Chapter 9

Saturday morning Matt and Molly were working on homework. Ruth was at work. Iris was searching to see if she could find any of her family on social media, before having to spend the money to hire someone to find them. Megan was out playing with her own toys.

Matt decided to take a break and check the Time Lord email account. There was a new message from Professor Rohn. She was now up to 88 cracks. He decided it was time to bring things with her to a close.

He had managed to look up her home phone number. He had also managed to get a current phone number for John Sanders, the Dean that Professor Rohn got removed. Using his powers to make discrete inquires, Matt had discovered that they weren’t able to sever his pension so the HR department still had current contact information for him.

Matt called Ms Rohn first.

Valerie Rohn answered her phone. It was the extension in her bedroom.

“Hello, who is this?”

“Do not hang up the phone. Do not put down the phone until after I tell you to.”

She wanted to hang up or put the phone down and walk away, but she couldn’t make her body disobey the commands. Then she recognized the voice.

“You! Haven’t you done enough to me? Why can’t you leave me alone!”

“Shut up. You will listen to me. You will not speak unless I ask you a question. Even then, you will not raise your voice and you will be polite. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” she said softly.

“If someone rings your doorbell or knocks on your door, you will answer the door.”

Valarie wanted to yell, or threaten the bastard, but she remained silent.

“Tell me if you can see a mirror from where you stand.”

It was not lost on her that it was a command rather than a question. “Yes.”

“Tell me how many cracks you see in the mirror.”

Damn him, she knew he was behind that. She tried to ignore the mirror, but found herself carefully counting the cracks anyway.

“Ninety Seven.”

Valarie hung up the phone after he instructed her to, slumped on her bed and started to cry. There were now 98 cracks in the mirror, but the cracks weren’t in the mirror. She had finally figured out what was happening to her. The son of a bitch had somehow planted a new personality inside of her. One that enjoyed all the terrible nightmares she had been having. One that would enjoy doing those things for real.

She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she knew that when the number of cracks reached 100, her mind, Valarie Rohn, would die and the new personality would be left in control of her body.

John unlocked his apartment door and went inside. He slumped in the only chair in the tiny living room and closed his eyes, mentally exhausted. He’d just gotten back from a ridiculously early meeting with his publisher. He swore they deliberately scheduled these meetings to be as inconvenient for him as possible.

A couple of years ago, he had been the Dean of one of the colleges at the most prestigious university in Texas, a member of high society.

Thanks to a conniving bitch and her false accusations he had been forced to leave the university in disgrace.

At first he’d tried to live as he had off his non-retirement savings, thinking it would not take long to find a new job. However, the bitch had been very public with her accusation and no university would hire him.

He burned through his savings in six months. Then he was forced to sell his house. At that point, he was forced to start looking for any job he could. No one would touch him for a management or any customer facing position. He was still some years away from being able to start collecting on his pensions and Social Security.

Finally, he tried his hand at writing historical fiction. He managed to find a publisher willing to publish his first book before the money from the sale of his house was completely exhausted. He made some money off of it, but it was meager compared to what he had been used to.

How far he had fallen. From high society to living in a run down apartment, in a run down apartment building, in a low rent neighborhood, writing cheap formulaic historical novels.

He got up and fixed himself a meager breakfast and went back to bed.

John’s sleep was interrupted by the ringing of his phone.

“Hello?”

“Is this the John Sanders who used to be the Dean of the Liberal Arts College at Texas A&M?”

“Who are you?”

“I am The Time Lord.”

“Are you working for that bitch? Are you trying to set me up so she can have me arrested or something? You tell that bitch that I have nothing left for her to take!”

“I am not working for or with Ms Rohn. Like you, and many other men, I have had the misfortune of crossing paths with Ms Rohn. I have not suffered as much at her hands as other men, but unlike the other men who have crossed her path, I found myself in a position to do something about it.”

“You have my attention. How were you able to do something about it? What did you do to her?”

“Unlike all the other men who have crossed her path, I am a Spark. It is not my primary power, but as a side effect, I have some capability for mind control. A week and a half ago, I planted a seed in Ms Rohn’s mind. A seed that would grow, slowly and painfully, to tear her personality apart and replace it with the mind of a willing sex slave.”

“Assuming for the moment, that this is not a setup, I can think of no one more deserving of such a fate, but what does that have to do with me?”

“The seed is grown and almost ripe, and the time of harvest has come. However, I have enough slaves already, so I need someone to claim Ms Rohn. Since you were the one to whom she had done the most harm, it seemed logical to offer that opportunity to you. If you accept and follow my instructions, she, and everything she owns, will be yours. Do you accept?”

“Yes. What do I need to do?”

“Do you know her home address?”

“Yes.”

“Today or tomorrow, go to her house. Ring the door bell or knock on her door. When she answers the door, order her to invite you in. It is critical that this be a command and not a request. Once you are inside, all you need to do is give her one more command and her transformation will be complete. At that point all you need to do, to own her, is tell her that she belongs to you now.”

Delphi, Athena and Isis were standing in the back of the operations center at the Matriarchy’s headquarters. Before them were three rows of computer and phone stations. Four stations per row. Each station was staffed with a communications tech tasked with handling communications with field operations teams and / or monitoring various information sources of interest to the Matriarchy.

Delphi was pacing back and forth.

“When was the last time Artemis checked in?”

One of the techs spoke up, “Yesterday morning ma’am. She said she was going to try to make the hit that day.”

“Damn it. I knew this mission was a bad idea,” Delphi stated.

Athena Responded, “Will you calm down and stop pacing. Artemis is our top assassin. She’s late checking in, so what.”

Isis replied, “Athena, it’s not in my nature to pace, but I am as worried as Delphi. I can’t remember the last time Artemis was late checking in. But this goes beyond late. She had orders to check in every 12 hours. She’s missed three consecutive check-ins. If you feel so blasted calm, you can be the one to tell the Matriarch that we have lost her adopted daughter.”

Athena’s face drained of color.

Delphi stopped pacing, “What info do we have coming out of College Station?”

Several techs spoke.

“Local and Texas state news sources are clear. No reports of a murder, or other deaths at Texas A&M University.”

“I had the backup team for the dorm break-in set up an emergency services scanner that feeds into our data network. Police radio is clear, no arrests or suspects matching Artemis’ description.”

“EMT radio is also clear. No patients matching either Artemis’ or the target’s descriptions.”

“The break-in team just reported in. Mission successful. The courier is in route and should arrive in a few hours.”

“Do we know where Artemis was when she checked in last?”

“A small motel on the outskirts of College Station. I have the name and address.”

“What vehicle was she using?”

“A rental car. We have the make, model, and plate number.”

“Direct the break-in team to the motel. Have them report in with whatever they find. If they do not find Artemis or the rental car, they are to get into her room and recover anything that could be traced back to Artemis or the Matriarchy. Have the backup team move in and search the university’s parking lots for the rental car.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Delphi turned to face Athena and Isis.

“I have to go report this to the Matriarch.”

Delphi walked back into the operations center.

“Status report!”

“The break-in team reported in. No sign of Artemis or the rental car at the motel. Artemis paid up-front through last night. They recovered her laptop and personal effects from the motel. Full report to follow.”

“The backup team found the rental car at the university. No sign of Artemis. They are going to drive the rental car a couple of hours west of College Station and torch it.”

“Recall both teams once the rental has been torched. Have them back here as soon as possible.”

Isis approached Delphi. “How did she take the news?”

“Better than expected. She is going to want a full report on Monday with the full council.”

One of the techs interrupted. “Ma’am, Security just notified us that the Courier is at the gate.”

“Have her report to my office.”

Delphi was in her office when her phone rang. Caller ID indicated her receptionist/assistant. She hit the speakerphone button.

“What is it?”

“The courier is here ma’am.”

“Send her in.”

Delphi ended the call.

A woman entered her office carrying a metal briefcase. “I have the package you requested.”

“Do you know the nature of the package?”

“No Ma’am.”

“Set the package on my desk and then you are dismissed.”

The woman set the briefcase and a key on Delphi’s desk and left.

Once the courier was gone, Delphi hit the speed dial button for her assistant.

“I am not to be disturbed for the next several hours, not for any reason.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Delphi disconnected, stood and picked up the case and the key for it. She turned and opened a door at the back of her office.

Behind the door was a small room. An armchair and a small round table sat in the center of the room. There were side tables along all four walls, special scented ritual candles stood on each table. The walls were painted with a black base and were covered in runes, glyphs and symbols of protection from a dozen different religions and mystic traditions, each carefully hand painted on the wall using silver paint.

She set the case and the key on the round table. She picked up a lighter from one of the side tables and lit all the candles. When all the candles were lit, she closed the door and the small room was lit by only the dim light from the candles.

She placed the lighter back on the side table she had gotten it from. She then pulled a pair of latex gloves out of a box of disposable latex gloves. She couldn’t be too careful, premature skin contact with the object could trigger a vision before she was ready.

She took the key and opened the case, seeing the object for the first time. It was a wooden display case containing numerous medals. A small plaque on the case indicated that these were the military and law enforcement service medals of Ryan Murphy, the target’s father. Yes, the target will have a strong emotional connection to this object.

She carefully removed the display case from the secure briefcase and set it on the table, then set the briefcase aside under one of the side tables. She sat in the arm chair and pulled off the latex gloves. Closing her eyes, she opened her inner eye that saw through the veil of time. She took a deep breath, formed a mental image of the target and the moment Artemis released her arrow. Finally, she reached out and placed one hand on the display case.

Delphi found herself standing in an open park like area surrounded by squat rectangular buildings. It must be the dorm quad at Texas A&M. Everything was slightly out of focus, though not enough that she couldn’t recognize faces. All she could hear was a drone of white noise. That was unusual, but given the difficulty in visioning this target at all, not particularly surprising.

The target approached one end of the quad and moved towards the other end. In the middle he changed course to cross the quad, then stopped and started speaking to another student. After a few seconds of conversation the target vanished.

Delphi had just long enough to recognize that his vanishing showed none of the normal side effects of either speed or teleportation when she suddenly found herself on the roof of a building.

She was standing behind the target who was sitting on a folding chair, another folding chair sat facing him a few feet in front of him. Beyond that, Artemis stood at the edge of the roof, one arrow embedded in the roof at her feet and her bow and arrows had been ripped from her and tossed to either side.

Artemis turned around, her eyes wide. She spoke. Delphi couldn’t hear what was said, but she could read Artemis’ lips. Delphi watched as Artemis approached then sat on the empty chair. She had a conversation with the Target, but Delphi could only get Artemis’ half of the conversation.

Delphi tried to move so she could see the target’s face but found herself rooted in place.

The conversation between the target and Artemis ended and the target vanished.

Suddenly Delphi found herself standing on the ground, behind the target, watching Artemis rappel down the side of the building.

Delphi had seen enough of this for now.

Most oracles were helpless in the vision space, having little control over what they saw or the rate at which events happened.

Delphi herself however was one of the most powerful oracles. She normally had complete control within the vision space. She could control the point of her perspective and the rate at which time flowed in the vision space. From a dizzying fast forward that could let her watch geological changes to a freeze frame that would let her watch events one frame at a time with the frames a intervals of just 1/10^th of a millisecond. She could also move about in time during a vision, jumping ahead or back to watch a given vision over again.

She concentrated a moment and jumped to the target’s immediate future. Looking at the future was different than looking at the past. The past was normally crystal clear and singular. Looking at the future, she normally saw shadows of all the possible futures, though she could focus on a single path with a bit of effort. Delphi’s true gift was the ability to judge the probability of each possible path and determine which paths were most likely.

The target was sitting at a desk in what must be his bedroom. All the shadows of what he might do next were spread out before her. He eyes went wide and her jaw dropped. It was normal for each path to branch, each possibility leading to multiple new possibilities, but the rate at which the possibilities accumulated for the target was astonishing. His possibilities were at least two orders of magnitude greater than any normal person, faster even than any speedster she had visioned before.

She reached out and touched the paths to judge their probability and was astonished to find that no path ‘s probability rose above 1%. He accumulated so many possibilities so fast that it overwhelmed her ability to judge their probability.

She threw time into a fast forward. Again and again she saw that he would vanish in one place and appear in another, without any sign of movement or teleportation. She needed to figure out how he was doing that and it was easier to freeze frame in the past than the future, so she went back to the moment of Artemis’ assassination attempt.

Looking at time one frame at a time, he went in one frame from talking with another student with Artemis’ arrow mere feet from impact, to sitting in a chair on the roof behind Artemis. It wasn’t possible. No one could move that fast; and in any case that kind of speed had side effects, wake and turbulence in the air which were missing.

She needed to figure out what his real power was, clearly there was some mind-control aspect, but she was sure that the mind-control wasn’t his primary power. Maybe looking further into the future would help. She jumped 10 years into the future. She fast forwarded time. Days passed in seconds.

She saw paths on which he died, but as before, these weren’t anymore likely than any other path. 10 years out he was accumulating paths at an even faster rate than before. She still had no clue as to what his main power was, but she noticed that he didn’t seem to change over time, he didn’t seem to be aging.

She jumped ahead to 50 years, he should be in his seventies, but he looked no older than 25.

She jumped ahead to 100 years. Still the target looked the same as before.

200 years in the future, he was still there and still looked only 25.

300 year in the future, and still he was there, 400 years. 500 years, she was straining to push any further out. The target was still there, 500 years in the future, sill looking only 25 years old. The image of him on one of his possible paths turned to look in her direction...

Delphi’s eyes opened, and went wide. Her hand recoiled from the medal display case as if it had been burned. Her head snapped to one side, she screamed, and then she slumped in her chair, unconscious.

Iris Murphy found a Facebook profile that matched her brother’s name. The profile picture looked like her brother and the information she could see all matched. She sent a friend request with the message: Prodigal sister seeks reconciliation.

John Sanders rang the door bell at Valarie Rohn’s house. The door opened part way and he saw Ms Rohn look out.

“What are you doing here you pervert!”

“Invite me in!”

“Go Away!”

She started to close the door in his face, but then opened it again.

“Come in.”

He entered her living room.

She closed the door and turned to face him.

“What do you want, you bastard, why can’t you leave me alone?”

John pointed at the floor in front of his feet. “Kneel!”

Valarie Rohn dropped to her knees. She started to scream, even before her knees hit the floor. “Nooo!”

John waited.

When she stopped screaming, Valarie looked down at herself, then up at John.

“It’s wearing clothes! It shouldn’t be wearing clothes! It doesn’t have permission!”

She jumped to her feet and John took a step back, his eye’s wide and his mouth hanging open.

Once she was standing, she ripped off her clothes and tossed them aside. When she was naked, she returned to the kneeling position.

“It apologizes for its outburst. What can it help Sir with?”

John shook he head. “I stopped by to speak with you Ms Rohn.”

“It is not Ms Rohn.”

“Oh, then where is Ms Rohn?”

“Ms Rohn is gone, it does not know where Ms Rohn went.”

“When will Ms Rohn be back?”

“It does not know. It does not believe Ms Rohn will ever come back.”

“If you are not Ms Rohn, then who are you?”

“It is a worthless slave.”

“That is a what. Who are you? What is your name?”

“It doesn’t have a name.”

“Why doesn’t it have a name?”

“It’s owner hasn’t given it a name.”

“Who is your owner?”

“It does not know. It is afraid. Without an owner, it has no reason to exist.”

John smiled. “Ah, that’s what I came to talk to Ms Rohn about. I am your owner.”

It looked up at him and smiled. “Thank you Master! It will be the best slave you have ever had!”

John shook his head again. He was already having trouble thinking of it as Valarie Rohn. He walked over and sat on a padded arm chair. It crawled next to him, and knelt at his feet when he sat.

“Hmm, I suppose I can call you just about anything in private, but I need something to call you in public that won’t arouse too much suspicion ... I know, from now on your name is valie. As a slave, that will not have a capital V.”

“valie likes valie’s new name. valie thanks Master for valie’s name.”

“Take me to Ms Rohn’s ... No, everything that belonged to Ms Rohn belongs to me now. Take me to my bedroom, so we can get ... better acquainted.”

“Yes Master!”

valie stood up and took John’s hand, practically pulling him out of the chair.

“Right this way”

Matt and Molly were getting ready to head back to College Station on Monday morning.

“Molly, I need you to drive today.”

“Okay, but out of curiosity, why?”

“I need to call William and set up a meeting with the Nerd pack.”

“What for?”

“I need to read them in on my powers, and maybe my plans too.”

“Why?”

“I was in the middle of a conversation with William when Artemis attacked me. I disappeared right in front of his eyes. I told him something in time-stop to keep him from freaking out over the weekend. Unless I cut off all contact with them, either they will all eventually see something or the Matriarchy will go after them to get to me.”

“Oh.”

When they were half-way to College Station, Matt pulled out his cell phone and dialed William’s number.

“Hey Matt, are you calling to explain what happened on Friday.”

“Not over the phone. Look, I need to talk to the whole Nerd Pack. I’ve got things going on that could spill over and affect all of you.”

“What’s going on, are you in some kind of trouble?”

“Not exactly. Look, I don’t want to say anything over the phone, and this needs to be done in private. Can you ask the others to meet at Molly’s off campus apartment after classes today?”

“I suppose, but the whole cloak and dagger routine is making me nervous.”

“Thanks, I promise you will get answers tonight. Oh, and tell Luke to bring his high speed camera, it’s tripod and his laptop. Have Louise bring her portable weather station.”

The Matriarch had her council gathered in the board room.

The Matriarch spoke, “This is a special meeting to discuss issues around the young man Matthew Murphy who has been identified as a possible threat to our goals. Athena, has there been any word from Artemis?”

“No, she has still not checked in. The operation to retrieve an item belonging to Mr. Murphy for Delphi went off without a hitch Friday night. Saturday morning, the break-in team was sent to the motel where Artemis had a room booked. Her personal affects were found and recovered. The backup team was sent to look for her rental car. The car was found in a parking lot on the University campus near the dorms. They hot wired the car, drove it to another area and torched it.”

The Matriarch grabbed the bridge of her nose and sighed. “I know, Delphi, you told me this would not go well. Were you able to learn anything about Mr. Murphy or Artemis’ fate?”

“Some, I didn’t learn anything particularly useful about Mr. Murphy, but I do know in general what happened to Artemis. When I received the object, my first interest was in what happened between Mr. Murphy and Artemis. Normally the past is crystal clear. With Mr Murphy, his past is slightly out of focus and I couldn’t hear anything but white noise. This is what I saw...”

Delphi described her vision of the interaction between Mr. Murphy and Artemis as it happened in real time.

“So, I couldn’t hear what they talked about, but I can read lips. Unfortunately I found myself unable to move to where I could see Mr. Murphy’s face, so I only know Artemis’ half of the conversation. Artemis has been enslaved by Mr. Murphy somehow.”

The woman to the Matriarch’s immediate left, Isis interjected. “Is he a speedster then? I’ve never heard of a speedster who could also do mind control.”

“No, I don’t know how he moved like that, but it isn’t speed. Machina can explain it better.”

“As Delphi described, no one in the crowded quad noticed him move. No one’s attention was drawn either to where he started from or to the roof of the dorm.”

“Doesn’t that just mean he moved really fast?”

“No. A moving object creates a wake in the air. With a normal person, moving at normal speed, most people don’t notice this. However, the larger the object, or the faster it’s going, the stronger the wake is. If you are standing by the curb and a bus goes by at 30 miles an hour you feel the wake. To be moving faster than the eye can track, he would have to be moving faster than the speed of sound; and that would not only create a very noticeable wake, it would create a sonic boom that would be hard to miss. However, that’s just the tip of the iceberg with a speed theory. First, a bit more detail from Delphi.”

“I can look at time in either a time lapse, or high speed slow motion, even bringing things down to singular still frames, each representing about a tenth of a millisecond. Mr. Murphy went from standing with the other student he was talking with, to sitting in a folding chair behind Artemis on the roof between frames.”

“How does that rule out speed, doesn’t it just imply greater speed?”

“No, Delphi briefed me on this ahead of time so I could make some calculations. He moves some 400 feet, taking other actions along the way, in less then a tenth of a millisecond. To do that, he would have to be moving at around half of one percent of light speed. No known speedster, not even Zoom is anywhere near that fast. Besides, even if that kind of speed was possible, the effect on the surrounding area would be catastrophic.”

“Oh come on, I’ve been to military air shows, a sonic boom shock wave isn’t that bad.”

“A sonic boom isn’t that bad. Most people really can’t grasp the vast gulf between the speed of sound and the speed of light. That half a percent of the speed of light is more than thirty five hundred times the speed of sound. A sonic boom at close range can break glass and knock people off their feet. Now, best case, ramp that up by three orders of magnitude.”

Isis’s eyes widened. “Best case? What’s the worst case?”

“Worst case, the air in front of him can’t move out of his path fast enough and becomes so compressed that atoms start to fuse, resulting in an uncontrolled, uncontained thermonuclear reaction.”

“Teleportation?”

“He would have to make at least two complete jumps in under a tenth of a millisecond.”

The Matriarch slammed her hand on the table. “Enough. So we still don’t know what Mr. Murphy is really capable of. Did you learn anything useful, like how we could kill him?”

“Not really, at least not anything certain. His future is even stranger than his past.”

“How so?”

“When I look at the future, I don’t generally see what will be. I see all the shadows of all the possibilities of what might be. The real gift of an Oracle is to be able to tell which path is most likely. This doesn’t work on Mr. Murphy.”

“Why not?”

“Too many possibilities. A normal person only has a few possible actions from one moment to the next and figuring out what is most likely is easy. A generic Spark has a few more possibilities. A speedster maybe ten times as many as a normal person. Mr Murphy has hundreds, maybe thousands, of possibilities in any given moment.”

Delphi paused for a moment before continuing, “I looked to his future with an eye to learning how he might be defeated. I looked at the future, without focusing on any one path and moving rapidly, father ahead. A few decades into the future I noticed something disturbing, he didn’t seem to age beyond about 25. I jumped ahead even faster, looking out centuries, as far as 500 years, and he was still there, unchanging.”

“Is he immortal then?”

“No, there are certainly paths on which he dies; but there are so many paths, and no path ending in death stands out as any more likely than any other path.”

“Give me your over all assessment.”

“The safest course of action is to leave him alone. Ignore him unless he comes after us, which I don’t think is likely.”

“Not an option. His mere existence is a threat to our goals.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that. He is powerful, but he is not without weaknesses. He can act and react on a sub-millisecond time frame, but if he is attacked from ambush and killed before he is aware he was attacked, that could succeed.”

“A sniper then.”

“Yes, but it has to be a high powered rifle with a super sonic round. Given how quick he can react, shoot from behind in case he can see a bullet coming. And it has to be a one shot instant kill. Miss the first shot and you won’t get a second. Without knowing the nature of his power and given how fast he can react, assume that even if you have a good kill shot, if he has even a millisecond to react afterwards, the attack will fail. Very risky, but not impossible.”