OGENUS EARTH 🌎 🌊 {Dystopian Sci-Fi Adventure}

For Whom The Bell Tolls

An interesting shade of alabaster emerged between the ridges of Sandra's knuckles as she gripped the back of a chair to study the screen in front of her.

If her hunch was right, Arc City Two was about to have visitors, and she suspected that there were more people involved than the two crew members listed on the ship's manifest.

"What do you see?" Lauren asked from across the room.

The remaining Architects were huddled in the control center, all of them a little worse for the wear. Gayle, the Legionnaire Sandra had pulled out for questioning, was tied up in a chair near the back of the room, her hawk-eyes taking in everything.

All eyes went to Sandra. "There is a shipping record from Arc City One roughly twenty-four hours after the attack began. It looks like they gave false coordinates to Coeuss."

"Who's listed?" Lauren spoke carefully, her eyes darting to the Legionnaire.

"They didn't give names." Sandra lied with a wan smile and flicked her hand across the screen to minimize the information. "Only two crewmembers."

"Do you think they know what happened?" Bethany's voice rose with her nerves.

"No," Sandra replied. "It was a seafarer's vessel, an Aegis, but it's listed as a fishing boat now."

"And, they didn't list their names?" Gayle interjected from her seat and craning her neck to get a view of the crowd.

"As I said," Sandra addressed Gayle with a cool indifference, answering for the benefit of the room. "No."

"Why?" Lauren probed the restrained Legionnaire, her face alight with curiosity.

"Because it seems strange that a vessel of any kind would be able to depart from an Arc with a manifest that didn't list the names of the crew, doesn't it?" Gayle's response had an edge of forewarning. "Unless whoever created that manifest, had access to records and could redact the information."

"Could someone have gotten out an emergency call to Arc City One?" Bethany's question wasn't directed at anyone in particular, but its ramifications affected everyone.

"Communications were severed as soon as I input the emergency code, and we didn't ask for aid." Sandra reminded them with a terse nod. "No one could have sent a transmission or information without my code."

"But what if a citizen...?" Bethany's whimpers trailed off with her question.

"Shouldn't we all have that code now?" Lauren followed up, testing the leeway she had in this situation. "I only ask because we could access Coeuss and help you search for evidence of a distress signal?"

Sandra turned her stony expression on her fellow Architect. "Why would that matter right now?"

Then, she spun around to address the others.

"A ship is headed in our direction, and we are no closer to answers for this mass attack." Sandra's shrewd eyes watched every expression warp with dread. "To be frank, we don't know if there are still traitors in our midst. For now, I will hold onto the code until we can be sure."

"Seems like an awful lot of power for one person." Gayle countered, her shorn head turning to face off with Sandra. "How do we know you're not the one responsible for this?"

"We've been able to locate the perpetrator amongst the dead, remember?" Sandra snapped. "You used to sleep with her?"

Lauren nodded earnestly to the others. "It's true." She confirmed. "Caitlyn Ramirez entered the codes that caused the air system shut down. She was killed in the fight."