Laboratory Annex Four — Observation Floor
Lily frowned. "Later than we think?"
Seraphine rested a hand against the edge of the table behind her. "It means if you came here expecting untouched records and clean answers, you're already too late."
Levi's gaze stayed on her. "So there's something worth being late for."
That got a faint smile out of her.
"Maybe."
Lily folded her arms tighter. "You're doing that on purpose."
"Doing what?"
"Answering without answering."
Seraphine looked at her, then back to Levi. "I've been in this building long enough to learn that saying the wrong thing to the wrong officer gets you buried right beside the truth."
Levi answered before Lily could. "Then figure out if we're the wrong officers."
That made Seraphine take a little more interest in him.
Most captains came into rooms like this expecting rank to do the work for them. Levi didn't sound like that. He sounded like someone who had spent more time in the field than behind a desk, and Seraphine noticed it immediately.
She pushed off the table and circled to the side, stopping near a locked cabinet.
"What exactly do you know already?"
Levi answered first. "Kestrel disappears. The old facility burns. X-9 keeps showing up anyway."
Lily added, "And everyone above us suddenly becomes careful with their words."
Seraphine gave a small nod. "That part sounds familiar."
Levi glanced at the dismantled equipment around the room. "Was the old site really just some overflow lab?"
"Officially? Yes." Seraphine shrugged. "Research too unstable, too politically ugly, or too inconvenient to keep close to the main branch got sent there."
"And unofficially?" Levi asked.
She tilted her head slightly. "A place where people kept working after they should have been stopped."
That was enough to keep him interested.
Lily stepped closer. "And X-9?"
Seraphine gave her a quick glance, but her attention settled back on Levi. "Started as restraint research. Containment. Suppression. Something to level the field when star users and shard users tore apart entire towns."
Levi's expression shifted just a little. That part, at least, sounded almost reasonable.
Seraphine caught it.
"That surprises you?"
"It means it didn't start as madness," Levi said.
"No," Seraphine replied. "It didn't."
For the first time, some of the sharpness left her voice.
"Dr. Kestrel was brilliant," she said. "Too brilliant. The kind of man who could look at a problem no one else could solve and convince himself that if the solution was possible, then it was justified."
Lily watched her carefully. "You knew him?"
"Not personally." Seraphine shook her head. "I heard stories. Enough to know he wasn't always the man people whisper about now."
Levi caught the wording.
"What changed?"
Seraphine was quiet for only a second this time, more choosing her answer than avoiding it.
"Some people break loudly," she said. "Others turn their grief into work and call it purpose."
That was all she gave them.
Not much.
But enough to feel real.
Lily noticed the shift too. "So he became obsessed."
Seraphine gave a thin smile. "That's a simpler word for it."
Levi stepped closer to the table. "And X-9 changed with him."
"Yes," she said. "By the end, it wasn't just about restraining power anymore. It was about forcing a body to survive more of it."
That landed.
Levi looked at the prototypes scattered around the room, then back at her. "And someone kept it going after the fire."
Seraphine didn't answer that right away.
Instead, she pressed her hand against the side of the cabinet. A faint click sounded, and a narrow hidden panel slid open beside it. Lily's eyes narrowed immediately.
From inside, Seraphine pulled a thin packet of old notes and a worn file binder.
She set them on the table.
Levi looked down first.
Damaged diagrams.
Neurological notes.
Power-routing concepts.
Internal stress tolerances.
Lily moved in beside him.
"These weren't in the archives."
Seraphine's tone was dry. "That would defeat the purpose of hiding them."
Levi picked up one of the pages. "You kept these?"
"I kept what I thought might matter later."
Lily looked up. "Or what might be dangerous if someone else got it first."
Seraphine met her eyes briefly. "That too."
Levi kept flipping through the notes.
"Kestrel's name is all over this."
"He was the mind behind it," Seraphine said. "But no one man keeps something like this alive alone."
There it was.
Lily heard it too.
"So who helped him?" Lily asked.
Seraphine crossed one arm over the other. "You're asking the wrong question."
Levi glanced up. "Then what's the right one?"
"Who profited after he was gone?"
That one settled the room.
Levi looked at her differently after that.
She wasn't just careful. She was thinking in the same direction he was.
Lily noticed that too, and it bothered her more than she wanted to admit.
Levi set the page down. "You think someone took the research after the fire."
"I know someone did," Seraphine said. "I just don't know how many hands it passed through afterward."
Lily frowned. "And Soren?"
Seraphine's eyes shifted, just slightly, toward a camera set high in the corner of the room.
Then back.
"Captain Soren likes order," she said. "The kind that keeps questions manageable."
Levi followed her glance without turning his head.
So he was watching.
He had figured as much.
What he didn't know was that Seraphine had already accounted for it. A quiet jammer hummed behind one of the lower consoles, scrambling any audio feed in the room while leaving the visual signal intact. Soren could watch all he wanted. He just couldn't hear a word.
Seraphine kept her voice even. "Which means if you plan on pushing further, don't do it through him."
Lily caught the implication. "You knew we were being watched?"
Seraphine looked at her. "I work in research. I assume everything is being watched."
Levi almost smiled at that.
Almost.
He went back to the papers. "What about Kestrel himself? Dead?"
Seraphine considered the question. "Maybe eventually. But not in that fire."
"You sound certain."
"I'm certain he was too important to vanish by accident." She tapped one finger against the file. "Men like him either escape, get silenced later, or become useful to someone worse."
Levi absorbed that.
Lily pointed to one of the older notes. "This section's missing."
"It was torn out before I got it," Seraphine said.
"Convenient," Levi muttered.
Seraphine looked at him again, amused this time. "You say that a lot?"
"Only when things are."
That got a real smile from her, brief but genuine.
Lily saw it and immediately disliked how easy that had been.
She stepped in. "If you know this much, then stop testing us and tell us where the rest is."
Seraphine didn't rise to the edge in Lily's voice. She simply reached into another hidden compartment and pulled out an old metal key with a faded R&D seal.
She held it between two fingers for a moment before offering it toward Levi.
"The upper structure burned," she said. "The sublevel annex didn't burn the same way. Reinforced foundation. Sealed storage. Not listed on public maps."
Levi took the key from her.
"You're saying part of the old facility is still intact."
"I'm saying part of it still exists."
Lily looked between them. "And no one cleared it out?"
Seraphine gave her a flat look. "Oh, they cleared out plenty. Just not everything."
Levi turned the key in his hand. "What's still down there?"
"Whatever was too hidden to grab in time," Seraphine said. "Or too dangerous."
Lily glanced at the old file again. "You've been there."
Seraphine didn't answer.
She didn't need to.
Levi slid the key into his coat. "We go tonight."
Lily looked at him. "You decided that quickly."
"If Soren can see us, then by morning he can move whatever's left."
Seraphine nodded. "That's what I'd do."
Again, her agreement came too easily.
Lily felt it immediately.
Not enough to call it out.
Enough to remember it.
"Why help us?" Levi asked.
For the first time since they entered the room, Seraphine's answer came without much edge to it.
"Because there was a time I thought someone in this system might actually be able to root this kind of rot out before it spread."
Both Levi and Lily watched her carefully.
She continued, her eyes settling on Levi more than Lily.
"When I was younger, there was someone I respected. Strong. Disciplined. The kind of officer people pointed to when they wanted to believe Five Points still stood for something."
Lily studied her face.
"You admired them."
Seraphine gave a faint shrug.
"I respected what they represented."
It was careful.
Measured.
Just enough truth to matter.
Her expression hardened again, if only slightly.
"But years pass. Things get buried. Men compromise. Research survives where it shouldn't. After enough of that, you either keep pretending the system will clean itself up…"
Her eyes flicked briefly to the old file on the table.
"…or you decide to help the people actually willing to dig."
Levi held her gaze for a moment, then slid the key into his coat.
"We'll go tonight."
Lily turned toward him. "Tonight?"
"If our archive searches were flagged, then waiting until morning gives them more time to move whatever's left."
Seraphine nodded. "He's right."
Lily didn't look thrilled that she agreed.
"That doesn't make it less reckless."
"No," Levi said. "Just necessary."
Seraphine stepped back toward the table, picking up one of her tools again.
"Then don't use the east entry route," she said. "If anyone's watching movement in and out of the lower site, that'll be the first path they monitor."
Levi gave a slight nod. "Anything else?"
Her eyes lifted to him again.
"If you find black storage cases marked with an older four-point seal, don't open them alone."
Lily frowned. "What's in them?"
Seraphine adjusted the piece in her hand. "If they were important enough to seal and dangerous enough to leave behind, then you're better off not finding out the hard way."
Levi studied her for a second. She was still holding something back, but not enough to stop them from moving forward.
He turned toward the door.
Lily followed, though before stepping out she looked back once more.
Seraphine had already gone back to work, as if the conversation was over the moment she decided it was.
Still, she spoke again.
"Captain."
Levi stopped and glanced back.
"If Soren asks, you didn't get anything useful from me."
Levi held her gaze. "And if he asks you?"
That drew the slightest smile from her.
"I'll decide how useful the truth is when the time comes."
Levi gave a small nod and stepped into the hall.
Lily was right behind him.
—
Research & Development Headquarters — Upper Hallway
The doors shut behind them with a low mechanical hiss.
For several steps, neither of them said anything.
Then Lily finally spoke.
"I don't trust her."
Levi kept walking. "I know."
"She was testing us."
"Yes."
"She was also more interested in you than the actual conversation."
That made Levi glance at her briefly.
"…What?"
Lily folded her arms. "You heard me."
Levi looked ahead again. "She was trying to figure out whether we were worth telling anything to."
Lily muttered under her breath, "Felt pretty figured out already."
Levi either didn't hear her or chose not to respond.
After a moment, Lily asked, "What do you think?"
"I think she knows more than she said," Levi replied. "And I think she hates the people above her just enough to be useful."
Lily exhaled through her nose.
"That's not exactly reassuring."
"No," Levi said. "But she gave us a direction. That's more than Soren did."
That part, annoyingly, was true.
They kept walking.
"So we're really doing this tonight," Lily said.
Levi nodded once. "If there's anything left in that annex, I want it before someone else remembers it's there."
Lily looked ahead.
Below all the polished metal and clean architecture, something old was still buried.
And tonight, they were going to dig it up.
—
Captain Soren's Office — Internal Security Feed
Soren stood in front of a monitor wall, arms crossed.
He watched the feed from Annex Four in silence.
Visual only.
No audio.
Again.
His jaw tightened slightly.
Seraphine had blocked the sound before the meeting even started.
That alone told him enough.
Whatever was said in that room mattered.
And judging from the way Levi and Lily left, they hadn't walked out empty-handed.
Soren's eyes narrowed as the hallway feed picked them up moving toward the sector elevators.
He didn't know what Seraphine had given them.
But he knew her well enough to recognize when she had decided to gamble.
And if she was gambling now, then whatever those two were walking toward was something worth protecting.
Or destroying.