Chapter One: The Black Brook Incident

Compton Boole Psychic Penitentiary was located exactly in the middle of nowhere, upstate New York, on the shores of tiny Fern Lake. So isolated--tucked deep into the forest, its grounds surrounded by barbed wire fence on all sides--the residents of the nearest town, over two miles away, had no idea it existed. The general assumption around the area was either that the meandering little dirt road that disappeared into the forest either went nowhere at all, or went to some sort of top secret government testing facility.

So there was, therefore, no one around that early morning to pay any mind to the black SUV that veered off the interstate and onto the narrow dirt road, bouncing off into the forest. Inside the car, Sasha grimaced as they ran pell-mell over yet another pothole and he was nearly tossed into the window--again. "Agent Kowalski," he snapped, rubbing his forehead as if fighting off a headache, "refrain from rolling the car over, please."

Silence from the driver. And then, a little sullenly, "Yes, sir."

Truman looked up from the manila file folder he'd been reading for the first time since they'd landed at the nearest airport and picked up the car to take them the rest of the way. "We've got a damn serious problem, Nein."

"Obviously," he answered, his voice suddenly taking on a bit of a caustic tone. "You've organized a task force beyond the two of us and Louis here, I'd assume."

Truman tossed the file folder down on the seat, where it blended in rather nicely with the car's interior. From on top of the thick stack of papers, a photograph of a blond-haired, blue-eyed man glared up at them. "As soon as we know more about how he escaped and what exactly we're dealing with, I'll put one together. But..." he trailed off, shaking his head. "I've got the entire branch ready to mobilize--everybody out on mission's being recalled--just in case."

Sasha nodded. "Probably a wise decision."

The car hit another pothole, this time sending Sasha flying the opposite direction and causing him to knock heads with Truman.

"Kowalski!"

"Sorry, sir!"

"Raz? Hey, Raz!"

A head of straight black hair popped up over the top of the bunkbed. "Yoohoo, sleepyhead..." Almost as if on cue, a telekinetic hand reached out and gave the form curled up asleep in the bed a good hard shove. "No, seriously. Wake up."

"Mmmf." Raz rolled over and burrowed deeper under the sheets. "Go away, Zeke."

"Okay." Zeke shrugged and jumped back down to the floor, where he began picking through the clothes scattered all over the tile, looking for something clean to wear. "But you're the one who wanted me to wake you up in the first place."

There was a bit of muttering from the bed which might've been, "Did not."

"I mean, hey, you wanna sleep, that's fine by me," Zeke continued, finally settling on a ripped and worn--but relatively clean--pair of jeans. "I'm not the one who's gotta be at the airport in twenty minutes."

Raz's head flew up just as Zeke was tugging on an old t-shirt that said "Harrison Farms" on the front. "Crap!" He leaped out of bed and into the closet, a blur of long, gangly limbs that still looked somehow out of place on his skinny, sixteen year-old frame.

Zeke snickered. "You'd better hurry it up. I was just out in the hall--they're shutting the whole place down." He turned his attention to the room's only mirror and began carefully examining his chin. "Dammit...I'm never going to grow a beard at this rate."

Raz tumbled back out of the closet, fully dressed but still fighting with his shoes. For some reason, his right foot was at odds with its corresponding shoe. He'd made it almost halfway across the room, hopping on one foot and deftly avoiding piles of laundry, before he fully processed what Zeke had said. "Wait. They're locking the academy down?"

"That's what the boss lady said," Zeke answered, referring to Isabella Fuentes, the agent currently in charge of the academy. "Don't ask me why, 'cause I've got no idea. All I know is, hey, at least my pyrokinesis class is canceled." His telekinetic hand punched the air behind him in victory. Raz just rolled his eyes, realized he'd been trying to put his shoes on the wrong feet, and promptly swapped them.

"I wonder if that means they want me over at headquarters...I should probably report in--" He tied his bootlaces and then reached for the room phone--only to have it yanked out of his reach.

"Cool it, ace." Zeke set the phone down on the nearest available clear surface, otherwise known as Raz's desk, without even glancing away from the mirror. "They'll live. Besides, I'm not gonna explain to Agent Siberia why you left him at the airport."

Raz chuckled. "Okay, okay. First Agent Siberia, then go find out what's going on."

"Thank god; we finally sorted out your priorities." Zeke shot him a cheeky grin over his shoulder, gray-blue eyes glinting mischievously. "Tell Oleander I said 'hi.'"

"Yeah, I'm sure he'll be glad to hear from some kid he's never met," Raz shot back, darting out the door and well out of range of any retorts or projectiles Zeke might have thrown back at him. Until, that was, a set of car keys appeared in the empty hallway behind him, dangling from an unseen hand.

"Forget something, ace?" Zeke called from back inside the room.

Raz, rather sheepishly, jogged back down the hall and grabbed the keys. He was starting to see the value of coffee; being this scatterbrained first thing in the morning wore thin, and fast. "I guess. Thanks."

"Yeah, just bring the truck back with a full tank this time!"

The door to their shared room slammed shut, and then Raz was alone--there were twenty other academy students living on their floor, most of whom would usually be just waking up and moving around at that hour, but per proper lockdown procedures they were all in their rooms with the doors closed and locked. Raz's footsteps echoed all the way down the hall and past the floor's lounge, where someone had left the television on.

"And still no update on the Black Brook situation--local authorities have issued a statement, once again advising residents of the town and surrounding area to remain in their homes and report any suspicious activity to police immediately.

"The chief of police still refuses to comment on the situation, although rumor is starting to spread of a prison break at one of the area's penitentiaries, possibly Upstate, the region's only maximum security prison. More than one inmate may be involved.

"Also of concern are reports of an explosion two miles northeast of Black Brook. Despite reports that this may have been caused by psychic activity, local and federal authorities are all currently refusing to comment.

"We here at News to Me will continue to keep you updated as events warrant."

Raz turned the set off on his way down the stairs to the parking lot, shaking his head.

"God damn."

Kowalski nearly slammed his fingers in the car door, he was so preoccupied with staring at Compton Boole Psychic Penitentiary--or rather, what was left of it. Most of the left wing had been turned into little more than a burnt-out husk, still smoldering in the bright, cheerful morning sunlight. Behind him, Sasha and Truman slowly got out of the car, also staring up at the building.

"Nein," Truman said, interrupting the brief silence, "do you want to explain how the hell this happened?"

Sasha only shrugged. "Not without closer inspection, sir, no."

"Right." He pulled out his cellphone and pressed it into Kowalski's hand--Kowalski was still staring straight ahead, slack-jawed. "Louis, do me a favor and call headquarters. The lockdown still stands, and we're going to need that task force up here as soon as possible. Tell Agent Shackley to use his own discretion in choosing team members. And ask him how many helicopters we can get up here--there's no telling how wide of a search area we're dealing with."

He nodded. "Right--right away, sir."

While Kowalski occupied himself grumbling about the area's bad cellphone reception, Truman and Sasha headed up the dirt and gravel drive to the three story building's main entrance. The twin doors were solid steel laced with precisely measured amounts of psitanium and tin, the same material used to build geodesic psycho-isolation chambers in decades past, and usually noted for its durability. The left door was hanging by a fraction of a single remaining hinge, and every strong breeze that whipped through the compound threatened to send it crashing to the ground.

"Spooky, isn't it?" Truman asked, ducking around the failing door and inside the building. Sasha, following a few paces behind, didn't bother dignifying his question with a response.

Inside the walls of Compton Pen, although half the lobby was now exposed to sunlight and open air, the atmosphere suddenly became grim and confining. Somewhere down a hallway a florescent light flickered, the only sign of life--or past life, rather--in the immediate area. Stone and glass crunched beneath their feet as they stepped deeper into the building. Halfway through the empty lobby they both stopped, exchanging glances.

"Maybe we should call for--" Sasha started, but was abruptly cut off by a door at his right tumbling off its hinges and crashing to the floor. He turned on his heel, instinctively putting himself between the doorway and Truman and falling into a defensive position.

A short, elderly man wearing a rather tattered Psychonauts uniform stumbled through the doorframe seconds later. He barely paused to take in the scene before throwing his hands up in the air. "Oh, dear--please don't shoot."

Truman pushed his way around Sasha and was quick to shake the older man's hand. "We weren't planning on it," he said, forcing a laugh. "Frederick Boole, I'm assuming."

"Right you are," Boole answered. He nodded so forcefully that his thick white hair bobbed back and forth long after the rest of him had stopped moving. "Thank you for coming so quickly, Truman. As you can see, we've...had a bit of an incident."

"Only a minor inconvenience, I'm sure," Sasha said dryly, taking another look around the ruined lobby. Truman raised an eyebrow at him, but he only continued. "I was dragged out of my bed at three this morning under the impression that one of the world's most dangerous psychic terrorists had escaped this institution. If that's correct, I'd recommend a bit more urgency." He paused briefly, then added, "Sir."

Truman only sighed. How Milla had managed to put up with Sasha for as long as she had was utterly beyond him. "Well, at least you remembered the honorifics." Then, turning his attention rather pointedly to Boole, "The details you sent to headquarters were sketchy at best. We need to know more, and we need to see the scene of the crime, as it were."

"Like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs," Boole muttered under his breath, still keeping a careful eye on Sasha. "Sheesh."

"Fred--can I call you Fred?" Truman flashed his trademark wide, disarming grin before the situation got any more out of hand. "Fred, the crime scene. Please."

"Oh, right. This way." Boole led them back through the doorway he'd stumbled through earlier and up a flight of stairs--the wall had been ripped out, exposing them to the open air. "To be honest," he began, side-stepping around a floorboard that looked as if it had been incinerated, "we're not entirely sure what happened. All the guards in that area of the building were killed in the explosion, along with a number of the inmates. And our only witness...well, you'll see."

Sasha put his hand on the railing, only to have it crumble to pieces. He quickly stepped away and dusted off his hands. "You don't have security cameras?"

Boole sighed. They stopped on the third floor, where he had to force the door open--it had swollen shut as if exposed to a sudden burst of heat. "The ones still in working order were all destroyed in the explosion...as was our power grid, the one working back-up generator, and our security chief. Oh, by the way, do watch your step--we've had two of our people fall through the floor already."

Truman shot Sasha a quick warning glare before he could make any more comments that could possibly be taken as snide. Sasha settled for thinking them rather loudly, instead.

"Here we are," Boole said, leading them down a wide hallway turned an uneven, charcoal black, its wood floor pitted with person-sized holes. The hall itself was relatively empty, save for a handful of prison staff members who were bagging bodies and documenting the scene. A few others were busy transferring the last of the inmates down the hall to temporary quarters in the right wing.

"Exactly..." Truman side-stepped around a chalk outline and almost fell through a hole in the floor. "Exactly how many casualties are we talking about here?"

Boole took a file from one of his staff members and handed it to Truman, who began studying it rather intently to avoid staring at the body bags scattered throughout the hall. "Sixteen--six guards, ten of the inmates. And that's not including the five we had to send to the hospital." He brought them to a stop outside the room that had been the explosion's epicenter. The roof and outside wall were both completely gone, and the solid steel door had been blown across the hall into the opposing door and taken it with it through the far wall. "Right...and, here we are.

"Now, as near as we can determine, at around 2:40AM this morning, the prisoner--Nicholas Marcus Harper--somehow created a large, unstable field of raw psychic aggression and...well, did all this. We're only lucky the entire building didn't go up in flames." Boole coughed. "Anyway. We're still working out the rest of the details. Honestly, none of us have any idea how he managed to create that aggression field--we were hoping you all might provide some explanation on that point."

"You were drugging him, at least. I hope," Sasha said, ignoring yet another warning glare from Truman.

"Oh, of course." Boole's hair seemed to bristle with irritation. "The man who invaded your headquarters, drove Ford Cruller insane and kidnapped Truman here--we're low on funds, Agent Nein. Not stupid."

Truman sighed. "So, he escaped. You think. Are you sure he didn't accidentally incinerate himself?"

"They're sure," Sasha answered. Boole huffed, clearly upset about the interruption, but was ignored. "Sir, with all due respect, you know Nick Harper as well as I do. Incinerating himself isn't a mistake he's likely to make."

"Precisely!" Boole cried, throwing himself back into the conversation with an enthusiastic bob of his white hair. "Well, that and his cellmate survived the explosion. Er, in part, at least. So it's likely that Harper did, as well."

For a long, silent moment, broken only by the sound of debris being shuffled about in the background, Sasha and Truman stared at one another. Then Truman, blinking slowly, turned back to Boole and said, "And you didn't mention this in your report to headquarters because...?"

"Well..." Boole motioned to the cell door. "You'd better see for yourselves. And, please--the floor is extremely unstable in here."

They stepped rather carefully into the cell. The padding that had once covered the floor and walls crunched and crumbled underneath their shoes; so, worryingly, did certain parts of the floor. Underneath all the padding, the floor was laced with heavy amounts of psitanium and tin, the better to keep the inmates under control. Even with several walls and the ceiling gone, Sasha and Truman could still feel the mixture's effects--an obnoxious buzzing at the back of their skulls and a sudden, disturbing sense of complete isolation.

The second thing they noticed in the room, aside from its effects on them, was the man curled up in the corner, slowly rocking back and forth. His face was hidden by long, stringy black hair, and he was muttering under his breath in what sounded like Latin. "Nihil agis, nihil moliris, nihil cogitas quod non ego sentiam. Nihil agis, nihil moliris..."

"This would be Harper's cellmate, I'm assuming," Truman said, bending down to get a closer look at him.

Boole nodded. "Oskar Galochio; that's him."

"A member of the Galochio family?" Both of Sasha's eyebrows shot up at once. "You placed Nick Harper in the same room as a Galochio?"

Under the weight of Sasha's stare, Boole's already diminutive frame seemed to shrink even more. "Ah, well--Oskar here was never a particularly talented psychic. Amounted to very little. Something of a black sheep in the family, you see," he said, his voice slowly picking up strength. "He was the best choice for Harper's cellmate; all the other inmates were simply too dangerous. This is a maximum security prison, you'll recall."

"What happened to him?" Truman asked, waving a hand in front of Oskar's face--Oskar didn't even seem to notice he was there, but rather kept on muttering.

"We're not entirely sure." Boole glared at Sasha out of the corner of his eye, then quickly straightened his shirt collar and acted as if nothing had happened when Sasha glared back. "The last guard who tried to get anywhere near him...well, after his reconstructive surgery I'm sure he'll be fine."

"...quod non ego sentiam. Nihil agis..."

Truman jumped to his feet and quickly backed away. "So, ah...what's he saying? Maybe there's some sort of--"

"'You do nothing, you plan nothing, you think nothing which I do not know.'" Sasha paused, then added, "Latin. Sounds vaguely familiar, actually. No doubt stolen from an ancient source." (1)

"Right," Truman muttered. "Well, looks like we'll have to take a look--"

There was a series of crashes out in the hallway, followed by a familiar male voice: "Oh, geez--sorry! I, uh...was that evidence?"

Sasha and Truman exchanged a glance. "Kowalski," Truman sighed. Then, out into the hallway, "Louis! We're in here."

A few more crashes later, and Kowalski stumbled into the cell, tripping over some debris in the doorway and landing face-first at Sasha's feet. The floor below them creaked rather uneasily. "Sorry, sir." He stood up and slowly dusted himself off. "Just wanted to give you your cellphone back...oh, and your daughter called, she said she needs to talk to you about--"

At which point that part of the floor groaned, cracked, and gave way. Sasha didn't even flinch, hovering in mid-air for a few seconds before finding his way to more solid ground. Kowalski, on the other hand, wasn't quite as quick on his feet and went crashing down to the ground floor.

"I'm okay! Uh...not so sure about your cellphone though, sir."

Truman let out a long, slow sigh and fished a psychoportal out of his pocket. "Sasha...let's go; we've got to sort this thing out. Before Kowalski gets back up here, preferably."

"That would be advisable, yes."

The psychoportal flew onto Oskar's forehead in the middle of yet another "nihil cogitas" and popped open, momentarily filling the room with a strange white light.

The knock on the door preceded the young man's voice by more than several paces. "Agent Fuentes?"

Isabella glanced up from her computer screen, the telephone, and the eight thousand other things on her desk she had left to do. "The door's open, Mr. Harrison," she called, then turned her attention back to the phone. "I know that, but if you could--I know--oh, hijo de...no, no, I wasn't talking to you..."

Zeke opened the door and slipped inside her office, standing--and doing quite a bit of fidgeting--just inside the doorway. Isabella motioned him to a seat, which he didn't take.

"Listen, all I want to--all right, fine. But make sure he calls me, do you understand? I need to know what's going on; I can't keep these kids--fine. Goodbye." She hung up the phone with more force than was necessary. "Mierda," she muttered--then looked up, suddenly remembering there was a student in her office. "But you didn't hear that, Mr. Harrison."

Zeke held one hand up in mock surrender. "I must be slowly going deaf, Agent Fuentes."

She smiled, brushing a few stray strands of long black hair--going gray a lot faster than she would've liked it to--out of her eyes. "So, Mr. Harrison...I hope you'll be explaining in very short order why you're not following proper lockdown procedures."

"Yeah, about that..." His feet shuffled again and an invisible hand ruffled his hair. "Look, you know how Agent Si--uh, Agent Oleander--was supposed to be coming back from Moscow today?"

Isabella sighed, burying her sharply angular face in her hands. "No, I didn't, because no one tells me any--I'm sorry." She looked up. "You were saying?"

"Yeah. Raz was supposed to pick him up at the airport."

"Listen," she began, rubbing her temples, "I have a migraine and a lockdown situation to deal with, so if you could get to the point..."

Zeke shuffled his feet for a few seconds more, then blurted out, "If he was supposed to be at the airport, and I saw him leave...well, sorta on time, then why did Agent Oleander just call me wanting to know where the hell his ride went to, and why are my truck and my roommate both missing?"

For a long moment, Isabella stared at him. Then she pointed at one of the two chairs in her office with a stern, "Sit." Zeke did as he was told while she picked up the phone and hit one of the speed dial buttons. "Patch me through to Agent Shackley. Now, Rupert." She glanced up at Zeke, dark brown eyes filled with worry. "I think we have a situation here."

A/N: (1) Just to give credit where it's due...yes, it's from an ancient source, namely Cicero's first oration against Catiline. Although I did admittedly tweak the Latin a bit, as the full version translates to: "You do nothing, you plan nothing, you think nothing which I not only do not hear, but also which I do not see and know completely."