Stargazer: The Fractured Universe

Together

Jay opened the door to the security room, still in his exosuit

"Yes, I'm feeling perfectly fine! I need police here now!" the security guard yelled into the phone. Up on the computer monitors, still images of what happened in the lobby. The beam of light shooting out of Jay's face. The creature reared up on its hind legs. Olivia standing between them

Jay extrapolated. The security guard calling for backup from the police after seeing what happened to the rest of the security guards. However, the idea of a large centipede-like creature attacking a lobby was not likely to elicit a positive response, even with crazy superhumans running around everywhere. So Jay needed to play into the side of the dispatch responder, who was probably trying to determine what drugs the security guard was on.

"Hey, calm down," Jay said holding his hands up.

The guard's head snapped, making eye contact with Jay. His pupils dilated and the blood fled from his face. "No, you... you were out there..." his voice shook.

"Listen, man," Jay was annunciating as loud as he could in hopes the dispatch could hear him. "It's okay. Whatever is going on in here, there's no need to worry. Everything is okay."

Dispatch was silent.

"What is going on?" the security guard asked. Jay saw his nametag now. His name was Evan.

"You're right, let's just talk." Jay grabbed the phone from his hand and said to dispatch, "Hey no worries, we're just going to talk to him. He's not a threat to anyone. We'll call the non-emergency number if any charges need to be pressed. Thank you." He hung up and turned around and looked at the man. "Sorry, I wish I could give you a better explanation."

"What was all that?" Evan asked, pressing his fingers to his temples. "What... what... like..."

Jay looked at him and said, "I'm not going to lie; I have no idea what happened out there. I'm in a suit I'm building for a military general to fight altered-humans. I'm just doing my best here. How about you go on break real quick? I just need to check out the security footage so I can do some research. You saw the police weren't willing to respond, and it's because they're still stunned by the world we live in. We will need to call back just to get an ambulance out here, but I don't think you were going to get anywhere with that dispatcher. Okay?"

"I'm... uh..."

"Hey," Jay said, raising his hands. "I built this company. I'm not going to let it fall because some alien-looking creature attacks it."

Evan nodded and walked forward, closing the door as he left. Jay got up to lock the door before getting back to work. Scrubbing security footage wasn't a habit, but the exosuit made this significantly easier. He held his hand to the USB port on the computer, then extended the USB plug-in from the forearm of his exosuit. The visor flipped down over his face, and the heads-up-display came to life. AR technology showed him an interactive display, and he took control of the security footage.

First, Jay downloaded everything from the day. He found a section where Olivia and the other receptionists were typing and not doing anything particularly interesting. He looped that section and pasted it over the rest of the security footage, erasing the rest of the interaction to obscurity.

The whole process took like 30 minutes. Maybe Evan passed out in the breakroom. Jay locked the door just to be sure no one would walk in on him.

Now to check the other security footage.

The suit ran a search for images similar to the alien creature, and he found another part of the security footage. It was live. In accounting, the guy who took his papers this morning... Khaleel. Khaleel and Olivia seemed to have been talking, but she was gone. Now Khaleel faced off with this creature and... showed his powers. He had an ability too? He was hydrokinetic by the looks of it. He was able to control the water, but coffee dust sprayed everywhere.