Chapter Text
“Excuse me, Agent Griggs?”
The man in question, who was currently leaning against a wall in the facility’s main entry hall and loading bay, looked down from his tablet. There was a small, purple-haired girl—one of the fourth graders, it seemed—looking up at him nervously.
“Um, do you know where Agent Kline is?” she asked, “There’s… something I need to tell her…”
Griggs looked around the hall. The mysterious “device” that was scheduled to be delivered to the facility hadn’t arrived yet, but he doubted that any of the younger students were meant to see it, and Kline was overseeing its delivery anyway, so he figured he may as well pass along whatever this girl had to say and hurry her out as quickly as possible. “Kline’s out doing some important work right now, but I can tell her whatever you need me to.”
“Oh.” The girl swallowed. “Okay, well… I had a dream last night…”
Griggs deflated like an air mattress full of lawn darts. He was a scientist for Christ’s sake, he wasn’t getting paid to babysit! Nevertheless, he listened to what she had to say. Not like he had anything better to do at the moment.
“It was dark… I think the lights were broken or something, and it was cold, and then there was a fire in one of the classrooms, I think—” The girl’s breath was steadily increasing its pace. “—and I feel like something bad is going to happen.”
Griggs nodded. “Sounds like you had quite the nightmare.” The girl nodded, trembling slightly. He crouched down in front of her. "Hey, it's okay. Dreams can be pretty scary sometimes. But they're not real, right? Nothing bad's going to happen.”
“But—”
The heavy gates at the front of the entrance began to open, revealing what looked like some kind of large metal disc on a trolley. Griggs hurriedly stood up and said "You should probably get back to your dorm, kid. You're not supposed to be here right now. Just remember it's not real!"
The girl hesitated before turning to leave. “You'll tell Agent Kline, right?”
Griggs smiled. He was pretty sure some kid’s nightmare wasn’t something Kline needed to hear about. “Of course,” he lied.
“How the hell did it knock out the entire grid?”
“Must've been leftover charge from the dam or something, I don't know! All they did was plug it into the wall!”
“There've been reports of an accidental fire in one of the Chem labs down on level seven, but Security have got it under control for now.”
“Anyone hurt?”
“Just a couple injured, that I know of. God, I hope that's all...”
“Have we got those backup generators going yet?”
Fai, sitting at her desk under the dim red glow of the emergency lights, listened to the voices of staff members hurrying through the hallway, damage reports and status updates and thoughts and prayers for those in danger. They were all working to keep the situation under control while she cowered in a classroom with the rest of her classmates. She had seen that this was going to happen, she should have done something… right?
I did do something, Fai told herself. I told an adult. Even if he hadn’t seemed to take her seriously, she was just some ten-year-old. That was the only thing she could have done.
Fai crossed her arms over her desk and rested her head on them, doing her best to breathe slowly like her teacher had told her to until the air vents started blowing again. She tried to ignore the question lurking in the center of her mind.
Was it, though?