[h1]Katrina Meyer[/h1]

[quote] "So, what are you up here for? Seemed like some friends were messaging you earlier."[/quote]
Kat smiled. “Yeah, I’m meeting my siblings up here-“

Before she could finish however, the Queen’s morning announcement echoed from the city down below. Out of politeness, she waited for it to finish- since she was typically indoors all day working in the mechanic shop, the daily announcements rarely had any relevant to her. Still, in general she felt warm feelings towards their queen. She seemed earnest and hardworking, and rarely did anything that imposed on Kat’s life. Not much more you could ask from a monarch, to be honest.

[quote] [i]I hope you have an exceptional day –[/i][/quote]
Kat echoed the frown Vincent wore.

“That’s weird. I know some of the guys that worked on the city announcement system. It goes maintenance checks pretty regularly.”

[i]And they’re not the types to make mistakes.[/i] She thought to herself, not wanting to unduly cause concern. They were twin sisters, they Reys- been colleagues of hers at her vocational school. Although they’d never been close, they occasionally kept in touch to exchange advice and tips about their respective specialisms (intricate robotics and bionics for Kat, electronic systems for the Reys). 

Still, even the most well designed system could produce errors on rare occasions. Kat pushed her mild concern out of the way just in time for a sharp crackle of noise to reverberate in the area around her, forks of electricity shattering the sky above them. 

[quote]“[b]SOUND THE ALARM![/b]”[/quote]
Kat swore loudly, turning to Vincent who seemed to have the same idea as her.


Turning back, she could see the supervisor clambering up a nearby building. They were too exposed out here. 

“[b]EVERYONE GET DOWN! INSIDE THE WALL! OFF THE BLOCK! NOW![/b]"

[h1]k-CRACK[/h1]

Without looking, Kat ducked down at the same time as Vincent and watched as lighting struck Randy. But instead of frying him where he stood, he seemed to [i]…stone? What?[/i]

Next to her, Vincent was crouching, visibly rattled by this turn of events. 

“Vincent, do you think you can run? We should get inside!”

But her voice was drowned out immediately by the thunderstorm around her. She reached out, thinking that perhaps she could drag him with her, but saw his body shaking with fear and held back. Somehow, his fear made her step back, her mind whirring. [i]Think. Think.[/i] Sure, it was a life and death situation, but if she treated it like any mechanics question perhaps she could find the optimal solution. [i]Ok, establish the situation first[/i]. Looking around, Kat spent a few seconds analysing the lighting which was striking all around the space between them and the building block. 

[i]I shouldn’t even think of this as lighting. Lightning would have fried Randy where he stood.[/i] Watching a couple of strikes, Kat noted that the lightning acted like electricity usually would- striking taller objects more frequently, especially conductive ones- but it didn’t seem to have the same effect as other electricity. In the first place, if normal lightning had struck Randy both her and Vincent would have been thrown off the wall by the force of its blast.

[i]If it doesn’t have a blast radius, we should be safe hiding lower than the railings. They'll attract the lighting that’s coming from above. Plus by crouching we make ourselves a smaller target.[/i]

However, her heart sunk when she realised that some of the lighting seemed to be coming from the city itself. Then, her stomach lurched as screams of confusion and horror from the city below rose up to the wall. 

[i]No.[/i]

[i]Please, please no no no no[/i]

Staying crouched, Kat opened up her silenced chat window. [i]Please let them be ok. Please let them be ok. Theo, Karin, Jakob, mum, dad…[/i]

[quote] [color=ec008c]BigSisKarin:[/color] theo why are you taking so long!

[color=bc8dbf]BigBroTheo:[/color] Sorry guys, my place is a tip and it took ages to find some clean clothes…

[color=ec008c]BigSisKarin:[/color] you are hopeless! and gross! 

[color=39b54a]BigBroJakob:[/color] We’re going to head up now, since Kat’s waiting. We’ll see you up there.

[color=bc8dbf]BigBroTheo:[/color] Yeah no worries. I’m heading over to the elevator now- should be 10mins or so.[/quote]

The last message had been about 5 minutes ago. There would’ve been a bit of a queue for the tourist elevator, so chances were they were still down in the city. It was difficult to type whilst panicking, but the only message she needed to send was short. Flicking open a separate app on her tech specs, Kat started to try and pinpoint the location of her siblings, hoping they had given her the permissions she needed to do so.

[quote] [color=f7941d]Me:[/color] are you ok

[color=f7941d]Me:[/color] please be ok [/quote]
Kat stayed croched next to Vincent, hands covering her ears, until the lightning subsided. All the while she was desperately trying to message her siblings and call her parents whilst repeatedly swearing under her breath and trying to reassure Vincent. Only the swearing venture was met with any success. She heard someone shouting about weapons, followed by a very close, and very loud, crack of lighting. Fortunately, Kat’s no other strikes came anywhere near the two of them.

Once the lighting her subsided, Kat took a deep breath. For whatever reason, her tech-specs didn’t seem to be helping. She’d managed to track the location of her siblings- as she thought, Jakob and Karin were still on the ground in the city, near the elevator. Terrifyingly, their tech-specs were transmitting a signal in the middle of the street, not moving. Theo was quite a way off, but had a similarly still signal, this time in the middle of the main square. [i]Maybe the signal’s have all got messed up. Or they all dropped their tech specs in the confusion.[/i]

Regardless, Kat’s priority was to find them. After ascertaining that the lighting had stopped, Kat looked up, in time to see a middle-aged man in a dark brown hooded robe and safety harness next to [i]…a stone statue of the supervisor?[/i] The man was grabbing some glowing pink stone which floated in front of the supervisor and manoeuvring it into his satchel, muttering to himself as he did so.

[i]Am I dreaming?[/i]

Everything felt unreal, bizarre- sense and logic long abandoned. [i]I need to find the others.[/i] Kat noted several people heading for a nearby trolley, which would taken them down to the city.  [i]There![/i]

Looking around, Kat realised Vincent was lying on the floor, in a state of shock. Kat needed to find her family, everything in her screaming that she needed to run as fast as she could towards that trolley- but she couldn’t just abandon this boy. Especially since she could see [i]them[/i]- the Grit, rushing in vast numbers towards the wall.

“Vincent.” Kat said, trying to keep her voice calm. “The Grit are coming. I think that trolley’s my best bet- I need to find my brothers and sister, make sure they're ok. But I don't think you should stay here. If you want, you can come with me, and I'll do everything I can to help you get out of here safe.” 

She reached out her hand.