March City: Land of the Gifted [Book 1 | Fantasy/Sci-fi | Complete]

Chapter 41: Lira's Call

Lira stared without blinking as the video sped up, showing all the taped sequences that occurred in Area Six. The same images flashed before her for the eighth time in the empty dark office. Every face recorded matched with those on the missing persons profile on the system, including Kena's. All except for Mina, Ari's sister – and Ari, herself. Lira leaned forward, resting her chin on interlocked fingers. It was no coincidence. Mina was definitely there; all her sources state that, although she had no physical evidence. No doubt if her men raided the sleeping quarters, her possessions would be there, but there was no way they could fight their way into the monsters' den.

And besides, the whole place was flooded now, at Central Administration's instructions.

Lira rewound the videos with a flick of her long fingers and studied the recording again, her eyes not leaving the large screen. Rows upon rows of students, each faces accounted for on her list, sat on wooden steps at the far end of the fall. Three students stood in front of them, speaking with grandiose tones. Their confident postures suggested they might be the leaders or older ones of the lot. She fast-forwarded a few more seconds. The three, and most of the students, turned at once to the left. There must have been a commotion just outside of the camera's reach. Just when the camera would have caught the disturbance, the images flickered once, twice, and then went black. Lira pursed her lips, pushing aside the wave of annoyance at how backward the technology down in Six was where there were no infra-red sensors, back-up cameras, or even microphones. She sped up the video again. The next images that came on were of a storm-struck room: the wooden steps where the students had sat lay in large shards on the ground; the walls were cracked; the balcony over the far right side collapsed into a mess of rubble and metal foundation. It didn't take a genius to hazard a guess as to the cause of such destruction.

A trembling girl crouched over the smoking body of a dead boy, her shoulders heaving. The long, straight dark hair was recognisable as Ilia's. She'd accidentally torched a boy with her newly-transplanted powers, unsurprisingly. Her head jerked up. Someone backed just into the camera's range: a boy, shouting, waving his arms in a rage. Hine, from Class 5A, from Ari's class. Whoever he was shouting at stood outside of that viewable range. Another wave of annoyance washed over Lira. In the current March City, cameras did not leave any corners unwatched; there were no blind spots, no hidden areas, and no stills that were unclear. But time had forgotten Area Six.

Ilia leapt to her feet and stumbled out of the hall. A few seconds later, blinding white light seared across the screen and the video stopped there. A surge.

Lira paused, organising her thoughts. A commotion that the rebels did not take kindly to. A battle took place – that would explain the mess in the few minutes the video lost feed. Or perhaps the monsters reached their little haven; but that wouldn't explain why Hine was so vocal just before that surge. It must have been a human, not a monster, which caused the wreckage.

She sorted through the remaining broken files that were available, playing them across a three by three grid simultaneously. Most were useless, depicting daily activities of the rebels underground: eating, drinking, training. It was an organised chaos; they tried desperately to replicate the schedules aboveground but had no capacity to run it to any semblance of efficiency. From time to time, the videos would flicker and cut off. Lira's irritation grew, although outwardly she showed nothing, at the ridiculously inferior technology that once ran Area Six. It was no wonder the place got shut down.

A flurry of movement caught her eye on one of the videos. She paused the rest and magnified the feed on the middle right. The same creatures that swarmed her men and spilled into Area Seven came into view. They were naked, hairless, humanoid, but feral. Saliva dripped out of their mouths and their eyes displayed an eerie and inhuman red. She thought she recognised some of the features; Lira never forgot a face. She dismissed it, putting it down to her frustration at not finding a link yet to all this. It was easy to assume the Transformer going into the midst to find her weak sister, but it didn't explain her role in the surges, the devastating fights, the monsters, and most of all, Kena's survival. There must be more to it. What was Ari planning?