Tori unwillingly matched Holt’s industrious pace through the facility, simultaneously dreading their arrival and eager to get it over with.

Major Simmons and a half dozen other officers stood around a table full of documents while a logistics specialist explained the relation between them. At the end of the table sat a giant of a woman, seven and a half feet tall, scarred down the right of her face with burns, and supported by a prosthetic left leg and right arm, which at her scale could qualify as heavy equipment. Her uniform was unbuttoned to display a tattoo below her collar depicting a barcode with the Greek beta. She was also Tori’s perfect image, though weathered with experience, scars and stature notwithstanding.

The rhythm of the room didn’t falter when Tori and Holt walked in, though Tori couldn’t help perceiving judgement directed at them. The officers deliberated on the information presented to them, then turned their attention on the agents.

Holt tossed a plastic bag on the table containing a pill shaped device spattered brown. “That tracker was inside a dead type one auger, bisected and neutralized before ICC arrived, no ballistic damage. Best as we can tell, it didn’t eat her.”

“You think it was Rickles?” one of the officers asked.

“Probably. Lab results will confirm it in an hour or two.”

“How many powers have access to the calliergo strain?”

“At least three we’re aware of,” the logistics officer replied. “But only SpireTech could produce enough contagion blue to disperse over a city.”

“We can’t confirm Rickles’ attacker is the same to attack the city.”

“Given the number of interest groups, it seems unlikely,” the logistics analyst added.

“But who knew Rickles was there? Her team’s movements were heavily covered up.”

The room quieted and it became apparent the woman at the end of the table was going to say something.

“Is that all?” she stated, cold as steel.

“Until the analysts are done,” Holt answered.

“What about the package?” Simmons asked.

“No signs.’

“Chatter indicates other groups are still looking,” the logistics analyst replied. “We would know if it was recovered.”

“Then we’ll start reclamation efforts from districts K-12 and J-13. With any luck, the package didn’t make it far. Elsewise, we’ll pick it up in a sweep.”

“A dustup will take years!” cried the head of intelligence. “For all we know it’s no longer in the city! If it is, every second it stays out of ICC custody is time a rogue operator has to find it! Interest groups are already moving within our walls! Revenant proved as much.”

“Not to diminish the significance of the topic at hand, but what about the quarantine failure?” the security officer asked. “The buildings were specifically designed to withstand this kind of biological attack! Are we going to ignore the breach of security to look for this ‘package?’”

“Someone thought it was valuable enough to wipe out a whole city. If we can’t recover it, we should do everything we can to destroy it!”

“Quiet,” the woman at the end of the table commanded. “Officer Mills, you will oversee investigating the failsafes. Find out what went wrong and why, then purge the rest of our locations of the error.”

“Yes ma’am,” the security officer respectfully replied.

“Major, continue clearing out the city. Prioritize recovering supplies for redistribution. We will divert manpower and equipment from any facility that can spare it.”

“Right away, commander,” Simmons affirmed.

“What about the package?” one of the officers asked, surprised and the impertinence in his own voice.

“Holt, I am reassigning you and your partner,” she continued after holding the officer’s gaze like a knife to his throat “You will pick up where agent Rickles left off. Resources will be made available as needed.”

“With all due respect, commander,” the officer nervously interjected. “Given the gravity of events, recovering the package and neutralizing the hostile party should be top priority.”

When it became apparent the commander did not see fit to provide a reply, Simmons said, “We are stretched thin as it is. A larger force will be committed when a lead is found.”

“If it’s as significant as the late agent Rickles assured before deviating from her original mission, why don’t we recall operative Hammond and put him on it?”

The name invoked a hush over the conference room, one only the commander saw fit to break.

“Report to analytics. They should be done sifting through the security footage by now.”

“If I may be so bold,” Holt replied. “What was agent Rickles’ original assignment?”

“Classified,” the logistics officer replied.

“What is the package?”

“Top secret.”

“Is it ‘need to know’ or is it ‘we don’t know?’”

Nervous glances passed around the conference table. Before Holt could become annoyed with the red tape, the commander selected a file from the table with her immense prosthetic arm and slid it to him. “I don’t believe I need to impress upon you the significance of this assignment. We lost seventy two million people and one of our best agents. If it does not interfere with your primary objective, find out who pushed the button and end them. I will leave the ‘how’ to your discretion.”

“Whatever you say, boss,” Holt answered, leafing through the folder before snapping it shut.

Tori held her tongue throughout the exchange. On her way out the door, she caught the commander’s eye, and for a brief moment the stony exterior gave way to something akin to reassurance and a nearly imperceptible nod. It could have been nothing more than Tori’s mind playing tricks on her.

The elevator took the agents to a dark floor cluttered with the hard drives recovered from the city. A cable haphazardly intertwining them snaked over and through several machines and computers into a server room walled off with glass growing frost around the edges. Adjacent was a desk supporting a cathedral of monitors projecting endless figures and layers of video boxes. At its center, absentmindedly twirling a yardstick was Geek, complete with glasses, sterile lab coat, and plastic booties over their shoes.

“Welcome to my lair, how may I help you, my dear agents?” Geek asked, spotting them in the reflection of the monitor.

“Finished analyzing the footage?”

Geek scoffed. “No.”

“You’ve had the drives for weeks,” Tori remarked.

“Yeah, and JULI can only analyze fifteen terabytes an hour, not including decrypting and cataloguing. Even with two thirds of the data destroyed or corrupt, the footage alone will take well over a month to get through. Command can give me arbitrary timetables all they want. Won’t make it happen any faster.”

“Gees, Geek, if you didn’t have anything, just say so.”

“Of course I have something, I’m not an idiot. I had JULI start with the most recently accessed information. Should tell us what your friend in the black mask was looking for. First few files are missing. Must have taken them with him.” Half a dozen security feeds opened up across the monitors displaying the city at various times of day. “This is agent Rickles’ last known location.”

On cue, Geek brough up a clip of Rickles’ helicopter landing. Even through the grainy quality she looked shaken, like a cat in a storm, clinging to the package as if any of the landing jockeys would rip it from her.

“The footage surrounding the building after she arrived, to the point the missiles were launched is corrupt or removed,” Geek explained.

“What about inside?” Tori asked.

Geek tapped a few keys. “It appears Rickles had surveillance disabled shortly after she arrived.”

“The hell would she do that for?”

“Probably didn’t want anyone watching,” Holt obviously replied.

“Moving forward from here’s easy, at least,” Geek muttered, then grabbed a speaker and slowly and clearly stated, “JULI, search for movement after emergency power kicked in.” He looked back at the agents. “Fewer cameras run on emergency. Shouldn’t take as long.”

Seconds later, a window popped up and intrigue culminated around the monitor.

“Hello,” Holt remarked. “Looks like we’ve got a survivor.”

“It’s just a civilian,” Tori replied.

“As far as we can tell.”

“He’s good at looking away from the cameras,” Geek noticed. “Can’t get a good angle on him. You think he’s a sleeper or a spook?”

“Probably a drug dealer or a bookie– where’d he go?” Holt asked when the subject passed out of frame.

“No coverage between buildings,” Geek explained.

They rotated through shots of either end of the alley until he suddenly rushed out the way he came with the package in hand and a crippled auger close behind. They observed the chase when camera coverage and uncorrupted data allowed all the way up to ramp. Highway cameras didn’t have emergency generators, so they were blind until the car crashed into frame one district over.

“He’s leaving it behind,” Tori observed after the auger died for good.

“Was the package in the wreck?” Geek asked, to which Holt only shook his head.

Then the subject stopped, attention fixed on something just off camera.

“What’s he looking at?” Holt demanded.

“Uh, a notice board, I think,” Geek replied, hastily tapping on the keyboard. “Hold on.” They cycled through a dozen different feeds. Aside from two which were corrupt, none got more than the board’s frame.

“Two hundred million cameras and not one of them can tell us what’s so fascinating?!”

“Well, he’s on the highway,” Geek sighed. “He could have gone anywhere.”

“At least we have something,” Tori acknowledged.

“If he’s still in the city, JULI will find him.” As if in response, a notification popped up on screen. “Speak of the devil.”

They were not presented an onramp or the corpse of the survivor, but the roof of the building where Rickles met her end, many hours after night fell. The dead meandered in the dim glow of the emergency lights as a helicopter lowered and soldiers filed into the building, one of them taking the time to shoot every security camera with line of sight.

“It’s about… thirty hours before the first ICC response team arrived. Ten hours after everything went down.”

“I should have guessed,” Holt dully sighed. “Let us know if anything else turns up.” He motioned to Tori and they left.

“What’s our next move?” she asked.

“We’ll head over to Phoenix Brigade, ask them what their ops team was doing in our city.”

“You think they did it?”

“No, but they were there awfully quick. Quicker than us, which means they know something we don’t.”

“And the civ?”

“We’ll send a team when a body turns up.”

“Assuming he’s dead.”

“If he isn’t, he won’t show his face any time soon,” Holt grumbled slightly more gruffly than usual. “I doubt the package will sit still long, regardless.”

“What’s bothering you?”

“Revenant took what he wanted.”

“So?”

“He left us a lot to work with.”