"I'm saying you went about it in the wrong way" Jefferson was saying. Daniel had seen him around before, a short man with friendly eyes. He talked like a schoolteacher when he thought he was in earshot, and swore like a stock broker when he thought he wasn't. Ms. Henderson was very careful with Daniel's hearing. He'd always lied about how good it was in tests, and he was pretty sure she knew. At least suspected. Jefferson didn't, which was why he was talking, very obviously about Daniel, from the other end of the helipad.
"Ellis is high speed rail, the kid's the Japanese bullet train, you know? You're trying to drive her like a car, you don't do that for trains. You start the train. You don't drive them." Ms. Henderson glanced up at Daniel to see if he was listening and seemed to decide he wasn't. Daniel focused on taking out his earplugs and putting them in a little too slowly.
"Your 'bullet train' has no field experience," she said, "That one's been running around with special forces since he was 14."
"So, tie him to the tracks!" Jefferson said, augmenting his exasperation with a wave of his hand. "Don't tell me you're scared of him?"
The Agency didn't have "Ranks", so it was hard to tell who reported to who, but Daniel was very sure that Jefferson had just crossed a line. He didn't catch what Ms. Henderson said next, but it made Jefferson take a step back.
Sam nudged him "What are they talking about?"
Daniel shrugged. "Don't know."
Sam nodded wisely and said, "It's probably nothing good".
Ever since Daniel had trusted her to lie about the San Francisco warehouse, she'd started acting like an adult. Pretending she knew more about what was going on than she did. She folded her arms and watched the helicopter land. The soldiers in their black gas masks got on first. Daniel and Sam sat nearest the door.
The Agency flew in modified black Chinooks— massive dual rotor troop carriers. Even with nineteen people in the back, there was still room for the soldiers to find some distance from the two Tracers. Ms. Henderson sat in the jumpseat, talking to the pilots. The soldiers sat together and made rude jokes with their hands when she wasn't looking. Daniel caught one of them looking at him and Sam with something like curiosity or guilt halfway through the flight. He often wondered what the black masks were told about the Tracers. Did they have kids Sam's age at home? The soldier looked away as soon as their eyes met.
It was a short flight, which meant they were somewhere in the Midwest. They landed in tall grass at the edge of a town called Lautville. Population 2,130, at least according to the sign.
"A local boy, sixteen, was found dead yesterday" Ms. Henderson said. "Security footage shows him being mauled by something that looks like a big cat.
"How big?" Daniel asked.
"Hard to tell." Ms. Henderson said. "It came up to his shoulder at least." One of the black masks whistled. "We don't know much. It moved fast, it stalked its target, cornered him where he couldn't get help. Field Unit will establish a perimeter around the last known location and work inwards. Operatives will work inside the perimeter and try to locate the phenomenon.
"You're sending us in alone?" Sam asked.
Ms. Henderson had the same smile she'd had in the classroom yesterday. "After you handled the second creature in San Francisco, I'm sure it won't be a problem."
The town was dreary. It wasn't a word Daniel had ever used before, but this place manifested it. The roads were paved, but potholed and decaying. Grass grew out of the cracks. There were no sidewalks except for on the main street, between Denny's and the Shell gas station. A highway roared past.
"Do you think it might have gotten hit by a car?" Sam asked hopefully.
"No." Daniel said. If it had stalked the boy it killed, it was smart enough to avoid a semi-truck.
"What do we do about Ms. Henderson thinking I can kill it?" she asked.
Daniel shrugged. He wasn't sure how much to tell her. She'd give everything up under the right pressure. To Ellis, the Tracer who'd interrogated him yesterday.
"You probably can," he said eventually, "but if we see a big monster lion, I'll shoot it."
If Ellis wasn't a kid, she'd be the most powerful Tracer he knew. Just like all the other young Tracers he'd met. The younger ones were the most powerful. Older, first-generation Tracers like him and Ellis had augments. He could hear better, move faster, see farther, but he wasn't stronger. Ellis could tell you what someone was feeling, but not why. Sam could kill someone with her thoughts.
A woman in the Denny's watched them walk past suspiciously. Neither of them looked like they belonged here. For one thing, everyone here was over fifty— except for a few teenagers who leered at them from behind a pickup truck in the Walmart parking lot.
"What do you think it would be like to live here?" Sam asked.
"You could ask?"
Sam flushed, almost as red as her hair. "They're older than me."
Daniel didn't know what that meant, but she seemed to think it settled the discussion, so he moved on.
The cat had killed at dusk, and no one had seen it since. It was probably nocturnal, and he wasn't seeing very many places to hide in Lautville. It had to be somewhere near the city center, none of the patrols had found it yet. It had to be somewhere indoors, because neither he nor Sam could sense the magic yet. The cat had followed the boy home at night.
He looked back at the teens in the parking lot.
"Hey!" he yelled.
"Oh my god, don't" Sam said in a rush. Daniel ignored her and walked over. They were all skinny and white. Mostly high school age. He looked at the oldest one, a self-styled punk. He had a nose ring, jeans, and a terrible haircut.
"Where do you hang out at night?"
They all looked at each other.
"Do you work for the Government?" the punk asked. Daniel straightened his tie.
"At night, including last night, is there somewhere kids our age hang out? Near the town center. Indoors, but with no-one inside during the day?"
The punk nodded. "The theater."
"It's empty?"
They all nodded. One, wearing a badly fitting green blazer and jeans, explained that it had been sold in 2003 to an owner who just let it rot so he could sell it when it collapsed.
When they got there, it was obvious they were in the right place. Sam, usually the less sensitive of the two, took a step back when they stepped through the door. Magic poured off the walls, making the ends of Daniel's hair float upwards, popping in his mouth whenever he took a breath.
"It's in here." Sam said in a whisper.
Daniel nodded. They could radio it in. Then Ms. Henderson would have the black masks take care of it, and she'd take credit for another successful mission. Sam took out her radio.
"Wait."
Daniel liked the pressure she'd been under. She'd brought in someone else's Tracer to interrogate him. She'd had her subordinates telling her how to handle him. If they could take care of this without her involvement, he'd be able to build a gap. After this week it was obvious that the more, they succeeded without her, the less control she had.
"We'll find it ourselves. Make sure it's here."
Sam frowned. "It's here."
"No one will know that unless we tell them Sam."
"Ms. Henderson's already mad at us."
"So, let's show her what you're made of. If we kill this one without her, she can't put pressure on us."
Sam's eyes went wide. "Is this like San Francisco?"
"Yes."
The agency's handgun of choice was a modified Glock 17, deceptively small. Easy to use in a fight. Daniel slid in silver magazine. 9mm. 10 shots. Not enough, really. You had to make them count. He usually left the shooting to people with bigger guns. That was what Sam was here for.
"Let's start at the top?" he asked.
"Okay." She was almost vibrating from some combination of fear and adrenaline.
They were in the lobby of the theater, a small ticket booth, access to the back rooms, and a set of stairs. Trails were cut in the dust where partying kids had walked. They clearly used the stage, not the staff rooms.
Daniel walked up the grimy carpet, half expecting it to crunch. Every step had some mix of cigarette ash and beer ground into it. Sam pulled open a groaning door, and they walked in at the back of the theater. A single floor of seating sloped gently down to a short black stage.
"No evil lions?" Sam said hopefully.
Daniel could hear it breathing. He raised a finger to his lips. The room was well lit in the daytime. Light cut past draped red curtains that hadn't been drawn. A dusty chandelier captured rays from the windows in the depths of dull crystals.
And yet he could hear it. Long shuddering rattling breaths. From the darkest part of the room, the stage.
He raised his gun and carefully walked up a set of stairs on stage left.
"Flashlight?" he asked, reaching behind him. After a painfully long second of rustling, Sam pressed one into his free hand.
Both wings were pitch black, but empty. He could hear the sound, but it wasn't sleeping in the shallow rafters a few feet above. This was not a Broadway theater. There wasn't that much to look around. He took a few steps into the ruined backstage, but the breathing was obviously coming from the stage.
From the stage?
Daniel froze. Then, very slowly, as quietly as he could, he got on his hands and knees and tapped the stage with the flashlight.
The sound rattled and echoed through some space below. He waited for another heart stopping few seconds before the rattling of the creature confirmed it was still asleep.
Sam was backing off the stage, towards the wings. She pointed straight down with a finger and a question on her face.
Yes, Daniel nodded. The thing was below them. Asleep under the stage, in some storage space or orchestra pit.
Sam pointed down again, made an explosion with her hands. Beckoned Daniel over. Her Trace. He shook his head. Be ready, he tried to communicate with a raised finger. Her power might just make the thing mad. He stood back up and looked. There had to be a door, somewhere.
There— center stage, at the back. A notch in the wood flooring, far enough back that a backdrop would cover it. The hatch was encrusted with a layer of grime and disuse. He had to holster his gun to pull it open with both hands. Something below creaked, a spring, as he pulled. He put his foot down and leaned until it finally swung open all too quickly.
"Daniel!" Sam said suddenly. The breathing had stopped. She was looking behind him, at the other wing.
A shadow dropped to his left. The curtain. Someone, or something had cut the rope that held it up. He heard the rope fly into the rafters as the curtain slammed down into the stage. Daniel blinked, suddenly in the darkness, his eyes scrambling to adjust to the red-tinted twilight. He could see something moving on stage right, where Sam had been looking. He drew his gun and fired.
Two shots right where the curtain rope had been. Even if they didn't hit, the sound would still alert the black masks. Gunshots would carry in a town this small. Sam was fumbling with her radio. Eight shots left.
"Sam, forget the radio." He said backing up towards her. "Get ready."
She made a sound that could have been "Yes". Daniel heard a clatter as she knelt onto the stage, placing both hands flat on it.
He'd made it halfway across the stage before it came out of the darkness. It was long and lithe, panther-like and unnatural. In place of fur there were spines. Where it should have moved slowly, it lunged, a drool pooling between its bared teeth. He knew something was wrong. Class II's didn't move this fast. Class II's didn't know how to lower curtains.
Luckily Daniel had always been fast. He staggered backwards and shot it seven times, center of mass, wrestling to keep the gun on target. The gunshots were deafening. The creature had leapt out of the wings, onto the stage. The bullets tore into it's body as it moved, one chewing away at the corner of it's face, the rest of the silver boiling into it's chest. It's eyes went wide at the sensation, bewildered by the pain upon landing. It took another cautious step towards Daniel and dropped with a wet thud. Sam put the eighth shot into its head where it produced a clump of black gore.
Yet, the monster still twitched in a pool of its own muck. The blood, a viscous black tar, that washed out of the creature all too quickly. Daniel's eyes caught something glinting inside the liquid. Something silver shining amidst the black. One of the bullets that had, moments ago, been lodged within the beast.
Daniel felt a tide of panic surge up into his chest. "Sam!" he shouted, "Hit it now!"
He tried to find his feet, scrambling backwards just as the creature's twitching became movement. He had a second magazine in his belt, but it was filled with regular, lead bullets. He tried to load it and kick backwards to his feet, it all at the same time. He got one shot off before it was on its feet again.
The lead didn't even phase it. It shook like a cat in the rain. Silver dropped out of its mane of spines clattering to the ground. The missing chunk of its terrible face was already oozing back into place. The ground beneath his hands shivered and shook. Daniel spun and saw Sam, eyes closed, nose wrinkled, channeling something. He ran as fast as he could, and almost reached the end of the stage.
The wood buckled and bent, knocking him back off his feet. Behind him, the cat took a cautious step towards him, then another. Daniel spun to face it and crawled backwards. Almost at the side of the stage. Sam yelled, as deep as he'd ever heard her voice go. A release of something.
The wood groaned, twisted, and rippled. Then he was falling. The stage had shattered in a flash of light and splinters. Daniel threw his arm up in front of his eyes as he fell with the collapsing wood into the storage space below. Sam had expected it to lunge, the explosion had been in between the two of them. That was smart, he thought. It probably had saved his life. Then he hit something made of brick and everything hurt too much to think.