Twenty Four Shades Fighting

The Hacking Room - Level B

"Blaire?"

"Yup."

"Shit." She stared at the grainy image for a few more seconds, just in case this would somehow make it change. "That's definitely her."

Lawrie stretched himself out, nearly hitting her in the head in the process. During their escape she'd pictured this room as being large and spacious, with all cables tucked away neatly out of sight. Instead it resembled an electric cave. Three of the walls were blanketed by screens, all of which seemed to be on constantly and which cast a strangely flickering blue light over everything, making them all look even more washed out than they actually were. Some of the screens were showing graphs or charts that made no sense to her. Some showed security images. One was firmly fixed on a Justice Building that looked vaguely familiar; closer inspection revealed it to be District Two. On another, ant-like workers scurried up and down trees. The floor here was a heaving mass of wires.

What else should she have expected? Even with their meager possessions back in Five Lawrie had been unable to keep his room tidy. Port should have known better, but something in his permanently dazed expression suggested that he wasn't quite with it. She made a mental note to drag him up to the surface at some point. Fresh air was needed.

"The Capitol meant us to see this," Lawrie said. "They did the holoscreen equivalent of dropping it right on our doorstep. They wouldn't have bothered unless it was one of your lot."

Her lot. She wasn't sure who had used the term first, and she knew for a fact that Erik and Holly had played equal parts in trying to get them here safely, but for some reason it seemed to have stuck. They - Satine and Lincoln, and Avoxes and all - were all her lot. By extension, her responsibility. This didn't help.

"I tried to get them all here," she said, feeling her vocal chords constrict. "I did my best."

Port shot Lawrie a look and took over. "Jute, we need you to have a look at these crowd scenes for us. Can you see any of the others?" No response. "Jute?"

She took a few deep breaths, running through the crucial information in her head like Auriel had advised her. She had made mistakes. Because of that, the others weren't here. Okay. And now she was here, she could work hard and remedy that. Good.

Not good enough. Not for Blaire.

"Okay!" The moment she'd said it she knew it was too loud. Both of the boys stared at her. "Okay, I'll have a look. Show me the footage."

Lawrie tapped at something, chattering over the top in his usual way. "If it's any consolation, sis, I reckoned we didn't need you."

"That's a real consolation."

"We've seen these people on screen before, like. We could probably have identified them on our own. But Splinter wanted an absolutely clear-cut ID, so for that we had to get someone who'd known them in the flesh, and that means..."

"Me. Or one of the other three."

"They're busy."

The camera angle on screen had changed. Now they were looking out over the crowd, row after row after row of Avoxes. Chills crawled up her back. Some were in the same silver outfits that the Avoxes who had served on them in the Tribute Tower had been wearing. Most looked to be in overalls, or simple shirts and pants. All of them had the same sort of expression; taunt, deliberately emotionless.

A slim finger poked onto the screen, drawing her attention to a disturbance only just in view. Everybody around was ignoring it and the clash itself was hardly visible behind the rows of heads so it was hard to see what was going on, but it looked like a big, burly Avox was holding back a companion. She leaned in closer, trying to make out any individual features. Something about the build of the second was familiar, even if the behaviour wasn't.