A Hero's Song (Darkest Secrets Volume 1)

Chapter 30 - Lockdown

No one said VNet whiplash was worse than the real thing.

"What happened?" Gabriel blinked clear his vision. Alfred stood at his bedside - the same fox-face from the VNet frowned at him from the visor.

"You changed your face?"

"Now that you recognize this face as me, I decided to keep using it. That, and I couldn't figure out how to show 'worried' in pixels." His furry ears tilted even further down.

"Oh." Oh! "What's wrong? Why did you yank me out like that?"

"We were ejected by a local security protocol enacting a network sweep."

Sudden entry into the Real had left Gabriel's super brain a little discombobulated. "Plain English, please?"

"The Spire is on High Alert. Half the Shield has been deployed on an emergency mission."

The Sentinel's Headquarters was only one Danger Level away from total lockdown. Had Omicron Beta ratted them out? "What else can you tell me?"

Alfred looked sheepish. "The only way to tell would be to snoop in on the Shield's meeting."

Melody's plight fresh on his mind, Gabriel said, "Do it. If Omicron Beta notices, so be it. We might be on the hook for streaming into the Cyber as it is."

Alfred patched into the Shield Training Hall's cameras. Bingo. A group of shadowy figures sat in high-backed chairs around the raised, circular table. Gabriel mentally nudged Alfred to shift the view to another camera.

Dr. Atomic sat fiddling with his Wrist Pad. Zero sat next to him rigid and silent - no visible expression made it through his shadows. Bulwark, in his huge blue Power Suit, whispered back and forth with a brooding Photon. Finally, sitting mute next to Bulwark was the equally hulking frame of Omicron Beta.

A tidbit of the whispered conversation reached the camera. "-don't understand why I can't be out there with her - y'know?"

Photon stood up with quiet intensity, speaking to Bulwark but angrily gesturing at Dr. Atomic. "We should all be there. Together. If Dr. Cautious here would just fracking tell us what he's been hiding, I, for one, would sleep better at night. Othelius, I respect everything you've done as Head Sentinel, but you can't keep us in the dark like this anymore."

Dr. Atomic kept swiping.

Now it was Bulwark's turn; the whole room turned when he placed a hand against the table. The kinetic resonators in his suit shattered a section of the heavy table with a sharp crack.

An amplified whisper followed. "I might have to wear this suit to keep my atoms from falling apart, but it's you who's been all over the place recently. We've all noticed what you're doing, keeping secret projects, not sleeping or eating. When was the last time you had a hot meal - hell when was the last time you showered? This is the Ruchin rebellion all over again."

Silence.

Bulwark puffed up with indignation. "Thelo. Talk to us! My wife is on her way to a death trap. The Blitz are outside Neo Paolo, and you just want us to sit here?"

Dr. Atomic closed his eyes, took a long, tired breath, and waved his WristPad. "Over the last few weeks, I've been tracking changes to Blitz movement patterns in the upper atmosphere."

A simulated holo map depicting MechaBlitz positions over Earth highlighted the changes.

"As you can see here, and here." Red circles surrounded a few areas in Asia, then zoomed in on a few icons that looked like castles. "The Blitz fleet diverted their patrols away from their known strongholds in Ruchin Territory. Where do you think this force at Neo Paolo came from? To make matters worse, that's not the only bad news."