“How is Ruby?”

Dyna looked over to the sole bed in their cheap motel. Sitting atop the quilted faded floral covers, Ruby laid on her back with her hands pressed against her eyes. Her face wasn’t quite back to normal yet, but it was at least bearable to look at. She mumbled something under her breath over and over again.

Leaning a little closer, Dyna frowned.

“I’m not going to kill him. That would fail the mission. I’m not going to kill him. That would fail the mission. I’m not going—”

“Walter’s asking how you are.”

“I’m going to rip out his eyes and shove them so far up his—”

“She’s fine,” Dyna said, moving over to the window of their room. She didn’t stand directly in front of it, but rather off to the side. Using a single finger, she carefully slid the curtains aside just enough to peek out at the vacant parking lot. “I’m sure she’ll be up and about in no time.”

No sign of being followed, not that she really expected that. Matt had been running, not chasing after them. In fact, if her mirror lenses went dark again, that would actually be a good thing. She might be able to figure out where he had gone.

Where would he have gone? One of the other abandoned homes? Casper was surrounded by basically nothing. Lots of trees, the mountain… Did he have wilderness survival skills?

“Good,” Walter said. “While you were moving Ruby back to the motel, I got into contact with both Behavioral Analytics and the Personnel Location Program. The latter group are attempting to track him down, but it might take some time. Especially if he doesn’t settle in one spot.”

“How long does he have to stay still for the Locators to find him? If he takes a nap…”

“It depends on the Locator in question. We have four precognitives and four clairvoyants in the program. One can only see locations that someone considers home, one precog needs a relatively recent photograph to function. Those two are unlikely to provide actionable intelligence. As for the others? I’ll keep you informed.”

“Thanks,” Dyna said, hoping her scowl wasn’t audible. She wished she would have known about the photograph thing before. Not that there had really been an opportunity to take a picture.

“As for the Behavioral Analytics Laboratory, they suggest that Matthew is paranoid and fearful, likely—”

“I could have told you that. No laboratory required. Besides being armed, that place was filled with traps. While waiting for Ruby to heal enough to move her, I spotted no less than eight different trip wires and while dragging her out of there, I noticed something that had probably been destroyed during her initial breaching shots. And that’s without exploring further than the entryway. I wasn’t exactly interested in walking around a booby-trapped house with Ruby down.”

“Wise. But I was going to say that someone like that likely has other places set up similarly. Areas and hideouts that he has prepared in advance where he can feel safe. The sheer number of abandoned areas in the city provide plentiful locations for him to fall back to. It is doubtful that he has left Casper. He won’t want to be out of his familiar territory.”

“That’s… good,” Dyna said, closing her eyes. “Sorry for snapping. I’m just… frustrated.”

“Given the situation, I would be surprised if you weren’t. But try to avoid letting that dictate your actions. You’ll make more mistakes, increasing frustration which will lead to more mistakes.”

“Easier said than done,” Dyna mumbled away from the phone.

Walter let out an amused hum. Apparently he still heard, but he didn’t comment on it. “There is lower confidence in the following because of limited information and personality modeling data, but Behavioral Analytics also suggests that, should you encounter Matthew again, he may be less hostile and more open to conversation now that he is more certain that you are not the subject of his fears.”

“The Hatman.”

“Unfortunately, we still have next to no data on who or what this so called Hatman actually is.”

“Matt has to know something. Or at least, he remembered the same thing I did. Or maybe it came after him and he managed to get away.”

“All just theories until we actually make contact. There’s…” Walter trailed off as a mumbled voice started talking in the background. Beatrice, probably. “I’ve got to attend to a few matters. I hope I have more actionable information later on. For now, stay put until Ruby fully recovers. And take care. It has only happened twice before, but loosing her head tends to make Ruby… irritable.”

Dyna glanced over just in time to hear Ruby mumble again.

“I’ll shave his teeth with a rusty disposable razor…”

Dyna groaned. “Hope I can keep her out of trouble.”

Walter chuckled and, without a single other word, disconnected the call.

With a long sigh, Dyna slipped the phone back into her pocket. She trudged around to the other side of the bed and slumped down onto it. The mirror in her other hand reflected her own glum face. Dark smudges marred her right cheek. A few red marks poked through the smudges that had come from slivers she hadn’t even noticed getting. It was probably lucky that she didn’t have worse injuries.

Ruby could survive a buckshot pellet to the brain. Dyna couldn’t. Just one of those things flying through the wall would have made this moment impossible.

She had been so… useless. Ruby could survive having her head crushed to a pulp. Emerald would have been able to waltz past all the traps and disarm Matt without any real danger. Dyna wasn’t exactly sure about the extent of Sapphire’s powers and, based on how he acted, she would never want his abilities, but at the very least, he could float. He could have chased after Matt without triggering traps and would have caught up to him quickly. Alexanderite…

Actually, Dyna wasn’t sure what Alexanderite did. Was it the singing? Or did he just like to sing as an aside?

Whatever it was, he probably could have solved at least some aspect of the situation far better than Dyna had.

And what did she have? Nothing. She was a glorified clairvoyant.

Actually, glorified implied at least a little superior. There were probably a dozen clairvoyants running around the Carroll Institute that could do what she did without having to carry around a dumb mirror everywhere they went.

Dyna had something now. And that something was something. She should be grateful. She was grateful. But it just wasn’t enough. Her peers so drastically outclassed her that it was hard to believe that she was somehow in the same league as them.

Something cold pressed up against Dyna’s cheek. She jumped out of bed, gun snapping from her holster to…

The amused face of Ruby. Her eyes were bloodshot, making them look even redder than normal. But aside from that, she looked fine. Normal. Nobody would be able to tell that a bowling ball had slammed into her head then crushed it into the ground.

Her regeneration was just too good.

Dyna flicked the safety on and slid the gun back into her holster. “Did you have to do that?”

“You weren’t listening to me.”

“I was attempting to tune out your mutterings and depictions of torture. Muttered depictions of torture. Are you all fixed up now?”

“Mostly. My eyes still sting. I hate fixing my eyes. It’s the worst. By far.”

“Worse than your brain?”

“There are no pain receptors in your brain,” Ruby said, matter-of-factly.

“Oh… Oh. I guess that makes sense?”

Ruby nodded, only to grimace and press her palms back up against her eyes.

“How… uh…” Dyna’s eyes dropped down to Ruby’s throat. The black ribbon that normally looked like it was holding her gemstone was off to the side, sitting on top of the old-fashioned lamp on the end table. The gemstone wasn’t in the little metal ring of the choker, however.

Right where an Adam’s apple might be found on someone else, the bright red gemstone jutted out of her throat. The skin touching it was inflamed and red. Thick vein-like protrusions spread outward like a spiderweb, pulsing faintly in time with her heartbeat. It was something that wouldn’t go away no matter how much Ruby fixed herself up. Normally hidden by the ribbon, Dyna had only seen her bare throat once before.

Dyna tried not to stare.

“I heard about it before,” Dyna started again, “so I wasn’t surprised, but how do you put your brain back together? Don’t you kind of need your brain to run your artifact?”

All movement in Ruby came to a stop. She stilled, teeth clenched together. A bright flare from her gemstone washed the room in a red light. As the light faded, the tension in Ruby’s shoulders fled. She dropped her hands away from her eyes and looked over to Dyna.

The bloodshot, borderline subconjunctival hemorrhaging in her eyes swirled about. The red faded and her eyes cleared up to a far more natural white. She snapped her neck from one side to the other, making far louder cracks than Dyna could ever hope to accomplish.

“My parents did something to me,” Ruby said. “I don’t know exactly what and I try not to think about it, but I don’t know how much of me is actually in my brain.” To emphasize, she tapped the ruby gemstone in her throat. “Don’t bother thinking about it too hard. There’s a whole team back at the institute trying to figure it out.”

Dyna didn’t say anything. After staring for a moment longer than she meant to, she slumped back down into her side of the bed.

Ruby was… definitely something. A little ball of anger and violence with a messed up past that probably justified her nature. Dyna wasn’t quite sure why—maybe it was just from bonding over movies—but she did trust the younger girl. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t a little afraid of her, however.

Maybe afraid for her.

How did someone’s brain just exist in a ruby?

Or perhaps consciousness was the better term.

“Shouldn’t you wear some kind of like… thick steel shield-like necklace? Something to protect the artifact?”

“It’s fine. Its hard to damage and it is still part of me, meaning I can fix it.”

“But—”

“It’s fine, Dyna. I’ve talked plenty about this with Walter and other doctors. And before you freaked out and pulled your gun on me, I was trying to ask what Walter said. He’s not calling us back to the institute, is he?”

Dyna stared a moment before shaking her head. Ruby was almost more tense now than she had been when her eyes had been screwed up. Worried about failing the mission? Probably. If Dyna knew one thing about Ruby, it was that the little girl wanted respect. For people to listen to her and to treat her more like they would treat Emerald.

Screwing up a mission was probably one of her worst fears.

“No he isn’t. We’re to stick around until you’re back up to one-hundred percent. Then probably stick around a bit more while we wait for information. He’s got some people looking into where Matt might have gone.”

Ruby immediately relaxed, sinking further into the quilted covers. “Good. I won’t mess up this time.”

“I don’t think you messed up. Just got surprised.”

“That’s messing up.”

“Speaking of Matt, when you ran inside, shooting your gun—”

“I wasn’t shooting at him,” Ruby said, suddenly defensive. “I couldn’t have missed harder without turning my back to him.”

“I know. I’m saying thanks for not hitting him. I know you could have.”

“Well…” Ruby shifted where she sat. “You’re welcome.” She suddenly sat herself up on her elbows, fixing Dyna with a glare. “But how did you know there was going to be a bowling ball?”

“I didn’t. It’s just that there is this movie with a kid who traps his house because burglars are coming and the situation just made me think of it. That’s all.”

Ruby crossed her arms, adopting a pout that actually made her look her age. “We better watch it. I need to know these things.”

“You’re going to get all kinds of bad ideas,” Dyna said with a long sigh. “But I guess we’ve got nothing else to do tonight. I’ll see if I can find it on my phone. First…” Kicking her legs over the side of the bed, Dyna got to her feet. “There was a vending machine just outside. I’m going to buy a few snacks. Want anything?”

“You know what I like.”

Anything that wasn’t sweet. Nuts, popcorn, potato chips. As long as it didn’t contain too much sugar, she was good with it.

“Need me to come with you?”

Dyna shook her head. “Vending machine is just on the other side of the wall.”

“I’m not supposed to take my eyes off you.”

“You took your eyes off me for a few hours while you didn’t have eyes,” Dyna said, then immediately regretted it. Ruby was just trying to follow orders. “Sorry. I’ll leave the door open and shout if anything happens.”

“Okay.”

Stepping outside, Dyna immediately shivered. Late February air in Wyoming was quite chilly, especially now that the sun had set. Scuba diving and jet skis were definitely off the table, even if they miraculously managed to resolve this Matthew issue tomorrow.

After first giving a firm tug on the card reader to make sure it wasn’t fake, Dyna bought a few snacks. Being an exterior unrefrigerated vending machine, most everything available was savory. She grabbed a few bags of chips and then…

Dyna looked out over the parking lot. And looked past it, off toward some large box-like building peeking over some distant trees. With a frown, she drew her mirror.

It reflected herself. Nothing more.

“So useless,” she mumbled, staring down at her face. The situations it came in handy were a little too specific. Even now that she could observe perspectives that weren’t outright hostile, such as the people in the training scenarios, it still was just too limited to be handy.

Barely aware of what she was doing, Dyna swapped the mirror for her phone. She scrolled down her contacts list until she found the name she wanted. Hitting dial, she waited.

And waited.

And it went to voice mail.

Grumbling to herself, Dyna tried calling again.

This time, a grumpy voice answered on the second ring.

“What is it? I’m busy!”

“Doctor Cross.”

“Delta?”

“Dyna.”

“I’m not that hungry.”

Dyna blinked twice before realizing he misheard her. Then she just rolled her eyes. “I had a question.”

“Do make it quick. We’re running quite fascinating tests on the satellite data centered on the Korean artifact—”

“That is related to what I wanted to talk about. The Korean artifact just manifested or was created all of a sudden, right? Just a week ago or however long its been.”

“Nine days, fourteen hours, two minutes, thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five seconds.”

Dyna didn’t care about the exact time. She ignored that and pressed on. “My artifact, the compact mirror, also underwent the same process, correct?”

“A bit more gradually, but yes. I have written seven thesis papers on the creation of artifacts and various methods—”

“Doctor Cross,” Dyna could cut in. Cross could talk about three things indefinitely. Artifacts, artificers, and himself. Letting him get started on a subject involving all three would see her unlimited cell plan being pushed to its limits. “Do you believe science should be repeatable and reproducible?”

“Of course. Finding ways to turn the nonsense the Carroll Institute outputs into proper science is one of my many goals.”

“Then you must be interested in reproducing a recent experiment.”

“Oh? Something on your mind?”

“You told me once that artificers are misnamed. That artificers refers to someone who creates something, not uses it. I created the mirror, didn’t I? Can I do that again?”

Dyna could picture Cross’ grin pushing his beard aside and straining his lips. “Oh my dear beautiful Delta. You are getting so far ahead of yourself. I have drafted no less than one-hundred ninety-seven experiments. You may remember that I wanted to get started with such experiments immediately following the previous… incident. The Carroll Institute has rejected every proposal.”

Dyna leaned up against the wall of the motel, looking up at the stars overhead. “I’m not at the institute right now.”

Even without him saying a word, she could hear that grin of his.

“I just want something useful. Something better than a handicapped clairvoyant.”

“Give me a day to work through some things. I’ll call you.”

Sucking in a breath as the call disconnected, Dyna felt a dozen butterflies tumble around in her stomach.

But… they felt like the good kind of butterflies.

Chips in hand, Dyna headed back to the her room.