Chapter 37

Much ado about nothing! Those four words could perfectly sum up the catastrophe that had been the joint mission to destroy the spaceships hovering over the various cities. The desired results for that endeavour had not been achieved at all, the whole point of the mission having been circumvented by the scientists.

If anything, the consequences had bit us in the ass instead of helping us as we had thought. For the first time, the mortal world got a true look at the power the Untethered held in the palm of their hands. Naturally, this led to governments worldwide being intimidated while governments salivated at the prospects of such super-powered soldiers. It had only been three days but the Council of twenty-one was already making preparations for the Untethered across the world to move into safe quarters until the whole fiasco died down.

“You are going to be safe, right?”

I looked at the sombre face of my father as he spoke those words, both of us standing at the door of our home.

“Yeah, dad. I am not alone in this whole thing, you know.”

My dad just nodded at me as he walked down to the car waiting for my parents. My parents were moving to some relative’s home for the foreseeable future. They wanted me to accompany them but I had already been assigned a living space in the Council headquarters, where I would be safer while not being a threat to my parents.

I walked to the car, only to find my mother still refusing to talk to me. Ever since the revelation of me being an Untethered three days ago, she had refused to say more than a few words to me. Her hostility towards me had only intensified after being informed of the fact that I wouldn’t be moving with them.

“Take care, mom.”

My mother glanced at me for a second before turning around again, her face back to its frosty expression. I could only sigh helplessly as my father got in the car. I turned around to walk back into the house to begin my own preparations when my mother called out, “Take care of yourself.”

I looked around and smiled at my mother, who returned it with a watery smile of her own, as she struggled to hold back her tears. I could only watch sullenly as the car drove away into the distance, my mother looking back at me till I couldn’t see her anymore.

With another despondent sigh, I went back to my room to pack up my belongings to move to the Council headquarters. I was just about done with my preparations when Samuel turned up at my window.

“Are you done,” he asked.

“Yeah.” I didn’t feel like talking at the moment, the tearful face of my mother constantly reappearing in my mind. Samuel picked up on my mood as no more conversations were had as I packed my stuff for my relocation.

As soon as I was done, we moved out quickly through the window. Whatever scant population remained in the city weren’t making the known Untethereds feel welcome. I, being the reluctant face of the Untethered due to ill-timed photo in the news, was the recipient of the harshest of glares and scrutinous gazes, all at once.

The journey to the Council headquarters was mostly a silent one. Each of us was much too preoccupied with our own thoughts to be good conversationalists at the moment. Before too long, we found ourselves in the familiar surroundings of the Council headquarters, where we were greeted at the entrance by a man who neither of us had seen before.

“Okay, Samuel and David. Yes, right here, I have got you on the second floor.”

He looked up at us, gracing us with cursory glances, although his gaze seemed to linger on me for just a little longer. After that, he went back to looking at his list before saying, “Right. Follow me.” He proceeded to move towards what I presumed to be our rooms without waiting for us to respond. Samuel and I exchanged a look before hastening to follow him to our rooms.

We had walked through the hallways for a few minutes before our guide stopped in his tracks before a door and said, “Well, here we are. I hope you don’t mind bunking together. Unfortunately, we are a little cramped with respect to lodgings. So, no individual lodgings.”

Samuel was least concerned about the prospect of us sharing a room, just shrugging in response. Instead, he asked, “Well, you said our rooms were on the second floor. We didn’t take any stairs. How is that possible?”

The guide gained an amused look on his face as if Samuel’s concerns were childish. He then looked at me, clearly expecting me to have the same reaction as him. Problem was, I was as puzzled as Samuel when he brought up the problem. Seeing the same befuddled look on my face as Samuel’s, our guide just sighed before saying, “Don’t worry about it. If you stay long enough, you will get to understand things you wouldn’t have thought possible before.”

The man seemed singularly unimpressed with us and our knowledge, or lack thereof, as he waited for us to enter our room.

“I hope everything is to your liking. We did the best with what we could manage.”

With that said, he turned around to leave us to our own devices before stopping in his tracks and informing us that “the Council expects you two to be in the auditorium within the next hour.”

Before we could get some clarification from him for that titbit of information, he had already marched, once again engrossed in his list.

Samuel turned towards me and said, “Auditorium?”