where they’d played with the children a week ago, and it was quiet. There were no children playing, no one walking; she didn’t even see any animals. Where was everyone?
As she entered town, everything seemed deserted. No one walked up and down the street and when she peered into the nearest shop, she didn’t see anyone, not even a worker. The café looked equally empty. Had something happened? Had the Apsyns done something? Shouldn’t she and Solan have known if the town was in danger?
Her shoulders sagged in relief when she saw two Zulir walking on the other side of the road. She couldn’t be certain they were Synnrs rather than Apsyns, but they offered her polite smiles as they passed. She was human and they were being polite. Synnrs.
Was something going on that was keeping everyone off the streets? Was this normal? It didn’t feel normal.
There was no sign of the Apsyn anywhere that Lena looked, and when she and Solan met up back at their vehicle, he was also empty handed.
“Something feels off. Where is everyone? Do you think the Apsyns did something?” She leaned against their vehicle and looked up and down the street in front of them. There was another person walking. That made three.
Solan glanced up. “I sneaked a look at the weather report and things are supposed to turn dreary later. Could be people are just staying inside. But you’re right. Something feels weird.”
His communicator beeped as the computer from the house sent a report their way. Solan pulled it up and read quickly, relaying the information to Lena. “There’s an old science academy outside of town. It was decommissioned years ago, but the town has been planning to turn it into a school for a long time. That’s why it was never torn down. There have been anomalies in surveillance over the past few weeks. No one should be out there except a groundskeeper. No confirmation it’s our guy, but with nothing in town...” he trailed off.
Lena knew exactly what he was suggesting. “We need to check it out.”
They got into the vehicle and headed out of town. A creepy abandoned building. Sounded fun.
SOLAN PULLED OFF THE road well before they made it to the academy. If there was an Apsyn inside, they didn’t want to tip him off. The far side of the property was overgrown, with trees and bushes leading all the way up to the building. It provided decent cover for Lena and Solan, and that was what they wanted.
He used his override code on the electric lock on the back door, and the hinges didn’t creak at all as it slid open. It wasn’t confirmation of an Apsyn presence, but someone had used this door recently.
They moved quietly. This time they stuck together. Footsteps in the dust of the hallway were another sign that someone had been using the building. It could have been kids in the village looking to have a little fun, but Solan wasn’t optimistic. Especially when he heard banging coming from deeper inside the building. ‘Academy’ might have been overstating it. The building was only one story tall and had maybe ten classrooms. There were offices somewhere, but they hadn’t had a lot of time to study the schematics.
Lena and Solan rushed towards the banging sound. It reminded him of the infiltration drills the computer had been throwing at them nearly every day. Except this time they couldn’t predict what tricks the computer had at the ready.
For a crazy moment he wondered if this was another simulation. Were he and Lena actually in the basement of the house? Was this whole thing a trick to see if they were ready for something real? But no. The simulations the house threw at them were good. They were very believable. But something about this building and everything around them felt more real than any simulation he and Lena had been through in the past two weeks. This was no tricky computer. There was a real Apsyn threat. And if he and Lena failed, if they got hurt, if something worse happened, they wouldn’t be able to brush it off.
Lena held up a fist and stopped walking. She did that sometimes, and he was pretty sure it was a remnant of her training on Earth. But he got the idea and stopped. She pointed at an object on the wall. Solan looked. At first he thought it was a small window, but he didn’t see anything outside.
“Camera?” she