Author: A Markov
Title: Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Chapter: 10/17
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 10: Nesting Dolls

Honey Best's kitchen was a lot like her: sleek, fashionable and a little reserved. Violet sat at the granite-topped island across from Honey. Her right hand fiddled with the teabag in the mug in front of her, her left rested possessively on a large over-stuffed manila folder. "I'm really not sure how to start."

"You sounded a little confused on the phone." Honey Best watched her young guest out of the corner of her eye.

"Well," Violet temporized, "It is kind of about The Agency and…"

"Mmm-hmmm! Listen, Vi," Honey cut her off. "You know I got advice for everyone whether they need it or not. But I ain't up on all that agency stuff, sweetheart. I leave that to Lucius…" she trailed off and her expression hardened. "Unless one of them little suits gets too uppity." She shook her head and waved one hand dismissively. "For that stuff, you need to talk to Lou or Dicker."

"I can't!" Violet blurted out.

"And why not?"

Violet tried to find the right words, "'Cause I can't trust them to tell me the truth."

Honey's eyes narrowed. "That's a big accusation, Violet."

"No!" Violet cried, realizing the implication. "Not like that."

"It sounded like you were callin' my husband a liar." She tilted her head to one side and pretended to examine her fingernails. "What'd you want it to sound like?"

"I'm not saying he's a liar, I just don't…" Violet fumbled around trying to voice her concerns in a way that wouldn't upset Honey. "I need to know some stuff. It's old stuff. Secret stuff…"

"Violet, I just told you I don't know anything about The Agency. That's Lucius' gig and I don't get involved with that side of his life."

"But I need your help with—"

"I just told you—"

"You grew up in the projects!"

"I don't know nuthin' about their projects." Honey insisted.

"Not those kinds of projects!" Violet interrupted again. "The housing projects over in Hunter's Point."

"What?" Honey was very surprised and a little confused. She leaned in toward Violet. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Violet wouldn't meet her eyes. "You know about stuff. You know about real world stuff, what the real world is like." Violet babbled. "It's like I've been in a bubble my whole life. I grew up in a family of supers. We're not just supers, we're… insulated… from reality… by… stuff." She knew she was rambling but she needed to get Honey to understand her. "The Agency provides everything. School, jobs, houses… they put up these filters so that what we see isn't really real."

"You've seen some real stuff, Violet."

"That's not the point!" Violet's frustration was palpable. "Ever since Kari got shipped off to Norway, I've been reading and watching documentaries and trying to figure out what's going on in my life."

"Sweetheart, being gay isn't—"

"It's not about that!" Violet slammed her hands on the countertop and stood up. "I've been reading about everything! Not just about that. I've been reading about everything and I've been questioning things and I've been listening!" She turned away and started pacing across the slate floor. "People say stuff when they think you're too young to understand, or that you're not listening, or…" She waved her hands aimlessly. "And there are a lot of cynical people out there. A lot of people have weird theories and there's lots of paranoid whack-jobs who think the government is out to get everyone…"

"You can't believe everything you read, you know that."

"This isn't about reading anymore! This is about me! And Chi… Mirage… and what she… what they…" Violet whirled around and jabbed her finger at Honey. "You know how the real world works." Violet pleaded, "you have to tell me if they would do that to someone!"

"Do what?"

"Brainwash her!"

Honey stood and walked over to Violet. She took the distraught girl gently by the elbow and guided her back to her stool at the island. "Maybe you better sit down and start from the beginning."

Consciousness arrived in hesitant stages. First there was a droning that was as much vibration as sound. Then aches appeared: first in the neck, then in the hips and finally in the wrists and ankles. Cold. Cold fingers. Cold toes. Cold ears. The smell of burnt motor oil and dew on metal. The smell of machinery. A high-pitched whine cut through the drone, suddenly noticeable as it abruptly changed pitch. The world tilted.

An airplane. I'm in an airplane. The thought was accompanied by the image of the inside of a large military transport plane. I'm tied-up, lying on the floor of an airplane… Anger surged. I'm tied-up. I'm on the floor…? A cot? In an airplane…and the airplane is… It was doing something very important. It was…

"YES, TELL THE DIRECTOR WE'VE GOT THE ENTIRE FAMILY." The shouting penetrated the droning vibrations and high-pitched whine. "TELL HIM WE'VE GOT THE ENTIRE FAMILY JUST LIKE HE ORDERED. WE'LL BE AT THE STAVENGER AIR STATION IN TWENTY MINUTES AND ON OUR WAY TO THE STATES IN AN HOUR."

Flying to America? The idea brought some comfort but was railed against by an unidentified part of her… or was it him? Confusion reigned in the mind and consciousness retreated.

The director shuffled through the papers on the table in front of him while Dicker and the doctor gathered their various briefing materials and made their exit. The military men were still stunned by the psychiatrist's information and they fiddled uncomfortably in their chairs, exchanging worried glances and whispers. He forced himself to take even breaths and did his best to project an aura of calm control. He needed to get on top of the situation that Dicker had just made suddenly and regrettably public. Why couldn't the senior agent bring things like this to him through normal channels instead of blurting out sensitive information at the worst possible moment? Between the Parr girl poking her nose into the wrong places and Dicker making him look like a fool, he was going to be hard pressed to come out of this with his job intact. As soon as the door shut behind the senior agent and the doctor, he cleared his throat and went on the offensive. "The girl in the example you have there is just a symptom of a much deeper problem." He said solemnly. "On her own, her situation is troubling, but not problematic enough to merit your direct attention."

"I'd say the implications of this… situation, as you put it, are very troubling, director." One of the men spoke up. He paused to exchange glances with the men sitting on either side of him and continued, "Troubling enough to warrant not only our attention but the attention of our superiors as well." He leaned forward and his voice took on a menacing tone. "But we'll deal with how far you're over-stepping your mission parameters after you explain why you think brainwashing our nation's youth isn't an actual problem, just a symptom of one."

The director realized he was in the deep end and the men across from him were already planning on letting him drown. It didn't matter that they'd all signed off on the projects. If the situation became public, he was going to hang alone. His only chance for survival was to offer up another scape goat. Fortunately, he had one handy. "Well, to start with, this situation was discovered by an internal investigation into a suspected mole." He opened up the folder in front of him, pulled out a photo of a dark-skinned woman with white-blonde hair and slid it across the table. "Last year, Dicker brought this woman in as a consultant. She promised him portable memory alteration technology and her people have been working in close proximity to the main MAR systems." He could see skepticism on their faces, but it was better than seeing his doom. "On my orders, Internal affairs investigated her background and found that she had worked with that Syndrome character for several years! Her code name was Mirage. If the girl…" He paused and made a big show of consulting his notes. "Kari, is turning into Syndrome, then it is most likely something this woman has done to the system."

"Director, if you're aware of this, why hire her in the first place?"

"Believe me, gentlemen, that is the question I am trying to get answered." He leaned back and spread his hands out. "This came to light about a week after she was brought in on the project and I immediately took steps to isolate her from the sensitive parts of the system. It looks like those measures were not enough."

"I notice that you didn't remove her from the project entirely."

"My senior staff insisted that having access to a portable memory alteration technology was worth the risk." The director shook his head sadly. "As soon as I found out about the Kari girl, I assure you that all of her work was suspended and we removed all her people from the project."

"When you say senior staff…"?

The director pursed his lips to keep the satisfied smile off his face. "Internal affairs is looking at each member of the senior staff individually to determine if any of them is culpable in this. You all know how long an internal investigation of this kind takes…" He jabbed the reports on the table. "The girl is the first solid evidence we've got! The result of several months worth of hard work."

"And you believe that agent Dicker involved?"

The director leaned back in his seat and sighed dramatically. "There's no physical evidence that Dicker knows what's going on." He said slowly, "But he is the one who brought this Mirage woman in so I'm not ruling anything out at this time." He spread his hands out, "Gentlemen, your attention has been brought here at a very delicate time. The Agency does have a very serious problem and, sadly, one of our most trusted agents might be a part of it. Internal Affairs is working overtime to find out how big the problem really is and to find a solution. Please, help me keep this organization working for the common good by letting me do my job."

He opened a second folder and handed out sheets to each man. "Now, as you can see here, there is a pattern of control loss all starting approximately one year ago. On page one, you'll see a summary of a report from a very promising junior agent, name of 'Johnson,' who went completely insane while working as Dicker's partner." The military men turned their attention to the handouts in front of them and the director felt some of his tension release. "Page two holds the timeline of the agent's mental deterioration and the subsequent consequences. As you can see, the fall-out from that series of unfortunate events resulted in significant infrastructural damage." One of the men turned to the other to ask for clarification on a point and the director allowed himself a small triumphant smile. "Turning to page three you'll find a detailed diagnostic report on the MAR system taken three weeks after that Mirage woman was first brought in. When compared with the previous systems' check…"

"Uncle Rick! Uncle Rick!" The echoes of the excited shouts were punctuated by the sound of running feet. "I didn't make fire all the way here! I'm a good boy!"

Dicker stepped out of his office and crouched down to greet his youngest guest face to face. "You sure are," the normally stoic agent said with an enthusiasm only the youngest member of the Incredibles' family could elicit from him. "And good boys get to use the brand new training range."

"With the real fire trucks and heli-coppers?" Jack-Jack's eyes widened.

"I'll take him over and get him set-up." Dash volunteered as he and his parents caught up with Jack outside Dicker's office. He managed to keep all the resignation out of his voice, but his shoulders did have a little slump to them.

"Actually, Dash," Dicker countered as he stood up, "I was hoping you could sit in with your parents and me for this de-briefing" Dicker's request startled the teenager and his eyes grew nearly as large as his little brother's. "I'll have agent Stewart run Jack through the course today." The senior agent accompanied his good news with a nod of his head to the young agent weaving through the cube farm toward them.

"Really!" Dash blurted out before getting himself under control. "I mean… um… Yes. Of course, Agent Dicker. I'd be honored." Dash was flustered enough to miss his mother's arched eyebrow and his father's indulgent grin.

"Every member of the team can benefit from a review, and you're old enough now to have some valuable input." Dicker raised an eyebrow at Dash's huge grin, "you're also old enough to take some constructive criticism."

"Uncle Rick, aren't you gonna watch?" Jack asked as a young agent beckoned him toward the training area.

"Not right now, Kiddo. But agent Stewart will record it and, later, you and me'll sit down and watch it together." He smiled as Jack hurried off, pulling on the agent's arm to get him to move faster.

"Every member of the team, Rick?" Helen's tone was conversational but her expression held the promise of doom.

"Yes, Helen, every member of the team." He stepped out of the doorway and motioned for them to proceed him into the office. "If you'll go in and make yourselves comfortable, we can get right to it."

Helen glanced around before moving, "Is Vi already here?"

"No, Helen—"

"Is she coming?"

Dicker gestured for her to step into the room. "Let's step into my office. I have some video footage from the incident last week cued up."

"Is she in trou—"

"Helen!" Bob's frustrated voice came from inside the office, "Let's get the debrief done first, you can grill Rick about Violet later."

"Did you know Chi… Mirage… was an orphan?"

"Call her 'Chi,' sweetheart. I know who you mean." Honey waved dismissively. "But I didn't know she grew up without a family."

"Well, she did. She grew up in an orphanage in Mexico. The Agency adopted her when she was seven, 'cause she could see auras. They brought her to the States and put her in a special school to train her and enhance her powers. She worked for them her whole life. From the time she was a kid, her whole life, in The Agency compound. She lived there, trained there, went to school there, everything. They never let her leave."

"I'm sure there were—"

"Ten years, Aunt Honey. They never let her leave the compound by herself for almost ten years. It's in her file." Violet patted the manila folder on the island in front of her.

"How'd you get your hands on that?"

Violet gave a little shrug. "Uncle Rick gave me full access to the records room. Most of it is electronic but I found the old paper files. Turns out, that's where the stuff they don't want anyone to know is."

"And does anyone know where that file is right now?" Honey arched an eyebrow. Violet wouldn't meet her gaze. "Uhm-hmph… What happened after the ten years?"

"Well, after, like, seven years, when she was fourteen, they started taking her out to different places. Mostly to check on kids that might have some kind of super powers. That's one of the things she could see, you know, energy is a kind of aura and if someone has a psi power, she can see when they use it. So she used to get taken out to these kid's houses and check if they were supers or not. If they were, then The Agency adopted them and brought them to the compound." Violet stared down at her hands, twisting her fingers together. "There are a lot of records of kids. I… I didn't go through them but I saw them; lots of shelves full of boxes in… I guess I'm not sure I want to know what happened to them." Violet trailed off uncomfortably and picked up her mug of tea.

Honey let her fiddle with the teabag for a few minutes before quietly asking; "You said something about brainwashing?"

"Yeah, you remember Syndrome?"

Honey nodded. How could she forget the catalyst for reintroducing the supers into society?

"Did you know he used to work for The Agency? You know, before he was Syndrome."

"Violet, I don't think…" but Honey couldn't finish the thought.

"He did." Violet was a little defensive. "He's the one who designed the memory zapper thing. He designed a lot of the equipment they use. I guess he was pretty smart."

"Ahem, brainwashing?"

"Chi was part of the project. The memory zapper thing. She checked people's auras before and after they… she helped them get it right. I guess Syndrome… His name was Mr. Pine back then, really liked her and when he decided to leave, he asked her to go with him."

"Yeah, that part we know about."

"No, we don't!" Violet insisted. "She didn't want to go. She didn't like him."

"They didn't get along?"

"Well, I guess they worked together O.K. but he was all in to her and she didn't like him that way. She liked girls, she's always liked girls. But she told her boss that he was planning to leave and… she doesn't really remember anything after that."

"What do you mean?"

"She went to her boss to tell him about Mr. Pine leaving The Agency and then… she was Mirage and she was in love with Syndrome… and she followed him to Nomanisan Island… She helped him find the supers and… She didn't even remember about being at The Agency until last week when we were in San Diego."

"They erased her memories?"

"They didn't just erase her memories, they changed who she was." Violet insisted. "I looked up the memory project. It isn't supposed to do that. It's only supposed to create a pleasant but undefined feeling about the time that got erased."

"You're saying they changed her. Changed her sexual orientation. Made her think she was in love with Syndrome?"

"Well, he wasn't Syndrome then."

"You know what I mean!"

"Yes!" Violet chewed on her lower lip. "and…"

"What else?"

"She was sixteen, Aunt Honey, she wasn't even…" Violet closed her eyes. "She was sixteen."

"Are you sure about this, Violet?" Honey's stomach was roiling. "That's… maybe she's lying to you?"

"I don't know." Violet closed her eyes briefly. "That's why I wanted to talk to you. You know about real world stuff and what people will really do." She absent mindedly caressed the folder in front of her. "I'm pretty sure someone is lying, but… Here's her file. It matches what she told me pretty close." Violet abruptly pushed the folder across the island. "Except they say she volunteered to go and that her memories were altered so Syndrome wouldn't find out… But the other stuff is in there too. About her being gay and the orphanage and stuff." Violet looked at Honey, her expression pleading. "Someone's lying. Please help me figure out if it's her or them."

Honey looked across the kitchen island at the young woman in front of her. The confusion was plain on her face. It was a mix of hope and fear but Honey didn't know which outcome Violet was hoping for and which one she feared. She skimmed the page that Violet had opened the folder to. A frown formed on her face as she went back to the top of the page and read it more thoroughly. Her concern deepened as she began flipping through to different sections of the file in a quick series of cross-references. "Violet," she said without looking up. "You're right. There's definitely something fishy here." She closed the file and set it on the island. "But I'm not the one who can explain it to you. You're going to have to bring this to Rick."

Honey held up her hand to stave off Violet's protest. "I know you don't think you can trust him because he might be 'one of them.' But he's not." A well-manicured fingernail poked at Violet. "You may have known him for all your life," The fingernail jabbed back at its owner. "but I've known Rick for longer than you've been alive, Violet, and I can promise you this: He would kill someone without hesitation, but he would never brainwash them." The fingernail tapped the folder on the island, "You bring him this file and tell him what you told me. He'll get to the bottom of whatever is going on."

"Really?"

"Really." Honey pushed the file toward Violet and changed the subject. "How's Chi doing?"

"She was asleep when I left. After she told me all that stuff, she just kind of collapsed into herself. I think she's really afraid that she's losing her mind. I think she's trying to figure out who she really is."

Low and high pressure systems dance with each other across the world's surface. Like young suitors, shy about approaching too closely, they skip and turn about one another. Dancing, teasing, flirting but never committing. Warm air rises from the surface in one area. Cool air falls in another. The winds bring water and life but they also take it away. The forces balance against each other and maintain a kind of rhythm. Sometimes, the imbalances come together and whirl around each other mixing in a brief but intense storm. Sudden drops in pressure can cause momentary surges of energy and activity. Sudden surges in pressure chase everything else away creating areas of eerie calm. Often, the conditions all come together 'just so' and the storm finds a center and cohesion. Usually the impact is short-lived and localized. Occasionally, the dance of the high and low pressure systems will come together and form a fearsome entity lasting for days, and the threat is felt across a large community.

Rarely, the combination of elemental forces will be so fearsome, so destructive, so devastating that an entire region is held under its sway. Those unfortunate enough to be affected by it barricade themselves in and hide from it, trembling in fear. In the most extreme cases people flee for their lives barely taking time to grab those few possessions they deem most dear. It is hard for an ordinary human to wrap their mind around these kinds of forces. That much devastation and fury must have some kind of intelligence behind it. There must be some explanation. There must be someone to blame. In the dark, early days of mankind, storms of this scale were attributed to vengeful Gods. Even in the modern era, as man comes to understand the forces of nature at work, there is a primal desire to place the blame for destruction somewhere. And when a storm gets big enough and powerful enough it is still given a name. The names of the most powerful storms are passed down from generation to generation, uttered by the survivors, their children and their grandchildren with reverence and fear.

Camille… Hugo… Floyd… Katrina…

Here, in this unidentified place, a sudden vacuum has occurred and a great pressure which has spent weeks, months, perhaps even years building in the surrounding area rushes in and collapses into itself. There is no center. There is no pattern. There is only chaos and turbulence. It is a primal force with no definition. Tattered remnants caught up from its path of destruction churn in the maelstrom, grinding themselves into pieces too small to be identifiable. Thousands of tiny cyclones rip through the larger chaos and each other, adding to the bedlam. The ear-shattering shrieking of the wind, the flying dust and the bone crushing gale forces obscure any sense of time or place. She is everywhere. She is nowhere. She is deaf, blind and unable to draw breath. There is nothing to reference, nothing for comparison, no way to judge. And then… a whisper. One whisper, one remnant of the past, one piece of detritus finds itself spinning in the calm center of a perfect funnel.

The woman I fell in love with.

And with a mighty roar, the endless chaos finds that center. For in this storm's boundless chaotic fury, there are pieces of a shattered life. There are aspects of the past that are acceptable to the idea at the newly formed center and from the debris and detritus of the past, something is building. The low pressure area is stable now and the chaos of the storm is resolving into a single cyclonic system revolving around the central idea. The shrieking of the wind resolves into a single menacing thrum. The flying dust aligns itself in a recognizable pattern. The gusts and eddies are subsumed, integrated into the larger laminar flow pattern. And didn't she have permission? Wasn't she given dispensation to do just this? To resolve the chaos into purpose? To take the jumbled, unfocused energy of the past and create a powerful new future?

You can decide who you want to be.

And now, the storm is cohesive. The fury and power of the high pressure system has found a low pressure center to revolve around. Now she has an identity. Now she has cohesion. Now she has a direction. Now she can choose the bits that make up her new self. And as she selects which parts to integrate and which parts to discard, piece by piece, she finds herself growing. Growing in strength. Growing in focus. Growing in power. Her chaotic storm has formed into a hurricane.

And she has a name...

Next Time: The Syns of the past.

Author's note: Once again, I'd like to thank my beta readers for helping make this chapter better. King in Yellow, audi katia, otherrealmwriter, kittyore9 and Mewpainappuru.