After getting over her nausea from letting Ethan teleport her over the mountains and back to Apex Tower (which was a lot like riding a rollercoaster with zero safety devices), Quinn swiped her badge and strode confidently into the lab, only to immediately run into a desk, banging her shin hard against the metal.
"Ow," she reached down, rubbing her shin. She gazed up, then scoffed at the lab's appearance, which now resembled something akin to a makeshift bunker rather than a world-class scientific facility.
"What happened here?" she whispered. "I was only gone for four days!"
Behind her, the door swung open, and two people walked, freezing in place when they spotted Quinn standing there with her arms folded, looking irritated. There was one man, shorter than Quinn, who could only be described as average in every way, and a woman roughly the same height with long black hair wearing an orange Protector suit. They were holding hands but let go awkwardly when they saw Quinn, cutting off their conversation and stopping short, standing in the doorway.
"Who the hell are you, and what have you done to my lab?" Quinn demanded to know.
"It was Derrick," Gabriela said quickly, pointing to the man standing next to her. "He thought we were going to explode so we needed a little extra protection."
"And you thought my desk would save you?" Quinn asked pointedly.
"What Gabriela meant," Derrick corrected delicately, "is that this whole city is going to implode, and we're the ones meant to hit the button that lets Apex know it's happening." He gestured to the furthest desk away, the only one still against the second floor railing where Quinn noticed a giant red button taking up half the workspace. "We moved the desks to potentially buy us a little more time before the implosion happens."
"You mean by turning the whole lab into a massive fire hazard?"
"I wish we were just dealing with a fire," Derrick muttered.
"What are you talking about?"
"The Surge is gonna blow the city up in, like, three days," Gabriela said indignantly, as if this was information Quinn already should've possessed.
"Two, now," Derrick muttered.
"I see," Quinn nodded. "And is Amory aware of this? Has she sent anyone out to investigate?"
"Negative," Gabriela answered. "There's been too many attacks in the city since Titan went down. She can't afford to send anyone else on a suicide mission."
"Except us," Derrick muttered.
"Except you," Gabriela corrected. "As an expert marksman I have some value."
"What good is a marksman that can't lift anything heavier than a baseball?"
Gabriela turned to Derrick. "Derrick, you know I've been doing curls down here and-"
Quinn let out a curt sigh, cutting Gabriela off. It's really up to us, then. I need to figure out how close Rainey is to pushing all of the Surge energy to the city before Ethan gets us kicked out of here.
Quinn moved through the maze of desks and found hers, then quickly logged in and began checking Apex's probe map to see which probes Rainey's moves would've set off. While it loaded, she glanced down at the Junction, surprised by how calm the first floor was. There was almost nobody left in the lab, save for the three of them, and the Junction was dark, but Quinn knew it wouldn't stay that way for much longer.
At the sound of a pleasant ping she brought her attention back to her monitor, frowning. She stared at the screen, confused at the lack of data. Normally, there would be a live chart measuring the rises and falls in levels of radio reactivity in the mountains near the probes, but now the line was just perfectly still. She thought she was missing something, but then she realized that the probes weren't reporting everything as safe, they weren't reporting anything at all.
"How long have these probes been offline?" She called over to Derrick.
"They started going down two days ago," he answered.
So Rainey's been working on phase two of her plan for at least the last two days. She's got a head start on us.
"What was the last probe to go offline?"
"The last probe we saw tripped was in Gould."
"Gould?" Quinn pulled up a map, unfamiliar with the town. It was a small valley town nearly three hours away. Crestone, where Rainey attacked earlier, was only two hours away. "When did it go offline?"
"Three days ago."
Quinn nodded. "She's moving the surge about an hour a day closer to the city," Quinn said.
"Uh, who is?" Gabriela asked.
"No time," Quinn stood up, her chair clattering behind her. "Get me a map of where the probes would be, and quickly," she pointed at Derrick, who complied. Gabriela gave him a confused glance. Quinn pointed at her. "What do you do here, exactly?"
"Annoy me, mostly," Derrick answered for her.
"Annoy him, mostly," Gabriela agreed.
"Good enough," Quinn said. "We have to be quick if we want to cut her off. We're running out of time before she sends all the Surge energy into the city."
"Wait," Gabriela said, "there's someone doing this? Not something?"
"Correct," Quinn told her, taking a printed out map from Derrick. A probe location about an hour south of Crestone caught her eye, but she couldn't quite remember why.
"Why would anyone do that?"
"Probably because she was hurt," Derrick offered.
"If anyone hurt you, I'd kill them," Gabriela said affectionately. Derrick blushed, looking away.
Quinn stared intently at the map, then smiled. There was a probe running directly through the center of the Surge located in Mount Visage. "That's exactly it. She wasn't hurt. I was."
"What do you mean?" Derrick asked. Quinn's phone buzzed, drawing her attention.
Trapped. Need exit.
"Could've guessed," she smiled, shaking her head. She looked up at Gabriela with a mischievous smile.
"Gabriela, I've got a job that just might be perfect for you. I need to get out of here, and I need to make a scene."
"Oh," Gabriela said, hopping off a desk, suddenly interested. "Do you need to make an escape? Because there's something I've been dying to do."
——
"I believe I made myself clear in the hospital room, did I not?"
Ethan found himself once again in Amory's avant-garde office, just as shocked by the gaudy color scheme as he was during his first visit, only this time he wasn't alone. He stood in the center of their group, wearing his now lightly grass-stained suit and wishing he had just left it at home given how badly he could feel himself sweating. He honestly couldn't remember if their Stillrock apartment had a washing machine anymore, but he was going to need one.
Next to him stood the stoic Kingston, who greeted Amory cooly and received an even chillier response in return. He stood with his hands behind his back, eyes straight ahead like a soldier awaiting orders. On Ethan's other side stood Raz, exuding a polar opposite of Kingston's, nervously scratching the patchy beard he was willing to make happen.
Ethan teleported everyone here aside from Britley, who they dropped off with her mom, and they rudely barged into Amory's office to warn her of the impending danger Slate was bringing to Ascension. Amory was on a call with Kestrel, one of the Protectors from Sector Two, and she was staring at a map of the city overlaid with Apex's Protectors. She was, undoubtedly, not having a good day, and Ethan's unwelcome presence was only making it worse.
Ethan cleared his throat. "You did, but-"
"But, you seem to have misunderstood me, a deficiency on my part I intend to rectify right this moment. You are not to use your powers anywhere near this city. You are not to engage with any wanted criminals, like him-" Kingston flinched when Amory pointed at him, "-and you are not to take any measures to try and stop the Altered known as Slate. Are we clear now?"
Ethan swallowed hard.
"No."
Amory's blue eyes went the color of frozen steel, zeroing in on Ethan.
"I'm sorry, what was that?"
"Slate is bringing the Surge to Ascension, and I'm going to stop it."
Amory stood, crossing her arms. "Ethan. You need to let me handle this."
"Respectfully, this was my doing. I'm not going to step aside just so you can put someone else in danger in my place."
"Ethan, you're on temporary probation. Step aside, let me handle Slate, and we can talk about finding a place for you once Alex is back. Isn't that what you've always wanted? To work with Alex, to be a Protector?"
"It was," Ethan admitted, "but I've done more good in the past day not trying to be a Protector than I ever did when I wanted to be one. It's not for me, not anymore."
Amory stared at Ethan, then nodded slowly. "You've made up your mind."
"I have. It's…what Alex would want me to do."
"Maybe," she conceded, "but I need to do what Alex would want me to do, and that's keep you safe."
"No one is safe if I can't stop Slate."
She sighed, shaking her head. "I really wish it wouldn't come to this."
"Come to what?" Raz asked. Ethan felt his stomach tighten. He figured that Amory wouldn't want a fight in her office, but that assumption was quickly being proven incorrect.
She pressed a button on her desk and suddenly the windows disappeared, blanketed by a metal sheet, plunging the office into darkness. Amory's face was highlighted in a blue glow as she picked up her phone.
"The panic button is usually used for keeping someone out," Amory explained, "but this will keep you here until I can find someone to restrain you."
Ethan hoped he had given Quinn enough time to decipher where Slate was headed, because he wasn't going to give her this chance again.
"Raz, do something!" Ethan yelled.
"On it!" He pulled out his phone and fired off a frantic "SOS" text to Quinn. Just a few seconds later, and without warning, an alarm suddenly blared overhead. Light flooded the room as the metal receded back into the ceiling, giving Ethan an opening.
"Radiation event imminent. Evacuate now. Radiation event imminent. Evacuate now."
"Ethan, wait," Amory pushed her chair back, standing as Ethan jumped at the distraction and grabbed Raz, then teleported out the window, disappearing from sight.
Kingston stood there, awkwardly.
"Am I correct in assuming that was a false alarm?"
Kingston leaned to his right, glancing out the window. The afternoon sky was clear instead of being filled with the dark, swirling clouds Kingston always anticipated would precede the apocalypse, and life was moving along in the streets below, either blissfully unaware of their impending doom or simply enjoying another average Tuesday.
He went with the latter.
"Appears so."
Amory groaned, grabbing her phone and demanded someone override the alarm. A moment later the blaring stopped and the office was silent. Amory sank back into her chair and, letting her guard down, dropped her forehead to the desk.
"Is he right?" Amory asked, her voice muffled. "About Slate's plan? Is she really sending all the Surge energy towards Ascension?"
"Afraid so," Kingston nodded. Amory pulled her head up, pushing her hair out of her face and attempting to regain her usual composure.
"I figured you wouldn't have run unless we were facing catastrophe," she sighed. "That was my last chance at stopping Ethan from throwing himself at Slate. Alex is going to be furious when she wakes up."
"You know, I was skeptical about him at first, but…he ran headfirst into danger to save Britley when Slate attacked us. He's better at this than we expected."
"If he dies, Alex is going to kill me. Worse than that, I'll be 'relieved of my duties' by the board after word gets out that I did not, in fact, have the Ascension situation under control." Amory sighed, her weary eyes meeting Kingston's. "Well, what are you waiting for?"
"I don't follow," Kingston said.
"The Surge is coming, Kingston. I'll be fired before the end of the week, but I'm still in charge until then, and I'm not letting anything else happen to this city under my watch."
Kingston raised an eyebrow. "What are we going to do?"
"I've got two idiots who I gave one job to. They somehow failed. You need to go down there, inform them that they are fired, and then weld the Junction better than you ever have. This ship is sailing full steam into the iceberg, old friend, and we are going to stay on it no matter what."