Page 49 of Rhuyin

“Can you hear the sirens?”

“No, seems to just be—you? Which… is really weird.” I shook his head. What the hell was going on? Luke looked at me in confusion.

“But—how?” Luke asked. “Some kind of weird aftereffect of the explosion?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll have to figure it out later. We need to find out what happened.”

And wasn’t that the understatement of the day? We picked our way through the ruins of the administrative wing.

“Could the explosion have been the result of a gas leak?” Luke asked when we paused for a moment. “I’m trying to figure out what else could have caused an explosion this size.”

I shook his head.

“I don’t think it was gas. There’re no major fires burning anywhere. I don’t smell smoke or anything, so I doubt it was gas. I’m not sure what could have done this, though. Whatever caused the explosion, we’re lucky it happened during a Touchpoint, or these offices would have been filled with people,” I explained.

“Do they normally empty out that way?” Luke asked.

“Touchpoints take a lot of organization. There’s a lot of prep work, a lot of last-minute communication that has to go out,” I said. “It’s an all-hands-on-deck kind of situation, and everyone normally reports to the auditorium for them.”

“So… if someone wanted to cause a lot of destruction, but not necessarily bloodshed, it would be the ideal time to strike.”

I looked at him strangely.

“Why would someone want to do that?” I asked. “Do you think it was the Alexandrians?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? Why would they want to destroy your infrastructure but spare your people?”

I didn’t have an answer to that question, so we continued making our way out of the wreckage.

We picked our way cautiously through the broken hall, finally coming to a four-way intersection that was still mostly standing. Luckily, we both were wearing boots, so we were able to ignore the shattered glass, but there were still lots of metal and precariously balanced bits of building that threatened to come down at any moment.

“Which way?” he asked.

“I’m not sure. None of this looks familiar,” I said, looking around at the tangle of debris that surrounded us.

Luke’s gaze when distant, as though he were looking through the walls and earth. He stood unmoving for long minutes until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Luke? Luke!” I called sharply.

He blinked slowly, then looked up at me, his expression more than a little dazed.

“What?”

“You’ve been standing there for almost five minutes just staring off into space,” I said, trying to keep the worry out of my voice.

“Sorry, I—I was trying to figure out which way to go, and I kinda got distracted,” he said, smiling embarrassedly. “It’s a bit overwhelming some—”

A slight breeze swirled through the room, and I held up a finger.

“Do you… Do you smell that?” I asked.

He sniffed, but shook his head.

“What is it?”

I inhaled deeply.

“Blood. This is the Administrative Pavilion, there shouldn’t have been anyone in this area during the Touchpoint,” I said. “But I smell blood, lots of it. In that direction,” I said, nodding toward one the opposite hall.