The lower districts of Scientia bore little resemblance to the polished streets surrounding Research and Development headquarters. Electric lamps became scarce as Levi and Lily followed the scavenger through narrow service roads, where old steam pipes crossed between buildings and exposed brick replaced the carefully maintained stonework of the upper city.
The man walked quickly, carrying a lantern in one hand and a sack of salvaged equipment over his shoulder. He occasionally glanced behind him, though neither officer had given him reason to suspect he was being followed.
They kept their distance until he entered a narrow passage beneath an old railway bridge. At its end stood a reinforced door with a damaged lock and a faded R&D insignia barely visible beneath peeling paint.
The scavenger worked at the lock with a tool from his belt, slipped inside, and pulled the door shut.
Lily unfolded the site plan Seraphine had provided.
"That leads into the old annex," she said, tracing the passage with one finger. "It's part of the original facility."
"And apparently still part of someone's regular route." Levi waited until the lantern light disappeared beneath the door before approaching it. "Let's find out what he's been collecting."
The damaged lock offered little resistance. Levi eased the door open, and they entered a corridor lined with rusted pipes and exposed wiring. They followed the scavenger's footsteps until they found him examining a storage cabinet.
Levi stepped into the lantern light with his blade drawn while Lily moved behind the man, blocking his escape.
"Put the tools down and keep your hands where I can see them."
The scavenger froze. His lantern shook as he turned, illuminating a thin face and frightened eyes. He set his tools beside the sack and slowly raised his hands.
"Please, I haven't hurt anybody."
"Then you shouldn't have any trouble answering a few questions," Levi replied. "What are you doing down here?"
"Collecting parts. That's all. Old machinery, copper, anything worth selling."
"Who's buying?"
The scavenger glanced at his sack. "Brokers, mostly. Dealers who know people willing to pay for old R&D equipment. I don't ask what they do with it."
Lily stepped closer.
"You've been selling equipment from a restricted research facility, and you expect us to believe you don't know a single buyer's name?"
"I don't get names. They tell me where to deliver the parts, I leave them there, and somebody pays me. That's how it works."
Levi studied him. The man seemed genuinely frightened, though fear alone was hardly proof of innocence.
"How often do people come through here?"
"A couple of times a year, sometimes more. I'm not the only one who knows the place is open."
"Have you seen researchers? Five Points personnel?" Lily asked.
"Sometimes uniforms. Other people too. I don't stop them to ask what they're doing."
Levi exchanged a glance with Lily. An abandoned facility receiving occasional visits from uniformed personnel was considerably more interesting than a scavenger stealing copper.
"What happens to the equipment you collect?" he asked.
"It gets moved around. Some goes south, some west. Brokers handle the rest."
"And X-9?"
The scavenger's expression changed.
It was brief, but Levi noticed.
"You've heard of it."
The man swallowed. "I've heard enough to know I don't want anything to do with it. People who get involved with that project disappear."
"Who takes the material connected to it?"
"I don't know. People with enough money to make sure nobody asks questions."
Levi lowered his blade slightly.
"That's not much to work with."
"It's the truth!"
While Levi questioned him further, Lily crouched beside the canvas sack and began examining its contents. Most of the components appeared to be ordinary salvage, but a folded receipt caught her attention.
She opened it carefully.
There was no buyer's name, only a collection address within Scientia and a pair of initials written beneath it.
V.S.
Lily stood and handed it to Levi.
He examined the receipt, his expression tightening.
Verrick Soren immediately came to mind, though two initials were hardly sufficient to identify anyone.
"Where did you get this?"
The scavenger glanced at the paper and went pale.
"In a storeroom. I thought the address might lead to someone willing to buy more parts."
"Then you're going to show us that room."
The man looked between them before reluctantly nodding.
He led them farther into the annex, stopping beside an equipment storeroom filled with broken machinery and rusted cabinets.
"Behind there," he said, pointing toward a cabinet near the back wall.
Levi shifted it aside and discovered several more receipts tucked into a narrow gap. Some were years old, while others appeared relatively recent. Different handwriting suggested multiple transactions, but several bore the same initials.
V.S.
Lily examined them over his shoulder.
"Soren."
"Possibly."
"Levi, we've found his initials repeatedly in a facility he's been evasive about. At what point do we stop pretending that's a coincidence?"
"I'm not calling it a coincidence. I'm saying we need to know whether the initials actually belong to him."
He gathered the receipts.
"If Soren's involved, I want enough evidence that he can't talk his way out of it. Arresting an acting branch head because somebody wrote two letters on a receipt isn't going to get us very far."
Lily considered that before nodding.
"Then we find the client records."
"Assuming whoever cleaned this place out left any."
The scavenger shifted nervously.
"Can I go now?"
Levi turned toward him.
"You're coming back with us."
"I didn't do anything!"
"You entered a restricted research facility and helped yourself to its contents."
The man blinked.
"You followed me through the same door."
Lily turned away, hiding a smile.
Levi stared at him.
"We have credentials. But that was an impressively brave defense. Save it for your statement."
They secured the scavenger in the storeroom while they continued their investigation, leaving him with his lantern and strict instructions not to attempt another escape.
Beyond the storage area, the maintenance corridor descended deeper into the annex. Old support pipes lined the ceiling, and copper wiring ran through cracked ceramic insulators along the walls. Most of the equipment had been dead for decades, leaving the passage in near-total darkness.
Lily raised a hand.
Frost gathered around her fingers as a pale blue-white sphere of light formed above her palm. Moisture condensed in the cold air around it, scattering the energy from her Star into a soft glow that illuminated the corridor.
Levi glanced over.
"That's useful."
"Try not to sound so surprised."
"I was aiming for impressed."
"You could work on the delivery."
He smiled and moved ahead, stopping when he noticed impressions in the dust.
Several boot prints crossed the corridor. Some had nearly disappeared beneath years of grime, but others were considerably clearer.
Lily crouched beside him.
"How recent?"
"Hard to say. Not yesterday, but they haven't been here for decades either."
"Between these tracks and our scavenger, I think we can safely stop calling this an unused passage."
"Someone certainly found it convenient."
They followed the prints until the corridor ended at a reinforced door. Its control panel had been shattered, exposing wiring and gears beneath the casing.
Levi examined the damage.
"Someone forced this open after the facility stopped operating."
"Can you tell when?"
"Not from this alone."
Lily studied the heavy door, which remained firmly shut.
"Can you open it?"
Levi placed a hand against the exposed mechanism.
Electricity crawled over his fingers.
Lily took a step back.
"That's concerning."
"You asked me to open it."
"I didn't ask you to electrocute the entire building."
"Technical difference."
Lightning snapped into the dead panel.
Old gears engaged violently within the wall, and the door groaned upward until it became stuck halfway open. Smoke rose from the ruined mechanism as Levi withdrew his hand.
He looked at the opening.
"Good enough."
Lily examined the damage.
"Your definition of repair could use some work."
"The door's open. I wasn't applying for a maintenance position."
"A wise decision, for the building's sake."
Levi ducked beneath the door, and Lily followed.
The room beyond had survived remarkably well.
Rows of metal shelving stood beneath a layer of dust, though several had collapsed from corrosion. Filing cabinets lined the far wall, and dead electrical equipment sat beneath shattered glass screens.
Water had damaged one side of the archive, but the opposite wall showed signs of a deliberate search. Drawers hung open, boxes lay overturned, and entire sections of shelving had been emptied.
Levi approached the nearest desk.
"Seraphine could've saved us some trouble by telling us how much of this place was still intact."
"She said she couldn't give us a reliable inventory," Lily reminded him. "Looking around, I think she might have been telling the truth."
"I don't like people being mysterious and correct. Much easier when they're wrong."
They separated to search the remaining workstations.
Most of the equipment was useless, but some paper records had survived where machinery hadn't. Levi opened a drawer containing folders with burned edges and water-stained covers.
The first bore the heading FAILED INTEGRATION.
Another was marked CONTAINMENT INSTABILITY.
He opened a third, labeled NEUROLOGICAL COLLAPSE, and found detailed sketches of the human nervous system. Dark branching patterns had been drawn alongside major neural pathways, accompanied by handwritten observations he couldn't fully decipher.
The next files contained records of subject rejection, systemic failure, and cardiac arrest.
One listed a precise time of death.
Levi stopped reading.
The language was clinical, almost detached, but the records described people who had been restrained, experimented upon, and in some cases killed. Looking around the abandoned laboratory, he found it increasingly difficult to regard the facility as nothing more than an old research site.
Across the room, Lily opened another cabinet.
"Levi. Come look at this."
He joined her.
She held a photograph of Dr. Hagan Kestrel standing beside a dark-haired boy. Heat had warped one corner, but the image was still clear enough to compare with the photographs they'd found earlier.
The boy stood stiffly beside his father, his eyes fixed somewhere beyond the camera.
Levi studied his face.
There was something vaguely familiar about him, though Levi couldn't place it.
"Same boy," he said. "Anything written on the back?"
Lily turned the photograph over.
Faded handwriting identified the subjects.
Dr. Hagan Kestrel and son.
Beneath that was another inscription.
SUBJECT CODENAME: ICARUS
Levi read the final word aloud.
"Icarus."
Lily looked at the boy again.
"That's a strange thing to call your own son."
"Probably not what he called him at home."
"Giving him a subject codename doesn't become any better because he used something else at dinner."
Levi couldn't argue with that.
He examined the photograph once more before carefully placing it inside his coat.
"At least we have something to investigate. If Icarus survived, someone might know what happened to him."
"And whether he continued the research," Lily added.
Levi looked toward the emptied shelves.
"The facility burns, Kestrel disappears, and someone preserves parts of his work. Years later, X-9 begins appearing again. His son was involved closely enough to receive a project codename, but we don't know what happened to him afterward."
"Which makes him a reasonable person to investigate."
"Absolutely. I just don't want us deciding he's responsible before we know whether he's even alive."
Lily folded her arms.
"You're unusually cautious about this."
"Because the explanation is almost too convenient. Sometimes the easiest lie to believe is the one that fits everything you already suspect."
Lily considered that.
"That sounds like something Seraphine would say."
Levi grimaced.
"No. She'd find a way to make it more irritating."
Despite herself, Lily smiled.
They continued searching.
The next room contained empty storage racks, broken locks, and an overturned transport cart with one wheel missing. Deep marks scarred the floor where heavy equipment had been dragged toward the corridor.
Lily crouched to examine them.
"These overlap. Whatever was moved out of here, it happened more than once."
Levi looked over the empty shelves.
"Someone systematically recovered equipment after the fire."
"Not ordinary scavengers, either. Moving machinery this heavy would've taken planning."
Levi moved toward the back wall, where a collapsed shelf partially concealed four reinforced black cases.
Each bore an older four-point insignia.
He stopped.
Seraphine's warning came back to him.
If you find black storage cases marked with an older four-point seal, don't open them alone.
Lily followed his gaze.
"So that's what she meant."
Levi examined the nearest case without touching it.
"Same seal. We leave them closed."
"I'll record their location. If they're as dangerous as she implied, we'll need people who know how to handle them."
They photographed the cases and continued examining the remaining records.
Among a stack of papers fused together by water damage, Lily discovered part of an inventory. Most names had been removed, and several destinations had been blacked out, but one entry remained legible.
POST-INCIDENT RECOVERY AUTHORIZATION
Below it was a second line.
Prototype frameworks — transferred under authorized Branch Captain oversight.
Lily handed it to Levi.
"A Branch Captain authorized the transfer."
"Or supervised it," Levi said, reading the document again. "Either way, this wasn't simply a few scavengers carrying off whatever they could find."
"Soren?"
"Possibly. We need the date and the name of whoever held the position when this was written."
Lily glanced toward the document.
"He knew about this place and kept steering us away from what happened here."
"Which makes him suspicious."
"But not guilty. Yet."
Levi looked at her.
Lily shrugged.
"You're rubbing off on me."
"A terrible tragedy. I'll apologize to your academy."
The final corridor ended at a massive blast door, partly open and blackened around its frame. The fire that had devastated the facility had reached this far, though the chamber beyond appeared to have survived much of the destruction.
Levi squeezed through first, with Lily close behind.
They entered an enormous laboratory.
Restraint frameworks hung from ceiling-mounted rails. Cracked containment columns lined the walls, connected to bundles of copper wiring and rubberized tubes. Pressure gauges remained frozen at impossible readings, and a large operating platform stood at the center of the room.
Leather restraints were still attached.
Levi approached the platform and noticed deep scratches scored into the metal. Someone had clawed at it repeatedly.
He looked away.
The records in his coat suddenly felt heavier.
Lily moved slowly around the chamber, illuminating the ruined equipment with her Star.
"This must have been the core laboratory."
"Looks like it."
Levi examined a scorched console near the operating platform. Beneath a layer of soot, he noticed an emblem etched into the metal.
He brushed it clean.
The familiar five-pointed insignia had been modified with markings resembling restraints and chains.
Apprehension Core.
Lily stepped beside him.
"Apprehension equipment, here in the core laboratory."
Levi studied the symbol.
"They led the original restraint project. That explains the equipment. What we need to know is whether their involvement continued after Kestrel moved into human experimentation."
Lily looked toward the operating platform.
"If prisoners were sent here as subjects, somebody authorized it."
"It's possible. The crest tells us Apprehension was connected to this equipment, but we still need to establish what that connection was."
"And if they were involved in supplying subjects?"
"Then Kestrel wasn't operating entirely on his own."
Lily surveyed the laboratory.
They already knew Apprehension had led the legitimate restraint project. Whether anyone in that Core had also supported Kestrel's later experiments was a different question, and the insignia alone could not answer it.
"How high do you think this went?" she asked.
Levi looked at the emblem.
"That's what we need to find out."
Before either could say more, something clinked against concrete deeper in the facility.
Levi's hand moved toward his blade.
Lily extinguished her light, plunging the chamber into darkness.
Footsteps approached, slow and deliberate, before stopping somewhere beyond the laboratory.
Levi drew his trench knife. Electricity crawled faintly along its edge, while frost gathered around Lily's fingers.
They waited.
A scrape sounded behind them.
Levi turned just as a figure rushed from the darkness.
He shoved Lily aside and caught a descending blade inches from his throat. Sparks flashed between the weapons before the attacker withdrew.
Levi sent a burst of lightning across the chamber, briefly illuminating a dark coat and mask.
The figure vanished behind a row of ruined equipment.
"Running already?" Levi called.
There was no answer.
Lily formed an ice blade.
"Maybe they're smarter than you."
"Most people are."
A sound came from the opposite side of the chamber.
Levi turned toward it.
"Above!" Lily shouted.
The attacker dropped from the overhead framework.
Levi vanished in a flash of electricity, leaving the descending strike to hit empty ground. He reappeared behind the figure and swung, but the attacker blocked quickly enough to redirect his blade.
Lily sent ice racing across the floor.
The figure leaped clear before it reached their feet, then met Levi in another rapid exchange of blows. Steel rang against steel as electricity illuminated the ruined laboratory.
Whoever they were, they knew how to fight.
Levi pressed forward, but the attacker suddenly kicked off his chest, using the impact to create distance before escaping through the partly open blast door.
Levi landed hard.
Lily hurried to his side.
"Are you hurt?"
"Nothing serious." He pushed himself upright. "Did you get a look at their face?"
"Only the mask. They kept away from the light."
"Same here."
Levi looked toward the blast door.
The attack had occurred shortly after they discovered the Apprehension insignia. He couldn't be certain the timing was significant, but it was difficult to ignore.
Lily noticed him considering the corridor.
"Don't chase them."
"I wasn't going to."
She stared.
"I was considering it," he admitted.
"That's worse."
Levi sheathed his blade.
"They know these passages better than we do. If we follow, we risk losing everything we've found."
Lily glanced toward the records in his coat.
"Then we take the evidence back and return with support."
"Exactly."
They made one final check of the chamber before leaving.
On their way out, they retrieved the scavenger from the storeroom. He complained loudly about being detained, though his objections became quieter when Levi reminded him that they had discovered considerably more than stolen machinery.
Nearly an hour later, the three emerged into the lower district.
The city above remained quiet, its streets illuminated by the first signs of approaching morning.
Levi pulled the damaged outer door shut.
Lily leaned against the wall while he secured the scavenger's restraints.
"So what do we have?"
Levi considered the papers and photographs in his coat.
"Kestrel's son was identified as Icarus, possibly a subject in the original research. Someone removed equipment after the fire, and at least some of those transfers appear to have been authorized through the branch."
"We also found Apprehension equipment in the experimental laboratory," Lily added. "We still need records showing who authorized its use."
"And someone willing to attack us rather than let us investigate it."
Lily folded her arms.
"Don't forget the mysterious black cases we responsibly left unopened."
Levi smiled faintly.
"Very proud of us."
"I was proud of me."
"Fair."
They started walking toward the upper district, with the scavenger reluctantly keeping pace between them.
After a while, Lily glanced toward Levi.
"Do you think Icarus is still alive?"
Levi thought about the photograph.
The boy had stood beside his father with an expression too serious for his age, unaware that decades later two strangers would be searching for answers about his life.
"If he survived whatever Kestrel was doing down there," Levi said, "I'd like to know what became of him."
Captain Verrick Soren arrived at Research and Development headquarters before sunrise.
He stopped when he found his office door unlocked.
Seraphine sat behind his desk, drinking coffee from one of his cups.
Soren stared at her.
"You're in my chair."
"It's comfortable," she replied. "I can see why you're reluctant to leave it."
"Then perhaps you'll understand why I'd like it back."
Seraphine stood, taking another sip before moving aside.
"You're here early," Soren observed.
"So are you."
"I'm the acting head of this facility."
"And I'm an enthusiastic employee."
Soren looked at her.
Seraphine smiled pleasantly.
Neither appeared convinced.
He moved behind his desk and set down his coat.
"Did you sleep at all?"
"Research kept me occupied. You know how it is."
"I know how you use the word."
Soren opened a drawer, checked its contents, and moved to another. Nothing appeared out of place.
He looked up.
"Anything else?"
Seraphine started toward the door.
"Actually, there is one thing."
She paused.
"Captain Levi."
Soren's expression remained unchanged.
"What about him?"
"Interesting man."
"He's dangerous."
"Those aren't mutually exclusive."
Soren's eyes narrowed, but Seraphine merely smiled and left.
He waited until the door had been closed for several seconds before unlocking a cabinet beside his desk.
The Kestrel and recovery files appeared untouched.
He exhaled.
Then he noticed a tiny piece of thread caught in the hinge.
It wasn't his.
His expression hardened.
Downstairs, Levi entered the main lobby with Lily beside him and the bound scavenger following reluctantly behind.
The receptionist looked up and froze as he placed the recovery ledger, receipts, and his credentials on the desk.
"Morning."
She stared at the documents.
Levi smiled.
"Tell Captain Soren we had a productive night."
A pneumatic capsule shot through the building's communication tubes, carrying the message toward the upper offices.
Soren soon received word that Levi and Lily had returned with evidence from the abandoned facility.
He stood before a bank of old monitoring equipment in his office, studying a small indicator light that had recently illuminated on one of the maintenance boards.
Most of the annex's cameras had been disconnected decades earlier, and many no longer existed. But someone had restored power to part of the old facility.
Levi, almost certainly.
Soren braced both hands against his desk.
He knew the officers had recovered documents, but he had no way of knowing how much they understood.
Kestrel's work. The recovery authorizations. The Apprehension connection.
Each piece of evidence was dangerous enough on its own. Together, they could lead somewhere he had no intention of allowing them to reach.
He picked up the telephone receiver and turned the crank.
"Private line."
A pause.
"No. Not the switchboard."
Another click sounded.
Someone answered.
Soren looked toward the darkened window.
"They found the annex."
He listened.
"No. I don't know how much."
His jaw tightened.
"Then find out."
He replaced the receiver.
Across Scientia, steam moved through the pipes beneath the streets as the night researchers handed their work over to the morning shift. The city continued its routines, unaware of what had been uncovered beneath it.
Soren stared toward the lower district, wondering how much longer he could keep the past buried.
In an undisclosed room elsewhere in the city, a figure removed a dark coat and mask.
Their face remained concealed in shadow, but a shallow cut crossed one forearm where Levi's blade had slipped through their defense. A faint electrical burn surrounded the wound.
An old photograph lay on the nearby table.
Hagan Kestrel, his son, and several researchers stood together before a laboratory building.
The figure reached toward the photograph, hesitated, and slowly withdrew their hand.
A voice spoke from deeper within the room.
"Did they find it?"
The figure remained silent.
"The boy?"
After a long pause, the figure answered.
"Yes."
Silence settled over the room.
"Then we have less time than I thought."
The lamp went out.