ATTENTION: Priority Objectives Updated. Please review and acknowledge.

PRIORITY 1: Ensure continued safety and cooperation of Primary Asset: Dyna Graves.

PRIORITY 2: Locate and acquire Principal Subject: Matthew Quincy.

PRIORITY 3: Extract Primary Asset and Principal Subject to CI.

PRIORITY 4: Avoid entity codename: Hatman. DO NOT SEEK.

PRIORITY 5: Safeguard interests of CI.

END OF LINE

Ruby’s fingers twitched as she watched Dyna peer out the motel door’s peephole for the tenth time in as many minutes. Hand on her pistol, Dyna then moved over to the closed curtains over the large window just to the left of the door and peeked out from the small crack between the wall and the curtain. Finding nothing, she then paced back and forth with furrowed brows. After a minute of that, she returned to the peephole.

Pressing a finger to her eyebrow to keep it from twitching, Ruby glanced back down at her phone. Not only had the difficulty of her job just jumped a notch, but now Dyna was acting like this.

Dyna was paranoid. She would get thoughts in her head and wouldn’t be able to let them go. Ruby was fairly certain that she was seeing a therapist for it at the institute, but Ruby knew better than anyone that therapists didn’t just magically fix issues. Still, this was the worst that Ruby had seen since the big incident back in Idaho Falls. Which had also been the first such instance of paranoia that Ruby had noticed. She hadn’t known Dyna much before that.

This relapse was going to make everything more difficult.

“We have some leftover pizza from last night,” Ruby said, vaguely gesturing to the room’s miniature fridge. “You should eat something. Keep your energy up.”

“He could be out there right now, watching us.” Dyna chewed down on the edge of her thumbnail. “We wouldn’t even know.”

“All the more reason to not starve yourself.” When she didn’t move from her spot at the window, Ruby sighed. “Dyna, please.”

This was supposed to be Emerald’s job, whining at her for not doing something. Ruby had only been doing this for an hour and she was already exhausted. Emerald cheated, of course. She had infinite patience. And if she somehow still ran out, she could just freeze time and recollect herself before continuing.

Ruby couldn’t think of a single thing that Emerald didn’t cheat at.

And yet here she was, trying to do her best to channel Emerald. Putting all her acting skills into keeping a small smile on her face, her voice calm yet firm, and her hand off her gun. Which was something of a challenge.

Despite her attempts at calming Dyna, Ruby was… uneasy as well. Maybe part of it was Dyna’s restless antics rubbing off on her, but she couldn’t deny that things weren’t normal. When she got outside the house and found the man with the hat gone—or rather, couldn’t even remember that she had been looking for the man in the hat—she had locked up. Something strange had been going on that didn’t feel right to Ruby. Yet she couldn’t quite put her finger on just what it was.

Which likely meant that Dyna’s current theory was correct in that the Hatman had been there. Maybe watching them, maybe ignoring them as he walked off to find his actual target.

This Matt person.

He had obviously come to the house looking for Matt, but had somehow been able to sense his absence and moved on.

A psychic was supposed to manifest their abilities in roughly only a single manner. Sometimes a psychic could look like they were doing multiple things if they were creative enough, but it was still only a single power.

This guy could apparently disappear completely, modify memories, sense nearby people—or the lack of a nearby person—and even appear in people’s sleep if the notebook Ruby had taken was to be believed.

He had to have an artifact. Maybe more than one. Multiple artifacts were supposed to interfere with each other, failing to reliably activate their effects or causing unintended effects due to that same interference. Or so said Doctor Cross. But who knew if that was right. The man himself admitted that this was all very new science and even things they thought were certain might not actually be so.

“Dyna,” Ruby said as the older woman started her pacing over. “The window doesn’t open. We’ll hear the glass shatter. And the door is locked, chained, and you even dragged the desk chair over to prop it up under the handle. He’s not getting in without us noticing. And if he does turn invisible, you peeking out every five seconds isn’t going to help.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better.”

“Dyna,” Ruby said, deepening her tone ever so slightly. Just like Emerald did. Still smiling, still letting her know that she wasn’t upset, but was just a teensy bit disappointed. Pointing at the end of the motel bed, Ruby said, “Sit.”

Dyna hesitated, but furrowed brows from Ruby got her marching across the room.

“Now take a deep breath. Calm down. We’re safe here and now.”

“That man kidnapped someone out from under my nose—from under several people’s noses. Nobody noticed. I didn’t even remember until—”

“I know. I know. But we’ve taken reasonable precautions. Panicking right now is going to make things worse. Emerald always says that a decision made in panic is a bad decision.”

Ruby wasn’t sure at all that Emerald’s advice was good advice, but it usually sounded good. At the moment, that seemed like the important part.

And it seemed to work. Dyna closed her eyes. She took a deep breath, just as Ruby instructed, and let it out slow.

“Better?”

“No.”

“What if I told you that this guy isn’t even after us?”

“Wha—”

“Have you forgotten about your friend?” Ruby waved the notebook back and forth. “The whole reason this hat guy is out here is for Matt. And that house filled with traps was for the Hatman in return. You think he’s going to drop Matt for us?”

Ruby wasn’t actually sure if her guess was accurate. If someone saw her out on a clandestine mission, she might have to figure out a way to take care of them before continuing on with her main objective, or maybe she would ignore them entirely. It depended on tons of mission factors.

This guy wasn’t a spy. By all appearances, he was just a kidnapper. A psychic kidnapper, true, but not someone with grand schemes or deep plans.

Without a psych profile compiled by the eggheads for her to read, Ruby had to make some guesses.

Her primary guess was that this guy got obsessed with a single target. The notebook was mostly gibberish, but some of the earlier entries actually had dates. The Hatman had been slowly pursuing Matt for the better part of a year now. At least. For him to suddenly switch targets now just because they had been in the house Matt was supposed to have been in seemed wrong to Ruby.

No guarantees, but…

“We screwed it up,” Dyna said, grimacing as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Messed what up?”

“The trap. We walked in there, used up all his ammo, forced Matt out… What if he doesn’t have enough time to set up traps at another place before the Hatman chases him down?”

“There were a lot of places circled on that map we found.”

“But were they set up for defense? Or just storehouses of extra food?” Dyna bit her lip. “Walter hasn’t called me back yet. We’re not supposed to leave.”

Ruby glanced down at her phone. The screen was blank, having idled for too long, but she had a feeling she knew what Walter wanted from them. He was probably just trying to figure out a slightly more delicate way of wording it for Dyna. Or, knowing of Dyna’s paranoia, wanted more information in the hopes that it might calm her.

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“Do you think he needs our help?”

Dyna held in a breath without answering. After a moment, she deflated. “We don’t even know where he might have gone.”

“True,” Ruby said honestly. “But it is probably somewhere out in those abandoned suburbs. Besides, are we really safer here than we would be in the car? At least we would already be mobile should Walter say that we need to return to the institute. And maybe if we drive around, your mirror will activate and show off your friend. We can grab him and get out of here.”

Slowly, Dyna started nodding her head. “You’re right. About the first part, at least. He won’t be able to just open the door and make us forget about it if we’re driving down the street.”

“Exactly.”

Nodding her head with far more confidence, Dyna looked to the bathroom. “Give me a minute. Then we’ll drive around. At least until Walter calls.”

As soon as Dyna disappeared into the bathroom, Ruby stood and approached the large windows. Unlike her current roommate, Ruby did not think she was paranoid. She wasn’t afraid either. Ruby couldn’t actually remember being afraid of anything, ever. While she wasn’t smart, a scientist, a doctor, or even a real employee of the Carroll Institute, just existing near them led to her picking up a few things.

Fear was a psychological response to danger or perceived danger. With her artifact, Ruby didn’t think she experienced danger in the same way other people did.

So no fear.

Ruby still peered out with narrowed eyes, looking over the small parking lot outside their motel room. She only partially focused on what she was seeing, choosing to concentrate on the back of her mind instead. The man in the hat had definitely been emitting some psionic energy when she saw him from above. A tingle in the back of her mind.

“Ready?”

“Yes,” Ruby said without turning away.

She felt nothing right now. Nothing but a strange tension in her stomach.

Moving the chair away from the door, Dyna unlocked, unlatched, and then opened the door. The car was only a few steps away from their door. Not even quite the width of a standard sidewalk. Dyna remotely unlocked the doors while Ruby peered into the rear seat. Nobody was there, but just to be sure, Ruby got into the back and swiped an arm through the empty space before climbing ahead into the passenger seat.

By the time she was done, Dyna had the car started and rolling out of the parking lot.

“We good?”

“Green,” Ruby said, relaxing. “See? No issues. Back to the abandoned suburbs?”

“Is that really a good idea?”

“A moving car is a moving car. We’ll be in a much better position to find and rescue your friend too.”

Though she pressed her lips together, Dyna didn’t argue. She pulled out her mirror, rested it in her lap, and turned the car down a familiar road without even plugging the address back into the GPS navigator.

Ruby kept her eyes peeled as they moved, especially once they entered the twisting neighborhoods of empty homes. Both for their mysterious kidnapper who she was under express orders to not try to find as well as any sign of Matthew. She was looking for movement in windows, any external evidence of traps, and maybe even recent disturbances, though the latter would be far more difficult to spot.

She did not expect to spot a large truck, however.

“Hold up. Turn around?”

Dyna, apparently having not noticed, hesitated a moment before following along with Ruby’s suggestion. Though once she saw the street Ruby was pointing at, she let out a long breath. “This is the same road the house was on.”

“Yeah, well… Looks like somebody is moving in.”

Down the road, right in front of the house that Ruby had been inside twice so far, a vehicle was parked in the street. It looked like the large truck that people might rent when moving house, except instead of logos and phone numbers plastered on the sides, it had a fairly simple logo of three red hexagons. No phone number. No words at all.

Not very good advertising.

“That can’t be coincidence,” Dyna said with a scowl, coming to a stop at the far end of the street.

“Agreed.”

Two people were outside the truck, both dressed more like exterminators than a moving crew. One leaned against the side of the truck, clutching his arm. The other seemed to be fussing with him.

Ruby snapped open the glove compartment and pulled out a telescopic attachment for her phone.

“Looks like one of them is bleeding,” Ruby said, adjusting her phone for a clearer picture. “Cut open his arm.”

“Stepped on a trap in the house?”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

“What were they doing in there? Walter didn’t send them, did he?”

“No,” Ruby said. “He would have told us. I don’t recognize the logo. Could be a fake, could be another organization.”

“Think they know anything?”

“They know enough to be here.”

“Point.”

Ruby reached back into the glove compartment and pulled out another device. This one looked somewhat like a flimsy plastic gun with a fold-up barrel and a long cord hanging down from the back. At the other end of the cord were a pair of ear buds headphones. She slipped the left one into her ear, offered the right to Dyna, then cracked the window just a small bit.

“—we doing out here!” one of them barked out. “Going to die of tetanus now. What a shit life.”

“Tetanus lives in dirt, not rusty saw blades,” the woman fussing with him said. “And unless you were lying to us, your boosters are all up to date. It’s just a slight laceration. I would have it cleaned and stitched up by now if you weren’t whining so much.”

“It stings.”

“What a baby,” Ruby whispered.

“Not everyone can regrow a head.”

“Shush.” Ruby pressed the ear bud to her ear as the two started talking again.

“Don’t look behind you,” the man said, tone lower but still audible to the microphone. “but a car pulled up and just stopped. Watching us? Think that’s our guy?”

Despite his instructions, the woman stood fully upright and turned down the street. “No,” she said. “Dark called it a Class Two Phase-Wandering entity. Based on the handbook he gave out, I don’t think it can drive. Or maybe… I don’t think it would drive.”

“Think they know anything then?”

“If they live in the area.”

“Might as well ask then. Maybe we can get out of here quicker. Stupid Dark,” he mumbled. “I bet he’s the Class Two Phase-Wandering entity. Whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

“You should read the handbook. Besides, this is giving us a perfect opportunity to field-test this equipment. Some of it operates on principles that I can’t even—”

“Don’t even start. I have a headache just thinking about it.” He shoved off the side of the truck, brushing the woman away from him. For a brief moment, Ruby caught a glimpse of his arm. The black fabric with a few white pieces of trim had been sliced clean through at his bicep. Red stained a bit of the cloth, though with the way his clothes moved, Ruby didn’t get a good look at the actual injury. “I’m going to talk with our friends.”

Dyna, voice a whisper, leaned over and asked, “Do we leave before he gets here?”

Ruby quickly slipped her equipment back into the glove compartment, pulled out her gun and chambered a round, then ensured the gun was nice and concealed in the overly large pocket of her hoodie. As she worked, she answered Dyna’s question. “And lose our chance to get some information?” She shook her head. “We have the advantage. We know he is from some organization, though we don’t know what one. He doesn’t have the same information about us.”

“That just means we can’t ask him anything without letting him know.”

“No. It’ll be fine. Just pretend we live a few blocks away and saw the moving van while on the way to get groceries or something.”

“What about the Hatman? What if he’s still here?”

“Don’t roll the window down far enough to fit through and he can’t kidnap us without us knowing.”

“I don’t—”

“Quick. He’s here.”

The man came up to the driver side window, not looking wary in the slightest. He walked right up and tapped his knuckles on the tinted glass. It took nudging Dyna in the side, but she rolled down the window just a small crack.

“Hello there,” he said, leaning over. He cupped one hand to his brow to shield his eyes from the sun as he looked into the car. “I was just wonderrrahhhh! Ah!” He pulled back with that yelp as if a wasp jumped right in front of his face. “Oh… damn it all.”

Dyna glanced over to Ruby, who could only shrug in response. “Are you alright?” Dyna asked, looking back.

“Ah. Ahhh… Right. I’m fine. Just fine. No problem here. Just… ahh… A cut!” He promptly clamped a hand over the hole in his jacket, which made him grimace. “Got a cut. Clumsy me. Stung a bit all of a sudden. Haha.”

His smile strained at his lips as he stared into the car. He wasn’t even blinking.

“Oh. Well…” Dyna glanced over again before putting on a smile that… could use some work. “We were just driving. Got groceries,” she said, tone a bit too stiff to be convincing, not that it looked like their guest noticed. “Saw a moving van and got curious. Someone moving in? It’s been so long.”

“Nope. Nothing like that. Nothing at all happening here…” He trailed off, a look of horror crossing his face. “No wait. Don’t think that. Something is happening here. Obviously,” he said with a sudden nervous laugh. “Uh… government… something. Fugitive! We’re tracking down a dangerous fugitive. That’s right.”

“O…Oh.”

“Yes. A big man in a big hat,” he said, holding his hands out quite a bit wider than the actual Hatman’s hat. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen anything like that?”

“No, I can’t say—”

“Yes we did,” Ruby cut in, mostly to prod him. She had a feeling she knew why he was acting the way he was. Maybe not completely, but that initial reaction? “Remember mom? On our way to the store? Walking right over there,” she said, pointing toward the truck. “You called him creepy.”

Dyna stared at Ruby for a long moment. It took another nudge to get her to turn back to him. “Oh. That man. Yes. He was walking down the street here just a few hours ago. But I turned away and when I looked back, he was gone.”

The man’s mild state of panic diminished. He stood without saying anything before eventually forcing a smile. “You… You really saw him?”

“I think so?” Dyna asked with a glance to Ruby.

“Yep!”

Moving his hand to his forehead, the man pinched his eyes shut. “Why me? I just… Dark,” he hissed like he was swearing. Dropping his arm left a red smear on his forehead, not that he seemed to notice. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small black and white card. Holding it in just the very tips of his fingers, he flicked it through the open window as if afraid to get any closer. “That has my number on it. Please… Uh… don’t call me. But I guess if you see him again, do. I…” Looking over his shoulder toward the truck, he took a step back. “I’ve got to go.”

Turning, he started walking away. That walk turned into a light jog for about five steps before breaking into a full-on sprint. Before Ruby could get the microphone back out, he said something to the woman, who had been fiddling with some tablet in her hands. She promptly whipped her head over to the car. Without a word more, both rushed for the cab of their truck.

“That was strange,” Dyna said, looking down at the card she had picked up off the floor of their car. “Kit Maple. Logistical Director. Tartarus.” She handed it over.

Ruby frowned down at the black card. The text of his name and title along with a phone number, embossed in white, sat just beneath a triple hexagon logo done in a reflective red. “I think I’ve narrowed down what organization they’re from,” Ruby said, taking a picture of the card for later sending to Walter.

“Really?” Dyna asked, note of sarcasm in her tone. “Did the card help?”

“The card gave me the name, assuming it isn’t a front, but it was his reaction to you that told me who he is.” Ruby looked up, staring Dyna in the eyes. “How many people outside the Carroll Institute would recognize you?”

To her credit, it took Dyna only a second to catch Ruby’s meaning. Her eyes widened before turning narrow as she looked at the truck. “Id?”

“Not saying it for certain, but that would also explain his odd mannerisms. After seeing you, he clearly wanted to leave, but wasn’t able to just turn around and run away. Probably had to be friendly. His boss still wants to recruit you, after all.”

“Didn’t sound like he was here for me.”

“No. He was surprised to see you too.”

Dyna and Ruby watched as the truck, an old diesel, threw up a column of dark smoke. It started off down the street, moving away from their position.

“Is it really alright to just let them leave?”

“We have a different mission,” Ruby said, deciding to just go ahead and say it. “We need to find Matt before the Hatman gets him.”

Dyna took a breath and nodded her head. “Before the Hatman or our friends find him.”