The basement of the Old Main Post Office was large, echoing, and kept at a cool fifty-five degrees. It didn't resemble a dungeon; it looked like a server farm.
Tall, humming server racks lined the walls, but instead of hard drives, they housed glass cylinders. Each cylinder contained a different color of gas: neon blue for kinetics, sickly green for necromancers, and heavy gray for alchemists.
This was The Archive.
Agent Thorne stood before a containment unit labeled SAMPLE 84-K (CALZONE, LEO).
The blue gas inside swirled violently against the glass, occasionally forming the faint outline of a screaming face before dissolving back into plasma.
"Stabilize the output, Sonder," Thorne ordered while adjusting his cuffs. "The witness is hostile."
Sonder, at a nearby console, typed a command. A low hum filled the room. The blue gas shuddered and slowed, transforming the screaming face into a calm, pulsing sphere of light.
"Subject is compliant," Sonder reported. "Cohesion is at 90%."
"Good evening, Leo," Thorne said to the jar. He spoke quietly, with the detached politeness of a coroner addressing a corpse. "I have a few follow-up questions regarding your previous employers."
The blue light pulsed. A voice—tinny, synthesized, and lacking any emotion—came from a speaker on the console. It was Leo's voice, but it sounded like it came from a radio tuned between stations.
"...friction... static... the ride... I want to go back..."
"You are back," Thorne corrected gently. "You are part of the greater whole now. You are serving the Normalcy. Focus, Leo. Tell me about the Alchemist."
Thorne pressed a button, sending a mild electrical stimulus into the jar. The gas flared.
"...Silas... The Forge... he hates chaos... he wants to fix the machine... he is made of tungsten and hubris..."
"Weakness?" Thorne asked, pen poised over his notebook.
"...Heat... he runs hot... if he overheats, the copper melts... he needs to vent... he is heavy... he sinks..."
Thorne noted: Thermal Overload. Aquatic submersion.
"And the Widow?" Thorne inquired. "Isobel Grave."
The gas in the jar recoiled, pulling away from the speaker. The blue light dimmed.
"...cold... she is the void... she speaks to the silence... she is anchored by the dead... burn the bones, and she loses her signal..."
Thorne nodded. Desecration of anchors. Cremation protocol.
"Now," Thorne said, leaning closer to the glass. "The Kinetic. Jackson Miller. The one who broke the train."
The jar flared a bright white. The energy spiked so much the glass began to vibrate.
"...JAX... voltage... speed... he is the spark... you can't catch him... he is the third rail..."
"We don't need to catch him," Thorne replied coolly. "We need to know how he breaks."
"...he burns out... he needs a source... cut the line... drain the battery... he is afraid of being still... he is afraid of the quiet..."
Thorne closed his notebook. "Fear of stasis. Dependency on external fuel sources."
He turned to Sonder. "It's a classic structure. The Alchemist provides the framework, the Necromancer provides the intelligence, and the Kinetic supplies the energy. If we isolate them, they collapse."
"Sir," Sonder interrupted, looking at a secondary monitor. "I'm detecting a fluctuation in the Archive's total mass."
"Explain."
"The samples," Sonder said, pointing to the rows of glowing jars. "They're... harmonizing. Look at Sample 84-K."
Thorne looked back at Leo's jar. The blue gas wasn't swirling haphazardly anymore. It pulsed in a rhythm. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
And down the line, the other jars matched it. A green jar two rows down pulsed. A gray jar across the aisle pulsed.
"It's a resonance frequency," Sonder said, his voice rising with panic. "They're reacting to some external stimulus. Something is pinging them."
Thorne narrowed his eyes. "Isobel Grave."
He walked to the main security console and pulled up the external feeds. The streets around the Post Office were empty. The highway below was flowing with normal traffic. The train tracks running through the building's base were clear.
"She's listening," Thorne realized. "She found us."
"Should I initiate a purge?" Sonder asked, his hand hovering over a red key. "We can vent the Archive. Release the samples into the atmosphere. It would stop the intelligence leak."
Thorne looked at the thousands of glowing jars. Years of work. The ultimate battery for his vision of a perfect, orderly world.
"No," Thorne said. "If they know where we are, they will come. And that's better than chasing them through alleys."
He pointed to the screen showing the Blue Line tracks that cut through the building's foundation.
"They are arrogant," Thorne said. "They think their magic makes them gods. They will try to hit us hard. They will try to break the cage."
"Prepare the Titan Dampeners," Thorne ordered. "And authorize the release of the Asset."
Sonder froze. "The Asset? Sir, the Construct is barely stable. It has never been field-tested."
"Then tonight is a graduation ceremony," Thorne replied, watching Leo's essence pulse in the jar. "Move the containment units to the upper vault. Flood the lower levels with Null-gas. And unlock the loading dock."
Thorne turned back to the jar. He placed his hand on the glass. The blue light pressed against his palm, not in greeting, but in a desperate attempt to burn him.
"You said Jax is afraid of the quiet," Thorne whispered to the trapped soul. "Let's see how he handles the silence."