Calm Before the Storm

 

 

Ruby stepped outside the station wagon, moved around back, and opened up the same weapon-filled case that Dyna had seen Emerald get into.

“I know you… forgot your gun,” Ruby said, reaching inside to pull out a small pistol. “We’ll have to train more. You’re still not comfortable carrying it around.”

“I don’t even have a permit or license or whatever,” Dyna said. It wasn’t a strong protest. There just wasn’t any point in arguing. With Ruby here and the case of weapons at her side, Dyna doubted she would be able to get away without a gun in hand.

“Fun fact: Idaho still doesn’t require any permits for possessing a rifle, shotgun, or handgun, if you can believe it,” she said, handing over the gun. With it, she handed over a black leather holster with several straps on it. “Concealed carry is a different story, but if you don’t get caught, it doesn’t matter. You wear this kind of like a backpack.”

“Ruby…”

“If this guy is meeting with someone suspicious, if his foil-wrapped suspicious object really is an artifact, you might thank me later.”

“I would much prefer if we just took a few pictures and delivered it back to the institute for them to handle,” Dyna said, taking off her coat before Ruby could do it for her. “And this is a public place. We can’t just start shooting.”

“I agree.”

Shivering in the cold air, Dyna blinked. “Really? I figured you would dash in guns blazing the moment anything suspicious happened.”

“Emerald would probably kill me for that. Besides, the Carroll Institute might want to feed this guy deliberately bad information or otherwise interrogate him themselves. This is an unsanctioned mission, so we have to tread lightly. Though recovering the artifact is a priority, if we see an opportunity.”

“Oh?” That… did make Dyna feel a little better.

This whole operation was her idea. She was the one to have brought it up. She was the one to worry over what a spy in the Carroll Institute might have meant. Ruby was just going along with her. Or, more accurately, taking those comments and worries and barreling forward, dragging Dyna along with her.

But the drive into Idaho Falls had given her time to think. Not a lot of time to think given how fast Ruby had been driving—one of only a dozen reasons why the drive had been terrifying—but enough time for Dyna’s doubts to creep back into the back of her mind. What was she doing here? She wasn’t trained to handle these kinds of situations. Not like Ruby or Emerald. She didn’t have a fancy pocket watch or Ruby’s choker-mounted ruby. All she had was a dumb mirror.

Shrugging her coat back on, and unable to lower her arms properly because of an uncomfortably heavy weight tucked under her arm, Dyna glanced down at the reflective glass of her compact mirror. She wasn’t sure it even worked. At least not on people who weren’t already locked up in the Psychodynamics Containment Cells. At the moment, all it showed off was her own face, wrinkled with the doubt in the back of her mind.

It was a bit ridiculous. Her doubts and worries were why she was here in the first place. Now her doubts and worries told her that she should really be about as far from Idaho Falls as physically possible.

“Come on,” Ruby said, moving up to the corner of the building they had pulled up to, denying Dyna any chance of fleeing. “Just try to ignore it. Pretend it doesn’t exist unless you need it.”

That absolutely wasn’t possible. Even if she could fully lower her arm to her side, Dyna couldn’t imagine forgetting about the gun. She had checked the safety three times before holstering it and she still wasn’t sure if it was on or not.

“Good. He’s still there.”

Dyna slowly and carefully peered around the side of the building. A restaurant serving Thai food.

Actually finding Harold hadn’t proved that difficult. The highway leading from the Carroll Institute to Idaho Falls also connected it to a tiny hovel of a city called Arco. It had mostly been a guess that Harold would head into Idaho Falls. Arco was technically closer, but the entire ‘city’ sat on a single square mile of land and had a population fewer in number than the staff and students of the Carroll Institute. There was nothing there.

So, when Ruby, driving with all lights off—another reason the trip into town had been terrifying—had seen another car’s tail lights ahead of them, she simply assumed that the vehicle belonged to Harold.

Keeping their distance until they got into town, she had been right. The electric car they followed eventually pulled up to a small family diner and Harold got out. Ruby had driven past a few extra times, just to be sure that he wasn’t leaving immediately.

The car was still across the street from the Thai place at the family diner. Dyna could see the back of his head, his distinctive bald spot giving him away, seated at a corner booth.

Ruby grabbed her wrist and dragged her around to the entrance of the Thai restaurant. She shoved Dyna inside. Ruby kept a hold of Dyna’s hand like she was worried that Dyna would run away. As much as Dyna wanted do, she wasn’t going to. In fact, she felt a bit hurt that Ruby apparently felt a need to anchor her in place.

Dyna did try to turn around to continue watching Harold in the place across the street, but someone clearing their throat had her looking back into the Thai restaurant.

A distinctly not Thai, or any variety of Asian, man in a black button-up shirt with a high collar, trimmed in red, stood with a few menus in hand. A name tag identified him as Earl. “Table for… two?” he asked.

“Uh…”

“Oh can we please get a window seat, mommy? Please?”

Dyna’s head whipped down to Ruby, only to find a some kind of changeling in her place. Based on appearance alone, it looked like Ruby, but the smile she wore, the earnest look in her eyes, and even the way she held herself was so utterly foreign that she could only be an alien shapeshifter.

Normally, Ruby only looked like a ten-year-old for a few minutes. As soon as she started talking, moving, or really just being, it became apparent that Ruby was not a ten-year-old. At least not any average one. She spoke more like an adult than a child, had a propensity for wrath, and the look in her eyes held far more difficulty and hardness than most adults.

The waiter just chuckled, apparently not seeing anything at all wrong with the skin-walker. “We have some window booths available,” he said, bending slightly to put himself more at Ruby’s level. “Just you and your mommy today?”

Dyna didn’t say a word. An action that apparently warranted a rough squeeze of her hand from Ruby.

“Daddy couldn’t come. He’s working on my birthday.” Ruby’s smile turned to the most heart-wrenching pout.

Dyna shuddered.

“Aww,” Earl cooed, “We’ll make sure you get a window seat to make up for it then, okay?”

“Yay!”

“Right this way,” the waiter said, turning toward the windows.

Ruby started following right away, projecting obvious excitement. Dyna followed a moment after, needing a rough yank from Ruby to get her feet working again.

She soon found herself seated in a window booth. One with a perfect view of the diner across the street. It was far too large of a table for just two people, but the restaurant only had a few other tables occupied, so it probably wasn’t a big issue to accommodate a poor little girl on her birthday.

“I’ll leave you with the menus for a moment to decide. Would you like anything to drink?”

“Water,” Ruby said.

When Dyna didn’t immediately respond, she kicked her foot against Dyna’s shin. Not hard. Not hard enough to hurt, anyway. Just a light tap.

“Water here too,” Dyna said with a nervous smile. “Thank you.”

“Be right out.”

As soon as he turned around, Ruby started humming, bouncing back and forth in her seat like a little girl.

Were it not for the fact that Harold was still across the street in the diner, Dyna might have thought that she had been conned into taking Ruby out to eat. That bald spot was him, right? With two panes of glass between them and a two-lane street, it was much more difficult to see him.

“What was that?” she asked in a hiss, leaning forward over the table.

“Couldn’t just let us get shoved into the back corner of the room,” Ruby said.

“Why are we here at all? Shouldn’t we be on the roof with binoculars or something.”

Ruby rolled her eyes. “It’s cold outside,” she said, pulling out her phone. From her other pocket, she pulled out some kind of miniature telescope that she promptly clipped over the phone’s camera. Setting it on the table with the telescope up against the glass, she tapped a few buttons.

A slightly blurry view of the entire front window of the diner appeared. Ruby twisted the telescope a bit to clear it up.

“What if somebody sees?”

“Just tell them I like counting cars or something.”

“But—”

“It’ll be fine, you just need to improvise. I can’t do all the talking.”

“Ruby, you can’t just—”

A icy glass of water appeared in front of her. A second one joined the first, in front of Ruby.

“Oh? What have you got there?”

Dyna winced at the waiter’s voice. She looked up to find him looking down with obvious curiosity. “She likes counting cars?”

Earl did not look convinced. “Oh?”

“It’s autism,” Dyna said, scrambling for any explanation. The moment the words were out of her mouth, she grimaced again.

But that seemed to be enough for Earl. A look of understanding crossed his face. “I understand,” he said. “My older brother grew up with some challenges.”

Dyna glanced to Ruby, unsure at all what to say and even more uncomfortable than she had been a few minutes ago, which was saying something. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s part of who they are.”

“Yeah…”

“Anyway, did you need a little more time with the menus?”

“Uh, yes. Yes please.”

“Alright,” Earl said with an easy smile. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Take your time.”

As soon as he was gone, Dyna slumped. “I feel guilty.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, it’s just—”

“You didn’t hurt anyone and now we’re free to do whatever we want.” Ruby angled the camera slightly, scanning the entirety of the restaurant. “Good job.”

“I guess.”

“No sign of anyone meeting him,” Ruby said, “also, I recommend the pad kee mao.”

“The what?”

“Stir-fried noodles. Curry is good too.”

Dyna, tense and wound up, wasn’t sure that she had much of an appetite. Unfortunately, the waiter came back. Having not even glanced at the menu, Dyna took Ruby up on her suggestion while Ruby, again acting like a normal child, asked for curry and some kind of soup. With a smile, Earl took down their orders and left once more. Hopefully for longer than a minute or two this time.

“What if nobody shows up to meet him?”

“That’s bad for his innocence. Based on what you overheard, he should definitely be meeting with someone. If nobody shows up, it could mean that he is merely dropping off the stuff he stole, either leaving them behind for someone else to come by and take later on or the diner itself is a front. It, or maybe just one of its employees, could be the one expecting the package.”

“Or somebody noticed us,” Dyna said, watching as a small car drove down the street at a languid pace without stopping.

“That too. All it would take would be a psychic of particular talents to scan the minds of everyone in the area and find out what we’re all doing. Emerald trained me to avoid that kind of detection.” Ruby took her eyes off the phone, looking up to Dyna. “I doubt you can say the same.”

Dyna’s shoulders slumped. “The Carroll Institute teaches everyone to detect and even fight back against mental influences. But being detected at all?” She shook her head. “Should I even be here? Aren’t I compromising the mission?”

“Like I said, the mission is to determine whether or not this guy is a spy. And nobody showing up is a strong indicator that he is. A romantic partner wouldn’t care or even notice us sitting here.”

“Alright. Let me rephrase. Aren’t I putting us in danger? What if they decide to attack us?” Dyna lifted her eyes up to the roofs of the buildings across the street. The roofs had been where the last group of people wanting to harm her had ended up. It was dark out now. Anyone wearing the dark clothes that the last men had worn would be nearly invisible.

Uneasy feeling in her stomach, Dyna pulled out her mirror. It was some small relief that she only saw her own face, reflected normally and not through the perspectives of others. It would have been more of a relief if she knew how, why, or when the mirror’s anomalous abilities manifested.

Dyna spent the next dozen minutes glancing between the mirror, the roof, the streets, and Ruby’s cell phone. Their meals came, delivered by Earl, though Dyna only picked at hers. It wasn’t bad. Any other day and she might have enjoyed the noodles. But tonight?

She was too busy keeping her eyes peeled for any sign of movement.

“He’s eating on his own,” Ruby said.

Glancing down at the video feed on Ruby’s phone, Dyna frowned. A waiter in the diner delivered what looked like a stack of French toast. “If you’re meeting with someone, you normally wait for them.”

“I’d say that’s one strike against him.”

“Yeah…”

To Dyna, that almost completely confirmed that he was not meeting with someone romantically. And if he wasn’t meeting with someone romantically, what did that leave? A business meeting? An old friend? He would still have waited, right?

Perhaps he really was dropping something off?

“He hasn’t handed anything off to the waiter, has he?”

“Not that I’ve seen,” Ruby said, shaking her head. “But he’s been in there for about five minutes longer than we’ve been watching. He could have passed something off already.”

“Would he stick around if he already accomplished his objective?”

“It’s more suspicious to go into a diner and not eat than it is to stick around for an extra twenty minutes.”

“Seems like it would be better to spend as little time as possible around someplace suspicious. It draws more attention.”

“Maybe if they were meeting in a back alley or at some abandoned warehouse, but a diner?” Ruby shook her head. “He might also be here to pick something up. Maybe instructions leading to a different meeting place. If that’s the case, he might have left something in his car…” Standing, Ruby loudly announced to the entire restaurant, “Got to go to the potty, mommy!”

Absolutely and utterly mortified, Dyna stared at Ruby. The absolutely infuriating little girl gave her a wink before sprinting off, presumably in the direction of the restaurant’s restrooms. A few scattered chuckles from the other guests followed her out. Dyna turned her attention to her noodles, focusing intently on them even as she felt the rest of the room’s eyes on her.

The chuckles died off quickly enough. Dyna’s embarrassment quickly morphed into nervous tension as she realized what just happened.

Ruby had left her alone.

They were on a stakeout, watching a potentially dangerous spy in the hopes of catching him with even more dangerous people.

And Ruby left her alone.

The weight of the gun under Dyna’s arm felt even heavier all of a sudden. What if…

“Everything alright?”

Dyna glanced up to find Earl sliding into the seat across from her. He offered a smile.

It didn’t help much.

“Yeah, everything’s…” Dyna trailed off as movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention. It made her tense at first, until she realized that it was moving away from her. A little figure crossed the road in the shadows between the streetlights. A little figure with a hood up, but with a few wisps of bright red hair poking out and managing to catch some light.

“Everything’s fine,” Dyna said, doubting she sounded like she was fine.

“Food not to your liking?”

“Oh, no, no. It’s fine. I’m just… distracted.”

Distracted by the figure stopping in front of the electric car, at the moment. Ruby glanced about once before pulling something out of her pockets. Dyna couldn’t see what and, with Earl seated across from her, she couldn’t try angling the cell phone camera over to get a better view.

“Are you allowed to sit down with customers like this?”

“It isn’t too busy right now. Not like it was an hour ago. I’ll be up and about in a few minutes. I just wanted to check on things. If I’m unwelcome…”

Dyna didn’t want to say that he wasn’t welcome, but at the same time, it probably wasn’t a good idea to talk to people at the moment. Right now, without Ruby, things felt far more tense than they had any right to be, even though nothing had really happened.

He apparently took her hesitance as confirmation, however, moving to stand. “Sorry. No harm in asking, right?”

Dyna blinked and slowly nodded her head. “Thanks, it’s just not a good time.”

“I’ll get the total ready for you then?”

Trying to avoid slumping her shoulders, Dyna sighed and pulled out a debit card. “You can just put it all on this. And take a thirty percent tip too.”

“No tips here,” Earl said.

“Oh. Well…”

“But I appreciate the sentiment. I’ll get everything squared away for you.”

Dyna nodded before looking back to the window. She quickly did a scan over everything, from the cars to the roofs to the phone, before freezing.

The phone, with its telescopic attachment, showed something a little interesting.

Harold, still sitting in his booth, was speaking to his own waiter. And during the conversation, he reached beneath the table and pulled up a small steel case, the likes of which Dyna had seen before. One nearly identical to the steel case that Emerald had been carrying around the day they met. With gloved hands, Harold pulled out a flat, circular disc wrapped in foil and slipped it into a styrofoam to-go box.

Dyna reached over to Ruby’s phone and started tapping on the photo button, taking several pictures over and over again.

That was it. Confirmed. Harold was a traitor. That had to be an artifact. Likely the Aztec calendar.

Dyna felt a bit of tension escape her shoulders.

Anger flooded in instead.

This was him, certainly. The one who had sold her out. The one who had contacted outside parties—Id—and told them who to look out for. The communications error that Walter had mentioned. Dyna’s psionic cascade might have alerted people to her existence, but they wouldn’t have known which psychic to look for without Harold giving them a call.

And now he was stealing an artifact? A whole artifact?

He couldn’t get away with that. The moment anyone noticed it was missing, they should be able to track down where it had last been. That would have to lead to Harold. Assuming Beatrice didn’t already know—Dyna couldn’t figure out why she hadn’t told anyone yet, but it must have something to do with her programming.

Perhaps Harold knew that he would soon be found out and decided to leave with something more valuable than mere redacted documents. If he was defecting right now…

Dyna sucked in a breath.

The mirror changed. The reflective lenses went dark, failing to reflect anything at all.

She hadn’t been trying to get it to change like every other time it had gone dark. This time, it changed all on its own.

That meant something was wrong.

Dyna’s head whipped around. Harold still didn’t look like he had noticed. He just sat there, unmoving in his booth in the diner. Ruby… Dyna couldn’t see the young girl. Presumably, she was still inside Harold’s car, looking for evidence. It didn’t look like anyone was watching her either. At least not from the street.

Turning her head, she scanned the restaurant, only to jump at seeing Earl standing just next to her seat.

“Something wrong?” he asked, handing her card over along with the receipt.

Dyna narrowed her eyes. “No… just wondering what is taking Ruby so long.”

Movement on the mirror caught her eye. She snapped her head back, ready to figure out just where the danger was, only to widen her eyes.

Much like in the car with Emerald, Dyna found herself looking through the zoomed-in view of a scope. Probably on a roof again, judging by the angle. Except it wasn’t aimed at her or even Ruby. The crosshairs traveled along the main window of the diner across the street, moving from person to person before settling on the back of Harold’s head.

A sniper?

The same people who were meeting him were trying to kill him?

It made sense. Rewarded as a traitor deserved. But…

Dyna didn’t have time to sit around and think about her choices. The sniper could squeeze the trigger at any moment.

Reaching into her coat, she withdrew the pistol that Ruby gave her, ignored the shout behind her as she aimed it at the window, and pulled the trigger.