Shopping with Mel was something that Dyna wouldn’t soon forget.

Dyna didn’t often do shopping in person all that often. When she went to a store, it was usually to pick up something specific that she really couldn’t wait on delivery for. Everything else, she ordered online. Clothes, snacks, supplies, toiletries, and everything else she needed got loaded up on a truck and shipped out to the Carroll Institute.

Prior to her enrollment at the institute, the only places she really went shopping were grocery stores. There just hadn’t been enough money around the house for window shopping.

Dyna sighed as she sank into a seat at a small café in downtown Idaho Falls—not Bacchus; Dyna hadn’t been back to that café. Not since Id’s mind-controlled minions found her and chased her across Idaho Falls. It was something of a shame. She could definitely go for one of their pastries at the moment. Lacking that, she just got a simple strawberry-kiwi smoothie for a quick bit of sugar.

She ran every day. They weren’t short runs either. Assuming there wasn’t any scheduled training or research, she usually spent at least a few hours in the gym working out on her own before moving on to her side projects. And yet, somehow, walking through the streets of Idaho Falls had her feet aching and thighs burning like she had just gotten done with a marathon.

“So with all that in mind,” Mel said, unloading three large clothing bags into the seat opposite from Dyna. “My power does not affect the primary somatosensory or posterior parietal cortex.”

Despite her exhaustion, Dyna tried to focus. Chatting with Mel was half the reason she had asked her along. “Those are the parts of the brain dealing with tactile perception.”

“Yep. So my illusions can’t actually ‘touch’ anyone,” she said, sliding up next to Dyna, apparently deciding the other side of the table was too overloaded with her purchases. “Doesn’t affect the middle and superior temporal cortex either. So no sound. It is purely visual. And my visual processing center goes crazy when I use my power—my words, not the doctors’—but my own vision isn’t affected beyond being able to see my own illusions even though I should basically see nothing more than sparkling dots in a void of white.” She shrugged, eating a spoonful from her sundae. “No idea what is going on there exactly. It’s the current subject of Doctor Weizak’s research. You might try asking him if you want more information.”

Dyna made a note of Weizak’s name. Between discussions about fashion, Mel had provided a fairly detailed description and analysis of her own ability. Far more detailed than Dyna had ever asked for in the past. Dyna honestly wasn’t sure how much knowing the details behind Mel’s power would help, but it definitely couldn’t hurt.

Unfortunately, she had yet to find anything that might potentially become an artifact related to her powers. Most of the places they had visited were clothes stores. Dyna had forced Mel through two different thrift shops, but she hadn’t seen anything in either that really jumped out at her.

They had yet to look at vehicles. Dyna didn’t know if she really planned on buying one or not. She had the money, but just wasn’t sure if spending it was a wise decision or if she should buy something else or save it entirely for later on. Still, it would definitely have saved them some walking and, maybe more importantly, would have offered a place to dump their purchases thus far.

As she finished her sundae, Mel glanced down at her phone. “Last bus leaves in thirty minutes. Shall we head over? Or did you want to look at cars first?” she said, definitely not reading any part of Dyna’s mind.

She didn’t have that ability.

“No. I probably should do some actual research before buying a car. Not really a thing to do on a whim, is it?”

“Less fun, but more wise,” Mel said with a nod of her head.

Leaving the dishes on the café counter, Dyna gathered up her own box. She didn’t have the armfuls of clothes that Mel had. Just two pairs of new shoes. One comfortable set of tennis shoes for working out in. The other were thick boots for more… serious work.

On her way out of the café, Dyna had been about to head off toward the nearest bus stop, only to pause as she noticed a store across the street. A photography store. The kind of place that sold cameras, lenses, maybe even film. She was a little surprised to see a brick-and-mortar store of that type when so much camera equipment was available online these days, but this was Idaho Falls.

“We have a bit of time,” Dyna said, nodding toward the store.

“Cameras?”

“Lenses, specifically,” Dyna said. That might feel right. It was just an inkling in the back of her mind at the moment, but a lens seemed like it went hand-in-hand with illusions.

It was a surprisingly modern store. Or, maybe that was giving it too much credit. It didn’t look like something ripped out of the seventies though, so that was worth praising. It had clear display stands atop metal counters, giving the merchandise a clean look. Most of what they had were simple cameras. The kind that had essentially been rendered obsolete by cameras on phones. The larger and more advanced cameras, along with lenses, were all stored behind large glass doors along the walls.

Mel hung back near the entrance. It was the first store that she hadn’t looked at home in. An employee wearing a teal blue shirt walked up to her, probably to ask her if she needed any assistance, but she only pointed over to Dyna, who caught the whole interaction out of the corner of her eye. After telling the employee that she was just browsing, Dyna proceeded to do just that.

Nothing stuck out to her. She wasn’t expecting the feelings of ill omen that she had gotten from her mirror when she chose it. While she didn’t have any proof or evidence, she was fairly certain that those feelings only happened because of the proximity to actual artifacts. Actual artifacts exerted some sort of calming influence over her, moving away from them made her feel unpleasant.

But nothing in the store really looked all that great either. The camera lenses were all thick cylinders, ranging from the size of a small soda can to large telescopes that could probably take high resolution photographs of Jupiter. They were invariably black with ridged sides and barely distinguishable from one another in any way aside from their sizes.

This was what Doctor Cross had been talking about when he mentioned that unique things would feel better. Mass produced camera lenses that all looked the same might as well have been the same. There was nothing artifact-y about any of them.

With a bit of disappointment, Dyna turned to leave.

One of the display stands stopped her in her tracks.

It didn’t have camera equipment. Rather, it was a small square box, roughly half the size of a standard phone, though quite a bit thicker. The gray box itself was barely notable in comparison to what it was emitting.

A steady stream of white fog erupted from its nozzle straight up into the air before it wafted down around the display stand in lazy, curling wisps of air.

A miniature fog machine.

Dyna was fairly certain that she would have noticed it on the way in, meaning that the employee must have gone around and turned it on. Or maybe refilled it. Dyna didn’t know exactly how fog machines made their fog, but was fairly certain that it took some kind of liquid.

It stuck out to her for reasons other than the obvious stream of fog, however. It wasn’t unique craftsmanship—there were a dozen boxes of the fog machines just underneath the display stand, ready for sale. Rather, it was its meaning that jumped out to Dyna.

After all, what were illusions but smoke and mirrors?

Dyna had a mirror. It wasn’t related to illusions in the slightest. But a smoke machine felt thematically appropriate.

Dyna picked up one of the boxes, took it to the counter, and bought it. It was fairly cheap. If it didn’t work, she wasn’t out much. And if it did work…

Giddy, excited at the prospect of having something new to work on for a while, Dyna headed toward the store exit.

“Thought we were here for lenses.”

Dyna paused, trying to come up with some excuse. They were too expensive? The fog machine wasn’t even in the same category of products. Dyna didn’t even have a camera, so picking up lenses for them had been a bad thing to say in the first place. Finding no good reason for the change in purchase, she simply shrugged and told most of the truth. “It wasn’t the lenses I needed exactly, but the concept of changing how things are viewed. A lens literally bends light, but this obscures it and should work for… Well, this is all part of a project I’m working on for Psychodynamics. It’s why I was asking all those questions about your power.”

“Psychodynamics is where you’ve been training instead of the regular lectures and meditation halls, right?”

“Yep.”

“Psycho, relating to the mind. Dynamics, a branch of mechanics dealing with motion under the action of forces.”

Glancing over to Mel, Dyna raised an eyebrow.

“I looked up a few things after you first started mentioning it. Sounds like telekinesis. That what they’re working on?”

“No, I don’t…” Dyna trailed off. It was very possible that there were artifacts down there capable of facilitating telekinesis. “Maybe? I’m not. I’m just trying to pin down exactly what my abilities are.”

“I thought you were a clairvoyant of some degree.”

“That’s just the thing,” Dyna said with a sigh. “It doesn’t feel quite right. The other psychics down in Psychodynamics do not have your standard psychic abilities. We’re outliers or anomalies. Weird things that warrant additional study and specialized training. But clairvoyance? A quarter of the initiates are probably clairvoyant to some degree.”

“Clairvoyance isn’t special enough, is what you’re saying?”

“Not for down there,” Dyna said with confidence. “I’m not really supposed to talk about specifics, but the others in Psychodynamics have weird abilities.”

Mel let out a long, thoughtful hum. “Abilities that utilize artifacts?”

“Yeah, it’s…”

Dyna stopped walking. She froze solid, staring at Mel as the older woman kept walking. Paranoia started creeping into the back corners of her mind. She could feel lit like a burning sensation inside the base of her neck. The therapists told her to ignore it; even if people really were after her, going into a panic over it wouldn’t help matters. But she couldn’t help it. She was trying to think of just when she might have slipped. The whole reason Mel knew the name of Psychodynamics in the first place was because Dyna wasn’t used to keeping secrets like that.

Had she slipped on artifacts too? Or had someone gotten to Mel? Id? Dyna already knew that Id was interested in artifacts and with Grafton on the loose again, they could mind control other people. Mel should have had the same training that Dyna did that let her throw off Grafton’s control at the airport, but maybe Ado upgraded his implants to be more powerful.

Dyna pulled out her mirror to check for anyone watching her, but just as she opened the cover, Mel came to a stop, casually shifting the weight of her purchased clothes to her other arm.

Mel looked back, cantering her head to the side. “Your friend, Emerald I think, mentioned it the night I first met her.”

Dyna took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Don’t scare me like that.”

“Scare you?”

Pausing for just a moment, Dyna decided on a completely different reason for why she abruptly stopped and had probably looked about ready to sprint off. “Artifacts are supposed to be a secret. If I messed up and told you, I’d probably get in trouble. But if it was Emerald—” Dyna shrugged. “—Not my problem.”

“Throwing your friend under the bus there. I think she was distracted with you having a bit of a panic attack.”

“Trust me. Emerald can handle it.”

With a simple hum, Mel turned and kept walking. Dyna followed after, taking a few quick steps to catch up to her.

“That mirror is an artifact?”

Still having her mirror out, fog machine and boxes of shoes under her other arm, Dyna glanced down to the reflective surfaces and decided to nod her head. “Since you already know, they’re just mostly mundane items that help us concentrate a bit. The technical details are… well, more technical.”

Mel went silent. At least until they reached the bus stop. The bus was still a few minutes out, so they sat down on the bench and set down their purchases.

“What would an artifact do for me?”

Dyna didn’t answer right away. She didn’t have an answer. There were only a half dozen artificers, which wasn’t a good sample size on its own, and she barely knew what half of them did. Mel…

“I’m not sure if you could use one. All the others down in Psychodynamics have weird powers, as I said, who often can’t use them all that well. You can use yours just fine without any help.”

“So it wouldn’t give me a big power boost? Let me manipulate hearing, smelling, touch, or taste?”

“No idea.”

“Well, let’s try.”

“I don’t think my artifact will work for you,” Dyna said, closing her mirror. It was bound to her. Although she didn’t know everything about artifacts, she did know that they bound themselves to people with certain psionic wavelengths, amplifying them. And they couldn’t be transferred to anyone else without undergoing that decoupling process. Even if she handed the mirror over, it wouldn’t do much other than act like a mirror.

She wasn’t quite sure why the goggles had worked for November. But November was an anomaly all on her own. Trying to figure out anything to do with her was probably worth opening up a whole new department down in Psychodynamics. In addition to the one they had already opened up for her.

But Mel wasn’t looking at the mirror in Dyna’s hand. Her eyes were on the freshly purchased fog machine. “You were going to use that, right? To try to focus your ability into something like mine?”

“Well… yes.” Dyna hesitated for a moment, but… there wasn’t any harm in it.

The fog machine wasn’t an artifact. Not yet, at least. She had just barely purchased it. Nothing would happen. And hopefully, satisfied or disappointed, Mel would drop the subject of artifacts. Emerald’s fault or not, Dyna didn’t really think that she should be talking more about them than she already had.

Popping open the cardboard box, Dyna slid the little lump of plastic and metal out into her hand. It was a small rectangular box with a nozzle at one end, a small port for a charging cable, and a little screw-off cap where one would presumably insert the fog fluid. Which was also in the box, contained in a little eye-drop-looking bottle.

Lots of electronics came partially charged. This one seemed to be no exception. Pressing a small button started up a faint whirring noise that might have been from an internal fan. Since it was working, she squeezed out a bit of the fog liquid and handed it over to Mel.

It looked like a fairly good purchase from a purely fog-generating perspective. In moments, it had a healthy cloud pooling in the windless air around them. Hopefully it would be just as good at acting like an artifact too.

After staring at it for a minute, during which she swept her fingers through the fog coming from the nozzle, Mel looked up. “How do you use it?”

That was a good question. One Dyna was still trying to figure out for herself. “All the artificers seem to use theirs in different ways. Try concentrating on it? Using your powers on it?”

“It doesn’t have a mind.”

That might matter a whole lot less than Mel was thinking given what Dyna knew about artifacts. Artifacts didn’t manipulate just minds, but the rest of reality as well. But Dyna shrugged. “On me then. I give you permissions for small things to test your ability.”

Maybe it would even be useful for Dyna. She could easily imagine Mel somehow imbuing her powers into the fog machine that would later on allow Dyna to utilize and express similar powers. In fact, maybe it would be a good idea to have Mel concentrate on the fog machine every once in a while.

Artifacts were, after all, created through psionic energy and how people thinking about the objects perceived their concepts.

Mel did use her illusions. It started out small as Dyna had suggested. First, the smoke changed color, passing from white through the entire rainbow. It looked rather like there were hidden LED lights just inside the nozzle. A quick glance at the packaging showed no such feature, so it had to be an illusion.

The LED nature of the illusion faded as the fog itself started changing color. Even the extended wisps far to far away from the nozzle changed, looking more like it had been dyed with chemical pellets.

The fog formed into shapes and patterns that couldn’t possibly be natural. A bouquet of rosy red flowers, a newton’s cradle with shiny reflective marbles, to a cup of brown coffee that Mel picked up, spun on her finger far faster than a cup would normally spin without spilling, and promptly took a small sip.

Dyna started to laugh at the mime show as Mel spat it right back out in a spit-take spray worthy of any slapstick comedy.

It should have been nothing more than an illusion. Maybe droplets of fog if it maintained its consistency from the fog machine. Instead, hot droplets splattered over Dyna’s face, making her flinch back. She wiped a finger down from her forehead, thinking with a grimace that Mel had just spat all over her, only to smell it.

Coffee. That rich, slightly acrid aroma that some people liked but Dyna found generally distasteful.

Mel was staring down at the cup of coffee in her hands, wide-eyed with a tremble in her fingers. The fog machine slipped out of her loose grip.

Dyna caught it out of the air, pulling it close to examine it. It didn’t feel any different. She detected no unnatural sensations of calm. But then, bound artifacts wouldn’t feel like that. Emerald could smell bound artifacts, but Dyna had yet to be able to sense ones other people had claimed.

The smoke stopped with a touch of the button. Now white again, it quickly dispersed into the outdoor air.

The cup of coffee remained in Mel’s hand. Slowly, almost like she was scared, she took a drink from the mug.

Dyna’s phone buzzed in her pocket.

It took real effort to tear her eyes away from Mel, not wanting to miss a moment, but the buzzing in her pocket continued several more times.

She pulled out her phone.

Her heart dropped at the messages.

WARNING: Artifact Instantiation Anomaly detected in your area.

ATTENTION: Onyx moved to ACTIVE DUTY.

ATTENTION: Priority Objectives Updated. Please review and acknowledge.

PRIORITY 1: Investigate AIA detected in your area.

PRIORITY 2: Safeguard potential artifacts from outside threats.

PRIORITY 3: Ensure safety of public from harmful artifact emissions.

PRIORITY 4: Remove artifacts from public presence.

PRIORITY 5: Safeguard interests of CI.

END OF LINE

“Uh… oh…”