Riley had made it all of three blocks from the meeting site before Dash appeared at his elbow.  

“Shit,” Riley said, startled by the sudden company. “What are you doing here? I thought you went home?”

“Technically, what I said was that I was ‘going to change,’” Dash said. “And thanks to the magic of retail, I have done exactly that. Only the fitness place was open at this hour, but fortunately I look great in athleisure.” He paused a moment to pose, showing off the black joggers and lavender hoodie he'd acquired. Riley shook his head but didn’t slow his pace, and Dash had to run a bit to catch up with him.  

“I didn’t lie-- I didn’t go anywhere near the park, like I promised! You can’t be mad at me.”

“I’m not mad at you,” Riley said. “I’m just need to get to work.”

“Seriously?” Dash said, and Riley didn’t need to look back to see that he’d again managed to trigger Dash’s annoyance. “I thought we were past the whole you dodging me thing? You owe me information about what happened with you and mister secret agent dude.”

“I know,” Riley said. “Later. I have to do something first.”

“What could possibly be more important? You send me a weird text asking for a photo of Gabriel, but can’t take two seconds to explain why? And my god, just because you are ten feet tall doesn’t mean you have to walk like it, have some respect for the fact that my boots are not made for running!”

Riley could sense stares starting to turn their way as Dash berated him, and the last thing they needed was attention called to them. He paused, spinning back around. Dash had been racing after him so determinedly that he ran smack into Riley’s chest. Riley caught and steadied him before ducking his head down.  

“I thought you went home and I’d have more time,” he said quickly. “I think you’re right, that Saben has Gabe.”

“Finally,” Dash muttered, crossing his arms.

“There’s a way for me to find out where he is, once and for all. But if I don’t get to work right now, I’m going to lose my window of opportunity, do you understand?”

“Only the important part,” Dash said, shaking his head. “So, stop wasting time on me and go!”

Riley nodded and turned to start down the road again, then hesitated.  

“There’s… a risk,” he said. He glanced down at his watch. “If you don’t hear from me by quarter-past, then you have to go to the Trackers.”

“What do you--” Dash began, but Riley was already sprinting down the street.  

***

“I need you to do something for me, and not ask why.”

“Dude, isn’t it kind of early to already be toasted?”

“Tay, it might be life or death. Please.”

“Are you ser-- alright, OK, man. Whatever you need.”

“I need you to intercept Director Phelps before she gets to the office, and keep her distracted for as long as you can.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“O-OK. I’ll do it.”

“Thank you.”

“Hey, Riley-- whatever’s hap-- just… be careful, OK?”

“Bye, Tay.”

***

The Urban Activity Monitoring System had been developed to help preserve elemental secrecy in areas with higher than normal concentrations of elementals living among humans. It was, in fact, a fitting marriage of the two societies, which mingled magical sensors with human surveillance technology. The concept was simple: if an elemental performed magic in public, where a human could see, the sensors would identify the action and a network of cameras would capture the offender’s image. Agents could be dispatched swiftly and discreetly to handle the situation. 

It had been lauded at the Bureau, but protests arose from groups who felt elemental privacy was being violated by video monitoring. Global deployment had paused while various groups debated the legality of it, but they hadn’t removed what had already been in place. As one of the pilot cities, New Breley still had a patchwork of monitoring equipment throughout all the most densely occupied areas of the city.  

And as a Director of the Bureau of Environmental Affairs, Riley’s boss had access to the network.  

It was easier than he thought, to sneak into her office unnoticed. It helped that it was still early, and not many people had arrived for work yet; it probably also didn’t hurt that Riley worked on the floor, so no one thought twice about seeing him there. Still, his heart raced as he eased the Director’s door shut behind him and made his way to her computer.  

Riley didn’t know very much about the Director’s personal life, and if he’d thought he’d have to guess her password he likely never would have attempted such a risky maneuver, but one thing he did know was that she tended to keep a legal pad with scribblings and sticky notes next to her computer. He only had to try two of the doodled phrases there before he struck upon her password. He said a silent apology to the Director before plunging onwards. 

While the Monitoring System’s functionality had been intended to catch magic use first and then trigger the identity of the culprit, one of the major arguments against it was that the reverse could be done-- an agent could feed in an image of an elemental, and track them back in the recordings.  

Riley, who was more keen than the average elemental to root out illegal magic, had read dozens of articles and watched numerous debates about the privacy ramifications. While the Elemental High Court had yet to issue a ruling as to whether what he was about to do was illegal, he nevertheless felt shady as he scanned Gabe’s photo into the system, prompting it to do a reverse search for his most recent camera sighting. It was possible that Gabe had left willingly-- or that he wasn’t in the city anymore-- probable that he was against government tracking in all forms-- likely that Riley would be fired, and possibly charged, for taking such drastic action-- 

The program beeped softly, interrupting the whirlpool of Riley’s thoughts. In stark black and white, there he was.  

He had found Gabriel Reyes.