Kira

Xander furrowed his brow in deep thought, his mind racing through the possibilities. He knew that the children couldn't have possibly known about their Bio IDs.

It was something only the crew knew and implanted in the townspeople to keep track of their health status and locations. Suddenly, a ping interrupted his thought process, and a hologram of the AI flickered to life.

"Agent Victor has sent you the files of the missing subjects, Should I open it for you, Professor?" The AI spoke in its usual cool tone.

"Yeah do it", he said as he straightened up.

His hologram screen was flooded with hundreds of files. He looked intently, trying to focus on the task at hand.

"Show me the last update of their Bio IDs," he ordered the AI, and fifteen files lined up before him.

He scanned each file with a keen eye, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. It had heartbeats-rate, blood sugar levels, and blood pressure rates all in check, and each file tracked any illnesses that the subjects had experienced.

"Hold up", he muttered to himself.

Something had caught his attention. As he compared the heartbeat rates of each subject, he noticed that every single one of them had elevated rates.

'Hmm,' he wondered.

"The bio IDs were deactivated right after they had escaped, This doesn't bring any clues.", he frowned at the screen.

He shook his head, frustrated at the lack of progress. There was no way to pull any further information from the Bio IDs, leaving him with more questions than answers. It was clear that there was something more going on here, something that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

As Xander was still grappling with the perplexing mystery surrounding the missing children, another ping from the AI shattered the silence of his thoughts.

"Agent Victor has sent you a message, should I open it for you, Prof?" the AI inquired.

"Yeah," Xander replied, his curiosity piqued.

The hologram screen seamlessly shifted, transforming into a video clip, and Agent Victor's voice resonated through the room.

"We were scouring the CCTV footage across the town," Agent Victor's voice echoed, his tone carrying a hint of urgency.

"and we found a person in our uniform helping the kids sneak into the forest", he finished.

The words hung in the air, filling the room with an air of tension and disbelief. Prof. Xander's eyes widened as he witnessed the footage, recognizing the two missing kids with the unidentified agent.

His mind raced, trying to process the implications of this revelation. The uniform was unmistakably the Surveillance cum Enforcers' team's, yet he couldn't discern the agent's identification number.

Was this a trap set by one of the children themselves, or was there indeed a traitor lurking within their ranks? Xander's thoughts whirled as he sank into his work chair, contemplating the weight of his next move.

Realizing that he couldn't afford to remain idle, he leaned forward and tapped his hand on the cool glass surface of his work table.

Instantly, the AI sprang back to life. "Inform Agent Victor to thoroughly investigate the communication devices of all our agents," Xander commanded, his voice laced with urgency.

He paced restlessly across the room, his mind ablaze with questions. "And Identify those who were assigned to patrol the vicinity of that forest in the video, Tell him to act quick!."

"Message has been sent", The AI said before vanishing in thin air.

He continued his pace, hoping that this won't take a turn for worse.

After a few tense minutes, the AI once again lit up, its voice cutting through the charged atmosphere.

"Miss Kira has come to meet you, Professor," it announced.

Xander's initial flicker of excitement quickly transformed into a frown as he heard her name.

"Let her in," he grumbled, rolling his eyes in exasperation.

The glass doors glided open with a soft hiss, revealing a calm and composed blonde woman. Kira's gaze wandered, avoiding direct eye contact with Xander as if she considered herself on a higher plane.

"You let Miron escape?" Xander snarled, his anger boiling over. Kira finally met his gaze, her eyes gleaming with smug satisfaction.

"Your agents did," she retorted, her voice dripping with a mix of indifference and superiority.

"It's our son, bitch!" Xander snapped back, his words laden with fury.

Kira simply rolled her eyes dismissively, unleashing a mocking remark. "And you signed him up for this experiment. Quite the model father you are."

Xander shook his head, his hand pressed against his forehead in disbelief. He struggled to process the implications of Kira's nonchalant attitude.

"So you're helping the kids escape now?" he pressed on, choosing to ignore her accusation. Kira released a heavy sigh, her tone tinged with a hint of frustration.

"You know very well that I have high hopes for this project," she replied. Xander's confusion grew, as Kira's unexpected appearance in his office raised questions about her true intentions.

"Then why are you here?" he questioned, his eyebrows arching in suspicion. "Don't tell me you're here to check up on me."

Kira's expression turned into displeasure. "Jeez, you're so full of yourself," she remarked, her voice laced with sarcasm.

Xander's patience wore thin, and he bellowed at her, his voice dripping with annoyance. "Cut the crap and get to the point!"

"Well, that Golubev loser killed himself," she declared casually.

"And that marks... what?" she mused, gazing into the distance. "The tenth death of the project," she concluded, her gaze piercing Xander as if to assign blame.

Xander stood frozen in disbelief, his mind reeling from the shocking revelation. Golubev, the man he had entrusted to care for Miron, was now dead, and his son had vanished without a trace. It was a combination that struck deep, unsettling chords within him. While Xander wasn't typically swayed by such matters, an undeniable sense of unease washed over him, seeping into the core of his being.

He snapped back to reality when Kira waved her hands in front of his face, "What, are you sad?" she taunted, her smug expression mirrored in her words.

Xander's eyes narrowed, his glare piercing through her facade, but he remained silent, unwilling to dignify her provocation with a response.

Without uttering another word, Kira turned to leave the room, her departure marked by an air of nonchalance.

However, all of a sudden, Kira halted in her tracks, her face turning towards Xander once again. The corners of her lips curled into a smirk, an unsettling glimmer in her eyes.

"By the way, I bet Miron is doing well outside," she remarked with an insidious tone.

He knew that Kira herself wouldn't have directly assisted Miron or the other escaped children, a nagging suspicion gnawed at his consciousness.

'Could she have aided the individual who facilitated their escape?' He wondered as he saw Kira make her way down the hallway, disappearing from his view through one of the glass windows.