Triple Point

Chapter 39: Unbiased Opinions

06 JUN 33AE, 0525

Everland Park, Los Angeles

Even though she was exhausted, Camilla couldn't bring herself to drift off to sleep. What if something happened when she let her guard down? This Exodos group had successfully attacked both the Barracks and the prison on the Farallon Islands in only one night—what if they had a third plan in store? She had to be awake and alert just in case anything went wrong.

As much as she tried to resist, her eyes drifted towards the digital clock on the nightstand. It was almost half past five in the morning, meaning Camilla had been lying in bed for almost two hours, and she had to report to the Org in three hours for debriefing.

The only saving grace was that the Org authorized all Barracks residents to take the first few hours of the day off to account for changes in living arrangements, but it didn't really matter when Camilla was already awake for her normal start time of 0630. And there really wasn't any point in her trying to sleep now, especially when a part of her didn't even want to. So she dragged herself out of bed and grabbed her phone before quietly making her way outside.

Elsie's luxury condo was a monstrosity and had two levels. The guest room Camilla just left was almost the same size as Camilla's entire apartment before it collapsed; now, the remains of her apartment were probably just as big as the closet in her new room.

Both bedrooms were on the second floor, and once she stepped out she could view the living room from above, along with the Los Angeles skyline through the two-story tall windows that lined the walls. It was, according to Elsie, the only purchase she ever splurged on, and it was mostly because she wanted to give her family the chance to live in a sense of luxury whenever they visited. Camilla didn't understand the relationship between Elsie and her family, but she supposed there were a lot of things about the woman she couldn't comprehend.

The living room below was dark and silent, illuminated only by the city lights outside that filtered through the tall, nearly transparent curtains. While the view was beautiful, Camilla forced herself to avert her eyes—she didn't want to chance seeing the Barracks just yet. Instead, her eyes scanned the living room out of habit, knowing that nothing should be amiss but feeling the need to verify it anyway. It looked the same as it had when all of Elsie's visitors had left for the evening, each of them awkwardly avoiding any mention of the revelation they had all witnessed.

Dancing around the topic seemed like a waste of time to Camilla. Of course someone had to be behind all of those attacks, and it wasn't surprising that the same group was responsible for each of them. Putting a name to the crime wouldn't make things any different. Admittedly, she was a little shocked to find out that the same group was responsible for the attack on the Academy, but she got over it pretty quickly. After all, the past couldn't be changed, but the future could still be.

As quietly as she could, Camilla walked down the path and towards the staircase, taking care to not wake Elsie as she walked by her bedroom. She made her way to the kitchen and turned on the stove light so she could efficiently navigate her way around the room without turning on the bright ceiling lights or needing to use her abilities. While she was mostly acquainted with the layout after spending three weeks there, she also had no idea what Elsie's idea of cleaning had entailed, and she didn't want to accidentally knock over a hidden stack of pots when she just wanted to silently brew some coffee.

Once she got the coffee going without incident, Camilla idled through her phone while she waited. Now that the aftermath from the Barracks attack had died down and reception was back to normal, Camilla's phone was flooded with notifications.

The most recent ones were from social media, where a bunch of random people were leaving comments on whatever her last post was. She had seen some of them earlier; most of them were strangers hoping that she was okay or asking if she was dead. Earlier, Camilla had decided to ignore all of them just to see what would happen, and she did the same again as she dismissed the notifications with one clean swipe.