“Just a few hours, but it was enough time to figure out what I was dealing with and formulate a rudimentary plan. Fortunately, I had my computer tablet with me.”
“So in that time, you managed to lock the prison back up, come up with a way to leave me clues, and formulate a plan to capture the escaped Busuigno?”
“Yeah,” he droned. “I admit it’s not my best work, but you have to use the tools available.”
“And then,” I continued, “when the time bubble disappeared, you came out swinging.”
“Not exactly,” Mouse stated. “I didn’t know if anyone else would be immune to the Busuigno, so I gave it a second.”
“That’s not the way it comes across on the video,” I countered. “Looks like you just started blasting.”
Mouse frowned for a second, then began tapping on his tablet. A few seconds later, he pointed at the monitor that had previously shown my pic, saying, “You mean this video?”
It was the initial footage I’d seen of Mouse going on the offensive in his lab, only this time there was audio.
“Get him,” I heard my father say just before Mouse blasted him.
Next, Luna screamed “Die!” as she charged at my mentor.
I turned to Mouse (who paused the video) and said, “There wasn’t audio on the clip they showed me.”
“You think they wanted you to hear that?” he asked rhetorically. “But there was audio on the footage I left on the computer for you. Didn’t you hear it when you played that?”
“Hmmm,” I droned. “I kinda didn’t check to see if the audio was on…or if the volume was turned up.”
Mouse wiped his face with his hand, mumbling, “Why do I even try?”
“Let’s just get back on task,” I suggested. Glancing back at the paused video, another question occurred to me. “AP said there was some kind of power surge from the Construct that took the camera offline for a second. He also said it was what unhinged you.”
Mouse shook his head. “The time sphere was the only thing that seemed to emanate from the Construct. But if you’re talking about why they only have that one piece of footage at their disposal, that was my doing.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“When I was in the time sphere, the escaped Busuigno were in there with me. They could see what I was doing. Therefore, I couldn’t actually implement everything I wanted to because they’d know what I was up to. Still, I could lay a good bit of the groundwork, as long as I kept it somewhat obtuse.”
“So they could see, maybe, that you were planning to reach out to someone, but they didn’t know how or when.”
“Correct. With respect to the footage, after I escaped from the lab, it was second nature to me to cover my tracks.”
“So you deleted the lab footage from the system.”
“I started deleting it, but at the time, I saw that someone – presumably the Busuigno – were in the system as well, trying to download it. I was curious as to what they wanted it for, so I let them have the portion that they showed you.”
I spent a moment reflecting on what my mentor had just said. “What do you think they wanted it for?”
“They obviously used it for propaganda purposes – to get people who weren’t under their control to think I’d gone off the rails. But I think the real reason was the Construct.”
“What’s the big deal about footage of that?” I asked.
“They’ve been imprisoned in there for a long time – thousands of years, at the least. And during that time, they’ve been doing their best to get out.”
“I get it,” I chimed in. “They wanted to see how you opened it.”
“Exactly, and I think they got enough of an idea to form a plan.”
“So how did I get on their radar? Did they see something related to me when you were in the temporal sphere?”
Mouse shook his head. “I didn’t give any direct indication of who I was trying to recruit. However, Alpha Prime knew that I had called you, and I assume when the Busuigno took control of him, they saw that. More to the point, they saw what you could do and assumed they could use you. So at some point one of them attached itself to you, but – much to their dismay, I’m sure – you proved unsusceptible to their control.”
As my mentor spoke, I suddenly remembered something that had happened around the time I was being recruited to hunt him down.
“The conference room,” I muttered.
Mouse raised an eyebrow. “What’s that?”
“That first night they told me you’d gone rogue,” I explained. “I was in the conference room with Alpha Prime, and I felt this weird tingle at the back of my mind. At the same time, AP looked at me like he was expecting something. I think that’s when the Busuigno attached to me.”
Mouse shrugged. “Probably. That’s similar to what it felt like when it tried to attach to me, but I was able to shake it off.”
“So is it somehow reading my thoughts now?”
“I don’t think so,” Mouse said. “I mean, typically they can access the thoughts and memories of their hosts, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with your symbiont. In fact, based on what I can tell, yours seems to be dying.”
“What?!” I screeched. “Is that going to affect me?”
“Unlikely,” Mouse stated. “The Busuigno feed, for lack of a better term, on the psychic and mental energy of their host. In your case, the inability to take control also means that the symbiont can’t feed.”
“Then why doesn’t it just let go – move on?”
“I’m not sure it can,” Mouse replied. “My guess is there’s some kind of psychic feedback or reaction that prevents it from releasing its grip on you.”
“I think I understand,” I said. “The way a person who grabs a live wire can’t let go because the electricity clenches their muscles, so they end up getting electrocuted.”
“Exactly.”
“Do
