“Mess,” she growled.
He immediately hurried away toward the lift.
Adequin took in the commotion around her: men and woman shouting, threatening, throwing punches, and arguing with their duplicates about which one was real. Cavalon’s words from a few days ago gnawed at the back of her mind: “Are you the warden?” It’d been a serious question at the time, but she could just imagine the snarky way in which he’d redeliver it now. She was glad he wasn’t there.
Although, she’d rather he was—that he’d already returned with Jackin, Legion transports in tow. She didn’t know how much longer she could force calm.
She opened her nexus interface, finger hovering over the master control. She hated causing them pain, but she needed them to stop acting like Neanderthals for five minutes so she could concentrate on how to save their lives.
With a single swipe, their angry jibes receded into cries of pain. Most fell to their knees, cradling their arms. All except the doppelg?ngers, who continued to pop in and out of existence at a slow but steady pace.
After a few moments, the soldiers’ pained wheezing ceased in favor of labored breaths. But the silence didn’t last. They began to shout over one another, unleashing a tirade of concerns.
“We saw the lights!”
“Something’s incoming!”
“What’s going on, EX?”
“Barrow broke my fucking nose!”
“It’s a Viator fleet!”
“Shut up,” she barked, and their voices fell away. She swept her hardened glare across them. “What was the plan, here, soldiers?”
“We need the armory!” someone insisted.
“You do not need weapons,” she said, letting out an exasperated sigh. She could only imagine how this would have gone if they’d managed to arm themselves first.
“We saw something outward,” one explained.
“It’s a ship or something!” another called.
“That was a visual anomaly, nothing more,” she said. “We’re seeing time ripples from crafts traveling the Divide elsewhere.” She wet her lips, shocked by how easily the lie formed and fell out of her mouth. The soldiers gaped, as surprised by the assertion as she was.
“Since when does that happen?” someone in the back called out.
“What about the sealed sectors?” another accused.
“The rerouted power is part of routine systems maintenance,” Adequin said.
Among the shuffling feet, a few brave souls scoffed. She clenched a fist but chose to let it go.
“Since you’re all panicking like hysterical children,” she continued, “I’m ordering a full lockdown. Unless you’re assigned to an essential life-systems post, you’re to remain in the mess until further notice.”
After a heavy pause, Walsh’s voice cut through the silence. “You heard her, Oculi! To the mess!”
The soldiers obeyed and rose to their feet, heading toward the lift. Adequin darted a glare to Walsh and the other two circitors. They shuffled over to stand in front of her.
“What the fuck, Circitors?” she said.
Walsh smoothed the front of her vest anxiously. “Sorry, sir, they just got so whipped up so fast—”
“Cut the excuses. You need to keep things calm while I deal with other shit.”
“It’d help if they could go back to Novem, sir.”
“Well, they can’t. So, do your damn jobs and keep them in line.”