“No, this time you shall not– this time you shall not escape,” said the echoing voice, bouncing down metallic hallways.
Fir put a palm against the stainless steel and pulled, but by the look on his face (his usual 'slightly less than comatose' appearance took on a hint of sadness, like the bouquet of a fine wine) and the fact that nothing crumpled and screamed and curled into lumps of metal, he hadn't got a grip on anything. Wes slammed a hard-heeled foot into the wall, hearing only alternating thumps and hollow booms as he did or did not hit girders beneath the slick surface.
Relatively useless as that was, at least he was doing something. Bosh seemed to have given up- with no evident mind to use his mind powers on, he was stuck trying to stay behind Decon, who could destroy anything that meant him great harm. Not that Decon actually appreciated or offered to take this protective task upon himself; having Bosh fix to his back unexpectedly while he tried to intuit the best way to get out of a suspended metal hallway without dropping them all to their deaths wasn't very helpful for his concentration.
Seth, hands gently glowing to keep them from being plunged into total darkness, was the first one to notice when a part of the hallway started to crumple. Seizing Wes (who seized Fir) by the upper arm, she dragged them back just before the initial resistance caused by crumpling metal gave way with a fantastic screeching crunch.
“No! Never! Never!” The voice bellowed, bouncing tinnily down the foreshortened hall.
“No, not at all. This is Not Good,” Decon said simultaneously, eerily matched with their attacker. They weren't much given to listening to the trite promises of death their enemies issued anymore – unsurprisingly, they were usually preoccupied with the actual threat of death than the death threats.
“Back,” Seth said, grimly, looking towards the ominous, obviously-the-end-of-the-road little box room at the end of the hall that was now their only possible exit. “Go.”
Brushing the burned cloth away from his skin, Wes barely bothered to nod, herding Fir before him to the room. Bosh was already half-way down the hall. Seth looked at Decon, but Decon had put his hands up against the wall and closed his eyes. The others lagged, waiting. The ominous creak and groan of metal reverberated through the hall, Decon walking along the wall as if blinded.
“Run softly,” was all Decon said.
They did – as much as those who weren't Wes could (the urge to simply pick Bosh up and carry him was apparent on Wes' face). He reached the room twice as fast as anyone else and had a quick inspection before waiting nervously for the others to arrive.
Decon reached the doorway, putting his hands against the frame and frowning. He finally opened his eyes to the others staring patiently at him. “Dissolved the bolts to the crushing arms and the mechanism that would shut and lock the door,” he said, and exchanged a smile with Seth.
“Fuck,” Bosh said, because that's what Bosh tended to say in these moments.
They could still hear the voice, but there was some change in the acoustics, or in the resonance of this room. Upon entering the metal maze, they'd realized their enemy was somehow using the metal frameworks to project and carry the voice – likely an acoustic change meant a structural one, or a material one.
“BWAHAHAHAHAHAAA YOU FOOLS YOU FOOLS YO-,”
“Stand away from the doorway, please,” Seth said, in the eerily calm voice they'd come to know and love as an indication it was time to Get Shit Done.
They huddled in the center of the room, the maniacal laugh that had thus far haunted them through the maze reduced to a gorbling and only vaguely-threatening chuckle by the acoustics warp.
Placing a foot just at the edge of the doorway, Seth raised her arms to the hallway and let loose a jet of metal-singing, air-sucking, blazing orange-white fire that prickled their throats and dried their eyes and sucked tendrils of hair towards its blazing column of ashen death like the sirens lured sailors. When the roaring was done, the hallway fell quiet, but for each team member's ringing ears, and the groans and crackles passing up and down the structure like the stumbling breaths of a prize fighter a punch away from knock out.
“Anything that was on, in, or near the hallway is either dead, or very near it,” Seth said, turning back around. The visual pop of the night-light glow of her hands returning made them all jump. “For the moment, we can concern ourselves only with this room.”
“Jesus fuck,” Bosh said, because that's what Bosh tended to say in these moments.
“Did you find anything strange in the mechanics of the doorway, Decon?” she prompted.
“Ah,” Decon said, “No. Er- not really. There's got to be some weird insulation on this room, but I mean, the mechanics have all been relatively simple.”
“Like 'you'-simple or simple simple?” Wes asked.
“Simple simple. Like borrowed bits from a backhoe, just rearranged, kind Rube-Goldberg style.”
“So, just like the robbery was a set up for the chase, which was a set up for the maze, this is probably a set up for something else. It's been improvised not out of genius or madness but deliberate misdirection,” Seth said, looking to Bosh for confirmation.
“Yeah, I can vouch for the no-madness theory,” Bosh said, shaking his head. “That voice was doing a good job at concealing whatever actual emotion was behind it, but that sort of ability to conceal is a pretty hallmark feature of sanity, or some very particular psychoses.”
“By not providing a physical mind, this malefactor –“
“I'm so glad we decided to use malefactor to describe unknown potential-hostiles,” Bosh said, making fists in front of his chest as if seizing sweet victory. “It always cheers me up so much.”
As was her usual policy, Seth gave up on giving him the same vaguely disbelieving stare as the others (except for Fir, who could only occasionally be said to the be staring at anything specific rather than simply staring) in favor of due consideration. “It is relatively satisfying and descriptive,” she said, much as she'd said back at base when they'd decided to use that term.
Having said the required response, she shrugged, and went on as if uninterrupted. “This malefactor has neutralized Bosh's abilities, but his reliance on a deceptive voice indicates he doesn't have a thorough knowledge of Bosh's abilities. Likewise, there are limits to what I can do with metal, especially when it's not attached to anything which could burn. By not providing a physical form or convenient mooks–”
“That one was a good choice, too,” Bosh said. Decon nodded in general agreement.
“–the malefactor has provided little resistance for Wes. Decon has a significantly harder time intuiting the workings of machinery that he can't see, so the malefactor got that, too. Since nobody knows what exactly it is Fir can do or when or how he can do it I suppose we'll just have to give a pass on that one.”
“That's right,” Bosh said, tapping Fir consolingly on the shoulder, “Way to confound the enemy, Good ol' Crazy McUnpredictable.”
Fir, if he heard him, didn't seem to care, but stared at the place where Bosh had touched him as if it were a difficult crossword left out in the dentist's office, filled in with offensive innuendo. Bosh took his hand back, debating whether he should wipe it off.
“Well,” Seth said, hands going to her hips with a shrug, “Better to move first than wait to be trapped, and we can always resort to a little wholesale destruction...”
Even as she spoke, though, the sound of metal-sliding softly against metal slithered through the air, followed by a subtle hiss.
“Shit,” Seth said, genuinely disgusted with herself as she flopped to a sitting position, then involuntarily flopped onto the floor.
“What?” Decon asked, unfortunately mid-way through a yawn that sent him to the floor next.
“Gas,” Wes said softly, realizing it wasn't much use to keep holding his breath. “No matter how prepared, you always overlook something.”
“You mean like a... god... damned... movie?” Bosh said, but by then, he'd fallen over, his mouth, as usual, working well after it should have stopped.
Wes carefully put his back to the wall, frowning at himself, such that when he passed out, he slid gently to the floor.
He woke gently, too – but on the floor, in a room of the apartment he knew like he knew his own name. Blinking slowly the details occurred to him: the rough green carpet, cracked linoleum curling further and further up at the edge of the kitchen every time they tripped over it, the hum of the fridge, and the vague smell of Indian food from the neighbor's cooking, two floors up. He knew the hollow sound of the staircase, buzzer as the door on the main floor let in people and the wind, the slow turn of the fan, cutting the light like a whip in time with the slow turn of his stomach...
He knew this apartment like his real name and like his real name he hated it.
He heard the turning of the latch on the bedroom door, two walls over.
Wes sat up, pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged them, speaking clear and loud. “I am not here.”
It didn't stop the creak of the floor. Three boards in, loose nail, just the right place to always be stepped on when he had to stop and open the door. Wes fought the urge to shout it, to let him know...
“I'm not here,” he said firmly to himself – but did he believe it? He forced his arms to untangle, forced himself to stop shaking, forced himself to stand.
The sound of something moving on the dresser by the door, the roll of hard plastic or placing of a coin in the drawer, or, maybe, searching for something.
“I am not here,” he said, and the calmness of his own voice comforted him. He glanced up at the ceiling, looking for detail mistakes, looking for holes or inconsistencies in what appeared before him. “You can't fool me this way,” he said. “I will never be back in this place.”
The thought occurred quite unbidden, though it was admirably strong, asking how he could be certain he'd ever left?
“Because I am socially maladapted,” Wes said, pushing on the wall to see if it felt metallic, “not delusional.”
Madness is catching, with so much trauma...
“It is not,” Wes replied, treating the intrusive thoughts as speech. “That's ludicrous. Anyway, I never went mad.”
The floorboards in the other room started to creak again, as if someone was approaching the final door that kept the two rooms separate. Sure, West could identify the noises even in his sleep; sure, he knew them, each one its own voice, like a musical scale reaching for its inevitable octave. Wes' head snapped around to face the door, but he let out a calming breath. “You can't replicate people, can you? Otherwise I would've seen him by now.”
The doorknob began to slowly turn, twisting his gut as if the two were tied together.
It was not far. Wes walked over and pushed the door open. All that was there was a room empty of anything but the furniture he remembered being in it. He made no effort to conceal his sigh of relief, but went about looking for weaknesses in the images and sensations he was experiencing. They were really quite good.
Still, he gently turned the knob to shut the door quietly, thinking queasily of the bedroom beyond. It was not real. Quite good, indeed.
“Not good enough,” he murmured. “Now, how does one break this sort of illusion I wonder?”
'You can't break it,' came the “thought,” 'You'll never break it.'
“No,” Wes said, “That's not in the spirit of things at all. I'm a hero. I ought to be able to figure this out...”
'Trapped forever in the place of your torment,' said the thought, 'lost to all of your friends.'
“'Torment' isn't the word I'd choose,” Wes replied, knocking on a nearby wall, then crouching and running his hands over the carpet. “That's sort of overstating it. 'Friends' is a little bit dubious as well. We haven't been working together that long. Though I suppose I ought to be more generous with that definition. Dr. Hardwell would think so. It helps in the healing process to open one's self up to others, anyway, if only a little at a time.”
A strange thumping – not quite knocking at the door – was coming from the hallways outside the apartment. This had no place in Wes' memories. Giving a look of dubiousness to the general setting, Wes walked to the front door, unlocked the bolts (the second one was sticky, just as he remembered) and pulled it open.
“Hi,” said Fir, floating upside from the ceiling, holding himself in place with a firm grip on the door frame.
“Hello,” said Wes. “This is not very realistic. Fir neither speaks like that or flies.”
“Ah,” said Fir, “well, actually I do speak like this.” He glanced at the ceiling 'beneath' him. “The flying, though... that's new.”
Pulling open the door so that Fir could maneuver inside, Wes frowned sceptically. “You're an illusion, albeit a peculiar one.”
“Now, that isn't a very nice thing to say.” Fir, seizing on a light fixture, brought his feet up under (over?) himself. Kicking out, he propelled himself in a gentle backflip from ceiling to floor, his feet landing firm and newly bound by gravity – to his surprise, if his expression was any indication. “but I don't blame you,” he went on, brushing himself off. “Probably better to think I'm an illusion, though I'm fairly sure I'm not.”
“That's reasonable. But why wouldn't you think I was an illusion?” Wes asked, crouching to see if there were any particular reason Fir was now sticking to the ground.
“That's also a good question,” Fir replied, lifting his feet each in turn in a test of gravitation. “I shouldn't be surprised; you are the smart one in this outfit – though, given what I've seen so far, that isn't so hard. It's because I'm screwing around in your illusion. I know that because whoever's casting the illusions failed to get access to my own thoughts – at least, didn't have access for long. Plus, this isn't so dissimilar to what that Rachel the Reader lady could do, so, you know, I've done this sort of thing before.”
“Well, if you're the real Fir (which you aren't very convincing, at this point), how did you get from your illusion to mine?”
“That I don't know,” Fir said, shrugging. “My last team had the good goddamn sense to have an actual telepath around to handle this sort of shit. I'm still a little puzzled as to why this team only has a fucking empath. Empaths are fucking useless, man.” He glanced around at the apartment. “Swingin' pad, though.”
“Well, this is somewhat troubling,” said Wes.
“I didn't mean to insult the empath, if he's your friend or anything,” said Fir, raising his hands.
“No,” Wes said, “The situation is somewhat troubling.”
“Oh,” said Fir. “I agree.”
Wes put a fist up to his lips, thinking. “Why wouldn't you know why we don't have a telepath on the team?”
Fir, having been poking about at the furniture (presumably for the same reason Wes had earlier), turned, looking at Wes with surprise. “Uh... because I spend half my time comatose these days? Maybe because it wasn't in the 'Welcome to the Team' brochure?”
“Come now,” Wes said, somewhat scolding, “Even an illusory Firmament would know why we don't have a telepath.”
“What?” Fir replied, shrugging. “Did they run out of 'em at the Piggly Wiggly? Jesus Christ! I'm a lot more aware than you guys give me credit for, but I'm not fucking psychic – and I know how that sounded. Give me a break, it's been a while since I've had conversations.”
“Thirty years,” Wes said. “Without aging.”
“Give or take a decade or so,” Fir said, shaking his head unhappily. “Let's not dwell on it, all right? This shit is weird enough without dragging my loony bullshit into it.”
But Wes didn't reply, remaining in his 'thinking' pose and eerily still.
Just when Fir was beginning to feel the urge to fidget, just to create some motion in the room, Wes broke his pose and sighed heavily.
“Well, I suppose you're real.”
“Thanks?” Fir replied, self-consciously feeling his own chest for signs of 'realness'. “I don't know what's up with the floating stuff, by the way...”
“There are a number of questions I could ask you, but frankly I don't feel like it. It's good to know that you're still in there, though – so to speak,” Wes said, beginning the investigation of the illusory apartment, the effort he was putting into sounding encouraging not at all effectively concealed, even by pacing. “We were kind of worried after the whole coma-thing that your mind wouldn't be intact even if you did 'wake up' all the way.”
“That's... honestly kind of frightening,” Fir said. “Why are you more frightening in your own head?”
Wes stopped, looking up at Fir with a deceptively level gaze. “I don't like being here.”
“Ah,” Fir replied, looking dangerously close to hovering again. “Sure.”
“I can't find anything wrong with this illusion, though,” Wes said, unusual amount of tension in his voice as he picked up a figurine he seemed to regret touching at all. He put it back down with just as much deliberation as he'd picked it up, though. “It doesn't make me believe it's real, but it makes me wonder.”
“Well, there's two kinds of illusions, right?” Fir said, “Illusions created around you, and illusions created from you. Given the accuracy of this illusion, I would say it was created from you – which is probably worse.”
He shrugged, thumbing the worn corner of a particle-board dresser whose veneer was just beginning to flake. “See, an illusion that's created around you is difficult because there's no need for it to be cohesive – but it it's easy because you're physically moving in it. The minute you physically hit anything, you've got borders you can start to tear down, hopefully forcing the illusionist to dispel their illusion. On the other hand, an illusion that's created from you is one that you actually play into, you're going to make it more and more real. It's all in your mind as long as you don't regain consciousness. Telling yourself it's an illusion isn't going to dispel it most of the time, either. There's no physical barriers, and your own emotions are going to feed into it.”
Wes, who had been standing stock still, listening with his arms crossed over his chest, waited for the other shoe to drop. It didn't.
“So how do we get out of it?” he asked.
Fir shrugged. “I don't know man – like I said, we had a telepath back in my day. That's just what she said.”
“Is that a joke?” Wes asked, frowning.
“What?” Fir asked, now shrugging defensively. “No, man, that's what she said.”
Wes stared, like an overly-serious parrot, head cocked just a little. “I... Sorry... sometimes that's kind of a joke these days... I'm just not very good with humor.”
“Shit, man,” Fir said, shaking his head. “What kind of joke is that?”
Wes had only begun to open his mouth when the creaking in the other room started again, the tell-tale metallic clicks of the door handle having a hand laid on it. Wes's head snapped around like a hawk's; he stared hard at the door until the floor creaks wandered away.
“Okay,” Wes said, determined voice covering the noise behind the door. “So.”
“What the hell is that?” Fir said, now staring suspiciously over his shoulder at the door behind them. “I think I can see shadows, man, under the door. This is creepy.”
“I don't think whoever's casting the illusion can replicate people. That's one of the reasons why I believe you're genuine.”
“Is that people? It's like some kind of fucking haunted house,” Fir said, exaggerating a shiver.
“It's not haunted,” Wes replied, voice calm. “It's worse.”
“It's wha...?” Fir began, but Wes had turned away, fingers tapping over his mouth as he tried to think of a solution.
“So, the illusion is in my mind. You're somehow visiting...”
“Yeah, don't ask me how that happens...” Fir said, shaking his head.
Wes shot him a glance. “Oh, you appear to have acquired both a severe aversion to and the ability to recognize telepaths. That's why we don't have one. You kept putting them through walls, when you were in your coma.”
“Whoah, okay, that's weird,” Fir said. “I didn't used to have that power.”
“You didn't used to fly,” Wes replied.
“Somehow I don't think that one's going to stick,” Fir said, with a half-grin. “That's just a consequence of recognizing the unreality of the situation, I think.”
“There is no spoon,” Wes said, eyes narrowing as he stared at the ceiling.
“You are seriously weird,” Fir murmured.
Choosing not to reply, Wes started to pace, but stopped only a few steps away. “So. The illusion is built in my mind, which explains the accuracy. My emotions feed it, which explains why it's like he's here. You broke in because of the powers you appear to have developed in a coma– By the way do your regular powers work here?”
Fir held out a hand towards a figurine on the dresser, then shook his head. “I wouldn't have imagined they would. I suspect you don't know how they work either, and the illusion is taking place in your head.”
“Right.” Wes nodded. “You posit that a return to consciousness would break the illusion, but we were gassed, so I seriously doubt that's going to happen.”
“You were gassed?” Fir snorted. “Man, c'mon... they were using that strategy -before- my day.”
Wes ignored him, putting his hands on his hips. “Okay, so in a way, I have control over the illusion, right?”
“Not really,” Fir reminded him, leaning up against the edge of the little, two-person dinner table. “You have control over how much you invest in the illusion, but this shit is all ripped straight from your memories. You can try to suppress them, to start to take away from the reality of the illusion, and thus be less emotionally invested in it, but that takes some serious brain training. Most people aren't going to be able to control either how they feel or what they think, especially when immersed in realistic illusion.” He folded his arms over his chest. “You know my feelings on the telepath situation, but you guys could've at least secured some training before you started this team.”
“I do have training,” Wes said, voice curiously blank. He was staring at the door leading to the room before the bedroom. “I have a lot of training.”
“Oh...” Fir said. “Well–”
“Don't lean on that table,” Wes said. “It has a bad leg. I broke it once.”
Fir righted himself, the detachment in Wes' voice starting to make him uncomfortable.
“This will be unpleasant,” Wes said, in that same empty tone. “Please don't move.”
Fir had no chance to respond with anything but obedience.
Staying where he was, arms wrapped around his own chest, Wes closed his eyes, concentrating hard – calling to mind the most vivid memory of his old apartment he could possibly construct. All of the sudden even Fir could smell the curry upstairs, hear the sounds of the street outside, growing louder or quieter as the door opened, the exuberant greetings of the retired old man downstairs who acted as unofficial doorman in exchange for food and the tips that paid for his heat in winter. He smelled the tell-tale rot progressing through the hallway, when an odd draft from an open window upstairs carried it under the door. He heard the sound of the refridgerator kick on, a painful protesting little whine of a twenty-year-old-engine getting too worn to do its job. He felt the cold spots, passing through thanks to temperamental radiators. Pigeons cooed on the window sill, enjoying streaks of city sun.
He heard the footsteps, the creak in the floor. He heard the rustling in the drawer that would determine whether today was good or bad, and felt the surge of insecurity that Wes remembered as if it were his own. Fir had to fight hard not to vomit. He heard the hand on the door, the hesitation, the turning of the lock.
“Will, buddy?” said an easy, jocular voice, in time with the slow turning of the knob. “I got something for you...”
Wes' eyes opened. Fir was doubled over, holding his stomach, but he could still watch: Wes crossed to the door, raised a foot, and kicked it off its hinges, the sound of snapping wood and crunching plaster almost too real. Another cold spot passed through Fir, but it had nothing to do with radiators or chilly air. Wes walked into the other room. He stumbled to the side so he could see, ignoring the cramp in his gut. Straight-backed as a soldier on parade, Wes cross the bars of light of another window, stared hard at more locks than should ever be on a bedroom door, took an extra step back for momentum and slammed the heel of his foot into this door, too. It didn't give for another one or two kicks, hanging sickly and twisted by hinges and locks, until Wes smashed it free.
Beyond the doorway, beyond Wes’ back, Fir couldn't see very well. The room was dark, like it had no window, or had blackout curtains. The sun from the anteroom just reached, hazy afternoon sun like a soft brush of color, highlighting shape until it became form.
The corner of a single bed. A stuffed animal – a dog, sitting obediently in its place on the floor. The wrapped handle of a tonfa baton. A pile of stained and worn keikogi, one child-sized, one not.
The faintest outline on the far wall, wouldn't have been visible at all were it not for the silver glitter of the chain, half-moon of the open collar at the end hanging just a foot off the floor.
It was only a moment; Wes had turned and started walking back to the living room, face clear of any expression. Fir could do nothing but stare, unsure what he had or had not seen, doubled over now because he hesitated to move – the nausea was all his own.
Wes walked back to where he'd been standing before, calm and deliberate. He took one more glance around the apartment, and perhaps Fir was making it up, or perhaps there really was the faintest curl of disdain to his frown.
“The entire caper up to this point has been constructed around trapping the whole of the team, I assume to submit each of to these illusions. The only reason to construct this sort of illusion is either for the joy of suffering, or because the malefactor wishes to break us down in hopes of getting us to reveal something that we know,” Wes said. He took a deep breath. “Given the team's activities of late, investigating the Island, and the effort and investment it would have taken to contrive this trap, it is most likely the latter. By the way, Fir, we are most likely being observed by the illusionist.”
Fir couldn't help it, he glanced up at the ceiling, like a bug in a cage. Slowly, he tried to ease himself up out of his bent position, embarrassed by his weakness.
“You probably started with me, didn't you?” Wes said, addressing the illusion. “You probably thought it was a good idea to go for the one who was mentally weakest, the one with trauma. You probably thought I'd be easiest to rattle.” He raised his eyes to the ceiling, and slowly closed them. “You probably thought a few bad memories resurrected, and I would break.”
He opened his eyes and looked around the apartment again; the construct before them was suddenly plastic, shined with a patina of a thousand tiny details forgotten, a thousand touches of realism neglected. It was an image. Nothing more.
And before their eyes, it dissolved.
“You were wrong,” Wes said, quietly, into gray nothingness.
He looked at Fir, who was frozen like a rabbit listening for danger. “Sorry you had to see that. Most people would not be very comfortable in that situation.”
“Training, huh?” Fir stared back at him. “I remember... you were in the same Institution I was.”
“Not as long,” Wes replied, with a weak smile at his own joke. “Five years of daily therapy ought to count as training.” He frowned, something like his natural uneasiness returning to him, as if they weren't just projections in his mind. “... I'm sorry... that was...”
Fir shook his head. “You know how fucked up it is that -you're- apologizing to -me-?”
Wes shrugged, frowning uncertainly. “It usually helps preempt awkwardness. Gives people a different feeling to latch onto.”
“Well, it's not like awkwardness is going to fucking kill me, man,” Fir said, then grinned, “and me feeling awkward for invading your head is a hell of a lot better than you feeling like you ought to apologize. But I appreciate the effort.”
It seemed to take Wes a moment to figure out what to do with his face in response, but when he did, it was an honest grin. “Thanks.”
“So,” Fir said, looking at the blankness around them. “What's next? You think we can wait for consciousness, or should I start trying shit?”
Wes shook his head gravely. “If we wait, the illusionist might try Bosh. Bosh will cave like a wet paper cup.”
“All right,” Fir said, grinning. He clapped his hands together, rubbing them together like a baseball player. “Now it's time I proved my worth.”
“I thought your powers wouldn't work here?” Wes asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Fir said, nodding. “Not while we were constrained by your illusion – when you think about it, though, an illusion is just a telepath joining his mind to yours, and observing or manipulating the result. As long the playing field is your head, you're the one making the rules.”
“So...” Wes said, expression of doubt on his face. “What 'playing field' is this?”
“I have no idea,” Fir said, holding his hands out, palm flat, tongue sticking out between his lips as if he was putting forth great effort. “But here is where I was before I got in your head.”
Looking around, Wes frowned, even deeper in doubt. “...And what does that signify?”
“I don't know,” Fir said, grinning. “But since neither of us have slipped back into unconsciousness, I'm assuming we're still connected to Mr. Smart-Ass-Telepath, and if we're still connected to Mr. Smart-Ass-Telepath, but in neither his, nor yours, nor my mind, then there aren't a whole lot of rules constraining us.”
Wes, since he couldn't frown further, simply put forth an exceptionally dubious bit of silence before he spoke. “And that means?”
“You seem to forget,” Fir said, fingers twitching while he slowly pushed his hands through the air as if through tar. “That my powers work best without rules.”
“I'm not sure I ever knew that,” Wes replied carefully. “You have been in a coma for a long time.”
“Oh, well, please excuse me, then,” Fir said, then gave Wes a triumphant grin, “while I grab this telepathic motherfucker by his nuts.”
“We don't even know if the telepath is male,” Wes said.
Fir, one hand stretched out, holding a fistful of nothing, shrugged. “We do now.”
Fir tugged. The world of gray seemed to twist and shake. Fir laughed. Wes stared, the amount of shock in his face, only making Fir laugh harder.
“Come on you mindfucking bastard!” Fir shouted into the blankness, making a squeezing gesture that turned the gray world pale. “You wake us the fuck up before I play Blood and rip off the Crown Jewels here.”
Wes opened his eyes. The gray was replaced by the sheen of metallic paneling. He could see Seth, across the room, blinking awake only to instantly start her hands to glowing. Decon sat up. Bosh groaned.
Fir threw himself into the middle of the room, falling to the floor with a bang whilst clutching madly at nothing and shouting, “Haha! No you don't, you son of bitch!”
The thump of all the others flinching into the walls behind them was like a miniature roll of thunder. As one, each reached back to rub the back of their heads, hissing.
“Firmamant?” Decon said.
“Hey,” Fir replied, still reaching out and clutching, by all appearances, a ball of air. “How're you?”
Wes stood up. “Fir has hold of the malefactor... physically, somehow. We should trace the pull while we can.”
The other three were staring at Wes, then at Fir, still grinning vengefully on the ground. Seth reacted first.
“Okay,” she said, standing up as well. “Firmament, can you point us in the right direction? How accurate is your... grip?”
“Oh, it's accurate,” Fir said. He pointed up the length of his outstretched arm. “It's as the crow flies, but our telepath is in that direction.”
“Okay,” Seth said, then hesitated a moment, as if she had to try that over again. “Okay.”
“You're awake,” Decon said, looking at Fir.
“So are you,” Fir replied.
“No, I mean–,” but Decon shook his head, replacing confusion with a grin. “Awesome. Welcome to the waking world, Firmament.”
“Thanks... uh... well, you know, we can do introductions later. I don't like having my powers wrapped around this guy's nuts. Makes me feel like a fag.”
Wes, Decon and Seth exchanged glances.
“Right,” Seth said. “We'll cover that later, too. Right now we've got a job to do. Fir, you let us know if anything changes, or if you're having trouble keeping your grip. Decon, you start taking apart the paneling so we can see how far off the ground we are.”
“Right on,” Decon said, heading to the wall. As he passed, he shot Fir a grin. “It's good to finally meet you, man.”
“Wes,” Seth went on, “I want you by the door in case something goes wrong. You're first out, I follow, all right?”
Wes nodded, padding cat-like over to help Decon, who was slowly dissolving screws and removing the paneling.
It took some moments, but they finally broke through, sliding the paneling to the side, the squeak and crunch of metal sliding past medal echoing through what appeared to be a warehouse around them. Wes evaluated the jump, and gave a nod; indicating the distance was safe, and no mooks had appeared. Seth, following the line of Fir's arm, pointed to the office, high up in the far wall of the warehouse. They all watched the blinds suddenly flick closed.
“I think we've got our malefactor,” Seth said, nodding towards the office. “Firmament?”
“Yeah, he's not going anywhere. Not if he likes his manhood.” Fir, hand squeezing the air, pushed himself up to stand carefully. He brushed himself off and looking in dismay at his clothes. “Who picked my wardrobe. What ever happened to having cool costumes?”
“No capes,” Wes said solemnly, before he turned and leaped from their improvised doorway.
“You know, I like him, but that kid says weird shit sometimes,” Fir said, looking around at the others.
“We'll explain later,” Seth said with a sigh, pausing just before she, too, leaped down. “Bosh, get off the floor.”
“Costumes went dead with disco, man. Sorry,” Decon said, trying hard not to laugh as he lined himself up and jumped.
Bosh stood staring at Firmament.
“You're the empath, right? You coming?” Fir asked, narrowing his eyes at Bosh. He lined himself up to jump, carefully keeping hold of whatever it was he had hold of.
“Fuck!” Bosh said, because that's what Bosh tended to say in these moments.
“What?” Fir asked. “What do you mean...? What is that all about? 'Fuck?' Just 'fuck?' Is that all you have to say? What the fuck is wrong with you? What the fuck is -the point- of you? Why are you even here? What kind of fucking team did I join? No damned telepath, no costumes, and, you're obviously nuts, too, so in addition to a useless fucking empath, you're a useless fucking crazy empath. Add that to me and Wes and, Jesus Christ, who isn't a fucking loony on this team? What did you do, run a recruiting program through the county asylums? It's like a fucking pick-up league at Bedlam over here. Well? What do you have to say for yourself? Lemme guess, is it 'fuck?'”
He glared at Bosh, who remained silent.
“Jesus Christ,” Fir shook his head as he went on, muttering to himself, “Way to go, Firmament, forget to fucking die with your last team, join a new one while in a coma and find it's full of crazy people and a useless fucking empath.”
Fir sighed heavily, and, rearranging his grip on the nothing, leaped out of the door, frowning accusingly the whole way down.