The maintenance yard gate rattles open. A middle-aged woman with warm brown skin, cropped black hair, a navy field jacket, and a silver badge enters carrying a sealed evidence case with a sturdy build and square jaw; the mutant refugee turns toward her, null-cuffs still sparking faintly.
Inside the headquarters, the team remains at the conference room and access points, isolating the building grid while the yard stays under morning sunlight. The investigator lifts a phone, its screen crowded with waveform clips and resident statements.
Mara Velez
Mara Velez, public safety investigations. Several people reported three pulses beneath the ground, followed by a voice that sounded like Zay.
She angles the phone toward Zay without crossing the marked perimeter. The recording plays three measured thumps, then a distorted echo of his voice rising through static.
The Mutant Refugee
That is not a report. It is an escalation. The threshold has learned how to project him farther than before.
Mara Velez
Then tell me who authorized the signal's containment. My office received no notice, and residents are still hearing it beneath their homes.
The mutant refugee's gaze shifts toward the concrete below the faded Eye symbol. The ground remains still, but Zay's cosmic perception catches a faint answering warmth deep under the yard.
✓ Quest Accepted
Identify who authorized the signal’s containment
“I compare Mara's waveform clips with the team's isolation logs.”
FAILURE (Good Investigation, rolled -3)
Zay studies Mara's waveform clips on her phone, matching pulse spacing against the team's isolation logs through the headquarters network. The comparison breaks immediately: the logs remain inside the sealed grid, unreachable from the yard.
He uses the waveform's timestamps as anchors instead, but the phone's clips carry distorted metadata. Each measured thump appears duplicated, making the source seem to occupy two locations at once.
Mara Velez
The timestamps are wrong. The signal may be rewriting the recording after it reaches the phone.
Mara refreshes the display. A new waveform replaces the clips, its three pulses synchronized with the faint warmth beneath the faded Eye symbol and with activity inside headquarters.
The isolation logs remain inaccessible behind the headquarters lockdown, so the comparison cannot identify which relay responded. Worse, Mara's phone begins transmitting the copied voice back through the yard's buried conduits.
The Mutant Refugee
Stop the playback. It is no longer evidence. You have given the threshold a clean route to repeat itself.
“I compare Mara's waveform clips with the team's isolation logs.”
FAILURE (Good Investigation, rolled -1)
The comparison fails before Zay can isolate a match. Mara’s waveform clips duplicate their own pulses, while the team’s isolation logs remain sealed inside headquarters and unavailable from the yard.
Zay Morales
The recording is changing as I read it.
Mara Velez
I cannot verify the source against logs I cannot access. The phone is no longer preserving the original evidence.
Mara kills the playback and locks her phone screen. The buried conduit answers with one faint pulse anyway, proving the signal copied itself before the connection closed.
The Mutant Refugee
The duplicate is the trap. Stop comparing locations and watch what reacts when the phone goes silent.
Across the yard, the faded Eye symbol cools by degrees. Inside headquarters, the isolated grid gives no visible response, leaving the phone’s altered recording as a contaminated trail rather than a usable match.
Mara Velez
That comparison is finished. If we want a reliable signal, we need a fresh observation, not another copy.
“I ask Mara who authorized the containment”
SUCCESS (Mediocre Persuasion, rolled +2)
Zay Morales
Mara, who authorized the containment?
Mara Velez
Director Jonah Halden authorized it at 6:10 this morning. He ordered the headquarters grid isolated before my office was notified.
Mara unlocks her phone and opens a secure incident record. The authorization carries Halden’s digital signature, timestamp, and a restricted classification marked beneath the containment order.
The Mutant Refugee
Then he knew about the threshold before the public reports. That makes the containment part of the signal’s design.
Mara scrolls past the order and reveals a second instruction: no external agencies, no excavation, and no direct contact with the buried transmitter without Halden’s approval.
Mara Velez
I can give you his authorization trail, Zay. I cannot call this routine containment anymore. Someone anticipated the signal reaching the yard.
The faded Eye symbol stays cool beneath the sunlight, but Mara’s screen now displays a direct contact channel for Director Halden, marked active and waiting.
Quest Complete
Identify who authorized the signal’s containment
Skill Upgrade: Investigation Good→Great