Dyna’s knee bounced up and down in nervous tension as she sat in the Wyoming Medical Center’s emergency room waiting area. Part of that nervousness came from uncertainty over Matt’s state. Was he going to live? Had he lost too much blood? Ruby seemed optimistic. With her natural power, a form of clairvoyance, providing her a constant and perfect picture of her own biology, she knew the human body better than most. So her word held weight.

The doctors hadn’t said anything one way or another. Just that they were getting Matt into emergency surgery in an attempt to stabilize him.

A low hum somewhere overhead had Dyna jumping out of her chair. She spun around in the waiting room, fruitlessly looking for the other source of her nervous tension.

“It’s just the air conditioning,” Ruby said.

The younger girl had changed out of her bloodied clothes. In a stroke of foolishness, they had left their suitcases back in the motel. Thankfully, the hospital staff had been more than willing to lend out a navy-blue set of scrubs. They were a bit large for Ruby. Especially the legs, which she had to roll up several times just to avoid tripping.

And she wasn’t wrong. As soon as Dyna felt the breeze from the vent above her, she slowly sank back down into her chair.

“He could be here, right now. Watching us,” Dyna said with another glance around.

There were a few other people here. Someone wearing a mask, coughing on the regular. Another person looked like they had dozed off. One clearly worried parent kept looking up anytime a doctor walked by, only to slump over in defeat when they didn’t approach her.

Nobody around wore a hat, let alone one with a wide brim.

“We’ve got eyes on the entrance. It’s a large glass door. We should be able to see him before he has direct line of sight on us to activate his power.”

“Unless someone opens the door, giving him the opportunity. Or if he comes through any one of the many other entrances the hospital surely has. Or if that’s not how his powers work at all.” Dyna glanced down at her mirror again.

The mirror was perfectly normal at the moment. The artifact didn’t seem to work on him after he activated his powers to turn invisible, but it had gone dark the first time he showed up in the area of Matt’s original house, so she was hoping that it would be at least a little useful in detecting him early.

Not that they could really do anything about it. Not until Matt got out of surgery. Even then, Dyna wasn’t quite sure what the plan would be. The doctors probably wouldn’t release him so soon, but Dyna doubted that Ruby would give them much choice. And in this particular instance, Dyna figured she would be right there alongside her.

In the last few hours, Dyna decided she didn’t much care for this little vacation. She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to be anywhere nearby. Without any real memories of the Hatman, she didn’t have any kind of childhood-induced trauma of him. And yet, she couldn’t stop this visceral fear that had been building up ever since first seeing him.

Encountering Id’s crew hadn’t helped matters. In fact, they just made it sound like he wasn’t human at all.

“We don’t have a clue how this guy works or even what his abilities are.”

“No. Not really. Just observations.” Ruby said tapping at her phone. “This might help.” She had hardly taken her eyes off it since entering the hospital. Now was no exception. She wasn’t even watching the sliding glass doors that the Hatman might approach from.

Dyna tore her eyes off the glass doors to glance down at Ruby’s phone, only to blink twice.

“Is that here?”

The screen of Ruby’s phone was broken up into a dozen smaller squares, each a video feed. Most displayed parking lots or sidewalks, but some were of clearly interior hallways. Down in the bottom left, Dyna spotted a familiar sight. She slowly raised a hand and waved it back and forth. There was a slight delay of a few seconds, but her movements on the screen slowly repeated her actions.

“Walter pulled some strings. Got Beatrice some emergency permissions. Apparently the stupid secretary can’t see what she’s doing, but can feed my phone the local security footage. No idea if our friend will show up on camera, but I figure its better than nothing. Like you said, there are more than just the one entrance.”

“That’s… yeah. Good.” Was it a relief? Maybe a little.

It would be more of a relief if they knew better just what they were dealing with.

Dyna’s fingers drifted to her pocket. She felt the stiff outline of a card through the fabric.

Someone knew something. Or at least knew something more than she did.

And she already had permission to contact them. Walter had said so before she even started this trip. If Id or one of her affiliates tried to contact her, she was free to investigate so long as she didn’t literally join them.

Walter didn’t need to worry about that. The idea of joining up with Id provoked a feeling of nausea in Dyna. The stupid woman had messed with her head. Dyna wasn’t about to forgive that. But using them? That seemed far more acceptable.

Dyna stood from her seat.

“Where are you going?”

“Just to make a phone call. I’m not leaving the room,” Dyna said, pointing to a slightly more isolated corner of the room. One away from the other patients and the reception desk. “I’ll still keep an eye on the parking lot through the doors.”

Ruby narrowed her eyes for a moment before nodding her head. She slowly settled back down into the seat. “Alright. Be careful. Take what they say with a grain of salt.”

Of course she would figure it out. “I’m not about to take their word on anything.”

“You might have to. Just be aware that they’ll probably try to manipulate you. It happens.”

“Oh?”

“Em and I have had to work with other organizations in the past. One day we’re enemies, the next we’re friends. Back to enemies the day after. It’s all irritating.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“I don’t think I’m about to be Id’s friend. Even temporarily. I’m just… engaging in corporate espionage?”

Ruby shrugged. “I’ll shout if I see anything.”

“Same,” Dyna said as she walked off a short distance away. After ensuring that she still had a decent line of sight on the parking lot through the main doors, she pulled out the little black business card. Dialing in the numbers, Dyna took a breath and hit the call button.

The other side didn’t pick up right away. After a dozen rings, they didn’t pick up at all. Dyna found herself listening to voicemail. She hung up before it actually asked her to leave a message. With a scowl on her face, she hit the redial button.

She wasn’t in much of a mood to play phone tag. Not to mention, they might not have time.

Did the Hatman get around everywhere by walking? Or did he have a car he could take. Would he know they were at the hospital or did he have to do something first to learn where someone was, like how Walter and his team of locators needed some information to figure out where Matt was?

It took one more redial before Dyna’s call connected. When it did, it first sounded like someone was wrestling around with the phone. Perhaps having dropped it.

“Such a child,” Dyna heard someone say, distant and far from the phone’s speaker. The same voice, a stern woman with a slight accent that Dyna couldn’t quite place, spoke far more clearly after a moment. “This is Chief Engineer Ado. Am I speaking with Dyna Graves?”

“Done pretending we don’t know each other?” It must have been the woman who stayed outside the truck earlier.

“My coworker is nervous about the situation. Understandably. Please ignore him and I apologize for anything he said that may have offended your sensibilities.”

Dyna blinked, almost said that he hadn’t said anything offensive, then decided that she really didn’t care about all that. “I’m calling about the Hatman.”

“Did you encounter the entity?”

“Yes.”

“Are you fully intact?”

“What?” Dyna shook her head. “Just… what is it?” she said, trying to avoid getting distracted. “It isn’t human, is it?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Just a feeling. It doesn’t… act right. I don’t know how to describe it.”

“I see. I am afraid I do not fully understand myself. I have several hypotheses, but I shall refrain from sharing them until I can confirm or dismiss volatile elements. Until such time, I will tell you what I was told. The entity is a manifestation of the collective unconsciousness.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh dear. I am not paid to provide lectures on elementary psychics.”

“No, I… I know what the collective unconsciousness is. It’s just not supposed to be real. It’s like an in-joke among psychics. Haha, I’m going to meditate on the cosmos and collective unconsciousness. That kind of thing.”

“It may have been discredited upon its inception, but since the Advent, its veracity is… less questionable. But again, I am not here to provide a lecture. The entity, collective unconsciousness or otherwise, is a manifestation of psionic energy, brought about by group belief. It is not, nor was it ever, human.”

“That’s not possible. Psychics can’t create something real. And that thing is definitely real. I… I’ve seen it. Not just recently, but as a child. There shouldn’t have even been that many psychics back then and certainly no artifacts. Maybe a few dozen psychic worldwi—”

A loud scoff interrupted Dyna. “A statement like that coming from you? I—” Ado got interrupted as well, though from an angry-sounding snap from someone else on her side of the phone.

Dyna didn’t hear exactly what he said and the conversation went silent after like someone put their thumb over the phone’s microphone, but the short clip she heard before that sounded an awful lot like the start of an argument.

“Hello?” Dyna tried after a moment.

“My coworker is requesting that I drop this line of discussion.”

“That’s… fine. Whatever. I can believe it isn’t human.” Dyna already had that impression from the first few times she had seen the Hatman. Maybe even from when she first dredged up the memories of her childhood. “What do we do about it? And what does it do with its victims?”

“Victims?”

“You don’t know?”

“Elaborate, please.”

Dyna pressed her lips together, not sure if she should really be offering information. But… Would it hurt? “When I was a child, it kidnapped a friend of mine. I don’t know what it did in the last ten years, but now it seems to be after another friend.”

“Who?”

“Does it matter?”

The line went silent for a long moment. “Are you with this friend?”

“I’m close enough.”

“And you are sure that the entity is targeting this individual?”

“I’m… mostly positive. Yes.”

“Where?”

Dyna didn’t respond. She looked over to Ruby, pressing her lips together. Telling the enemy where she was didn’t sound like a good idea at all. Especially not without consulting the girl. But before she could say so, Ado cut in.

“Dyna Graves. We, that is to say, Tartarus has the technology required to contain such entities. You do not. I think little else needs to be said on the matter.”

“Damn it,” Dyna hissed. Whether or not Ado was telling the truth about being able to contain it, she was certainly telling the truth about Dyna’s inability to do the same.

Maybe if it didn’t turn invisible, they would still be able to fight it. But the second it saw them…

“How does its invisibility work? Why can’t we detect a psychic intrusion in our minds?”

“Unknown. Hypothesis: The entity is known to have memory modification abilities. It is plausible to presume that it is erasing your memory of its intrusion. You might be able to detect it, but you can’t remember that you detected it, thus resulting in a void domain in your mind.”

“Can we stop that?”

“Psy-insulating equipment. We intend to use protective masks to avoid the issue.”

The silver suits worn by the Carroll Institute anomalous materials handlers were psy-insulating. The masks Id and her crew wore was likely what Ado was talking about now. Did they have anything like that in the car? Ruby would know. Though she probably would have suggested it already if they had brought something like that along.

Could they fabricate something?

Both the masks and the material handler outfits were silvery. Was it something special? Would any reflective material work?

Dyna bit her lip. It sounded stupid, but…

“Thanks for the help.”

“Wait! Dyna—”

Hanging up, Dyna rushed back across the waiting room to Ruby.

The younger girl promptly looked up. “Figure something out?”

“We need tin foil hats.”

“Um…” Ruby stared. A frown slowly spread across her face. “I told you to not believe everything they said, right? They’re making fun of you.”

“It wasn’t their idea. They said protective equipment would help. Psionically shielded helmets.”

“And your mind went to tin foil hats?”

“We don’t have anomaly suits folded up in the back of the car. You got a better idea?”

Ruby scrunched up her brow in thought. Without answering, she looked down at her phone and quickly scanned over the various security camera feeds. As soon as she finished, she swapped applications, pulling up her texts. Her fingers danced over the phone with far more dexterity than Dyna usually managed, finishing up her text in half a second, and promptly switched back to the security cameras.

“Maybe,” she said. “Hold on.”

Dyna, tapping her foot, managed only a few seconds before she had to ask, “Who did you message?”

“Walter. Of course. Tin foil hats are… uh… a creative idea?”

“They work in the movies.”

“Do they really?”

Dyna opened her mouth, but couldn’t quite find the confidence to say yes.

“Well,” Ruby said, “I don’t know how to make a protective suit, but you know who does?”

“Walter?”

“Probably one of the doctors, actually. But he’ll know who to talk to. And we are in a hospital. They have plenty of restricted materials and chemicals around. Maybe not as much as a proper chemical laboratory, but we might be able to create makeshift gear.”

“I don’t think it will take much,” Dyna said, slowly dropping down into her chair. “If a thin bit of glass in the car is enough to block his ability. Maybe we should scrounge up a pair of sunglasses?”

“It’s an institute car. I wouldn’t be surprised if the glass is psionically shielded.”

“We saw him through the window of the house too.”

“That’s… true,” Ruby said with a frown.

“Tin foil hats and aviators. We’ll look ridiculous, but if that’s what it takes.”

“I doubt it will be that easy,” Ruby said, just as her phone buzzed. She quickly swiped over to her texts and read through the short message. “Walter is consulting with Doctors Griffin and Kemp, who created the suits in the first place. He’ll get back to us as soon as possible, but wants us to get started collecting a few materials.”

“From the hospital or a nearby store?”

“Both.”

“We’re leaving Matt?”

“Not much choice. Unless you want to just sit around some more and wait for our hat-wearing friend to arrive?”

“No,” Dyna said quickly. “No. We need to prepare.”

Ruby stood up. “I can keep an eye on the hospital here,” she said, holding her phone up. “If he shows up, we can try rushing back. But until then, lets get moving.”