Book 2: Chapter 56: Gone Huntin'
Book 2: Chapter 56: Gone Huntin'
Dan stood behind Gregoir’s bulky frame as he interviewed Burl Meyers’ neighbors. The affable officer held a large yellow pad in one hand and a thick pencil in the other. He smiled encouragingly at the timid old lady who lived across from Meyers, as she recounted seeing a strange man enter and exit the apartment alongside grumpy, lonely Burl. She’d watched through her peephole as the pair carried out half a dozen plastic tubs, that rattled with each step, taking several trips up and down the freight elevator before finally leaving.
“I’m just happy that Burl found a friend,” she confided to Gregoir. Her voice lowered conspiratorially. “He was always a bit of a loner, never talked to no one. It’s good to see him branching out finally.”
Her brow furrowed after she finished her rambling tale.
“What was it you said happened to him?”
Gregoir beamed at her. “Nothing yet, ma’am. We’re simply investigating an irregularity at his job, and were hoping to interview him. Did you speak to him before he left? Or the gentleman beside him?”
“No, no, they seemed like they were in a hurry,” she replied. “I didn’t want to interrupt. An old lady like me has a tendency to ramble, I know. The poor boy didn’t need me keeping him from whatever it was that needed doing.” She paused, then blinked. “Is Burl moving away?”
“I really couldn’t say,” Gregoir replied carefully. “I’m hopeful you’ll be seeing him again soon.”
He reached into the pocket of his vest, and pulled out a folded up picture. Gregoir carefully opened the photo, and showed his witness a picture of Bartholomew’s ‘disguised’ face, a still frame taken from the Pearson’s surveillance video.
“Do you recognize this man?” Gregoir asked gently. “Was he with Mr. Meyers?”
The witness fumbled in the breast pocket of her frilly smock and pulled out a pair of glasses older than Dan. She held them up to her face, not bothering to unfold the temples, and peered at the picture. After a moment, her face lit up in recognition.
“That’s him! That’s the young man who was helping Burl move those boxes!” She glanced closer. “He looked a little less tense, though. He was much more relaxed.”
Gregoir scribbled something onto his pad.
“And when did you see all of this?” he queried, readying his pencil.
“Oh it must have been a few days ago, now,” the old lady replied. “It was fairly early in the morning, too. The only reason I was even awake is because my joints were giving me trouble, I don’t think anyone else was awake. They were honestly very quiet, but my ears haven’t gone the way of my eyes quite yet. I thought that very considerate of them.” She shook her head. “Kids these days, no respect for others while they move about, with the clanging and the banging and the knocking into walls and the—”
“Yes, indeed, they are menaces,” Gregoir interrupted with a brilliant smile. He looked down at her, every inch of him radiating trustworthiness. “Would you be willing to speak before a judge?”
They left a few minutes later, Gregoir reading over his notes as they walked.
“Always speak to the neighbors,” he told Daniel. “There’s almost always a nosey one. You never know when you’ll get lucky.”
Dan snorted, then asked, “Where to now?”
Gregoir scratched his chin. “Now I try and subpoena Mr. Meyers bank records. Any transactions between the night of his abduction and now are suspect. Bartholomew might be confident in using traceable transactions given that Mr. Meyers appears, on the surface at least, to be cooperating with him. In reality, I imagine that he dosed the man with whatever he gave young Waylon.”
“Any word on what that is?” Dan asked.
Gregoir shook his head. “In truth, I have a few worrying theories about it. It’s clearly a homemade substance, much like the destructive fog that was released during his attempt to capture you. He is clearly not your garden variety lunatic.”
“Yeah, he’s smart,” Dan pointed out. “You know, in a crazy kind of way.”
“It’s more than that,” Gregoir said, shaking his head. “His behavior, his mania, his actions… The kidnapping attempt, almost a year ago? He seemed confident that he could replicate an APD upgrade pattern given time and resources. One does not simply reverse engineer an upgrade, Daniel. It’s possible, certainly, but not something just anyone could do.”
“Ok?” Dan said slowly. “So you think he’s, what, some kind of former super scientist?”
“I’m concerned that he might be a Genius,” Gregoir stated solemnly.
Dan stopped in his tracks. “How is that possible? He can turn parts of himself into fog. That’s clearly some kind of cosmic bullshit. You can’t have two upgrades, Gregoir.”
Gregoir frowned. “I have never encountered a Genius before, only heard the stories. There are very few limits to what they were capable of accomplishing when focused on a specific goal. Given his seeming obsession with powers, I wonder if he found a way to give himself another one. Or, perhaps, mimic the effects of one through some kind of mad science?”
The latter seemed more likely, given what Dan knew about the nature of powers. A power could evolve in its expression and methodology, Dan’s veil was proof of that, but its intrinsic nature could not change. The ability to control fire would never become the ability to have perfect balance. The two concepts were completely disparate, irreconcilable. Even a madman should not be able to twist his power in such wildly different directions.
Changing one’s physical composition into something else seemed like something a Genius focusing on powers, or even biology, could accomplish. Hell, Marcus might have been able to pull it off. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Andros Bartholomew might very well be a Genius. That thought came with its own set of horrific implications.
“How long did a Genius’ mind usually last before they went full tilt crazy?” Daniel asked slowly.
“It differed greatly,” Gregoir replied. “Some went mad within a year, the most dedicated of them lasted a decade or more.”
Dan thought back to when Anastasia had first approached him about Andros Bartholomew. She’d mentioned that he was a known affiliate of the People, but hadn’t mentioned his abilities. Dan was certain that if Bartholomew was a Genius, and Anastasia had known about it, she would’ve spared no expense in hunting him down. A Genius was that threatening, that dangerous, that unstable.
“I was under the impression that the Genius upgrade had been destroyed,” Dan pointed out.
“That is supposedly the case,” Gregoir agreed.
It made Dan think that this was a recent occurrence, within the last few years at most. It made Dan think that the People had found, or built, a new Genius pattern, and were testing it out with a few isolated mad scientists. One could not control a Genius in the grips of his mania, one could only point them in a direction. They sent Bartholomew to Austin and let him work, but he was captured.
“Coldeyes started a war to free Bartholomew from the feds,” Dan recounted. “Someone, presumably the People, helped him do it.”
“An awfully large commitment to save a single lunatic, no?” Gregoir asked grimly.
“Wouldn’t the feds have noticed this?” Dan asked, searching for a hole in the theory. “Surely they have some way to detect a Genius?”
Gregoir shook his head. “None that I’m aware of. More likely than not, they focused on his overt power, and ignored any other possibilities. From what I understand, Dunkirk was so focused on overcoming Bartholomew’s resistance to interrogation, that he did not look any deeper.”
“Or he realized it, but wanted to keep it to himself?” Dan postulated, perfectly happy to believe the worst of the prickly fed.
Gregoir shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, now. My theory is just that, no proof other than my gut. But I will be proceeding as if we faced a Genius.”
“Which you’ve never done,” Dan pointed out.
“Quite so,” Gregoir agreed. “Fortunately, I know an experienced officer who lived through the worst of the Genius Wars. I believe it’s time we involved my sensei.”
Dan winced. “Just a tip, Gregoir? If you want his help, maybe don’t call him that.”
“Nonsense!” Gregoir bellowed. “Sergeant Kenny is proud to have raised an officer as dedicated and powerful as myself!” He flexed, and his shirt ripped at its seams.
“Right.” Dan pulled his fingers out of his ears. “I need to call Abby. If there’s a Genius running around Austin, her grandmother needs to know. Hell, she probably knows more about the Genius upgrade than anyone else alive. Her own husband had it.”
Gregoir blinked. “I was not aware of that.”
“I don’t think it’s a secret,” Dan said, “but I always got the feeling that she hated the damn thing for taking her husband away from her.”
“Call her,” Gregoir advised. “She may be able to offer advice.”
“Yeah,” Dan said wryly, “or she’ll come running here to take care of the problem herself.”
Gregoir chuckled, his entire chest rumbling. “If the legendary Anastasia Summers makes an appearance, I will happily get out of her way.”
Dan made the call.
“Danny?” Abby’s voice answered, and Dan was forced to take in a sharp breath. He hadn’t spoken to her since the raid. He realized with a jolt, that she she was still waiting on his update.
“Abby,” he greeted softly, hearing a sad smile leak into his tone.
“Are you okay?” she pressed urgently. “I’ve been watching the news, but they’re only just being let in to the area. What’s happening? Is everyone okay?”
Dan breathed in a deep breath, mentally bracing himself to relive the past few horrific hours.
“Cornelius is in the ICU. Connor and his family were watching over him, last I heard. Several officers are dead, though not as many as we feared. No sign of Coldeyes or his people,” he summarized quickly, unwilling to go into more detail.
Abby could read his reluctance in his voice, and didn’t press for more. “Mama Ana is frustrated. She doesn’t have as many contacts in Austin as she’d like. She’s still waiting on details of the raid.”
When opportunity knocked, Dan knew to answer.
“I can help with that,” he said, quickly. “I was there, and there’s something I want to run by her.”
Dan gave a brief explanation of the situation, and Abby hesitantly approached her grandmother. It wasn’t long before she passed over the phone. Dan was genuinely surprised Anastasia agreed to take the call at all. She must have truly been starved for information.
“Report,” Anastasia barked, the moment the phone transferred hands.
Dan bit back his urge to fire off a sarcastic remark, remembering the point of this call. He quickly ran through a summary of events, starting with his arrival at Coldeyes’ glacier. He didn’t hide the particulars of his actions, as Anastasia was more than aware of his abilities. She listened intently to his tale, until he reached the innards of the gym, and mentioned the strange pods that the officers had been encased in.
“Repeat that,” she ordered sharply, and Dan complied. He described their shape, and how he’d opened them, and she sucked in a sharp breath.
“It was him,” Dan heard her hiss with cold fury. He didn’t dare ask what she meant. It was a rare slip of control, and Dan doubted Anastasia even realized that it had happened. She mastered herself quickly, and said, “Continue.”
He described breaching the basement, and finding Cornelius. He described the empty surroundings, and the ice that pervaded everything. Finally, he told her about the damaged assault rifle, and the letters carved into its side by Cornelius’ thumbnail: TP.
“Another teleporter,” Anastasia murmured. She didn’t seem as opposed to the idea as Gable had been. “One aligned with Coldeyes.”
“It’s just a theory, until Cornelius wakes up,” Dan confirmed, carefully selecting his words. Until, he’d said. Not if.
“The ice in the basement wasn’t shaped?” she asked.
Dan confirmed what he’d seen. Cornelius had been frozen in a haphazard block of ice. The rest of his team downstairs was no different. There were none of the artistic, vain flourishes that Coldeyes had utilized on the gym floor.
“What does that mean?” he asked her.
Anastasia didn’t respond for a long moment. “It could mean many things. Maybe he was surprised by the assault, though that seems unlikely given that the basement would be the last place to be breached. Or maybe Coldeyes was teleported in to the basement, stuck in close quarters with a Twice-Born, and needed to hastily disable him before the rest of his team could be alerted. The man’s full capabilities are unknown to me.”
“Really?” Dan asked skeptically.
“I don’t know everything, Newman,” Anastasia Summers spat as if it were some kind of personal failing. “The fact that I need you to tell me these things only proves that to be true. What happened next?”
“We pulled everyone out,” Dan replied with a shrug. He paused, as the next part of his story got to the heart of why he was calling. “Then Gregoir and I went hunting.”