"That was amazing!" exclaimed Tracy while helping Edwin walking towards the lab.
Edwin stared back. The last word he would use to describe this night would be "amazing". Afterall, being forced to let out his power was the worst-case scenario.
The duo traveled back to the opening beside the abandoned rails, walked through the hall way, then stopped in front of the metal door that led to the lab. Passing the rusting metal gate, a huge room revealed itself. A suspended metal bridge connects the entrance to a pillar at the center of the spherical cavity, which is roughly twenty meters in diameter. Tracy took out her flashlight and shined it at the walls, which was plated with steel.
"I wonder what these people are up to…" Tracy said, puzzled.
Supported by the guide rails, Edwin headed towards the center pillar. There were darkened screens and tables inscribed in the concrete cylinder. He took out a folded map from his pocket and put it on the control panel. He then began tracing the path they took on it.
Their rough location made Edwin frown.
"Weird. This lab is right below the center of the city."
"Why is that?" asked Tracy.
"This location yields no advantage," he explained, "nothing significant around here – no powerlines, no waterways, no banks…nothing special."
"Intriguing," Tracy replied with sarcasm, pretending to understand, "this just makes so much sense."
"Check the surroundings. They should have left something behind in such a haste," Edwin suggested.
They made their way down on a staircase leading away from the bridge.
Striding around, Tracy retained her casual attitude. She fidgeted with whatever ice gadgets she created out of water vapor. They glimmered, casting tiny light spots around the area lit by her flashlight.
"You got a thing for shiny objects?" asked Edwin.
"Probably," replied Tracy, before switching the topic, "have you ever told anyone of you past? About how you ended up this way."
"None of your business."
"I know you might not care or trust anyone at this point, then why are you digging your hands into this case?" Tracy threw out another question.
"For you to leave me alone afterwards."
That was all he wanted at the moment. Naturally, he tried to back up the claim with evidence. Plenty was available for him in the first second of his thought: the years spent wondering around foreign streets, joining gangs and beating thugs to pulps just for a living…his backstory taught him the danger of trusting people other than himself.
These events came somewhat to an end when that bearded uncle, he calls Dan stepped into his life, uninvited…but to Edwin, the creepy uncle trying to play family still couldn't put Edwin's past to rest. The thought of him caring for no one fought endlessly with his inner self that sought peace and understanding, tearing his already exhausted brain apart.
It didn't take long before he quit reasoning.
◆ ◆ ◆
In front of him was the metallic cube they observed previously. Edwin closely examined the object that was suspended mid-air by steel wires. It was a cube, size comparable to a basketball, with a few rectangular bumps sticking out on the center of each flat side. On the surface, some complex circuit diagrams ran along the edges. Grabbing it, Edwin could feel a powerful drag on his arms – it was quite heavy.
What intrigued Edwin was a logo printed on the corner of its sides. It was the simplified diagram of a hydrogen atom, with a large circle in the middle representing the nuclei, while a smaller one on a circular orbit represented the electron – except the center sphere had a negative sign while the outer one has a positive sign.
The atom in the diagram had opposite charge layouts as to ordinary atoms.
"What is this?" Tracy poked her head over his shoulder.
Edwin turned the object around in his hands, observing every little detail. Then, he drew his own conclusions.
"Those parts sticking out of the cube…they are bolts for attachments. The slot on one side matches up with the one across."
"In English, please."
"It's a small module of a larger construction. As for the symbol…"
"Yes?"
"I don't know," he answered after processing the situation in his head, "let's head out before-"
Noises of people running through the tunnel behind them interrupted Edwin. The flashing lights grew brighter outside the entrance.
Edwin looked around – no exits were there other than where they came from. Searching around, he couldn't find any hiding spots. Just when he was getting ready for confrontation, a loud cranking noise of metal bending came from behind.
"Here, quickly!" Tracy waved at him. She had apparently softened a few plates on the walls and created a hideout.
Just as Edwin hopped in, the flashlight in the tunnel reached the inside of the cavity. From it, a few police officers marched in, followed by a SWAT unit.
The police began searching around the area and setting up perimeters. Edwin looked closer, and saw that the one leading the investigation was no other than officer Dan.
"Great…" Edwin swore under his breath.
◆ ◆ ◆
"Won't you look at that!" officer Jose exclaimed, still in shock of the grand discovery, "this whole lab has been hiding under our noses."
"Did we find anything?" Dan asked, walking between the personnels collecting items and snapping photos.
"Such an enormous operation…this organization isn't just another group of thugs. This room didn't even exist a month ago," said Jose, "they definitely had quite the resource."
"Yep," replied Dan, "not your ordinary thieves."
"I bet you a can of beer that this is related to the recent chaos," said Jose.
"Don't draw such radical conclusions this early, pal," Dan interrupted him, "you are worrying too much."
The accompanying civil engineer came back running.
"We took a good look at the ground and the walls of the site. There seem to be several locations used to install support beams," he reported, "as if they were trying to suspend a single massive object in the middle."
"Good to know," Dan replied, then turning to another accompanying officer "hey, got anything on the structure of the surrounding region?"
"Nothing bizarre in particular," he answered, flipping through a pile of blue prints and a detailed map of the city, "other than some piping systems, no important infrastructures are built near it."
"But there is one thing worth noting," the engineer added, "our current location is at the exact center of the city."
Dan took a look at the map and frowned. Though at the center of the city, this point offered no strategic advantage to anything. If anyone wanted to dig tunnels to rob banks or, for whatever reason, blow the main pipelines or cable system to paralyze the whole city, they would be wasting their time as these vital constructions were kilometers away.
"Not a good spot for terrorist activities either," Jose replied, who seemed to have read Dan's thought.
Unless…
The idea occurred to them simultaneously, even if nobody said a word.
"If you want to annihilate the most populated region entirely," Jose spoke quietly, lowering his voice, "this would be the perfect spot for detonation."
"But that would require a god-knows-how powerful of a bomb," Dan exclaimed what everyone had on their mind, "it's a city thousands of kilometers squared in area."
"This is absurd," the accompanying officer said with a forced laugh, "a gang bringing a nuke into the city? Aside from how the heck they would get that thing, what motivation would they have to destroy the city they thrive on?"
"The way they plated this whole place is unusual, to say the least," the accompanying engineer cut in, "we examined the lab and found out that it's walls can block off almost any electromagnetic radiation. Infrared, ultraviolet, or even x-ray…someone tried to hide something very radioactive."
They looked up and imagined a device of doom suspended above their heads like a guillotine, ready to fall and execute the city at any time. Dan shook his head to clear up the ridiculous thought.
"Relax, guys, I'd say are being too paranoid…but considering the madness of a world we have today," Dan continued, "let's not ignore the possibility."
The conversation was interrupted by a cranking noise coming from five meters away.
"Stay alert," Dan quickly held up his pistol.
The group of officers moved toward the source of the noise. There, they found a cavity. For a brief moment, they saw two people hiding in it, before they both fell down into a tunnel.
"Don't let them get away!" officer Jose yelled, jumping in, followed by Dan and a few officers.
The two figures dashed into the darkness, pursued by flashlights and yelling. They then took a sharp turn, immediately disappearing from the polices' line of sight, leaving the pursuers wandering aimlessly.
"Guard your positions. They just ran into a dead end," Dan commanded, closing in on the direction to which the two figures ran.
A few grunts and screams came from afar as the bright light from distant flashlights went down one by one. Dan sprinted to his feet, only to find his colleagues lying on the ground, rolling around painfully, with their weapons shattered.
"What the-" he gasped under his breath. Before he could finish, a crystal spear sliced through the air, narrowly missing his shoulders.
Without a moment of hesitation, Dan opened fire. The flame of the bullet briefly lit up the darkness. For an attack, the spear certainly failed, but it was a successful distraction. Dan turned his head back to face where the attack came from, only to see a pair of dark shadows disappearing into a turn. Despite the targets escaping, Dan could feel the oppressing aurora they left – an aurora he was too familiar with…
The deadly aura of espers.
"Did you get them?" Jose asked, coming down the narrow space with other officers.
"It was one of those freaks," Dan spoke firmly while putting his pistol back to the waist strap, "they are espers. I can tell that all these messes are deeply connected. Any minute we let those freaks roam free on the planet is one more potential catastrophe."
He turned around and looked at his colleague.
"And yes, Jose, you are getting a can of beer later."
◆ ◆ ◆
The cold air of the night felt more refreshing than ever as the duo finally emerged from the subway station.
"That old guy's tough," Tracy exclaimed, sitting on the ground and gasped. She looked at the mysterious device Edwin retrieved, "what should we do with that?"
"We can't trust it to anyone" said Edwin, "keep it as a secret."
"Then we better ask those guys who have been keeping it," Tracy said, "looks like we need to pay these boys another visit soon."
Edwin looked down at the device. Though he seemed calm as usual, a conflicted feeling swirled in him. He had survived the dreadful world for the past years by not caring about anything nor anyone, but now…in the face of such a dangerous threat, he didn't just disobey his code of remaining no more than a shadow, but had his darkest secret exposed under daylight. What was he trying to do? What was he trying to accomplish?
Edwin had to decide: on one hand, he could keep living his life and abandon his current home – like he did a long time ago. Or he could throw himself into whatever the hell was going on in this twisted mystery and probably get himself killed, with the only trade off being saving an uncle he was slightly familiar with…
At this point in his thought, Edwin had a clear answer.
"We need to meet again." Edwin looked at Tracy. "We got some unfinished business."
"Glad to hear that," laughed Tracy, "well then, see you later, pal."
◆ ◆ ◆
After he dragged his exhausted body to the bed, the pain finally hit him – those bruises and scratches did hurt, even if he was an "all-mighty" esper. The ceiling he was staring at slowly melted into a vivid screen as he began replaying his past in his head, in an attempt to answer his doubts.
"Seriously, what made my life such a disastrous mess?"