Published at 15th of October 2022 1:26 pm

Book 2: Chapter 142: Castle Doctrine

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Dan, for a moment, was at a loss for words. Then a lot of oddities suddenly clicked into place, and his mind raced as guesses were made and discarded. Why the separate car? Why the separate arrival? How long had he been following the man? Had he trailed Rawls since he left the RED building, or had he only picked up the scent at the school rally? Was Rawls meant to walk out of that stadium alive, or had he just gotten lucky? Was the lack of electronic surveillance in Rawls’ apartment about to be rectified? Was this a ghost, assigned to protect the fed from the shadows?

An assassin, a saboteur, or a genuine invisible bodyguard? In case of the latter, Rawls would have to be both genuinely ignorant of the man’s presence, and said bodyguard would have to lack a key to his principle’s apartment. That seemed unlikely, and so Dan settled on one of the former options. In either case, he assumed this was an enemy, attempting to break into the home of someone that Dan needed alive, all to accomplish some nebulous goal.

Dan summoned a bandana from t-space, but hesitated. He couldn’t care less about Rawls seeing his face, but the invisible man was another matter. On the one hand, protecting his own identity was paramount. On the other, this was a culture where masks were automatically mistrusted. Rawls very well might assume Dan was a vigilante up to some kind of mischief, and attempt something unwise.

Interrogation was the goal, here. Dan needed to bring down the invisible man, and do it in a way that left him capable of talking afterwards. That ruled out most of his projectile options. He could probably drop the man in a dark hole somewhere, but that revealed more of his capabilities than Dan was comfortable with. Especially given the fact that he really didn’t want to kill someone today. Not just for moral reasons, either. Whoever was backing this shady figure would obviously notice him going missing, and that would invite scrutiny. That went against the whole point of Dan being here.

Not that capture was much better, but Rawls could probably handle that end of things. It wasn’t as if Dan had any choice in the matter. He couldn’t afford to let the shadow have his way. With that in mind, he moved to intercept the intruder. It was a good thing that he’d been so paranoid, Dan reflected. It could’ve been really awkward if Rawls’ shadow had walked in on them having a serious discussion about Austin.

Cornelius must never know.

“Hello?” Rawls voice still carried that hint of confusion, and Dan brought his attention back to the present.

“There is someone breaking into your house,” Dan told Rawls over the phone. “He’s invisible. He’s got a gun and a knife, and I don’t know what his intentions are. I’m assuming you have a problem with one or all of those things.”

Rawls’ eyes widened. “Are you serious!?” He spun around, fumbling at one of his drawers. He came up with a large steak knife, then sidled quietly towards the door. Dan tensed, but the man outside showed no signs of awareness. Rawls checked the peephole, the knife slowly lowering.

The phone was still held up to his ear, and Dan said, “You won’t be able to see him. It’s some kind of perception filter. Can you hear your lock rattling?”

Rawls stared blankly down at the knob. He stepped back three paces, frowned, then said, “No. There’s nothing. Is this supposed to be some kind of elaborate joke?”

“Not a joke,” Dan replied tersely, considering his options. He really wanted to know what the man was planning to do, but he assumed it would be nothing pleasant. Maybe he was looking to plant something suspicious, or maybe he’d just shoot Rawls in the head. Dan decided he couldn’t take that risk, morally or pragmatically.

“Get out of sight,” Dan ordered Rawls. “Stay on the phone.”

The fed hesitated, glancing between the door, and the kitchen counter. Precious seconds ticked by before the man obeyed, shutting himself into a side room and locking the door.

The invisible man gently worked his knife into the door jamb. Dan’s veil was reporting something very strange about the blade, and it seemed to warp and deform as it was pressed into the crack. With a quiet click, the door finally swung open. The man stood, straightened his clothes, and stepped into the room.

“He’s inside,” Dan warned Rawls. The fed reached for the doorknob. “Don’t,” Dan warned, and the man hesitated.

The invisible man strolled into the apartment like he owned it. He glanced from side to side, then paused, mid-stride. Slowly, his foot lowered onto the carpeted floor, then pivoted towards the kitchen. Dan tensed, and his veil swept that part of the apartment. He found the issue almost immediately; as did the invisible man, who ambled into the kitchen, only to pause in front of the knife drawer that Rawls had left open. He stared down at it, then slowly slid it closed. The invisible man turned around, scanned the rest of the apartment, and reached for his gun.

Dan yanked it into t-space.

The invisible man’s fingers scrabbled at his empty arm holster. He glanced down, eyes wide, then did something completely unexpected. He drew his knife in a fast, urgent motion, and swung it in wide, wild circles, all around him. It took Dan a moment to puzzle out what was going on. The invisible man, having somehow lost his weapon without realizing it, had concluded that he was facing another invisible man.

It was more of a perception filter, really, Dan mused as the would-be assassin filleted the air. More importantly, given that the man’s mind had immediately jumped to someone with a similar ability as his own, it was probably an upgrade. Probably a government regulated pattern, given out to whichever shady three-letter organization arranged assassinations of their own people.

“There’s a crazy person with a knife in your kitchen,” Dan reported to Rawls. “This is private property. Do I have your permission to incapacitate him on your behalf?” He was pretty sure that was how home defense laws worked in Maryland.

“I- You-” Rawls forced his mouth shut and took a deep breath, then, “Yes.”

No more time for hesitation. Dan tied his bandana across his face, and pulled down his tinted goggles. His veil ran across the invisible man’s vest, his sleeves, through his gloves, into his knife, and stripped away everything Dan deemed even remotely dangerous. The man jerked backwards in alarm, and in the next moment Dan was there, inside the man’s guard, one hand clamped on his enemy’s wrist and the other around his collar. Dan’s eyes were shut, relying entirely on his veil as he rotated, jerking the man off balance and into a violent hip throw.

There was a crash, the sound of broken glass, and not much else. Dan felt the air whoosh out of his opponent’s chest, but couldn’t hear any noise he was making. The perception filter remained in place, just in time for Rawls to leap out of his bedroom, brandishing his kitchen knife.

“Who are you!?” he demanded. His eyes roamed Dan’s masked face, then down to the floor, where the invisible man was squirming. Rawls’ face went slack, then snapped back up to Dan. “Are you the one on the phone? Where’s the intruder?”

Dan ignored him, choosing instead to reach into his hammerspace. A blocky stun gun appeared in his hands, and he jabbed it into the neck of the squirming beneath him. Light sparked as a hundred thousand volts danced across his opponent’s body. There was a groan from beneath him, suddenly audible, and Rawls gasped.

“Yes,” Dan replied shortly, turning his victim over and seizing his wrists, “and right here.” Dan dragged both wrists together, summoned a zip-tie, and yanked it tight. He did the same with the man’s ankles, binding them together tight and eliciting soft groans.

“Excuse the mask,” Dan said, gesturing to the tightly tied bandana. “Don’t want this fucker seeing my face.” He kept his veil wrapped tight around the squirming man’s clothes, just in case he went invisible again.

“That’s…” Rawls swallowed heavily as he looked down at the feebly twitching prisoner. “I know that upgrade.”

Dan patted down the restrained man’s pockets, more out of show than necessity. He knew there was some kind of first aid kit in the man’s cargo pocket, and he drew it out after a minute of searching. It wasn’t quite what he’d expected. Rather than the white cover and red cross of a first aid kit, what Dan found was a featureless black case, containing needles and vials of what he’d originally assumed was morphine. Rawls sucked in a sharp breath when he saw it, and he stomped forward.

“Who sent you?!” he hissed to the bound prisoner, falling into a crouch beside him.

Dan stepped aside as the fed turned over the captive, getting a good look at the man’s face. He was so unremarkable that it was disturbing. It was the sort of face that could lose itself in a crowd, effortlessly. It was the sort of face you forgot, mere seconds after seeing it. Even looking right at him, Dan could not properly describe the man as anything other than bland. It was purposeful, machined to perfection, not something found in nature. The man had been modded to look this way.

“You said he had a knife.” Rawls’ voice was quietly grave, and he stared down at the prisoner’s mundane features with an expression of mounting horror.

Dan summoned the knife from his hammerspace directly into his own pocket. He pulled it out, and handed it over. It looked like stiletto, the same dull black as the first aid kit, but the blade was something other than steel. It was mottled, bumpy; its surface was a grainy texture that managed to look almost fluid. Dan was reminded of very old, very used motor oil.

Rawls accepted the blade, ran his finger across it. His lip quivered.

“This is an Anykey,” he said, looking down to the prisoner, who stared impassively at the ceiling. “Making you a Geist.”

Dan had no idea what that was, but he knew better than to show it. He only nodded, and said, “So what do you want to do about it.”

“Someone sent a Geist after me.” Rawls seemed to be talking to himself more than Dan. “That’s not right. That’s impossible. We don’t do that to our own people.”

“Reality begs to differ,” Dan noted, causing Rawls to glance at him. He asked again, “What do you want to do about this?”

“We don’t do this to our own people,” Rawls repeated, seemingly caught in a daze. “This is…” He paused, collected himself, then tried again. “We need to find out who sent him. We don’t do this to our own people. Geists aren’t even supposed to operate on American soil.”

Rawls, Dan realized, was someone who had drank the Kool-aid, entirely and without reservation. He suspected the fed was in for a very rude awakening.

“Works for me,” Dan agreed. “How you wanna do that?” The prisoner’s gaze was deliberately vacant, and he stared upwards, eyes unseeing. He was captured, and he knew it, and was already dissociating from the situation. Dan doubted any amount of coercion would be effective.

Rawls frowned down at the man who had probably come here to kill him. He seemed to struggle with something inside himself, before crouching down with a sharp exhalation. He laid an index finger on the man’s temple, and tucked his thumb against his chin. Dan twitched, as Rawls fingers began to glow.

Rawls took a deep breath, then began to speak, “In accordance to subsection 16-A of the United States Patriot Act, and the authority vested to me by the Radiological Emergence Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, I, Jeremy Rawls, am empowered to use mental coercion on an unwilling subject for interrogation purposes in matters of national security. You are a Geist, acting outside the bounds of your authority, and against a citizen of the nation. Any orders your received to do so were unlawful. Will you cooperate, name your co-conspirators, and submit yourself to judgement?”

There was a long pause as the Geist stared upwards, mouth slightly open and eyes glazed over. A line of drool ran down his cheek.

Rawls sighed. “I thought not.” His arm tensed, and he pressed down. The glow brightened, moving from his fingertips, down into the Geist’s face. It rushed across the man’s skin like liquid gold, and Rawls spat a short, sharp command.

“Truth-teller.”

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