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elithemiar-blog · 2 years ago

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Phoenix Rising Chap 1 Rewrite

Chapter 1: Rebellion

The bright blue screens of the monitors in front of Agent N had seared into his bright green eyes, swiping away the brown strands allowed him a moment of reprieve from the minor headache forming from the glare. The screens themselves shifted on an automatic path, swiveling as the motion of others caught its attention as per the code. His hazy eyes tracked the three figures on a march down the hall, passing some doors to the investigative power labs on the far side before coming across another hallway at the very end of the corridor.

He notes down the times to review the image, and immediately turning to a separate program to rewind the feed and stall the image. The kid, no more than 16 with nearly storm grey hair and tattered suit, barely conscious as he is dragged between two other agents. He hopes they are done with him for the night, his eyes squeeze shut as his fist tightened on the outer shell of the mouse, only releasing his strength when he heard the creaking of the cheap plastic.

Eyes, now open, travel up to the bland ceiling above him, even with the lights off he could still see the white walls in this madhouse of a facility. He's sure the boy will no longer even trust the color, a shade that many others would see as innocence now shows how easily that can change. Even now, he can't even stand his own suit, a requirement even if he's not in the field.

A knock at the door, startled him to hide the program running on the opposite screen, the saved image and video being hidden behind the card access spreadsheet. The door opens and in comes his co-worker who had reported him from months previously, the corner of his lips dropped as he sneered back. His shoulders tensed, rising higher to his ear as his legs shifted to be able to move just in case. "What do you want?" the attitude he tries so hard to keep contained around his Superior, slipped out at the end of his question. Revealing exactly what he felt with this visit.

The visitor shut the door quietly behind him. "Just checking on you, as per my orders." He leaned back against the door, arms crossed and a heal up on the steel enterance. "Something of which you couldn't even bother to do."

Agent N's brows furrowed, "You don't come here unless you actually want something beyond gloating."

"I do like the reminder that this organization does favor honesty." he leaned over to peak around to the monitors, "Anything interesting?"

"Nothing more than usual." he glanced back, double checking that there is no damning evidence against him again.

"Monitors are top of the line, they can search even beyond where this building rests."

"Is there something you want or not, Agent Fucker?"

Anger seared through, the superior taking a sudden step forward that had Agent N removing himself from the chair and stepping away until his lower back touched the edge of the desk.

"It's Agent Delta, show some respect!" taking more steps until he towered over the hunched form of his ex-superior, then grinned at the show of submission. "Wouldn't want anything to happen to young Bethany, would you?"

Agent N's eyes blasted wide open, "What?"

"Heard she has a dance recital next week. Or maybe your six-month old son?" he leaned back onto his heals, turning around to glance back over his shoulder, waiting for a reaction as he could see the muscles under the suit flexing. "Your wife still working those long night shifts? Isn't that the reason why you asked for more day shifts?"

Body straightening, and a fire in his eyes, darkening the bright grass green to that of a hunter's, Agent N took a solid two steps forward. "Leave them alone." he hissed, throat physically rumbling on the last word. "Your issue is with me, not them."

Agent Delta opened the steel door, the heavy material squeaking out the hinges, "Then, remember, we are always watching."

After the door shut, all the fight that he had for against his superior dropped him back in the chair. His elbows resting on his knees as he held his head in his hands, remembering everything that had happened. Months ago that lead him to his newest position with even longer hours, taking the vital time to be with his family away onto this terrifying project of theirs.

Leaning back on his chair, he sought out one of the very last image of the boy they now had in their grasps. This image, a stark difference to the current one, snow white hair and bright toxic green eyes that glowed. It had been a while since he last saw the boy, but even longer since he had seen his eyes glowing full of life. His skin tanner than what it currently is, and the fresh, clean suit that held the symbol that is now ripped away from him.

It's currently framed in the scientific research lab, hung on the wall like some trophy.

Phantom. His brain supplied the name, the hope that Amity had right before his disappearance, only breaking upon the significant lack of the boy, the kid, during the last ghost fight. As if the other residents of the realms knew that something wasn't right, but despite their own characteristics of property damage, they still just scared people, then left not even a window broken.

Something he learned when he'd been trying to build a case against his own bosses.

His stomach rumbled, but he ignored it, trying to wait for a time until the majority of other agents weren't in the lounge.

He wishes to be in his own lounge, reading a book to his daughter as his wife attempts to feed their stubborn infant through a bottle. Bethany, talented in dance, and too observant for her own good, changed her parent's view of the ghost boy, when she noticed the changes of the eye color. Something so obvious that screamed wrong that he and his wife wanted to smack each other's past self.

They had at one point supported the hunters, but after some very sweet convincing from Bethany, they absolutely wanted to rebel against that. It's what lead to his current position of employment. He still wishes there was something he could do.

Checking back down at his watch, he realized that he'd been in his head for an hour. Meaning he now had an extra hour of paperwork that had to be done. Grabbing his own key card, he left the security room and down the hallway, keeping his gaze lowered or blatantly ignoring other people. They all knew what he tried to do.

Sitting at a corner table in the employee lounge, back against the wall and coffee in hand he tears through the ham and cheese sandwich. Some sustenance is better than nothing.

"A little later than what your usually eating at?" a lithe woman sat down opposite of him, yet she'd been ignored. "What, is five AM too early for you now?"

Agent N continued to ignore her, eyes instead straying to the ruby inlaid ring on her right ring finger.

"Oh, this?" she asked, posing with the ring once she noticed where his gaze traveled to. "Just something I managed to put together. Did you know the kid doesn't like the color red for some reason? Well you know, just the gem."

"Agent E, isn't there somewhere else you are wanted?" he finally asked, the bags under his eyes he could feel dropping more.

"Nah! I've be relieved of my duties for a week." the small smile didn't even reach her eyes. "Whatever that means."

He swallowed his last bite on a thought, "What did you do?"

"What makes you think I did anything?" she tapped twice on the table, nails no longer than her fingertips allowed.

"If you made a discovery, they'll be investigating it themselves."

"There's no report of a discovery, same old thing with testing bloody samples and seeing how they react with common chemicals."

"Common?"

"The boy's blood turns red when in a oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide chamber for twenty-four hours." her hand carded through her hair from the middle of her scalp to the side of her hair, the near black strands parting over to the side. "It was an observation so I assumed there was no reason to record it."

For the second time that day in less than twelve hours, he swears his heart freezes for a full three seconds, "What?"

"I know, right? The ones that run this place have nearly no common chemistry knowledge, it's what we're here for."

"We shouldn't be talking about this here." he stood, quickly walking away to put his cup on the conveyer belt.

Agent E followed closely behind, some eyes following as they paced through the hallway and back to Agent N's assigned security station. "You know, I could just give you the report for it."

"Get in the room." he strained, only relaxing more once the door was closed and locked. "Human blood from Phantom?"

Agent E took his chair as she watched the man pace some more, mumbling out expletives, yet she rolled her eyes. "I can see why your plans months ago failed. You easily anger and you are far too obvious."

"What did you do with the sample?" he asked, nearly too quick.

"Destroyed it, by the time I even thought of testing the sample for a possible identity, it'd been about an hour later."

"Good," he nodded once, seeing her confused frown, "Good." moving towards the monitors, he double clicked on another program, "Every test you did gets automatically recorded." he moved aside to let her see.

Every test that she had done for the past three years could be seen by date and time. In live view, she could see the updates, even by room and who was doing what. "Wait, you shouldn't even have this. You should only have the card access."

Agent N cringed down.

"That's how you managed to get a clear through."

"I do have the ability to manually schedule tests, a fail-safe if the power ever gets cut."

Agent E stared, "Could you do it again?"

He raised a brow in response, "Do you want me to get into trouble again?"

"It'd be worth it." she mumbled, "But we do it better."

He snapped his head to her, "We?"

"I--There's--" she moved to the laptop on the side, pulling up the emails.

"What are you doing?"

"You haven't noticed the changes in ranks and positions?" she sent a coded message to the IT guys down a floor. "There's been four changes in the security team. Last month."

"That doesn't mean anything."

She huffed a short chuckle, "Your attempt came with a price, everyone who wants to cut the project started to make subtle changes. Two of our IT guys have been dropping the security hoping someone would get through."

He blinked back, "You're saying that in a way that someone has."

She nodded once, "There's a reason you've been sentenced to watch the internal security feeds. The guy on the external feeds is running at super speed to make sure nothing gets out that we don't want noticed yet."

"All feeds get sent to the master receiver that checks for abnormalities, Agent S is interfering."

"All but the Master Security Station are interfering. When we get Phantom out, it has to start through security." Agent E stated, "Ever since you had been demoted, we've been making round-a-bout plans."

"Manually entering access codes and tests isn't gonna be enough, I learned that the hard way."

"You're right, it isn't enough, but it'll have to be." she turned back around to the laptop screen, she moved away to show the grainy image. "Agent S had gotten an approved security camera that he has full responsibility for."

"How'd he pull that?"

"Higher-ups didn't want to spend the money."

"Of course." he leaned back, the grainy image clearing until he could see the beret and PDA. "That's…"

"Rumors speculate that Phantom had some human helpers." she pointed, "That is Tucker Foley."

"Who are the others?"

"We don't know. The IT guys are working on a way to connect to them, we have some researchers who are also going through--manually--to figure out who the others are. They did find something." Agent E pulled up some information. "IT created this false messenger. It hides any messages sent by a code through the network and is then revealed by those who have the application to decipher it."

"Does Mister Foley have this?"

"No, but they've been trying to send it to him every time he connects."

"Playing a dangerous game getting so close to the facility."

"Which is why we have luck on our side."

Agent N moved closer to the files upon files of information that this team had been working on. "Daniel Fenton?" he muttered, eyes widening as he read. "Did his parents know?"

"Don't know. Doesn't matter. What can you do with the manual access?"

He thought about it, "I can manually access the emergency tunnel, make it seem like the monthly test, which also puts my station in direct line. Beyond that? Are you sure you want to include the kids?"

"No." she sighed, "I'd rather they stay out of this, but they may be the only ones who can get through. A drugged teenager and a ghost at the same time, we remove the suppressors and they'll be a fight. His team, his friends, should snap him out of it."

"Problem," he raised his finger into the air, "Those suppressors aren't controlled by IT, that's the Master Control Room."

Agent E, paused at that, "How do we even…"

"Ask IT if we can do a power overload."

"Power overload will shut down the entire building."

"We do that when the kids are in the emergency tunnels, by doing the overload slowly it will give the Master Control Room something to focus on, which can get one of the IT guys to slip in and accidentally shut off the suppressors."

She messaged the group that exact idea.

Closer to that end of the week, where they prayed that the kids haven't been scared away from the direct contact that Agent S had been able to pull, thanks to Agent N's very brief manual over-ride of the internal cameras and glitching that IT had to handle, Tucker Foley finally accepted the fake messenger.

Now they had very annoyed IT guys glaring at both Security Station officers as they dispersed themselves in the employee lounge. They all chose to get some lunch as Agent E, dropped down next to the investigative agents that had ransacked her office.

They could see her stilled shoulders, as she falsified a chuckle, but it abruptly stopped as a file slid over to her. Her face paled, freshly tanned skinned lightening as her hand raised to cover her mouth.

Agent N, after getting to know her, knew that she was trying to remind herself to hold back cursing. Worries consumed him as the agents got up and left the room, yet she didn't move. Pulling out his phone, he sees that he's not the only one to take notice as there were several questions. Her reply made his blood freeze.

Her mother, they threatened her only other living relative on this side of the world.

He had to make a call, standing abruptly, he forced himself to slow back to his station. He breathed, anger searing into his veins that threatened to stop his heart. Opening a drawer he retrieves his personal phone and without even checking the time he calls his wife.

"Honey, now isn't the time." she breathed deep, a breaking of a fragile object in the distance can be heard.

"Phantom."

"What?"

"Phantom is in the clutches of the Ghost Investigation Ward, practically torturing him, some of us are planning to get him out, but they keep threatening our families." he hurriedly explained, choking near the end as his throat tightened up at him.

"I have to take this." she had to have left the crowded area and turned to somewhere quiet, it wasn't as noisy. "Okay, deep breath. What about Phantom?"

"The Guys in White. I work for them and eight months ago they captured Phantom at some point. I only found out four months ago." he slowed down, each word being harder and harder to admit.

"Nicholas." she gasped. "You said some of you are trying to get him out?"

"Yeah. We each found out something, and they are threatening our families, they're threatening you to keep us silent. I can be terminated for mentioning anything."

"Than why are you telling me?"

"So you don't believe any of the bullshit they spew." he knew his wife doesn't like swearing. "I'm going through with it, I just need your support, please."

"If you ever think I wouldn't support you on something you believe in, I haven't married the same man." she sniffled.

"I just--just had to check." he whispered. "I love you."

Agent S came rushing in the moment that he ended the call, "Agent N?"

"It's Nicholas, or Nick if you like."

"I had Agent E, or Emily that is, to call her mother and explain."

"We going through?"

"They're here early, we just need another four hours to set everything up. Are you ready?"

"Yeah, yeah. Let's get Phantom free."

"The smoothest we do this the more likely we'll all survive."

#dpxdc #dpxarrow #this is my quality writing #it's so much better than 2015 me #srsly everything needs updated #there's a giw arc now #danni is staying longer #there's so much more conflict #danny is more oblivious this time

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