There's a deafening ringing sound, my vision clears up and I can feel the cold on my back as I lie down in the snow. My eyes lazily roll to look at Clyde, who seems completely unharmed. He has his sword pulled back, and the angel is on her knees bleeding profusely from her head. He swings harshly and brutally, and her dome gets lopped off cleanly.
I heave myself up, "Holy hell! That was messy."
Clyde tries to calm his breathing, "Yeah, no kidding. Some angel huh?"
The angel's body remains on the floor, blood pooling out of the neck. The head lies still in the snow, it's really just another normal human body, was a normal human body.
"That's...different," says Abel, stepping closer to the body. "Angels are supposed to leave Earth with a magnificent beacon of holy light."
Jacob joins our small circle, "I...I don't understand."
"I hate to burst your bubble," says Clyde, "but this was obviously some deranged human posing as an angel."
Jacob and Abel share the same look of utter disappointment and profound sadness. They stare at the body, watching it do absolutely nothing.
"Dammit!" Jacob says.
"Look," I begin, "I really wish I could explain this whole thing, but I can't, not right now anyway."
Jacob falls on his knees and begins weeping. Abel accompanies him on the floor, his arm thrown around his friend's shoulders. He lets him cry for a few minutes as Clyde and I stand there awkwardly. Jacob eventually pulls himself together and reaches into his jacket pocket.
"Here," he says while pulling out the mysterious box, "we don't need this anymore. You can have it if you still want it."
I hesitantly reach out and take it from his cold fingers, "Case closed, huh Clyde?"
"Not yet," he says, "the threat is gone, but there are still some unanswered questions."
He's right. There's still the matter of the divine power that we witnessed, including the glowing lantern and the warped reality around this woman. I give a sincere goodbye to the Biblical Brothers who still sit in the snow. I feel bad for them, but unfortunately, Ispio training asks me to detach from victims involved in a case. We have to leave soon, and I've already called for a pickup from Barry The Pilot. We leave them to tend to themselves.
"Can I drive this time?" I ask.
Clyde shrugs and walks around to the passenger door. I get in the driver's seat and turn the heater on full blast. The night is dead and chilly, and I feel the same way on the inside. I push my emotional priorities to the back of my mind and search in my memory for a good distraction.
"Hey, you got hit with the angel's lantern right on the head. You okay?" I ask.
"What? I didn't get hit, what are you talking about?"
"Wha-yes you did! I was standing right next to you when it happened. She hit you with the lantern, the place lit up like a fireworks show, then suddenly I was on the ground and you had the angel on her knees!"
"Jesus, what drugs are you on? That's not what happened at all."
Okay, there's something wrong here. I stop talking and focus on the icy roads. Suddenly, the radio turns on by itself, changing its own station to play some old marching music. I jump a little, but Clyde seems completely unfazed, and simply turns it off.
"Dammit Troy, you know how I feel about marching music."
"Uh...I didn't do that."
"Oh please, I'm sitting right next to you! You think I can't see your arm turning the knobs?"
I almost lose control of the car due to me staring at Clyde for so long. I cannot comprehend anything that he's talking about, but maybe I can chalk it up to his drinking-on-the-job habits. Jesus, he's never been this bad about it before though. I'll stay silent for the rest of the ride, but Clyde keeps talking to me like I'm engaging in a full conversation with him. He even laughs at jokes he thinks I made. I'm going to need to send him to Dr. Nivans to inspect his cranium, the guy's going nuts in my passenger seat!
*** *** ***
Barry's Private Jet
We sit in our usual seats, working on the mission summary to wrap up this case. Clyde continues talking to himself while writing, asking me to quiet down or telling me, "I know, Troy". I reach into the pocket that I keep Jacob's box in, and set it down on the desk. I flip it over, inspecting all sides and corners of the thing. It appears to just be some normal speaker player for a radio, but wires should be connected to it. I flip it over again and find the switch that Jacob pressed to activate the sonic sound. I press it, and Clyde let out a small yelp, pressing his hands against his head.
I turn it off, "You okay?"
He looks at me, "Yeah, just got a split-second migraine or something."
"Maybe you should try and sleep more, or you need to lay off the hooch."
"Yeah right, I barely had any tonight. Now sit back down and finish your work."
"But Clyde...I'm already sitting down."
He turns his head back to his paperwork and goes on with his business. I'm not an expert on drinking, but something tells me that alcohol doesn't include a severe hallucination side effect in such a small quantity.
*** *** ***
Hartford, Connecticut: Ispio Clinic Center
"It's almost impossible to explain this without sounding like a sci-fi plot," Dr. Nivans says, "but it looks like...extra life molecules have lodged themselves in Clyde's brain and body."
"Um...what?" I ask.
"Yep. Trust me, I've never seen anything like it before either. Checking his vital signs and basic living factors show that his heart rate is tripled. Something like that should've killed him by now, or at least cause a series of health problems, but it hasn't!"
"Okay, how is any of this even possible?"
"Well, extra passageways and added space keep his blood flowing like regular, but he's just pumping extra quickly now. His brain mass has increased as well, but I won't know what's going on up there until I get the developed papers back. If I could sum it up in just a few words, I'd say that his body is holding two Clydes, forgive the rudimentary terms."
"Forgive me if I'm not following any of this, Doc, but from what I'm hearing, you're saying that his body is working for two now? What does that mean, like another person moved in with him?"
"Yes, sort of, I wouldn't really use that phrase to describe it. He shows signs of third-party knowledge. He knows things that he couldn't have possibly known. It's like some apparition is showing him the right way, telling him all the answers, and from what I can tell, it's apparently another you, Troy."
My brain clicks back to the conversations he was having with himself, "That would explain why he thought I was talking on the plane. Where is he now?"
"I got him sitting in the patient room. He keeps saying that he doesn't need you watching over him so often."
"Yeah, and I haven't seen him in the past three hours."
"No, but apparently he's seeing you."
Man, that's creepy, "Let me ask you something Doc. Is it possible that Clyde's new visitor has the power to control real-world objects? Say, turning a radio knob for example?"
He looks down at his clipboard, "Well, I really can't answer that with confidence. I'd say that it might be possible to disrupt and change the atoms around him to slightly alter their initial state, electronics would be the most susceptible, but he isn't limited to just that." My confused face prompted him to explain it differently, "I mean, telekinesis. Moving things with his mind."
I remember Clyde saying that he saw my arm turning the knobs on the car radio, but of course, I actually didn't. Maybe it's telekinesis to us, but to him, it's just me touching things around him. It seems so surreal to me, but everything must look normal in his mind.
"I should probably talk to Adams about all this. Keep an eye on Clyde for me, and don't let him leave, not even for the bathroom."
His eyes roll and his chest heaves with a forced sigh. "Sure, I've got nothing else on my plate anyway."
*** *** ***
Adams Office
"So, what do you think?" she asks.
"What do you mean?"
"About Clyde's condition?"
"Um, it's horrible! Why would you even ask that? How did you even hear about it already?"
"I'm head of this quadrant and supervisor of this office, I hear everything, but think about this Troy, Dr. Nivans said that he's gained third-party knowledge with this condition. He gets immediate leads all of a sudden." She gets out of her chair and approaches me, "It's like a secret door that he could open to find the answers we need. It's even possible for him to track down Archer Fury."
I step back from her, appalled by her way of thinking, "You're kidding, Carlotta! Poor Clyde has a mental condition, and you want to turn him into Ispio's personal circus act!"
"Not a circus act, more like an unbelievably helpful tool."
"That doesn't make it sound any less evil. He's my friend, and he's your agent! We have to set him straight again, put him back to normal in any way possible!" I pull out Jacob's box, "Besides, this thing seems to cause a reaction to Clyde. Whenever I turn it on, he gets a headache."
She takes the box from me, "Okay, I'll send this to the tech department and have them reverse-engineer it. But Troy, let this situation pan out a bit further, alright."
"How could you ask me to do such a thing!?"
"I wasn't asking. Don't mention anything to Clyde, let him think he's okay in the head. If he shows signs of possible terminal side-effects, we'll cut him off and place him in a rehabilitation center for a full recovery cycle."
I can't believe what I'm hearing, but I'm not about to fight with my boss right after she gave our jobs back. I bite my tongue and stay silent, walking out of her office and back down to the clinic. I ask Dr. Nivans to see Clyde, and he points me to the door.
I look through the viewing glass to see him sitting on the bed, talking along with nobody. The door opens silently as I glide right through, trying not to disturb him from his engaging discussion about which fruit was the best to wake yourself up with. He seems pretty determined to say apples were the best decision.
"Okay Clyde, let's get you out of here," I say.
"So you forfeit your side and say apples are better?"
"I...yeah, you're right. Their nutrients are very invigorating in the morning. Now c'mon, we have to report to Adams about the mission."
"About time. I don't know why the doc wanted to see me as soon as I got back."
He thinks that I've been in here with him the whole time. I'm a very charismatic guy, but if I had to spend all day and all night with me, well that would just be annoying.