The Search for Vanessa Hawthorne: Recalibrating

From the look on her face, John expected Tricia to give some kind of outburst or reject the idea, but instead the healer pulled up a new window showing four perfectly parallel lines. At the bottom of the panel were three runes that glowed a bright green. She stared at it for a moment, then at John with a carefully-crafted neutral expression.

It was that element that gave away her nervousness to him. Her usual attitude was painfully impassive and borderline emotionless, but it was normal. It was just the state of being that Tricia Gorbachev inhabited. So when she had to actively try to maintain that attitude, it was easy to tell the difference. It just wasn’t natural anymore.

“Ahem,” Tricia said the word rather than clearing her throat. “There is a… 47% chance that is the worst pick-up line I have ever personally witnessed. If not, I suppose we shall have to deal… with that when it- I mean, if it occurs. You wouldn’t happen to have seen how or where… No, I shouldn’t ask, but…”

She trailed off into silent conflict, visibly torn between wanting to ask more and trying to keep her curiosity contained. Then, something changed. As if she were rebooting, Tricia’s tortured expression smoothly relaxed into the calm and collected individual he knew.

“It is worth noting that prophecies have been proven fallible in the past… so we should not make any unreasonable assumptions,” she said, with a voice that had returned firmly to her usual monotone. “According to one theory put forward by August Copperfield, clairvoyants do not witness the future but instead overlay the subject’s desires or fears made manifest onto known reality in a way that divines what is theoretically possible. This instills a sense of inevitability to the outcome that unwittingly steers the individual down the path necessary to see that the prophecy comes true, thus rendering it self-fulfilling. As I would have no such interest, the only person who could be the focus would be-”

Now it was John’s turn to feel uncomfortable and awkward, “I didn’t! I mean, I wasn’t. Argh, look, just forget it, ok?”

“I cannot do that, but I shall not waste my time on it any further. I have more important concerns. Speaking of which, if you’ll excuse me…” She gestured at him and the two blue gems still embedded in his arm vibrated. He felt the faintest of pinpricks, and they grew discolored, then detached themselves from him and returned to the drone, leaving behind two small puncture holes that closed up quickly.

The hologram of Tricia flickered and disappeared, followed by her drone as it flew back out the broken window and into the afternoon sky.

Well, that was… interesting.

John looked down at the hodgepodge mess of armor and clothing he was wearing, running a hand over his bare forearm. His skin felt bone-dry after the hours he’d spent soaked through in the Abyssal deep. He trembled slightly at the sensation.

Now that his mind was freed from focusing on the immediate future, it had decided to rewind to dwell on the past… and John was painfully aware of how closely he’d toed the line between life and ****. Yes, his other experiences had been dangerous. The hydra could’ve killed him and the nightgaunts were intent on capturing him for some horrible purpose… Neither had been as visceral as the ordeal he’d just been through. When he put a hand on his chest, he could feel his bones breaking underneath his fingers.

Perhaps it was Fear Resistance, or perhaps it was simply that John had been through so much in such a short time that his body couldn’t even fully process his emotions. He’d spent so long desperately staving off his terror that he’d almost forgotten how to handle… this. Safety. Peace. In Ulthar he’d accepted his fate, but every situation he’d anticipated was fraught with further struggle. None had involved him being saved.

What… am I supposed to do now?

He felt empty. Hollow. Barren. Before, there had been tension strung through his insides and twisting up his spine like a venomous snake biting into the base of his skull. Even when he’d managed to forget the danger surrounding him, that feeling had only receded, never fading fully. Now, here… safe… that tension bled out and nothing filled the void that it left behind.

I should be happy, or relieved, or at least… something. But I don’t. I just feel tired… so tired.

John took a deep, filling breath, then exhaled slowly and closed his eyes as the air left his lungs, imagining it leaving in large, glittering bubbles. The visualization drew his mind elsewhere, to a cold and endless ocean devoid of anything but himself. It was as though a part of his soul was still lost, drifting aimlessly in the Everdeep. Maybe it was. He’d ‘died’ there, after all.

Why does this feel so real? What the hell is wrong with me?

A terrible, wrenching feeling twisted his stomach. His mind grew hazy from a lack of oxygen and the burning need for air pulled John away from that distant, deep sea and back to reality. He coughed and panted, running a hand compulsively through his tangled and messy hair.

I can’t keep going like this… it isn’t normal. I need to take a break or I’ll go crazy.

His eyes fell on the computer at his desk, the host of a thousand fantastical worlds neglected in the last few days of real fantasy at his fingertips. It felt like months since he’d last played a game… so wrapped up in ‘the Game’ as it were. Right now, there was nothing he needed more than some mindless entertainment.

Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.

John closed his eyes, willed away the haunting daydreams and dragged himself to the computer, turning it on and clicking aimlessly at nothing as it booted up. He reached for his pocket for his phone, to play one of the mobile games on it while he waited. It wasn’t there.

Right. Inventory. That’s a thing.

He called it forth, and the moment it landed in his hand, the device started buzzing with missed calls and messages from the person he’d entirely forgotten since waking up. John blinked at it as his mind jump-started and the delirious fugue cleared, to be replaced with worried urgency.

Oh shit, Erica!

Tricia dismissed the view of John’s bedroom and disconnected her suit from the drone master control unit, returning mentally to the darkness of Ashcroft’s boiler room. The hovering security drone behind her returned to the case, and with a thought command, she disabled the active camouflage function of her suit. For the first time since her surveillance network had detected John’s re-appearance and informed her of his injuries, she allowed herself to truly relax.

He’d been extremely lucky that she equipped her monitoring drones with the materials necessary for trauma care and even luckier that both her contract and obligations as a medical professional demanded that she preserve his life. If he’d been reliant on a mundane hospital, the severity of his injuries would certainly have been fatal.

She made a mental note to inform the Order of her work, so it would be properly compensated to the Opekuny, sent a message informing them of his recovered condition, and then opened a second file from her private notes. John Newman: the security threat, a recently bloomed mage with unusual physical resilience worthy of observation and her… possible future lover?

The data she’d gathered on him through observation and indirect exposure rattled to a halt as the cursor stopped at a dead halt just below her documentation of his apparent healing factor.

John was fascinating. His body reacted to healing in a way she’d never observed before, as though using the energy to reset itself to a ‘default state’. When she’d repaired the damage to his broken shoulder, several serrations in his lower abdomen had spontaneously closed and his body had re-absorbed the internal bleeding into his veins. Furthermore, applications of general restoration magic were unusually effective. The energy actively applied itself to his most critical injuries first and was even able to address injuries a classification above the formula’s maximum function.

Tricia had cross-referenced his form of anomalous regeneration with the Opekuny database, and only two remotely similar occurrence had been filed, under temporal manipulation and true restoration. Yet his Pattern included no references to any known enchantments of that caliber and the domain in general should be out of reach for a mage with no professional training and only three days of confirmed magic usage. Only three possible explanations could exist:

One: Subject has discovered a hitherto unknown discipline of magic either by natural inclination or accident.

Two: Subject possesses a True or Conceptual Relic that explains the anomalous nature of his mutable Pattern and grants him access to high-tier restoration magic.

Three: Subject is able to hide a capacity for spellcasting exceeding all recorded data and intentionally injured himself to gain my attention.

Logically, the sequence of coincidences required for two of her hypotheses were astronomically unlikely to the point of virtual impossibility, but there was simply no conceivable reason that a mage as theoretically powerful as her third hypothesis implied would approach her in a roundabout fashion. The players of that metaphysical level were not known for subtlety and such a gambit would be extremely high risk for such a low return. She was not as physically attractive as the women those individuals tended to take as concubines or wives, nor was she as powerful. If he wanted access to her as raw materials, then why bother with an indirect approach? Impressive as the Gorbachev lineage was, even a fully fledged member of the Opekuny could not easily face such an opponent and she had yet to earn that status.

So what was he? What did he want from her? Why would she… Tricia needed answers.

She considered the two vials stored in the drone that was currently en-route to her lab.

Technically, taking a blood sample wasn’t a part of standard treatment, but she could justify it under protocol. Technically, one was supposed to ask for consent before taking a blood sample, but she hadn’t had the opportunity to ask with his unusual episode and confession. Technically, it wasn’t normal to tell a person that you just used a clairvoyance spell to see your future self having sex with that person… She had a dozen and a half technicalities that gnawed at her like rats on carrion. Anxious, uncertain, emotionally compromised rats.

Tricia took a shallow breath and raised the limiter threshold of her suit. Observing this anomaly was taking a toll on her. The safe course action would be to shelve the project and treat John Newman as any other contractual mage under the Order’s banner. It was what she should do… but not what a Gorbachev would do. A true Gorbachev would not let this opportunity to analyze such a unique individual slip through their fingers.

She stared at the blinking cursor in her half-completed assessment.

Subject should be considered a dangerous individual with possibly… sexual intentions towards me. Direct contact should be avoided without a spatial buffer or Omega-level security procedures. Samples J01 and J02 can be assessed in safe lab conditions to analyze subject’s anomalous physiology. Observation will continue via drone and communications monitoring until a greater understanding of the subject’s nature is clarified.

Tricia minimized the file and picked up the suitcase containing her drones. She had a hand on the boiler room door when she added a final addendum to her note:

All possible hypotheses regarding the subject’s theoretical projection should be run through simulation testing. Just in case.

John wasn’t sure what he expected to hear when he dialed Erica’s number, but since she hadn’t replied to his message in the last seven minutes, he’d decided to try calling her. After the way he’d spontaneously vanished without warning her, she deserved an apology at least…

“What the hell do you want?” snapped the berserker the moment she picked up. It felt like a punch in the gut and John winced.

“Hey…” he started, hesitating. With no idea what else to say or how to make up for what he’d put her through, John settled on the simplest, most straightforward thing to say, “I’m sorry.”

She said nothing in reply. A few seconds passed as the silence from the other end grew painfully empty. He could hear her shallow breathing.

“Erica?”

“Shut up, dude…” his partner’s voice was a bit ragged and sounded as worn out as he felt, but held no real hostility. No, she sounded almost happy. “You can’t just… just up and disappear like that and then show up again right when I…”

John could only imagine where her imagination had gone, “I’m sorry. I swear I didn’t do it on purpose. It’s a long story.”

“Trust me, I know.” Another voice said something in the background, and John heard Erica say, “Yeah, it’s him.” It was followed by a confused mess of sound as two people clearly fought for the phone.

“Master!”

“Wait a second, you can-”

“It’s Master! Gimme-”

“-when I’m done!”

John blinked. He knew that second voice. It was Tryn. Why was Tryn with Erica?

“No, I want to-”

“-we both want to talk to him, calm-”

“He still hasn’t fucked me yet!” the goblin cried out in excessively vocal desperation. John pulled the phone away from his ear and winced. On the one hand, it was immensely flattering to have someone want him so badly… on the other, now really wasn’t the time.

Erica’s voice cut in over the phone, “Give me a second, dude.”

John switched the call to speaker and set his phone on the desk, leaning back to stare up at the ceiling. So. Erica and Tryn. He tried to imagine what series of circumstances could’ve brought the two together. An awkward thought popped up in his head.

They… wouldn’t have talked about what happened in ‘Pride’, right? Oh, who am I kidding, it’s Tryn. She probably bragged about it. Fuck me.

His cheeks burned with embarrassment at the realization that the details of his sex life had definitely been thrown into his partner’s face. How was he supposed to explain to Erica that he’d done it for a reason? Technically he’d taken one for the team in giving the goblin what she’d wanted, and it’d gotten him the information that…

“Hey, dude. Sorry about that.”

John’s chair tipped back a bit too far, and it was only a sudden grab for his desk that allowed him to catch himself and carefully pull the chair back forward. Erica’s voice had startled him, he’d almost forgotten she was on speaker.

“Its fine. Everything’s fine,” he said. “Hey, uh… you wouldn’t have possibly… with Tryn… um…”

Erica’s sudden intake of breath was unexpected, and her tone was strangely tense, “Wouldn’t have what?”

“Talked about anything… look, nevermind. It’s not important.” John swallowed nervously, “Very unimportant.”

“Right. Of course it’s not.”

The thread of conversation died and silence reigned for a second as they both made awkward little noises. Erica came out of it first, clearing her throat and pushing on with an important topic, “Where are you now, dude? I have a lot of questions that are best asked in person and someone badly wants to see you.” He heard her whisper to Tryn, “I’m almost done.”

After everything he’d been through, the only thing John wanted was to spend the rest of the day, maybe the rest of the week as far away from anything magical as possible… but… that wasn’t really a possibility. He owed Erica an explanation and having the few people he could trust around sounded like a good idea right now. “I’m at home.”

It was only a shame he had no way to contact Adorabelle, or Bearnard, or Charcoal. John stared at his hands. In the last few days, his small world had grown considerably…

“Stay put and keep safe,” his partner ordered tersely, before her voice returned to a softer tone, “and John… I’m glad you’re back.”

Me too. You have no idea how much.

“Alright short stuff, your turn.”

The phone was handed over to Tryn, who was practically hyperventilating, “Master! You’re really okay?”

“More or less, yeah,” he said. Technically, it wasn’t a lie. He was physically fine. Maybe if he pretended hard enough, the same would be true for his mind. John cracked a broken smile. Of course, it wouldn’t be.

“Really?” The serious question cut deeply, as though Tryn knew the thoughts that had just crossed his mind. Had he been that obvious? “It’s okay, Master, I know what will help!”

“Hold on a second-”

“See you soon!” she said and, with a beep, the line went dead.

John wasn’t sure if the goblin’s eager proclamation was reassuring or concerning. Tryn’s unabashed sexuality inevitably turned everything involving her into a lewd mess… there was no way her idea wasn’t going to end up somehow involving sex. Unbidden, memories of what had happened at ‘Pride’ surfaced, particularly, a mental image of Tryn’s half-lidded eyes looking up at him with his cum all over her face.

His pants got a bit tighter at that.

C’mon, really? Erica could be here any minute! Focus…

Doing his best to ignore and suppress his libido, John directed his attention at the waiting password field on his computer. He typed in the half-random string of letters and numbers he used for everything and watched the image of a smug sloth that he used as a lock screen shift to a group shot of all the characters from His Villain School. That was another thing he’d been too busy to keep up with… maybe today would be a good time for it.

He browsed through the assortment of games that littered his desktop, trying to find one that would let him relax and take the edge off. Light Bodies III? No, he was stuck on a boss. Globe of Fightcraft? He’d cancelled his subscription after running out of things to do in the most recent expansion. Besides… it was a bit too close to his life right now.

In the end, he settled for a cute little puzzle game that he’d played a few years ago as a free demo. There was something soothing about assembling the parts of an intricate machine and then just watching it run. John opened up one of the easier puzzles he’d previously solved and set about trying to complete it in the most unnecessarily complicated fashion possible, just because he could. As he watched the pieces move and click into place, sending a gear tumbling through a maze of twists and turns to trigger a final crank at the very bottom so a single drop of water could fall into a bucket and complete the level, John felt like everything in the world was going to be okay.