Dyna had been seeing a therapist, Doctor Bellows, for the past several months. Once a week with a few exceptions ever since the mirror became a proper artifact. The sessions were fairly relaxed, though they did have a goal. Two, actually. For one, she was supposed to work on her self-esteem issues, which Dyna thought she had mostly under control. Coming to the Carroll Institute with no demonstrable psychic ability had sent her mental state into a spiral of self-defeating despair.

That, she thought, she had mostly worked on and corrected. Partly because now she could actually do something. First, it had just been the mirror. Then she discovered her ability to force artifacts into existence. Maybe her perspective hadn’t changed all that much, but her mental state certainly had.

The other thing she was supposed to work on was her paranoia. The constant sensation that someone was after her.

Frankly, after this night, Dyna never wanted to hear her therapist mention paranoia ever again. It was a completely justified feeling. Justified more than once even.

Honestly, Dyna wasn’t sure why her thoughts were on her therapy sessions. She needed to think about the now.

“I am in shock.”

Dyna wasn’t sure that saying it out loud made anything better, but it felt like it helped.

Walter was at the opposite end of the street, engaging a man twice his size in fisticuffs. Dyna had seen people online fight off opponents much larger than themselves, often utilizing skill where the larger opponents would swing and flail wildly, using up all their energy in a few overly telegraphed exchanges.

The mountain man looked far more skilled than he had any right to be. His hands were up at the level of his eyes as he blocked Walter’s strikes. He barely flinched from any. When he saw an opening, he jabbed back or kicked or otherwise did quick, precise attacks that Walter clearly felt a whole lot more.

Dyna wasn’t sure if an artifact was involved. With that gun of his, he could certainly have severely injured Ruby to the point where she would be put out of commission. And yet…

The front of the car at the edge of the alley had been crumpled inward. It made Dyna think that Ruby had tried ramming into him and… well, he was still standing and the car was a burned out husk.

Dyna didn’t know what to do or how to help. The gun that had the lanyard was still next to her. Although he was a smaller person, Walter was too close. Dyna wouldn’t risk that even if she had a familiar gun that she had used many times and knew how it handled. Besides that, her arm was throbbing. She wasn’t sure if it was dislocated, broken, or both, but trying to shoot a gun in her current state was just asking for trouble.

“Break it down.”

Something her therapist often said. Perhaps that was why her mind had gone back to her therapy sessions. Some small part of her subconscious was trying to find a way to move forward.

Dyna didn’t see anything she could do about the fight at the moment. She didn’t know that Walter would win over time, but at least he wasn’t losing now. She could try to intervene later.

For now, there was a slightly higher priority problem.

“Hematite,” Dyna called, staggering as she shuffled to her feet. “Jane?”

Hematite was alive. Dyna wasn’t sure how long she had been stuck in a stupor, but it hadn’t been long enough for Hematite to have bled out. Hopefully only a few seconds, even though it felt like days. The other girl was probably in worse shock than Dyna was, but her fingers maintained a tight grip around her bicep. She hadn’t lost grip strength yet and that was generally the first thing to go.

First step: Dyna needed to secure Hematite’s arm.

Dyna started moving before she was fully cognizant of what she was doing.

The submachine gun’s lanyard would work. If she hadn’t seen the guard in the department store trying to do the same thing, she might not have moved quite so quickly. For that, she supposed she owed him a small bit of thanks. Or maybe a slight apology for shooting him in the face immediately afterward.

Detaching it from the gun was just a simple clip, but it was a fairly wide and flat band that was difficult to tie into a proper knot. An actual tourniquet should be twisted or ratcheted into place to ensure there was no blood loss, but Dyna didn’t exactly have any tools at and and she certainly wasn’t going to risk blowing Hematite’s head off while using the submachine gun. Pulling it as tight as she could would have to suffice. If Walter was here, there were presumably other reinforcements somewhere. She had to hope one of them would find Hematite and get her some proper medical attention.

Second step: Dyna needed to relocate Hematite. It was bad to move injured people without fully understanding their injuries, but if the mountain man did grab his gun again, Hematite would be a sitting duck. Maybe her luck would help, maybe it wouldn’t. Dyna wasn’t going to take that risk.

Throwing the motorcycle off her leg, Dyna carefully looped one arm around Hematite’s waist. Her neck supported her head’s weight, hopefully meaning that her neck wasn’t broken. It was awkward to move her with only one arm, but Dyna had to manage.

She dragged Hematite out of the street, propping her up against the side of some building belonging to a local landscaping company. That gun could probably punch straight through the building—Dyna didn’t know what kind of gun it was; maybe it was an anti-material rifle? Or something more esoteric?—but having Hematite out of sight would have to suffice for the time being.

Step three… was what?

Help Walter.

That was really the only option, but it was too big and too vague of a task.

“Break it down.”

How to best help Walter?

Dyna couldn’t contribute in a physical fight. Not while wounded. With the size of that mountain man, probably not even while hale and hearty.

She could run up behind them and then shoot the gun. The threat’s body was large enough that she probably couldn’t hit Walter if she chose the right angle. Not unless the bullets ripped all the way through him, which was a slight possibility.

However, he had body armor on. And if she was right about Ruby having tried to ram into him, bullets might do little more than tickle. The last few minutes had been hazy, but she was pretty sure she had hit him when he was aiming his gun and that had clearly not done enough.

Beatrice might have insight. Getting into contact with her didn’t seem feasible at the moment. Even if she could, Beatrice might not have much to contribute. If the shattered lens on the security camera hanging off the side of the building was indicative of the state of the rest of the cameras in the area, Beatrice probably couldn’t see.

In fact, that was probably why Beatrice had such limited information about the area to begin with.

Then what?

Operation. The original plan. The game was still out in the alley. If Dyna could reach it and force it into being an artifact, she could use it to rip the mountain’s heart right out of his body. Hopefully bypassing any psionic defenses he might possess.

That seemed doable.

Plan in place, Dyna stood up.

“Don’t worry,” she said to Hematite. “Or maybe worry a lot, if that helps your power help me. I’m going to—”

Hematite reached out, bloody hand grasping onto Dyna’s torn pants leg. Wide eyes stared up at Dyna. Her makeup was a mess; tear streaks ran down her face, grit and grime replaced blush and foundation, cuts and blood covered one side of her head. Her hair, a tangled knotted mess matted against her part of her head, hung down over one of her wide eyes.

“I’m… sorry… This never…”

Dyna forced a smile. “You focus on you,” she said, leaning down to firmly grip Hematite’s shoulder. “I’ll figure out something.”

“Don’t get close…” Hematite said, breath hitching between words. “It’s bad if you do.”

“Thanks for the advice.” Dyna had not been planning on getting anywhere near the mountain man. He could probably crush her head like a watermelon covered in rubber bands.

“This… Take this.” Hematite, teeth grit together, held out her hand.

Her bobby pin. Dyna would have thought that it was still inside the motorcycle, but here it was.

Slipping it into her pocket alongside the mirror, Dyna said, “Thanks.” Giving Hematite’s shoulder one last squeeze, Dyna picked up the submachine gun and took off in a limping run.

She did not return to the street that the motorcycle was on. It was in view of the fight. The mountain man would see her coming and Walter might not be able to stop him from turning his attention to her.

Dyna ran to the next street down and ran parallel to the street the fight was on. She wasn’t quite sure how far away the alley was where she had dropped Operation and her phone. However far the motorcycle had traveled. A block? Two? Maybe not even one.

The buildings on this street were close together, but each had a small gap between them. Not really an alley, but close. Unfortunately, each had a wooden fence blocking foot traffic. Had there been a fence in the alley that now held the board game? Dyna honestly could not remember. But even as stressed as she was, she could recognize patterns.

It might have been a mistake to run down the adjacent street.

Dyna did not stop moving, however. At this point, she might have been throwing good money after bad, but it still would have taken longer to loop back around to the original street.

She stopped at a larger alley. It felt like the right one, but it also had a wooden fence blocking the end. Uninjured, she likely wouldn’t have had much trouble vaulting it. As it was, however, she doubted she would be able to pull herself up and over. There was no gate either.

Dyna ground her teeth together, looking around. Hobbling as she was, the next street felt like it was miles away. And she would have to go past the mountain man and Walter to get to the alley.

Could she make a gate? Fashion some kind of portal-making artifact out of something nearby? Dyna started looking around for something that might thematically make holes in fences, only to pause. Tucking the submachine gun under her bad arm, forcing herself to ignore the pain, Dyna slipped a hand into the same pocket that held her mirror.

She pulled out the bobby pin.

It wasn’t Hematite’s artifact. Dyna still didn’t know what was, but it wasn’t this. However, thematically, it was perfect. It opened plenty of doors. With Hematite’s absurd luck, it opened things a bobby pin had no right to open. It had been held and used by a psychic, presumably for a lot longer than just this evening—Hematite didn’t wear bobby pins in her hair, she had pulled it out of her pocket, meaning it was something she carried with her.

Inundated with psionic energy from Hematite, it was presumably ripe for becoming an artifact.

Clutching it tight between her fingers, Dyna moved up to the fence. Lacking a gate, there were no keyholes or padlocks or anything obvious to use the bobby pin on. Undaunted, she shoved it right between a gap in the wood planks and twisted her wrist.

The fence swung open on hinges that absolutely had not been there mere moments ago.

Dyna tried not to think about how that worked. Scientists and researchers could investigate later. The how didn’t matter right now, only that it had worked.

The newly formed gate put her right behind the old pickup truck in the alley. It was a relief to see that she had chosen correctly.

She could see the brightly colored Operation box just ahead, sitting next to the burned out husk of a car. And beyond that, Walter and the mountain man were still fighting.

Walter did not look so good. His clothes were torn and ragged. The buttons on his vest had been ripped off, leaving his vest hanging open and his red tie hanging loose in the air. Blood ran down most of his face. His ever present glasses were somehow still in place, but one of the lenses had cracked and part of the reflective glass had fallen away.

It was an odd thought to have at the moment—the effects of shock or stress, probably—but Dyna couldn’t help but think that this was the first time she had ever actually seen Walter’s eyes. Or part of one eye. In what intact bulbs were left of the shattered streetlights, it was too dim and dark to see what color his eye was. Especially at a distance. All she could see was the glassy glint catching and reflecting what little light there was.

While Walter looked like he had been used as a punching bag for a while, the mountain man didn’t show any signs of faltering. His back was fully to Dyna as he faced Walter, so she couldn’t see if his face was bloodied and bruised as well, but his posture didn’t betray any grievous wounds. He still maintained his boxer stance and, as Dyna watched, lashed out with the same energy he had when Dyna had been watching earlier.

The longer she gawked, the more likely Walter would take a blow that he couldn’t handle.

They key worked. That bolstered her confidence. She just needed to do the same thing to the Operation game now.

Moving as quickly as she could—the mountain man had heavy over-ear ear protection on, likely meaning he wouldn’t hear her approach—Dyna rushed past the old truck and the burned out car. She skidded to a stop at the fallen board game. Her phone was on the ground not far away. Unfortunately, its screen had shattered. She wasn’t sure if it was the drop that had done it in or if the shockwaves from that cannon of a rifle had blasted it. Either way, it didn’t look operable, so she ignored it.

Ripping open the cardboard box, Dyna pulled out the plastic tray. The game pieces were in a little plastic baggy along with a pair of batteries, but her eyes were on the board itself.

Normally, the game of Operation had a fat naked man with a bright red nose printed on a piece of cardboard over a metal plate. The metal plate was used to form a circuit with the tweezers, which would cause a buzzer to sound and the nose to light up. Little holes in the game board would hold various plastic pieces that were literal depictions of actual ailments or parts of the body. A charlie horse in the leg, shaped like an actual horse. An adam’s apple in the throat, an actual apple. So on and so forth.

While the little pieces in the baggy looked normal, the board did not. Instead of a fat naked man, a far more muscular man occupied the printed cardboard. Broad-shouldered and with tree-trunks for arms, it didn’t take much to figure out what was going on.

The board was depicting the mountain man.

The holes in the board still had the metal boarder around them, but they weren’t shaped like usual either. And the objects they held…

A miniature, beating heart occupied the center of his chest. Breathing lungs were right next to it, heavily panting. There was a stomach, liver, muscles. All exposed, all looking disturbingly realistic, and all looking ripe for the picking.

Shaking off her surprise, Dyna grabbed the tweezers.

Touching the metal wall was normally a failure state. Ignoring that completely, Dyna jammed the tweezers into the heart cavity and pinched them around the miniature heart. She yanked back, intending to pull it right out of the body, but thick veins and arteries connected to the heart’s chambers stopped it from coming out.

“Dyna!”

Looking up at Walter’s haggard voice, she found the mountain man staring at her with one hand grasping at his chest. Although a balaclava obscured most of his face, his eyes were filled with both panic and anger.

He started stomping toward her. She tugged at the heart again, but it wouldn’t come loose. She needed a knife to cut it out. Why didn’t she have a knife? Those were Ruby’s tools.

Walter wasn’t going to just let the mountain man come after her. Before the man had fully taken one step, Walter was already acting to strike him from behind.

An unexpected backhand lifted Walter straight off his feet. He sailed backward a short distance before landing again. The force made him stumble backward, but hemanaged to keep his balance. As soon as he stopped his backward momentum, he leaned forward into a charge once again.

But the mountain man, despite his size, wasn’t a slow man. His long legs carried him across the alley straight to Dyna.

Panicking, she dropped the tweezers entirely. Balling a fist, she slammed her hand down onto the Operation board. Not on the chest, which she worried would just feel like Walter had punched him—something he had been obviously ignoring—and not in the head for similar reasons. She punched in the one spot she knew would have the most immediate stopping power.

Sure enough, the mountain man stopped abruptly, hands clutching at his groin.

Dyna didn’t stop there. She gripped the board with both hands. One hand only had a weak grip, so she put all her power into her good arm as she slammed the entire board down over her knee.

The plastic frame cracked and shattered. The metal plate and cardboard printing of the mountain man bent straight in two.

The mountain man in real life, standing mostly straight save for his slight hunch to grip his groin, snapped. In the span of a single blink of the eye, he went from upright to forming an acute angle with his back and legs. Head at the level of his feet, a wispy groan escaped his lips as he slumped sideways, landing with his back still bent.

Dyna, arms shaking and heart hammering, lost all the strength in her upper body. Not because her own back was broken, but simply because her body decided it didn’t need to flood her system with adrenaline anymore. Sinking to the ground, Dyna panted, breathing a whole lot more than she had thought she needed.

The mountain man was still moving. His legs looked paralyzed, only moving as a response to the rest of his body, but his arms were failing. Was he panicking? Or still trying to attack? Dyna couldn’t imagine any world in which she would still be able to make an effort toward anything but random failing in that situation.

Walter still gave him a wide berth as he rushed over to Dyna.

Before he could say anything, however, Dyna pointed a finger. “Hematite. End of the street,” she said between breaths. “I’m fine, but she’s hurt. Needs help.”

Walter stared. His visible eye, an almost luminous yellow—though that might have been the light gleaming off—flicked from her to the broken Operation board and back. Apparently making a decision, he nodded his head. “I’ll be right back.” With an ever-so-slight limp in his leg, he took off in a run toward where Dyna had pointed.

Letting out a long breath, Dyna slumped back against the side of the burned out CI vehicle, not caring in the slightest that it was probably coating her in ash and charred plastic. She just watched, staring at the mountain man.

Who was he? Who did these guys work for? This felt far too brutal for Id.

Her eyes flicked down to the game board again. Some editions of the game named the patient as Cavity Sam. This edition, however, lacked similar text. In its place was what might have been a patient identity card. The kind of thing found on hospital wristbands.

It had a name: Bobson Dugnutt. Which sounded like the fakest name Dyna had ever heard. Just beneath that, a single line of text read: United States Department of Paranormal Security.

That…

That had to be fake as well. The Carroll Institute was the psionic research institution for the United States. It was a government entity. They wouldn’t… attack themselves. It had to be fake. Bobson Dugnutt? They used pp-2000s, which were apparently a Russian-made firearm.

It had to be fake.

Right?