NOVEL NEXT Chapter 60 - Book 2 Epilogue
The War Room was silent except for the slow whir of the ceiling fan overhead.
Marcus Eidolon stood before the wall of screens, watching a dimensional crack tear itself wider in the heart of Mt. Cook City.
"What are Kestrel and Leticia doing?" Marcus asked, his voice clipped.
One of the techs monitoring the situation responded, "Headmaster Kestrel is on a transport train as we speak, being deployed to the site. Vice Headmistress Granhalein is still on campus. She's locked down the grounds and is reinforcing the wards around the dormitories."
Marcus gave a sharp nod. "And our agents in the area?"
Another tech spoke up. "Watchers Eighty-Seven, Ninety-Two, One-Oh-Five, and Two-Ten. Watcher One-Oh-Five is closest—already coordinating with local law enforcement on civilian evacuations."
"Casualties?"
"None reported. AIA graduates in the city worked with local law enforcement to clear the district minutes before the tear opened."
Marcus exhaled slowly, rubbing his temples.
An Agent materialized silently at Marcus's shoulder.
"Sir," he said quietly. "At this breach magnitude... the Veil won't hold much longer."
Marcus kept his eyes fixed on the Mt. Cook feed.
A burst of light flared across his neural interface. Transmission incoming. Sophia's header scrolled across his vision, and his expression hardened.
[INCOMING TRANSMISSION: SUBJECT: CODE RED]
[To: Marcus Eidolon; Valentina Estrada]
[Director Eidolon, Professor Estrada, connection has been lost to Margaret Zhang and her resonance system. Last recorded connection received as she was leaving Professor Erasmus Vellian's office with the attached data file. Be advised communication outside the University will be restricted in 10 minutes.]
Marcus opened the file, then blinked. For the first time in the last half hour, he smiled.
She'd done it.
He sent Sophia an immediate command: keep Nick and Jordan under protection. Val received an encrypted mission update.
Then, to the agent beside him: "Dispatch Team Beta to the extraction point in Zurich."
The man vanished without a sound.
Marcus crossed the War Room, the low hum of the fan syncing to the rhythm of his steps. He halted before the campus feeds, AIA's shields shimmering like a second skin around the grounds.
"Maggie Zhang has been kidnapped," he said flatly. "Initiate full-spectrum tracking. Biometric, resonance, dimensional. I want her location in thirty minutes. Her parents will be here by then. We need answers."
His tone didn't rise but the words landed like a hammer. Screens whirled to life as multiple hands flew over invisible keyboards.
One tech tracked satellite resonance imaging, which detects mana frequency anomalies at orbital scale, cross-referencing it with Maggie's unique resonance signature. Another pulled every biometric scanner from AIA's gates, city checkpoints, even hospitals, forcing them into one feed. An agent on the side began searching for distortion fields someone may have used to conceal the opening and closing of a pocket dimension.
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Ten minutes of silence. Only the hum of machinery and the soft thunder of keys.
Their search revealed something worse—thirty additional students had been taken. Ten others from Alpha class including Maggie, and twenty from Beta class.
At last, one tech straightened. "Resonance trace matched—Vellian's signature. Live feed incoming."
Screens bloomed with the image of a black chamber. No windows. Harsh strip lighting. Thirty-one cots arranged in precise rows, each occupied by an unconscious student. IV lines fed sedatives into bloodstreams with mechanical precision.
"Environmental analysis complete," the team lead reported. "Location shows air recycling, signal dampening, walls lined with resonance-baffling alloy. Medical equipment suggests professional-grade sedation."
Marcus studied Maggie's unconscious form on the display, noting the tension on her face that suggested her enhanced cognitive systems were fighting the chemical restraints.
At least she's safe.
"Tag every student and report it to Leticia. We need to know why Vellian wanted them."
"Yes sir!"
Leaving the war room, Marcus cut through the central compound with purposeful strides until he reached one of the most secure areas in the facility.
Security checkpoints recognized him automatically, biometric scanners confirming his clearance as he passed from one door to the next. Entering an antechamber in a building at the far corner of the compound, Marcus opened a door and stepped into an elevator.
The elevator that carried him descended into subterranean levels built beneath the compound to the hanger waiting below.
The hangar stretched out like a cathedral of war, shadows clinging to vaulted steel supports that vanished into haze.
Predator-class carriers hovered in their berths, matte hulls drinking in the light. Exosuits locked in docking clamps stood like armored giants, their plating etched with resonance interference that blurred their edges. Drone swarms hung in overhead racks, sensor arrays glowing faintly in the darkness.
Arrayed beside the suits stood weapons: plasma rifles etched with runes, resonance-forged sabers with crystal focusing lattices, shields veined with living wards, and cannons whose cores pulsed with captive energy.
Further down the line, gauntlets built to channel raw mana through amplified strikes waited alongside polearms tipped with shifting crystals that adapted to their wielder's resonance. Railguns lined with spell-script coils held rounds wrapped in miniature containment fields. Compact drones rigged with shard-launchers sat in housings carved from mirrored alloys.
Near the forges, experimental prototypes waited under stasis fields—void-shears capable of cutting through dimensional fabric, resonance bows that fired condensed energy bolts, and hammer-sized weapons humming with subatomic rebuilders.
Each piece carried its own quiet promise of violence. This wasn't an ordinary hangar, but a military armory.
At the hangar's far left wall, a singular capsule waited in living silver. Its surface bore no markings, no identification—the kind of anonymity that suggested purposes beyond conventional understanding.
As Marcus approached, the capsule opened silently. Slipping into the velvet seat, the capsule exhaled then sealed shut. Closing his eyes, a deep hum threaded through Marcus' bones. He stilled his muscles and breath, waiting...then it began.
Light flooded the capsule as reality folded around Marcus. Space turned fluid, and for a moment, a single breath stretched into eternity. Each heartbeat unraveled in the gulf between worlds. He existed as everything and nothing simultaneously. Then, just as quickly as it began, the breath was gone, and Marcus was himself again.
Another breath later, he found himself upright, his feet planted firmly on cool tile. Opening his eyes, he took a deep breath and let it out. It had been some time since he'd been here.
It's good to be home.
The Council chamber materialized around Marcus. The walls of polished stone absorbed and emitted light simultaneously, curving upward to form a perfect dome whose center opened to reveal a night sky filled with stars no human astronomer had ever cataloged. Constellations pulsed in patterns that defied terrestrial observation, shimmering with colors that had no names in earthly languages—deep violets that bordered on ultraviolet, blues that suggested depths beyond ordinary perception, and golds that carried their own internal luminescence.
Beneath his feet, the mosaic floor stretched from wall to wall, its tiles forged from materials that came from across the universe. Some sections gleamed with metallic sheen, others rippled like liquid frozen in time, and still others radiated their own soft, pulsing luminescence. The intricate pattern formed a map of the multiverse itself, with millions of worlds represented by small spheres of varying sizes and compositions, all connected by golden energy lines that marked the dimensional pathways between realities.
Around the chamber's perimeter, twelve designated positions awaited the Watchers—all now empty.
Across the hall, Lysandra waited, a soft smile curving her otherwise austere yet beautiful face. Her presence commanded attention.
"Welcome back, Marcus."