Goggles

 

“You’re probably very confused,” Dyna said, keeping her volume down to a minimum.

Still in the back of the truck, driving back toward the hospital now, Dyna had to wonder if that was even a good idea. She wanted Ruby somewhere safe, but the hospital was surely surrounded with police at this point. Someone must have seen her get into the back of the large white truck with Matt, either with their own eyes or through the screen of a security camera. The Tartarus van was fairly distinctive.

Having had a few moments to get better settled in the truck, Dyna had pulled down a white protective suit that looked an awful lot like a hooded onesie. It wasn’t much, but it did give Matt something to lay down on that wasn’t the cheap plywood of the truck bed. The way they had tossed him inside had probably given him some extra slivers.

“We’re with… I mean, I’m with an organization that studies and researches psychics and psychic activity. These other people are from a similar organization that I don’t particularly like, but it seems as if we’re working together for the moment. Does that make sense? Are you… alright?”

Matt was awake now. Definitely awake. He was flat on his back, but looking at her with alert eyes. At the moment, those eyes looked about ready to cry.

“Is it over?”

“No. The Hatman is still out there for now. We’re going to change that once we get my friend back.”

“Your friend… I… I thought I—” Matt squeezed his eyes shut. Balling a fist, he pressed it to his forehead.

It took Dyna a moment to realize what he was upset about. “No, no no. It’s okay. You got lucky. It’s hard to explain, but Ruby is… not easy to kill? She’s a psychic whose ability lets her heal herself. She’s fine. Or she was when I last remember her. She was at the hospital… I think. You might have seen her there when we were getting you out, but then…”

Darq told them an awful lot about what the Hatman was from a technical perspective. He had apparently sent over extra information to the Carroll Institute that had not been part of the conversation. But he hadn’t said what the Hatman practically was.

“What do you know about the Hatman? How did you find out about him? When did he start coming after you? Do you know… Do you know what he does to people he takes?”

The latter question was the most important for Dyna. At least at the moment. From Darq, Dyna knew about the phase-shifting nonsense. But what did he do after that? Surely he phase-shifted someone for a reason. Maybe to eat them? Hunt them down for sport in his own little world? And related to that, how did he select his targets? Was there a reason for it, or was it purely random? Ruby was probably just a target of opportunity—or she had accidentally gotten captured while he was going after Matt—but knowing how he picked his targets could provide a clue on why he took them.

“I… I think I’m psychic,” Matt said, still with his eyes closed and his hand on his forehead. “I see people. People that other people can’t see. It started out with… we had a friend when we were friends. One who disappeared.”

“Yes. Six people went to that water park. Only five of us left.”

“You remember her?” Matt asked, trying to lean forward.

Dyna pressed him back down. It didn’t take much force. Just a hand to his chest. He was still injured. She genuinely didn’t know if he was alright to even be awake. He would probably not be nearly so talkative once the painkillers wore off. The bandages around his leg should probably be changed at some point.

Perhaps one of the Tartarus people had some medical knowledge. Walter was sending support, which included some medical doctors, but they weren’t here yet.

“Not really,” Dyna said, hoping that they would be able to deal with whatever problems there were when they arrived. “Bits and pieces. I remember someone else with us at the water park and the Hatman taking her away. But that’s it. I can’t even remember her name.”

“I saw her sometimes when I was a child. Just brief glimpses, usually of her screaming for help. No one else remembered her. Even after tracking down pictures of us together, they just shrugged their shoulders and went on with their day. Like they couldn’t even think about her for any extended period of time. Then I started seeing other people. Others crying out for help.

“I was just a kid. I didn’t know what to do or how to help. Toward the end of middle school, they slowed down. Then stopped coming. And then… I started seeing him.”

“The Hatman.”

Matt nodded his head. “Just in my dreams at first. Then in the corners of my eyes. I tried telling people. They took me to therapists and my family tried moving. But he was still there. My parents divorced and mom dumped me with my dad. Didn’t even want me. A year later, he just…” He swallowed a lump in his throat. “He left me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I got over it.”

Dyna pressed her lips together and nodded her head. “So he started coming after you?”

“A year ago. Maybe two? Hard keeping track of the days,” he said with a snort as if it were a joke.

Dyna wasn’t laughing.

“Thought I was just dead. I was living at a shelter when he walked in through the front doors—”

“You could see him? Remember him?”

“Kind of. Like the ghosts—”

“Ghosts?” Dyna blinked, then realized. “Oh. Like Jen.”

“I don’t know if they’re actually dead, but that’s what I called them when I was little.”

They weren’t dead. Or Ruby wasn’t, at least. Not yet. Not if she could help it.

After a long period of silence, Dyna gave him a light prompt. “So the Hatman came in?”

“Oh. Sorry. Head is foggy.”

“That’s probably the anesthetics.”

Matt hummed in a non-committal acknowledgment. “I knew the moment I saw him that he was after me. I just sat there, frozen. But—I don’t know if it was by accident or if someone else saw him, but one of the others at the shelter wound up hitting him with a food tray. He stumbled. That was enough. I knew he could be fought. I ran away. Been running and fighting ever since. He shows up once every month or so. Sooner if I stay somewhere he found me before.”

That was potentially useful information. If they needed to lure the Hatman out, taking Matt back to one of his places would be best. But it wasn’t the information Dyna wanted to know right now. “So you don’t know what happens to the people he catches?”

“They turn into ghosts,” Matt said, matter-of-factly.

Phase-shifted. Probably. Imperceptible to normal people according to Darq, but Matt’s psychic ability must let him at least glimpse them.

“Do the ghosts talk to you?”

“Not like we’re talking. Sometimes they say things. Mostly shouts for help, screams, or crying. I don’t think they like being ghosts.”

There could be dozens of people out there, phase-shifted like Ruby was now, living in some parallel universe. Trapped in some parallel universe.

If Tartarus really could analyze and reverse the Hatman’s power, maybe they could go around rescuing all those people. Assuming they were still out there. Dyna still worried that the Hatman wasn’t done with his targets after simply phase-shifting them. The fact that Matt seemed to have stopped seeing the ghosts probably wasn’t a good sign.

Would he be able to see Ruby?

Dyna bit her lip and looked down at her mirror.

Ever since finishing the discussion with Darq, Dyna had been trying to get the perspective of either the Hatman or Ruby to show up. Maybe to help locate them, but mostly because she wanted to know that Ruby was safe. Thus far, the most she had managed were black lenses. It was possible that the Hatman, being an inhuman entity, either didn’t have a perspective that could appear on the lenses or that he couldn’t act as a beacon for Ruby’s perspective.

Once again, Dyna was struck with just how useless the mirror was. There hadn’t been time to look for alternatives with the Hatman out and on the prowl.

Dyna took a quick look around the back of the truck. Tartarus had been trying to steal that apocalyptic artifact from the Carroll Institute. Did they have any other artifacts handy?

If they did, they weren’t obviously displayed.

With a short sigh, Dyna looked over to the opposite end of the truck where the monitors were set up. Ado wasn’t actively using the terminal at the moment, just monitoring what was going on. Dyna’s phone sat next to the keyboard, connected by a thin wire.

“We should be there by now,” Dyna mumbled. From the moment they got into the truck, it had been heading away from the hospital. At the end of the conversation with Darq, however, they had turned around. There were no windows in the back of the truck, so Dyna couldn’t tell for sure where they were, but it felt like they had been driving for roughly the same amount of time both ways.

Standing, Dyna gave Matt a light pat on his shoulder. “Sit tight.”

“Not like I’m going to be walking out of here.”

Dyna offered him a smile, hoping that was a joke. If it was, that was a good sign. Having good spirits despite injuring his leg probably wasn’t that hard. It was the first time he was with other people in a good long while by the sound of things. People who believed him about the Hatman and said that they could do something about it? Dyna would be ecstatic in his position.

Leaving him behind, she approached Ado from behind. Dyna quickly scanned over the monitors. Most were obviously monitoring ambient psionic energy. The depths of Psychodynamics had similar monitoring equipment. Though, unless Tartarus used different measurements, Dyna felt the numbers were a bit high. The Carroll Institute was filled with psychics, so Dyna assumed that the numbers there would be higher than elsewhere, but the charts in front of here were almost equal to what she usually saw around the institute.

Was the Hatman just that big of a psionic energy source? Dyna had to wonder why the satellite that picked up the artifact in Korea didn’t register the Hatman. Not being a scientist, Dyna couldn’t say for sure, but her only real guess was that artifacts emitted a different wavelength of psionic energy that the satellites were tuned into.

Of more immediate interest to Dyna were the images from cameras on the exterior of the truck.

They were driving down a two-lane road, though the amount of traffic at this point in the afternoon wasn’t enough to justify so much space. Knowing the sorry state of Casper’s population, Dyna doubted that it was ever that busy. Unfortunately, knowing next to nothing about Casper’s roads, Dyna had no clue where they actually were.

Ado glanced back over her shoulder. “Something wrong?”

“I should be asking you that. Where are we? You’re not trying something—”

“Please,” Ado said, turning back to the screens. “Id has already secured the release of our colleague. Jeopardizing that by kidnapping you? I’m sure the Carroll Institute would pay billions to get you back, but reneging on our deal would just show that we cannot be trusted. I imagine their little illegal army would be kicking down our doors rather than sending a briefcase of cash.”

“Illegal army?”

“You don’t think the government approved sending a little girl like your partner into combat. Do you?”

“I… yes. It is a bit strange. I figured there were extenuating circumstances.”

Ado hummed, then shrugged. “Try not to think about it too much. I probably shouldn’t have said anything.” She reached forward and dragged a map to the main screen. “Your friend is on the move. On foot, judging by speed. We’ll catch up shortly.”

“Will we be able to see her on the cameras?”

“Possibly. Possibly not. The entity is a Class Two, meaning it is capable of hiding its own physical presence as well as psionic presence in what Doctor Darq called its phase-shifting ability. I do not know if it can affect its victims in a similar manner.”

“If we can’t see her, how do we get her. Can she see us? I assume not or she would have jumped into the truck with us.”

“Correct. She’s phase-shifted to us. We’re phase-shifted to her. Our perceptions are out of alignment.”

“Is the tracker accurate enough to pinpoint her position?”

“No. We will have to rely on other equipment.”

“Matt might be able to see her,” Dyna said, looking back to the other end of the truck. “Maybe. It didn’t sound like his ability is very consistent.”

“Really?” Ado looked back, turning her chair around to see him. “Interesting knowledge. I will have to examine him and see if I can replicate the effect with more reliable technology.”

“How long will that take?”

“A few days,” Ado said, turning around again. “Maybe weeks, depending on complexity.”

“Too long. Is that how long it is going to take to get Ruby back to normal?”

“Not quite. We’re a little more prepared for that simply because Doctor Darq has been tracking this entity for some time. We have more data about it than an unknown esper. Perhaps a few days after capturing and analyzing the entity.”

“Good.” At least, Dyna hoped it was good. Days still felt like a long time to leave Ruby in some imperceptible state, but it was better than weeks. “So how do we find Ruby?”

Ado didn’t say anything. She adjusted her rectangular goggles then looked away from Dyna and to the screens. “While she is moving? It may be difficult. If she were stationary, we could use the tracker to triangulate her position relatively accurately. From there, we can use the same equipment we were planning on using on the entity to detain her. We’ll transfer her to a safe location while we collect the entity itself.”

“She’s Ruby. If she’s running, she could never stop. Fatigue doesn’t mean anything to her. We could be following her for days before she takes a break. We’re getting Ruby now.” Dyna wasn’t just going to leave her out there. If she had to, she would force herself to figure out how her ability worked just to make an artifact capable of detecting her.

And… actually…

That didn’t sound like that bad of an idea. Based on what little she knew of her own ability, Dyna didn’t think it would be that difficult either. An artifact needed themes.

Something that let people see things that were hard to see? Glasses could do that. Maybe a telescope, magnifying glass, or even just a camera. The theme would fit. Then her ability… would do the rest?

Dyna took another look around the truck, this time with a more specific target in mind. There were cameras. Obviously. The cameras on the outside of the truck were probably not the only ones. There were no interior displays on the screens, but if Tartarus was anything like Psychodynamics, there would be cameras everywhere.

Would those work? When the idea initially occurred to her, Dyna had pictured something more along the lines of a hand-held camera. They wouldn’t exactly be portable either. Would it matter if she just pulled one down? There was already a camera lens on her mirror, but that wasn’t working.

Maybe cameras were the wrong direction.

Dyna continued looking around, but she didn’t see anything that stuck out to her. There had also been that feeling back in the artifact selection room. That feeling of wrongness and unpleasant being that she had felt with the mirror and the other false artifact. She didn’t feel anything like that now, but then again, almost everything she touched wasn’t an artifact and yet she didn’t get those bad feelings everywhere.

Closing her eyes and her mirror, she tried to focus. Just like she had done when selecting the mirror, she tried to feel for some strange psionic energy. Doctor Cross had said that artificers all perceived artifacts in different ways. Emerald, Dyna knew, smelled artifacts, as strange as that sounded. Dyna was fairly certain that she felt calm around artifacts.

Dyna didn’t feel calm right now. Although there wasn’t any immediate danger, she had been tense and coiled up for basically the entire day. Especially ever since encountering the Hatman at Matt’s hiding place.

But that was good, right? Dyna wasn’t looking for an artifact. She was looking to create one capable of finding Ruby.

She wasn’t feeling bad either, however. Did that matter? Dyna didn’t know enough. The mirror had felt bad, but maybe that meant that they just had poor compatibility with each other. The mirror had become an artifact despite that, but it wasn’t a very good one. Maybe something that didn’t feel horrible would work better?

A three-tone repeating alarm made Dyna open her eyes. One of the graphs on the terminal was flashing red and the warning of increased psionic energy on the inside of the silver mask had returned. She opened her mouth to ask Ado what was going on, only to find the woman leaning away in the chair about as far as she could manage without actually leaving the seat.

“What’s wrong?”

“Psionic energy spike,” Ado said through grit teeth. “Are you alright?”

“Fine. Are you?”

“Perfect.”

“Really?”

“Please don’t doubt my words.”

“Okay…” Dyna said, staring at those strange lenses of Ado’s goggles.

Staring at her, it hit Dyna.

Those were perfect.

The goggles clearly let her see things that other people couldn’t see. Dyna didn’t know what, but the theme was already there.

“Your goggles,” Dyna said, reaching up to remove the silver mask despite the warning flashing on the screens warning her against doing just that. “Trade me.”

“These don’t have the protective—”

“I don’t care. And don’t tell me what the goggles do. It might be easier like that.” Dyna held out the mask. “Just trade me.”

Ado gnawed a bit of skin right off her dry lips, then reached up and pulled her goggles off.

She had dull, milky eyes. Blind?

The goggles clearly helped her see somehow then. Dyna felt a bit bad taking them from her when she obviously needed them, but that only reinforced her feeling that they would work. Ado could have them back after.

Dyna slid the strap over her hair and pulled the lenses down over her eyes.

“Woah…” Dyna stumbled, grabbing onto Ado’s chair to keep her balance. She could see, but… Everything was distorted. Formerly straight lines twisted and… Dyna could see through Ado. Not like comic-book X-Ray vision, but more like light simply bent around her on its way to Dyna’s eyes.

Turning her head, Dyna just about threw up. The sudden wave of nausea forced her to push the goggles up to her forehead.

“Please don’t break them. They were difficult to manufacture.”

Breathing, sucking in air in an attempt to center herself, Dyna nodded. “I’ll try,” she managed. “But I think these might work. Just get us close to Ruby.”

“Work?”

“Don’t talk about them,” Dyna said. “Sorry, but please don’t mention them anymore.”

With the mirror, Doctor Cross had told her that it was some secret spy gadget. After, it had turned into something capable of showing off other people’s perspectives. If he had told her that it was something else, the artifact might have ended up doing something else entirely. At least, what was how Dyna felt at the moment.

If Ado talked more about the goggles, she worried that that would influence what they did.

Assuming this all worked, of course.

The goggles… definitely did something. Dyna wasn’t quite sure what that was. Something. Something useful, hopefully.