Author: A Markov
Title: Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Chapter: 6/?
Summary: Sequel to Vanishing Love. Violet thought growing up ‘Super’ was hard, until she fell in love. Now she has to balance love, family and duty as she tries to cope with a relationship that nobody, including herself, understands. Going off to college and the return of an irate ex isn’t going to make her life any easier.
Rating: PG-13
Warning: This story contains some explicit language and deals with mature themes including consensual sex between adults of the same gender.
Disclaimer: The characters and locations are property of Disney and Pixar. They are used here without permission or profit. You’re welcome to sue me, I don’t have anything.

-

Chapter 6- I Know What I Did Last Summer

Violet was puzzled by Chi’s request but she agreed to accompany the woman down to The Agency’s main building. Chi seemed really distracted and stressed out. The couple of times that Violet tried to get more information about what was going on, she was rebuffed. Not in a mean way, just in an “absent-minded, I’m not really paying attention to anything outside of my head” kind of way. Violet decided not to push it. Chi’s company had dealings with The Agency on several different projects. Maybe it was contract negotiation time. Besides, she didn’t really want to pack for college anyway. This would give her an excuse to put it off and spend some time with the blonde. The ride downtown didn’t improve Chi’s mood and Violet was beginning to regret her decision. She touched Chi’s arm to get her attention and the blonde grabbed her hand and held it tightly. She was trembling.

“Chi…?”

The blonde just shook her head and grasped Violet’s hand even tighter. OK, probably not contract time. Had Dicker started meddling again? “Chi, if Uncle… if Dicker is giving you a hard time, you let me know and I’ll…” Chi reached over and touched her finger to Violet’s lips.

“I don’t know all the details of what’s going on, Vi.”

“Are you being threatened? Did you do something illegal while we were in California?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Tell me the parts you know so I can help!”

Chi looked despondent. “I don’t know if you can help.”

“We’re supposed to be a team, Chi.” Violet was getting a little angry now.

Chi wouldn’t meet her eyes. She just sat there chewing on her lower lip. The car pulled up in front of the building and Violet was focused on Chi’s face, waiting for an answer. Chi was still staring straight ahead, but when the car stopped she asked, “Do you still have unlimited access to the records room?”

The question took Violet by surprise and she just managed to nod.

“Look up ‘Project Cadmus.’”

“What?”

“Promise me, Vi.” Chi pleaded. “It’s very important.”

“I’m not going to spy on…”

“It’s not spying. It’s research.”

“What am I going to find?”

“Me.”

Further conversation was cut off. They had arrived at the building and, to Violet’s surprise, Dicker met them at the curb. If Dicker was surprised to see Violet there, he gave no outward sign. He just offered each of them his hand in turn and helped them from the car. He insisted on seeing Chi alone, though. As Chi followed him toward the elevator, very reluctantly in Violet’s opinion, Violet headed for the records vault.

-

-

Dicker refused to talk in the elevator and merely grunted when she demanded answers. When they reached their destination, Chi was pleasantly surprised to find herself in a server room rather than an interrogation chamber. The presence of a half dozen obviously non-combatant agents was also reassuring. Dicker took her by the elbow and guided her to an access terminal. He gestured for her to sit down while he pulled several loose leaf binders from a nearby shelf. Emboldened by the evidence that she wasn’t being unceremoniously carted off to Guantanamo Bay, Chi decided to go on the offensive.

“If you need someone to debug your code, you could have just contacted my office. Technical support is one of the things Uncle Sam pays through the nose for.” Rick grunted noncommittally and plopped one of the binders down on the table in front of her. The Chi Mera Inc. logo stared back at her but she didn’t recognize the product name. “Is this even one of mine? Third party software is going to cost you a lot more…”

Rick held up a hand. “I think you know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t ask you to come down here, if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.”

“So what crisis requires my personal touch? I don’t even recognize this product line…”

“It predates your company. After Mr. Pine left us, we thought it best to reorganize our filing system. We were still casting around for a way to re-brand some of our more controversial projects when you conveniently went into business for yourself. We co-opted your corporate name to make certain programs more palatable to the auditors.” He glanced sidelong at her, “It legitimized things on several levels and even if it was discovered, you weren’t in much of a position to complain about it.”

She let the perceived threat go. “So this is something Buddy whipped up before he decided that you guys were moving too slowly and struck out on his own.” Dicker’s expression never wavered but the length of the pause before he answered made her wonder if she had revealed too much.

“Yes.” Dicker finally said, solemnly. “In fact, this was the last project he completed before leaving to pursue his own agenda.”

Chi studied his face for several minutes. He didn’t even twitch an eyebrow. Finally, she asked, “What do you want from me?”

“Last week we noticed that one of our subjects wasn’t responding to the MARS within predicted parameters. In fact, the data suggested that instead of gradually easing into a new memory pattern, the subject’s brain was remapping along previously unknown pathways and a completely new personality, unrelated to both the primary persona and the imposed persona, was emerging.” He handed her a manila folder with several pages of charts. “When we shut down the MARS at the subject’s residence, the entire system crashed and, as near as we can tell, sent out a counter pulse that momentarily reverted all subjects to their primary personas. You…” Dicker paused again, studying her face impassively. Chi kept her expression completely neutral. “…are more familiar with his work than anyone else. I need you to figure out what happened and why.”

“I might be more familiar with Buddy’s style than anyone else, but that doesn’t mean I can figure out what’s going on with a program that I had nothing to do…” Her voice trailed off as Dicker raised his eyebrows.

“No more games.” His voice was even but there was a hint of steel underneath it. “I know you were in the vicinity of a MARS transmitter in San Diego. I also know that the pulse that went out affected you. As soon as I saw the video on youtube, I called up all of our monitoring at that site and I watched you react to the system glitch as you sat on a bench next to the tank where Ms. Parr was frolicking with the whale.” Dicker leaned in and grasped Chi lightly by the shoulders. “You helped Mr. Pine write this thing. Now you’re going to help me fix it.”

“No more games, Mr. Dicker?” Chi felt her face burning with anger. “Tell me something, before I walk out of here and never look back. Are you the one who decided that I was more useful without my past? Are you the one who decided that I could be controlled more easily if I didn’t remember my connections to this place? Are you the one who decided that I was dangerous now that I was whole again? Is that why your goons stormed into my office yesterday?”

“Mirage, I assure you that until a week ago, I thought you accompanied Mr. Pine to Nomanisan because you shared his vision of the future.” An agent interrupted them and, with a significant glance at the blonde, handed Dicker a note. His eyes flicked from the note to her face several times and he whispered something in the agent’s ear before turning back to her. “It seems that Ms. Parr is making people nervous with the current direction of her research. You wouldn’t happen to know who pointed her toward Project Cadmus, would you?”

“I thought you said we were done playing games, Mr. Dicker.”

“I advised you to stop playing games, Mirage. Advice you seem to be ignoring.”

“You have me at a disadvantage. I’m just trying to level the playing field.”

“This is a very dangerous game.”

“All the more reason for me to secure every advantage I can, Mr. Dicker.”

“I’m on your side.”

“That’s very comforting to hear, especially considering the fact that half a dozen of your armed thugs showed up in my office yesterday and threatened me.”

“That wasn’t my doing, and I headed it off as soon as I-”

“Yes, very convenient the way you showed up in the nick of time.”

“I did my best to show up before the critical moment, Mirage.”

“I don’t appreciate being strong-armed, Mr. Dicker. I also don’t appreciate being manipulated.”

He regarded her dispassionately for a few moments. “You put me in a very tough position, Mirage. I’m damned if I do-“

“You put yourself in that position!” she almost yelled it. “And stop calling me ‘Mirage.’ That’s not my name.”

“Neither is ‘Mera.’”

“’Chi Mera’ is the name that Violet knows me by. I can’t think of a better endorsement for it.”

Dicker took a step back and studied her intently for several seconds. Finally, his face dropped into the familiar bland expression and he continued, “Ms. Mera, there is an internal matter here at The Agency that you seem likely to be caught in the middle of. Please help me fix this problem and I’ll do my best to make sure that you and Ms. Parr are sheltered from the fallout.”

“And if I don’t help?”

He sighed, “I’ll still do my best to keep the two of you out of the line of fire. This isn’t a shakedown. It’s a request for a favor.”

It was Chi’s turn to study him intently. After a few moments she turned away and stared at the blank screen in front of her. “Did you watch what was happening in the tank on that surveillance video? Or did you just watch what was happening to me?” she asked, quietly.

“I watched everything, Ms. Mera.”

“She’s not aware that she’s doing it, you know. She just decides to do something and thinks about how great it would be if everyone else was doing it too and then...” Chi shrugged. “...then it all works out for her.” She focused on him once more, “Keep that in mind when your ‘internal matter’ starts getting out of hand.”

“I’m well aware of how Ms. Parr affects those around her. How do you feel about it?”

“I really don’t have much choice, do I? She could take over the whole planet and we’d all think it was a great idea.” Chi sighed. “I'll do what I can, but not here. I don’t want to be stuck here. Give me the spreadsheets. I’ll take ‘em home and see what I can figure out.”

“And Violet’s research…?

“It’s my past, Mr. Dicker. I’ll share it with whomever I choose.”

“It’s our past too, young lady, and I’ll thank you to be discrete.”

Chi paused in her stacking. “You don’t understand what this means to me.”

Dicker covered her hand with his own. It was a gentle gesture, almost fatherly, and it tore open a hole in her heart.

-

-

It happens a couple of times a year, some woman in New Mexico finds a persimmon shaped like The Virgin Mary and the faithful flock to her doorstep eager to share in the magic they believe surrounds such events. The miracle at Sea World was no different and once the video hit youtube, there was no stopping them. They came from all over, sometimes singly, sometimes in small family groups. They gladly paid the park’s entry fee but never went on any of the rides or attended any of the shows. Instead, they milled about slowly in the plaza where the miraculous event had occurred, hoping, praying for another in much the same way the math-challenged flock to a store where a winning lottery ticket was sold. Larger groups followed and with in a week dozens of patrons were spending the entire day milling about the plaza, in silent and not-so-silent supplication to whatever deity they believed was responsible for the wonder. By the end of the second week, the crowd numbered in the hundreds and it was beginning to interfere with the foot traffic into and out of the park. Reg Glindon, Chief of Security, had seen the blurry video on youtube that some people claimed depicted a miracle. He was ready to concede that if you squinted and tilted your head at the right angle, it was entirely possible that the shimmering image that appeared in the video just before the little boy hit the ground was vaguely humanoid. It was also entirely possible that the entire thing was made up and the shimmer was the result of an attention-seeking amateur animator or just a glitch in the recording software. He didn’t care if it was an angel or a demon a practical joke or a trick of the light. What mattered to Reg was that he had a couple hundred people blocking his exits and slowing up the traffic through his park. He appealed to the board of directors to come up with a plan to keep the miracle seekers out of his hair and the fire lanes.

Billing it as a new attraction complete with a local marketing push and souvenir t-shirts was considered and reluctantly rejected. Many of the board members had experience dealing with the local clergy and knew that the churches would flood the park entrance with evangelists and donations collectors and that any attempt to restrict them or evict them would result in a time-consuming and very costly lawsuit over religious discrimination. The board was still arguing about the whole thing a month later and the crowds weren’t getting any smaller. But, when the National Supers Agency showed up unannounced and removed a large chunk of the plaza leaving only confusion and a two hundred square foot hole in the ground, the park administration wasted no more time. They erected a small pavilion and hired a local gospel band to dress up in robes with wings stapled on the back and perform a short set every three hours. They needn’t have bothered. Two weeks later, a woman in New Mexico found a persimmon in the shape of The Virgin Mary at a local farmer’s market that also sold lottery tickets and the crowds moved on.

-