Indigo's Owl [Indigo Rewrite]

Chapter 15 - Red Flags

Athira had suspected a prank, but Indigo's scarily well-practised answers told her this wasn't uncommon. At this point, had someone told Athira that Shift's Green had a gravitational field that also forced its victims to talk incessantly, she would have believed them.

"Is that the girl Gossip Insider said you carried into Indigo base?" one of the girls squeaked, looking at Athira. "It totally is! Is she a Purple, like me?"

Athira was vaguely aware of the fifteen other stares that were then directed at her. She responded by pulling her hoodie a little further over her face and turning sideways in her chair, sinking as far into it as she could while watching Sirah flash by out the window.

"No way, Shift wouldn't do that to us!" said one like her world hinged on that single truth.

"Shift, did something happen that you haven't told us about?" demanded another.

"It's my job to assist those in need," said Shift confidently. His voice didn't sound right. That annoyed Athira more than anything. "If that requires carrying someone, then it's my duty to do so as a Keeper."

Athira's forehead hit the glass of the window with a thud.

"Do they ever shut up?" she muttered, fiddling with Talon's cold amulet through her shirt.

"This is pretty much what happens every time Shift catches the monorail and someone spots him," said Zoe quietly, retaking her seat beside Athira and leaning over with a screen from her wristlet. "Here, look at this."

It was the newsfeed of a social media site. A few hundred posts went by as Zoe scrolled, all of them telling the world that Shift was currently on the monorail. A picture of Shift with one of the red-haired girls in the group two metres away appeared at the top of the posts.

Athira couldn't believe it. "You're kidding me."

OMC, parents won't let me skip family day to stalk Shift #Stalktherainbow #lifeisover #Shiftme

SHIFT IS ON THE MONORAIL WITH INDIGO, CATCH IT FROM RITENBA SQUARE NOW TO CATCH HIM! #Shiftme #Stalktherainbow #GoGoIndigo

SQUEE! I can see him from the next carriage! #Stalktherainbow #socloseyetsofar #canidoit #Shiftme

"What I wouldn't give for that to be my biggest problem in life," said Athira.

Zoe closed the screen with a grin. "We tried disguising him once, but they figured it out. It's the weirdest thing."

Zoe continued to distract Athira from the torrent of babble, but hearing her became nearly impossible as the crowd around them grew. By the time the monorail pulled up at Elite HQ station, there were at least twenty-six fans that had to be forcibly detached from Shift by security.

The various squeals and strange, cringeworthy demands followed them. Athira stuck close to Zoe as they moved past the crowd and somehow managed to exit the station through a side door, where they were greeted with the sight of Elite HQ looming over them.

The Elite's Headquarters was, by far, the largest structure in Sirah, and it was widely considered to mark the centre of the city.

The tallest part of HQ was the narrow central building that stood at about four hundred metres, which for the most part, was empty. It acted as a central hub, connecting the seven, much larger, seventy-five floor wings that protruded out like an asterisk to make up the bulk of the structure. Along with the much shorter, tiered sections of building that stretched between them, from the air, Athira had always thought the building looked like some kind of ridiculous cake.