“The intern was doing what?”

  “That’s actually quite impressive,” Darryl muttered while Sylvia ignored Roger’s question. The nerd might not have been right about what Cecelia had been up to - 'reverse engineering the device' versus 'reversing what the device was supposed to do' - but she would have expected him to be more... armed, especially if the kid's messing around had been the original domino. Darryl might not interact with the interns and was rather subtle in general, yet this situation felt like it called for some sort of surprise.

  “It sounds impossible is what it does,” Wilma said. “And suicidal.” (As much as Sylvia wanted to disagree, she couldn’t.)

  “And yet,” Miss Echo started, her wrinkled hands csped on the table in front of her. “You brought her back here. Seemingly of her own free will."

  Sylvia knew what she was really being ask: Why? And wasn't that the real question? "If her machine is what started the severe overps and pullings, then she might be able to stop them. It's not like there's long list of experts in this field. Darryl can't do everything. Cecelia's a smart kid, just... seriously depressed, I think. Or some other mental health thing." Because wanting to 'leave' the world so badly that someone would risk screwing around with dimensional borders wasn't healthy in any sense.

  "I believe her when she said she didn't mean to hurt anyone. Throwing the kid in jail won't solve anything. The case might attract parts of the government that we don't want sniffing around P.A.R.A.L.L.E.L.. And, to be honest, we really should have noticed that she took the separator at the time, not a few days ter when someone just happened to do an inventory check."

  "Sylvia has a good point there," Bobbie said. "Multiple ones, actually."

  "Because you're soft and she's apparently starting to go." Rogers was adjusting his cuff links again. "Cecelia's intentions don't matter when things get out of control this much. I agree she should help Darryl look for a solution, but we can't let her off so she can start this madness all over again."

  "For the record, as of right now, I don't need any 'help,'" Darryl said, focusing on his computer. "Downstairs is small, and there's only so much we can really do in a situation like this. I'm already working on something that might be able to stabilize the boundaries again with some others online, but an intern asking questions is only going to slow me down."

  Miss Echo nodded, although Sylvia thought she saw her boss frown a little more. "If you're sure. But if things keep getting worse, I'm going to insist that you have Cecelia join you. Now is not the time to let pride or other personal feelings get in the way. As for the girl's future, in general.... I think we can work something out that doesn't involve jail while still solving the issue. Would you agree with that, Sylvia?"

  By the time she was pulling into the agency parking lot, Sylvia was just tired. She wasn't sure if it was gravel from the ground or wood splinters from some crates that had been come flying at her when the server overp ended in a burst, but the whole thing had left her a lot more sore than she'd admit to either kid. The agent had been half-listening enough to Cecelia's expined to Neal of her little project enough to be mildly impressed at how avoidant of the actual issues and reasons the girl had been. And how patient the other intern was - he clearly knew Cecelia was leaving stuff out, but he took it with small jokes and an occasional gnce at Sylvia, as if as long as she was fine with everything, then he wouldn't question it too much.

  It was nice that one of the interns was respectful.

  ~

  The agency was concerning quiet when Sylvia, a duffel bag of all the dimensional separators on her shoulder, entered, the pair of interns trailing after her. No Rogers grumbling about something, no Bobbie tapping or clicking away on a computer, and no Wilma moving around. Miss Echo's office door, however, was open, so the agent told the interns to go look over the map in the conference room while she checked with her boss.

  Miss Echo had a deep frown that only slightly improved when she saw who knocked on the door. "Ah, Sylvia. I'm- You're bleeding!" She excimed as the agent clicked the door shut behind her. "There's a first aid kit in the bathroom. Are Cecelia and Neal alright?"

  "Just a cut; don't worry about it. And the kids are fine. More importantly, we can mark 'using multiple separators' down as a 'don't.'"

  Miss Echo sat with her hands csps together while Silvia gave a short summary of how things had gone at the fairground, her eyebrows pinched together the whole time. "So, in conclusion, the one piece of technology we have to reliably stop overps and pullings is of no use for rge-scale ones. I can't say that was entirely unexpected...."

  "I'm more concerned about the power wave that happened when the overp ended," Sylvia said. "That's another level of damage besides whatever the active event would already cause." She sighed, wishing Miss Echo had a second chair in her office and debating if she was tired enough to go and grab one from somewhere else. The duffel bag on her shoulder was getting heavier the longer she stood. "If things keep going like this.... I honestly don't think P.A.R.A.L.L.E.L. can deal with it. The general public is going to find out before long. And maybe worse, the rest of the government is going to start poking their nose around."

  Her boss appeared to have aged another decade or two in the way she also sighed. "I agree. Still, we have to try as many options as possible. I've personally reached out to Dr. Warrin and the few other researchers in this field; I'm currently trying to set up a virtual conference with them, but I don't have the authority to decre an emergency of this potential scale. That being said, I've also reached out to my supervisor to look into clearance for that."

  "It feels like we should be able to do something more...." Then Sylvia frowned as her brain processed everything in detail. "Didn't Darryl already reach out to Dr. Warrin. He said he was working on something to re-stabilize the boundaries 'with others online' before I left. I would think that they'd be one of the first people he contacted."

  "He might have; I haven't heard back from them yet. If they're already working on something with him, then all the better."

  'One of the downsides to everyone having so much freedom here,' Sylvia mentally groaned. 'It makes it harder to keep track of everything and who's done what.' "Where are the others?"

  "Bobbie and Roger were heading to the airport to look into an incident reported there. An air traffic controller said they saw pnes 'flickering' down the runway. And Wilma, to a nursing home where multiple residents suddenly colpsed at once yesterday evening, with at least one nurse certain she saw multiple 'ghosts' at the same time." Miss Echo sighed again. "All we can do is gather information right now. And try to be ready. I'm sorry to ask when you've just gotten back, but could you head out to the nursing home Wilma is at? I still don't want anyone working alone, if it can be helped."

  "Of course," Sylvia said, even though she could really use a break. "Just let me drop these separators off with Darryl. And then check on the kids, I guess. Cecelia wanted to check the center radius on the map again," she added when her boss hummed a small 'go on.' "She pointed out that the fairgrounds was rather far from where we had the potential epicenter."

  "I'm afraid it's more likely that the effects are spreading faster than we could have expected, but it can't hurt. Alright. Have her and Neal come see me when they're done. I want Cecelia to remain at the agency, in case Darryl does end up needing more assistance, and Neal can help me organize the increase in reports I'm expecting to happen once the rest of the city wakes up."

  ~

  The agency's 'b' was a modified basement storage area. The stairs down were fine, but the door required more force than it should to open and the inside badly needed more (not blue) light. Sylvia shoved her way into the rge room, the duffel bag on her shoulder hitting against the door frame and making the devices inside ctter against each other. "Darryl! Where are you?!"

  "Sylvia?" The nerd stood up from a chair in front of one of many screens. Sylvia was a little jealous that he appeared more well-rested than the her or the others. "What are you doing down here?"

  Oh, she was not in the mood for this. Just because field agents rarely came into the b didn't mean they weren't allowed to. Ignoring the question, Sylvia pulled the duffel bag off her shoulder and held it out to Darryl. "Using multiple separators backfired. At least one was smoking. I want you to look them over before anyone else tries to use them again. Pick out which one is the least bad off so I can take it with me."

  Darryl reluctantly took the bag. "I was working on something," he said as he walked over to a table and half-haphazardly cleaned just each space to start pulling and setting out the separators. "The more side projects you guys distract me with, the longer Dr. Warrin and the others are going to end up waiting to heard back on my parts of the theories to fix all this."

  Wonderful. Her co-worker was as grumpy as she was trying not to be. "I realize that," Sylvia said through gritted teeth. "But we need to have a few separators working in the mean-" She paused as her mind connected two odd dots. "You got in touch with Dr. Warrin?"

  Darryl had already picked up one of the devices and was poking around on it. "Yeah? Why?"

  "Nothing," she replied, taking a few steps closer to the closest computer. Sylvia had worked with Darryl for years now, but something was prickling up the hairs on her neck. As if an overp or pulling had started in the room, but she couldn't see any effects yet. "I'm gd. Miss Echo mentioned she hadn't heard back from them yet. I guess they were just busy working with you."

  (She couldn't get too close with coming off as suspicious, but the computer screens were bright and - more importantly - left open. Too many graphs and lines and numbers, but... shouldn't there be some evidence of a chat or someone on one of them if Darryl really was working with other people?)

  The noise at the table briefly stopped. "Oh, right. They asked me to let her know that they were already looking at things, but I forgot." Footsteps came closer before Darryl was walking around her to change some of the open windows - he still had one of the dimensional separators in his left hand. 'Am I being paranoid or is he?' Sylvia wondered. "Could you go up and tell Miss Echo she doesn't need to worry about the tech side for me?"

  Normally, she wouldn't have had a problem doing that. But the tension in the air had only continued to build, and Sylvia's instincts had saved her before. "Sure, but can you give me a quick run-down on what you all are thinking before?" the agent asked. "You know she'll want any extra details possible."

  She saw the way Darryl froze and adjusted his grip on the device he was still holding before transferring it to his right hand. She should have left then.

  But if she was wrong, it'd be embarrassing to admit and awkward to deal with in the future. Maybe knowing that the kid had been pying around with the borders between words - which was apparently possible - was making her extra suspicious; combined with stress and ck of sleep. So Sylvia took a gamble and asked, "You are working on something to stop these 'severe' events, right?"

  He turned around and casually took a step back towards the table, but in a way that was also towards her. "What type of dumb question is that? What else would I be doing?"

  "You thought Cecelia's project was the cause."

  "That's what the map showed."

  It was. But something still wasn't adding up. "One more thing: If you're in contract with Dr. Warrin now, would you mind letting me talk to them while you look over the separators? Cecelia mentioned she knows them through the university, so I thought they might have some insight into how to deal with her."

  If she was right, Sylvia would have expected Darryl to say no, making up some excuse of why she couldn't talk to the researcher. A nerd like him surely knew what she was getting at with the around-the-bush points. Instead, he shrugged and gestured at the ptop nearest to him. Mentally, the woman sighed. 'Looks like awkward conversations for a while it is,' she thought as she headed for the computer with a practiced bnk expression on her face. That would be fine. She'd compin to Ink when she finally got back home. As long as the true source of all this chaos wasn't actually-

  Sylvia saw Darryl raise the hand holding the separator and swing it towards her head.

  And she'd already let her guard down too much to react in time.