The Crocker Chronicles
Chapter 11
"Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes"
4 April
It took us a long time to get back to Alt-Nathan's apartment. Every officer on the force was out pursuing people whose Troubles had activated. As I feared would happen, this only resulted in triggering even more Troubles in a chain reaction when they panicked.
Chief Reynolds was most unhappy with our performance, to say the least. He said that the Council planned on issuing warrants for both mine and Howard's arrest in the morning, saying that we had helped William do this.
The hospitals are overflowing, and their doctors are doing what they can, but as I figured, they really don't know what's going on. I do; I just have to figure out how to catch two people who really, really don't want to get caught. I'm sure they've figured out by now they can't get back to my world-and if they stay in the Void long enough, they're going to be desperate enough to try to get back here.
"Here," Winters, or Nathan, told Mils, offering her a cup. "How are you feeling?"
"Kind of shaky," Mil answered. "One of those things-stung me."
"Yeah, me too," Winters replied. "Can you fix us?" he asked Duke.
"I can," Duke replied. "Unfortunately, till it turns active, I can't pull the aether out. Or at least I couldn't in my world."
"But we're not from your world," Mil smiled gently.
Duke set his teacup down and reached across to her, taking Mil's hands in his.
"That's true," he admitted. "All right, I'm willing to try-just relax, okay?"
"All right," she murmured.
Duke placed a hand on Mil's forehead, focusing intently on finding the aether that had stung her. He sensed it, and tried to call it forth, but it just seemed to burrow in deeper.
Mil whimpered in pain.
"Stop it now!" Winters yelled at him, and Duke ceased his efforts immediately.
"I'm sorry-it hasn't activated yet," he apologized. "If it had, I could have retrieved it."
"Do you at least know what it is?" Mil asked, wincing. "That hurt," she groaned, rubbing at her breastbone. "Like it was trying to tear my heart out. Did you have a Trouble like that where you're from-Harbor?"
"Haven," Duke corrected gently. "Maybe. There was a book my family had kept through the centuries that recorded the Troubles they'd-ended, but I don't have it. I'm hoping maybe Vince has it archived somewhere in the Barn."
"What is this 'Barn' thing you and Howard keep talking about?" Winters asked.
"It's not actually a barn, it's an armory now," Duke told the pair. "Originally, it was a barn that Dr. Cross and Howard came up with to keep Mara in."
"Mara Cross," Mil said. "Yes, we learned about her in the academy, about her experiments on Otherworlders with William. Is she still there in your world?"
"No, she's dead," Duke replied. "But her handiwork lingered on, believe me."
"Did she make you-your Trouble? Are you a Trouble?"
"No, I was a living, breathing person," Duke said. "No, actually, her father was responsible for my Trouble. He Troubled one of my ancestors; designed it so that we collected aether from the Troubled, in order to help him gain power."
He thought of something. "Hey-Howard told me that you two would be able to help me in ways that my friends back home couldn't," Duke began. "What do you think he meant by that?"
"Ask him," Winters answered. "We're just average citizens."
"Yes, but your average is a lot different than our average," Duke replied. "Can you teleport yourselves?"
"Not without the proper equipment," Winters smiled.
"Fly? Walk through walls?"
"Nope, sorry," Mil smiled. "Maybe he just meant technologically."
"No, no, he referred to you two specifically," Duke thought aloud, pacing as he did when he was thinking. "I was just curious as to why."
I don't have any clue what this loony is talking about, Duke heard Winters say, and looked up.
"What did you say?" he asked.
"I said nothing," Winters said.
"No, you did. You said you don't know what I'm talking about," Duke protested. "And you called me a loony."
"I didn't say it," Winters snapped.
"No, but you-" Mil spoke, and then gasped.
"I thought it," Winters trailed off. "You both heard my thoughts?"
"Is-is that it?" Duke questioned. "You're prescient?"
Winters sat down hard on the couch.
"Mil and I were both first placed together when we were at the academy," he began. "We were told that we both tested very high on our mental aptitude scores, and it had been determined that we would be a good match as partners."
"And are you?"
"Yes, we've always had an excellent working relationship," Mil said.
"So you guys have always been partners, ever since you left the academy," Duke stated, and Winters and Mil nodded agreement. "You talk to each other a lot?"
"Not really," Winters answered. "We've always been comfortable with each other enough to not have to gab all the time."
"But we always seem to know what each other's in the mood to eat," Mil said slowly. "And what the other's thinking at any given time."
"That's just from working together," Winters put in. "Any long-time enforcement team will tell you they work like that."
"I don't think it's just that; I think it's because you two can read each other's minds," Duke replied. "I just don't think you've realized that's what you've been doing until now."
He gazed at the pair. But now I can read your thoughts too, he directed mentally at them.
"I heard you," Mil breathed.
"So did I," Winters answered.
"Very good," Howard spoke from the doorway, scaring all three.
"You really need to learn to knock or something," Duke got out. "But since you're here, would you mind explaining the cryptic meaning of what they can do that Nate and Audrey couldn't?"
"You three have just witnessed it for yourselves," Howard told them patiently. "Nathaniel and Millicent are indeed prescient. It's not terribly unusual here, but not to the levels that they are."
He sat down in the chair opposite the group.
"Millicent and Nathaniel were part of a select group of children that were chosen specifically because of their prescient abilities," he began. "We were all a part of the program."
"Who is we?" Duke questioned.
"Myself, Dr. Spheeris-"
"You mean Dr. Antonia Spheeris the enforcement academy's doctor?" Mil asked.
Howard nodded.
"And the Doctors Cross," Howard finished.
"You mean Charlotte Cross," Duke said, and Howard nodded.
"And Douglas Cross," Howard added quietly, glancing up at Duke.
"You may know him better as Croatoan."
"Oh, this just keeps on getting better and better," Duke groaned, wondering if aether-men could get headaches, because it certainly felt like he had one coming now.
"So they have been experimenting with aether," Winters said bitterly. "All this time, all this—"he angrily chucked a glass at the wall, where it shattered. "The Council sits up there on their high horse and proclaims aether to be bad, it's terrible, and this whole time, they've been running experiments on their own people. And you knew about it and said nothing!"
"Howard kind of was in the position where he couldn't say anything," Duke spoke up. "He was busy helping Dr. Cross keep Mara under control. But I would definitely like to know about the events that led up to her confinement," he finished pointedly.
Howard exhaled heavily, leaning back in his chair.
"It began what would be a hundred years before the Troubles began in Haven," Howard began. "The Void had just been opened, and we had been making explorations of it. Aether was discovered—along with an opening that we realized led straight into another, completely different reality, much like ours—save they were woefully behind us, technologically."
"What year was that?" Duke asked.
"It was early, very early—in fact, the only residents of the area at that time were the Mik'Maq and Powhatan tribes, when Haven was still known as Tuwiuwok," he continued. "The next time we came through the thinny, we discovered that it was being settled by the early founders of what would come to be called Haven."
"So what happened with the aether, Dr. Howard?" Mil asked.
"We had been testing it on animals," Howard said. "But Douglas Cross felt that we were moving too slowly on it as a cure for illnesses here, as he and Charlotte's daughter Mara was very ill, so he—did what he did, and she not only got better, she thrived. She began to exhibit extraordinary abilities, and at that time, the aether had not been found to be harmful," he went on.
"He dosed one kid and they didn't die, why stop there?" Duke asked his tone cynical. "So you lot rounded yourselves up a fresh batch of test subjects and went to town. You really are a piece of work."
"I do understand how you must feel about all this," Howard said sincerely. "We tested six children: Nathaniel Winters, Millicent Chambers, Brandon Galbraith, Regina Meadows—and William Durst and Meredith McKay," he finished.
"So that's what you meant when you said William was like an athlete who'd used steroids," Duke stated.
"William is different than the others-because Mara dosed him again, to strengthen his abilities. Once Croatoan and Mara discovered how to truly unlock aether's abilities, they soon set to work. They wouldn't do it here; the aether at that time would only work on a certain type of our people. And so Mara and William came to Haven, until they were stopped."
"You banished William and Croatoan to the void, and Mara in the Barn," Duke finished. "And so began the Troubles," he commented.
"What do you mean, type?" Mil questioned. "Aether and Troubles couldn't have affected us before then."
And suddenly the answer came rushing at Duke.
"But it could if you were Halflings," he said.
Winters and Mil looked at Howard, their mouths hanging open.
"Is that true?" she asked. "W-We're—Halflings?"
Howard nodded.
"Yes. However, William is not—that's what makes him so dangerous, because he's been heavily dosed with aether, whereas yours merely enhanced your senses of perception."
"Why don't we remember any of that?" Mil asked.
"They probably wiped your memories of it," Duke commented, seeing from Howard's expression he'd hit the nail on the head. "What about the other children, this Brandon Galbraith, and Regina Meadows?"
"Brandon Galbraith is dead," Winters said. "He killed himself-because he always claimed he could hear voices in his head," he finished accusingly. "He could never make them stop."
Duke's mind flicked back to the two criminals Ezra and Tobias, to the time they tried to steal what he was delivering for a client by stealing the Rouge and having Ezra read his mind to find out where it was hidden.
Howard was there then also, he thought, glancing at the man, who gazed back at him steadily. We need to have an exceedingly long talk when we get out of here, Agent Howard.
"Regina Meadows—you mean the Regina Meadows-The Amazing Regina?" Mil questioned.
"Who's she?" Duke asked.
"She's famous here. She's a mentalist, she can read people's minds," Winters informed him. "Now I see how she does it."
"I realize this has all been a big shock," Howard told the group.
"Well, that's the understatement of the millennium," Duke cracked.
"What do you think we should do next, Dr. Howard?" Winters asked.
"We need to get into contact with Regina Meadows," Howard told them. "With the three of you together, we should be able to entrap William and Meredith—and put an end to the Troubles once and for all."
Easier said than done, Howie.