Audit 1

Duma took a deep breath as he smoothed out the wrinkles in his suit. It was a nervous tick, he knew, but smoking was not allowed on Foundation grounds, so this was the best he had. His shadow double placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder before turning to leave. Duma checked his pocket watch. 11:59. Tick, tick, tick tick. 12:00. Just as the hands moved to indicate the new time, Duma began to open the heavy and intricately carved wooden doors that he had been standing in front of, and entered the Headmaster’s office.

Crossing the threshold, Duma was assaulted by sensation. First was his Insight, an ability he had honed and studied during his tenure at the Foundation. It was a sixth sense, attuned to his immediate surroundings through flows of exotic energies, an extension of himself which dug its feelers into everything it could to try and fulfill the basic desire of all life, survival. It promised danger, to such a degree that it felt almost heavy on his skin. All in his head, of course, but the mind controlled the body, and it took all he could muster not to curl up beneath the pressure. The second was a vision. Something Duma was used to, of course, but it was one thing in a large pile. In the space of an instant, Duma saw a short conversation, during which he began to burn alive as he was ripped apart by an unseen source. It was expected, and in the end, as his eyes popped and sizzled, he could swear that the Headmaster smiled at him, the one viewing the vision, and not the Duma who was dying in front of him. The final sensation was a tingling throughout his being that began to rapidly intensify; this would be the burning. Part of some newer automated defenses in the Headmaster’s office, installed after the breakout.

The Headmaster looked up from penning a paper at his massive desk, covered completely in all sorts of documents and magical trinkets and curios. He looked the same as he always had, as if time itself refused to lay a finger on him. His suit was unwrinkled, Duma noted. Perfect as always.

The room was lit dimly by green-flamed candles. The Headmaster’s shadow seemed to loom behind him, larger than it should be. As he took shallow breaths, it moved with him, swelling and deflating. Before Duma could speak, it pushed out, into the darkness, beyond any rational bounds which shadows should be constrained to, leaving the Headmaster without a shadow.

“Duma,” spoke the Headmaster, inclining his head slightly, his voice a deep baritone, “it would seem your recent assignment was a failure.”

As his head moved, Duma felt hot breathing at the back of his neck. Danger radiated from behind him.

“Yes, sir, it was.” Duma responded.

“That’s never happened before. Explain yourself.”

“The entity did not respond well to prostration. If I may opine, I believe it is enjoying its continued existence on our plane. It is just as dangerous as reports indicate, its presence not unlike your own.”

The Headmaster grunted. Duma felt a claw rake against his back, tearing clothes and flesh alike. His extremities were reduced to black char.

“Did you at least learn anything useful?”

An odd question. The Headmaster usually knew exactly what had transpired during an assignment, and only ever asked to allow Duma to share his own insights. Perhaps this was a test? If he failed to share exactly what had happened, the vision that he had been granted, would he fail?

“Of course, headmaster. Surveillance of the host will be a simple affair, and can continue as planned. The entity also had a message for you?”

“Oh?” The Headmaster tensed, almost imperceptibly.

“It said to ‘tell that whelp you call a Headmaster that I do as I please’.”

The Headmaster’s hands, which had been clasped lightly on his desk since Duma had entered, tightened by a fraction. Duma’s art was ripped off, and a long cut began to slowly materialize on his chest.

Duma absently  noted that most of his body below the neck had been charred to the bone.

“You will receive another assignment soon, Duma. See to it that you return successfully. You have been instrumental in the recuperation of our lost students here, but I have not taught you what you know for you to fail.”

The burning had progressed to his head, melting his tongue, and Duma could not speak. It was the first time he had ever heard the Headmaster sound truly angry. As his eyes sizzled and popped, the Headmaster did not smile.

■

In a cheap motel room thousands of miles away, Duma let out a breath as he once again split his soul, his self, the essence of his being, into two physical bodies. He was collecting information on a possible escapee, and returned to his work, putting the experience of the Headmaster’s rage past him. He got to work on a simple divination which would remove his sight for some time, and his other self exited the motel room and started walking towards the town’s homeless shelter. As he walked, he stopped briefly by his car and retrieved a briefcase, within which he kept his ULR .50 BMG Mini Rifle, which he had stored with dozens of bullets, each longer and wider than his fingers, some engraved with particular runes or made of a certain metal. It never hurt to be safe, after all.

The sun shone brightly, and a light breeze washed over Duma. It was a beautiful day. As he approached the homeless shelter, the Duma in the motel room finished his divination, revealing that the girl was under clear skies. Not particularly useful, but it helped. Duma walked right into the shelter, looking woefully out of place in his tailored suit and fancy hat, and lit a cigarette. He scanned the beds, only about a half a dozen of which were occupied, and one was undone. Underneath it were a pair of slippers, child size. His mark. Duma left the shelter, information gained, and began to walk back to the motel when he noticed something out of place.

A stop sign sat at the end of a road, unassuming. Instead of saying ‘STOP’, it read ‘KILL HER’.

His next assignment, then.

Duma turned and began to walk back to the homeless shelter, planning to ambush the escapee. He checked the possible future, and saw himself waiting outside the shelter, entering after the girl, and firing the gun.

In about five minutes, he was there, waiting, smoking a new cigarette. Three minutes after, the girl was entering the shelter, looking over her shoulders anxiously. As he put the suitcase down to make after her, she turned back, wide-eyed, and suddenly bolted away from the shelter.

A slight complication. Duma hadn’t thought she was precognitive, but it looked like she had some talent in that department. A shame it would be wasted. As Duma broke into a light jog to follow the girl, his other self exited the motel and got into his car, eyes still blurry from the divination, and started to drive towards them.
The chase didn’t last long, the girl eventually exhausting herself and resorting to telekinetically tossing debris at Duma, which was dodged relatively easily. The Duma in the car arrived in short time, hitting the girl from behind, sending her body flying down the sidewalk and towards the other Duma.

The girl’s arm was broken, but Duma watched as scrapes disappeared and bones reshaped into the correct configuration. Regenerators, quaint as they were, were always so troublesome to deal with. At the very least it seemed weak.

The girl began to rise, and just as she did Duma had opened his suitcase and loaded his gun, and used a touch of precognition to make sure his aim was true. The shot produced a visible shockwave, and Duma’s body rocked back as he fired as the girl’s head exploded, turning to a fine mist. A trickle of blood ran down Duma’s nose. The other Duma, accompanied by a shadow, exited the vehicle, and they loaded the corpse into it.

■

Back in the motel room, Duma examined the corpse even as he cleaned blood and bits of skull off the car in the woods. What he discovered was a barcode, tattooed onto the skin beneath her right breast. As he poured a dissolving tincture over her body, he deliberately missed the tattoo.

The Institute. Was the Headmaster’s plan to deny them resources? But why? Why not just capture the girl, she was still young enough to be molded.

As he made that realization, there was a knock on his door.

“Hello? I’d like to talk to you. Just a conversation, promise!”

Duma ran through a bevy of precognitive checks, unused to being caught by surprise. When danger was absent, he opened the door. The Duma washing the car began to drive back.

There stood what he could only really call a perfectly average man, if a bit tall. He wore a short sleeved white button-up with a messily done tie and khakis, and when Duma looked into his eyes he saw cruelty and… searching. A similar look to some mind readers he had interacted with or seen being instructed. He looked away from the man’s eyes, and stepped into the room, grabbing and putting on his sunglasses in a quick motion. When he looked back towards the man, he had a small scowl on his face.

“Please, come in.”

“I was planning to. You can call me John.”

Duma did not grace him with a reply, unwilling to give away information. His other self dropped a shadow off a block from the motel and drove away.

“I presume you are from the Institute? Your timing is impeccable. Come to clean up the mess after I’ve done the work for you?”

“You know,” John smiled, “I’ve been tracking little Madison there for some time. I was waiting for the right time to come take her. It’s my job, you know. We’ve all gotta get work somehow, right?”

John chuckled, and it sounded more like he was reading from a script than he actually found any humor in the statement.

“Now I’ve got no little girl. How am I supposed to explain that to my boss? He’ll have a fit. So how about we make a deal, hm? You come with me instead, and no one needs to get hurt.”

A fair deal, Duma thought. After all, it was his own fault he killed the girl, and it was only fair he came in instead. Something given for something taken.

“You should work on your mental manipulations. They lack subtlety.”

“Alright, alright. Can’t blame a guy for trying, can you?” John was bashful, more like a child caught with their hand in a cookie jar than a man caught trying to manipulate the mind of another.

Duma felt the shadow clone park outside, and he moved to position John in front of a door or window.

“You’re really no fun, you know that? Maybe I should just kill you and be done with it.” John said, voice suddenly empty of any humor.

“You won’t.”

“Oh? You think I won’t?” He sounded almost affronted now, offended at the very notion someone could know what he would and wouldn’t do. Duma noticed his hand start moving towards his pocket.

“I know you won’t. In fact, you can’t.” Duma began to light another cigarette. His other self was driving well beyond the town, now. His shadow was on the other side of the door. He sat down on the motel room’s bed.

John was suddenly next to Duma, and a knife found its way to his stomach. A teleporter and a mind reader, then. John chuckled darkly just as the shadow clone pulled the trigger, gun now pressed against the front window of the room.

The sound and shockwave were disorienting, but John’s spray of blood and sudden scream were like music to Duma’s ears. He was clutching an arm that was now removed at the elbow, where it lay limp on the floor. A look of absolute rage crossed his face, and Duma rose from the bed, ready to stomp out the man’s life as the shadow entered the room through the window, reloading the gun. Before he could reach him, the man disappeared from sight.

Looking at the now destroyed room and the headless and partially melted body of a little girl on the couch, hearing distant sirens from small town police already on edge from the previous shooting, Duma winked out of existence, and the shadow quickly fled the scene.

In his car, another Duma came into existence in the passenger’s seat. The Headmaster would be happy to hear about this new operative for the Institute, and happier that Duma had accomplished his mission with flying colors. Duma smiled to himself in two different bodies as he drove away from the town. He considered going back to the Foundation immediately, but reconsidered. If the other Facilities were sending agents out to collect, his job got much more dangerous. He would locate and warn the Unseen, first. Better to protect an asset as valuable as him.

As he drove, Duma opened a skin-bound on the magical properties of human flesh. It was something he had been hoping to find time for, and in any case would be useful if he had to perform more terminations.