Cataclysm

Discoveries

"Good morning, Nora? I'm guessing you and Brenan slept well, or did you guys stay up half the night?" Roth addresses me with a wide smirk. "Harley tells me that he saw you walk into Brenan's room after you left my room."

"How did you know that?" I turn to the innocent looking boy who is now giggling.

"I couldn't sleep so I was wandering the halls and I saw you walk into Brenan's room."

"You're a little snitch." I say jokingly and he smiles.

"Matten said we should meet him in the meeting room when you wake up, so are you ready to go now?" Roth says.

"What about Brenan?"

"He went to work on the Rouge Shadow this morning. I saw him leave his room around six." Harley says.

"Next time I want to learn something I'll be sure to go to you, Snitch." He laughs at the new nickname and Roth playfully ruffles the boy's golden locks.

Harley walks beside me while Roth leads the way down the bright hallway. By now there are soldiers everywhere and some seem busy with paperwork while others are casually having discussions. A little boy with large round glasses passes me with a wide grin stained on his thick lips. He looks to be younger than Harley and his white lab coat seems to be too big for him.

"It's about time you got here." Commander Matten addresses us when we enter the meeting room.

The room is large and bright with one large table in the center of the floor. The walls are bare except for the multiple lighting fixtures that protrude from the wall and ceiling. I watch in amazement as a soldier walks to the large table and types something into the tabletop. Then the table comes alive with bright blue three dimensional images that shoot into the room. I can see a map of our nation-state, but it is mainly zoomed in on the city of Dumani. Towers shoot up from the table in shades of pixel blue while every detail seems exact. Then a beam of blue light shoots from the table and hits the ceiling. I look up and see a picture of a man I don't recognize. He has piercing eyes, short hair, and a narrow jaw line.

"Lieutenant Yereck was the soldier who was assigned to kill the Tetron spy originally, but your father took on the mission without orders. He was rumored dead when his airship crashed into the ocean nearly a month after your father escaped the city. We have found proof that he is indeed still alive, but there has been a new twist in the story." Commander Matten begins.

The image of the city becomes distorted, but the man's evil face still gleams on the ceiling. I now watch as the table shows a different city and labeled below is the word Metropolis. This must be the soul city of Dumani's nation-state. It seems to have a more futuristic appearance to the structure and all the buildings are different heights with different numbers of windows.

"As it turns out, there was no spy." Matten says.

"What?" Roth slams his hands on the table and looks to him through wide eyes. "How was Commander Hope found guilty of murder if there was no victim?"

"It was all planned and faked. Who was the one who told the council he was guilty of murder? It was the same person who was supposedly dead less than a month after the incident. Lieutenant Yereck was the spy this whole time. Of course Tetron would want us bombed. They learned everything about us through the person we trusted the most. He just wanted the rest of the army to put all their focus into killing someone who had nothing to do with anything. The chase for your innocent father was a way of distracting us from reality." Matten explains and I feel taken aback by this.