The Hollow - an original novel by free-reign --- Continuing with Chapter 27

Chapter twenty seven

_{If Andy thought that his duties for the Circle were going to wane during the summer, he was badly mistaken. He was notified by Teacher the two of them would be teaming up again and this time Andy would have to use his porting power as this case would require him to spend time a significant distance from home. So far, he had ported less than a mile at a time. Working on this case with Teacher, would provide him with the practice he needed, especially considering the uncertainty of the length of time that Teacher would still be around.}

_{For this case, Andy would have to Port a little less than a hundred miles away into another state and the community known as Vanderhaven. A man and his wife who lived there, were walking home from a movie when they were both attacked by a gang which knocked the man out. When he'd come to, they had tied him up so that he couldn't move and they positioned him so that he had no choice but to watch as they raped his wife repeatedly, and then as they killed her. Complicating matters was the news that in the community of Vanderhaven the Circle had also identified another faction of the same group of fakers that Andy and Teacher had just run up against with the hermit case, based in that abandoned camp that they were using as their training facility.}

_{The Circle had determined that if Andy and Teacher could destroy both the Vanderhaven and the hermit operations, it would likely be the complete end of the imposters and their efforts against the work that Andy and Teacher were commissioned and trained to do. To port there, since this job was ordered by the Circle, the coordinates to the exact point from which the investigation would begin, were provided to them. On jobs that he chose to do himself, Andy would need to figure out the coordinates himself. The return trip was simple, and no calculations were ever required, as the mind records the starting point of a port automatically, and that becomes the return point of any port made. To avoid colliding with each other at the end point, he and Teacher would adjust a few degrees in opposite directions away from the exact point of the coordinates given. This was something neither Teacher nor Andy had done before, and it was an unusual thing for people doing the work that they were doing as there was usually only one of them.}

_{Andy liked working with Teacher. He had already learned a lot from him. He knew he would have had to have gone through some long and trying times to get up to the skill level that Teacher had helped him achieve in significantly less time. It also excluded the time for trial and error that would have been required. Andy value his relationship with teacher so much that he had determined in his own mind that he was going to help whoever he would recruit to take over for him when the time would be close for him to go.}

_{Andy and teacher met at the swinging bridge house, and ported to Vanderhaven. For never having done a dual-port before, both he and Teacher were impressed with the end point precision of their calculations, standing almost shoulder to shoulder on arrival. It certainly was the way to travel.}

_{They were in the alley where the scene of the crime had taken place. Now they would each go back to moments before the crime took place. The movie theater was visible from where they stood. And it wasn't long until they saw the man and woman walking towards them when they were rushed by a group of young men - a gang - and were pushed and herded into the alley. As some of them started on the woman, putting their hands all over her and tearing her clothes until she was half naked when her husband made a valiant effort to try to fight them off when he was knocked out with a hit on the head with the butt of a pistol. They hog-tied the man and then brought him back around to view their next act. The man was beside himself as he was forced to watch man after man invade his wife and then when they were through, to shoot her in the head as though she were some game animal for which they had been on the hunt.}

_{Now that they'd witnessed the crime take place, Andy and teacher paused time at the exact same moment so they could explore further and record and process facial recognition data they'd collect on each gang member. Andy thought how useful it would be to law enforcement officers to be able to do the things that he and Teacher could do, like having all of your suspects standing before you so that you could get detailed looks at them at the scene of the crime, without them even being aware of what was going on. The more he thought about that though, he realized that the kind of power that he and Teacher possessed, could not just be handed out to any company of men. That would be reckless as there would be people on police forces that would abuse the power, which would end up bringing terrible consequences upon the citizenry.}

_{Once they'd completed the task of gathering all of the information they needed, they resumed time and observed what took place from that point forward. A couple of them walked over to the man and told him his wife was a good lover, and taunted him with how she had enjoyed them giving her the kind of sex that he couldn't. Andy wished he could hit the guy over the head with a crowbar, but he couldn't do anything since all of this had already taken place and neither he nor teacher could change anything that had already happened. All they could do is investigate.}

_{In a huge development for this particular case however, due to the brutality of it, and the depravity of the animals that did this to these people, the Circle had called in the chief of police and had briefed him on how they were going to help bring Justice the family and to his City. He was told that he would get images and messages delivered to his mind that would help him punish all of the offenders. Although he had been skeptical, the chief was open to what the Circle had informed him would happen. He had said that he guessed he would know if and when he started getting the messages and the images. The circle guaranteed him that they would be vivid and memorable, as though he'd been there. Andy was glad that they were moving in this direction, but it would still be very difficult for law enforcement to be able to use what the Circle could offer them. It would require exposing the people like Andy and Teacher, and, essentially the whole operation. That would not be good for the purpose of their existence, and that path was not to be explored nor even considered. He thought the best that the Circle could hope for in reaching out to law enforcement and making the information available to them, could only be represented as information obtained by very good, elite investigators. They could claim the transmission of details to the mind of an individual was technology they had patented, and they would not reveal details on its functionality, lest it be stolen or copied illegally.}

_{The only leads the Circle had provided on the fakers they’d ordered Andy and Teacher to investigate, was that they’d received information of another Marion-type human aberration having frightened some people at a lakeside park near the outskirts of Vanderhaven. They had only gotten an approximate time of when the encounter had occurred, so after porting to the park’s coordinates, they chose to go back to five minutes before the reported approximate time of encounter. The approximate time turned out to be only 34 seconds off the actual time, as Andy observed a woman approach the group, who were having some sort of celebration, and a cookout in the park. She was shorter than Marion had been, and her hair had not turned white. Andy wondered if this was a sign that they had made improvements on their training apparatus.}

_{The woman approached one of the people on the outer edge of the group, trying to get him to go with her. Andy had to admit, this one looked presentable actually, which could also be a big problem. No one would have gone off with Marion, but in this one Andy could see the potential for luring guys by making them desire her. However, this particular gentleman was apparently just that – a gentleman, and he respectfully declined her offer. She was not to be put off so easily however, and proceeded to find a guy that was more open to having some fun. At the last minute, though, he backed out for some reason, which Andy hadn’t been able to perceive. This drove the woman to anger and she proceeded to make a big scene, fighting with everyone that approached her. Then she really freaked them all out when she transformed herself into what looked like the stereotypical movie witch, with the pointed hat, black flowing robe, etc. and made her face flash like a high intensity light, before she ran off.}

_{Neither he nor Teacher knew what to make of it. It was such peculiar behavior for the kind of technological advancements the group were pursuing, or at least what he and Teacher had thought they were pursuing. Marion did seem like a witch, but with the whole costume get-up like this one had, Andy thought that the group had to be occult-driven.}

_{To be continued...}

Chapter-1
Chapter-2
Chapter-3
Chapter-4
Chapter-5
Chapter-6
Chapter-7
Chapter-8
Chapter-9
Chapter-10
Chapter-11
Chapter-12
Chapter-13
Chapter-14
Chapter-15
Chapter-16
Chapter-17
Chapter-18
Chapter-19
Chapter-20
Chapter-21
Chapter-22
Chapter-24
Chapter-25
Chapter-26

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