As they descended into the crowded Park Street Station again, Jessamyn tried to get her energy detector to work properly.

“I wonder if this is even the right thing to be using,” she muttered as she popped the back off and took out the batteries. “Should we be using EVP detection equipment instead? If they’re thinking this is a spirit causing the energy surges, then this is barely going to register anything weird. It’s a train line, there’s nothing but electricity down here.”

She pocketed the batteries and James handed her some of the fresh ones he’d taken off the table before they left. “I doubt it is a spirit though,” she continued as she put them into the detector. “All we have to go on are strange energy readings and injuries. I’m kind of leaning toward a lost artifact or tool of some kind. Hence the training exercise to find it.”

“Amelia, my second in command, brought up that possibility last night,” James said. “That maybe this is to cover up a mistake they made.”

“So they messed up, know they messed up, and are using this training to fix it?” Rosa clarified.

“I hope not, but if that’s what’s happening, I’m putting in my resignation,” James said. “It’s too stupid to even…”

Bradley looked over at him, then down at the energy reader in his own hand. “This won’t turn on,” he said.

“Hang on.”

James took it from him and smacked it against his open palm. It flickered back to life, letting out a small, almost sad beep as he handed it back to Bradley.

“Yesterday we noticed the energy was stronger in the subway tunnels, but couldn’t really get a handle on whether it was getting stronger or weaker as we moved through them,” James explained to the newcomers to the group. “We stayed on the Green line and really focused on Park Street, since that’s where they told us to start. This was before the injuries, though.”

“Okay, so there was one injury down here yesterday,” Rosa said as she and Tim stepped around a spilled fast food pile at the bottom of the station stairs. “They wouldn’t let us anywhere near the victim, but it seems like it was similar enough to what happened over at Haymarket.”

“And you guys didn’t see what happened there?” Tim asked.

“No,” James replied. “We were riding back to Park Street when someone texted Jessamyn about it. So we just kept going and got there when the doctors and paramedics arrived.”

“Genevieve,” Jessamyn added. “She wasn’t there, but she saw the transit alert.”

“Hmm.”

Tim was quiet and thoughtful, probably about James’s age with a receding hairline and sharp eyes. He looked around the crowded platform, watching people moving around them. Then he started for the turnstile, everyone else following him.

“Dammit,” James muttered as they got there. “I’ll meet you guys in there, I need to put money on my card.”

He had totally forgotten that his Charlie Card was down to about forty cents when he got on the train yesterday. And now there was a crowd surrounding the fare vending machines, with two of them taken by confused young people. 

“Here,” Bradley said, passing his wallet back over the turnstile to him. “My card is in there. We don’t have all fucking day.”

James pressed the wallet against the sensor, and the gate swung open. “I’ll pay you back,” he said as he gave Bradley his wallet.

“Sure, whatever.”

There were a lot of people today, far more than there had been when they were down here yesterday. That made sense, it wasn’t quite ten yet, so people were still on their way to work. James got separated from the others for a moment by a crowd of people coming off of a train. For a second, the noise and the bodies against his were overwhelming. He took a deep breath, ignored the smell of body odor, and returned his focus to what he was doing. He was an adult, not a lost kid in the mall. He’d return to the group once this crowd cleared out.

He found them circling around a bench by the elevator. “There you are,” Rosa said with a laugh. “I thought maybe you’d gotten on that train.”

“Nope, right here.”

“Speaking of trains, do you think they’re actually going to let us out at six?” Rosa asked, checking the time on her phone. “My girlfriend is taking the train in from Worcester, so we’re going to spend the night out here. But I’m getting a little worried that they’ll, like, spring a surprise session on us if this case isn’t finished.”

James looked over at Bradley, who looked at him with a far too neutral expression on his face, and resisted the urge to nod. Technically, it wasn’t either of their business, right? And maybe Amelia knew. Actually, she almost definitely knew if she and Rosa were as good friends as they seemed to be. She probably didn’t care, and it was just them making a big deal out of nothing. They were both in their mid thirties, too old to be overly involved in the love lives of twenty-somethings. 

James didn’t know why he was thinking like that, especially since he and Amelia had spoken about nearly every aspect of their personal lives for years. Maybe it was a way to get around the fact that his best friend’s crush was casually talking about a girlfriend in front of him and he knew deep down that this was going to wreck her. 

“They’ll absolutely do that,” James said, trying to shrug it off and sound natural. Rosa could date whoever she wanted to, and he needed to be better at leaving personal feelings at the door when it came to work. “So let’s focus up and get this done.”

Was there an extra hardness to his tone? He hoped not, maybe it was the captain’s confidence he kind of sucked at that was coming through. God, he really hated this job. He’d tried for a year to like it, but he had to admit to himself that he was doing it out of obligation. Second in command had been where it was at.

“If the energy source is in the tunnels, then us or another team are going to narrow it down at some point today,” Jessamyn said. “That only makes sense, since there’s only so much space on the T itself. But I’m thinking it’s actually tapping into the train line somehow.”

She looked thoughtfully over at the E line train that was pulling away. Despite her frustration with the Foundation, James could see the genuine interest in her expression as she considered their options. 

“So how are we getting into the tunnels?”

This was Jessamyn’s teammate, Rita. She peered down the enormous subway tunnel where they could see lights making their way toward them. “There doesn’t seem to be enough space between the walls and the train to make it possible,” she said. “At least not while the trains are running.”

“We shouldn’t go in the tunnels at all,” Jessamyn said. “It’s too dangerous. We dealt with that yesterday. If they want us to do it, they need to set it up.”

“Could we turn off the power somehow?” Tim asked.

“Do you want to die?” Bradley said.

“No, we do it safely,” Tim replied. “Like find the switchboard or something. Maybe the Foundation did have something figured out for that part.”

“And when an entire city’s transit system goes down because of that, I don’t plan on being here.”

“Sorry, it was just an idea,” Tim muttered.

“Going through the tunnels probably isn’t going to work,” James said, stepping in before Bradley could say anything else. “The energy is stronger there, yeah. So that probably has something to do with it. But Jessamyn is right, we’re not risking our own safety for a fucked up Foundation exercise. Because even though we all know the truth, that’s still what this is in the end. It’s a case, but it’s one they’re all playing off as just pretend. And if we get hit and killed, that’s very much not pretend. So our other option is to take a ride. What do you think, Bradley? Want to ride on a train?”

Bradley looked ready to push him in front of a train. “Yeah,” he said as a B line train pulled up and the energy reader buzzed in Rosa’s hand. “Sure, whatever.”

***

The energy readings stayed consistent as they made their way down the Green Line. James looked out the train window into the dark tunnels as they passed occasional steel doors and other tracks veering off into directions unknown. He had to admit that he was still a little disappointed that they weren’t going to go down the tunnels on foot. Just like the abandoned Jarvis Street School, this looked so cool and it would have been the perfect opportunity, maybe the only opportunity he would ever have. But it also would have gotten them all killed. And, more significantly to the Foundation, they might get fined.

“What should we do when we get to Copley?” Rosa asked Jessamyn.

“What do you mean?”

“The E line splits off there,” Rosa said. “There’s four Green Line routes and if the energy is following the train line, we need to know where it’s coming from. We’ve all got readers, right?”

The Foundation had been feeling generous this morning. Or desperate. Because each duo from each branch had received their own energy reader instead of the captains of three branches having to share one. James was pretty sure the one bequeathed to him and Bradley came out of an archive, but at least it existed.

“Let’s do this,” Jessamyn said. “We’ll all get off at Copley and see if there’s anything coming from the E line toward Heath Street. If not, then I say we go on to Kendall Square where the other three split, then all take a line.”

“Might be worth getting off the trains too, once we can,” James said. “That way, we’re not depending on getting off at a stop and backtracking if the energy levels change.”

It was another nice day, so the idea of just walking around for a little while was pretty appealing. Maybe they could grab some lunch if things stayed quiet. Thankfully, none of the others seemed to disagree with his line of thinking.

When they got off the train at Copley, there was nothing coming from the E line. Or, the amount of energy was so small that it wasn’t worth chasing. If nothing came up at the other lines, Rosa said, they might as well try it. But for now they were better off continuing down the line.

Her phone rang as they were coming up the stairs at Kenmore Square a couple stops later. “Hey,” she said as she answered, a smile on her face. “Oh, it’s going fine. I’m actually with them right now, hang on.”

James looked at her as she covered the receiver. “Amelia’s tried to call you both a couple times.”

Shit. James and Bradley pulled out their phones, James getting his just as the voicemail notifications and two texts popped up. He motioned for Rosa to hang up, then called Amelia.

“I’m so sorry,” he said as she picked up, visions of blood and monsters in his head. “I had no service in the T tunnels.”

“It’s fine,” she said, sounding cheerful and very non-emergency. “It’s not dangerous, just time sensitive.”

“What’s up?”

“What’s the code to submit my report from yesterday?” she asked. “They changed them all and I need to get this in before they come after us again for extra training.”

That was the last thing James needed, but he also couldn’t remember the code off the top of his head. Now it was his turn to block the receiver.

“What’s the code for report submission?” he asked Bradley.

Bradley raised his eyebrows. “Really?” 

“Yes, fucking really. I can’t remember and she’s in a hurry.”

“Seven four six zero three. Tell her to do it on your computer, the one in the back bedroom is acting up.”

“Have you been doing reports on my computer?”

Not that he cared. But considering how mortified Bradley had been when James caught him sleeping on the couch in the office a few months ago, that seemed like an odd turn of events.

“No, your porn is safe, I use the back bedroom. I just noticed the problem yesterday before I left.”

James should really write him up one of these days. But instead of dealing with that, he relayed the message.

“Thanks,” Amelia said. “Are things going alright?”

“As good as can be,” James said. “I’ll update you later. Things are good there?”

“Yeah,” Amelia answered. “There was a new case and we were concerned for a moment that Graham might be the chosen one for a group of deer creatures in the state forest. But everything seems fine now.”

Once again abandoning his duty as captain, he let that information go. “I’ll call you tonight when this is over,” he said optimistically.

They hung up. “My housemate might be forest royalty,” James said. “But he’s probably fine. So far since I left there’s been a deer cult and a ghost with a chainsaw.”

Bradley looked at him, then clearly decided not to ask. “Alright,” James said, “Who’s going where?”

He and Bradley were assigned the B line, which ran through the hip college neighborhood of Allston-Brighton. James had been here before, mostly to visit cousins at Boston University or go to the occasional concert. It was a bit more upscale these days than it had been when he was in his twenties, with little boutiques and coffee shops everywhere, but still grungy enough to be recognizable. He took a turn watching the energy reader for a few minutes as they started walking up Commonwealth Avenue, the major throughway that ran on either side of the train line.

“Nice day at least,” he said to Bradley, who was checking his phone. 

“Mmm.”

“Want to stop for a coffee or lunch while we go?”

“No.”

Great, it was going to be one of those cases together. “Hopefully we can get this done tonight,” he said, trying one last time to spark a little conversation. “I’ve got the hotel room one more night in case this goes late or into tomorrow. But I think both of us are on the schedule tomorrow morning and it’s going to fucking suck rearranging that one again.”

“Yeah.”

“Everything okay?”

“Fine.”

Whatever. It was a nice spring day, young people were leading exciting lives around them, and they were getting paid to be here. James could walk in silence for a little while.

---

CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 12