Chapter Text
"That madman's back!" Mr. Copper shouts, jumping to his feet and reaching into my desk. "And he's brought a strange woman with him!" He then pulls out a modern pistol, which likely has ten or more shots per magazine.
And the blasted thing is aluminum.
The fear, suspicion, and outright anger on the face of every employee and customer baffles me, but Wilma hisses, "Duralumin!" Then she dives for cover behind a desk.
So… someone nearby, possibly Mr. Copper himself, has at least one Hemalurgic spike. He's intensifying all of these people's emotions, stoking their fear and anger, and with duralumin that power has far exceeded what any normal Rioter can achieve.
I'm already tapping tremendous physical speed from my full bracers, but for the moment it's only for the mental bonus. It still can't match Wilma's Feruchemy, but time appears to have slowed. Mr. Copper is already taking aim, Jinn is drawing his own revolver, and I notice two new security guards as well. None of my coworkers look different, I see no sign of them remembering the real me, and they clearly haven't forgotten yesterday's events. So whatever exactly is going on, it's selective. Along with Wilma, it's likely that Doctor Koslenko and those two Invested constables have forgotten yesterday. Otherwise, they would have arrested me at my home last night. But these people are still under whatever delusion made yesterday such a living nightmare. Many look hostile, and the rest look scared. Burning steel, I see that the guns of the new guards aren't aluminum, but that doesn't really matter.
I must make a choice, now.
Do I hope they're bluffing, and let myself get arrested? Or do I give up my most important secret, using my full power in front of all these witnesses?
I push my speed to the limit, and I see the moment when Mr. Copper starts to pull the trigger.
So be it. He's made my decision for me.
Sidestepping the gun barrel just before it fires, I cross the room in a blur. The bullet zips by on my right, just slow enough for me to briefly see it, and I reach my bewitched coworker. I snatch the gun from Jinn's hand, turn to put a bullet through Mr. Copper's right wrist, and then burn steel to push against the handguns carried by the new guards. The weapons fly from their hands, and I zip about, snatching guns out of the air. A bit cheeky, I even stuff my pockets with ammo and magazines stollen from the gunmen. In under a second from the perspective of my coworkers, I've stolen four guns and am back at Wilma's side. I see that she already has her own weapon out, and her eyes are turning toward me. Even with my speed at max, her mind is still faster than mine. Her eyes can't really track my movements, but she has time to ponder what she saw in her peripheral vision. She can therefore interpret my actions easily, as I would have moved in slow motion from her perspective.
"Let's go!" I spit out the words as fast as possible for Wilma's sake. Everyone but her would have heard a single, high-pitched chirp, but to Wilma, it would have taken considerable time for me to utter those two words. I put the two aluminum revolvers in Wilma's purse, and I brandish the other two guns threateningly. I cut back on my speed, and together, Wilma and I sprint from the bank.
The taxi driver hasn't gotten far, and we both shout for him to stop. In his rearview mirror, his eyes widen almost comically at the sight of our three firearms, but he still stops.
"The bank is being robbed!" Wilma shouts, as the taxi driver leans out his window and looks toward us. "The robbers tried to kill us! Please, get us to safety!"
Incredibly, the deception works. Perhaps Wilma calculated his reaction based on his earlier concern for our well-being. Or perhaps the driver took a shine to her. Either way, he backs up his car so we can reach him more quickly.
"To the police station!" Wilma shouts as we leap in. Several of my coworkers are already spilling out of the bank in pursuit, but thankfully Mr. Copper and the guards were far from the front door. The car peels out, burning rubber.
"Thank you!" I say. "What's your name?"
"My friends call me Spook!"
Despite the serious peril of our situation, I still blurt, "As in… the Lord Mistborn?"
"My friends think I'm pretty metal! Speaking of which…" He scares me as he briefly takes one hand off the wheel, despite weaving through traffic at high speed. He swallows an Allomantic vial, then says, "Impressive! You're both Allomancers! A Coinshot and an Oracle!"
Realizing this "Spook" must be a Seeker, I stop tapping steel, but it's too late.
"Wow! Not just Allomancers, Twinborn? Epic! I'm not as good at reading Feruchemy, but I can tell you're both tapping metalminds! I've never had two Twinborn as fares before!"
"Please focus on the road," Wilma says.
I lean over, and whisper in her ear. "The police station makes sense for our cover story, but where are we actually going?"
"No tricks. We really do want the police station."
My confusion lasts less than a second before I make the connection. We could learn a lot by discovering whether those two constables changed their appearance, and if any others in their department have lost their memories.
"There's even more than you probably think," Wilma whispers.
I love how brilliant my wife is. I take a moment, thinking it through. There's a very high chance that those responsible for all of this are criminal in nature. They manipulated police, robbed my house, and got that Mr. Copper to take my place and try to shoot me. Enlisting the support of Invested constables could be enormously helpful. Our secret's out anyway…
"So, 'Spook,' let's be open with each other. I see you're wearing several bronze bracelets and earrings, but my metalsight can barely detect them. Unless you paid extra for Invested bracelets that Allamancers can't manipulate, these are your metalminds. You're a bronze Compounder, aren't you?"
"Ya got me!" the driver says happily. "Yep, I'm a Twinborn Sentinel. I haven't had to sleep since I snapped as a kid!"
"You are not just a taxi driver," Wilma postulates. "A man who can detect kinetic Investiture and never needs to sleep?"
Though still driving quite swiftly, Spook falls silent.
"What's your guess, honey?"
One of Wilma's smaller bracelets starts to become more visible to my metalsight, indicating that she's drawn out a significant chunk of the mental speed stored therein. "The police would find a bronze Compounder immensely useful. And if two constables lost their memories of yesterday, they would have had time to discover this by now. If any of their written records survived the tampering of our mysterious malefactors, they've likely discovered only in the last hour or so that you might be a person of interest…" She turns her attention back to Spook. "It was no coincidence that you were the taxi driver waiting on our street corner. You are a constable, and you were deliberately sent to pick us up, observe us, and report back. It better explains your willingness to brave gunfire to rescue us from the bank. Further, it's quite convenient, for you, that we want to go to the police station."
When Spook speaks, his silly, frivolous air has been replaced by serious contemplation. "I think I've guessed your Feruchemy, lady Forecaster."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"Well, you weren't as subtle as you thought. You connected the dots way too quickly, and most of your bracelets and jewelry are zinc."
"Your friendly airhead act was quite convincing, and your charming demeanor disarming."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"Wait," I say, "if you're a constable, then when we said the bank was being robbed, why didn't you–"
"We thought there was a chance you might go to your bank, so we had four plainclothes constables posted nearby, led by a Tineye. In the rear mirror, I saw them heading in before we drove away."
Unbuckling my seatbelt, I lean forward. "Level with me: what do the police know of yesterday's events?"
"More than the mysterious enemy wants us to know," Spook answers, as we turn right. "Yesterday evening, Constables Neltson and Turstein lost all short-term memory, and their reports for the day were missing or blank."
"By any chance do they look different today?" I ask.
"Ah... so your wife's ID isn't fake," Spook says slyly. "I've been trying to figure out why she showed me a picture of another woman. Wacky to learn that it's her that apparently looks wrong, instead of a picture."
"Please answer my husband's question," Wilma says, polite but firm. "It's important."
"The constables with the missing memories have not changed their appearance. No idea why such a thing happened to you. But the officers called HQ not long before their memories cut off, so we knew there was a strange man claiming to work at a bank where no one recognized him. Our initial search showed no records of a David Gurnet, but a few things didn't add up. Most importantly, our file on two gangsters under guard at the hospital no longer contains the name or description of whoever brought them in. With such poor records, we worried we'd have to release them.
"You better not," I insist. "They may be small fry compared to whoever's messing with Memory, Identity, and Connection, but those two still tried to murder me."
"Oh, we're putting the pieces together, and we haven't let on to the gangsters that anything's wrong. Anyway, as we dug, hospital records showed various gaps in the schedule relating to a specific room, and no one knows why one of their Malwish Bloodmaker medallions is much lower on stored health than it should be."
"Your people work quickly," I say, genuinely impressed.
"Well, we may have been tipped off by a Faceless Immortal," Spook admitted. "Harmony has been… unwell in recent years, but he still sent one of his servants to warn us of suspicious Investiture that he hasn't been able to track. I'm gonna level with ya: Harmony's agents think those responsible aren't from Skadrial at all. Local Investiture can't fully explain what's going on."
"Along those lines…" Wilma sounds worried, and I turn toward her. She's pulled out a little mirror, and stares into it with a mix of confusion and resignation.
For the second time today, I don't recognize my wife.
Her skin is even paler now, but liberally freckled. Her eyes are a brilliant green, her hair a fiery red, and her clothes have changed from yellow to brown.
"What in the Survivor's name?" Spook demands. "What happened to you?"
"I have a question for you," Wilma says, accepting her latest change in appearance and exchanging the mirror for her revolver. "You've been very generous with information… but you are not heading toward the police station. You just missed the last turn that would have made any sense."
I doublecheck the street signs, and realize she's right.
"Don't stress, Forecaster," Spook says. "And you won't need that gun. We're going to meet several allies, most of them police. But HQ is too obvious, and there are likely hostile agents embedded in the department. We're heading to a rendezvous point in the Roughs. Hopefully, we'll have some privacy while we share what we know and try to figure out what's next."
I try to keep calm. "Who exactly will we be meeting there?"
"A total of five people," Spook answers, changing lanes. "The two constables whose memories were manipulated will be there, along with our most… unique Investigator. She's the protégé of the retired Marasi Colms."
"Will Doctor Koslenko be there too?" I ask.
"Very shrewd," Spook answers. "He also lost his memories of yesterday, and everyone hopes talking things through will help."
Wilma smiles and says, "Is the fifth person a Faceless Immortal?"
My head spins. Sure, zinc lets her think quickly, but that alone can't explain such leaps of intuition. My girl would have been brilliant even if she weren't born a Sparker Ferring.
Spook shakes his head, bewildered. "There's no hiding anything from you, is there?"
"My private research suggests the kandra VenDell is a leading expert on cognitive and spiritual Feruchemy," Wilma says with a dismissive wave. "It's only logical to enlist his help with this matter."
My jaw drops. "You know the name of an Immortal servant of Harmony? I mean, other than the famous TenSoon?"
She shrugs. "Sazed teaches that all truth is important, and we're expected to meditate at least fifteen minutes per day. It just so happens that I can think a lot during those fifteen minutes, and I usually do so in Sanctuaries sometimes visited by Faceless Immortals."
Flummoxed, I lean back into the seat. She makes it all sound so matter of fact and commonplace. "Dear… sometimes you impress me more than–"
"Accelerate!" Wilma shrieks, leaning forward and grabbing Spook's shoulder. The intensity of that scream, combined with Spook likely sensing an increase in the power of her Investiture, barely saves us. He hits the gas, putting on a burst of speed barely in time to avoid being hit by a bus coming from the side.
Bullets from the bus shatter the rear window, and I tap steel, shoving Wilma down toward the floor. Bits of glass slice my cheek, and Spook hisses in pain as a bullet grazes his left shoulder. I spin, taking aim with the two guns I stole at the bank, and return fire. Though I'm untrained, and both vehicles are moving in different directions, I'm able to fire both weapons at the maximum possible speed allowed by their internal mechanisms. The front right tire blows out, and the bus fails to turn in time to follow us.
"I officially declare this an emergency!" Spook shouts over the rush of air through the shattered windshield. He winces as he uses his injured arm to place a light on the roof of the car, followed by a siren. Affixed magnetically, they declare this taxi an official police vehicle, and traffic parts as we speed up. "I'll take that murder attempt as a good sign!" Spook says, with some of his earlier, lighter persona back. "Our current plan is something the mysterious enemy does not approve of! Also, it's epic to see that you're a Twinborn Flash!" He smiles at me in the rearview mirror. "That might just be the single most potent combination of Investiture on Skadrial. Seriously, not even a legendary Mistborn of old could take you on without atium."
With my speed enhanced, I've had just enough time to recover from that near-death experience, and Wilma is sitting back up. "Excellent interpretation of your electrum vision," I say.
"It wasn't especially complicated," Wilma says. "The shadow of my future self abruptly smashed flat and flew sideways. A high-speed collision was by far the most likely explanation. Though, I did calculate the possibility of someone combining Allomantic steel and duralumin with the tapping of Feruchemical iron. But if we were facing someone that strong we'd have been killed no matter what."
She swallows a rich vial of electrum shavings, closes her eyes, and falls silent. I can tell that she's focusing her enhanced mind exclusively on her electrum shadow, ready to get as much intel as possible from every little detail. The Words of Founding report that Allomancers before the Catacendre referred to electrum as "poor man's atium," feeling its only value was canceling the extreme advantage granted to an opponent burning Ruin's metal. But my brilliant wife, with her mind accelerated, can make far greater use of that power than any Oracle before her.
I lean forward. "Spook, I need you to focus on the road, but if Wilma says anything, you need to follow her directions immediately. Her electrum vision gives very little warning, and even she will need to use just a little of that time to interpret what she sees and shout a meaningful command. If you hesitate, even slightly, it might be too late."
"No pressure, huh?" But Spook seems to be taking this seriously.
I'm alone with my thoughts for a time, with Wilma absorbed in her electrum shadow and with Spook ready to respond to her command. We have theories regarding how the enemy is manipulating us, and their motive almost certainly involves my exceptional Investiture. But who are they? And if they want to force me to join them, why did they just try to kill me? Did they know Wilma would sound the warning? Were those bullets intended to kill Spook rather than me?
Siren and lights still blazing, harsh wind blowing through the car, we escape the city and pick up speed, heading north. Electrum burns slowly, but even so, Wilma's supply won't last for the entire journey, and neither will her mental speed. She whispers that she's using both powers at a minimum, intending to tap more mental speed and flare her Allomancy if she detects even the slightest irregularity in her electrum vision. That'll have to be enough.
We pause briefly in Alendel to check the tires, and we make it as far as Drypost without incident, but all three of us have grown quite hungry. Wilma especially is starving. Feruchemy might empower her mind to process data and observe reality at far greater speed, but her brain still needs to burn enough calories to make it possible. I stand guard, badly stressed, as Spook runs into one of the newfangled "convenience stores" that were thought up by the Wayne Estate. He dashes back out with three impressively large sandwiches and a giant bottle of something sugary, and we eat while we drive.
"It's a very good sign that we haven't seen trouble since Elendel," Spook observes, having finished the last of his sandwich. "Maybe that van was the only vehicle the enemy had access to. Blowing out that tire might have saved the day."
"Thanks." I stuff the last of my sandwich into my face, noting that Wilma finished eating very quickly and returned to her meditative trance.
The taxi passes into the narrow gap between the Channeral Range and the Faleast Range. We're almost to the Roughs. We still have about an hour left before we reach the rendezvous point. Our fuel should hold out, since Spook said he filled the taxi's large reserve gas tank. If he's right about that van being the only–
"Brace!" Wilma screams.
An instant later, the taxi crashes to a violent stop.