Chapter Four

Elliana glanced at the clock as she slid into the passenger seat of the car next to Sanchez while Smith slid into the back seat with a huff. She hadn’t been happy about it but Elly had convinced Sanchez that she could more easily guide him from the front. It had been just over ten minutes since they arrived but Elly had a feeling those few minutes and this case would affect her entire life. If only she knew how right she was.

As he started the car Sanchez had his phone up to left ear talking with the commander of the strike team. “Tracker has the trail. You have our location data follow us at a five-minute buffer. I don’t want those rolling fortresses of yours giving us away. Once we confirm location we’ll pull back and hand the reins over to you.” He said restating the pre-agreed upon plan. After receiving an affirmative from the other end, he hung up and turned to Elly flashing her a grin, “So, which way beautiful” he asked as Smith made a gagging noise from the back.

“Go up the road and take the first left,” Elliana instructed as she closed her eyes to more easily follow the trail. Elly quickly lost track of where they were as she guided Sanchez on a meandering route through backroads and various allies. Rising Phoenix was bit better off than most of the mega cities with its three shield generators allowing it to have approximately six thousand squares miles of space. A size unheard of before the invasion, but it still had the same issues with overpopulation and lack of space that the other Mega cities. Unfortunately, there was no other option. Any human population that tried to settle outside the protection of an energy shield was destined to be visited by chikka swarms the second the Sidhe got wind of it, and the shield generators were extremely difficult to build. They were a product a spirit tech. A breakthrough achieved shortly after the Day of Ash and Fire, the desperate last-ditch attempt that had repelled the initial Sidhe invasion at the cost rendering two thirds of earth uninhabitable.

Spirit tech was created when a human scientist name Mark Chen had figured out a way to reverse the process of a Sidhe weapon that converted spirit energy into electricity. This allowed humans to turn electricity, something they could generate in abundance, into a form similar to spirit energy. A type of energy that could be used in ways that were far more flexible than any other source even aether. Spirit tech had several draw backs inefficiency in the conversion process being the biggest one but without the energy domes it could generate the remnants of the Sidhe invaders could have wiped out humanity with chikka swarms alone in a matter of a decade or two.

Since the Shield generators that protected the mega cities were so hard to come by, as they required multiple rare materials along with dedicated tokamak reactors to power them all of humanity was concentrated in a few dozen megacities around the globe. The lack of space combined with the cities not originally being designed for such numbers meant that outside of certain areas built early on that were monopolized by the wealthy and connected, the city had a piece meal arrangement with the bare minimum space left for roads as people had built first of to the limits of the dome shields in the sky and the down into the ground when they ran out of space above. Most of the north American Mega cities had at one point nearly a century ago been filled to the point of bursting before food shortage followed by the implementation of birth limits that should have been put in place a few decades prior brought the population numbers under control and kept them that way.

“Is it too much to ask for the criminals to hang out in some nice cushy place downtown instead of this freaking maze,” Sanchez grunted as the moved into increasingly poorer and therefore more chaotic districts. The wind trail hadn’t led them anywhere that could be considered a good part of town exactly but the area they were in now was a place Elly had never entered despite spending her entire life in the city, and for good reason. The north east section of the city was bad news in general and the labyrinth named for its dizzying layout was the worst of the worst. Law enforcement didn’t come into here unless they absolutely had to, vehicles couldn’t even be used in most of it. It took them over two hours before they were able to make their way through the convoluted twists and turns of the Labyrinth and exited into the outskirts of the city. Out near the edge the city opened up a bit. The outskirts were full warehouses and factories, most still in use with a few that had been abandoned by a shrinking population. A few minutes after reaching the outskirts Elly directed Sanchez to building. After having him circle the block around it so she could be sure Elliana Looked over at the anxious faces of the two agents and smile. “They’re in there,” She told them bursting with pride.

Smith snapped a few pictures with her phone from each side of the building as Sanchez did another lap before driving a few blocks down the road and pulling into the parking lot of an abandoned warehouse. Smith had deep creases on her forehead as she looked through the pictures. “Bad news,” she said, “The bottom level and the basement are abandoned but the top three aren’t. I checked online There’s a factory that operates on two of those floors and management offices up top. The bottom was originally some kind of warehouse but it’s no longer in use and the factory doesn’t need it so it’s left empty”. “Dollars to donuts our boys have it rented out through some intermediary.” Sanchez replied with a grumble. “Your right. This changes things we can’t just blow a building with over a hundred civilians in it to smithereens”. “Any chance we can just wait for them to go home and then blow the building?” he asked hopefully a second later. “Fraid not,” Smith replied, “They work on shifts”. “Damn,” Sanchez swore, “I have to call Mills we need him to brief the director before we can come up with a new course of action”. He said as he pulled out his phone and began dialing.

After a terse conversation Sanchez hung up then made a call the tactical unit that had stopped following them when the entered the Labyrinth and arranged for them to rendezvous with them. Since they had to go around the Labyrinth, they would probably be about an hour anyway. Hopefully time to come up with a new plan. “Well now I guess we hurry up and wait.” Sanchez said after finishing his call. “Lovely,” Smith answered her voice dripping with sarcasm. Elly just leaned back with her eyes closed and kept her senses focused on the building to monitor any activity. While trying to push down the conflict growing in her mind. She had guessed that the plan to take out the targets might be a bit extreme, but it still unnerved her to hear it stated out loud that the initial plan had been to simply been to blow up the attackers first and figure out their origins and intentions from the remains. Every training scenario she had been through along with all investigative branch doctrine called for giving criminals a chance to surrender.

Over an hour later two massive tactical vehicles drove into the parking lot and pulled around the back of the warehouse to keep out of sight. They had lost a significant amount of time having to circumvent the labyrinth, but it would have raised too much commotion to bring a strike team through that hell hole. “Strike teams here, but still no go order,” Sanchez grumbled, “They want us to wait for the Psi combat specialist and Director Knox somehow got his hands on some special new weapons that will have our strike team boys drooling. Apparently, half of it is spirit tech, wonder how many favors that cost him?” Sanchez said wistfully. Elly had been monitoring the target location mentally the entire time merely grunted an acknowledgement before shifting back to surveillance. Smith on the other hand had nothing better to do than humor him with an answer, “more than you’ll ever have,” she snorted, “Still, makes me reconsider going in with the strike team. It might be worth it if this stuff is as sweet as Mills said in his text.”

Sanchez grinned at finally having someone to talk to, as Elly had been distracted for the last hour and Smith had previously been irritated at his blatant wooing attempts. “Well they do make us spend hours maintaining the combat qualifications. Might be a good time to put it to use. I’ve never heard of anyone but Spec ops hunter teams being issued some of these weapons, and the others I’ve never heard of period.” As he finished his phone began to buzz. “Agent Sanchez,” He said, his professional tone in stark contrast to his usual casual demeanor.

“Gear is loaded and on the way; probably take three hours to get here. The Psi commando just left too but he’s coming separately and will arrive significantly sooner. Once they get here and the strike teams loaded out with the new hotness, I’ll contact Mills so he can get the final go ahead from Knox. New toys or not I have a feeling this will be ugly.” Sanchez sighed as he finished before adding, “Back to waiting. Walker let me know if anything changes,” with that he leaned his chair back and closed his eyes.

An hour or so after Sanchez alerted them to the new plan Elly’s eyes that had been shut for the past couple hours snapped open. “We have a problem,” said a hint of panic seeping into her voice. Not waiting for a response, she continued, “A couple minutes ago I sensed the same truck pass by for the third time. In just under two hours. Its’ intervals are roughly forty-five minutes apart, the second time I thought it was a coincidence but now I’m almost positive it was a look out.” Elliana who was becoming increasingly frantic continued with even worse news. “They must have had a psi since we’re out of sight of the road, because I think they made us,” she said before taking a deep breath and adding, “the target was quiet this whole time but a minute ago it erupted into a flurry of activity.”

Her two companions let out a slew of choice words before pulling out their phones and quickly making calls. Smith was on line with the strike team telling them to prep to move in, while Sanchez was on the phone with Mills bringing him up to speed as quickly as he could. “I’m on conference with Mills and the Director,” Sanchez said turning his head to face Elly. “Knox says as long as you hold a lock on the target, we hold position even if they move out. We’ll let them go then follow from a distance to throw off suspicion.” Sanchez said relaying the orders from on high. Smith nodded affirmative and then quickly filled in the strike team commander over the phone. A couple minutes later Elliana, who had finally begun to calm down after the initial scare, received an even bigger one. From within the target building A massive pulse rippled through the Aether and as it washed over them Elly felt the trace she had on the target vanish. Barely able to keep her voice from cracking she turned to Sanchez, “I lost the trace.”