WEBVTT
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My name is Hannah Keegan.
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I'm a lead detective for a top-secret New York Police Department Task Force.
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We're assigned to the unexplained cases that border on the paranormal.
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This is Division 13, and here are our case files.
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There are moments in this work where you find yourself sitting in a room listening to something that changes the shape of everything you thought you understood.
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Where the ground shifts quietly and permanently, and you know, even as it's happening, that you will never quite see things the same way again.
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This was one of those moments.
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We were gathered in my office, all of us.
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Kendrick, Overton, and Castillo, Loretta Smith standing near the back wall with her arms folded and her expression carefully neutral.
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I had considered watching the tape alone, decided against it.
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Whatever was on it, we were going to face it together.
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That was the only way I knew how to lead.
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I pressed play.
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Static.
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Then a face filled the screen.
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Cold.
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He was seated, relaxed, the way a man sits when he has all the time in the world and knows it.
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He looked human.
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Completely, entirely human.
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The eyes I remembered from Afghanistan.
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The man I remembered from two years of after action reports.
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He looked at the camera the way you look at someone you know well enough to skip the formalities with.
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He smiled.
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Hey cat.
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Surprised to see me?
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Knowing you, you're not.
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It's not easy to catch you off guard.
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I found myself watching the room from the corner of my eye.
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Kendrick to my left had gone very still.
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The stillness of a man who was keeping something contained.
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Castillo's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
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Overton's face was unreadable.
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Her eyes fixed on the screen with the cold precision of someone cataloging every detail.
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Loretta in the back hadn't moved.
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Her expression was stoic.
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I had known somewhere in the back of my mind, from somewhere around level three of the tomb, that Cole was responsible for taking the facility offline.
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The pieces had arranged themselves too neatly.
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The inside help, the planted duffel, the precision of every trap.
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It had Cole's fingerprints all over it, even before we found the surveillance footage.
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I hadn't said it out loud.
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There had been no point until we knew for certain.
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Now we knew.
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I kept my face still and let him talk.
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I'll save you the trouble of wondering.
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Yeah.
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I let myself get caught.
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Wasn't exactly how I'd have chosen to spend my time, but it had to be done.
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A pause.
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That smile again.
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Easy, unhurried.
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I know you pulled the tablet.
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Good work, by the way.
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I couldn't touch it myself.
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That thing is toxic to my kind.
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Couldn't get within 10 feet of it without feeling like my skin was trying to leave my body.
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A beat.
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So I needed someone else to do the heavy lifting.
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Funny how that worked out.
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Kendrick exhaled through his nose.
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I caught it without looking at him.
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My primary reason for being at the tomb was simpler than you'd think.
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I needed to get Billy out.
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He leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees.
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That kid is something else, Cap.
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I mean that.
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He is a killing machine.
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Damn near mindless when he's working, but so good at it.
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So purely, naturally good at it, that he scares even me.
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And I don't scare easily anymore.
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A pause.
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Something that might have been admiration moving across his face.
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He was very, very important to our plans.
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Has been from the beginning.
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Another pause.
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His expression shifted.
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Something wry and knowing settling into the lines around his eyes.
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Funny thing, Cap.
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Without Billy?
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He tilted his head, the ghost of a smile.
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You don't even have a Division 13.
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The room reacted.
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It wasn't loud.
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We were all trained people, none of us given to outbursts, but I felt the collective shift in the air.
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Castile's breath caught.
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Kendrick's head turned slightly, jaw working.
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Overton's eyes moved to me for just a fraction of a second before returning to the screen.
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Even Loretta at the back shifted her weight.
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The implications were landing exactly the way Cole intended them to.
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Everything we had built, everything we had survived, every case, every mission, every loss, all of it potentially traceable back to a deliberate act of engineering by the very people we were fighting.
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I let the thought sit where it was and kept watching.
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Secondary mission.
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Cole continued, business like now.
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There was a second artifact at the tomb, smaller than the tablet, being held in a containment unit on level six.
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That easy, mocking smile.
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Naughty, naughty, keeping things that don't belong to you.
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The containment unit was the only reason I could even get near it.
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Without that shielding, it would have been as untouchable for me as the tablet.
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But with it?
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He spread his hands.
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So, thanks for that.
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Really.
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The smile widened, cold and gleeful.
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Now we've got one, and you've got the other.
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Both artifacts are part of something bigger.
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A lot bigger.
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You'll understand what I mean by that soon enough.
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He sat back, seemed to gather himself.
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Anyway, I'm betting you're wondering how I made it out of Afghanistan.
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He was quiet for a moment before he began, and then After I left you, I made it to the village.
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Took maybe 10 minutes on foot.
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By the time I arrived, the first mortar rounds were already falling.
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The Soviets softened it up first.
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That's what they do.
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Put the heavy ordnance in, destroy the infrastructure, scatter everyone, create chaos.
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Then the ground forces move in to finish what's left.
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Textbook.
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I'd seen it in briefings.
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Never seen it in person.
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Nothing prepares you for it in person.
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His voice had changed.
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The performance was still there.
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He was always performing.
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I understood that now.
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But underneath it, something real was pressing through.
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Something that hadn't been fully processed or filed away, even after all the years and all the transformation.
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Body parts, Cap.
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Parts.
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Not bodies.
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Parts.
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Men, women, children, they were just distributed.
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Across the ground, across the walls, across each other.
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The smell, the sounds, the screams.
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A pause.
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I'll never get the screams out of my head.
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Never.
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If we had stayed, if we had called in air support, gotten eyes on the incursion, given those people even an hour of cover, there might have been a chance.
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Some of them might have made it.
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The voice tightened.
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But you decided to leave, didn't you?
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It wasn't a question.
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I sat with it the way I had sat with it for years.
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I didn't look away from the screen.
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Second wave came while I was still trying to find anyone alive to pull out.
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Mortars again, then the tanks moving through the streets.
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I was in the open when the round hit my position.
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I remember the pressure more than the sound.
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The blast picked me up and threw me, I don't know how far, and I went through a door.
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Wooden.
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Didn't slow me down much.
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Landed inside someone's house.
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What was left of it?
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Nothing in there but smoke and blood and the remains of what used to be a family.
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I tried to stand, couldn't figure out why I kept falling.
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Took me a while to understand what I was looking at when I finally got a clear look at myself.
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He stopped.
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Something moved across his face.
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Not grief, exactly.
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The echo of a memory.
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My left hand, my left foot, gone.
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Just gone.
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I was in shock.
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I must have been.
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Because what I remember most is not the pain, but the strange, disconnected curiosity of it.
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Like it was happening to someone else, and I was just watching.
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I could hear AK fire starting up outside.
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Short bursts.
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The Soviets were in the streets, going door to door.
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Another pause.
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I knew what that meant.
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In the office, nobody moved.
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Castillo had her arms crossed, her eyes fixed on the screen with an expression that wasn't quite pity and wasn't quite horror, but was somewhere between the two.
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Kendrick was totally still.
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Known him the way you know someone you've bled with.
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Not their whole life, but the shape of their character, what they were made of underneath.
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He had been made of loyalty and moral convictions so strong it had finally broken everything else.
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Listening to him describe that room, the horror of it all, it yet again reminded me of the full weight of what I had left him to carry.
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I kept my face still and let him continue.
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I tore rags off the clothes of the family on the floor.
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Didn't look at their faces.
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I needed to stop the bleeding so I wouldn't leave a trail.
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Wrapped the stumps as tight as I could manage with one hand.
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Then I crawled.
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Through the glass and the blood and whatever else was on that floor, out the back of the house, into the foothills behind the village.
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I could still hear it behind me: the rifle fire, the occasional scream, the sound of tanks in narrow streets.
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I kept going because stopping meant dying, and dying meant they won.
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That's the only thought I had that made any sense.
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Keep moving.
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Don't stop.
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Don't give them the satisfaction.
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I dragged myself into the hills.
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I don't know how long it took.
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Hours.
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The sun was getting low by the time I found the cliff face.
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There was a crack in the rock.
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Narrow, maybe two feet wide.
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I crawled into it looking for shelter, thinking I'd sleep a few hours, figure out what came next.
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A pause.
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The opening widened inside.
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It was bigger than it looked from the outside.
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I made it maybe 20 feet in before I passed out.
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When I woke up, it was dark, not dim, dark, no light at all.
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And I wasn't alone.
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I could hear things moving in the chamber, more than one.
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Quiet, deliberate, the way something moves when it doesn't need to be careful because it knows you can't see it.
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His voice dropped.
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Then, about six feet in front of me, a pair of eyes opened.
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Orange.
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Burning orange in the absolute dark, looking right at me.
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That was the last thing I saw for a while.
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He shifted in his seat, rolled his shoulders slightly, as if settling into the next part of the telling.
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When I woke up again, I was strapped to a bed.
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Not a hospital bed, but something close, functional, utilitarian.
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The room around me was built into the rock.
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Someone had carved a laboratory out of the inside of that mountain.
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Modern equipment, proper lighting, the works.
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Whoever these people were, they had resources.
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I made the mistake of looking down at myself.
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He paused.
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The smile that followed was thin and without warmth.
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They had me open, most of my torso.
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I could see things I was never supposed to see, and running into me from half a dozen different points, IV lines, pumping something orange and glowing into my bloodstream.
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He tilted his head.
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A quiet huff as he continued.
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Then I heard a voice, low, somewhere to my left, said, He's made it further than any of our other test subjects.
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If he survives the night, we'll know that we've been successful.
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And then I was out again.
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What followed was.
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I don't have a word for it.
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Agony is too small a word to describe it.
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I would wake up in it as it washed over me in waves and then go back under.
00:13:58.399 --> 00:14:01.840
Over and over, for what felt like an eternity.
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I lost count of how many times the cycle repeated.
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I stopped trying to count.
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The first time I woke up with anything resembling a working mind, I wasn't strapped down anymore.
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And there was a man sitting across the room from me.
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Cole stopped.
00:14:18.879 --> 00:14:26.000
Something in his expression shifted, genuine this time, the memory seeming to stir something within him.
00:14:26.480 --> 00:14:29.279
No orange eyes, just a man.
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But a man like nothing I'd ever seen.
00:14:32.559 --> 00:14:39.679
As he stood to reach his full height, I could see he stood about seven feet, maybe 300 pounds of pure muscle.
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He crossed the room and introduced himself.
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Malrick.
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Cole let the name sit for a moment.
00:14:47.759 --> 00:14:52.320
He said he was the leader of something called the Nullborn.
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A slight smile.
00:14:55.519 --> 00:15:00.480
Knowing what I know now, I think he chose to introduce himself in a less threatening form.
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Ease me into it.
00:15:02.399 --> 00:15:03.840
He's patient that way.
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Patient in ways that make your head hurt if you think about them too long.
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I'm not gonna tell you what he told me next, Cap.
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You wouldn't believe it.
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I know I didn't.
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Not right away.
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But you'll find out.
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You'll find out all of it.
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Their history, their plans.
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That gleeful expression again, briefly.
00:15:25.840 --> 00:15:27.519
You're going to love it.
00:15:28.240 --> 00:15:29.919
His face went flat.
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Instantly.
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The way a light gets switched off.
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Or maybe you won't.
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Maybe Mr.
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Holier Than Thou.
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Mr.
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I follow orders and sleep just fine.
00:15:42.639 --> 00:15:47.039
Maybe you're going to find out what it feels like to have everything stripped away from you.
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Everything you think makes you who you are.
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Everything you care about.
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The orange was bleeding into his eyes now, slow and steady.
00:15:57.039 --> 00:16:03.039
Maybe you're going to find out how it feels to wish you were dead and not have that option available to you.
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Nobody in the room spoke.
00:16:05.679 --> 00:16:07.279
The glow faded.
00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:08.799
Cole blinked.
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The smile came back.
00:16:10.639 --> 00:16:13.759
The sudden change in his mood was disturbing.
00:16:14.240 --> 00:16:17.279
Anyway, Malric's people saved my life.
00:16:17.600 --> 00:16:18.720
Rebuilt me.
00:16:18.879 --> 00:16:23.279
What they put in my blood, the same thing that creates the nullborn.
00:16:23.440 --> 00:16:26.159
It did things to me I'm still discovering.
00:16:26.559 --> 00:16:30.559
He held up his left hand, flexed the fingers slowly.
00:16:31.039 --> 00:16:31.679
My hand.
00:16:32.399 --> 00:16:33.360
My foot.
00:16:33.679 --> 00:16:34.960
They grew back.
00:16:35.279 --> 00:16:36.399
Took weeks.
00:16:36.639 --> 00:16:38.320
Hurt the entire time.
00:16:38.559 --> 00:16:40.000
But they grew back.
00:16:40.559 --> 00:16:42.240
My senses sharpened.
00:16:42.480 --> 00:16:44.879
I can see in near total darkness.
00:16:45.120 --> 00:16:47.200
Not perfectly, but enough.
00:16:47.440 --> 00:16:49.519
My strength and speed are.
00:16:50.159 --> 00:16:52.399
He seemed to search for the right word.
00:16:53.279 --> 00:16:54.399
Increased.
00:16:54.720 --> 00:16:56.960
Significantly beyond what they were.
00:16:57.200 --> 00:16:59.759
I'm not as fast or strong as Billy.
00:16:59.919 --> 00:17:04.880
That kid is a genuine freak of nature, and I mean that with complete respect.
00:17:05.119 --> 00:17:10.400
But I am considerably faster and stronger than any human you're likely to encounter.
00:17:10.880 --> 00:17:13.680
And then, there's the other thing.
00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:17.839
He paused, as if deciding whether to tell it.
00:17:18.160 --> 00:17:20.640
Maurick calls it a unique blessing.
00:17:20.880 --> 00:17:24.000
No other nullborn has it, apparently.
00:17:24.319 --> 00:17:31.200
In sufficient darkness, I can become essentially invisible, not metaphorically, physically.
00:17:31.440 --> 00:17:35.519
You can be looking directly at the space I'm standing and see nothing.
00:17:35.920 --> 00:17:38.400
The memory hit me without warning.
00:17:38.640 --> 00:17:40.240
My house in Queens.
00:17:40.480 --> 00:17:42.640
The feeling of not being alone.
00:17:42.799 --> 00:17:48.960
That instinct that had gone off like an alarm before I'd seen anything, before I'd heard anything.
00:17:49.200 --> 00:17:53.359
Footsteps rushing at me down the stairs with nothing attached to them.
00:17:53.599 --> 00:17:55.519
The voice from the dark.
00:17:55.920 --> 00:17:57.839
You can sense me.
00:17:58.480 --> 00:17:59.759
Incredible.
00:18:00.319 --> 00:18:03.279
I should be invisible to you.
00:18:04.400 --> 00:18:07.839
I forced that memory down and kept listening.
00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:11.359
Maurick and I talk through the weeks of my recovery.
00:18:11.599 --> 00:18:18.079
About the Nullborne's philosophy, about what they believe, what they're building toward, what they need.
00:18:18.640 --> 00:18:19.599
A pause.
00:18:20.079 --> 00:18:23.279
He thinks in centuries, plans in eons.
00:18:23.839 --> 00:18:29.680
Everything he does is a move in a game that's been in progress longer than any of us has been alive.
00:18:30.240 --> 00:18:33.279
Cole seemed almost admiring.
00:18:33.839 --> 00:18:41.519
He opened my eyes, made me understand that what I'd been calling morality was just conditioned weakness.
00:18:41.839 --> 00:18:45.039
The world belongs to those who are willing to take it.
00:18:45.359 --> 00:18:47.119
He made me a believer.
00:18:47.440 --> 00:18:54.160
He also pointed out that my desire for revenge and his plans happened to align very neatly.
00:18:54.559 --> 00:19:03.200
That the same city that was necessary for his purposes was also where I'd find the one I wanted to make answer for what happened in Afghanistan.
00:19:03.599 --> 00:19:07.200
That smile again, small and certain.
00:19:07.839 --> 00:19:09.839
That's what brought us to New York.
00:19:11.119 --> 00:19:12.480
To your city cap.
00:19:13.039 --> 00:19:14.559
To your doorstep.
00:19:15.039 --> 00:19:17.680
He leaned forward one final time.
00:19:18.079 --> 00:19:20.480
The orange had returned to his eyes.
00:19:20.799 --> 00:19:25.839
Present now, steady, not a flash, but a permanent glow.
00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:33.599
The mask of easy confidence was still there, but underneath it, something older and colder had surfaced.
00:19:33.920 --> 00:19:39.359
I almost expected him to undergo the horrifying transformation I had witnessed weeks ago.
00:19:39.519 --> 00:19:48.079
The obsidian skin, the brightly glowing orange eyes, but he remained calm enough to keep his normal human appearance.
00:19:48.319 --> 00:19:49.920
At least for now.
00:19:51.920 --> 00:19:54.880
You'll see it all soon enough.
00:19:55.200 --> 00:19:58.079
We're going to revive the Lightbringer.
00:19:58.640 --> 00:20:04.319
We're going to change this world in ways you can't imagine from where you're sitting.
00:20:04.960 --> 00:20:05.920
A pause.
00:20:06.559 --> 00:20:10.480
And you, you are going to pay for what you did.
00:20:10.960 --> 00:20:19.200
I'm going to make sure you understand, fully and completely, what it costs to lose everything.
00:20:19.920 --> 00:20:21.680
His voice dropped.
00:20:25.119 --> 00:20:28.240
And there isn't a single thing you can do to stop it.
00:20:28.720 --> 00:20:35.920
He reached forward toward the camera, stopped, looked directly into the lens one final time.
00:20:36.799 --> 00:20:38.319
Be seeing you, Cap.
00:20:39.279 --> 00:20:40.160
Static.
00:20:40.720 --> 00:20:42.160
Then nothing.
00:20:42.640 --> 00:20:43.440
Quiet.
00:20:46.319 --> 00:21:00.480
The city moved outside the glass walls of my office, agents at their desks, phones ringing somewhere in the bullpen, the distant sound of the street below, all of it continuing, indifferent, unaware.
00:21:01.119 --> 00:21:03.359
I sat in silence for a moment.
00:21:03.680 --> 00:21:04.640
We all did.
00:21:05.039 --> 00:21:06.799
Kendrick spoke first.
00:21:07.119 --> 00:21:09.279
He stood up, slowly.
00:21:09.599 --> 00:21:11.680
Inside help, he said.
00:21:12.079 --> 00:21:16.640
His voice was controlled, but I could hear what was underneath it.
00:21:16.880 --> 00:21:23.440
The fury of a man who protects people for a living, being told that the protection had a hole in it.
00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:29.839
We already suspected as much, but hearing him confirm it, he shook his head.
00:21:30.160 --> 00:21:35.680
Someone in this program helped Cole get that charge under his skin, helped plant that duffel.
00:21:35.920 --> 00:21:42.480
There is a traitor somewhere in Sentinel Prime, and until we find them, everything we do is compromised.
00:21:43.200 --> 00:21:45.279
Nobody argued with that.
00:21:46.319 --> 00:21:49.440
The light bringer, Overton said.
00:21:49.759 --> 00:21:59.759
Her notebook was open, pen moving, clinical, focused, finding the analytical thread even in the middle of the emotional weight of it.
00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:02.720
This isn't the first time we've heard that.
00:22:02.960 --> 00:22:05.519
Evelyn Carter mentioned it as well.
00:22:05.839 --> 00:22:09.759
Whatever it is, it's central to the Nullborne's plans.
00:22:09.920 --> 00:22:11.920
It's what they're building toward.
00:22:12.400 --> 00:22:13.759
She looked up.
00:22:14.319 --> 00:22:21.680
Everything else, the neon, the tomb, both artifacts, it all points in that direction.
00:22:22.160 --> 00:22:24.640
The lightbringer is the goal.
00:22:25.039 --> 00:22:27.440
And we handed them a piece of it.
00:22:27.759 --> 00:22:29.200
Castillo said.
00:22:29.519 --> 00:22:31.279
Quiet, direct.
00:22:31.759 --> 00:22:33.920
She had been still throughout the tape.
00:22:34.240 --> 00:22:35.119
The tablet.
00:22:35.359 --> 00:22:39.519
We recovered it, brought it back, and now they know exactly where it is.
00:22:39.759 --> 00:22:45.680
If Cole is right that both artifacts are part of something larger, then we're holding half of what they need.
00:22:45.839 --> 00:22:47.599
And they must have a plan for that.
00:22:47.920 --> 00:22:49.279
Kendrick finished.
00:22:49.519 --> 00:22:52.880
The thought settled over the room like weather.
00:22:53.200 --> 00:22:55.519
There's something else, I said.
00:22:55.759 --> 00:22:57.039
They looked at me.
00:22:57.279 --> 00:23:01.680
Cole said that without Billy, there might not have been a Division XII.
00:23:02.400 --> 00:23:04.720
I let that breathe for a moment.
00:23:05.279 --> 00:23:07.359
Think about what that means.
00:23:07.599 --> 00:23:14.720
The Wrath case in 79, the incident that led to the formation of this unit, was not random.
00:23:15.039 --> 00:23:22.400
Billy was deliberately unleashed, which means Division 13 was not a response to the noborn threat.
00:23:22.720 --> 00:23:23.680
I paused.
00:23:24.400 --> 00:23:26.960
It was engineered by it.
00:23:27.839 --> 00:23:33.519
The silence that followed was a different kind of silence from the one after the tape ended.
00:23:33.759 --> 00:23:36.400
That had been the silence of shock.
00:23:37.039 --> 00:23:49.759
This was the silence of people recalibrating, running back through many months of cases, decisions, sacrifices, and asking themselves what was real and what was stage managed.
00:23:50.160 --> 00:23:52.000
Kendrick sat back down.
00:23:52.960 --> 00:23:55.119
So everything, he said.
00:23:55.759 --> 00:24:01.039
Every case, every move we've made, they've been watching it, shaping it.
00:24:01.279 --> 00:24:02.640
Who are these people?
00:24:02.960 --> 00:24:14.480
He looked at me, and for the first time in the years I had known him, I saw something in his eyes that was not quite anger and not quite despair, but was close to both.
00:24:14.720 --> 00:24:18.960
Something he quickly and professionally suppressed as he continued.
00:24:19.440 --> 00:24:22.240
Captain, we've been reacting since day one.
00:24:22.480 --> 00:24:24.720
We have never once been ahead of them.
00:24:25.200 --> 00:24:26.799
He leaned forward.
00:24:27.440 --> 00:24:28.880
That has to change.
00:24:29.119 --> 00:24:30.799
We have to go on the offensive.
00:24:31.039 --> 00:24:34.400
Stop waiting for the next move and start making our own.
00:24:34.720 --> 00:24:37.200
Overton looked up from her notebook.
00:24:37.519 --> 00:24:38.400
Agreed.
00:24:38.799 --> 00:24:42.079
But we can't go on the offensive without better intelligence.
00:24:42.319 --> 00:24:50.880
We don't know enough about the nullborn, the lightbringer, the artifacts, or the full scope of their operation to act effectively.
00:24:51.119 --> 00:24:54.079
We need information before we can act on it.
00:24:54.559 --> 00:24:57.759
Castile's eyes moved to Loretta Smith.
00:24:58.000 --> 00:24:58.960
So did mine.
00:24:59.599 --> 00:25:07.279
Loretta had been still throughout, still in the way of someone who has learned through long practice to reveal nothing.
00:25:07.680 --> 00:25:12.240
But the resignation in her expression was there, underneath the composure.
00:25:12.480 --> 00:25:17.440
The look of someone who has been waiting for a conversation they knew was coming.
00:25:17.839 --> 00:25:19.119
I stood up.
00:25:19.599 --> 00:25:22.640
We've got Jack's service to get to, I said.
00:25:23.039 --> 00:25:24.000
All of us.
00:25:24.319 --> 00:25:27.359
He deserves that, and we're going to give it to him.
00:25:27.599 --> 00:25:29.200
I looked at the team.
00:25:29.440 --> 00:25:40.240
These people who had walked into an Alaskan black site with me, who had fought through six levels of horror, who had made it out carrying something they were never going to put down.
00:25:40.880 --> 00:25:44.319
After that, I turned to Loretta.
00:25:44.960 --> 00:25:47.440
We need to have a talk, I said.
00:25:47.920 --> 00:25:49.200
A real one.
00:25:49.440 --> 00:25:51.200
Everything on the table.
00:25:51.440 --> 00:25:58.559
Everything you know, everything Sentinel Prime knows, everything that hasn't made it into our briefings.
00:25:58.960 --> 00:26:00.960
I held her eyes.
00:26:01.359 --> 00:26:02.559
All of it.
00:26:03.119 --> 00:26:06.240
Loretta Smith looked at me for a long moment.
00:26:06.640 --> 00:26:08.799
Something moved across her face.
00:26:09.039 --> 00:26:15.680
Not guilt, exactly, but the weight of information carried too long and too alone.
00:26:16.640 --> 00:26:19.519
Yes, she said quietly.
00:26:20.160 --> 00:26:21.119
We do.
00:26:22.480 --> 00:26:24.720
The team began to move.
00:26:25.039 --> 00:26:34.400
Quietly, with purpose, the way people move when grief and duty are pulling in the same direction, and there is nothing to do but follow both.
00:26:35.039 --> 00:26:38.079
I was last to leave, as usual.
00:26:38.640 --> 00:26:46.720
I stood in my office for a moment after the others had gone, looking at the cassette sitting in its evidence bag on my desk.
00:26:47.039 --> 00:26:50.559
Cole's voice was still in the room, somehow.
00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:57.920
The way certain things linger, not as sound, but as presence, as weight.
00:26:58.400 --> 00:27:10.160
I thought about a young sergeant ripping his insignia from his uniform in a village at the edge of the world, telling me it was the right thing to do, walking toward the sound of the guns.
00:27:10.640 --> 00:27:22.880
I thought about what that man had crawled through to survive, what had been done to him in a cave in the mountains of Afghanistan, what he had become in the years between then and now.
00:27:23.839 --> 00:27:31.200
I thought about Billy Rath, ten years old, painting words in blood on a warehouse wall in Brooklyn.
00:27:31.759 --> 00:27:33.839
The nullborn are here.
00:27:34.640 --> 00:27:41.279
The first domino in a sequence that had led to this office, this team, this moment.
00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:44.559
We had been built to fight them.
00:27:44.960 --> 00:27:48.480
That had always felt like purpose.
00:27:49.200 --> 00:27:54.480
I was beginning to understand it might have been something else entirely.
00:27:55.200 --> 00:28:00.720
I picked up the evidence bag, labeled it, set it with the rest.
00:28:01.440 --> 00:28:04.160
Then I went to bury one of my people.
00:28:05.599 --> 00:28:10.400
End case file zero one three zero zero nine.
00:00:00.400 --> 00:00:02.160
My name is Hannah Keegan.
00:00:02.319 --> 00:00:06.559
I'm a lead detective for a top-secret New York Police Department Task Force.
00:00:06.719 --> 00:00:10.400
We're assigned to the unexplained cases that border on the paranormal.
00:00:10.640 --> 00:00:14.560
This is Division 13, and here are our case files.
00:00:15.519 --> 00:00:24.559
There are moments in this work where you find yourself sitting in a room listening to something that changes the shape of everything you thought you understood.
00:00:24.879 --> 00:00:35.039
Where the ground shifts quietly and permanently, and you know, even as it's happening, that you will never quite see things the same way again.
00:00:35.600 --> 00:00:37.840
This was one of those moments.
00:00:38.240 --> 00:00:40.799
We were gathered in my office, all of us.
00:00:41.039 --> 00:00:49.920
Kendrick, Overton, and Castillo, Loretta Smith standing near the back wall with her arms folded and her expression carefully neutral.
00:00:50.240 --> 00:00:54.560
I had considered watching the tape alone, decided against it.
00:00:54.799 --> 00:00:58.320
Whatever was on it, we were going to face it together.
00:00:58.640 --> 00:01:01.359
That was the only way I knew how to lead.
00:01:01.759 --> 00:01:03.359
I pressed play.
00:01:04.079 --> 00:01:04.879
Static.
00:01:05.519 --> 00:01:08.079
Then a face filled the screen.
00:01:08.480 --> 00:01:09.120
Cold.
00:01:10.079 --> 00:01:16.640
He was seated, relaxed, the way a man sits when he has all the time in the world and knows it.
00:01:17.120 --> 00:01:19.359
He looked human.
00:01:19.760 --> 00:01:22.640
Completely, entirely human.
00:01:23.200 --> 00:01:25.920
The eyes I remembered from Afghanistan.
00:01:26.159 --> 00:01:30.239
The man I remembered from two years of after action reports.
00:01:30.560 --> 00:01:35.920
He looked at the camera the way you look at someone you know well enough to skip the formalities with.
00:01:36.560 --> 00:01:37.519
He smiled.
00:01:38.239 --> 00:01:39.040
Hey cat.
00:01:39.760 --> 00:01:41.040
Surprised to see me?
00:01:41.920 --> 00:01:43.599
Knowing you, you're not.
00:01:44.400 --> 00:01:46.400
It's not easy to catch you off guard.
00:01:47.280 --> 00:01:50.640
I found myself watching the room from the corner of my eye.
00:01:51.280 --> 00:01:54.480
Kendrick to my left had gone very still.
00:01:55.120 --> 00:01:58.400
The stillness of a man who was keeping something contained.
00:01:58.959 --> 00:02:02.480
Castillo's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
00:02:02.799 --> 00:02:04.959
Overton's face was unreadable.
00:02:05.200 --> 00:02:11.439
Her eyes fixed on the screen with the cold precision of someone cataloging every detail.
00:02:12.159 --> 00:02:15.039
Loretta in the back hadn't moved.
00:02:15.280 --> 00:02:17.039
Her expression was stoic.
00:02:17.759 --> 00:02:27.919
I had known somewhere in the back of my mind, from somewhere around level three of the tomb, that Cole was responsible for taking the facility offline.
00:02:28.479 --> 00:02:31.919
The pieces had arranged themselves too neatly.
00:02:32.159 --> 00:02:38.159
The inside help, the planted duffel, the precision of every trap.
00:02:38.639 --> 00:02:44.319
It had Cole's fingerprints all over it, even before we found the surveillance footage.
00:02:44.639 --> 00:02:46.479
I hadn't said it out loud.
00:02:46.719 --> 00:02:49.599
There had been no point until we knew for certain.
00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:51.520
Now we knew.
00:02:51.759 --> 00:02:55.360
I kept my face still and let him talk.
00:02:55.759 --> 00:02:58.080
I'll save you the trouble of wondering.
00:02:58.400 --> 00:02:59.039
Yeah.
00:02:59.520 --> 00:03:01.520
I let myself get caught.
00:03:01.840 --> 00:03:07.120
Wasn't exactly how I'd have chosen to spend my time, but it had to be done.
00:03:07.520 --> 00:03:08.479
A pause.
00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:10.639
That smile again.
00:03:10.960 --> 00:03:12.879
Easy, unhurried.
00:03:13.199 --> 00:03:14.960
I know you pulled the tablet.
00:03:15.120 --> 00:03:16.479
Good work, by the way.
00:03:16.719 --> 00:03:18.319
I couldn't touch it myself.
00:03:18.560 --> 00:03:20.639
That thing is toxic to my kind.
00:03:20.960 --> 00:03:26.159
Couldn't get within 10 feet of it without feeling like my skin was trying to leave my body.
00:03:26.479 --> 00:03:27.439
A beat.
00:03:27.840 --> 00:03:30.879
So I needed someone else to do the heavy lifting.
00:03:31.120 --> 00:03:32.960
Funny how that worked out.
00:03:33.280 --> 00:03:35.759
Kendrick exhaled through his nose.
00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:38.240
I caught it without looking at him.
00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:43.759
My primary reason for being at the tomb was simpler than you'd think.
00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:46.000
I needed to get Billy out.
00:03:46.400 --> 00:03:50.000
He leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees.
00:03:50.319 --> 00:03:52.400
That kid is something else, Cap.
00:03:52.719 --> 00:03:53.759
I mean that.
00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:55.759
He is a killing machine.
00:03:56.000 --> 00:04:00.159
Damn near mindless when he's working, but so good at it.
00:04:00.479 --> 00:04:04.960
So purely, naturally good at it, that he scares even me.
00:04:05.280 --> 00:04:07.840
And I don't scare easily anymore.
00:04:08.240 --> 00:04:09.199
A pause.
00:04:09.599 --> 00:04:13.360
Something that might have been admiration moving across his face.
00:04:13.919 --> 00:04:17.600
He was very, very important to our plans.
00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:19.839
Has been from the beginning.
00:04:20.399 --> 00:04:21.839
Another pause.
00:04:22.160 --> 00:04:23.839
His expression shifted.
00:04:24.079 --> 00:04:28.560
Something wry and knowing settling into the lines around his eyes.
00:04:28.879 --> 00:04:30.319
Funny thing, Cap.
00:04:30.480 --> 00:04:31.680
Without Billy?
00:04:31.920 --> 00:04:35.199
He tilted his head, the ghost of a smile.
00:04:35.439 --> 00:04:37.839
You don't even have a Division 13.
00:04:38.399 --> 00:04:40.079
The room reacted.
00:04:40.319 --> 00:04:41.680
It wasn't loud.
00:04:41.839 --> 00:04:49.040
We were all trained people, none of us given to outbursts, but I felt the collective shift in the air.
00:04:49.360 --> 00:04:51.439
Castile's breath caught.
00:04:51.680 --> 00:04:55.360
Kendrick's head turned slightly, jaw working.
00:04:55.680 --> 00:05:01.839
Overton's eyes moved to me for just a fraction of a second before returning to the screen.
00:05:02.079 --> 00:05:05.279
Even Loretta at the back shifted her weight.
00:05:05.600 --> 00:05:10.319
The implications were landing exactly the way Cole intended them to.
00:05:10.800 --> 00:05:26.480
Everything we had built, everything we had survived, every case, every mission, every loss, all of it potentially traceable back to a deliberate act of engineering by the very people we were fighting.
00:05:26.800 --> 00:05:31.040
I let the thought sit where it was and kept watching.
00:05:31.439 --> 00:05:32.639
Secondary mission.
00:05:32.959 --> 00:05:35.600
Cole continued, business like now.
00:05:36.079 --> 00:05:44.079
There was a second artifact at the tomb, smaller than the tablet, being held in a containment unit on level six.
00:05:44.639 --> 00:05:47.120
That easy, mocking smile.
00:05:47.839 --> 00:05:51.920
Naughty, naughty, keeping things that don't belong to you.
00:05:52.240 --> 00:05:56.000
The containment unit was the only reason I could even get near it.
00:05:56.240 --> 00:06:00.879
Without that shielding, it would have been as untouchable for me as the tablet.
00:06:01.360 --> 00:06:02.319
But with it?
00:06:02.959 --> 00:06:04.800
He spread his hands.
00:06:05.199 --> 00:06:07.120
So, thanks for that.
00:06:07.439 --> 00:06:08.079
Really.
00:06:08.800 --> 00:06:12.240
The smile widened, cold and gleeful.
00:06:12.800 --> 00:06:15.600
Now we've got one, and you've got the other.
00:06:15.839 --> 00:06:18.800
Both artifacts are part of something bigger.
00:06:19.120 --> 00:06:20.639
A lot bigger.
00:06:20.879 --> 00:06:23.839
You'll understand what I mean by that soon enough.
00:06:24.399 --> 00:06:28.079
He sat back, seemed to gather himself.
00:06:28.560 --> 00:06:32.959
Anyway, I'm betting you're wondering how I made it out of Afghanistan.
00:06:33.279 --> 00:06:40.800
He was quiet for a moment before he began, and then After I left you, I made it to the village.
00:06:41.040 --> 00:06:43.600
Took maybe 10 minutes on foot.
00:06:43.839 --> 00:06:48.319
By the time I arrived, the first mortar rounds were already falling.
00:06:48.480 --> 00:06:50.720
The Soviets softened it up first.
00:06:50.879 --> 00:06:52.000
That's what they do.
00:06:52.240 --> 00:06:57.759
Put the heavy ordnance in, destroy the infrastructure, scatter everyone, create chaos.
00:06:57.920 --> 00:07:00.560
Then the ground forces move in to finish what's left.
00:07:00.879 --> 00:07:01.600
Textbook.
00:07:01.759 --> 00:07:03.439
I'd seen it in briefings.
00:07:03.759 --> 00:07:05.360
Never seen it in person.
00:07:06.639 --> 00:07:08.959
Nothing prepares you for it in person.
00:07:09.279 --> 00:07:10.959
His voice had changed.
00:07:11.120 --> 00:07:12.959
The performance was still there.
00:07:13.199 --> 00:07:14.800
He was always performing.
00:07:14.959 --> 00:07:16.480
I understood that now.
00:07:16.639 --> 00:07:20.160
But underneath it, something real was pressing through.
00:07:20.319 --> 00:07:27.680
Something that hadn't been fully processed or filed away, even after all the years and all the transformation.
00:07:28.240 --> 00:07:29.839
Body parts, Cap.
00:07:30.319 --> 00:07:30.959
Parts.
00:07:31.680 --> 00:07:32.800
Not bodies.
00:07:33.120 --> 00:07:33.759
Parts.
00:07:34.399 --> 00:07:38.240
Men, women, children, they were just distributed.
00:07:38.720 --> 00:07:42.720
Across the ground, across the walls, across each other.
00:07:42.959 --> 00:07:46.399
The smell, the sounds, the screams.
00:07:46.879 --> 00:07:47.839
A pause.
00:07:48.160 --> 00:07:50.800
I'll never get the screams out of my head.
00:07:51.120 --> 00:07:51.759
Never.
00:07:52.319 --> 00:08:02.319
If we had stayed, if we had called in air support, gotten eyes on the incursion, given those people even an hour of cover, there might have been a chance.
00:08:02.480 --> 00:08:04.240
Some of them might have made it.
00:08:04.560 --> 00:08:06.079
The voice tightened.
00:08:06.319 --> 00:08:09.199
But you decided to leave, didn't you?
00:08:09.519 --> 00:08:11.040
It wasn't a question.
00:08:11.279 --> 00:08:14.560
I sat with it the way I had sat with it for years.
00:08:14.800 --> 00:08:17.120
I didn't look away from the screen.
00:08:17.519 --> 00:08:21.759
Second wave came while I was still trying to find anyone alive to pull out.
00:08:22.079 --> 00:08:25.519
Mortars again, then the tanks moving through the streets.
00:08:25.759 --> 00:08:28.399
I was in the open when the round hit my position.
00:08:28.639 --> 00:08:30.959
I remember the pressure more than the sound.
00:08:31.120 --> 00:08:36.240
The blast picked me up and threw me, I don't know how far, and I went through a door.
00:08:36.480 --> 00:08:36.879
Wooden.
00:08:37.200 --> 00:08:38.639
Didn't slow me down much.
00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:41.440
Landed inside someone's house.
00:08:41.679 --> 00:08:43.039
What was left of it?
00:08:43.279 --> 00:08:48.399
Nothing in there but smoke and blood and the remains of what used to be a family.
00:08:48.799 --> 00:08:52.559
I tried to stand, couldn't figure out why I kept falling.
00:08:52.879 --> 00:08:57.519
Took me a while to understand what I was looking at when I finally got a clear look at myself.
00:08:57.840 --> 00:08:58.879
He stopped.
00:08:59.120 --> 00:09:01.279
Something moved across his face.
00:09:01.679 --> 00:09:03.600
Not grief, exactly.
00:09:03.840 --> 00:09:05.519
The echo of a memory.
00:09:05.840 --> 00:09:09.519
My left hand, my left foot, gone.
00:09:09.840 --> 00:09:11.360
Just gone.
00:09:11.759 --> 00:09:12.960
I was in shock.
00:09:13.120 --> 00:09:14.240
I must have been.
00:09:14.399 --> 00:09:19.759
Because what I remember most is not the pain, but the strange, disconnected curiosity of it.
00:09:19.919 --> 00:09:23.360
Like it was happening to someone else, and I was just watching.
00:09:23.679 --> 00:09:26.399
I could hear AK fire starting up outside.
00:09:26.639 --> 00:09:27.759
Short bursts.
00:09:27.919 --> 00:09:31.360
The Soviets were in the streets, going door to door.
00:09:31.919 --> 00:09:33.360
Another pause.
00:09:33.600 --> 00:09:35.360
I knew what that meant.
00:09:35.679 --> 00:09:37.919
In the office, nobody moved.
00:09:38.240 --> 00:09:48.399
Castillo had her arms crossed, her eyes fixed on the screen with an expression that wasn't quite pity and wasn't quite horror, but was somewhere between the two.
00:09:48.720 --> 00:09:50.799
Kendrick was totally still.
00:09:59.360 --> 00:10:02.240
Known him the way you know someone you've bled with.
00:10:02.480 --> 00:10:08.159
Not their whole life, but the shape of their character, what they were made of underneath.
00:10:08.480 --> 00:10:15.279
He had been made of loyalty and moral convictions so strong it had finally broken everything else.
00:10:15.600 --> 00:10:24.639
Listening to him describe that room, the horror of it all, it yet again reminded me of the full weight of what I had left him to carry.
00:10:24.879 --> 00:10:28.080
I kept my face still and let him continue.
00:10:28.480 --> 00:10:31.919
I tore rags off the clothes of the family on the floor.
00:10:32.159 --> 00:10:33.840
Didn't look at their faces.
00:10:34.080 --> 00:10:37.039
I needed to stop the bleeding so I wouldn't leave a trail.
00:10:37.279 --> 00:10:40.720
Wrapped the stumps as tight as I could manage with one hand.
00:10:41.519 --> 00:10:43.279
Then I crawled.
00:10:43.840 --> 00:10:51.919
Through the glass and the blood and whatever else was on that floor, out the back of the house, into the foothills behind the village.
00:10:52.080 --> 00:10:59.840
I could still hear it behind me: the rifle fire, the occasional scream, the sound of tanks in narrow streets.
00:11:00.080 --> 00:11:05.120
I kept going because stopping meant dying, and dying meant they won.
00:11:05.360 --> 00:11:08.080
That's the only thought I had that made any sense.
00:11:08.320 --> 00:11:09.360
Keep moving.
00:11:09.519 --> 00:11:10.559
Don't stop.
00:11:10.799 --> 00:11:13.039
Don't give them the satisfaction.
00:11:13.440 --> 00:11:15.600
I dragged myself into the hills.
00:11:15.840 --> 00:11:17.360
I don't know how long it took.
00:11:17.600 --> 00:11:18.159
Hours.
00:11:18.399 --> 00:11:21.360
The sun was getting low by the time I found the cliff face.
00:11:21.759 --> 00:11:24.000
There was a crack in the rock.
00:11:24.240 --> 00:11:26.720
Narrow, maybe two feet wide.
00:11:26.960 --> 00:11:33.759
I crawled into it looking for shelter, thinking I'd sleep a few hours, figure out what came next.
00:11:34.080 --> 00:11:35.039
A pause.
00:11:35.360 --> 00:11:37.519
The opening widened inside.
00:11:37.759 --> 00:11:40.159
It was bigger than it looked from the outside.
00:11:40.399 --> 00:11:43.840
I made it maybe 20 feet in before I passed out.
00:11:44.320 --> 00:11:50.159
When I woke up, it was dark, not dim, dark, no light at all.
00:11:50.320 --> 00:11:51.840
And I wasn't alone.
00:11:52.240 --> 00:11:55.519
I could hear things moving in the chamber, more than one.
00:11:55.919 --> 00:12:03.039
Quiet, deliberate, the way something moves when it doesn't need to be careful because it knows you can't see it.
00:12:03.279 --> 00:12:04.879
His voice dropped.
00:12:05.120 --> 00:12:09.600
Then, about six feet in front of me, a pair of eyes opened.
00:12:10.080 --> 00:12:10.879
Orange.
00:12:11.200 --> 00:12:16.240
Burning orange in the absolute dark, looking right at me.
00:12:17.519 --> 00:12:20.320
That was the last thing I saw for a while.
00:12:20.639 --> 00:12:27.600
He shifted in his seat, rolled his shoulders slightly, as if settling into the next part of the telling.
00:12:27.919 --> 00:12:30.879
When I woke up again, I was strapped to a bed.
00:12:31.120 --> 00:12:36.080
Not a hospital bed, but something close, functional, utilitarian.
00:12:36.399 --> 00:12:39.120
The room around me was built into the rock.
00:12:39.279 --> 00:12:42.879
Someone had carved a laboratory out of the inside of that mountain.
00:12:43.120 --> 00:12:45.919
Modern equipment, proper lighting, the works.
00:12:46.159 --> 00:12:48.960
Whoever these people were, they had resources.
00:12:49.840 --> 00:12:52.879
I made the mistake of looking down at myself.
00:12:53.200 --> 00:12:54.159
He paused.
00:12:54.480 --> 00:12:58.320
The smile that followed was thin and without warmth.
00:12:58.720 --> 00:13:02.879
They had me open, most of my torso.
00:13:03.279 --> 00:13:15.600
I could see things I was never supposed to see, and running into me from half a dozen different points, IV lines, pumping something orange and glowing into my bloodstream.
00:13:15.919 --> 00:13:17.759
He tilted his head.
00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:28.480
A quiet huff as he continued.
00:13:28.960 --> 00:13:38.720
Then I heard a voice, low, somewhere to my left, said, He's made it further than any of our other test subjects.
00:13:38.960 --> 00:13:43.679
If he survives the night, we'll know that we've been successful.
00:13:44.399 --> 00:13:46.159
And then I was out again.
00:13:46.399 --> 00:13:48.000
What followed was.
00:13:48.399 --> 00:13:50.240
I don't have a word for it.
00:13:50.559 --> 00:13:53.360
Agony is too small a word to describe it.
00:13:53.600 --> 00:13:57.840
I would wake up in it as it washed over me in waves and then go back under.
00:13:58.399 --> 00:14:01.840
Over and over, for what felt like an eternity.
00:14:02.080 --> 00:14:05.120
I lost count of how many times the cycle repeated.
00:14:05.279 --> 00:14:07.279
I stopped trying to count.
00:14:07.679 --> 00:14:13.600
The first time I woke up with anything resembling a working mind, I wasn't strapped down anymore.
00:14:13.759 --> 00:14:16.799
And there was a man sitting across the room from me.
00:14:17.120 --> 00:14:18.639
Cole stopped.
00:14:18.879 --> 00:14:26.000
Something in his expression shifted, genuine this time, the memory seeming to stir something within him.
00:14:26.480 --> 00:14:29.279
No orange eyes, just a man.
00:14:29.679 --> 00:14:32.320
But a man like nothing I'd ever seen.
00:14:32.559 --> 00:14:39.679
As he stood to reach his full height, I could see he stood about seven feet, maybe 300 pounds of pure muscle.
00:14:39.919 --> 00:14:42.720
He crossed the room and introduced himself.
00:14:43.120 --> 00:14:44.080
Malrick.
00:14:44.879 --> 00:14:47.279
Cole let the name sit for a moment.
00:14:47.759 --> 00:14:52.320
He said he was the leader of something called the Nullborn.
00:14:52.960 --> 00:14:54.559
A slight smile.
00:14:55.519 --> 00:15:00.480
Knowing what I know now, I think he chose to introduce himself in a less threatening form.
00:15:00.879 --> 00:15:02.240
Ease me into it.
00:15:02.399 --> 00:15:03.840
He's patient that way.
00:15:04.080 --> 00:15:07.679
Patient in ways that make your head hurt if you think about them too long.
00:15:08.399 --> 00:15:11.039
I'm not gonna tell you what he told me next, Cap.
00:15:11.279 --> 00:15:12.720
You wouldn't believe it.
00:15:12.960 --> 00:15:14.159
I know I didn't.
00:15:14.399 --> 00:15:15.679
Not right away.
00:15:15.919 --> 00:15:17.200
But you'll find out.
00:15:17.360 --> 00:15:18.960
You'll find out all of it.
00:15:19.200 --> 00:15:21.440
Their history, their plans.
00:15:22.320 --> 00:15:25.360
That gleeful expression again, briefly.
00:15:25.840 --> 00:15:27.519
You're going to love it.
00:15:28.240 --> 00:15:29.919
His face went flat.
00:15:30.159 --> 00:15:31.039
Instantly.
00:15:31.200 --> 00:15:33.519
The way a light gets switched off.
00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:35.679
Or maybe you won't.
00:15:36.000 --> 00:15:37.360
Maybe Mr.
00:15:37.600 --> 00:15:38.879
Holier Than Thou.
00:15:39.120 --> 00:15:39.440
Mr.
00:15:39.679 --> 00:15:42.399
I follow orders and sleep just fine.
00:15:42.639 --> 00:15:47.039
Maybe you're going to find out what it feels like to have everything stripped away from you.
00:15:47.279 --> 00:15:49.919
Everything you think makes you who you are.
00:15:50.159 --> 00:15:51.759
Everything you care about.
00:15:52.399 --> 00:15:56.559
The orange was bleeding into his eyes now, slow and steady.
00:15:57.039 --> 00:16:03.039
Maybe you're going to find out how it feels to wish you were dead and not have that option available to you.
00:16:03.519 --> 00:16:05.440
Nobody in the room spoke.
00:16:05.679 --> 00:16:07.279
The glow faded.
00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:08.799
Cole blinked.
00:16:08.960 --> 00:16:10.399
The smile came back.
00:16:10.639 --> 00:16:13.759
The sudden change in his mood was disturbing.
00:16:14.240 --> 00:16:17.279
Anyway, Malric's people saved my life.
00:16:17.600 --> 00:16:18.720
Rebuilt me.
00:16:18.879 --> 00:16:23.279
What they put in my blood, the same thing that creates the nullborn.
00:16:23.440 --> 00:16:26.159
It did things to me I'm still discovering.
00:16:26.559 --> 00:16:30.559
He held up his left hand, flexed the fingers slowly.
00:16:31.039 --> 00:16:31.679
My hand.
00:16:32.399 --> 00:16:33.360
My foot.
00:16:33.679 --> 00:16:34.960
They grew back.
00:16:35.279 --> 00:16:36.399
Took weeks.
00:16:36.639 --> 00:16:38.320
Hurt the entire time.
00:16:38.559 --> 00:16:40.000
But they grew back.
00:16:40.559 --> 00:16:42.240
My senses sharpened.
00:16:42.480 --> 00:16:44.879
I can see in near total darkness.
00:16:45.120 --> 00:16:47.200
Not perfectly, but enough.
00:16:47.440 --> 00:16:49.519
My strength and speed are.
00:16:50.159 --> 00:16:52.399
He seemed to search for the right word.
00:16:53.279 --> 00:16:54.399
Increased.
00:16:54.720 --> 00:16:56.960
Significantly beyond what they were.
00:16:57.200 --> 00:16:59.759
I'm not as fast or strong as Billy.
00:16:59.919 --> 00:17:04.880
That kid is a genuine freak of nature, and I mean that with complete respect.
00:17:05.119 --> 00:17:10.400
But I am considerably faster and stronger than any human you're likely to encounter.
00:17:10.880 --> 00:17:13.680
And then, there's the other thing.
00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:17.839
He paused, as if deciding whether to tell it.
00:17:18.160 --> 00:17:20.640
Maurick calls it a unique blessing.
00:17:20.880 --> 00:17:24.000
No other nullborn has it, apparently.
00:17:24.319 --> 00:17:31.200
In sufficient darkness, I can become essentially invisible, not metaphorically, physically.
00:17:31.440 --> 00:17:35.519
You can be looking directly at the space I'm standing and see nothing.
00:17:35.920 --> 00:17:38.400
The memory hit me without warning.
00:17:38.640 --> 00:17:40.240
My house in Queens.
00:17:40.480 --> 00:17:42.640
The feeling of not being alone.
00:17:42.799 --> 00:17:48.960
That instinct that had gone off like an alarm before I'd seen anything, before I'd heard anything.
00:17:49.200 --> 00:17:53.359
Footsteps rushing at me down the stairs with nothing attached to them.
00:17:53.599 --> 00:17:55.519
The voice from the dark.
00:17:55.920 --> 00:17:57.839
You can sense me.
00:17:58.480 --> 00:17:59.759
Incredible.
00:18:00.319 --> 00:18:03.279
I should be invisible to you.
00:18:04.400 --> 00:18:07.839
I forced that memory down and kept listening.
00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:11.359
Maurick and I talk through the weeks of my recovery.
00:18:11.599 --> 00:18:18.079
About the Nullborne's philosophy, about what they believe, what they're building toward, what they need.
00:18:18.640 --> 00:18:19.599
A pause.
00:18:20.079 --> 00:18:23.279
He thinks in centuries, plans in eons.
00:18:23.839 --> 00:18:29.680
Everything he does is a move in a game that's been in progress longer than any of us has been alive.
00:18:30.240 --> 00:18:33.279
Cole seemed almost admiring.
00:18:33.839 --> 00:18:41.519
He opened my eyes, made me understand that what I'd been calling morality was just conditioned weakness.
00:18:41.839 --> 00:18:45.039
The world belongs to those who are willing to take it.
00:18:45.359 --> 00:18:47.119
He made me a believer.
00:18:47.440 --> 00:18:54.160
He also pointed out that my desire for revenge and his plans happened to align very neatly.
00:18:54.559 --> 00:19:03.200
That the same city that was necessary for his purposes was also where I'd find the one I wanted to make answer for what happened in Afghanistan.
00:19:03.599 --> 00:19:07.200
That smile again, small and certain.
00:19:07.839 --> 00:19:09.839
That's what brought us to New York.
00:19:11.119 --> 00:19:12.480
To your city cap.
00:19:13.039 --> 00:19:14.559
To your doorstep.
00:19:15.039 --> 00:19:17.680
He leaned forward one final time.
00:19:18.079 --> 00:19:20.480
The orange had returned to his eyes.
00:19:20.799 --> 00:19:25.839
Present now, steady, not a flash, but a permanent glow.
00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:33.599
The mask of easy confidence was still there, but underneath it, something older and colder had surfaced.
00:19:33.920 --> 00:19:39.359
I almost expected him to undergo the horrifying transformation I had witnessed weeks ago.
00:19:39.519 --> 00:19:48.079
The obsidian skin, the brightly glowing orange eyes, but he remained calm enough to keep his normal human appearance.
00:19:48.319 --> 00:19:49.920
At least for now.
00:19:51.920 --> 00:19:54.880
You'll see it all soon enough.
00:19:55.200 --> 00:19:58.079
We're going to revive the Lightbringer.
00:19:58.640 --> 00:20:04.319
We're going to change this world in ways you can't imagine from where you're sitting.
00:20:04.960 --> 00:20:05.920
A pause.
00:20:06.559 --> 00:20:10.480
And you, you are going to pay for what you did.
00:20:10.960 --> 00:20:19.200
I'm going to make sure you understand, fully and completely, what it costs to lose everything.
00:20:19.920 --> 00:20:21.680
His voice dropped.
00:20:25.119 --> 00:20:28.240
And there isn't a single thing you can do to stop it.
00:20:28.720 --> 00:20:35.920
He reached forward toward the camera, stopped, looked directly into the lens one final time.
00:20:36.799 --> 00:20:38.319
Be seeing you, Cap.
00:20:39.279 --> 00:20:40.160
Static.
00:20:40.720 --> 00:20:42.160
Then nothing.
00:20:42.640 --> 00:20:43.440
Quiet.
00:20:46.319 --> 00:21:00.480
The city moved outside the glass walls of my office, agents at their desks, phones ringing somewhere in the bullpen, the distant sound of the street below, all of it continuing, indifferent, unaware.
00:21:01.119 --> 00:21:03.359
I sat in silence for a moment.
00:21:03.680 --> 00:21:04.640
We all did.
00:21:05.039 --> 00:21:06.799
Kendrick spoke first.
00:21:07.119 --> 00:21:09.279
He stood up, slowly.
00:21:09.599 --> 00:21:11.680
Inside help, he said.
00:21:12.079 --> 00:21:16.640
His voice was controlled, but I could hear what was underneath it.
00:21:16.880 --> 00:21:23.440
The fury of a man who protects people for a living, being told that the protection had a hole in it.
00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:29.839
We already suspected as much, but hearing him confirm it, he shook his head.
00:21:30.160 --> 00:21:35.680
Someone in this program helped Cole get that charge under his skin, helped plant that duffel.
00:21:35.920 --> 00:21:42.480
There is a traitor somewhere in Sentinel Prime, and until we find them, everything we do is compromised.
00:21:43.200 --> 00:21:45.279
Nobody argued with that.
00:21:46.319 --> 00:21:49.440
The light bringer, Overton said.
00:21:49.759 --> 00:21:59.759
Her notebook was open, pen moving, clinical, focused, finding the analytical thread even in the middle of the emotional weight of it.
00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:02.720
This isn't the first time we've heard that.
00:22:02.960 --> 00:22:05.519
Evelyn Carter mentioned it as well.
00:22:05.839 --> 00:22:09.759
Whatever it is, it's central to the Nullborne's plans.
00:22:09.920 --> 00:22:11.920
It's what they're building toward.
00:22:12.400 --> 00:22:13.759
She looked up.
00:22:14.319 --> 00:22:21.680
Everything else, the neon, the tomb, both artifacts, it all points in that direction.
00:22:22.160 --> 00:22:24.640
The lightbringer is the goal.
00:22:25.039 --> 00:22:27.440
And we handed them a piece of it.
00:22:27.759 --> 00:22:29.200
Castillo said.
00:22:29.519 --> 00:22:31.279
Quiet, direct.
00:22:31.759 --> 00:22:33.920
She had been still throughout the tape.
00:22:34.240 --> 00:22:35.119
The tablet.
00:22:35.359 --> 00:22:39.519
We recovered it, brought it back, and now they know exactly where it is.
00:22:39.759 --> 00:22:45.680
If Cole is right that both artifacts are part of something larger, then we're holding half of what they need.
00:22:45.839 --> 00:22:47.599
And they must have a plan for that.
00:22:47.920 --> 00:22:49.279
Kendrick finished.
00:22:49.519 --> 00:22:52.880
The thought settled over the room like weather.
00:22:53.200 --> 00:22:55.519
There's something else, I said.
00:22:55.759 --> 00:22:57.039
They looked at me.
00:22:57.279 --> 00:23:01.680
Cole said that without Billy, there might not have been a Division XII.
00:23:02.400 --> 00:23:04.720
I let that breathe for a moment.
00:23:05.279 --> 00:23:07.359
Think about what that means.
00:23:07.599 --> 00:23:14.720
The Wrath case in 79, the incident that led to the formation of this unit, was not random.
00:23:15.039 --> 00:23:22.400
Billy was deliberately unleashed, which means Division 13 was not a response to the noborn threat.
00:23:22.720 --> 00:23:23.680
I paused.
00:23:24.400 --> 00:23:26.960
It was engineered by it.
00:23:27.839 --> 00:23:33.519
The silence that followed was a different kind of silence from the one after the tape ended.
00:23:33.759 --> 00:23:36.400
That had been the silence of shock.
00:23:37.039 --> 00:23:49.759
This was the silence of people recalibrating, running back through many months of cases, decisions, sacrifices, and asking themselves what was real and what was stage managed.
00:23:50.160 --> 00:23:52.000
Kendrick sat back down.
00:23:52.960 --> 00:23:55.119
So everything, he said.
00:23:55.759 --> 00:24:01.039
Every case, every move we've made, they've been watching it, shaping it.
00:24:01.279 --> 00:24:02.640
Who are these people?
00:24:02.960 --> 00:24:14.480
He looked at me, and for the first time in the years I had known him, I saw something in his eyes that was not quite anger and not quite despair, but was close to both.
00:24:14.720 --> 00:24:18.960
Something he quickly and professionally suppressed as he continued.
00:24:19.440 --> 00:24:22.240
Captain, we've been reacting since day one.
00:24:22.480 --> 00:24:24.720
We have never once been ahead of them.
00:24:25.200 --> 00:24:26.799
He leaned forward.
00:24:27.440 --> 00:24:28.880
That has to change.
00:24:29.119 --> 00:24:30.799
We have to go on the offensive.
00:24:31.039 --> 00:24:34.400
Stop waiting for the next move and start making our own.
00:24:34.720 --> 00:24:37.200
Overton looked up from her notebook.
00:24:37.519 --> 00:24:38.400
Agreed.
00:24:38.799 --> 00:24:42.079
But we can't go on the offensive without better intelligence.
00:24:42.319 --> 00:24:50.880
We don't know enough about the nullborn, the lightbringer, the artifacts, or the full scope of their operation to act effectively.
00:24:51.119 --> 00:24:54.079
We need information before we can act on it.
00:24:54.559 --> 00:24:57.759
Castile's eyes moved to Loretta Smith.
00:24:58.000 --> 00:24:58.960
So did mine.
00:24:59.599 --> 00:25:07.279
Loretta had been still throughout, still in the way of someone who has learned through long practice to reveal nothing.
00:25:07.680 --> 00:25:12.240
But the resignation in her expression was there, underneath the composure.
00:25:12.480 --> 00:25:17.440
The look of someone who has been waiting for a conversation they knew was coming.
00:25:17.839 --> 00:25:19.119
I stood up.
00:25:19.599 --> 00:25:22.640
We've got Jack's service to get to, I said.
00:25:23.039 --> 00:25:24.000
All of us.
00:25:24.319 --> 00:25:27.359
He deserves that, and we're going to give it to him.
00:25:27.599 --> 00:25:29.200
I looked at the team.
00:25:29.440 --> 00:25:40.240
These people who had walked into an Alaskan black site with me, who had fought through six levels of horror, who had made it out carrying something they were never going to put down.
00:25:40.880 --> 00:25:44.319
After that, I turned to Loretta.
00:25:44.960 --> 00:25:47.440
We need to have a talk, I said.
00:25:47.920 --> 00:25:49.200
A real one.
00:25:49.440 --> 00:25:51.200
Everything on the table.
00:25:51.440 --> 00:25:58.559
Everything you know, everything Sentinel Prime knows, everything that hasn't made it into our briefings.
00:25:58.960 --> 00:26:00.960
I held her eyes.
00:26:01.359 --> 00:26:02.559
All of it.
00:26:03.119 --> 00:26:06.240
Loretta Smith looked at me for a long moment.
00:26:06.640 --> 00:26:08.799
Something moved across her face.
00:26:09.039 --> 00:26:15.680
Not guilt, exactly, but the weight of information carried too long and too alone.
00:26:16.640 --> 00:26:19.519
Yes, she said quietly.
00:26:20.160 --> 00:26:21.119
We do.
00:26:22.480 --> 00:26:24.720
The team began to move.
00:26:25.039 --> 00:26:34.400
Quietly, with purpose, the way people move when grief and duty are pulling in the same direction, and there is nothing to do but follow both.
00:26:35.039 --> 00:26:38.079
I was last to leave, as usual.
00:26:38.640 --> 00:26:46.720
I stood in my office for a moment after the others had gone, looking at the cassette sitting in its evidence bag on my desk.
00:26:47.039 --> 00:26:50.559
Cole's voice was still in the room, somehow.
00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:57.920
The way certain things linger, not as sound, but as presence, as weight.
00:26:58.400 --> 00:27:10.160
I thought about a young sergeant ripping his insignia from his uniform in a village at the edge of the world, telling me it was the right thing to do, walking toward the sound of the guns.
00:27:10.640 --> 00:27:22.880
I thought about what that man had crawled through to survive, what had been done to him in a cave in the mountains of Afghanistan, what he had become in the years between then and now.
00:27:23.839 --> 00:27:31.200
I thought about Billy Rath, ten years old, painting words in blood on a warehouse wall in Brooklyn.
00:27:31.759 --> 00:27:33.839
The nullborn are here.
00:27:34.640 --> 00:27:41.279
The first domino in a sequence that had led to this office, this team, this moment.
00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:44.559
We had been built to fight them.
00:27:44.960 --> 00:27:48.480
That had always felt like purpose.
00:27:49.200 --> 00:27:54.480
I was beginning to understand it might have been something else entirely.
00:27:55.200 --> 00:28:00.720
I picked up the evidence bag, labeled it, set it with the rest.
00:28:01.440 --> 00:28:04.160
Then I went to bury one of my people.
00:28:05.599 --> 00:28:10.400
End case file zero one three zero zero nine.
