The silence was the strangest part. In the week following Harold Finch's dramatic, self-inflicted exit from the world, an unnerving quiet settled over my life. The news cycle, predictably, had a field day. Sarah Jenkins's story broke twenty-four hours after his death, a journalistic bombshell meticulously constructed from the evidence on the USB drive. She framed it as a story of corporate malfeasance and the tragic hounding of a young, brilliant assistant, Jessica Miller. The search history, the stolen emails—it was all there. Finch was posthumously disgraced, painted as a brilliant but deeply troubled executive who buckled under the pressure of his own deceit. The police officially closed the case. The world, satisfied with a simple, tragic narrative, moved on.
For me, moving on was more complicated. The hollow space in my chest where Jessica's spirit had resided for a month was no longer a raw, empty void. It was healing over, leaving behind a kind of phantom limb—a permanent, quiet reminder of the life that had become so entangled with my own. Her justice had been served. Her soul was at peace. And my life, miraculously, was my own again.
Sort of.
The first thing I did was quit my job. I sent my manager a brief, polite email, citing "personal reasons." He didn't ask any questions. In the grand scheme of Innovate Solutions' corporate implosion, the resignation of a low-level data-entry clerk was less than a rounding error. The second thing I did was move. My old apartment was a crime scene, a place forever tainted by the memory of supernatural intrusion. With a portion of the life savings I no longer had to worry about saving, I found a new, anonymous apartment in a different neighborhood, a place with no history and, more importantly, a sturdy fire escape.
My life had a new rhythm, a new "normal." I was no longer a man on a deadline. The Contract Expiration Timer on the Eternity, Inc. phone was gone, replaced by the cool, professional status: Agent Alex Carter, Terrestrial Division. The app was still there, a silent, black monolith on my new nightstand, but its menacing presence had softened. It was no longer my executioner; it was simply my employer. An employer who, for the moment, had nothing for me to do. The Assignments tab was empty.
This period of peace was both a blessing and a curse. It gave me time to process, to breathe. It also gave me too much time to think. I had a new life, but I had no idea how to live it.
My partnership with Kevin became my new anchor. We met almost every day, not out of necessity, but out of a shared understanding. We were the only two people on Earth who knew the full truth of what had happened on that skyscraper rooftop. Our shared trauma had forged a bond that went beyond a simple business arrangement. We were friends.
"You're drifting," he told me one afternoon. We were in his apartment, the "safe house," which had become our unofficial headquarters. "You have no job, no school, no schedule. Your energy is unfocused. In our line of work, that's dangerous. You need a new discipline."
His version of discipline wasn't about getting a new job. It was about preparing for the next one. He continued my training in mental shielding, but also began to teach me the deeper theory behind his family's craft. He drew diagrams of energy flows, explained the different classifications of spiritual entities—from simple, harmless echoes to territorial phantoms to malicious, non-human predators like the Shade. He taught me how to identify the tell-tale signs of a haunting, the subtle shifts in atmosphere, the behavior of animals, the patterns of bad luck that clustered around a troubled area.
"This world is a lot more crowded than people think," he explained, sketching a diagram on a whiteboard. "Most of the time, the supernatural and the mundane ignore each other. They exist on slightly different frequencies. Our job, as 'janitors,' is to deal with the static, the interference, the places where those frequencies bleed into each other and cause problems."
During one of these sessions, he pointed to the black phone. "You have one hundred and twenty-five Merit Points," he said. "That's a powerful resource. We shouldn't let it sit idle. Your bosses gave you a signing bonus. It's time we invested it in your professional development."
We opened the Rewards Catalog. It felt different now. I wasn't a desperate man looking for a lifeline. I was a new employee with a budget, looking for the right tools for the job.
"We need something that moves you from being passive bait to an active participant," Kevin reasoned, scrolling through the list. "Your empathy skill is a great detection tool, but it's reactive. You need something proactive."
We debated the options. [Minor Pyrokinesis] seemed tempting but was too flashy and cost a fortune. [Talisman Crafting] was interesting, but Kevin said the quality of my work would be inferior to his for years. Then we found it.
Item: Aura Sight (Level 1) - Permanent Skill
Description: Grants the user the ability to perceive the basic life force (aura) of living beings. Allows for the general assessment of emotional states (e.g., anger, fear, calmness) and physical vitality.
Cost: 20 MP.
"This one," Kevin said immediately. "This is perfect. It's an expansion of your natural empathy. Instead of just feeling ghosts, you'll be able to read living people. You'll be able to walk into a room and instantly know who's scared, who's lying, who's a threat. It's an investigator's most powerful tool."
It felt right. It was an evolution of the skills I already had. I confirmed the purchase. There was no flash of light, just a strange, warm sensation behind my eyes, like a dormant circuit being switched on for the first time. I looked at Kevin.
And I could see it. It was faint, a shimmering, translucent energy field that clung to his body. It was predominantly a calm, steady blue, but it had flecks of other colors swirling within it—a focused, intellectual silver, a core of deep, protective green.
"Whoa," I breathed. "Your… your colors. They're blue."
Kevin smiled. "It works. Good. Now you have a new way to see the world."
We spent the rest of the afternoon with me practicing my new sight, looking at people on the street from his window, learning to interpret the chaotic, colorful language of human auras.
The peace was broken the next day.
I was making coffee in my new apartment when the black phone, which had been dormant for over two weeks, chimed. It was a crisp, professional notification tone, not the frantic alarm from before. A new case file had been opened.
I sat down at my kitchen table, my heart starting a familiar, faster rhythm. Kevin and I had known this was coming. The vacation was over. I opened the Assignments tab.
[New Case File Opened. Type: Unsanctioned Spiritual Nexus] [Location: The Evergreen Galleria - Schaumburg, IL] [Brief: The recently opened Evergreen Galleria shopping mall is experiencing escalating paranormal phenomena. Reports include significant merchandise displacement, security system malfunctions, and multiple sightings of animated mannequins by night-staff. The mall was constructed on the site of the former Greenwood Cemetery. Eternity, Inc. analysis indicates the mall's unique, circular architectural design has inadvertently created a powerful "Nexus Array" (聚灵阵), a spiritual convergence point. This array is actively drawing in and empowering local, un-processed spirits.] [Mission: Identify the focal point of the Nexus Array and dismantle it before the empowered entities cause a public incident resulting in loss of life.] [Reward: 150 Merit Points. Threat Level: Escalating.]
Animated mannequins. A haunted shopping mall built on a graveyard. It sounded like the plot of a bad 80s horror movie. But the threat level, "Escalating," and the high reward told me this was no joke. This wasn't a single ghost with a single regret. It was a systemic problem, an environmental disaster.
I immediately called Kevin. "We've got a new one," I said, and read him the brief.
There was a long silence on the other end of the line.
"A Nexus Array," he finally said, and I could hear the deep concern in his voice. "Alex, this is bad. Really bad. A Weeping Spot is like a puddle. A Nexus Array is a whirlpool. It doesn't just collect energy; it amplifies it. And animated mannequins… that means the spirits there are strong enough to possess inanimate objects. That takes a lot of power."
"So, what's the plan?" I asked.
I heard him sigh. "The plan is we do our research. And then we go to the mall." There was a pause, and then he added, with a tone of deep, personal suffering, "God, I hate shopping malls."