“So the Foundation owns this building?” 

Bradley looked over at him, parkour attempts evidently forgotten. “Hang on,” James said. “I’m here with Bradley, let me put you on speaker.”

He pressed the speaker button, then held the phone between the two of them. “Not the entire building,” Gabriella was saying. “Just the unit. The building is divided between individual landlords. About half the units are owned by one company, then the others are split up among individual owners and LLCs. But this unit and only this unit is owned by the Foundation.”

This was their domain. So maybe it was all a test after all. An elaborate hunt set up by someone who had never actually done a scavenger hunt before. One where the Foundation thought nothing of mowing down civilians in the name of…reinforcing skills that these captains had gained through a career of not doing precisely that? And the city was fine with it? Or just so afraid of the Foundation that it was going to put its residents and visitors at risk for them? No, that still didn’t make sense. 

“James?”

“Sorry, Gabs, just thinking,” he said. “I…no, there’s no way this is all a test.”

“Could it be, though?” Gabriella asked. “Amelia told me what’s going on. It’s thoughtless and brutal, but isn’t that kind of their style? Convoluted and messy and if people get hurt due to incompetence, it’s not their fault?”

Yeah, she was catching on to this place. “Yes,” James said. “That’s often the case. But you’re forgetting the most important part. They’re stupid. There’s no way they could put this all together. Even if they were competent, the sheer amount of approval they’d need from the city and the state would be such a mess that it wouldn’t be worth it. They’re just not capable of a conspiracy on this scale.”

“So how does this happen, then?” Bradley asked. “We’re standing outside a Foundation-owned apartment, looking at the source of the energy that’s the center of this test case. What’s the other explanation?”

James looked at him, hurt. But Bradley didn’t actually look like he believed what he was saying. He was looking at the door with a frown. Then, before James could stop him, he kicked it hard, just above the doorknob.

James half-expected that to work. Instead, Bradley stumbled backward and fell, landing hard on his back on the dirty linoleum. He stood back up and straightened his clothes, clearly trying to save face.

“Got that out of your system?” James asked.

Bradley glared at him, but didn’t answer.

“Is everything okay?” Gabriella asked.

“Bradley tried to kick the door down.”

Gabriella was silent, and he had to give her credit. If she was laughing on that end, she was hiding it well.

“At least I fucking tried something,” Bradley muttered.

“Anyway, no, I don’t believe it,” James said. “But I do believe that it’s possible someone left an improperly handled and stored artifact in here and we have no way to get in. We have to talk to McGovern, this has gone too far.”

If anyone there was going to believe him, he had to hope it would be McGovern. “I’m going to call him,” James said. “The other captains are on their way here and we need to get into this apartment. Regardless of how it happened, the source is in there. So either McGovern will have a solution, God help me. Or Bradley can continue to fight this door until it surrenders. I’ll call you back after I talk to him.”

“We’re actually heading out on a case in a few minutes,” Gabriella said. “Talk to you tonight?”

“Yeah,” he said, resisting the urge to ask her about the case. “Yeah, I’ll talk to you then.”

They disconnected and James sighed, rubbing his temples in a futile attempt to relieve some of the tension in them. Bradley, meanwhile, looked like he might actually try to kick the door down again.

“Stay,” James ordered, holding a hand out to stop him before he moved. 

This time, it looked like James might get the kick directly to the side of his head. But rather than stir Bradley up any further, he just dialed McGovern’s office.

“Richard McGovern, how can I help you?”

“Sir, this is James McManus from the North Worcester County branch.”

“James, hi, yes. What can I do for you?”

James rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly dreading this conversation even more. “I’m standing outside the apartment unit the Foundation owns on Commonwealth Avenue in Brighton. That’s the source of the energy readings, either the unit itself or something inside. And listen, one of those things caused a power surge that caused a Green Line train to derail earlier. If this is a test, I’ve solved it and I’m furious with the Foundation. If it’s not a test, then I need to get into the unit before someone else gets hurt. And I think we both know that this isn’t a test.”

There was a beat of silence on the other end as James considered his other career opportunities or lack thereof. Then McGovern said softly, “What do you mean, ‘before someone else gets hurt’?”

James looked over at Bradley, wishing he’d thought to put the phone on speaker before the conversation started. “The injuries,” he said. “Two at Haymarket, one at Park, one on the B line near Boston University. Mostly civilians, but one was a captain from Rhode Island.”

“I didn’t know about that.”

“We discussed it yesterday at the closing meeting.”

“I wasn’t there. This is supposed to be a scavenger hunt.”

James actually laughed. “A scavenger hunt? I just saw a train derailment, and the driver was clearly concussed.”

“No, that can’t be right. Our supervisors told us you were all doing a training exercise. They wouldn’t have hurt anyone.”

Now he was actually glad he’d kept the phone off speaker. “What’s he saying?” Bradley hissed.

James held up a finger. “It’s not,” he said. “The training exercise is a cover for a real case they didn’t want on record. We’ve been following an intense energy reading throughout the city’s transit lines and it’s led us to the apartment building on Comm Ave. We tracked down the owner and it’s the Foundation. What is going on and how do we stop it?”

There was a moment where he thought McGovern might be about to tell him it was all fake and James honestly wasn’t sure what he would do with that. But instead, McGovern said, “What’s the address?”

James rattled it off. “Alright, I’ll have one of the interns meet you there with a key. It might take a little while.”

“How long are we talking?”

“As long as it takes me to track down the proper department, send it to them, get a key, and send the intern.”

The touch of testiness in McGovern’s voice made James’s own frustration intensify. But it was the first time a Foundation administrator had acknowledged the fact that this wasn’t a real test. And if he didn’t know anything, then who was actually running this thing? Had the training department gone rogue? Or was this something the higher ups had designed for the fewest necessary people to know about in order to avoid humiliation?

“Thank you,” James said, instead of asking any of the questions racing through his brain.

He hung up, that headache now locked into place.

***

They stood outside the apartment in awkward silence for a little while, Bradley gazing out the window while James haphazardly looked around the space for any further hints about what was happening. He could imagine this same scenario in thirteen more years. Him standing in the old hallway of an old apartment building with a team member, about to investigate a different case. Maybe he was balding or gone completely gray by this point. And maybe it was a young newcomer to the field beside him. Hell, maybe it was still Bradley, who was also getting older and somehow even grouchier. 

Though maybe Bradley wasn’t planning to stay with the Foundation forever. Not if he was taking steps like going to college in order to improve his career opportunities. Getting a degree was a big deal, especially later in life when you had other responsibilities to go with it. He clearly wasn’t just doing it for fun.

“Do you think you’ll stay at the Foundation?”

Bradley looked at him. “What?”

“I mean, long term. Like, after you finish your degree or whatever? Are you going to stay here?”

“Why are you asking me so many fucking questions?”

James actually jumped at the level of heat in his voice as Bradley glared at him. “Sorry,” James said. “I was just wondering.”

“Well, stop,” Bradley said. “You’ve been asking inane bullshit questions all day. Why do you possibly care that much? My plans and my life are none of your fucking business.”

And now James just felt like an idiot. All that talk about keeping focused on work while on the clock, leaving everything else at the door? Of course it was for the team’s comfort, not just the case results that the Foundation wanted. “Sorry,” he said, his face burning and stomach lurching as he flailed internally for the right thing to say. “I guess I just- sorry.”

Was this how it happened with Robin? Maybe he’d had a life and friends and an existence outside of the Foundation at one point. And his solitude hadn’t been a sudden thing. All those things had been chipped away bit by bit until all that was left was a painfully lonely man who couldn’t connect with other people and was taken advantage of by those above him. And he went along with it because if he didn’t, then who was he?

“Sorry,” James said again, meaning it. “I was being stupid. I guess I thought we were like, friends or something. I really should have known that…sorry.”

He waited for the killing blow in return to that statement, but before it could arrive, there were footsteps on the stairs. He turned to see Rosa and Tim hurrying around the corner at the top of the stairwell.

“We went as fast as we could,” Tim said. “Sorry, the trains are all delayed because of what happened, so we had to walk.”

James plastered on a professional smile. “No problem,” he said, not daring to look at Bradley. “We’re waiting on a Foundation intern to arrive with a key for this place, anyway.”

“Can we break the door down?”

This was Rosa, maybe a little too eagerly. “Tried already,” James said, again forcing that easy charm that he tried too hard to cultivate. “Plus, who knows what kinds of booby traps they’ve got in there for unauthorized entry. I’m not risking it if it means potentially staying another night. I’m ready to go home.”

“How about while we wait on the intern, you catch us up on what happened?” Rosa said.

Personal feelings stayed buried while he was on the job. So James swallowed hard, shoved it aside, and launched into the story.

---

CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 15