"Hiding Between Your Memories"
May. 27th, 2022 02:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dochermes"Hiding Between Your Memories"
9/3/2017
I.
The walls of the long narrow walkway were lined with open wooden shelves. Most of these had been filled with luggage, lamps, old televisions, bundles of clothing in clear bags and similar detritus. There were also accordion files crammed with receipts and insurance forms and court documents dating back decades, not likely to be ever needed.
Jeremy Bane picked up the last of four cardboard boxes sealed with duct tape and labelled with marker TED 9/2017. The Dire Wolf stepped back and adjusted the box a fraction of an inch to line it up with the others. At sixty, he remained lean and active, almost gaunt in his trademark uniform of black slacks, turtleneck and sport jacket. The grey was sprinkled more thickly in his short black hair and the narrow feral face had wrinkles at the corners of the grey eyes, but he had not aged much.
Watching from behind him, Ted Wright smiled affectionately. His own short-cropped hair and beard had turned completely white in dramatic contrast to the dark brown skin. Deep vertical creases in his cheeks added to the naturally saturnine cast of his face. Wright was wearing a charcoal-grey suit with a white dress shirt but no tie.
Turning to face his oldest friend, Bane began to say something but hesitated. For once, the grim hard exterior of the Dire Wolf faltered.
Wright said, "It's okay to be a little choked up, Jeremy. I'm struggling with it, myself. This is a big change."
"Well, you ARE seventy-four, Ted." Bane moved over and placed a hand on the Blue Guide's shoulder. "You've been working overnights at the ER and carrying your own diagnostic clinic for what, thirty-seven years? Thirty-eight? If anyone deserves to take it easy, it's you."
"Not to mention all the KDF missions we worked on. I went up against everyone from Quilt to Wu Lung to Karl Eldritch in my time. Frankly, I'm beat. Lately I feel like I'm not bringing my best faculties to my duties. If I start making egregious mistakes... no, it's time to pass my chores to younger hands."
Squeezing Wright's shoulder, Bane led him along the walkway past the massive iron doors of the Vault and the Arsenal. They ascended steep concrete steps that went into a walk-in closet from which they emerged in the front hall of the KDF headquarters.
"Too bad none of the current team is here tonight," Bane said. "But everyone will get a chance to see you Friday at the dinner."
"Oh bother. You know I don't like fuss and ceremony, Jeremy."
"It's not for you, Ted... it's for us. For our benefit. We need to say goodbye."
"Hah! That's what they say about funerals," Wright said. He took a lightweight white topcoat from an oak rack and shrugged into it with a barely perceptible twinge of discomfort as he raised his arms. "I'll be at Tel Shai most of the time. Teacher Kerlaw has two new students studying to be Blue Guides. He wants me to assist him."
Bane took a breath to speak but was interrupted by the familiar ring of the outside bell. Over the door by their side, a red bulb flashed. "Here we go again," he muttered. The Dire Wolf strode over to slide aside a wooden panel. This revealed a monitor screen which lit up automatically to reveal the man standing on the front steps.
"I don't know him," Bane said at once. "Ted?"
"No, but he looks agitated. His gralic flow is tangled."
"If you say so," Bane replied. He pressed a button on the control panel and said, "Come in. We'll be right with you." A buzzer clicked as the outside door unlocked and swung open to allow the visitor entry to the tiny vestibule.
On the side of the monitor screen, yellow-green letters rolled upward as Trom scanners examined the man more thoroughly than any MRI could. NO KNOWN ID, the figures said. BIOLOGICAL AGE FORTY NINE, FIVE FEET NINE, ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY POUNDS, HAIR BLACK, EYES MEDIUM BROWN. HEALED FRACTURE RIGHT FOREARM. Extensive measurements of the man followed, including scans of his dental work and retinal images, EKG and cardio graphs.
But Bane was mostly interested to find that no metallic object larger than a set of keys was on the visitor, no chemical signatures of poison or explosives. "Clean enough," he said.
"Yes, let's admit him," Wright replied. "His heartbeat is dangerously fast. We should hear what he has to say."
Still ready for an attack, the Dire Wolf swung the inner door open and stood to one side as the man rushed in past him.
"Oh thank God," the visitor began but Ted Wright took him by the shoulders and firmly pushed him down to sit in a chair by the coat rack.
"I want you to take a deep breath," the Blue Guide ordered with the doctor's habit of expecting compliance. "Do it. Again. Slower and deeper. Good."
Watching, Bane could not entirely hide a smile. Ted had calmed him down the same way many times when they had first started working together. Bane studied the visitor. Underfed, probably a drinking problem judging by the shaky hands, hair hadn't been cut in two months and the last shave had been a week earlier. The man work unremarkable clothing... work shoes, khaki pants and a red flannel shirt, all worn out.
What struck Bane most, of course, was that the visitor was in a grip of terror that had him visibly shaking.
"You've got to protect me!" yelled the man in shrill tones. "Nothing can stop him. He swore he'd kill me!"
"Who?" demanded Bane.
"The Figment...!"
II.
The Dire Wolf glanced at his friend but Wright's minimal headshake indicated the name mean nothing to him. Wright knelt, took the man's pulse and peered at his eyes. "Anxiety attack. I'm going to get the blood pressure cuff and maybe something to slow that heartbeat. Be right back."
As the Blue Guide rose and strode across the hall to the medical ward, he debated whether to send this man to the ER. Not if the tachycardia got down to normal levels, he decided. Wright trusted his own gralic perception more than he did the perfunctory examination this man was likely to receive at the crowded ER at Metropolitan General.
Wright took the blood pressure cuff down from its brackets on the wall. He looked over the gleaming, brightly lit room with its two regulation hospital beds and many metal cabinets holding supplies and apparatus. So many desperate struggles had he fought here when his friends had been brought in bleeding and battered. None of the KDF members had gotten by without traumatic injuries. He sighed and forced his thoughts to the present.
Two loud crisp thuds sounded from the hallway. Instantly, Wright was moving with single-minded determination through the ward door. He found Bane lying face down just inside the still open inner door. The visitor was gone. The outer door closed with a click as he hurried up to kneel over his friend.
Even as he examined the Dire Wolf, Wright knew instantly that his captain was alive. The flow of lifeforce was as strong and steady as ever. The Blue Guide found a hard round lump rising on the back of Bane's head, with blood where the scalp had been torn. He drew on his full mystic perception and sensed no evidence of serious damage. In fact, even as he swabbed away the blood with a piece of damp gauze, Wright saw Bane mutter and stir.
"Hold still a minute longer," he said. As Bane insisted on trying to rise, Wright pressed down firmly on his back. "Please. Cooperate with me for once, Jeremy. You were struck on the head from behind by something with an edge."
Trying to lie still, the Dire Wolf demanded, "Where's our visitor?"
"Gone. The outer door closed as I approached. I heard two impacts."
"Hmm. Well, I only got hit once." Bane insisted on sitting up. "Ow. That's not fun. So whoever struck me also hit our visitor and took him away."
"That's how I read it," Wright agreed. He leaned far over and picked up a bronze statuette of a rearing centaur that had been on a shelf just inside the door.
"Blood on its surface, I don't suppose we need to run a test to identify it."
"No, of course not." Bane smiled thinly at his old friend. "I'm getting up now. My healing factor from the tagra has kicked in."
"Fine." Wright went to help him up but the Dire Wolf rose to his feet as nimbly as any teenager. "Without our enhanced healing, you'd be a total wreck by now, Jeremy."
"Don't I know it," the Dire Wolf said. "I've been shot and stabbed and beat up and dropped off buildings and run over so many times... Anyway, I do have one bit of good news."
Wright went to return the blood pressure cuff. Over one shoulder, he called, "Let me guess. You have a way to find our targets?"
"You bet. I slipped a tracer in the man's pants cuff. If by some unlikely chance he notices it, it looks like some token for a bus or something. The range on those things now is almost two hundred miles." The Dire Wolf allowed a slightly sheepish grin as he held up a battered wallet. "I also liberated this to learn his identity. My plan was to return it without his getting wise."
Standing back, arms folded, Wright regarded his captain somberly. "You know, Jeremy, I would have bet anything that no one could sneak up on you like that. Not brumal, not ninja, not Amraths. Especially when you were all hyped up and alert like you were."
"Yeah, that's been bothering me, too." Bane tentatively explored the bump on the back of his head and found the scalp had already closed up. "I can't explain it. Invisibility, maybe? Someone knows your Veil technique?"
"No, I don't think so," the Blue Guide said. He began to pace a few steps up and down the hall, head lowered. "The Veil only prevents one from being seen. But your hearing is at upper Human levels. Your proximity sense when an object displaces air nearby is also highly developed. You should have been aware of even an invisible man."
"Huh." Bane went over to make sure the outer door was locked and the Trom alarms were on. "Maybe I'm starting to lose my edge. I'm not exactly a teenager anymore, either."
They regarded each other wryly for a second, then Bane snapped his fingers and stepped over to the monitor screen. "We're forgetting the obvious. All visits are recorded." He pulled down the keyboard and tapped a few instructions.
Wright was frowning even more than usual. "Jeremy, look at the counter."
"What? It reads one replay. Well, that can't be right. We didn't watch the video." Bane hit the keys and his voice grew taut. "The counter says three?!"
Standing next to his teammate, Ted Wright took out his Link and set the stopwatch function. "Try again."
"Oh, this is weird. The counter reads four but we still haven't watched the video?" Bane turned those pale grey eyes on his friend. "This is getting creepy."
"More than you realize," Wright said. "The stopwatch reads one minute and eight seconds since you pressed those keys."
III.
The Dire Wolf did not respond for a long moment. Then, evidently reluctant, he started across the hall to the open door of the office. Ted Wright followed in silence. Bane flicked on the subdued overhead lights and went to pull up a chair by the couch.
Since she had taken over as KDF team captain, Sable had made some cosmetic changes to the office. The solid oak desk still sat under the hand-painted map of the world as it had been in 1937, but the aquarium with its bizarre Ulgor sea creatures had been replaced by several hanging plants. The walls had been painted a light pastel blue with ivory trim and the curtains over the tall narrow windows were a thinner material that let more natural light in.
Bane had only taken the seat behind the command desk a few times since he had stepped down as team leader, and that had been in times of urgent crisis. It was Sable's post now. Even when she and her new team were absent, Bane did not feel comfortable about sitting there.
As the Dire Wolf pulled a chair over, Wright lowered himself onto the couch facing him. The Blue Guide said, "Let's coalesce our thoughts. Jeremy, what do you make of all this?"
"It seems crazy, even for the Midnight War," Bane replied. "The best I can figure is that we watched the video replay four times in a row... but we can't remember it."
"That's what I think," Wright said. He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, stroking his short beard. "You were smacked on the back of the head in a way no one should have been able to achieve. The intruder was real, he was solid flesh and blood, probably a Human, but his power made you forget him."
"Worse than that. It's not like I only forgot him after he left," Bane said. "If I had been aware of his arrival, I doubt he would have been able to tag me like that. I figure that he makes people forget about him a split-second after they see him."
"Our first visitor mentioned someone called the Figment."
"It sure fits. You know, Ted, whatever power this Figment has, either he can turn it off or some people have a resistance to it. Otherwise, how could the first guy even know about him?"
"That makes sense," Wright said. "The visitor said he was worried that no one can stop the Figment, and that he was afraid the Figment was going to kill him."
Thumbing through the wallet he had purloined, the Dire Wolf said, "Driver's license to Artie Willard, no middle initial. Born November 14 1968. Address given as 10 Crown Street, Edgewater New Jersey. None of that rings a bell with me."
"If he had a criminal record, our data banks would probably have identified him. We tap into FBI and NYPD files, even Mandate files if necessary. Yet this Willard knew to come here, Jeremy. He specifically recognized you."
Bane jumped up again. His accelerated metabolism left him hyperactive at best. He began moving restlessly around the office. "Someone with the Figment's powers would be able to commit any crime he wanted with no consqeuences. He could rob, kill, whatever, and no one would ever know."
"That's just guesswork but I agree," Wright said. "It's an unsettling thought. Someone hiding with impunity between our memories. Jeremy, we should be following the tracker on our guest. They have not had time to get anywhere like out of range but we should get after them."
"We need a plan to deal with this Figment guy first." Bane spun around and slammed his left fist into his open right palm so quickly and sharply that it made Wright start. "If we meet him the way things are, we don't have a chance. He could slit our throats and we would never know it."
"The anesthetic darts...?" Wright asked without conviction. "The sedative in them will know anyone out for at least an hour. Maybe if we both spray the area as we arrive?"
"No. I don't see how that could work. He could be behind cover or wearing thick protective clothig. Or we could just miss him by chance. But that does give me an idea. You wait here a second, Ted, I'm heading down to the arsenal."
After Bane rushed from the room, Wright sat gazing around the office. He had to smile. Jeremy would never change. The burning energy, the sudden inspirations and the instant enthusiasm... they would always be there even if the Dire Wolf lived to be one hundred years old. Wright felt comforted by the thought.
As he sat musing, the Blue Guide wondered if Bane would regain his memories of encountering the Figment eventually. The Tagra tea diet they both were on, only available to knights of Tel Shai, gave them enhanced healing abilities. They had both survived massive physical trauma without permanent damage. Wright had long suspected that the Tagra healing factor worked on their minds as well. Both of them, as well as their teammates, had faced events so horrifying that normal people would have suffered serious psychological harm. Even a glimpse of things like the Sulla Chun or the Undead reduced most Humans to babbling wrecks that no amount of therapy could heal. Yet he and the others had just shrugged it all off. They didn't even have nightmares.
His reverie was broken off as Bane rushed back into the office with a cardboard box which he emptied onto the coffee table before them. There were four plastic spheres the size of softballs, four small flat devices with graduated dials and two clear film items in separate bags.
Amused, Wright took up one of the film rectangles and held it up over his nose and mouth. Two loops were meant to go over his ears to hold the item in place. "The oxygen membrances," he said. "Man, I haven't used these in years. How is it we never made these available to firefighters and rescue workers?"
"Aw, it's part of our deal with the Trom," Bane admitted. "I don't like it, either. They gave us access to some of their tech. The CORBYs, the Links, the flexible armor. But only for our use when carrying out our mission. We can't reveal the Trom gadgets to normal Humans."
"Too bad," Wright said. "I know they feel Humans have to develop at our own rate but still..."
"That was our agreement with them, Ted. The Trom gave us some of their tech and we sponsored two of them as students at Tel Shai." He carefully took a thin cable from one of the timers and inserted it into a receptor slot on the side of a sphere. "We both benefited."
Bane leaped to his feet again and handed Wright two of the spheres with their timers. "Let's roll, buddy. We can set these up on the way."
IV.
Midnight was only a few minutes away when Wright directed his partner to pull over by the side of the road. They were in the grey Toyota Matrix with Bane driving. Wright sat in the passenger seat ,studying the luminous screen of a flat metal device. They were out in a semi-rural area of New Jersey, where an occasional strip mall or gas station broke up stretches of woods and open fields. The houses visible were large and well-kept.
"What have we got there, Ted?"
Wright held up the monitor. "We are so close to the tracer signal that it has to be coming from this property to our right. Look at that."
The Dire Wolf nodded and turned the engine off. He was still wearing his trademark black uniform of slacks, turtleneck and sport jacket. From behind his left hip, he pulled up a long-barreled Smith & Wesson 38 and examined it closely. "Ted, I want you to hang back and keep an eye on me. More than usual. I'm counting on you to intervene instantly if this Figment starts mauling me."
"I understand." Wright opened his door and stepped out into the warm September night. He had put on the silk-thin Trom armor under his clothes for the first time in months and he was carrying an anesthetic dart gun in a thread-on holster. The Blue Guide seemed unhappy about the entire situation. He reached back into the car and fetched his medical satchel with its assortment of useful items for traumatic injuries and wounds. During his career with the KDF, the Blue Guide had seldom been out of reach of this satchel and he had treated literally every KDF member at more than one time.
As Bane joined him, Wright fiddled with the two spheres clipped to his belt. "Maybe we should use these right at the start."
"I want to get some answers first." The Dire Wolf took off at a sprint through the brush by the side of the driveway. Even at sixty, he moved with an easy effortless stride that was close to being absolutely silent. After a few seconds, he realized that Wright was lagging behind and he slowed his pace.
"No Human lifeforce close by yet," the Blue Guide said in a whisper. "Wait. There by the lights."
"A two car garage," Bane replied, flattening against a birch in the gloom. "How many people do you sense?'
"I'm getting... three. Large healthy males, awake and worked up. One is agitated. I recognize him, he's the man who came to see us." Wright started to move forward quickly. "He's been injured."
Pressing one hand against the Blue Guide's chest, Bane brought his friend to a halt. "Steady. Remember we're dealing with something we've never had to face before. Stay at a distance and, Ted, please be ready to step in."
"All right. I don't like it but I see your reasoning. I've got your back."
Without a further comment, the Dire Wolf rushed off into the darkness. As he neared the garage and saw lights coming from the open door, he dropped and scuttled along on fingers and toes. Close to the ground, he circled the garage. The adjoining house was a two-story structure of redwood planks with lights on only in two ground-floor windows. Bane crept around to the rear of the garage and prepared to sneak a quick glance. Then he heard the man's scream.
There was genuine pain and terror in that scream. Bane was up and diving through the open garage door in a blur of motion. Even as he lunged forward, his left hand thumbed the trigger switches on the globes fastened to his belt. Instantly, his trained perception took in the layout. Bare concrete floor, overhead fluorescent lights, a wooden workbench holding tools including an air compressor.
In the center, with a tarp spread out beneath him, the man who had come to KDF headquarters for help was tied to a sturdy wooden chair. His head hung down, his face had been reduced to soft red pulp and his chest heaved in panic. Standing in front of him was a big beefy man who had stripped to the waist. He wore latex gloves that were dripping blood.
"Stop, stop, I've told you everything," the victim managed to burble through mashed lips.
The man with the bloody gloves guffawed heatily. "Aw, the Figment has already ordered your death. This is for laughs."
A few feet behind the torturer, two more goons watched with flat disinterested stares. They wore dark suits with white dress shirts but no ties. In the split-second during which he took in the situation, Bane classified them with hundreds of other strongarm crooks he had encountered in his career.
The torturer glanced up. He had the briefest impression of someone in black rushing at him, then he was staggering backward with his jaw broken. The other two were just beginning to react. Bane closed in, doubling one thug up with a side kick to the lower stomach and immediately wheeling around to explode a backfist to the final thug's face. Both fell helpless to the concrete floor, gagging and choking.
"You!" said the victim as he peered through eyes which were almost swollen shut. "Run! Get away--"
The man stopped in mid-sentence and his head sagged down again. From the back of the garage came a soft thump. Bane swung around and saw the unconscious form of an elderly man lying face down in one corner. He was wearing a long white topcoat over a tailored charcoal grey suit.
The Dire Wolf stepped closer and assured himself that the old man was out of action. Bane felt uneasy at the thought that he had not been aware of this character until everyone else in the garage had been knocked out. It was better than invisibilty, the Figment's power meant hiding between memories.
With a wry smile, Bane stepped just outside the garage door and waved both arms. In a few seconds, Ted Wright walked briskly into sight. Without a word, he opened his satchel and began working on the unconscious men. Willard first. The prisoner had been brutally beaten and was bleeding heavily from a broken nose. The three thugs had taken serious injuries from Bane's attack but Wright thought it only fair they wait their turn.
As he watched Wright packing Willard's nose with vaseline-coated gauze, Bane went back over to secure the Figment's wrists behind his back with a pair of handcuffs. Seeing a coil of clothesline, Bane cut a length with one of his daggers and made sure the mastermind's ankles were tightly bound. He felt sure the Figment would not recover his senses for at least an hour.
Satisfied that Willard was breathing freely through his open mouth, with head tilted back, Wright went over to check the three goons where they were sprawled. "This man's lower jaw is cracked along its edge," he said unhappily. "I really can't do anything for him here. You ARE going to call 911 and get an ambulance here?"
"Along with the cops," Bane said. "As soon as we're on our way. I figure we should clean Artie Willard up and give him money to head out of town. Even if he was mixed up with this gang, he's been punished."
"Fair enough," said the Blue Guide. "And the Figment will come with us to Tel Shai?"
"That's the best idea I can come up with," Bane admitted. "Cindy has a half-dozen students studying telepathy under her. I think they and the other Teachers will be able to remove the Figment's ability and make him harmless."
"We'll carry Willard and the Figment to the car. If they start to stir, I can put them in a deep sleep by controlling their lifeforce." Wright folded up his satchel with a click. "I can't imagine what kind of explanation these crooks will try to come up with when they wake up surrounded by police and EMTs."
"Well, that's not really our concern, Ted," Bane said. "These are only the small fish we throw back. The main thing is that we saved Willard and captured the Figment."
As Bane knelt to cut Willard free of the cords binding him to the chair, he said "If this is your last mission, it's ending pretty well. No fatalities, the mastermind captured, all tied up in a few hours."
"That trick with the gas grenades always works," Wright sighed. "You set the timers to thirty seconds just before you came in here? And the anesthetic gas filled the garage automatically. Odorless, colorless, fast-acting... I imagine the Figment passed out with even having any idea what was happening."
"We've used that tactic lots of times over the years," Bane said. "I guess now we just have to lug these sleepers down to the car and get them back to 38th Street without seen. We've done that before, too."
"I have to admit something, Jeremy." Ted Wright found Willard's discarded shirt and wrapped it around the battered man. "When we found out we were dealing with someone who plays with memory, my first worry was that somehow he would tamper with our own memories. I was afraid that I might end up not remembering the years with you and our teammates. That bothered me more than the possibility of being killed."
As he had never done before, Bane came over and gave the surprised Wright a full hug. He patted his old friend's back reassuringly. "Honestly, Ted," he said quietly, "I don't believe any power is strong enough to take away our memories. I never knew I wanted an older brother until I met you."
12/21/2017
9/3/2017
I.
The walls of the long narrow walkway were lined with open wooden shelves. Most of these had been filled with luggage, lamps, old televisions, bundles of clothing in clear bags and similar detritus. There were also accordion files crammed with receipts and insurance forms and court documents dating back decades, not likely to be ever needed.
Jeremy Bane picked up the last of four cardboard boxes sealed with duct tape and labelled with marker TED 9/2017. The Dire Wolf stepped back and adjusted the box a fraction of an inch to line it up with the others. At sixty, he remained lean and active, almost gaunt in his trademark uniform of black slacks, turtleneck and sport jacket. The grey was sprinkled more thickly in his short black hair and the narrow feral face had wrinkles at the corners of the grey eyes, but he had not aged much.
Watching from behind him, Ted Wright smiled affectionately. His own short-cropped hair and beard had turned completely white in dramatic contrast to the dark brown skin. Deep vertical creases in his cheeks added to the naturally saturnine cast of his face. Wright was wearing a charcoal-grey suit with a white dress shirt but no tie.
Turning to face his oldest friend, Bane began to say something but hesitated. For once, the grim hard exterior of the Dire Wolf faltered.
Wright said, "It's okay to be a little choked up, Jeremy. I'm struggling with it, myself. This is a big change."
"Well, you ARE seventy-four, Ted." Bane moved over and placed a hand on the Blue Guide's shoulder. "You've been working overnights at the ER and carrying your own diagnostic clinic for what, thirty-seven years? Thirty-eight? If anyone deserves to take it easy, it's you."
"Not to mention all the KDF missions we worked on. I went up against everyone from Quilt to Wu Lung to Karl Eldritch in my time. Frankly, I'm beat. Lately I feel like I'm not bringing my best faculties to my duties. If I start making egregious mistakes... no, it's time to pass my chores to younger hands."
Squeezing Wright's shoulder, Bane led him along the walkway past the massive iron doors of the Vault and the Arsenal. They ascended steep concrete steps that went into a walk-in closet from which they emerged in the front hall of the KDF headquarters.
"Too bad none of the current team is here tonight," Bane said. "But everyone will get a chance to see you Friday at the dinner."
"Oh bother. You know I don't like fuss and ceremony, Jeremy."
"It's not for you, Ted... it's for us. For our benefit. We need to say goodbye."
"Hah! That's what they say about funerals," Wright said. He took a lightweight white topcoat from an oak rack and shrugged into it with a barely perceptible twinge of discomfort as he raised his arms. "I'll be at Tel Shai most of the time. Teacher Kerlaw has two new students studying to be Blue Guides. He wants me to assist him."
Bane took a breath to speak but was interrupted by the familiar ring of the outside bell. Over the door by their side, a red bulb flashed. "Here we go again," he muttered. The Dire Wolf strode over to slide aside a wooden panel. This revealed a monitor screen which lit up automatically to reveal the man standing on the front steps.
"I don't know him," Bane said at once. "Ted?"
"No, but he looks agitated. His gralic flow is tangled."
"If you say so," Bane replied. He pressed a button on the control panel and said, "Come in. We'll be right with you." A buzzer clicked as the outside door unlocked and swung open to allow the visitor entry to the tiny vestibule.
On the side of the monitor screen, yellow-green letters rolled upward as Trom scanners examined the man more thoroughly than any MRI could. NO KNOWN ID, the figures said. BIOLOGICAL AGE FORTY NINE, FIVE FEET NINE, ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY POUNDS, HAIR BLACK, EYES MEDIUM BROWN. HEALED FRACTURE RIGHT FOREARM. Extensive measurements of the man followed, including scans of his dental work and retinal images, EKG and cardio graphs.
But Bane was mostly interested to find that no metallic object larger than a set of keys was on the visitor, no chemical signatures of poison or explosives. "Clean enough," he said.
"Yes, let's admit him," Wright replied. "His heartbeat is dangerously fast. We should hear what he has to say."
Still ready for an attack, the Dire Wolf swung the inner door open and stood to one side as the man rushed in past him.
"Oh thank God," the visitor began but Ted Wright took him by the shoulders and firmly pushed him down to sit in a chair by the coat rack.
"I want you to take a deep breath," the Blue Guide ordered with the doctor's habit of expecting compliance. "Do it. Again. Slower and deeper. Good."
Watching, Bane could not entirely hide a smile. Ted had calmed him down the same way many times when they had first started working together. Bane studied the visitor. Underfed, probably a drinking problem judging by the shaky hands, hair hadn't been cut in two months and the last shave had been a week earlier. The man work unremarkable clothing... work shoes, khaki pants and a red flannel shirt, all worn out.
What struck Bane most, of course, was that the visitor was in a grip of terror that had him visibly shaking.
"You've got to protect me!" yelled the man in shrill tones. "Nothing can stop him. He swore he'd kill me!"
"Who?" demanded Bane.
"The Figment...!"
II.
The Dire Wolf glanced at his friend but Wright's minimal headshake indicated the name mean nothing to him. Wright knelt, took the man's pulse and peered at his eyes. "Anxiety attack. I'm going to get the blood pressure cuff and maybe something to slow that heartbeat. Be right back."
As the Blue Guide rose and strode across the hall to the medical ward, he debated whether to send this man to the ER. Not if the tachycardia got down to normal levels, he decided. Wright trusted his own gralic perception more than he did the perfunctory examination this man was likely to receive at the crowded ER at Metropolitan General.
Wright took the blood pressure cuff down from its brackets on the wall. He looked over the gleaming, brightly lit room with its two regulation hospital beds and many metal cabinets holding supplies and apparatus. So many desperate struggles had he fought here when his friends had been brought in bleeding and battered. None of the KDF members had gotten by without traumatic injuries. He sighed and forced his thoughts to the present.
Two loud crisp thuds sounded from the hallway. Instantly, Wright was moving with single-minded determination through the ward door. He found Bane lying face down just inside the still open inner door. The visitor was gone. The outer door closed with a click as he hurried up to kneel over his friend.
Even as he examined the Dire Wolf, Wright knew instantly that his captain was alive. The flow of lifeforce was as strong and steady as ever. The Blue Guide found a hard round lump rising on the back of Bane's head, with blood where the scalp had been torn. He drew on his full mystic perception and sensed no evidence of serious damage. In fact, even as he swabbed away the blood with a piece of damp gauze, Wright saw Bane mutter and stir.
"Hold still a minute longer," he said. As Bane insisted on trying to rise, Wright pressed down firmly on his back. "Please. Cooperate with me for once, Jeremy. You were struck on the head from behind by something with an edge."
Trying to lie still, the Dire Wolf demanded, "Where's our visitor?"
"Gone. The outer door closed as I approached. I heard two impacts."
"Hmm. Well, I only got hit once." Bane insisted on sitting up. "Ow. That's not fun. So whoever struck me also hit our visitor and took him away."
"That's how I read it," Wright agreed. He leaned far over and picked up a bronze statuette of a rearing centaur that had been on a shelf just inside the door.
"Blood on its surface, I don't suppose we need to run a test to identify it."
"No, of course not." Bane smiled thinly at his old friend. "I'm getting up now. My healing factor from the tagra has kicked in."
"Fine." Wright went to help him up but the Dire Wolf rose to his feet as nimbly as any teenager. "Without our enhanced healing, you'd be a total wreck by now, Jeremy."
"Don't I know it," the Dire Wolf said. "I've been shot and stabbed and beat up and dropped off buildings and run over so many times... Anyway, I do have one bit of good news."
Wright went to return the blood pressure cuff. Over one shoulder, he called, "Let me guess. You have a way to find our targets?"
"You bet. I slipped a tracer in the man's pants cuff. If by some unlikely chance he notices it, it looks like some token for a bus or something. The range on those things now is almost two hundred miles." The Dire Wolf allowed a slightly sheepish grin as he held up a battered wallet. "I also liberated this to learn his identity. My plan was to return it without his getting wise."
Standing back, arms folded, Wright regarded his captain somberly. "You know, Jeremy, I would have bet anything that no one could sneak up on you like that. Not brumal, not ninja, not Amraths. Especially when you were all hyped up and alert like you were."
"Yeah, that's been bothering me, too." Bane tentatively explored the bump on the back of his head and found the scalp had already closed up. "I can't explain it. Invisibility, maybe? Someone knows your Veil technique?"
"No, I don't think so," the Blue Guide said. He began to pace a few steps up and down the hall, head lowered. "The Veil only prevents one from being seen. But your hearing is at upper Human levels. Your proximity sense when an object displaces air nearby is also highly developed. You should have been aware of even an invisible man."
"Huh." Bane went over to make sure the outer door was locked and the Trom alarms were on. "Maybe I'm starting to lose my edge. I'm not exactly a teenager anymore, either."
They regarded each other wryly for a second, then Bane snapped his fingers and stepped over to the monitor screen. "We're forgetting the obvious. All visits are recorded." He pulled down the keyboard and tapped a few instructions.
Wright was frowning even more than usual. "Jeremy, look at the counter."
"What? It reads one replay. Well, that can't be right. We didn't watch the video." Bane hit the keys and his voice grew taut. "The counter says three?!"
Standing next to his teammate, Ted Wright took out his Link and set the stopwatch function. "Try again."
"Oh, this is weird. The counter reads four but we still haven't watched the video?" Bane turned those pale grey eyes on his friend. "This is getting creepy."
"More than you realize," Wright said. "The stopwatch reads one minute and eight seconds since you pressed those keys."
III.
The Dire Wolf did not respond for a long moment. Then, evidently reluctant, he started across the hall to the open door of the office. Ted Wright followed in silence. Bane flicked on the subdued overhead lights and went to pull up a chair by the couch.
Since she had taken over as KDF team captain, Sable had made some cosmetic changes to the office. The solid oak desk still sat under the hand-painted map of the world as it had been in 1937, but the aquarium with its bizarre Ulgor sea creatures had been replaced by several hanging plants. The walls had been painted a light pastel blue with ivory trim and the curtains over the tall narrow windows were a thinner material that let more natural light in.
Bane had only taken the seat behind the command desk a few times since he had stepped down as team leader, and that had been in times of urgent crisis. It was Sable's post now. Even when she and her new team were absent, Bane did not feel comfortable about sitting there.
As the Dire Wolf pulled a chair over, Wright lowered himself onto the couch facing him. The Blue Guide said, "Let's coalesce our thoughts. Jeremy, what do you make of all this?"
"It seems crazy, even for the Midnight War," Bane replied. "The best I can figure is that we watched the video replay four times in a row... but we can't remember it."
"That's what I think," Wright said. He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, stroking his short beard. "You were smacked on the back of the head in a way no one should have been able to achieve. The intruder was real, he was solid flesh and blood, probably a Human, but his power made you forget him."
"Worse than that. It's not like I only forgot him after he left," Bane said. "If I had been aware of his arrival, I doubt he would have been able to tag me like that. I figure that he makes people forget about him a split-second after they see him."
"Our first visitor mentioned someone called the Figment."
"It sure fits. You know, Ted, whatever power this Figment has, either he can turn it off or some people have a resistance to it. Otherwise, how could the first guy even know about him?"
"That makes sense," Wright said. "The visitor said he was worried that no one can stop the Figment, and that he was afraid the Figment was going to kill him."
Thumbing through the wallet he had purloined, the Dire Wolf said, "Driver's license to Artie Willard, no middle initial. Born November 14 1968. Address given as 10 Crown Street, Edgewater New Jersey. None of that rings a bell with me."
"If he had a criminal record, our data banks would probably have identified him. We tap into FBI and NYPD files, even Mandate files if necessary. Yet this Willard knew to come here, Jeremy. He specifically recognized you."
Bane jumped up again. His accelerated metabolism left him hyperactive at best. He began moving restlessly around the office. "Someone with the Figment's powers would be able to commit any crime he wanted with no consqeuences. He could rob, kill, whatever, and no one would ever know."
"That's just guesswork but I agree," Wright said. "It's an unsettling thought. Someone hiding with impunity between our memories. Jeremy, we should be following the tracker on our guest. They have not had time to get anywhere like out of range but we should get after them."
"We need a plan to deal with this Figment guy first." Bane spun around and slammed his left fist into his open right palm so quickly and sharply that it made Wright start. "If we meet him the way things are, we don't have a chance. He could slit our throats and we would never know it."
"The anesthetic darts...?" Wright asked without conviction. "The sedative in them will know anyone out for at least an hour. Maybe if we both spray the area as we arrive?"
"No. I don't see how that could work. He could be behind cover or wearing thick protective clothig. Or we could just miss him by chance. But that does give me an idea. You wait here a second, Ted, I'm heading down to the arsenal."
After Bane rushed from the room, Wright sat gazing around the office. He had to smile. Jeremy would never change. The burning energy, the sudden inspirations and the instant enthusiasm... they would always be there even if the Dire Wolf lived to be one hundred years old. Wright felt comforted by the thought.
As he sat musing, the Blue Guide wondered if Bane would regain his memories of encountering the Figment eventually. The Tagra tea diet they both were on, only available to knights of Tel Shai, gave them enhanced healing abilities. They had both survived massive physical trauma without permanent damage. Wright had long suspected that the Tagra healing factor worked on their minds as well. Both of them, as well as their teammates, had faced events so horrifying that normal people would have suffered serious psychological harm. Even a glimpse of things like the Sulla Chun or the Undead reduced most Humans to babbling wrecks that no amount of therapy could heal. Yet he and the others had just shrugged it all off. They didn't even have nightmares.
His reverie was broken off as Bane rushed back into the office with a cardboard box which he emptied onto the coffee table before them. There were four plastic spheres the size of softballs, four small flat devices with graduated dials and two clear film items in separate bags.
Amused, Wright took up one of the film rectangles and held it up over his nose and mouth. Two loops were meant to go over his ears to hold the item in place. "The oxygen membrances," he said. "Man, I haven't used these in years. How is it we never made these available to firefighters and rescue workers?"
"Aw, it's part of our deal with the Trom," Bane admitted. "I don't like it, either. They gave us access to some of their tech. The CORBYs, the Links, the flexible armor. But only for our use when carrying out our mission. We can't reveal the Trom gadgets to normal Humans."
"Too bad," Wright said. "I know they feel Humans have to develop at our own rate but still..."
"That was our agreement with them, Ted. The Trom gave us some of their tech and we sponsored two of them as students at Tel Shai." He carefully took a thin cable from one of the timers and inserted it into a receptor slot on the side of a sphere. "We both benefited."
Bane leaped to his feet again and handed Wright two of the spheres with their timers. "Let's roll, buddy. We can set these up on the way."
IV.
Midnight was only a few minutes away when Wright directed his partner to pull over by the side of the road. They were in the grey Toyota Matrix with Bane driving. Wright sat in the passenger seat ,studying the luminous screen of a flat metal device. They were out in a semi-rural area of New Jersey, where an occasional strip mall or gas station broke up stretches of woods and open fields. The houses visible were large and well-kept.
"What have we got there, Ted?"
Wright held up the monitor. "We are so close to the tracer signal that it has to be coming from this property to our right. Look at that."
The Dire Wolf nodded and turned the engine off. He was still wearing his trademark black uniform of slacks, turtleneck and sport jacket. From behind his left hip, he pulled up a long-barreled Smith & Wesson 38 and examined it closely. "Ted, I want you to hang back and keep an eye on me. More than usual. I'm counting on you to intervene instantly if this Figment starts mauling me."
"I understand." Wright opened his door and stepped out into the warm September night. He had put on the silk-thin Trom armor under his clothes for the first time in months and he was carrying an anesthetic dart gun in a thread-on holster. The Blue Guide seemed unhappy about the entire situation. He reached back into the car and fetched his medical satchel with its assortment of useful items for traumatic injuries and wounds. During his career with the KDF, the Blue Guide had seldom been out of reach of this satchel and he had treated literally every KDF member at more than one time.
As Bane joined him, Wright fiddled with the two spheres clipped to his belt. "Maybe we should use these right at the start."
"I want to get some answers first." The Dire Wolf took off at a sprint through the brush by the side of the driveway. Even at sixty, he moved with an easy effortless stride that was close to being absolutely silent. After a few seconds, he realized that Wright was lagging behind and he slowed his pace.
"No Human lifeforce close by yet," the Blue Guide said in a whisper. "Wait. There by the lights."
"A two car garage," Bane replied, flattening against a birch in the gloom. "How many people do you sense?'
"I'm getting... three. Large healthy males, awake and worked up. One is agitated. I recognize him, he's the man who came to see us." Wright started to move forward quickly. "He's been injured."
Pressing one hand against the Blue Guide's chest, Bane brought his friend to a halt. "Steady. Remember we're dealing with something we've never had to face before. Stay at a distance and, Ted, please be ready to step in."
"All right. I don't like it but I see your reasoning. I've got your back."
Without a further comment, the Dire Wolf rushed off into the darkness. As he neared the garage and saw lights coming from the open door, he dropped and scuttled along on fingers and toes. Close to the ground, he circled the garage. The adjoining house was a two-story structure of redwood planks with lights on only in two ground-floor windows. Bane crept around to the rear of the garage and prepared to sneak a quick glance. Then he heard the man's scream.
There was genuine pain and terror in that scream. Bane was up and diving through the open garage door in a blur of motion. Even as he lunged forward, his left hand thumbed the trigger switches on the globes fastened to his belt. Instantly, his trained perception took in the layout. Bare concrete floor, overhead fluorescent lights, a wooden workbench holding tools including an air compressor.
In the center, with a tarp spread out beneath him, the man who had come to KDF headquarters for help was tied to a sturdy wooden chair. His head hung down, his face had been reduced to soft red pulp and his chest heaved in panic. Standing in front of him was a big beefy man who had stripped to the waist. He wore latex gloves that were dripping blood.
"Stop, stop, I've told you everything," the victim managed to burble through mashed lips.
The man with the bloody gloves guffawed heatily. "Aw, the Figment has already ordered your death. This is for laughs."
A few feet behind the torturer, two more goons watched with flat disinterested stares. They wore dark suits with white dress shirts but no ties. In the split-second during which he took in the situation, Bane classified them with hundreds of other strongarm crooks he had encountered in his career.
The torturer glanced up. He had the briefest impression of someone in black rushing at him, then he was staggering backward with his jaw broken. The other two were just beginning to react. Bane closed in, doubling one thug up with a side kick to the lower stomach and immediately wheeling around to explode a backfist to the final thug's face. Both fell helpless to the concrete floor, gagging and choking.
"You!" said the victim as he peered through eyes which were almost swollen shut. "Run! Get away--"
The man stopped in mid-sentence and his head sagged down again. From the back of the garage came a soft thump. Bane swung around and saw the unconscious form of an elderly man lying face down in one corner. He was wearing a long white topcoat over a tailored charcoal grey suit.
The Dire Wolf stepped closer and assured himself that the old man was out of action. Bane felt uneasy at the thought that he had not been aware of this character until everyone else in the garage had been knocked out. It was better than invisibilty, the Figment's power meant hiding between memories.
With a wry smile, Bane stepped just outside the garage door and waved both arms. In a few seconds, Ted Wright walked briskly into sight. Without a word, he opened his satchel and began working on the unconscious men. Willard first. The prisoner had been brutally beaten and was bleeding heavily from a broken nose. The three thugs had taken serious injuries from Bane's attack but Wright thought it only fair they wait their turn.
As he watched Wright packing Willard's nose with vaseline-coated gauze, Bane went back over to secure the Figment's wrists behind his back with a pair of handcuffs. Seeing a coil of clothesline, Bane cut a length with one of his daggers and made sure the mastermind's ankles were tightly bound. He felt sure the Figment would not recover his senses for at least an hour.
Satisfied that Willard was breathing freely through his open mouth, with head tilted back, Wright went over to check the three goons where they were sprawled. "This man's lower jaw is cracked along its edge," he said unhappily. "I really can't do anything for him here. You ARE going to call 911 and get an ambulance here?"
"Along with the cops," Bane said. "As soon as we're on our way. I figure we should clean Artie Willard up and give him money to head out of town. Even if he was mixed up with this gang, he's been punished."
"Fair enough," said the Blue Guide. "And the Figment will come with us to Tel Shai?"
"That's the best idea I can come up with," Bane admitted. "Cindy has a half-dozen students studying telepathy under her. I think they and the other Teachers will be able to remove the Figment's ability and make him harmless."
"We'll carry Willard and the Figment to the car. If they start to stir, I can put them in a deep sleep by controlling their lifeforce." Wright folded up his satchel with a click. "I can't imagine what kind of explanation these crooks will try to come up with when they wake up surrounded by police and EMTs."
"Well, that's not really our concern, Ted," Bane said. "These are only the small fish we throw back. The main thing is that we saved Willard and captured the Figment."
As Bane knelt to cut Willard free of the cords binding him to the chair, he said "If this is your last mission, it's ending pretty well. No fatalities, the mastermind captured, all tied up in a few hours."
"That trick with the gas grenades always works," Wright sighed. "You set the timers to thirty seconds just before you came in here? And the anesthetic gas filled the garage automatically. Odorless, colorless, fast-acting... I imagine the Figment passed out with even having any idea what was happening."
"We've used that tactic lots of times over the years," Bane said. "I guess now we just have to lug these sleepers down to the car and get them back to 38th Street without seen. We've done that before, too."
"I have to admit something, Jeremy." Ted Wright found Willard's discarded shirt and wrapped it around the battered man. "When we found out we were dealing with someone who plays with memory, my first worry was that somehow he would tamper with our own memories. I was afraid that I might end up not remembering the years with you and our teammates. That bothered me more than the possibility of being killed."
As he had never done before, Bane came over and gave the surprised Wright a full hug. He patted his old friend's back reassuringly. "Honestly, Ted," he said quietly, "I don't believe any power is strong enough to take away our memories. I never knew I wanted an older brother until I met you."
12/21/2017
