Published at 12th of August 2022 9:14 pm

Book 2: Chapter 85: Open and Shut

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The glowing orb unfurled itself in front of Dan. Between blinks, it disappeared from one eye and reappeared in the other. Dan’s veil snapped back into him as the shifting blob of silver swirled into existence in the back yard. Garcia gasped in surprise, taking an alarmed step back.

“The fuck!?” the officer grunted, reaching for his holster uncertainly. “What is that?”

“It’s someone’s power,” Dan said, taking a step back himself. “The People sometimes use it to hide things that they don’t want to be found.”

It was more than that just a storage space, he now realized. This Natural could partition an entire section of reality, and shunt it into t-space. It was not dissimilar to Dan’s own power, though it obviously didn’t require maintenance, and almost certainly did not grant awareness. He’d been crudely puncturing the power with his veil, causing its contents to pop out like the air from a burst balloon. This time, his new understanding of his own power had allowed Dan to be more subtle.

The swirling silver expanded, stretching out across the yard like a net. Its blurry surface resolved itself into colors and and features. Within moments, the silver orb had become a small, ramshackle storage shed. But it wasn’t quite… there, Dan noted. The grass beneath it was alive and well; a little bent, now, but not squashed flat. Nor had it browned, Dan quickly realized. If this shed had been here before, even for just a few days, there should have been an impression. That wasn’t the case.

“Now that is eerie to see,” Garcia said. He’d fallen into a low crouch, putting his eyeline at the floor of the shed. He’d clearly noticed the same things as Dan. Garcia carefully pulled out his flashlight and clicked it on. The light shined beneath the shed, showing a good two inches of space between the dirt and the floor above. The weight of the building was completely supported by the grass.

Dan heard more officers approaching from the house, muttering in confusion. He ignored them, kneeling down himself to touch the grass. His veil slipped out, pressing into a blade with ease. It didn’t seem any more dense than usual, nor was it protected in any way. He gripped a handful between his knuckles and lifted slightly, feeling the roots pull at the dirt below before several of the blades snapped in half.

Garcia performed his own examination, slipping out a pocket knife and carefully cutting through a few stalks beneath the shed. The knife slid easily through the paper-thin blades but the building did not shift an inch. Garcia eyed the structure dubiously, then gave it a gentle nudge with the butt end of his flashlight. There was no give at all. It seemed anchored in space.

“Huh,” the officer summarized.

“It’s not the grass,” Dan noted.

“Is this what normally happens?” the officer asked.

“Could be?” Dan guessed. “I usually find these things in secret basements. Never checked the bottom before.”

Garcia stood up, smacking his hands together to clear off the dirt. He glanced behind him, at the handful of officers who had come to investigate the shed’s sudden appearance.

“Well,” Garcia drawled, “you found it. You have the experience with it. What’s the play here? Is it safe to go in?”

“Always has been before,” Dan said. Though, in the past, he’d probably broken any traps with his method of breaking into the orb.

“Maybe take it slow, just in case,” he added.

Garcia looked unconvinced. The officers behind him shuffled uncertainly. The shed had clearly been created by a Natural’s power, and thus was automatically suspicious and dangerous. It probably deserved that caution, in all honesty, but that had more to do with its affiliation with the People. Dan was fairly confident he could navigate it safely.

“I’ll go first,” Dan offered. He extended his veil into the building, quickly tracing it in its entirety— and stopped. Dan’s entire body stiffened as he found something that really ought not be there.

“What’s wrong?” Garcia asked, immediately noticing Dan’s change in posture.

Dan’s veil poked and prodded at the shed’s innards, confirming Dan’s conclusions.

“It’s a TARDIS,” he said.

That drew blank looks.

“It’s bigger on the inside,” he clarified. His veil swept across the door, searching for anything else unusual. He couldn’t see anything resembling a trap. He considered the door, then: “Fuck it.”

He reached for the handle, but Garcia clapped a hand around Dan’s wrist.

“I don’t think so,” the officer chided. “If there’s some kind of Natural shenanigans still going on inside of it, then I’m calling this as off-limits for now. The MPD’s got specialists who can evaluate the building, and make sure it’s safe.”

“It’s always been safe before,” Dan repeated weakly.

Garcia snorted. “Don’t try and play me, young’un. This isn’t my first day on the job. You’ve been uncertain ever since this thing first appeared. No use getting yourself killed over something easily preventable.”

Dan winced, but reluctantly drew back his hand. “Time is something of a factor, here.”

“It always is,” Garcia acknowledged, “but safety comes first. I’m going to call this in.”

The officer began calling out commands to his men, leaving Dan to his own devices. With a frustrated sigh, Dan moved away from the back yard. He made his way through the house, shuffling past officers as they went about their business. He came out onto the street and parked himself on the trunk of Garcia’s cruiser. It was time to report in. This find was significant enough that Anastasia needed to know.

It took several rings for Anastasia to pick up; clearly she was busy. Her voice was terse as she answered, and there were voices arguing in the background. She eschewed anything resembling a friendly greeting to instead demand, “What do you have?”

Dan tamped down hard on his initial impulse to fire off a sarcastic rejoinder. This really wasn’t the time.

“We traced the driver to a Miami house,” he began. “The place was stripped, but I found one of the People’s caches and pulled it out of t-space. And, uh…” Dan trailed off, unsure of how to explain this part. “Well, I figured out something new about the caches.”

“I am breathless with anticipation,” Anastasia stated blandly.

“The power doesn’t work like we thought it did,” Dan said. “It’s not just some empty space that the People throw their trash inside. It’s more like a partition, slicing out a chunk of some real thing and shunting it into the Gap.”

Dan considered his own words, and realized that they were more or less gibberish.

“I’m going to need you to elaborate on that,” Anastasia’s dry request confirmed his own evaluation.

“It’s— Okay, so we’ve talked about what I see. The silver orb?”

The older woman gave a grunt of agreement.

“Instead of just brute forcing it back into the world, I tried something a little different,” Dan explained.

“Different how?”

Dan shrugged, the effect lost on Anastasia. “I told it to open.”

There was a considering pause on the other side of the call.

“I see,” she said finally. “And what was the result?”

She didn’t ask how he’d managed to order around another Natural’s power. Anastasia was experienced enough to understand that Dan had likely discovered some new facet of his own abilities. He was surprised that she was polite enough not to pry, but quickly realized the true reason. Anastasia rarely asked a question which she knew wouldn’t be answered, and Dan certainly wasn’t about to volunteer any more information on his power.

“That silver orb?” Dan repeated. “It turned into a storage shed.” He paused, and added, “Well, it looks like a storage shed. It’s very obviously not one anymore. The thing is bigger on the inside and it’s kinda… fixed in place.”

The pause was much more pronounced this time. The voices arguing in the background began to quickly fade and door shut somewhere in the distance.

“Have you searched the building?” she asked, her voice quiet and demanding.

“The MPD have a team on the way. They are concerned about traps.”

“Sensible,” Anastasia commented musingly. “Why a shed?”

“I’m only speculating at this point,” Dan said, “but I’m pretty sure that whoever creates these caches can convert a room or structure into that silver goop. It’s not a shed, it just looks like one. I mean, it’s balancing on blades of grass, Anastasia, but when you give it a shove it doesn’t move an inch.”

“Fixed in space,” she murmured. “I wonder: is it the same power?”

“I— what?” Dan asked, flabbergasted.

“Is it the same power,” Anastasia repeated, “or does it just look the same? Did you only notice something different about this one because it is, in fact, different?”

Dan considered the implications. She meant Echo, he realized almost immediately. She thought Echo was mimicking the cache-creating Natural, but doing so imperfectly.

“I can’t say for sure,” Dan said slowly. “I’d have to examine another one. Even then, how would we know which is the original and which is the copy.”

“It can be arranged,” Anastasia answered vaguely. “Second question, and more importantly: Can you send it back into the Gap?”

“What?”

“Can you reverse what you did?” she demanded urgently. “Can you shunt it back, in the same way?”

“What, so that it packs itself up again?” Dan asked. “I- I guess so? Probably?”

If he could suffuse the whole thing with his veil, he had a feeling he could pull it off.

“Good,” Anastasia said, her voice filled with gleeful malevolence. “This is what you’re going to do. Let the police clear it and search it. Once they’ve stripped everything of value, I want you to try and send it back. If that works, I want you to do it again, but this time put something alive in there. See if it survives the journey there and back.”

“Something alive?” Dan stopped, as he caught her line of thinking. “You think the People are hiding inside these things?”

“I’ve always thought these caches were a one-way trip,” she said, almost eagerly. “The way you opened them only seemed to confirm it. It has always been a violent act, as if being forced back into reality was contrary to their nature, to the concept that guided them. But you’re telling me that this isn’t the case. If your power can manipulate a cache in this way, there is nothing stopping the Natural from doing the same. Find out the truth, Newman. If this is how they’ve been hiding from me, I need to know.”

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