Sleep wasn’t easy to come by. There was too much going on to fall asleep. And yet, there wasn’t much for Dyna to do to help the situation. Doctor Darq was going through data. They had hoisted Ruby up and further secured her with additional harnesses, mostly to keep her from dragging on the ground. The poor girl must have been so confused. Matt had fallen asleep, but with the aid of painkillers and sleep aids.
Dyna wasn’t quite willing to turn to drugs just yet. While she felt she needed some sleep, she felt it was a bit more important that she remain alert. The Hatman had not been happy with their escape. Assuming it could be happy or sad.
That idea that it could pop up at practically any time, potentially without them even noticing, had Dyna far too tense for sleep. A problem that Ado apparently did not share. The chief engineer simply announced her intention to get some rest, leaned back in the terminal chair, and apparently fell asleep. With her goggles still on, Dyna couldn’t tell for sure that she was sleeping, but the change in her breathing and her utter stillness left Dyna fairly confident that she wasn’t lying.
After an hour of failing to get even a small semblance of rest, Dyna found herself startled to full alertness when she felt the truck slowing down. It had done that several times, mostly for stop signs or red lights. This time was different. They were pulling into a parking lot.
“Why are we stopping?” Dyna asked, leaning over the terminals to try to see where they were.
Ado didn’t respond. Neither did anyone else. Dyna tried poking Ado to get her awake, but the woman didn’t even budge. Before Dyna could try again, she watched as Maple hopped out of the front of the truck and bolted away from it like there was a bomb ready to go. Dyna turned and hit the open door button for the truck’s side door, hopped out, and rushed after him toward a small convenience store.
“Hey!”
Maple looked back, still wearing the silver mask. Dyna faltered. She hadn’t put her mask back on after handing the goggles back to Ado. She didn’t have any protection at all. Not even the treated aluminum foil. She wasn’t sure where that was. Probably some corner of the truck. It was just a flimsy piece of foil—she hadn’t been paying much attention to it while trying to get Matt into the truck. It might have even fallen off back then.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Caffeine,” Maple said, turning again. He hurried right up to the automatic doors, didn’t stop as they opened, and rushed through straight toward the store’s drink section.
With a glance back at the open side door of the truck, Dyna rushed after him. The Hatman couldn’t be here yet. They had been driving for hours and the Hatman always moved slowly, never faster than a steady walk. Except for the time he appeared in front of the hospital. But Dyna was still hoping that Ruby had simply missed him walking up.
“If I’m going to be driving all night, I can’t be falling asleep at the wheel,” Maple said, pulling cans of energy drinks off the shelves. “Sure, the truck is self-driving for the most part, but if something strange happens… It’s just a regular self-driving AI. It won’t swerve to avoid a psychic entity.”
“Hitting him wouldn’t hurt him?” Dyna asked. She had suspected that earlier.
“I’m less worried about what happens to the entity and more worried that the entity will pass through the truck, make contact with us, and do whatever it did to your friend.”
Dyna shuddered, suddenly beyond glad that she hadn’t tried to hit the Hatman.
Watching him load up his arms with can after can, Dyna grabbed a few as well, along with a bag of trail mix. She hadn’t eaten anything all day. Seeing food right in front of her was making her hungry.
Tossing her food onto the pile of his cans did earn her a look. The mask made the type of look impossible to discern, but Dyna could guess that Maple wasn’t too impressed.
“Checkout will be faster,” she said as the cashier started scanning each individual item, apparently unconcerned with the mask.
“Sure.”
He didn’t sound impressed, but didn’t complain as he pressed his card into the chip reader.
As soon as they were paid for, Dyna grabbed her things and headed back toward the truck. Nothing had changed, thankfully. Ado was still asleep in her chair, as was Matt. Ruby’s filled harnesses still hung from the ceiling. Dyna almost got in, only to change her mind at the last minute. After closing the truck’s side door, she headed around to the truck’s cab and climbed into the passenger seat.
Having got himself inside while she was closing the door, Maple jolted at her appearance. As soon as he saw who it was, he visible calmed, but that only lasted for a moment before he tensed again. “What are you doing?”
“Everyone else is asleep. I don’t know how Ado can just lean back and close her eyes at a time like this, but I think I would rather be with someone else who isn’t sleeping at the moment.”
“That is… incredibly unnecessary. Just wake her up?”
“Are you going to drive or are we going to sit here until the Hatman comes?”
Maple’s hands gripped the wheel. There was a whole terminal up here in the front, spread out across the dashboard and even in front of the passenger seat. When she wanted to, Ado could probably work as effectively from here as she could from the rear terminal.
“Well?”
Maple took an audible breath and pressed his foot to the accelerator.
The truck got on its way. After navigating out to a main road, Maple pressed a few buttons to engage the automatic driving. Once it fully took control, he leaned back in the seat and pulled out one of the energy drinks. But he hesitated before actually opening it.
“I can’t drink with you here.”
“Why not?”
“My mask…”
“The Hatman’s powers don’t seem to work through glass. How were you planning on eating without me here?”
“It isn’t the entity. It’s you.”
“I’ve already seen your face. We met already, remember? Out in the suburbs?”
Maple shifted in his seat. “It’s… company policy? I’m not supposed to remove protective equipment in the presence of known psychics.”
Dyna snorted, turning to look out the window. “I’m really not much of a psychic,” she said, pulling out the mirror. It was really her only claim to psionic power and she hadn’t even tried to use it while looking for Ruby. It just didn’t… do enough.
Hearing a snort, Dyna glanced back to find Maple had put his drink back down.
“Well fine,” Dyna said. “I’ll keep you awake with a little conversation. Besides, it’ll save you from kidney stones.”
“Please don’t even think that. I’m healthy. I don’t normally drink energy drinks. I don’t even drink soda or coffee. Just water for me, thank you.”
Dyna glanced down at the drink she had purchased. Not soda. Not coffee either. But also not water. A sports drink, probably loaded with sugar. Dyna was tempted to look at the ingredient list, but self-conscious now, she tried to play it off with a shrug of her shoulders. “Suit yourself.”
“I’d like to suit myself by drinking all these energy drinks.”
“I’m not stopping you. I even promise not to use my psychic powers if you remove your mask.”
Maple looked over and just stared, making Dyna more and more uncomfortable until she finally turned her focus on the street outside the window. This had been a bad idea. She should have gone back into the back of the truck. What if Matt woke up? Or if something happened to Ruby?
Why wasn’t there a door leading back to the rear of the truck? That was the real question. It wasn’t like the truck was pulling a trailer; the two sides shared a wall.
Now she was stuck until they stopped again.
“Where are we going anyway?”
“Nowhere.”
“What?”
“We’re just driving around Casper. Keeping on the move to avoid the entity, but hopefully keeping it from leaving as well. Doctor Darq worried that it might completely change targets if they got too far away from it, leaving us having to figure out where it has gone.”
“That’s… good.” Under other circumstances, Dyna might have been tempted to run away. Leave the Hatman to Tartarus.
With Ruby in trouble, Dyna couldn’t run away. She might not be able to do much to help directly, but she could support them until they fixed Ruby. And, perhaps more importantly, she couldn’t just leave Ruby in their hands. Helpful though they had been so far, Dyna still trusted these people about as far as she could throw them.
Her gun, holstered at her hip, had the safety on, but a round still chambered from earlier. It was ready to use just in case. Dyna hoped she wouldn’t need to, but these people had technically kidnapped her once already. Even though she got away, that just set a bad precedent.
The conversation lulled back into awkward silence. Dyna slowly snacked on her trail mix, wondering if she should ask something or if he would rather just sit in silence. Until she remembered that she was supposed to be keeping him awake.
And if he was tired, he might let slip some information that he wouldn’t normally offer.
“You do this often?” Dyna asked.
“Do…”
“Chase around phase-shifting entities.”
“No. Never. First time and I really don’t even think I should be here.”
Dyna raised an eyebrow, but he wasn’t even looking her direction. “Your card said you are a logistical director. Is that just a cover or—”
“No. I shouldn’t be here, but…” He trailed off, glancing over for just a moment before shaking his head with a sigh. “We have five people working at Tartarus and Id wanted this investigated so—”
“Only five?”
“There were supposed to be more, but I understand we have you to thank for some of our crew’s incarceration.”
Dyna shook her head. “Ruby was the one who caught Grafton… But what about all those people? You had like twenty people in that fake storage facility thing.”
“What? Oh… Oh. I probably shouldn’t have said anything.”
“What happened to them?”
Maple didn’t respond. He just stared straight ahead, looking rather stiff. His shoulders tensed like he was worried Dyna might do something. After a few moments of no response, she just sighed and went back to her trail mix. So much for that line of questioning. There were other things she wanted to ask, about both Tartarus and Id, but it was probably best to let him let his guard down before she actually opened her mouth.
So instead of continuing to talk, Dyna looked over the terminals arrayed around the passenger seat. Most looked like touch-screens, though there was a keyboard that could be slid out from under the dashboard. Surprisingly enough, none of them looked to be locked. They were open, displaying readings from various sensors around the truck. Much like the ones in the rear, there were feeds from the external cameras as well.
A part of her wondered if there were all kinds of secret documents stored here, but the rest of her doubted it. Some secret organization like Tartarus wouldn’t just leave things around in case the truck was captured by the Carroll Institute or other organization. Then again, Tartarus was apparently a much smaller organization than Dyna originally thought. They might not have a proper information security team.
Of course, the moment Dyna reached out to swipe one of the camera feeds away and see what else she could find, Maple reached over and swatted at her wrist.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked.
“Just uh… checking?”
“Well don’t. Everything is set up just the way I like it.”
So he said, but as he pulled his hand back, he stopped at one of the screens. One with a pulsing circle prominently displayed among shuffling numbers. It looked like a music player’s visualization, growing and shrinking along with the beat, with some parts stretching out further than others. Hesitating for just a second, Maple wrenched the screen further toward him.
“You’re… not doing anything, are you?”
“What would I be doing?”
“Oh no.”
Dyna tensed, growing worried. She looked over the other screens. First the cameras, trying to spot anything that didn’t look like it should be there. Finding no sign of the Hatman, she looked around to the other graphs. But she didn’t know what they all meant. Most were just measuring various types of psionic energy around the truck. Those were just the familiar ones, Ambient Randi Levels, for instance. The ones labeled the same as readings she had seen around the Carroll Institute. A good half of the graphs were completely alien to her, apparently measuring such things as Incarnation per Metis, Ambient Cypher Rating, and World Exploits.
All of which had seemed roughly normal before, but were now slowly creeping up. Rolling graphs let her clearly see how steady they had been only a few minutes ago compared to where they were now.
Something was happening. Something that worried Maple.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Nothing to worry about. Don’t worry about anything.”
“Liar.” Dyna could hear the tension in his voice. “Is it the Hatman?”
“Look. There are a lot of things here. I don’t even know what they all do or mean. I’m the logistics person. Id needs something? I figure out how to get it. That’s my job. All this?” He shook his head. “Seriously reconsidering my life’s choices right now.”
“Life’s choices… Is it that bad?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I was just trying to say.” Maple reached over and pressed down on the center screen, which pulled up a small camera feed of the rear of the truck, one centered on Ado.
Everything looked just how Dyna left it. Ado had her head tilted back, still in apparent sleep. Matt had a few blankets on the floor behind her. Ruby’s harness still hung from the rack on the wall.
“Ado!” Maple shouted. “Wake up!”
Despite not responding at all to Dyna physically trying to wake her up, the shout was apparently enough. Ado’s tilted back head dropped forward until she was facing the camera. She let out one massive yawn, then nodded her head. The lights around her goggles shifted from faint cycling through colors to a series of rapid pulsing.
Even having worn the goggles, Dyna had no idea what they were for. It was entirely possible that Dyna hadn’t seen anything remotely similar to what Ado was seeing.
“Something is up with the sensors. Please tell me it is nothing. Please tell Dyna it is nothing.”
Ado’s head tilted slightly. “Is it nothing?”
“You tell me.”
“It’s probably nothing,” Ado said, immediately tilting her head back again.
“Ado! We would prefer a little more reassurance. Maybe actually look at the sensors before sleeping?”
With a small groan, Ado leaned forward again, this time hunching forward as her fingers rapidly tapped against various keys. Having seen the terminals back there, Dyna felt that was more for show than anything else. The screens back there displayed graphs every time Dyna had looked at them. But when she finished typing, Ado stared straight down at the keys for just a moment.
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
“Oh.” Ado looked up to the camera. “It’s nothing.”
“That’s such a lie,” Dyna hissed. “What’s going on?”
“Mhm. Hmm…” Ado sighed. “It is nothing major,” she said, speaking slowly as if she were taking a great deal of care in selecting her words. “There are signs of the entity nearby. It is doubtful that it caught up to us through non-anomalous means—”
“The Hatman can teleport.”
“You saw this?”
“Well… no. Ruby said that he wasn’t there, then he—”
“We have seen no evidence that the entity possesses such abilities. Please refrain from conjecture. Your friend was likely mistaken.”
Dyna doubted Ruby would make such a mistake. She was far more experienced in these types of things than Dyna was and would have been paying attention. Then again, this was something that she had never encountered before. It was entirely possible that it had done something else entirely that had merely looked like teleportation.
“In any case, the readings do not indicate anything to be alarmed over. Merely that it was nearby at some point in the recent past. Perhaps while hunting down your other friend. We should turn back and investigate.”
“Investigate?” Maple said, jolting somewhat. “Now?”
“Our goal here is investigation and ultimate containment of the entity. Traces of it should be analyzed.”
Maple looked over to Dyna, face unreadable behind the mask. After a slight nod, he leaned back in his seat, taking over from the automated driver for a few moments while he readjusted his course.
“Not much actual driving to do,” he said with a nervous chuckle.
“Just keep us moving,” Ado said. “Alert me when you’ve found the area with the highest readings.” Apparently unconcerned with the still rising graphs, she leaned her head back against her seat, stretched an arm forward, and shut off the camera.
Something felt off to Dyna. Something about the way they acted. Dyna wasn’t quite sure what. The numbers on the graphs must have meant something, but she didn’t know enough to know what was wrong. Judging by the way Maple wouldn’t even look over in her direction now that the talk was over, they were lying. From her time at the institute, Dyna knew a little about regular old fashioned psychology. In her inexpert opinion, it looked like he had a guilty conscience.
Something was off, but nothing that would put them in danger? If the Hatman were here, they would hopefully let her know. That meant that it was something else. Maybe an artifact appeared or another psychic was in the area.
Dyna pressed a hand to the gun in her pocket, just to make sure it was still there.
Once more, she didn’t trust them.