Chapter Text
Within the mansion, Dirk, Farah, Sam, and Dean traversed the map that Patrick left for them. But the group found themselves all turned around and confused, Going from hall to hall, room to room, hitting dead ends and not knowing where they're going. After some time had passed, Farah was able to figure out where the map was leading and it brought her and the guys to what looked like the laundry room, with clothes spread around in baskets and hangers.
"This is it," she said.
"Um...okay, you're a bit ahead of me now on this one. What, laundry? Maybe it's- Aha!" Opening a washer thinking there was a clue in there, Dirk found nothing. "Nope, not in there. What are we looking for? Do you guys know?" While he began rambling, he noticed that Farah and the brothers were up against a wall. "It's a wall. Was there something about this wall that was special to him? Did he enjoy walls? Did he ever mention a love for walls? Because that could be a clue. Perhaps the person or people who killed Patrick Spring were rogue wall enthusiasts!" Dean gave Dirk a irritated look while Sam told him about the wall.
"Dirk, don't you feel this wall? It's hollow, which means that there's something on the other side of this wall." Sam wondered what could be behind it, when without warning, he, Dean, and Dirk were startled by Farah, who began smashing through the wall with a iron.
"Aah! You hate these walls!" Dirk exclaimed. After putting some holes in the wall, Farah and the guys tore the rest of the wall down and it revealed a secret door with a clock in the middle of it. "Oh. Can I see the map?" he asked Farah. She gave the map to him and remembered the '10:01' written on it, opened the clock, and set it to that exact time. The clock then chimed and the door opened. The door revealed a room that looked like an old workshop. "Oh, What is this place?"
"This room was built into the foundation of the house. It's been here since day one. Patrick Spring didn't build this. Zackariah Webb did," Farah explained. As the group began looking around, Dean caught sight of a huge machine that took up one side of the room.
"What the hell is this thing?" Dean wondered. And as he asked, the lights in the room mysteriously came on. "Creepy," he mumbled under his breath.
"Looks like some kind of generator," Sam replied.
"Any chance Spring was secretly Doc Brown and he didn't tell you or your old man?" Dean jokingly suggested.
"But this doesn't make any sense. Patrick didn't know anything about technology," Farah thought.
Dirk noticed a lightbulb laying on the panel of the generator and reached for it, and it suddenly lit up.
"Oh," he said. He reached for it again, and as he held it in his hand, it was shining bright.
"Whoa. How are you doing that?" Sam questioned bewildered.
"With my hand." As the lightbulb continued to glow in Dirk's hand, he noticed a scroll laying on the generator. "What's this?" Picking it up, he gave it to Farah and she opened the scroll which revealed a note. But what caught the group's attention was the name on top of the header.
"Edgar Spring. Who's that?" Dean asked.
"Patrick's father. But this is Patrick's handwriting," Farah answered as she viewed the note. "It started here. It ends here. Please save her," she read. The four of them looked at each other perplexed. What does the note mean? Farah then grabbed something else close by.
"What is this thing?" she wondered before Dirk quickly took it away from her.
"Very important," Dirk said.
"It's a crank. It's like a lever that's used to start certain types of machinery," Sam explained. As he, Dean, and Farah found blueprints to what could possibly be the generator, Dirk was walking around the room, trying to understand what the last sentence of the note meant.
"Please save her. Who does it save? Please Save her. Save her...Save her," Dirk realized something as the gears in his head were turning. "He must be talking about Lydia. He planned this. All of it. But if Patrick knew this was going to happen, then why didn't he save himself?" As he was piecing things together, Farah looked at Dirk, astounded.
"Dirk? I'm starting to think you're actually a pretty good detective."
"Eh," Dean whispered to Sam.
The past 12 hours have been rough for Todd. After leaving Dirk and the group, he went to the police station where Detectives Estevez and Zimmerfield were to tell about Gordon Rimmer's involvement in Lydia Spring's disappearance. But instead, he was met with them bringing up past felonies and his connections to recent crime scenes. Before they could have drilled him further, his sister Amanda called him about another attack that happened while she was walking out of a grocery store. Thankfully, the detectives let him go see her, but they wanted to keep a close eye on him. Running to Amanda's house, he's glad that she was unharmed, but feared for her safety so he decided to bring her back to his apartment.
"This is fun! See? That wasn't so bad, right?" he asked her.
"What happened to your lock?" Amanda saw that the door's lock was broken, but what shocked her more was the state his apartment was in. "Oh my god! What happened to your apartment?!"
"Uh, well, it-" he tried to explain but he caught sight of someone he really did not want to see again.
"Some kind of semiconductor or something."
"Semiconductor?"
"Oh, God."
"Hey, Dirk!"
"Oh, hi, Amanda! Guys, it's Amanda. Amanda's fantastic." Dirk said.
"You're fantastic," she said and dashed over to where Dirk, Farah, and the Winchesters were. "Is this part of the case?"
"Yes, but-"
"So, you're Todd's sister?" Dean asked and she nodded 'yes'.
"Dirk, why are you here?" Todd questioned.
"We were waiting for you," Dirk replied.
"Hey, Todd," Farah said.
"Oh, hi, Farah," he said back. "What is this?"
"We don't know. We think it's some sort of schematic of something," Farah explained.
"Dirk, this is my apartment," Todd told him.
"Oh, is that why you're here?"
"It's a map," Amanda spoke up.
"It's another map. A map lead us to a map!" Dirk deduced.
"That looks nothing like a map," Dean said.
"That's because it's not a map," Sam said.
"It's actually one of those layers on maps that you can see on city government websites that show you utilities," Amanda pointed out.
"City government?" Dirk asked.
"I don't get out that much."
"Me neither."
"This is an electrical grid, see? And those are power lines. Oh, cool! No, this is really crazy," Amanda explained.
"Oh, my God, she's right. Look, those are where the roads would be, and that's the Ridgely. That's this building," Farah was able to piece together. She looked to Amanda, amazed with how she figured that out. "I'm Farah."
"I'm Amanda. Cool jacket."
"Thanks."
Sam and Dean extended their hands to Amanda.
"I'm Sam and this is my brother, Dean," he said as she shook both the brothers hands.
"Nice to meet you guys."
"It's all happening!" Dirk said in a singsong voice.
"Oh, for God's sakes," Tood sighed. This was too much for him to handle, so he decided to walk away from the situation. But Dirk was following behind him. "Oh! Will you stop following me!"
"I was just going down to get the magic lightbulb from my car," Dirk said.
"Magic lightbulb?!"
"It sounds crazy, but he's right," Dean spoke up from the apartment.
"Look, what did I tell you?"
"Just Dirk, will you just get out of my apartment!" Todd yelled.
"I told you it would bend back around to you, and now it has! Give me a second. We're meant to know each other. Now, I'm sick of having this conversation! There's a map in there with your bloody building right at the center of it. I want your help." Todd didn't say anything. He just looked at Dirk like he belongs in a mental asylum. Dirk heaved a sad sigh and was about to walk away, but Todd stopped him.
"This neighborhood," he finally said, which got Dirk's attention, "the one we're in right now, it's called Springsborough. Like-like Edgar Spring. That was Patrick Spring's father, right? Springsborough. It's not a coincidence, is it?"
"No. I'm certain we'll find that it's not."
"You knew this was going to happen."
"Not this, but something like this, yes."
"It's real, isn't it? It's all real. You really are what you say you are, some kind of holistic detective."
"I'm trying. Is this enough proof? Will you help me?"
Dirk, Sam, and Dean were leaving Todd's apartment, the detective brimming with enthusiasm.
"This is so exciting! Everything's all coming together now!"
"So what's the plan now?"
"Well tomorrow, we can explore Springsborough and see what-" Dirk suddenly stopped talking, his cheery demeanor was gone and his face was instantly filled with fear. Sam and Dean looked at him, wondering why he became silent.
"Hey, dude, you okay?" Dean waved his hand in front of Dirk, but he was still stuck in place.
"Hello, Project Icarus," a new voice was heard in the building. The brothers turned to see who it was and it was a man with a gray mustache wearing all black, including a black cap.
"No. Leave me alone," Dirk said shakily.
"Svlad, we need to talk," the older male said.
"That's not my name anymore."
"Dirk, then."
"I said, leave me alone!" Dirk yelled, but he was tackled by another man.
"Friedkin! Friedkin, god damn it, get off him!"
"He was escaping," Friedkin said.
"Let go of him!" Dean tried to pull the newcomer off of Dirk.
"You release him now, soldier, that's an order!" the older man demanded. The younger soldier released Dirk and sat down.
"Is this what you do now? You just attack people?"
"Sorry, sir, I got confused," he explained and he went towards and stood beside the older man.
"He seems like a winner," Dirk jokingly said.
"Dirk, listen to me," the older man tried to explain.
"Hold on. First of all, who are you?" Sam questioned.
"Sorry, but this doesn't concern you, Sam and Dean Winchester."
This caught the brothers by surprise.
"How do you know our names?" the older Winchester demanded to know.
"Project Blackwing knows all about you and your brother. You two go across the country, killing supernatural beings that cause havoc, and skip town like nothing ever happened. You two are both persons of interest.
Project Blackwing? What was he talking about?
"Why are you here Riggins? What, do you have new lies to tell me?" Dirk questioned.
"We need you to come back in for debriefing," Riggins said.
"Yes, why not, it's only been 16 years," Dirk implied.
"Blackwing is under review. That's why we bailed you out when the police brought you in. It's the least you can do."
"The least I could do?"
"This is in your best interest."
"You promised them something, and you couldn't deliver. You promised me something, and you couldn't deliver," Dirk told him.
"Dirk, I am not the enemy here!" Riggins moved towards him, which scared Dirk and made him move back. "And you're not a detective. You're going to get yourself hurt or killed if you keep-"
"I am on a case!" Dirk interrupted. "I have friends! A-And we found clues. We're going to solve a mystery, a real one! And some people think I'm a pretty good detective!"
"I'm trying to protect you. I don't know what they'll do," the older soldier said.
"I don't care. I don't need you," Dirk said as he moved closer to Riggins. "Go back to hiding in the shadows. It was the only thing you were ever good at." After that, Dirk left the building, but behind a broken door, he was trying to pull himself together as a wave of emotions hit him hard and he was close to crying. Meanwhile, Sam and Dean looked at Riggins and Friedkin, wondering what their history was.
"Do you want me to go get him?" the soldier known as Friedkin asked.
"How about you back off or I'll break your face," Dean spat at the young soldier as he and Sam left the building too.
"Let them go. We'll try another angle," Riggins said.
"You'll get them, sir. All of them."
"We have to, because they have no idea who he is or what they could be dealing with."
Outside, the brothers caught up with Dirk, and it looked like he was crying.
"Who the hell was that?" Dean asked.
"A very bad man that you cannot trust," Dirk told them.
"What's 'Project Blackwing'?"
"I don't want to talk about that, okay?!" Dirk exclaimed, now visibly shaken after his outburst. In the short time Sam and Dean have known him, they've never seen Dirk so upset.
"Okay, sorry," Dean said.
"Are you gonna be okay?" Sam asked, worried about him.
"I will be," Dirk sniffled and rubbed his wet eyes. "If you want guys want to, you can sleep in my apartment."
"Thanks, but we already paid for a motel," Dean said. "We'll see you tomorrow?"
"Of course! Until tomorrow!" Dirk said, this time with a big smile. After that, the brothers went to the Impala and drove to their motel. As they were driving, they began to talk about that confrontation.
"What was that all about?" Dean spoke first.
"I have no idea. But did you see Dirk's eyes started to water when he saw that Riggins guy?" Sam questioned.
"Yeah. Wonder what was their past history like. And what's 'Project Blackwing' and how do they know about us?"
"I'll do some research in the morning and then we can meet up with them. Sounds like a plan?"
"Most definitively."