Dyna stared at the… she honestly wasn’t sure what to call it. It looked like a person. It had all the person-y things. Hair, hands, a face. The face especially. At this point in time, Dyna had only one other example of an entity. That of the Hatman. While his facial features—or lack thereof—could be the result of a psychic power, it didn’t feel that way at all. The rest of his mannerisms were distinctly inhuman. And he couldn’t speak.

“Don’t touch me,” the entity said, swatting away Doctor Teeth’s attempt at placing a wire-ridden metal colander over her head. Snow-like static encompassed her hand as she made contact, but nothing else seemed to happen as a result of that.

Rather, everything that the entity touched, including the floor under her feet, caused a little burst of static to cover her.

“Oh please,” Teeth said, now wearing his full suit once again. He pulled back and glanced up to Dyna. “Artificer, ensure the subject cooperates.”

Dyna pressed her lips further into a frown. She had the disruptor, but it wasn’t aimed at the entity. As far as she was concerned, the entity was cooperating. She was peacefully standing about, had let Doctor Teeth wave tools over her, and was really only protesting physical contact. Were Dyna in her position, she would have a great number of complaints.

The physical contact was understandable too. Dyna wasn’t sure if it was painful, but those bursts of static whenever something touched her did cause small seizures that couldn’t be comfortable.

“What’s your name?” Dyna asked.

There was still something about her. A familiarity that Dyna couldn’t quite place. A name might help, if she recognized it. Even if she didn’t, it would give her something else to use to refer to the entity. At the moment, she had no idea how to refer to the entity and was jumping all over the place within her mind.

Not to mention, she felt a name might even the playing field. The entity knew her name somehow. Whether by overhearing, psychic power, or if that vague familiarity was something more concrete, a name to refer to it in return would go a long way.

The entity didn’t answer immediately. Her eyes, constantly covered in the snow that occasionally wracked the rest of her body, flicked over Dyna’s shoulder.

Keeping the entity in view just in case she needed to act, Dyna followed her line of sight.

Ruby leaned against the wall of the medical trailer. She had her knife out. In rhythmic timing, she flipped it up in the air, caught it by the blade, then flipped it back up again. All without even looking at the knife. Her eyes were locked on their guest.

The flipping of the knife stopped when Dyna let out a long sigh. With a slight shake of her head, Dyna turned back to the entity and forced a smile. “I’m Dyna.”

“Of course you are,” she said, crossing her arms.

“Are you… Do you have a name?”

The entity didn’t say anything. She simply stared, snow in her eyes making Dyna uncomfortable.

“Do you know how you got here? Where you came from?”

“Noosphere.”

Doctor Teeth sucked in a breath. Dyna did her best to ignore him. “The philosophical concept of a sphere of thought enveloping the Earth—”

“It’s what it is called. I don’t know anything else.”

Dyna nodded her head, not sure what to think about that at all. The Noosphere was an old concept. At least a hundred years older than she was. A few of the classes at the Carroll Institute—mostly those that discussed the Advent of Psionic Potential—covered it, though only in the briefest terms. She was pretty sure it was supposed to be a thought experiment or philosophical pondering. Not an actual place where things and people—or whatever entities were—could exist.

It was possible that whoever had named the place had merely used the concept as a name. In fact, Dyna was leaning toward that being the answer. And that was in spite of Doctor Teeth rushing over to a terminal, obviously typing in Noosphere to refresh himself on the subject.

“And the spatial anomaly—the high school stage where you got here—that was some kind of portal between here and there?”

“That thing that you captured has been here before. We’ve been watching. It walks between here and there at will, but leaves behind… traces we watch. Then that man appeared and disappeared. I thought: What if I can go too?”

Talking about Maple, probably, when he stumbled through. It seemed much easier for him to step back and forth, but maybe he damaged it on his way. Of slightly more interest to Dyna in particular, especially with regards to Ruby, was something else she mentioned. “We?”

The entity fell silent again. For a moment, Dyna thought she wasn’t going to respond at all, but then she looked up. “The others. We don’t like each other, but you can’t exist alone over there. Not like here,” she said, giving a content sigh. “I don’t even know what you’re thinking.”

“Well, I want to learn—”

“That wasn’t an invitation. I like being alone. It’s… nice.”

Doctor Teeth spun around, stepping closer to the entity. “You’re in constant psychic link with other beings in the Noosphere?”

“Not currently. That isn’t how things work here. Things are… strange.” Unfolding her arms, she looked down at her hand. First her palm, then she turned it over and examined the back of her hand. She paid special attention to her nails, which had the same static effect over them as her eyes. “Though I’m not sure if I’m all the way here. It feels strange. But maybe that’s just how this place works. I don’t know.”

Dyna opened her mouth to ask another question, but stopped.

Ruby spoke in a voice unrealistically quiet for her. “You aren’t.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re not real. You aren’t here in the real world.”

“I don’t think I would be talking—”

“You aren’t,” Ruby said, pushing off from her spot against the wall. She marched over, pointing her knife straight toward the entity. Dyna shifted, holding an arm out, but Ruby stopped before getting anywhere near. “I saw you. I saw you over there, before they brought me back. But you were supposedly already here? I saw you. I didn’t see Dyna or anyone else. Just you.”

Static-filled eyes turned to the side to look directly at Ruby.

The movement made Ruby—fearless little Ruby—flinch.

“You… aren’t all here either, are you?”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

It was a simple question asked in the most innocuous of tones. Yet it had Dyna whipping her head around.

Ruby looked fine. She didn’t have static or permanent marker or anything else obscuring any of her features. Her skin looked normal, her eyes looked normal, her hair looked normal. Her stance and posture were familiar and completely normal for her.

And yet, it almost looked like she had been smacked. She took a step back, withdrawing the knife. Her eyes widened ever so slightly before narrowing once again.

“Teeth!” Dyna snapped. “Would you please give Ruby an examin—”

“I’m fine.”

“You just took a step back!”

“That has nothing to do with anything,” Ruby said through grit teeth. “I just…”

“Um..?”

Dyna looked away from Ruby, the entity, and Doctor Teeth to find Matt propping himself up on his medical bed. “Yes?”

“I… I wasn’t sure if I should mention this, but those two have… ghosts following them around,” Matt said, pointing between Ruby and the entity. “But they aren’t like the normal ghosts I see. More like shadows?”

Dyna stood, forgetting the entity entirely as she turned to Ruby.

“I’m fine,” Ruby said again, barely moving her lips from their unhappy curl. “Just… aftereffects. That is the thing you have to worry about.” Ruby pointed her knife straight toward the entity.

“I have done nothing.”

Teeth shrugged. “You did throw a grown woman several feet. Quite impressive with your stature.”

“I thought about what I wanted and it happened. Nothing—”

“Teeth, would you please focus on Ruby?”

Reflective piece of glass in front of his face obscured his eyes, but he did manage to turn his head away from the entity. “I am not sure what you wish for me to do,” he said simply. “All this—” He waved his hands vaguely about. “—is new to us. Even newer than most psionic phenomena. I don’t have a machine that measures whether or not someone is half into the Noosphere. I don’t have a machine to pull them the rest of the way over.”

“Then we—”

Two light announcement tones sounded over the interior audio system. “Attention please. Confirmed release authorization for CI-PRI-6567.”

“Excellent,” Teeth said, looking from the ceiling down to the containment unit at the back of the truck. “Now we can get back to Psychodynamics and take measurements with proper equipment.”

“What? No.” Dyna moved, stepping around the entity to put herself between Teeth and the two guards standing outside Grafton’s chamber. “Ruby is not back to normal, Beatrice. Tartarus has not fulfilled their end of the deal.”

“Understood. Please wait.”

Dyna let out a small sigh, only to realize that three people were glaring at her now. Ruby, she could understand. After all, Ruby was fine. Ignoring her protests and treating her like she didn’t know better was something that would get under her skin, but… Well, she could be mad all she wanted as long as she was alright.

Doctor Teeth’s glare was hidden behind his protective gear, but his posture was obviously unhappy. He was likely just upset that she was delaying his return to the Carroll Institute. Understandable as well, though frankly, Dyna wished they had sent a different doctor. One a little more interested in the people here who needed his help and a little less interested in psychic phenomena. However, Dyna also knew the kind of place the institute was. A regular medical doctor probably would never be put in charge of things. The people who rose to prominent positions were people like Doctor Cross.

People who obsessed over their fields of interest.

The guards behind Dyna hadn’t moved, thankfully. They would be waiting for Beatrice. Matt, though less intensely than he had been at the start, was still sneaking glances at the entity and Ruby. The other two medical technicians had gotten their protective gear back on as well. Dyna couldn’t see their faces and their body language was less obvious than Teeth’s.

The last person glaring had Dyna putting on a confused frown. “What?” she asked.

The entity blinked. Tiny bursts of static rippled down her cheeks in time with her blink. “Everyone around me is upset with you. Should I not be as well?”

“No?”

“Oh.”

Teeth immediately lost interest in looking at Dyna and turned his attention to the entity. “Did you come to that conclusion through situational context clues or psionic abilities such as emotion or mind reading?”

“I don’t understand the difference.”

“Fantastic. I wish I could get proper readings, but ambient psionic energy is too much in this area and filtering it is difficult with how much it is fluctuating.” He grabbed the metal colander again. “If you would just cooperate—”

“Don’t touch me.”

“But—”

“You two try not to kill each other,” Dyna said. “And don’t let Grafton out. Ruby, let’s go talk to Tartarus again and see if they have any ideas.”

“I’m—”

“Fine, yes. But you could be fine-er.”

Ruby grunted, but didn’t say anything else.

At least not before Teeth cut in, waving the colander at the entity. “You’re leaving me alone with it?”

Dyna gave a pointed look to the two guards and two technicians before looking back to Teeth. “She’s been cooperative thus far.”

“It refuses to wear the psychotronic scanner.”

“Yes, well, I don’t blame her. Those things pull out bits of my hair every time I have to wear one,” Dyna said, turning to the trailer’s exit. Before she reached it, she handed off the disruptor to one of the technicians.

Doctor Teeth was right. They didn’t know anything about the entity. Not its motivations nor its capabilities. And she didn’t know if the guards could hurt it with their guns. The Hatman looked human—mostly—and had been slowed down by bullets according to Matt, but not killed by them. The disruptors definitely worked.

Besides that, if it wasn’t in her hands, she wouldn’t be pressured to return it.

Ruby followed Dyna without complaint. Despite her earlier protests, Dyna imagined that she really did want to get fully back to normal. Whatever part of her had been left behind—whatever part of her occasionally glanced off into the distance as if she spotted something—was probably bothering her as well.

Dyna paused at the ramp and glanced back. “One more question,” Dyna said. “How did you know my name?” That was bothering her. Maybe it was mind reading as Teeth suggested. But if it wasn’t, Dyna wanted to know.

The entity, however, simply cocked her head to the side. “You told us last time we met.”

Dyna met the entity’s eyes. Something obviously inhuman might very well be able to lie without reservation, but… It didn’t feel like that here. So she simply nodded her head and stepped out of the trailer.

“You met that thing before?” Ruby asked, rushing up alongside Dyna.

“Not that I can remember,” Dyna said. “But we already know my memory isn’t the best. Besides, she used a plural us and we. The rest of the discussion used a singular I except when talking about other things like it. Other entities. It could be that she heard it from someone or something else.”

“You’ve met other entities before?”

“No.” Dyna’s eyes flicked over to the Tartarus truck and the cylinder within. “Just the Hatman. But my memories…”

“That’s really irritating.”

“Try being me.”

Ruby let out a snort, then fell silent.

In the absence of having the new entity with them, it seemed as if Tartarus had moved on to examining the old entity. The Hatman. At least half of them were. Maple was up inside the Truck now, far in the back and nursing the back of his head with a bag filled with ice. Dyna wasn’t sure where he got the ice, but it was entirely possible that one of the little cubbyholes in the truck was a freezer.

Ado fiddled with a control panel beside the tank. It honestly made Dyna a bit wary, making her wonder if they weren’t planning on releasing the Hatman if they didn’t get their way. Or maybe she was trying to figure out why there was a bright yellow light flashing. It hadn’t been doing that before.

“Hey!”

Ado stiffened and turned slowly. “Our equipment?”

“Dyna,” Ruby said softly. It was a bit of an odd tone coming from her, but not an urgent tone, so Dyna didn’t glance back.

She had negotiations to get to. It seemed like someone else should be doing that. But that seemed par for the course with everything else that had been going on. “Still in use,” Dyna said, then quickly changed the subject. “The order came through. Grafton has been cleared for release.”

Ado looked around for just a moment, goggle-and-mask-covered face angling toward the Carroll Institute trailers, before looking back to Dyna. “But?”

“Ruby isn’t all the way fixed. Two separate peo—tests have confirmed that some part of Ruby is still phase-shifted.”

“Dyna?”

This time, Dyna did glance back. Ruby was staring off vaguely toward the school building.

“They’re closer now.”

“They—Entities?”

Ruby nodded slowly. “I don’t see them well. I didn’t see them well when I was… phase shifted? Whatever. But I can still tell. They’re here. Climbing all over this truck. It was only half-there when I was there, but that might have changed by now. I don’t know.”

Maple let out a small peep and started glancing around.

“Are they… attacking?”

“Not us. They’re ignoring us. I think… I think they want the Hatman, one is close to him, reaching—”

Ruby cut herself off, stumbling back.

At the same time, the bright yellow light turned red and the sound of an angry alarm clock pulsed over the truck’s speakers.

Maple moved back, bumping into the wall of the truck.

Ado moved forward, grabbing hold of the control panel.

She didn’t even get to push a single button before the glass directly in front of the Hatman’s face cracked. It started with just a tiny little sliver, but quickly spread out, blossoming into a wide spiderweb.

“Ah shi—”