Division 13 Case File 013-013: The Raid

After months of reacting to impossible cases, Division 13 finally goes on the offensive.

As Shipman and the team begin connecting the dots between Billy Rath, Neon, Apex Technology Solutions, and the terrifying events at The Tomb, a disturbing pattern begins to emerge — one suggesting the Nullborn have been planning something far larger than anyone imagined.

Their investigation leads them to a Neon distribution warehouse deep in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

What begins as a tactical raid quickly escalates into Division 13’s first true strike against the hidden forces operating beneath New York City.

But even victory comes with new questions.

A mysterious map recovered during the operation may reveal something even more terrifying than the drug itself — evidence that the Nullborn have been secretly tracking locations throughout the city for years.

And if the markings on the map mean what Division 13 fears they mean…

then the war beneath New York may already be far more advanced than anyone realizes.

Listen now, then subscribe, share the show, and leave a review so more people find Division 13.

Transcript

Why Division 13 Exists

SPEAKER_04 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_01 0:15

There are days in this work when the cases pile up faster than the answers. And eventually you have to stop moving and actually look at what you have. Not to solve it, not yet, but just to see it clearly. To spread it out on the table and stand back and ask yourself what story the pieces are trying to tell. We had reached one of those days. The five of us were gathered around the operations table. Kendrick, Overton, Castillo, Kenny, and me. With case files and photographs and Overton's meticulous handwritten notes spread across the surface. Coffee going cold. The city outside the windows doing what it always did, oblivious. Alright, I said. Let's talk about what we know. I pulled the Billy Rath file first, set it in the center of the table. October 1979. A 10-year-old boy walks into a warehouse in Brooklyn and kills an entire SWAT team. I'm the only survivor. Loretta Smith shows up at my hospital bed and tells me Division 13 is being formed. I paused. Cole's tape told us Billy was deployed deliberately. That without him, there's no Division XIII. Which raises a question we haven't fully talked about yet. Why Division XIII specifically? Kendrick said. He had been turning his coffee cup in his hands the way he did when he was thinking. They didn't just want a paranormal investigation unit to exist.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

There are other divisions of Sentinel Prime, not to mention the ex-designated sections at the FBI. They wanted this one in New York with you at the top of it.

SPEAKER_03 2:09

Which means it was never just about Billy.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Castillo said.

SPEAKER_03 2:14

It was about Cole. They needed Cole to end up in our custody, which meant they needed us to exist in the first place.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

She looked at me.

SPEAKER_03 2:23

You were the target from day one, Cap, not just later, from day one.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

I had known this in the abstract since Cole's tape. Hearing Castillo say it plainly didn't make it easier to hold. But I had learned a long time ago that things you don't look at directly have a way of distorting everything around them. So I looked at it. From day one, I confirmed. Which means everything we've done, every case, every arrest, every piece of evidence we've collected was part of a sequence they set in motion. I let that sit for a moment. That doesn't mean our work hasn't mattered. It means we need to understand the sequence so we can start interrupting it.

Neon Drug And Mutation Variance

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Overton moved to the neon file.

SPEAKER_05 3:12

The drug. I keep coming back to why anyone would take it voluntarily, given what we've seen it do to people.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Small doses, I said. In controlled amounts, before the cumulative effect sets in, it apparently delivers a genuine euphoric high. Mason Landry's operation was moving product to people who had no idea what they were actually taking. By the time the mutations manifest, most of them are already dead. I paused. Most of those devolve into the kind of thing we saw on level 5 of the tomb. Most, Kenny said. He said it quietly, but it landed in the room. Most, I agreed. Which brings us to the variance question. Castillo had been looking at the photograph from the downing basement footage, the still frame of the figures standing in the red-skied landscape facing the camera. She set it down on the table.

SPEAKER_03 4:21

Those things in the other world. Whatever dimension or planet or whatever it was, they looked like Nullborne, same overall silhouette. But they weren't moving the way the tomb infected moved. They were standing, still, watching, like they were thinking.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

She paused.

SPEAKER_03 4:41

Or maybe they couldn't move. Either way, I didn't get the sense that they were mindless.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

The room seemed to agree with this silently. The figures emitted a feeling of intention, of malice.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Douglas and Claire wasn't mindless. Kendrick added. He tracked a target. He adapted his approach over two weeks. He showed up at a school. That's not the behavior of something mindless.

SPEAKER_05 5:09

And Cole, Overton said. Cole is fully functional, intelligent, strategic. The virus didn't diminish him, it enhanced him and left his cognition intact.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

She looked around the table.

SPEAKER_05 5:24

So what determines the outcome? Why does one person become a level five creature and another become coal?

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Iteration, Kenny said.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

He had been leaning against the far wall, listening more than he spoke, which I had come to understand was how he operated when he was working something through.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

When he spoke, the room paid attention. Russo and I have been running comparative analysis on the viral samples from the Harlem case, the tomb, and the Sinclair case. The composition isn't the same across all three. The neon that Carlos took in Harlem is an earlier formulation. The strain that infected the tomb prisoners is more advanced. And what's in Douglas Sinclair is more advanced still. He straightened. They're iterating. Each version is a closer approximation of the outcome they want. A host that retains higher function, follows direction, maintains enough cognition to be useful. He paused.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Castillo said, looking at Kenny.

SPEAKER_03 6:40

You said the electrical discharge disrupts the nanotech cohesion.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

If the virus is nanotech based and they're improving the nanotech, then they might eventually iterate past what the current arc round configuration can disrupt. Kenny said. Russo and I are aware of that. We're working on it.

Apex Link And Going On Offense

SPEAKER_01 7:00

I moved us to the Apex thread. Douglas Sinclair worked for Apex Technology Solutions. So did Paul Downing, before he disappeared into whatever is living behind his basement wall. I looked at the table. Two Apex employees. Two no-born adjacent incidents. That's not coincidence. That's a pattern.

SPEAKER_05 7:24

Apex does classify government weapons research, Overton said. Some of it through channels Sentinel Prime has visibility into, some they don't.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

She glanced at me.

SPEAKER_05 7:36

The question Loretta couldn't answer, or wouldn't, is whether Apex's work brought the Nullborn to them, or whether the Nullborn had already infiltrated Apex before the incidents began.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Either way, Kendrick said, it's a door we need to open. He leaned forward on the table. Cap. We've been reactive since day one. I know that's been necessary. We were new. We were figuring out what we were dealing with. But we have enough now to start moving forward instead of just responding. His voice carried the conviction he brought to things he had been thinking about for a while. It's about time we go on offense. I looked at my team, at the files spread across the table, at everything we had learned and lost and survived to get to this moment. Agreed, I said. Apex is the starting point. We pay them a visit today.

Apex Visit And A New Lead

SPEAKER_01 8:35

The Apex campus occupied a sprawling complex off the expressway. Low modern building set behind a security fence. The kind of architecture that tries to look unremarkable and only succeeds in looking deliberate about it. Government contractor aesthetic. We don't exist, and here is our parking lot. The lobby was all glass and hushed carpet, and a receptionist who had clearly been trained to be professionally impenetrable. We asked for Jim McFarland, the CEO. She picked up her phone, spoke in a low voice, and came back with the information that Mr. McFarland was not on campus today. I watched the staff moving through the lobby while she delivered this news. Two of them changed direction when they saw us. A third found something very interesting on his clipboard. The nervous energy in the room was specific. Not the general wariness of people seeing law enforcement, but the discomfort of people who knew something and were very committed to not being the one to say it. I understand, I said to the receptionist. I set my card on her desk. When Mr. McFarland is available, please have him contact me. I paused. Sooner would be better than later. Today's conversation would have been a friendly one. If we have to come back, it won't be. She looked at the card, then at me. She understood. Outside, I radioed Kenny at HQ. McFarlane's a ghost. Staff knows something. We'll need to come back with more leverage.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

Copy that, Captain. Also.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

A brief pause.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

I sent a team to reacquaint themselves with your old friend Rico Santana.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

How'd that go?

SPEAKER_02 10:31

Under appropriate encouragement, Rico gave us something useful. There's a neon distribution warehouse in Bushwick. Active. He says shipments have been moving in and out for weeks.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Another pause.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

I've already started the warress.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

I looked at Kendrick. He was already nodding. We move tonight, I said. Get us those warrants and request a SWAT backup team. Twelve officers. Full tactical. We're not going in light. On it, Kenny said.

Bushwick Stakeout And Strange Symbols

SPEAKER_01 11:07

The warehouse sat on a block of industrial properties off Whycough Avenue. The kind of block that existed in every outer borough. Where nothing looked out of place because everything looked like it had seen better days. Loading bays, chain link, sodium vapor lights casting everything in orange. We were parked half a block back, lights off, full tactical gear. The Raigen rifles across our laps, the mode selectors set to three. Arc rounds. The backup SWAT team, twelve officers and two vehicles behind us, waiting on my signal. I had my binoculars up. Two lookouts, Kendrick said beside me. Northeast and southeast corners of the rooftop.

SPEAKER_03 11:57

Black bands in the loading bays, Castillo said from the back.

SPEAKER_05 12:02

Three of them, being loaded. Whatever they're moving, they're moving it tonight, Overton said.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

I trained the binoculars on the warehouse doors. Above the loading bay entrance, stenciled in faded paint that was probably meant to look like a company logo. Symbols. Not letters, not numbers. Something stranger but familiar. Overton, I said.

SPEAKER_05 12:29

I see them.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

She said. She had her own binoculars up. A long pause.

SPEAKER_05 12:36

Cap, that's the same language. The tablet. Those markings are from the same writing system.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

I lowered the binoculars. We didn't need any more confirmation than that. My radio crackled. Kenny.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Warrants are in, Captain. You're clear to breach.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Copy that. I turned to the SWAT team leader, a compact professional sergeant named Briggs, who had said approximately 12 words since we had briefed him 40 minutes ago. Sergeant, I need your snipers on that rooftop. I indicated the building across the street. On my signal, take out the lookouts. Silent. After that, nobody in those vans goes anywhere. Lethal force is authorized. Briggs looked at the building, looked at me. Yes, sir. He got out of our vehicle and moved off to position his team without another word. I had already decided I liked him. I turned to my team. Kendrick and Castillo, you're on the loading bay doors. Flash bangs first, then hold. Overton and I are right behind you. Arc rounds only inside. Let's not destroy the evidence. Opening the door, I looked at each of them. Everyone ready? Three nods. I keyed the radio. Snipers, on my mark.

Breach Tactics And Arc Rounds

SPEAKER_01 14:07

I've been asked over the years what it's actually like. The violence. People who have only seen it in films tend to imagine something cinematic, choreographed, comprehensible, the kind of thing that makes sense from the outside. The honest answer is that real violence is ugly and fast and deeply unpleasant. And anyone who tells you otherwise hasn't seen it up close. The movies compress it into something legible. Real engagements are noise and adrenaline and decisions made in fractions of seconds with incomplete information. In real life, the training is what keeps you functional. The training is what makes the difference between surviving and not. Take the shots, I said into my radio. Two soft cracks from across the street. Both lookouts dropped from view simultaneously, without sound, without drama. Briggs's snipers were good. We moved. Across the dark street in a tight, silent formation, the Rygen rifles up and forward, the loading bay doors ahead. Kendrick and Castillo went left and right of the entrance. Two flashbangs arced through the gap in the loading bay doors. The concussion hit even from outside. I went in. NYPD, nobody move. The interior was one large open space, exactly what the building looked like from outside, except that every available inch was shelved or stacked with crates. The flashbangs had done their work. Figures stumbled, hands at their eyes, disoriented. But the disorientation lasted about two seconds before they started reaching for weapons. Arc rounds don't discriminate. They don't need to. 50,000 volts of directed electrical discharge, and the person holding the weapon stops holding it. We moved through the floor methodically, Overton covering my left, Kendrick and Castillo pushing forward, and one by one the resistance stopped. Behind us, through the loading bay opening, I heard the van's rev and then immediately screech to a halt. Briggs' people had the exits covered. The drivers lasted approximately four seconds before the SWAT team persuaded them to reconsider their options. The ones who chose to fight rather than comply found out that M16 fire doesn't leave much room for second thoughts. Upper level, Kendrick said. I looked up. An elevated platform ringed the interior space, accessible by an open stairway at the far end. Six more guards up there, already repositioning, trying to get angles down on us. Kendrick, Castillo, take the stairs. We'll cover you, I said as the guards opened fire. They moved. I switched the Rygen to mode one and put three round 12-gauge bursts into the platform railing above the stairway. Suppressive fire. Overton was doing the same from her position, controlled and precise, forcing the upper guards to keep their heads down while Kendrick and Castillo came up the stairs below.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

NYPD, weapons down.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Kendrick's voice from the upper level. Nobody complied. They rarely do. The upper level was cleared in under 90 seconds. Kendrick's voice came back over the radio. Second level secure. Briggs, bring your team in, I said. The SWAT team filed through the loading bay doors into the secured space. Briggs did a quiet, efficient sweep of the room with his eyes and said, with the economy of a man who spent words carefully. Damn good work. Final count. 22 warehouse personnel. 16 down. Six incapacitated, cuffed, awaiting transport. Not one of our people had taken so much as a scratch. The SWAT team began opening crates. Inside, large glass containers, sealed, each one glowing with a faint, unmistakable orange luminescence. Dozens of them per crate. Hundreds of crates. Captain, Overton said. She was standing in the middle of the warehouse floor, looking at the shelves stretching to the walls in every direction.

SPEAKER_05 18:49

There's so much of it.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

I looked at it, thought about what each container represented. Not just the drug, but the person it was meant to reach. The person who would take something that felt like euphoria and had no idea what was building in their bloodstream. I keyed the radio. Kagemoto, warehouse is secure. We're going to need ambulances, a coroner, and logistics. We've seized the neon, a significant quantity. Over the radio I heard it. The sound of people who had been listening and waiting, letting go of the breath they'd been holding. Cheering. The HQ support staff, all of them. I let it run for a moment before I keyed off. I turned to my team, Kendrick and Castillo coming down from the upper level, Overton now standing beside me, all of them in the amber glow of the warehouse's emergency lights, with crates of neon stretching out behind them and the city's night sky visible through the loading bay doors. Good work tonight, I said. All of you. I stood in the corridor and let my team feel it for a moment. These were people who had chosen this work, knowing what it was, knowing that the cases didn't make the news, that the victories didn't get announced, that the people they protected would never know their names. They had chosen it anyway. All of them. I thought about what that meant. About the quiet kind of courage it took to show up every day to fight a war that officially didn't exist.

Victory Briefing And The City Map

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Then Loretta was at the door to the conference room, and we filed in. She motioned for us to sit, let the coffee get distributed, let the energy in the room settle from adrenaline into something more sustainable. Then she put her hands flat on the table.

SPEAKER_05 21:41

Damn good work last night, team.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

She let that stand for a moment before she continued.

SPEAKER_05 21:55

These were civilian contractors, people who knew what they were moving and made the calculations. That the money was worth the risk.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

She paused.

SPEAKER_05 22:04

Human greed is one of the Nullborne's most reliable operational tools. Their understanding of what motivates people makes them genuinely dangerous in ways that go beyond the physical. What about the neon?

SPEAKER_01 22:16

Overton asked.

SPEAKER_05 22:18

The majority of the shipment will be destroyed as soon as Russo determines a safe disposal method. The rest we'll keep here for analysis. We've seized enough to represent a significant blow to their distribution capability and their finances. We're talking about tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of doses removed from circulation. That's a number of saved lives we will never be able to count.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

I looked at Kenny across the table. The Rai Gen performed well last night, I said.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Better than expected. I felt a smile form on my face. I'm glad you're on our side. Kendrick reached over and clapped Kenny on the back. Despite himself, Kenny smiled. Russo and I are also making progress on the tablet, Kenny said.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

The language analysis is coming along. We may have a preliminary translation framework within the week.

SPEAKER_05 23:15

Good.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

Loretta said. She made a note.

SPEAKER_05 23:20

The interrogations of the warehouse personnel will begin as soon as they're medically cleared. I'll keep you informed of anything relevant.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

She straightened her papers, the motion of someone preparing to close a meeting. Then she stopped. She reached into her folder and produced a photograph, set it on the table, and slid it toward me.

SPEAKER_05 23:42

One more item. The SWAT team found this in the warehouse office during the sweep. I thought you should see it.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

It was a large sheet of paper, slightly waxy, the kind of surface that didn't feel like standard stock. On it, rendered in what appeared to be careful, deliberate brushwork, was a map. A map of New York City. Detailed. All five boroughs, the waterways, the major thoroughfares. It was clearly a modern map. The street layout was current, the landmarks were accurate. But covering the surface of the map at dozens of marked points across the city were annotations. Dense, precise, written in a language I recognized. The same language as the tablet. The room went very still.

SPEAKER_05 24:38

Russo and Kenny are working on it, Loretta said. Along with the tablet translation. Whatever these markings indicate, we don't know yet. But given everything we know about how they operate, I don't think it's a coincidence that a map of this city, annotated in their language, was found at one of their distribution centers.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

I stared at the map, at the cluster of marked points across the five boroughs. Some of them in recognizable locations, near landmarks, near transit hubs, near the waterfront.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

Others in places that seemed arbitrary until you looked at them long enough and started to wonder what was beneath them.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Below the streets, below the basements, below the ordinary surface of the city. Thin points. I didn't say it out loud. I didn't know it for certain. But the thought formed and settled in the cold, quiet place where I kept the things I didn't have answers for yet. And it sat there with a weight that told me it wasn't going anywhere. We'll get it translated, I said. Loretta nodded. The meeting was over.

Forcing The Enemy Into The Open

SPEAKER_01 25:57

Kendrick, Overton, and Castillo gathered in my office afterward, the way they did when there was something left to process. Kenny had gone back to the lab. The city spread beyond the large glass windows, indifferent.

SPEAKER_05 26:13

They're going to come for us now, Overton said.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

She wasn't afraid. Her voice carried the flat, measured quality of someone stating a tactical reality.

SPEAKER_05 26:25

If they weren't already motivated to move against Division 13, last night removed any remaining hesitation. We took a significant piece of their operation apart.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

Good, Castillo said.

SPEAKER_03 26:38

And they already want the tablet. They've gotta be furious.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

She glanced at Kendrick with a small, hard smile.

SPEAKER_03 26:46

We finally did something that actually hurt them.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

That map, Kendrick said. If those markings mean what I think they mean, if they're tracking locations across the city.

SPEAKER_05 26:59

Then this isn't just a distribution network, Overton said. It's an infrastructure. They've been mapping New York for a reason.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

After a long glance out of the window at the busy city streets, I turned to face them. Secrecy is one of their biggest advantages, I said. They operate in the gaps, below the city, inside institutions, behind faces that look human. As long as they stay hidden, they control the tempo. I looked at each of them. If we've made them angry enough to come out into the open, good. An enemy you can see is an enemy you can fight. They brought the war to our city. They engineered our creation to serve their plans. They killed our people. They started this. Our job is to finish it. Nobody said anything. Outside the window, the city went about its day. Millions of people on millions of errands, none of them knowing about the map on the conference room table, or the shadow in a woman's basement, or the thing that had looked at them through the camera lens and said, We are here, we see you. Life continues, as life will.