A whirring came from somewhere to Ari's right, around the corner. At the same time, she could also hear it from behind her. She turned, but there was nothing visible in the dark. Security? She would have dismissed that thought easily had the area not still been supplied with electricity. An abandoned area like this with still-running generators was a power hazard, and yet here they were, continuing without any supervision or control.

Inhuman moans came from somewhere close by. Ari stiffened. Her head still throbbed from the fight with Hine and then with that crazy girl, Jos. With her senses on alert, she padded to the next corner, passing by a set of double wooden doors, through the windows of which one light shone. There were long benches and tables through those doors. Boarded-up doors lined her left. The last light disappeared, almost throwing Ari into complete darkness. A small yellow light of a functional CCTV camera winked at her from the top corner. She itched to break it. It made her very on edge knowing someone, somewhere, was watching her every move, and preparing for her.

A corridor running to the left and right came in front of her. She paused. At the end of the corridor and turn right, Jos had said. If it had been any other terrorist giving her the directions, she would never have taken it, but Jos had a peculiar sincerity around her that didn't strike Ari as a liar. The metallic clanking of bars came within earshot.

A shadow shifted out of the corner of her eye as she turned right. She made out a dark doorway directly in front of her before something hurled in her direction. Her eyes caught dangerous claws at the last minute and managed to duck before her face was sliced into ribbons. The snarl sailing over her head told her all she needed to know. From within the darkness, several pairs of glowing red eyes stared at her with a ravenous hunger that chilled her to the bone. The beeping lights of the machines behind them highlighted their shaggy, bristling backs. Instinctively, she touched her necklace, readying for a bolt of electricity.

She then realised with a sickening surprise that it was empty. Blast. It must have been during her battle with Jos; she'd used it all up. A growl behind her sent chills down her spine. Ari turned. The creature that missed its first attack sprang at her. She grabbed its wrists, grimacing as its claws dug into her forearms and drawing blood, and absorbed some of its momentum. With a yell, she flung the beast back at its companions. The little energy she'd stolen, she created a spark on the tip of her finger and fired it into the crowd.

For a fleeting moment, the large, sealed-off laboratory was bathed in stark black and white. A large generator sat behind about seven or eight of the monstrosities, which yelped, blinded.

Ari dashed forward. Kneeing aside anything in her way, she leapt onto the generator, tore off its lid, and stuck her hand into its centre. Crackles of electricity raced up her arm. Energy surged in her core. The creatures recovered quickly. Their human lips drew back to show sharp teeth, saliva dripping onto the floor. Their eyes blazed with animalistic hunger and no reason nor logic.

Energy crackled at her fingertips. The loosened bits of her blonde hair stood on end. Focusing it on the tips of her fingers as she'd seen Fris do all these years, Ari sucked in a breath, narrowed her eyes, and blasted it at the nearest creature.

The snap cracked through the air. The creature yelped like a kicked dog. The scent of singed hair made Ari's nose wrinkle. She fired another shot, bathing the room in blinding white light for half a second. The creature collapsed. The others paused, wary eyes on their companion. It seemed these had a little more intelligence than the abandoned things Ari had found in the basement in Area nine. Her hand hovered over the generator. A quick movement at the corner of her eye caught her attention and she blasted the creature trying to sneak up on her. It met the same fate as the first one.

By the time the last creature collapsed, Ari was panting. She charged up Mina's necklace and released the generator, allowing her body's natural energy to bob back to neutral. The room stank of burned hair. Guttural groans filled the air as the creatures' muscles spasmed from the electric shocks.

A bang to her right startled her. The slow, steady whirring of gears reached her ears again, punctuated by the banging of metal bars. She shot out a bolt of electricity, lighting the room again. Her stomach did a somersault as it fizzled out. An endless corridor met her eyes. More glowing red eyes rested on her. Some licked their lips, others flung themselves against the bars in a frenzy – and the bars were being raised.

The nearest one, a skinny thing with messy humanoid hair, wriggled out between the tiny gap and leapt at her, chattering. Ari flinched, backing and tripped over her own feet.

A crack made her jump. The creature fell out of the air and slammed onto the floor like a discarded doll, its limbs twitching. Light shone from behind her; the bars halted in their ascension. Those hungry eyes never left Ari's face.

"I got you," a breathless voice said, hooking an arm under hers. Ari allowed herself to be yanked up, her legs wobbling.

"Shon!" Relief flooded through her, precious as oxygen. She flung her arms around him, almost making him drop his Peacekeeper gun. He flushed to the roots of his light brown curls. "Thank you!"

"You're w-welcome."

"You shouldn't have come! What if it'd gotten you?"

"Me? What if it'd gotten you?" He blushed even darker, if that were possible. Ari let go of him, frowning. "You can't always rely on yourself, Ari."

"I can't get you into trouble. I brought this on myself. It's my problem."

"That's what friends are for."

Ari bit her lip. She turned, staring behind her. "What are those?"

Shon followed her line of sight and swallowed.

"Peacekeepers have been receiving sightings of aberrances around March City, recently. I wonder if that's what they meant..."

"They wouldn't happen to be reports from Area nine, would it?"

Shon's eyes went round as light pods.

"How did you know?"

"I'll explain later." Ari's throat was dry to the point of pain. "These... these aren't human. They'll stop at nothing to kill us. You need to get out of here."

"Ari, we've talked about this."

Ari whirled around. Shon's mouth was set in a determined line. The light highlighted the bags under his eyes and a few wandering premature white hairs near his temples, even though he was also only sixteen.

"She wants me, Shon. She's got Mina, and if I show up with a Peacekeeper, of all people, Mina's going to die."

"This sounds like a trap, you know."

Ari sighed. "I know, but it's the only way I can get her back. God knows what the crazy woman has in store for Mina, but she's promised to hurt her if I don't show up alone." She shivered, and wrapped her arms around herself. The helplessness was horrible. What if that woman released those monsters on Mina? What if Mina surged on transplantation? Every second was ticking. "Shon, let me go. She's going to transplant Mina."

His hand tightened on her elbow. His eyes blazed with a look she'd never seen.

"I know."

Ari's mouth dropped open.

"You know?"

"At least, I've heard about these things. We Peacekeepers hear all sorts of rumours, even if we're not privy to most of the top-secret ones." He gave a dry smile. "I'm pretty sure that girl I shot earlier didn't previously have the biological bomb-loading ability my deceased classmate was known to uniquely possess. You're talking about the Kena case from a few years back, right? Ability transplantation. "

"How did you know about this?"

"If what your journalist friend said is true, I think you're probably the only one in the city who didn't know about it at the time."

Ari wasn't surprised Rale had gotten a dig at her again via Shon. She ignored the implication. "So the Peacekeepers were suspecting this all along? And you guys did nothing?"

"We had no verified reports. The bombing investigation took an awful lot of time and security checks and safety measures had to be implemented."

"Students are exploding."

"We have no evidence that they were being transplanted, although that's being suspected. Ari." He caught her elbow again as she made to leave.

"I've no time left, Shon."

"You need to know... Kena's papers were mostly expunged, but I've read some of them at the time. There's something you should know. The pitfall with ability transplantation was the unpredictable surges because the bodies couldn't adapt to the new ability and the fluctuations in energy. That's why they surge."

"I know."

"But there's a way of negating that. Kena was looking into that in her subsequent paper. If there's a way to redirect the energy when the surge occurs, the User would be safe, unaffected, able to use that transplant, regardless of their baseline abilities and limits."

"If there's a way to redirect the energy..." Realisation dawned on Ari.

"At least tell me where you're going."

Ari kept her voice from trembling. "The labs."

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