Five haggard girls stumbled and slowed on the nightly lit street with many staring at them. Surrounded by flashing lights, people on each side and enforcement before them, they marched on despite lacking so much energy, they were lagging their feet against the asphalt.

They stopped short of the people in suits of various sizes, unified by white.

Almost in a trance if they had their minds left, the tall one who was ruined the most, uttered broken, but important phrases.

The people in white froze in place.

And the girls toppled to the ground, as the people watched on screamed.

Because they heard what she said.

***

Tabby saw that, the scene, from the corner of her eye. She was gazing out to the broken city’s skyline ranting to herself again—b-but there’s no time for that anymore, clearly.

She gestured, bring up the small camera screen/node to her face, making it bigger with a flick of her two fingers.

With her bare-arms crossed, she reviewed the footage. What in whatever’s left holy could be going wrong now…?

She looked at the torn apart girls, and winced. Clothes worn down and yet in some parts seem like they’ve been bought recently, dirtied socks—shoes left behind…?

And of course the biggest take away was the reopened and fastened siVis-related wounds they had across their respective bodies. Girls that took so much more they could’ve handled too soon. At least they’re alive to tell the tale, Tabby mused…

These wounds were from RUNNING…? That alone made Tabby shiver with the possibilities. Nothing sort of a certain level of Noumena activity. She shook her head, can’t base everything on one thing yet….

The blonde one, looks to be the capable one—way too beat up not to be, plus the physically fit out of all of them. Tabby kept her eyes all on her.

She opened her mouth. Not in the sense of control, but forcing her jaw and lips to move with so little power left—she slanted a bit with her head held high—as if… As if she’s diverting all power to talking. Holy beejeebes.

“…N’atural… Comes…”

Tabby’s heart dropped to her stomach, which erupted into butterflies and nerves.

“N’atural… Changed… N’atural Changing… Hurt… She grows…”

She felt the sweat forming across her skin shuddering against the night’s empty chill.

“We tried… We really… Tried… Trapped, but… Not for long… Please…”

The tall lady sagged, losing consciousness along with her herd. This image reflected in Tabby’s growing-misty eyes.

“Please… No longer… N’atural… Monster… Save… Save… Save…”

And the clip ended, Tabby jumped at the sound of a monotone, rising beep with the alert that followed:

TREND EVENT IMMIMENT, TREND EVENT IMMIMENT:

N’ATURAL SAVAGE ACTIVE IN THE ISLAND CITY OF DAVENPORT

EMERGENCY PROTOCALS WILL BE DISPATCHED SHORTLY

IN THESE EVER DEVELOPING SITUATIONS: IT’S IMPORTANT TO REMAIN CALM AND REFER TO ESTABLISHED KNOWLEDGE

TRUST IN US—WE ALL ARE EXTANT

The alert sobered her up, at least. Using the tagline during an emergency alert, huh?

She looked out at the city again and saw panic on the street. Each dot that scrambled across the oh so claustrophobic streets… That’s a person. That’s a life.

A life that has to live within a maze that reflected how inhumane this whole shit is.

Extant always issues out the gear, the technology—and just builds around them. All their talk about integration and they didn’t do the first step in that, building in the human element to it all.

Compound that with their seeming failures, and you have people still afraid, still unprotected.

Doesn’t help that said skyline is cut in half, with a white streak that divides up the island.

Of course, they can’t predict or see everything, Tabby knew this. I’m sure if she interviewed people, they’d come to the same conclusion as well, no matter how misaligned their beliefs can be.

But they chose to be “the” human response to this whole thing, and with their decisions, only represented the ways that we’re so behind in solving this, in how we constantly fail, and in how in the face of destruction—we act like everything is fine until the worst possible thing goes wrong.

Tabby guessed that’s why she became a voice in the first place. A voice—with her own existential dread and problems, that caused the other voices to respond in kind.

But she could only remember what that poor tall lady said before she went.

“Save… Save…”

Us? Them? Her? Everyone…?

…Everyone. Save everyone from the potential of this going wrong. Another terrible event for humanity to call victim too.

She had a job to do.

Tabby marched across her flat, scooping up discarded clothes from her messy floor and putting them on. Black jeans, a slim coat, and a paperboy’s hat. Found her boots and tied them on.

She was sleep depraved, depressed, and on the verge of tears—but she had a job to do, damn it.

The Aethernet ORACLE was on her glass, tacky coffee table. She picked it up and applied it on.

It concealed her entire ear, turning her right eye into a recording lens, and she pulled out the scouter that covered her left eye—giving her the appearance of wearing Star Trek-ass glasses. She activated it, and the world around her became more crispy and true. She looked out the window once more.

“Alright everyone—I’m sure we’ve all heard but I’m telling ya’ll anyways: N’atural Savage is active and seemingly on a rampage. The situation is developing and I’ll be right there as it does—I’m going to Extant themselves to see what’s going on and giving you the first hand accounts. I’m not doing this to stoke fear, I’m not even doing this for some Oscar bait if I do die during this—I’m doing this for us. Information is hard, cold on it’s own and so hard to accept let alone learn. So it’s up to us to keep each other up and be there. Cry, laugh, react in your own ways—go ahead. But I’m going to do my best getting you what you deserve to know.”

Tabby raced to her door, and opened it—ready to gleam the truth.