Chapter Text
The SDN corridor lights had that tired fluorescent hue that made everyone look like they’d been awake for two hours too many, no matter how long they’d actually been on their feet. Robert paused at the door just long enough for the hesitation to feel like a choice. He tapped his badge to the reader and the light blinked green... Permission granted, consequences - pending.
Inside, the operations floor smelled like burnt coffee and like that faint, metallic ozone you only noticed when you’d spent too many nights breathing recycled air next to too many screens. The wall map glowed with points and overlays. Incidents slid in like raindrops on glass: some harmless, some heavy.
In the left, curled on a blanket beneath Chase's station like he’d signed the lease, was Beef. He stayed with the old man last night and Robert tried not to take it too personally. Beef’s tail thumped once when Robert stepped closer, his tongue lolling happily. He didn’t even lift his head!
This dog had the calm confidence of someone who knew everyone here and had never once been told “no.”
Robert crouched and scratched behind Beef’s ear.
"You guarding the place?” he murmured . Beef in response, yawned like a professional.
“You’re late.”
Mandy’s voice was level, calm enough to pass as casual. She stood by the door with a tablet in one hand, suit and hair immaculate as always. In a room full of blinking alerts, she was the only thing that looked controlled.
Robert shrugged out of his jacket and tried to make the motion look less like he needed the extra second to steady himself.
“Hey- I’m not late,” he said “SDN just runs on your time.”
Her eyes flicked to him. Stayed there a fraction too long. For a heartbeat, the air between them forgot it was being watched. Then she put the professional mask back on.
“Is that so? My time keeps this city alive, Robertson.”
“Nice to see you too.”
At the neighboring station, Galen cleared his throat without looking up from his monitors. His hands stayed moving. "Tonight’s mix includes: ‘cat in a tree,’ ‘weird smell in a laundromat,’ and someone who insists there’s ‘a light that sounds.’”
Robert slid into his chair, logged in, and settled the headset over one ear. The dashboard filled his field of view - priorities, availability, cooldowns, the Z-Team’s status sitting there like a clenched fist waiting for a reason.
“A light that sounds?” he repeated “Is that Prism-”
“No” Mandy answered too quickly. “Prism is offline. She got… a recommendation to stop broadcasting her personal life for a bit.”
Robert’s mouth twitched despite himself.
“A recommendation,” he said “or an order?”
“The difference,” Mandy replied “is whether anyone listens.” She looked at him when she added with a smirk, “And lately, people listen to you more and more Bob Bob.”
Robert rolled his eyes but something in his chest tightened with that unpleasant, familiar twist -half pride, half dread.
Dispatcher. It had started as a demotion in his head. A holding cell for someone who’d been built to run toward explosions, not route them. But the job had teeth. One decision could move people across a map like pieces on a board.
Chase showed up out of nowhere with a hot cup of tea in his hand.
"Try not to flirt on the clock,” he said, deadpan “It makes the system lag.”
Robert shot him a look. “That’s not a thing.”
Chase pointed at a monitor without looking “Everything is a thing if you name it in a ticket.”
Mandy’s mouth twitched, her gaze dropped to Beef for a second, and the edge in her expression softened in a way that made Robert’s throat go tight.
“Hi, sweet boy!” she said with a baby voice, like this was the most normal part of her morning.
Beef’s tail thumped twice - approval granted.
Mandy’s eyes returned to Robert’s face.
“Blazer,” the dispatcher began, careful “If you want me to-”
“I want you to do your job well , like always,” she cut in, and her smile was both shield and request. “The rest of it… we’re navigating, remember?" she sighs " Anyway ..have a nice shift you two”
Navigating. Like a shared route neither of them had officially entered into the system.
"Yeah, thanks."
She walked away before Robert could decide what to do with the warmth in his throat. Her heels clicked once, twice, and then she was gone. The room settled back into its steady rhythm: keys clicking, distant voices, the constant low hum .
Chase leaned back in his chair a fraction, watching Robert over the rim "Good luck with those fuckers kid. "
Robert turn to his screen with a sigh.
The first hour was exactly what it always pretended to be.
Routine. Noise. A thousand tiny emergencies that weren’t really emergencies. The call queue pulsed. The map bloomed with little icons that faded when he dealt with them and flared again somewhere else, like the city was breathing through SDN.
Robert rolled his shoulders once, cracked his knuckles under the desk, and took the next one.
A woman called that there’s a raccoon on her balcony.
Robert stared at the incident card. WILDLIFE - NONAGGRESSIVE. He could practically hear Blonde Blazer sigh from her office.
He clicked open the Z-Team console and selected two names without thinking too hard about it.
Chase didn’t look up “DO NOT,” he said “send Phenomaman.”
“I wasn’t going to send Phenomaman.”
“You were going to think it,” Chase replied
“I wasnt'-" he sighed "Punch Up. Waterboy. Balcony raccoon. Nonviolent de-escalation.”
The comm line crackled with immediate, overlapping responses.
DEPLOY: 2 UNITS
Punch Up came in first “I can take him.”
"F-finally!! I will go- I m-m-mean ap-proach it with respect!"
The wall display chimed softly. Two icons peeled away from standby and slid across the map.
Flambae scoffed theatrically “Bitch, send me. I’ll intimidate it with my aura and-”
"I will fight this raccoon if-"
Dispatcher started massaging his temples. "DO NOT fight the raccoon. If it wins, we all lose."
Golem rumbled one word “Trash.”
Sonar’s tone was dry enough to sand wood “Statistically, the raccoon will win. They always do.”
Robert tried to keep his own tone professional. It came out fond anyway.
“No raccoon boxing,” he said. “Punch Up, you’re there for intimidation only. Waterboy, you’re there to… be hydrating.
"Sure boss. ETA two minutes.”
“Copy,” Robert said, and cleared it from his queue.
The next incident hit two minutes later.
PUBLIC DISTURBANCE -“LIGHTS”
STREET PERFORMANCE
PR SENSITIVE
Prism’s voice arrived before Robert even opened the details. “If it’s a guy with a fog machine, I’m suing.”
“It’s a teenager reporting ‘laser magic’ outside a mall,” Robert said
“Send me babe” Malevola said immediately. “And send someone who looks competent standing next to me.”
Coupé replied before Robert could. “No.”
"So I'm quoting: 'there’s this guy outside the mall and he’s doing, like, LASER MAGIC. And it’s kinda cool but also my little brother is crying.'"
Of course. Before Robert couldn't decide whether to groan out loud or-
"I am still morally obligated to inform you this is trending. If we send someone, please send someone hot."
He shouldn’t have smiled as he checked the list . This one didn’t need a full team. It needed someone who could handle attention without throwing a punch.
He selected Prism and paired her with Coupé, because Coupé could cut through chaos like a blade.
DEPLOY: 2 UNITS.
By the time Prism and Coupé cleared the call-“street performer escorted, minor crowd dispersed, child no longer crying, performer now crying”- Robert had already sent out three more pairs. Two here, three there. Never the whole Z-Team unless the map screamed for it.
That was the rhythm: split the fist, keep it flexible. A small kitchen fire in a condo building that turned out to be a “new air fryer betrayal” (Flambae and Sonar, because Flambae took it personally).
A stuck elevator with a bachelorette party inside (Invisigal and Sonar; Robert refused to read the notes out loud).
A call marked ANIMAL again—this one “a dog with a cape harassing pedestrians.” (He sent Waterboy alone out of spite and got an offended all-caps response in return.)
For a while, it almost felt normal...Then the map did something subtle. A new incident appeared.
CHEMICAL STORAGE FACILITY
SILENT ALARM
CAMERA 3: OFFLINE
It was the same location as the ping couple of days ago, he remembered, but the timestamp was wrong.
Chase’s chair creaked as he leaned forward. “Shit, didn’t we already-”
“Yes...” Robert said slowly, opening the history panel. The first call sat there, cleared. This one was marked new.
A weird prickle crawled up the back of Robert’s neck.
He started to select two units again-
-and Sonar cut into comms, sharp as a snapped wire.
“Hold the sec.”
The channel went quieter. Not silent-Z-Team didn’t do silent-but the joking tones drained away like someone had pulled a plug.
Robert kept his voice level. “Sonar. You’re mid-”
“I know,” Sonar said, and his dry humor was gone. “Listen to me.”
Chase’s eyes flicked to Robert’s screen.
Sonar continued, voice low and fast. “These calls. The ones you’ve been routing. They’re not random.”
Prism, who lived to comment, actually hesitated before speaking. “Are you saying someone’s staging incidents for attention? Because that’s… my job.”
“Not that kind of attention,” Sonar said.
Robert zoomed the map out one level.
The pins-the raccoon, the mall performer, the air fryer fire, the elevator—made a curve across the city. Not a line. Not a circle. A sweep.
Chase’s voice went quiet. “That’s a net or something? ”
Invisigal’s tone sharpened. “A net for what?”
Sonar cut it “Mmmm...For blind spots? You know I'm always right.”
Robert looked at his own dispatch history. Two units here. Three units there. Efficient. Flexible ...and predictable.
Malevola’s voice tightened “You’ve been splitting us.You’ve been doing it correctly.”
Robert didn’t like the emphasis.
“In theory,” Sonar added.
“Well..? Finish the thought!"
“The pattern is built around SDN’s coverage gaps,” Sonar said. “Around where you leave the building exposed.”
Phenomamen voice turned more clear “Our building where all our brave heroes and even braver dispatches are?”
Beef lifted his head, Chase’s hand hovered near his own console, ready. Robert swallowed. On the board, a new incident card expanded
SDN TORRANCE - SERVICE ENTRANCE
ACCESS PANEL: TAMPERED
CAMERAS: LAGGING
Robert’s mouth went dry. In comms, Punch- Up voice dropped into something almost careful.
“Lad” he said “Tell me you’re not all alone in there.”
"No, there's Ma- Blond Blazer"
Robert glanced toward her office. He couldn’t see Mandy. He glanced down at Beef who could feel something was wrong and came over to his station. Te dog stared back, steady and trusting, like Robert was the safest place in the room.
All the heroes were sent into the city, only a skeleton crew remained in the building, all normies. Robert’s fingers hovered over the roster. Two units. Three units. How many did you send to protect the building you were currently sitting inside?
He forced his voice steady, because that was what dispatchers supposed to do.
“I’m not alone,” he lied.
Chase’s eyes flicked to him- warning, question, something like fear.
Flambae voice was dangerously low now "Bullshit! Only normies left this time of the day"
On the wall map, the SDN icon blinked once, twice-
-and the lights in the operation room flickered, just enough to make every screen feel suddenly fragile.
Beef whined , Chase let out a string of curses and somewhere in the building, a door latch clicked, like a countdown beginning.