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Chapter 12

  The whole way back to the agency, Cecelia couldn't stop thinking. Well, ‘thinking’ was the best word she had to describe it. Her thoughts had a fuzzy tint. Half of her was drowning in guilt over the possibility that she’d caused this whole mess, while the other was insistent that the tiny-scale of her project couldn't have affected her entire apartment building, never mind the whole damn city.

  “When we overid the severe overps on that map, it had this building toward the center. Which is where we’re currently assuming is where the original source came from. And, according to Darryl, these rge-scale overps and pullings could permanently mess up the boarders between worlds. Even if they eventually stop, there’s going to be a lot more damage before then if they keep happening, never mind spreading.”

  To make matters worse, Agent Fisher was quiet.

  It wasn’t until the agent had parked the car that Cecelia spoke. “How mad should I prepare myself for Miss Echo to be?”

  The woman looked at her over her shoulder as she took off her seatbelt. “How should I know? But I think it’s safe to say I wouldn’t want to be in your pce.” The driver’s door opened and Cecelia reluctantly followed Agent Fisher’s lead and got out of the car. She brushed some strands of hair out of her eyes. Shit, she probably looked like the mess she felt like.

  A light pressure on her shoulder made Cecelia jump, but it was just Agent Fisher’s hand. “She’ll be happier once everything is fixed, so just focus on that. Okay, kid?”

  Meaning ‘extremely pissed’ was the low bar. Still, Cecelia nodded and followed the agent into the building.

  ~

  Cecelia found herself matching Neal’s smile when she found the other intern sitting at an empty table outside the main office, though she didn’t have the energy to copy the guy’s friendly wave. “Since it’s almost guaranteed to be the first thing you ask, I’m fine,” he said. “See?” he added, rolling up the left leg of his pants to show the white gauze wrapped around the limb underneath. “Just some scratches.”

  “That’s good,” Cecelia replied. “What happened, though?”

  Neal winced. “Well, Agent Summers and I were at Bayview Hospital – you know, the one on the north side? There were reports of disappearing equipment and shouts. Like, a lot of them. Agent Ning found it from a bunch of social media posts by nurses shortly after you and Agent Fisher left.

  "So, we get there and you can just tell something’s wrong. There’s a chill in the air, and all the walls look the wrong shade of white. Not the paint, but the way the shadows— I’m losing you, aren’t I?”

  “It’s—“ Cecelia pulled out her phone to check. “One am. Sorry.”

  “Long story short, the pce must not have been redone a decade ago somewhere else, because my leg slipped through a hole in the floor and Agent Summers had half a support beam colpse on her. And some of the ceiling. She’s also fine!” Neal added in a rush. “It vanished almost right after hitting her, but, uh, it was nice we were already in a hospital. Everything seemed to calm down after that, so no evacuation or anything.”

  “How many loans did you have to take out for that bandage?” Cecelia asked, half-joking. (Shit, what if this really was her fault? Even if an evacuation was needed, the intern couldn’t see the administers at the hospital doing so – it’d cost money to move all the patients, even if there was another pce to move them to. Then… would any injuries from the severe overp still be on her?)

  (But she still didn’t want to stay.)

  “None,” he grinned. “Agent Summers said she’d cover it, since the government does take care of its ‘special forces.”

  “We’re ‘special forces?’”

  “We’re ‘special forces’ interns.’ It’s only the employees, but Agent Summers lied and said I was her cousin, so free checkup and bandages for me. Which is good because I forgot my wallet, and therefore insurance card, at home. Again.”

  ~

  She wasn’t sure what time it was when Agent Fisher shoved the door open and she had no intention of checking her phone. Cecelia had fallen asleep for ten-minute intervals while Neal… was out cold. “I thought you’d be eavesdropping,” the agent said as Agent Beller exited the office behind her, grumbling under his breath.

  “I think that was the pn,” Cecelia admitted. “Should I, umm, head down to the research b and…” the intern trailed off, gncing at the still asleep Neal. “Expin?” she tried.

  “I gave them the basics.” Well, shit. Expected, but shit. “Darryl said he didn’t need any assistant – not yet, at least – and we’re running short on people, so wake up the other kid and let’s go.”

  Cecelia groaned. “Another one? I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m really done with the paranormal.”

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t have tried to py with dimensional portals,” Agent Fisher said. Cecelia winced and the agent sighed, which only made her feel more guilty. “Cheer up, we’re heading to the fair grounds. You kids like that stuff, right?”

  “I’m twenty,” Cecelia said, trying not to get excited because, yes, she used to love the fair. “Isn’t there a farmer’s market there on the weekends?”

  The woman’s face didn’t give anything away. “Not anymore.”

  ~

  Cecelia spent the ride to the fairgrounds staring out the window, waiting for reality to fall apart at any minute. Would a building disappear? Would a shop name change in the blink of an eye? Would a car drive the wrong way down the road, the driver not knowing why everyone else was suddenly going the opposite way? Would she switch pces with another version of herself; would she even notice?

  Neal, also assigned to the back seat again, tried to talk to her multiple times, but she couldn’t handle more than single word replies. Eventually, Agent Fisher must have taken pity on her, as the woman filled in the conversation enough for Neal to leave Cecelia alone and prevent the car from falling into awkward silence (for too long, at least). A far cry from st time with Martha Two.

  It took about thirty minutes to get to the fair grounds and Cecelia took a moment to stretch once she was finally out of the car. Agent Fisher had parked at the front of the huge parking lot. The other side passenger door opened and shut as Neal got out.

  Agent Fisher grabbed a medium-size duffel bag out of the back of her car and started towards the park entrance. “The first report came in from a nearby maintenance worker. The next few from some social media accounts of kids who are likely now grounded.” She walked through the gate without slowing. Cecelia and Neal following behind the agent. “Roger is working on keeping the news away, but depending on how long this sticks around, that might not be possible.”

  ‘This’ was the faint outline of multiple fair rides and booths. All over top crushed wooden tables and crates. The only light came from the streetmps in the parking lot; none of the shadows on the ground matched up. Even Agent Fisher’s, Neal’s, and Cecelia’s own were wrong. Shrunken and squashed, as if there were lights all around them instead of only at their backs.

  Cecelia reached out and ‘pced’ her hand on a waist-high metal gate used for forming lines. It felt like she’d dropped her hand into ice water, and the brunette yanked her limb away. “It’s really, really cold. But….”

  “But you can’t feel the metal,” Neal finished. Cecelia gnced over her shoulder to find the guy copying her action, hand ‘pressed’ against the frame of a kid’s roller coaster ride. “Okay. So we’re ‘observing.’ What now?”

  Leaving the line holder behind, the intern joined her kinda-boss who was turning on a dimensional separator. “Nothing,” Agent Fisher sighed when the device simply sat on the bcktop blinking. Then she swung the bag around so she could reach into it better. “Since one separator isn’t enough, Miss Echo wanted us to try using multiple devices—“

  “Is that safe?”

  “—spread around the overp,” the agent continued, ignoring Neal’s question. She held one of the cylinders out to Cecelia, and then a second after that. “There’s no timer on them, so just turn one on and go to the next pce. Bobbie should have sent you both a map of the park on your phones with the locations of where to put the separators. It’s almost two-thirty. The longer this takes, the more chances of people showing up to get in the way.”

  “How many of these did you bring?” Neal asked, staring at the pair of devices in his arms.

  Agent Fisher’s mouth twisted in a grimace. “Eight. There’s only one left at the agency. That’s another reason to finish here – even if it doesn’t work – as soon as possible.”

  ~

  Pcing the first separator was easy enough, though Cecelia’s lungs were already compining about her jog to the location. But it was at the second site that she saw… it.

  ‘It’ being the three old-fashioned cars half-crushed and fully entangled in one of those ‘spinning teacup’ rides that always made her throw up as a kid. The ghost cars were a lot fuzzier than the ghost amusement park – so much that it almost hurt to look at them for too long – but all Cecelia could think about was, ‘What if the overp had been in the middle of downtown?’

  Of course, after another minute of staring at the scene, she realized that this was not one, but two overps in one pce and that really couldn't be good. ‘But why here?’ she wondered, forcing herself to activate the device and then move on. ‘Could it be because it’s such a popur pce?’ Curious, she pulled out her phone while she fast-walked to the second spot and searched for the history of the area. After scrolling past ads for tickets to random theme parks and ads for random stuff, she found a webpage about the grounds. Include a link to an old article, expining that the abandoned prison and mental institution were going to be torn down and the area repurposed.

  Yeah. That could certainly expin why.

  ~

  Cecelia had just set up the third separator when something smmed into her from behind, sending her to the ground. Moaning, the intern rolled over and, after grabbing her phone from where it had cttered onto the bcktop, held up her cell as a fshlight. She wasn’t exactly sure what she’d do if the force had been a random person aside from scream, so it was both a relief and not when the space around her was still emp…ty…

  Empty. Cecelia pushed herself to her feet and squinted into the darkness past her phone’s light. There was nothing. No overpping amusement park. She turned her phone around to point the light at her legs and check her shadow. Normal.

  ‘It’s over!’ she excitedly thought. Turning around, however, the intern found the separator she’d been setting up smoking and ying on its side. ‘Oh, that’s not good.’ Ignoring the aches from her fall, Cecelia crouched down to pick up the damaged device. It was warm but not burning, so she kept it in her grip as she stood back up.

  “I should meet back up with Agent Fisher and Neal…” she muttered to herself. She didn’t have either of the others’ phone numbers, but if she headed back to the entrance or car, they should find her eventually.

  ~

  “Did all of yours blow up too?” was Neal’s tired greeting. In response, Cecelia held out all three damaged separators (having realized half-way back to the parking lot that she probably shouldn’t leave the secret government equipment just ying around). “Well, at least I know it wasn’t something I did.” Despite how tired she was, Cecelia cracked a smile.

  “Good. You’re both still alive.” The pair of interns turned to find Agent Fisher – looking slightly more battered than before – heading towards them. Once the woman was illuminated by the parking lot lights, Cecelia could see that her jacket had a tear on one sleeve and a small cut was lightly bleeding on her cheek.

  “Did either of you see what happened?” Cecelia asked, trying to ignore the increasing guilt. “What caused the amusement park to disappear? I was focused on setting up one of the separators when the pressure wave hit me in the back.”

  “Either such a rge overp released a burst of energy when it disappeared or multiple dimensional separators wasn’t a good idea,” Neal said.

  “Let’s just... get back to the agency,” Agent Fisher suggested in a tone that was very much not optional. “We need to get these separators back to charge so they’re ready for the next mess, assuming Darryl gives them the clear. I want him to take a look at the devices before anyone uses them again, just in case.”

  ~

  Really, she should have noticed on the way, but Cecelia had been busy feeling guilty. She had plenty of time until they got to the agency, after… all…

  “We’re too far away from my apartment.” Neal only gave her a confused ‘huh?’ but Agent Fisher practically smmed on the breaks, causing the few other drivers out this early to honk at them. “Even if it’s a ripple effect, the events should be spread out more, circle-ly,” Cecelia continued, leaning forward in her seat. “When we get back, can I see that map again?

  Author's note (3-5-25): I realize this chapter isn't the best; to be honest, I almost said 'fuck it' and didn't post today. I think... I think I need to take a few weeks off. The st five-or-so chapters are very bare-bones (like this one) or nothing more than bullet point outlines, and I'm having a hard time getting myself to work on this story. I had hoped having weekly postings would help with the tter, but it didn't, so I'm going to figure out something else.

  I fully intent to finish WtPC, and I'm sorry for the break. If anyone's reading this, I hope to be back sooner than ter.

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