The door opens onto a narrow corridor that smells of dust and old paper—the particular mustiness of documents that have been sitting undisturbed for years. Records storage. Filing cabinets line both walls, their labels faded with age, some drawers hanging open as if someone had started grabbing files and given up.
At the end of the corridor: an office.
The desk is covered in papers, arranged in piles that suggest organization interrupted. Drawers pulled open, contents half-removed—someone grabbing the essentials and leaving the rest. A coffee cup sits by the keyboard, the liquid frozen into a brown disc.
But unlike the lab, this space feels personal. Photos on the wall—a younger woman in academic robes, the same woman shaking hands with men in expensive suits. A cardigan draped over the chair, gray cashmere, expensive. Personal effects left behind in a rush.
Someone lived in this room. Worked here. Made decisions that killed people.
And then ran.
“Whose office?” Cassie asks, her voice hushed.
I check the nameplate on the desk, the gold lettering barely visible under a layer of frost. “J. Stratton.”
“Julianna Stratton.” Cassie’s voice sharpens with recognition.
The financial architect. The woman whose signature appeared on every shell company, every money trail, every piece of the Nexus puzzle we’ve been tracking since DC. The one who signed the Echo Logistics contract that brought us here.
She was here. In this facility. Overseeing—whatever this is.
And she ran.
I photograph the desk, the papers, the frozen coffee, the cardigan she left behind. Evidence of presence. Evidence of flight. Evidence that even the architects of this nightmare eventually realized they’d built something they couldn’t control.
Cassie moves to the filing cabinets, searching with purpose now. Partnership in motion—she knows what we’re looking for even without me saying it. Financial records. Shipping manifests. Anything that tells us where this operation goes next.
“Shipping manifests,” she says, pulling a folder. “Everything’s going to Nevada.”
I cross to her position. The documents are dense with numbers, but one phrase stands out.
“The money flow is completely one-directional,” she continues, flipping through pages. “Everything goes to Nevada, nothing comes out. It’s not a production facility—it’s a construction project.”
“Construction, for what?”
“I don’t know.” She sets the folder down. “But the infrastructure investment is massive. And it’s recent.”
After Chicago. After Phoenix lost its server hub.
The pattern clicks into place with the force of a closing trap. Phoenix isn’t just surviving. It’s rebuilding. Building something that needs enough power to run a small city.
My camera glitches again. The screen goes black.
“Damn it.” I shake the device, wait for it to reboot.
Twice in one session. Equipment I maintain religiously, failing at random moments. Except the failures aren’t random. The flashlight flickered and showed me the door. Now the camera …
While I wait, I shift position—move the stack of papers to try a different angle for when the camera comes back.
And I see it.
Half-hidden under a folder, the edge is barely visible. A document I would have missed if the camera hadn’t failed. Twice in one night. Twice when it mattered.
Nevada Facility - Infrastructure Timeline
Phase One: Power grid modification - COMPLETE
Phase Two: Primary construction - 78% COMPLETE
