In 2002 the first monsters appeared. What The Agency would now call "Class 1 phenomenon". The public called them monsters because they were big, harry, and ate people. Cable news called them monsters too, so it stuck.
The Agency calls them "Phenomenon" because sometimes there's a room that people go into and don't come out of. Or a building that entirely new people come out of who never went in. "Monster" isn't broad enough, but when something made of fur and claws chases you down the street, it's what you say. Or in 2002, tweet about— post on Facebook? Daniel hadn't used either website, so he didn't really know.
Years later, around the time that the first "Class 2s" were showing up, the Tracers were discovered. Kids born on the same day as a monster appearance. As they grew up, The Agency discovered they had special abilities. Just like the monsters, the older ones are a lot less powerful than the new ones.
But all of them have one thing governments needed: The ability to see magic, to comprehend it. The kids call it magic, not the scientists. The Agency found the first one after an attack in Portland. A girl called the police two hours before the floor of her middle school collapsed. The Class 2 that crawled out destroyed the school and killed everyone in it. But the Agency connected the dots. They spent months searching for ways to identify others like her. They took monster bits into middle schools across the country in the most confusing school assembly's kids had ever seen. They drove school buses near attacks to see if any of the kids freaked out.
Finally, they got lucky. A boy in Los Angeles survived an attack because he'd been able to see the monsters when no one else could. They plucked Daniel out of the hospital, flew him to a base in Kansas, and trained him as their first Operative. They've developed rules about this kind of thing. Tracer Operatives aren't expected to fight any monsters, just "investigate the phenomenon in a disrupted area". Agency foot soldiers take care of the rest.
Which is why Sam's eyes went as wide as saucers when Daniel drew his gun. He loaded it, silver bullets just to be safe, and set off towards the warehouses.
It was an odd sight. The San Francisco waterfront, Pier 45. Completely quiet. No cars, no machinery, just the soft lapping of the waves against the shore. The parking lot empty, but for the two Tracers. Daniel, a tanned California kid in a blue stained white shirt, and a kid short enough to be his little sister in the same uniform: a collared white shirt and red tie. Sam's hair was a few shades pinker than her tie. The sort of orange-red that teenage girls with black hair get when they try to dye it bright colors.
"You're just trying to freak me out, right?" Sam asked. She had to actively look up to see his face. "With the gun, and the 'asking what's wrong' stuff?"
Daniel wished he was, but the smell of magic kept getting stronger. As he'd thought, they weren't following a trail to a source. They were headed towards something. "Whatever came down the street, ran away from the magic in that warehouse" he said, pointing at the side of the building.
A cotton candy machine out front betrayed the industrial facade. This whole pier had been converted into a tourism destination. Sam stopped to read a sign, written in both Chinese and English. "That's an arcade?" she asked.
Daniel looked at her like she was an idiot. "Sam," he said slowly. "Do you see what it says above the door?"
She squinted at the word 'Arcade' which was sprawled across the front of the warehouse in bright yellow letters, then shrugged defensively.
Inside the quiet took on a different weight. The maze of arcade machines was a space so designed for people that their absence left it hollow. Sam almost screamed when an animatronic fortune teller sprung to life.
"TEST YOUR FORTUNE WITH MADAM ZAZZ" it screamed, its volume calibrated for a packed room.
Sam squeaked like a dog someone had stepped on and Daniel took a deep breath.
"You almost shot Madam Zazz" she said. "You really are freaked out."
Daniel put his gun back in its holster as calmly as he could. "I was ready" he said.
The magic beckoned from behind a Terminator II game in back row of the arcade, which was weirdly bright. Like someone had opened a window where there was none.
Monsters come from two places:
1) Nowhere.
This is the official explanation, and a helpful one. Sometimes, despite Daniel's best efforts, no one can figure out where a particular ball of teeth and goo came from. Something just exists one day, and its everyone's problem.
2) A source.
This is the Daniel explanation. He'd find walls that smelled of magic. Doors that shivered when you touched them. Elevator shafts that were six feet too long in one direction. Little bits that had been added to the world.
That's what they'd been hoping to find in the arcade. Something that gave them another glimpse into where monsters came from. Maybe, the kind of thing that would help stop them for good.
Instead, they found a mess. The kind of mess that changes everything in your life. The kind of mess, that as Daniel took it in, made him take a deep breath. His mind was already racing to "what if's" and "then what's". He focused on the how and the when. The stuff he was good at.
"Sam?" Daniel asked, "Can you look up when the arcade was evacuated?"
She nodded, gaping at the giant blue corpse draped over the back rail of a Dance Dance Revolution machine. The machine still pulsed to the beat, periodically beckoning both of them to "Step Up to the challenge". They both flinched as a flurry of gunshots rang out in the distance.
The team inside the mall had found its prey.
This creature was bigger, much bigger than the thing inside the mall. It was shaped like a bear; if bears were made of something blue and see-through, had three too many eyes, and too many teeth. Its blood dripped off the entire row of ruined machines. The wall at the end of the row was crumpled and burnt. Brick twisted out of the way, spilling light in from behind the back of the warehouse.
Daniel stepped through. On one side, the ocean, on the other a alleyway that led right to the parking lot. And across that, the street they'd both come down.
"Found it!" Sam said, emerging from the arcade with her phone in hand. "The evacuation order we saw was real, but the arcade was 'closed for a private party' all day today. It says so on their website." She looked up, at Daniel, and then across the parking lot. "You think the small one ran out this way? Up to the mall?"
"Yeah."
"No one noticed what happened to the first one, because it was inside the arcade?"
Daniel nodded. "Which was closed."
"Have you ever seen two monsters come from the same source?"
Daniel hadn't. He turned and went back in.
"How was it killed?" Sam asked, hovering over his shoulder. He pointed at the gunshot wound in the thing's chest. Three of them, like he'd been taught in training. The same caliber pistol that he had too. The bullet holes were ringed with burnt tissue, which meant silver bullets. The monster had staggered back and fallen onto the machines; the shooter had been standing by the Terminator II cabinet.
He spun around. The other thing had gotten away, which meant something had happened to the shooter. The screen of the cabinet was wet. He tapped it with his finger and tasted it.
Sam wrinkled her nose, "Ew."
It tasted of alcohol, a cleaning wipe of some kind. But they hadn't bothered to clean up the rest of the mess. There was probably no time after one got away.
Which meant that whatever had been on the screen was incriminating. He pulled out his knife, which immediately upset Sam. She would be cleaning the blue gore off hers for a week.
"It's good, we used yours earlier" he said, "or I wouldn't have a clean knife for this!"
"Mine would be clean."
He shrugged. "Shut up."
He could slip the blade into the crack at the bottom of the screen and dig around. They both leaned in. It came up grimy and black, with a splatter of something red.
"Human blood!" Sam shouted excitedly. Far too excitedly.
The magic pouring out of this place had come from the dead monster. Someone had killed it, and scared the smaller one that came with it.
Daniel stood where the shooter had and saw it. A hole in the magic, a missing chunk. An empty space in the arcade where a table or machine should have been. An empty space in the magic where the monster's source should have been. His mind kicked off again. Someone else knew about sources. Someone else could find them. And— they didn't work for the Agency.
"Sam." he said so seriously she flinched. "I need to trust you with this."
She already knew. He could see that. She was his competition, but they lived together. He knew when she dyed her hair red every month and took up the bathroom for hours. He knew how she listened to K-pop when she thought no one was around, and not even specific groups, just the Spotify playlist for K-pop. And she knew when he was about to lie to Ms. Henderson, which he never did.
"There was someone else here." She said quietly. "Someone who knew the monster was coming, and how to kill it. They rented out the entire arcade so they could do it without anyone noticing."
"No." he said. "There wasn't. We didn't notice."
She looked at his feet. "They got caught because there were two and no one expects that. Which means they know as much about monsters as we do. They might have done this before."
"Sam. You saw something weird around the back of this building. We walked in through that hole and I shot the monster three times in the chest."
"Why?"
"Because it jumped at us."
That wasn't what she meant. She still wouldn't meet his eyes. "If Ms. Henderson finds out I lied, she'll hit me."
Daniel knew she would do worse than that. "If they find out, say I made you lie."
"They won't believe that."
This was everything Daniel had been waiting for since Ms. Henderson had shown up at his hospital bed eight years ago. He took a deep breath, trying to untie the knot in his chest.
"If they find out, I will keep you safe." He'd meant it to sound confident, like a cop on one of those tv shows. It came out as an admission of guilt.
Sam looked up sharply, her eyes searching his face before it shifted. Trying to capture the moment he admitted what he'd done for the last four years. Trying to find some proof that he was telling the truth now.
"Now that we have this, it can be different. I can be different, Okay?" Daniel asked.
She didn't respond. A car was coming down the street, which meant Ms. Henderson was near. Daniel walked to the waterfront and fired three shots into the ocean. When he turned around Sam was watching him from the hole in the wall.
"Okay." She said, so quietly he barely heard it.
Daniel smiled. It grew out of the left corner of his mouth and twisted until it reached his eyes. He'd been a good soldier for years. Whoever had killed this thing had done so without their permission. Without their knowledge. Which meant there was now a way out. A way to the bottom of "The Phenomenon". A way to take the agency apart. All he had to do was turn the key.
Sam was caught off guard, so she smiled back.