Detective Tru sat in his new office in Sun-Downe.  Through sheer tenacity and will, his subordinates managed to find a worn-down building held together by pieces of splintered driftwood. His flimsy bed was stacked against the wall. The pillow case and blanket, previously white, had turned yellow. Dust could still be seen on the edges of the bed. No windows were seen on the four walls of the room, leaving Detective Tru trapped in barren captivity. A wide-angled fan, an antique from centuries past, spun around, attached to the ceiling. At each turn, Detective Tru could hear the sound of its squeaky coil bouncing.

It had been two days since the investigation started, and there had been no sense of progress. Provincial Headquarters in the Battered Battalion Fortress gave him orders a week prior. He had been surprised by the news. First of all, the daughter suspect was young…and they weren’t named. When he was given the briefing, they told him the suspects came from the neighbouring province, the Vale Valley, and the government, specifically, had been asking them for their assistance.

He remembered the first thought that came to mind.

“It’s obviously a ShArD,” he said. “Shouldn’t you be hiring a ShArD investigator?”

Shaking their heads in unison, both government officials warned Tru not to ask any questions.

“It’ll draw too much attention,” one said.

“It’s Sun-Downe, we need to appear neutral.”

“They’re Undocumented cases. If we settle this quietly, it won’t be a huge deal.”

They said they’ll provide whatever assistance, but preferably, keep it out of the Provincial press.

It hadn’t been the first time he had been asked to investigate blank cases.  He was awarded a handsome lump sum if he captured both suspects. They had to be captured alive. Detective Tru stroked his chin. There were documents scattered on the make-shift wooden table in the centre of the room. Although this was the digital age, he preferred to do things old-fashioned. There was a printed black-and-white photo of the suspects, covered, running away in an alley 2 weeks prior. Notepad-sized pieces of paper were stacked with rushed, scribbled Doctor’s handwriting. When Detective Tru questioned witnesses, he preferred to pay attention to them. A particular note caught his eye. He picked up, reading it.

Fierce. The word was circled.
Suspicious. Underlined
Young.

They were all young. ShArDs. No one in Security Patrol knew what the acronym stood for. All Detective Tru knew was that it hadn’t always been like this. There had been a time, when he was younger, when ShArDs didn’t exist. But one day, they appeared out of nowhere. Cases of youth gaining supernatural abilities. They were apprehended, questioned, and never seen again. 

When ShArDs first appeared, he had been told by government officials not to call them that, but by a different term. Soon, they stopped correcting him. 

The image of that girl still came to mind. She was too young to be working at The Works. Her body was stunted; she wasn’t muscular, but Detective Tru could feel the sinew that was surging beneath those veins. Her hair was unrefined, but was cut to an edge that bordered on steel. The way she acted, shrugging her arms, was too relaxed. Usually, in such circumstances, he would notice a mismatch between person and environment. But with her, he didn’t. Dust stuck to her skin like sweat. She grinned with a youthful countenance, a gap showing between her prominent front teeth. At first, she seemed harmless. But then, she stared at him. And that stare terrified him. She stared at him, with a steadiness…A steadiness that told him she knew exactly what she signed up for.

She knows something.
Detective Tru unwrapped a candy-frosted mint and popped it into his mouth. He crushed it like shard-on-bone. But soliciting children for information? That was a bad sign.

There was a knock. He turned around.
“Detective,” one of his assistants said. “You might want to check this.”

-

Detective Tru stormed into the adjacent room. There, in the room, were four assistants typing away on make-shift keyboards. Opposite, a wall was covered in twenty monitors, covering the room in a sick, electric glow. Light fractured in angles on the assistant’s face.

The ventilation in the room was poor. Floor fans were plugged into electrical wall outlets to help with the musky heat. In the centre of the room, there was a sea of thick ropey wires. If one didn’t look, it would be a tripping hazard. Detective Tru took care to tiptoe around his base of operations. He followed the assistant.

The assistant sat down, fastened herself against her soft-foamed chair poked with holes, tucked herself in, and scrubbed using the left-and-right keys of the keyboard.

“Two days ago. The data had already been tampered with.”

What?

Detective Tru was astonished with alarm.
He curled his hands around the back of the assistant’s seat. His fingernails dug into the foam.

“Show me.”

The assistant shot a look back at the Detective.

“Monitor three.”

Detective Tru focused.

The video unwound quickly. Horizontal streaks slashed through the grainy video. In a shadowed, empty alleyway at night, two shadows trailed by. They were faint. However, they appeared and disappeared in some parts of the video. The video continued playing, filled with multi-coloured glitches, and jerked to a complete halt.

“Is that all?” The Detective asked.

The assistant shook her head. “Not at all.”

She tapped several keys.

“It took me a while,” she said, “But I discovered this.”

She used her fingers to zoom in, gesture, and auto-enhance.

The video played extraordinarily slowly. It was zoomed in at twenty times its capacity. Hidden right by a pole in the alleyway was a figure.
Normally, a detail like this wouldn’t be discovered. The figure was extraordinarily well-obscured. She was covered in glitches — intentionally hidden.

The Detective paused. The figure looked similar in silhouette to that girl he saw at The Works. Her eyes were similar. The only difference was that it looked like her face was split in half by a thin, running shadow. She was blurry, but he recognized that face.

Detective Tru stood up.

“We have a line of questioning.” He turned towards the assistant.

“Tell the rest of them to focus on this. Create a sketch! Write out a description…Anything!”

His instructions were sharp.

“Ask anything about her...It’s clear she was following them.”

Detective Tru barged open the door and sped out of his accommodation-based facility. Time was a luxury he didn’t have. He could open a line of inquiry, but he can’t make an accusation. Most of the residents in Sun-Downe were undocumented. Even if he scanned their faces and cross-searched them against the public database, he would find no information about them.

He had covered every perimeter of the city with flying surveillance drones, except The Overview. The Overview was high up near the canyons and suffered from various updrafts that prevented surveillance drones from stabilizing completely. His team had tried to run several experiments, but to no avail. He was determined to find a solution.

He will find them and any information required, by hook or by crook.

-

Jazelle heard those words. The future.

“What do you mean by that?” She inquired.

Her hand was outstretched, demanding an answer. The skin on her knuckles stretched, making them turn white.

“Look, hocus pocus is fine here,” Jazelle exclaimed. “But I have no time for games.”

Her voice was thin and shallow, bordering on exasperation.
The girl looked back at Jazelle. Her forehead appeared larger than ever, as if a beautiful goldfish was swimming by, the girl’s beautiful face distorted and trapped by hammered glass.
She spoke ominously. Although her hair was dry, tattered, and split at the ends, it glowed with a dull shine. Her thin lips curled into a smile.

“If you’re called Tinker. You can call me Orb.”

Orb, like the Orb that was floating, glowing, projecting…and speaking to Jazelle right now.

Creepy.

“So…Orb…What’s the deal?”

Orb’s mother appeared behind her like an extension of her being. She was mute and as still as a pillar. Her hand was placed on Orb’s shoulders. Her fingernails were long. Her skin was dry, cracked, and blistered red. Pus looked like it was about to pour and burst forth from the sores themselves. She screamed poverty, but Orb looked like a different story.

Orb smiled.

“Just thought it was better for our protection. Jazelle… Best we don’t use our identities here.”

Her name fell from Orb’s mouth like a shadowed hand muffling Jazelle. Her identity, all her life, had been tied down to Sun-Downe, and now it was spoken carelessly by a stranger. Jazelle tensed. The edges of her mouth turned downward. She felt threatened. She scanned Orb to figure out something to use as leverage.

Nothing. She was left only with questions and mysteries. The faded tattoo shone on Orb’s hand. It was well lined, with a geometrical pattern and some circles.

Orb noticed Jazelle staring and spoke.

“Tinker, do you know what ShArDs are?”

Jazelle looked up. Words and sentences were stuck in her throat, threatening to come out, but she stopped herself.

Orb smiled.

“They’re weapons of mass destruction trained by the government…Security measures against other provinces.”

Jazelle answered. “But we’re young.”

“Specialized Human Augmented Response Division,” Orb muttered. “Why do you think they did that?”

Jazelle immediately thought about Lior.

“Control,” Jazelle said. “We were seen as a liability.”

There was a pause. The projection on The Orb buzzed, Orb’s image faded in and out, appearing transient, a symbol that at any moment, any form of communication could be taken away from them.

Jazelle talked. “The thing is…it makes sense for them to capture you, not me…”

The girl’s image in The Orb smiled again. This time it was solemn.

“You think they won’t capture you, just because you’re inactive? Tinker…lots of ShArDs are hidden in Sun-Downe. There’s a reason for that. This is a haven for The Undocumented.”

“…Why should I believe you?” Jazelle asked.”

“As I said, I can see the future…Well, in doses.”

Jazelle paused.

Orb continued, seeing that she caught Jazelle’s attention. “Each ability comes with a kickback…”

Orb stiffened in her wheelchair; her legs were loose and lifeless.

“My mother found it odd that, within a year, I was talking in fluent sentences and was starting to lose all sensation in the bottom half of my body.”
The way she spoke, the way she acted. This wasn’t typical nine-year-old behaviour.

“Once my mother found out about this, she wanted to take me out. We escaped —using my intuition as a guide...We didn’t wish to have the same fate as my older brother.”
Jazelle felt a heavy sensation running over her entire body. Realization swept over her like a wave. They’ll do the same to her.

“My older brother…could see into the past.” Orb continued, “He profited using his abilities to provide for our family…but the government…” She shook her head.
“They did something to him. The next time we saw him…he was lying in a ditch.”

The image in the The Orb and her mother’s face shadowed over. Shadows flickered on their faces, revealing facets of past, present, and future. Jazelle was half in light and shadow. She was used to the warm light hitting overhead in Sun-Downe, but now the light hitting her head was cool and distant. The faint tactile synergy she felt when interacting with her surroundings was gone. Orb’s voice continued to sound through The Orb.

He was lying in a ditch.
He was lying in a ditch.
….You’re next.

“Tinker, if they did this to me, they’ll soon come after you!” Orb repeated herself. “So I’m asking you to help us. You need to help us figure out The Compass, how to navigate it!”