Author: A Markov
Title: Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Chapter: 7/17
Summary:
Sequel to Vanishing Love. Violet thought growing up was hard, until she fell in love. Now she is struggling to build a future in a relationship that nobody, including herself, understands but the past won't leave them alone. Is love strong enough to overcome the sins of the past? Can she find balance between love, family and duty? The resurrection of a sinister Agency project and the return of an irate ex aren't going to make her life any easier.
Rating:
PG-13
Warning:
This story contains some explicit language and deals with mature themes including consensual sex between adults of the same gender.
Disclaimer:
The characters and locations are property of Disney and Pixar. They are used here without permission or profit. You're welcome to sue me, I don't have anything.


Chapter 7- Curiouser and Curiouser

Violet kept her eyes on Chi the whole way home, looking for some clue as to what had happened. If Violet was any judge, the meeting with Dicker did nothing to ease Chi's stress levels. The blonde woman had been distracted on the way in to the agency, on the way home she was distracted and pissed off. Violet was feeling a little frustration herself. Her research hadn't turned up anything about Project Cadmus other than the fact that it existed. When she tried to broach the subject to Chi, the blonde shook her head sharply and murmured, "This is an Agency car. We'll talk later."

Violet considered this for a few minutes. Was Chi on the outs with the Agency? Was it about this 'Project Cadmus?' What was Project Cadmus about anyway? Why couldn't she find out more about it when she supposedly had unlimited access to the Agency's archives and data base? Did it have something to do with why Chi had come to the Agency today? Why had Chi been asked to come to the Agency today? Chi's intensity on the ride over had piqued her curiosity and the frustration of learning nothing was only intensifying her hunger to know. One look at Chi's expression and she'd decided to keep the questions at bay, for now. Still, even though she wouldn't give them voice, they ran through her mind on an endless loop.

Chi didn't seem to notice Violet's agitation. The blonde woman stared intently at the back of the seat in front of her, chewing on her bottom lip and occasionally glancing at her briefcase with apprehension. When they got home, Violet offered to carry the case upstairs. Chi shook her head curtly and picked it up, holding it gingerly as if she was afraid it was going to turn into a deadly viper and bite her at any moment. Once they were inside, Violet tried to bring up the subject of Project Cadmus again.

Chi worried her lower lip for a few more minutes before she cut Violet off. "Do you remember what you told me the first time we talked about secrets?"

Violet shook her head.

"You told me that the problem with secrets is that they never affect just one person." Chi gestured with her free hand vaguely. "There are a lot of people who…" Her voice trailed off, she shook her head and let out a rueful chuckle. "I'm not sure we can talk about this, even here, Vi. I guess I'm not sure of very much right now." She reached out and took Violet's hand, rubbing it absent-mindedly. "I've got to look over some stuff for Dicker right now. We'll pick this up when I've had a chance to sort some stuff out in my own mind. I promise."

Violet let out a frustrated sigh and pulled her hand away.

With that, Chi disappeared into her office and Violet was left alone in the hallway. She was confused, to say the least, but she was also a little angry. Answers didn't seem to be forthcoming from Chi so she tried to do a little digging of her own. Her first phone call was to Uncle Rick. He wouldn't take her call.

Lucious wasn't home.

Her mom picked up on the second ring but had never heard of Project Cadmus and was a lot more concerned about making weekend dinner plans than mysterious projects at the Agency. Violet agreed to come over next Sunday and got off the phone as soon as she could.

She was racking her brain trying to think of someone else she could turn to for information on this when her eyes lit on the computer. Would information on a top-secret government agency project be available on the internet? There was only one way to find out.

A quick Google search turned up about sixty-thousand hits for "Cadmus," most of them pertaining to Greek mythology. According to the myth, Cadmus' sister had been kidnapped by Zeus. Cadmus was instructed by his father to find her and not to return without her. Somewhere along the line the Oracle of Delphi told him to stop looking for his sister and follow a cow around until it stopped then build a city. Somehow, this brought the alphabet to the Greeks. Violet spent a lot of time scratching her head and trying to figure out what kind of project would be named after this guy. Which aspect of the disjointed myth would someone choose as the most important? The searching? The bringing of the alphabet? The kidnapped sister? Was it just a name pulled out of a hat? Nothing made any sense. She glanced down at the clock; it had been nearly two hours since she sat down. She started to get up when a page description caught her eye. "Cadmus" was misspelled in the page summary, as was "government" but it wasn't a Greek mythology site so she clicked on the link.

PROJECT CADMAS IS THE END OF HUMANS RACE! TEH GOVERMENT IS BUILDING A BETTER HUMAN AT PROJECT CADMUS! WERE ALL AFRAID OF THE SUPERS BUT WE SHOUL BE MORE AFRAID OF GOVERMENT! BECUSE THEIR TRYING TO BREED A NEW RACE OF HUMANS! THAT CAN FIGHT THE SUPERS AND BE UNDER THERE CONTROLLS! WHEN THEY GET DONE KILLING ALL THE SUPERS THEY COMMING FOR CONTROLLING THE REST OF US! BEWARE OF THE PERSON NEXT IN LINE! THEY MIGHT BE CADMAS MAN OR WOMEN AND READY TO KILL YOU WHEN THE GOVERMANT SAYS GO! ALREDDY THER IS LESS SUPERS THAN BEFORE! WE NEVER SEEN SUPERS LIKE IN THE OLD DAYS! ONLY INCREDIBEL! ADN FROZONE! THY ARE UNDER GOVERMENT CONTROL! IF THE GOVERMENT SAYS THEY KILL ANYONE! EVEN YOUR BABYS! WHER ARE THE OTHER SUPERS AT! THAY ARENT UNDER CONTROL OF GOVERMENT LIKE INCREDIBELS AND FROZON! THEY ARE KILLED WITH MR INCREDIBEL! OR FEEZED IN ICE! ONLY WE KNW THE TRUE MATTER! A LADY IN CALIFORNYA WANTED TO SAY ABOUT IT BUT THEY SHUT HER UP WITH A BLACK CAR! IT JUST CAME TO HER HOUSE AND NO NONE OF THE NEGBORS KNOW WHERE SHE WENT! IT WILL BE YOU NEXT TIME! TWO MEN IN NEBRASKA PUT UP VIDEOS FOR EVIDENCE ON WEBSITES AND THEY ARE MISSED NOW! THEY ARENT SEEN FOR YEARS AFTER THAT! DON'T BE FOOL BY THEM!

Violet shook her head and skimmed over the rest of the site. Variations on these basic themes continued on for nearly a full page with no paragraph breaks or spell checking in evidence. There were blurry pictures and links to quotes by people in the "goverment," all of which were broken. Violet spent about half an hour trying to find a link that worked or something else that backed up the website's claims but found nothing. Her growling stomach eventually pulled her away from the computer. Chi was still barricaded in her office so Violet started dinner. She took care to pick out a couple of things she knew Chi really liked. A good meal with some of her favorite foods might not cure the blonde's melancholy, but it couldn't hurt.


Joe Bartel stood stiffly in the center of the Director's office, waiting. He was there for nearly fifteen minutes before the Director came in. "Have you been standing here the whole time, Joe? Christ on a pogo stick, man. Have a seat." He waved vaguely toward a chair as he navigated his considerable bulk around his desk. When the director looked up, the man hadn't moved.

"Joe?"

"Sir."

"I told you to have a seat."

"Yes, sir."

"And yet, you remain standing."

"Yes, sir."

The director spent a few minutes looking the agent over. Finally he sighed, "You're not comfortable with any of this, are you, Joe?"

"No, sir."

"Care to elaborate?"

"Agent Dicker is one of the best, sir. He's been with the agency since the very beginning and it doesn't seem right to be going up against him, sir."

"You're looking at this all wrong, Joe. You're not going up against Rick, you're pulling his fat out of the fryer. He's too close to the situation and he isn't seeing everything clearly. It's up to us, you and me, to make sure he doesn't get suckered into something that will compromise all of humanity." The director could tell that he still wasn't getting through. "You've seen the files, Joe. You know what he's been letting the supers get away with, even helping them break or bend the law. I know it seems like he's trying to do the right thing but breaking the law to uphold it is still breaking the law. We exist for the sole purpose of keeping the supers in line. Rick is helping them move the line. I'm not saying we need to take him down. He probably doesn't even know that's what he's doing. Your job… our job, is to show him that he's making a mistake. Hell, once he recognizes what's going on, he'll probably step up and take the lead on getting the whole program back on track."

Bartel thought about it for a minute. "I see what you're saying, sir."

"Then you'll be my point man on this, Joe?"

"Yessir."

"This is tough love, Joe. I need to know you'll be a hundred percent. No doubts, no hesitation, no questions."

"You've got it, sir."

"Excellent. First things first, I need you to go to Norway."


Chi closed the door of her office behind her and took a deep breath. The briefcase hung heavy in her hand as she laid it almost reverently on her desk. Buried somewhere in the information she'd compiled at the Agency was the key to what was going on inside her head right now. She just had to figure out how to find it. Jumbled memories competed with each other in the back of her mind and she couldn't tell which ones were real. She distinctly remembered her father's disapproving frown but it was also the disapproving frown of Father Patrick at Our Lady of Sorrow Orphanage in Mexico City. Different versions of her childhood competed for dominance and she was helpless to distinguish fantasy from reality. There had to be a way to figure it out. Dicker's problem could wait until she figured out where she came from.

Chi began printing out files and sorting them.

Forty minutes later Violet knocked on the office door. "Chi…?" She cracked open the door. Chi was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor. Neat stacks of paper covered nearly every inch of the floor in an asymmetrical pattern that reminded Violet of something she couldn't quite put her finger on.

Chi looked up. "Oh, is Gil here?"

The question took Violet by surprise. "Noooo…" She said slowly. "Gil's coming to dinner?"

It was Chi's turn to look surprised. "Dinner?"

"Yeah," Violet tilted her head toward the kitchen. "Dinner's ready."

Chi blinked a few times and took a deep breath. "Smells delicious. I'll be there in a few." Violet didn't move. It took Chi a few minutes to notice that the young woman was still standing in the doorway. "I said, I'd be there in a few minutes, Vi."

"Gil's coming to dinner?"

Chi's confusion was evident. "What? Why would Gil be coming to dinner?"

"How should I know? You're the one…" Violet didn't get to finish the thought. She was interrupted by the doorbell.

"That'll be Gil." Chi caught the expression on Violets face and comprehension dawned on her. "He's not here for dinner, Vi." She smiled. "He's here to courier over some documents to The Agency for me."

"Oh." Violet looked contrite. "It's just that…"

Chi handed a manila envelope to Violet. "You give this to Gil, I'll go get washed up and I'll meet you at the table.

Violet did her best to act like nothing was out of the ordinary at dinner but her attempts at small talk fell like bricks into the Grand Canyon. Chi was so wrapped up in whatever was bothering her that she wasn't even getting an echo. After a little while the only sounds in the dinning room were Stanley Jordan's guitar and the small scrapes and clinks of silverware on china. Violet made it nearly twenty minutes before she couldn't stand it anymore and went for the big one.

"I couldn't access any of the Agency's files on Cadmus." The fork traveling to Chi's mouth paused for a moment before continuing on. Violet imagined that Chi relaxed marginally. "It's the first time I've been told I couldn't look something up since Uncle Rick told me I could use the place last summer."

Chi set her fork down daintily and dabbed the side of her mouth with her napkin. "It's probably for the best, Vi." Her long fingers fluttered. "It's… really complicated and it might be better if you… maybe it's not that important for you to…."

"This morning, you didn't think so." Violet insisted. "'Promise me, Vi.' you said. 'It's very important.' Those were your exact words." Violet waited for a response but Chi wouldn't meet her eyes. "What changed between then and now? Why was it important this morning, but now it's not important?" Violet felt the first stirrings of anger.

"It's not that simple, Vi…"

"What's not simple? Top secret agency programs or how the time of day affects their importance?" Chi jumped as Violet slammed her fork down on the table. "Is Dicker leaning on you? Did you do something illegal in California? Is he blackmailing you? Are you supposed to kill me to prove your loyalty or something?" Chi's head snapped up and she finally looked at Violet. Violet jumped up from the table and backed away. "Oh… myGOD! I was joking! Uncle Rick told you to kill me?"

"NO!" Chi shouted. "Nothing like that. It's not like that."

Violet waited expectantly. Chi sat back down and buried her face in her hands.

"What's going on, Chi?" Violet whined. "One minute we're just fine. You're powerful and smart and ready to take on the world and the next minute you're crying and scared and I'm afraid that you'll break if I touch you… Are you bi-polar or something?"

"I… I'm under a lot of stress…"

"No shit! It's really too bad that I've never been under any stress and that I can't imagine what it would be like!"

"You don't have to be sarcastic."

"And you don't have to be a martyr!" Violet wanted to grab the blonde by her jacket and shake some sense into her. She settled for gripping the table tightly and bringing her face close. "Have we met? I'm Violet Parr. I save the world on a regular basis and if something comes up that I can't handle, I just call my dad. You remember my dad? The strongest, most powerful human on the planet?" Violet threw her hands in the air and stalked to the door. "For the love of… You've got more money than Donald Trump and I'm a fucking Super Hero. What on earth could you possibly be scared of?"

Chi's mouth moved soundlessly a few times before she managed to whisper, "I don't know what's real anymore."


Kari took a few steps back and examined the results in the mirror. She couldn't do anything about the chin or the eyes right now but she had pulled her hair into a single pony tail on the top of her head and while it didn't look right, it at least looked less wrong. Carefully, she eased the door of the dressing room open a fraction of an inch and peered out into the department store. The two men were still there. Dressed entirely too severely for the trendy department store, they looked completely out of place while they pretended to browse. They'd been standing outside her house this morning. She'd tried to lose them by leaving through the back door and cutting through the natural area behind her house but when she emerged into the streets of Stavenger, they were still there. No matter which way she turned, how fast or slow she went, they stayed with her. They weren't even trying to hide; they were just following her around bold as brass. She shut the door as quietly as she could and turned back to the full length mirror. Yes, the hair was better but the silhouette was still completely wrong. Something would have to be done about the breasts.


Next Time: in the eye of the hurricane