Blue light washes the intake hall. Inside the shipping containers, a hidden lab hums around the vanished scientist and his console, all sterile metal and blinking readouts. The device throbs with the same wrong energy Sally once felt in her own mind.
Devlan comes in behind Sally with his weapon raised. The scientist keeps calibrating, calm as a man at a clock repair bench, as if he has been waiting for them all night.
The Scientist
You are late. The carrier signal already found its mark.
Sally
That device is tied to me.
A monitor flickers, showing Department routing tags, biometric locks, and Sally's own redacted profile moving through the system like a live wire.
Devlan Mitchel
Step away from the console. Now.
The Scientist
If she wants answers, she needs the source. I can show her who built the leash.
✓ Quest Accepted
Get the scientist to reveal the Department’s true objective
“I step closer to the console and demand he show me the source of the leash.”
SUCCESS (Great Persuasion, rolled -2)
Sally steps in close enough to read the console glow across the scientist’s face. The monitor scrolls past her profile, then freezes on a nested schematic, a relay spine feeding into a second, smaller chamber marked with extraction lines.
Sally
Show me the source of the leash.
The Scientist
There. Under the rail yard. The leash is not the device in front of you, it is the sink that receives what this device collects.
He taps the screen, and a hidden map blooms open, pinpointing a sublevel lab beneath the containers. Sally gets what she asked for, but the console vents a hot spark that bites her wrist and leaves a blackened smear on her sleeve.
Devlan Mitchel
That is the target, Sally. The whole place is built around it.
The Scientist
The Department never wanted mere containment. They want a harvest line, a way to take powers without asking the owner to stay conscious for it.
Rain ticks faintly against the container walls. The scientist’s hand stays on the console, but his eyes shift to Sally, measuring whether she understands how deep the machine goes.
Quest Complete
Get the scientist to reveal the Department’s true objective