Indigo's Owl [Indigo Rewrite]

Chapter 17 - Dangerous Games

After packing a small bag of snacks and other goodies, Shift headed down to Kione's Tech lab where he found Raph, Kione, and Athira discussing a few last-minute details.

"The Surges are always stronger below ground," Athira was saying as Shift entered. She sat sideways with her legs tucked up on the chair, one hand lightly tapping across the keyboard linked to one of Kione's guest consoles. "By the time I realised it, they were too strong for me to be anywhere near them when they peaked."

Raph stood against one of the walls, his eyes moving over the various maps and blueprints of today's Surge site. "If something below ground is causing the Surges, Talia should be able to sense it."

It'd been four days since Athira's Keeper trial had been accepted. In that time, Indigo had only received a few minor alerts, giving Athira plenty of time to catch them up on the finer details of the Surges. When she wasn't in the training room running through drills with Raph, Zoe, or Shift, she'd been in Kione's Tech lab. The two of them had made substantial amounts of progress, including a highly detailed map of previous Surge locations and several other data points that Shift could never quite make sense of.

Even so, their progress hadn't been without its hitches. Athira had fried the first guest console Kione had put her on the day after her interview. It was still half-out of the floor, creating an interesting sculpture to her Colour's destructive capabilities.

Raph glanced at Shift. "You ready?"

Shift lifted the bag in his hand and let his hair glow as he gave it a dramatic flick. "Snacks acquired, Zoe's Yellow shifted, just waiting on whatever you slowpokes are doing in here."

Raph rolled his eyes.

Despite a unanimous agreement from everyone except Athira that Reader was likely causing the Surges, they'd decided to play it safe.

Athira had scouted the location of the next Surge in her mindscape, and if it stuck to schedule, the next one was due sometime in the next few hours. Kione would create two fake alerts — one that sent Raph, Zoe, and Talia to the Surge site, and another that would get Shift and Athira as far from it as they could without leaving Indigo's zone.

In short, Shift was on babysitting duty while the rest of his team did the interesting stuff.

Raph pushed off the wall. "You two should probably get going. If a real alert comes up, we'll adapt as necessary, but until then, we stick to the plan."

Shift held out a hand towards Athira. "Shall we depart?"

Kione whirled around and pointed the finger of doom at Shift. "Put that hand down. No one is phasing through the walls of my lab until I've figured out how to Athira-proof it. You can both get your butts up to the roof before you zip off into the sky."

Shift retracted his hand, holding both up in surrender. "Understood. Please don't murder me."

Kione grumbled something incoherent under his breath as he turned back to his console. "Athira, do you remember what I told you about that tracking Frame I put in your wristlet?"

Athira finished typing whatever she'd been working on and placed a hand on the back of her chair, floating herself up and over in one, neat movement. "Activate my Black when the Surge begins to see if it helps the tracker pick up on anything."

Kione nodded, satisfied. "The Frame is still rough, but if I can figure out what kind of energy we're dealing with, there won't be anywhere in this city it can hide from me." He called back over his shoulder as Athira moved towards the door. "Oh, and don't worry about breaking it. I made sure it'll transmit data back live."