Wedge watched the monitors monitoring Tween, this was the fourth time he had checked the rejuvenation tank. Tweens encounter with Mindshadow had done extensive damage to Tween's mind. The repair to Tween would have been nearly impossible if it wasn't for the extensive contact that Wedge and Tween had shared. Tween was still suspended in the tank of clear liquid.

The cable that connected into the base of Tween's skull detached and was retracted into the bottom of the tank. Wedge had taken Ib2Taps advice and built defenses and armored the structure. It no longer was crystalline in structure. The device that had been in Tweens pocket had been scanned cataloged and added to the replicator database. Currently the Spider bots were building an improved defensive enclosure around the area using the new metal that had been scanned.

As last of the nanobots were removed from Tween's body, Wedge placed the container they were in into the replicator. They were an older design and would now be replaced with the newer design or version two point zero. The tank filled with a thick black liquid that obscured Carl's form completely.

Wedge watched the readings on the tank. They spiked several times and then returned to normal and the color slowly changed to a deep dark green. Once Carl awoke he could begin the next step.

Carl's eyes fluttered open; he was in some kind of green liquid. He sat up, looking around it all looked familiar. He was in the bubble, had Wedge somehow had found and rescued him.

"Wedge?" Carl said hearing his own voice.

"What?" Wedge's familiar presence in his mind said.

"What happened? How did I get here?" Carl said getting out of the coffin like tank. The liquid left a small puddle on the floor as he stepped out.

"One moment, Tween. I must complete the repairs and upgrades to you," Wedge's voice said in Carl's mind.

"What happened? I seem to recall Mindshadow messing with me and making me do things, wandering for a while, then a fight in the park?" Carl's voice trailed off .

"You were captured by Mindshadow. I am still analyzing your memories. She did extensive damage both on a physical level and a mental one. I have already repaired ninety eight percent of the damage, without loss of data. I was also able to remove several blocks that were inhibiting recall."

Carl sat down in the leather chair with a squish. "Analyzing them, removing them, how?" Carl asked looking around.

"Directly," was the reply.

"Huh? Directly, I don't understand," Carl said as the fluid in the tank he had been in began to drain away.

"Direct synaptic link, into your cerebral cortex as well as the rest of your mental capabilities," was the reply.

"Wedge, what do you mean by a direct synaptic link?" Carl said slightly confused.

"With the addition of the neural augmented pathways that Mindshadow implanted into your skeletal structure combined with substantial improvement to both the nano technologies and nano-programing, I was able to create a symbiotic relationship with your existing neural pathways, and moving my program into your bio-structure," was the reply.

"What!? So that means you're..." Carl said.

"Hooked directly into your synapse, data flow from all systems is available for your review if needed." Several screens appeared in Carl's field of view showing various views of the complex and even a few of him sitting in the chair.

"Ok that's a bit disorienting, for now turn them off," Tween said as displays winked out.

Carl got up and went to the replicator; before he could push a single button it activated and on the pad was a three-piece suit. "Uh, did you do that Wedge," Carl asked tentatively.

"Yes, I anticipated your desire to clothe yourself and replicated the suit. I have also started tracking down the Susan woman you were with two weeks ago. Unfortunately I did not know she was a priority or I would have tracked her then."

"Ok this is getting a bit weird, I haven't even asked the question yet. Not that I am complaining," Carl said getting dressed. Carl paused as he buttoned up his shirt. "Two weeks? Have I been out that long?"

"Yes, it was necessary to keep you sedated while the nanotech repaired your body and I repaired your mind."

"What happened to Susan?" Carl asked as the replicator whined again creating a pair of shoes and dress socks. Carl put the socks on then the shoes.

"Unknown checking," was the mental reply. One of the cyber panthers walked through the doorway while Carl was looking over the tank he had been in.

"Perimeter check complete," I purred.

"Security AI Tween," was the replay as Carl started to open his mouth.

"Oh, I have been out for a while. Does it use the same command codes?" Carl asked.

"No a subset I will display." A window of code appeared in Carl's field of view it scrolled by and then disappeared.

"Mafdet, isn't that a weird acronym for a panther, and what does it stand for?" Carl asked someone perplexed.

"No Carl, Mafdet was an Egyptian goddess of protection, seemed appropriate at the time for the model type," Wedge replied mentally.

"Ok, any luck on finding Susan," Carl asked examining the panther closer.

"Negative, still scanning. We may have to break into some systems to get more data," Wedge replied.

"Ok let's do it." Carl said and several displays again appeared in his field of vision.

It took several hours to go back through the two-week-old data, including the video surveillance of several nearby ATM's and security cameras belonging to a jewelry shop.

"Ok, so we know she went into the hotel and that's she isn't still there, so where did she go? There are no phone contacts from that building that are obvious. Recheck them while I grab some satellite imagery from this time index forward," Carl said as he hacked into a DoD satellite.

"Nothing that indicates it was Susan, I am checking all numbers with her last phone record when she lived in Philadelphia. Reverse checking numbers," Wedge said.

Carl watched the satellite imagery, "Wedge help me out here, can you enhance this area."

"Enhancing image data, there is a limit to what I can do with the existing data Tween," Wedge said as a very distorted and enhanced image of the ally appeared.

"Humm, this van, pulled up stayed there for twenty minutes then left. This camera angle from the bank down the block shows two men. Any luck on the numbers," Carl said watching the images.

"One match, a local number assigned to a Samantha Tsien called an hour after you were incapacitated, duration two minutes. I can setup a shunt to call the number if you wish," Wedge replied.

"Ok, set a shunt up with the phone network, and rewind the tape feed that we got from the hotel, something isn't right. Lets go back an hour before she gets to the hotel. Pull any related feeds from the local shops and the hotel. And while you're at it lets pull the satellite feeds for that time frame plus twenty-four hours. How long will that take?"

"Processing, there is an anomaly with the tape feed we acquired from the hotel. The tape we acquired is not from the correct time it has been switched," Wedge replied.

"Switched? Are their any other tapes missing? Or was it misplaced?" Tween asked.

"It is not any of the tapes on the site. Best guess is that it was removed or erased," Wedge replied.

"Ok well let's get cracking on what we do have," Tween said as he started to review several data feeds.

******

"Come in," he said refolding the letter and setting it off to the side.

A woman in nurse's uniform entered, she seemed to be a bit upset. "Doctor, we just received that transfer from uptown, a Miss Davis? She is still catatonic, and I had her moved to ward two. Also one of your special patients again needed to be sedated, she was screaming again. Ivan also was injured when they subdued her."

The doctor nodded, "Well we will be transferring her out. I will look in on her when I make my rounds."

"Yes Doctor," she said closing the door again.

The Doctor picked up the letter, and finished reading. He grinned and removed several vials from the package. He placed them into a small refrigerator and left the office.

He took out a key and called an elevator; once the elevator arrived he used the same key to select his floor.

The elevator opened onto a long hallway with doors on both sides. A man in a white uniform splattered with blood was holding a towel to his face.

"Are you ok Ivan?" the doctor asked as he got closer.

"Yeah the bitch...er patient got loose from her restraints, the nurse sedated her while me and Tony held her," he said revealing the large bruise on the side of his head and the cut that the blood on his shirt and come from.

"Well let's have a look in on Mrs. Tsien," the doctor said removing a set of keys from a cabinet. The orderly followed behind silently.

The doctor walked down the corridor and stopped at a door marked 413. He slid a small panel to the side and looked inside.

"It appears that she is sleeping, I will come back and check on her at the end of the day," he said to the orderly.

He closed the panel and walked down the hall a bit farther to a door marked 453, and opened another panel, inside was a young man sitting on a small padded cot in a straight jacket.

"Hello Mr. Carrow how are we feeling today?" the doctor asked.

The young man looked up at the sound of the doctors voice, "Go away, John Carrow is dead how many times do I have to tell you my name is Pantomime. Now get this straight jacket off of me."

The doctor closed the small viewing hatch and then unlocked and opened the door.

"John, please we are trying to help. This obsession with Pantomime is not healthy you need to let the guilt and pain go. You did what you could to help those people, but even you are only human," the doctor said from the doorway.

"They burned, and I couldn't put out the flames, I tried and tried but..." he sputtered

"John why do you still insist that you are a..." the doctor scowled at that last word, "...metahuman. You know we have done tests and you are as normal as anyone else. Are you still having nightmares?"

John stared at the doctor. "Yes," he sputtered between sobs.

The doctor sighed deeply, "John, we want to help you, but if you will not tell us what the nightmares are about."

"She keeps calling me, to help her, to get her out. She terrifies me," he sobbed

"Who does John," the doctor prompted.

"Jane, she needs me," he said as the sobbing stopped.

"Well you need to get better first John, you want to get better right?" the doctor asked with a smile. John just nodded.

"Ok then Ivan will give you your medication and we will talk a little later." The doctor turned to the orderly. "Give him 30mg of Triavil and see that he eats, and under no circumstances are you to removed his jacket. The last orderly was hospitalized for several days. John has a tendency to get violent."

Down the hall he stopped at another door marked 503. Inside was a blond woman with a blindfold on also wearing a straight jacket. Her feet were bare and the room had a polished look to it, as if someone had placed metal and polished it.

"Hello doctor," she said.

"Hello Susan, are you ready to tell me what I want to know?" he asked.

"Not really, I was thinking of heading to the mall," she said and faded from sight.

The doctors' eyes narrowed, "Very well Miss Oakman, if that's how you want to be." He pressed a small button on a panel by the side of the door. There was a flickering of the lights and Susan appeared on the floor twitching. The doctor released the button and she stopped twitching. "Now tell me what I wish to know and perhaps we can make things more accommodating for you."

"You're a very bad Doctor, and when my friend finds you you're going to be very sorry Doctor," she said angrily.

"Your friend from the agency isn't going to help you, he was carried off by some aliens. Now tell me what I want to know. What did you and your sister do with the weapons you stole."

"We gave them to under privileged kids without guns," she shouted.

"You will tell me where they are," he said in a menacing tone.

"Go to hell," Susan shouted back.

The doctor slammed the viewing panel closed and pressed the button again and then walked back up the hall.

******

"I don't think so, Mrs. Tsien would have been seen and she is the one who paid for the room. In addition we have both her and Mrs. Oakman entering the hotel. But neither left, and according to the records they were there only one night."

Carl began to pace, "Ok let's see, we know Susan showed up at the hotel and made a call to Mrs. Tsien, someone she knew, since she showed up a half hour later. We also know who was in the building and who wasn't for the first day. We have several deliveries and pickups during that time." Carl watched several of the feeds, "Any luck on the internal surveillance videos?"

"Not yet, it appears that six has found something interesting. The internal video is spliced and has several feeds into a computer in the hotels data closet. Number six is going to give us a connection."

Tween watched as the computers monitor output appeared. "Looks like a Unix system, ok lets get cracking"

It was several hours later that Tween finally cracked the system. What he found chilled him to the bone.

"Someone is using the video feed to find meta's in a database and then emailing the hits to this address. The address is just a drop point. Ok what do we have to go on Wedge," Carl said as the data from the cracked system began to be relayed to his screens.

"Tween it appears that someone found Susan and that someone captured her. The database has over three thousand metas on file including her," Wedge's voice said to Tween

Tween stared at the screen, "Ok this is what we are going to do."

******

"Everything is set, Tween. The credit cards are now valid, and the drivers ID is in the DMV database," Wedge said into Carl's mind.

"Ok, and the database we found?" Carl thought back.

"Your image has been added, and you're are now a precognitive psychic. With the same rating they had for Susan." Was the reply?

"Now to see how well this works." Carl said softly to himself.

He picked up the suitcase and headed down the street towards the hotel. He had changed out of his three-piece suit, and into jeans and a t-shirt. He entered the hotel and made a point of looking directly at the camera.

"That will fix them," he thought to himself.

The man at the front desk nodded as Carl came in the door. "Can I help you sir?" he asked somewhat bored.

"Um... Er yeah can I get a room?" Carl asked getting close to the man.

"And how will you be paying for that," he asked.

"Cash, if that's ok," and looked around as if he was being followed.

"That's eighty-six fifty, and I will need to see a photo ID," he said as Carl began to take money off a large wad of cash. Carl handed him five twenties and waited while the hotel clerk finished the transaction.

"You're in room 206 up one flight on the left side. The stairs are over there. Is there anything else I can help you with?" he said pointing to the entrance stair well.

Carl picked up his suitcase, looked around and headed up to his room. He closed the door and put the suitcase on the bed. He then opened it and released several dozen spider bots into the room. "Covert mode, record only," he said aloud.

"No listening devices detected Tween," Wedge informed him.

The Spider bots faded into the hotel room, behind furniture and under the bed.

"Now we wait," Carl said flopping onto the bed.
 

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