Omega The Girl in the Box

22.



Sienna



I lay in my bed, alone, as the shadows crept across the floor again. It was quiet. I wouldn’t say too quiet, because I knew it was nearing nightfall and the admin staff had been absent all day, but it was definitely not the Directorate I was used to. Any of the meta kids who had tenable home situations had been shuffled back to their parents or relatives. Most of them lived in small towns, dedicated meta communities anyway, so the cloisters would be better protection for them than the campus at this point. It was a calculated risk, but it didn’t seem likely that Omega would be interested in tracking down meta kids when the Directorate was their primary enemy. Only the orphans remained here on campus with the rest of us.

A pall had settled over the place; it was starting to look abandoned, the falling leaves taking over the campus in volume and numbers that hadn’t been a problem back when we had a grounds crew. The whole place seemed empty without most of the people, even though I didn’t associate with almost any of them. It was worse knowing Reed and Scott were gone. I thought about visiting Kat and dismissed the idea as patronizing, as though I were trying to force some sort of empathy out that I didn’t really feel.

I waited for sleep to come claim me, wondered if it would. I hadn’t heard from Bastian or Parks all day, which I took as a good sign; they were supposed to call if the world started to end around us. Personally, I suspected that would be something I wouldn’t need a lot of heads-up about. When Omega came, I kinda thought I’d know the hour and minute it started to happen. It wasn’t going to be subtle. Not this time.

My phone lit up and I pulled it off the nightstand at the first beep. The screen lit up when I thumbed the power button, and I swiped my finger across the message icon to bring up a text message. It was from Zack.

All other Directorate campuses evacuated and shuttered except Arizona. Will be by in a little while, finishing up a meeting with Kurt.

I sighed and lay the phone on my chest. I wanted him here with me now, not later. It felt like the next breath stuck in my lungs, caught there, like a stitch in my ribs, a pain I couldn’t dispense with. I wanted this over, even if it was going to end badly. When problems came at me, my philosophy was to confront them, because if you fear something and you charge into it anyway, odds were good you wouldn’t fear it for very long. Unless “it” was actually something gravely harmful, like a running chainsaw, in which case...yeah, I suppose you’d still fear it even after running into it once.

The stars were starting to come out to play now, and I lay on top of the bedspread, waiting. I looked at the deepening purple of the sky, the first twinkles of light out above the orange fade of the horizon, and I wondered again how long it would be. Wondered why they were coming for me. And then I wondered what Mom was up to. That one was really strange.

I saw the first sparkle of light on the horizon, a red light hanging over the campus like a falling crimson star, and I watched it descend with steady regularity past my window. No surprise attack, no explosions, no metas gone wild streaming across the lawns in attack formation. Just a flare. A simple, red flare, falling onto the south lawn. I watched it go, the very thought prickling my mind—we didn’t use flares, didn’t need flares, we had freestanding light posts all around the campus to illuminate the whole thing if we wanted it done—

I heard the heater cut out, the lights all died out in the main room. I heard the quiet, reassuring hum of electricity stop all throughout the building, followed by the last few dying sounds of the warm air pushed through the heat exchange. The vent above me quit making the whooshing noise that was incredibly loud to meta ears as it pushed out the last of its warm air.

A moment later, the first explosion rocked the campus.