Chapter 112 Implosion
LUCA
The operations ran simultaneously at 4 AM, two days after the briefing.
I wasn’t there. Neither was Arya. We’d both argued to be involved and Caspian had argued that our presence would make every location a higher-value target and potentially compromise the operatives’ safety.
He wasn’t wrong.
I stayed in the command center with Arya, watching the tactical feeds, while our people moved through the night.
Four locations were cleared in the first two hours. Small cells, research materials, communication equipment. Three people taken into custody who’d surrendered without significant resistance.
The fifth location was harder.
“They knew we were coming,” came Caspian’s voice through the channel, clipped and professional. “The site is partially evacuated. We have four in custody but the primary researchers are gone. The materials are still here.”
“Secure what’s there,” Arya said into her comm. “Don’t pursue them, we don’t know what secondary sites they’re running to.”
“Copy.”
“The shielding is active,” the team leader of the sixth location reported. “It’s not standard warding. It’s void-adjacent.”
Arya was on her feet before the sentence finished. “Don’t penetrate it without magical support. Wait for Bardon’s team.”
“Bardon’s team is twelve minutes out.”
“Then wait twelve minutes.”
She paced while we waited. I watched the feeds and watched her and tried to calculate whether twelve minutes was going to create a problem.
It created a problem, something inside the warded location detonated. A brief terrible collapse inward that the sensors registered as a massive void energy spike followed by nothing.
“Report,” Arya said, her voice steady. But I could hear the edge.
“The shielding is down. Location is… the team is saying it’s not there.” A pause. “Luna, the structure itself is gone.”
“Void displacement,” Bardon said from behind us. He’d been in the command center the whole time, quiet until now. “They opened a void pocket. Moved the research inside it.”
“Can we retrieve it?”
“If we knew where the pocket is anchored. Without knowing the anchor point—” He shook his head. “It’s like asking to retrieve something that’s been placed in a room whose location you don’t know in a building whose address you don’t have in a city you can’t see.”
“They planned for the raid,” she said. “They had a contingency. If the site was compromised, move the research into the void rather than let it be captured.” She looked at Bardon. “Which means the research is advanced enough that they didn’t want us to have it.”
“Which means it’s advanced enough to be very dangerous,” I said.
“Yes.” She turned back to the comm. “Secure the perimeter. Document everything that’s left. I want every trace material analyzed.” She switched channels. “Caspian. Status on the internal operative.”
“In custody. Cooperative. She’s young, barely twenty. She thought she was working for a research collective that was going to democratize void knowledge.” Caspian’s voice was careful. “She didn’t know about the fourteen-day threat.”
“Compartmentalized,” Arya said.
“Extensively.”
“All right.” She took a long breath. “Bring everything back. We debrief.” She looked at me. “Someone who isn’t scared and young is at the center of this. And they’re still out there.”
“With research that’s now in the void,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Which means to get it back—”
“We’d have to go in.” She met my eyes. “I know.”
I held her gaze. “Not yet,” I said. “We have more information to gather first.”
ARYA
The debrief lasted four hours.
By the end of it I knew more about void research methodology than I’d ever wanted to know, had a profile of the Reclaimed that was more frightening than I’d anticipated, and had a headache that no amount of tea was going to address.
“Summary,” I said, when everyone had finished.
Caspian organized his notes. “The Reclaimed is not a new organization. We’ve found references going back forty years in the materials recovered from four of the sites. It started as genuine academic research on void theory and dimensional mechanics. Work that established magical institutions wouldn’t fund because it was considered too dangerous.”
“Who funded it instead?”
“A rotating cast of private patrons. Some with ideological motivations, they believe void access would fundamentally shift the balance of supernatural power. Some with purely financial motivations, void-stored goods, information, potentially people, could create an entirely parallel economy outside normal territorial control.” He paused. “And some who lost people to the original Moonborne void imprisonment and want access to get them back.”
“People were imprisoned in the void,” Bardon said carefully. “Besides Mordecai. Over the centuries, it’s been used as a sentence by various practitioners.There are potentially dozens of people trapped in dimensional pockets scattered throughout the void.”
“And the Reclaimed promised to find them,” Arya said.
“Or claimed they could. Which amounts to the same thing in terms of motivation.” Caspian closed his tablet. “The operational center we couldn’t breach is the primary research hub. We don’t know where it’s anchored from the outside.”
“But we know someone who might,” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
“Mordecai studied the void for eight hundred years. If there are other practitioners who’ve done significant work there, he’d know the signatures. The methodology.” I looked at Bardon. “Could we describe what we observed of the void displacement and have him identify who constructed it?”
“Possibly. If their technique is distinctive enough.” Bardon turned the idea over. “It would require multiple sessions and significant information exchange.”
“Alright then, we’ll start today.” I stood. “Also, I want Sage working on the physical security upgrades we discussed yesterday. And Ryker—” I glanced at him, standing near the back wall with his arms folded. He’d been present and alert throughout, offering specific tactical input at exactly the right moments. “I want your assessment of our territorial security protocols. Not from a Unity Council perspective. From a this-could-all-fall-apart perspective. Where are the gaps?”
He uncrossed his arms. “You want me to assume the worst-case scenario.”
“I want you to assume several worst-case scenarios and tell me which one worries you most.”
“That’ll take some time.”
“You have three days.” I looked around the room. “Any questions?”
When no one spoke, I nodded and turned to Bardon.
“Good. Bardon, walk with me.”