The Watchtower Affair - Now You See It, Now You Don't
Bridgette's Diary
13 February, 1925 (cont...)
Taking a
deep breath to shake off the remaining affects of my “other sight” I crawled
over to take a look at Mr. Long’s ankle. It didn’t appear to be injured too
badly. The bullet had lost power after bouncing off of Pathos, plus the angle
with which it struck him was slight enough to not cause serious damage. It was
really more of a grazing wound. While bandaging it, I made sure to comment on
how lucky he was that it wasn’t worse. He’d have a slight limp for a little
while, but would be fine in just a few days.
After I
finished tying off the bandage, I picked myself up off the floor and tried the
door once more. Blessedly, it was unlocked. Yanking it open, I strode through
and headed for the front door. No, I didn’t look back to see if they followed,
or if they headed to the elevators, or if they even stood around in the lobby.
I wanted out of that building – now.
Later, I
learned that the rest of the gang had their own troubles on the elevator,
getting into a fight in even more crowded confines than our stair landing.
According to Keira, Mr. Rasicci tried to convince the “mob boys” with them that
the person on the top floor was really an imposter whom they needed to kill. It
seemed like a good idea and it might even have worked were it not for the mind
control of whatever was up there. All of the gang, except for Mr. Wilde, dove
for the floor to take cover. Mr. Wilde drew that amazing energy sword of his
and cut all of the mob boys down where they stood. It sounds like the world’s
shortest, least bloody fight. And for whatever reason, their elevator then returned
to the first floor, where they all exited in a bit of confusion.
Mr. Long
had followed me through the lobby and out the door. Mr.Smith had started to
follow before noticing the elevator returning to the lobby level. He decided to
wait and see who would get off. It turned out to be the rest of our group. Together
all of them headed for the door.
I had
stopped at the edge of the sidewalk, sinking down to sit on the rough cement and
inhale several very deep breaths. To Mr. Long’s honor, he did stop near me and
try to reassure me that everything would be fine. I’m not sure he fully
realized why I was so upset, which is just as well, given his animosity towards
Pathos. My apparently protectiveness, as well as my attraction to him, left me
very puzzled and off kilter, although the vast majority of my discomfort did
stem from the building itself. It was as though it was trying to protect itself
from something, as though it feared we might find out its secrets, which it
dearly wanted kept secret. And it was very, very good at protecting itself.
It was a
relief to see everyone else coming out of the building only a moment or two
behind us. I continued to sit where I was, taking deep breathes and trying to
calm my rampaging nerves. And then, well, the next thing I knew, I was down the
sidewalk, past where our cars were parked. My cheek stung slightly from the
slap that Mr. Smith had just delivered. Apparently the building was trying to
get us to leave as quickly as possible, as everyone else, with the exception of
Mr. Smith, had suddenly just started silently walking away from the building.
We all had that vacant look to our faces. I’d barely time to give him a
startled look before he continued on to Mr. Rasicci and slapped him as well. He
was calculating just how hard he needed to hit everyone to snap them out of it.
Shortly we
were all piling back into the cars and returning to Mr. Rasicci’s office to
regroup and figure out what to do next. For the moment, the building was
getting its wish to see us gone. Unfortunately for it, most of us would be
back. Whatever was inside causing all of this was going to be taken out.
Somehow. Personally, I was for tearing the whole thing down and scattering the
rubble to the proverbial far corners. And no, I didn’t wait until our return to
Mr. Rasicci’s before knocking back a drink from my flask. Actually, I believe
it took two swigs before I felt calmer. If I recall correctly, the flask was
passed around to everyone in our car. Even Keira imbibed.
Once
situated in Mr. Rasicci’s office again, we ran through what we knew and discussed
our options for how to tackle the new beastie. To start the discussion off, Mr. Smith shared what he had recalled back in lobby.
A few years ago, there had been a similar situation with some powerful
supernatural creature atop Big Ben. The only real differences between the two
cases were how strong this creature’s mind control abilities were proving to be
and the fact that the building was invisible. Big Ben had remained in sight the
entire time.
The biggest concern seemed to be
the mind control. Whatever this “Watchtower” creature was, it was very
powerful. So far it had had a field day taking control of us one by one. And at
the end of our eventful visit, it had even taken control of all of us, but one,
in an attempt to get us to leave. Mr. Smith was talking about the use of a tin
foil hat to help protect one from being mind controlled, which sounded
absolutely ridiculous to me, although I know it to be quite common in some
esoteric circles. However, there was little evidence to support the theory so
far, even in the parapsychological community.
Personally, I thought it just made the wearer look silly.
Finally I
had an inkling of an idea and spoke up. There was a possibility that I could
make an elixir to protect one from the mind control. Perhaps boost up a
person’s willpower enough that they could shrug off any attempt on the part of
another to gain control over them. It was worth a shot if they could just get
me into a lab somewhere.
Belle spoke
up that she knew someone at Northwestern, here in Chicago, and could maybe
arrange it. After borrowing Mr. Rasicci’s telephone, we were good to go. As for
removing the monster from the equation, we were all for blowing it up. Even
though none of us had gotten a look at it, we were all fairly certain that it
was of a good size, given its psychic powers. It was obviously pulling the
strings on several people all at the same time, which was both frightening and
impressive. This left us feeling that it was simply too large to make sure we
could take it out with the usual handgun and also unlikely that a larger gun
would do the trick. There was also the fact that we couldn’t see the danged
thing either. That left explosives and we hoped we could limit the damage to
just the upper part of the building, sparing any of the surroundings much
damage. It was decided that while I was in the lab, working on the elixir, the
men would be working to come up with a plan on how to proceed with the
explosives. They would also figure out how to procure said explosives in a
suitable quantity to do the job.
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