Published at 12th of August 2022 9:14 pm

Book 2: Chapter 68: Home

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“Something is wrong?” Ito repeated, slowly holstering his weapon. Dan wasn’t sure what upgrade the officer used, but it wasn’t anything overt. Ito peered into the house through the bullet-ridden windows. “Because the mouse is having a fit?”

Merrill chittered angrily at the other man, and skittered the the shoulder opposite him. Dan stroked her tiny head reassuringly, and fell back to the police cruiser. He lowered himself beside the vehicle, using it as cover while he searched for whatever Merrill was trying to warn him about.

“She’s smart,” Dan offered in place of an explanation. He didn’t have anything better. It had always just been something obvious and accepted to him. Then he repeated, “Something’s wrong.”

“Does she care to explain what, exactly?” Ito groused, lowering himself to a crouch as he sidled up to the wall of Dan’s house.

Dan’s gothic manor had no garage, and a fence blocked off the backyard on both sides. Ito quietly walked to the left fence and examined it carefully. He checked over the grass beneath it, then placed his hand over the top and gently tugged downwards, before examining the result. Satisfied, Ito began to move to the other side.

The half-circle driveway was covered by a large overhang supported by a pair of pillars opposite the front door. Ito used them as cover as he transitioned sides, then performed the same actions on the right fence. He shook his head after his examination.

“Nobody came this way,” he hissed quietly. “You sure about this?”

Dan nodded, his body tense. He loaded a ball-bearing and kept it ready. He extended his veil, thin tendrils crawling across familiar ground. He spun a web across the floor of his home. Tendrils periodically roamed just millimeters above the surface, looking for life to brush against their senses. Dan found nothing.

“I don’t feel anything alive,” Dan said. He glanced to Ito. “What do we do?”

Ito grimaced, then reached for the radio on his shoulder. He called in a series of coded phrases, alongside Dan’s address.

“Your sure nobody’s inside?” he asked Dan. “Can they hide from you?”

Dan shook his head. “Not that I know of.” He considered the question. “Maybe if they are floating motionless in the air?”

He couldn’t check for that. At this distance, his veil simply couldn’t traverse that much empty space to check. Someone could theoretically hover above the ground, away from any of his walls and furniture, and Dan would never know until he was right up on them. He doubted anyone would exploit that. It seemed tactically idiotic to keep yourself suspended, motionless, and away from any kind of leverage.

Ito pursed his lips. He began to inch towards the door.

“Shouldn’t we wait for backup?” Dan asked.

Ito snorted. “Maybe if there was backup available. Given present circumstances, I’m all you’ve got, kiddo. If I find something substantive, that’ll change.”

Cold, but understandable.

“You think nothing’s wrong?” Dan asked.

Ito slowly made his way to the front door, running a finger along the edge where the lining met the frame. He paused as he reached waist level, and noticed the doorbell camera.

“I think Perez was supposed to still be camped out on your street. Does this camera work?”

Dan nodded, brow furrowed. “Yes, it does. Perez has been gone for several days, I think. Pretty sure I haven’t seen him since the raid went bad.”

“Right, and that’s what bothers me,” Ito agreed. “If it was just today, I’d understand. People were called in from just about everywhere. But Coldeyes… Perez couldn’t help there. He should’ve stayed on his post, or at the very least returned once the SPEAR Teams had been rescued.” He paused, finishing his examination of the door. “Check the footage, see if anything comes up.”

Dan pulled out his phone, and tapped the app for his electronic doorbell. He scrolled through the day’s alerts. “It didn’t pick up anything unusual today. It only records when something triggers it. What happened to Perez?”

“I don’t know. I called him here, but he hasn’t responded.”

“That’s concerning, right?” Dan asked.

“That’s concerning,” Ito agreed. He frowned at the doorknob as if it had offended him. “Okay. Gimme the keys. I’ll take a look. You stay out here.”

“I don’t have keys,” Dan said.

Ito turned and gave him a look.

“I don’t really use the door,” Dan explained sheepishly. He thought over his options, then brightened. “Oh! But there’s an electronic lock! Hold up.”

He opened another app, and waited. A red button appeared on his screen, labeled front door.

“I can open it,” Dan stated.

Ito frowned at the door, then slowly backed away. He made his way back to the pillars, considered the house, then retreated back to his car. He put the vehicle between himself and the house, motioning Dan to join him. Dan followed, bemused.

“Okay,” Ito said. “Do it.”

Dan tapped his screen, and red shifted to green. He knew from previous experience that the electric door mechanism was buzzing as it turned the lock. A moment passed, and nothing happened. Ito let out a breath.

“No bomb,” he muttered.

Dan flinched. “Was that an option!?”

Ito shrugged. “Always seems to be. Alright, stay here. I’ll take a look.”

He wandered carefully back to the door. He ran his fingers along the edges of the door once more, feeling for something that Dan couldn’t see. After a minute, he reached for the knob and turned it until it clicked. He eased the door open and peered inside. There was a tense few moments as Ito stood perfectly still, listening and watching. Finally, he pushed the door all the way open, took a single step inside, and fell flat on his face.

The sight was so unexpected that it took Dan several seconds to process what he’d just seen. Ito lay sprawled halfway into Dan’s foyer. His legs were perfectly still. His chest rose and fell, obvious even from where Dan was standing. Soft snores echoed out of his prone, facedown form.

“You’re shitting me,” Dan said to Merrill. She chittered back at him.

Dan sent out his veil, not in tendrils but a thick, heavy limb. He pushed it into the frame of his door, and outward, into the air. He felt his reserves plummet as his veil crawled inch by agonizingly slow inch. It tasted the air, the composition of nitrogen and oxygen intimately familiar to him. It didn’t take long before he found something else in the mix. Hovering around head height, suspended in the air, was a gas that he simply could not grasp. It was composed of things he’d never felt before, somehow both lighter and heavier than the air around it. It bobbed in an invisible cloud and suffused Dan’s house.

“That’s bad,” Dan said, cursing himself. He should’ve checked the air further in. He knew what Bartholomew could do, far better than Ito, but he had been too focused on finding the man himself. It hadn’t even occurred to Dan that a gas could just linger like in place this one was. Normally, a gas should drift, settling either against the ceiling or the floor depending on if it was heavier than the air around it, both of which would be sensed by his veil’s normal probing. Instead the gas was, in fact, doing exactly what Dan had thought was impractical: floating far enough from any solid object that his veil could not reach it unless Dan made a concerted effort to do so. He noted that this gas felt different from the compound that had made up Bartholomew’s body the last time he’d encountered the man. The scientist could either change his own composition, or had access to a lab of some kind. Probably some mix of both. The Genius could probably build his own equipment, so long as he had a safe place to put it.

Before Dan could think about that, he needed to help Ito. The veteran officer seemed fast asleep and unharmed, but Dan couldn’t know what kind of long term effects the gas would have on a person. Carefully, cautiously, Dan began to pull the gas into t-space. It wasn’t fast. The gas wasn’t all that dense, and his veil was sluggish and inefficient moving through it. Dan took his time, clearing the area around Ito and the front door.

The gas seemed practically viscous in its movement. It drifted slowly, barely affected by the whoosh of air replacing vacuum every time Dan triggered his veil. In a few minutes, he managed to clear enough space by Ito that Dan felt safe in dragging the officer outside. Dan deposited Merrill on the curb, then teleported beside Ito’s feet, seized his ankle, and heaved the man backwards. The officer groaned quietly as his face dragged across Dan’s wooden floor, then grunted as the threshold cracked against his chin.

Dan pulled him along the circle-drive and onto the grass, and flipped Ito onto his back. He checked the officer’s pulse, finding it steady and solid, then used the man’s radio to call in backup. Dan squatted on the curb beside Ito’s unconscious form, as he waited for more officers to arrive. He sat, Merrill on his shoulder, and stewed in impotent rage.

This was his house. His home. His place of safety. And it had been utterly violated. Dan had never wanted to murder a man with his bare hands more than he had in this moment. He needed to focus and think, but he was having difficulty seeing past this blinding rage. What was the purpose of this? Clearly, it wouldn’t have killed him. Ito was alive, though with side effects that Dan couldn’t begin to guess at.

What would have happened to Dan?

Well, he would’ve teleported in to his house, taken a breath, and passed out. There, he would have remained until someone stumbled upon him. Likely, Bartholomew himself. But how would ol’ Barty know when Dan came home?

His hair on his neck prickled, and he glanced around at his neighbors. Was Bartholomew here, watching? No, Dan discarded that immediately. The nearby houses were for sale, and empty, but Bartholomew wouldn’t have expected to see Dan arrive. No need to risk that kind of proximity. The mad scientist wasn’t even necessarily nearby. He had more than enough time to arrange this trap; it had been over an hour since Dan had spoken to the man over the phone. Hell, Bartholomew had probably headed straight for Dan’s house the moment he realized that Dan was at the Pearson with Meyers.

It was enough time to arrange the trap, but not necessarily to monitor it. Dan could’ve passed out in his house for hours before anyone would’ve thought to check on him. Bartholomew could’ve just dropped by and checked for Dan’s body. If Dan had come home, he would’ve been affected. It was a simple enough assumption to make. Especially given how fast acting the gas seemed to be. Ito had fallen asleep between steps, without the slightest hint of warning.

Idly, Dan wondered how Bartholomew had discovered where he lived, before realizing it was probably a matter of public record. Dan’s address was no longer listed on the barebones website he used for his business, but it wouldn’t be hard to find for someone looking for it. In retrospect, he probably could’ve figured out a way to keep his name more hidden, but he hadn’t been worried about it at the time. He was more concerned with Matilda, and her particular brand of insanity. Then there was the mess with the secret lair in his basement, and Anastasia showing up. That was where he’d first learned about Bartholomew, if he recalled correctly.

The image flashed across his memory: a blurry photo of Matilda the upgrade analyst meeting with Andros Bartholomew, known associate of the People. They knew each other. Worked with each other, though Matilda had seemed to have her own agenda. That tidbit seemed important, somehow.

She had to have a house, and offices. Did Bartholomew know about them? And what had happened to them in the months since her arrest? She’d been an accomplice to a terrorist. If her house had been anything like Dan’s, it was still for sale, abandoned and stigmatized by association. A perfect place to hide.

Dan sat ramrod straight, then scrambled for his wallet. He had a card— her business card! He pulled it out, scanned it for an address, and found the location of her office. Several seconds later, he’d pulled up an image of the building. He checked the occupants, and noted that she’d been struck from the list. Her offices remained vacant. Dan would bet his left arm that the feds had taken everything they needed and left the rest to rot. If the building owners were anything like the rest of the country, Matilda’s stuff was still sitting there, abandoned and untouched. Even if Dan couldn’t find anything useful, he could probably get her address from the building owner.

Dan glanced down at Ito. The scarred officer didn’t stir. Backup was on the way. They’d be here any minute now. Ito should be fine, but better safe than sorry. Dan grunted with effort as he dragged the limp officer into the squad car. He tossed him into the driver’s seat, letting his head lean against the wheel. Merrill scurried down Dan’s arm, seemingly sensing Dan’s anger. She planted her tiny butt on Ito’s head, and the Asian officer let out a snore.

Dan watched the man for a moment longer before affirming his decision. His fellow boys in blue would see to Ito. He’d be fine, and Dan had a lead to check out. Anger drove him forward; no time to wait. Dan ripped out a page from Ito’s notebook, scribbled ‘I’m fine. BRB — Dan’ and stuffed it into the man’s front pocket. He considered leaving a longer note, but decided against it.

They would only try to stop him.

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