"Music heads are still buzzing over that legendary underground show two years ago. Anyone lucky enough to catch DJ Octavio's opening set and the Squid Sisters headlining had their minds blown and their lives changed that night."
—Sunken Scrolls 2:2 (1.2)

Saturday, 12:30 p.m.
Cuttlefish Cabin

They stopped at the foot of a mountain, on the other end of the tunnel. Next to them was a small shack. It was a strange-looking hovel, shoddily constructed, yet heavily decorated. The thin, wooden walls held up an uneven roof of misaligned planks, all painted the same shade of salmon pink. A rusty satellite dish poked out from the top, partially covered in rubble that had fallen down from the surrounding mountainside. Some unlit paper lanterns hung from the awning. They were a recent addition; they looked new and clean, while the rest of the shack was worn out and covered with a visible layer of grime. The walls themselves were adorned with a geometric window pattern despite being completely solid and windowless. A bench built into the front wall was covered by a bright green tarp, under which sat some newspapers and empty snack wrappers.

Marie seemed to tug on one of the lanterns—Cole didn't quite catch exactly what she did—to reveal a black panel in a side wall. She placed her hand on the panel, and it visibly reacted with several red flashes.

For several seconds, nothing happened. Then, the wall of the shack folded into itself, revealing concrete stairs leading downward.

"Come on," Marie said, waving him inside.

Against his better judgment, Cole followed her in. They were quite a ways from Inkopolis by now. He had already come this far—what was the worst that could happen? If this Marie had really wanted to do something to him, she could have done so at any time, instead of bothering to keep up a story. It was a fairly consistent story, too. He didn't like the snooty way she talked to him, but Marie had been very open with her answers. And besides, he was curious about this little cabin in the middle of nowhere.

On the inside, Marie hit a few buttons, closing the wall behind them. The stairs went down to a heavy-looking steel door. Marie punched a code into a keypad, and whirring electric motors unlocked the door with a click. She turned the handle and led Cole into a rectangular room with concrete walls. It smelled slightly musky. A large metal desk with a desktop computer was pushed into the corner, covered with papers. Several monitors mounted on the wall above the desk sat inactive, except for one that displayed a camera feed of the outside. On the other side of the room were a torn-up couch, a refrigerator, a closed door, and a round table with several chairs. Straight ahead was an open doorway to another room full of equipment.

Marie walked over to the cluttered desk, selecting a few items and laying them out on the round table. Cole peered at the papers cautiously, reading their titles. They had none. Rather, they appeared to be various reports. The abstract of the first one mentioned an "Agent 3" and something about surveillance and Octarians. He picked up the other three, flipping through an expenses report detailing the costs of a seabound operation, a folder full of Zapfish photos and machinery diagrams, and something that looked like the transcript of an interview.

On closer inspection, it wasn't an interview, but an interrogation. A set of interrogators labeled one to three prodded some "D" with questions about the Octarians' uses for the Zapfish, their operations in various locations, and their motivations. Cole had never had the patience to read lengthy texts, so he put it down immediately. He also didn't care to find out what the interrogators did to D.

While Cole skimmed through the other folders, Marie moved into the equipment room, coming back with a small black suitcase. She popped it open on the table. Inside was a headset, flashlight, binoculars, camera, and an ID card with Natalie's picture and a fake name. Marie then lifted the bottom of the suitcase out, revealing lockpicks, a pocket knife, and a gun.

Cole would have recognized a gun like that anywhere.

"Agent 3's stuff," exclaimed Marie. "The ID is a fake, obviously, and her gun..."

Marie carefully picked the gun up with both hands, examining it slowly. It was a black compact machine pistol painted with neon yellow highlights. A wide, cylindrical suppressor extended the short, rectangular barrel by twice its original length, and a flashlight was screwed in below. A telescope sight sat on top of it all, adorned with blue LED lights. Under the handle was a tiny ammo drum.

"Agent 3 preferred this sort of thing to the heavier stuff, said she learned how to shoot with this exact model as a kid," Marie finished.

Natalie had always preferred her handguns. Cole remembered teasing her about it while they were growing up. She used to spend all her allowance money on pistol mods. In fact, he was pretty sure that he had never seen her shoot anything but a handgun back in the Falls. Her personal favorite was a gun that looked very much like the one in Marie's hands—a noisy, box-shaped piece of hardware made even more unwieldy with several attachments. She always brought it whenever they went to the shooting range, even if they were planning to rent guns. Nobody else was particular enough to want a gun like that.

"Yeah, that's Nat's all right," said Cole.

Marie nodded. "So you believe me now?" she asked.

Cole was mostly convinced, but he was struggling to come to terms with these new revelations. The suitcase of gadgets, Natalie being a secret agent, the Octarians plotting against Inkopolis... There was no way the police would ever find Nat on their own now. They probably didn't even know about the Octarians. And the Octarians were making moves, apparently. Having taken out key NSS members, stolen the city's power source, and freed their allies, they were not messing around. Cole shook his head. The scope of the whole ordeal suddenly got a lot bigger than just finding Nat.

"Do you have a plan, Marie?"

"First off, call me Agent 2 from now on. And you're going to be Agent 4."

"What do you mean?"

"Agent 4 of the NSS, right after Agent 3."

Cole stared at the reports on the table, taken aback. "I... I don't think—"

"You wouldn't back out on me, would you?"

Cole said nothing.

"If you don't want to help me, then you should leave right now," said Marie. "Sure, you're not very cultured, but you're perfect for the job. You're a big, tough guy. You look like you can handle yourself in a fight. And you have a personal stake in this, too—Natalie is still out there. She needs you. The whole city needs you."

"You can do better than me," Cole protested. "Why don't you get law enforcement involved?"

"I've tried. They're slow to do anything, and they require evidence to act."

"Ain't all this evidence?" Cole said, sweeping his hand over the papers on the table.

"That's proof the Octarians were responsible for what happened two years ago. There is no hard, irrefutable evidence of Octarian activity right now, just a lot of coincidences."

"Why does the NSS only have three members?" asked Cole.

"We have four officially involved with clandestine services. Three agents and our captain."

Cole paused. "Wait, if your captain ain't Agent 1, then who is?"

Marie remained silent for several seconds before Cole asked again. "Who is Agent 1? And why ain't he helping you?"

"She. Agent 1 is a she," Marie finally answered, after another lengthy pause. She closed her eyes. "Agent 1 is Callie, my cousin. She's also missing, and I have no idea where she went. At all. No leads, no nothing."

Cole remained silent and continued listening.

"Nothing!" Marie bemoaned through gritted teeth. "And I live with her. We saw each other every day until she up and disappeared. That's why I need your help."

Cole didn't know how to respond. On one hand, he was annoyed that Marie's little secret society did not have its act together. What wasn't the NSS missing right now? But on the other hand, he also felt sorry for Marie. She was fighting alone, searching for clues about her missing cousin and going up against enemies who far outnumbered her. That sounded terrifying. Cole was, quite frankly, impressed with how composed she kept herself.

Cole's father had always told him to never turn away from someone in need. Cole himself thought that it was a horrible maxim to live by, since it meant helping just about everybody and leaving no time for yourself, but turning away from someone as obviously in need as Marie would have riddled Cole with guilt. After all, he and Marie were in similar situations. They were both looking for someone close to them who had gone missing.

His father had also told him to never turn a blind eye to something he knew was wrong, and anybody kidnapping or otherwise hurting Nat was about as wrong as it got.

"All right," said Cole, "I'm in."

Marie smiled. "Welcome aboard, Agent 4. Know how to fire a gun?"

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