The team's transport, a stout, steam-powered utility van, hissed to a stop three blocks from the site. The air here was different—cold and thick with the cloying, metallic stench of burnt chemicals and damp earth. It was the smell of total, industrial destruction.
Theodore opened the back door without a word, his movements economical and devoid of preamble. He was no longer the conflicted father from the night before; he was a machine.
"From here, we proceed on foot. Maintain two-meter spacing. No talking. No noise. Alpha, your senses will lead. Delta, you take the rear. Everyone else, find and report."
The children exited the van, now wearing their suits inside their casual clothes, their eyes immediately drawn to the scene. The warehouse was gone. Where a massive, block-long structure had stood was now a crater ringed by a chaotic mess of soot-blackened brick and twisted, skeletal metal girders. The scale of the sabotage was immense, dwarfing the ruins of Baron Calvin's property.
Beatrice (Epsilon) let out a small, involuntary gasp, her hands flying to her mouth. Her large eyes swam with terror as she took in the devastation. She looked frail against the backdrop of industrial ruin, her emotional fragility a stark contrast to the scene.
Emmett (Delta), however, was unfazed. He checked the seal on his collar, adjusted his grip on the small, steam-powered lamp he carried, and immediately took up his assigned position without a look back, his gray eyes already cataloging the shadows.
Theodore led them past a cordon of official, but clearly overwhelmed, city guards. The guards were using simple gas lamps to illuminate the mess, their light doing little more than making the shadows dance.
"Proceed to where the structure would have stood,"
Theodore instructed, his voice barely audible over the crackling debris under their boots.
"We are looking for anything that survived the blast. Any evidence that can give us a lead. Move."
The team scattered, careful not to disturb the soot and ash that lay like a shroud over the ground.
Corbin (Omega) moved with a deliberate, calculated slowness. He wasn't looking for a piece of tech; he was looking for a narrative. He crouched low, running his gloved hand over the edge of a severed steel support beam. The cut was too clean, the force too precise for typical high-grade explosives. He noted the pattern, already calculating the vector of the blast.
"Gamma, stop shuffling your feet," Theodore's voice crackled barely perceptibly over the internal comms.
Rhys (Gamma), who had been impatiently kicking at a pile of broken brick, froze instantly. His desire to find something, anything, was palpable, pushing him toward recklessness.
"He's right, Gamma,"
Corbin whispered over the comms, his voice dry.
"If you disturb the scene, you spoil our chances of finding any evidence."
"I know, Omega, I know,"
Rhys muttered back, his frustration clear even through the clipped comm channel. "It's just... so much nothing."
The atmosphere was heavy with concentration. Felix (Beta) was working close to Briar (Alpha), his movements hesitant. He kept glancing toward Emmett at the edge of the perimeter, clearly wishing for the reassurance of the group's presence.
Briar, her attention fully withdrawn into her senses, was moving slowly toward the edge of the large crater. Her eyes were sharp, scanning the ground not for shape, but for anomalies in texture and color. She paused near a patch of ground that had been protected from the main force of the blast by a collapsed wall. Something small and metallic caught her eye, glinting faintly under the dust.
"Alpha to Theodore,"
she whispered, her voice low and steady.
"I have something. Two units. Near the perimeter of the former guard post."
Theodore was beside her instantly, his shadow falling over the small objects. He knelt, barely making a sound, and brushed away the soot. There, in the ash, lay two spent bullet casings. They were made of a standard, dull metal, but they were visually arresting.
The casings were covered in an intricate, flawless engraving that ran in a tight spiral around the base. Even more striking was a tiny, unmistakable unique crest stamped into the metal near the primer. It was a symbol of some kind, small and stylized, but rendered with the kind of artistic detail that defied mass production.
Theodore didn't touch them. He signaled for Corbin to approach.
Corbin (Omega) knelt opposite Theodore, his eyes immediately locking onto the detail of the casings. He didn't need to touch them to know what they were. He brought his focus closer, his breath held.
"Speak, Omega,"
Theodore commanded, his voice barely a breath.
Corbin spoke, his voice analytical and cold, the shock of the moment already filtered through his intellectual framework.
"Look at the crest, Theodore. The engraving. The spiral pattern is not a standard military or industrial mark. It is entirely ornamental. This level of customized, artistic detail on a simple bullet casing—it's not a question of the metal's expense."
He paused, a tiny flicker of cold certainty in his eyes.
"The time required for a craftsman to achieve this flawless result on two casings. It would cost astronomical Orns for such a frivolous application. This looks like a crest, Theodore. Not of a company, but of a specific, extremely wealthy and influential figure or family."
Theodore's jaw tightened. His eyes confirmed Corbin's deduction. This was a message. Not just destruction, but a calling card from someone at the highest levels of Citadel's society.
He moved to stand, his focus on the casings and the implications of Corbin's analysis. He took a slow, heavy step forward, intent on marking the position and securing the evidence.
...
Then came the sound.
A sharp, metallic TICK.
The sound was shockingly loud in the silence of the ruins.
Theodore froze, his body going rigid in the space of a heartbeat. All thought of the casings vanished. His eyes, now wide and hyper-focused, slowly traveled downward.
His heavy boot was pressed firmly onto a small, flat, dark metal disk—a landmine. The mechanism had depressed just enough to initiate the firing sequence, but the final release was held only by the weight of his foot.
Sweat instantly beaded on his forehead, a thin line running down his temple and freezing near his jaw. He didn't dare breathe.
His eyes darted up, not to the children, but across the ground. The soot and debris, which had offered cover for their investigation, now served to conceal the deadly truth. Scattered among the ruins, blending seamlessly with the wreckage, were dozens of the same crude, pressure-activated devices. The entire area wasn't a crime scene; it was a minefield. They hadn't stumbled into the blast site; they had walked directly into a trap.
His voice, when it came, was stripped of all professional coldness, raw and immediate, cutting through the comms like a whip.
"Everyone stop. Stay absolutely still. Do not move an inch. This entire area is rigged!"
The children obeyed instantly. Emmett froze mid-step, his body taut. Corbin was crouched over the casings, his arms trembling from the effort of maintaining absolute stillness. Rhys had been turning his head and was stuck with his neck painfully twisted. Beatrice was frozen with her arms half-raised. The air filled with the terror of absolute, enforced immobility.
The silence returned, even heavier now, charged with the palpable threat of instant detonation.
It was into this terrifying silence that the second trap sprang.
From the shadowed crevices between the remaining walls, and from behind piles of twisted debris, figures began to emerge. A group of men, at least eight of them, dressed in dark, oil-stained clothing. They carried no firearms, only long, sharpened knives that glinted wickedly in the faint lamplight. They had been waiting.
They stalked closer. Their steps were slow, confident, and utterly deliberate as they began to close the circle around the immobilized team.
The leader, a massive man whose face was etched with scars, stopped twenty feet away. A wide, triumphant, malicious grin split his face. It was the look of a predator who had found his prey exactly where he had set the bait.
The children were trapped, surrounded by attackers, with certain death waiting for any of them who dared to move a single muscle. The investigation was over. The ambush had begun.