A/N: Hello again :) So I know no one's actually read this (I checked Story Stats), but I don't mind - I'm just happy to be writing again. Without further delay - Chapter Two!

Thanks once again to Delinda Beckett for proofreding the chapter and giving me concrit and motivation.


Zephyr


Chapter Two

In Which I Initiate A Fight


That night, I slept with my eyes wide open. Martin's words rang in my head like an alarm that refused to be silenced. A part of me wanted to convince myself that he was delusional and drunk, and that was why he said the things that he did. But another part of me, the part that so desperately wanted her best friend back, told me to look into his claims. It wouldn't do me any harm, would it? At least then I would have an answer for all my questions, and a salve to heal my wounds.

What had he said? HumaBots. The airport. The plane. His words were getting jumbled like the letters in someone's alphabet soup. If I don't write this down, I thought, I'm going to forget it. I pulled out a pen and my notebook (that's right I'm one of the old-fashioned ones), turned on my bedside lamp, and began to scribble.

By 'they', did he mean just the HumaBots, or someone else as well? HumaBots were strictly experimental at this stage, with only a few living outside RM Corp city as part of their trials. There were directories on public record, and others that my press pass could take me to. I could find out which HumaBots had been in Mega City the month that Martin's family was killed. But it was highly unlikely that the HumaBots would tell me anything. They were usually people who wanted to be stronger, faster and 'better' than the rest, and they would do anything – including murder? I wondered – once they got upgraded. Still, it could be worth a try to check things out.

"The airport. Ask about the plane!" Now that might be easier to look into. Logs and flight plans would be easily accessible, and I could easily ask the airport staff if anything unusual had happened that day.

I'm not sure if I actually expected to find anything, but I'm sure that I was just trying to bury the past in my own way and move on with my life, because I needed to. I couldn't keep clinging on to Lottie's ghost.


The next morning, I rang Tomas' office and curtly informed him that I would be taking a few days off. Tomas almost seemed gleeful when I announced to him that the stress of the past few days had taken its toll on me. The last thing I wanted to do was to wallow in self-pity, but somehow he bought the bait and told me to take as much time off as I needed (read: up to a month).

Instead of doing any of what I'd told Tomas I'd be doing, I packed my recorder, notebook, pen and a cap into my duffel bag, which I had carelessly thrown onto the sofa the day before. So there's another thing about me that you now know – I'm queen of the procrastinators. My house looks like a demolition site, and I'm not bothered about it at all. I've got clutter littering my floor, but since all of it has been there for ages I know where to find what I need in the midst of it all.

I'd decided to go to the airport and make a few inquiries, as per Martin Something's suggestions. I had a contact at the airport from when I'd previously conducted my investigation, but at that time I hadn't thought of checking the flight logs and plans. Neither had I interviewed the ground staff – I'd talked to only the higher level employees. With these thoughts running through my mind, I hailed a cab and set off for the airport.

My contact was the Airport Manager, a kindly old man called Rob Kindle. He'd worked at the airport all his life thanks to his fascination with planes. He held a pilot's license, but he rarely flew his private plane because he spent all his time working. He'd once told me that his greatest regret in life was not living enough.

Story of my life.

I met Rob at the airport café, where we both chatted over coffee about an assortment of things (including my recent award, which I felt like throwing into the trash). He told me that he was surprised to see me after such a long time.

"I'm sorry I haven't kept in touch," I apologized.

"There's no need for that. I'm sure journalists don't enquire after every person they interview."

"Yes, but I'm really sorry about the fact that I called you out of the blue after such a long time, just for another favor."

Rob squinted at me. "Another one, eh? Like I said before, I'll agree to it only if I approve of what I hear."

"I need to check the flight log and plans of the Dallas plane once again, and I also need to look at the hard drives of the bots that handled the maintenance of the plane."

"Is this the second part of your investigation?"

"No," I muttered, wincing. "I just want to look into some claims that an acquaintance of mine recently made."

"Well," said Rob, stretching, "I'll see what I can do. Is it possible for me to send it all to your office, like before?"

"Actually, no," I said – a little too quickly. Rob's eyes narrowed. "I'm working from home now, so…here's where you need to send it all." I pulled a sheet of paper out of my notebook, scribbled my address on it, and handed it over. "I'll pay for it all – just please send it express."

Rob pursed his lips. "Is there something you're not telling me, Miss Sharpe?"

I frowned. "I'll let you know what I know - when I find out what it is exactly."

The elderly gentleman looked at me apologetically. "Look, Miss Sharpe, I'd hate to rain on your parade, but if this is unauthorized, and if the results damage this airport's reputation, a lot of people will lose their jobs. I want you to assure me that no matter what the results of your investigation are, no one here will pay a heavy price."

I looked at him, dumbfounded. "You know I can't promise such a thing, Mr. Kindle. Until I find what I'm looking for – the truth – I can't make such a deal. I will, however, let you know what I find out when I find it, and let you take the appropriate measures."

"I'm still not entirely convinced."

"Then will you at least give me a log of the 3As that were working on the plane before it took off? Surely that wouldn't endanger any jobs."

"That I can do."

"Well, thanks a lot once again, Mr. Kindle. I'm afraid I've been a burden to you today."

Rob smiled. He really reminded me of my grandfather. "You know I'd help any way I can."

I went straight home after that and found some documents from my earlier investigation. I had a list of the airport staff that had been in charge of the hangar where the plane had been parked. I hadn't needed to ask them any questions regarding the plane earlier; now it looked like a pretty good idea to do so.

I continued to glance through the documents till six in the evening, which was when I received a call from Rob. He sounded frustrated.

"Miss Sharpe, is that you?"

"Yes, Mr. Kindle, good evening. Is there a problem?"

"Actually, there is. I went into Storage to retrieve the logs you asked for, and they're missing."

I sat up. "Isn't it possible that someone misplaced them? They are a year old, after all."

Rob stood firm. "No way, no how. We store 3A logs for up to five years before destroying the records. The entire log file for the hangar is missing, not just individual logs. And that is the only file that's missing."

"Well, do you have backups of the 3As' hard drives?"

"I was just getting to that," he said impatiently. "Since the logs were missing, I thought I'd print a fresh lot from the stored hard drives…"

"…only the hard drives are missing as well," I finished.

"That's right," he said grimly. "I'm sorry to say that someone has pulled a fast one on me right under my nose. I'm also sorry I wasn't more helpful."

The cogs in my head began to turn rapidly. "Would it be alright if I interviewed some of your staff tomorrow then? There's just three people I need to speak to."

"That's fine by me. In the meantime, I'll be conducting an investigation of my own. I'll see you tomorrow then."


The next day, I went back out to the airport to talk to the three staff members who'd been looking after the hangar that fateful day – Marisa Newton, Lindsey Thorne, and Keegan Dawson.

I found all three of them waiting for me in front of the hangar. "Kindle said you were looking for us," Lindsey said gruffly. She must have been in her early forties, and had shoulder-length chestnut hair. Marisa was taller but younger-looking, with raven-black hair. Keegan was a fifty-something man with a solid paunch and a bored expression.

"I'm sorry to interrupt your work, but I had a few questions regarding the Dallas flight. I understand you were in charge of the hangar where it had been parked?"

At the time, I didn't know what it was, but something happened. All three workers had the same expression on their face, and it was one I could easily identify. Each of them was scared stiff, and they were trying to hide it.

Keegan was the first to interrupt the awkward silence. "So? We already talked to the police. We've given our statements. You can check the records. That's public property."

"I've already done that. I just wanted to go over what happened that day. Who knows? You might just remember something that you forgot to mention in your statement."

I squinted carefully at each of them. They looked at me like all they wanted to do was tackle me and get the hell out of the hangar.

"Look, lady," Lindsey started. "I'm going to tell you the same thing we told the cops. We finished our duties, sent the cleaner and mechanic bots in, and supervised them from that cabin there." She pointed to a control box behind me. "Everything looked just fine, so we left for our break. Another guy was supposed to take our place, but before he got here, Zulander and his bots attacked our 3As and got into the cargo hold of the plane. No one noticed anything because the tapes weren't reviewed till after the plane took off." It was her turn to squint at me. "Anything else?"

Aw, what the hell? I was feeling cocky. "Yeah, I have a question. How much money did you accept to learn that crap, and who gave it to you?"

Keegan was the first to explode. His face turned beet-red, and he swung a fist in my direction. He scraped my cheek, but I managed to avoid any real injuries from his left hook.

Let me just state that I am a terrible fighter. I've had my share of fights, and those equal my losses. I have no clue what to do when someone suddenly decides to take a swipe at me. Needless to say, when Keegan kept coming at me, all I did was fall to the ground, shut my eyes and stick my hands out in defense. I'm good with my words. My limbs? Not so much.

Thankfully, Marisa jumped on to Keegan's back and started yelling at him. When he finally calmed down, the women looked apologetically at me and shrugged. Keegan was still fuming, but his reaction to what I'd said only meant that I was in the right.

"Look," I started, scraping dirt off my trousers, "someone I knew was on that flight. She didn't make it out. I want justice. Propagating a bunch of lies doesn't make anything right."

"The truth shall set you free, huh?" Lindsey muttered sarcastically.

"That's right. If you don't tell me exactly what happened that day, my friend would have died for nothing, and you will live with that guilt for the rest of your life." I pushed my stray hair behind my ears and glared at them. No one moved. No one said anything. I continued to stare them down, determined to stay there until someone began to talk.

Surprisingly, Keegan was the first to crack.

"Fine," he said. "I'll tell you, but not here. Follow me."

The four of us walked to a locker room for airport staff that was a few buildings away from the hangar. Keegan ushered us inside, made sure the room was empty, then locked the door.

"This is one of the few place in the airport where there are no cameras," he explained. "That makes it harder for them to persecute us."

"It's been a year. No one cares anymore," Marisa retorted.

"Actually, you'd be surprised to know that people still do," I piped in. "Now tell me what happened." I whipped out my recorder. "Don't leave out any detail, no matter how unimportant you think it is."

Keegan sat down on a bench between two rows of lockers and began. I pressed the record button.

"That day, the three of us had just finished our routine work and we'd gone into the control box. Just then, an official came into the box and said that they were loading some important cargo on the plane and that no one else was to know about it. They said it was for a security demonstration to be shown to the journalists when they got to the factory at Dallas. We were to carefully load the cargo onto the plane and then make sure the 3As did not get anywhere near the crates. We asked the official why the bots couldn't do the loading, but we were told that the bots might interfere with whatever was inside the crates.

"The whole time that we were loading the crates, the official kept a close eye on us, almost as though he wanted us the get away from whatever was inside the crates. As we were loading the crates, curiosity got the better of us, and we decided to open one of the crates after the man had left. Strangely enough, none of the crates were locked from the outside.

"When we tried to open the largest crate, we set off an alarm that we didn't know was wired inside the crate. The alarm was connected to whatever was inside the crate. We closed the crate quickly, but the official must have been notified that someone had opened the crate. Before he came back, however, we caught a glimpse of what was inside the crate." Keegan swallowed. "It was Ziv Zulander."

A pregnant silence fell over our little group.

"What?" I asked, shocked. "Ziv Zulander was smuggled onto the plane? By a Corp official? That's not possible."

"That's what we saw," Marisa confirmed. "But there was something odd about it. He was just lying there, his eyes closed. I couldn't tell if he was breathing or not. We couldn't understand any of it –why he was inside a crate, why he'd been loaded into the plane, why an official had brought him there – none of it made any sense."

Lindsey picked up from where Marisa had stopped. "That's not all. The official had brought GreenBots with him when the alarm went off. They forced us back into the control box and threatened all of us if we told anyone what we saw. Then the official escorted us out of the hangar and to a conference room in the main airport building. He said that one hundred thousand dollars had been transferred to each of our bank accounts as a gesture of goodwill, and that he assumed the same amount would ensure our silence. After we heard what had happened to the plane, we checked the security footage before anyone could confiscate it. I have a copy with me."

"Would you mind lending it to me?" I asked. Lindsey nodded. She went over to what I assumed was her locker and pulled out a technical manual. She opened the cover to reveal a laser disc that had been set into a hole in the pages. "I've made plenty of copies," she explained, "just in case something happens. You can keep this."

"Watch it," Marisa said grimly. "That is the biggest mystery of all."

I thanked the three profusely and ran home as quickly as I could to watch the video. I put the disc into my player and turned on my televiewer.

At first, I saw whatever they had told me – the three working, the official coming with the cargo, the trio loading the cargo, the official returning with the armed guards, the armed guards escorting the three into the control box while the official disappeared into the planes' cargo hold to check the crates, then the entire group walking out of the hangar. So that confirmed their story. After everyone had left, the maintenance 3As came into the hangar and began to work on the plane. But the events that followed shocked me to the core.

Soon after the bots began to work, two strange, colorful-looking bots came into the hangar and began to attack the 3As. More strange bots followed, and then an all-too familiar man walked into the hangar. A man that Keegan, Marisa and Lindsey swore was in a crate in the plane's cargo hold.

I watched Ziv Zulander and his bots disappear into the belly of the plane, my heart pounding and my head spinning.


A/N: So that ends Chapter Two. The gang will make its appearance next chapter, and I hope to get the plot moving rather quickly from Chapter Four.