"Good morning." It came out much too quickly. It sucked feeling this nervous at work.
Kyrian had glanced up and then back down to the tablet on her desk. "Ms. Heidrich, you're in early today."
"Yeah, I guess so." My tone showed a lack of confidence, but I didn't retrace my steps. "Someone needs to sign off on my return."
"Ah, yes."
"I'm assuming that would be you?" I hadn’t meant to turn that into a question, but it was there.
"Yes and no," Kyrian said.
Not very helpful. "Who should I see first?"
"You've been cleared, but there's paperwork before you get reinstated. Hank will—"
Someone knocked on Kyrian's door and her sigh was audible.
"A moment, please," Kyrian said to me. "Come in," she added louder.
"Good morning, Director." A man had opened the door and stepped in, but he was someone I didn't recognize.
"Good morning." Kyrian's whole attitude changed. She practically glowed. "Agent Heidrich, this is Agent Boone. Agent Boone, this is Agent Heidrich, whom we've discussed."
Ugh, that didn't sound good. "It's nice to meet you." I stuck out my hand, which he shook.
The man bore no hint of a smile, though he didn't appear unpleasant. In fact, I wouldn't mind looking a lot longer, but he did appear serious.
"It's going to be a pleasure working with you," he said. When he stepped back, I noticed he stood with his hands clasped behind his back.
Parade rest. Maybe ex-military. That might explain the muscles.
Wait, working with me? I gave Kyrian a questioning look, but her eyes were mostly on Boone.
"Agent Boone met with Logan yesterday." The chipper voice Kyrian used felt out of place. "He's here on special assignment and will be shadowing your team. Starting today, correct?"
"I'll be meeting with Agent Seale in an hour in town," Boone said.
"Excellent. Agent Heidrich, could you excuse us? I'm sure you'll want to meet with Hank," Kyrian said.
"Sure." The feeling of uncertainty I hadn't expected. "Thank you for your time. Agent Boone, it was nice to meet you."
What the heck was that about? I walked out, trying to shake the bewilderment. Why had no one said anything to me about this?
Back in the control room, I didn't catch sight of Hank, so I went to the break room and made coffee. That, at least, was something I was good at and something I could do while waiting around. Looking busy was almost impossible since I didn't have access to the computer system. Mine had been taken away sometime after my forced extended vacation had started.
Once I had fixed my coffee, stalling long enough to add copious amounts of sugar, I looked for Hank. Once again, I felt eyes move to me, then back to their appointed tasks again. Worse, Hank still wasn't in yet.
Nodding to a few people when I caught their eyes, I made my way out of the room. I'm not sure why Gran thought I should be in early today. Not with everyone staring at me and with nothing to do. My office would be my safe haven until Hank arrived.
Remembering I hadn't left him a note on his desk, I pawed through my purse and found my phone. At first, I thought I'd send him a text, but texts are easy to put off replying to, but calls aren't as easy to dodge, so I dialed Hank.
"Cassie, I'm running a few minutes late this morning, but I've made it through the gates," Hank said.
"Thank goodness. What can I expect for today? Kyrian mentioned we were working with someone. Agent Boone?"
"Yes. We found out about Agent Boone yesterday," Hank said.
Flipping on the lights, I saw swirls of dust rise from the air I had disturbed, but it was nice to be away from prying eyes.
"Boone will be following Logan, Vincent, and Rider today. Tomorrow, some specialists are coming in. Boone will work with them for a while, then he'll be riding along with you and Logan or some variation of the four of you."
I thumbed through the papers on my desk. "Does this have anything to do with me returning to work?" I asked, but I wasn't sure I wanted to hear the answer.
"Actually, he's interested in seeing how your team works. At the moment, you are the only team in the company made up solely of Lost and humans with special abilities. Most of the time the teams lean more heavily to the human side."
Muscles I didn't realize I had clenched started to relax, but my curiosity became piqued. "We're the only ones?"
"It's not unheard of to have teams like yours, but at the moment, you all are the only ones."
A crash sounded down the hall and I jumped. Thankfully, no one was there to see me. Someone dropping something wasn't cause enough for anxiety.
I tried to tell myself that it had been startling, not a case of nerves. Nothing would derail me from starting work again.
"I guess our team kind of fell together more so than it was formed. Are teams like ours usually formed intentionally?"
"From what I understand, that's why Boone's there," Hank said.
Something else clattered in the hallway, so I went to check it out.
"He's human, but he'll be leading a group that's not strictly human," Hank said. "I don't know much more than that."
"Will I be joining the team later today?" I poked my head into the hall and didn't see anything, but I walked in the direction the noise had come from.
"Today, there is paperwork," Hank said. "Electronically speaking."
A few offices had doors open in the hallway, but I noticed none of them were occupied as I walked by.
"I'm at the building," Hank said.
"I'm in my office."
Hank hesitated. "Everything okay?"
I shrugged, but then remembered he couldn't see me over the phone. "People seem uncomfortable."
Hank didn't say anything right away. Seeing no one around, I moved to go back to my office.
"Things will settle down quickly," Hank said. "No one's sure what to say."
‘Hi,’ or ‘welcome back’ would have been a start. "So they pass the awkwardness around?"
Two doors down from my office, I stopped. The door was shut, but something dark oozed out from under it. I knocked on the door.
"Something like that," Hank said. "Lucky for you, the looks stop after a day or so."
"Um, do we have any new Lost around?" Thick, dark liquid spread out into the hallway. With no answer, my heart began to beat faster, and I knocked again.
"No one new. I'm here; I'll meet you at your office."
"Wait, do we have anyone or anything around that oozes?"
"That's a heck of a question," Hank chuckled. "Nothing on record that oozes is in the area. Not for almost a year now."
"Crap. You might want to hurry." I tried to open the door, but it was locked. Pounding on the door only made my hands hurt. "Everything okay in there?" I called.
"What's going on?" Hank's voice turned serious faster than a gnome runs.
"Not sure, but something’s coming out from under the door, and it doesn't look like water."
Chapter 2
An agent entered the hallway. "Everything okay?" He recognized me, and then hesitated.
"Can you open this door?" I asked.
"Agent Heidrich, it's good to see you back." His awkwardness was noticeable, but I didn't have time for that.
"Thanks, but listen, I think there's someone hurt." I kept my voice firm.
Hank spoke in the background, though I didn't hear what he said. I gestured to the floor, and the agent came closer and checked it out.
It only took a moment’s look before he, too, began to pound on the door. The fluid pooling appeared to be blood.
"No one's answering." Did he think his pounding would produce different results than mine? "Do you have a key?"
"Stand back." The agent motioned me away and stared at the door.
I stepped away and turned my attention back to the phone. "Hank, do you have a key to the offices? We need one here."
The agent rammed into the office door with his shoulder. It sounded as painf
ul as it looked. He hunched over and resorted to pounding on the door again.
"Screw this," I said. "Hank, I'm opening the door."
I closed my eyes and reached for the Path. My mind stretched, passing everything I knew about the known world, then it jumped into a large black chasm where excitable shards of soul, mine and others, skittered around. When I opened my eyes, I was deep in the raging Path.
Thankfully, it came easy to me. My control, not so much so.
"Stand back," I told the agent. When he didn't, I gently nudged him away. Looking at the door, there were only a few options I could think of off the top of my head.
Most people wouldn't think that a door would have a Path. However, everything leaves its mark on the world. Even a piece of wood—long since dead—and metal, had a ghosted Path of its travel through the world. In this case, the movement was strictly back and forth, which made it ingrained. I grabbed the door's Path and pulled.
The door bulged, not ready to leave its frame. Calling harder to the Path of the door and adding in the lock, I gripped hard. As a Reader, it was time to make myself known. In one fast movement, the door crunched its way open. It swung around on the hinges, bounced against the doorstop, and then tried to bounce closed again.
It didn't have much luck closing. Once opened, the body of Clancy fell out and to the floor.
From reading Clancy's Path, I could tell we were too late. It had been too late before I had taken a step out of my office.
A hand landed on my shoulder and I was shunted aside. Hank had arrived. He spoke into a comms unit and leaned in to check for a pulse.
Clancy. One of the few other humans around this place that had an ability. He was a clairvoyant, or he had been. We had worked together from time to time. Clancy could see in objects what I could see in their Paths. The hall filled with people, agents mostly, and I stepped further back. All those Paths racing around began to make me feel nauseated, so I closed my eyes and pushed the Path away. I hadn't used much power, but I felt tired.
Looking at Clancy, I knew the feeling had very little to do with being worn out.
Alarms rang throughout the building. Even being toward the middle of the building, you could hear the shutters rolling down over the windows and doors. Other doors to the outside were being automatically bolted. The subbasements would start to close. Thinking of the dark, enormous evidence room below, I hoped no one had gotten trapped inside. Surely, that was one of those things that gets closed off, though, right?
My brain locked in on those lines of thought. It was the only way for me to handle the fact that I was looking at the body of one of my coworkers. Hank organized a team which started going from office to office, beginning in this hall.
Kyrian arrived as Dr. Yelton stood. There were far too many people in the hallway, so I moved into the doorway of my office.
Hank put together another ad-hoc team of agents and set them to work. Kyrian spoke to Dr. Yelton and Hank. Her eyes flicked to me and the other agent every now and again throughout the conversation.
What should I be doing? Unfortunately, I think I was doing exactly what I should be, which was standing around and not touching anything. Technically, at least at the moment, I wasn't active. I had been the first one on scene, though.
What had I heard? It had sounded like someone had dropped something.
Had I seen anything? From the time I entered the hallway, to the time that agent walked into the hallway, I hadn't seen anyone.
"Agent Heidrich, you're with me." Hank’s voice was gruff and he didn't bother waiting for a response before stalking off to the control room.
This wasn't the first time I'd been in the building during an official lockdown. Cell phones, sat phones, and landlines would be down. Internet would be minimal and access would go through Hank. The last time this happened, we had been after someone too. A demon had created a portal in the control room and escaped into its own dimension with our former director in tow.
The enemy had been obvious that time. It had been screechy, angry, hostile, and impossible to miss.
"I need to know your exact movements from the time you entered the building this morning." Hank's intensity radiated.
The tone of his voice tripped me up. "What? Uh, okay. I haven't even been here for that long."
As we strode through the control room, I took Hank through my morning. Once ensconced at his station, he pulled up security videos, first of the hallway outside my office. Currently, Kyrian reviewed the situation with a few others. Hank started rewinding.
Seeing myself pull the door open, only in reverse, made me wince. Do I always look pissed off when I work with the Path? It was a fleeting thought. Once the video backed up to the point the other agent joined me in the hallway, static erupted on the screen.
Hank looked stunned, but he pulled himself together at once, getting the security footage of multiple other locations across the screens.
Everything from this floor showed nothing. From the time I stepped into the control room with my coffee, moving toward my office, until the time we were trying to get into the room, the footage was nothing but static.
Hank pulled up programs and other footage. "I need the techs."
"Want me to get anyone? Is there anything I can do?" I asked.
"You are hands-off at the moment. Completely. One hundred percent hands-off. If I could get you to sit in a chair and not move, I would, but I know you better than that."
That was unfair, but I kept my mouth shut. Crossing my arms and glaring spoke volumes for me. At least it would have if Hank had been looking at me and not his screens.
"You," Hank called out to an agent, "Kyrian is in the west hallway; tell her I need you to go be cleared. Then head to the fourth floor. Find Marty and tell him to meet me in security."
The agent looked like he was going to say something, but Hank snapped, "Now!" and the agent was off at a trot to the nearest set of stairs.
"You're seriously not going to let me help you with anything?" I asked Hank.
"At this point in time, I'm going to be lucky to keep you out of the interrogation room."
"What did—"
"What do you have, Hank," Kyrian called when she entered the room, cutting me off.
"We have blank video." Hank stared at his screens. "I'm running the footage through a filter now to see what kind of blank we have."
Kyrian's cheeks turned pink, but she kept her voice level. "I cleared Donaldson for the fourth floor. He'll be bringing Marty down to security."
"The checks?" Hank asked.
"About a fourth of the building has been cleared," Kyrian said. "At this point, we don't know what we're looking for. That is, unless Agent Heidrich has something to share with us." She looked at me expectantly.
My stomach was sinking, but I kept my voice level and talked her through everything I had done, seen, or heard from the time I left her office earlier that morning to when I had found Clancy.
"And we have no one that can corroborate, aside from Agent Watts, who's with Dr. Yelton?" Kyrian asked.
I gestured at the static, trying not to look too hopeless. "I was talking on the phone with Hank, but unless there's a way to see my location without video, I guess there isn't."
"I've put Paulson in charge." Kyrian looked around the room, watching the agents bustling with intent. "Hank, I'm giving him to Red for now. I need you on security."
Hank nodded and got up. "I'll be in security. Agent Heidrich, grab that laptop and follow me."
"Paulson will want—"
"Paulson can pull her out of security, but you and I both know he isn't going to need her right away." Not only had Hank cut Kyrian off, but he was also disagreeing with her.
"You're positive you want to play it this way? It lands on you if you're wrong." Kyrian didn't look at me, but she didn't have to.
"She'll be with me," Hank said.
Kyrian nodded. "I'll send Agent Paulson when he's ready."
Hank hurried away
. There was no choice but to trail after him.
Once we were out of the control room, I couldn't hold back any longer. "Does she think I had something to do with this?"
"No more than anyone else," Hank said. "But the only thing we do know is that whoever did this is someone with access to this building."
"Thank you for sticking up for me back there." It had to be said, though awkwardness hovered around us.
"I know you didn't do this," Hank said.
I nodded, but didn't say anything.
The security room was a small room with more monitors than the control room. A skinny man sat in a swivel chair.
Hank sat down with his laptop and docked it. Within moments, screens began running programs and showing static.
"Is there anything I can do?" I know I had asked before, but I hated not being able to help.
"Not at this time," Hank said. "Until we are off lockdown, you are still officially on leave."
"This sucks." I crossed my arms. "There's got to be something I can help with."
"I've got solitaire on this tablet," Marty suggested, waving it in the air. "It's not connected to anything at work."
I shook my head and slumped into a chair.
"Until Agent Paulson has interviewed you, you're with me," Hank said. "There's no way I'm dealing with your partners if they hear otherwise."
That coaxed a grin out of me. "I imagine they're pretty anxious by now."
"Well, luckily, we're locked inside the building," Hank muttered before falling into his work.
Right away, I regretted turning down the offered solitaire game. I felt the need to be helpful, but since that wasn't an option, I was antsy. Instead, I got a few looks from Hank when I got up and started pacing, stopping only to look over his or Marty's shoulder.
Kyrian came in for a check-up after about forty-five minutes, but even with the dozens of programs Hank and Marty were running, they didn't have much to share. At that point, the building was almost forty percent cleared.
Not long after Kyrian left, Paulson showed up.
"Agent Heidrich." Paulson shook my hand. "It's good to see you back in the office. Hank, do you have anything for me?"
AIR Series Box Set Page 97