Leaving

Drawing the miasma out of Jack's changed body was simple and most of the extracted miasma was able to replenish all of Maddox's reserves and there seemed a bit more, however, when he tries to add more to his reservoir it seems that he is unable to add more which he finds odd so tries a few methods to add more miasma.

Finding that he could not absorb anymore through some basic tests Maddox just places Jack back onto the bed and leaves the room since some testing would need to be done to see how he could increase his miasma capacity. Exiting the house was going to be a bit of a problem since for him to leave without someone noticing he would need to leave at the same time that someone else does as to not draw suspicion to himself.

The reason was that there were some moving security cameras posted around this place so it was safe to assume that some other security devices would be placed around this place and if he left then he was sure to be caught and then hunted down easily due to that reason since things moving would be sure to catch their attention. Even though he was not visible to the naked eye that did not mean that he could be seen with thermal cameras and considering the Coalition budget then they may have those setup.

His miasma may be useful for illusions but other than that Maddox could not create anything else and that spike that he had used to kill Jack had been something that he was able to create in the mind space plus even if he could, it was made of pure miasma so those girls with essence would be able to get rid of it easily. Digging his own grave was something that he did not want to do today so he would just hold off for now and since miasma was generally looked down upon by well... everyone so he couldn't just reveal that he could use it as most stereotypes in society tend to stick.

So for now Maddox would have to wait since he did not want to be found out by the coalition members whose house he was going to be stuck in for hopefully only a few minutes at the very least since they must go out... right?

8 hours later

These bitches have nothing going on with their lives...

Maddox had at first waited patiently for the first few minutes next to the door in the hopes of finding some way to leave soon but no one left this stupid house for the first thirty minutes that he was just standing there. So not wanting to die from boredom Maddox tries to find the girls to give them some excuse to leave the house that however proved to be more difficult than expected. The girls didn't have any phones on them and there seemed to be a severe lack of electronics in the house, the only thing he found was a singular computer that required a coalition ID and login-in to work. He did not have anything like that.

So he could not use some mysterious text message to get them out of the house or call them to leave the damn place so he would have to try something else. Coming up with something proved a lot more difficult to do than expected since he ran into something he had not encountered before.

It seemed that this house had another defense besides security cameras, the house had some sort of essence barrier surrounding it which was proving to be a massive pain in the rear.

He had no idea how or why this thing was set up but it was preventing miasma from entering into the house or in Maddox's case leaving it. He had wanted to create some more illusions of something to draw everyone out but the barrier prevented even the smallest bit of his miasma from leaving the confines of the house while up.

Miasma may have many uses but essence held the most power over the two which was why the only way to get rid of the essence was to essentially flood it with so much miasma that it would be unable to convert the miasma before itself was converted.

Maddox could not do that with his supply of miasma he would probably need at least ten times that amount to make even a small hole in the barrier to send his miasma through.

So he had to figure out how to turn off the essence barrier to create a way out.

Through his time in the house, the girls had found that Jack had changed into his current form and most of them took his change differently with a majority seeming to have expected this to happen to him which intrigued Maddox since they seemed to have seen this before. Either Coalition members turning into these weird things was a common occurrence or they just were each grieving in their way.

Being stuck in the house allowed him to learn about each of the girls living here as Maddox was trying to figure out when at least one of them would go out for any reason, but Maddox came to learn that he kind of shot himself in the foot this time.

The barrier was activated and no one was going to be leaving the house for a while because of him showing up with his 'Special Forces' guys out of nowhere which put everyone on alert and the group was being cautious.

One good thing he did though was essentially causing Jack to turn into whatever it was that he was since the group had to send a message to the coalition to extract Jack's body since it was now considered as a hazardous material. That was good since the pickup team would be arriving in the morning to claim Jack and take him somewhere for proper disposal, so when they showed up Maddox could slip out with them and possibly go with them since he might be able to find out where they hold onto similar instances with Jack's body.

Still, though morning was a while away and Maddox could not sit on the couch and take a nap like he owns the place.

So he first finds a place where he can sleep comfortably where none of the girls in the house would accidentally bump into him while he was sleeping or something. For meals, he could skip them since he would be fine with missing just a meal, but as for the bathroom well... some out-of-the-way house plants needed watering so he could help them out. As for the need to use the bathroom for the other reason of taking a piss well he would just have to hold it since they ain't got any place where he could go in peace. He could go to the bathroom when night fell but they were girls so the bathroom was some sort of sacred place for them and they only had two bathrooms with one upstairs and the other on the first floor.

Finding a place within the sort of hospital room that Jack had been placed in Maddox simply propped himself against the wall and tried to fall asleep once nighttime fell. His miasma would stay active once placed on something so unless someone used essence directly on him then Maddox would be hidden while he sleeps and since he was generally going to be staying in one corner of the room less miasma would be used. His active invisibility used his surroundings and everything around him to create the illusion that people were seeing through him which took a bit more miasma than a simple none moving illusion.

Eventually, sleep grabs hold of Maddox and he is dragged into dreamland.

Normally Maddox would either enter into his mind space to try some things that he wanted to try since he had direct access to his miasma and it would not be wasted but unfortunately experiences would not translate into reality. It would be like a hacker in a video game turning off his hacks and becoming terrible in the game, turn back on the hacks and he is a god but turn them off and he sucks ass.

However this time Maddox did not go there and just slept like usual and experienced total darkness in his dreams before he woke up with another dreamless night, which has been the only thing that Maddox has ever experienced in his sleep for as long he could remember. Having no dreams is practically impossible since people do dream but most people forget their dream once they wake up and cannot recollect what it was that they had dreamt up.

Maddox never cared about not remembering his dreams and just got up and stretched his sore body since this sleeping position was terrible the night prior so stretching out helped him feel a bit better.

"Knock" "Knock"

The sound of knocking on the front door drew Maddox's attention as he moved to the front door to see who it was that had shown up. Looking through the peephole in the door revealed four men wearing full-on radioactive protection equipment on them. Each of them wore mouth and nose respirators, heavy-duty goggles, and the full-body white protective suit which must be suffocating to wear in the Nevada heat.

"Finally those bastards are here!" Someone complains as the girl that Maddox went with into the house before walks on over

Avoiding her was simple and he steps back a bit so that he can be out of the way but still close enough so that he could slip on out once the door is opened.

Opening the door brings in the heat from the outside which felt weird to Maddox since he had been in the air-conditioned house for a while now that the sudden heatwave brought a tingling on his skin.

"Your late..." That was all that the girl says as she looks at the guys standing in the doorway

"You are not the only one with converted members in the state, plus this place is a bit out of the way" Was the guy's response as he walks on in

Hearing that stellar conversation excited Maddox since that meant that more people had been, as the guy had put, converted just like Jack had been so that meant if he hopped on in then he would eventually be able to find where they kept them so he could take a few for research and his use to refill his miasma after tests.

Slipping out while the cleanup crew entered was easy as enough and thankfully the barrier had been turned off when those guys had shown up so his invisibility illusion was still up.

Being outside in the heat though was not fun since it seemed to be in the late afternoon as the sun was directly above Maddox. Creating another illusion to cause his shadow to disappear as he walked out was simple enough and this time he did not have to be that careful with it since inside the house there were multiple light sources he had to be careful with his shadow's illusion since if he fucked up and someone saw it then it would be easy to put two and two together.

Now that he was outside though there was only one source of light that he had to worry about now which was less strain on his nerves at least.

Looking at the gate Maddox sees a white van parked nearby with the words Waste Removal CO. on the side, while the gate itself is left open so Maddox walks over there where he waits in the sweltering heat for the cleanup crew to show up so that he could hop in the van with them to where ever they were going.

A few minutes pass by and Maddox is already sweating buckets as the four men exit the house and start walking back to the van while one of them is holding a closed plastic bag with a big 'Radioactive' label on it. If Maddox was a betting man then he would bet that Jack is in that bag right now.

After closing the gate behind them and loading up into the van Maddox slips into the back to see what was inside.

The rear of the van had two seats in the front, them being the driver and passenger respectively, and there were two other seats set up in the back of the van. Further in though there is a series of metal drawers wielded into the van itself with each having a lock preventing them from being opened without the key.

Maddox has to wiggle his way around the closed interior of the van as two of the men in the suits enter while one sits down immediately and the other places the plastic bag in one of the drawers before locking it up and handing the keys to the driver. Maddox just sits down in the back of the van and away from the cleanup guys as the van starts up and they start driving away to some unknown location.