Published at 12th of August 2022 9:14 pm

Book 2: Chapter 35: Proceed With Caution

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The mall was its usual, bustling self. Families ambled along tiled floors, chattering children and flirting couples going about their business without a care in the world. Stores were packed, money and conversations flowed like water. It was, Dan reflected, a perfect representation of humanity’s ability to actively ignore the world around them. Looking around this place, it was easy to forget that something like a hundred people had been murdered in the last few days.

Numbers like that would have elicited a national response in Dan’s home parallel. Here, the government was mildly upset that some of their federal agents had been killed, but no official action had been taken yet. At least, nothing that he’d seen reported on the news. It was… frightening, really. The attack on the FBI field office had been buried with ruthless efficiency. It seemed like an uncharacteristically tame response given how powerful the feds appeared to be.

If nothing else, the strange response led credence to Abby’s theory that something very odd was happening. Dan had spoken to her this morning, and apparently Anastasia was still playing dumb, treating their family gathering like exactly that, and brushing off all questions to the contrary. Yet, Abby had noted the massively increased security around the manor, and the dozens of hushed calls her grandmother made each day. Eavesdropping had proven more difficult than when she was a small child, so for now, she was biding her time.

Meanwhile, Dan was picking up his sword. Because having a pointy piece of metal on hand inexplicably made him feel safer. The forge was just like he remembered it, positioned across from the food court and manned by burly, sculpted blacksmiths working the metal with their bare hands. Now that he was watching with fresh eyes, Dan could see the performative aspect of the shop. It was almost a play, the way they moved in perfect synchrony.

Dan stepped past the forge and made his way to the back, where orders were placed and received. The desk was staffed by the same large man that had taken Dan’s initial order. Dan couldn’t recall his name, but saw ‘Chuck’ stitched beneath the lapel of his button-down. There was a short line, and Dan waited patiently as another man haggled for fifteen minutes over the price of what sounded like a length of pipe.

“All quotes are final,” Chuck repeated for the eighth time in as many minutes. His voice had taken on the dull monotone of a customer service employee thoroughly fed up with a customer, but unable to otherwise express it. Dan graced him with a sympathetic grimace from the back of the line.

The agitated customer threw up his hands in disgust. “We were just talking about it! What changed!?”

He wasn’t wrong. Dan had himself haggled over the price of his commission, but this man was so belligerent and petty that the blacksmith had obviously stopped caring. Things continued in this vein for another few minutes, before the angry customer finally had enough. He stormed out, to a chorus of whispered, “Good riddance,” from every staff member in the building.

Dan had to hold in his laughter at this situation. Some things never changed, no matter the dimension. Customers were the worst. It seemed to be one of the intrinsic constants of the multiverse, like cat videos, or Google. Something inevitable and without mercy. The Thanos of retail.

Dan plodded up to the front of the line. Chuck leveled a glare in his direction that clearly communicated his mood, and Dan immediately produced the order number that the smith had texted to him.

“I’m here for a pickup,” Dan stated earnestly.

Chuck glanced down at Dan’s information, grumbled something under his breath, and stomped off to the back of the store. Within a minute, he’d returned, holding something long and straight, wrapped in cloth. Dan took it, gently unraveling the cloth to glance down at his shiny new cane sword.

It was nothing too elaborate. The silver handle was a simple ‘L’ shape, and the grip was wrapped in black leather. The cane was a deep amber, the color of dark wood. It was sharp, and supposedly functional. He was now prepared for the zombie apocalypse. He had to hold in his excited giggle.

Dan then became acutely aware of the number of people in the store who might be watching him nerd out over his new toy. He hurriedly thanked the blacksmith, swiped his credit card, and fled the mall. He reappeared in his bedroom, and carefully leaned the cane sword against his dresser. He stared at it for a few moments, then reconsidered. His veil snapped out, sending the weapon into t-space, and holding it there, waiting for if Dan should need it.

He smiled in satisfaction.

The next item of business was actual business. Last night, Dan had received a delivery request, timed for this afternoon. Public services were currently in disarray in certain parts of the city, but people still needed to mail their shit. For those in need, Dan was there! With fast and accurate delivery guaranteed!

His current client wanted a package dropped off at a house right on the edge of the ‘warzone’, in a suburban neighborhood caught between Scale territory and Coldeyes’ Crew. It was an easy enough job; the client had given him a lock combination, a unit number, and the address of a nearby public storage facility. There was a box inside that he was supposed to transport.

Easy enough. Dan pulled up a picture of the facility online, and peered at the scenery. With a mental flex, he appeared outside the gates. Another blink took him inside, and soon he was walking along the narrow paths between units, humming a Sesame Street counting song. The security here was terrible. There wasn’t even a gate guard. The closest thing to precautions that Dan could see were a few cameras placed on the corners of each intersection. He waved at them, as he searched for his destination. Only the unit doors were labeled, forcing Dan to guesstimate roughly where he was supposed to go.

It took him some trial and error, and a lot of cheating with teleportation, but Dan eventually found his way to the correct unit. It looked exactly like the rest of them, except for the number painted on top. It used one of those segmented garage doors, and had been padlocked down at the bottom. The unit itself couldn’t have been larger than 5×5.

Dan pulled out the slip of paper upon which he’d scribbled the locker combination and scrutinized it. Satisfied that he’d memorized it, he began to kneel down—

And stopped.

A stray thought had drifted through his mind, and he found himself frozen at his own sheer, unmitigated stupidity. His knees trembled in their odd positioning, and he slowly, methodically straightened. He casually turned his head, giving his surroundings a brief examination. Satisfied that nobody was immediately nearby, Dan turned on his heel, and dropped into t-space.

Safety wrapped around him like a cold blanket, and his mind raced with sudden paranoia. His business was public, with his name right on the front. He made no secret of his identity, nor the services he offered. Why not, he’d figured at the time? He didn’t need to hide. With Anastasia backing his identity, he could act like a normal person again, and normal people stapled their names to their businesses.

Except Andros Bartholomew knew Dan’s name. Andros Bartholomew, who had just broken out of prison. The mad scientist knew Dan’s name, and likely bore a bit of a grudge for the… improvised amputations that Dan had visited on his person. Not only that, but Bartholomew was exactly the sort of insane asshole who’d try to get back at Dan through some convoluted delivery scheme, rather than rolling up to his house and shooting him.

Nothing was certain. This could be completely on the level, but now that he’d had the thought, Dan had to proceed as if it were a trap. At least Bartholomew hadn’t arranged for a sniper. The storage facility had high walls, and tall buildings. The only place with worse lines of sight from an elevated position was a sewer.

Okay. Proceed with caution, Dan.

He blinked back into the world, but now he was in the narrow ally beside the storage unit. Dan slowly stood up and extended his veil. He didn’t bother with the padlock, instead running it along the walls of the unit, and the door itself. He was looking for… Dan didn’t know what he was looking for. A bomb, or something electronic. But all he found was aluminum and plaster.

So far, so good. His veil crawled along the floor, searching for the package he was meant to deliver. The feelers tasted plastic, and Dan relaxed a fraction. They dove inside, searching for danger and found—

Oh no. No, no, no.

His adrenaline spiked as he sensed the contents of the container. It was somehow worse than he’d expected. Not an assassination attempt at all. Was this supposed to be a frame, perhaps? Or a taunt? He couldn’t begin to guess at the twisted madness that guided whoever had done this. But Dan knew what his veil was sensing. He knew there was no mistaking it. At this point, Dan’s veil had sensed enough corpses to know the feel of human flesh, meat, and bone.

With trembling hands, he called the police.

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