“She woke up?” Dyna said, slumping in the seat in front of Beatrice’s control panel. “Ruby’s okay?” That gave her some hope for Id.

“I intercepted a call from Ruby’s phone to the Carroll Institute. Would you like to speak with her?”

Dyna’s eyes flicked up to the clock displayed on the screen above Beatrice’s waveform. After Dyna had spent the last hour trying and failing to make an exit from Beatrice’s core straight to Puerto Rico, Beatrice had worked her magic and chartered a private flight. She was due to leave in a little over thirty minutes. Not much time to get over to the airport. Beatrice could probably delay but the longer Dyna took, the more likely Alpha would move.

“Let her know that I’m glad she’s alright and that I’ll talk with her once I’m on the plane.”

“Understood.”

“Are the tulpa still outside the exit?”

One of the screens changed, displaying camera feeds from the Tartarus train station. “They appear to have given up the search and are now just guarding the platform.”

“Am I likely to run into any tulpa between the station and the airport?”

“There are currently no obvious tulpa outside the train station. That will likely change if Alpha determines your destination or otherwise pinpoints your location. Stealth is advised.”

“I wish I had Emerald’s artifact,” Dyna mumbled, eyes roaming over the security cameras as she tried to plot her route.

Twenty-one tulpa patrolled the main platform area, crowding the station. Another four were on the train itself and four more were moving down the side hallway. The same hallway that Dyna had used to access Beatrice. Beatrice still wouldn’t tell her if that portal to the noosphere had always been there, not wanting to ‘destabilize reality any further’ as she put it. However, it did seem to be the only exit from Beatrice’s core.

Between her laser pointer and wristwatch gadgets, Dyna could probably take out all of the tulpa. Beatrice was right, however. Alpha wouldn’t stay put if she realized that Dyna was heading to the airport.

Alpha’s access to Beatrice had been revoked by the other administrators. She couldn’t just log in and ask where Dyna was now. Her tulpa still had to have some way of communicating with her.

Dyna pulled out her phone and started scrolling through her recent messages. Passing a priority objective update—she was to keep monitoring Tartarus, apparently—she came to a stop on the message from DT. “The message I’m looking at now, can you track where it was sent from and maybe what the sender is doing at the moment?”

Calling the number wouldn’t work. Not from the Noosphere. Dyna didn’t know how Beatrice had a connection to the outside world but it was through that connection that Dyna’s phone had received a few updates. Even if calling did work, it could be dangerous for DT if her counterpart was in a sensitive situation.

Dyna didn’t know what Alpha was planning. Only that Alpha had traveled up to the old site of the Arecibo telescope and had managed to evade Beatrice’s security feeds there. All entrances and exits were monitored, so they knew she hadn’t left. Unless, of course, she had a path through the noosphere. Given the existence of her tulpa, their known usage of portal structures, and the possibility that she had tulpa who could open spatial anomalies independent of technology, the likelihood was high.

All the more reason to get to her sooner rather than later.

“The phone number is attached to a prepaid ‘pay-as-you-go’ plan through T-Phone. The signal is null. It may have been used as a temporary burner phone, the phone could be powered off or the SIM-card removed, or the phone could be out of range.”

“The noosphere would be out of range, I assume?”

“Correct.”

“Keep monitoring it. Let me know if it resurfaces.”

“Understood.”

Dyna stood up and ran through a quick check of her equipment. She would have to ditch the guns before reaching the airport but until then, she made sure her stolen PP-2000 was fully loaded with a fresh magazine. She made a mental note to request a Picatinny rail mount for her mirror. For the time being, she kept her mirror in hand and her other hand on her watch.

“I’m heading out.”

“Wear Walter’s glasses. I will assist where I can.”

Dyna nodded, pulling out the mirrored lenses. She pinched them to her nose, watching as the text on the thin lenses adjusted to account for the angle she had donned them at. They were so thin and lacked any real rims. Where were the electronics?

A part of her wondered if she had been the one to create them somehow. Maybe some errant thought in the past. They just didn’t make sense otherwise.

“If I turn my head too quickly, these things are going to go flying. How does Walter stand them?”

“Unknown. I have never had a head or glasses. I will display security footage, enemy line-of-sight, and other vital information. Be warned that I may not be aware of everything. Surprises will become more dangerous if you rely on my system too much.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.” It was more support than she had gotten for anything else she had done. “I guess I should let you know that I’ll disregard your information if I think I know better? With my power to alter reality, the things we see might not be perfectly identical.”

“Understood.”

Heading through the noosphere facility that was Beatrice’s core, a faint line appeared on the ground in Dyna’s glasses, directing her back toward the same portal she had used to enter this place. She had tried to use it to get to Arecibo, so she knew where it was, but the opportunity to get used to the information in front of her eyes was welcome. If it got too distracting, she might have to take them off for a time.

For now, however, Dyna stepped through the portal to the other side. The dusty, old laboratory that greeted her hadn’t changed since she last saw it. This time, planning to leave, Dyna shut down the portal from this side. Not wanting any of Alpha’s people to have access to Beatrice, she hefted up the control panel and smashed it back down onto the ground. Bits of electronics went flying everywhere. Grabbing a few wires from around the portal ring, she yanked them out of place.

Hopefully, Beatrice’s core was noosphere adjacent, like lower Tartarus, and not the proper noosphere. It made sense. Both Beatrice’s core and Tartarus didn’t seem like they worked off the rest of the noosphere’s rules. The noosphere was a reflection of the real world filtered through the minds of all who observed it. Noosphere adjacent locations didn’t seem to need that observation requirement.

And if it was in the proper noosphere, hopefully her justification of why it couldn’t be there would shove it into an adjacent version of the noosphere. Anything to make it a little more difficult to reach for regular tulpa.

Back through the corridors and up the ladder, Dyna used the bobby pin to open the hidden passage once again. The security camera footage in the glasses showed the empty custodial closet beyond. Dyna slipped inside and quickly closed the hidden door behind her, sliding the shelf back into place as she approached the main door.

The hallway beyond was not empty, unfortunately. It was a straight and narrow hallway with no cover to hide behind, intended for station staff, not regular travelers. It seemed a bit odd that this place even had an area for station staff. It must have been something Dyna had done since she couldn’t think of a reason why Tartarus would have a regular train station at this end of their tracks.

“Beatrice,” Dyna whispered, mind running over possibilities of how to get out of here without being seen. “Are you able to send the train back to Tartarus on your own?”

“Indeed, I believe so.”

“Do it.”

“Understood,” Beatrice said, voice coming from some directional speaker set in the edges of the glasses. “One moment.”

Dyna waited, biting her lip and hoping that this would work. Her glasses changed, displaying both the hallway outside the custodial closet as well as the main station platform. It was a bit of a strange effect. Even though her eyes were focused on the door, the transparent display of the security feed overlaid on top of everything, giving her a strange sense of double-vision without actually making her dizzy.

It took a moment, as Beatrice said, but the doors to the train slid closed, trapping a few tulpa inside. The twenty others on the platform turned, watching as the train started moving along the tracks. For a long few seconds, they just sat and stared. One eventually got the bright idea to reach for a radio on their vest.

Dyna heard something through the door. A garbled voice that wasn’t speaking English. The tulpa on the other side of the door seemed to understand anyway and started running down the hall toward the station. One remained behind, watching after them but stood still as a guard.

Its back was to her door.

Not knowing how long it would stay like that, Dyna decided that it was now or never. Carefully and quietly, she pushed open the custodial closet door. Moving as silently as possible, she ran down the hall in the opposite direction. Beatrice, helpfully, put a faint red line on the ground with arrows pointing in the direction she was already moving. The red line curved into one of the doors that Dyna might have otherwise passed by.

An exit. According to a bit of text appearing on the glasses, it was an emergency exit. Beatrice had disabled the alarms.

Taking a breath, Dyna pushed open the door, using the horizontal push-bar. Normal emergency exits had a big label warning about alarms sounding if the door was opened. This one lacked that warning. Nonetheless, Dyna found herself stepping out into an alley in the hot Texas air.

Deciding to not think about whether or not that had always been an exit, Dyna moved down the alley.

The tulpa in the hallway turned around just as the door clicked shut.

She stopped at a large dumpster, ducking down behind it. The alley only had one exit. The other end had a large brick building blocking the path.

“I have a vehicle prepared for you,” Beatrice said just as the camera feeds in Dyna’s vision shifted to ones taken from outside the station. “Be warned, enemy tulpa are watching the exterior of the station. The vehicle is standing by at the far end of the street.”

“Stolen like last time?”

“This system does not condone vehicle theft. However, this system believes you are in danger at the moment and has made decisions based on that information.”

“So yes.”

“Yes, it is—or rather, will be—stolen when you commandeer it.”

“Not complaining. I was just curious,” Dyna said, watching the tulpa.

They were standing just inside the large glass doors of the station, watching the street out front. The entrance to the station was a decorative structure that bulged outward in a semi-circle, affording them an unfortunate view of the area. A few cars passed by every so often. It wasn’t the busiest road but it wasn’t as deserted as Idaho Falls felt on occasion.

“I suspect their positioning is to hide their weaponry and appearance from passers-by.”

“I doubt they’re going to keep hiding if I go out there. Even if they don’t start shooting, they’ll have eyes on me,” Dyna said with a frown. “Bring up a map and show me exactly where the vehicle is and, if possible, the sight cones of our friends.”

“Understood.”

Dyna felt herself go a little cross-eyed as she tried to follow the map that appeared. A helpful marker showed her position and direction, the car down the street to the right, and the windows to the left. The car itself was across the street, down the road a short bit. Unfortunately, it was within view of the windows. The alley wasn’t but if she stepped out away from the walls, she would likely be seen immediately.

“I don’t suppose you have remote control over the vehicle?”

“Negative.”

“I don’t suppose you can hijack a vehicle that you would have remote control over?”

“Per the Autonomous Automobile Safety Act of 2029, car manufacturers cannot design their systems in such a way that allows for external control beyond locking down the vehicle in the event of a vehicular theft. Even that control must be reviewed and the car must not be in motion at the time to prevent fatal accidents.”

“I suppose Walter’s car is the exception.”

“Correct. He built me into it on his own.”

Interesting but useless at the moment. Dyna frowned at the map, eyes roaming to the intersections on either end of the road. “Can you bring up traffic cameras?”

“Understood.”

Another layer appeared in Dyna’s field of vision. It was starting to give her a headache, but she squinted her eyes and forced herself to look anyway. Apparently sensing her discomfort, Beatrice removed several of the camera feeds, leaving only the traffic cameras and the map.

“Busy intersection on our left. Can you control traffic lights?”

“Traffic control systems infiltrated.”

“Can you cause an accident?”

“Purpose?”

“Distraction. Just something to get the tulpa to look away long enough for me to dash across the street.”

“The Beatrice system places high value on innocent human life. The override allows me to ignore that, but—”

“No. Don’t worry about it. If you can’t cause a safe accident, can you hire a cab or ride-share to come pick me up at the alley?”

“Understood. Please stand-by.”

“Since you’re already in the street lights, might as well give them all greens on the way here, right? I am on a time limit.”

“I am aware. Redirecting a nearby driver. E.T.A. four minutes.”

Dyna didn’t like doing nothing but tapping her foot and waiting. She glanced around the alley, wondering what the buildings were around her. With the bobby-pin, she could hijack any vehicle she could reach. However, none of the other buildings around her had doors that she could pass through. While she had made a gate in a fence using the bobby pin before, she wasn’t at all sure how well that would work out in a brick wall. The wall behind her probably wasn’t even a proper building, just a wall to separate the train tracks from the rest of the city.

Before she could put any real attempts at making a door in the side of the next building over, a small silver car rolled to a hesitant stop at the mouth of the alley. A young man peered down the alley before looking back the phone mounted on his dashboard, as if checking that this was the right spot.

“Will the tulpa spot me if I reach his car?”

The images on her lenses changed again, showing off the estimated field of vision. The street and the car were both in it. Dyna could walk along the sidewalk if she pressed up against the wall, probably.

“Have him move further down until he is out of the tulpa’s line of sight,” Dyna said.

“Understood.”

It took a moment but the driver eventually shifted his car back into gear and proceeded along the street.

Stepping out from behind the dumpster, Dyna shimmied around the corner of the alley, watching the sight cones in her glasses. As she moved further along, she was able to peel herself off the wall and start up in a quick jog. The car came to a stop two buildings down. Having traveled forward slowly, Dyna reached it just as it stopped.

She pulled open the rear door and jumped inside.

“Woah, hey—”

“Airport,” Dyna said. “Now.”

“That’s not—” The young man cut himself off, eyes widening as he turned in his seat and spotted the PP-2000. It wasn’t aimed at him. Dyna didn’t even have it in her hands, too focused on both her mirror and the images in her lenses. “Don’t get paid enough for this,” he grumbled as he shifted the car back into gear.

“Sorry about this. I’ll make sure to tip well,” Dyna said, letting out a long sigh. None of the security footage she was watching showed any unusual behavior on the part of the tulpa. No rushing outside to chase after her. No reaching for radios. “And I’m leaving the gun here. You can take it to the police if you want. It might disappear anyway. Don’t know how real it is or will be outside my presence.”

“Disappear?”

“Long story. Psychic stuff… Actually… Beatrice, how likely is it that Alpha will be able to find out about this if the gun goes to the police.”

“Beatrice?” the driver grumbled, looking at Dyna like she was crazy.

Rather than speak using the glasses as she had been, Beatrice cut off the faint music coming from the car speakers and took over there instead. “Without access to the Beatrice system, it is unlikely she will be able to determine anything about your presence outside what her tulpa report. However, I am unaware of Alpha’s full capabilities. Caution is warranted.”

“What the fu—”

“Christopher Clark. I am prepared to deposit fifty-thousand USD into your bank account 021000021 titled ‘Money-Market Savings’, currently holding four-hundred twenty-one dollars and thirty-one cents if you leave the weapon alone for twenty-four hours and speak of this to no one until that period expires. There is no need to report the funds on your taxes or to any other government entity.”

Dyna thought Beatrice was laying it on a bit thick. To her surprise, rather than asking a rapid fire series of questions all equating to ‘what is going on here?’ the driver, Christopher apparently, actually looked to be considering the offer.

Just as they pulled up to the airport, he agreed.