Chapter 4
Chapter Four
The intel came from Rebecca’s tablet, pulled up on the kitchen table between the remains of a hastily assembled lunch that no one had done much more than pick at.
Ben had grabbed the sandwiches from Eliza’s on a quick run into town while the others pored over equipment and argued about strategy.
A waste of good food, but he supposed they could wrap up the remnants for later if anyone suddenly developed an appetite.
“Aetheris Dynamics,” Rebecca said as she tapped the screen to enlarge a satellite image.
“They filed permits three weeks ago for what they’re calling ‘geological survey work’ in Welling Glen.
The paperwork is buried under about six layers of shell companies, but Eric managed to trace it back to the parent corporation. ”
Ben leaned forward to study the image. The clearing where Victor Maplehurst’s crew had illegally logged old-growth timber five months earlier was now occupied by a cluster of prefab buildings, a generator station, and what looked like drilling equipment.
Heavy machinery had carved new access roads through the forest, raw brown scars against the green.
He counted at least a dozen vehicles parked near the main structure, including two black SUVs that looked uncomfortably similar to the one Finn had been using for surveillance.
Ben’s stomach tightened with anger. He’d stood in front of a bulldozer in that glen, had risked his life to protect those trees. And now this.
“Who’s behind it?” Sidney asked. She stood at the counter with her arms crossed, her gray eyes fixed on the tablet screen. During their hasty lunch, she hadn’t taken much more than a few bites of her sandwich, either. None of them had.
“Julian Gregory.” Rebecca swiped to a new image, this one a headshot of a man in his early forties with artfully tousled dark hair and the kind of smile that belonged on a TED Talk stage.
Perfect teeth, Ben noted, the kind you got from expensive orthodontia and regular whitening treatments.
“Tech billionaire, founder of three different startups before he turned thirty, made his first fortune in cryptocurrency and his second in what he calls ‘alternative energy solutions.’ He’s been quietly buying up land in Northern California for the past two years. ”
“I’ve heard of him,” Ben said slowly. The name had floated through his social media feeds a few times, usually attached to some breathless headline about disrupting the energy sector or revolutionizing sustainability.
There’d been a profile in Wired, he remembered, full of quotes about “paradigm shifts” and “unlocking the earth’s hidden potential.
” Most scientists had dismissed it as pseudoscience dressed up in venture capital clothing, but that hadn’t killed the buzz that always seemed to surround the guy.
“He did an interview with Wired last year about tapping into the earth’s natural electromagnetic field.
Most scientists dismissed it as pseudoscience. ”
“Most scientists don’t know about ley lines,” Finn said quietly.
He sat at the far end of the table, keeping his distance from the rest of them in a way that Ben suspected was deliberate.
Even now, after everything that had been said, Sidney’s father seemed uncertain of his welcome.
“Gregory does. Or at least, he knows enough to be dangerous.”
Rebecca nodded. “Eric’s been tracking Aetheris for about six months, ever since they started showing up on the fringes of DAPI’s surveillance reports.
Gregory has been recruiting scientists and engineers who specialize in electromagnetic research.
He’s paying three times the market rate and offering research budgets that would make a university department head weep. ”
Sidney’s expression went very still. “People like Dr. Rosenthal?”
“Rosenthal joined Aetheris about two months ago.” Rebecca’s expression darkened. “Right after she fled the country to avoid prosecution for what happened with the phoenix. Gregory offered her asylum, funding, and access to equipment that makes DAPI’s resources look like a high school science fair.”
Ben exchanged a glance with Sidney. Sonya Rosenthal had been the architect of everything that had nearly destroyed them — the artificial portal, the corrupted phoenix, the weapon that had almost killed Sidney and had left both of them scarred.
The idea that she was back, operating just miles from Silver Hollow, made something cold and heavy settle deep in his gut.
He could still remember the sound of that weapon charging, the split-second decision to step in front of the beam… and the agony that followed.
“Why Welling Glen?” he asked. “Of all the places they could set up, why there?”
“Because it’s already been cleared,” Finn said, looking resigned.
“Maplehurst did Gregory’s work for him. The old-growth trees that used to protect that section of the ley line are gone, logged and shipped off to lumber mills before the injunction came through.
The energy signature there is now vulnerable.
” He paused, his dark eyes distant. “And it’s close to the original portal site. Close to where the Dragon is rising.”
Sidney’s full mouth compressed. “So they’re doing a lot more than surveying. They’re actually drilling into the ley line.”
“That’s what Eric thinks.” Rebecca zoomed in on the satellite image, highlighting a structure near the center of the camp.
“This is some kind of extraction apparatus. We don’t know exactly what it does, but the energy readings coming off that site have been surging for the past week.
Whatever they’re doing, it’s accelerating. ”
Everyone went quiet after hearing that unwelcome piece of information.
Outside, green lightning crawled across the sky, and Ben felt the familiar prickle of his dimensional scars responding to the charged atmosphere.
The burns on his chest and arms had faded over the past two months, thanks to the unicorn’s weekly healing sessions, but they still reacted to strong electromagnetic fields.
Right now, they felt like a low-grade sunburn, warm and tight against his skin.
“We need to see it for ourselves,” he said. “Get close enough to figure out what they’re actually doing.”
Rebecca nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. Eric can monitor remotely, but we need eyes on the ground.” She looked around the table, her gaze settling on each of them in turn. “I’m going. The question is who’s coming with me.”
“I am,” Finn said immediately.
Sidney shook her head. “You’ve been surveilling from a distance for seventeen years. This is different. If they catch you — ”
“They won’t catch me.” Finn’s voice was calm, but Ben heard the steel underneath it. “Out of all of us, I know that forest better than anyone except you, Sidney. And you can’t go. You’re too valuable, and your electromagnetic signature would light up every sensor they have.”
He wasn’t wrong. Since the merge with the phoenix, Sidney’s bioelectric field had become impossible to hide.
Ben had watched her accidentally short out a cash register at the grocery store just by standing too close to it.
The week before, she’d killed his laptop by walking past it while upset about something she’d read in her grandmother’s journals.
Living with her meant keeping a supply of backup electronics and learning not to get too attached to any particular device.
“I’ll go,” Ben said. “My signature isn’t as strong as Sidney’s, and I know Welling Glen. I was there when Maplehurst’s crew was logging.”
Sidney turned to him, her crystalline eyes filled with something he couldn’t quite read. Fear, he guessed, or possibly simple frustration at being sidelined.
“Ben — ”
“I’ll be careful.” He reached out and took her hand, felt the familiar warmth of their bioelectric fields synchronizing.
A faint glow pulsed between their interlaced fingers, a soft blue-white light that had become as familiar as breathing over the past two months.
He saw her expression soften slightly. “Rebecca and your father will be with me. We’re just going to look. ”
She held his gaze for a few heartbeats, and he knew she was thinking about all the times that “just looking” had turned into something much more dangerous. The night in Welling Glen when Maplehurst had pulled a gun, or the confrontation with the shadow stalkers.
But after an uncomfortable pause, she nodded.
“Fine. But you need to check in every hour. And if anything feels wrong — ”
“We’ll pull out immediately,” Rebecca finished for her. “That’s just standard reconnaissance protocol. No heroics.”
Sidney didn’t appear entirely reassured, but she let go of Ben’s hand and stepped back. “When do you leave?”
“Now,” Finn said, rising from his chair. “The cloud cover will give us some concealment, and Gregory’s crew will be focused on their equipment during the day shift. It’s the best window we’re going to get.”
No one bothered to argue.
Twenty minutes later, Ben found himself crammed into the back seat of Rebecca’s rental car, a nondescript gray sedan that blended in with the overcast sky.
Finn rode shotgun, directing her down a series of back roads that Ben had never known existed, despite having spent months exploring the forests around Silver Hollow.
Gravel gave way to dirt, and dirt gave way to something that was barely a road at all, was just two ruts carved through the undergrowth by vehicles that hadn’t passed this way in months.
“There’s an old logging road about a quarter mile from the Aetheris perimeter,” Finn said, keeping his voice low, even though there was no one around to hear them. “It’s been abandoned for years. We can leave the car there and approach on foot.”
Rebecca nodded, her eyes on the road — or at least, what passed for a road. “What kind of security are we looking at?”