He followed because he didn’t have a choice. Sidney needed medical attention, and the phoenix needed help he couldn’t provide. Rebecca Morse was right about one thing — if they stayed in that clearing, DAPI would find them.
But he made a mental note to get answers. All of them.
The abandoned research facility looked like something from a Cold War nightmare — a concrete bunker half-buried in a hillside, covered with decades of moss and vine growth. Agent Morse produced a key card from her pocket, and the exterior door opened with a hiss of hydraulics that suggested someone had been maintaining the place all along despite its abandoned appearance.
“Down here.” She led him into a stairwell lit by battery-powered emergency lights. The air smelled like metal and must and something else Ben couldn’t identify. Probably just age.
Three flights down, they emerged into a corridor lined with doors. Agent Morse headed straight for one marked “MEDICAL” and pushed it open.
The room inside was cleaner than Ben had expected — an examination table, medical supplies in glass cabinets, monitoring equipment that looked like it had been installed within the past year.
“How did you even know about this place?” he asked as he carefully laid Sidney on the examination table. One arm dropped over the edge, but she didn’t stir as he gently took hold of it and placed it at her side.
“Some drug runners were using it for a while, but they were rounded up a while back, and it’s sat empty since then.” Rebecca set the wrapped phoenix on a secondary table along the far wall. “Let’s just say that a friend of mine let me know about it when I mentioned I might need a place to go to ground. He sent me the key card a few weeks ago.”
Ben supposed it was a good thing to have friends in high places. And it also seemed she’d been planning contingencies for a while, maybe as soon as she realized that Sonya Rosenthal hadn’t been as safely sidelined as they all thought.
“And DAPI won’t be able to find us here?”
Rebecca’s shoulders lifted. “I doubt it. The place hasn’t been used in any kind of official capacity for years. I suppose at some point, someone might come around to check on the property, but we’ll make sure to be long gone by then.”
Her answer wasn’t exactly definitive, but it sounded to him as if they should be safe here, especially since they didn’t plan to take up permanent residence. They just needed to use the facility long enough to be sure their two patients had stabilized enough to be moved again.
He pulled the remaining sensors from his bag and started setting them up around Sidney and the phoenix. They needed EMF readings, electromagnetic field mapping, bioelectric monitoring — anything that might tell him what was happening to Sidney’s nervous system.
“Her vitals are stable,” Rebecca said as she checked Sidney’s pulse and pupil response again. “But there’s something else going on. Look at her hands.”
Ben glanced down at Sidney’s hands where they lay flat on the table. Her fingers were trembling in unconsciousness, tiny involuntary movements, as though some kind of electrical current was still firing through her nerves. When he held his EMF reader near her skin, the display went haywire.
“She’s still channeling,” he said. “Even unconscious, she’s connected to the phoenix somehow.”
Agent Morse pulled up a chair and sat down, her expression now strangely weary. “I need to explain some things before we go any further. Things that are probably going to make you angry. But you need to hear them.”
That didn’t sound good at all. However, Sidney was his first priority, so Ben positioned his laptop where he could monitor all the sensor feeds before he turned to face Rebecca Morse. “I’m listening.”
A faint breath escaped her lips. However, her tone was steady and brisk as she said, “Six months ago, DAPI detected unusual electromagnetic patterns emanating from the Pacific Northwest. The readings were consistent with what we call a stable dimensional anomaly — a permanent tear between our reality and somewhere else.” She pulled off the exam gloves she’d been wearing and rubbed her hands together, as if to warm them. “Dr. Rosenthal established a surveillance network across forty-seven sites where the signal was strongest. Silver Hollow was site seventeen.”
Forty-seven sites. Ben wasn’t sure he wanted to acknowledge how big the operation had been, but he knew that burying his head in the sand wouldn’t help any of them. “And you’ve been watching all of those sites?”
“Watching and recording and analyzing.” Rebecca Morse looked over at Sidney’s unconscious form and pulled in a breath. “But Silver Hollow was different. The energy readings here were off the charts, and they seemed to be centered on one person. Sidney’s grandmother first, then Sidney herself after her grandmother disappeared.”
“You knew about the portal,” Ben said, his tone flat.
A lift of Rebecca Morse’s slim shoulders. “Dr. Rosenthal’s team theorized, at any rate. The evidence suggested that something was allowing creatures from another dimension to cross into ours. But they couldn’t prove it without human testimony, without someone who’d actually witnessed the phenomenon.” She met his gaze. “That’s where you came in.”
The anger Ben had been doing his best to suppress flared hot within him. “So you used me.”
“Dr. Rosenthal used you,” Rebecca said, still sounding brisk, as if she thought being matter-of-fact was the best way to handle this unpleasant subject. “She realized that you had the academic background and the technical skills, and — this is the most important part — you had an electromagnetic signature that resonated with Sidney’s at a very specific frequency.”
Ben thought about every moment he and Sidney had spent together, the way her abilities seemed stronger when he was close. How he’d felt drawn to her almost immediately in a way that wasn’t entirely about her outer beauty.
Trying to sound as dispassionate as possible, he asked, “What kind of frequency?”
“The kind that creates a ten to twenty percent amplification effect.” Agent Morse pulled a tablet from her pack and brought up a graph covered in colored lines. “Your bioelectric field and Sidney’s synchronize for some reason. When you’re in close proximity, her abilities are enhanced.”
The graph showed two waveforms — one in blue, one in red — oscillating in near-perfect harmony. Where they overlapped, the amplitude spiked.
Ben wasn’t sure he wanted to believe what he was seeing. “So…you’re telling me I’m some kind of battery for her?”
