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Raven’s mind was still chewing its' way through the lingering shadows of his disturbed thoughts, when he picked up that plain, unassuming looking business card that had become such an ill portent in recent weeks. During the past month and a half, several of the people in their group had reported feelings of dread, or the vague sense of something malicious shifting across the land; almost as if a demon from the days of yore or some unknown creature were slowly circling in on the oblivious city. A short time later, the first of the mysterious business cards had appeared, placed in front of some of Mr. Montoya's extensive network of contacts, friends, and family. One by one, over a dozen people had responded to the invitation those business cards were offering, and one by one they had all disappeared, not to be seen or heard from again. Raven assumed that the first ones to disappear had gone largely unnoticed by anyone. While his new friends were well connected, even they could not know everyone. When more and more people had gone off and had not returned, a sense of fear began to grow among those closest to them. It only grew worse as people known by their group followed the fates of so many unknown others. Then that deeply worrying situation had struck all too close to home when one the members of their very own group had gone to answer the call and was now missing.
Although he was never one to brag about such things, it was widely acknowledged in Raven’s small circle of friends that he was the one in possession of the strongest extra-sensory talents and he was capable of things none of the others had ever considered as being possible. Because of this, it was not too long before his worried friends and colleagues had asked him to investigate the string of unexplained disappearances. What little he had already found was far from comforting; a few days previous he had gone to one of the places where others had received one of the unassuming business cards. He hadn't needed to wait more than a few minutes before a dark shadowy presence had impinged on his searching senses. Only too aware that the other man was not 'normal', the mysterious figure had gotten to his feet, walked past Raven's table, and dropped a card in front of him. Raven had been debating what he should do about it ever since then, but his choices seemed to have narrowed once one of their own had disappeared and no one knew what they were up against.
The card itself had offered no clues about what lay behind the unknown series of events only peripherally related to it, imparting only the name of one Dr. Michael Ronen and his title as the head of Research at Weslyn enterprises with a New York street address. The ubiquitous and often indispensable Internet offered even less useful information, which was surprising considering it was in some ways the core of human knowledge. Hours of searching turned up only a tiny blurb of information regarding a recent government contract for Wesley enterprises that had been awarded earlier that year, allowing them to conduct confidential research. The decided lack of information started to seem even more sinister when coupled with the fact that on the back of the business card was a hand written invitation to come visit at any time. Simple human curiosity was the only thing needed to lure people into whatever game was being played. Raven was not the only one who disliked what the simple card implied, and everything else about the situation.
By the coming of the next dawn, Raven woke after only a few scant hours of troubled sleep. His agitated state and the knowledge of what he must do come morning had kept him from settling down until well into the latter hours of the night. As he peered through the small apartment at the door to the hallway beyond, he wished, not for the first time, that he could get away with walking through the city beyond with a sword strapped across his back, like a character from a novel. Unfortunately, that did not quite strike him as being a choice for his current situation, since he was fairly certain that the police frowned on that sort of behavior. He briefly considered more conventional weaponry, but he did not own a gun much less a permit to carry it into the public, and he had few doubts that a pocket knife would never get past the guards and metal detectors that defended most every building in that security minded day and age. Only too mindful that danger was waiting for him at the end of his trip across the city, and that any attempt to face it with more than fists and the abilities that put him at risk would only draw still more trouble, Raven left his apartment to face whatever was lurking in the shadows.
To the rest of the world, the Weslyn building was a plain and ordinary kind of brick and steel office building, one not unlike a thousand similar buildings that filled the confines of the city with their unassuming exteriors. To Raven, however, even approaching the front entrance was like stepping into the black, ominous shadows cast across the landscape by dark storm clouds. It was a sense of something evil and not quite right that permeated the region for more than a block in every direction, a sense of something terrible lingering just out of sight. No matter how hard he might try he could not push aside nor banish that insidious seeping ooze of 'wrongness' that poured off of the place. Had he been just a little less stubborn, Raven would have turned around in those first terrible moments, retreated back across the city in a rush and never spoken of his failure to anyone. But just as he had not let his unsettled dreams turn him back, he would not and could not turn away when he was on the cusp of confronting evil. Though his mind might tease him for trying to interject a touch of poetic fiction into something so very serious, he had no doubts that something that was indeed very evil had been taking place inside the building. The place stank of it, of those acts that had happened unseen from the outside world. He tried not to think too hard about the fact that he was walking right up into the front doors, only too aware of the sense of a trap ready to snap closed behind him.
Raven was honestly a little bit disappointed when he found neither metal detectors nor any obvious contingent of armed guards after entering the Weslyn building. When he had presented himself at the reception desk and asked to speak with the head of research, the rather dour woman on the other side of the desk had neither seemed surprised by the normally strange request, or curious as to who he was or why he was asking. He was directed to take a seat in the waiting area, and did so with his mind screaming to get out of the place immediately. As he sat there waiting, he noticed any number of strange people, the kind of people most wouldn't even look twice at on the street, but the kind of people he saw and felt almost instantly suspicious of after seeing them. It was as if they were hiding things from the eyes of the world, like they were strangers in a strange land who did not quite belong there, and he could not help but notice all of them were aware of him as well.
"How can I help you today… Mr. Smith?" The woman who approached him certainly did not look like a Michael, so Raven could only assume that they were delegating their victims down a chain of command.
"I was in a restaurant three days ago. A man passed by my table and dropped this card in front of me." Raven stated, working hard to keep his voice calm and even as he held out the indicated business card towards her.
"Ah!" The woman murmured with a false sense of excitement that didn't quite reach her eyes as she took the card from him and examined it. "Mr. Smith, we are currently conducting a research project using talent scouts and human resource experts to find people who fit our criteria. You wouldn't happen to have the time to add your perspective into the data we've already collected, would you?" When Raven strained his senses towards her, he was frustrated to find that he felt nothing from her, not even the sense she was bored. This could only mean that she had somehow learned to hide her thoughts and feelings from people with abilities similar to his own. That fact alone would have been enough to make him even more intensely ready to be anywhere else and doing anything else, however he had already gone this far and could not turn back until he knew for sure what was going on inside the ill feeling building.
"I have nothing else to do today." Raven told him as he pushed his doubts to the side and summoned his resolve with a deep breath.
"Follow me then, please
." She requested of him, gesturing him past the lobby and towards the elevators that he had glimpsed in the distance. With a decisive movement, Raven pushed out of the chair and followed the doctor. He paid very close attention when she produced a security card from the pocket of her lab coat, swiped it through the scanner, and rapidly entered a ten digit code into the key pad. A soft bell announced the arrival of the elevator a second before the doors slid open to reveal the extremely plain interior. The woman gestured for Raven to proceed her into the enclosed space, and with great reluctance he did so, feeling the trap doors snap shut behind them.
"You're probably not aware of this, but we are doing research on extra-sensory perception." She announced as they began their ascent towards the 20th floor. "We have people traveling all over the city looking for possible candidates to participate in the study. When they think they have found someone, they give them a card very much like the one you received. Curiosity is a very powerful motivator and a perfect tool for our purposes, since the people typically show up here sooner or later."
"Fascinating." Raven replied, trying very hard to sound interested while his dislike of the situation only grew.
"It really is." She commented pleasantly, but she had a smile that was just a little like one a particularly nasty kind of predator might give once it had lured it's prey within striking distance. "Would you be willing to be a research subject for a few hours."
"I suppose so, I have always had a fascination with the paranormal." Raven murmured back to her, even as his mind screamed at him for being a complete and total idiot. The elevator dinged about that time and the doors opened into an indistinct hallway that would not have been out of place in just about any building inside the city. The hall was studded with regularly spaced dark wood doors, most of them closed, the obligatory scattering of plants, reproductions of famous works of art, and more people wearing lab coats. Just as it had been down in the lobby, when they passed out into the hall, he caught several veiled looks of curiosity sent his way. Those few that did not give him more than glance gave off the very distinct impression that they were not what they appeared to be, and some of them had distinct bulges of artillery under their lab coats, which did not bode well for him.
Raven and the doctor walked down the plain white halls and past little plain white rooms filled with plain kinds of cheaply built furniture. At that moment, Raven could honestly say that never in his life was he more pleased that he hadn't gone to college and gotten one of those 'honest' professions his grandmother had been so very fond of harping about. If he wasn't intensely aware of the danger closing in on all sides, or the fact that he was knowingly treading closer and closer to that sense of the unclean, then the five minutes he had spent there, might have driven him stark raving mad . He worried briefly hat he would lapse into a coma after being in such an uninteresting environment for so long. However, it could just as easily be assumed that the blandness was part of the trap, some kind of psychological warfare meant to put a potential victim at ease. It was just another thing that was altogether unpleasant to think about while he allowed himself to be lead along, just like another lamb to the slaughter.
"Oh!!" Having just turned a corner along the hallway, he couldn't be sure who was more surprised to find that more than one person was trying to occupy the same bit of space at the same time. The collision was inevitable, and his massive frame came into abrupt contact with her much smaller one. Instinct and quick reflexes, however, saved him just a little bit of face as he automatically reached out to catch her arm, preventing her from being thrown bodily to the floor.
To say that she was beautiful was as close to a lie as any understatement might come. She was luminescent, almost glowing in the sheer magnitude of her utter beauty, and easily the most amazing figure Raven had ever touched, which might have explained why his fingers tingled where they encircled her arm. It was perhaps why he also felt drawn to her, almost as if she were in possession of some spell that made him wish to be even closer to her. She had a flowing mane of dark hair, like a fall of black water, pouring down over her shoulders and ending just above her perfectly shaped bottom. The color of her hair was so deep and intense, that even in the rather poor lighting it almost seemed to glow a dark sapphire blue, save for one perfect streak of white at her right temple which twisted together with darker strands in all too fascinating fashion. Her face would not have been out of place in an ancient Greek sculpture garden, being the face of a goddess descended to the Earth. She had prominent cheekbones, shapely lips, a straight and perfect nose and delicately arching brows all with perfectly pale skin. She also seemed surprised by such a strange chance encounter, and Raven felt his heart literally skip a beat when her intensely emerald toned eyes looked deep into his. Even though she projected an aura of innocence and youth, she had the body of a trained warrior. Some part of his mind, not struck dumb by the beauty of this stranger, noticed how perfectly she would fit in as the Heroine of any fantasy novel.
He hastily tried to apologize past a tongue that did not wish to work, but he was further distracted by the oddity of her clothes. Even though they looked like some of the fashions of the day, they had a certain cut to them that did not quite fit into his everyday kind of world, almost as if there was not a fashion designer in that world who could claimed them as their work. Even as they staggered apart from each other, both apologizing and trying to take the blame, Raven couldn't deny the intense reluctance he felt at stepping away from her. Nor could he fail to notice that her own backwards steps seemed to hesitate in much the same way. The sight of perfect beauty could not change the facts of the situation Raven was in while he continued to follow the doctor down the hall, but it was enough to make him look back, hoping that he might get just one last look at her, only to find that she had turned to watch him depart. He was surprised to see her blush as she turned quickly away and hurried out of sight. Even though he was convinced that there was something inexplicably familiar about her, his mind, once free of such a potent distraction, was quick to remind him of the facts of his situation. After a long walk, they finally arrived at a small and utterly uninteresting room, and he was asked to have a seat with the muttered promise that someone would be with him shortly. The space was bare, the floor was gray tiles, the walls were white plaster, the table was painted aluminum, and there were two uncomfortable looking chairs. Raven had seen more than enough cop shows in his life to take note of the long, oversized mirrors that dominated one of the side walls, and knew instantly that he would soon have an audience. Raven took the seat that would allow him to sit with his back to the wall as the door was closed behind him.
He could not yet feel anyone on the far side of the mirror, but he did catch his own image in it and couldn't help but study that person. He was not and would never be considered handsome, and had never deluded himself into believing otherwise. His profile was too hawkish and angular, his bone structure too heavy. His strong jaw line tapered towards his chin, his lips were too thin, and even when he smiled he appeared to be scowling. His nose was thin, a touch too long, and tapered upward towards his heavy brows, which made his eyes look sunken into his skull, as if to escape his face. This insured that his eyes seemed dark and mysterious at all times as they peered out at the world with a silvery-gray gaze that seemed to bore into him while he stared at his own image. His eyebrows were thin blond streaks along the ridges above his steely gaze. His hair was drawn into a short tail at the back of his head, a pale gold color that already showed strands of white, belying his age. He was large and tall, well muscled, with broad shoulders and a heavy set of bones that made him resemble a living brick wall when he stood facing someone. By his sheer looks alone he could intimidate even the most aggressive of figures or scare small children into a cowering silence.
The subtle sense of movement behind mirror turned his eyes from his own image, followed by a rustle of soft sound and the sudden feeling that someone, somewhere was
looking at him. The door to the room opened in the next moment, allowing a plain dressed man in a white lab coat to pass into the quiet space. Raven received a nod of greeting as the door closed behind the plain, unassuming figure and he took the four steps necessary to cross the small room and slide his thin little body into the other chair.
The scientist slid a box onto the table, he had the air of someone who was thoroughly bored with such proceedings and the shuffling of papers and supplies seemed unnaturally loud in the dead motionless air. Unlike his escort, the man's mind practically screamed at Raven with his unprotected thoughts and emotions while he slowly spread his materials out on the table. Unfortunately, he knew nothing important to Raven beyond what tests would follow and how little he expected Raven to do any of the things he would be soon asked to do. There was a small stack of cards, a small closed box that rattled as he moved it, and a selection of file folders. Raven knew that he could call the test off right then and safely get out of the building, but the others had to know, and in truth he needed to know just as much as they did. The scientist turned to the first page of his paperwork and a pen appeared from a coat pocket. He then wrote something down before his eyes finally turned to Raven. He knew then that it was too late, if he tried to leave they would stop him as a matter of principle.
"Before we begin, I need to get some information from you." He stated in a mild tone. "Dr. Ronen's assistants are sometimes forgetful about getting such information."
"All right." Raven replied when the man looked up expectantly.
"Name?" He asked.
"Dan Brown." Raven did his very best not to smirk at the idea that his rival in the world of writing might end up taking the blame, no matter unlikely the two of them might be mistaken for one another. Raven only just managed to keep his expression straight.
"You told our receptionist your name was Smith." The man commented with a narrowing gaze.
"Well, I thought you guys were bill collectors or something." Raven countered smoothly.
"Date of birth?"
"6-7-75" Raven told him and was again given a strange look, as if the man might actually challenge him to prove that he was over forty.
"Place of Residency." He asked smoothly in the next moment.
"New York City." Raven replied. "Duh." He added, rolling his eyes. The Doctor did not quite glare at him, but he certainly left the impression that he had. He then went on to ask for a dozen other identifiers, all of which were given lies in response. When asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement and a waver, it could not have been more contrived by the way he was forced to pick up the sheets from inside the folder that his finger prints would be collected from the documents later on. Only too pleased to play along and knowing that childhood burn accident had removed that particular feature from his hands, Raven signed the documents without complaint.
"Do you mind if the proceedings are recorded?" His interviewer asked half a second later, then gestured to the camera in the corner of the room. Raven had no doubts that it had been running the whole time, and was just as glad he had never intended to let them capture even one clear image of him. Practice and experience had taught him that if he focused hard enough on not being seen, the images recorded by security cameras would simply blur around him. Were he ever to get caught on camera by one of those police shows, the producers would not even know what to do.
"No." Raven replied, just a little angry that he would have to actually go through with these tests before he could have any hopes of making these people reveal their true intentions.
"Can you tell me what is inside of this box?" He asked holding up the indicated object.
"Two ordinary black ink pens, a name tag, a small empty bottle of grape jelly, seventeen cents in small change, and a piece of paper." Raven stated calmly, he thought he could hear a small surprised sound from behind the mirror. The man noted his answers down on the file, seemingly unaffected by Raven's words. Considering he knew himself to be exactly right, he decided that the man’s stone faced expression was one he would never wish to face across a poker table.
"Can you read the name tag?"
"Why would I need to, it's your name tag after all." This time at least he managed to get the man's exterior to crack just enough for a tiny bit of surprise to show through.
"And what is my name?" He asked steadily.
"Noel Justar, research assistant to Dr. Ronen, security number 6649032546." Raven replied quickly. Noel, now visibly flustered, wrote something on the paper he had in front of him. "And your birthday is 11-14-70." This made his eyes snap up sharply with an all too intense surprise, since that was supposed to be the very next question.
"Can you tell me what is written on the piece of paper?" Noel asked with a voice that was no longer steady.
"Lunch, Thursday at 1:30." Raven replied after a moment of concentration. "With Dr. Ronen's other assistant, Jenny Gregor. You really like her, don't you?" Noel was now deeply flustered, but stubbornly refused to show any emotion, although it still leaked through despite his efforts. Noel shifted the box closer and opened the lid, from it he removed the change and set it down on the table.
"Can you move the coins with your mind?" Noel asked, Raven looked down at three nickels and the two pennies with a sigh. He had long since passed the point of no return, he knew what was already coming, so it was an easy decision to go all the way. It barely even took focus to slowly move the coins to form a small circle on the surface of the table. Noel looked on in fascinated horror to find that such a thing was even possible, but Raven was not done by a long shot. Moving with a painful slowness the five coins stood up and balanced on their edges, slowly spinning around as like ballet dancers. Next they lifted completely away from the table and flowed effortlessly in the air as they continued to slowly twirl while orbiting around an invisible central access. It was the showmen in him that made him grasp for more power, dredging it up from deep within himself to make something else happen, and just as suddenly the spinning coins were gone, teleported away. As his performance had become more and more impressive, several of the minds he sensed on the other side of the mirrors had unclenched and their thoughts had begun to leak through, becoming only too easy to read.
"What the hell?!?" Noel exclaimed surging backwards out of his seat and toppling his chair with the sudden movement.
"Check your pocket." Raven replied, paying for his showmanship with a headache that broke across his senses. Noel's hand barely dared to reach into the pocket of his lab coat to find seventeen cents in small change along with both of the pens from inside the box. Just as the objects dropped from nerveless fingers to strike the floor at the man's feet, the door behind Noel surged open to allow the actual Dr. Ronen to appear, holding two cups of coffee just as Raven had expected. His mind was only too vulnerable in his excited state, and it was through that open channel Raven knew almost instantly everything he wanted to know. He also learned about the other thing he had very much wished to gain from the massive risk he had taken by showing up in the first place. Dr. Ronen's open mind only too clearly recalled exactly where his office safe could be found, and even provided hints to all the wide spread mysteries it contained. While it might still be in doubt that Raven would escape, he was at least certain he'd be able to get more than enough blackmail material to protect his friends, and get it out of the building.
"Thank you Noel, I will take it from here." Noel nodded and slipped out of the room, staring as if Raven had sprouted horns during the interview. Dr. Ronen closed the door and sat down, then set one of the coffees in front of Raven and sipped at his own cup. "Now we will try the cards." He added while setting his coffee cup down.
"Why?" Questioned Raven, not willing to play this game any longer.
"Excuse me?" Dr. Ronen questioned in return.
"Because Admiral Teg and Commander Castin have already seen enough." Raven replied, gesturing towards the mirror and the unseen
figures behind it. "But there is someone else in there, isn't there?" Raven did not wait for an answer, instead he reached out towards the third mind he sensed on the far side of the glass. What he encountered was like a wall; a perfect, flawless surface that reflected back only his thoughts but nothing of individual hiding behind it. He pushed and prodded, but only managed to extract a name from the woman. "LeShana, what an interesting name." Raven commented while still looking at the mirror.
"Well, I am not satisfied." Dr. Ronen commented dryly. "Try the coffee, I make a good cup of coffee, if I say so myself." Raven gave him a false smile as he lifted up the cup and poured it across the paperwork between them.
"Defor trem Greeks weslown gorga." For some odd reason it somehow seemed appropriate to use Dego, that strange language used in the days of his youth and learned from his imaginary friend. "Thank you for the coffee, but I have to be going." Raven added as he rose from his seat and crossed quickly to the door.
"I am afraid that we can not let you leave." Dr. Ronen told him firmly, but wasn't about to try and physically stop a man twice his size.
"You act as if you are actually being given a choice." He murmured in return before opening the door on the empty hallway. Raven closed the door behind him and ignored the angry screams from the smaller door to his right. He couldn't possibly imagine why those inside would have such trouble working the handle, even though the thought put an evil little smile on his face. Moving quickly and calmly, he recrossed the distances through the halls beyond, doing his best to project the sense that he somehow belonged there, which would hopefully dissuade any of the people in those halls from trying to stop him. He had not see any stairway access doors during the walk from the elevators, and doubted that he would find one were he simply to start opening blank unidentified doorways. All he could conceivably do was focus on making everyone he encountered think he was where he was supposed to be and quicken his steps just a little more.
As he turned the last corner towards the elevators, a group of armed Marines came rushing towards him carrying a great deal of firepower in their hands. It seemed like a miracle when they rushed past him and proved that the far less practiced of his bag of tricks had worked perfectly. Raven did his best to increase the feelings he was projecting, and quickened his pace just a little more until he reached the elevator doors. Once there, he swiped Dr. Ronan's security card through the reader and his fingers danced across the keypad and expertly punched in the proper code. Since no alarms sounded and the down light began to glow nearby, all he could do was wait with all the patience he could summon while the elevator took its' time arriving. When at long last the elevator doors slid open, he wasted no time climbing in and pressing the button to the first floor, but about halfway through his downward trip, the elevator jerked to a halt and a thick yellow gas began to pour into the tiny chamber from around his feet, filling the small space with a thick noxious kind of cloud. Raven took a deep gulp of fresh air, closed his eyes, and endured that intolerable situation as best as he could while he waited for the smoke to slowly billow up around him. Eventually it grow thick enough to obscure him from the ever watchful eye of the camera overhead. The heavy stack of file folders in Dr. Ronen's safe were brought to his hands just before he prepared himself for his even bigger and more potentially dangerous trick. Although it did not take long in reality, inside his head it took an eternity before he was completely lost in the haze. He then dug down into the deepest parts of himself to summon every ounce of his strength before reaching out and pulling with all his might.
Raven reappeared in his apartment several miles away, and instantly doubled over with pain. His head throbbed violently in time with his pulse and his eyes watered from the lingering remnants of the gas. Only through sheer force of will was he able stagger to his feet and stumble his way through the small room, fighting back the effort to give into the nausea that threatened to make his breakfast the worst idea ever. His fingers fumbled uselessly for a nearby bottle of pain killers, and his overly abused senses were unable to even comprehend numbers as he downed a gaggle of little white pills that were likely three or four times the recommended dosage. Staggering with weakness and backlash, he knocked over furniture and broke a lamp while he lurched towards the bedroom, his mind awash in a sea of blinding agony. He did not quite make it to his destination, but his immense size was just enough that he managed to avoid the floor and instead collapsed onto the foot of the bed where he could drag himself onto the surface and bury his face against the burning painful wash of light flowing in through the windows. It took hours of fitful sleep before the pain began to slowly fade, the aftermath of his escape reluctant to release him from its' thrall. Having little choice in the matter, Raven simply let it flow over him, waiting in tortured agony until he was capable of thinking clearly once more.