Shaded Soldiers || Gay MxM || Omegaverse

16. Lost Tracks

"All right, boys, I need your attention," Captain spoke late that day, looking as tired and concerned as the rest of us. We all turned our backs on our computers to face him. "It's been... seventeen hours, and no one still has anything, correct?"

"Not a single lead, no," Daz agreed, while everyone nodded.

Captain let out a deep sigh. "Almost as if they never even stepped foot in our city..."

"The footage is real. They were at the City Hall last night," Daz noted. "And we have them on several cameras right before they vanished."

"It's not supposed to be possible to vanish like that. Not in the crown city," Captain said. "Especially a rookie group like that."

"We must assume they're either a puppet group, or they have help."

"You made sure the surveillance footage wasn't tampered?" Captain asked Nico. "All cameras stayed fully functional through the night?"

"Yes, sir. I found no evidence of tampering, and no one has turned off the cameras."

"That's what the other teams found out as well..." Captain muttered. "It is beginning to look like we don't know our own city nearly as well as we thought."

"It is possible they are using the hidden passageways," Daz spoke slowly. "I know they're supposed to be blocked, but it is possible someone has been opening them behind our backs."

"Those passageways are closely monitored by us," Captain noted. "We would know if someone has opened them."

"Do we?" Daz asked. "That's a lot of passageways to keep track of."

Captain didn't look so sure about that.

I hesitated, but since no one was in a hurry to talk, I decided to ask about the passageways since I wasn't sure what they were talking about.

Captain turned to me after my question. "That is classified information. No one is supposed to know about them, so keep the following information to yourself."

I nodded. "Yes, sir."

"The passageways are one of the reasons Jomica was so successful. They built tunnels all over the cities, connecting sewers and railway tunnels and parking garages, and hid them so perfectly I doubt we've still found all of them to this day. And I agree, those tunnels are our best bet."

"We just don't know where the rest of them could be," Daz said. "They had whole construction companies working on them."

Captain closed his eyes, letting his frustration show. "Rookie group or not, Lonnie Hill is Paul Hill's brother. And Paul Hill was such a high rank jomica he must've known a lot about those tunnels."

"Lonnie Hill must've gotten his hands on that information," Daz agreed. "But all the tunnels surrounding City Hall were sealed shut with iron and concrete."

"And are you sure there can't be one more tunnel you don't know about?" Captain asked him.

Daz was silent for a brief moment, then sighed and shook his head. "No, sir."

"With luck, all they need is one or two tunnels we don't know about," Captain said. "But we're running out of time. We can send people to search for them, but Hill will make his move soon. He knows the risk of getting caught increases by the hour."

"We won't find them," Daz said gloomily. "They are so well hidden we'd need hundreds of people to break every single wall around City Hall with sledgehammers."

Captain nodded and turned to me. "Riley? Any luck with the mafia?"

"There's a lot of activity at their headquarters. A lot of people going in and out, but it doesn't look like they know more than we do," I said.