Thankfully, by the time the power had returned to the camp, Odette had already made it back to her tent. With heaving breaths and a pounding heart she grabbed her desk within, taking a minute to calm down from the storm of events.

  She had been able to abscond from the center of the encampment avoiding the search of the Major, along with the eyes of any of her fellows. There had been some incidents with people suddenly waking up in camp that had required her quick decisions, but no one should know at the moment she was involved.

  Her strategy had been simple. Hiding in one of the secured IDS lockers had allowed her to avoid the private’s sight, and after he had left to return to the Major she had been able to come out steadily.

  Odette took a deep breath, before scrambling her hands through her hair. As many people would be waking up in the next few minutes she was sure to receive a visit soon after. She made herself look like she had spent the night deeply asleep, in a hopefully convincing fashion.

  Along with that she also stuffed away her prototype’s design schematics into her coat, with the mysterious orb-like organ in the other pocket. It might have made more sense to hide both back in her residence if she had been living somewhere permanent, but the tent wasn’t hers and could be searched. Her person was still the safest.

  Regretfully she had still left behind the actual prototype hidden amongst the central tarp’s boxes. That was well enough for now, but she would have to come back to it later.

  Odette patted her coat while making sure everything was secure, before sighing. She needed to act like she had just woken up now, which wouldn’t be hard.

  Odette pushed forth in a body that hadn’t slept yet as she exited the tent.

  …

  Meanwhile the heads of the camp’s research sphere were meeting with the military leaders. After an event where the cause, or the perpetrator, was not yet clear, the air in the tent was tense as they waited for an attendant to bring something over.

  As neither side could exert its influence over the other until the blackout’s cause was identified, the space had come to a quiet lull until one of the Major’s attendants came running in.

  “Private Smith, just place the tape in the player.”

  All eyes in the tent went to the small television on wheels at the end of the table. Its face of static thinned out as the tape was inserted and began playing a recording of a dozen different perspectives.

  The cameras from around camp.

  Retrieving their recordings after a blackout had been tricky, but luckily for those present, everything was stored to a black box-like device

  The screens wavered and buzzed, boring the officials as not much was happening on them, until something changed. One of the screens went black.

  “What happened to camera five?”

  The question was directed towards the camp’s chief engineer, who was present at the back of the table. Bill leaned forward and squinted.

  “Looks like it went black, Caleb.”

  The older scientist’s face scrunched.

  “I can see that! Just tel–”

  “Wait, look at the seventh one now.”

  Bechdel, to Caleb’s side, suddenly nudged him. His focus returned to the screen where another camera had gone out.

  Caleb snapped back.

  “Bill, what is this?”

  The engineer was now frowning. Rubbing his chin he made an experienced guess.

  “I suppose it could be the onset symptoms of this power failure…but from the recording I would say it's something else. What was it, Smith?”

  Bill turned to the nervous younger man standing in the corner of the tent who had just come back from the comms tent.

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  “Yes…sir?”

  “Don’t call him sir, Private.”

  The Major chimed in.

  “Ah, apologies, sir. What would you like to know, Chief Engineer?”

  “In the recordings they pulled from the box, do cameras five and seven, wait…actually eight too now, do they ever come back online? Are they on now?”

  The Private shook his head.

  “That’s a negative, si…Chief Engineer. From the time they went offline they have stayed that way until now, to the confusion of much of the communications tent. Though if I can add, I did walk by the camera pole next to the comms tent, number seven in the recording I believe, and found that it looked as if parts had been removed from the panel. I’m not sure how much help that is, Chief Engineer.”

  The Private saluted, though none of the scientists paid attention. What he had said had got them all rubbing their necks.

  The comms personnel obviously needed to get out more, if they couldn’t notice that a camera right next to them had been tampered with.

  But perhaps that meant that the camp had a bit of a vandal in their midst. Was this blackout really a power failure, or had it been caused by someone in particular?

  “Interesting, thank you Private. Will you wind all cameras forward to the time of the black out?”

  The tent watched as the young man did so. The recorded time from everyone going to sleep to the moment of the blackout had lasted hours, but they went by in a flash as the dial was turned.

  The remaining screens suddenly depicted a vacant camp. The eyes in the room all focused on the visual depicting the suite of generator towers. In the feed, there was no movement anywhere there for several minutes.

  “…There’s nothing there.”

  “Maybe it really was a cable failure?”

  “Impossible! Even if one of the generators exploded and caught fire, we’d still have emergency power!”

  “Hmm.”

  Everyone was stumped.

  If they couldn’t solve the case based on the camera feed, how would they find what had caused the blackout? It had only been a few minutes after all, yet they had all gathered in this one room to address it. That was how potentially serious this problem was. They needed an answer, or more accurately: something other than themselves to point to when the brass came knocking.

  “Private.”

  “Yes…?”

  The soldier didn't know how to address Caleb.

  “Turn the dial back an hour. I want to see if anything happened before then, if everyone is finished staring at the black screens?”

  “No, no. Go ahead.”

  The young man did just that, until they were all met with several viewpoints of the same camp with nothing much going on.

  The time on the monitor was now roughly three-quarters of an hour before the blackout.

  They let it play for a while, before a few people in the tent started to get tired of the monotony.

  “Alright, if this is all we’re doing now, I’m going to go back to sleep. Think I’ve done more than my part at this early hour.”

  Bill was the first to leave, then others began to follow.

  “My efforts are probably best used elsewhere right now.”

  “My team will want to know what’s going on.”

  “I better check on what Bill is doing.”

  Then the stragglers left. Eventually, the only people still watching the monitor were Major Smirnov, Caleb, Bechdel, and the young private.

  Sitting at Caleb’s side, Alison’s drifting eyes fell on him. She had a look on her face that said she no longer had interest in being present there, but she stopped herself from getting up once she noticed the rock-solid expression of her colleague.

  Why did he look so determined for something to happen?

  Caleb was sitting forward in his chair, as if waiting for something, when all of a sudden it came.

  “Wait! Pause it there!”

  The Major and the SCR head were both shocked. There really was something!

  On one of the monitors closest to the central tarp there was movement. A dark shadow passing through the line of tents. No, not just a shadow, but the figure of a person!

  “My god, who is that?”

  Everyone got closer to the screen. As the figure came into light, refractions of yellow hit the camera aggressively. Then they themselves were illuminated.

  A hazard suit.

  Someone walking into the central tarp wearing a hazard suit.

  “What’s that in his hand?”

  Caleb and Bechdel glanced at Smirnov.

  “Well, we don’t know if it’s a man or a woman yet, but I’ll wager whatever they’re holding was used on the specimen.”

  “Should we check it out?”

  Caleb rubbed his neck. Half overwhelmed at where to start their investigation and half excited. He nodded at Bechdel’s wondering.

  “Definitely. I’ll check the hazard suits along the way.”

  Their first lead had fallen into their laps, not minutes after the event.

  With luck, whoever this was that had been wandering around in the early morning would give them some indication of what had caused the blackout.