The Hand At The Lens

Camera 7, a ceiling unit at the near end of the Sub-Level 02 maintenance spur, recorded the following at 03:12. The spur is a concrete corridor with exposed pipework and a single overhead lamp, and had been ████████████████████████ . An armed response operative, designated R-4, was on a sweep with orders to hold position and challenge any contact.

At 00:01 of the recording a woman in a deep red dress is standing at the far end, ████████████████████████ . She raises one hand, palm open, and holds it there. R-4 raised his rifle, advanced two steps and ordered her to stop. No muzzle flash from his weapon appears anywhere in the recording.

At 00:03 R-4 left the floor. He was thrown sideways into the right-hand wall, struck it hard enough to crack the concrete and fill the corridor with dust, and fell. ████████████████████████ in any frame, and his rifle dropped to the floor ████████████████████████ . He did not get up.

The woman walked toward the camera. The dress that is deep red at the far end of the corridor is black by the time she passes under the lamp, and the ████████████████████████ . At 00:10 her open hand fills the lens, palm toward the viewer, and the picture holds for a full second. At 00:11 she is gone. The floor is wet from the earlier flooding, and it carries ████████████████████████ .

At 00:14 two response operatives enter at the far end. They do not challenge. Both raise their rifles at once and open fire down the corridor in sustained bursts, the muzzle flashes spreading into bright crosses on the lens, and they keep firing until the recording ends at 00:18. There is no figure in the frame for them to hit, and no new damage appears on the walls or the floor. Both reports nevertheless place her ████████████████████████ .

The review board's working assessment is that the subject has psychokinetic ability. Lifting an operative in full kit and throwing him across the corridor without contact fits that pattern, and the board puts the force involved at ████████████████████████ . The second effect is harder to place. Two trained operatives fired at a figure that the camera does not show, which suggests she can also act on perception, and that she may ████████████████████████ . The colour change in the dress suggests the effect reaches the camera as well. Whether these are separate abilities or one ability seen from two sides is not yet known.

R-4 was carried out alive with cracked ribs and has not spoken since. His chest plate held a mark that the medical report describes as ████████████████████████ . The crater in the wall has been patched three times. Each patch has been found open by morning, the same shape every time: ████████████████████████ . The spur remains sealed, and camera 7 remains on.