Back on the pillar, hands in pockets, hood over head. Gale couldn't see in front of him visually, but Breath of the Void showed him everything. No ti to pay attention to the people glancing at him and whispering to each other. Mia and Andrew sat at the table just a couple of tables away from the pillar he stood by.
Jacob ca in late at 3:45, backpack on his shoulder.
"Sorry," Jacob said, taking the empty chair beside Andrew. "TTC was late."
Mia waved her hand. Though she couldn't see him, he knew that she knew that he could see them.
Perfect. That was the signal. Ti to do this, Gale. Maybe he shouldn't smile this ti. Don't smile. Just go.
Gale took a deep breath and moved from the pillar. He walked over to their table, avoiding people in between even though his hood blocked his view. The group didn't see him until he stood just behind Mia.
"Hey," Gale said.
Andrew jumped, almost with a yelp. His knee hit the the table, making his tray jump. Jacob's mouth gaped open as he looked at Gale and started shivering.
"Shit!" Andrew shouted, pushing back his chair.
"It got to her. Holy shit." Jacob pointed at Mia. He grabbed Andrew's arm. "She got infected!"
Mia looked back and flinched as well. "Gale, what the hell?"
She flipped the hood over his head to reveal his face and sat back down.
"It's the skin walker. The skin walker! We're going to die!"
Mia slamd her hand on the table. "You idiots. And he's not a skin walker."
"How do we know you're the real Mia?! HUH?!" Jacob shouted, passerbys look in the group's direction.
"Give my notebook back, Jacob. I know you have it," Mia said.
"What-what notebook?" Jacob hugged his backpack.
"If you guys don't believe right now, I'll take back my notes and never let you copy it again." Mia folded her arms.
"But we really saw Gale get-" Andrew ran his hand across his neck. "You know."
"Yes! You saw it," Mia yelled. "I talked to him already. He's... he's still Gale. Not that skin walker thing."
Andrew shook his head. "How do you know? How can you be sure?"
"Jesus Christ, you two. Get it together." Mia rolled her eyes. She turned to Gale. "Show them. Just a little bit."
Gale looked around. At 4 PM, the cafeteria wasn't that populated, but still there were quite a bit on their laptops.
"Not here," he said quietly.
"Then where?" Andrew asked.
"Bathroom," Gale said. "Just for a minute."
Jacob laughed nervously. "Perfect place for a monster to pick us off."
"Fine." Gale sighed. He grabbed a chair beside Mia and sat down. "Watch this."
He put his hand onto the table and phased his hand. His hand beca translucent, and he pushed it through the table as if the table wasn't there.
Jacob's mouth dropped open. Andrew leaned closer to where his hand had passed through the table.
"What the fuck?" Andrew whispered.
"Holy shit," Jacob said. "What is that?"
"Think of like… superpowers. I guess?" Gale said.
"Holy moly. Can you do other things apart from just… pushing your hand through this?"
"Yeah… a couple of more things."
"Like what?" Andrew asked.
"Can you use the force? Make this pen float!" Jacob fished out a pen from his pocket and laid it in front of Gale.
Gale pulled out his hand from the table. "Wait, what?"
Andrew clasped his hands on the table and rested his chin on them, staring at him. "What are you?"
"I'm just... special," Gale said slowly.
"No, he's not autistic." Mia rolled her eyes.
Gale cleared his throat. "I can do things most people can't."
"Like what?" Jacob asked, voice now rising with excitent. "Besides the ghost hand thing?"
"That's not important right now," Gale said. "What matters is that I'm not a skin walker or whatever you thought."
"But we saw that thing eat you," Andrew said.
"It tried. I fought back. I won," Gale said.
Jacob's eyes widened. "You killed it?"
"Yes."
"With what?" Andrew asked.
"I have... tools."
Mia glanced at him sideways. "He has a sword."
"A sword?" Jacob's voice rose, making people look over with a frown. "Like an actual sword?"
"Keep it down," Gale whispered.
Andrew leaned forward. "So what? Are you like so kinda superhero?"
"No," Gale said firmly. "Look. There's a different world out there that none of you will ever understand. Things most people will never see in their lifeti. And that's a good thing. It's safer that way."
"Safer?" Mia asked. "I thought we had a deal?"
Gale forced a smile. "I know, but knowledge is dangerous. There's people or things that would kill just for knowing things. I also don't know that much, but I'll say as much as I can."
Jacob sat up from his seat, making a square fra with his fingers. "This is so cool. We could be like those ghost hunters on TV, but for real monsters! Team Monster Beaters!"
Gale stared at him. "Were you even listening? This isn't a ga!"
"But you need a team, right?" Jacob continued. "Every hero needs backup."
"This is not a hero thing."
"That's what they all say at first," Jacob grinned.
Andrew leaned in, not dropping his eye contact from Gale. "So, you're telling you've been pretending to be normal, going to classes, acting like you care about these classes when you have these aweso powers?"
"I do care about classes," Gale said.
Andrew shook his head. "But are you here to learn or sothing else?"
Gale shifted in his seat, looking away from Andrew's peering eyes. Of course, he was here to learn. His eyes looked at Mia, trembling. But who would believe him? He wasn't even sure Mia believed him earlier.
Mia slamd on the table again, "Shut up, Andrew. Who says a boy who can kill monsters can't have a normal life and get his G.E.D?"
"Fair point." Andrew leaned back, sighing.
"You… believe ?" Gale said.
"Huh? Why not?" Andrew replied. "Magical girls in ani also have normal lives. Why can't you?"
Jacob laughed. "Besides, this is like the coolest thing ever!"
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
"Exactly," Andrew said.
"You guys still wanna know even if 'things' happen?" Gale warned.
"I'll take this over being kept in the dark. Playing dead to keep your secret? Not cool." Andrew waved his hand.
Mia nodded. "So, cough it up. A deal is a deal."
Gale looked at Mia, then Andrew, and then Jacob, who practically had eyes beaming at him. Even if it was dangerous, they'd still wanna know. Adults are really weird. A good kind of weird. The kind of weird that makes him smile.
"Those docunts you took," Gale said to Mia, "they're more important than you think."
"Figured that out when you chased through the whole building like Jason in that thriller movie," Mia replied dryly.
Jacob looked between them. "What docunts?"
"From the asylum," Mia said. "About experints."
Andrew frowned. "What experints?"
Mia was about to say sothing, but Gale cut her off. "That's enough for now. First, I need those papers."
"And then what?" Andrew asked.
"Then I'll tell you what I can."
Jacob grinned. "So we are forming a team."
"No," Gale said flatly. "We're not."
"Sounds like we are though," Jacob said, still grinning.
"Ok, look," Mia said, shoving aside the trays. She unzipped her backpack and pulled out a thick folder full of clipped and stapled docunts. The front of the folder was clearly marked "CONFIDENTIAL."
Gale raised an eyebrow as he looked at her. The folder looked thicker than expected. How the hell she take that much stuff while running away and not dropping a single one?
"I organized them into categories," Mia said, opening the folder and spreading its contents on the table. The papers had different coloured sticky notes. "Four main sections: Patient records for Mary Gallard, sothing called QPES, a section on 'Mysterious Entities,' and another on 'Unknown Energy Emissions.'"
Jacob leaned forward. "Holy shit. This is like a mad scientist's notebook."
"Keep your voice down," Andrew muttered, but he stared at the papers too.
"Let's start with Mary," Mia said, pulling out the first stack with a blue sticky note. "Since that's who we went there looking for anyway."
She spread the papers out. The top sheet had a black and white photo of a young woman with hollow eyes and ssy wavy hair. The na "GALLARD, MARY E." was typed across the top in bold letters.
"Damn," Jacob whispered. "She looks ssed up."
"Listen to this," Mia said, reading from the file. "'Patient escaped confinent on October 12, 1981, fleeing into the forest behind the facility. Search parties found nothing for three days. On day four, patient returned voluntarily, exhibiting markedly decreased aggression and new docility.'"
"She just... ca back?" Andrew asked.
"Yeah, but…" Mia flipped to the next page. "'Subsequent examinations revealed unusual markings on patient's back and arms. When questioned about escape, patient spoke of the red sky place and the hooded ones who showed her things.'"
Goosebumps pricked at Gale's skin. That's exactly what he saw when he turned on the machine by itself.
"It goes on," Mia continued. "'Attempts to study markings resulted in violent episodes. Three nurses and one doctor suffered injuries when attempting standard procedures. Patient exhibited strength beyond physical capabilities, breaking restraints rated for 700 lbs of pressure.'"
"Holy shit," Jacob whispered.
"They were using her," Gale said. "They were studying her to make that rift machine."
"A what?" Andrew asked.
Mia glanced at Gale. "Like what we saw when the asylum started shifting?"
"Kind of," Gale said. "Keep going."
Mia pulled out the next section, marked with a yellow sticky note. "This is the weird one. QPES or Quantum Portal Ergence System."
The pages showed pages of complex equations, diagrams of circular structures that looked like blue prints.
"I didn't understand most of this," Mia admitted. "But the basic idea seems to be creating a doorway to... sowhere else."
"A rift," Gale muttered.
"They called it a Traversable Einstein-Rosen bridge," Mia said, pointing to text. "But they said it kept failing because of a missing component in the equation. Sothing they couldn't identify that would stabilize the portal."
"Isn't that just a wormhole?" Andrew asked.
"You'd be right if it didn't go further than the usual theory."
Ollie did say that it was crazy how mundanes were able to build this thing with just electronics. Wouldn't that an the missing ingredient was ether?
"What's this?" Jacob asked, pointing at a diagram. It showed a circular fra with panels around it and a central pillar in the middle. It exactly had the sa layout as the one in the greenhouse.
"That's the machine I found," Gale said. "The one in the greenhouse room."
"You said it worked?" Mia asked.
"Yeah. Sorta. It opened sothing."
Andrew grabbed the paper, studying it. "So these crazy doctors figured out how to open portals to other dinsions? In the fucking '80s?"
"Not quite," Gale said. "They were missing sothing. So it wasn't stable."
"What were they missing?" Jacob asked.
Gale paused. "Not important right now. What else is there?"
Mia pulled out the third section, marked with a green sticky note. "Mysterious Entities. This one's... weird."
The pages contained sketches and photos of strange creatures. One looked like a dog with too many legs. Another looked like a deer with an elongated neck and no face. Detailed notes ca with each image.
Mia read the note out loud.
[Entity 17 erged from the test chamber during Trial 56.
Subject displayed extre aggression, killing two researchers before containnt. Physical properties defy known biology. Tissue samples dissolve within minutes of extraction. Entity apparently breathes nitrogen rather than oxygen.]
"What the living hell," Andrew whispered.
"There's more," Mia flipped through pages. "They docunted dozens of these things coming through their portal. So small, so big. Researchers suggest these alien lifeforms evolved in completely different environnts than Earth."
Jacob pointed at a photo of a child sized figure. Its knees bent backwards, more like a kangaroo's. Its arm, too long, had two joints instead of one. Its nails looked like kitchen knives, 6 on each hand. "Is this what we saw? The skin walker thing?"
"Looks similar," Gale pulled the photo closer to him, "but this is different."
"Different...?" Andrew repeated slowly. "You so kinda biology expert?"
"Just lots of wilderness training." Gale faked a cough.
Mia pulled out the final folder with a red sticky note. "Last one. Unknown Energy Emissions."
These pages contained charts, graphs, and readings from various instrunts. Technical notes that Gale could not understand. He looked at Mia. Her eyes looked over stuff on the paper he didn't even bother looking at.
"They discovered that the portal leaked energy," Mia summarized. "Energy they couldn't identify with any known instrunts. It ssed with electronics but also seed to charge batteries sohow."
"Let see that," Gale took the paper, reading quickly. They'd detected the rift residue without even knowing what it was.
"According to this," Mia continued, "they thought they could harness it as a power source. Like drilling for oil, but tapping into whatever's on the other side of these portals."
"Like an interdinsional power plant?" Jacob asked, excited.
"Sothing like that," Mia said.
Andrew ran his hand through his hair. "So to recap: these asylum doctors found a patient who went through so kind of portal, studied her, then built their own portal machine, let monsters co through, and tried to steal energy from another dinsion?"
"That's the short version," Mia said.
"And then Mary burned the place down," Jacob added.
Gale frowned. "How do you know that?"
"It's in her file." Mia flipped back to the Mary Gallard docunts. "Last entry, dated June 2, 1987. 'Patient Gallard sohow broke free of restraints during midnight check. Set fire to east and west wings. Fire spread rapidly. Twelve staff and twenty-eight patients presud dead. Mary Gallard's body never recovered.'"
"But she didn't burn the greenhouse," Gale noted. "Where the machine was."
"No," Mia confird, reading further. "'Central greenhouse structure remained untouched by flas despite proximity. Facility director ordered all research materials and equipnt moved off-site before authorities arrived.'"
"So she protected the machine?" Andrew asked.
"Or whatever was coming through it protected itself," Gale said.
Mia gathered the papers back into their sections. "There's one more thing. A note at the end of Mary's file."
She pulled out a single sheet. "'Patient's extraordinary delusions have provided unexpected insights into theoretical physics. Continued observation recomnded regardless of psychological state.'"
"Classic. Use the demon to gain knowledge," Andrew said.
"And building a machine based on what she told them," Mia added.
Jacob sat back. "Guys, I think Gale's right here. We're way in over our heads with this one. This could be so underground secret world changing stuff. Like those evil villains in Jas Bond."
"Are you serious right now?!" Mia hissed. "Don't you wanna learn how all of this works and make breakthroughs that could make people's lives easier?"
"Jacob's kinda right though. What if this gets us into so serious trouble?" Andrew crossed his arms.
"Which is why I need these docunts," Gale said, reaching for the folder.
Mia pulled it back. "Not so fast. You promised to explain things, rember? Our deal?"
"Yeah," Andrew leaned forward. "What's your connection to all this? Why were you so desperate to get these papers?"
Gale paused. What does he tell them? He has a friend who has a lab that can probably produce this thing and also has the secret ingredient that may make this thing work?! Looking into Mia's eyes, that's just going to make her drool at all this 'knowledge'.
His shoulders slumped, putting his fingers together and twiddling them. "I… work with soone who deals with this stuff."
"Like n in Black?" Jacob asked.
"Yes," Gale nodded. "Wait, no. But they do wear suits. Lots of suits."
Mia gathered the docunts back into the folder. "So what now?"
"Now I take these sowhere safe," Gale said, holding out his hand. "And you three forget all about it."
Jacob snorted. "Yeah, right."
"You have to," Gale insisted. "For your own safety."
"No way, bro," Andrew said. "We're already in it. You said this was dangerous. They'll try to take us out anyway since we know stuff. That's how that world works, right?"
Mia paled slightly. "I didn't think of that."
"I can protect you," Gale said.
"How?" Andrew narrowed his eyes. "You can't be everywhere at once… can you?"
Gale rubbed his temple. They had a point. Maybe Rachel can help. She has mundane friends, so she'd know how to protect them. He can ask her later. Ollie could probably help too. He protected the mundanes in the Eclipsed and he has resources.
"Fine," he said finally. "But we do this my way. No heroics. No amateur detective work. You give the docunts, I take them sowhere safe, and then I figure out a plan."
"Sowhere safe like where?" Mia asked, still holding the folder.
"I have a friend. He has resources and security."
"This friend of yours. Is he as… unreliable as you?" Mia asked, leaning away from Gale.
"Totally not. He's the most reliable person I know."
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