“What the fuck is this?” Samantha exclaimed, losing her cool for just a fraction of a second. “Is this PsyOps?”
“Affirmative ma’am.”
They were in the middle of one of the many nameless fields surrounding the Tryte exclusion zone. They had all been abandoned by the farmers who worked there, some of them went away when the weather got too bad, while others had to be convinced to leave with more persuasive means. PsyOps still laid sprawled on the ground, in the middle of a small impact crater. He was not looking good.
“He must have crashed on the ground with speed. Did he fucking fly himself into the ground?”
“It seems like it, ma’am.”
“But why? Those wounds… they are not from the fall. That’s a burn wound right there. Did someone attack him?”
“It is possible, ma’am.”
Samantha turned around sharply, signaling to SpaceOps to come forward. He was still in operation, although his condition was too unstable to be kept out of the ice for much longer. He was in dire need of a trip to the CARF, and he was not the only one.
“Take me back to the Quadrangle.” She ordered.
The small man complied, the many devices rattling and tingling about him. He dropped his heat shield before teleporting, which caused him to shiver violently for a few minutes even after arriving at the comfortable heat of the Quadrangle’s control room. Contrary to PsyOps, he was small and frail, all bones and sinew and without an ounce of muscle on his frame.
“Do we have any footage?” Samantha demanded.
The man at the computer typed. “The storm was limiting visibility. This is all we have.”
She squeezed her eyes, adjusting the bright red viewing glasses she had produced from an unknown corner of her outfit.
“That’s Lloyd’s sports car.” She said, pointing at a yellow streak in the distance. None of the people present knew how she managed to make sense of the random shape and color, but somehow she did. “Did my father do this?”
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SpaceOps was more or less operative now, the shivers almost totally gone. “Why would he incapacitate an agent for no reason?”
“There must be a reason. What was PsyOps doing near the fence?”
She nodded at the computer worker drone.
“Pulling up the security records. It seems PsyOps was… tampering with it.”
She was about to say something, but her eyes transfixed on the screen made her shut up immediately. Her face suddenly acquired the color of urgency, and the tense thin lines on her forehead and around her mouth tightened. “Shit. Quadrangle. Arrange transport. SpaceOps! Take PsyOps and throw him in the CARF, immediately, before he wakes up!”
The space mage disappeared without a word. Everyone knew just how dangerous the psion could be if the mental shackles ever came loose. Which they did, it seemed.
“Do you think your father knew?” A voice.
Samantha jumped around. The Handler, her boss, was here. Great.
“He must have, otherwise it would be a hell of a coincidence. But he won’t say shit, and now he’s playing all cool with my son. I can’t afford to alienate him, not when he’s finally back into my life. However perverse his methods are.”
“He also took a healing flask. Look.”
“Yes. I authorized it. My son was sick and needed treatment.”
“That’s the second flask that goes to your father. We don’t have a lot of those.”
“And I don’t have a lot of patience. If you have complaints take them to the head office. Oh wait, you are the head office. Take the complaints to yourself and let me work.”
The handler shook his head. “The emergency is past, Samantha. And when times are better, that’s when the high-ups start looking for people to blame for the hard choices, choices someone made during said emergency. You know that.”
“The emergency is not past. It’s barely beginning. You too must see it now.”
The handler sighed. “I do see it, Sam. I have always believed you. But the others do not think the same way. An investigation will come. It might not be soon, but my ability to forestall them others using sheer bureaucracy dwindles with each passing day. Use this time wisely.”
“Indeed.” She said, but the Handler was gone. Samantha turned back to face the screens, and the nameless man who piloted them. “Query the Quadrangle and try to understand how Lloyd knew that the site had been compromised. He almost blew his cover to prevent the destruction of a whole city and I knew nothing about it! How did he? I want to know how!”
“Ma’am, if I may. Does this mean that Lloyd Cromwell…”
“He’s not back. He stated that he won’t be back, ever. Quite adamantly. This was a necessary exception. But he also said that he will he doing some things by himself now… he pulled his clearance level on me about them, and… well, not even the Handler has a clearance that high. Inform the system, set a new threshold for Temalas City. Any supernatural events that might happen there are to be disregarded. But.” She stopped, making her last word weigh like a mountain. “Inform me about them. Unofficially.”
“Yes ma’am.”