The Last Dainv-Chapter 103

The Last Dainv-Chapter 103

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 time 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 came 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. Time to do this, Gale. Maybe he shouldn't smile this time. 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 slammed 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 me my notebook back, Jacob. I know you have it," Mia said.
"What-what notebook?" Jacob hugged his backpack.
"If you guys don't believe me 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 became 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 excitement. "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 some 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 lifetime. 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 frame 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 game!"
"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 me you've been pretending to be normal, going to classes, acting like you care about these classes when you have these awesome powers?"
"I do care about classes," Gale said.
Andrew shook his head. "But are you here to learn or something 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 slammed 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 me?" Gale said.
"Huh? Why not?" Andrew replied. "Magical girls in anime 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, 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 documents you took," Gale said to Mia, "they're more important than you think."
"Figured that out when you chased me through the whole building like Jason in that thriller movie," Mia replied dryly.
Jacob looked between them. "What documents?"
"From the asylum," Mia said. "About experiments."
Andrew frowned. "What experiments?"
Mia was about to say something, 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 documents. 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, something 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 messy wavy hair. The name "GALLARD, MARY E." was typed across the top in bold letters.
"Damn," Jacob whispered. "She looks messed up."
"Listen to this," Mia said, reading from the file. "'Patient escaped confinement 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... came 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 Emergence 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... somewhere 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. Something 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 mean the missing ingredient was ether?
"What's this?" Jacob asked, pointing at a diagram. It showed a circular frame with panels around it and a central pillar in the middle. It exactly had the same 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 something."
Andrew grabbed the paper, studying it. "So these crazy doctors figured out how to open portals to other dimensions? In the fucking '80s?"
"Not quite," Gale said. "They were missing something. 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 came with each image.
Mia read the note out loud.
[Entity 17 emerged from the test chamber during Trial 56.
Subject displayed extreme aggression, killing two researchers before containment. 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 documented dozens of these things coming through their portal. Some small, some big. Researchers suggest these alien lifeforms evolved in completely different environments 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 some 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 instruments. 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 instruments. It messed with electronics but also seemed to charge batteries somehow."
"Let me 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 interdimensional power plant?" Jacob asked, excited.
"Something like that," Mia said.
Andrew ran his hand through his hair. "So to recap: these asylum doctors found a patient who went through some kind of portal, studied her, then built their own portal machine, let monsters come through, and tried to steal energy from another dimension?"
"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 documents. "Last entry, dated June 2, 1987. 'Patient Gallard somehow broke free of restraints during midnight check. Set fire to east and west wings. Fire spread rapidly. Twelve staff and twenty-eight patients presumed dead. Mary Gallard's body never recovered.'"
"But she didn't burn the greenhouse," Gale noted. "Where the machine was."
"No," Mia confirmed, reading further. "'Central greenhouse structure remained untouched by flames despite proximity. Facility director ordered all research materials and equipment 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 recommended 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 some underground secret world changing stuff. Like those evil villains in James 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 some serious trouble?" Andrew crossed his arms.
"Which is why I need these documents," Gale said, reaching for the folder.
Mia pulled it back. "Not so fast. You promised to explain things, remember? 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 someone who deals with this stuff."
"Like Men in Black?" Jacob asked.
"Yes," Gale nodded. "Wait, no. But they do wear suits. Lots of suits."
Mia gathered the documents back into the folder. "So what now?"
"Now I take these somewhere 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 me the documents, I take them somewhere safe, and then I figure out a plan."
"Somewhere 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."

Chapter 103