James Axler - Angel Of Doom

“She’s too hard on herself, just like you,” Brigid murmured. “Maybe keep an eye on her and take your mind off of your ill-perceived failures.”

The CAT member nodded. “All right. I can take a hint,” he added with a mock growl.

“How’d you screw up?” Brigid heard Smaragda ask as she returned to the head of the table. At this point, Kane and Grant put away the cards they were toying with as they’d waited for her to return. She chuckled at the two of them sitting back up and looking interested, as if they were schoolboys afraid of being busted by their teacher.

“I thought you would be getting more information from Diana and Ari,” Brigid said.

“We did. But after we got all of that, and showed more of the vid, we had time left over,” Kane told her.

“What did you get?” Grant asked her.

“I got deeper information on the situation,” Brigid said. “And it contrasts with the interview in only a few minor errors and differences.”

“I told the truth,” Smaragda interjected.

Brigid nodded. “You did. But human memory is, for most people, a fickle thing. The human mind alters perceptions upon reflection, adding details that might not have been there in the original case, and ignoring others that seemed irrelevant at the time. A study in the late twentieth century proved that eyewitness testimony was only accurate in one instance out of ten where there were other forms of corroboration such as audio and video recording.”

“Really?” Kane asked.

Brigid nodded. “In my instance, that kind of filter for memory is missing, most likely a genetic anomaly.”

“Like a doomie.” Edwards spoke up.

Domi shook her head. “Brigid’s too smart for that. Doomies can’t handle the future. They get crazy. Brigid looks straight back.”

Brigid managed a weak smile. She didn’t want to correct her friend and oft-times student Domi. She could see the future, but only via educated calculations based upon prior data, a cause-and-effect form of premonition. She didn’t engage in it too often, only for the purposes of planning for battle and avoiding dangers. And even then, her calculations were not one hundred percent.

“Did Myrto see anything?” Diana asked.

“She described the fog she mentioned in detail,” Brigid stated. “And as our initial evaluation of potential myths, there was a Stygian aspect to the cloud. And yet there was something equally familiar to us. During a recent expedition to Africa, we encountered a similar unnatural darkness. To every one of our senses, it was something that was a truly physical entity. Not even a flashlight or high-tech optics could cut through it.”

“What was it really?” Aristotle asked.

“It was a psychic projection. One that was so strong, it even numbed tactile senses,” Brigid stated. “So, what Myrto saw could have been something similar. A form of smoke screen.”

“Why not just use an actual smoke screen? Wouldn’t that take a lot of energy?” Aristotle persisted.

“Because they were facing soldiers. There had to be a focus for them to counter. Something akin to my hypnosis of Myrto,” Brigid explained. “The black, invulnerable fog was something that could draw the fire of the Olympian troops without endangering them in the process.”

“You mean that my men were opening fire on a cloud that wasn’t there, and it wasn’t even concealing the ones attacking us?” Smaragda asked.

Brigid felt some relief as the soldier regained some of the fire in her belly.

“It may have, in some instances. But being a black fog to your conscious mind, it allowed you to shoot into it and not even register any impacts. You could even have been steered to shooting between your friends. Or have known, subconsciously, where your brethren were. It is no good to take people as zombie prisoners when their own compatriots open fire and cut them down,” Brigid told her. “In that way, you protected your brethren, deliberately shooting not to hit them.”

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