Brown set the receiver down with a soft, practiced click that sounded small in the room's deliberate silence. The rain outside had a patience to it, like someone erasing chalk slowly from a board. He did not speak immediately. The quiet let the plan settle around them like a faint dust. When he finally did, his voice was steady, measured — the voice of someone who had spent his life converting indecision into protocols.
"Guren," he said, and the name carried no warmth. "Listen to me. I'll walk you through Phase Two—step by step. I want you to understand what we will do and why. No guesses, no improvisation."
There was a soft intake on the line. Guren's tone, when he answered, was the same clipped professionalism he had always maintained. "I'm listening."
Brown folded his hands over the desk and let the city's glow press at the window behind him. "We begin from the premise that Phase One has, for now, succeeded in one respect: it produced diversion. Hundreds were taken off the street, minds churned in the papers, but the problem now is noise — unavoidable attention. The public's curiosity is an infection if left untreated. Phase Two is containment by narrative; it is cleanup and misdirection combined. It has to look like justice, not orchestration."
He paused, not because he needed the time, but because he wanted Guren to feel the architecture of the words — that this was not merely operational talk but doctrine. "First objective: create a visible, believable raid. We will stage an intelligence operation that ostensibly uncovers illegal experimentation. Cameras will capture the entry, the rescue, the soundbites. Those images will be the salve. They will be shown until the public's outrage heals into gratitude."
"Yes," Guren said. "The raid will be the smoke and the rescue the mirror."
"Exactly." Brown let himself, for a moment, the taut satisfaction of being understood. "Second objective: limit the missing to a manageable count. The original abduction number is a public toxin — too big, too many questions. We will free most of the captives during the staged raid. Those freed will be visible witnesses who corroborate the narrative: illegal activity, rogue scientists, and the government stepping in to correct course."
"You will have people on the ground to coordinate the freed?" Guren queried. "Civilians—volunteers, I mean—who can be photographed and interviewed?"
"Yes." Brown named the roles like a master giving out parts in a play. "Comfortable, coached witnesses. People who can cry real tears on cue and who will not, under cross-examination, deviate from the script. Their testimonies will be porous enough to seem genuine and sealed tightly enough to not threaten us."
Brown let the syllables hang and then moved forward. "Third objective: isolate the anomaly. Among the abducted are those who exhibit markers of what we call Eclipse affinity. They are dangerous as facts. We cannot risk them being released into the wild, where they either become a curiosity or a threat. These individuals will be extracted from the site before the raid's public phase, relocated to a secure facility under the guise of transfer and medical oversight."
He didn't soften the language. "Relocation is permanent for our purposes. It will be managed quietly, under classified orders. A handful—no more than five to ten publicly unaccounted for—will be moved out of the public ledger. The fewer missing fingers the press can count, the quicker the public's attention will move on."
Guren's reply was brief. "And the scientists?"
Brown's eyes went to the manila folder on his desk and the neat stack of documents inside. Names, roles, lab logs. "We make the scientists the villains," he said. "Blame them for unauthorized experimentation. They will be arrested in the raid. Useful members of those teams—those with knowledge we can weaponize—will be detained and reassigned to controlled projects. The rest will be prosecuted or quietly contained. There must be a scapegoat, someone with zeal and charisma enough to die well in the press."
He pictured, with surgical clarity, the television pans over wrists in plastic cuffs, the cameras catching the nervous tilt of a lab coat, the public's hunger for a face to blame. "We will leak internal documents that suggest the experiments were unsanctioned. We will cultivate an appearance of independent verification—third-party inspectors who 'discover' lab modifications that should not have been there. Plausibility is everything."
"And Regan No.10?" Guren asked. There was a soft, metallic quality to his voice when he used that name. Regan No.10's competence was legendary in the Ministry — a straight line in any conversation that required location intelligence.
Brown allowed the name to land. "She will be our unblinking compass. We will task Regan No.10 with pinpointing the facility. She will do so efficiently. Once coordinates are confirmed, she will be ordered to halt any public search. Her compliance must be guaranteed—by contract, by benefit, by leverage if necessary. We cannot have her broadcasting a trail that contradicts the narrative."
"If she refuses?" Guren's tone was flat, but in it was a hint of the practical question he always asked: what happens when things go wrong?
"Noncompliance becomes a security risk." Brown's voice was colder now, the edge of a man who had already thought the unthinkable. "We have contingency slots. We have legal levers. We have leverage over those who want to be free. If she resists, we detain. If she cooperates, we reward. The state's hand is both carrot and gauntlet."
Brown mapped the sequence now, articulating each motion like a conductor. "Execution will happen in three stages. Stage one: reconnaissance and confirmation. Regan No.10 identifies the specific coordinates, and our team maps ingress and egress. Stage two: Relocate the Eclipse-possessed quietly, and the raid itself. This is the public spectacle—cameras, heroic entry, and staged rescue. Stage three: the aftermath. arrest and scapegoat the scientists, release the bundled narratives to the press, and deploy a quiet suppression on legal inquiries that stray too close."
He paused to consider what the aftermath would feel like in human terms. "We will plant footage. We will feed the media. We will make sure the faces the public sees are ours—those at the raid and those we use as witnesses. Their gratitude will be our shield."
Guren's question came then, precise. "What about internal verification? The press can subpoena logs. They can demand audits."
Brown's response was immediate. "We construct a paper trail that does what we need it to. Internal logs that show tampering by unauthorized personnel. A fabricated audit from a third party who 'finds' evidence of rogue research—someone with credentials expensive enough to look real. For any stubborn inquiry, we can introduce court orders and sealed materials. The legal machinery is already set; it has been prepared for months. You will coordinate with the legal team to ensure every document can be defended, or at least delayed."
He let silence fall so Guren could register the reach of the bureaucracy. Then he added, more softly, "We will also prepare the human element: those who will speak for us and those who will be sacrificed. The chief scientist must be plausible as a zealot. It helps if he has a past—complaints, questionable ethics, a temperament that photographs badly."
"And the people we free?" Guren asked. "How do we ensure their testimonies align?"
"Coaching," Brown said plainly. "Not coercion—coaching. We will place them with vetted social workers, give them statements, and let them practice. People tell the truth when it comforts them and when it is rehearsed enough to feel true. Their stories will be consistent because they will have rehearsed them. The press wants a tidy arc: discovery, rescue, outrage, justice. Give them that arc and they will sleep."
Guren's silence on the line was not empty; it was the small mechanical hum of someone parsing logistics. "You mentioned Regan No.9 earlier in other files," he said. "Containment asset. Where does she factor into the operation?"
Brown allowed a small nod, though Guren could not see it. "No.9 handles expected interference. She neutralizes technical resistance—those technicians and security personnel who might disrupt extraction or who might log anomalies. She is surgical. Her role is limited and deniable. The fewer people who know of her involvement, the better. She will act only where necessary to secure movement and ensure minimal witnesses to the relocation."
"And if the press probes the missing?" Guren pressed. "Family inquiries, international watchdogs?"
"We limit the count," Brown repeated. "We release names of the freed and publicize them. We keep the missing within an administratively plausible range—five to ten. We feed the press small, consumable morsels: witness statements, footage, and the official line. We cultivate a moral panic against rogue science—a narrative that channels anger towards the scapegoated scientists rather than toward the Ministry."
He leaned forward, voice low and steady. "This is not cruelty for cruelty's sake. This is the calculus of governance. You and I both know the cost of letting an uncontrolled variable roam free. The Eclipse-possessed are not merely assets or anomalies—they are vectors. If the public learns of them, democracy will fracture into opportunism and fear. We will be blamed for secrecy; perhaps rightly. But secrecy avoids spectacle, and spectacle invites chaos. We choose the lesser chaos."
Guren's reply was small and contained. "Operationally then: we proceed at dawn, confirm coordinates within two hours of deployment, and execute the staged raid with embedded cameras. Regan No.10 is briefed and instructed to stand down publicly once the narrative is on air. No.9 is on standby for targeted neutralizations. Legal and PR branches will receive pre-cooked statements."
Brown felt the ritual of agreement settle across the line like a second skin. "Yes. But more—arrange for independent verification where possible. Plant a credible third party that can back up our claims should auditors dig. Create a paper trail that looks accidental rather than planted. Plausibility reduces suspicion. Perfection invites it."
"And the contingency for whistleblowers?" Guren asked, the operative's instinct surfacing above the bureaucratic.
Brown's voice hardened. "Containment. Offers of relocation, positions, benefits—rewards for silence. For those who will not be bought, legal containment. For those who attempt to expose the operation publicly, we have legal instruments and discrediting campaigns. We will not be brutal where we can be clever. Subtlety is more enduring."
He closed the plan between them with a calmness that was almost ritual. "You will coordinate the teams. You will verify the logs. You will make sure the cameras are where we need them and the witnesses are rehearsed. You will ensure Regan No.10's compliance, and you will place No.9 where resistance is probable. You will report to me with confirmations. And whatever else happens—no improvisations beyond the authorized contingencies. Understand?"
There was no hesitation in Guren's reply now. "Understood."
Brown ended the call and sat very still. The plan, once spoken, felt less like an abstraction and more like a machine whose parts were lubricated and ready. Outside, the city moved, unaware. Inside, in the quiet of his office, Brown looked at his hands and then at the rain. He had drafted the future in small, efficient cruelty, convinced that his choices would ring as stability later. He believed in that conviction as much as a man can believe in any justification. Whether belief and fact would align, whether his assurances would protect the state and perhaps his conscience, was a different matter for later. For now there was only the morning—dawn and its necessary acts—and the work of turning disappearance into explanation.
After hours
The news crawled across their tiny living room like a tentative promise — a headline that slowed Mika's breath for a fraction of a second and then sped her heart until it thudded against her ribs.
"REGAN NO.10 PINPOINTS SOUL LAB IN VIACE MOUNTAINS — RAID UNDERWAY," the anchor said, all brightness and solemn empathy beneath studio lights. Clips rolled: helicopters slicing grey sky, uniforms moving in practiced formation, grainy footage of two women stepping from an unmarked van — one with hair like a spill of night, taller and ice-still; the other with hair like embers, coiled and quick. The camera lingered on their faces long enough for the world to name them: Regan No.10 and Regan No.9.
Mika's hands tightened around the mug until the ceramic cried. She and Ayaka had not slept. The hours between midnight and dawn had been thin and radioactive with fear: the constant waiting for the telephone, the small rituals of hope that people invent to survive waiting. Now, the television supplied hope signed in authority. Regan No.10 had done what the police could not; she had found the place where the missing were kept. The anchor's voice moved in a rhythm that promised rescue, proper procedure, punishment for wrongdoing.
"—with the full support of the Viace Police and Special Response units," the anchor continued. "Regan No.9 will assist the raid. Authorities say they will expose the motives behind the experiment and ensure those responsible are brought to justice."
Mika's breath left her in a soft, involuntary exhale that carried hope like warm breath in winter. She had watched enough evening programs to know how narratives were sold to the public: a savior, a villain, a tidy end. She did not need tidy — she needed Kaito back, unbroken and alive. The name of Regan No.10 on the screen was enough to make the back of her neck stop aching. If the Regans were involved, then there was a sliver of a chance.
Ayaka, only sixteen but older in worry, clutched the blanket around her knees. Her eyes were red and varnished with the sugar of too many unshed tears. She had been the kind of sister who tried to be brave when Mika's voice trembled. Now, rigidity softened something in her face. "Mom," she whispered, voice half plea, half calculation, "they'll bring him back, right? They're… they're heroes."
Mika forced a smile that felt like cardboard against her teeth. "They're the best we have, Aya." The words steadied her more than they did Ayaka. She believed them because she had to. The idea that the best in the continent — those three Regans their country had — were on the side of law and order comforted her. The Regans were tall stories in every town: elite Rim-users whose presence bent the balance of fear and safety. Everyone knew of them, few had seen them, and fewer still knew how little anyone truly controlled them.
Outside, the terrace light from the neighbor's apartment blinked; someone laughed as if unaware of what the headline meant for the family down the hall. Mika imagined Regan No.10 — map in hand like a priest of direction — finding the ridge where Kaito's scarf might still lie in a corner, where the lab's humming would sound like an animal in a cave. The thought uncoiled a tiny, private relief in her chest, and for the first time since the knock at the door weeks ago, sleep felt possible, if only for a breath.
On the other side of town, Arthur had let his shoulders drop in a way he had not in days. He and Kaito had been childhood constants — two halves of the same reckless coin — and while Arthur's bravado had thinned overnight, it did not break. The news settled over him like a light rain that might wash off grime. He was not a man of power; he did not know how to move armies or access classified maps. He knew only how to call the people he loved, to be present, to hope in the ways humans were built to hope. For the first time in a week, his thumbs hovered over the phone without shaking, and when he texted a small, useless message to Kaito's number — "Hang on, man" — it felt like a promise rather than a superstition.
At the police station, Sui Hiroshi watched the same footage with a different set of measurements in his chest. He had known those two Regans in the abstract for years: names in reports, thumbnails in strategy briefings, the kind of bullets he had admired from a bureaucrat's distance. Seeing them in flesh beside armored officers triggered something territorial and grateful at once. No.9 — red hair like liquid metal under the fluorescent lights — was already a rumor in Sui's files: a containment asset, a night specialist who moved in shadows and left teeth marks on the things that tried to bite back. No.10 — black-haired and taller, the map-reader — had a reputation for accuracy. Together, they were a calculation that tilted probability toward success.
Sui's eyes lingered on them. If those two were on a mission, the chance of recovering the captives in one piece seemed to climb into plausibility. He'd been a policeman for two decades; he had seen miracles clothe themselves as procedure. These Regans were not team players by design — their bodies and talents had a tempo that did not always match the ministry's calendar — but when they chose a line, it usually meant outcomes bent to their will.
He imagined them in the mountains: No.10 standing at a ridge with a hand in the air like a geometer, No.9 slipping through tree lines with claws hidden and ready. He thought of the victims like worn tapes that could be rewound and smoothed, and for the first time in days the knot in his throat loosened. He did not know — could not know — that loyalty was not always as simple as uniform or station. He did not know the ways in which Regans had been recruited, bribed, or otherwise entangled with the government's darker projects. To him, they were assets, and assets meant leverage over chaos.
He was not there for the initial pinpointing. He had been assigned as reinforcement, the kind of steadying force called in when the edge of the operation needed a human presence to fill procedural blanks. He watched the screen and felt the soldier's small, private hope: that the right combination of force and gift could retrieve what had been taken. He did not conceive of the possibility that the Regans themselves might be instruments of something other than rescue.
Back at home, the news cycles churned. Interviews played between footage of armored men and static shots of the Viace range: experts opining on the Regans' methods, neighbors speculating, sympathy crowds forming on sidewalks far from the site. Mika and Ayaka absorbed every frame like people thinned to only the essential senses: hearing for any hint that the raid had succeeded, sight for any sign of their son, touch for the tremor of a call.
When the program switched to a report on the Regan bloodlines and generational classifications, Mika's brow furrowed. The anchor spoke with a tone that was part encyclopedic and part superstition: No.10 was a Gen-2 — a day-user whose perception and mapping could operate when the sun was high and the paths were clear. No.9 was a Gen-1 night-user; her affinity geometry unfolded with darkness. Although No.9's gift was considered a lower generation in administrative charts, her night potency had earned myth in the bordering countries. There were whispers, panels said, that in shadow the No.9's force rivaled the famed Regan No.8 from a neighboring land. It was a dangerous compliment: power that thrived where stars ruled.
Ayaka listened like a child hearing a ghost story whose end she wanted to be true. "So No.9 is stronger at night?" she asked, as if the difference were a technicality — a switch that could be flipped. Mika answered with the clumsy logic of a parent trying to bridge fantasy and fact. "They're different tools," she said. "Whichever tool is needed, they'll use."
That night, they slept in the small room where the radio hummed. Mika half-woke with the sensation of wind across her face, of a hand brushing hair from a forehead — a memory of Kaito as a child, tucked in, small and stubborn. She had pictured his face a thousand ways: bruised, set like old stone, whispering words she feared to imagine. The news had given her a map that might lead there. It had also sealed that map with official credence. For now, that sufficed.
None of them yet perceived the edges fraying in other rooms: the low conversations inside ministry halls, the ledger moves that would mark certain men useful and others expendable. None of them suspected that the two women the cameras had shown as saviors might be threads in a loom woven by hands far from the mountains. The family sat under a small, provisional peace spun from the belief that those who could bend the world had chosen to bend it toward them.
Outside, the rain began again, quiet and precise, like punctuation at the bottom of a sentence. Somewhere high in the Viace range, boots crunched on frost. Regan No.10's silhouette cut a clean line along a ridge; No.9 melted into the black and became a rumor that approached like a promise.
In houses and stations and the dim-lit city between them, people slept or stayed awake with a single, shared flicker of expectation. Hope, fragile and official, moved through the rooms and settled like dust on the furniture. For Mika and Ayaka and Arthur and Sui, it was enough. For others, whose calculations read different, the news was the start of a different kind of counting — of costs and placements, of which faces would be shown and which would be quietly rewritten into the ledger of the missing.