Noctura

thirty nine

seunghoon

I WAS late to work, but once I was able to get Andres in a meeting room alone, a while after I'd gotten there, he didn't care anymore that I was late.

"Wait, there's a lab that's turning people into Nocturas?" Andres puts his hand on his chin, trying to sort through everything I just told him. "This is... unbelievable."

"We have to do something," I say quickly. "We have to go to this lab and shut it down. And we need to try to get information on the people they've turned into Nocturas."

Andres sighs. "Yeah, you're right. We need to shut this place down."

"Send me and a team," I offer. "I want to shut this place down, Andres."

He looks up at me, making eye contact. "I've seen your scores recently in the simulation. You've been training a lot lately, Seunghoon. Your scores are..."

I give him a confused look. "Too low? I've been doing my best, sir. I go in the simulation almost every single day and—"

"They're the best I've seen in a while," Andres suddenly interrupts. "They're better than mine."

I sit in silence for a long moment.

Andres cracks a grin. "I'll put a team together and we'll go shut down this lab, yeah?"

"Oh, Andres, sir," I say quickly as he's standing up. "I didn't find any of this information about the lab."

"Then who did?"

"Teagan Evans," I tell him.

"Well," he responds. "I'll have to speak with her, then, and thank her personally."

I give a slight nod and smile.

"Let's go, shall we?"

Andres and I head back out into the main rooms of the AAN building. As he's getting a team together, I move over to Teagan's desk, who came into work a little earlier than normal, because of all this mess. She slept as long as she could, but it wasn't very much. She said she needed to be here.

As soon as I walk over, she looks up expectantly. "Did you talk to Andres? Are you going?"

I nod. "Yes to both of those questions. He's getting a team together and we're gonna head over to the lab and shut it down."

Teagan smiles. "That's good. I'm glad I could help."

"Hey, Teagan, this is all because of you," I assure her. "Without your research, we never would've even known about this lab."

"But if I wasn't prompted to do the research..."

I reach out and gently grab her hand. "We're saving people today, Teagan. And it's all thanks to you."

She stares into my eyes and then her lips turn up, causing her eyes to crinkle slightly.

"Seunghoon!"

I look over my shoulder at Andres, who has a group of ANN officers standing with him.

"Come get your vest and let's head out," he commands.

I give Teagan one last look before moving toward the equipment room with the rest of the team. We get vests on and make sure we all have our guns and knives. Then we all head out onto the streets of Kraephis, moving toward Stanek Lab.

"These people are probably armed," Andres informs us as we're moving. "We need to move fast and carefully to overtake the lab. Once we've done that, our second team will move in and arrest everyone in the lab. Clear?"