The world dissolved into a blur of blinding white light and sharp, shouted commands.
"Hands where we can see them! Now!"
"Step away from the trench! Slowly!"
Maya's heart tried to claw its way out of her throat. She stumbled back from the slab, her arms raised instinctively, the afterimage of the three-headed hound burned onto her vision. The cold, clinical lights erased all shadows, turning the familiar dig site into an alien landscape.
"Jax? Chloe?" she called out, her voice thin and reedy.
"I'm here!" Chloe's voice was a terrified squeak from above.
"Just do what they say!" Jax yelled, a note of panic cutting through his usual bravado.
Figures clad in crisp, black uniforms swarmed the site. They moved with a fluid, unsettling efficiency, their faces obscured by helmets with darkened visors. They weren't police. There were no badges, no identifying marks. Just the stark, intimidating uniformity of a private army.
Two agents descended into the trench, their movements economical and precise. They didn't touch Maya, but their presence was a physical force, corralling her towards the ladder. "Up. Now."
Her limbs felt numb, clumsy. As she climbed, she saw Jax and Chloe being similarly escorted, their hands held high. Jax's duffel bag was snatched away, his precious tech treated like a bomb. Chloe was trembling violently, her eyes wide with sheer terror.
They were herded into a tight group near the site's entrance. The agents formed a silent, imposing circle around them. The lead agent, a woman with a severe bun and an expression of bored contempt, scanned them with a device that beeped softly as it passed over their bodies.
"No overt weapons. Just a lot of expensive toys," she reported to someone out of sight.
The circle of agents parted, and a man stepped through. He wasn't like the others. He wore a tailored, dark grey suit, no tie, his shirt open at the collar. He was in his late forties, with sharp, intelligent features and hair swept back from a high forehead.
He held a tablet in one hand, his posture relaxed, almost conversational. He was the calm eye of their personal hurricane.
"Maya Reed," he said, his voice a low, cultured baritone. It wasn't a question. He glanced at his tablet. "Lead intern. A promising future in post-colonial stratigraphy. A shame." His eyes, a pale, piercing blue, flicked to the others.
"Jax Henderson. Technologist. Chloe Davis. Occult enthusiast." He smiled, a thin, humorless stretch of his lips. "An interesting combination of skill sets for a standard pre-construction survey."
"Who are you?" Maya demanded, forcing her voice not to shake. "This is a city-sanctioned dig. You can't just…"
"We can," the man interrupted gently, his tone that of a patient teacher correcting a slow student. "This site, and everything in it, now falls under the jurisdiction of Pandora Division. National security. I'm sure you understand." He took a step closer, his gaze sweeping over them, missing nothing—the dirt on Maya's knees, the terror in Chloe's eyes, the defiant set of Jax's jaw. "Where is your fourth? Leo Torres. The logician."
The fact that he knew Leo's name, his role, was more terrifying than the armed guards. They had been watched. Profiled.
"He's not involved," Maya said quickly, too quickly.
The man's smile didn't reach his eyes. "His absence suggests a level of wisdom the rest of you seem to lack." He gestured towards the trench with his tablet. "You activated it. What did you see?"
The agents around them shifted almost imperceptibly, their grip tightening on their weapons. The air grew tighter.
"We didn't 'activate' anything," Jax blurted out. "We were just taking readings. There was a minor energy fluctuation, that's all. Probably a build-up of…"
"Mr. Henderson," the man said, his voice still quiet, but it carried a sharp, cutting edge that silenced Jax instantly.
"Do not insult my intelligence, and I will not insult yours. You are standing in a nest of anomalies that would give a physicist a nervous breakdown.
You triggered a localized seismic event. The artifact reacted to your presence. Now, for the final time. What. Did. You. See?"
Maya's mind raced. The glowing symbols. The shifting image of the hound. The crack. They had seen magic. Or science so advanced it was indistinguishable from magic. And this man, this 'Pandora Division,' wanted it. The truth felt like a grenade in her hands. If she pulled the pin, there was no going back.
Chloe was crying silently, tears cutting clean paths through the grime on her cheeks. Jax looked like he was trying to calculate the velocity needed to escape a bullet.
The man watched their internal struggle, his expression one of mild curiosity. He was in no rush. He had all the power here.
"We saw… symbols," Maya finally said, choosing her words with desperate care. "They… changed. For a second. Then there was a crack in the stone." It was the truth, just not all of it. She omitted the feeling, the pull, the warmth, the hum. The hound.
The man's eyes narrowed slightly, analyzing her micro-expressions, the hitch in her breath. He knew she was holding back. "Fascinating," he murmured, making a note on his tablet. "And you, Ms. Davis? As the resident expert on the esoteric, what is your professional opinion?"
Chloe flinched as if struck. She shook her head, unable to form words.
"It's a door," she finally whispered, her voice cracking. "And you… you shouldn't have opened it."
A flicker of something—interest, satisfaction—crossed the man's face. "A door. An apt, if dramatic, description." He looked past them, towards his team, who were now setting up heavy equipment around the trench. "My name is Dr. Aris Thorne. And you have presented me with the most intriguing puzzle of my career."
He turned his pale eyes back to them, and the casual warmth was gone, replaced by a cold, surgical intensity. "You three are now material witnesses to a Tier-One security event. Your phones, please."
An agent stepped forward with a shielded box. Defeated, Jax and Chloe dropped theirs in. Maya hesitated, her thumbprint the only thing linking her to the life she had just hours ago.
"Ms. Reed," Thorne prompted, his voice soft as a razor's edge.
She placed her phone in the box. It felt like a surrender.
"You will be taken to a secure facility for debriefing," Thorne continued, as if discussing the weather. "Do not contact anyone. Do not attempt to leave the city. We will know." He gave them that thin smile again. "For now, you are free to go. Try to get some rest. I have a feeling your expertise may be required again very soon."
He turned and walked away, already engrossed in his tablet, dismissing them as if they were a minor administrative task he'd just cleared.
The agents didn't move. They simply watched, a wall of silent threat, as the three of them were nudged back towards the gate. They stumbled out onto the sidewalk, the bright lights and city sounds hitting them like a physical blow. The gate clanged shut behind them, the electronic lock re-engaging with a definitive thud.
They stood there on the pavement, shivering in the cool night air, feeling exposed and horrifically small. The dig site was gone, replaced by a fortress manned by ghosts.
Jax was the first to speak, his voice hollow. "What… what just happened?"
"They knew our names," Chloe whispered, wrapping her arms around herself. "They knew everything."
Maya looked back at the impenetrable fence, at the lights, at the hidden trench where a door now sat, cracked open. Thorne's final words echoed in her mind. 'Your expertise may be required.'
It wasn't a promise. It was a threat.
Leo had been right. This had been a catastrophic mistake. But as the cold reality of their situation settled in her bones, Maya knew one thing with absolute certainty.
It was too late for regrets. The box was open. And they were trapped inside with whatever was about to crawl out.