Division 13 Case File 013-010: Aftermath

“Jack was the kind of man who…”

In the wake of The Tomb, Division 13 gathers to lay one of their own to rest.

But grief doesn’t last long in this line of work.

Behind closed doors, a long-overdue conversation with government liaison Loretta Smith begins to unravel the truth behind Division 13… and the program that created it.

What starts as a debrief quickly becomes something more:

A realization that the team may have never been in control.

As the dust settles, one thing becomes clear:

The mission didn’t end in Alaska.

It’s only just beginning.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

My name is Hannah Keegan. I'm a lead detective for a top-secret New York Police Department Task Force. We're assigned to the unexplained cases that border on the paranormal. This is Division 13, and here are our case files.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

There is a particular quality to November funerals in New York. The cold has an intention to it that summer burials don't. A weight, a finality, as if the season itself is confirming what you already know. The sky over Greenwood was the color of old concrete, low and flat, pressing down on everything below it. We stood at the graveside, the four of us, plus Loretta Smith a few steps back, plus Jack's family in the front row. His wife Heather, composed in a way that must have cost her everything she had. His kids, Mark and Teresa, standing close to their mother, both of them too young to fully understand, and old enough to understand exactly enough. Many of Jack's relatives, family, and friends. I had attended too many funerals. I knew how to stand at one, how to hold my expression, how to be present without letting the weight of it show on the outside. It was a skill I wish I hadn't developed. Castile stepped up to the podium. I had asked her if she wanted to say a few words. She had looked at me and said quietly that she needed to. There was a difference, and I understood it. She stood there for a moment before she spoke, looking out at the small gathering. Colleagues, a few friends from outside the unit, Jack's family in the front row. She took one measured breath. Then she began.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

No matter how bad things were, he could make you feel like everything was gonna turn out okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

She paused, not for effect, just because she needed a moment.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

I can honestly say Jack was my best friend on the force from day one. I'm pretty sure when he looked at me, he saw a rookie that was in way over her head and overwhelmed. And he jumped in to help without being asked. That's just who he was. I remember my first real call that went sideways. I was headstrong and stubborn. I thought I had it under control.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

A small, self-aware pause.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

I didn't. Jack didn't say much, didn't make me feel small. He just stepped in, handled what needed handling, and afterward, he looked at me and said, Are we having fun yet? With this huge grin.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

A few quiet sounds from the gathering, soft laughter, the recognition of a man they knew.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

That sense of humor of his helped me get through too many tough times to count. He could diffuse the roughest situation and had a way of bringing the best out of those around him. He wasn't shy, that's for sure. He could get loud.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

She smiled briefly, genuinely.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

And usually did.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

More quiet sounds. Even Kendrick, who had been standing with the stillness of a man holding something very heavy, allowed himself a brief exhale and what might have been a smile.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

But he was unapologetic about it. And the more time you spent around him, the more you learned that he truly had a heart of gold. He was a man of conviction. With Jack, there was no gray area. There was good and there was evil. If you were a good person, Jack would do anything for you.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

A pause.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

If you were a bad guy, as he liked to say, he'd make you rethink your life choices. He was a hero in every sense of the word.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

She looked down for a moment. When she looked back up, her eyes had moved to the front row.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

He was also a family man. If you asked him about his wife Heather, or his kids Mark and Teresa, you'd better be ready for him to go on and on.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Her voice softened.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

And on.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Heather Miller's composure held, but only just. She put her hand on Teresa's shoulder and kept it there.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Yes, Jack was an excellent officer. He was my mentor and my best friend. He was a hero. But before any of that, he was theirs.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

Castile's voice caught briefly and honestly.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

He loved them so much.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

She steadied herself, took a breath.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

We don't get to choose how any of this ends. We just suit up every day and try to do some good in this crazy world. That was Jack, my partner, my friend. Rest easy, Jack.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

She looked at us then. At me, at Kendrick, at Overton. Direct. A declaration as much as a farewell.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

We'll take it from here.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

She stepped back from the podium. The silence that followed was the kind that holds something in it, full of the specific weight of a person who is gone and shouldn't be. I thought about a weapons officer who had said, I'm good, Cap, like it was a simple fact. Who had watched a door with his eyes while Overton dressed his arm, who had told me in the end, that it wasn't a choice. He was right. It wasn't. That didn't make it easier to stand here. As the service concluded and the gathering began to disperse, I made my way to Heather Miller. She looked at me with the steady, knowing eyes of a woman who had understood for a long time what her husband's work might one day cost.

SPEAKER_03 6:15

He talked about you, she said. About the team. He was proud to be there. And he was happy that he convinced Raina to come too.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

I didn't know Jack as long as Raina did, I said. But what I do know is he was the best weapons officer I've ever worked with. And a better man than that. It was my honor to work with him. Your family has my word. We won't forget what he gave. She nodded, squeezed my hand once, then turned back to her children. I rejoined the team. As we turned to leave, I heard Loretta Smith's measured footsteps behind me.

SPEAKER_03 7:00

Captain Shipman.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Her voice was quiet, composed.

SPEAKER_03 7:05

It's time for that talk. My office. Bright and early tomorrow. You and the team.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

I looked at her. She held my gaze without flinching. We'll be there, I said. Her office occupied a corner of the building's upper floor that I had been in exactly twice before. Once when I was first briefed on the unit's operational parameters, and once when she told me the tomb had gone dark. Both times the room had felt like a place where information came to be controlled rather than shared. Today felt different. Not warmer exactly, but different. We were all present: Kendrick, Overton, Castillo, and myself arranged in the chairs across from Loretta's desk. Smith herself sat behind it with the composed stillness of someone who had spent the night deciding exactly what she was going to say and in what order. She said. Her expression was unreadable in the particular way that professional composure becomes its own kind of communication. She opened the floor for questions. Overton didn't hesitate. Her notebook was already open, pen in hand.

SPEAKER_04 8:26

How long has all of this been going on? The Nullborn, Sentinel Prime. We know the federal government funds us, and that our operational authorization traces way higher than the NYPD. But we've never been given the full picture.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Smith nodded, as if she had expected this question to be the first.

SPEAKER_04 8:58

Unusual sightings, disappearances, unexplained incidents in remote areas. At the time, they didn't know what they were looking at.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Kendrick leaned forward slightly. Smith acknowledged this with a brief nod.

SPEAKER_04 9:24

The connection was noted. So the NSA stepped in and authorized a siloed unit within the CIA to investigate, purely intelligence gathering at first. Military combat personnel came later as the nature of the threat became clearer.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

She paused.

SPEAKER_04 9:52

The first full operational division, Division I, was an international intelligence and combat unit.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Overton looked up from her notebook.

SPEAKER_04 10:02

The designation implies they anticipated needing more than one. Yes, Division II was formed two years later, in 1951. A joint task force with the Japanese government, created during the negotiations surrounding the San Francisco Peace Treaty.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Smith's expression remained level.

SPEAKER_04 10:22

It was formed in response to a series of emergency calls about an orange-eyed figure in the Aokigahara Forest.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

I heard Castillo draw a quiet breath.

SPEAKER_04 10:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Smith held my eyes for a moment.

SPEAKER_04 10:51

What we know is that Division II was stood up quickly, quietly, and with the full cooperation of the Japanese government, which suggests they had already seen enough to take it seriously.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

I noted Kendrick processing this. The slight shift in his posture, the almost imperceptible tightening of his expression. He was doing what he always did, absorbing information and immediately asking himself what it meant for the people around him, for the mission. Smith continued.

SPEAKER_04 11:23

From Central Asia and Japan, Nullborn activity moved westward. First sightings on the American West Coast appeared in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This is when Sentinel Prime took administrative control of the Anchorage facility.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

She paused.

SPEAKER_04 11:52

Some function as investigation and mitigation units like Division 13. Some are primarily intelligence. Some have.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

She chose her next words carefully.

SPEAKER_04 12:04

Other functions. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Castillo's voice was controlled, but just barely.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Like experimenting on captives in an Alaskan black site.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Something moved across Smith's face. The beginning of a defensive reaction, quickly and professionally suppressed. When she spoke, her voice was measured.

SPEAKER_04 12:29

Certain actions are being taken in the name of national security. Whether we agree with all of them or not, the nullborn represent a threat of unknown scope and origin. Steps are being taken to understand what we are dealing with and to mitigate that threat.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Her expression settled into something stony, indicating that the subject had been closed. I watched Castillo hold the line. She wasn't satisfied, and she wasn't pretending to be. But she understood, as we all did, that pressing harder on that particular door wasn't going to open it today. I steered us forward. That brings us to Billy Wrath and the creation of our unit. It makes sense that Sentinel Prime was able to stand up Division XIII quickly. You'd done it twelve times before. But Cole's tape raised a harder question. I looked at her directly. Was Billy Wrath a trigger incident? Did the no-born deliberately engineer the creation of Division XIII? And if so, to what end? Smith was quiet for a moment. I didn't think she was being evasive, really, just considering her response.

SPEAKER_04 13:44

It is currently believed, yes. Billy Rath was used as a flag incident to precipitate the formation of this unit.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

She folded her hands on the desk.

SPEAKER_04 13:55

To explain the full picture, I need to go back to 1962. During a containment operation in Alaska, the full details of which remain classified above my clearance level, Sentinel Prime came into possession of an unusual object. It appeared to be self-sustaining, generating a low-level energy output with no identifiable power source. It was transported to the Anchorage facility for analysis.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

She paused.

SPEAKER_04 14:23

Attempts to understand it were unsuccessful. The language inscribed on its surface matched nothing in any known linguistic database, but the symbols clearly matched those on the object your team recovered after apprehending Cole.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Overton's pen had stopped moving. She was watching Smith with the focused stillness of someone assembling a picture.

SPEAKER_04 14:46

It is now believed, Smith continued, that the Nullborn used Billy Rath to engineer the creation of Division 13 specifically, not randomly, specifically. The goal was to create a unit that would eventually result in Cole's capture and placement at the Anchorage facility.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

She looked at me.

SPEAKER_04 15:07

His apprehension appears to have accomplished two things. First, it served Cole's personal agenda, his proximity to you, Captain. Second, it gave him access to the Anchorage facility, where he could retrieve the power source and release Wrath. So, as of now, they have one artifact, we have the other. And based on what Cole said on the tape, both pieces are part of something we don't yet understand.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

The room was very quiet. So they're assembling something, I said. Not a question. All of it. Cole's capture, the tomb, the tablet we recovered in the field. It's one big scavenger hunt.

SPEAKER_04 15:52

That appears to be the case.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Smith confirmed.

SPEAKER_04 15:56

The two objects recovered so far seem to be components of a larger device. Purpose unknown. Every attempt to translate the inscriptions has failed.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

I filed that in the cold, quiet place where I kept the things that didn't have answers yet. Felt the weight of it settle alongside everything else that lived there.

SPEAKER_04 16:16

What about NEON?

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Overton asked, her voice returning to its clinical register.

SPEAKER_04 16:23

The drug operation we shut down in Harlem. What is Sentinel Prime's understanding of its function? The NEON operation appears to be part of an international distribution network, Smith said. It serves two purposes: financing the nullborne's activities and functioning as an experimental transformative agent. The biotech embedded in the compound has variable effects on those exposed, depending on factors we don't fully understand yet.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Castillo frowned. I answered before Smith could. Carlos survived, but he was the exception, not the rule. Smith nodded.

SPEAKER_04 17:21

Correct. Of those who survived the initial exposure, many devolve into a diminished state, minimal cognition, driven primarily by base responses. What we observed at the Anchorage facility represents one end of that spectrum.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

She paused.

SPEAKER_04 17:39

Based on Cole's account of his own transformation, our lab analyst Russo believes that neon may be an attempt by the Nullborn to streamline the conversion process, to create a more controllable, reproducible version of what was done to Cole under direct supervision.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

The silence that followed carried a specific texture. Castillo had gone very still. Kendrick's jaw was tight. Overton was riding again, quickly, not looking up. I understood what they were all processing. The idea that the nullborn were attempting to mass-produce what Cole had become, working toward a version of transformation that didn't require a mountain laboratory and weeks of agonized recovery was not a comfortable thing to sit with. Kendrick cleared his throat. Alien? Radioactive mutation? Some kind of Soviet experiment that went wrong?

SPEAKER_04 18:42

Unknown.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Smith said. When she responded, her voice was measured but had acquired a sharper edge.

SPEAKER_04 19:13

I'd caution the team against confusing compartmentalization with a lack of support.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

She looked at me directly.

SPEAKER_04 19:20

I understand how important the concept of loyalty is to this unit, Captain. Believe me.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

She turned to include the room.

SPEAKER_04 19:29

But the stakes here are extraordinarily high. Sentinel Prime does not share information freely. That is a direct inheritance from its CIA roots. Need to know is not negligence, it is operational doctrine.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Her expression softened very slightly. Overton moved the conversation forward with the precision of someone who had been waiting for the right moment.

SPEAKER_04 20:29

The mole. Cole had a concealed explosive charge and had a pre-positioned duffel bag at the Anchorage facility. That doesn't happen without inside access. Did you or anyone at Prime suspect a breach before the tomb went dark?

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Something shifted in Smith's composure, not guilt. I studied her carefully for that. What I saw instead was something more like the specific frustration of a person who has been stonewalled and is angry about it.

SPEAKER_04 20:59

I had no knowledge of a mole, she said.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

The emphasis was precise.

SPEAKER_04 21:05

If I had, I would not have sent your team into that facility. As for whether anyone above my level suspected a breach, she stopped. I am being given very limited information on that question, which is itself an answer of a kind.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

She turned to Overton then, and her posture changed almost imperceptibly. Less the government liaison managing a difficult briefing, more a person making a decision she had been thinking about for a while.

SPEAKER_04 21:34

This is where I'd like your assistance, Inspector. You are one of the top-ranked investigative detectives I have encountered in this program. And more importantly, you are someone I believe can be trusted with sensitive material.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

She paused. Overton looked at me. Your call, I said.

SPEAKER_04 22:04

I'm in.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Overton said, without hesitation. I nodded at Smith. As long as Overton is available when the team needs her in the field.

SPEAKER_04 22:14

Understood.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Smith said. She closed her folder. The meeting was over. We filed out. The garage was cold and smelled of oil and concrete, and it offered us freedom to talk openly in a way that Smith's office didn't. We gathered between two vehicles without premeditation, the default debrief location, close enough to the building to be convenient, far enough from any office to speak freely.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

She held back.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Castillo said. Not an accusation, a statement of fact, delivered the same way she would assess a tactical situation. Obviously, Kendrick said. The question is, how much? And whether it was by choice or by limitation.

SPEAKER_03 23:05

Probably both.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Overton said. She had her notebook open, reviewing what she had written.

SPEAKER_04 23:13

Some of what she didn't say, she couldn't say. The classification levels are real. And the stonewalling she mentioned about the mole investigation read as genuine to me. She was frustrated by it.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

She looked up.

SPEAKER_04 23:28

But some of it she chose not to say. The experiments at the tomb, Evelyn Carter's apparent reanimation, and there's whatever's above her clearance regarding the original 1962 Alaska operation. There's more there.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Kendrick said. He didn't sound defeated by this. He sounded like a man filing a fact and moving on. That's just the nature of working inside a system that operates on secrets. I had been listening and thinking. I think we extend her a working trust. Not blind faith, working trust. She came to us today. She escalated our clearance. She handed us the mole investigation rather than keeping it internal. I looked at them. That's either genuine goodwill or a very sophisticated attempt to manage us. Either way, it serves us to play along. Because if it's goodwill, we gain an ally with access we need. And if it's management.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Overton's inside it.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Castillo finished. Exactly. I looked at Overton. You're not just investigating the mole, you're our eyes on whatever Prime is doing with that investigation. Overton's expression was precisely neutral, which was its own kind of answer. She already knew. She had known when she said yes. Kendrick smiled at her. Look at you. Side quest. Overton looked at him, then, with the controlled precision she applied to everything, she punched him in the shoulder. Kendrick laughed, the full, genuine version, the one that didn't come out often but was worth waiting for when it did. I caught a flash of something on Castillo's face, brief and quickly managed, an expression that was gone before it fully formed. But I had seen it. I filed it quietly and said nothing. Alright, I said. Let's get back upstairs. We've got work to do. The training room on the third floor was the closest thing Division 13 had to a common space. A large mat floor, a weights section along the far wall, a heavy bag that Kendrick had nearly destroyed on three separate occasions. It smelled of rubber and effort. It was several days after our briefing in Loretta's office. We had been running a group session for about an hour. Castillo and Kendrick were sparring on the main mat, which had been, for the last several minutes, less a training exercise and more an ongoing debate conducted entirely through physical contact. You're dropping your left, Kendrick said, landing a controlled hit to demonstrate the point. Sure you are.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

I'm faster than you, and we both know it.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

Kendrick's expression suggested he had opinions about this. He did not share them verbally. He shared them physically instead. Overton was at the far end of the room running drills, moving through her sequence with the clean efficiency she applied to everything. No wasted motion, no excess. She caught my eye briefly and gave the almost imperceptible expression that meant she had already assessed who was winning the sparring match and had chosen not to weigh in. Castillo called out across the room as I moved toward the door. I paused with my hand on the doorframe, considered it. Ask me again after you've been doing this for another ten years.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

That's not a no, she said.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

Kendrick groaned. I allowed myself a brief smile, the small, private kind, and pushed the door open. Loretta Smith was standing on the other side of it. She was not alone. The man beside her was somewhere in his late twenties, lean, with the relaxed, economical posture of someone who was always aware of his surroundings, without appearing to be. He was carrying a hard-sided equipment case in one hand, with the casual ease of someone who had been carrying heavy things for a long time. He looked at the room with calm, vaguely interested eyes. Smith cleared her throat. The sound carried. The training room went quiet.

SPEAKER_04 28:21

Division 13?

SPEAKER_00 28:22

Her voice had the tone she used when she wanted full attention and was accustomed to getting it.

SPEAKER_04 28:28

Allow me to introduce your new weapons officer.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

She gestured to the man beside her.

SPEAKER_03 28:33

Kenjiro Kagemoto.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

The man stepped forward. He set the equipment case down at his feet with practiced care. He looked around the room. At Castillo, still in a fighting stance, at Kendrick, who was watching him with the measured assessment he gave everything new. At Overton, who had turned from her drills and was studying him with the focus she brought to anything that required a rapid evaluation. He cleared his throat. A slight, easy smirk settled at the corner of his mouth. Call me Kenny. The room held the beat for a moment. Then Castillo, because she always did, spoke first.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

What's in the case, Kenny?

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Kenny looked down at it, then back up at Castillo with the sly expression of a man who had been waiting for exactly that question. That, he said, is a conversation we should probably have sitting down.