Chapter 42: chapter 41: cold storage
The final bell released Jefferson High into a cold gray afternoon, but Neiry, Mia, and Kaleb moved through the crowd like they had already lived through an entire day before school even started. Kaleb’s borrowed Iron Veil shirt remained uncomfortably tight around his arms, Mia had spent half her classes thinking of her pink sparks, and Neiry had gone so long without sleeping that his usual distracted expression finally looked normal for someone his age. Students continued talking about the Queens Plaza rescue around them, replaying the same videos and arguing over which hero had contributed the most. None of them knew that the three people responsible were walking beside them, carrying an address connected to at least seven missing children.
Neiry stopped near the front steps and watched Marjory cross the courtyard. Her backpack rested heavily against one shoulder, and the homemade scanner inside it released another faint pulse of dormant energy. She walked faster than usual and ignored Destiny calling after her from near the school doors. Carol stood several feet away, watching Marjory leave with the same curious expression she had worn throughout lunch.
Kaleb followed Neiry’s gaze. “You’re staring at Marjory again.”
“I’m watching her.”
“That sounds worse.”
“She was at Queens Plaza.”
Kaleb’s exhaustion disappeared immediately. “You’re sure?”
“I sensed her above the intersection, and the same energy is inside her backpack. She’s investigating Subject 07 on her own.”
Mia looked toward Marjory as she disappeared through the front gates. “Should we stop her?”
“We don’t know what she’s found yet,” Neiry said. “If we confront her without knowing how much she understands, we might reveal more than she already knows.”
Kaleb adjusted his backpack. “So we’re spying on one of our friends while secretly investigating a company against Iron Veil’s orders.”
“Yes.”
“Just making sure I understand where we are morally.”
Mia pulled her jacket tighter around herself. “We need to get back to the base. If we’re going anywhere near Pier 19 tonight, we need an actual plan.”
Neiry started walking. “I have a plan.”
“You have a location and several ways to enter it illegally. That isn’t the same thing.”
“It usually is.”
“That explains a lot about you.”
They took separate routes from the school before meeting again several blocks away. Neiry opened a narrow shadow passage inside an empty service alley, transporting all three of them directly into the base. Kaleb immediately dropped his backpack beside the couch and collapsed face-first into the cushions. Mia placed her belongings near the equipment lockers and headed toward the training room while Neiry entered the laboratory to prepare their surveillance equipment.
Kaleb’s voice came muffled through the couch cushion. “Wake me up when we decide not to do this.”
“We already decided,” Neiry called from the laboratory.
“Then wake me up when we regret it.”
Mia stood at the center of the training mat wearing the physical undersuit normally hidden beneath her light armor. Without the familiar golden constructs surrounding her shoulders and chest, she felt strangely unfinished. The black-and-yellow material provided protection, but it didn’t feel like Beacon. The light had always separated Mia Vasquez from the hero people saw on their screens. Now she couldn’t trust it to remain active long enough.
Neiry positioned several reinforced training targets along the opposite wall. Kaleb had fallen asleep on the couch almost immediately, giving them less than an hour before they needed to leave for Pier 19. Neiry had wanted Mia to rest as well, but she refused to enter an unknown facility without understanding the power replacing her light.
“Stop trying to create a shield,” Neiry said.
Mia held both hands in front of her as pink magic twisted unevenly around her fingers. “We’re entering a secret laboratory that experimented on children. A shield feels useful.”
“You’re thinking about what your light would do. This isn’t light.”
“You’ve told me that six times.”
“And you continue treating it like it’s that light.”
Mia forced the magic forward. It spread into a curved surface for half a second, then broke apart and sent a pressure wave through the training room. Two targets fell backward while loose equipment scattered across the floor. Mia released the energy before it could reach the walls.
“See?” she said. “Almost a shield.”
“That was an explosion shaped like a shield.”
“It blocked the targets.”
“By attacking them.”
“Still blocked them.”
Neiry stepped onto the mat and held one hand near the energy surrounding her wrist. The pink magic leaned toward his palm as if attracted to the mana inside him. Unlike Mia’s light, it didn’t feel warm or solid. It felt unfinished, capable of becoming several different things depending on how she released it.
“Raw magic responds to purpose before shape,” Neiry explained. “Light gave you a material you already understood. You wanted a wall, so the light became a wall. Raw magic needs direction first. Decide whether you want to stop something, move it, bind it, or destroy it. Then give it form.”
Mia watched the energy move between them. “What if I choose wrong?”
“Then something breaks.”
“That’s your advice?”
“You asked what would happen. Don’t worry. We can usually fix whatever breaks.”
Neiry looked at the unstable magic surrounding Mia’s hands before turning toward the laboratory without explaining where he was going. He returned carrying a thick book wrapped in faded black leather. Silver metal reinforced its corners, although centuries of damage had scratched most of the original designs away. A circular symbol had been pressed into the cover and surrounded by smaller markings Mia couldn’t read.
He held the book toward her.
Mia stared at it without taking it. “What is that?”
“Some spellbook.”
“You had a spellbook this entire time?”
“You had light this entire time.”
“That doesn’t answer why you never mentioned it.”
“Nobody ever needed it.”
Mia accepted the book carefully. It was heavier than she expected, and the leather felt strangely warm against her hands. When she opened it, most of the pages appeared blank. A few contained complicated symbols written in dark ink, with smaller notes covering the margins in several different languages.
“This is your handwriting,” Mia said.
“Yes.”
“It’s not the best.”
“First of all, I wrote it for myself. It only had to make sense to me.”
Mia turned another page. “How old is this?”
Neiry hesitated. “My mother gave it to me as a journal when I first started learning magic.”
Mia stopped turning the pages.
Neiry rarely offered anything connected to his family without being asked. Even then, he normally removed every emotional detail before speaking about it. The worn book in her hands had survived his childhood, the war, his execution, and hundreds of years on Earth.
“And you’re giving it to me?”
“I’m letting you use it.”
“So you want it back?”
“I haven’t decided.”
Mia smiled slightly. “That sounds like giving it to me with extra steps.”
Neiry ignored that and pressed two fingers against the center of the open page. Mana moved from his hand into the book, causing several of the previously empty pages to fill with silver writing. The symbols shifted until they became something Mia could understand.
“The book doesn’t create magic,” he explained. “It’s like plugging something in it’ll give that raw mana a structure to follow. Most of these are basic spells—barriers, bindings, energy pulses, concealment, and simple healing techniques. Don’t attempt anything past the marked section.”
Mia looked through the pages. “Why?”
“Because one of them removes gravity from a localized area, and you currently struggle to make a shield.”
She immediately moved her hand away from the later pages. “Fair.”
Neiry turned the book back toward its beginning. A simple circular symbol occupied the center of the page, divided by four curved lines.
“This is an Arcane Ward,” he said. “It won’t behave like your light shields. It redirects force instead of stopping it completely. Hold the book open, release your mana and speak the words to decide what area you want protected.”
Mia held the spellbook in her left hand and raised her right. Pink magic gathered around her hands before flowing from the page. In front of Mia’s glowing hand there was a circular symbol illuminating, changing to bright pink.
A curved barrier appeared several feet in front of her.
It wasn’t solid. The surface moved like heated air and bent whenever Mia’s concentration changed, but it remained intact.
Neiry picked up a piece of broken concrete and threw it.
The object struck the ward and immediately changed direction, sliding across the barrier before hitting the floor.
Mia stared at it. “I did it.”
“You followed instructions.”
“Can you let me enjoy one thing?”
“You did well.”
Mia looked down at the glowing spellbook. Several new lines appeared beneath the Arcane Ward, written in Neiry’s handwriting as if the book had remembered his old instructions. For the first time since her light began failing, Mia felt like she hadn’t only lost something. She might have been learning what came next.
“Try it again,” Neiry said.
Mia released the first ward and focused on the target area. This time, she formed the barrier more quickly, although the left side remained thinner than the right. Neiry threw two pieces of concrete from different directions. The first redirected toward the floor. The second broke through and struck Mia’s shoulder.
She rubbed the impact point. “You could’ve warned me.”
“A real attack won’t warn you.”
“You really only have one training method.”
“It works.”
Mia summoned the Arcane Ward again. For the next forty minutes, Neiry attacked it from different directions while she learned how to bend the surface instead of attempting to hold it completely still. Every failed barrier scattered into pink sparks, but each successful one lasted longer.
When they finished, Mia closed the book and ran her fingers across the damaged cover.
Neiry turned toward the equipment rack. “Keep it on you and somewhere protected. Some of the spells inside are older than most modern countries.”
“That sounded suspiciously like you’re letting me keep it.”
“I’m still deciding.”
Mia secured the spellbook inside a reinforced pouch attached to the back of her physical suit. The Arcane Ward was the only spell she could reliably perform, but it was more protection than she had possessed an hour earlier.
Neiry checked the straps surrounding the pouch. “If the facility becomes dangerous, don’t experiment with unfamiliar pages.”
Mia looked at him. “You mean the gravity spell?”
“I especially mean the gravity spell.”
Kaleb’s alarm began sounding from the living center.
He rolled off the couch and hit the floor with a heavy thud.
“I’m awake!” he shouted.
Mia looked toward Neiry. “Should we tell him nobody asked?”
“He’ll figure it out.”
Marjory had almost reached the subway entrance when Carol caught up to her.
She heard running footsteps from behind and moved aside, assuming someone was trying to pass. Instead, Carol slowed down beside her, still wearing the gray Jefferson hoodie and carrying her school bag over one shoulder. The bruises from Queens Plaza remained visible across her face, but they had done nothing to reduce her energy.
“You walk fast for somebody who looks like she hasn’t slept,” Carol said.
Marjory kept moving. “I’m going home.”
“With some sorta energy scanner?”
Marjory glanced toward the opening of her backpack. She had forgotten to close it completely, leaving part of the device visible. “It’s for a school project.”
“What class gives assignments about mysterious energy explosions?”
“Advanced science.”
“We’re in the same school.”
“Different class.”
Carol stepped in front of her, forcing Marjory to stop. “You’ve been staring at maps all day, you knew exactly what Beacon’s new power did, and now you’re heading toward the train with the same machine you had near Queens Plaza.”
Marjory froze. “You saw me?”
“No. But you just confirmed you were there.”
“That was manipulative.”
“You make it to easy.”
Marjory moved around her and continued toward the station. “Go home, Carol.”
“You’re investigating the kid from yesterday.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You also didn’t say I was wrong.”
Marjory descended the subway stairs while Carol followed. The platform was crowded enough that continuing the argument would attract attention, so she stood near the far wall and lowered her voice.
“The energy surrounding him released a secondary pulse during the final explosion,” Marjory admitted. “Most of it moved outward, but part of the signal traveled in one direction like it was attempting to connect with something.”
Carol leaned against the tiled wall. “Where?”
“The waterfront. I compared the direction against city power failures, shipping routes, and several smaller energy incidents from the past three months. They all overlap near Pier 19.”
“And you were going there alone?”
“I’m observing from outside.”
Carol looked at her.
Marjory adjusted her glasses. “Mostly from outside.”
“You’re terrible at lying.”
“I’m not lying. I’m leaving space for changing circumstances.”
The train arrived, filling the station with a gust of warm mechanical air. Marjory entered and found a seat near the back. Carol sat beside her without asking.
“You aren’t coming,” Marjory said.
“I already am.”
“You were nearly killed yesterday.”
“So were you.”
“I wasn’t inside the collapsing building.”
“No, you were standing above an exploding street because you wanted better measurements.”
“That was different.”
“It really wasn’t.”
Marjory looked toward the opposite window as the train began moving. She wanted to keep arguing, but part of her was relieved not to be going alone. She didn’t say that. Carol would never let her forget it.
The sun had disappeared by the time Neiry, Mia, and Kaleb reached Pier 19.
The cold-storage facility stood near the edge of the Queens waterfront, surrounded by six smaller warehouses and several rows of rusted shipping containers. Broken refrigeration units lined the loading bays, their metal surfaces covered in salt damage from years of exposure to the river. According to public records, the property had been abandoned for more than a year. According to Kaleb’s scanner, it was using enough electricity to power several occupied buildings.
The three heroes watched from the roof of an empty warehouse across the street. Neiry wore his complete Dark suit, while Kaleb’s Tempest gear had been reinforced with additional water containers along his belt. Every few minutes, Mia’s gloves would flicker and allow pink magic to show through. Neiry’s spellbook remained secured inside the reinforced pouch across her back.
Kaleb controlled two small surveillance drones from his gauntlet. One circled the main cold-storage building while the other moved between the loading bays, scanning for heat signatures and active security systems.
“No guards,” Kaleb said. “No vehicles, no visible cameras, and no movement inside.”
“That’s because the camera feed is repeating,” Neiry replied.
Kaleb checked the screen. “How can you tell?”
“The same bird crossed the loading dock three times.”
Kaleb rewound the footage. A pigeon flew past one of the cameras, disappeared, and repeated the exact movement forty seconds later.
“Okay. That’s creepy.”
Mia studied the facility. “It means somebody wants the building to look empty.”
Neiry focused on the shadows beneath the loading docks. Artificial energy remained inside the facility, but the signature was weak and scattered. It didn’t feel like Subject 07. It felt like residue left behind after something had been removed.
“There aren’t any children inside,” he said.
“You’re sure?” Mia asked.
“I can’t sense any active power signatures. The strongest energy is underground, but it hasn’t moved since we arrived. You need to learn and focus on sensing”
“Whatever I will”
Kaleb recalled the drones. “So this could be an abandoned location.”
“If the delivery happened three months ago, they could’ve moved everything,” Mia said. “We shouldn’t expect to find the missing subjects sitting in the first address we investigate.”
Neiry stood. “Don’t forget empty facilities still leave evidence.”
Mia stepped in front of him before he could enter the shadows. “We observe first.”
“We’ve been observing for twenty-three minutes.”
“That is not a long time.”
“It is when nothing changes.”
Kaleb moved between them. “How about we enter carefully before the married couple starts arguing on a rooftop?”
Mia and Neiry looked at him.
Kaleb raised both hands. “Kidding. Not married. Terrible choice of words. Moving on.”
They crossed the street through the connected shadows beneath the warehouses. Neiry brought them out behind a rusted loading container near the main facility. Kaleb disabled the nearest motion sensor while Mia used a narrow curve of pink magic to push open a damaged side door without touching it.
The door opened into a dark refrigeration corridor. The cold-storage units had been shut down long ago, but the building remained colder than the air outside. Their footsteps echoed across the concrete as they moved deeper into the facility.
Kaleb scanned the walls. “Power lines run beneath us. Whoever is using this place doesn’t need anything up here.”
Neiry stopped near an empty storage room. Scratches covered the floor where heavy equipment had recently been dragged toward the loading bays. The surrounding air still smelled faintly of disinfectant beneath the rust and river water.
“They cleaned the upper level,” Mia said.
“Quickly,” Neiry added.
Neiry knelt beside one of the drag marks. “Within the last week, maybe less. The dust hasn’t settled evenly.”
They followed the marks toward a freight elevator hidden behind a false refrigeration wall. The elevator controls appeared dead, but Neiry removed the exterior panel and connected his gauntlet directly to the wiring. A moment later, the doors opened onto an empty shaft descending beneath the facility.
“I’m guessing this isn’t in the public building plans,” Mia said.
“It is not,” Neiry answered.
Kaleb looked down into the darkness. “The elevator has power, but using it could announce we’re here.”
Neiry stepped into the shaft and allowed darkness to form beneath his boots. “Then we don’t use it.”
Mia looked over the edge. “You know two of us can’t stand on shadows.”
“You can fly.”
“My flight keeps turning off.”
Kaleb pulled water from one of his containers and formed a narrow platform inside the shaft. “Good news. We have the world’s least safe elevator.”
Mia stepped onto it reluctantly. Kaleb followed, controlling the water as it lowered them through the shaft while Neiry moved beside them using darkness. They descended past the public foundation of the building and continued another forty feet underground before reaching the first hidden level.
The doors opened into a hallway covered in white panels.
Unlike the warehouse above, this section had been used recently. Empty medical carts lined the walls. Several doors stood open, revealing examination rooms stripped of their equipment. Black numbers had been painted above each room instead of names.
Neiry entered the nearest one. Straps remained attached to a metal chair in the center, and dried blue residue covered the connection points surrounding it. The artificial energy reacted when he moved closer.
“This was an intake room,” he said.
Mia stood in the doorway. “How can you tell?”
“They restrained someone here before attaching the energy. The residue is weaker than what was inside Subject 07, which means this was done before the power stabilized.”
Kaleb began recording the room through his visor. “We need to document everything before the company realizes we found it.”
Neiry placed one hand near the chair. A brief image moved through the residual energy: a small arm strapped beneath a metal band, blue energy entering the skin, and someone screaming behind thick glass. The memory disappeared before he could identify anyone.
His hand closed into a fist.
Mia noticed. “What did you see?”
“Enough.”
They continued deeper into the hidden level. Every room had been emptied, but the company had moved too quickly to erase everything. A broken syringe remained beneath one cabinet. Small footprints appeared beneath a layer of chemical cleaner. Kaleb discovered fragments of erased medical information stored in the examination terminals, all connected to numbered subjects instead of names.
The central laboratory was larger than the other rooms. Seven containment platforms surrounded a circular computer station, and cables ran from each platform into a machine built beneath the floor. The strange three-line symbol appeared across the main screen.
Kaleb approached the terminal. “This is still connected to something.”
“Can you access it without alerting them?” Mia asked.
“Probably.”
Neiry looked at him.
Kaleb released an annoyed breath. “I know. ‘Probably’ isn’t good enough. Give me a minute.”
He connected a cable from his gauntlet to the terminal. Broken files appeared across the holographic display while several security systems began attempting to remove him. Kaleb isolated the computer from the external network and created a copy of everything that remained.
A damaged title appeared above the records.
PROSPECT INTAKE PROGRAM
Mia read it twice. “Prospect?”
“Maybe that’s what they called the subjects,” Kaleb said.
“Prospects for what?” she asked.
Neiry looked toward the seven empty platforms. “Survival.”
The files contained test results for several numbered children, but most of the information had been deliberately corrupted. Subject 07’s records showed repeated compatibility failures followed by a final unstable activation. Other documents referenced transfers without providing destination addresses.
Kaleb recovered twelve percent of the database before the remaining files locked themselves.
“This wasn’t the main laboratory,” he said. “They brought the children here, tested whether their bodies could survive the artificial energy, and moved the successful ones somewhere else.”
Mia looked toward the empty platforms. “And the ones who weren’t successful?”
Nobody answered.
Neiry turned toward the sealed doors at the far side of the laboratory. Artificial energy remained behind them, stronger than the residue surrounding the examination rooms.
“We’re not finished.”
Marjory and Carol reached Pier 19 almost an hour after the heroes entered.
The waterfront had become nearly empty. Wind moved between the warehouses and carried the smell of salt, oil, and rust from the river. Carol kept her hands inside the pockets of her hoodie while following Marjory between the abandoned loading bays.
“This is definitely where people get murdered in movies,” Carol said.
“That isn’t helpful.”
“It isn’t supposed to be helpful. It’s supposed to make you reconsider.”
Marjory checked the scanner. The energy signal had become stronger since they left the subway. “Something beneath the main facility is still active.”
Carol looked at the boarded windows. “Then we call the police.”
“If the company has access to Iron Veil equipment, we don’t know who they can monitor. A police response could make them erase everything before anyone gets inside.”
“And your plan is to get inside before they erase you?”
“My plan is to confirm the source of the energy.”
Carol watched Marjory move toward the western side of the building. “You say things in a professional voice like that makes them less dangerous.”
“It usually works on teachers.”
The scanner led them behind a broken refrigeration unit. Marjory found a narrow maintenance entrance hidden beneath layers of rusted metal. The lock had already been damaged from the inside, leaving the door slightly open.
Carol looked into the darkness beyond it. “Somebody else came through here.”
“Recently.”
“Still want to go inside?”
Marjory hesitated. The sensible answer was no. She had already confirmed unusual energy beneath Pier 19, and she could bring that evidence to someone better equipped to investigate it. However, better-equipped people had apparently missed several months of children being moved through the waterfront.
She switched on the scanner’s light.
“I’m only checking the first level.”
Carol pulled out her phone and turned on its flashlight. “You’re just the worst.”
They entered together.
The maintenance tunnel descended beneath the warehouse through several narrow stairways. Old pipes surrounded them, but newer cables had been installed along the walls. The energy on Marjory’s scanner separated into several patterns as they moved lower. One matched the blue power surrounding Subject 07. Another felt weaker and almost familiar, although she couldn’t explain why.
Carol followed closely enough that their shoulders nearly touched. “If something starts chasing us, I want it officially recorded that this was your idea.”
“You followed me.”
“I’m already planning my defense in court.”
At the bottom of the stairs, they reached a corridor marked with black numbers. Several doors stood open, and a faint child’s drawing remained visible inside one of the rooms.
Marjory stepped toward it.
Neither girl noticed the camera above the doorway turning to follow them.
Kaleb recovered another section of the Prospect database.
The file appeared for less than a second before disappearing again, but Mia saw a list of transfer codes and the word ORCHARD repeated beside several subjects.
“Did you save that?” she asked.
“Part of it.”
Neiry stood near the laboratory doors with one hand against the wall. He had been focused on the artificial residue behind them, but a new vibration moved through the facility.
A camera activated somewhere above.
Then another.
Kaleb’s terminal began displaying security warnings. “That wasn’t me.”
The main laboratory doors closed.
Red emergency lights illuminated the room as steel locks activated throughout the underground facility. At the same time, several dark vehicles turned through the gates above Pier 19 and stopped near the loading bays.
Neiry heard doors open.
Organized footsteps entered the warehouse.
Then he sensed two human heartbeats inside the western maintenance level.
One of them carried the dormant mana signature he recognized.
“Marjory,” he said.
Kaleb turned from the terminal. “Weird time to mention her. What about her?”
“She’s inside the building.”
Mia focused sensing the second heartbeat moving beside her. “Carol.”
A calm artificial voice filled every corridor beneath Pier 19.
UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED. CLEANUP PROTOCOL INITIATED.
Neiry looked toward the sealed laboratory door while artificial energy signatures began descending from the warehouse above.
They hadn’t found the company.
The company had been waiting to see who found them.