It was a coil gun, not a lightning gun.
Dyna had seen the bright flash. The clap of thunder. The fried bodies.
It was a lightning gun, not a coil gun.
Walter ran up with it and used it in relatively close proximity. He had dropped it or thrown it to the floor in surprise and shock. It was his gun. It had come from his car. He would have known how to use it.
It was a coil gun.
Beatrice’s drones had been knocked out of the sky from the blast of lightning.
It was a lightning gun.
Beatrice should have known that it was a lightning gun as well, thus would have known to move her drones back far enough that they wouldn’t be affected. But she hadn’t. Beatrice wasn’t infallible, but she was some kind of artificial intelligence computer system. Knowing the specifications of her drones and the lightning gun, she should have calculated the exact distance she needed to keep the drones away in order for them to remain operable. Not to mention, an electromagnetic pulse seemed like the kind of thing she should have warned Dyna to brace for.
It was a coil gun?
Dyna had seen the lightning with her own eyes.
Then why would Walter say that?
Dyna’s first thought was that enemy artifact use had changed the weapon somehow. But in doing so, it seemed like the situation had turned out exceedingly poorly for the enemy. Three men died from high-voltage electricity coursing through their bodies. Their two compatriots, who had tried to escape in the boat, wound up captured as well. The Ouija board had been recovered successfully and was now locked up in the Carroll Institute’s Vault.
Sniffling, Dyna grabbed a fresh tissue and held it to her nose to staunch a small bit of blood. She leaned back on the rather hard bed of the decoupling chamber, mind running over the entire night.
Unless that had been a botched attempt at corrupting his weapon, it made no sense for it to be enemy action. And then there was the way Walter had looked to her, had spoke to her…
It was her.
She had done it. She hadn’t even touched it, and yet, she had changed Walter’s gun. Turned it into some kind of artifact? Or gadget, as was apparently the term for items she created. They weren’t as powerful as natural artifacts, but they had still had esoteric abilities that put them in an adjacent category. Doctor Cross had explained that the discrepancy between artifacts and gadgets was purely psychosomatic on Dyna’s part. Or, at least, he had been trying to explain that during the brief few moments before she had been ushered into the decoupling chamber.
That was her best explanation for the moment, but it still didn’t feel quite right.
The gadgets she had made thus far, Ado’s goggles, her cosplay glasses, the fog machine, the bobby pin, the Ouija board, and probably others that she wasn’t thinking of at this exact moment, they all did something strange. Something inexplicable through more traditional sciences. The lightning gun just didn’t quite fit. She wasn’t an electromechanical engineer, but a lightning gun seemed like the kind of thing that could be created through entirely traditional sciences.
The act of turning a coil gun into a lightning gun was anomalous, but the end product wasn’t.
Sighing, she threw a dirty glance at the door to her decoupling chamber and wondered just how long she would have to sit around. It wasn’t locked. Even if it was, she still had the bobby pin. But she was here voluntarily.
She had expected it, but having that armored van roll up almost immediately after some Carroll Institute security team had fished the soggy captives from the river grated a bit. With the magnifying glass, she felt she would have been able to figure out everything if given a few more minutes. And the handcuffs… well, those had been an actual super power. Something far more on par with the likes of the other artificers.
But she had been forced to relinquish them. Expected, but still disappointing.
Worse had been the three days of fever that accompanied the decoupling process. Thankfully, that bit was at an end. Now she was just bleeding from her nose on occasion. An aftereffect that had happened last time. The medical doctors in charge of her had assured her, both this time and last time, that the nosebleeds were nothing to worry about. Her brain wasn’t hemorrhaging or anything. They were just how she experienced decoupling.
Still, last time, she had been officially released not long after the fever broke. This time, she had been stuck here for an extra twelve hours. She wanted to get out and talk to Walter. She was pretty sure he wanted to talk to her as well, given what he had said the other night right after mentioning the lightning gun.
When the door did finally open, Dyna bolted upright, fully expecting to see her own reflection in Walter’s mirrored sunglasses.
Instead, she found herself watching a lanky man stoop through the slightly smaller doorway. He turned, addressed her with a smile, and said, “Onyx. Miss Graves. Dyna, I believe you preferred.”
“Administrator Theta,” Dyna said, trying not to sound too wary. “What are you doing here?”
“I am here to speak with you,” he said, closing the door behind him. “I felt that would be obvious.”
Wary feelings diminishing, Dyna didn’t bother to hide her flat look. “I meant what do you want to speak about.” She felt that was obvious, but wasn’t about to say so to his face.
“We’re in pickle,” he said, nodding his head. “Yes, a pickle. A bit of a pickle indeed. Those artifact-like objects you had at your apartment have not been located. The initial hope that they might be at the bottom of the river is, unfortunately, looking less and less likely with every passing moment.”
“I mentioned in my report that they hadn’t done anything strange. Not like the Ouija board.”
“I read that. I believe you. But we as a whole like to be sure about these things, you understand.”
“I guess. But I’m not sure what you want me to do about it. I don’t have a way of tracking them down.” Dyna paused, then tried to keep excitement out of her voice. “Unless you give me that magnifying glass back.”
“Ah. I’d love to, but we’re holding off for the moment. While Doctor Cross might want to throw you into the Vault to see what you might make of all the artifacts stored there, a few of the more personable doctors want to ensure that you are not suffering from any physical or mental ailments following your binding and subsequent decoupling of so many artifacts.” He clapped his hands together, smiling brightly. “Speaking of, I believe congratulations are in order!”
“For… what?”
“You now hold the record for most artifacts decoupled from a single individual! Quite the accomplishment.”
“Oh. Thanks? I guess?” Furrowing her brow, Dyna added, “Just decoupled? I don’t also have the record for most bound artifacts?”
“Nope! But we’re getting off topic. The primary question I wished to ask of you is this: Who were those soldiers?”
Dyna blinked. “Isn’t Sapphire the better person to ask?”
“Sapphire is writing his own report, but I want to know what you think. Who do you think they were? The ones who likely escaped with your belongings, where do you think they went? Where did they come from in the first place?”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Scowling, Dyna glanced at the small terminal in the room. She had already made her report. There hadn’t been much else to do while trapped in the small room. While she hadn’t answered those questions directly, she had included relevant details such as the soldier who swapped his language, the Operation board with its United States government id card on it, and even the old woman who had been scoping out her apartment.
It felt like a confusing mish-mash of facts, likely intentionally designed that way by whoever sent them in order to confuse their origins. Sapphire should have been able to read their minds, so she hadn’t thought about it much further than that.
Dyna was about to say so when she paused and considered Theta’s final question.
Where had they come from?
That seemed like an odd question to ask. Or one whose answer would have been wrapped up in the question of who they were in the first place.
Unless, of course, Administrator Theta thought that the soldiers had come from somewhere… unusual. The first place that popped into Dyna’s head was the other side. “They aren’t entities, are they?”
“Tulpa.”
“Excuse me?”
“Tulpa. A concept from Buddhist origin defining a being of thought given form. A much better descriptor for those like our friend November, wouldn’t you say?”
“I guess. You didn’t like entity?”
“It’s a bit vague and generic, isn’t it? We already use entity to define an unknown… well, entity—which could be a person, organization, or even item. Having a specific descriptor for beings like the Hatman and November is far less ambiguous.”
“Makes sense. I think we’re getting off-topic again though.”
“Yes indeed,” Theta said with a hearty nod of his head. “So you think the soldiers are tulpa, do you?”
“I mean, not necessarily. You should have been able to scan for that, right?”
November might look like a human and she could pass for one despite the occasional odd mannerism, but put under scrutiny—technological scrutiny—it was obvious that she was anything but. The Hatman was the same. Pattern established, the same should likely be true for any other entity. Or tulpa, as they were apparently to be called.
Theta nodded his head far slower than before, more like he was considering her question rather than answering it.
Thinking about it herself, Dyna found herself wondering if it made more sense than any other explanation she had come up with during her time in isolation. Rather than an organization deliberately trying to hide themselves, they could be tulpa. A mish-mash of thoughts brought into reality, sent against her and Hematite. There was still someone at the helm, but the soldiers themselves might not have been human at all.
The mountain man especially. Dyna had asked through the intercom, wondering if they had found an artifact on his person. They had not. And yet, he had been hit by a car—probably—hit by bullets from both Dyna and Walter, and then shrugged off Walter fist-fighting him. Even a large human was still just a human. They had vulnerabilities and felt pain. But, and Dyna might have to consult with November to be sure, it was entirely possible that the collection of thoughts that made up the mountain man had simply never learned how pain worked. Or that it simply thought it couldn’t be hurt, thus making it so.
At least until Dyna intervened with a psionic attack via the Operation game.
The French and Russian speaking soldier too. He could simply have been an amalgamation of thoughts from both countries. Which could also have explained his lack of survival instincts when he started shouting while Dyna had her gun trained on him.
In isolation, Dyna hadn’t been able to see any of those captured. Aside from her curiosity over the mountain man’s possible artifact, she hadn’t asked about them either.
Were they talking? What had the scientists discovered?
Why was Theta asking her about them?
That was the bigger question at the moment.
“Did they escape?” Dyna asked, wondering if they had somehow phase-shifted like the Hatman and simply walked out of the holding cells.
Theta quickly shook his head. “No, no. Nothing of the sort.”
“Then why ask me about them? Surely Sapphire or whatever experts you’ve got looking over them are the better people to ask. Even Walter. Hematite and Ruby are more experienced than me… They are alright, aren’t they?”
It was a question she had asked over the intercom about every hour or two. Her own injuries had been surprisingly superficial. A lot of skinned parts of her body from falling off the motorcycle. Her entire right side was basically one large bruise as well. Compared to Hematite losing an arm and Ruby being so badly injured that she apparently didn’t have a mind for Sapphire to read, Dyna felt she got off lightly.
“No need to worry over them,” Theta assured her. “Both are still in the medical wing. Hematite is… well, in a bit of a shock. Understandingly, I think.”
“Yeah…”
“But some good fortune must remain in her artifact. Although grisly, her wound left her with nearly all her nervous system intact. At least up until the point of total loss.”
“Wouldn’t having nerves be more painful than losing them?” Dyna asked with a grimace.
“Perhaps, but without that, I don’t think Doctor Dyson would be nearly as optimistic about fitting her with a prosthetic. He is our cybernetics expert, if you haven’t met him.”
Dyna shrugged. There were so many doctors running around the Carroll Institute that she would need a thirty-page spreadsheet to keep track of just the ones that she had a passing encounter with. “The Carroll Institute has a cybernetics expert?”
“Of course. We are quite committed to the betterment of humanity. Incorporating psionics into machines has near limitless potential that we are exceedingly interested in exploring.” Scratching the side of his chin with a small chuckle, Theta added, “Although it might appear otherwise to you, Psychodynamics was created for far more than waging micro-wars over artifacts.”
“I see…” She already knew that. Although she hadn’t really been a part of anything besides the artifact-centric divisions, Psychodynamics and the Carroll Institute as a whole were large and expansive. Both in terms of physical space and the number of departments they had.
“As for Ruby,” Theta continued, “she’s mostly finished putting herself back together. A bit antsy to get back on her feet, but, well, she doesn’t have feet at the moment.”
While Theta kept his tone light and almost joking in the way he said that, Dyna couldn’t help but gape. “No feet? How did… How?”
“When she came in, she didn’t have much of anything. Just a mass of burned meat that was probably her torso. Your report mentioned that burned out car, remember? Your mountain man hit that with his firearm. She was in it when it burned.”
Dyna sucked in a gasp as nausea roiled in her stomach. Ruby had been burned alive? She had probably been conscious the whole time, putting herself back together, fighting against the flames. Probably fighting back against the mountain man at the same time, who had shrugged off her gunshots either because of his armor or tulpa nature. Just picturing the situation had Dyna clutching at her chest, forcing down bile.
For his part, Theta barely looked as if he noticed. Clapping his hands to his thighs, he started to stand. “Welp. Lovely chatting with you again, Dyna.”
Dyna, dry swallowing, looked up. “You said I didn’t need to worry about them…”
Theta looked back. The angle made his large ears look even larger than normal. “Physically they’re fine. Alive and mentally active. Rest assured, they will not be placed on any active duty until their therapists have had a chance to work with them and give the okay. Ah! That reminds me.” After holding up a finger at his exclamation, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small business card. “Unfortunately, we do not feel that Doctor Bellows is qualified to handle the… extra-normal events that seem to follow you. You have a new psychiatrist and an appointment with him first thing in the morning.”
Dyna glanced down at the card as he handed it over.
Daniel P. West. PhD, PsyD, MD. It had an address listed along with a phone number. Dyna recognized the address as belonging to the above-ground administration building, not somewhere down in Psychodynamics.
“Good day, Dyna. You’re cleared to leave the isolation chamber, though perhaps it would be best if you remained on Carroll Institute campus for the time being. We are still investigating matters, after all.”
Looking up from the card, Dyna nodded her head. She watched Theta stoop through the small doorway and walk off, leaving it open behind him. It wasn’t until he was gone that she realized he had never answered her question of why he had been asking her all those questions about the soldiers. He had distracted her with talk of Ruby and Hematite.
Dyna quickly decided she didn’t care. After blowing her nose one last time, she pocketed West’s card and rushed out of the decoupling chamber. She did find it a small bit surprising that neither Walter nor Doctor Cross were waiting for her, but at the moment, she didn’t care about that either.
Rushing down the halls of Psychodynamics, Dyna headed straight for the medical wing. Up a floor and down a hall that smelled of antiseptics, she pushed into the ward.
Which was the wrong place to go. Thankfully, a helpful technician pointed her toward the intensive care units where Hematite and Ruby were currently under observation. It took a brief argument with a doctor, but she eventually strong-armed her way in.
Hematite and Ruby were in separate rooms. Probably a wise idea with how little the latter cared for the former. Dyna would have to visit Hematite later. For now, she rushed straight to the bed, ignoring the beeping machine and medical charts.
“Ruby?”
A little girl with bright red eyes turned her head. Ruby looked good. Though she was apparently missing her feet, her lower half was hidden beneath some blankets. What Dyna could see of her looked normal enough. If she hadn’t known what happened, she probably would have guessed that Ruby got a new haircut—a short pixie cut—and little else had changed.
Ruby stared a long moment.
Then snorted.
“You look like shit.”
Dyna frowned, crossing her arms. Her mock-anger didn’t last as she slowly reached out. “Are you alright?”
Ruby scoffed and turned away, a deep scowl forming on her face. “For once, I don’t think I can say that I’ve had worse,” she said.
Biting her lip, Dyna hesitated. She really didn’t know what to say. Or do, for that matter. Ruby wasn’t normally the physical type—at least not in terms of affection. Was hugging her the right idea?
In an instant, Dyna decided that yes, yes it was. She wrapped her arms around Ruby, awkward though it was with her in bed. Ruby tensed for a moment, but quickly melted.
“Want to watch a movie?” Ruby asked, voice soft.