone pleasant as always. “Or I suppose we should all be calling you Onyx now.”

“Eh…”

“Don’t like it?”

“I mean, it just feels a little weird. It’s fine. I’m sure I’ll get used to…” Dyna trailed off as Emerald ducked back into the hall and wheeled in a large cart. Papers were stacked on top of it, reaching almost from Emerald’s chest to the top of her head. Below the stack of papers, on shelves set into the cart, a Emerald had a variety of foods and drinks. A lot of meal-replacement style drinks, but some solid food as well. A good amount of snack-foods such as M&Ms, potato chips, and hard candy.

“I took to Emerald quite well,” she said, moving the cart right up to the adjacent table. Her eyes danced over the array of items in front of Dyna, but didn’t comment. Instead, she said, “To be honest, I think we ought to be able to pick our own names. Not code names, but actual names. Why does a little sex give parents the right to call their child Dorcas? Honestly, should be illegal. No one, let alone a little girl, wants to be named Dorcas.” Emerald shook her head. Then, after pulling her pocket watch out of her pocket, reached under the top shelf of the cart. Emerald, athletic and strong, was still having trouble with the clearly heavy cart. Yet she lifted it a smidgen off the ground and…

Dyna blinked.

There were papers scattered across the adjacent table. Wrappers and empty cans and bottles littered the area. Emerald wasn’t where she had just been standing, but over at the door leading to the bathrooms. She slipped through before Dyna could say anything.

Leaning over, Dyna stared at the nearest document. It was a typed report of suspected Ignotus-33 activity in Canada. Alongside the printed text, several lines had been highlighted with a variety of colors and annotations had been penned into the margins in Emerald’s handwriting.

Emerald returned in short order, stepping over to the cart once again.

“Is that your real name?” Dyna asked. “Dorcas?”

“Who told you that?” Emerald said with a mild start.

“You did. Just…” Dyna glanced over the cart again. The stack of papers had disappeared by about half. A good portion of the food was missing too. And there was a blanket and pillow on the very bottom shelf that looked different than it had before. Like it had been unfurled and replaced.

How long had Emerald been in stopped time for?

“Right. I remember, sorry. Mind is a bit full of this Ignotus group at the moment.” Emerald paused, taking a half-empty energy drink from her tray and chugging it. She finished it in an instant and tossed it over her shoulder where it landed in a small trash bin along with several other pieces of trash that Dyna didn’t remember being there a moment ago. “Speaking of groups, did Tartarus ever respond to you?”

Dyna frowned at the reminder, shaking her head. “I don’t get it. Why say that they need to talk and then just not talk?”

“Could be something happened,” Emerald said with a casual shrug, rolling her neck and popping it a few times. “Ignotus is after psionic-related personnel, items, and information. Tartarus would have been a target. Something to think about, but if you’ll excuse me for an instant…”

With half the cart emptied, Emerald had far less difficulty lifting it off the ground this time around.

Once again, the scene shifted. The items on the cart reappeared elsewhere in the room. Papers now occupied three full tables and the trash had multiplied. Emerald looked a somewhat haggard, her hair a bit oilier than usual and her cardigan wrinkled and unkempt. But she had a smile on her face.

“Phew. Finished.”

“Finished?”

“Every report the institute had on Ignotus-33, spatial anomalies, and tulpa,” she said, sweeping her hand across the room. Her eyes flicked up to a clock on the wall. “Read and commented on every piece in about five minutes. Not bad.”

Dyna glanced back down at the paper she had just been looking at. Even more scribbles covered it. Little numbers pointing out references to other documents, a few extra comments about Canadian psionic capabilities, and more highlighting of various text.

Every piece of paper was the same throughout the room. She couldn’t read the text without moving around, but she could see the handwritten notes and colorful lines of the highlighters used. There had to be a few hundred, maybe even a few thousand papers about the room. Some stacked up, but most scattered across the tables.

Shelving her irritation with Tartarus for the moment—if they were in trouble, surely they could have sent more than one message—Dyna focused on the situation in front of her. “That is the most intense study session I’ve ever seen,” she said slowly, wondering if that counted as a compliment. “Do you even retain all that information? I’d forget everything immediately.”

“Oh I doubt I remember every bit. The important parts, sure. While I did this to get fully caught up on the situation, I also plan to feed all this into Beatrice’s OCR machine to let her analyze my comments.”

“Did you figure out anything? A base of operations or—”

“That kind of stuff I’ll leave to Beatrice. Like I said, I really just needed to catch up fully on the situation.”

“Wow.”

Dyna didn’t know what else to say. That ability…

It was a good thing Emerald had it. Dyna felt she had drive and motivation, but the dedication to sit around and read thousands of dry, monotonous reports for… hours? Days? Longer? Emerald was definitely cut from a different cloth.

Speaking of abilities, Emerald was looking at the items on Dyna’s table.

“It’s how I make gadgets,” Dyna answered the unasked question. “The best way I’ve found so far.”

“I was going to ask,” Emerald said. “Kept getting distracted wondering what you were doing. Gadgets are like fake artifacts?”

Shoving aside the sudden idea that Dyna had been standing stock still, staring at Emerald’s papers for days on end, Dyna walked back over. “Kind of. Two, including my mirror, have become actual artifacts since I created them. Doctor Cross refers to them as nascent artifacts.”

“Trying to do something with time and… space?” Emerald asked, looking from the group of clocks to the containers.

“Not together,” Dyna said before pausing to think. “Maybe? Probably. If one object can do two things, then I’m all for it, but no. These are two separate attempts at making things.”

“I would say that time and space are one and the same, but they really aren’t for me.”

“Any of them stand out to you? Maybe smell different or just seem like they don’t quite fit in with the rest?” That was the main reason Dyna had been hoping to see Emerald today. Well, that and to get her to use her ability, but she had been doing that without needing to be asked.

Emerald didn’t answer the question right away. Humming, she started walking around the table. She leaned down close, eyes moving over each item in turn. Although she tried to keep her occasional sniffs subtle, she didn’t quite manage to hide them completely.

When she reached out to touch the old Russian komandirskie watch, Dyna grabbed her hand.

“Sorry. Just, uh, try not to touch them. Ruby has had to go through the decoupling process three times now.”

“Can’t help herself?”

“To be fair, the first time, we didn’t know exactly what would happen. Given the unique nature of her… well, her, the doctors rushed her into the decoupling chamber as fast as they could once we realized what happened. They didn’t want any artifact interference to mess with the gemstone.”

“That would be understandable except she went through two more times?”

“Something about the doctors not knowing what is best for her,” Dyna said with a sigh. “Unfortunately, it also kind of messes with the gadget. Makes them harder for me to use. She’s banned from coming within five feet of any gadgets now.”

With a small, knowing chuckle, Emerald kept her distance and pointed to the komandirskie watch. A fairly standard winding watch brass bars in place of numbers, a day counter, and a red star at the twelve position. “This,” Emerald said, pointing without touching, “is running sixty percent slower than it should be. Could be a manufacturing defect, or…”

Picking up the watch, Dyna stared down at the second hand as it ticked around the face. Holding it next to one of the other watches on the table, she had to agree. It was definitely slower than normal. Had it always done that? Honestly, Dyna hadn’t really thought to check.

“You noticed it that quickly, huh?” Dyna said, looking up. Even side by side, she still probably wouldn’t have noticed. None of the clocks were set to the same time, so it wasn’t like one had obviously gotten out of synchronization with the others.

“I know time,” Emerald said with a smile.

“I’ll have to focus on this one for a bit then,” Dyna said, placing it on her wrist and doing the strap up. It didn’t exactly look good. Nobody actually used watches these days. Not unless they were smart watches. If she were being honest, she could hardly believe standard were still being made.

Yet, every year, it seemed like she heard about some new high precision watch with moon phase dials and a complete orrery of the solar system or some watch designed to look like a combustion engine for some inconceivable reason.

But if it let her stop time, she would strap an engine to her wrist any day of the week.

Tapping the winding stem didn’t seem to do anything, unfortunately. In order to wind or set the clock, one had to unscrew the stem, then they could either wind it by twisting in the opposite direction or pull it out a bit further to set the time. No real button. The bezel of the watch had seconds in tens around the brass edges of the watch, but it could also rotate.

Twisting the bezel made Dyna jolt.

“This,” Emerald said, pointing without touching, “is running sixty percent slower than it should be. Could be a manufacturing defect, or…”

Dyna’s wide eyes snapped from her bare wrist to the table where Emerald was pointing at the Russian watch.

“Something wrong?”

Ignoring Emerald for the moment, Dyna grabbed the watch and put it on her wrist. What had she done? She had tried to wind it first, and that had done nothing. Then she twisted the bezel. She had made it about three quarters of the way around before it felt like it had been ripped out from under her fingertips.

Dyna twisted the bezel again, only to feel it ripped out of her grip before she got a tenth of the way around.

“This,” Emerald said, pointing without touching, “is running sixty percent slower than it should be. Could be—”

“I don’t think it is a manufacturing defect,” Dyna said, picking up the watch much slower this time.

Emerald raised a quizzical eyebrow. “How did you—” she started, but cut herself off some comprehension dawned. “Precognition upon touching the watch?”

“No. Time travel, maybe? Except there is obviously only one of me, so maybe just threw my thoughts backwards? Which I guess is just functional precognition… but… I… I think I need to go talk to Doctor Cross right now.”

Emerald smiled, completely unperturbed by the implications. “I was going to ask your help in collecting all these papers,” she said with a slight sigh. “Oh well. Have fun then. Hopefully my notes will help Beatrice narrow down on Ignotus.”

Dyna nodded her head absently before Emerald’s words caught up to her. Then she nodded a little more seriously. “Yes. But… I want to go too. Don’t run off without me.”

“Of course.”

Promise extracted, Dyna left the assortment of items behind, only picking up the case that held her APC9K as she left the room. The others would still be there when she got back.

Unless Ruby got into them.

Oh well. If Ruby wanted to go through decoupling again, she was welcome to. Dyna had a new gadget to experiment with.

 

 

 

Dyna rushed forward, moving from the concealment of a flimsy office filing cabinet to the sturdy cover of a brick wall. Flipping open her mirror, she used it not like the artifact it was, but as a regular mirror to peer around the corner. There was a bit of smoke in the air. She could taste it on her tongue. But the goggles she wore let her see through it like it wasn’t there.

Seven on the left. Five on the right.

The enemy was crouching and half hidden behind toppled tables and furniture. Their heads were peeking out, watching with guns trained on the doorway that Dyna was looking from.

Slipping the mirror back into her pocket, she reached up to the short barrel of her APC9K and flipped the switch on the under-barrel laser aim assist. Her laser aim assist. Keeping the stock collapsed and the submachine gun in semi-automatic fire mode, Dyna pivoted around the corner.

She swung her arm, rapidly squeezing the trigger six times. She threw herself back behind the cover of the brick wall just in time to avoid a following rain of bullets aimed in her direction.

As soon as the returning fire slowed, Dyna peered around the corner with her mirror.

Four on the right. Two on the left.

All six shots had not only hit, but had hit in vulnerable spots. Between the eyes of someone without a faceguard, someone’s neck, underneath someone’s arm where the brachial artery was, and so forth. The laser pointer was… actually genius. She should have thought of it weeks ago.

Before Dyna could make her next move, the door behind the stack of tables swung open. An armored woman with black hair strode through holding a gun to the head of an extraordinarily pissed off Ruby. If looks could kill, everyone in the room would be dead ten times over.

“Weapon on the ground, hands up. Surrender or she dies.”

Dyna ground her teeth. Ruby wouldn’t die, but Dyna didn’t want to force her into regrowing a head. She had been through more than enough as it was.

“Five.”

Dyna swore under her breath. She slipped her bobby pin into her mouth, hiding it against her upper gums.

“Four.”

“Alright!” Dyna called out, she twisted the bolt holding the laser to her ACP9K’s rail until it popped off. As soon as it was off, she chucked the submachine gun around the corner of the wall.

There was a moment of silence before the counting continued. “Three.”

“What guarantee do I have that you won’t shoot me?” Dyna called out as she pulled out her sidearm, a VP9. She hoped her question would buy her an extra precious second; it took a moment to attach the laser assist to the VP9’s accessory rail.

“None,” the woman answered. “Two.”

So much for that. Grabbing a small device from her belt, Dyna took a breath.

“One.”

She wished she had a few more seconds, but this would have to do.

Gun down and slightly hidden behind her body, Dyna dropped the device as she turned the corner, kicking it with the tip of her steel-toed boot.

The remaining guards gripped their guns, probably readying to fire, but none got the chance.

A bright flash of stunning psionic-infused light flooded the hall. Goggles firmly over her eyes, Dyna was unaffected. The others…

Dyna swung her pistol around. She squeezed the trigger, aiming at the one holding Ruby captive first.

The woman wasn’t there. She had been when Dyna kicked the stun grenade, but she wasn’t now.

Dyna didn’t hesitate. She swung her arm backward, pulling the trigger three times as she did so. Three of the stunned guards went down as she pivoted around.

When someone disappeared, there were only three possibilities. Either they were invisible, there were illusions involved, or they had moved. Dyna didn’t feel that niggling pressure in her mind of foreign psychic influence, which only left the third possibility.

Her quick reactions were rewarded with the feeling of someone’s ribs against her elbow. Dyna continued her attack, striking out with the butt of her pistol. However, she only caught a mere glimpse of a smile and mildly surprised green eyes before her gun swung through empty air.

Dyna snapped her arm back once again, aiming toward Ruby and the remaining guards. She pulled the trigger three times before even turning her head to see where she was aiming.

Splatters covered the remaining three stunned guards when she turned her head, but there was no sign of the woman. Dyna pivoted again, turning fully around.

Something slammed into the back of her neck.

Even as Dyna stumbled forward, she kicked backwards, slamming her foot into a knee that vanished the moment she touched it. Using her stumbling momentum, she slammed her back up against a wall, limiting the avenues of attack.

A hand appeared around her gun arm, wrenching her firearm up as another fist slammed into her chest.

Dyna ground her teeth. Staring directly at her opponent, she shrugged off the pain and pulled the trigger. Despite the gun being pointed upward, the scuffle had moved the laser pointer over the woman’s face for the briefest of moments.

“Oof,” the woman grunted, head snapping to the side as a splatter of pink spread across her face from the paint pellet.

A loud buzzer sounded, signaling the end of the exercise.

Emerald pulled off her helmet and slowly moved her fingers through the paint on her face. She glanced down at her fingertips, smearing the paint between her fingers, then put on a kind smile. “That was unexpected.”

“The laser pointer,” Dyna said, chest rising and falling with heavy breaths as she tried to regain her composure after that bout. “It gives me exceptional aim. So exceptional, it seems to break causality.”

“Fascinating,” Emerald said, now looking over Dyna’s gun. “I thought, for an instant, that Ruby had shot me, but she’s…”

Ruby’s murderous look hadn’t changed in the slightest. She wasn’t stunned. The psionic light didn’t last that long and Ruby’s artifact would have powered through it faster than normal people. She was just glaring at Emerald. “Why do I have to be the hostage?”

Smile widening, Emerald stepped over to Ruby, reached over the barricade, and started to ruffle Ruby’s hair. Dyna watched for a moment, noting Emerald’s posture and stance. The woman was ready to hop back and jump away at any sign of movement from Ruby, yet Ruby didn’t try to attack. Ruby’s glare grew, but she only let out a mildly annoyed huff.

“You’re back from Korea? Obviously, I guess. How did the mission go?” Dyna asked, only to grimace as she noted the sudden stilling of Emerald’s hand and the way her smile turned strained. Was that a landmine she just stepped on? “Didn’t recognize you at first with your dyed hair. Black now, huh?”

“Most everyone in Korea has dark hair.” Emerald pulled her hand back from Ruby to run her fingers through her own hair. “Didn’t want to stand out more than I already did.”

“Ah.”

“I see you’ve been training. Even discounting your firearms breaking the laws of physics, your reaction times have improved. You actually landed a hit on me,” Emerald said, rubbing the center of her chest.

“Sorry about that—”

“Oh don’t be,” Emerald said, flashing a smile in Dyna’s direction. “I’m impressed. Knocked the wind right out of me. I had to take a few minutes to collect myself. But you’re working hard.”

“Well, there are people out there that don’t seem to like me. I don’t like them much in return.”

“I’ve heard,” Emerald said, looking between Ruby and Dyna. “Strange armored men wielding PP-2000s?”

Dyna nodded. “They tried to kill me, Hematite, and Ruby. Nearly succeeded on all three accounts.”

“The same ones that jumped us in California almost a year ago,” Ruby said. “Remember? They broke into our apartment.”

Emerald nodded her head. “I had a run-in with them again just a week ago. Not exactly my favorite people at the moment. I hear you are itching to take the fight to them. Me too.”

Dyna sucked in a breath. The Carroll Institute didn’t let her keep all of the gadgets she had been making over the past month. Most went through some testing before being tossed into the vault. The few things she was allowed to keep, such as the laser pointer, had her feeling more confident. More like a proper artificer than just a glorified clairvoyant. Yet, although she had landed a hit on her, Dyna still felt like Emerald was cheating.

Case in point, Emerald flickered. Just a brief disappearance and reappearance.

Her armor vanished, replaced by her usual light green cardigan and dress. The paint vanished from her face, though there was still a small red mark where the pellet had hit her cheek. Tying her hair back into a tight ponytail, Emerald looked perfectly refreshed.

“What are you doing standing around? You two have been busy. Walter got me caught up on events I missed, but I want to hear it all from you two.”

If Emerald wanted to help hunt down those bastards, Dyna would be beyond pleased.

But for the moment… “Ugh. I need a shower.”

“Right. Go get cleaned up. I’ll be in the briefing room when you’re ready.”

Dyna didn’t need telling twice. Emerald sauntered off, not even breathing hard. Despite the brief conversation, Dyna still felt the adrenaline rushing through her body. Her breathing, while calmer than it had been a few minutes ago, was far from baseline.

Ruby looked like she had been through a bit of a tussle as well. Physiologically, she looked normal. No hard breathing or exertion. But Dyna wouldn’t expect that from Ruby. There were other signs. Her mane of red hair was standing out more than normal, wild and unkempt in a way that simple gunfire wouldn’t have caused. The black hoodie she wore had marks on it, bunches of stretched fabric that looked like someone had used it to lift her or Judo throw her.

Which made sense. Ruby wouldn’t let herself be taken hostage easily. Not even for a practice exercise.

The mobile walls of the training room, made to look like an office building, descended into the floor ahead of Dyna and Ruby, allowing them a straight shot to the exit. A few of the Carroll Institute security personnel, who played the part of the opposing force, had already created a path toward the other exits. The artificers had a separate locker room.

“You seem happy to see Emerald,” Dyna said as she and Ruby headed off toward the locker room.

“Hah?” Ruby scoffed, scowl still firmly in place. “What put that stupid idea into your head?”

“You didn’t try to kill her when she ruffled your hair.”

Ruby pressed her lips together. Keeping her scowl, she slowly nodded. “Well, maybe I am happy.” She slammed a fist into the palm of her other hand. “Us three together will crush those tulpa and have them crying for whatever mothers a monster has.”

“My thoughts exactly. Mostly. I didn’t think about the mother part; I don’t think tulpa have mothers.”

“They’ll be crying for them anyway,” Ruby said with a harsh finality.

After tossing her gear into a locker, the gadgets and the mirror going to a special containment unit, Dyna hopped into the locker room shower for a quick rinse and then hopped right back out. Ruby, despite having half as much height and half as much hair, took twice as long. Dyna waited up for her, spending the time on her phone.

Someone else her age would probably have been talking with friends or spending time on social media. Dyna, however, had the Carroll Institute Internal Database up. Rather than the latest updates on celebrity gossip, Dyna focused on the latest updates regarding the organization currently referred to as Ignotus-33. The tulpa-using organization had no known name at the moment, Ignotus apparently meant something like Ignorant and was used as a temporary designator until they named themselves or the institute uncovered their name.

Ever since the incident with the Ouija board, they had been making semi-regular appearances. Not around the Carroll Institute, but the PP-2000 wielding soldiers had been popping out of the woodwork often enough that even regular people and traditional news organizations had started up conspiracy theories over government black-ops. Which government was a topic of debate.

Most of the time, they simply appeared somewhere, carried out a quick operation, then vanished. The operations didn’t always appear to be psionic-related. One curious report had them simply appearing in a crowded amusement park, running through a fenced off area beneath a roller coaster, causing a mild panic, and then disappearing without taking any items, kidnapping anyone, or even firing a single shot.

Somehow, Dyna had missed the report from Korea. Now that she was looking, it was right there. Emerald’s report described them as appearing from a wall, grabbing the artifact, then attempting to exfiltrate. Attempting because Emerald had killed all of them, though not before they managed to secure the artifact.

As Dyna was scrolling through Emerald’s report, her phone buzzed with an incoming text message.

It wasn’t someone in her contacts and the number was blocked. Her phone wasn’t a private phone but one assigned to her by the Carroll Institute. With most of its operations being screened by Beatrice, it shouldn’t be possible to send anything dangerous. Beatrice would have filtered any attempt at hypnosis or BLIT attacks. As such, she felt safe enough to indulge in her bout of curiosity by opening the message.

It was a simple, short message. Need to talk. -Id.

“Beatrice?” Dyna called out.

“This is Beatrice,” the artificial intelligence answered over the locker room’s announcement system.

“I don’t suppose you can trace text messages. Find out the physical location from where they were sent?”

“Under elevated operations, yes. However, the User Data Privacy Act of—”

“You can just say no, Beatrice. I won’t be upset.”

“I apologize.”

“It’s alright… Except, you can’t trace them, but you screen all of my calls and texts, right?”

“Acceptance of a Carroll Institute employee communications device indicates consent of supervision under the guise of security.”

“Supervision under the guise of security?”

“All communications are monitored for the safety and security of the Carroll Institute and its employees,” Beatrice said, emphasizing the difference between the institute and its employees. “If you wish to make unmonitored communications, please use a personal device.”

“That didn’t stop you from hacking into that nine-one-one call I made while Id’s people were chasing me.”

“Priority keywords: psychics, Carroll Institute, Dyna Graves, 50112, psychic; were picked up through passive monitoring. Protocol overrule took place. Walter consented to elevated operational level. Hostile intrusion of emergency call network commenced.”

“I see…” Dyna shrugged. She didn’t mind that much. Frankly, the world would probably be a safer place if Beatrice permanently took over all emergency call networks. As an artificial intelligence, she could handle a vast call load, would never lose her patience and hang up on someone in need, and would efficiently allocate needed resources to any given emergency.

But, unfortunately, Dyna wasn’t in charge.

“So you know what text I just got then,” Dyna said, returning to the most pertinent topic on hand.

“A request for dialog with Id.” Beatrice paused, and then asked the rare question. “What are your intentions?”

“Not sure. Administrator Theta’s proposal to cosy up with Id’s employees in an attempt to poach them is on indefinite hold with the ongoing Ignotus crisis. I don’t like Id or the way she does things, but, assuming Ignotus isn’t her doing, at least she isn’t… well, doing that. Ado and Maple hadn’t been wholly insufferable to work with.”

Theta’s plan had been to manufacture a tulpa-related incident then call in Tartarus as an excuse to get into closer contact and more personal working conditions. From there, he wanted to develop relations with Tartarus as a whole as a way of information gathering. Learn what they could about the entities, as Tartarus called them, find out information about Tartarus and their operations in the hopes of infiltration, ideally convince some of their workers to jump ship to the institute, and, if possible, absorb Tartarus into the Carroll Institute as a subsidiary.

For Id to be the one reaching out, Dyna had to wonder what had happened. There was an actual tulpa-related incident going on, not a manufactured one. Perhaps Id had come into contact with Ignotus and wanted help? Aside from previous interactions—which left a poor impression on Dyna—Dyna wasn’t sure why Id would contact her over literally anyone else at the Carroll Institute. Even if she didn’t know any of the administrator’s numbers, she surely could have called up the front desk.

Was it another recruitment attempt? Dyna hadn’t heard anything from them since the Hatman incident. They could have just been letting the tensions between them cool off. Let Id’s transgressions against Dyna’s mind fade into history. They hadn’t, but that didn’t mean that they hadn’t just tried that.

Much as Dyna hated to admit it, Tartarus was definitely the preferable opposing organization now that she actually had something to compare them to. Ignotus simply… was far too hostile.

Dyna simply sent a question mark back then slipped her phone into her pocket as Ruby emerged from the showers.

Beatrice knew, so the administrators, Walter, and probably half the institute knew. If she hadn’t received big warnings not to engage Id in conversation by now, they were probably leaving it up to her discretion. A question mark gave away little aside from an indication that Dyna wanted more information. Depending on what information she received, she would make other decisions, likely with Theta and Walter leaning over her shoulder.

“So,” Dyna said, standing now that Ruby had finished throwing on her clothes. “You remember Id?”

“Hard to forget.”

“Well.” Dyna pushed open the doors to the locker room, walking with Ruby toward the briefing room. “You’ll never guess what I just got.”

“She called you?”

“Texted.”

“That bitch better have information on where the tulpa are coming from. If they’re coming from her, I’ve got a C4 collection I want to show off.”

Dyna blinked at Ruby, then shook her head. “Let’s go talk to Emerald, see what she has to say about things. And maybe Id will tell me what she’s wanting by then too.”

 

 

Emerald placed her back against a concrete pillar, wincing as bullets pelted the other side. This was not how this operation was supposed to have gone.

Arriving in Seoul, Korea had been nice enough. Lovely city. The accommodations had been nothing to complain about. Then began the search for the artifact. Emerald had been hoping that they would be able to find the artifact in good time. Perhaps in the hands of a collector they could pay off or maybe a museum with a single night-shift security guard that could be bribed to look the other way.

But no. Of course it couldn’t be that easy.

The initial signal had come from north of Seoul. Not Goyang, Paju, Yangju, or any of Seoul’s other satellite cities, but north of Seoul. What was north of Seoul?

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. That was still its official name, but as of five years ago, it was effectively just another branch of the People’s Republic of China. China, for all their faults, had the second largest psionic research facility in the world. The Jingshen.

They found the artifact first.

Research and infiltration suggested that it was currently secured within an old North Korean bunker, awaiting transit to the central Chinese Jingshen facility.

A bit of concrete exploded as a bullet ripped through the pillar above Emerald’s head.

This facility was falling apart.

“I thought you said they were handled.”

“Uh, Emerald, my fair Lady Emerald. Perhaps, perchance, as it may be, conceivably, mayhaps you have forgotten… We are not supposed to be instigating a diplomatic incident today.”

“There wouldn’t be an incident if they were asleep like you said they would be.”

Alexanderite let out an undignified squeak as a chunk of the pillar he was cowering behind blew apart. “Yes, well, clearly someone woke up.”

“You think?”

Emerald shot him a glare, looking over just in time to watch a cylinder fly through the air toward their cover.

Pure reflex took over Emerald. Her thumb hit the winding stem of her pocket watch. Time froze. Bullets stopped pelting her column. The pitched wail of the facility’s alarm went silent. Shouts of soldiers, cracks of gunfire, and stomping boots stilled. The grenade in the air froze as well.

Emerald stepped out from her cover, calm, collected, and with a smile on her face. She looked around the room. It was a control room of some sort. Several computers sat around a trio of large curved desks, all sitting atop terraced levels in front of a several large screens on the far wall, set between the pillars that Emerald and Alex were using as cover. There were two entrances into the room. Both on the opposite side of the room. Soldiers peeked around both.

They were trapped. Alexanderite’s handling of the situation left much to be desired.

To make matters worse, an upper level balcony looked down at them, providing even more places for soldiers to pelt them with their firearms. Several other concrete pillars up there provided enemy soldiers with similar cover.

Reaching up, Emerald grasped hold of the frozen grenade. It didn’t budge. Not even the slightest.

Upon restarting time, the sudden momentum carried her arm backwards for just an instant. But she had been prepared. In the blink of an eye, it was sailing back through the air toward the open doorway where the soldiers were standing. The second the grenade left her fingertips, she stopped time once again to keep the soldiers from shifting their shots toward her. All-in-all, she had been in real-time for less than a second.

Stepping over to the frozen Alex, she joined him in his cover and restarted time again.

“You know Alex…”

Alex yelped in surprise. Emerald had to grab hold of his frilled cravat to keep him from leaping out into the line of fire.

“We tried this whole thing your way. It didn’t work.”

The boom of a detonating grenade sent a compression wave around the pillar, billowing Emerald’s dyed black hair. Alex choked, looking like he had the wind sucked out of him.

“My turn,” Emerald said.

“But diploman—”

Letting go of Alex, Emerald stopped time again. Having already had a quick analysis of the situation, she didn’t hesitate as she moved straight to the doorway where a grenade had not just exploded. She walked to the back of the four soldiers leaning around the doorway, avoiding the bullets frozen in mid-air as she approached. Pulling up her own G22, she aimed at the back of the rearmost soldier’s head.

Unfreeze. Fire. Freeze. Reposition. Unfreeze. Fire. Freeze. Reposition. Unfreeze. Fire. Freeze. Reposition. Unfreeze. Fire. Freeze.

Four bodies were falling, but none had quite hit the floor just yet.

Hallway clear.

Looking around, double-checking that she was not in the line of fire of any active combatants, she unfreezed time once again and knelt to collect a trio of grenades from the downed soldiers. Grenades in hand, she froze time and moved back into the control room.

In rapid succession, she pulled the pins of the grenades and tossed them up to the balcony. Nothing would actually happen if the grenades went off while time was stopped. If they did go off, she might as well have tossed them at solid iron statues. But the moment the third grenade was out of her hands, Emerald dashed back to the cleared corridor and restarted time.

Three rapid booms went off, accompanied by shouts, cries, and screams of those up on the second floor. From their perspective, it would have looked like grenades just appeared behind them. If they survived, anyway. Otherwise, their perspectives would likely have turned a little darker.

With two thirds of her current problems now gone, Emerald quickly cleared the other hallway in the same manner as the first. For good measure, she collected their grenades, tossed them up to the balcony, and then moved back behind the concrete pillar. Emerald restarted time, waited for the explosions, and then listened.

Silence.

Blissful, peaceful, silence save for the wail of the building’s alarm system.

Well, that and Alex. He emitted a constant, high-pitched squeak like a balloon slowly deflating. It was only audible during the momentary pauses in the shrieking alarm.

“Lovely,” Emerald said with a smile, choosing to ignore both noises. “Shall we move on?”

“We are in so much trouble.”

“What, no flowery words for this occasion?”

“This is going to start a war.”

“Nonsense. These kinds of things didn’t turn the Cold War hot. They’re not going to turn this state of psionic arms race into a war either. China still wants to pretend that North Korea is its own entity, so they can’t really do anything. North Korea threatens everyone and everybody, but that isn’t anything new. They’re a leashed dog in China’s yard.”

“What if this changes things? What if China lets loose the leash? Or what if they decide to do something themselves in retaliation for kicking their doggy?”

Emerald blinked in confusion. “It’s just a metaphor. And if they do decide to do something… well, good thing we’re securing the artifact. Speaking of, we should hurry before reinforcements show up.”

Stopping time, Emerald performed a quick survey of the room to ensure no one was about to attack them when they emerged from their cover. She, obviously, was in little danger. Alex, on the other hand, possessed no such defenses. Luckily, the room appeared completely clear. Restarting time, Emerald caught no sign of movement or heard the rustling of clothes. If anyone was alive, they were pretending otherwise.

Wise.

Alex followed behind her as they headed toward one of the hallways. The one they had not entered from. He went to great efforts to avoid looking at the ground and the bodies. However, a bit of chatter from one of the soldier’s radios made him stop.

Emerald didn’t understand Korean. She had considered learning while here, but had never gotten around to it. It was a bit regrettable now, but she had been holding out the hope that they would find the artifact and be back in the States before it actually came into use.

“Apparently the whole of the North Korean army is going to be on top of us in thirty minutes.”

“Best make haste then.”

“Wait, I might be able to stop them.” Bending, still avoiding looking at the bodies, Alex groped about for the radio.

As soon as he picked it up, Emerald realized what he was going to do. She fished a pair of earplugs from her pockets, jammed them into her ears, then promptly clamped her hands over her earplug-filled ears.

Holding one hand to his chest and the other extended out like an opera singer, Alex proceeded to sing into the radio.

Presumably. Emerald couldn’t hear a word of it and was glad for it. The man could not carry a tune if his life depended on it. Whatever key he tried to sing in was doomed to be the wrong one. His tempo and pace faltered and accelerated at random. Truly, there was no one less suitable to wield his artifact. Yet, for some reason, he did.

Five minutes of his silent gesticulating while Emerald kept an eye out and her ears closed—and found the switch to deactivate the base’s alarm—Alex finally finished. He waved at Emerald over and over again, miming her removing the earplugs. She didn’t do so right away, making sure that the lingering effects of his power being active were well and truly dispersed.

“There,” he said. “I handled them.”

“Oh, like you handled these guards?”

“I think I needed to sing in Korean. I did that, this time.”

Emerald started walking away, moving down the hall. She mumbled to herself as she walked, “I think you need to learn to sing.”

Luckily, the bunker wasn’t a large place. It had a single entrance and defensive area, which they had bypassed thanks to Alex’s partial handling of the situation, the control room from where upper echelons of the military would have conducted affairs had this facility ever been used, and finally living quarters. The living area held a canteen and barracks for the soldiers and regular staff. A different hall took Emerald and Alex to a far more opulent living space, looking more like a two-star hotel.

There were a few guards along the route. All were slumped over and unresponsive. Emerald had an itch to shoot every single one of them, just to ensure that they would not become problematic in the future. However, firing on one would likely break the spell over the rest. Accidentally tripping the alarm was likely what had landed them in that spot of trouble back in the control room. And knives were a bit too messy for her tastes.

No. Best to keep quiet at this juncture.

With a psionic detection tool in hand, Alex motioned toward one of the hotel-like rooms.

Emerald didn’t speak. There was a man she didn’t want to wake slumped over at the end of the corridor with enough decorative medals on his chest to double as body armor. Instead, she motioned for Alex to back away and then placed her hand on the door handle.

It wasn’t locked. There was no resistance in pushing it open. No one shouted or fired at her. Pausing time, she took a quick glance inside the room.

There was their artifact. Even with time stopped, she still caught that whiff of kerosene that all artifacts smelled like to her.

On a small table at the foot of a bed, a small glass case held… Emerald was fairly certain it was a hair pin. It could have been a weapon, but it didn’t really look like an effective one. It was mostly straight, though a bit wavy as it had been fashioned in the form of a snake. The material was pale greenish. Jade, probably, given the region.

Seeing no other threats in the room after a quick walk-through, she went back out into the corridor and restarted time. Still silent, she motioned for Alex to take the lead. He carried a large shielded case—too large for the object, but they hadn’t known exactly what it was when setting off. The thick gloves he wore would keep him from binding with it on accident. She set up outside the room, ready to watch for anyone approaching.

Alex didn’t make it more than a step into the room before jumping back out, tackling Emerald to the ground in the process. She would have yelled at him were it not for the rapid pops of suppressed submachine gun fire coming from inside the room.

Throwing Alex off her, Emerald stopped time with a hasty tap of her thumb against the button on the end of her pocket watch’s winding stem.

With all the time in the world now at her disposal, Emerald got to her feet, brushed herself off, and noted the slumped officer at the end of the corridor had stirred somewhat at the noise. That was irritating. More irritating, however, was the room. A trail of bullets were in the process of flying through the air and into the wood of the door. They effectively formed a mild barrier to entry, forcing her to duck under them.

Emerald peered back inside, leaning around the doorway.

A pair of men stood near the far wall that had absolutely not been there before. There wasn’t even a closet for them to have popped out from. Both wore black body armor and clothes with no visible insignias, logos, or other identifying markings. What stood out, however, were their firearms. PP-2000s, easily recognizable by their distinct shape, kitted out with suppressors, laser assists, and holographic sights.

A third man, between the two firing their submachine guns, looked as if he had jumped into the room, grabbed hold of the glass case, and was now in the process of… running into the wall?

Moving into the room beneath the spray of bullets, Emerald changed position to get a different perspective on the situation.

The alternative perspective didn’t change reality, however. The man really was in the midst of a full sprint toward the wall. His helmet and the glass case were roughly equally ahead of him with the angle he was running at. Both were a finger’s length away from the concrete wall. If Emerald restarted time, he would crash straight away.

Emerald, standing such that one of the firing soldiers would have to shoot the other and both would have to turn ninety degrees to face her, held out her pistol. She first aimed at the closer soldier. He was the obvious threat with his PP-2000. However, he wasn’t the objective.

Emerald switched her target, aiming for the side of the head of the man running with the glass case.

She wasn’t stupid. Because she wasn’t stupid, she wasn’t about to assume that her opponents were stupid. These men hadn’t been in the room a moment ago. There was clearly a plan of action here. The wall felt solid to her hand, but stopped time could make a lot of things feel solid that weren’t actually. Water, for instance, wasn’t any less solid than steel.

Dismissing a slight hesitation as she wondered if she really was picking the correct target, Emerald restarted time and immediately fired her G22.

A bullet ripped through the case-carrier’s head from ear to ear, just under his helmet. Momentum, unfortunately, could not be stopped as easily.

The world itself ripped open just in front of him, swallowing his falling body.

Emerald fired a shot at the closer soldier before he could turn toward her and then immediately stopped time to reassess the situation.

The case-carrier’s legs stuck out from the rip in the wall, which still felt solid under her fingertips. The case itself was on the other side.

The closer of the two shooting soldiers was in the beginning stages of succumbing to gravity, dead.

The other shooting soldier had pivoted in the short time that time had been flowing. One foot was through the wall, much like the case-carrier’s legs. The rest of him was still out, now aiming toward where Emerald was.

The situation had moved from slightly below ideal with the oncoming North Korean army to excessively subpar in mere moments. Emerald was stumped as to what to do about it.

With all the time in the world, she examined the dead soldier, the legs of the soldier, and the pivoted soldier. Stopped time wouldn’t let her interact with them in any meaningful way, but she could look over their gear and check for any sign of technology that would allow them to move through these rips in the wall. Unable to locate any, Emerald had to presume that whatever anomalous occurrence was going on was not specific to these soldiers.

That meant that she would be able to go through it.

Should she, was the real question.

Emerald didn’t know what was on the other side. There was another room further down the corridor, but something told her that these rips wouldn’t simply lead to the adjacent room. The soldiers weren’t dressed like the rest of the North Korean soldiers. They were clearly here for the same reason that Emerald was.

To secure the artifact.

Which was now on the other side of the wall.

Perhaps she could grab the downed soldier’s legs and drag him and it back over? No. He was surely dead and wouldn’t maintain a grip.

Emerald did not fail. With her ability to stop time, she could jump through, stop immediately, and assess the situation based on what she saw over there. Would Walter approve? No. No he would not. But Emerald didn’t care.

Not wanting to be shot as she jumped through the wall, Emerald repositioned out of line of fire of the sole remaining soldier. She raised her gun, unfroze time, and pulled the trigger.

As the bullet raced through the man’s skull, she jumped over the legs of the downed man.

A sickening squelch filled the air just before she made it.

Her shoulder slammed into the wall.

Stumbling backward, unsure of what was going on, she paused time again.

Her ignorance quickly changed to relief that she had not been a half-second faster in her jump.

The legs of the man who had carried the case were clearly no longer attached to anything. Blood pooled around the severed thighs, smearing against the wall where it leaked out. The soldier Emerald had just shot was in much the same position. Dead from the bullet rattling around under his helmet, but also falling away from the wall without one of his legs.

Emerald glared. Three dead bodies and a solid wall.

And no artifact.

Smile creeping across her face, Emerald knelt down and glared at one of the fallen PP-2000s.

“Someone is going to pay for this,” she said to an utterly still world.

 

 

 

“She’s becoming a problem.”

“Becoming? She’s been a problem since the moment we discovered her.”

“We’re lucky to have discovered her. Imagine what she could have done in someone else’s hands.”

“What she did do in other’s hands. I, for one, do not believe Tartarus was an organization at all this time last year. She’s manufacturing new enemies for us out of nothing. Likely thanks to careless words delivered by our artificers.”

“Perhaps it is time we reexamine our actions toward her. I raise the motion to eliminate her before the problem worsens.”

“That’s far too risky—”

“Not to mention inhumane. She’s just a young woman. I would like to remind the board that we are not monsters.”

“Irrelevant. The risk, however, is not. If reality itself, including all of us, is merely a figment of her imagination—”

“Impossible! We’ve discussed this before. The human mind is leagues insufficient to dream up a handful of books in a library let alone all of reality.”

“It isn’t human. It’s a tulpa. An amalgamation of thoughts. Who is to say where its capabilities end.”

“That is barely a hypothesis. More mere conjecture brought to us by someone whose own grasp of reality is tenuous at best. Sapphire’s words have already been all but dismissed by anyone with any expertise in the field. There is no evidence—”

“There wouldn’t be any evidence; she thinks she is a normal human, thus every test result indicates that she is a normal human.”

“I thought you were of the opinion that she is a regular psychic and the cause of all the oddities are the result of an external artifact-like object, Omicron?”

“I’m merely pointing out the possibility.”

“It doesn’t matter what she is. Let’s build an isolation chamber in the depths of Psychodynamics. Keep her inside and happy. We can study her all we wish and we don’t have to worry about any odd effects leaking.”

“Now that is what is impossible. No one is happy in isolation forever. The moment she starts looking for an escape, she will find one. It is how she thinks—how she works. Trust me. I know the human psyche and whatever else, she thinks like a human.”

“Which is why we should just kill her.”

“And Alpha has gone back to her favorite words again,” Sigma mumbled.

Irritated with the conversation, Theta leaned back in his chair as he flicked a little spinning device between his fingers and listened to its hum. Just in time for a booming voice to sound over the speakers.

“Enough.” Her voice carried. When she spoke, everyone stopped their bickering at once.

Omega.

There were no leaders among the Administrative Council. Thirteen individuals, gathered together to head various departments of the government organization known as the Carroll Institute, were supposed to be equals. Most of the time, that was true. Until Omega spoke.

Everyone listened to Omega. Theta honestly wasn’t sure why.

It was probably the name.

None of them actually had the Greek alphabet on their birth certificates. That would be a coincidence of the highest order. No, their aliases were assigned. Meant to protect identities and obscure who was actually part of the administrative board. Omega just carried connotations ingrained in the English language that set it apart from the rest. Alpha did as well, but not quite to the same extent.

Of course, Omega’s personality had something to do with that. If she had been the soft-spoken analytical type like Sigma or Phi, people would have gotten used to her. But no, Omega had the bearing of a third-world dictator, the charisma of a cult leader, and the mind of a megalomaniac. Normally negative traits, but here…

“We will not be discussing the murder of someone who has come to us in trust and good faith, Alpha. The majority of us are in agreement of that, are we not?”

The little windows on Theta’s terminal didn’t show the faces of his peers. He had never seen most of them before a few weeks ago and likely would not have met any of them had they all not popped into a smoke-filled room in the depths of Psychodynamics. A room that likely hadn’t existed before Dyna thought it up.

That had been an alarming experience for so many reasons. It was probably the closest Dyna had been to getting every resource the council could throw at her actually thrown at her.

But now that the immediate alarm had died down, Theta was pleased to see the little windows flash green in agreement with Omega’s words. Theta lowered a hand to the switch on his terminal, signaling his own agreement. Only three boxes remained blank. Alpha, by far the strongest proponent of outright assassinating Dyna, Lambda, who often voted for killing, isolation, or experimental psychosurgery to eliminate Dyna as a threat, and Xi, who didn’t want to kill her as far as Theta was aware, he just wanted to strap her to an examination table for the rest of her natural life.

“We are focusing on the wrong topic,” Omega said. “Theta, status of your follow-ups to the last major incident?”

Clearing his throat, Theta leaned forward and depressed a button next to his microphone. “Reconstruction efforts within damaged areas of the city are underway. Contractors have already started construction in all public locations.”

“We are psionic scientists, not civil engineers, Theta.”

Ignoring Phi’s soft mumbling complaint, Theta continued with his report. “There have been no sightings of any individuals who may have ransacked the apartment owned by Onyx. The Beatrice system was allowed twenty-two minutes, thirteen seconds of high-cognizance operation time and was unable to discern their current whereabouts or destination through any method, including but not limited to satellite-based psionic energy signal tracking, security footage analysis, and psychological profiling based on data from our captives.

“As for our captives,” Theta said, switching his second screen to an information readout on four subjects. The ‘mountain man’ as Dyna called him, the two men fished from the river, and one man who had survived his injuries in the department store. “That is where things begin to grow complex.”

“Just answer the question we all have on our minds. Were they or were they not tulpa before your little unauthorized conversation with the Subject?”

“Excuse me. Following incident CI-INC-50112-gz, I was granted autonomy in approaching the Subject in any way I desired for the purpose of diffusing the situation. It was a near unanimous vote,” Theta said, shooting an annoyed glance to the two windows on his monitor who hadn’t agreed to his proposition. Alpha and Lambda.

“You overstepped your bounds and you know it, Theta. Just answer Zeta’s question and be on with it. Who are our enemies?”

“Unfortunately, Gamma, I don’t know the identity of our attackers. But as for the answer to Zeta’s question, I think it should be self-evident whether or not they were tulpa beforehand.”

“Of course it is self-evident. At least to any of us who have been paying attention. Clearly just myself and Theta.”

Theta nodded at Phi’s words. “In all tests, experiments, and circumstantial data we have been able to acquire, the Subject has demonstrated no ability to alter the mind. For whatever power she possesses, thoughts are outside her dominion.”

“Exactly.”

Theta continued, “November, Ruby, and the unaffiliated individual known as Matthew—capable of observing tulpa through psychic ability—confirmed their status.”

“After your discussion with her. I remain unconvinced.”

“It does seem an odd line to draw in her abilities. What make the meat and electrochemical signals that make up thoughts any different than a brick wall or… people’s physical bodies. I’m sure we’re all aware she has the ability to change that.”

“It should be clear to anyone paying attention to the existence of tulpa that thoughts might not be wholly contained within our reality. That alone makes them different,” Theta said. “Makes our thoughts different.”

“Reality is just a consequence of perception. Her perception just matters slightly more than ours. And we have to believe that. Otherwise, we are not mere tokens navigating her ever-changing game board, but puppets dancing on her string.”

“Real comforting thoughts there Phi. Ever have anything uplifting to contribute?”

“Of course I do. That is why Theta comes to me for advice on talking with her and not the rest of you.”

“We’re getting off-topic again… Let’s uh… talk about something else, shall we?”

“Kappa’s right, even if he just wants a distraction from his existential crisis. We need a plan of action. If someone is out there capable of arming and utilizing tulpa, all they need to find is something like the Hatman to spell the doom of the Carroll Institute.”

“It is the same issue as artificers. If Emerald or someone of her power ever went against us, we wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“Emerald is human and can be reasoned with. Psych profiles built around her work. Tulpa, and the Subject, are not.”

“The tulpa in our morgue seem to have died to bullets just the same as any human would. No signs of unexpected animation. Psionic energy readings and biochemical activity remain null.”

“They probably only died because the Subject thought they should die. That might not be the case in the future.”

“Tulpa like Hatman or ‘Mountain Man’ have demonstrated anomalous abilities beyond mere human levels such as those exhibited by November. We have countermeasures for psychics. We have countermeasures for artifacts. It is time to open an entirely separate division of Psychodynamics tasked with investigating ways of annulling or otherwise disrupting tulpa.”

“That’s why we’re reverse engineering the disruptor weapon recovered from Tartarus. We already have scientists and engineers working on such things.”

“No,” Omega said, not using her overly authoritative voice now, but still commanding attention. “Gamma is correct. This was an attack not just on the Subject and our artificers, but the Carroll Institute as a whole. A proper division with funding, facilities, and dedicated personnel has become a need, not just a far-off want.”

“All in agreement?”

Window after window flashed green. One flashed red, that of Omicron, but it was clear that he was being overruled. Theta signaled his agreement as well before speaking. “November has been amicable to our desires and Matthew possesses a psychic ability made for the subject. Perhaps they should be approached?”

“What of Ruby? She’s the same, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” Theta said, “but she’s an artificer.”

“Walter.”

“We can ignore Walter for now,” Omega said. “November and Matthew will suffice for the moment. In the future, it would be best if we could create devices or personnel with the ability to interact with Tulpa.”

“Doctor Cross is currently in possession of a gadget capable of doing just that.”

“Let us avoid relying on the Subject for the moment,” Omega said, addressing Beta’s comment with a light tone. “My agents have discovered an anomaly matching the description of the spatial rip the Subject encountered. From it, we can procure tulpa for experimentation and potentially send expeditions through to the other side. Eventually, crafting technology to generate or collapse spatial rips on our own would be ideal.”

“Your, excuse me, your agents?”

“Let’s not play games, Phi,” Omega said. “We all have those we trust to look into matters we deem important.”

“Fair enough,” Phi conceded, not sounding the least bit ashamed with herself. “And just where is this spatial anomaly?”

“Classified.”

“From us?”

“For the time being,” Omega said. Before anyone else could get in a complaint, she pressed on. “Gamma, set up your division. As with other defensive projects, you’ll head it. I want budgetary reports, personnel dossiers, and contractor costs ready to present during next week’s meeting. Everyone else… Good day to you.”

Omega’s window winked out. One by one, everyone else followed suit. Meeting adjourned, Theta stood and stepped away from his terminal. It locked instantly the moment he moved away, preventing anyone who might wander into his office from accessing anything without going through Beatrice’s security systems.

He touched a small button on the side of his desk, cutting an electric current that ran through the glass walls of his office. In moments, the dark, opaque tint faded to clear, transparent glass, letting in both light and the outside world.

As far as he knew, he was the only one of the administrators who actually used their office. Most of the others were hidden away at home. Which was part of the reason he had been appointed to handle Dyna and not any of the others; they simply weren’t around. A few of them weren’t even located around the Idaho Falls area. Kappa worked out of New York, Mu had a laboratory in Washington D.C. that she ran on the side, and Phi was stationed in Texas somewhere. The rest, he didn’t quite know where they were located. It was equally likely that they were down in Psychodynamics or off overseas.

Gathering up a case of documents, Theta exited the office. He offered a cordial nod of his head to his secretary before turning and heading for the elevator. After a quick hop down a floor, he found himself in a dimly lit room currently filled with several carboys full of colored liquids. Laser pointers, blue, green, and red, were set up around the corners of the room, aimed at the carboys. The light scattered when it hit the glass and liquid, making each jar light up.

“What’s this one supposed to do?” Theta asked.

“It isn’t… what it does now that matters.” Doctor West carefully stepped over the beam of a red laser to move from his desk to the doorway. “It is what it does… after Onyx leaves.”

“Getting things ready for your session tomorrow?”

“Assuming our… illustrious board of administrators hasn’t decided to murder my project.”

“I told you they wouldn’t,” Theta said with mild annoyance. “Ever since Zeta began her moral crusade, things have shifted toward isolating her at worst. Only Alpha and Lambda are really pushing for that drastic option.”

“We can only… hope that won’t change,” West said.

“Things are progressing well, then?”

“As well as can be expected…” West said. “I admit, I am getting somewhat used to it. It was nerve-wracking at first. She is constantly… altering even minor things around her. Book text might change in subtle ways or the… cushions of a seat might be more comfortable than I remembered. Trying… to catalog it all is an exercise in futility.”

“She is changing everything around her?” Theta shook his head. “We would have noticed. Beatrice would have noticed. Even subtle things, eventually.”

“Ah, but that is the fascinating thing. Removed from her presence—or rather, her conscious and unconscious thought—most things have a tendency… to revert to what was observed beforehand. Ontologists rejoice. The nature… of being seems to exist independently of her.”

Theta shook his head again. “No. That doesn’t fit with observed outcomes of her interactions. The most notable of which is Tartarus, but we have several other examples of ongoing effects stemming from Onyx.”

“Tartarus is a… poor example. She thinks of them constantly. Rather… I am surprised they can operate at all. Her thoughts of them are not… influenced by her perceptions of sight, sound, and intuition… as they are with the Carroll Institute. I imagine they suffer… constant alterations to their building, personnel, equipment, and… so forth.”

“They seem to operate just fine. Reports coming in indicate that they hunted down another tulpa in Washington state a week ago. They have more personnel, top of the line equipment, and advanced technology.”

“Curious, isn’t it? Perhaps… they have a method of securing themselves. They know more than we do… somehow. After all, by all the reports, they used Onyx… to create their organization.”

If they did have a way to keep Dyna’s influence out of their business, at least where they didn’t want it influencing them, it would be in Theta’s best interests to acquire it. All the more reason to proceed with the operation to get more in-depth information on their activities. But that wasn’t West’s job.

“If things revert, how are we to make use of her?”

“The changes must become reality… to her and to observers. It… stabilizes the psionic energy fields she creates. The fog machine gadget is a prime example. It worked once, but failed to work thereafter until she realized ‘how’ it should… work and explained that to others, thus further cementing her perception into everyone’s reality.”

“So because Doctor Cross received the explanation, that was enough to flip her changes into proper being?”

“Your administrative cohorts… fight against her changes. As do most who are aware of her nature, if subconsciously. It is… best to expose those unaware to her changes, making them believe.”

That made a certain amount of sense. Everyone who knew of Dyna’s abilities expected things to change. Thus, they did. But it was instinct to not want someone of her caliber able to bend reality at a whim. So there was push back. Someone without that instinct would act as an anchor…

So they just had to get those ignorant of her to observe the changes they wanted to keep and those suspicious of her to observe the changes they didn’t want to keep. Everything would be subjective, making that prospect an irritating one to execute upon, but likely not impossible.

“You’ve given me something to think about, Doctor,” Theta said. “I want a full report; all the conjecture and confirmations you’ve ascertained in the highest detail. But this sounds workable.”

“I’ll send what I have immediately… and elaborate more after my next session with her.”

“Good.” Turning, Theta started out of the room, plans already churning through his head on how best to turn the situation to the Carroll Institute’s advantage. And his own.

“Careful, Theta,” West called after him. After a heavy breath, he continued. “History isn’t kind to those who play god.”

“Who is playing god?” Theta answered with a casual shrug. “We’re just trying to convince a woman to help us out.”

 

 

Dyna watched with a wince as a wooden letter block slipped out of Hematite’s grip. Hematite ground her teeth together, stilled and took a deep breath, then tried again. Her arm shook and her eyes were filled with concentration, but she managed to stack the block on top of another. The moment of victory crashed down along with the tower of blocks as Hematite’s thumb nicked the edge of another block as she tried to pull back from the tower.

Hematite slumped over, sighing to herself. She stared down at her black and gold arm, wiggling the fingers of her new prosthetic. The shining bits of brass around the joints gleamed, brand new as they were, while the matte finish of her the carbon fiber shell gave her arm a futuristic look. Designed and built in-house by the Carroll Institute, it was quite possibly the most advanced prosthetic ever made. The key unique feature was the psionic tap. A little device in the arm that effectively read Hematite’s mind, allowing her far more precision and responsiveness than any contemporary prosthetic could achieve.

At least, that was the theory. The prosthetics were apparently some of the most promising inventions of the Carroll Institute as far as general civilian use was concerned. Even someone without proper psychic abilities could make use of the psionic tap.

And yet…

Dyna put a hand on Hematite’s shoulder. “Is something wrong, Doctor?” she asked, looking over to the other occupant in the room.

Doctor Dyson, a young man of African descent, put on a wan smile and shook his head. “Just takes time, I’m afraid.” As if to demonstrate, he held out his own silver and far more skeletal-like prosthetic arm. He waved it across the table, smoothly picking up a block between each of his metal fingers. With one hand, he tossed three blocks up, juggling them for a moment, before catching them out of the air one at a time and stacking them on top of the fourth block that was already on the table. “When I first built my arm, the technology wasn’t nearly so advanced. It took me a week to stack a single block on top of another. Watching you do it in under an hour, Hematite? It gives me such hope for the future!”

His words carried an infectious enthusiasm. Hematite, obviously infected, drew herself up. Giving a nod of grim determination, she reached forward and grasped a block with her carbon fiber hand.

Dyna stepped back, taking her hand off Hematite’s shoulder to allow her the freedom to move as she wanted.

It wasn’t smooth. Her fingers knocked a block off the table; Dyson caught it out of the air and placed it back on top with an encouraging smile. That only seemed to motivate Hematite more.

Feeling a buzz in her pocket, Dyna gave Hematite a light pat on the back. “I’ll stop by later on. Maybe you’ll feel up for a movie tonight?”

“Will Ruby be there?”

“Well… yes.”

“I’ll think about it,” Hematite said, not taking her eyes off a block in her hand. “It’s heavier than I’m used to. I feel lopsided.”

“We matched the weight of your arm as much as we could,” Dyson started.

Dyna didn’t hear the rest of their conversation. She slipped out of the room and closed the door behind her.

The robotics experts and the technicians responsible for the psionic tap were in the adjoining observation room. They sat about, recording information on the new subject to hopefully improve and iterate upon the existing technology. It was a bit surprising to see their enthusiasm over the past few weeks. The prosthetic team was, quite possibly, the first element of Psychodynamics and the Carroll Institute that looked like they were making things actually designed to make regular people’s lives better.

Psionic-based prosthetics weren’t available to the public yet, but it was clear that the team were happy with what they were doing.

Moving down the halls of the Robotics and Cybernetics division of Psychodynamics, Dyna entered an elevator. Without even saying where she wanted to go, Beatrice had her up in the main administrative building and on the floor where she was to be seeing her therapist.

Doctor West didn’t keep his door closed while waiting for patients. Only during sessions. His office wasn’t what Dyna had come to expect from a therapist. Rather than two chairs, maybe a plant, and a peaceful view outside the window to cultivate a calming atmosphere, Doctor West kept the room dark with no natural lighting. There were lights, enough that one wasn’t about to stumble over anything and could, in fact, see quite well, but they were all in the corners and sides of the room, illuminating statues of nude men and women with straight wings taking deific poses. A bit strange, but Dyna didn’t exactly hate it.

The actual doctor was an unassuming man. Short blond hair parted directly down the middle of his head gave him a bit of a goofy look, but his black suits fit for a funeral made up for it. Today, he stood over a table covered in a vast variety of security cameras. From old box-like cameras to little flat web cameras to circular cameras like the kind Beatrice used around the Carroll Institute. Each camera was pointed at another. With over a dozen of them on the table, drawing their lines of vision would have looked like a tangled spider web. None appeared plugged into anything. Wires and cables draped over the table, but didn’t reach any outlets or ports in the walls or floor.

Every time Dyna had showed up for a session, he had some new experiment out. The first time had been a maze with rats that took up almost the entire floor space. It had been gone the next week, replaced with a skinner box for birds. Dyna was mostly certain they were just for show. Some set piece he had been hoping to use to break the ice.

It had worked.

Doctor West turned away from where he was adjusting the position of one of the cameras. “Good morning, Dyna,” he said, voice always intense yet breathing before Dyna’s name. Doctor West spoke like his voice had a limp in its gait. “Is it already… that time again?”

“If you’re busy—”

“None of that now,” he said, quickly gesturing both hands toward the actual therapy side of the room.

Doctor West had a Freudian couch rather than the simple, modern seats that Doctor Bellows had used. With its red leather and angular style, it fit in well with the statues and artwork in the room.

As Dyna sat down and rested her head on the pillow at the end with an armrest, Doctor West took his seat in a matching upright chair. After picking up a paper tablet and pen, he leaned heavily on one of his chair’s armrests, and stared at Dyna. One of his eyes was a bit hooded, drooping slightly. His large, old-fashioned glasses weren’t quite coke-bottle glasses, but they did make his eyes look bigger. Dyna had to wonder if he had been the victim of a stroke at some point in the past, but she hadn’t asked.

“Now then, anything… you care to discuss today?”

“Not really,” Dyna said, shrugging.

“I have a question for you, today.”

Dyna nodded slowly. “Alright. You can ask it.”

“Do you often feel as if people are watching you?”

That got a snort from Dyna. “It isn’t paranoia if it is true. People are watching me. All the time. No matter where I go.”

Doctor west took a deep breath. “I see… Then let us get right into it,” he said, opening the tablet to a blank page. “What… is on your mind? What have… you been thinking about lately?”

Every session started out with that question. What had Dyna been thinking about?

Today, most recently, the answer was Hematite and the prosthetic team.

As Theta had said, there was more to the Carroll Institute than just what Dyna was involved with. She had some small hope that Hematite might be able to use her lack of an arm as a way to meet with some of those other groups and maybe work with them rather than the artificers. While Hematite could, allegedly, be dropped into a war zone and escape unscathed, from everything she said and the way she had acted the night they were attacked, Dyna didn’t think Hematite wanted that. Not at all.

If she could work with the prosthetic team, she would probably be much happier.

It was something that had been on Dyna’s mind for a while now. Dyna wasn’t quite sure how it had happened or when, but… she didn’t think she minded the artificer life quite so much. Terrifying in the moment, yes. Harrowing and exhausting, yes. But having been effectively benched, Dyna found herself restless.

She didn’t want to sit around, playing nice in therapy sessions. There were things out there. Entities—or Tulpa now—artifacts, and… enemy organizations.

Id’s group, Tartarus, had seen her as a target of opportunity. First, perhaps, an easy mark to get their hands on an artifact in the form of the mirror given her lack of support and the lack of protocol Doctor Cross had followed in allowing her out of the institute with the mirror. Then, later on, as an object of recruitment. Although those first two mind-controlled goons had carried weapons, she couldn’t actually recall them firing at her. Id hadn’t wanted her dead.

The same could not be said for the group from the other week. Tulpa or human, someone had sent them after her and Hematite. They had not held back their shots. It was a miracle—probably owing a great deal to Hematite’s uncanny luck—that only Ruby had been severely injured.

That group was still out there. Sitting around, letting them dictate the terms of engagement, felt wrong.

“You want… to take the fight to them?”

Dyna started. She had forgotten where she was. Had she said all that out loud? “Kind of, I guess? I mean, they attacked me.”

“So you feel a need to attack… those who attack you?” West said, scribbling down a note in a very much not-blank tablet.

She really had been speaking aloud the whole time.

“I’m not like seeking violence,” Dyna quickly said, only to frown as West’s writing hand sped up. “It’s just, are they going to stop now? I doubt it.”

“From what I read, you sent… them running with their tails between their legs.” His writing paused for a moment as he amended what he said. “Or rather, you either captured or killed everyone you came across.”

“They were tulpa. Random thoughts given form.”

“Aren’t we all?”

Dyna lifted her head off the pillow, shooting the doctor a look.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. But you didn’t know that at the time. You thought they were normal humans.”

Maintaining her look for a moment longer, Dyna eventually dropped her head back to the pillow. “I don’t see what difference that makes. They were trying to kill me! Are you saying I should have sat back and let them kill me?”

“I’m not saying you should… or should not do anything, Dyna. I’m just trying to bring your… decisions to light so that… you may better look at them.”

“I know my decisions,” Dyna huffed. “I’ve written a dozen reports and sat through twice as many meetings, all of which went over every aspect of the night, what happened, what could have been done differently, how to prevent such things from happening again, and… everything else.”

“Frustrated?”

Dyna leaned forward to shoot him another look. Doctor West didn’t even react. Frown on her face, Dyna dropped her head again. “If there is someone out there with the ability or technology to drag tulpa out of their world of thought and into reality, he effectively has an endless army. He just has to dress them up like soldiers and shove them in our direction. In a war of attrition against an endless army, we lose. Simple as that.”

“That’s why you want… to go on the offensive.”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“Are you strong enough?”

“I can make myself strong enough.”

“I meant mentally… emotionally. From the notes I… received from Doctor… Bellhop—”

“Bellows.”

“Yes, of course. The notes… suggest you aren’t in-line with what you want. Your… fears, worries, hopes. Deep down, on a subconscious level, you’re fighting yourself.”

Dyna narrowed her eyes. That sounded familiar. Locking her jaw, Dyna very carefully kept her gaze on a single point on the ceiling. Those had been Id’s words. Not exactly. Not the same ones in the same order. But close enough that he might as well have been paraphrasing her.

Coincidence? Possibly. Id was obviously a psychoanalytical doctor of some degree. So was Doctor West. West came personally recommended by Administrator Theta. He would surely have vetted the man’s allegiances. But then again, Theta did want as much information as possible on the members of Tartarus, especially Doctor Darq. It seemed… unnecessarily complex to go through a therapist to get to Tartarus. And dangerous. From what he said, West knew far more about the goings on of Psychodynamics than a spy really should.

No. Far too dangerous. They were both psychiatrists. Id, from her name, clearly took inspiration from Freud. West, couch and questions, was the same. They simply drew the same conclusions. Id had a slight advantage in her temporary direct connection to Dyna’s mind, but West had notes from his predecessor.

“So what are you saying,” Dyna eventually said. “That I don’t actually want to know who attacked Hematite, Ruby, and myself?”

“Not at all. I’m not here to dictate… your wants.” Doctor West took a few deep breaths. “But perhaps we can work on your subconscious. It is my opinion that you will be a far more fearsome… force if your subconscious insecurities were replaced by your conscious wants and desires.”

“I feel plenty confident. I know I have… some issues. Doctor Bellows helped make that apparent. But I’m working to not be affected by them. I didn’t get dragged down in indecision the other week ago. I moved with purpose and acted decisively.”

“And that is remarkable progress. But… wouldn’t you want to be even better?”

Pressing her lips together, Dyna slowly nodded her head. “I suppose.”

“Excellent. Our session… is at an end for today,” he said, gesturing his pen toward a clock on the wall. “I will come up with a proper plan by next week. Please look forward to it.”

“Sure.” Swinging her legs over the side of the couch, Dyna sat up.

Her eyes wandered over the room, but quickly honed in on the table with all the security cameras. Before, their lines of sight would have been a tangled web. Now?

Every single one faced her. None were plugged in still, none had glowing red lights, but they were still there… watching.

Dyna shuddered. Ignoring the scratching of Doctor West’s pen against the paper, she hurried out of the room.

Look forward to it indeed.

 

 

It was a coil gun, not a lightning gun.

Dyna had seen the bright flash. The clap of thunder. The fried bodies.

It was a lightning gun, not a coil gun.

Walter ran up with it and used it in relatively close proximity. He had dropped it or thrown it to the floor in surprise and shock. It was his gun. It had come from his car. He would have known how to use it.

It was a coil gun.

Beatrice’s drones had been knocked out of the sky from the blast of lightning.

It was a lightning gun.

Beatrice should have known that it was a lightning gun as well, thus would have known to move her drones back far enough that they wouldn’t be affected. But she hadn’t. Beatrice wasn’t infallible, but she was some kind of artificial intelligence computer system. Knowing the specifications of her drones and the lightning gun, she should have calculated the exact distance she needed to keep the drones away in order for them to remain operable. Not to mention, an electromagnetic pulse seemed like the kind of thing she should have warned Dyna to brace for.

It was a coil gun?

Dyna had seen the lightning with her own eyes.

Then why would Walter say that?

Dyna’s first thought was that enemy artifact use had changed the weapon somehow. But in doing so, it seemed like the situation had turned out exceedingly poorly for the enemy. Three men died from high-voltage electricity coursing through their bodies. Their two compatriots, who had tried to escape in the boat, wound up captured as well. The Ouija board had been recovered successfully and was now locked up in the Carroll Institute’s Vault.

Sniffling, Dyna grabbed a fresh tissue and held it to her nose to staunch a small bit of blood. She leaned back on the rather hard bed of the decoupling chamber, mind running over the entire night.

Unless that had been a botched attempt at corrupting his weapon, it made no sense for it to be enemy action. And then there was the way Walter had looked to her, had spoke to her…

It was her.

She had done it. She hadn’t even touched it, and yet, she had changed Walter’s gun. Turned it into some kind of artifact? Or gadget, as was apparently the term for items she created. They weren’t as powerful as natural artifacts, but they had still had esoteric abilities that put them in an adjacent category. Doctor Cross had explained that the discrepancy between artifacts and gadgets was purely psychosomatic on Dyna’s part. Or, at least, he had been trying to explain that during the brief few moments before she had been ushered into the decoupling chamber.

That was her best explanation for the moment, but it still didn’t feel quite right.

The gadgets she had made thus far, Ado’s goggles, her cosplay glasses, the fog machine, the bobby pin, the Ouija board, and probably others that she wasn’t thinking of at this exact moment, they all did something strange. Something inexplicable through more traditional sciences. The lightning gun just didn’t quite fit. She wasn’t an electromechanical engineer, but a lightning gun seemed like the kind of thing that could be created through entirely traditional sciences.

The act of turning a coil gun into a lightning gun was anomalous, but the end product wasn’t.

Sighing, she threw a dirty glance at the door to her decoupling chamber and wondered just how long she would have to sit around. It wasn’t locked. Even if it was, she still had the bobby pin. But she was here voluntarily.

She had expected it, but having that armored van roll up almost immediately after some Carroll Institute security team had fished the soggy captives from the river grated a bit. With the magnifying glass, she felt she would have been able to figure out everything if given a few more minutes. And the handcuffs… well, those had been an actual super power. Something far more on par with the likes of the other artificers.

But she had been forced to relinquish them. Expected, but still disappointing.

Worse had been the three days of fever that accompanied the decoupling process. Thankfully, that bit was at an end. Now she was just bleeding from her nose on occasion. An aftereffect that had happened last time. The medical doctors in charge of her had assured her, both this time and last time, that the nosebleeds were nothing to worry about. Her brain wasn’t hemorrhaging or anything. They were just how she experienced decoupling.

Still, last time, she had been officially released not long after the fever broke. This time, she had been stuck here for an extra twelve hours. She wanted to get out and talk to Walter. She was pretty sure he wanted to talk to her as well, given what he had said the other night right after mentioning the lightning gun.

When the door did finally open, Dyna bolted upright, fully expecting to see her own reflection in Walter’s mirrored sunglasses.

Instead, she found herself watching a lanky man stoop through the slightly smaller doorway. He turned, addressed her with a smile, and said, “Onyx. Miss Graves. Dyna, I believe you preferred.”

“Administrator Theta,” Dyna said, trying not to sound too wary. “What are you doing here?”

“I am here to speak with you,” he said, closing the door behind him. “I felt that would be obvious.”

Wary feelings diminishing, Dyna didn’t bother to hide her flat look. “I meant what do you want to speak about.” She felt that was obvious, but wasn’t about to say so to his face.

“We’re in pickle,” he said, nodding his head. “Yes, a pickle. A bit of a pickle indeed. Those artifact-like objects you had at your apartment have not been located. The initial hope that they might be at the bottom of the river is, unfortunately, looking less and less likely with every passing moment.”

“I mentioned in my report that they hadn’t done anything strange. Not like the Ouija board.”

“I read that. I believe you. But we as a whole like to be sure about these things, you understand.”

“I guess. But I’m not sure what you want me to do about it. I don’t have a way of tracking them down.” Dyna paused, then tried to keep excitement out of her voice. “Unless you give me that magnifying glass back.”

“Ah. I’d love to, but we’re holding off for the moment. While Doctor Cross might want to throw you into the Vault to see what you might make of all the artifacts stored there, a few of the more personable doctors want to ensure that you are not suffering from any physical or mental ailments following your binding and subsequent decoupling of so many artifacts.” He clapped his hands together, smiling brightly. “Speaking of, I believe congratulations are in order!”

“For… what?”

“You now hold the record for most artifacts decoupled from a single individual! Quite the accomplishment.”

“Oh. Thanks? I guess?” Furrowing her brow, Dyna added, “Just decoupled? I don’t also have the record for most bound artifacts?”

“Nope! But we’re getting off topic. The primary question I wished to ask of you is this: Who were those soldiers?”

Dyna blinked. “Isn’t Sapphire the better person to ask?”

“Sapphire is writing his own report, but I want to know what you think. Who do you think they were? The ones who likely escaped with your belongings, where do you think they went? Where did they come from in the first place?”

Scowling, Dyna glanced at the small terminal in the room. She had already made her report. There hadn’t been much else to do while trapped in the small room. While she hadn’t answered those questions directly, she had included relevant details such as the soldier who swapped his language, the Operation board with its United States government id card on it, and even the old woman who had been scoping out her apartment.

It felt like a confusing mish-mash of facts, likely intentionally designed that way by whoever sent them in order to confuse their origins. Sapphire should have been able to read their minds, so she hadn’t thought about it much further than that.

Dyna was about to say so when she paused and considered Theta’s final question.

Where had they come from?

That seemed like an odd question to ask. Or one whose answer would have been wrapped up in the question of who they were in the first place.

Unless, of course, Administrator Theta thought that the soldiers had come from somewhere… unusual. The first place that popped into Dyna’s head was the other side. “They aren’t entities, are they?”

“Tulpa.”

“Excuse me?”

“Tulpa. A concept from Buddhist origin defining a being of thought given form. A much better descriptor for those like our friend November, wouldn’t you say?”

“I guess. You didn’t like entity?”

“It’s a bit vague and generic, isn’t it? We already use entity to define an unknown… well, entity—which could be a person, organization, or even item. Having a specific descriptor for beings like the Hatman and November is far less ambiguous.”

“Makes sense. I think we’re getting off-topic again though.”

“Yes indeed,” Theta said with a hearty nod of his head. “So you think the soldiers are tulpa, do you?”

“I mean, not necessarily. You should have been able to scan for that, right?”

November might look like a human and she could pass for one despite the occasional odd mannerism, but put under scrutiny—technological scrutiny—it was obvious that she was anything but. The Hatman was the same. Pattern established, the same should likely be true for any other entity. Or tulpa, as they were apparently to be called.

Theta nodded his head far slower than before, more like he was considering her question rather than answering it.

Thinking about it herself, Dyna found herself wondering if it made more sense than any other explanation she had come up with during her time in isolation. Rather than an organization deliberately trying to hide themselves, they could be tulpa. A mish-mash of thoughts brought into reality, sent against her and Hematite. There was still someone at the helm, but the soldiers themselves might not have been human at all.

The mountain man especially. Dyna had asked through the intercom, wondering if they had found an artifact on his person. They had not. And yet, he had been hit by a car—probably—hit by bullets from both Dyna and Walter, and then shrugged off Walter fist-fighting him. Even a large human was still just a human. They had vulnerabilities and felt pain. But, and Dyna might have to consult with November to be sure, it was entirely possible that the collection of thoughts that made up the mountain man had simply never learned how pain worked. Or that it simply thought it couldn’t be hurt, thus making it so.

At least until Dyna intervened with a psionic attack via the Operation game.

The French and Russian speaking soldier too. He could simply have been an amalgamation of thoughts from both countries. Which could also have explained his lack of survival instincts when he started shouting while Dyna had her gun trained on him.

In isolation, Dyna hadn’t been able to see any of those captured. Aside from her curiosity over the mountain man’s possible artifact, she hadn’t asked about them either.

Were they talking? What had the scientists discovered?

Why was Theta asking her about them?

That was the bigger question at the moment.

“Did they escape?” Dyna asked, wondering if they had somehow phase-shifted like the Hatman and simply walked out of the holding cells.

Theta quickly shook his head. “No, no. Nothing of the sort.”

“Then why ask me about them? Surely Sapphire or whatever experts you’ve got looking over them are the better people to ask. Even Walter. Hematite and Ruby are more experienced than me… They are alright, aren’t they?”

It was a question she had asked over the intercom about every hour or two. Her own injuries had been surprisingly superficial. A lot of skinned parts of her body from falling off the motorcycle. Her entire right side was basically one large bruise as well. Compared to Hematite losing an arm and Ruby being so badly injured that she apparently didn’t have a mind for Sapphire to read, Dyna felt she got off lightly.

“No need to worry over them,” Theta assured her. “Both are still in the medical wing. Hematite is… well, in a bit of a shock. Understandingly, I think.”

“Yeah…”

“But some good fortune must remain in her artifact. Although grisly, her wound left her with nearly all her nervous system intact. At least up until the point of total loss.”

“Wouldn’t having nerves be more painful than losing them?” Dyna asked with a grimace.

“Perhaps, but without that, I don’t think Doctor Dyson would be nearly as optimistic about fitting her with a prosthetic. He is our cybernetics expert, if you haven’t met him.”

Dyna shrugged. There were so many doctors running around the Carroll Institute that she would need a thirty-page spreadsheet to keep track of just the ones that she had a passing encounter with. “The Carroll Institute has a cybernetics expert?”

“Of course. We are quite committed to the betterment of humanity. Incorporating psionics into machines has near limitless potential that we are exceedingly interested in exploring.” Scratching the side of his chin with a small chuckle, Theta added, “Although it might appear otherwise to you, Psychodynamics was created for far more than waging micro-wars over artifacts.”

“I see…” She already knew that. Although she hadn’t really been a part of anything besides the artifact-centric divisions, Psychodynamics and the Carroll Institute as a whole were large and expansive. Both in terms of physical space and the number of departments they had.

“As for Ruby,” Theta continued, “she’s mostly finished putting herself back together. A bit antsy to get back on her feet, but, well, she doesn’t have feet at the moment.”

While Theta kept his tone light and almost joking in the way he said that, Dyna couldn’t help but gape. “No feet? How did… How?”

“When she came in, she didn’t have much of anything. Just a mass of burned meat that was probably her torso. Your report mentioned that burned out car, remember? Your mountain man hit that with his firearm. She was in it when it burned.”

Dyna sucked in a gasp as nausea roiled in her stomach. Ruby had been burned alive? She had probably been conscious the whole time, putting herself back together, fighting against the flames. Probably fighting back against the mountain man at the same time, who had shrugged off her gunshots either because of his armor or tulpa nature. Just picturing the situation had Dyna clutching at her chest, forcing down bile.

For his part, Theta barely looked as if he noticed. Clapping his hands to his thighs, he started to stand. “Welp. Lovely chatting with you again, Dyna.”

Dyna, dry swallowing, looked up. “You said I didn’t need to worry about them…”

Theta looked back. The angle made his large ears look even larger than normal. “Physically they’re fine. Alive and mentally active. Rest assured, they will not be placed on any active duty until their therapists have had a chance to work with them and give the okay. Ah! That reminds me.” After holding up a finger at his exclamation, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small business card. “Unfortunately, we do not feel that Doctor Bellows is qualified to handle the… extra-normal events that seem to follow you. You have a new psychiatrist and an appointment with him first thing in the morning.”

Dyna glanced down at the card as he handed it over.

Daniel P. West. PhD, PsyD, MD. It had an address listed along with a phone number. Dyna recognized the address as belonging to the above-ground administration building, not somewhere down in Psychodynamics.

“Good day, Dyna. You’re cleared to leave the isolation chamber, though perhaps it would be best if you remained on Carroll Institute campus for the time being. We are still investigating matters, after all.”

Looking up from the card, Dyna nodded her head. She watched Theta stoop through the small doorway and walk off, leaving it open behind him. It wasn’t until he was gone that she realized he had never answered her question of why he had been asking her all those questions about the soldiers. He had distracted her with talk of Ruby and Hematite.

Dyna quickly decided she didn’t care. After blowing her nose one last time, she pocketed West’s card and rushed out of the decoupling chamber. She did find it a small bit surprising that neither Walter nor Doctor Cross were waiting for her, but at the moment, she didn’t care about that either.

Rushing down the halls of Psychodynamics, Dyna headed straight for the medical wing. Up a floor and down a hall that smelled of antiseptics, she pushed into the ward.

Which was the wrong place to go. Thankfully, a helpful technician pointed her toward the intensive care units where Hematite and Ruby were currently under observation. It took a brief argument with a doctor, but she eventually strong-armed her way in.

Hematite and Ruby were in separate rooms. Probably a wise idea with how little the latter cared for the former. Dyna would have to visit Hematite later. For now, she rushed straight to the bed, ignoring the beeping machine and medical charts.

“Ruby?”

A little girl with bright red eyes turned her head. Ruby looked good. Though she was apparently missing her feet, her lower half was hidden beneath some blankets. What Dyna could see of her looked normal enough. If she hadn’t known what happened, she probably would have guessed that Ruby got a new haircut—a short pixie cut—and little else had changed.

Ruby stared a long moment.

Then snorted.

“You look like shit.”

Dyna frowned, crossing her arms. Her mock-anger didn’t last as she slowly reached out. “Are you alright?”

Ruby scoffed and turned away, a deep scowl forming on her face. “For once, I don’t think I can say that I’ve had worse,” she said.

Biting her lip, Dyna hesitated. She really didn’t know what to say. Or do, for that matter. Ruby wasn’t normally the physical type—at least not in terms of affection. Was hugging her the right idea?

In an instant, Dyna decided that yes, yes it was. She wrapped her arms around Ruby, awkward though it was with her in bed. Ruby tensed for a moment, but quickly melted.

“Want to watch a movie?” Ruby asked, voice soft.

 

 

“So,” Dyna said, pulling an internally-suppressed pistol from Walter’s cache of weapons. She didn’t know what kind of weapon it was, but it looked far sleeker and newer than anything she had used before. Dyna wasn’t surprised that his car had just as many weapons stashed away as Emerald’s car and, after seeing the car itself, she wasn’t surprised that they were just as high-tech. But she was curious… “Why didn’t you use one of these on that mountain man?”

“Mountain—” Walter started, tone confused before he realized. “Oh. I did.”

Dyna blinked, watching as he pulled a much longer gun from the trunk. She honestly wasn’t sure what kind of gun it was. The pistol Dyna had picked at least looked like a pistol. Walter’s weapon of choice was a large rectangular brick. The barrel had several coffee mug-sized cylinders lined up underneath the length of the thing and, after he flipped a switch on the back, the entire thing started humming.

For all she knew, it fired lightning bolts or something.

“I was driving around, looking for signs of the ones who ambushed Ruby. I had been a street over when he fired that first shot. As soon as I turned the corner, I jumped out and shot him. He didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he was more concerned with readying a second shot for you and Hematite.”

“And you decided punching him was the best option at that point?”

Walter shrugged. “Hand-to-hand combat is more suited to my strengths. In addition, I figured that even if he was inviolable, his weapon wouldn’t be and I would be able to knock it aside.”

“Well, it worked. Thanks.”

“Wish I had gotten there sooner.” A tap of a button on the end of the car closed the trunk all on its own. “As for this operation, we have few priority objectives. First and foremost: Do not die. Your safety is paramount. Losing even a powerful artifact is a recoverable error. If the situation is too dangerous, back away. Otherwise, the second priority is denying the artifact to our opponents. Recovery is preferable. Destruction is acceptable. If you have a clear shot at the board, take it.”

Dyna grimaced. The Ouija board was her first real success that wasn’t born out of ignorance or a time of stress. The thought of destroying it left a bad taste in her mouth. She understood the logic, of course, but a part of her hoped they had it protected in some bulletproof case simply so she wouldn’t have to make that decision.

Moving around to the passenger side of the car, Walter folded the seat forward and removed a small box from behind it. Opening it, he pulled out a quartet of palm-sized drones. Picking them up one at a time, he pressed a small button on them before tossing them up into the air. The propellers spun up and, after stabilizing for a moment, they took off, vanishing into the night.

Beatrice, Dyna presumed.

“Priority three is capture, optimal, or elimination of the opposing force. We already have two captured whom we can scrape for information, so do not put yourself in danger to capture someone.”

Swallowing, Dyna firmed her grip on her gun and nodded her head. A small part of her wondered how she had gone from what was effectively a student to… whatever this was. Mind control? It didn’t feel like that. Every step of the way seemed logical and the correct decisions at the time. It was just such a stark contrast between student-slash-research subject to some kind of psychic soldier.

Dyna focused, shoving the thoughts from her mind. She could think about her decisions later. For now, she accepted the headphones that Walter pulled from under the dashboard. The firm band wrapped around the back of her head, but the bud-like ends didn’t go into her ears. Rather, they rested on the bone just ahead of her ears.

“This is Beatrice.”

Beatrice’s voice came through bone conduction a bit muffled, but understandable. The sound quality was an acceptable compromise if it meant she didn’t have to carry around a cell phone or worry about earbuds falling out of her ears. That left her hands free for her gun and mirror. Or magnifying glass. Or handcuffs.

“I hear you.”

“Aerial reconnaissance in progress. Warning: Civilians in theater; check targets and area before engaging.”

“At the waterfront?”

“Negative. Within buildings and homes nearby. No activity detected at river access points. Expanding search parameters.”

“They have to be here,” Dyna said, one hand moving to brush against the brass and wood handle of the magnifying glass that was sticking out of her pocket. There was still the possibility that the thief did not have any additional allies and would be a mile up the river on his own, but the more she thought about it, the more that felt like the wrong answer.

There was a power plant and water tower right on the river that Dyna had identified as their best entry point into the water to allow for travel that wouldn’t be obstructed by more dams and infrastructure. As she had already surmised, they didn’t need to go far. Just far enough to disguise their location and make their escape using more traditional methods. Walter had stopped their car around the side of a library nearby, well within walking distance.

They should be here. Leaning into the car and looking over the map still displayed on the dashboard, Dyna stared for a good long moment. “The museum,” she said, pointing just a little south of the power plant. It was also right on the river. “Their transit is probably disguised as a donation to the museum, maybe it hadn’t been unpacked to disguise what it was. They’ll be—”

“Located suspicious individuals pushing a large object into the river from the museum parking lot,” Beatrice said.

Walter, slamming a magazine of… whatever his weapon fired into its underside, started walking away from the car. “Let’s move. Remember what I said.”

“Right.” Dyna looked down to her firearm. Although unfamiliar and sleek, it still had a slide at the top to chamber a round and a switch on the side to operate the safety. An attached underbarrel laser might help her aim, but she left it off for the moment to avoid giving away her position.

Confident the weapon was simply a firearm and not some esoteric experimental technology, Dyna hurried after Walter.

Part of her wanted some kind of fancy mask like what the Tartarus crew used. Beatrice would surely be able to display the drone camera feeds or even highlight targets in real time. Unfortunately, Walter had not handed her anything of the sort.

With the power out, the streets were dark. Even still, Walter managed to find the shadows and stick to them. Even after Dyna’s eyes adjusted, she still had trouble tracking him. If she hadn’t known he was there, he could easily have ambushed her. Although she was following directly behind him, Dyna wasn’t sure that she was doing as good a job. Every time she moved, she couldn’t help but notice a gleam of moonlight on the edges of her torn jacket or hear her own footsteps. The rattle of the handcuffs was especially thunderous to her ears despite her best efforts at securing the chain.

Down the backstreets from the library, Dyna and Walter eventually came to a tall wooden fence. At the end of it, Walter held up a closed fist.

Dyna followed the command and stopped in her tracks, eyes searching, mirror out, and weapon at the ready.

He peered around the corner. After a moment, his raised hand opened and motioned forward.

Advancing down a walking path between the wooden fence and a brick building, Dyna could see the museum ahead of them now. There was a large street in between it and her. A small hedge lined the museum parking lot. She hurried forward, moving as fast as she could while keeping low and silent.

Walter, now behind her, kept his weapon up and aimed dead ahead, sweeping slowly in an arc in front of them for any targets.

Reaching the hedge, Dyna ducked fully behind it, ensuring that no one had seen her through the use of her mirror. She waited until Walter ducked down and matched her pose behind the hedge.

“Anyone have eyes on us?”

Dyna jumped slightly at his loud voice. She saw his lips move, but her ears barely picked up a faint exhale of air. The actual sound came through the bone conductive headphones.

Not trusting herself to speak as quietly as he had, she met his eyes and slowly shook her head.

“Parking lot ahead is clear,” Beatrice said. “Two unknown individuals are standing around the far side of the museum building. Stance, heartbeat, and breath analysis indicates they are at a heightened level of alertness but currently unaware of your existence.”

She could detect heartbeats with those drones? Beatrice should have guns on them too. She could simultaneously snipe everyone nearby with enough drones. Although, given what Dyna knew of the administrators, they were probably far too paranoid to allow Beatrice access to any weapons, even while granted elevated operating status.

Which left Dyna and Walter.

Walter motioned first to Dyna then to… something out in the parking lot. In the dark with only the moon for light, she took a long moment to realize what it was. A giant fan. Or, more likely, some turbine piece from the hydroelectric power plant that had been placed out in the parking lot for decorative purposes. Being made from some kind of metal, it would provide better cover than the hedge she was currently hidden behind.

Pointing to his own eyes then to the far corner of the museum, Walter popped up just above the top of the hedge, aiming his blocky gun. Covering her advance.

Moving behind him, Dyna hurried around the side of the hedge and through the parking lot to the turbine rotor. She was careful to keep it between her and where Beatrice said the enemy was, ensuring they wouldn’t see her if they looked around the side of the building.

Reaching it, she put her back to it and nodded at Walter.

“White advancing.”

Rather than run around the hedge to where people and cars were meant to enter the parking lot, Walter simply vaulted right over the waist-high bushes in a single bound. He made a small bit of noise as he landed, but was otherwise silent as he rushed past Dyna’s cover to the outcropped entrance to the museum.

As he ran forward, Dyna leaned out around the turbine, aiming her pistol toward the side of the building. She doubted she would hit anyone at this range, in the dark, and with an unfamiliar firearm, but she would at least be able to lay down some covering fire while Walter got into his own cover.

Her covering fire ended up unnecessary as Walter put his back to the museum wall. Walter stayed still for a moment, as if waiting to see if anyone had heard him approaching. When nothing happened, he started making gestures to Dyna again.

Beatrice interrupted him.

“Hold. Additional individuals approaching from river side. Small boat deployed into river. Analysis indicates window of engagement opportunity narrowing.”

As Beatrice spoke, Dyna heard the rumble of a gas-powered motor starting up somewhere in the distance. A small engine. Nothing large. After the initial thrumming, the engine settled down into a much quieter hum.

Dyna frowned. There wasn’t much in the way of cover up ahead. There was a truck at the very furthest point of the parking lot—probably the truck they had hidden their boat in—but it was well past the edge of the museum. She would be spotted rushing to it without a doubt.

Walter didn’t have anything ahead of him either. Aside from the turbine, the parking lot was just too empty at this time of night. Despite that, he started advancing again.

“Cover me,” Walter’s voice rumbled through the bones in her ears.

Caught off guard, Dyna was a bit sluggish as she pivoted around the side of the turbine again. Walter had already made it up to the corner of the museum where the enemy waited. He didn’t stop at the corner, however. He edged around it, pieing it off with his weapon raised and ready.

Bright white light akin to a flash bang forced Dyna’s eyes closed. At the same time, a thunderous clap hit her ears. Unlike that cannon-like weapon the mountain man had used, which could also be described as thunderous, this noise sounded like actual thunder, complete with those echoing crashes as the sound hit distant buildings and the river.

As Dyna blinked away the spots in her eyes, something hit the turbine rotor over her head with a hollow metallic clang. Fearing she was being fired at and her night vision ruined, Dyna ducked back. However, a plastic noise clattered against the asphalt ground.

Grenade?

Dyna started moving, only for her foot to kick against whatever it was, sending it skipping across the parking lot. A few more blinks during that short time cleared her vision enough to see what it was.

It was not, in fact, a grenade. Rather, it was one of the little palm-sized drones.

“Wa██ing: Elec███mag████ disc██rge detected,” Beatrice said, voice filled with static. Not the strange but likely intentional static that echoed her words while operating at a heightened capacity, but actual, unintelligible static.

Dyna pushed it out of her mind. Realizing that she was not under attack and was derelict in her duty to provide Walter with cover, she quickly pivoted around the side of the turbine once again, raising her gun as her vision slowly returned to normal.

Walter stood at the corner of the building still, silhouetted against the river behind him. He was not holding his weapon, which was on the ground a short distance away, but he didn’t look injured or captured either. He was just staring at it.

And slowly, ever so slowly, he turned his head. Dyna trusted Walter, but there was still something unnerving as his reflective glasses turned to face her. He made no motion. No wave to draw her closer or subtle gesture to indicate that she should hide. He simply stared.

The disquiet of the situation shattered as the rumble of the distant engine grew louder. Swearing under her breath and lacking direction from Walter or Beatrice—the latter of whom might have been completely knocked out for all she knew—Dyna took the initiative into her own hands by rushing forward, gun at the ready. Walter made no move to stop her.

She still raised her pistol as she pied off the museum’s corner.

There was nobody standing, but there were a few bodies on the ground. The rank scent of overly done barbecue hit her nose as she noticed wisps of smoke trailing from each of them. The ground, sidewalk-style concrete, had thick black scorch marks around where each of the bodies feet must have been when they had been standing.

“It was a coil gun. Not a lightning gun. Meant to propel metal pellets at high velocity with zero sound.”

Dyna jumped slightly. With how still he had been standing, Dyna had almost started to wonder if he had been mind controlled or otherwise psychically affected. While she was glad to hear that he didn’t sound mind controlled, the nonsequitur still made her blink. “What?”

“We need to talk.” He paused, opened his mouth, then shook his head. “Later. Can you stop them?” he asked, pointing out toward the river.

With the moonlight gleaming off the water, it was easy to see a boat speeding away. It was just a small boat. One of those little aluminum fishing boats for one or two people. It wasn’t a speedboat or any fancy shallow-water submarine.

But it was still a small target moving quickly away.

She would never be able to hit it with her gun.

Lowering her hand, her fingers brushed over the cold metal of the handcuffs. Now that she had vision of the boat and what looked like two occupants, could she arrest them? Perhaps not in the sense that handcuffs were normally used for, but physically stop them. Arrest their momentum. Even if it didn’t sound like the most logical way for handcuffs to be used, artifacts weren’t logical. The themes were there, and that was what was important.

As she thought that, both figures in the boat jerked to a stop.

The boat, however, did not stop. It continued right out from under them as they hovered a short few feet above the surface of the water. With no one to steer it, the boat quickly beached itself on the rocky bank on the far side of the river.

Both of the people Dyna had caught remained suspended in the air for a few moments, now shouting. They could still twist and move a little in the air. They might have stayed there as long as Dyna kept her eyes on them, but as their struggles increased, one managed to pull out a gun. She couldn’t see it at the distance, but she heard the pops and saw the muzzle flashes.

Dyna let out a surprised squawk as Walter picked her up and put the wall of the museum between them and the river. The gunfire cut off almost immediately, replaced by distant plop noises of some heavy things hitting the water.

Walter peered around the side of the building and let out a small sigh.

“We have people en route to various points along the river. So long as they do not get back into their boat, we should have little issue fishing them out. We’ll remain here to stop them again if they should manage before our people get here.”

Dyna nodded slowly, leaning forward herself to peek around the corner. Two human-sized splashes in the water looked like they were trying to fight against the current. They didn’t look like they were headed for their boat. At least not directly. But they could swim—or at least remain afloat—despite their gear. They would reach the bank of the river before too long.

So Dyna simply stopped them again. It was easy and simple. She just had to reach out like any one of the psychic lectures at the institute instructed and stop them.

“After,” Walter said, unaware of her actions. He didn’t continue his thought, however, instead looking down to his discarded weapon. “I need to speak with the administrators.”

Dyna frowned, not taking her eyes off the men frozen in the river.

Something had gone wrong here. That was for sure. And Dyna felt like she was missing just one little bit of key knowledge that would loop her into whatever it was.

Lowering her hand somewhat, Dyna kept the soldiers frozen while brushing her fingers against the handle of the magnifying glass. Then she thought about it, running over everything that had happened in the last few minutes since arriving at the museum.

One piece of information stuck out to her as odd. Something Walter had said to her.

It was a coil gun, not a lightning gun.