Harold, currently seated in the back of his car, unnerved Dyna. He wasn’t doing anything. He wasn’t struggling with his zip ties or trying to twist his arms out from behind his back. He just sat there, staring through his small round glasses. Every time Dyna glanced up into the rear-view mirror, she met his eyes.

It made her feel guilty. Dyna couldn’t quite explain why. He was the bad guy here. She had even texted Emerald about her plan to take this guy to the arcade and had gotten approval in the form of a code to get into the front door; Dyna hadn’t even considered that she would need a code to get in.

Removing him from the danger of the diner, the employees that were potentially planning on killing him and the sniper on the roof, was the right decision.

His stare still made her squirm. It wasn’t even a glare.

Dyna checked her mirror. It was back to its normal reflective state. No dark lenses or other perspectives. Driving through the streets of Idaho Falls was going well. No sign of anyone following her. Dyna was willing to admit that she didn’t know exactly what to look for, but she was taking random turns and checking the cars behind her every time.

Unfortunately, that meant looking in the rear-view mirror.

“Why did you do it?” Dyna asked before checking the mirror. She couldn’t stop herself. It wasn’t that she was afraid of silence. She just wanted him to stop staring. At least blink once in a while. “You were handing off an artifact, weren’t you?”

If she had misunderstood the situation, things were about to get a whole lot more awkward than they already were.

Harold didn’t respond. When Dyna glanced up to the mirror to check behind her, she found him still just staring.

“They tried to kill you, you know? I fired the gun that startled you, but that was to stop them from shooting you first. You know what my mirror does, right? I saw them taking aim at you through a scope.”

“Am I supposed to offer a deep debt of gratitude?” he said, voice low and smooth. “You aren’t even telling the truth. All the tests on your mirror come back with no detected anomalous properties.”

Dyna blinked. He responded. That was… good. Progress?

“I mean, I doubt you’re very happy right now, but they really did try to kill you. Ruby was there as well. She… didn’t see, exactly, but…” Dyna shook her head, deciding to just ignore the topic of her mirror. It worked. She knew it did. It just only worked under very specific situations. “Honestly, what did you expect? How do you even decide to betray a psychic institution? Someone was bound to find out sooner or later.”

“Later shouldn’t have mattered. I wasn’t going back. I was in far too deep for that. After verifying the authenticity of the artifact…” He trailed off. A glance in the mirror showed him finally breaking with that stare in order to glance downward with a scowl on his face.

“You planned on them shooting you?”

“Of course not,” he snapped. “They were… I was supposed to be the head of my own department.”

“Based on what I saw, they didn’t want you to have a head at all.”

Harold snapped his gaze back up. Dyna caught the glare in the corner of her eyes. “Funny.”

Dyna shrugged. “So that’s it? Envious of Doctor Cross, so you—”

“Cross?” Harold said, tone smooth and calm. Even soothing. “The man is a menace. I’ve been working with him for five years and he can’t even remember my name. I’m not even sure if he realizes that he’s had the same assistant his entire time here. Nobody likes him. Everyone who interacts with him does so under protest. Anyone who claims to hold him in deep regard is lying through their teeth. His picture would be next to the idiom dictionary for being unable to see past your own nose.”

Dyna sighed. She didn’t doubt that Cross wasn’t the best coworker around—he had called her Delta more than once to her face instead of Dyna—but… it seemed so petty. Perhaps movies had given her some false expectations, but she expected something a little more grandiose as a motive. Or at least huge piles of money. But the opportunity to be the head of his own department, seemingly just because he couldn’t stand working under Doctor Cross?

She shook her head. What a sad reason.

“Don’t believe me?” Harold said, apparently taking her sigh and shake of her head in a different light. “Just look at the deep trouble you’ve gotten yourself into. It’s not going to stop here. Arresting me isn’t going to help. You’ll wind up deeper and deeper in trouble. All because he couldn’t think beyond his own ideas.”

That had Dyna narrowing her eyes. “Wasn’t that you?”

“Me? I didn’t drag you down to the deeper depths of Psychodynamics with promises of power.”

“You sold me out to whoever you’re dealing with. Id and her ilk. Walter told me there was a communications error that led to my identity leaking to them.”

Harold shook his head. “You’ve got the wrong person then. I’m not trying to hurt people.” He slumped, letting out a long sigh. “I just wanted my ideas to not be contemptuously swiped off the top of a desk and into the trash.”

Dyna, stopped for a moment at a stop sign, took the time to really look over him in the rear-view mirror. He… didn’t look or sound like he was lying. She was hardly an expert on body language or detecting subterfuge, but lying here didn’t make much sense. Why admit that he was trying to jump ship away from the Carroll Institute but not that he turned her over.

“There’s other spies? Who?”

“How should I know? It’s not like we sit around the water cooler discussing what deep state organization is going to buy secrets.”

“You didn’t have a contact or handler or some other spy-word for person that tells you what to do?”

Harold scoffed. “I had a phone number and a coded phrase book. An old woman answered the phone whenever I called and pretended to be my grandmother.”

“Is that how spies operate? Aren’t you supposed to listen to coded radio stations that have been continuously operating since the fifties?”

“I’m not a spy. I’m just a… deeply disgruntled research associate,” he said with a sigh.

Dyna flicked her eyes up to the mirror again. Harold was still staring down at his lap. He looked… pitiful? She tried not to see him that way, but it wasn’t easy. It helped knowing—or at least believing—that he wasn’t the one to have sold her out. Someone else had done that.

She still had the problem of a traitor.

None of the other researchers really stood out to her. Doctor Cross was the exception, but she doubted that he was going to sell her out. She had been his project and, while Walter had said that he would be taking over, he hadn’t actually done much. Dyna still met with Doctor Cross nearly every day to do what he wanted, whether that be analysis of her compact mirror or to perform a scan of her brain. Not to mention, she had apparently been sold out the very first day, well before Walter might have instigated certain protocols with regard to her safety.

Of course, the Carroll Institute was a large place. It could have been some custodial staff that she had passed in the hall without even thinking twice about. Or maybe another of the initiates had put two and two together to somehow connect Dyna to the psionic cascade she had caused during the first test with Walter. There were a thousand possibilities. Maybe more.

Firming her grip on the steering wheel, Dyna decided that it didn’t matter. At least not at this point in time. It was a topic to bring up with Walter and Cross, but for now, she had this traitor to watch out for.

“I’m surprised you’re admitting everything,” Dyna said as they continued through the streets. She hadn’t paid perfect attention to the arcade’s location during her previous visit. It had been a bit of a hectic day, after all. But she thought she knew roughly where it was. “Claiming mind control might have worked for you given that the two men down in containment were almost certainly controlled.”

Harold shook his head. “The Carroll Institute has ways of detecting mental influence. Surface level or deeper and deeper inside. They’ll run the tests anyway, but I’m almost positive that I’m acting of my own free will.”

“They do?” Dyna glanced up, narrowing her eyes. “Then why didn’t the tests find anything wrong with me?”

Harold looked up. “Oh? Something wrong with your head, Dyna?”

“I—” Dyna’s jaw clamped shut as she pulled up to a stop light. Should she say anything? He might be acting friendly and explaining a lot, but…

Something about the situation set off a few alarm bells in Dyna’s mind. Why was he calmly explaining his reasoning. Especially after that long silence. Then he just started talking?

“Strange that it didn’t come up in the tests. Perhaps we just needed to look deeper… and deeper… and relax in that place far, far below… now.”

Dyna blinked.

Dyna blinked again.

Hypnotism? He was trying to hypnotize her? A few weeks ago, Dyna would have laughed at the idea that he could hypnotize anyone. Hypnosis had been a gimmick. A county fair act. A show for entertainment. But now? After having walked through the small home within her mind, she knew it was real. Perhaps those fairground shows were still fake, but Harold’s brand of hypnosis worked. He had been the one to put her under hypnosis before. That was how she found out about her faulty memories that started this whole mess.

And now, even as the light turned green, Dyna didn’t move her foot from the brakes. She wanted to. They needed to continue on to the arcade.

The muscles in her shoulders unwound. All the tension felt so far away. Dyna couldn’t remember a time where she had been more relaxed. The last day alone had been a nightmare. From the scare with Emerald showing up in her dormitory room to Ruby convincing her to run about in the Psychodynamics office complex, from discovering a possible spy to having to draw her gun and fire it, even if she hadn’t aimed at a person. Every bit of that had been building up without ever being released.

Until now.

“Moving your foot to the accelerator would just bring all that back. You don’t want that. Close your eyes and picture an ocean. Deep and blue, filled with gently swimming fish, drifting about in the deeper parts of the water and… reach into your jacket and take out your gun.”

Dyna blinked and stared down at the gun in her hands. Harold moved and rustled about in the back seat of the car, trying to get his hands out from behind his back by looping them underneath his legs. The confined space of the car didn’t make it easy for him.

“You might not comprehend my voice on a conscious level at this point. Deeper in your mind, you might understand. I don’t want to hurt people. But I can’t let myself be taken back to the institute. They are not kind people. I doubt I would come out with my mind intact. I’d rather give myself a lobotomy at that point.”

Harold removed the weight of the gun from her hands. A heavy weight off her shoulders.

“Step out of the car and… stand over on the sidewalk. Find a place you can relax and fall even deeper and deeper into that ocean… now.”

Dyna blinked and blinked again.

Cold November air gnawed at her cheeks and bit her nose. A lightning bolt of adrenaline pierced her heart and fried her brain as a bright white light flashed between her eyes. Dyna jumped back only to hit something hard and rough. One hand felt the bumpy brick of a building while she tried to block out the light with her other hand.

“Easy, easy,” a heavy voice said as the bright light lowered away from her face. A built silhouette, illuminated by flashing red and blue lights coming from a car behind him, stood in front of Dyna. “Can you tell me who you are?”

“What?” Dyna turned her head left and right, trying to spot where she was. The building she was up against was some kind of fuel station that had clearly seen better days. A few poorly implemented charging stations for electric vehicles out front looked more like a shock hazard than anything that would charge a car.

“This is Olivaw, the 8025 might be drugged. I spoke with the man who called it in. Says our woman stumbled out of a car that quickly drove off and then just stood there. She’s barely responsive.”

Dyna wasn’t sure what was going on. She had just been driving with… someone. Someone important. It felt like something she should remember easily simply because of how important it had been, but she couldn’t.

Which was a problem.

While Dyna couldn’t quite remember what she had been doing, she could remember that someone had messed with her memories. And now it had happened again. Far more obviously this time. She hadn’t noticed the other times her memory had been changed, but this one…

It probably wasn’t the same person. This was too sloppy.

With the light no longer shining directly into her eyes, Dyna’s hands roamed over her pockets. Her phone was there. So was the small circular feel of her mirror in her front pocket. But under her arm, she felt something mildly familiar. It didn’t let her put her arm flat against her side.

A gun. Or the holster for it. Guns were heavy. A lot heavier than they looked in movies. And right now, she could tell by weight alone that the holster had nothing in it.

Why did she have a gun on her?

Ruby. They had been out here following…

Harold. The traitor to the Carroll Institute.

Dyna pieced her memories back together quickly from there. The stake out at the Thai restaurant, seeing someone about to shoot him so Dyna shot first, finding him in the bathroom with Emerald’s help, then driving him away, trying to take him to a safe house. Something had happened on the way to the safe house. That bit, she was having trouble thinking about with any clarity. They had talked, she remembered that much. He said something about being disgruntled with Doctor Cross…

The specifics eluded her. The more she tried to remember them, the more a mild pain thumped just behind her right eyebrow.

“Where am I?”

“The corner of Clark and Cliff,” the officer said after a moment.

Street names, presumably. They meant nothing to Dyna. She didn’t know her way around Idaho Falls all that well and certainly didn’t know the names of most streets.

“Ma’am, dispatch is instructing me to escort you to the hospital. We can take a statement and—”

“No. I’m fine. I just… need to make a phone call.” She started for her phone, only for the officer to tense and take a step forward. Which, in turn, made Dyna freeze.

“I’m going to insist you keep your hands where I can see them. There have been multiple disturbances tonight involving a woman matching your description.”

Dyna winced. That… was completely understandable. If their positions were reversed, Dyna certainly wouldn’t want a potential crazed gunman to reach into any pockets. “Am I under arrest?”

“Not yet. Please come with me and we’ll get everything straightened out.”

Although she wanted to argue, Dyna held her tongue. Nothing she could say would make the situation any better. If she wound up searched, he would find the holster and would certainly arrest her at that point. She was a little surprised that he hadn’t decided to search her already, but then again, she didn’t know police protocols.

She needed to contact Emerald and Ruby. Maybe it wasn’t too late to catch Harold and figure out what he had done to her mind. But…

If she ignored the officer and went for her pockets, she could easily see herself winding up going to the hospital for entirely different reasons. Namely, because she would have a hole in her chest. Possibly multiple. Police shootings had been on the downturn since the accountability reform, but they were still perfectly able to use lethal force in certain situations.

Situations like the one she was in right now.

Nodding her head, hoping she would find an opportunity to at least send off a quick text, Dyna decided to go with him. If she did wind up arrested, she could only hope that the Carroll Institute might help out.

Though it was a very real possibility that they wouldn’t. Unlike last time, her life hadn’t been in danger. She had followed after some random facility member and then shot a gun in his general direction. Ruby had been there and Emerald had shown up. The latter seemed perfectly fine with capturing Harold despite Dyna having not had even a second to explain the situation. They were some kind of spies. Having them vouch for her would help… probably.

Following the officer to his marked police cruiser, Dyna started to feel a weight in her chest. A condemned woman walking toward the gallows. The institute would help her out. The more she thought about it, the more that had to be true. If only because she was an artificer that they didn’t want falling into the wrong hands.

They probably wouldn’t be happy.

He opened the door for her. The passenger-side door, not the backseat door. That felt like a good sign. She didn’t have handcuffs on and hadn’t been read her rights. So she was probably not even under arrest. Which might mean that the institute wouldn’t need to help her out.

One could hope.

The car’s interior had a large computer set up between the seats, slightly angled toward the driver seat. Most of the screen was just a map of the city, though there was scrolling text and faint chatter that was probably the police station dispatch set to low volume. There were a lot of buttons around as well—aside from those attached to the computer—that presumably controlled the lights, siren, and whatever else needed controlling in a police car.

Dyna paid them little mind. As soon as her door shut and the officer started walking around the car to the driver side, she pulled her mirror and her phone out of her pockets. She wasn’t quite sure what she would do if she saw something while driving or at the hospital, but having some advance warning about anyone watching her would let her plan.

Unfortunately, Dyna had to report her failure. She didn’t know where Harold was. She didn’t even know where she was. All she could tell Emerald was that she was alright and that Harold had gotten away. Perhaps she would be able to track him down. Maybe Beatrice could help.

For the time being, Dyna slumped back into the car seat and flipped open her mirror.

Dyna let out a hiss, twisting in her seat to meet the pale gray eyes of a man seated in the shadows of the rear seat. A man with machinery attached to the side of his head. Dark metal fused with the skin around his right eye and cheek before wrapping back around his skull. Two thick black cables emerged from the circuit board-like attachment, both disappearing somewhere beneath the high collar of his brown suit. One faint red light blinked in the dark where his ear should have been.

“Good evening, Dyna Graves,” he said, voice barely louder than a whisper. “Do not be alarmed. I work for an acquaintance of yours.”

Dyna narrowed her eyes. So far, not a single person’s perspective had appeared on her mirror who hadn’t intended someone harm. Either Dyna herself, Emerald, or Harold.

The police officer entered the car, moving to sit down like nothing was wrong at all.

“You’ve got to—” Dyna started, only to cut herself off.

The officer didn’t even glance toward her. His eyes stayed straight ahead as he buckled his seat belt. As soon as that was done, he placed both hands on the wheel.

“Drive,” the machine-faced man said.

The officer moved a hand, stiff and awkwardly, to shift the car out of park.

Dyna turned away, twisting in her seat to the door. She pulled the handle and shoved her shoulder into it. It didn’t budge. She could feel the lack of any mechanism in the door when pulling the handle. Soon enough, the chance to escape vanished unless she wanted to fling herself from a moving vehicle.

“Let me go.”

“In time,” the man in the back seat whispered. “First, we need to have a small chat.”