by Melos,Alana
I stood there, panting lightly because of my outburst while Gerard watched me. He laughed, derisively. “I see how it is…” he said, then his tone became mocking. “Oh, I’m Caprice. I’m gorgeous and powerful and smart and have a lot of skills, but oh, poor pity me. I didn’t want to be perfect and adept at things. I might have been someone else! I might have been normal.” He rolled his eyes at me, and I growled. It wasn’t like that! “You’re pathetic,” he finished, uncrossing his arms and jabbing a finger at me. “You know how many people would want to be in your shoes in a hot second? Stop whining.”
“I don’t have a self,” I said, glancing to his finger for a moment, wanting it snap it off his hand. “I’m an echo of someone else.” Frustration welled in me while darkness and fire danced before my eyes. I longed to slap his smirk off of his face when it suddenly faded to a neutral expression. I sent my tendrils out to see what he was thinking, but he’d closed himself off to me.
“How hard for you,” he said flatly, but he smiled his charming smile. He rested his fingertips lightly on the table, and made a smoothing motion with his hands. “Let’s break this down, then, shall we?” Without waiting to see what I had to say, he plunged ahead. “You resent the knowledge you have being forced upon you, changing you when you didn’t have a choice, correct?” When I nodded, he continued. “Which means you’re going to ridiculous lengths to prove yourself… but in reality, you’re looking at it in the wrong way. I’m offering you knowledge, with your consent, with no strings attached. I’m not forcing it on you, nor will learning another language or skill appreciably change your personality--such as it is--unless you allow it to.”
The logic of the argument cut through my emotional response, and I lifted the chair behind me telekinetically so I could sit down in a huff. He didn’t understand my protests, but how could he? For all his saying I didn’t understand people, he lacked a few insights here and there as well. He thrived on changing people, on breaking them… using their own emotions as weapons. Regulus saw himself as being above them, better than them, and he’d put me into the same category as himself. I knew I was superior, but I didn’t see myself as a different race entirely. The weird mirroring between us warped and distended, showing me many of my views… and how alien they were when taken to an extreme degree. I didn’t care if other people suffered, but I cared when I or my toys did. He… never cared. That just wasn’t in him. He didn’t spend time on regret or guilt or pain. He solved the problem, and moved forward, ever forward, with little tolerance for wasting time on unnecessary things like those emotions. His strength came from rigid order and discipline, but mine didn’t. Mine came from rage and chaos, moving my plans forward in lurching bounds.
He did, however, have a point. Though it gave me a sick feeling in my stomach, learning something as benign as another language wouldn’t change me. I’d still be me, just knowing how to speak German. It wasn’t just that… but for the first time I wondered how much I was cutting myself off from power in refusing to do what he reveled in… and why I did so. Was it because of the choices taken from me… or was that one of the choices which had been ripped away?
I ran my hand down my face and schooled myself to patience. Gerard merely stood there, and after a moment of gazing at me, went back to going through the boxes. “Uniforms, and plain clothes,” he said. “The uniforms are accurate, but the plainclothes might be a little out of date. It’s hard to keep up with fashion there. We’re going to be members of the Schattenkraft. No one wants to fuck with them, and I know a lot of their codes to get us through. Plus, if anyone sees we’re metas, there’s an excuse for it.”
Despite my anger, I was still interested in what he had to say. He laid the uniforms out, neatly folded, and I ran my hand over the fabric. The officer’s coat was thick and warm looking, all in black just like the SS uniforms of our world. I didn’t recognize the badge of office though. The armband, of course, was the same. Perhaps it was a little sleeker, leaned a little more to the right, but the red with the white circle and swastika was unmistakable. It wasn’t quite the same as Earth Prime’s Reich’s symbol, but it was close enough. Everyone recognized that circle and mark, and it was universally hated.
The other uniform was sleeker, smaller, and I saw it had other marks of regalia on it… more than likely rankings. The eagle was there--almost as universally recognized as the swastika and the Iron Cross--but it had a third eye. I ran my thumb over it, “Schattenkraft?”
“Yeah,” he said. “You look older, so you’re going to be my superior.”
“I am your superior,” I said, not bothering to look up to see his eyeroll. Just like the pinching of the bridge of his nose, it was a gesture that was mostly mine. Mostly. Being in such tight communication hadn’t just let us peer through each other’s heads to see thoughts and emotions, but we also started picking up each other’s mannerisms and habits.
The rest of the uniform consisted of trousers to match the jacket, a dark grey shirt, and a trenchcoat. The trousers would fit snugly, though looked to be warm, made to keep out the cold and inclement weather. A pair of smart looking black hats with a dark grey band around them joined the rest of the uniform, resting on top, along with a pair of the red armbands with the swastika. When I was fully dressed in this uniform, I’d look like the poster child for the perfect Aryan. Two pairs of shiny knee high boots completed the uniforms, and those I rather liked. I had several outfits with which they would pair well.
I turned my attention to the civilian clothing. The cut of the cloth was different, more severe, but nothing that would be out of fashion here either. He’d chosen dark colors still, but at least they had more warmth to them than the severe black of the uniforms. His button up shirt was dark green, bordering on forest and emerald, while mine was brighter blood red. I got a black skirt--of course, I got a skirt--which had slits up the sides to show my thighs when I walked while he got slacks, which reminded me just a touch of the eighties fashion, where the legs tapered down to almost nothing at the cuffs.
“It seems like clubbing outfits,” I said, holding up the red shirt and noting it was almost sheer.
“We can’t just pop into HQ and waltz in, you know,” he said. “It might take some time to establish communications, get things coordinated. Hopefully not more than a day or two, but these will be enough to tide us over. We can shop for more if we need.”
I raised a brow at him and then the other, in a gesture which wasn’t mine but his. “If you say so,” I said.
Underneath the clothing were other accessories, small trinkets which people might have in their pockets, and which might come in useful. It wasn’t just money of that dimension, but cigarette lighters and business cards, a couple of wallets complete with ident cards, loose change marked with the Reich’s eagle, lipstick and a compact, and so on. He’d thought of everything; he’d been planning this for a long time.
“What’s the plan then?” I asked.
He firmed the light mental connection between us, and showed me. It was so much simpler this way than always having to use words… clumsy, clunky words which never conveyed what you really meant. The elegance and simplicity of pure thought trumped the club of the spoken word every time. His plan was deceptively simple--oh, wasn’t it always? With the proper contacts, we would simply walk into their headquarters, wipe him from the database, and then use their gate tech to portal out back to our dimension. The trouble in the plan lay with the various check points, and sneaking our identifications into their system to begin with.
There were only two problems, but he had devised a way to get around both. The first was a physical identification card check, and our faces weren’t in the system. However, over the years he’d kept in sporadic touch with a forger on the other side, who would be able to replicate the ident cards we needed and get them into the public identification access database. The database was used to check the identity of all civilian and military personnel, so it was able to be hacked. Difficult, but possible.
The second problem lay in the reason why he needed another telepath of around his same strength: all military personnel were telepathically scanned as they entered any military grounds to check for infiltrators and traitors. They took no chances after their failed invasion of my home dimension here, and the resulting attack of retribution. An uneasy peace lay between the two worlds while the Reich gathered their power and intelligence, readying themselves for another strike. The Fatherland demanded it. In the meantime, they guarded their secrets without the same ethical limitations Earth Prime had in using telepaths to invade people’s innermost thoughts. The end result? Even if someone had a fake ident card, they would be found out by the scan. That was why he’d had to wait for so long. Only a handful of the Schattenkraft were of his magnitude in power, and I equaled, if not surpassed, him in raw strength. In theory, there would be no way for them to discover us.
Of course, all this lay with the idea that we’d be able to break into Interdimensional, Inc., which had nearly the level of protection as the Reich. Instead of having to fool telepaths, we’d be walking in blind for the most part. Or, at least we would be if we went with his plan. Instead, I drew on lessons learned at my father’s knee. He didn’t know any bedtime stories, so instead of reading to me when he tucked me into bed, he taught me about crime. It was all he knew, but tales of his adventures in the underworld would serve me well here.
I didn’t want to rely on our telepathy to mind control people to get us in, as my partner did. There was no guarantee there; we could happen to pick someone who was resistant or immune to mind control, or it could wear off at an inopportune time. Contrary to popular belief, to completely change someone, a mind controller had to keep working them, changing a bit here and a bit there, letting the commands and changes build up over time. The other option was for the controller to stay in their victim’s head, overwhelming them with force continually until their mind broke. The first way was better, permanent. The second faster, but broke the person completely, making them practically useless in the long run.
Instead, I wanted to know the ins and outs of the place. The high level people, all the scientists and corporate tools, guards and lab techs… all of those people had the highest clearance, the best protection. Who didn’t? The janitors. No one ever thinks about janitors. Oh, sure, they needed clearance to get in, but it was the most basic level of clearance, and they weren’t monitored after that unless they wandered into a restricted area.
I showed Regulus my plan for sneaking into Interdimensional, Inc., and he about laughed himself stupid when he saw it. “It’s perfect,” he said. “Why didn’t I think of it?”
“You’re not a criminal,” I said, looking over the ident cards. “You’re more a strategist, or a tactician.”
“Are you ready to do this?” he asked, looking me over. I could feel his eyes weighing me, though he kept his thoughts to himself. I thought it over seriously. This was far too much risk for just gaining a mentor, but he was right. I did want to see Axis Earth. I did want to prove him wrong. However, it wasn’t just that… it was fun and exciting… but most of all, new.
First, the German lesson. I closed my eyes and searched my thoughts, following the rusty red ribbons of distaste in my mind to the source. I didn’t want to change the ribbon itself, just move it aside for the moment to accept that some things had to be done in the name of the plan. I breathed deep, calming myself. I looked around my head and sorted through the multi-colored threads of my emotions. These were me, the whole of who I was in just a handful of strings. Most people… they had so many threads it was hard to sort them all out, figure out where they went, and why. Mine were scant by comparison, but I treasured them all the same. Each new memory I made, each new thought and feeling and emotion made them grow and swell, changing the me-who-was as I learned. This experience would change me too, but not any more than it had to. I would make sure of that.
I’m ready, I sent to him. As he touched my mind, I monitored him carefully, but he ignored the threads of emotion and went straight towards skills. Instead of changing anything, he added something, like copying a file over. A few heartbeats and it was done. That was it. It was a simple thing, and now that I’d faced my fear… a little bit of elation ran through me, a quick thrill of victory. I had survived something I’d dreaded, and lived through it mostly unchanged.
He chuckled, reading my thoughts and shaking his head. “Make your calls,” he said, his voice light and amused. “I’m going to get the last few things.”
~ ~ ~
Two days later found us at Interdimensional, Inc. with the help of a couple of janitors who had been paid well, and had a hard time remembering what we looked like. Gerard had wanted to just mind control them, but I slapped that thought away again here, as I had at his kitchen table. I wanted to keep them as contacts, not puppets. He had sighed, but agreed in the end since this was my part of the plan.
So, how did we get in? They rolled us in with the garbage of course. It was fake garbage, but it was easy as pie and slick as anything. It’s really strange how no one questioned why the janitors were rolling around with big trash bins going inside the building, but it worked. No one cared. It was beneath them to notice.
The hardest part about that plan was sneaking to where they dumped the garbage undetected, but even that was low priority. The vast majority of it was shredded paper and empty soda cans, after all. That trick wouldn’t work to get us out; going outside to dump the trash, they checked the bins to make sure no equipment was being smuggled out, but it didn’t matter as we weren’t leaving that way. Once we were inside the building, we climbed out of the bins, straightened our lab coats and clothing, paid them, and were on our way to the portal room.
Although the floorplans we found were incomplete, there was only one place the massive portal could be kept: dead center of the building, downstairs. Instead of broadcasting the ‘I’m not here just ignore me’ vibe I’d used to so much success, Regulus used a different suggestion… one of ‘we belong here’. People glanced at us, and then away, just passing a co-worker in the hallway. The advantage of that was that it took less energy, and they’d remember someone who did belong there: whoever their minds would pull up to fill in the blank. It was elegantly simple.
Making our way downstairs, we encountered no resistance. It wasn’t unusual for scientists to be carrying briefcases holding their notes and files, so we carried ours out in the open. The portal room, though, that was the exception. Once we came downstairs, a check point greeted us, almost like a toll booth. Two armed guards were present, openly holding advanced assault rifles. A bored intern sat behind a wall of glass and steel, yawning as he waited for us to scan our ident cards.
Cards we didn’t have.
Those were impossible to get ahold of. Only a few select people were allowed in the portal room, and those people were heavily secured. Many of them lived on the grounds, and those that didn’t had bodyguards whose powers included protection against mind control. Here was the same. They didn’t take many chances, and this was where our plan could fall apart in an instant. Could we take them out? Raising the alarm wasn’t a big deal. It wouldn’t take long to use the portal. It was getting to it in the first place.
I pulled a wicked looking knife. I had objected to leaving my sword behind, but Regulus had pointed out the difficulties in hiding a long blade, and that it would be sorely out of place on Axis. While I drew my knife, he dropped his case and drew his two from behind his back. As one, we attacked, surprising them. The intern slammed the alarm as I jumped on the guard on my side, stabbing him in the neck. Regulus’ guard moved a little faster, and was able to aim and get off a shot. My partner knocked the rifle aside in time, hissing as the heat from the barrel burned his hand, and jabbed up with his curved blade. It sank through the armor like butter. The other he stabbed underneath the man’s arm, twisted, and pulled out. I let my guard drop and turned to the intern, who had started to run.
Stop, I
commanded him. I didn’t like this, but I sent soothing vibes his way. We won’t hurt you if you open the door.
He couldn’t move, but he could talk. “I don’t trust you,” he said, his voice mostly steady.
“Open the door, and you’re free, no harm whatsoever,” I promised.
“No,” he insisted, striving to move.
“If you don’t,” Regulus said his tone bland, almost bored, “I’ll make you bite off each of your fingers. And swallow.”
When the carrot didn’t work, the stick did. The dead sound of Regulus’ voice and the savagery with which we’d attacked the guards convinced him. Seeing his intent, I let him move freely once more, and he came back to the booth. He hit the sequence which would open the door, then sat down heavily and scooted away from us.
Nothing happened.
“For the love of Christ,” Regulus said. “There’s a protocol, once the alarm’s been sounded. We have to bust it.”
Sleep, I told the intern, who promptly passed out in his chair. Our attention turned to the glass and steel wall, and we both agreed where to hit it in a matter of seconds. The hinges had been reinforced, but they were still the weakest part of the door. Concentrating in unison, we used our telekinetic power to slam into the bottom hinge. There was a little bit of give, so we continued to add pressure, as much as we could muster. The metal groaned, giving way slowly until it snapped. We turned to the second one the instant after. This one was harder and took longer as its resistance drained us. When it snapped too, the door was pushed over and we were free to enter.
