James Hale moved with purpose. He didn't waste time searching manually for the right person. The first venue tech carrying a headset and tablet that crossed his path got intercepted immediately.
"You," James said.
The poor guy blinked as a tall middle-aged man in full military uniform stepped directly into his path with the kind of presence that made people instinctively stand straighter. James flipped open a wallet just long enough for the badge inside to register as federal and extremely not optional.
"General James Hale," he said crisply. "Take me to whoever's in charge of organizing this meet. Now." The tech stared for half a second too long. James's expression didn't change exactly, but something in it did. "That was not a suggestion."
Magnus had never seen someone's survival instincts activate that visibly before. The guy practically snapped into motion. "Y-yes, sir! Right this way, sir!"
James nodded once and followed immediately, long strides eating distance like he expected the rest of reality to keep up with him. Katherine walked beside him with the calm expression of a woman who had spent years adapting to this exact phenomenon. Magnus, Alex, and Sofia hurried after them.
"Do you think he realizes he's terrifying?" Sofia whispered.
Magnus considered that for a second, then shrugged. "Probably not."
Alex didn't comment. She still looked too stunned by what she was seeing to speak.
Five minutes later, they were already inside one of the administrative rooms near the center of the venue. The organizer in charge — a sweating man in his late forties wearing an event polo and a rapidly deteriorating expression — barely had time to stand before James was already speaking.
"General James Hale," he introduced himself sharply. "This venue is now under restricted integrity investigation."
The organizer paled slightly. "I—what?"
"I have reason to believe this competition may have been compromised," James continued. "At this stage, information will remain compartmentalized on a need-to-know basis to avoid alerting involved parties."
That was the first thing Magnus noticed. James never actually said sabotage. Never said criminal investigation. Never even specified who was potentially involved. He only revealed enough truth to force cooperation, yet not enough to make people panic. Honestly? It was terrifying and impressive at the same time.
"I require immediate access to all heat assignment logs, timing system records, maintenance reports, and authorized personnel lists connected to this event," James continued. "Quietly."
The organizer swallowed. "General, I-I'll cooperate, of course, but there are procedures—"
James simply looked at him.
The man folded immediately. "Right. Of course. Quietly."
Magnus exchanged a glance with Sofia. Alex still looked a bit thrown off.
"Need-to-know basis only," James added. "You will inform only personnel whose direct involvement is required for operational access. No announcements. No alerts. No discussions outside authorized channels. Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir."
"And one more thing. These individuals," James continued, gesturing toward Magnus's group without looking away from the organizer, "are with me. They will have full cooperation and unrestricted access to relevant systems and equipment."
The organizer hesitated. "Sir, with all due respect, they're students—"
"I'll take responsibility for them," James said flatly. "None of them will leave either my sight or my wife's sight unless explicitly authorized by me."
That ended the argument instantly.
Magnus was beginning to understand how this man had apparently argued military bureaucracy into assigning covert protection details to his daughter for over a decade. He resisted the urge to glance at Alex. That sounded less like a request and more like they'd accidentally gotten adopted into a military operation. Beside him, Sofia leaned slightly closer.
"…Did we just become persons of interest?" she whispered.
"Pretty sure we skipped straight past that," Magnus muttered back. "More accurate to say we've been temporarily recruited into his investigation squad."
While James continued outlining access procedures with the organizer, Katherine smoothly linked arms with Alex and gently guided her a few steps away.
"So," Katherine said lightly, "you're arguing with your boyfriend, I take it?"
Alex nearly tripped over absolutely nothing. "Aunt Kate, how did you even know—"
"—that he's your boyfriend?" Katherine looked genuinely amused. "Oh please. You two could not have made it more obvious."
Alex opened her mouth.
"And," Katherine continued mercilessly, "you definitely could not hide the fact that you're fighting, either."
Alex groaned softly. "Are we really that obvious?"
"To anyone with functioning eyes? Dear, yes."
"…Does Uncle James also know?" Alex asked cautiously.
Katherine glanced toward her husband, who was currently pressuring a venue official into cooperation with the intensity of a man interrogating enemy combatants.
"He's not exactly known for his EQ," she said with a tired sigh. "So probably not."
Alex stared. Then, despite everything, she snorted. Katherine's expression softened slightly afterward.
"Honestly," she admitted, quieter now, "there are times I wish Vanessa could be more like you."
Alex blinked. "Jordan?"
"Oh, don't get me wrong," Katherine said immediately. "I love her exactly the way she is. But the fact that most of her emotional intelligence comes from her father is precisely why those two can never communicate their feelings to one another."
She exhaled slowly.
"I thought she could at least feel some of what he felt for her," she admitted. "That's why I didn't intervene sooner."
Alex looked toward James instinctively. He was still speaking with the organizers, posture rigid and commanding, every movement sharp with restrained urgency.
This was… new. Not the rigid and dry Uncle James who was always too serious compared to her father. Not the Uncle James who had tried to fill her father's shoes after he died and ended up pushing his own daughter away in the process, either. Not even the General Hale she imagined from all the rumors and the few times Jordan had complained about her father being textbook Sam Lane. No, this was General James Hale in his natural habitat: unfiltered and uncensored.
Alex had always known James cared about Jordan — at least intellectually. That was why, for years, she'd wanted to push their family out of the emotional stalemate they'd trapped themselves in. But this? This was something else entirely.
Katherine followed her gaze and sighed again, long-suffering.
"I didn't mean to vent to you," she said. "But you see what I'm dealing with here?"
She gestured subtly toward James, who was currently making three grown adults look like nervous cadets.
"I thought I married a dutiful military man," Katherine continued. "I thought I knew what I was getting into."
A beat. "Then I found out he becomes like this whenever something involves his daughter."
Alex watched James silently pressure an entire administrative office into perfect compliance through sheer gravitational force alone.
"…Wow," she admitted.
"I love him for it," Katherine said fondly, then sighed. "But it's exhausting. Managing him is like a full-time job." A pause. "And I'm not even getting paid for it."
That finally got a laugh out of Alex. A real one. Katherine smiled at the sound.
A few minutes later, James finally finished securing clearances and turned back toward the group.
"Alright," he said as he handed out lanyards. "Two of you are coming with me to inspect the equipment and system logs."
His gaze shifted toward the track. "One of you stays with Katherine and continues monitoring for any new anomalies on this side."
Magnus, Alex, and Sofia exchanged a glance. Alex was needed for the records. That much was obvious. And Magnus's powers could come in handy, whether for detection, persuasion, or physical confrontation. Which meant…
"I'll stay," Sofia volunteered immediately.
Magnus blinked at her.
Sofia shrugged. "You two are better suited for this part."
Also, judging by her expression, she wanted to spend as little time as possible directly supervised by General James Hale. Which was fair — Magnus wasn't exactly thrilled about that part himself.
James nodded once. Decision accepted.
"Good. Then let's move."
Tony had disappeared from Magnus's shoulder at some point during the clearance process, destination unknown, but probably off investigating the "vendor situation" again, which was either fine or a disaster in the making and there was absolutely no way to know which yet.
As they started walking, Magnus noticed Alex looking at James strangely. She wasn't fearful or nervous — this was still her "Uncle James." She just seemed… unsettled. Like she was seeing a side of him she'd never fully realized existed.
Based on his conversation with Jordan earlier that week, Magnus could guess how she was feeling. He'd already had a rough idea of the terrifying lengths James Hale was capable of going to for his daughter. Still, hearing about it and witnessing it in person were two very different things.
Alex, though? This had completely caught her by surprise.
And a small, petty part of him felt oddly satisfied that Alex had been completely wrong about someone she thought she knew. He didn't comment on that, though.
***
The deeper sections of the venue felt completely different from the public areas.
White concrete walls. Dim lighting that occasionally flickered. Less noise. Less movement. More tension. More locked doors and exhausted staff carrying clipboards while trying not to make eye contact with the military general striding through their workplace like he owned it now. Which, honestly, Magnus was no longer entirely convinced he didn't.
James moved through the corridors with relentless focus, escorting Alex and Magnus between timing stations, equipment rooms, and system terminals while carefully controlling who learned what. Not once did he mention sabotage directly unless absolutely necessary.
"Routine integrity verification."
"Potential procedural inconsistency."
"Restricted review authorization."
Everything was compartmentalized, controlled, need-to-know.
Magnus suddenly understood why Jordan had compared the man to Sam Lane. Alex, meanwhile, had fully shifted into problem-solving mode. The awkwardness between her and Magnus still lingered around the edges — stolen glances, aborted eye contact, mutual awareness they were both aggressively pretending not to have — but the moment she sat down in front of the assignment systems, all of that got shoved aside by focus.
"This isn't random," she muttered, scrolling through records. "Look at this distribution."
James stepped closer immediately.
Alex pointed at the screen. "These lanes and heats individually look harmless and random. But taken together?" Her eyes narrowed. "They subtly increase cumulative fatigue for specific athletes over time while improving recovery windows for others."
"Can you prove intent?" James asked immediately.
"Not conclusively yet." Alex clicked through another set of logs. "But statistically? This is absurd."
Magnus hovered nearby pretending to help while mostly trying not to combust under the pressure of a military general silently observing everything he did. Which was hard. Very hard.
Because apparently being quietly recruited into a covert investigation by a military general was stressful — who knew?
It didn't help that James kept observing him like a sniper lining up a shot.
Magnus drifted between stations while Alex worked, partly because standing still under that scrutiny felt impossible and partly because nervous energy kept pushing him into motion.
He didn't know what he was doing and probably wouldn't remember most of it later, but Magnus was… in his natural habitat, too, in a way. A staff member dropped a stack of folders; he caught half of them before they hit the floor and handed them back without consciously thinking about it. Someone struggled with tangled cables near one of the timing stations; he crouched automatically and untangled them while his brain remained entirely occupied spiraling about failure probabilities and federal consequences. A volunteer nearly walked into a rolling equipment cart while reading a clipboard; he redirected it one-handedly without even looking. His body just… kept doing things before his mind caught up.
Alex noticed it several times from the corner of her eye — the way he instinctively steadied someone's coffee before it spilled, the way he moved around crowded equipment spaces without interrupting anyone, the way people unconsciously relaxed after interacting with him for even a few seconds — and smiled before she could stop herself. Then she immediately realized she was smiling, which was unacceptable, so she frowned at her monitor aggressively afterward.
James's gaze had also been tracking Magnus, though for entirely different reasons and with an entirely different expression. The kind that made Magnus increasingly aware of his own existence. Like he was being studied and evaluated for reasons he didn't fully understand. It made him wonder how many covert operatives developed stress disorders serving under this man.
"It's confirmed!" Alex said finally, straightening. James was beside her almost immediately.
"The assignment records were altered," she said, gesturing at the screen as she explained. "Small adjustments, nothing that would flag automatically, but consistent with what I was seeing from the stands and my earlier assessment. Small lane shifts. Recovery interval adjustments. Heat balancing changes. Someone with system access made targeted changes across multiple heats."
She paused. "It's not just Jordan, either. Several athletes got nudged into unfavorable configurations. Jordan's just the most affected."
James's expression said several things he didn't say out loud. Alex switched screens, then continued.
"The timing systems also show periodic latency spikes. Tiny ones. Small enough to pass as technical inconsistencies unless someone specifically looked for patterns."
She paused again. "It's not enough to completely rig results. But enough to introduce inconsistent delays and errors under specific conditions."
James's expression darkened. "So someone is tampering with the meet!"
"Yes," Alex said quietly. "And whoever's doing it knows exactly how much they can get away with before people start noticing."
"Can you narrow down suspects?"
"Somewhat." Alex nodded. "Whoever did this needed both system access and enough familiarity with event scheduling to know how to manipulate outcomes subtly."
While they discussed that, Magnus began feeling a weird sense of déjà vu. Then Tony abruptly landed on his shoulder hard enough to nearly give him a heart attack.
"Kid," the raccoon said gravely. "Remember that thing we discussed before?"
Magnus nearly jumped out of his skin.
"Tony," he hissed under his breath, "I swear, if this is another—"
"I meant about someone seeking to harm the fast stormy one."
Magnus froze. His posture straightened instantly.
"You found out who's trying to sabotage Jordan?"
"Well, not exactly." Tony scratched behind one ear thoughtfully. "Something smells wrong."
"That is not reassuring wording."
Tony ignored him and leaned slightly closer, lowering his voice like they were discussing organized crime instead of track meet sabotage. "Remember how I told you someone was nervous around the timing equipment?"
Magnus frowned, trying to recall it. The memory returned vaguely. At the time, it hadn't seemed important. Tony had just tossed it in like an afterthought between his rant about the vendor investigation. He also, of course, hadn't realized he'd been subconsciously tracking the timing board all morning after Tony made that comment.
"So, you're saying whoever that was is the saboteur?"
"That's what I'm trying to say, kid," Tony replied. "I found the nervous one, but he doesn't smell like he wants to harm the fast one — not predatory enough."
Magnus blinked. "…You can smell intent now?"
Tony looked offended. "All creatures leak truth, kid. Fear smells different from malice. Guilt smells different from hunger." A beat. "…Though hunger smells strongest. Speaking of which, someone dropped nachos near section three earlier—"
"Tony!"
"Right. Focus." He pointed a paw discreetly across the room. "Tall nervous one near the terminals. Smells like cornered prey."
Magnus followed the gesture and saw a lanky middle-aged man hovering near one of the equipment stations, posture tense and uneven in a way he immediately disliked. Even for someone whose observation skills constantly got criticized by Tony, Magnus could tell the man didn't look threatening at all. Just… wrong. Like someone carrying too much weight internally.
So he focused a charge of Affective Discernment.
The feedback hit instantly.
Guilt. Reluctance. Desperation.
His stomach dropped. Because Tony was right: that wasn't the emotional profile of someone gleefully sabotaging athletes. That felt like someone cornered. Someone who didn't want to be here, but felt like they had no other choice.
Magnus immediately moved toward Alex.
"Hey," he said quietly.
Both she and James looked up from the terminal.
"What happened?" Alex asked, noticing his tone.
"I need to talk to you privately for a second," he said.
Then, addressing James in a tone that didn't leave room for argument — surprising even himself — he added:
"Can we?"
James's eyes narrowed. "No unsupervised movement."
"It'll be within sight," Magnus said quickly.
James studied him for a moment, clearly unhappy about it. Then nodded once.
"Within sight," he repeated.
Magnus guided Alex only a short distance away, far enough to lower their voices without leaving James's line of vision.
"What's wrong?" Alex asked immediately.
Magnus glanced briefly toward the nervous technician. "I think we found someone involved."
Her posture sharpened instantly. "Who?"
Magnus explained quickly — Tony's observations, the emotional read from Affective Discernment, the overwhelming sense that something about the situation did not fit intentional sabotage.
Alex followed his explanation carefully, her expression tightening more with every sentence.
"…If you're telling me this instead of reporting straight to Uncle James, you probably want to do something he'll likely disapprove of. And you want me to help." She narrowed her eyes slightly. "…You want to talk to him privately?"
"I think he's scared," Magnus said quietly. "Not malicious."
"That doesn't mean he's innocent."
"I know."
Alex glanced in James's direction and exhaled sharply through her nose, clearly torn. "This is a bad idea. We should tell Uncle James."
"Maybe," he admitted. "But if General Hale approaches him like this is an interrogation, he'll shut down and we'll lose him."
She pressed her lips together. "Is this another one of your hunches?"
"Maybe."
That triggered something in her immediately. "Since when are you an expert on reading people, huh?"
He blinked. "Alex, this is not about Harper."
Alex opened her mouth to argue. But before she could say anything, her phone rang. She glanced down at the screen and immediately straightened slightly.
"Speak of the devil," she muttered before answering.
Magnus went still. Every ounce of his attention shifted instantly. Alex listened quietly for several seconds, expression carefully neutral.
"Yes," she said after a moment. "That works."
Another pause. "Tomorrow night?"
A beat. "…Okay."
She hung up slowly and exhaled.
Magnus stared at her. "Well?"
Alex rubbed at her forehead briefly.
"Harper wants to see both of us tomorrow night," she said. "At her apartment."
Magnus blinked once. "…Does that mean…?"
"I don't know yet." Alex snapped a little more sharply than intended. "You could still be wrong."
She exhaled, then added, almost reluctantly:
"But she sounded calm."
The relief that hit both of them was immediate and visible. Magnus sagged slightly. Alex closed her eyes briefly. For one quiet second, the sabotage investigation, the pressure, the tension between them — everything faded beneath the simple relief that Harper was at least willing to talk.
Then Alex opened her eyes again and looked toward the nervous technician Magnus wanted to approach.
"…Are you sure you want to do this?" she asked quietly. "Talk to him yourself?"
"Yes."
She studied him for a long moment. Then rubbed a hand down her face. "Go do it before I change my mind."
Magnus grinned despite everything. "Thanks."
And before she could reconsider, he was already turning and jogging toward the suspect.