Lockdown Plan

The soft glow of Rae’s laptop cast flickering shadows across the room. Remi sat beside her, still pale but steady, a bowl of trail mix in her lap as she leaned in to absorb every line Rae decoded. Del lay nearby, half-listening, curled in a blanket with Aspen beside her, ears perked and tail twitching. Trey hovered close to the back door, on high alert.

Will stood at the window, jaw clenched, phone to his ear. “I need you here. Quietly. Don’t bring anyone.”

A pause.

“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t serious.”

Another beat. Then he ended the call, tucking his phone away just as footsteps approached. The front door eased open, and Elijah stepped in—broad-shouldered, calm, his Gamma presence unmistakable. His gaze swept the room, landing first on Remi, then on Rae, and finally on Will.

“You said emergency. What are we dealing with?”

Will motioned him in, voice low. “We’ve uncovered a direct link between a council member we thought was long gone and a doctor from the hospital. They were running field experiments using wolfvine.”

Elijah blinked, but didn’t flinch. “On who?”

Remi spoke up, her voice tight. “All of us. Direct or indirect. They tracked us—Rae, Del, me in Chicago. There are messages proving Pierce was coordinating with Maren. It wasn’t just oversight. It was planned.”

Rae didn’t look up, still typing. “I’ve got their logs, Elijah. Hospital communications, encrypted messages, search history patterns. I’m building a timeline now—dates, pings, the devices they used. They were careful. But not that careful.”

She tapped a key, bringing up a highlighted section. “There’s a trace in this last string of messages. A dummy server trying to reroute the location—but there’s a bounce-back here.” She pointed at a set of coordinates.

Remi leaned closer. “Where?”

Rae grinned faintly. “Old land. North ridge sector. Used to be a scout station. Shut down two decades ago. Guess who requisitioned it before that happened?”

“Let me guess,” Elijah said. “Maren.”

Rae nodded. “And someone logged into the same node forty-eight hours ago. That might be our next step.”

Elijah crossed his arms. “What do you need?”

Will gave him a steady look. “Backup, off the books. We need to confront the rest of leadership with this intel. But not until we know who else might be compromised. You trust Kaia and Brielle?”

“With my life.”

“Good,” Will said. “Bring them in on standby. Quiet recon around that old station. No full moves yet. Rae’s still digging. But this goes all the way up—and if we move too soon, we lose our edge.”

Elijah nodded and turned to Rae. “You’re our ace right now. Anything you find, funnel straight to me.”

Rae gave him a mock-salute without looking up. “Already working on tracking the ping from that node. Once I isolate the device, I can work backward—see what it’s been connected to, what files were moved. If Maren’s still alive and using that location, she’s going to regret not scrubbing her trail better.”

Remi met Will’s gaze, her voice quiet but fierce. “This is it. We’re not just cleaning up their mess. We’re exposing the whole damn system.”

Will’s eyes hardened. “Then let’s burn it down.”

Rae leaned back just slightly from her laptop, eyes flicking between lines of code and the topographic map now split across her screen. A small smirk curled her lips—sharp, focused.

“I’ve got something,” she said, fingers flying over the keyboard. “That station? It still has some old infrastructure intact. Power grid is minimal, but the door security system is half-connected to a relay node that never got decommissioned.”

Will frowned. “You mean we can shut it down?”

“Better,” Rae said, voice clipped. “I can hijack it.”

She turned to face the group, her tone brisk but electric with anticipation. “I can send a remote override that forces a security lockdown. It’ll look like a glitch from the outside—an old system hiccup. But I’ll know exactly when it triggers.”

Trey’s brows lifted. “You can lock them in?”

Rae nodded. “Only catch? It’s range-based. The sequence only works if the person carrying the trigger device is within thirty feet of the access panel. And once it starts, we’ve got a five-minute window before it resets.”

Elijah stepped forward. “You’re saying someone has to get close.”

“Yep. Close enough to activate it without spooking them. But once it’s locked down, they can’t get out. No signal, no exit. That gives us five minutes to move in, secure the perimeter, and decide how loud we want to make the fallout.”

Remi looked at the screen, impressed. “How do we make sure they don’t trip early?”

Rae pulled a small, worn USB-looking device from her bag. “I’ll carry this. It’s already loaded with the sequence. I’ll get close, plug into the old wall access point near the door, and start the loop. As long as no one notices me, they’ll think it’s business as usual until the doors slam shut.”

Will looked at the map, already calculating. “We position Elijah’s team just outside the outer perimeter. Once you activate it, we sweep in.”

Rae nodded. “Right. You’ll get an alert the second it locks. That’s your signal.”

Trey crossed his arms, eyes narrowing with a hint of a grin. “Damn. You’re terrifying.”

“I’m effective,” Rae said coolly. “They’ve been operating unchecked long enough. Time to box the monsters in their own den.”

Aspen gave a low chuff from her place by the door, as if she approved of the plan.

Del, still lying nearby, managed a small smile. “They have no idea what’s coming.”

Rae’s eyes glittered as she turned back to her screen. “They really don’t.”