Seward Warehouses, as Hiram had quickly discovered, was a collection of about twenty large, building-size warehouses located on the north side of town. "Most of the warehouses are owned by businesses or corporations," Hiram had explained to Daniel and Joshua, "but guess what the name of one of those businesses is?" "What?" asked Daniel, who had taken up his usual spot on top of Hiram's bed. "Cobalt Consultancies International," Hiram answered, "which, strangely enough, has zero online presence. You look up the name, and it's like they don't even exist." "Also, why does a consulting firm need a warehouse?" Joshua asked. "It's got to be the Cobalt Order," said Daniel.
With that, the three boys began to create a plan to investigate Seward Warehouses. "Since the goon managed to get away, the Cobalt Order will probably know we're coming," Daniel had pointed out. "We need to go there as soon as possible, or we'll find it completely abandoned." "Tonight would be the best time, then," Joshua had added. "How about at 9 tonight?" Hiram asked. "I'll try to find out as much as I can about the warehouses until then."
And so it was that at 9:17 that night Joshua, Daniel, and Hiram met outside the fence of Seward Warehouses. Despite the fact that he was still technically on probation, Joshua had managed to convince his mom to let him attend "a sleepover at a friend's house" in exchange for a week's worth of doing the dishes. Joshua had felt a little bad for lying to his mom, but it wasn't as if he could have told her, "me and my friends are going to break into a warehouse to investigate a dangerous secret society, and so I might be out past curfew." At 8:30, he had left on his bicycle, ostensibly to go to his friend's house. If Joshua's mom had been watching him leave, she might have seen him turn the wrong direction out of the cul-de-sac.
"Sorry I'm late," said Daniel, running up to Joshua and Hiram who had already met at the fence fourteen minutes prior. "My phone autocorrected 'Seward' to 'Stewart', and I was halfway to Maryland before I realized the mistake." He looked up at the chain link fence. "So, what's the plan for getting in here?"
"According to the schematics I found, there should be a blind spot in the security cameras at this specific section of the gate," Hiram said. "The guard just passed by a couple minutes ago, and once we're in there are no security cameras other than what the owners of the individual warehouses set up." "You figured that all out through a few hours of searching the internet?" Joshua asked. Hiram shrugged. "The information you're looking for is out there. You just have to be willing to dig a little to find it." He gestured toward the fence. "Now, Joshua, if you wouldn't mind."
Joshua stepped forward, facing the chain link fence. "[Imagine Dragons]," he muttered. "GRAA!" The scaly Stand tore a gaping hole in the chain link fence with one slash of its claw. Daniel ran through the hole, Hiram and Joshua following quickly behind. "Which one is the Order's?" Daniel asked. "Warehouse number 7," Hiram answered. "Come on, it's this way."
From the outside, Warehouse 7 resembled every other warehouse in the lot, its sole distinguishing feature being the number '7' painted on its front. One could almost imagine that it was a perfectly normal storage building and not a collection of presumably shady stuff hidden by a megalomaniacal organization. But then, if it had been a normal warehouse Joshua and his friends would not be breaking into it under the cover of darkness.
"Alright," Daniel said as he approached the side of the warehouse, "my turn now." He closed his eyes as he touched the wall, apparently concentrating on something, and a certain energy seemed to flow through him. Joshua turned to Hiram and asked, "What's he doing?" "You know how Daniel's Stand can teleport?" Hiram responded. "Well, that doesn't just extend to his line of sight. Right now he's manifesting Sabaton inside the warehouse to make sure everything is clear. If there's an ambush waiting for us, Sabaton can just teleport out and we can be gone before they even open the door." "That's right," said Daniel, drawing back from the wall to join the conversation. "My Stand can do more than just fight; its abilities make it good for recon as well. Anyway," he pointed toward the warehouse nonchalantly, "the warehouse is clear. Sabaton didn't see anyone - at least, there wasn't anyone in the warehouse's entrance."
"How are we going to get in?" Joshua asked. "I bet this place is rigged with alarms." "That's probably true," said Daniel. "An alarm will almost definitely go off if we try to open one of the doors from the outside." He tilted his head and gave a sly smile. "From the inside, however…"
The nearby side door suddenly opened with a slam, and Sabaton's smiling pink head poked out. "After you," Daniel said, gesturing toward the open door, before turning around and walking into the warehouse. Shaking his head, Joshua followed.
The interior of the warehouse was pitch black. The moonlight that came in from the thin windows at the top of the warehouse did nothing to illuminate the dark shelves that filled the room. At the back of the room, Joshua could faintly see a door that presumably led to the back section of the warehouse, as well as stairs leading to the warehouse's upper level.
"So," said Daniel, peering into a box on a nearby shelf, "what are we looking for, anyway?" "Shady stuff," answered Hiram. "Illegal stuff. Maybe information about the Order?" "Shady stuff? Like this?" Daniel said, pulling out a small round object from the box. "Whoa!" Immediately, Hiram reacted, raising his hand as the silver shield of Off the Wall appeared over the object. "What do you think you're doing?"
As Daniel raised his arms in surrender, Joshua could see it clearly: the object he was holding was a grenade. "Put that down!" Hiram hissed. Slowly, Joshua put the grenade back in the box, and the silver glow of the shield faded away. "Come on, man!" said Hiram, lightly smacking Daniel on the head. "You can't just pick up stuff like that!" "Sorry," said Daniel, though he was still smiling bashfully. "Still, now we know there's definitely some shady stuff going on in here."
The three continued to look through the warehouse's shelves. Some seemed harmless, containing nothing but stacks of blank paper or scrap metal, while others contained boxes of weapons, grenades, and ammunition. Some shelves were simply strange, with one holding a box of billiard balls and another hold a bunch of what looked like space suits. One shelf contained nothing but boxes of the pins Cobalt Order members wore. "They must order these in bulk," Daniel had commented.
"Oh," said Hiram suddenly, "I forgot to give you guys something." Joshua looked up from a box of petri dishes. "What is it?" Hiram handed him a walkie-talkie. "If we get separated, we can use these walkie-talkies to communicate with each other." "Speaking of," Daniel said, taking his own walkie-talkie, "I don't think we're going to find anything else worthwhile here. We should probably split up, try to find some details about their base or something."
"I don't think we should split up," Joshua responded. Though there had been no sign of anyone other than them in the warehouse, Joshua couldn't shake the feeling that they were being watched. He knew it was mostly nerves from the darkness and the place they were in, and that in all likelihood they were completely alone, but he still preferred to be cautious. "We should stick together. Just in case there are enemy Stand users."
Daniel only shrugged. "Do what you want. I'm just going to go this way." Saying this, he began to walk toward the door at the back of the warehouse. Hesitantly, Joshua and Hiram followed closely behind. Once Daniel reached the door, he put his hand up to it and concentrated for a second before turning back to Hiram and Joshua.
"This room's clear too," Daniel said, and opened the door. The back of warehouse seemed to be a sort of clerical type of area. The room was long and thin, like a hallway, with two doors on either side. At the back of the hall was another staircase, though unlike the one in the warehouse's main area this one was much smaller, barely wide enough for a single person at a time. A bulletin board hung on one wall, though unfortunately it seemed to be empty. "See?" Daniel said. "No one around."
He moved to the door on the right side of the room. "No one in here, either," he said, pressing his hand against the door. "It looks like it's just a break room though. Not a lot we could get from there, I think." Turning around, he moved to the door on the left. "This room's clear-"
Suddenly, Daniel leapt back from the door as if a venomous snake had suddenly appeared in front of him. Sabaton appeared at his side, fists raised in a battle stance. Not daring to move, Daniel glanced over at Joshua and Hiram, a frightened expression on his face. "Guys," he whispered, "there's someone in that room."
The sudden tension in the air was instant and noticeable. Quietly, but quickly, Hiram and Joshua walked over to Daniel. The three of them stared at the door with an intensity generally reserved for a bomb that could go off at any second. Joshua felt like his heart would beat itself out of his chest, and he struggled to keep his breathing controlled. A bead of sweat dripped down Hiram's face.
"Did they see you?" Hiram asked. "No," Daniel replied. "At least, I don't think so. I only saw him for a second, but he looked like he was asleep." "We should get out of here," Hiram said. "This was a terrible idea, and we need to leave now." "What about the plan?" Joshua asked. "That room was full of shelves and filing cabinets," Daniel said. "The information we're looking for is definitely in there." "We need to leave. Now," Hiram insisted. "It's too dangerous for us to stay in here any longer."
"I disagree," Joshua said. Hiram looked at him with a mixture of panic and disbelief. "What?" Joshua went on, a wave of calmness washing over him, "There's one enemy Stand user in that room, and there's three of us. He doesn't know we're here, he doesn't know we know about him, and he's asleep. For the first time, we'll be going into this fight with the advantage. If we back down now, we'll never defeat the Cobalt Order."
"He's right," Daniel said. "We can take this goon. It doesn't matter what kind of Stand he has; if he wakes up, Sabaton will just knock him out again before he can do anything." His hand tightened around the doorknob. "Is everyone ready?" Joshua nodded, Imagine Dragons appearing by his side. Hiram looked at Joshua, then at Daniel, and then quietly muttered "Okay" as Off the Wall appeared behind him. Daniel took a deep breath and then slowly, silently, opened the door.
The room appeared to be a sort of office. As Daniel had described, the walls of the room were lined with shelves and filing cabinets. Also as Daniel had described, there was a man in the room. He was sitting in a rolling office chair facing the door, his back against a desk covered with papers and a computer. He wore a patterned blue jacket and white pants, with the Cobalt Order's pin attached to his left collar, and his hair had been dyed pure white. His head was tilted back into the chair, and his eyes were closed; he definitely appeared to be asleep.
"Don't make a sound," Daniel warned, and the three crept into the room. Hiram moved over to a shelf of binders, while Daniel slowly opened the top drawer of a nearby cabinet. Joshua, however, did not move to examine any file. His eyes stayed fixed on the sleeping Stand user. There was something unsettling about the Stand user; Joshua couldn't place exactly what, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he was overlooking something important.
"Joshua," Daniel whispered, "come take at look at this." Joshua tore himself away from the Stand user, and moved to Daniel, who was holding a piece of paper. "What is it?" Joshua asked. "It's…well, it's about you," Daniel answered.
Sure enough, the paper was about him. Written in what appeared to be exquisite calligraphy was Joshua's name, as well as details about his Stand and himself. "This is probably the file Stan was talking about," Joshua whispered. "But how do they know this stuff?" "Dunno," Daniel responded, peering into the drawer. "But there's tons of similar papers. Do you think think they have one on me?" Joshua didn't answer, instead continuing to read the file. "Why do they know about my allergy to cherries?" he asked.
"Guys!" Hiram hissed. "Something weird's happening!" Daniel and Joshua turned from the files to see Hiram pointing at the sleeping Stand user. A light blue fog had started to appear around the man, and smoky tendrils began to billow out from the chair and creep toward the rest of the room. With a start, Joshua suddenly realized what was so unsettling about the man.
The Stand user, though he had appeared to be asleep, was smiling.
"Hey, bro," the Stand user said, his eyes still shut and his body still relaxed, "I think they finally started to notice." A side door which Joshua had overlooked opened, and another man stepped out. This man looked similar to the man in the chair, but his hair was jet black, his jacket was red where the man in the chair's was blue, and his pin was attached to the right side of his collar. Most peculiarly, he was wearing rectangular paper sunglasses, similar to the kind one would wear after having their eyes dilated. Behind him, Joshua could see a small dark room with a computer in it. "I saw as much," the man said.
"I think it's time to teach these kids a lesson about breaking and entering, right bro?" The man in the chair asked. "I completely agree, Ivan," the man said as he walked over to face Joshua, Hiram, and Daniel. "Let's show them what happens to thieves who try to steal from the Cobalt Order."
-To Be Continued- The Longest Night (Act 2)