Season 1, Episode 3 - The Ring Dings XVIII - "The Alchemist"

“Aw, Christ,” Reed mumbled under her breath as she looked through the cash register. Considering all the property damage they just did – in addition to killing a man – Reed decided to just smash the register open.

Unfortunately, Reed found herself struggling with dollar amounts.

“Alright, so a five dollar bill, a one dollar bill...no, I need two one dollar bills...three quarters puts us at seventy-five cents when we need seventy-two...do we really need the penny? I heard Canada rounds up so they just use nickels...Canada’s also collapsed into warlords, so...but do I really want to carry around two dimes and two pennies?”

Reed looked up from the register. “Hey, Audrey, do you think it’d be stealing if took an extra three cents? I don’t like carrying change and I don’t believe in piggy banks. Or Brady Banks. Whatever the kids call 'em nowadays.”

Audrey didn’t answer. She was sitting on the linoleum floor, staring into space.

Reed let her sit and just grabbed the three quarters. With her grand total secured, Reed made her way over to Audrey.

“Should we clean up at least?” Audrey asked, surveying the wrecked store.

Gunfire and explosions from outside answered her question for her.

“No time,” Reed said, knowing that even if they cleaned up the evidence, a dead Rddhi user under mysterious circumstances would lead to an investigation no matter what. Reed briefly wondered if the seven seventy-two would be worth the likely discovery of their actions that night.

Of course it is. I can buy seven ninety-nine cent sodas and still have enough left over for a small candy bar. That’s a great haul if I’ve ever seen one.

Still, I feel bad for Audrey. If we get caught, I’ll say I forced her to follow me or something. I mean, unless she’s willing to take the heat. Then I might hesitate before saying she’s lying and that I actually forced her to follow.

“Should we bury the body or something?” Audrey asked once more.

Reed extended her hand; Audrey took it and hoisted herself up.

Reed imagined Isaac’s voice as she looked over at the dead Roman. Even if he was a serial killer, a person is still a person when they’re dead, she imagined in his voice. You should at least treat the dead with respect. Not saying you should throw a funeral for guy, but at least send him away properly.

Reed sighed. She wasn’t that kind of nice. Or preachy.

“No time,” she said again. When Audrey remained stationary, as if in a trance, Reed took her hand again, ignoring the uncomfortable feeling that came with human contact. Reed led her past the body, down the stairs, and into the basement.

An idea came to Reed. “Hey, Roman said they were smuggling stuff here, right?”

Audrey nodded.

“Well, let’s see if they got anything here. It’s not stealing if it’s from smugglers, right?”

“What do you think they’re smuggling?” Audrey asked, strength returning to her voice. Reed supposed Audrey was the kind of person that got over their anxieties and fears by talking them out with something. Reed wondered if that worked, but she had more pressing matters on her mind at the moment.

“Drugs and guns,” Reed guessed, since that what smugglers always sold in the shows she watched.

There were two closets in the basement room. Reed opened one – then immediately shut it, her expression dry.

“Wrong closet,” she murmured.

“What’s in it?” Audrey asked.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Of course I want to know, that’s why I asked.”

Reed pointed at the door. “You want to see where Roman stored the body parts of his victims?”

“No, that’s gross. But what does that have to do with the closet?”

Reed sighed. “He stored them in that closet.”

Reed could the hamster ball energy-generator in Audrey’s mind spinning rapidly as she processed the information.

“I don’t want to know,” she finally said.

Reed opened up closet number two – and her eyes, always dull and bored, expressed a brief moment of amusement.

“Jackpot.”

“What’s in it?” Audrey asked, sliding over next to her.

In an otherwise empty closet, a wooden crate sat in the center of the floor. The crate was open, its contents visible – a pile of Dopamine Rushers.

Reed and Audrey smiled mischievously at each other.

The man in the white trenchcoat sighed, then shrugged. He felt Harriet’s light go out within the Rddhi field. Despite a kill count of over a hundred, the sudden departure of an individual life, no matter the circumstances, also provided a brief moment of wonder for the man in the white trenchcoat.

Ah, well. If she wanted to live, she should’ve been stronger. Only the strong will be allowed in the New England of the future.

The man awaited the end of Harriet’s fight from outside the store. Well, technically outside; he was in a metal compartment he transmuted out of a dirt and stone deep underneath the alleyway outside of the store.

I’ve been hiding my own presence in the Rddhi this whole time...in a way, I’m ashamed at the current state of our military and Rhddi programs. Is there no one strong enough to detect me, even through my stealth abilities? Everyone thinks too small with the Rddhi. Hit-and-run attacks by hidden Rddhi users could be a future component of warfare...as well as a future threat from Rddhi terrorists. Our detection skills must be further improved...

Through the Rddhi, he could detect the MPs poking around Harriet’s corpse, the two Rddhi users attempting to knock down the door into his chamber to no avail.

The man sincerely hoped Harriet was stronger, but it wasn’t meant to be.

I’ll just have to do a better job of training my disciples in the future. Tomorrow’s another day.

As for his other disciple, well, the man knew of the two Rddhi-using girls the moment they were about five minutes away from the store. He could feel their outlines; one, bright and beaming, the other, small and melancholic, though she did her best not to show it. The man did feel a little impressed with her efforts to disguise their presence; it would be enough for the soldiers who were looking for people escaping the area, not entering it, but it wouldn't be enough to get past him.

But still, he was interested in them, following their path as they arrived near the Bay Mart. In the basement of Hayman Office supplies, before the fight with Harriet, he very well could have disintegrated the burnt papers on his own, but he delayed Roman and Stefano by making them do it by hand. Not only did it distract and calm them during a tense moment, it also enabled the man to engineer a collision between them and the two girls.

The man sensed the glass go through Roman’s throat, and that was that. Ah well. Harriet was an unfortunate loss, but Roman lost his path long ago. All that righteous fury directed towards needless bloodshed...the course of New England’s future has been corrected tonight by a girl with a sword made of stars.

Things are still interesting. And truth be told, I have many more disciples.

The man transmuted a cigarette and lighter out of a nearby rock and supposed it was time to go. Pushing the limit of his ability to hide himself in the Rddhi, he activated his powers, placing a hand on a metal wall. The wall opened and a new corridor appeared out of the dirt and rock. The man kept his hand raised, another length of corridor appearing with each step, until the man finally stopped in satisfaction. He placed his hand on the wall at the end of the corridor and a brief spark of blue later, the wall and the dirt behind it had been converted into a set of stairs. The stairs were positioned at such an angle that they would take him to the first floor of the building above him, a block or so away from Hayman.

The man walked to the top of them and transmuted a floor above him into a trapdoor. He then climbed into the first floor of a pizzeria, closed for the night. Another blue spark and the trapdoor had been converted back into normal floor.

He arrived in the back door of the pizzeria, at the tail end of a kitchen. The Army organization is sloppy; there should be squadrons patrolling around this area already. A shame, the current state of our military.

Any victory in the Second American War would be out of the question in this current state of affairs. The man made a mental note to check in on General Marco at Lake Champlain and make sure he’d been training his troops efficiently, to a level that would reach the man in the white trenchcoat’s approval.

They say an autumn farewell needs nothing more to make it sadder. Farewell for the time being, Elizabeth Pond. We’ll meet again someday.

The man touched a table and with a spark of blue, converted all the wood into a mixture of nitric acid and sodium sulfite better known as 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (which is better known as TNT). He transmuted one leg of the table into a long string he held in his hand.

There’s only one soldier close by...based on his Rddhi, he doesn’t possess the nerve to investigate me. I better leave now.

The man exited through a side door silently, arriving in another alley between the pizzeria and the side doors of another restaurant. He brought his lighter to the string-

“Halt!”

The soldier in question, about fifteen feet away, pointed his gun at the man.

The man smirked. I’ll give this soldier some credit. The Rddhi is just a reflection of a man; it may display his feelings, but ultimately, a man will determine what his reflection will look like, and not the other way around.

And right now, his Rddhi says he’ll do anything to investigate me. I’m glad there’s someone with a spine here.

The man stopped and sized the soldier up. In that olive-green uniform, he looked young, fresh out of high school. But the way he held his gun...the soldier may have been scared, but he pushed the fear to the corner of his mind. Filling the space was a sense of duty and comradery to the men who accompanied him on this operation.

The man liked this soldier more and more. He called out to him. “What’s your name?”

“Will that get you to cooperate?”

The man nodded.

“Private James Fargo,” the soldier responded. He tightened the grip on his rifle, which was aimed squarely at the man’s head.

“Private Fargo,” the man repeated. “I am offering you a choice right now. Because of the delicate situation – namely, I’m isolated and nearly surrounded by the military – I will give you fifteen seconds to answer. If you do not respond in the affirmative within that timespan, the situation will require me to kill you. Just know that I do it with no sense of prejudice or enjoyment.”

Fargo narrowed his eyes. “Surrender yourself! Something’s not right about you. I don’t see a gun, yet you look fearless. You have five seconds to surrender yourself, otherwise I’ll be the one killing you!”

The man smiled. “My question, then. Will you join me in launching a Second Restoration that will purge New England of its unsavory elements?” Though the soldier was not a Rddhi user, he was still very much readable in the Rddhi field. “Your poor family...forced into constant movement by a search for work brought on by the depression...and it’s not just your family, but so many other rural families...and your poor sister, from tuberculosis-”

“That’s enough,” Fargo warned. “Surrender now or I’ll be forced to shoot!”

“Join me, otherwise I shall be forced to shoot as well.”

Fargo fired. By the time he pulled the trigger, the man already stretched his hand out in the bullet's path.

What’s he doing? Fargo wondered. The bullet should go right through his hand-

When the bullet reached his hand, there was a brief flash of blue and then Fargo realized he himself was staring down the barrel of a gun.

That wasn’t there a second ago. Where’d that gun come from? His sleeve...is his sleeve a little shorter? Did the gun come from his sleeve? And where did the bullet go?

The answer, of course, would remain unknown to Fargo. The man transmuted the bullet and extra material from his jacket into the pistol that now had Fargo’s life in its sights.

Fargo went to pull the rifle trigger once more-

The pistol fired, and it only needed to fire once. The small spark from the pistol’s firing lit the string and the flame travelled down the line toward the waiting explosives.