Chapter 96
Chapter 96
The phone rang, click, and a voice answered.
“Good morning, Mr. Newman.” Anastasia’s voice was amused, and that sent a chill down Dan’s spine.
“Mrs. Summers,” Dan acknowledged, his mouth suddenly dry. He took a moment to collect himself, breathing in deep. “I’ve got a proposition for you.”
“How enticing,” the older woman replied with bland enthusiasm. “I have a few questions for you, myself.”
“Do you?” His voice was even; a point of pride.
“Yes. I heard something worrying this morning, from a friend of mine in the FBI.” Anastasia made no effort at playing coy. “Apparently, the Austin field office received a package filled with a few awfully familiar documents.”
Well she didn’t sound angry, not that that meant anything. The woman probably could’ve lied to a choir of angels without batting an eye. The fact that she’d cottoned on to Dan’s stunt so quickly was alarming, but not unexpected. All that was left was to play out his plan, and hope for the best.
“And some unfamiliar, I expect,” Dan said.
“Quite. And while I’m so very curious about those, Mr. Newman, there was one other issue that caught my attention.”
Dan wracked his mind for what that might be. “Was there?”
“There was. You see, in any government building that was built before 1980, there is a certain regulation that the maintenance crews are forced to follow. Specifically, the care and upkeep of a cosmic radiation detector.” She paused, and Dan’s breath hitched. “These were a little before your time, so allow me to explain. There is commonly believed to be a certain threshold of exposure required for a Natural to incarnate. Most sensors constantly monitor the area around themselves, and ring if cosmic energy levels reach about a fiftieth of that threshold.” Dan could hear the smile behind her words as she continued, “The Austin sensor is an older model; it has multiple tones for varying levels of radiation, but starts at the minimum expected threshold.”
Dan felt lightheaded as his mind made frantic connections between her words and his actions.
“Yesterday morning, shortly after a suspiciously dressed man drifted past the Austin field office,” Anastasia reported, “their sensor registered ten times the amount of cosmic radiation necessary for an incarnation of a mundane human. Upon closer examination, they discovered that the source was a manila envelope that had miraculously appeared in the mail room.
“Friends of mine, allies, people who I trust, have been asking for my assistance in investigating this individual. They thought I might have heard something about him, seeing as my grudge with the People is hardly a secret. Surely, this person would have tried approaching me first? Or so the thinking goes.”
Anastasia Summers did not do subtle.
Dan opened his mouth, and a thousand different responses flashed across the tip of his tongue. Anxiety filled him, thoughts of Connor, their spar, what he might have unintentionally done. He’d held those documents! And Freya, she might’ve been exposed as well. She’d spent most of her time pouring over Anastasia’ phone, but Dan had kept the damn thing in t-space for a time. How much exposure did it take?
His heart pounded, his vision tilted; he was on the verge of a panic attack so he shifted. The world cracked, and split at the seams. The cold embrace of the Gap wrapped around him, and darkness spiraled out from where his living room had been. False stars glittered in the distance, and Dan floated, emotionlessly, in an empty void. It was like dousing himself in freezing water. Everything came to a stop and he breathed.
Options. Consequences. What were they?
Whatever had happened with Connor was in the past. It was out of Dan’s control, now. He could only learn from his mistakes, from this new knowledge. He’d need to be careful when using his power; he couldn’t just treat it like a bag of holding anymore. Not, at least, around mundane humans. Dosing random strangers with radiation seemed rude no matter what dimension he was in.
The plan, however, remained the same. He had access to something that Anastasia, in theory, desperately wanted. He would trade it for something resembling a truce between the two of them, a secure identity, and a promise of her staying the hell out of his life. Simple enough.
This newest revelation would throw a wrench into things, but he’d just work around it. He was fine. His mind was steady. All was well.
The world slid back into existence, and Dan caught his phone before it could fall. He placed against his ear, and spoke.
“Maybe he thought he was making a point,” Dan offered. “Maybe he’d had a bad experience with you in the past, and wanted to redefine the relationship between the two of you.”
“You found where Strauss hid his files,” Anastasia stated, dropping all pretense.
It took Dan a moment to remember who Strauss was. Morgan Strauss, formerly known as Captain Quantum. The dead man who had once lived in his house. A People sympathizer, one of their agents. Possibly something more.
“Seems reasonable,” he confirmed.
“You’ll be handing those over to me.” Her voice was iron.
Dan did not waver. It took the entirety of his courage, but he didn’t.
“In exchange for what?” he asked.
The older woman responded instantly, “In exchange for me keeping your identity to myself. Not only your… particular origins, but the fact that you were the one who dropped that contaminated envelope of evidence off in the middle of an FBI office.”
“You can’t prove that,” Dan shot back. “I admit nothing. That said, regarding whoever did drop that information off, I’m growing increasingly certain that the feds would forgive his trespasses in exchange for future cooperation. You can’t be the only one with a bone to pick with the People.”
“You’re willing to bet your freedom on that?”
“No,” Dan replied. “I’m betting that you want the People even more than they do. That you want them badly enough to secure my identity, to give me a rock solid background, and to stop interfering in my relationship with Abby. I’m betting that you’re willing to sacrifice your control over me to get at them.”
“And why,” Anastasia asked with cold amusement, “would you ever believe that?”
“Because they killed your family,” Dan answered quietly.
The pause after Dan’s statement felt like one of the longest of his life.
Finally, “Yes. They did.” Her voice lacked any trace humor, though it was less resigned than he’d hoped for. And then, “I have terms, of course.”
“Of course,” Dan acknowledged.
“The first of which,” she continued, “is that you hand over whatever else you scavenged from Strauss. The second— I’m getting ahead of myself. You are able to replicate whatever you did to retrieve his cache, yes?”
“Assuming they all used the same Natural to hide their stuff?” Dan asked. “Yeah. I’d guess so.”
“You’d guess so,” she repeated flatly.
Dan shrugged, not that she could see it. “Yeah. No way to know for sure until I try again, but I’d guess so.”
“Hm.” It was more of a growl than a grunt. “In that case, your demands will have to wait until you’ve proven yourself.”
That was not okay. “No,” he immediately replied. His next words were a risk, but he felt them necessary. This had to be a business relationship, formed on equal grounds. “You’ll be securing my new background as payment for handing over what I’ve got now. We’ll talk about additional payment for opening up future caches on a case by case basis. I’ve got a unique, unreplicable skill, and I’m in high demand. You need to be treating me as such.”
Another long pause, and Dan worried he’d overstepped. This was important though, to him, to Abby, to any future he might have. He needed to reassert control over his life, and he couldn’t do that so long as Anastasia fucking Summers saw him as a subhuman stain on her granddaughter’s skirt.
He was not expecting the laughter. Deep, throaty chuckles, tinge with genuine surprise, echoed out of the speaker. After almost thirty seconds of Dan staring, horrified, at the phone, the noise finally stopped.
“This was an interesting gamble, Daniel Newman,” Anastasia admitted. “Banking on my personal grudge outweighing my desire to excise you from Abigail’s life.”
“It seemed like the surest bet,” he replied cautiously.
“Perhaps.” she said. “Very well, we’ll do it your way then. I’ll fix the holes that Marcus left in your identity and keep my silence regarding your past. You will deliver whatever else you pulled from Strauss’ safe to the office you visited at my Florida estate, tomorrow morning at nine. The defenses will be disabled for exactly fifteen minutes, so don’t take your time with it.”
“That sounds reasonable,” Dan stated quickly, no longer willing to press his luck. “What about our future business?”
“I’ll contact you,” she said. “It will take some time to arrange things. We’ll talk about payment after you’ve confirmed you can actually do the job. Agreed?”
That seemed fair enough. He was still moderately certain she was going to screw him over in some way, but for the moment, she seemed amicable enough. It could be a lie, but honestly, she seemed the kind of person that would believe that sort of acting to be beneath her. She had no reason to fake cordiality when disdain would bring the same result.
“Agreed,” Dan repeated.
And just like that, things were settled between them.
Presumably. For now.
The next morning, Dan did as he agreed, and dumped his loot on the floor of Anastasia’s office. He’d briefly considered the idea of a trap (accompanied by Abby’s protests that Mama Ana would never break her word like that), and compensated by simply completing his task as quickly as possible. Flicking in and out of reality a dozen times in just a few seconds was far less disorienting than he’d expected, and the way that Anastasia’s prize had ended up scattered across her office was pleasing to his pride.
Regardless, nothing exploded or otherwise tried to injure him in the course of the five seconds he spent dropping off his side of the bargain. When he returned home, he and Abby anxiously waited by the phone, hoping for some sort of acknowledgement.
It wasn’t until that afternoon that he received any sort of response. There, in the mail, was an envelope addressed to Dan. Within it, a shiny new birth certificate and social security card. Both matched the details that Marcus had forged almost a year ago, but physically holding them gave a kind of relief to Dan that he hadn’t realized he’d needed.
With that, the weekend ended.
Guilt still prickled at him, worry and anxiety towards Connor’s situation. Uncertainty still lay in his future, his path was yet to be determined. Matilda loomed in the background, a constant reminder of the danger of this dimension. But when classes started anew, Dan returned to the Academy with a lightened heart.