Ellis left Daniel's head after that, and he found that he could notice her absence. It was a subtle release of pressure. Like someone's hand lifting off his shoulder. Bennet didn't seem to have a problem with his decision. The army guys, as predicted, took his story at face value. Daniel was able to wash up, change into a new pair of clothes, give a brief written statement, and move on.
Which was good, he thought, as he emerged from yet another conference room. Bennet was standing near Ellis, both were obviously waiting for him with some urgency. Ellis was tapping her foot, audible across the whole room, which she undoubtedly knew. Bennet's face betrayed a new urgency.
"What happened?" Daniel asked, certain that something had. Ellis pushed her hair back over her head, a new gesture.
"Something attacked a whole block of Philadelphia" she said.
Bennet nodded. "Our ride is landing in two minutes." He checked his watch as he spoke. "We've gotta move."
Daniel nodded and fell into a quick stride behind Bennet. He'd already been involved in one chase today. By the time they got to Philadelphia", he'd have been awake for 14 hours. They hurried through the hallways of the base towards a helipad in front of the main building where a Chinook was already coming in for a landing. Daniel plugged his ears with his hands. "Do we have any more information?" he shouted.
Bennet shook his head. "Just an urgent request for aid!" he shouted back. "Ecks will have the rest of the fireteam there, a little after midnight."
They'd land before that, Daniel knew.
He eagerly slipped on the sound isolating headphones inside the chopper and (after telling Bennet to wake him up if anything important happened) turned off the communications system. He'd developed a tolerance for these long days after many years with Henderson, but the most important thing he'd learned is that sleep was precious. He would get it while he could.
Two hours later, Ellis shook him awake. Bennet was up with the pilots in the jumpseat, so it wasn't immediately clear why she'd woken him. She pointed to his headphone controls and finally dialed them up.
"We're coming into the city. Take a look." she said. The light pressure hadn't returned. She was staying out of his head. A day ago, Daniel would have appreciated that. Now, he didn't know how he felt.
Ellis was hardly a moral authority. She'd sold him out to Henderson for a promotion. She'd knowingly screwed over Sam. She was here as his watchdog. But she was one of only two people who knew that he'd meant to kill Ferris. He didn't know how he felt about it, which gave her the majority opinion. She'd been so eager to earn his trust, that he now felt the absence of her interest. It was all tied up somewhere with his still simmering anger at her in the pit of his stomach.
She pointed to the window, but the back of the Chinook started to open, which presented a much better view— at the cost of a sudden chill. Daniel pulled an insulated army jacket he'd been sleeping on over his shoulders, and after a moment's hesitation, handed one to Ellis. She took it without comment.
The view was stunning. Philadelphia at sunset, bathed in oranges and yellows, twinkling with the still dawning blues of the streetlamps and whites of people's kitchens. Daniel frowned. Philadelphia was like most American cities; in that it was flat. In a country where space is practically limitless, and freeways are everywhere, most cities are sprawling expanses of 1 story buildings. Car parks and concrete. But near the city center, Philadelphia emerged as something older. The buildings grew in size and stature. Old brickwork looming out of the skyline dotted between steel and glass.
One building was still entirely dark. An arcade in the post-colonial sense. A giant city block sized complex built to house many different businesses. Emergency vehicles surrounded it on every side. A space was being cleared at the intersection for them. Daniel heard the Chinook's engines complain as they suddenly wheeled around, hauling to a stop, and descending. He took a step back to his seat and waited.
Once they were on the ground, Bennet emerged from the front. "The only update we've gotten is from local police. We're meeting a Chief Somen as soon as we land."
Daniel nodded.
"Get any sleep?" he asked Ellis. It was small talk, out of character for him, Bennet creased his eyebrows.
"No" she said. Over the radio the silence after her words hissed. "But I did eat an MRE, so I've got that going for me."
Daniel half-smiled. An olive branch, or at least a concession that they had to keep working together.
Chief Somen was in his fifties and looked worn out by decades of police work. His skin was a ill-treated fabric of scars and sunburns, dark bags under his eyes stood testament to the long hours he put in. He jogged over as soon as their chopper landed, an act that he made look both laborious, and surprisingly spry.
"Are you the special advisers?" he shouted. The helicopter, Daniel realized, was going to take off as soon as it could.
"The first group." Bennet said. "We've got a fire-team on the way."
Daniel left the conversation to walk up to the police line. From the ground, the brickwork of the arcade was imposing. A brutalist wall reaching six floors straight up towards the sky. Uniformed officers patrolled the far side of the street surrounding it, glancing nervously across at the darkened windows.
Ellis emerged from the crowd at his elbow, sticking as close as ever. He felt the hand return, a slight pressure in the back of his mind. Now that he knew what to look for, he could tell when she was listening.
"What's in there?" he asked. She looked concerned.
"Nothing." she said. "Not a single living thing."
Bennet and the Police Chief joined them, walking briskly to catch up.
"What's in there?" Ellis asked.
Somen half shrugged. "We don't know. At least fifty people."
"Shoppers?" Daniel asked. "What kind of building is it."
Somen clicked his fingers and an officer jogged over with a set of blueprints. The kind that would be registered at city hall.
"It was almost all office space. Half empty too." Somen said. "Only these three on the far side had anyone in them."
"Fifty people?" Bennet asked.
"Fifty-three." Somen said.
"What happened?" Ellis asked.
"We got an automated call, burglar alarm for a jewelry store on the bottom floor, just over there." The chief pointed at a barricade storefront. In faded letters a sign read 'Mary's Fine Jewelers'. "It's been closed for a few months, but I guess the systems were still working."
"Must be an interior break in?" Bennet was tracing the blueprints. A walkway split the center of the arcade; the store faced inwards onto it as well as the street.
"None of the exterior windows are broken," Somen said, "so that's a safe guess."
"Why can't you get inside?" he asked.
Somen picked up a rock and threw it towards the building, a gentle underhand lob. It was a slow toss that seemed to get slower the closer it got to the building, until finally it stopped midair. The rock hung there floating. Protesting gravity itself.
"So that's when we called you guys."
<
<
<
<
She sounded confused; the thought was half formed. What came next was the sensation she'd experienced. Daniel had the bewildering experience of looking at himself through her eyes, and then felt the building beckon. Like a cat waiting silently to be fed. It had no expressions or words, just a kind of body language. A 'here I am, come on in' spoken through a collage of sensations and ideas.
<
Definitive, a little scared. <
"We'll be able to go in Bennet" Daniel said.
Bennet frowned. Daniel willed him not to ask how he knew, and thankfully he didn't.
"Will you be able to get back out?" he asked instead.
Daniel chose to half lie. "Unless something inside stops us."
"Can you take other people in?" Chief Somen asked, showing a willingness to accept the word of a strangely uniformed teenager that probably came from an entire day of throwing weightless rocks at a building that had swallowed fifty office workers.
"Not until we figure out how it works." Daniel said. He had a plan for that. One that the Agency hadn't tested. If they could find the source and destroy it, the magic would fade. He felt sure of it. Doubly sure since the thing in the Peters house had called Ellis a 'Tether'.
"Do you have silver bullets?" Bennet asked.
Daniel double checked his mag. "Always." he said.