09 – i – The Strategist

“The Prescient’s abilities continue to perplex, and the nature of The Director’s genius remains shrouded in mystery.”

The Strategist leaned back in his seat, ruminating on the report he had received. While it was true that The Stalker was not particularly adept at the art of writing reports—the entire thing was written as if it were a middle school book essay—her lack of practice had forced The Strategist to develop his own skills in reading between the lines. It took some effort to filter out the needless chaff from the lines which were understated yet vital in unraveling all aspects of her encounter.

“When I first learned of the existence of Genius-class beings, I thought to myself that this was it, finally an explanation for myself,” The Strategist said, thumb pressed down over the Record button on his analog tape recorder. “In my view, a true Genius would be the archetypal Renaissance man, the polymath, the omnidisciplinary scientist. An individual whose understanding of the world extends so far beyond the human collective that they can no longer be considered human, but something alien and unknowable.

“Reality, as always, disappoints.”

Releasing the button, The Strategist frowned down at his recorder. With a small shake of his head, he rewound the tape precisely the length required to excise his most recent paragraph, and began anew.

“The Prescient’s abilities remain chaotic and unreliable, making them difficult to factor into plans. As for The Director, I now believe with confidence that he is not responsible for either the technology or the biology aspects of The Castle. Those domains lie with The Gadget and The Doctor respectively.” He paused, considered removing the obvious explanation, but decided against it at the last moment. “Every Genius-class being has a unique fixation, an obsession they cannot part from no matter the willpower, drugs, or mental manipulations involved, yet The Director’s specialization remains shrouded in mystery.”

The fault was his own. If The Strategist had been there, he could have gleaned far more than The Stalker. Their first encounter with The Director and it just had to be through her.

The Stalker had likely been too busy fawning over her emotional interests to pay proper attention to the goings on around her.

“The Castle is furthering their involvement in the matter of the ephemeral Mummy, and thus furthering their involvement with The Hunters. Does this jeopardize our relationship with them? The answer is no. Not unless The Castle can replicate The Warrior’s bullets.”

The Stalker’s relationship was actually a positive in that regard, though The Strategist left it out of his notes for being far, far too volatile. If he were being honest, he was surprised it hadn’t imploded already, but he hadn’t actually sat down to perform a full analysis. Romantic connections were not his strong suit anyway.

“Per the question of whether The Castle’s actions can be taken advantage of…” He trailed off, eyes drifting to the calendar on the wall of his office. A woman wearing nothing more than raven hair and a thin white sheet smiled back at him as she sat above the month of March.

In December, The Castle’s servant-attired enforcers assaulted several guards at what was intended to become The Warrior’s new enchantment workshop. They didn’t do much damage themselves, but their actions brought The Eclipse’s attention to the operation, necessitating an abandonment, much to The Warrior’s chagrin.

Since then, nothing. Nothing until earlier this week.

They invited The Stalker into their pocket dimension when it surely would have been possible to engineer an encounter without her involvement. Was that a sign? A direct message from The Director that they were willing to talk… even collaborate?

“I have ideas on how to improve the stated goal of ambushing entity: The Monk,” The Strategist said, depressing the record button once again. “Approaching The Castle with the intention of collaboration should gain more than it loses, mostly in the form of understanding regarding the scope of The Prescient and The Director’s abilities. Care should be taken to avoid angering the originator of their plan with too many improvements; a Genius would take pride in their work and pointing out too many flaws will damage that pride. If their suspected offer is real, I propose we accept. This concludes my report.”

The Strategist stood, closed the long wooden slats of his office blinds, and opened the frosted glass door bearing the elegant lettering Tak Kimura, Private Investigator. He set the recorder on the reception desk.

“Transcribe and email to relevant persons,” he said, stepping past the desk to the coat rack. He slipped on a brown panama hat and light tan jacket, adjusting both in the nearby mirror. “You can leave early once you finish.”

“Am I still being paid for the whole day?”

The Strategist paused, looking back at the woman behind the old-fashioned desk. Shelby wore her hair in a scene style he was fairly certain had gone out of date twenty years ago, swept over one eye. She sat, shoulders hunched, with messy black mascara running down her cheeks. The Strategist was mostly certain she styled it that way using eyedrops, for her makeup looked that way every day.

“You are being paid for the amount of hours you write down, within reason, so long as the work gets done.” He had a small smile on his face, but mentally marked her down a point for asking a question already outlined in the employee handbook.

“What work?” Shelby muttered quietly enough that The Strategist doubted he was supposed to hear. Her sole visible eye shifted to the frosted glass door of the office. “You ever get customers?” she asked, louder. “Like people who don’t know what you do thinking you’re some detective?”

“Not often,” The Strategist admitted, marking her down a second time; new quality help was difficult to find. “But if ever someone does come in, I expect them to be treated as if we are a genuine agency. The problems regular people bring in are often a trifle to resolve, and help maintain the illusion of Tak Kimura.” He paused, hand on the door handle. “Any other questions?”

She hesitated visibly enough to make The Strategist wonder if something leaked into his voice. “No, sir,” she said, reaching for the recorder to begin her work.

“Excellent. Perhaps consider utilizing the remainder of the workday to peruse your handbook. Just as a little refresher,” he said, stepping outside.

Shelby was the latest in a short line of cultists he had hired as assistants. Unfortunately, for her, he was mentally reassigning her to The Stalker already. She hadn’t hit three strikes, but given the last two days, it wouldn’t be long.

“So hard to find good help,” he said to himself, pressing down on his hat to keep it in place. A heavy breeze hit a moment after, one he saw coming through the flapping of a flag further down the street.

Finding normal help was simply impossible, for no normal person involved themselves in the supernatural by definition. The Strategist felt he was being more than fair in overlooking odd attire, poor taste in music, idiosyncratic personalities, and more besides, but was it too much to expect some competence?

The Strategist shook his head as he walked down the narrow street in the north of Chicago, headed toward a little car park at the far end. The Eclipse, he well knew, poached primarily from ex-military, police, and medical fields, those most likely to encounter the supernatural; The Castle built their members; The Puppet trawled the dark corners of the internet for anyone willing and able to help.

The woes of being a fringe faction. It hadn’t been like this in Seattle.

Reaching the black asphalt of the parking lot, The Strategist kept walking. His low-profile Civic sat in its usual spot, teal paint dusted over with the regular dirt and grime that came with an infrequent wash. All windows—front, side, and rear—had large reflective shades to keep the heat of the sun out with a side effect of keeping casual passersby from peering in.

But the dust had been disturbed. The Strategist’s sharp eyes spotted the small smudges over the rear-passenger handle the moment he rounded the side of the small grocery, and his mind ran through a series of possibilities.

A casual brush from someone trying to get into an adjacent vehicle? Rejected; the disturbed dust ran in visible fingers—someone touched his door deliberately.

A burglar attempting to access the interior for the purpose of theft? Rejected; burglars typically broke in only when they spotted something valuable—impossible with the sun shades.

A confused citizen mixing up which car was theirs? Rejected; teal was an atypical color for American cars—the coincidence required for two teal Civics in the same parking lot was astronomical, and even two teal cars of any make were unlikely.

A supernatural actor sniffing out his car for ambush, sabotage, or other hostile action? Possible; with resources, ability, or simple dedication, it would not be difficult to find out where The Strategist spent his days.

So he kept walking, pretending he hadn’t been headed toward his vehicle at all aside from the brief turn of his head before he noticed the dust. The Strategist stopped at the curb, ostensibly looking for traffic, and instead scanned for any other disturbances to the natural order of things.

A woman pushed a stroller. Mid-afternoon, in a section of Chicago generally considered rougher than the rest, it felt unusual but not impossible. She was headed away from The Strategist, unlikely to be relevant.

A man sat slumped against the side of a drug store across the street, alive but unresponsive. His completely lax limbs indicated drug use and were hard to fake. Unlikely to be relevant.

A truck blew down the street twenty over the limit, almost flattening a boy who looked about ready to chase the driver down to slash his tires. The Strategist stepped into the road in its wake, pulling out his phone as he aimed for the drug store.

The Stalker picked up on the fifth ring. “I’m busy right—”

“Hello honey,” The Strategist stressed, hoping The Stalker remembered emergency phrases. “I’m headed home early today. Is there anything in my area that you need me to grab?”

An annoyed click of The Stalker’s tongue meant she knew what he was getting at. The Strategist busied himself, browsing the drug store’s aisles. Half their products were locked behind thick glass cases, but he grabbed a small bottle of acetaminophen, a bag of cough drops, and a small pamphlet on sleep health.

“I see four in your area,” The Stalker finally answered. “Your new cultist is about two hundred and fifty yards south of your position. The other three are humans; seventy-ish yards northwest, one-fifty yards east, and three hundred yards southwest. I don’t recognize them as being part of any faction. They might just be random people I’ve seen before.”

The Stalker could only see people she had seen before while utilizing her power, which was helpful in that it ruled out a vast number of The Eclipse, most of The Castle, and several lesser factions throughout the city. The Strategist pondered over the situation in front of the contraceptive display, looking to any outsiders as nothing more than a man trying to decide what size condom to get.

With his car about twenty-five yards south, none of The Stalker’s targets were inside it. That didn’t mean nobody was nearby, just that she hadn’t seen the perpetrator before. He had been thinking that someone was in the back seat, waiting for him to get behind the wheel unawares, but it was important to remember the possibility of other sabotage: a bomb, possibly. A car bomb would optimally be placed beneath the driver’s door for guaranteed impact against the intended recipient, so he had dismissed the notion earlier, but it did technically exist regardless.

“Do you need backup?” The Stalker asked, sounding eager now despite her earlier irritation.

That was a good question as well. The safest thing to do would be to walk in the opposite direction, appearing as if he had a few more things to pick up, while Shelby or The Stalker got a different vehicle to vacate the area.

But someone had gone to all this trouble to drop a puzzle in his lap.

Who was it? The Mummy? An as-of-unseen member of The Eclipse or The Castle? It could even be The Director himself, come to match wits in a game of plotting and planning.

“Oh? Shopping together? How quickly can you get to my office?”

“Gross.” The Stalker had to quip. “Seven minutes if I teleport across the city. Longer if I need to bring a car. I’m at Arborstone.”

Arborstone. A music club south of downtown. The Strategist didn’t bother puzzling out why she was there so early in the day, or why she was there at all. Current traffic conditions would put her well over half an hour away, maybe longer. She could teleport up and steal a vehicle nearby, but that came with its own problems.

The Warrior was out of town, gathering information on a magical ring of some notoriety, and thus unavailable. That left him with cultists as the only other sources of aid.

They needed to step up recruitment.

“That would be great if you stopped by as soon as possible,” The Strategist said, taking his items up to the counter where a red-eyed clerk lethargically scanned them.

“This better be good,” The Stalker muttered before the line went dead. The Strategist would have preferred she stay on the line, but her teleportation disrupted cell signals.

“Thanks,” The Strategist said, not that the clerk heard him, and took his medicine back out onto the street. He scanned the area once, not spotting anything anomalous, and stepped back across the road.

The Stalker could have found him no matter which direction he went, yet he found himself drawn back to that parking lot. He couldn’t help himself. The puzzle just sat there, waiting to be solved.

He took his time crossing the street and meandered through the parking lot, scoping out any other changes to his teal car from a short distance. It gave him time to think and bought time for The Stalker to arrive.

Two more things stuck out as being wrong, confirming that this was not a coincidence. The foil shade covering the rear driver-side window hung crooked, like someone had brushed against it without noticing. The seatbelt buckle was pinched in the same door, meaning it had been recently opened.

The Strategist never touched that door.

He peered in from afar. Not seeing any sign of movement, he approached cautiously, still wary of a trap.

“Yo.”

The Strategist half jumped out of his penny loafers, turning with a snarl. “Stalker,” he ground out. “I’ve told you not to appear behind me.”

The Stalker stood, unabashed, with glittery makeup covering her face. Dressed in a miniskirt and a tight leather top, she clearly intended to spend the night partying. The Strategist still felt it was far, far too early for that kind of clubbing, but perhaps her romantic interest had an early bedtime.

Wiping the mental sneer away, The Strategist pointed toward his vehicle. “Look through the gap in the window shade. Do you see anyone?”

Eyes taking on their characteristic shimmer, she stepped closer, leaning down to get a better look. There wasn’t much room to hide in the car, and if The Stalker saw so much as the tip of a fingernail, she would know that someone was present.

But she turned back with a shrug.

“Would you mind opening the driver-side door?” The Strategist asked, unlocking it remotely with his keys.

“I’m not your damn car… butler.”

“Chauffeur is the word you’re looking for,” The Strategist said, ducking back behind a large van in the parking lot. “Do be ready to teleport in case a bomb goes off.”

“A bomb? What the fuck?”

“It is an explosive device generally intended to cause damage to persons or property.”

“I know what—” She stopped, hissing. “Fuck you. This sounds way more dangerous than your cheery call implied.”

“That’s why I’m having you do it.”

Visibly grinding her teeth, The Stalker grabbed the handle and pulled. She instantly turned to a static copy of herself, freezing in place right there in broad daylight. It was a good thing regular humans rarely paid attention to their surroundings.

“No explosion went off,” The Stalker hissed in his ear. This time, The Strategist expected her to try to annoy him, and did not jump. “Did your mother never tell you the story of the boy who cried wolf?”

Ignoring her, The Strategist stepped out and around the van. It didn’t take an analytical eye to spot something amiss.

A parchment envelope was affixed to the steering wheel. Elegant script written in blue ink adorned the front, with indentation in the lettering indicating the use of a proper sharpened quill rather than any variety of pen. The flowery lettering bore his title and nothing more.

Evaluating a low chance for a trap at this point, The Strategist approached and plucked the letter from the wheel. There was a slight tug, almost magnetic, as he removed it, but no sign of anything metallic. Magic?

“Did you receive a letter today?” he asked, withdrawing a pocket knife and slitting the side edge of the envelope.

“I think I would have mentioned it,” she said, eyes gleaming not with her power, but with curiosity.

The Strategist hummed, unfolding the letter, eyes running down its handwritten words. The author appreciated brevity, keeping the length short. Two sentences explaining the what, one sentence explaining the where, and one sentence expended on a cordial departure.

“An invitation,” he answered The Stalker’s unasked question. “Signed The Cult of the Faceless One.”

The Stalker hissed. “That’s The Mummy shit.”

“It is indeed.”

“They trying to recruit you or something? We kill off too many of them so they come begging?”

“It simply says a night of answers revealed, and promises to come. Nine factions of Chicago have been invited to understand their place in the future.”

“A trap,” The Stalker said, eyes narrowed and shimmering with power. No doubt checking on her girlfriend.

“Potentially. Potentially a chance to learn more.”

The Stalker curled her lip, then jolted slightly as her phone rang. She picked it up, pressed it to her ear, and listened. Her eyes flicked to the letter in The Strategist’s hand. “You got one too?” she said, voice harsh. Another pause. “Yeah. The Strategist just got one.”

“I take it The Hunters just found theirs?” he asked, though the question was rhetorical.

The Strategist switched the gears of his mind, thoughts of intruders or traps forgotten as he began rereading the short letter.

“An invitation to all the factions who have worked together to fight the host off,” he mused. “Desperation or careful planning? Everyone will expect a trap. Myself included. Could not attending be a trap as well? Hmm…”

“Yeah,” The Stalker said, rolling her eyes. “He’s started mumbling to himself again. I’ll call you back if he says something worthwhile. Might want to call up The Castle and The Eclipse by the sound of things though, see if they got one too.”