Book 2: Chapter 88: Breaching Sanctuary (1/2)

Dozens of thin blue lines spiderwebbed in every direction, all leading away from the swirling silver orb. They weren't there, really. It was Dan's power that brought them into being. His Navigator found the connections and his veil bridged the distance. He could feel the well of power within him draining, as the strings stretched farther and farther. He quickly put an end to it, and progress stopped.

Dan knew he could follow any string with nothing but a flex of his will, but he held steady. The worst possible outcome would be to travel to a cache still connected to Vault, and somehow alert the Natural to Dan's meddling. The cache's he'd meddled with had been thus far removed from Vault's... influence? Deliberately so, if Dan was parsing the feeling correctly. Unfortunately, he couldn't tell which caches were connected and which were not until he used his veil to interface them, which again lead to the aforementioned issue.

Dan's goal was two-fold: Discover where these caches came out in reality, and determine whether their contents contained a small army of terrorists. He needed to accomplish both of these goals subtly—not his strong point—and in a way that could be acted upon by Anastasia and whatever army goons she could rustle up. He was still uncertain exactly how Vault's power worked, or if the man himself was even alive. Anastasia's initial theory could be correct: Echo may very well be mimicking the man's power. Dan might be chasing an entirely unrelated string, or Echo's mimicry may be so accurate that it has effectively become a beacon for Dan's Navigator.

Only time would tell.

Location was the first problem that needed to be solved. Dan was tracking caches through the Gap. He could find them there, or in the spot where they overlaid with reality. Either way, Dan had no real way to determine their location without physically appearing there. That was an issue, given the likelihood of danger. He was likely to be shot by a startled terrorist, or even a completely unaffiliated homeowner, given Dan's own situation with his basement. Either way, it was a situation to be avoided.

There was another option, but it was one Dan feared to attempt. He had, multiple times now, used his veil to see into the Gap, while remaining firmly rooted in reality. It was a simple act for him, basically wearing his power like a contact lens. It worked perfectly, letting him spot the caches that were otherwise undetectable. He imagined that, should other powers hide things in t-space, it would remain just as useful. It was effective and easy to use.

He was utterly petrified of attempting the same action while in t-space.

Dan could not visualize a moment frozen in time. He knew the Gap operated on a completely separate time scale, but how did it work? It was all well and good to look into it from Dimension A; Dan didn't care about the flow of time in the Gap while he wasn't in it. Besides, the Gap changed for whomever perceived it. Time, or whatever proxy existed in this place, likely slowed itself to match reality whenever Dan looked in from there. Not that it mattered, regardless. Nothing ever happened in the Gap. What did it matter if time went a little odd if Dan wasn't inside to experience it?

On the other hand, the time dilation was utterly crucial to maintain while inside the Gap. It was one of Dan's greatest advantages, and he was terrified that gazing out into reality would forever alter the nature of t-space in his own perception. Because it would have to change, to match reality. Otherwise, Dan wouldn't see a thing. Light had to be moving for his eyes to function. Right?

He was already overthinking it, and this was exactly his issue. Perhaps his subconscious would adjust the Gap's speed to match reality, to square that circle in logic. Perhaps it wouldn't need to, and the Gap would remain out of sync with reality, and his veil would pick up whatever slack was needed. Once he saw the world moving at the same pace as the Gap, would this dreamspace not alter itself to make that the truth? And could Dan ever un-alter it, after having that image seared into his mind? Controlling one's own perceptions was not easy when presented concrete evidence to the contrary of what you were trying to achieve. It just wasn't worth the risk, despite how insanely useful it would be. He refused to lose the advantage of time. Even just being able to calm down without a moment passing was invaluable to him.

He'd have to find another way.

It did put him in a bit of a pickle, though. He'd dismissed his easiest solution, and was now left with a whole host of lesser ones. Dan eyed the snarled webs, extending wildly through space. One by one, he withdrew his veil back into himself. He counted each thread as it faded from view, until none were left.

Twenty-seven.

Not as many as he'd feared, but many more than he'd hoped.

Dan drifted back towards his original cache, still merrily floating in space. Tentatively, he pushed more of his veil into the sphere, flooding it with his power well past what was first necessary. The more of his veil that resided within the sphere, the clearer his senses became. He was searching for... something. He wasn't sure. He had a goal in mind, without a clear picture of how to accomplish it.

The sphere's color was slowly changing into the familiar sky blue of Dan's veil. Dan frowned at the sight. He'd always been a visual person. He felt in his bones that what he wanted was possible, he simply needed to figure out a way to properly express it. With a flex of will his veil drew back from the sphere's edges, condensing itself smaller and smaller. The cache was roughly the size of Dan's torso, but his veil and drawn itself into a tight cylinder, scarcely wider than Dan's fist.

He approached the orb, ignoring its swirling features, and focusing entirely on the makeshift hole his veil had created. He reached into his front pocket and grabbed hold of the first thing he found, a small pen. He held it loosely between his fingers and slowly, deliberately, pushed it into the spot where his veil met the cache. It wasn't about the action; the action accomplished exactly nothing. It was about seeing it. It was about linking expectation with reality, and willing the result he desired—

The pen vanished from his hands, and he knew without a shadow of doubt that it had been deposited into the cache.