I'm sitting cross-legged on my hotel bed, still fully dressed, scrolling through my phone while Mom takes a shower. The bathroom door is cracked open - she's still keeping tabs on me even with a wall between us. The TV is on mute, cycling through the same aerial footage of Boston Commons that they've been showing for hours.

  Sleep feels impossible. Every time I close my eyes, I see that news headline flashing across Mom's phone. I hear Jordan's voice in my head: No bomb fragments, no residue, no nothing.

  My HIRC chat with Jordan hasn't pinged in almost an hour. Last message was just: Taking a break. Need food. Back soon.

  But the news sites haven't stopped updating. I've opened at least twenty tabs on my phone, each with a different angle on the Boston explosion. The latest updates confirm what Jordan was saying - no evidence of conventional explosives found at the scene. Official statements now call it an "Activation incident resulting in concussive energy discharge."

  Fancy words for "someone got powers and blew up."

  A new video has just been posted to VidShare. The caption reads: "Drone footage seconds before Boston Commons explosion. Warning: Disturbing content."

  I hesitate, then click play. The footage is shaky but clear enough - shot from about thirty feet up, showing the dense crowd of protesters near the center of the Commons. Police in riot gear are visible on three sides, moving in with barriers, sectioning off parts of the crowd, herding them into an increasingly compressed space.

  The audio is mostly wind noise and the mechanical hum of the drone, but you can hear chanting, then shouting as the crowd realizes they're being boxed in. The pushing starts - people at the edges desperate to break free, people in the middle getting crushed. Signs wave frantically. Someone falls.

  Then, a flash of white light from somewhere in the center of the crowd. The camera jerks violently, the image distorts, and the video just stops.

  I replay it three times, trying to pinpoint exactly where the flash originated, but it's impossible. One second there's a crowd, the next there's an explosion of light and force. Whoever Activated is completely anonymous in that sea of faces.

  The bathroom door opens wider, and Mom emerges in her pajamas, hair wrapped in a towel. She looks at me, then at the phone in my hands, and sighs.

  "You should try to sleep, Sam."

  "I can't," I admit. "My brain won't shut off."

  She sits on the edge of my bed, her weight making the mattress dip. "I know. Mine either."

  "They're confirming it was an Activation," I tell her, holding up my phone. "There's drone footage now. You can see the police kettling the protesters right before it happened."

  Mom takes my phone, watches the video once, then hands it back, her face grim. "Exactly what we've been warning about. Create enough pressure, and something will eventually explode."

  "But why there? Why Boston?"

  "Why not Boston?" Mom counters. "Large protest, aggressive police response. It could have happened at any of the demonstrations. It could've happened here."

  I shake my head. "It just feels... I don't know. Convenient."

  "For whom?" Mom raises an eyebrow. "Not for us. Not for the person who Activated and probably has no idea what happened to them. Not for the injured."

  "I don't know," I admit. "Just a feeling."

  Mom reaches over and brushes hair from my face - a gesture so unexpectedly tender it almost makes me flinch. "Your instincts are good, Sam. But sometimes terrible things happen without a grand conspiracy behind them."

  I nod, not convinced but too tired to argue. Mom stands up and moves to her own bed.

  "Try to get some sleep," she says. "Tomorrow's going to be another long day."

  I set my phone on the nightstand and curl up on top of the covers, not bothering to change into pajamas or even take off my shoes. I don't actually expect to fall asleep, but exhaustion has other plans.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  I dream of explosions. Of blue light and screaming. Of Aunt Rebecca calling my name, but when I turn around, it's not her face I see but Abigail's, glowing with strange energy. I reach for her, but she's too far away, and then suddenly I'm in the tunnels beneath Philadelphia, and there's water rising around my ankles, and Illya is standing in front of me saying, "Some things are meant to be contained."

  For the tiniest moment I wonder how he's doing.

  I jolt awake to the sound of an alarm - harsh, electronic, and coming from both my phone and Mom's simultaneously. For a half-second I think it's my typical wake-up alarm, but it's still dark outside, and this sound is different. More urgent.

  Mom is already sitting up, fumbling for her phone on the nightstand, bleary and glassesless. I grab mine and see the screen flashing with an emergency alert:

  EMERGENCY ALERT

  CIVIL AUTHORITY ISSUED

  FACILITY BREACH - DAEDALUS CORRECTIONAL

  03:13 EDT

  MULTIPLE DANGEROUS INDIVIDUALS HAVE ESCAPED FROM DAEDALUS CORRECTIONAL FACILITY IN NORTHERN NEW YORK. AT LEAST THREE CONFIRMED ESCAPEES. REMAIN INDOORS. DO NOT APPROACH UNFAMILIAR INDIVIDUALS. REPORT SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY TO LOCAL AUTHORITIES IMMEDIATELY.

  STANDBY FOR FURTHER INFORMATION.

  I stare at the message, reading it again and again as if the words might rearrange themselves into something that makes more sense. Daedalus. The superhuman prison. The supposedly escape-proof facility that Pop-pop helped design.

  "Mom," I say, my voice sounding strange to my own ears. I'm still dreaming, right? "Mom, did you--"

  "I see it," she says, her face illuminated by the glow of her phone screen. She looks ghostly in the dim light, all sharp angles and shadows. "Daedalus."

  "Daedalus," I repeat. "The prison Pop-pop worked on."

  Mom is already up, moving to the window, peering out at the city as if she might spot escaped supervillains on the streets of Harrisburg. "It's hundreds of miles from here," she says. "Northern New York. Near the Canadian border."

  "But a nationwide alert..." I trail off.

  My phone buzzes with a HIRC notification. Jordan, finally back online:

  Jordan: Are you seeing this?? Daedalus break-in??

  I type back quickly: Just got the alert. Do you have any details?

  Jordan: Nothing specific yet. MIT security just did another sweep of campus. They're locking down all tech labs for some reason.

  I relay this to Mom, who's now pacing the small hotel room, one hand pressed to her forehead like she's trying to physically hold her thoughts in place. I must be dreaming. My feet feel cold.

  "Why now?" she murmurs. "Why today of all days?"

  The question hangs in the air between us. My mind races, connecting dots that I'm not even sure belong in the same picture. Boston explosion. Coordinated protests. Daedalus break-in. All within the span of twelve hours.

  "It can't be a coincidence," I say finally.

  Mom stops pacing and looks at me. "What do you mean?"

  "All of this happening at once. The protests that you organized nationwide. The explosion in Boston. Now a prison break at a supposedly impenetrable facility."

  "Sam, you can't possibly think these are connected."

  "Why not?" I sit up straighter. "Think about it. If you wanted to create a distraction - a massive, nationwide distraction that would pull resources and attention in multiple directions - what better way than to capitalize on protests that were already planned? Add an explosion, create chaos, and while everyone is focused on that..."

  "Break into Daedalus," Mom finishes, her expression shifting from skepticism to something closer to alarm. "But that would require..."

  "Planning," I say. "Resources. Knowledge of both the protests and Daedalus security."

  Mom sits down heavily on her bed. Her entire body sags. "Sam. I know what you're thinking. But you have to consider your locus of control. There's nothing either of us can do about it, especially not staring at our phones. Is it coordinated, or just someone taking advantage? We'll probably never know."

  "Is it?" I grab my phone again, opening the browser, as her words sort of skim over me. "Let's see what they're saying about how it happened."

  But there's frustratingly little information. Just the initial alert and early news reports confirming a "security breach" at the facility. No details on how it was accomplished or which prisoners have escaped.

  "Three prisoners," I mutter. "At least three. But they're not saying who."

  Mom is checking her own phone now, scrolling through news sites. "Nothing specific yet. Just confirmation that it happened around 2 AM and that local and federal authorities are responding."

  My phone buzzes again.

  Jordan: Update from scanner. Sounds like they're calling it a "coordinated external attack" on Daedalus. Not an inside job.

  Jordan: Also overheard security talking about "all hands on deck" - pulling officers from other assignments.

  I show Mom the messages. "External attack," I say. "Someone broke them out."

  Mom rubs her temples. "We should try to get some sleep. There's nothing we can do about this tonight."

  But I'm wide awake now, my mind racing. "I'm going to check the team chat," I say, already opening HIRC again.

  The group chat is active despite the hour:

  Amelia: Woke up to emergency alert. Daedalus break-in. Anyone have details?

  Maggie: Just the official alert. My dad (police) got called in for emergency meeting.

  Lily: Lucy says Tacony Titans are doing extra patrols tonight. Whole city on edge.

  Tasha: Philadelphia PD scanner talking about "heightened security protocols" and "special attention to transportation hubs."

  I add my own message: Also awake. In Harrisburg with Mom. Just the emergency alert so far. Jordan says MIT security doing extra sweeps.

  Tasha: Timing feels suspicious to anyone else?

  I stare at Tasha's message for a long moment. She's thinking the same thing I am.

  Mom has laid back down, though I can tell from her breathing that she's not asleep. I return to my own bed, leaning against the headboard, phone in hand. I'm awake. I'm not dreaming.