“Sir, I still think this is a bad idea.”
“And no one is gonna look for some runaway teen, especially a city as big as London.”
– Conversation between executives recorded in an elevator, 2056.
I sighed then turned around, swiping my eyes across our small micro apartment. It was small, with a small, low-ceiling walk-in closet immediately to the left and a small kitchen area taking up the wall, with a small matter printer on the counter to the right just past the door to the tiny bathroom that somehow managed to fit a tub. The rest of the space was the "living/dining room" and the bed was above the closet with one of those health-hazard offset stairs leading up to it.
"Nonon, take a look at the cameras. Time is of the essence here. " I directed my sister as I made my way to the bathroom to clean up a little.
"Already on it, I'll let you know when I find something."
I leaned on the sink, turning on the mirror with a mental command. The image that greeted me was... not what I expected. No sign of injuries or even a speck of dirt. "Oh, right! Cinydr? How do I turn off-" I cut myself off when a window opened in my vision, with a whole bunch of toggles and sliders, annotated by pictures and descriptions filling it. "Thank you." I flipped off the one belled 'default' then dismissed the window, noticing that it shrunk into an icon with nine floofy fox tails fanned out on it, like one of those long-extinct peacocks.
When I focused back on the mirror again, the color drained from my face. Our left ear was... gone. All that was left was a mostly healed gash in our cheek, just below the eye to serve as a hint as to what happened to it. Our left shoulder and upper arm were covered in dried blood and pnt juices, while the right sleeve was missing outright, with bits of our shoulder meeting the new arm shown underneath. And everything below that side was a bloody mess too.
"Yeah... Bdes was not kidding... This looks bad."
"Yap." Shinon confirmed. "It was less of an issue in the moment, but yeah, it's bad. And we will definitely need new ears."
I gnced at our point total. "125 plus 200 in the Oh shit funds... I think a situation like this qualifies to dip into that."
"I agree." Nonon nodded.
"Cinydr can you pull up The List."
Here you go, sweetie.
"The List" NamePriceTokenDescription Css I Basic Cyberwarfare Utilities100 Catalogue Blueprint for the amored spider drones50 Blueprint Zerda Sensor System Mk 475 New Ears
"I think I have a decent chunk of the Css I cyberwarfare stuff covered for now, so we can put that off for ter. Also, if we get the drone blueprint, can you mix in some monowire from the Esoteric Explosives? So I can have it come out of the tip of the fingers like spider silk."
Yes, I can modify them after the purchase.
"Okay, so it's the new ears... are they gonna be floofy? Or are they gonna be like our arm?" I asked.
They can be either or. Whichever you both prefer.
"Oh, floofy is good! Especially if it has the same sensory stuff as our arm so that we can feel touch and stuff with it too." Nonon said enthusiastically.
Fluffy it is. After instaltion, I will limit certain features however, for the time being.
"Why?" I asked with a frown. "I mean, from what you said, it does a lot of useful stuff."
Yes, sweetie. But acoustic spatial mapping and precise pinpointing of the origin of sounds can be really disorienting, leading to vertigo and other issues.
"Oh yeah right. I remember GranLuna talking about that." I sighed, gathering my resolve. "Get what we need."
Since you don't have the time or the points for the proper facilities, you will need a field install kit again.
"That's fine, Cinder" Nonon said, then went back to scrubbing through footage.
New Purchase: Zerda Sensor System Mk 4 and Field Install Kit.
Points Reduced to... 0.
New Purchase: MK 5 Vulpine Armored Drone Blueprint.
“Oh Shit Funds” Reduced to… 150.
“Aaaand the drones are sent off to print. The 8 drones should be ready in a few hours.”
I nodded when a box cttered into the sink. I opened it, and I found a thing like a pair of chunky over-ear headphones you sometimes see old people use.
"Do I just put this on?"
Yes, it will use some of the biological matter from your remaining ear to fix the damage to your ear canal, then reconfigure itself for the instaltion. And don't worry about knocking it loose, you can go about cleaning up yourself and changing.
"Okay, if you say so." I said, as I swept my slightly loose hair back and put them on, only to freak out a little when all sound just stopped. "Cinydr?"
Don't worry, it will pass in a few minutes.
I signed in relief when Nonon spoke up. "Omm, okay this is really uncomfy..." and a few seconds ter, I could hear again, but it was weird. "I turned on the audio pyback on one of the drones’ microphones. It's not ideal, but better than being deaf for the time being."
"That... yes." I decided not to comment further and went to get changed.
I was just putting on a fresh bra in pce of the blood-soaked one when Nonon spoke up. "Omm this is weird... I can't seem to find any footage of Elena."
"What do you mean?" I asked as I wriggled myself into a tight bck shirt.
"Here," She said, and a video opened in my HUD. "She went to our door, about 45 minutes before we got home." I gnced at the time stamp on the video out of reflex for confirmation. "Then she just walked to the stairs and went down 2 floors." The feed switched to the recording from the stairwell and showed the girl leave it two floors down, just as Nonon said. "But the weird thing is, there is no footage of her from that floor."
"What do you mean?" I frowned. "Did she stop in a blind spot?"
"That's the thing, there is a small blind spot because for some reason that door is not in view of the cameras, but there is nothing there. Just the end of the hall, no doors or windows."
"So she would have had to have entered the view of the camera, but she didn't... was the footage looped?"
"As far as I can tell? No."
I pulled on a bck hoodie and squinted as pieces started falling into pce. "Does this seem familiar to you?" I asked.
"What do you... Nooo, there is no way..." She trailed off as I left the closet, and an AR evidence board opened in our vision on the far wall.
Image after image slid into pce from their respective folders, with names and dates under them. And now a new one is added to the board. Elena Parker, 16 years old, in good health both physically and mentally.
"I'm sending one of the sensor drones downstairs to look around."
"Okay." I said and pulled out a can of energy drink from the fridge. "Let's open the map."
I said, and Nonon did so.
London grew a lot since it became one of the big megacities of the country, along with Cambridge and Newest York.
"All these people have gone missing in the st 3 months. In the same area of London."
All the records I can find say that there were 220,000 reported disappearances st year in London. Age and social status vary wildly across the board. Why are these people different?
"All of them have gone missing from around this part of the city." Nonon said, and zoomed in on Camden Town in northern central London and drew a 2-mile radius circle.
From that area, there were 561 reported missing people.
"And 257 of them are on our board." I added
That... is a lot. Too many to be a coincidence.
"Yes, especially since this is one specific age group with simir health and social status."
Hmmm... Cinydr made a thoughtful sound.
"We could not find any common denominators that link them, only that they went missing from around here."
"Omm..." Shinon spoke up. "The spider found blood that was cleaned up, and a door that was forced open."
The blood matches her DNA on record.
"That's not good...." I muttered then called Katelin. She picked up just after a few seconds. "Hey, Katelin? Do you know if Elena had a friend or someone two floors down?"
"Emily! I..." She trailed off, thinking for a moment. "Yes, her girlfriend. She lives in 457. Did you find something?"
"Not sure yet, but we might have. I'll look into it a little more and call you when I know more."
"Thank you." She said anxiously, then disconnected the call.
"Boo, the door forced open is to Unit 457."
The registered tenats are Petra and Dorothy Campbell. Cinydr provided. Dorothy fits the profile too. Also, "Emily?"
"It's an alias. We are here to look into these people. On every avaible public record, we are the daughter of the previous tenant of this hole in the wall. And we are 16, exactly the apparent target age group."
I see, you two painted a target on your own back to potentially get a lead. She sighed, with what felt like a shake of the head. I can't decide if that's a genius idea or the stupidest thing I've heard.
"I'd argue that it's so stupid, it might just work." I countered.
"One thing we've not been able to do because we didn't have enough info was trace their daily routine accurately, but maybe... Cinder, can you do it?" Nonon cut it, before Cinydr and I could continue to bicker.
It should not be a problem, She said. Shinon, you have a concerning habit of leaving back doors in every system you breach.
"And I'd argue that it's a useful habit." She beamed.
That is still questionable. And here you go, She said as lines of different colors started to snake their way across the map with a few points where they converged.
There is not a single pce everyone visited, but these 5 stores. She put pins on the map with the names of the said stores. On paper, they appear to be independent stores, but all of them are just shell companies with a name that is just a bunch of numbers.
Nonon just groaned. "I hate The Numbers... They are almost always owned by some big corp..."
"That's... Actually in line with what we saw, people going missing on a rge scale, no footage whatsoever. Maybe just a forced open door but no valuables missing... Well, if found early."
"Great... we'll never find these people..." She said dejectedly.
I wouldn't necessarily say that. And while I hate the idea, you two have done an excellent job of making yourself a target. The only thing you missed was going to these shops.
"You don't mean..."
Like I said, I hate the idea of someone like that trying to hurt my girls.
"Okay." I sighed. "I'm telling Mom."
"Not Yun Min?"
I shook my head and initiated the AR call.
A few seconds ter, Mom appeared sitting on the table in a colourful hoodie full of paint splotches and her sleeves stained a myriad of different colours, along with her fingers. Her long, blonde hair tucked behind her ear to keep it out of her face and left loose to freely cascaded down to her shoulder on the other side, with a streak of green highlight. Just in reach, next to her, one of those rattle-can spy paints.
One leg pulled up into her p, she waved at us with a casual "Yo!"
Before either of us could reply Mom's other alter appeared, sitting on the pulled-out chair, next to her. She was dressed in casual, comfy work clothes. The - albeit nice - white blose and comfy looking skirt being very clearly anything but “business mode”.
Both their golden yellow eyes locked onto my right arm. When I looked down I frowned as I saw my favourite green hoodie sans sleeve and our new arm.
"What's with the ears, kiddo?" Mom asked. And my hand shot up to feel our new soft, fluffy ears. "I told you not to listen too much to your gran."
"The better question is what happened to your arm?" Mother added.
You should not try to hide things from your parents sweetie. Cinydr said, and a tall slim woman with fox ears and nine tails materialized, dressed in a traditional Japanese kimono. Motherly vibes just radiating off of her like a light summer breeze wafting across the meadow.
"At least you could have given us time to prime them, Cinydr..." I sighed.
"I mean, there really was no hiding it, Boo." Shinon said as she put a hand on my shoulder. "And since the fox is out of the bag, we might as well do introductions."
She continued. "This is Cinder, our Vanguard AI."
She then turned to the AI. "Cinder, these two are our Mom."
Nice to meet you. I assume by the way my girls referred to you both as their Mom, that you two are in a simir situation?
"Yes, that’s correct. And it’s also nice to meet you too, Cinder? Or was it Cinydr?" Mother asked, then turned back to us with a squint. "And you two have some expining to do."
Shinon took to calling me Cinder, but my designation is Cinydr. She expined.
Mom looked between our group for a bit before levelling her piercing gaze at me. “So twerp squad you should probably clue us into how you got your little Miko over there.”
"Okay, so what happened is..." And I went on for the next half hour retelling the events of the st few hours. "And when we figured that out with the help of Cinydr, I made the decision to call you."
Mom sighed, while Mother gave us a disapproving look, then asked. "Okay, in order. What were you thinking, jamming your arm into the jaws of a Model Three?" But could not hide the pride seeping into her voice.
"I tried to prevent it from biting it clean off." I said, trying to defend myself. "I did not mean to stab myself with the sword."
"With how much Samurai gear you have access to, you should not get injured like that." Mom continued.
They both sighed. "At least they are alright." Mom said. "I mean, losing an arm sucks, and they are really lucky that himbo was there." She then fixed us with a look that sent chills down my spine and continued. "Oh, and don't think your Mum won't hear about this either."
Mother sighed again. "Moving on for now. Good work with the shelter full of Sevens. But the way you dealt with that Six was just way too reckless." She said while Mom was trying her best to flesh us a hidden thumbs up.
"Omm." Nonon spoke up. "I just remembered, You can store things in your mask, right?"
"Yes?" Mom replied. "You need one?"
"Yes. I mean, no. Not a mask, just storage to store my drones and our weapons. And we are kind of out of points."
Mother was just about to speak up when Cinydr cut in. They have wisely put aside 200 points in their 'Oh Shit Funds'.
"That's good." She said. "And yes, we can help. Just share your main catalogue."
"Cinydr, can you do that?" I asked.
Done, sweetie.
"If you would?" Mom asked to thin air, and a box appeared on the table next to her. "Here." She threw it over.
It had a bnk kitsune mask on it, and a big, about 1 Liter vial of dark silvery liquid inside.
"Thank you." I said as I closed the box and pocketed it. "As for the stores, finding the real owner is a pain in the ass, slow and likely won't bring us closer to finding the victims, so we were gonna go and ask about our neighbour that has just gone missing, to provoke whoever is behind this into action."
"That... is certainly a pn." Mom said. "So when things go sideways, and you need help..."
"Yes. That was the idea. Since you can teleport, and Cinder can likely rey our location to you from basically anywhere on the pnet." Nonon said.
I have to admit. After meeting your mother, this pn sounds less and less dumb and more and more like a genius idea that whoever is behind this has no way of countering.
“I don’t like it but I agree.” Mother added.
“Miko.” Mom turned to Cinydr. “Keep us updated. If they get in over their head, let us know.”
“That was the pn. I will set one of our drones to transmit our location data to you in real-time but just to be sure, Cinder can alert you too.“ Nonon added.
“Basically a panic button protocol. Things go sideways, you get a ping.” I said. “And if things go really sideways, GranLuna gets one too.” I added.
“Good, we will keep an eye on our messages.” Mother nodded.
“When this is over, I expect you two back home for dinner. Also, your Mum says you are both grounded.”
We both groaned at that. “We are in so much trouble…” Nonon mented. “Maybe we should have just called GranLuna instead.” She said in mock despair.
“You are right, maybe we should have just called her, straight away.” I said, pying along."Har har.” Mother said. ”In all seriousness though, why not call Luna for help?"
"Mom." Shinon just gave her a look. "We don't want to send London back to 1666. And we want to solve this on our own.”
“Or at least try to." I added. “Especially now that we are a Samurai.”
"You know." Mom spoke up. "That's fair."
While you were joking around, I sent a command to Shinon’s drones to come here. And I suggest you install the storage upgrade Shinobu. Cinydr spoke up.
“Ah, good point.” I said as I took out the silvery liquid from its container. “How do I do that tho?”
Just hold out your palm and slowly pour it on it. She mimed the motion.
I followed suit and watched in amazement as it seemed to soak in. Moments ter, delicately swirling flowerlike patterns settled into pce. Some depicted actual flowers, while others were just an intricate mess of fern-like swirls simir to the pictures of frost on the edge of windows I've seen before, formed around the edge of the bigger pieces that made up the arm.
Initializing new Sub-System…
Dimensional Storage Module Mk 5.
Initialization complete.
“Heh. DSM 5. These acronyms are funny as ever.”
“Pretty!” Nonon cooed as I turned the arm this way and that.
After that we continued to chat for a few more minutes as the drones made their way to us, and eventually ended the call when Mom had to go deal with something.
“Let’s try this thing, shall we? “ I asked no one in particur and took one of Nonon’s Kama in hand.