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Chapter 11

Ringer, Mercy, Tonya, Dr. Riddle, and Sharpton were gathered in the base’s med center. Ringer had wanted time alone with Mercy, but saw it obviously wasn’t going to happen right then. Sharpton had called him and Tonya in to discuss the monster they’d run into at Richard’s house. Sharpton was pissed that they hadn’t been able to collect a sample of the worms the creature had been made out of. Dr. Riddle wasn’t too happy about it, either. With such a sample, they’d have had a lot more to go in terms of figuring out what the monster was.

Ringer and Mercy stood near one of the vast room’s workstations. Ringer had his arm around Mercy’s shoulders, and she held is hand. Dr. Riddle sat at another workstation with the beyond-state-of-the-art laptop on it opened and powered up. Sharpton was pacing back and forth in the space between them as Tonya leaned against a medical supply cabinet.

“And you couldn’t read that thing’s mind at all?” Sharpton pressed Tonya.

Tonya shook her head. “No. I’m not even sure it had a ‘mind’ in the sense we know. Its thoughts were so divided and alien, like hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of minds coming together as one.”

“You’re sure this Ferguson you recruited didn’t have prior contact with it before your arrival?” Dr. Riddle spoke up.

“The man was fighting for his life against that thing, and it had clearly shown up right before we did,” Ringer answered firmly. “Whatever it was, it had come for him, just like we had. If we hadn’t shown up when we did, it might have gotten him, too. That thing manifested at least three powers during its confrontation with us.”

Sharpton stopped his mad pacing to look at Ringer and then Tonya. “Three?”

“It hit us with some kind of sonic blast first,” Tonya told him.

“When that failed to take me out, the thing upgraded to high-powered energy beams that nearly broke through my shield,” Ringer added. “Richard also claims it was using something like telepathy on him to try to get him to become solid again, so it could get its worms in him.”

“Do we even know we can trust this new guy?” Sharpton asked.

“You didn’t trust me either when I first signed up,” Ringer challenged him.

“Ms. Grimm just signed Richard Ferguson up, and he passed the required telepathic checks. I scanned his mind as I took him to her office. The guy’s just a geek who happens to have a psi power. He’s not a threat to us.”

“People have masked their thoughts before, Tonya,” Sharpton argued.

“I ran the checks, and he passed them, Sharpton,” Tonya snapped. “I may not be as powerful a telepath as you, but I’m an experienced field agent. If you want to scan him yourself, that’s your call.”

Sharpton shook his head. “I’ll take your word for it,” he told her, though somewhat reluctantly.

“There are plenty of monsters out there that have more than one power,” Dr. Riddle pointed out. “What bothers me about this thing is all of its power seemed to be psionic in nature.”

“They were,” Ringer confirmed. “I could almost feel that thing shifting between them as I fought it, and I’m not even a locator or telepath.”

“Outside of a few high-level monsters like this Mavet entity you fought in New York, though,” Dr. Riddle continued, “having more than one Psi power is nearly unheard of. All of you here only have one.”

“That’s true,” Ringer agreed, “but we’re all human. This thing clearly isn’t.”

“What are you getting at, Ringer?” Sharpton asked.

“What if this thing is some sort of parasite or psionic predator?” Ringer explained. “Maybe, like a locator, it can sense people with powers and tracks them down to feed on them.”

“I’d kill for a piece of it to study.” Dr. Riddle frowned. “It’s unfortunate that you didn’t bring one of the worms from it back with you.”

“We’ve already been yelled at enough for that, thanks,” Tonya replied. “Our priority was getting Richard out of danger and away from the cops who were already arriving at the scene.”

“I understand,” Dr. Riddle said, “I just…”

“We don’t have a sample, Doc,” Ringer cut in, “and that’s not going to change until we run into the thing again.”

“You think that’ll happen?” Dr. Riddle sounded excited. “I mean, running into it again?”

“I’d say the odds are in favor of it.” Ringer nodded. “If I’m right about what it is, I don’t see how we can’t.”

“I’m not sure I buy your theory about it, Ringer,” Sharpton said. “In all the years I’ve been with this company, I’ve never even heard of something like that thing before. If it’s out there hunting people with psi powers, why hasn’t it ever come after any of us before?”

“Maybe it has,” Tonya chimed in. “We’ve lost field operatives before whose disappearances have never been fully explained. What if it was this thing that took them out?”

“I think you’re on to something!” Dr. Riddle excitedly spun his chair around to start typing on his laptop. “The sonic blast you described…there was once a man named Charles Deforce that worked for Psi-Mechs, Inc. He went missing two years before Ringer joined up. No one ever found out why. We all just assumed the pack of werewolves he was after at the time got him, but maybe they didn’t. Maybe that thing got him before he ever engaged them. The reports of the incident say the mechs that went in after him took the werewolves completely by surprise and wiped them out easily. If Deforce had already made a move against them, wouldn’t it have tipped them off that their den had been discovered?”

“That’s insane,” Sharpton argued. “You’re grasping at straws, and you know it.”

Dr. Riddle shook his head. “I don’t think so. Deforce’s power, according to the files, matches Ringer’s description of what the monster used against him and his team too closely to discount as coincidence.”

“You’re saying that this thing was waiting for Deforce when he went after the werewolves, murdered him, and somehow took his power? Do you have any idea how insane that sounds?” Sharpton spat.

“I’ll just telling you the facts,” Dr. Riddle said. “Deforce had a power that matched what the creature used, he disappeared without any real explanation as to why, and his body was never found. Now this creature shows up, going after another psi-powered person with that exact power, or one pretty dang close to it.”

“Sounds to me like Ringer’s hunch is dead on,” Mercy entered the argument. “With my own power, I can control organic tissue on a cellular level. Why couldn’t this creature control its own body in the same way? It kills a psychic, studies or consumes their DNA, and then boom, it has whatever gift he or she had added to its arsenal of powers.”

“An Apex predator that feeds on psychics,” Dr. Riddle said. “It’s certainly not outside the realm of possibility. I mean, we deal with the crazy and supernatural every day, here. The existence of something like this thing shouldn’t come as such a shock to us, should it? There’s a balance in nature for everything, why should psychics be any different?”

“The evidence points to Ringer being right, Sharpton, and you know it.” Tonya stopped leaning against the medical supply cabinet and stood up straight as if to stare him down. “And if he’s right, we can’t just let this thing continue going around and killing people. We need to put together a taskforce to stop it.”

“She’s right,” Mercy said, agreeing with Tonya. “From here on out, the blood of everybody that thing kills is on our hands if we just sit back and do nothing.”

The door to the med center opened, and Hank came rushing in, carrying what looked to be two metal arms. The tele-mechanic froze as he saw all of them and the dark expressions they wore.

“Why do I get the feeling I just missed something important?” Hank asked.

Before Sharpton could tear into Hank for being late, Mercy saved him.

“What are those, Hank?” she asked, gesturing at the metal arms he carried.

“These are for Susan,” Hank answered. “I just finished building them for her. I was hoping you and the doc there could help me get her fitted with them.”

“This meeting isn’t over,” Sharpton roared.

“Yeah, it is.” Ringer moved to put a hand on Sharpton’s chest to keep him from starting toward Hank. “I’m taking what we know about this thing to Ms. Grimm and asking for the go ahead to form a taskforce to find it and take it out.”

Sharpton huffed, but there was honest fear in his eyes mixed with his anger as he glared at Ringer.

“Fine,” Sharpton snapped. “It has to be her call, anyway.”

Mercy gave Ringer a quick kiss on his cheek and then pulled away from him. “I need to go help Hank. I’ll catch you later though. I promise.”

Ringer sighed. “I guess I need to go see Ms. Grimm about this creature, anyway.”

The group broke up, with Ringer heading off to Ms. Grimm’s office, as Dr. Riddle, Hank, and Mercy went to pay Susan a visit. That left Tonya and Sharpton alone.


“I know you don’t care for me, Tonya,” Sharpton said when the others were gone, “but you have to understand that protecting everyone here is my job, even if that means being a jerk to get it done.”

“Yeah, I get it Sharpton,” Tonya replied. “I know your heart’s in the right place. That’s the only reason I haven’t shot you in the head yet.”

Tonya whirled about and stormed out of the med center before Sharpton could say anything else.



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Framed