Chapter 3: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

I hate being woken up before 9am. Well, more like noon, but it’s impossible to sleep in anymore. Even when Shadowmind isn’t helping me hone in on the feelings and sensations associated with exploiting the abilities of my now active gene, it seems as though I no longer have the desire to sleep. This is very unlike me. I’m chalking it up to the fact that I went from banned college student to a studio producer to a…mutant…in the amount of time it should have taken me to graduate, find a job, and start getting my act together. I once was a physicist and now I’m a mutant. Looks great on resumes, I suppose.

I never travel back to my apartment alone anymore. I don’t always know who is traveling with me, though. Rhodes assigns people to walk with me to and from my apartment, where I pretty much go to make it look like I still exist as a normal person. He had my studio closed and attributed it to the riots. It was pretty bittersweet, but if he didn’t close it for me, the raging lunatics and social dissenters would have done it within weeks and then I would have been up a creek royally.

I am sitting up in my bed thinking when I hear the call buzzer alert me that my escort is downstairs and needs to be let into the building. The escorts never talk to me. It’s some kind of cross between creepy and comforting, because I have no idea who they are, if they’re mutants, what, but on the bright side, at least I don’t have to explain anything to them and make small talk while we walk around attempting to avoid getting killed.

The escort can wait. Of course I am not ready to go, it is 8:30 in the morning and I, of course, did not go to bed until about 3am. This is partly due to the fact that I am a night owl and partly because I have managed to lock onto most of the feelings that appear when I attempt to use my Gift. After a Gifting session, I can never sleep anyway. I hear the buzzer again and look for some sandals to wear to walk down to the front door. Rhodes has me up at unholy hours.

I shuffle down the stairs and find that there are two escorts waiting for me, one of them I have seen before.

“I’m not even close to being ready,” I tell them and open the door wider for them to step into the lobby. Neither of them moves. The shorter of the two, the one who I have been escorted by before grabs my wrist and looks me dead in the eye.

“We don’t have time, Wells,” he says to me. I have never heard any of the escorts speak before, so I am shocked and stand still for a moment to process. I am suddenly terrified that someone might have found out who I am and I don’t even care that I’ve left my apartment door unlocked upstairs when I step out of the building.

Shorty lets go of my wrist and we walk in a casual looking fashion. I am used to the escorts walking like we’ve been friends forever and never saying a word to me. I don’t even know their names. The taller one is kind of cute, though. For a mutant, I mean, assuming he is one. But, then again, so am I. Eh.

They are walking a pace faster than that of the usual escorts, so I am taking two steps to keep up with one of their strides. Did they find out who I am? Who the hell are “they,” anyway? I’ve been being trained by Rhodes, Shadowmind, and Darius for almost a month now and I still know very little about the Templar Agency. Rhodes says he will tell me when I am stable enough in my abilities to understand exactly what’s going on. I wonder if I am part of some government conspiracy or something, but I am so far in now that I don’t have any choice but to continue on the current path, which is…being a mutant.

I am freaking out. The escorts aren’t even talking to each other and I’ve never walked with more than one before. This is some scary stuff. How did they find me? Is that even what happened? I am terrified and skittish. A group of teenage boys comes out of a grocery store as I pass the doorway and I hear them making snide comments. Are they spies for the enemy? Who, exactly, IS the enemy? I am worrying so much about this whole thing that I don’t even realize it when we arrive at the Healy Office Complex. I wonder if Shadowmind has been listening to my thoughts as I’ve been walking. I’m becoming pretty good at sensing when he is mindspying on me, though, and I haven’t felt him yet this morning.

I’m expecting the worst when we walk into the Agency’s main office and I see Rhodes sitting behind the desk waiting. The escorts disappear through the doorway leading to the Gifted training rooms and Rhodes stands up.

“Good morning, my dear,” he says as he looks at me and cocks his head to the side. “I see my escorts found you in a rather tired position this morning.”

“I wasn’t expecting them until 9,” I respond but make no attempt to move from my spot slightly inside the main doorway.

“You wouldn’t have been ready, anyway, my dear,” he says back to me with a smile. He stands up and motions for me to follow him.

“Today,” he says as we walk through the doorway leading to the Gifted training rooms, “you will become an official member of the Agency. This is a little sooner than I expected and hoped for, even, but we need you now, Miss Wells. I hope you’re as excited as I am, though I wish my excitement could be under better circumstances.”

We turn down another hallway I’ve never been down before and we stop at the second door on the right. Rhodes opens it and motions for me to enter. I step in and see that it is a medium sized conference room. Shadowmind and Darius are sitting across from each other at the conference table and I see another guy I don’t recognize. Darius is eating a bagel and Shadowmind has his eyes closed and his head back on his conference chair, which happens to be leather. I make mental note that I’m impressed with the quality of the Agency’s furniture, considering the tables and chairs in the training rooms look like they are from a high school classroom.

I sit down next to Darius and he turns toward me and offers me a bite from his bagel.

“Uh, no thanks,” I say to him and roll my eyes. Shadowmind opens his eyes and picks up his head.

“Morning, lady,” he says to me and nods his head in my direction. They have both been calling me “lady” since my arrival. I wave at him and we all watch Rhodes walk to the head of the table and sit down. The guy I don’t recognize is sitting a seat away from Shadowmind closest to Rhodes. He shakes his hand as he sits down and Rhodes leans back in his chair.

“Well, now that we’re all here, I think some introductions are in order,” Rhodes begins. He turns to the guy I don’t know and nods at him.

“This is Tux. Tux, this is our newest Gifted. She doesn’t have a Gifted name yet, but she will by the end of this meeting, I assure you.” I smile at Tux and he smiles back at me and nods. Darius crinkles a napkin and gets up to throw his crumbs out. Rhodes continues.

“The two of you know Tux already, clearly. And you two know what a meeting like this means. A situation has developed over the past two days that we have been following. We have been made aware of activity stemming from the Brotherhood,” he says and looks at each of us seriously. Before I can even ask what the hell the Brotherhood is, Shadowmind reaches for my hand and since I know it is faster and more efficient to let Shadowmind show me what it is, I willingly give him my hand.

Instantly, I see a seal of an old script B and P intertwined and faces, people I don’t know. I see a building fire, a woman leaps from a fifteenth story window. I see horrific scenes involving death and pain and I feel what I know to be what the victims felt. The scenes in my head go black and a feeling of understanding washes over me. The Brotherhood of Pravus. The Gifted who use their abilities for selfish, greedy, destructive purposes. I immediately understand that they are funded and overseen by the mayor. I know that the Justice Society has Brotherhood members planted inside of it to purposely incite riots and publicly leak information about planned assassinations and protests to keep the focus off of the dirty dealings the mayor is doing with the Brotherhood. There is a much bigger force motivating the mayor, I don’t know what it is. I don’t think Shadowmind or Rhodes does, either. I sit back as Shadowmind lets go of my hand and I still can’t believe that this has happened and I am now caught in the middle of a classic good versus evil battle. Except this is real.

“Thank you, Shadowmind,” Rhodes says as he stands up. “Do you understand?”

“Perfectly,” I say. Darius looks across the table to Tux and appears worried.

“Wonderful. Now then, if I may continue. Two days ago, we received information that a Justice Society member was murdered shortly after a riot on the 1300 block of Milling Village. Almost exactly two hours later, one of our recon team members saw the same Justice Society member walking into a café with another unknown acquaintance. Within forty-five minutes of their entering, the café owner reported almost two-hundred dollars missing from his safe. The next morning, the man walking with the known Justice Society member was arrested for an assault on a woman living on the 1800 block of Milling Village. She was identified as the girlfriend of one or our previous Agency members. Three hours after his arrest and confinement, the same man was seen in the Clarion Hills section of the city with another unknown acquaintance. An hour later, a fire erupted within three blocks of where he was sighted. The fire destroyed a medical office complex. Intelligence sources confirm that this man’s name is Derek Schilling-Falkes and that he has close ties to two other Justice Society members who have committed similar crimes within the last two weeks.”

I sit quietly and glance quickly at Darius, Shadowmind, and Tux. I’m starting to be both excited and scared. Rhodes continues.

“The group of three that Schilling-Falkes is associated with has managed to destroy a medical records complex, plant a pipe bomb in the lobby of a health clinic, and murder the girlfriend of a former Agency member. We have traced the source of the motivation for these acts,” Rhodes says as he sits back down and pauses.

“The Brotherhood has an operative that we have identified in name and action only. He, or possibly she, is known to us as the Sleepwalker. Shadowmind and a pair of two other psions were able to identify that the Sleepwalker appeared to each member of the group of three in dreams. However, since they appear only as a red aura, we are unable to identify the person. The only things we are certain of is that they are a member of the Brotherhood of Pravus and that when he or she appears as the red aura in the dream of the target, the target is unaware when they wake that the Sleepwalker has appeared to them. They just feel compelled to commit certain acts, presumably the ones committed by Schilling-Falkes and company,” Rhodes explains. He drums his fingers on the table when he finishes and lets the information sink into our heads.

“So the Sleepwalker appears as a red aura and makes people do horrific things?” Tux asks. Rhodes nods.

“Yes, we are pretty certain that the Sleepwalker embeds compulsions to commit these acts into the subconscious of the target while they are asleep. We have never seen this type of activity being used by the Brotherhood before, so we are unsure as to whether the Sleepwalker is a new operative or someone they have had waiting in the wings for some time. Shadowmind, being the psion who connected the most to the targets, has been assigned as team leader of this investigation. Since you are his team members, you are all now officially involved with the Sleepwalker investigation as well.”

I cannot believe what I have just heard. I am overwhelmed and amazed and unable to focus on any singular piece of information that has been thrown at me in the last fifteen minutes when Rhodes starts speaking again, this time looking directly at me.

“I have been working with the Gifted for a long time, my dear,” she says in a softer voice than before. “I have a feeling that you are both ready and will provide amazing insight and use of your abilities to this mission. Call it a hunch.”

“It’s a hunch, then,” I say and Rhodes cracks a smile and shakes his head a bit.

“You have the ability to manipulate certain physical laws, my dear. You have the ability to control your Gift very well and very accurately. Now, you need a name,” he explains. “We cannot continue to call you ‘lady.’” I sit back and hope someone else suggests something to me. Darius looks over at me and taps me on the shoulder.

“Can I pick it for you?” he asks. Shadowmind looks at him and rolls his eyes.

“You can barely tie your own shoes,” he says.

“Give her a minute, gentlemen. It will come to her. She is a Gifted, after all, I think she can handle a simple nickname,” Rhodes chimes in. I sit back for a minute and I pick a vent on the ceiling of the conference room to stare at while I contemplate my name. It takes me about a minute before it hits me and it feels perfect. I look first at Darius, then Shadowmind, then Tux. Finally, I rest my eyes on Rhodes.

“Physion,” I say. Rhodes smiles and I look over to see that Shadowmind’s tattoos have lightly appeared across his face and head.

“Good call, lady,” Shadowmind says, “I just got a feeling that your name will be a very important part of something huge sometime in the future. Keep it,” Shadowmind says as his tattoos fade.

“Well, it’s settled, then. Physion it is. Now, you all are free for the next three hours, but I want you all back here at noon sharp to go over the mission plan. This should give you some time to catch up on your sleep, Physion,” Rhodes announces and stands up and begins walking to the door. “Well rested Gifted will be essential to the discovery of the Sleepwalker.” I nod and immediately stand up and head for the bedroom I have been given in the Gifted housing barracks. I walk out behind Rhodes and I hear the other three talking in the conference room. Just as I am about to turn the corner to head to the housing section of the Agency, I hear Darius call me from the conference room. I turn around to see him sticking his head out the doorway. I stop.

“Sweet dreams, Physion,” he says and then disappears back into the room.