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Psionic Investigations Unit

Chapter 5

for DuskCypher

by Draconicon

D had never been so furious in his life. Not from the Baron's casual cockiness, nor from the fight to get here, but from the sheer horror of seeing what M had done. The explosion wasn't something that just anyone could have lived through. He'd been on the edge of it, and his clothes were torn, burnt, in some cases utterly destroyed from the more physical effects of it. The lightning that should have killed him had been nullified, if only barely, but she'd been at the core of it. If she wasn't dead, she was dying.

And I have to deal with you...

The mink looked up at him from the command chair, idly crossing his hands together with the slightest of smirks. D was ready to shoot the moment that the mink tried to use his powers, so that wasn't a worry. Time, rather than the mink's powers, was the real enemy now.

"Stop them, stop the bomb, or -"

"Or what? You send me on the next great adventure?" the Baron asked.

"No. I kill you."

"Oh, D, D, D..."

The Baron chuckled, shaking his head. The mink gestured behind him.

"Do you really think that the world can ever be truly controlled? Do you think that your little agency will ever be successful at bringing order back to the world?"

"We have been. So far."

His gun didn't shake, but only because his arms were so stiff, so tense. He wanted to shoot. He wanted to blow the Baron's head off and get back to the situation at hand. But if he was wrong, if the shot didn't end the plague that was running rampant through the prison, then he would have slaughtered the only person that could stop it.

But the mink didn't seem to care. He just shook his head.

"Reality is fragile, D. It always has been, it always will be. Death is the key to the next stage of evolution. Death, in the individual and the societal sense. Nothing changes, nothing grows without rising from the dead that came before. It is the perpetual cycle. And now, we have the means to hurry that Death along, to bring about that next cycle faster than ever before."

"None of you...none of you...have the right to just kill off thousands of people."

"Oh, really? And you do?"

"I don't do that."

"Then the deaths of entire realities that might have been don't count? The birth of a dozen, a hundred, a thousand different realities through the minds and powers of the broken Psions never counted? Their lobotomized brains, never to see the child-worlds that they were creating, were not murdered and slaughtered before they could ever come to be?"

D clenched his hand all the tighter around the grip of his revolver, forcing himself to take one more deep breath before pulling his finger that little bit tighter on the trigger. The Baron smiled at him, leaning back in the chair and crossing one leg over the other.

"You might kill me, D...but regardless, I have ensured that you will not be saving reality as it is. The bomb is going to go off any minute now, and when it does, it won't just be the Virus that escapes. It will be quite a few powerful Psions that you and yours have locked up. They're smarter now, more aware of your tricks, your traps, your way of doing things. It won't take long before they go to ground, before they start operating again in a much smarter way.

"You might kill me, D -"

BANG!

The mink's head snapped back so hard that it almost flew off. The Baron certainly slumped down in his chair, falling to the ground, dead as a doornail. The cat shook his head at the dead body, pushing it out of the way and taking his place in the chair.

"Will kill you, you son of a bitch..."

Quickly checking the cameras, he saw that the shambling hordes of zombies had fallen. One and all, they had hit the ground and lost all capability of movement. They weren't breathing, either, which meant that the virus had probably ripped through their minds too much for them to stay alive after the source of it had died.

D put the idea of mass murder out of his mind, focusing on getting his phone out. He needed to get in touch with the Commissioner, now. He tapped the speed dial button, praying that he got through to the receptionist or assistant rather than Kennedy himself.

He didn't have that kind of luck.

"D, you better have something to tell me about what's going on in there..."

"No time. Bomb squad."

"Report first."

"I said, give me the goddamn bomb squad, or so help me, I swear I'm going to ass-fuck you with my revolver before blowing your brains so high that they're going to think that you were sodomized by Old FUCKING FAITHFUL!"

"I - you - this is against all protocol!"

"Bomb squad, NOW!"

They had less than ten minutes, he thought, but that was still enough time if they were able to get inside right now. Without the various layers of zombies between the bomb squad and the bomb, that should have been enough time to get them disarmed and remove the threat to the city.

And it would have been, if they had less than ten minutes. Instead, they had less than one.

D had barely been transferred when the first explosion rocked the complex. Pieces of the ceiling came down, cracking the ruins of the consoles, burying the body of the Psion that M had been fighting. Another explosion, then another, and another rocked the prison, sending the screens shaking and leaving him blind for nearly a minute to what was going on outside the prison. When he was able to see again, the results were horrifying.

The Psions were free, alright, a dozen of them fleeing the prison, and all of them were among the most dangerous that the PIU had put away. He stared after them as they broke through the holes that were left in the prison walls, wielding fire, ice, and summoned creatures. They pulled portions of the prison itself down to wield as weapons, breaking through the mundanes that the Commissioner had supplemented PIU staff with at the perimeter, and before the agents proper could fill those holes, the Psions were rushing out into the city.

The Baron had achieved one of his goals. The Virus...

Was he using that to distract us the whole time? D wondered, looking down at the dead mink. Sacrificing himself so that this grand death could get out without us being able to stop it?

It seemed almost altruistic of the mink, but then again, the Baron had died. He probably had thought that he'd get out of this alive, had been waiting out the clock so that when the explosions hit, he could have used his power to seize D's body and get the hell out. That would have been more fitting. Instead, D had blown his brains out, and unless the Baron had some sort of reality waiting where death really wasn't the end, then the mink was gone. Forever.

Unfortunately, so was the peace that they had fought so hard to get, and the PIU would be stained for a very long time with the reminder of how someone who should have been locked up in isolation had managed the biggest prison break in modern history. With all the inmates that had broken free -

There was a soft groan from further back, and he knew who it was. M. She was still alive.

The phone buzzed, and he realized that he was still on the line to the bomb squad. He pulled the phone to his ear, feeling it shaking ever so slightly.

"Get...get the medics, now...emergency...Agent down," he managed to say, before clicking the phone shut.

The black cat threw himself into dragging enough debris out of the way to see M's face, and when he did, he almost didn't recognize it. She had survived the lightning that had surged around her, but the exploding metal, glass, and fire had been impossible for her to deflect. Her face was pink at the best of places, and the fur had been completely seared away, revealing torched flesh, blackened lips, and only one good eye. Even if she survived the shock and pain that she had to be going through, there was no way that she'd ever be the looker that she had been.

Somehow, she found the strength to turn her head, looking at him with her one good eye. The lioness groaned again, hissing for breath.

"You...you..."

"Don't talk."

"Look like...shit..."

He bit off a laugh, looking at the rest of the rubble. She was covered from the waist down, pinned under a console that was too large for him to lift. Even if he did, he wasn't sure that it would help. More than likely, her legs had been crushed, possibly to the point where that pressure was the only thing keeping the blood from rushing out of her body and onto the floor. There was no getting her out from under that before the medical team got there.

He knelt down at her side, instead, brushing away the worst of the debris. She had been burned all over, her back all but gone, and there were places where he was half-sure that he could see bone through the burnt spots in her skin. He tried not to think about that, nor what it would mean for her.

She fumbled, trying and failing to move her arm. D took her hand, letting it rest on his. It was hot to the touch, almost enough to burn him through his fur.

"I'm dying, right?" she managed to huff out, struggling to speak.

"...Probably."

"Damn..."

"Medical's on the way."

"...Don't think...it'll be in time..."

She was probably right, and he couldn't think of a thing to say. No kind lie, no little thing that might have saved her some fear. Not that she looked afraid. If anything, under all that pain, she looked annoyed. Annoyed, and a little cocky, just like ever.

"Well...looks like...like it'll be...up to me to...keep kicking the Baron's ass...on the other side..."

"He's gone. He's not coming back."

"Not if I...have anything...to say about it..."

If there was any ghost that could have kicked the mink's ass away from any kind of resurrection, he was damn sure that it was M. She hissed, closing her eyes, and for a moment, he thought that was it. More than ten seconds passed before she was able to draw another breath, and it was more ragged than the others had been.

"Remember...remember that stupid...that stupid old club...off the river?" she managed to gasp out.

"Yeah?"

"Give me...give me something there..."

"They're going to give you a funeral. You know that."

"A stupid...state funeral...means nothing...Take me there...play me off proper..."

"...Okay..."

"Heh...and find...a good wingman..."

She whimpered, the first sound of real pain that came through her facade. It was amazing that she had managed to hold it off for that long, all things considered. She probably would have been crying if the fire hadn't seared through her face the way that it had. Probably burned through her tear ducts, taking away the ability to do that.

D could hardly think. He certainly couldn't feel at that moment. He stared down at the lioness, trying to think of something, anything that he could do.

But there was nothing. She was too far gone, too injured for him to pull back. She should have stayed in the goddamn cell...but then, would he have been able to handle both the Baron and his sidekick? Maybe he wouldn't have been able to get out of the hallway, overwhelmed by the zombies, instead.

Dammit...dammit...

She was struggling to breathe, now, more than before. Some bits of crusty blood started to flow through the wounds that weren't completely cauterized. She shook from suppressed screams and tears, and that only made it worse, leaving her in greater and greater pain.

Unable to think of anything else, D pulled his phone from his pocket. He opened an old playlist on it, and tapped it. The soft start of a saxophone and the warbling improv, followed by the soft soprano of a jazz siren, started to play. It didn't stop the pain, but it did seem to give M a little bit of peace that she'd been missing. The lioness sagged back against the floor, huffing softly again.

"Son of a bitch..."

"She never was that good," D muttered.

"Never got the chance...to practice..."

"Had better things to do with her life."

"Did better things...right?"

"Did amazing things."

"Good...Don't...forget...better wingman...you fucking...need it..."

And with that, she breathed out, and didn't breathe in again. D stared at her, going from merely supporting her hand to clenching his fingers around it. The song played out just as the medical team ran in, only to come to a dead stop in the doorway. They looked down at M, and they knew the same thing that he did: they weren't needed anymore.

"Sir..."

One of the medical team walked over to him. D didn't fight it as his vitals were taken. He was in shock, he supposed. Probably. He hoped. He submitted to whatever they needed to do, allowing them to run the tests to make sure that he was doing alright, as well.

Play her off...

The dead body of Special Agent M was slowly uncovered. Her crushed legs, her burned body, were a faint imitation of the vibrant woman that she had been in life. No longer to dance, no longer to fight, no longer to laugh and mock the agency the way that she had done for so short but so powerful a time. He watched them carry her off on a stretcher, and wished more than once that he might see her stir, even slightly.

But such was not to be.

The damage control team did their best, but the public perception of what had happened at Pandora Penitentiary had already gotten out of hand. Most of the general public knew that the patients and prisoners there were not of the normal sort, though the public had only a very vague idea of what Psions actually were and what they were capable of doing. Most of them just considered them something akin to supervillains, and it showed on the broadcasts that were coming over the radio as D waited for the debriefing that would be coming. With the Commissioner on the scene, the big guy would be coming to him to hear everything rather than waiting for it in paperwork.

The black cat stared at the radio as some of the prisoners were discussed. Flamethrowers, ice-creators, and worse were out there. They'd gone to ground, disappearing almost as soon as they breached the perimeter, probably knowing that they needed to lose their pursuers as fast as possible. He imagined that, at least here, the insanity would likely go down for a number of weeks before the prisoners started getting up to their old tricks again. Hell, the powerful Psions would probably break down the weaker ones out there, just to keep reports from getting filed with the PIU and getting picked up by accident.

The world was going to change. Reality, such as it was, had been dealt a pretty horrible blow. And that was before they got into the whole problem of what the hell they were going to do without Special Agent M. Even without the emotional side of things, even with the pain of her death discounted, she had been one of the heaviest hitters that they had, the sort of agent that was guaranteed to be able to put a dent in pretty much anyone.

Now, they were down a major weapon. They were going to have a far harder time going forward without her.

D continued to stare into the distance as the Commissioner entered the field tent. Commissioner Kennedy sighed, for once wearing an expression that was somber without being mocking. It was not to last.

"You broke the rules," the rabbit said.

D didn't respond. He just narrowed his eyes. It was just the pair of them, this time, just the two of them. Nobody watching. No security cameras.

It was so tempting to just beat the rabbit within an inch of his life, to take it further than he had ever done before. If he hadn't been the one to send them here, if he hadn't argued again and again and again, if he hadn't been so duty-bound with procedure and had actually had a goddamn brain, it wouldn't have been just the two of them in the fucking penitentiary. They would have had back-up.

"Do you know how hard it is to run this sort of operation without regular updates?" the rabbit asked.

"You knew what was going on."

"Not at the start. And you two did a piss-poor job of talking about what the hell was going on."

"Maybe if your budget allowed for more support..."

"Irrelevant. You split up, you didn't follow protocol."

"..."

"And if you had -"

D was on his feet in an instant, and as he towered over the rabbit, Commissioner Kennedy went silent. He grabbed the smaller man by the throat, pulling him off the ground, leaning in with all the fury in the world behind his eyes.

"Don't...you...dare..."

"..."

"You little pissant bureaucrat. None of those protocols would have made a damn bit of difference."

"Excuse me?! There are rules for a reason!"

"And there's a reason you have to go! You're not one of us. You're not a Nullifier, not a Psion, not anything! You don't understand."

"And you don't follow rules. And if you did, she'd be alive right now!"

And that was it. That was the end of D's patience, and it was the end of that conversation. He reared back and threw a punch, the hardest that he had ever thrown against someone that wasn't against him in the field. It caught the rabbit right in the cheek, and he went flying out through the fold of the tent, hitting the street and skidding. D stared out after him as the tent fold flapped up and down, and half-expected someone to come in and restrain him. Certainly, the boss was trying to tell everyone to do that.

But nobody did. They'd been shouting loud enough that D imagined that everyone else had heard what the Commissioner had said.

That, or they were all afraid of messing with him. Either way, whether it was respect or fear, he didn't care. They left him alone, and he needed to be alone for now.

Everything was finally settling in, and he was going to need a drink. Or twelve. And there was only one place to go for those, tonight.

Bzzt.

D looked at his phone as the text came in. It was official: he was suspended with pay, and he would be kept at arm's length from the PIU while the investigation was going on. A second text, coming from an unofficial channel - though probably from the same person in the unit - told him not to worry. Commissioner Kennedy had never been more than a placeholder with them to begin with, and it was very unlikely that anyone would be putting any real blame on the cat for punching the rabbit's lights out. Hell, most of them had been wanting to do that for the last few months.

The black cat put the phone back in his pocket, not bothering to answer just that moment. He had other things on his mind, mostly the warbling that was coming from the stage while the old rat-pack style of music played. His requests would be coming up in a few minutes, and he wanted to have his attention focused on that, so he didn't miss a thing.

He looked to his left. A picture of M under her civilian name of Dani May had been laid against the bar, resting where she had always sat during her time off. He hadn't been here with her every time that she came to visit, but D imagined that he'd been along for the ride more than anyone else at the agency. She had been picky about her partners for this sort of thing, but she hadn't been picky about the place.

The whole bar, hell, the whole club was a throwback to the fifties, back when jazz ruled the scene, when class mattered and if you were going to be a sleeze, then you better be a charming one if you wanted to get anything out of it. The old music, the old drink, the old everything had been the thing that she desired, and more than once, she'd told him that she'd been born in the wrong era.

She might have lived in the 21st century, but she sure as hell had been soul-bound to the 20th.

He sipped at his drink, letting the burn in his throat distract him from the burning in the back of his eyes. Damn. It wasn't a sob that wanted to come free, just a tear or two, but he didn't want to start. The music was going to be hard enough to listen to without her here, and he didn't want to make it even harder.

Just for the night, he told himself. You can do it for one night...

D put his shotglass down on the counter, the bartender coming by with the offer of a refill. He held his hand over the glass, and the bear nodded. The grizzly glanced at the photo, shaking his head.

"Hell of a dame," the bartender said.

"Yeah...she was."

"You two close?"

"Pretty darn."

"Gonna need a minute?"

"Gonna need a lifetime..."

The bear walked off, giving him the space that he needed, and he was thankful for it. He glanced at the picture one more time. It was barely recognizable, a photoshoot that she had done just before getting into the PIU. She'd gone into some old costume shop, gotten the clothes of some of the old-school ladies of leisure, and had posed for any number of old sepia-toned photos that she had hung up around her place. It was like she had sent her spirit back in time for the day, and he half-wondered if that was what her afterlife was going to be. If there was such a thing, he wished her well with it.

Despite everything, despite how much it was so not the woman that he had worked with, he could still see her in those photos. The fire in her eyes, the challenge that she fixed the camera with. That was the thing that had always kept her from entirely settling into that, the urge to be something bigger, stronger, better than needing a man. She could never have been the accessory that so many women in that time had ended up being. She needed to be her own person, and that, more than anything else, shone through the pictures.

He sighed, looking away. Any longer and he would start tearing up, something he'd avoided so far.

The band stopped, and he knew that his request would be playing before long. D closed his eyes.

_The funeral was as dull as it was pompous. The entirety of the PIU had been dispensed to oversee it to make sure that nobody caused trouble, and so had the soldiers that had been in the city at the time. The National Guard had been sent under official orders from the local governor to show that there was respect from the normal, mundane authorities for the sacrifices that the PIU had to make for the safety of the rest of the world.

It was a load of shit, and everyone in the PIU knew it. It was just a way for the governor to score some political points. None of the National Guard wanted to be there, as shown from their stiffness. They didn't understand, and couldn't. They weren't on the front line with them.

The coffin that held M's body - it was closed-casket, to nobody's surprise - was carried down the line by pall-bearers that had no relation to her. Nobody in her family had been found. Nobody knew if she really had one. Her life outside the agency had been a mystery to most of them, and even D had only been able to track down one person to be present to help carry her coffin to the hole._

One of six. The other five were other agents, something that they had barely been able to force the National Guard to allow for the procession. They weren't going to let complete strangers carry the woman that had worked with them to her death. They were, at least, going to be people that she worked with, people that had some right to touch her on the way to the other side.

D wasn't one of them. He was still technically suspended, though at that point, it hadn't been announced. Everyone knew it was the case, though.

The black cat watched from the sidelines as the coffin was taken to the whole, the black case standing out against the green of the cemetery. Some preacher came to the front, reading the official service speech, while a plainer woman in a white suit stood behind him, waiting to read the one that the PIU had come up with. D clenched a hand around a small postcard of notes that he had in his pocket, knowing that he'd not read this, that he'd just lay it on the ground when it was all over and hope that it meant something.

It was all a show, and it was nothing like what M would have wanted out of her death. This was a way for the living to feel better. The dead didn't see this show, never would.

He wished she was there. He needed someone to make fun of the insanity of it all with him.

The first note of the saxophone split the air, and he opened his eyes to see a Persian feline taking the stage. She was as elegant as one could imagine, dressed in a gold sequin dress. They'd looked for red, but the gold was an acceptable substitute. She had a microphone in hand, swaying slowly, every inch the elegant sort of siren that was needed for a proper feminine jazz performance.

As the piano started, the resident genius tickling the keys, he leaned back against the bar. It was a moment frozen in time, and for a half-second, as the Persian took the stage, he could see the image of M superimposed over her, like a ghost that had come back for but a moment.

Then it faded. The Persian sang the same song as had been on the recording that he had played M out with at the scene, though with a bit more control over her voice. It was technically better, but for him, he was pretty sure that he would always prefer the sound of M's old recording to any technically perfect rendition of the song. She had always wanted to be up there, always wanted to have that voice, but when it came to choosing what lifestyle to follow, she just didn't have time for that kind of vocal training.

Still, it was nice. Nice to have that song in the air. Nice to have the tribute. Nice to be there and pretend that she was still around for one more night.

He reached out slightly, turning to look at the picture as he ran his thumb along the frame. One more death. One more horror in the line of duty.

See ya, kid...

Kid. Like he was so much older. But the line fit the scene, and he didn't do more than snort slightly at the oddness of him calling her that.

The song played slowly, and as the smoke of old cigarettes filled the room in defiance of the modern time and modern laws, those that had known Dani May slowly slipped into grief. A few tears, a sob here and there filled the room, and those that had known her - whether by name, by face, or by reputation - slowly allowed themselves to feel. She had been a mainstay here for so long, before and after the PIU, that her death had hit them more than anyone entirely expected.

Even Dusk could feel his throat closing up, and he fumbled for his shotglass. The bartender must have come back, because it was full again. He didn't care anymore. He tossed the glass back, feeling the burn as it went down his throat and pulling for more. At the very least, it'd give him a reason to have a tear in his eye.

He spun around, not daring to look at the Persian for any longer. He was getting just drunk enough that the ghosts would start to feel real, and if he wanted to come back here again, he didn't want to be carrying that sort of humiliation along with him. He needed to stay sober.

Somewhat.

Somewhat.

The black cat took a deep breath, looking back at the picture again. He fumbled for something, anything to say, and it finally came to him.

"You'd have liked one thing about the other funeral," he muttered, staring at the picture, keeping his voice low. "You wouldn't have liked the ceremony...wouldn't have liked the speech. Wouldn't have liked much at all...but you would have loved the men in uniform."

He half-imagined that the lioness in the picture looked at him with interest, and he rose to the opportunity. It was a distraction, it was stupid, but it was better than doing nothing and just pretending that he was okay when he wasn't. He forced a chuckle, whispering to himself and to her picture.

"Yeah. I know. You had a thing for that. We both did, didn't we?"

Yeah, though we were always looking at different things, he imagined her saying back.

"Me at the back, you at the front."

They knew how to pose to make it look good.

"Though they were never so gentlemanly."

Another thing lost to time.

He nodded, even as the rueful chuckle turned into a little shake that went down his spine. He wanted to look away, but this time, he couldn't make himself do it. It was all kinds of wrong, and he knew that if he did, he'd never be able to make himself look at any pictures of her again. So, he forced himself to stare at the old photo, even as the tears started welling up in his eyes. The jazz song rose up in a crescendo of emotion behind him, and he felt the first tear slide down his muzzle.

D raised his glass, looking at the light that played off the drink that was left. He turned it, swirled it, and then toasted it towards the picture.

"To you, M. Wherever you went, whatever you do, you were a star while you were here, and you better be even better out there."

D imagined that the lioness winked at him from the photo as he tossed the drink back. The bear came to offer him a refill, and D told him to leave the bottle. There were no questions; they both probably knew that he was going to need it.

The End

Summary: D finishes off the Baron, but then things go downhill in a hurry.

Tags: No Sex, Mink, Lioness, Rabbit, Cat, Violence, Death, Series, Funeral, Sad, Jazz,