“DAPI,” Ben repeated. The agency itself wasn’t a secret, or he wouldn’t have been able to look it up online after Rosenthal and her goons first appeared in Silver Hollow, but it wasn’t common knowledge, either.
“Among others,” Lewis said. “The Dimensional Anomaly Protection Initiative is just the public face of the organization. At least three other agencies are running parallel programs, all competing for the same data.” He spread his files across the platform’s floor, making Ben and Sidney back up a little to give him more room. “I’ve been documenting their activities for fifteen years, ever since I heard about them and thought something wasn’t adding up. So I’ve been tracking patterns, recording incidents, and collecting testimony from researchers who’ve had encounters with them.”
Ben knelt so he could get a closer look at Lewis Webb’s files. Each folder was labeled with a location and date: Nevada Test Site, 2018. Olympic National Forest, 2020. Crater Lake, 2022.
Dozens of them.
“These are all dimensional sites?” he asked.
A nod. “Confirmed or suspected. DAPI has surveillance networks at every location where the dimensional barriers are thin.” Lewis pulled out a specific file and handed it to Ben. “This is what you need to see.”
The file was labeled “RESEARCHER DISAPPEARANCES - PATTERN ANALYSIS.” Ben opened it, and his stomach clenched as he scanned the contents.
Twenty-three names. Twenty-three cryptozoologists, physicists, and paranormal researchers who’d gone missing over the past decade. Each one had been investigating dimensional phenomena.
And each one had been contacted by DAPI shortly before they disappeared.
“Jesus,” Ben breathed.
“Read the dates,” Lewis said.
Ben took a second look at the list. The disappearances had accelerated over the past three years. One in 2022. Three in 2023. Eight in 2024. And already five in 2025.
“DAPI is eliminating anyone who knows too much,” Sidney said. She’d moved closer so she could read over Ben’s shoulder, and there was something reassuring about having her next to him like that, her long hair just touching his shoulder as she bent to look at the files.
“Or recruiting them into programs so classified that their old lives have to be erased,” Lewis said grimly. “I don’t know which is worse.”
Ben’s thoughts went immediately to the cold calculation in Sonya Rosenthal’s eyes when she’d tried to take Sidney into custody. As far as he’d been able to tell, DAPI operated without oversight or accountability, making them very dangerous.
He had to ask the question. “How close are you to making this list?”
“Very close,” Lewis replied, and now the cheerful glint in his eyes was gone as if it had never been. “I’ve had three separate visits from DAPI agents in the past year, each one more aggressive than the last. They want my research, my contacts, my documentation of every cryptid sighting I’ve ever recorded.” He paused there, meeting Ben’s gaze squarely. “They offered me a position on Rosenthal’s team. When I refused, they made it clear that refusal might not be an option for much longer.”
“That’s why you’re here,” Sidney said, her earlier hostility evaporating even as she spoke. “You’re burning bridges by helping us.”
“I’m picking a side,” he said. “There’s a difference.” He pulled out another file, this one much thicker. “This contains everything I know about DAPI’s facility network. Locations, security protocols, research priorities. If you’re going to fight them, you need to understand how they operate.”
Ben took the file and flipped through it. It contained satellite imagery, floor plans, guard rotation schedules, and much more. Lewis had been thorough, although God only knew how he’d gotten access to all this information.
“There’s a facility thirty miles to the northwest of here,” Lewis continued. “An old military base, supposedly decommissioned in the nineties. DAPI has been using it for high-security research for about five years. If Rosenthal is planning something big, that’s where she’ll do it.”
Sidney’s hand found Ben’s arm, her fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. “Ben,” she said, her voice a harsh whisper. “We’re not alone.”
He followed her gaze. At first, he saw nothing but trees and sky. Then he caught it — a dark shape moving against the clouds, too steady to be a bird.
“Drone,” Agent Morse called out from the stairs. Where she’d come from, Ben had no idea, but he assumed some of her scanning equipment must have picked up the drone and she’d sprinted back here to tell them to take cover. She made it inside the space and immediately flattened herself. “Get down, all of you!”
They dropped to the dusty floor. Ben pulled his EMF reader from his pocket, and the readings confirmed what Sidney had already sensed — an artificial electromagnetic signature, probably military-grade surveillance equipment.
“How did they find us so fast?” Lewis asked, his lean form pressed against the weathered wood of the platform.
“They didn’t,” Sidney said. Her voice had gone tight, although Ben wasn’t sure whether it was from worry or the simple pain of forcing herself to the rough floor after being unconscious only a few hours earlier. “It’s on a patrol pattern. We just got unlucky.”
Ben watched the drone through a window that probably hadn’t had glass in it for decades. The drone was maybe two hundred yards out, moving in a careful grid. Military hardware, he thought, probably equipped with thermal imaging and electromagnetic sensors.
If it got much closer, it would detect their body heat and electronic devices, and then it would be game over.
“Sidney,” Rebecca Morse said in a near-whisper. “Can you jam its signal?”
