12 – Lonesome Investigations

“Just wanted to ask about the status of that meeting,” Erika said, seated at her kitchen table with a notebook in one hand and her phone in the other.

Carter sat at the table next to her, staring at her wristwatch—though he didn’t seem to do anything with it. Opposite both of them, Daniel had his laptop out, trying to find out the same thing Erika was trying to find out.

What happened to The Fixer?

“The Hermit has been under increasing stress as of late,” The Adjustment said, calm and casual. “I haven’t been able to speak with her myself, let alone arrange a meeting time. She and The Hermit have locked themselves away, working on their project.”

“That project is the one to stop the worm invasion, right?”

“Correct.”

“And I take it that this increasing stress is because she knows whatever method she’s using will not work in the short-term, let alone long-term?”

“Possibly, as I said, I haven’t been able to meet with her.” The Adjustment let out a short sigh. “She is an ancient being and may not have the best grasp of time either. I once asked if she could help out The Art and I with… well, a thing… Anyway, I told her it wasn’t super important and not to rush. She got back to me about three years later, well after I forgot I asked in the first place.”

“That’s… not good.” Erika tapped her pen against her notebook, scowling.

The Castle had sent over a few documents to help her prepare for a meeting with The Eclipse regarding the impending maggot problem. Most of it, Erika didn’t even understand; it read like a passage out of the back of a calculus textbook, filled with terminology that the writer expected the reader to know but which Erika certainly did not, and there wasn’t even a glossary. She had half a mind to send the doc off to The Adjustment, trust her to get it to the right people, and then be ready to squash some bugs in the next few weeks.

“I couldn’t help but notice some activity over around Rolling Meadows,” Erika asked, moving to her chief topic of interest. “News hasn’t reported a ‘gas leak’, but it bore some similarities. Cops showed up in droves, some motel got shut down, and they roped off the entire area. That have anything to do with the maggots?”

Erika did not want to let on that she had been there, but she was extremely interested in knowing if The Eclipse knew anything.

She had already called up The Stalker and asked if she could locate The Fixer anywhere in the city. The answer, perhaps unsurprisingly, had been no.

“Not as far as I heard. I wasn’t involved in that cleanup, but The Art said it was probably a high-level entity’s presence breaking reality in the area. There’s one in the city, but we haven’t made contact—and not for lack of trying. It just shows up occasionally, mostly in the north end of Chicago, and stops fights between supernaturals before vanishing.”

Erika jotted High-Level Entity into her notebook and drew a line off toward an already written Steampunk Angel, then added a question mark to the line.

“It just stops fights?”

“Seems to be the case. We haven’t been able to make contact. If you manage, I’m sure The Emperor would be happy to have any information. It isn’t exactly subtle when it shows up. She wants it out of her city.”

“I’ll keep an eye out,” Erika said, adding a few notes before sliding the notebook over to Daniel.

The Eclipse did not know that this thing was some reality Terminator. That meant they probably knew nothing else relevant, but Erika had to ask anyway.

“Do you have any idea what kind of fight it was putting an end to?”

“There was evidence of some minor scuffle. Not the sort of thing it has been involved with in the past. Could be that whatever fight was happening just so happened to be near its lair. Whatever it was, it did not involve The Eclipse, and we arrived too late, so not much information to go on.”

“Got ya.”

“Anyway, it shouldn’t be related to the maggot issue—” A loud noise garbled part of what The Adjustment said, making her pause for a moment. When she got back on the line, she spoke in a rushed tone. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll try pushing on The Hermit harder. No promises.”

Erika didn’t even get a response out before the call ended.

“They don’t know anything,” Carter said softly.

“Not about The Fixer,” Erika agreed.

“Look on the bright side,” Daniel said, stopping his typing. “No news is better than bad news.”

That was true, in a way, though Erika felt she would rather know instead of being left permanently in the dark. Was The Fixer ever going to show up again?

The Stalker couldn’t see them, but that meant nothing. While The Stalker had seen Leah-Fixer, The Fixer had been convinced that The Stalker wouldn’t be able to track Mister Dice or Lavender unless she first saw them. The guises were essentially completely separate entities. The same was presumably true for The Fixer’s true form.

The Eclipse knew nothing relevant, unless The Adjustment had been lying or just didn’t know. The Fixer feared Erika getting involved with the reality guardian, so just heading up to northern Chicago and getting into fights to attract its attention would end up being counterproductive and potentially lethal. Assuming The Fixer had been right, anyway—from what Erika had seen, the steampunk angel hadn’t looked all that impressive; The Fool’s giant rock monster looked more threatening.

The Analyst, if she knew anything, wasn’t telling. Erika hadn’t been able to get into contact with the city’s other Outsider since the brief meeting at Varn’s.

They could only wait so long without hearing from The Fixer before having to move on. It had been two days, and Erika didn’t know if they were alive, dead, trapped, captured, ejected from reality, or whatever else could happen to them. There had been no calls, no letters, no sign at all that they were going to show up again.

“Do you have anyone else to check in with?” Daniel asked, frowning at his laptop. “The Castle wouldn’t know, would they?”

Erika drummed her fingers on the table as she considered, stalling her first instinct to reject the idea. The Castle shouldn’t know much, given that neither hand interacted with one another according to The Fixer, but then there was The Prescient to consider. Erika didn’t quite know what was up with him or his abilities, other than something about being able to tell some of the future.

Would he know?

How far did his abilities extend?

It was thanks to him that Erika ended up saddled with this bullshit about stopping some maggot apocalypse—presumably, he believed that she was the best option for it? Or he had foreseen her stopping it? Or he and The Director just didn’t want to deal with it, saw her as an easy mark, and threw the responsibility on her shoulders.

Erika didn’t have a direct line to him. Sending a quick text to The Butler, Erika asked for The Prescient’s phone number, if he was willing to speak with her. She wasn’t quite sure how much she should say—with The Stalker, Erika had directly asked about The Fixer, but with The Eclipse, she had tried to question in a more roundabout way—but she could think about that later. It wouldn’t matter if The Prescient rejected her call.

Thus far, her contact with The Castle had been… unstable. They contacted her, not the other way around. Both times she had tried to initiate, she had gotten nowhere. Part of that could be their little pocket dimension blocking calls, thus requiring one of them to be outside in advance, but she was fairly certain that she was just being used.

Aside from the document that Daniel had been trying to decipher, her only other factual information from them came from Rick, letting her know Anna was awake once again, though she wasn’t quite stable enough to leave.

“So… now what?” Carter asked, looking from Daniel to Erika. When he got no answer in a timely manner, he let out a disappointed sigh. “Mommy and Daddy would be happy if The Mummy was gone, right? Let’s work on that for when they get back.”

Erika shot a look at Daniel, and got a half-shrug, half-tilt of his head in return. “The museum is our only genuine lead at the moment, unless you want to break things again—”

“No. Not without some serious preparation.”

“Then we investigate the museum?”

Erika stood, hands lingering on the table for a moment. “Yeah. I’ll head over right now.”

“Now?” Daniel jolted, looking worried. “But—”

“I’ve done more than enough waiting around these last few days, feeling lost and ineffective,” Erika said as she turned away from the table. Heading into her room to collect anything she thought she might need, she spoke a little louder. “If there is something I can do, I’m going to do it. No sense in delaying.”

Daniel scrambled around the table, stopped at the entrance to Erika’s room, and looked around. There wasn’t much to look at. Since the fire, Erika had redecorated little. This rental house was supposed to be temporary anyway—no sense personalizing. Although it stopped him for a moment, he eventually took a timid step inside. “What about the others? Are you going to tell Dad or Rick?”

Erika paused her drawer rummaging, hesitating. Aside from Rick at The Castle, she hadn’t met with any of The Hunters. Her excuse had been that it was dangerous, that one of those tattooed people could show up at any time if she was around.

Excuse was the operative word.

“They’ll want to have a big meeting over it,” Erika brushed the idea off as she pulled a small pocketknife from her dresser drawer. The dresser had survived the fire intact, and they hadn’t emptied it when they moved it here, but she had thought the knife had gotten lost somewhere. “I just need to get there, see if I can sense any film around the statue, and leave. We can do big planning if we actually need to break the statue again.”

A knife was far more concealable than a baseball bat, but also less versatile, lacking in both reach and heft. With her abilities, concealability wasn’t so much of a concern, but it meant that she wouldn’t have to pull a bat from her armory.

Erika clicked her tongue in annoyance. She had spent the whole last week dallying and moping when she could still have been productive. Her armory needed restocking—there were only two baseball bats left over there, unless she had miscounted one. She had run through them a lot faster than she thought she would have. It wasn’t as if the thought of restocking hadn’t crossed her mind, but she had been spending her limited budget on food and motels. More money would require breaking into more ATMs, which would attract The Mummy.

If she had just lived at home under The Fixer’s protection, she could have put that money toward restocking.

She might not have encountered Delilah if she had lived at home, but aside from learning that The Mummy was targeting other people, all that had really gotten her was The Fixer missing.

Pocketing the knife, Erika continued rummaging.

“I’m just worried,” Daniel said.

“About what?” Erika pulled open another drawer, one that made Daniel turn red as he hurriedly spun to face the other direction. “It’s nothing more dangerous than what you and Bethany did. Or are you suggesting that you two are more qualified to run around than the person with actual magical powers?”

“That’s the problem,” Daniel said, turning his head before he stopped abruptly. “You’ll head out not intending to do anything, but you will. Not because you should, but because you can. Even if I go with you—”

“Nope. That is too dangerous. If I end up having to break something, you could end up like Anna… or worse. Ah ha!” Erika pulled out a small plastic case and held it up triumphantly. “You’ll be in my ear the whole time, ready to remind me not to get into trouble… or to call for help if I get into trouble.”

Daniel stared, confused for a long moment until he realized what the case was, but his moment of clarity turned to even more confusion as he stared back at the dresser. “Earbuds? Why was it such an ordeal to find them?”

“I don’t like earbuds,” Erika said with a shrug as she slipped them into her pocket. “They fall out a lot. Just a weird ear shape, I guess. They’re probably dead, but I’ve got a car charger somewhere, so I’ll charge them up as I drive. You just stay here and play Mission Control.”

“That’s… something, I guess.”

“Better than what you and Bethany had. You two could have at least gotten Carter on the phone. I wonder how much little wearable spy cameras cost,” she muttered to herself, before realizing that Carter had not followed her into her room. “Cart?” she called out, wondering if he was still just sitting at the table. “Carter?”

Instead, she found him sitting on the floor next to the front door, wearing his winter coat as he laced up his new light-up shoes from his birthday.

“Carter?” Erika asked, leaning up against the wall. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“With you,” he answered, not elaborating.

Folding her arms, Erika raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“You said The Fixer said to keep an eye on me,” he said, tightening the knot on his shoe before starting on his other foot. “You can’t do that if you leave on your own.”

“That was not literal.”

“You don’t know that.” He finished tying his shoe, then stood, turned, and stared directly at Erika, locking their gazes together. “I can help too. I learned a lot from our parents—and they aren’t trying to find me.”

Erika let out a long, slow sigh. “Carter,” she started, only for Daniel to tap her on her elbow.

“It might be a good idea,” he whispered.

“You can’t be serious,” Erika said, narrowing her eyes. “These people won’t care that he’s a kid.”

“What people? You’re just going to a museum, not doing anything dangerous, right?”

“Daniel…”

“He’ll keep you from doing anything stupid much better than an earbud could.”

“It isn’t safe—”

Carter popped. One moment he was there, standing and watching Erika argue. The next, he vanished. Erika only noticed from the corner of her eye, but Daniel clearly saw in full with his face going pale.

“Carter?” Erika shouted, spinning around, her eyes darting from side to side.

Daniel’s voice trembled. “He—he just vanished. Did you see—?”

Erika rushed to the spot where Carter had been standing, moving her arms around through the air to feel for him, hoping he was still there and just invisible. She had seen people disappear before; The Analyst could turn invisible, The Banker could teleport around, and the naked woman had Cheshire Cat’d herself off to nowhere, but this was Carter. He didn’t have powers, at least not like that.

Before the panic could fully set in, Carter popped back, slightly knocking Erika’s arm out of the way. He tilted his head a little, staring up at her like nothing unusual had just happened.

“See?” he said.

Erika grasped hold of him, squeezing him and poking him, making sure he was really there. “What the hell was that?” She tried to restrain her voice, to not shout at him, but she didn’t quite succeed.

Carter flinched slightly. “I escaped… into the future. Only a minute, but I can go further—”

“You… What—Don’t…” Erika gripped his shoulders, making sure his eyes were locked on her. “Don’t do anything…” She trailed off, taking a breath. “You warn me before doing anything like that again.”

Carter swallowed, squirming under her grip and gaze. Slowly, he nodded his head. “Okay. But if something dangerous happens, I can just go away until it isn’t dangerous anymore.”

Erika didn’t even know what else to say. Her heart was thumping in her chest, and adrenaline gave her a slight tremor. She kept her hands on Carter, forcing herself to calm down. If this had been anyone else, she would have been furious… or, if this had been anyone else, she likely wouldn’t have been half as upset. But this was Carter. He didn’t quite think like everyone else. To him, a demonstration was far better than words, and he probably couldn’t even imagine why Erika was so agitated right now. Getting angry wasn’t productive, especially with him.

She breathed, turning away. Daniel just stood back, eyes wide. She wondered what he would do if Bethany vanished for a minute. Shaking her head, she turned back around and forced a cocky smile.

“So, you can do fancy time tricks now, huh?”

“I learned,” he whispered, staring at the floor.

Erika closed her eyes, held in a sigh, and made a decision that she hoped she wouldn’t regret. “Alright, Carter, let’s go visit the museum.”