A single light flickered dimly above Elijah as he stared out the hospital window. Rain streaked the glass, warping the view of the navy-blue sky fading into night. His casted arm itched faintly, its outline blurred by raindrops splattering the pane. Outside, streetlights shifted from an ominous red to a sickly yellow-white while distant strobes of red and blue raced past the hospital.

His mind drifted back to the crash—his crash. He'd been too fixated on the radio, mistaking a drunk driver for Los Fantasmas. Footsteps echoed in the hallway, mingling with the muffled voices of nurses and patients. Elijah turned as the doorknob rattled. A young nurse entered, followed by Ashley and Bruce.

"We got here as soon as we could," Ashley said, her eyes widening as they landed on the cast wrapped around Elijah's left arm.

"What the hell happened?" Bruce asked, sipping a Coke behind her.

"A lot," Elijah replied tersely. He stood up and reached into his jacket pocket for his cigarettes. "We need to get a hotel room."

"Sir, I insist you stay at least until the doctor checks on you in the morning," the nurse interjected, clutching her clipboard tightly.

"Not happening," Elijah muttered, brushing past her into the hallway and putting a cigarette in his mouth.

"Are you sure about this, Chief?" Bruce asked, hurrying after him alongside Ashley.

"Yes, did you guys tell HQ I need additional support?"Elijah groaned as he neared the entrance, but his lighter refused to light.

Bruce grabbed Ashley by the shoulder and shook his head.

Ashley bit her lip and looked away from Eli. "Yeah, they said they don't have any support available."

Elijah threw his arms up. His cigarette tumbled to the floor. "What the fuck, y'all!"

"Goddamn... goddamn... goddamn!" He slammed his fist against the wall. Pain erupted in his left arm like a swarm of stinging bees. "Fuck...Fuck!"

"Fuck...fuck!" He shouted as he paced around the hospital entrance while patients and nurses stood wide-eyed with their mouths open. Elijah stormed out of the hospital towards a police cruiser, still swearing at the top of his lungs as he kicked a trash can over.

"Did you check Rachel Harper's place?" he barked.

"Yeah, the red lights started up around there," Bruce replied as he rubbed his neck.

Elijah snatched a lighter from the cruiser and lit a fresh cigarette. He inhaled deeply. "Fuck! Tomorrow, we are doing the ether aptitude tests at the high school, right?"

"Yeah, but we can handle it if-"

"No. If Rachel doesn't show, we hit her house."

"You really should get some rest, Eli," Ashley said as she gestured for Elijah to get in the passenger seat.

He rubbed his temples. "We need rooms. And I need to map this shitstorm."

"Do you think it has to do with the reactor or that girl?" Bruce asked, getting into the backseat as Ashley turned on the police cruiser and drove down the parking lot.

"The reactor's just a catalyst. Proximity to it heightens anomalies—conduits, binders, the works." Elijah flicked ash out the window. "Why the hell won't HQ send help? They know Los Fantasmas is here."

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"If this girl is hypothetically Omega level, what will we do? We don't have anything on hand to deal with that, and she can't stay in the general public," Ashley asked as she drove into an outdated motel parking lot.

"We play the waiting game. Recon, investigate as much as possible until we know what we are dealing with. I hate this fucking job," Elijah said as he got out of the police cruiser.

"Why don't we just tell them there is something higher than Gamma here right now? Surely they will send support?" Bruce asked as he followed Elijah as Ashley booked some rooms at the motel's service desk.

Elijah stopped as they reached the top of a rusty set of stairs leading to the motel's upper floor. He noticed a payphone near the motel service desk entrance and watched Ashley exit with keys to their rooms.

"I will be back," Elijah said as he walked toward the payphone. He dialed his unique number code and gazed at the rain as he waited for the phone to ring three times before dialing the number.

"Agent Echo status update?"

"HQ, we need additional support due to the likelihood-" Elijah explained, then paused as he reached for his cigarettes. "We need additional support for a delta conduit or anomaly during assignment."

There was a pause for several seconds as Eli gazed up at Ashley, who handed Bruce his motel key.

"Did you say possible conduit, Agent Echo?"

"Affirmative, per my Ether trace."

"All available agents are on other assignments. Support will not be available for several days; make do with what you have till then."

"We are not equipped for possible combat manifestation! Give me something."

Eli flicked his cigarette into the rain as he heard whispering in the background.

"There is another alternative, considering Ashley is a binder but has not resonated with an anomaly yet."

"I can't just make Ashley take that leap."

"A package held by an operation and logistics agent will arrive in your location in 3 days. The package will contain 020-124. It will need to be bound to be utilized. Contain Delta level conduit and bring back to HQ for further analysis."

"And what of Los Fantasmas?"

"No additional support will be provided, and the FBI has been informed. Prioritize the extraction of Delta-level conduit by employing 020-124."

Elijah slammed the phone as the phone call abruptly ended. "Motherfuckers," Elijah muttered as he walked towards Ashley and Bruce.

"I take it we ain't getting any support?" Ashley asked with a raised eyebrow as Elijah unlocked his motel room.

"It's complicated," he replied as he gestured for Bruce and Ashley to enter, then closed the door behind them.

He leaned against the wall, staring at the motel's cracked ceiling. "They're sending an anomaly for containment. Nothing else."

"Why are they sending us that?"

Ashley sighed. "Because I'm a binder. Unbound."

"Package will arrive in around three days, so you got time to think it through."

Bruce gaped. "You're a binder? Why not bond sooner?"

Ashley crossed her arms and looked down."Once I do, I'm stuck in the P.I.A. No retirement. No escape."

"You don't have to do this if you don't want to. I didn't have the luxury of choice since I am a conduit," Eli said as he started to organize the assignment files on the bed.

"Whether you make that jump or not, we have to contain and extract the Conduit before she gets her hands on her," he said as he grabbed a tack and posted Dezerea's photo on the wall. I believe she is looking for the same person we are."

"Why would a drug cartel leader want with her?" Bruce asked as he handed Dezerea's bio to Elijah.

"I am not sure, but letting her get her hands on a conduit is too risky for my playbook."

"I will do it," Ashley said.

Elijah glanced at Ashley with a raised eyebrow. "You got time, Ash. You don't have-"

Ashley shook her head. "No, I will do it. I never planned on leaving the P.I.A. anyway, and you're right. We can't let her get ahold of the conduit. So what exactly do this 020-124 do anyway?"

"It's a stasis barrier," Bruce said. "Anomaly 020-124, a music box found in an abandoned house in the soviet union."

"You know that off the top of your head?" Elijah asked as he scribbled down Bruce's statement and posted it on the wall's ever-growing collection of documents.

Bruce shrugged and smiled. "I like to read up on the anomalies at HQ. Some of them are crazy, 020-001 or Zippo lighter, burn anything, and never run out of fuel. Supposedly, it's the cause of the Blue Rock incident in Montana."

"Say, do you know anything about an anomaly called the mirror?"Eli asked.

"Mirror?" Bruce whispered to himself as he looked down. That's the one that lets the user see visions if they look into a mirror, though I am not sure of what or who.

"So she wasn't bullshitting."

"Let's get some rest. We have work to do tomorrow," Elijah said as he stared at his hotel wall cluttered with photos and documents.