Page 51 of Dalla's Royal Guards
Tall, cloaked in desert garb, her bow drawn with easy familiarity and strength as she solidified. She turned slightly—enough for Kramer to catch the barest flicker of movement behind her.
Wings?
The image on the screen distorted.
“Wait—”
The image froze mid-frame, fuzzing into static before becoming so disrupted, he couldn’t distinguish the image any longer. The video scrambled and twisted into digital snow before it vanished.
“What the hell?” Kramer snarled, stabbing the keys with growing frustration.
He clicked the mouse before he pressed the keys of the laptop again. He closed and reopened the file folder. Nothing. The disk stated, ‘No files detected’.
“What happened?” Detri demanded in a grim voice, circling the desk to peer at the screen over Kramer’s shoulder.
“It vanished. See if you can fix it.”
Kramer shoved back from the desk as Detri grabbed the laptop, slid into the chair, and started working the keys with growing aggression. His fingers flew over the keyboard, his breath growing shallow as screen after screen showed the same results: No File Found.
“Damn it!” Detri hissed, pulling out his phone. Seconds later, the call was answered, and he put it on speaker. “Kyle, what the hell is happening?”
On the other end, chaos.
Alarms blared in the background—shrill, pulsing, urgent. A distant voice shouted over the din.
“I don’t know!” Kyle shouted, panicked. “It’s all gone! My entire setup is gone! All my files—including the ones I saved offline—are toast! I checked the backup drives—they’re all fried! Like… melted! There are scorch marks on the casings! I swear it’s like a lightning strike hit everything! But the weather’s clear.”
Detri cursed under his breath again. “What about the video of the woman? Do you have it saved somewhere else?”
“It’s gone, man! It’s gone. Everything… all my equipment. All the files. Every piece of electronics is dead, wiped out, fried. I don’t know whathappened, man. I… It’s a freaking disaster,” Kyle replied, his voice reflecting his disbelief.
“Impossible,” Kramer growled. “I want a copy of the video. Find it! Hack into the city server or whatever it is you do. Do whatever you did to get it.”
“I’m telling you, it’s all gone. I tried. On my phone. The video from the CCTV… all the servers have been wiped clean, but only for those few minutes with the woman in them.” Kyle released a loud, frustrated groan. “I’ve been chasingsomething—I couldn’t even begin to tell you what it is—from one server to the next. It’s a sweeping wave of change is what it is, it’s fuckingdestruction, but that’s all I can tell you, man. I’ve never seen anything like this. Systems are letting them in one by one. Even the building’s backup grid is flickering. Something has infected?—”
The line crackled.
“—anythingelectrical, even if it’s not online,” Kyle finished, his voice sounding distant and distorted.
Detri lowered his head, one hand still clutching the laptop, the other clenched into a white-knuckled fist. “Did you print anything?” he asked, barely above a whisper.
There was silence on the line. Then Kyle’s reluctant voice: “Printing is old school… but, yeah. One image before everything went nuts. It’s… it’s grainy. Low-res.”
“Give it to Gunther,” Detri snapped. “Tell him to bring it to Dima. I’ll text the address.”
He hung up without waiting for a reply and immediately dialed Gunther. The call was brief, all business. Once it was done, Detri sank into the chair and looked at Kramer, his face a mask of rage and confusion.
Kramer stared at him.
“What the hell is going on?” he demanded. “Who is this woman? How much does she know?Whatthe hell is she?”
Detri stood, slowly, his face hardening with determination. “I don’t know who or what she is,” he said. “But I’m going to find out.”
Kramer watched as Detri turned and stormed from the office, the door slamming behind him with a thud that echoed like a gunshot.
Kramer sank down into the chair. He sat in silence, his fingers resting on the laptop’s edge. The office now felt… eerie. Claustrophobic. The overhead light flickered for a heartbeat, then stabilized.
He looked back at the dark screen.
