The Lakeview Water Treatment Plant sat at the edge of the Toronto-Mississauga border with its concrete walls that took up the whole view. At 3 in the morning, this place was dead except for a few security lights that were still lit up. The darkness did nothing to mask the smell coming from the treatment plant, making Gale pinch his nose uselessly as tendrils force fed him the scent regardless.

  He crouched behind a blue dumpster bin, breath making fogs in the flat 0°C weather. The map Rachel had sent showed this entire area was suspiciously clean, too clean for a water treatment plant, like the red circle was suspiciously too light.

  Paranoia? Maybe. But who said detectives never fumbled on a lead? Even Sherlock sometimes had made mistakes or went on chasing ghost leads.

  Closing his eyes, Gale focused, bracing himself for the incoming scents and visuals he was about to be hit with. Breath of the Void flowed outwards, tendrils phasing through walls, pushing beyond his physical view. It mapped out the whole underground, probing through concrete and feeding him back information on where empty space was.

  And there it was. A network of tunnels spread beneath the treatment plant like veins spreading out from the central plant and into and under the lake itself. The biggest tunnel stretched deeper into Lake Ontario, where multiple tunnels, corridors, and rooms of various sizes branched out from.

  "What the hell are you doing under a lake?" Gale whispered.

  The tunnels weren't empty either. Tendrils detected multiple ether signatures moving through them. Most of them were Awakened, mixed with those that didn't have any ether signature, mundanes. Several stronger signatures were scattered around, Attuned level. There was a single Resonant that looked like a bonfire compared to the others.

  Shit, that's not good. Gale took one step back. Attuned? Ok, he can take those most of the time, like Red Jacket and the Path twins. He could go toe to toe. But a Resonant? He wouldn't even wanna fight an Ollie that was using lethal rounds.

  This is just recon, Gale. In and out. No fights necessary, just like another cat burglar mission. He could slip through walls, become invisible, and gather intel without anyone knowing he was ever there. Besides, he could probably still run away from Ollie if there was a fight between them.

  What he needed there were documents that confirmed his theory, any document, anything to prove that the Silver Lions were building an army of dust addicted Awakened. It wasn't to test himself against an unknown Resonant who was clearly just trying to sleep on the desk.

  Gale began to move. The fence posed no problem, phasing through. He moved and pressed himself on the concrete walls, blind spots against the camera until he reached a small structure that went down. He climbed down the small 4 steps to reach a door marked "Service Access B."

  Moving through the wall with Phase Touch, inside lined with utility boxes and wiring, where the end of the small corridor was a hatch on the floor. Gale tried opening the hatch, but it was locked.

  Of course it was.

  Phase Touch once again let him go through the metal hatch, allowing him to go down the metal rung ladder all the way to the stinky tunnels beneath the water treatment plant.

  Gale's feet hit the bottom of the ladder, and the trail of fluorescent lights on the ceiling lit the tunnel.

  Tendrils fed him data on ether signatures walking through the corridors. Looks like a patrol. Those guys were the same ones that had been in the tunnels before rather than being in the rooms. The resonant stayed in the same slumped pose on the table. Probably asleep.

  Moving through the corridor going straight, voices echoed through the tunnels. A side tunnel met him where the voices came from. Four guards, all mundane, were carrying automatic rifles strapped to their shoulders.

  Distort activated as he slipped through the side tunnel. At the end of the straight corridor, it branched twice, opening into a wider passage with numbered doors. Room 103 had two people, 104 was empty, and 105 contained what looked like boxes and cabinets.

  Jackpot. Any documents were fine anyways.

  Moving to the left corridor and reaching 105, he phased through the door and found himself in a cramped office space. The file cabinets lined one wall, a desk with a computer occupied another, and a bulletin board covered in papers hung opposite. He moved to the cabinet first, opening drawers silently.

  Most contained what looked like personnel files. Names, dates, skill assessments. Boring HR stuff. He tried another drawer and found a folder called "Project Armament." The diagrams showed weapons with orbs that looked suspiciously like the ones in the knuckle guards he'd stolen for Esther Ann.

  "Ether tech for mundanes," Gale muttered, turning pages. "Already knew that."

  The reports detailed efficiency ratings, power outputs, and duration limits. According to the numbers, mundanes could wield these weapons for about seventeen minutes before the orbs needed recharging with more dust. Not long, but don’t guns usually need to be reloaded anyways? It could just be like that.

  Gale put the files back. This wasn't new information—not the smoking gun he needed to prove his theory. He needed something bigger. Something that showed the Silver Lions' true agenda.

  He turned to the desk and the computer, sitting on the chair. No good without a password, and he didn't have time to guess. The bulletin board, then. He scanned the papers pinned there. Schedules. Safety regulations. A map of the facility.

  The map caught his eye. It showed labelled sections of the underground complex, something the tendrils couldn't provide him. One area was marked "Records," laid deeper in the facility near where the Resonant signature was.

  "Of course the good stuff is near the big guy," Gale sighed.

  He took photos of the map with his phone, then phased back into the corridor. According to the layout, he needed to head down the main passage, take a right at the junction, then follow that to section 7. Records should be on the left, three doors down.

  Moving quietly, Gale navigated the corridor system. He passed a few mundanes in jumpsuits, then the same four mundane guards that had progressed their patrol.

  At the junction, he turned right as planned. The corridor here looked newer, with better lighting, bright enough that Gale had to squint, and security cameras at regular intervals. The cameras wouldn't pick him up, but their presence suggested he was getting closer to something important.

  The Resonant's location came closer that Gale could feel it. The man was sitting just one room past the room he needed to get into.

  Just stay asleep, big guy. Keep sleeping. It's 3AM in the morning.

  He reached section 7 and counted doors. One. Two. Three. "Records" was stencilled in black paint on the metal surface. No obvious security beyond a card reader mounted beside the frame.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Gale phased through. He paused, letting his eyes adjust. The room was larger than the previous one, filled with shelves of boxes and binders. A desk sat near the far wall with another computer.

  He moved to the shelves, checking labels. Most referred to operations, maintenance, personnel. Nothing out of the ordinary for a facility this size. He frowned, moving deeper into the room.

  The shelves stretched back farther than expected, creating narrow aisles that forced Gale to turn sideways as he moved deeper into the room. Dust, the normal kind, coated some of the older boxes.

  He ran his fingers along the labels, squinting in the dim light. Most boxes contained mundane operational files of the water treatment facility, like maintenance logs. Nothing worth hiding behind a security door.

  "Come on," Gale whispered. "Give me something useful."

  He moved to the next row, searching methodically. The boxes here looked newer, their labels cleaner. Project files, experimental data, security routines. Getting closer, but still not what he needed.

  He found a metal cabinet at the back of the room. Unlike everything else in the room, dust hadn't built up on top of it.

  Gale tried the top drawer. Locked.

  Left hand touched the cabinet and phased the whole wall. His other hand reached through, feeling for files inside. There were only two folders inside, pulling them out through the phased wall.

  One folder was thicker, containing what looked like a school notebook. The second folder was thin, holding just two pieces of paper kept together with a paperclip.

  Gale moved to the desk, where a small lamp provided enough light to read by. He opened the notebook first.

  The handwriting filled the pages in tight, neat script, cursive. Luckily, he wasn't one of those stupid kids who never learned cursive. He learned it from the books in the orphanage. Even had fun writing in cursive, where even teachers would complain about why he just can't write normally.

  Flipping to the first entry, it was dated 10 years ago.

  January 18 - She appeared in our facility without warning. The temperature dropped fifteen degrees in her vicinity. Dr. Burov vomited without explanation when she smiled at him. Something about her teeth seemed wrong, like they were too numerous, perhaps. She spoke fluent Mandarin but with pauses in unnatural places, as though she were translating from something utterly foreign. Her interest in our rift research was punctuated by moments of distraction. At times, she fixated on a fly for three minutes, tracking it with eyes that moved independently of each other. My hand shakes as I write this. Something is profoundly wrong about her presence, like reality itself objects to containing her.

  February 3 - The visitor arrived covered in a substance that resembled mercury but moved with apparent sentience. It avoided touching the floor. When Researcher Zhao questioned her about a recent rift closure, she touched his forehead with tenderness. He collapsed instantly, blood streaming from his ears and eyes. Upon regaining consciousness, he laughed continuously for eleven minutes, then calmly explained he could now "see the spaces between moments." He refuses medical attention and hasn't slept since. He draws the same symbol repeatedly. When I asked if she had harmed him, her confusion seemed genuine. "I let him see," she said, as though bestowing a precious gift. "Isn't that kindness?" I've requested transfer to another project. Request denied.

  Gale skimmed through the numerous entries until arriving at the second last entry.

  March 24 - We accompanied her through Shanghai today. She moved through crowds that unconsciously parted before her, though no one seemed to directly perceive her. She touched random individuals who later collapsed at precisely twenty-three minute intervals after contact. Medical reports show no commonality in their symptoms. When we passed a primary school, she stopped so abruptly that reality seemed to blur around her. Her focus fixed on a boy in the playground. "That one," she said, her voice suddenly devoid of its usual singsong quality. "You will protect that one." When asked why, she tilted her head at an angle no human neck should permit and replied with unsettling softness: "Because I can almost hear him." We've identified the boy as Yufei Lin. I've assigned personal security to his family without explanation. The guards report the boy frequently stares at empty corners of the hospital room and smiles.

  March 29 - Second meeting at the containment facility. She demanded access to our primary rift fragment today. No explanation, no reason. When I refused, she became... angry isn't the right word. Something worse. For my "insolence," she demanded the compensation of one half of my subordinate. I didn't understand until Li collapsed beside me. His body split vertically, the right half simply gone. She was chewing something. Blood everywhere. She seemed confused why he died from "such a small wound" and called him useless. I've contacted the Arcanes for help. If anyone can

  The journal ended there. No more entries. Just blank pages.

  Gale closed the notebook. The account described some monstrosity that looked like a child or something. The Arcanes were mentioned at the end as well.

  Setting the notebook aside, he opened the second folder that contained only two A4 papers held by a paperclip.

  The first page contained a typewritten report with handwritten notes in the margins:

  Rift activity has increased 37% city-wide in the past six months. Standard containment failing at an accelerating rate. Two possible conclusions: 1) Something is actively creating more rifts, or 2) Not enough people are awakening to Ether to maintain proper containment.

  Addendum: Third possibility: people are awakening but remain unaware of their potential. Current estimates suggest that for every identified Awakened, three to five remain undiscovered. These individuals must be found and recruited before the Path or United Knights claim them.

  The Silver Lions' primary mission must shift to identification and recruitment. The old Aur factions have forgotten their purpose to protect humanity from what lies beyond the rifts. They've grown corrupt, chasing power and political influence while ignoring the growing threat.

  We can no longer rely on the established hierarchy. The Arcanes have been compromised by greed and shortsightedness.

  Project Armament continues to advance, but the true solution lies in building our own army of Awakened. We have the means. Dust can accelerate awakening in those with latent potential or those unaware they've awakened while ensuring loyalty through dependency.

  Our enemies call this exploitation. I call it necessary sacrifice.

  The second page was torn halfway down, the bottom portion missing. The remaining text read:

  Artificial rift creation has shown promising results in controlled environments. The prototype has maintained stability for 72 hours, but power requirements remain prohibitive. If we can solve the energy problem, we can establish permanent

  The text cut off at the tear. But at the top of the page, written in scribbles: 46494538057409.

  Gale stared at the numbers. They didn't look like coordinates or an address. Maybe a code of some sort? A phone number was too short, an account number perhaps?

  Whatever it was, this was the smoking gun of the proof that the Silver Lions were creating an army of Awakened dust addicts. Artificial rifts, on the other hand, might be connected to Project Threshold that the mundanes were researching. Regardless, he hit the jackpot.

  And then there were the numbers. They had to be important enough to write it on two pieces of paper by hand. Who could help? He'd already asked too much of Rachel that he was starting to feel guilty not giving anything back to her. Ollie… he's too busy with his CEO stuff, always in his office for some reason. The only other smart person he could rely on was Mia.

  Gale pulled out his phone, snapped photos of both documents, then carefully returned the folders to the filing cabinet drawer, phasing them back inside.

  He left the Records room the same way he came in. But why would artificial rifts be in the same paper as the one about an army of Awakened dust addicts? Not to mention, the first file told him of something that was completely maybe even above everyone that the Arcanes just outright ignored the requester. But it wasn't like the Arcanes were good guys either, as everyone seemed to talk about them in contempt.

  Distort activated as he phased through the door with all these thoughts, a man was in the hallway, just outside the door that was supposed to contain the resonant. The man scratched his ass with extreme vigour, then he suddenly stopped mid scratch.

  The man's head snapped to where he was, nostrils flaring as he sniffed the air. His features looked weird, almost dog like with too much hair on his face.

  "The fuck?" the man's voice sounded more like the low growl of a dog. "Someone's here."

  Gale had stopped, not daring to move, distort still active. He was still invisible, yet the man's eyes were directly on him.

  "Intruder!" he barked.

  Those eyes and that dog like posture. The way he sniffed the air. This had to be the one they called 'The Hound'.

  Gale bolted, his feet slapping against the concrete floor. Behind him, Hound laughed, a sound that resembled more like a half-howl, half-laugh.

  "Run, little mouse!" Hound shouted. "Make it fun!"

  Gale cut around the corner, replaying the mental map in his head. Right at the next junction, then straight to the access ladder. If he could reach it before-

  A growl stopped him short. Not from behind, but ahead.