Astoria, Oregon — 17 May 2021
JJ vented a sigh of relief as he finally clicked that big red “Leave” button on Teams. On the big screen filling the far wall of the meeting room the dour faces of his Board of Directors winked out, and he was free for another year from the annoying financial dog-and-pony show the law required if he wanted to keep his personal fortune separate from his business interests. He’d been reluctant, two years ago, to make the switch from an LLC to an S-Corp structure, but Alvaro had convinced him Apergy Systems International had grown too big not to, even if he chose to remain its sole stockholder.
It was still a privately held company, of course, but he was no longer the sole stockholder, having sold 20% of his shares during the transition – for necessary capital expansion, yes, but also to spread the wealth and reward his employees. As a block, they now owned 10% of the company, with the woman now sitting at his right, smirking at him, holding 10% of that herself.
“You did very well this time, boss,” Penny Monet said, gathering up the various financial papers scattered across the table between them. “I don’t think most of them could tell how bored you were… well, maybe Mr. de la Vega.”
“Yeah, because this stuff bores Alvaro almost as much as it does me,” JJ laughed. “But thanks for the positive review, I’ll try to keep it up next year. In the mean time, anything that didn’t come up in the meeting I should know about before I head over to the Pyramid for this meeting Artemis has called?”
“Well, obviously nothing on the business side,” his VP of Operations said, turning serious. “But on the personal side… I just got the latest report from the mercs you hired to infiltrate that Caribbean smuggling gang. They’ve made several interesting intelligence finds, which we’ll pass on to the FBI and the Coast Guard, of course… but nothing concerning the Sea Witch, I’m afraid. Sorry boss, I really thought this one might turn up something.”
“Well, it was always a long shot,” JJ shrugged, careful not to let his disappointment show. He’d been searching for his psychotically criminal half-sister for six months now, ever since the affair of the Atlantean artifact and her attempt to steal his armor. His shock at learning he even had a half-sibling had been overwhelmed by his dismay at how close she’d come to not only taking his living metal suit, but to actually killing him.
As a renegade Atlantean… terrorist? Crime lord? Rebel? However you defined her, given the ability they shared of breathing in both air and water, he’d assumed she’d leave some kind of footprint in the surface world’s criminal landscape. But he’d found nothing, despite his contacts in the government, the business world, and the superhero community. Maybe it was time he bit the bullet and began trying to cultivate contacts amongst the Atlanteans as well…
He shoved the distasteful thought aside for the moment, and mentally sent a specific electrical pulse into the metal brace along his spine. The orichalcum-infused nanites began to flow, and in seconds he was encased in his full armor, minus only the helmet.
“Thanks Penny, and go ahead and pay off the mercenaries… for the moment I think we’ve run out of leads to aim them at. But keep them on retainer, OK? Just in case something turns up.”
“Will do, boss!” Penny said, and waved as his helmet formed around his head, the access panel in the ceiling irised open, and he shot upward into the overcast sky.
• • • • • •
“I appreciate everything you’ve done, Kyle, everything you continue to do… but the fact is, I’m… I don’t know… bored? Restless? Certainly not… happy.” Nicco Steiner Jr. looked pensively at his son and nervously shredded the paper napkin he’d been slowly twisting since they’d finished lunch. They were seated on the balcony of the Crash Pod, alone save for a table of three teenagers on the far side of the space, noisily engaged in making plans for the fast-approaching summer.
Kyle had brought him here several times in the weeks since he’d finally been released from the Wolf Point Psychiatric Hospital, both because he thought the food carts were amazingly good, and because it was a way of getting him used to crowds and the outdoors again… limited crowds, particularly at this slack period between lunch and dinner, and limited outdoors, comfortably under the pod’s retro-futuristic main canopy. The high cloud cover was visible, but not opening up directly above him… he shuddered and successfully fought down a flash of agoraphobia.
“You have to give yourself time, Dad,” Kyle said, almost succeeding in keeping the exasperation out of his voice. “It’s only been a few weeks, and you suffered twenty years of trauma — it’s going to take awhile for you to… to find your new normal.”
Nicco shrugged and smiled wanly. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard that, of course. From Kyle, from the doctors, from the Native American shaman Totem, who had done so much to bring him out of the confused darkness he’d lived in for so long, even from his son’s girlfriend, Nora. But they were just words, and the reality was, he was still unsettled in this wide-open surface world… and deeply unsure if that would ever change. He missed the comforting enclosed spaces of Terra Cava, the known and knowable boundaries of a world he understood and controlled.
He was trying, of course… after all, he had spent the first 30+ years of his life in this surface world. He even remembered much of that life, if patches were occasionally still dim and fragmentary. But the first week out of the hospital, Kyle had taken him back to New York, and the family home upstate. His son had hoped the old, familiar house and grounds of the estate would spark more of his memories. They had, but not in a particularly good way.
He’d lasted less than two days before the increasing number of nightmares and a deepening depression forced them back to Oregon. One more day in that old mausoleum and he was sured he’d have cracked… then it would be back to Wolf Point… or worse, to some secure SHADE facility for ex-supervillains. His old home had been too overwhelming, with all its associations with an idyllic life that he only partially remembered – and the memories of Lily were the worst of all. His regrets over how much of that old life he’d wasted, when it had been his, were so strong… Why he couldn’t forget those instead?
Back in Astoria, Kyle had given him a condo of his own, several floors below his own expansive penthouse. He owned the building, of course, so it hadn’t been an issue when the unit had come vacant a month earlier. Nicco gathered, from an overheard conversation between Nora and Kyle, that his son had been contemplating offering the condo to his friend and teammate, Jonny Osaka – the one who turned into blue plasma – before his own release from the hospital. Something else for Nicco to feel bad about…
He knew he was cramping Kyle’s style (he vaguely remembered the saying from his old life… did they still say that?), although the boy did his best to hide it from his old man. But Nicco could tell. He was sure Nora would have spent more time at Kyle’s place if he wasn’t there all the time. So he’d accepted his son’s offer of new digs, and in the past week he’d even come to think the separate spaces were proving good for them both.
He was certainly a free man, although he sometimes didn’t feel like one. He had a generous allowance, of course (and yes, he had to admit that rankled just a bit – he’d been The Master of Ty’rana for God’s sake, absolute ruler of an entire realm!) and having his own space had eased his anxiety a little. It had also accentuated his loneliness, and he’d come to realize he really missed his poor, eager-to-please Terra Cavan’s… he wondered how those sweet little folk were doing, all on their own again…
Nicco suddenly realized he’d been quite too long, lost in his spiraling thoughts, and Kyle was beginning to look worried. He hated that look, and pulled himself together, flashing his son a quick smile.
“Sorry, my boy,” he said, as casually as he could, “just contemplating how great those Chuckwagon Beans were, and wondering why they’re called “beans” – hell of a lot more meat than beans in them! Not a lot of meat available in Terra Cava, you know… certainly not beef or pork. I got used to a lot of mushrooms and other fungi, but I can honestly say I don’t actually miss them much.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it, Dad,” Kyle said, visibly relaxing… although that hint of wariness in his eyes never quite vanished, did it? “I really think you’re doing much better, despite your restlessness. Just continue to take it one day at a time, and I promise you’ll find yourself happy – or at least content – again.”
“I’m sure you’re right son,” Nicco sighed. “But between the furniture shopping this morning and the late lunch it’s been a long day for me… and my eyes are beginning to ache.” He adjusted the tinted lenses he always wore out-of-doors, with an apologetic grimace. Totem had made great progress in healing the damage to his optic nerves, but he was still a bit sensitive, even to the difuse light of an overcast day. “I think it’s time I headed home… and if I recall correctly, don’t you have that meeting with your team in a few minutes?”
“I do, yes,” Kyle agreed, checking his watch. “But I can portal there in no time… will you be OK taking the car back home?”
“Yes Kyle, I think I can manage to sit in the back of the vehicle while it auto-drives me, without too much chance of disaster striking,” Nicco said dryly.
His son acknowledged the gentle rebuke with a quirk of his lips, and gathered up the debris from their lunch to dump in the recycling bins on their way out…
• • • • • •
“Thanks for joining me for lunch,” Jonny said as he and his cousin Mariko sat down at a table in a quiet part of the Crash Pod’s main courtyard, under the largest of the triangular canopy’s that flared out from the former gas station / auto repair shop building. As he set down their steaming bowls of ramen, bounty from their mutually favorite Jaded Dragon food cart, she reached into her purse and pulled out what looked like a smart phone.
It was not a smart phone, however, and when she casually set it on the table between them and tapped a button Jonny could sense the slight change in acoustics as a sonic bubble surrounded them. It wasn’t exactly a “cone of silence,” of course, which might be suspicious to any observers, but instead the device both muffled and scrambled their conversation, making eavesdropping virtually impossible.
“So, how goes your father’s search for the Forsaken,” he asked as she picked up her chopsticks. “I can tell you the Vanguard hasn’t had much luck in locating him.” He refused to call the supervillain “father,” not after the man had kidnapped his best friend, captured both himself and the rest of the Vanguard, along with the Japanese hero team Ten no Shimei, and had been perfectly willing to kill his own son to gain super powers. What an asshole!
“Our own investigations have proved equally fruitless, I’m afraid,” Mariko sighed. “The self-destruction of his base on Misute Rareta island left little to go on, as you know. The most we have been able to ascertain is that, while it was the base he was using most recently, including during his attempt to have the Rising Sun release that bio-attack on Astoria, it is certainly not his only base.”
“Yeah, we figured that out too,” Jonny sighed. “From what he let slip while he was monologuing, just before he was gonna start dissecting me, that island base once belonged to the infamous Doctor. Abandoned since his death back in 2008, I guess at some point the Forsaken found it and made it his own… not sure when, exactly. But that led Artemis to theorize that maybe he’d discovered and taken over some of The Doctor’s other bases around Asia.
“Unfortunately neither the CIA or SHADE, not even the Liberty Alliance, seem to have solid leads about where any of those other bases might be. Not that I really trust the CIA to share with us, they’re so damn paranoid. But our new kid used to work for them, and he says he doubts they know much more than they’re sharing… and China was his intelligence speciality.”
“Yes, Dr. Zhao Xiw’ang was certainly a genius, and very adept at keeping his secrets, even in death,” Mariko said. She was as beautiful as ever, but that easiness they’d had for awhile, before discovering that his father was her uncle and sworn enemy of her own father, remained elusive. Not that he harbored any romantic interest, not any more, but he still liked her and wished they could get that friendship back. Unfortunately his relationship with his Yakuza uncle, her beloved father, remained strained, and it made their own interactions… awkward. But necessary, in pursuit of their common enemy.
He shoved down the thought, and slurped up some of his ramen noodles. “Is that The Doctor’s real name? I always thought that it was really Dr. Fu Manchu?”
“Hardly!” Mariko laughed, her reserve momentarily forgotten. “I mean yes, he did use that name for a time, in mockery of the Englishman who wrote those puerile novels. Sax Rohmer based his fictional character on the real Dr. Xiw’ang — who deeply despised both the books and their author. He found some amusement, they say, in adopting the name in his dealings with various British agents… not least because it caused them to imagine they knew him and his motivations, and therefore to underestimate him.
“Eventually he grew weary of the farce, though, and became known simply as The Doctor… I imagine he had found it to his benefit to have a “secret identity” during the Republic of China period. At that time, under his true name, he was still working as an advisor to President Sun Yet-Sen, while secretly building up the resources he’d use later as a warlord.”
“How do you know all that?” Jonny asked, grinning at her enthusiasm. It was nice to see her genuinely smile again.
“I have long had an interest in the man,” she shrugged, some of her previous reserve returning. “Whatever his crimes, he was truly brilliant.” She still had a twinkle in her eye, though, when she added “But this is mostly publicly available knowledge, Jonny-san, should one choose to look for it. The man was secretive, to be sure, but—“
“But a century or more of clashing with the West, not mention the Communists, means there were a lot of people trying to uncover those secrets,” Jonny finished for her. “Yeah, Artemis has been pushing me to read the Liberty Alliance files on the man, but I’ve been pretty busy, you know…”
“Yes, I have noticed you in the papers and on television rather a lot, recently,” Mariko smiled again, if not quite as widely. “I particularly enjoyed your appearance on Good Morning Astoria last week. You really sold that cooking segment with Chef Liam.”
“Thanks, I was pretty nervous,” Jonny admitted, and felt himself blushing. “But somebody has to take up the slack, with Chilz gone… Scion hates doing anything beyond the major press conferences… actually, he’s not real thrilled about those, either. Artemis doesn’t speak to the press at all, usually, and Quanta… well, I love the guy, but he’s stiff as one of his quantum constructs whenever he’s interviewed. As for Totem, he’s just so damn serious…”
“Well, you’re really growing into the role as the public face of the Vanguard,” Mariko said, and then the conversation turned to more safely neutral topics, avoiding their fraught family and professional entanglements… especially the exact location, and state, of her missing brother. Hisashi had betrayed his father, Jonny understood that, but beyond assuring his nephew that the young man was alive, all Oshiro Tatsuo would say was that his son was “in a much needed time out.”
Eventually they finished their late lunch, and as Jonny was gathering up the detritus of another wonderful Crash Pod meal he noticed Kyle and his dad coming out of the building. He hadn’t realized they’d been here as well… no doubt up on the covered deck (he knew about the older man’s lingering agoraphobia, and his friends efforts to slowly acclimate him) … but he managed to restrain himself from hailing them. Mariko was too sharp, and perfectly capable of putting the pieces together to deduce that this friend of Jonny’s might well be Quanta – the only member of the Vanguard with a seriously guarded secret ID aside form Artemis…
• • • • • •
“How goes the reading of the Seven Non-Euclidian Dimensions of the Upper Spheres?” Meg Halcyon asked, picking up the last lamb skewer on her plate and dipping into the mistiki sauce.
“Exceedingly slow, thank you,” Cooper replied with a sigh. He had already finished off his own kebabs and was eyeing the nearby basket of fresh fruit. They were having a late lunch on the Himalayan Terrace of the Sanctum — a flagstone patio that, ever since the mystical home of the Magus Prime had relocated itself to Astoria, should have looked out over the Apollo Terraces district of the city toward the looming majesty of Mt. Defiance. Instead, it overlooked the fabled hidden valley of Shambhala and the towering, eternally snow-capped, and even more majestic peaks that surrounded it. Meg had never gotten a straight answer to her question about whether or not she would actually be in that mystical land should she decide to hop over the balustrade… and given what looked like a thousand foot drop, she wasn’t inclined to experiment.
“Who knew being the supreme master of magic on Earth would involve so much reading?” he added as he pulled a bright pink, spikey fruit from the basket, and began peeling it. A dragon fruit?
“Well, lucky for you you’re such a natural-born student, then,” she laughed.
“True,” he agreed, smiling breifly. “But even so, some of these more esoteric volumes are heavy going, even for me. And I feel I’m falling further and further behind… I’m beginning to doubt I’ll ever catch up with Roland…”
“Oh please, Roland Reid was the Magus Prime for what, 80 years? Do you think he was fully versed in 20,000 years of magical history when he had the mantle thrust on him at age 20?”
“Closer to 19,000 years, actually, and he was still technically 19 when—” Cooper dodged the empty skewer she threw at him, laughing. He knew she hated it when he got all pedantic on her… which of course is why he did. And it get’s her every time, she had to admit with an inward grin.
“Still, I understand your point,” he continued, and sliced off a wedge of the white, speckled flesh of the fruit to offer to her. “But the threats to this dimension never cease, and the universe doesn’t seem inclined to give me much breathing room to learn the ropes. In any case, I’m sorry I’ve been away so much, recently, I know we haven’t had as much time together as you’d like… as I’d like.”
“No, but if inter-dimensional demi-gods absorb our world into theirs, or demonic hordes overrun the world, or — what was the latest one? The Silent Men attempting an incursion down in New Mexico? Well, if any of that happens, then I guess our “us-time” would be pretty severely impacted too, right?”
She managed to get a real laugh out of him that time, and was glad. All the heroes of the Vanguard took their jobs seriously, of course, but she really thought Cooper bore the heaviest weight of them all, given his responsibility for not just Earth but for their entire dimensional reality… it all rested on his shoulders. Broad shoulders, yes, but still only human. And relatively young (depending on how you counted his years).
“Besides, it’s not like I’m sitting here in your lair, pining for you when you’re away,” she added. “Intrepid girl reporter here, remember? My own job may not be as vital as yours, my dear, but it keeps me busy.”
“And endlessly interesting, too. But that reminds me, I haven’t asked how the cookbook is going? Have you finished your text yet?”
“Not entirely, but Mike Philip has the design coming along, with the basic framework in place… D. Davis Vendt has got most of the recipes formatted and turned in, and Al Genaro is converting all the photos taken during the charity event into his comic book-style art — you know, you look particularly good as a cartoon character, sweetie!
“Anyway, I’ve got the basic text sections laid out, so we seem to be on schedule to have the book out my Christmas. Here, I have some early test proofs on my PAAD, if you want to take a look.” She pulled the device from the bag next to her chair and slid it across the table.
“It’s looking good,” Cooper said, sliding through the images. “I admit, I was dubious at first, when Ms. McDonald first approached the Vanguard about getting involved in this Crash Pod cook book. But the contest and the actual cooking of the winning recipes was unexpectedly enjoyable.
“Thanks for talking me, and the team, into it,” he added, handing her back her PAAD. “If nothing else, it was worth it just to see Artemis trying to cook.”
“Ha!” Meg laughed. “Yes, I think she only agreed to do the event because Janet promised there’d be no images, only drawings… that way she can always blame “artistic license” on anything… amusing. Or otherwise compromising to her scary “specter of the night” image.”
“I suspect you’re right. And speaking of Artemis, it’s almost time for this meeting she’s called. I believe the door in the Yellow Room is set to return you to your office today…”
“Actually, honey, could you open me a doorway to the Emerille’s on the Silver Mile? I need to pick up something’s for Mom’s birthday next week.”
“Of course,” Totem said, sweeping her a bow as he swept his cape across his shoulders, then muttering a few words she couldn’t quite make out. “There, try the second door on the left in the Hall of Mirrors… the one with the silver eye of Horus on it. See you tonight, Meg.”
• • • • • •
Frederick sighed as Eddie once again saved him from another ambush – for what, the third time since they’d jumped from the Battle Bus? At least! The Safety Zone was shrinking, and even though he’d managed to scrounge up a sweet Legendary shotgun and some decent armor, he’d already be toast if it wasn’t for his annoyingly perfect teammate’s annoyingly perfect saves. Of course Eddie had pulled Gideon’s fat out of the fire at least twice, too, but somehow that didn’t make him feel any better.
Frederick made it through the rest of the Fortnite round without needing to be saved again, thank God, and a pretty spectacular triple kill at the end definitely cranked his mood up. Eddie and Gideon each polished off one of the two remaining opponents, and their team was once again the last one standing – another Battle Royale win for Wunderkind, Paragon, and the Phantom Ace!
“Good game, guys!” Eddie said as they racked their PS5 controllers and gathered up the remains of their gaming snacks. The young Black man was so sincerely open, honest and enthusiastic that it was hard to stay annoyed with him Frederick thought, and mentally kicked himself for what he had to admit was really just envy. It was hardly Eddie’s fault if the Astoria Incident had turned him into a damn near perfect human being, with every dial turned up to 11.
The fact was, most people would have turned into narcissistic assholes after going from a reedy nerd working as a bag boy at Fred Meyers to a virtual paragon of meta-human perfection. But from everything Frederick had heard, Eddie’s eager, friendly personality was all his own and hadn’t changed a bit with his gaining powers. If anything, he was even nicer… but really, would one little flaw be too much to ask?
“So, Frederick, you’ve never really said much about why you left the CIA,” Eddie said as the three began heading back to their rooms to prepare for the afternoon meeting Artemis had called. The two newest live-in members of the Vanguard had adjacent suites, with Frederick’s next to the veteran Gideon’s quarters. “Aren’t you a little young to be retired, man?”
“Well, they recruited me when I was 17,” Frederick said diffidently. “Eight years isn’t a bad career with the Agency, and I just felt it was… time to move on.” The truth was, there’d always been a faction at the CIA who resented him – for his youth, for his undeniable brilliance at intelligence work, but most of all for his meta-human abilities. Most of the rank-and-file at Central Intelligence prided themselves on being baseline humans, and doing their work exceptionally well without the “crutch” of super-powers. When the Director had decided they should start recruiting amongst the meta community it was not a universally well-received policy.
“I thought maybe they fired you after finding out you were Wunderkind,” Gideon said, trying to look as innocently naive as Eddie, and failing.
“Hardly. It’s not possible to keep a secret identity these days without government cooperation. Of course they knew I was a meta, it was part of why they recruited me. It was some wag in the Agency who hung my code name on me, in fact.”
And not as an act of kindness… “Wunderkind” had been a passive-aggressive jab at his youth and supposed genius. He’d accepted it without hesitation, though, just to show the bastards they couldn’t get to him. And, honestly, because he didn’t have any better ideas himself at the time.
“It was a mutual parting of the ways, in any case. My superiors weren’t very happy when I “went rouge” and joined the Vanguard to stop Rising Sun’s bio-attack on Astoria last year. That I was proved right, and their assessment disastrously wrong, didn’t improve my standing with the haters, especially after the Director gave me a formal commendation for it.” He smirked, recalling his boss’s stony face during the ceremony, and that brittle smile when they had to shake hands afterward.
“Anyway, I was growing tired of all the red tape and beauracracy, and thought maybe it was time to explore the superhero side of things more seriously.”
“Ha!” Gideon hooted. “If you thought being a hero meant less paperwork, you’re in for a big surprise!”
“Speaking of the superhero biz,” Eddie cut in before Frederick could retort, “I haven’t seen your official uniform yet. I know we’ve both been pretty busy, getting moved into the Pyramid and learning the ropes, but I’ve been looking forward to seeing what you’d come up with.”
“Oh, um, yeah… right, been pretty busy, sure. I haven’t really given much thought to a costume – uniform, whatever – to be honest…”
“That’s right,” Gideon said. “Wunderkind is clearly more of the Phantom Ace school of thought when it comes to costumes. Right Freddy?” Gideon’s own “costume” consisted of Levis, any one of a dozen Hello Kitty t-shirts, leather boots, a leather jacket, and a simple domino mask.
“Frederick, not Freddy,” he said cooly. Whatever else you could say about him, Eddie at least never forgot how he preferred to be addressed. Unlike Gideon. “But yeah, civvies and my designer shades, along with a simple baklava, have always been good enough—“
“No, no, man!” Eddie said earnestly. “That’s OK for the Phantom Ace, it’s been his “brand” since the beginning. But two on the same team? No, Wunderkind should stake out his own identity, now that you’re going full time with the hero gig. Express your inner hero, man!”
“Hmmm, maybe…” He was a little embarrassed to admit it, but he had been giving some thought recently to a more refined look, if not necessarily the whole super-suit thing. Paragon’s suit was the whole enchilada, of course, from skin-tight dark blue Q-lon 7 material that showed off his perfect physique, to the full cape that always seemed to ripple dramatically behind him. But since he really didn’t want to discuss it just yet…
“So, what do you think this meeting of Artemis’ is all about?” he asked as they reached their rooms. “She was a little mysterious about it, and frankly she’s seemed a bit distracted recently…”
• • • • • •
“Thank you all for coming,” Artemis said as Quanta took his seat at the table, the last of the Vanguard to arrive. “The matter I wish to discuss has recently come to a head, and while it doesn’t seem to be a Priority One matter, I nevertheless didn’t feel it could wait until our next weekly meeting. It is a case I have been investigating on my own, but I now feel it’s time to bring the team in.”
In fact, the investigation had been driving her to extremes of frustration — a state she was unused to. She trusted that didn’t show in her usual stoic demeanor, of course. Touching a control on the console in front of her, the floor-to-ceiling windows that made up two walls of the room turned opaque and the lights dimmed. In the center of the large circular conference table a holographic projection flickered to life, and the face and upper torso of a rather ordinary looking middle-aged Black woman, a nurse by the scrubs she wore, began a slow spin.
“This is Marianne Griffith, 47, a hospice nurse at Dixon Memorial. Almost three weeks ago she simply vanished. Ten years divorced, with no children, and by all reports contentedly single, Ms. Griffith is a pleasant and well-liked woman, well-respected in her profession, and deeply invested in the care of her patients. But on Friday 29 April, she walked into her job and resigned on the spot, giving no reason, and no notice. She then left the hospital, and hasn’t been seen since.”
“That does sound odd,” Totem said, turning his gaze from the revolving image to his teammate. “But why is this a matter for us, Artemis? It sounds more like a case for, say, a private investigator.” There was a twinkle in his eye, although he remained perfectly straight-faced. He knew perfectly well that the two newest members of the team were not yet cleared for her or Quanta’s civilian identities.
“Indeed, Totem,” she replied blandly. “In fact, several friends of Ms. Griffith did bring the case to a local PI. Valentine Investigations took the case three days after the unexpected resignation. I was brought in sometime later, when the agency’s usual methods turned up nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
“Ah, I’ve heard of them,” Quanta offered, nodding seriously (although the humor in his voice was obvious enough to her trained ear). “They’re supposed to be top notch, so if they could’t turn up a trail, that does seem pretty stange. I can see why they called you in!”
“As you say,” she went on dryly. “Security footage shows the missing woman leaving the hospital campus on foot, at which point several street cameras pick her up for several blocks, heading west. She eventually enters a blind spot in the city’s CCTV network, however… and never emerges.”
While she spoke, the image of Marianne Griffith vanished, and was replaced by the various security camera images in quick succession.
“Dozens of cabs passed through that dead zone in the next several hours, any one of which might have picked her up, but so far none can be shown to have done so. If she entered a private car… well, thousands of possibilities exist. Given our resources we might be able to track them all down, eventually, but even we could not effectively investigate all of them!”
“I suppose you ran all the plates, though?” Scion asked. “And presumably none of the vehicles were registered to Ms. Griffith or anyone obviously connected to her?”
“I did, and you are right, John, I could find no connection. Her own car, a 2014 Honda Accord, remains in her garage at her home in Westlake. All of her other possessions, including all her clothes, beyond those she was wearing, also remain in the house… along with her beloved cat Mr. Wilikins.
“It was this latter fact that had prompted the woman’s concerned co-workers at the hospital to hire an investigator. Whatever circumstance might have motivated her to leave her job and responsibilities, so abruptly and with no notice, they all agreed that she would never have simply abandoned her cat. She’d had him for nine years, and doted on the animal like a child… if she were leaving willingly, and couldn’t take Mr. Wilikins, then she would have re-homed him.”
“Was there any indication as to what might have motivated this break,” Paragon asked, looking worried.
Artemis smiled inwardly, although nothing showed in her expression, of course. He really was a sweet, innocent kid… she’d long ago gotten over the heated attraction she’d felt on meeting him for the first time, in the ruins of the ZeroPoint offices. Strong, dangerous, and seemingly a bad guy — combine that with his stunning good looks, and he’d hit all her buttons! But he’d been mind-controlled, and the real Eddie Ritter was pretty much the polar opposite of a bad boy; once that had become obvious she’d had no trouble relegating him to the attractive-but-boring box.
“A good question, Paragon. She had been talking for several months about a long-planned trip she was taking to Italy – three weeks in the Tuscan sun, Florence, Venice, Rome. But that trip is set for late June. In any case, she’s not left the country, at least by conventional or legal means, as her passport remains in the top drawer of her dresser.
“And that has been were both Jane Valentine and I have been stuck, at a complete dead end, for the last two weeks.”
“But something has changed, yes?” Wunderkind asked. “Else why bring the rest of us in now, instead of two weeks ago?”
“Exactly,” Artemis said, and she gave him one of her rare half-smiles. “Two days ago Marianne Griffith walked into a police station in Oceanside. She told the officer who interviewed her that she was lost and confused. She claimed to have no memory of anything after the morning of 29 April, beyond getting ready for work… after that, nothing.
“Until she suddenly found herself standing in the health care aisle of the Oceanside Fred Meyer, pushing a cart half full of protein shakes and basic household items. Confused and frightened, she had left the store, hailed a cab (not having her phone on her) and had herself driven to the nearest police station.”
“Well, case closed then, right?” Blue Flame asked, looking a bit confused.
“Unfortunately, no. The officer who took her statement suggested that what she needed was a doctor, more than a detective. He’d been prepared for both an argument and to take her to St. Eligius himself — and was surprised when the woman had immediately agreed.
“I questioned the officer myself, and he reports that her face suddenly lost the tension of her previous anxiety, almost as soon as he’d mentioned a doctor. She thanked him, with more composure than she’d shown heretofore, rose, and walked out of the station with vague assurances that she’d be fine. Security footage shows her walking several blocks north… and then a system failure blacked out the city’s CCTV network in Oceanside for almost three minutes!”
“Well, that’s not at all suspicious,” Scion said, raising an eyebrow.
“And that’s why you asked me for that search algorithm,” Wunderkind put in, looking suddenly enlightened. “You were searching for her in an expanding circle from the last place she was seen, once the cameras came back on!”
“Indeed, and that algorithmic of yours proved a stroke of luck… although we may have to have a talk about how exactly you coded that.”
The grin that had blossomed on the youth’s face suddenly turned to a frown of worry, which certainly confirmed her suspicion. Frederick’s algorithm had not only scanned and analyzed the city’s CCTV footage, it had also reached out and begun pulling in wireless footage scraped from local businesses and homes… Ring doorbells, security cameras, even a few cellphones. Not strictly legal, of course, but the kid had worked for the CIA for eight years… she’d cut him some slack. After she put the fear of God into him, of course.
She was also inclined to go easy on him because it had worked – they’d got a hit!
“A misaligned camera at a CVS Pharmacy drive through caught an image of a cab passing by, and seated in the middle of the back seat was Marianne Griffith – positioned so that normal traffic cameras would be unable to catch her face. It’s not much, but it’s enough. We have a cab number now… and a very strong suspicion that there is some kind of mind control going on here.”
“Which takes the case out of the realm private investigation, and puts it squarely in our wheelhouse,” Scion agreed grimly. “What’s our next step, Artemis?”