Broken Lyric:
Broken Threads

Matt

According to the file in the Hall of Records above the Lenny Library, there were fifty-one freelance detectives within a hundred-mile radius of Neopia Central. And after I quit, without too much reluctance, my job as day care assistant to a dozen screaming baby Usuls, I had handed in my registration as the fifty-second. As if being taken seriously as a male Pink Xweetok wasn't difficult enough, I had to convince the citizens of Neopia's largest city that I was intelligent and intuitive enough to solve their problems.

Hanna found it funny, of course. She was bound to. If the world is ever reduced to flaming rubble and we are the last two Neopians left on it, my owner will be laughing at the dots of smoky ash making us both look like Spotted Gelerts. I took the liberty of landing her with the rent payments for my new office, since she can't help but see the bright side sooner or later.

It was mid-morning, and I was back at my office for a well-deserved lemon smoothie. Hanna said that real detectives should drink black coffee, but I've never been able to stand the stuff. The missing Puppyblew of the morning had been located two gardens from home and returned to a tearful Cybunny, who'd expressed her gratitude in the form of a home-made lunch. Petpet searches and peanut butter sandwiches. It wasn't the life of glamour and excitement I'd expected when I first decided to become a detective.

I glanced down at the notes that Lucky Angel had left for me. To say that the pretty little Hallowe'en Aisha was my assistant was admittedly pushing it somewhat—she worked in the room next door, and was kind enough to take messages for me while I was out. There seemed to be one assignment in the pile, with a scribbled username I couldn't quite make out. Charlotte? No, that scratch of the pen could never have been a T.

"If you're quite finished?"

The voice wasn't Lucky Angel's. I jumped out of my seat, lifting my head to see who had spoken.

A stunningly beautiful Faerie Nimmo stood in front of my desk, her arms folded. Even as I struggled to get my breath back, my eyes were drawn to her shimmering dress, violet silk that swept the ground at her feet. Clearly, this was the richest client I'd had yet.

"Good morning," I managed. "How may I be of assistance?"

"I need you to find someone for me," the Nimmo said bluntly, fixing me with a stare that could have cut through ice. "There will be compensation."

"Of course, I'll do my best to…" I hesitated as my brain caught up with my ears. "Someone? Not a Petpet? Another Neopet?"

She shook her head. "A human. I have all the details available in this notebook." Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a slim book and set it open on the desk. "Of course, if finding stray Neopets and Petpets is more your line, I can go elsewhere."

"No!" I squeaked. "I mean, no, that will be fine. Although—" I glanced down at the previous assignment I'd been left— "I think you ought to know that—"

"I hope," the Nimmo interrupted, "that you realise I expect this assignment to take priority over your other tasks."

I nodded dumbly. She obviously wasn't in the mood for questions. Lifting the notebook off the desk, I shoved the message (Charlene? Chariot?) under a stack of papers.

As she left the room with a swish of silk, I read the name again.

Lyricalised.

*

When most Neopians think about the life of a private detective, they imagine listening at keyholes for critical information, or being invited out to fancy restaurants in disguise. A night at the Hotel Opera, squinting at rich Neopets through a false monocle, would certainly be more interesting than what I inevitably end up doing in reality, which is browsing the archives at the Hall of Records.

"Do not touch the records previous to 20 BN," the Head Lenny snapped with a slight clack of his beak. "If you need something, our staff will be happy to find it for you." While I couldn't imagine the surly librarians being happy about anything much, it wasn't the pre-Neopia Central records that I wanted this time. I was interested in something a lot more recent.

Lyricalised's name didn't show up on the current edition of the census. That ought to mean that there was no such person, but I had my doubts. Hadn't there been that one case in the news a few years ago-- what was it, a Darigan Kougra or something? You could disappear from the census, although TNT didn't like the news to get around. It wouldn't necessarily take a Faerie to do it, either.

Year Eleven. Year Ten. Year Nine. I flicked through the books one after another, coming up with a blank every time. Already I was beginning to wonder if that Nimmo was deliberately wasting my time. She had better pay well.

As I opened the next census volume and flipped through to the Ls, I realised I'd taken the wrong book off the shelf. I had it in my paw to put back when I noticed what was on the page I'd stopped at.

The notebook the Nimmo had given me had an approximate date of Year Nine scribbled in it. But this census was from as far back as Year Five, back when I'd still been attending school. Still, here it was.

A young human girl gazed innocently at me from her photograph, a Feloreena sitting happily on her lap. There were no Neopets with her, and she couldn't have been more than fourteen or fifteen, at my guess. The picture had faded a little, but I could make out brown hair the colour of warm toffee, and a bright, kind smile that looked sincere.

Lyricalised

Arrived in Neopia: 15th of Running, Year Five

Neopets: None

"She exists!" I slammed my paw down on the desk, and became aware of the librarian staring pointedly at me. "Oops. Sorry. I'll keep it down."

"You had better."

I pulled the package of tracing paper from my pocket, and checked to make sure the Lenny had gone back to his work. Picking out the lines and shadows of the photograph in blunt pencil, I managed to create an approximation of the teenager's face.

So, Lyricalised existed. Or, at least, had existed. It wasn't as if there weren't plenty of newbies who appeared briefly, decided that owning a Neopet wasn't for them, and faded quietly back into obscurity. But the fact that she was being asked about after all these years suggested that someone, somewhere, had a reason to care about her. And I had to wonder what that reason was.

*

Looking for a human is a tricky process, I found out quite quickly. If you're on the hunt for a missing Neopet, they probably won't have changed in however many years they've been gone. (Unless, of course, they've become a lab permie in the meantime. Remind me to tell you about that case someday.) Neopets grow in size, it's true, but humans mature in all sorts of unlikely ways.

"She'd look prettier in buckle shoes, Matt."

Hanna leaned over the table, sprawled out in front of me. I'd spent half an hour drawing, with her occasional input and advice. The picture beneath my paws was finally taking shape. A woman in her early twenties, brown-haired and bright-eyed, with a more adult but equally genuine smile. The kind of person Lyricalised would be, if she was still around.

"Right." I picked up the drawing. "I'm off out again. Don't bother about dinner, I'll get something when I come home."

"Again?" Hanna looked surprised. "It's getting a bit late, Matt. Wouldn't you rather leave it until tomorrow?"

"I wish." I sighed. "But if you'd met my new client, you'd be trying to get her off your hands too. She looks like she's ready to bite my head off."

"Well, then, don't put the house keys in your hat," was Hanna's parting remark as I left the house. "You've got the only set."

*

Neopia Central was full of shopkeepers shutting up for the night, and young pets walking home from after-school classes. I found a spot in the centre of town and set up the picture on an easel next to me. Pretending to be a street artist, I worked on the colours as people passed by.

The reactions were predictable: approving, but noncommittal. Perhaps I was barking up the wrong tree after all.

"Oh, that's so pretty! Hey, isn't that Dazzle's mom?"

I turned around. A little Bori with ribbons on her ears was looking up at the picture. Slowly, very slowly, I knelt down until my face was level with hers. "You recognise it?"

"Yeah." She smiled. "It is, isn't it? Dazzle's mom. She came to our school on Owner's Night."

Dazzle. That had to be the name of a Neopet, I reasoned. A new lead. The Lyricalised in the census hadn't had any pets, but that had been years ago…

"I was wanting to deliver this picture, but I can't remember where she lives," I improvised. "You must have been over to Dazzle's house, right? Do you know?"

"Um…" The Bori sucked her paw. "I'll ask my owner, okay? Come back tomorrow! I'll wait here for you."

I barely had time to thank her as she ran off. She probably had to be home before night fell. Waiting until tomorrow wasn't ideal, but I was grateful just to have a lead. The idea of setting myself up as an artist had paid off.

Packing up the easel, I scooped up my hat from where it had fallen on the pavement, and was somewhat surprised to find it full of Neopoint coins. Maybe I have another vocation for backup if the detective thing turns out not to work out, after all.

*

"Is anybody home?"

I rattled the letterbox as politely as I could, and waited. This was the sixth house I'd tried on this street, after having no luck around the corner. The Bori's owner might have been kind, but precise she wasn't.

The door swung open, and a purple Ogrin stuck his head out at me. "If you're with Sharky Insurance, I told you, I'm not inter—"

"Official investigation," I said quickly, and gave him the briefest flash of my registration card. "Don't worry, you aren't in any trouble. I was wondering if you could tell me anything about one of your neighbours. Lyricalised?"

"Lyricalised?" The Ogrin blinked at me. "Oh… Lyric? Yes… yes, there was a girl by that name living next door. Her and her Neopet. A Uni, I think."

I nodded. "But she isn't there any more?"

"It's funny." A shake of his head. "One day she was there, the next she was gone. Been gone about a month now. I'd have thought she'd gone on holiday, but there's been no Neopian Times delivered since then, and it only comes once a week, so…"

"So you wouldn't think she'd cancel it just for a break," I finished. "Thanks for your help, sir. I'll call back later if there's anything else."

The door closed, and I heard the sound of hooves fade away. Taking a long breath, I threw one leg over the garden wall and dropped down in front of Lyric's house.

The house didn't have much of a security system, I could tell that from outside. I slotted one of Hanna's hairgrips into the lock and gave it a twist, not really expecting much success, and had a moment of surprise when I heard the ker-click.

If I'd been expecting an evil lair, a secret scientific lab or a ceiling-high stack of invisibility elixirs, I was disappointed. This Neohome was perfectly ordinary, quite obviously the home of someone who lived a normal life and simply wasn't here. The furniture around me was dusty, but cheerful, and there was a stack of clean dishes on the sink. I wandered through the house, looking for anything that might offer me a lead. There were a few gaps on shelves and in boxes that suggested someone had packed up some toys and grooming items. Well, okay. If Lyric and her pet had gone on holiday, it was logical to assume they would have taken a few home comforts with them.

At that point, I was ready to call it a day. There was an obvious explanation that tied up all the loose ends. Girl and pet had taken a holiday, perhaps in some exotic location like Mystery Island or the Lost Desert, and fallen so in love with the local scenery and customs that they'd decided to settle down and leave Neopia Central. I'd heard that with the new housing regulations, buying a home in a foreign country no longer cost a paw and a leg. It was a little strange that they hadn't sold their old house or told any of their neighbours, but then, there was no accounting for some people.

Then I saw the wastepaper basket.

Like everything in this house, it was nothing special. Just a simple litter bin that Lyric had evidently forgotten to empty before she went away, filled with papers. Envelopes.

Sealed envelopes.

I knew what I was doing was a breach of privacy, but I was already inside Lyric's house, without a key, looking around her private property. If I was caught, I reasoned, I could hardly get into more trouble than I would already be in. Picking up the envelopes, I slid a butter knife from the kitchen drawer under the flap of the first.

The letters were mostly impersonal ones. Neohome insurance bills, fundraising flyers from the Petpet Protection League, neighbourhood association newsletters, invoices from the larger shops. Not the sort of thing you would normally treasure, it was true. But to find that out, Lyric would have had to open them. Instead, they had all landed in the wastepaper basket in the same condition: sealed, addressed to Lyric, and untouched.

Turning over the envelopes again, I noticed that one of them had "FINAL DEMAND" written across it in red. For a moment, I entertained another theory: after losing her money on the Neodaq or some suchlike, Lyric had taken her pet and fled from an ever-growing list of creditors. But… no, the house was still full of ornaments, furniture and gadgets, even the latest expensive toys. Surely if there had been financial trouble, those would have been sold off first.

What kind of Neopian would throw out bills and letters addressed to her without even reading them?

Not an owner planning a holiday, or expecting a brief business trip. The kind of Neopian who, in her own mind at least, was already half-gone, and didn't expect to return.

Slipping a few of the letters into my coat pocket, I did my best to put everything else back the way I had found it. There was nothing more to be found in this deserted house, and it was time I stepped back and followed some different leads.

*

"This is all very irregular, I'll have you know."

I raised an eyebrow, and the Kau gave me a sideways look in response. "I'm an inspector of Neoschools, not some underworld spy," he went on. "I wouldn't be doing this for you at all if Lucky Angel hadn't vouched for you. If I ever find out you've been using this stuff for something nefarious, I don't know what I'll—"

"Use this? I should be so lucky, Barthy." I threw down the folder in frustration. "This doesn't make any sense. You say you brought all the records you could find relating to the classes in school this year, and there's plenty of material here, sure. It must mention every pet and owner that's ever done so much as chase a fly off the front steps of the school. Except two. Lyricalised, and any pet named Dazzle anything."

"I'm sure it's just an oversight," Bartholomew began.

"Are you? 'Cause I'm not. Not when Buzz-Extra Insurance have been sending out monthly bills to a customer who doesn't exist on their records. Or when the Petpet Protection League apparently got a five thousand Neopoint donation last month from a bank account registered as belonging to Dr. Frank Sloth, of 1, The Control Deck, Virtupets Space Station. Did someone really think I wouldn't notice all this?"

"Notice what?" The Kau was completely lost by now. "The fact that there isn't anything there?"

"Exactly." I sighed, pushing the papers back into the folder. "There's nothing there. And it's a Lyric-shaped nothing."

"I don't know much about detective work," Bartholomew mused, scooping the folder off the ground, "but something tells me that your client won't exactly be happy with a nothing, however it's shaped."

I groaned. "Thanks for reminding me."

*

"What do you mean, she's gone?"

I had braced myself for this moment, but it was still frightening. The Nimmo stared me down with eyes like laser beams, and it was all I could do not to hide under the desk.

"I mean, she's vanished seemingly without trace," I repeated, staring at my footpaws. "I'm sorry, but there simply isn't any evidence. At best, I can prove that there was a Lyricalised at some point. I know where she lived, and a little about her home life. But as for where she is now… I wouldn't know where to start. And if you want my professional opinion, there's not a detective in Neopia Central that would tell you anything different on the information you gave me."

"The fact that every detective in Neopia Central fails at his or her job is no concern of mine," the Nimmo snapped. "I gave you a task. Any detective worthy of the name would have completed it. Surely it cannot be hard to find a human?"

"A human? Not at all." I nodded agreement. "This particular human? If you ask me, there's something out of the ordinary going on. And I don't get involved with the supernatural. That just isn't my territory. When pets start using magic where it doesn't belong, that's when I back off and leave it to the conjurers and Faeries."

"I don't care if she's being concealed by the natural, the supernatural or a Quiggle with an invisibility cape," was the sharp retort. "I asked you to find Lyric."

And that's the other question I have yet to answer, I added silently. Why? Why would you come out of nowhere, looking for a human who can't be found, and attaching so much to the search? What is it that makes this… this Lyric so special?

"I hope you don't expect payment," the Nimmo told me scornfully. "I should have known better than to trust this to you. What's that old saying, again? If you want something done properly, do it yourself."

With a final sweep of her elegant wings, she was gone. The door slammed behind her, making me shiver slightly. I was sorry to see the prospect of money vanish, but the realisation that I'd probably never see her again was almost worth it.

Before I went home, though, there was one more thing to settle.

*

The black-haired girl listened to what I had to tell her without any apparent surprise. Halfway through, she offered me a peppermint from the paper bag she was carrying. I noticed it was the only thing she'd brought to my office, which was unusual. Most clients tended to bring anything and everything they thought was relevant, but this girl wasn't carrying a thing other than the bag of sweets, and some curved object or other that was making a bulge in her left-hand pocket.

"Thank you for your time," she said quietly. "You've been very helpful."

"I'm sorry I couldn't do what you wanted." I really was sorry; she seemed tired all of a sudden, and something about her seemed to radiate kindness—though perhaps I was comparing her too favourably to my previous client. It wouldn't be hard. Glancing down at my notes, I made one last brave attempt to decipher her name amongst the scribbles.

"It's all right. I didn't expect you to find anything, if I'm honest." She popped a peppermint into her own mouth. "I'll have the bill paid by tomorrow. How much do I owe you?"

"You don't owe me anything." I wondered if I should tell her that I had carried out the exact same assignment for another client, who hadn't paid me either. But my promises of confidentiality weren't meant to be for show. "This one's on the house, um… Charmaine?"

"Charmeir," she supplied, and for one strange moment, she looked regretful. "Thank you."

The door to the stairway clicked closed, and I began packing up my things for the day. It was anyone's guess what would be left for dinner and frankly I didn't care. With the desk shoved into some kind of order, I padded over to turn out the lamp.

My paw hovered over the switch.

Slowly, almost as if I was afraid of being caught in the act, I opened a new folder from the shelf next to my desk. I slipped the pictures and the Nimmo's notebook into it.

On the cover I wrote: Lyric.

Every once in a while, there's something you just can't leave alone.