The command center was silent save for the low hum of the servers. Sarah stood frozen, her fury a palpable force field around her. She was a healer, a protector. The idea of using a child—any child, let alone this one—as bait was a violation of every oath she had ever taken.
"I won't do it," Sarah said, her voice low and shaking with rage. "You can demote us, throw us in a cell, whatever. I will not be party to this."
Leo put a calming hand on her shoulder. He felt her trembling. He looked at Rostova, whose face remained a stone mask of unyielding pragmatism. Arguing with Rostova, he realized, was like arguing with a tidal wave. You didn't reason with it; you navigated it or you drowned.
"Commander," Leo said, his voice calm and measured. "My sister is correct. Taking Lily into an active Class-4 Death Zone is an unacceptable risk. However," he added, before Sarah could protest, "you are also correct. We need to know what she is capable of, both to protect her and to leverage her abilities for the good of The Foundry."
He was walking a razor's edge. He had to placate Sarah's conscience while acknowledging Rostova's authority.
"What are you suggesting, Custodian?" Rostova asked, a flicker of interest in her eyes. She respected logic, not emotion.
"A compromise," Leo said. "A preliminary, long-range test. We don't take Lily to the library. We take her near it. We use the Badger, its armor and filtration systems a 'clean room' of its own. We approach the perimeter of the Mnemonic Zone and monitor her bio-signatures and the ambient psychic field from a safe distance. We collect data without risking the asset directly."
It was a classic janitorial solution: find a way to do the job with the minimum possible risk of making a bigger mess.
Sarah looked at him, her furious protest softening into worried consideration. It was still a line she didn't want to cross, but it was miles back from Rostova's original proposal. It was a compromise she could live with, for now.
Rostova considered it for a long moment, her eyes seeming to calculate probabilities and risk factors. "Your amended protocol reduces the risk to the asset by approximately 87%," she finally stated. "It will yield less conclusive data, but it is a more logical first step." She nodded once. "Acceptable. Prepare the team. You will be accompanied by Dr. Aris Thorne. He will oversee the data collection."
With that, she dismissed them. As they walked out, Sarah pulled Leo aside.
"Thank you," she whispered, the fight having drained out of her. "But don't think I like this, Leo. We're still using her."
"I know," he said grimly. "But today, we use her to take some pictures from a block away. Rostova wanted to march her up to the front door. We bought time, and we set a precedent: that Lily's safety is part of the equation." He looked his sister in the eye. "Sometimes the best you can do is choose the cleaner of two very dirty jobs."
An hour later, they were gathered at the Badger again. This time, their party was larger. It included Sarah, who refused to leave Lily's side, and Dr. Thorne, a tall, gaunt man with thinning hair and eyes that blazed with a manic, intellectual curiosity. He was already fussing over a complex sensor array he had installed in the vehicle, completely oblivious to the human tension around him.
The final member of the team stood waiting by the ramp, his arms crossed. Grunt.
"Rostova's orders," the Berserker grunted as they approached. "She wants her hammer along, just in case your 'long-range test' attracts any short-range teeth." His tone was sullen, but it lacked the open contempt of before. He had been ordered to cooperate, and for now, he was obeying.
The atmosphere inside the Badger was thick with unspoken resentments and competing agendas. Dr. Thorne was focused entirely on his monitors. Sarah stayed glued to Lily's side, the little girl now awake and coloring in a book, blissfully unaware of the purpose of their field trip. Grunt sat by himself in a corner, his massive sledgehammer resting by his feet, emanating a brooding aura. Leo, Maria, Rick, and Ben were a quiet, unified block, communicating via subtle glances and the silent buzz of their party chat.
They drove through the silent, dead city. The closer they got to the municipal library, the more the air seemed to thin, the light taking on a grey, washed-out quality. Thorne's sensors began to beep with increasing intensity.
"Fascinating," Thorne muttered, staring at his screens. "The mnemonic field is broadcasting a powerful fear-aerosol, but it's also… structured. Layered. Almost like an immune system. It repels any foreign consciousness that tries to enter."
They stopped three blocks from the library, the magnificent marble building visible down the long, empty street. Even from this distance, the place felt wrong. The air shimmered around it, a heat-haze of pure psychic dread.
"We are at the edge of the perceptible field," Thorne announced. He turned to Sarah. "Doctor, please bring the specimen to the primary sensor."
Sarah stiffened. "Her name is Lily."
She gently led the little girl over to Thorne's station. Lily looked at the complex array of wires and blinking lights with wide, curious eyes.
"Now, Lily," Thorne said, his voice a strange mix of clinical detachment and boyish excitement. "I just need you to place your hand on this plate. It won't hurt a bit."
Lily looked at the glowing blue plate, then up at Sarah, a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. Sarah gave her a reassuring nod. Lily reached out her small hand and touched the plate.
The instant her fingers made contact, every screen in the Badger went haywire. A deafening blast of static erupted from the speakers. The lights flickered and died, plunging them into darkness, save for the emergency red battle-lights.
And on Thorne's main monitor, a single, clear, sine wave appeared, cutting through the static. It was Lily's 'null field', a wave of pure order pushing back against the chaos of the Mnemonic Zone.
"Incredible!" Thorne yelled, his voice giddy. "It works! She's not just immune; she's cancelling it out! The applications are—"
He was cut off by Grunt's roar. "Contact! Right side!"
Leo spun around, peering through the armored viewport. His blood went cold.
The street had not been empty. Lying camouflaged in the gutters, against the buildings, were dozens of figures. They weren't moving. They were thin, emaciated things, looking more like dried husks than people, their skin a papery grey. Leo's [Sense Contamination] had barely registered them; they had no life signs, no supernatural energy. They were just… shells.
But now, drawn by the burst of psychic energy from Lily, they were activating. Their heads snapped up in unison. Their eyes, all of them, opened to reveal not eyeballs, but hollow sockets filled with the same weeping, purple light as the Night-Stalker.
They all rose to their feet as one. These were the victims of the library, the husks of the people whose minds had been wiped clean. And now they were an army of empty vessels, all of them turning to stare directly at the Badger. Staring at Lily. The monster had just called its puppets home.