Voltaic (Interference: Book 1)

Chapter 13: Vociferous

Day 4

I strode down the short corridor, where a hoard of people were nonchalantly strolling through. I was one of the only people who seemed so determined to listen to the camp directors' announcement. I squeezed my way through the crowd, making my way to the front so that I could reserve a space in the hall ahead of others.

Few people, relative to everyone in the camp–about a hundred to be more exact–were selected to hear the announcement, which we were tasked to pass on to the others, who aren't present, after listening to it. It had something to do with an escape plan, which the camp directors called an "Exodus". The name sounded rather dramatic altogether, but I didn't bother to care. All I thought about was fleeing from the city in any way possible, something that for some reason, much of the people were unenthusiastic about. It was as if they had given up on hope already.

But I hadn't.

I took a seat close to the front, where a bunch of boxes were clumped together to create a makeshift stage. Eventually, as more people began to sit on the floor, rows of people were formed, and I naturally ended up on the second row. I looked around me, hoping to see a few familiar faces, but to no avail. Zoe and Jake were definitely not around, and neither was Larry. Not even Pamela's family was anywhere in sight.

While I desperately glanced around the hall, the camp directors took the "stage", holding up two wireless microphones. The woman, who had introduced herself to me as Cassandra a few days ago when my friends and I had arrived at the camp, was planning to tap her microphone to get our attention, but she quickly lowered her hand as soon as she realised that we were all rather silent.

"Well, this is the perfect atmosphere for this," her husband, the other camp director, said, as his voice blasted through the speakers positioned at the corners of the hall. "I think we've introduced ourselves before, but we'll do it again. I'm Raymond Jubilee, and this is my wife, Cassandra Jubilee," he pointed to himself, before gesturing to his wife.

Cassandra then stepped forward, close to the edge of the boxes making up the stage. "You've all been informed that we'll be planning to leave the city for good and seek refuge somewhere near but safe from the attack. We're calling this escape plan the Exodus, and it'll be a large-scale operation that we'll need your cooperation to carry out successfully."

"Please leave all questions to the end of the announcement," Raymond, Cassandra's wife, interrupted, and thus taking over the speech. "Since the number of refugees here are easily in the hundreds—or up to a thousand—we'll have to split up for everyone's safety when leaving the camp. Each group will move at a different time to make this as successful and least risky as possible."

"As for the main plan," Cassandra added, "we'll be operating several ferries that we have requested to be docked off Navy Pier. Some of our volunteers and military personnel have risked their lives to leave the camp and confirm that the ferries have arrived for us to travel on, so let's all be thankful for that. Anyway, we'll be hopping on the ferries and travelling across the lake to Michigan City, where we'll disperse and leave it to all of you on how you all would like to proceed on your evacuation."

Raymond brought his microphone back to his lips, preparing to speak. However, before he could so, a refugee near me interrupted, questioning, "Ferries? I didn't see no ferries out there when I fled from Navy Pier hours ago!" After making his rather vociferous statement, everyone fell silent as few people continued murmuring and discussing.

"Just to reiterate, please leave all of your queries to the end of the announcement," Cassandra repeated. "There's no need to make such vociferous remarks until the end." I squinted, staring at Cassandra. It was surprising that she had repeated the exact same word that I had in mind, as if I myself had vociferously blurted it out for her to repeat. However, as I spiralled deeper into this trivial matter whilst staring at her, I felt that there was this indescribable sort of... linking aura between us. It was almost as if we could feel each other, but not quite either.