The Blurred Man

by Bard Constantine

  “I hate to interrupt,” Chip’s voice buzzed in her ear. “But I’ve been tracking you via a friendly satellite tag. Have you noticed you’ve been followed since you left the Chimera compound?”

  “Of course.” Dylan paused the recording and glanced in the rearview mirror. A black BMW followed exactly two cars behind, tailing her every lane change, yet staying behind a safe distance. The windows were fully tinted, allowing no glimpse of who or how many were inside.

  “Hopefully nothing to be concerned about,” she said. “This will be an easy day if all I have to do is lose a tail.” She resumed the recording.

  “This power is what Chimera Global is after,” Ryder’s message continued. “The dark energy registering from the Aberration has endless potential for uses both benevolent and malevolent, untapped possibilities ripe for experimentation and exploitation. Chimera is willing to overlook the other side of the equation: the likelihood of a dimensional break, where the energies of two separate worlds collide. This is where the Blurred Man factors in. I believe he is a guardian from that neighboring dimension, a gatekeeper to prevent the catastrophic event of a dimensional break into our world. He cannot appear in photographs because he is not of this world.”

  Ryder’s face drew closer to the camera. His expression was agonized; the desperation clearly audible in the tone of his voice. “I know this sounds bizarre, but all the data I’ve compiled supports my theory. The Blurred Man is not of our world, an alien surely as if arrived from another planet. Yet he may well be all that stands between us and imminent destruction. Chimera has neither the willingness nor perhaps even the ability to see beyond their greed as they strive to harness what may destroy us.” He hesitated, taking a wary glance around. “I’m out of time. If you have this transmission, you may be the only one aware of what is happening. You may be the only one who can stop this. I’ve compiled as much information as I could on this memory card. Use it to stop Chimera if you can. If not…we may all be doomed.”

  The video ended. Dylan kept an eye on the car tailing her as she considered Ryder’s discovery and warning.

  “That was…ominous,” Chip said in her ear.

  “It’s nearly unbelievable,” Dylan said. “If Ryder’s warning is true, the entire world is in jeopardy. And the idea of an intruding dimension…” Her voice trailed off at the concept. The notion was staggering, containing so many variables that even her computer-guided mind had difficulty mapping out the nearly endless range of possibilities.

  “Interdimensional beings and multiverses have been purely theoretical by human research up until now,” Chip said. “Yet even in theory the effects of dimensions interacting are nearly always catastrophic. Warped reality, collisions of natural forces—the possibilities are endless for cataclysmic aftereffects. That’s if Mr. Ryder isn’t as insane as Michael McDaniel reportedly is, of course.”

  “I doubt either of them are mentally deficient.” Dylan flicked a few of the files from the tablet to the heads-up display. “The data Ryder compiled appears surprisingly sound. The energy surges he discovered was picked up on sensors constructed by paranormal fanatics to detect ghostly disturbances. It makes sense that their ghosts were really intrusions from a neighboring dimension.”

  Chip’s humming buzzed in her ear. “I’m backing up your files here at the safe house. The rest of the card contains data compilations and hacked files on an island lab constructed by Chimera Global somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle. Supposedly it’s one of the few locations on earth where a dimensional break can be artificially created.”

  “Chip, do you know what this means?”

  “That the end of this world might arrive a bit prematurely?”

  “No, I’m talking about all of this. Everything.” Dylan hesitated, surprised by the increased rate of her heartbeat. “Ryder’s discovery is earth-shattering. Everyone on the planet will be affected by it. An otherworldly encounter with Earth was always a possibility in view of my existence, but a threat from interdimensional means is something that can possibly affect both my mission and my very presence here. I’ve experienced several bizarre encounters in the time I’ve been on this planet, but evidence that any of them originated from beyond this world has been—”

  “Dylan?” Chip’s voice crackled with alarm. “Look out for the—”

  Dylan’s brief distraction cost her. An armored Humvee swerved in from her blind zone, slamming into her SUV with the force of a runaway freight train.

  Safety glass shattered into glittering cubed shards, floating across the confined space. Dylan increased her reaction rate, body going limp to absorb the impact. The entire right side of the vehicle crumpled with an agonizing metallic groan; airbags simultaneously deployed like exploding popcorn kernels. The safety belt dug into her flesh as her body swung to the left, her head struck the driver’s side window, shattering the glass from the force of impact. The world turned upside down, over and over as her SUV flipped until it skidded to a halt somewhere near the edge of the median after leaving a trail of wreckage in its wake. Blaring horns and screeching tires were the only sounds as other vehicles reacted to the crash. The scent of heated rubber and scorched metal smothered the air.

  Dylan hung upside down, held in place by her seat belt. Her body throbbed, pulsing with the agony of her damaging wounds. Her left leg did not respond, her ribs were fire, and every breath took extra effort. Punctured lung, broken ribs, fractured left fibula was the initial analysis, minus the less-threatening bruises and lacerations. She felt the surge of adrenaline as platelets multiplied at an accelerated rate to speed the healing process, allowing her body to immediately begin repairing the damage.

  “Chip?” Her voice was barely audible against the ringing in her ears. The coppery tang of blood laced her injured tongue, creating another check on her list of agonizing sensations. There was no response from Chip. Judging by the crash, both her Bluetooth and the vehicle’s smartphone receiver sustained too much damage for a valid connection.

  The pain was too distracting. Her quantum core responded to her mental command, identifying the sensory receptors sensitive to pain and dulling them to the point of near-nonexistence. The throbbing sensation faded quickly, allowing her to better focus on her predicament. She stretched, pulling a short knife from the sheath strapped to her leg. Slashing through the seat belt, she fell on her back, neck bent awkwardly. Her hands began a blind search for the metal box which had been lying in the passenger seat.

  Voices became audible as the ringing in her ears lessened. The shattered windshield registered kaleidoscopic images of movement. She was barely able to identify urban camouflage pants and military boots running toward her ruined vehicle.

  A squad leader’s authoritative baritone barked out orders. “Make sure she’s finished, then check the vehicle for personal effects. Double time it so we can blow this soup sandwich.”

  The movement drew closer. Dylan’s hand found the field kit, snatching it from under the crushed passenger seat. Inside were her firearm and a few other necessities. Her free hand snatched out the frag grenade. Pulling the pin, she flung it directly at the approaching unit. Their alarmed shouts were punctuated by frantic feet running the opposite direction before the inevitable explosion. Not bothering to assess the damage, Dylan snatched the H&K VP9 handgun out of the kit and crawled out of the driver side window, dragging her ruined leg.

  Opposing lane traffic had gridlocked the intersection of Market and Octavia as onlookers stopped to stare at the chaos, the mid-day traffic at full swing before everything went to hell. Dylan ducked as she limped across the opposite lane, heedless to the shouts of passersby offering help or asking questions. They became insubstantial blurs as she gauged her surroundings, mentally calculating the quickest route to escape her pursuers.

  A young man in an Oakland Raiders cap stared at her, mouth open. “Lady, you look like shit! You wanna—” His sentence was cut off by a bullet shredding his neck area. Blood spattered his face as he toppled with a
shocked expression.

  Dylan turned in the direction of the shot, spotting the sniper lying on the roof of the Humvee. She dropped to the pavement before his next shot shattered the car window behind her. People screamed and tires squealed as cars careened into one another in their haste to escape the firefight. Bullets whined overhead as her assailants unloaded, shredding the car Dylan used for cover. It rocked from the impact of the shots, showering her with shattered glass.

  The brief respite gave her the time to calculate her response and reassess her damage. Her re-inflated lung made breathing easier, and her ribs felt less quivery as well. The leg fracture was mending, but the progress was hampered by her movement. She switched her focus on her counterattack.

  Another mental command allowed her to manipulate the nerve impulses that translated sound to the circuits in her brain. Background noise filtered out, allowing her to clearly focus on the retorts of gunfire. Mapping out the trajectory of the shots based on the sounds allowed her to predict the position of the shooters. Her retaliation projections were accurate to ninety-eight percent, making it relatively easy to roll, rise, and get a shot on the sniper before he could react. His body jerked as her shot shattered his rifle scope and exited out the back of his skull.

  Dylan had already turned, firing twice in a continuous motion. Two more soldiers toppled before their comrades could react. She dropped, staying low as the remaining two assailants responded with panicky response fire. She accelerated despite her injury, the burst of adrenaline propelling her faster than their reaction rate as she dove behind a large Mercedes SUV.

  “Who the hell is this bitch?” one of the soldiers shouted. His neck snapped back as Dylan’s next shot took him out. His body went limp, lost to sight as a stream of running bodies blocked her view.

  The last soldier ducked behind a bullet-riddled car. His voice nearly broke as he screamed into his radio. “Repeat: my unit is down, the mission is fubar, and where the hell is my backup?”

  The chaos spread to the surrounding city blocks as people fled their gridlocked vehicles for the safety of nearby buildings. Wailing sirens announced the presence of emergency vehicles approaching the scene. Dylan stayed low, blending in with the fleeing crowds. The woman beside her shrieked hysterically, eyes wide with panic. Dylan seized her by the arm, using the woman’s broad body to conceal herself from view.

  The black BMW that had tailed her earlier screeched to a halt, ejecting four near-identical dark-suited men wearing sunglasses and toting submachine guns. Their heads swiveled as they surveyed the scene. One of them gestured, and they broke into teams of two. Shoving people aside, they swept through the crowd.

  Dylan released her unwitting partner as they passed an alley between buildings. Limping forward, she advanced as quickly as possible. Her leg had nearly knit itself back together, but the tendons were still tender. She estimated she had a seventy-two percent chance of making it to the end of the alley and before her pursuers could make it through the throngs of fleeing people.

  “There she is!”

  Her percentages were off. The new squad was better than the previous one. She turned, kneeling in the same motion to throw off their initial shots. She would be able to at least take the first team down, but not without sustaining major damage. The second would surely overcome her. It was too bad. She had rather enjoyed being Dylan Plumm.

  A loud horn blared from behind her. She rolled to the side as a black van barreled down the alley at full speed, tinted windows reflecting the shocked faces of the men it rumbled toward. Dylan flattened herself against the alley wall as the van whipped past. It met a hail of bullets before striking the armed duo head-on with a sound like raw meat slung against asphalt. More bullets whined as someone inside the van exchanged fire with the second team. Men grunted and cried out as they died.

  Dylan steadied her hand and aimed at the rear doors of the van as they opened. A black-clad man emerged, critically studying the steaming, bullet-perforated vehicle. He turned, revealing his face. He was the most nondescript person she had ever come across. Just like the last time she saw him.

  “No need for the gun,” Guy Mann said. “I’m not here to harm you. But I do think we need to leave quickly. Both of us will want to avoid unnecessary questions. I understand you’ve been looking for me. The irony is I’ve been looking for you as well. For a very long time.”

  III

  The smell of redwood giants lingered, perfuming the afternoon air. Dylan sat at a bench in the midst of their majesty, just another insignificant speck loitering in their imposing shadows. The ramshackle cottage behind her was deep in the forest, far enough from the city to make civilization irrelevant. She saw no technology other than solar receptors, placing the abode completely off the grid. She wondered who, if anyone knew of its existence. It had taken a drive in a stolen car, a ride on ATVs, and then a three-day hike just to get to the place.

  The Blurred Man served ginger green tea in china mugs that were almost certainly thousands of years old. He sat on the opposite side of the weathered bench, his form seemingly morphing with the shadows until it was hard to determine if he was physically there. Steam from the tea obscured his face when he lifted the mug for a sip.

  “You heal remarkably well,” he said.

  Dylan did not respond, recognizing the ages-old casual approach to prod her into talking about herself. She gazed at the forest behind him. For some reason the ancient trees were full of ravens, in far greater numbers than she had ever seen before. They peppered the branches high as she could see, silently peering down as though waiting to pronounce judgment. Of what, Dylan could not fathom. The fall of man, perhaps.

  Guy carefully set his mug down. “Your partner, Agent Lee. Nothing you could have done about that. An unfortunate side effect of exposure to an Aberration is residual mental instability. Everyone within a five-mile radius is affected to one extreme or another, from terrible dreams to full-blown insanity. Fortunately these side effects are not contagious to others. Not that you were in any danger, of course. Being…who you are.”

  Dylan toyed with the handle of her mug. “And who am I?”

  “You’re not human,” Guy said. “Your body might be made of similar DNA, your appearance might be spot on, but you do not originate from this planet. You’ve been here a long time. How long I don’t know, but almost certainly longer than I have. I don’t believe you are from another dimension. And if so, I don’t believe you’re a threat to humanity.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because if you were, I would have surely been ordered to kill you by now.” He took another sip, expressionless. Dylan realized that like her, time was not a hindrance to Guy. He would wait patiently for her response, whether it took seconds or months.

  “Why the last name Mann?” she asked. “At first I thought you had a sly sense of humor, but you don’t seem to be the type.”

  “Antenor was the one with the sense of humor. He was my handler, the one who created the many aliases I’ve used over the years.”

  “And where is he now?”

  “Dead.” The word hung in the air, the echo almost audible from a thousand raven minds.

  “You say you’re from another dimension.” She sipped her tea. It was quite good, sweetened with honey she was sure was from the neighboring forest. “That agrees with the information I’ve gathered.”

  “That you gathered? Or Nathan Ryder gathered?” Guy smiled at her expression. “I try to keep track of all of my potential allies, Ms. Plumm. Or did you truly believe Mr. Ryder simply stumbled on information about the Blurred Man on his own?”

  Dylan hesitated at the revelation. “Regardless, it explains why you can’t be captured on film. There’s something lost in the translation of imaging a being from another dimension.” She studied him over the rim of her tea mug. “Your task is grueling. The exhaustion has taken its toll on you. You have lost your sense of humanity, alienated and alone to the point that emotion is a foreign concept
to you. Human lives become mere numbers, statistics you tally up as either acceptable losses or not.”

  He seemed to smile. “That last part. Were you talking about me…or were you talking about yourself?”

  She didn’t respond. Her analytics of the outcome of the conversation surprised her with their inconclusiveness. The algorithms were off the charts, unable to decisively chart what Guy’s intentions were. It was as if his motives were as blurred as the photographs of his face.

  He leaned back and inhaled deeply. “Ah, do you smell that air? So…clean. And this forest: a marvel beyond description. You can take a million photographs, paint a billion pictures, and it would never be enough. They would never convey the awe and humility of actually being here. It’s amazing to think despite the population overload on this planet, there are still so many places where most humans simply avoid. So many places one can live an entire lifetime with little or no interaction, should they so desire.”

  “Is that what you desire?” she asked.

  “More than anything.” His nondescript face was clearly visible when he leaned forward, yet somehow still hard to focus on. “You might have the luxury of living through the ages, but things play out differently for me. I don’t live through time, I basically flow across it. I am taken from one potential catastrophe to the next, never having time to recover or find a moment’s peace. I exist for a singular purpose, and it is not to smell the roses.”

  “I don’t understand.” Dylan set her empty mug down. “How are you able to travel across time? What type of place is this dimension you come from?”

  His expression darkened. “A ruined one. And as far as how I do it…” He glanced above. “I go wherever the ravens take me.”

  “The ravens?” She looked up.

  Intelligence sparkled from their inky eyes as they perched like obsidian statues. Their feathers gleamed in the patches of sunlight that streamed through the canopy of branches.