Angels with Newfound Hope
Act 1 Chapter 17: Discovery
Portal Hill - Day 7, 10:31AM
The portal stood proudly atop its hill in defiance of the elements. Alex couldn't help but wonder exactly how long it had survived there.
"I hope I can remember how this thing works." Sebastian idly spoke. His companion hoped he himself could even get back to Terra. There was only one thing left to do before succumbing to his fate.
"I guess this means goodbye, Sebastian. It was nice knowing you. And tell Bryce I'm sorry I couldn't make the barbecue tonight." The human requested sorrowfully. His security seemed a little taken aback.
"Right, I will. Goodbye, Alex." The runner stepped over to the console whilst Alex trudged between the pillars. The last ounce of hope he'd ever see this world again had already been dashed anyway. In the very least, he had the smallest amount of comfort knowing he'd done everything to help. Closing his eyes, he awaited what was to come...
The sound of bashing metal and Sebastian's swearing stole him from the anxiety. He ran over to find the officer holding a new cut on his leg, and a maintenance panel wide open.
"You okay? That looks bad." The brunette took off his watch and tried placing it on his companion.
"I'm fine, and what are you doing? I don't need that." The smaller male vehemently refused. His company strapped the device back on with a shrug.
"Suit yourself. Now what's all this about?" Alex, kneeling, inspected the terminal. There appeared to be several parts either missing or destroyed outright. Sebastian sat up himself for a closer look.
"It looks like someone sabotaged the portal. And they even left their bag here." He pointed out a black and gray sling bag that had been sitting on their left. The human gaped in shock.
"The hell, that's my bag! Some asshole stole it from me the night of my arrival. How much stuff is even left inside?" The larger male scurried over and unzipped his pack. Nothing more than a spare pistol clip lay tucked into a tertiary slot. He silently swore up and down at the person who took everything.
"Alex, quit manhandling that! You're ruining evidence!" The officer shouted. The aforementioned man just looked back with a deadpan.
"Evidence of what? There's not even anything in here besides spare ammo for my pistol. And the person who took this had gloves and a mask on." He fired back, throwing the bag over his shoulder. "What's more important is the portal being broken. The cards the suspect left are bent out of shape, and no human I know could do that without getting cut to ribbons. It's not just the expansion cards either. One of the motherboards, a CPU cooling unit and several sticks of RAM are torn out and apart." He further detailed whilst pointing to every item mentioned.
"I take it you worked on computers?" Sebastian questioned. Alex helped him up before saying anything.
"Still do. Let me grab one of the cards for immediate evidence and we'll be out of here. I don't think anything you have will replace them." With that, the human crouched back down and unscrewed one of the bent cards. It was placed in his bag before they took off with the bad news...
The two were back at the ministry before long. It seemed that Remy took to joining Bryce and Emera whilst they were away.
"Here are the case files, Emera." The pearlescent archivist handed a manilla folder over with a quick thanks from the minister. "The ambassador and an officer? What's this about?" He questioned as soon as the two were spotted running up.
"That's what I'd like to know. Why has my order not been carried out?" Emera interrogated Sebastian. Before he could say anything, Alex pulled the card out.
"The portal's been broken. Someone must've sabotaged it over the course of last night. Several crucial parts are in the same state as this one." Bryce looked over the card as the human spoke.
"Sebastian and I will check it out once I'm done here. Keep that part safe, Alex." He ordered. The brunette nodded and slipped it back inside.
"Then I suppose You're staying with us a bit longer after all. I'll make this short, seeing as this is an emergency. Chief, as a result of your carelessness regarding Reza and Maverick: I'm temporarily removing you from any duties related to the humans. You will instead serve as my personal escort until further notice. Considering the circumstances, you will only be allowed to coordinate the investigation of the portal. Then you must immediately return to me to start your new task. understood?" The pale olive female commanded. That was quite a punishment for him. Even Onyx's chief was never stuck with that when the mayor feared for his life.
"Understood." Bryce said simply.
"Then you all are dismissed." With that, Emera turned to leave, Remy trailing after.
"Alright. Let's all head to the portal. You seem to know something at least, Alex." The fiery-scaled chief stated. They all turned to leave before the human pointed something out.
"Hold on a second." He plucked a paper off the pavement. "This looks like a case file." The script detailed the incident at the portal from what he skimmed over.
"You should get that to Emera ASAP then. Meet me and Sebastian at the portal as soon as you're done." The largest male hurried off before he could even speak.
"Rather urgent, considering Reza can't escape now." Alex thought aloud. With that, he ran off to deliver his task.
The office Emera worked at was surprisingly close to the one he'd infiltrated just the night before. He didn't even expect the lobby to be completely empty, yet there he was. Some signs guided him upstairs and down a windowed hallway to the room itself. There were already some people inside talking by the time he approached.
"And what happened to this scroll? It didn't have that tear before." Emera's voice echoed from the room.
"I... dropped it." Remy muttered. His own voice barely registered, even with the brunette right next to the door.
"You dropped it?" A sigh. " Tell me something new for once." She groaned impatiently.
"Okay, someone else dropped it!" The archivist's tone greatly shifted to that of frustration. Alex was surprised, considering he originally seemed so chipper.
"Do you really expect me to believe that? Remy, it's not cheap at all to repair and replace artifacts like this. I thought you'd be aware of that. I'm afraid we'll have to deduct this from your pay again." Emera chided.
"I see." The pearly male's frustration still hung thick in his defeated vocals.
"You're not doing this on purpose, are you?" The jewelled female questioned.
"Of course not!" Alex felt horrible for the poor dragon being put on blast. He knew that kind of treatment all too well from his days in both retail, and in his current job.
"You've been working for me for quite a while now. I expected you to learn this at some point, but you're very resistant to doing so." And he had enough. The human knocked rather loudly, silencing any further argument.
"Come in." Was all that was said. The brunette opened the door just enough to hand Remy the document.
"Here, Emera dropped this while we were outside." The lecture continued the moment he was considered gone.
"This is one of the case files. It must've fallen out of the portfolio." The archivist pointed out.
"Then why was it left outside? You should've paid more attention. We could be in a lot of trouble if this gets into the wrong hands..." Emera's irritated voice trailed off as Alex rounded the corner. He honestly felt for that poor dragon. It's never fun working for someone like that, especially when they have any position of authority...
The walk back to the portal was rather extensive even without the dragons who just had to stop him. But he did finally reach it in all its broken glory. Bryce was at the console, screwing around with whatever wasn't on screen whilst Sebastian watched.
"Well, I can confirm it's not turning on." The chief declared sheepishly.
"I told you that already. You really think it'd work with a chunk missing?" His coworker chided in a more serious manner.
"I just wanted to be sure. I'm no engineer, you know. We have literally no clue how the portal works." The largest male shrugged off the comment easily. "But he does. Alex, what do you make of this?" He gestured to the console as the human walked up. One quick glance told him the same story.
"I'm afraid this isn't my specialty either, but I'll give it a go. Someone was clearly out to completely destroy this thing. The key is why they did it and if we can even get our paws on the parts to fix it. Several items, including a motherboard, its probably hefty CPU cooling unit, RAM, and several expansion cards were torn to shreds or removed completely. This is more than an act of theft. Someone didn't want anyone in or out of here. Whether or not that's me or Reza depends on the person." Alex assaulted the poor dragons with some of his technobabble. Oh how sorry he'd feel if this were a normal scenario.
"In that case, we should be thinking about who and when exactly." Sebastian reasoned. The brunette involved may have had a good idea who.
"It could be the person who stole my bag. It was left here, after all." He deduced with scrutiny.
"Good point. There are also patrols assigned to the portal and surrounding area day and night. They must have seen something out of place if the portal was tampered with. But today's day patrol said nothing was out of the ordinary." Bryce pointed out.
"I guess she just missed the part where the portal was vandalized." The smaller officer stated bluntly.
"It's a small part of the machine as a whole, and it's not like she was supposed to inspect every square inch with each lap." The chief reasoned.
"What about night patrol? You said there were two different shifts to it." Alex asked. There had to be something off besides his bag being found at the scene.
"Funny you say that. When I went over the reports this morning, I noticed night patrol hadn't handed theirs in yet." The earth dragon gestured as he spoke. There was one thing at least.
"And who was assigned last night?" Sebastian questioned.
"Let me think for a minute. The schedule always goes in a certain order, so last night would've been..." Bryce trailed off as a realization hit. "Maverick... Damn, I got so wrapped up in all the recent chaos that I forgot to find a replacement for him. Maybe Emera was right to take me off the case." He concluded shamefully.
"So there was no one here at all? Portal completely unguarded?" The worried brunette pressed. Now he had to figure this out himself, but even with his suit, he'd be more suited to turn in the suspect instead of find them.
"Exactly. Whomever this was had full access, inside and out." The largest male furrowed his brows in thought.
"I'm just thinking here, but do you think it could be Maverick himself? He could've used the knowledge that no one would be here to his advantage." Alex made his argument. Maybe it would gain traction, maybe it wouldn't. It was worth a shot either way.
"He couldn't have known I'd forget to find a replacement, though. I usually don't slip up this bad." The chief mentally slapped himself. He was still reeling at that fact.
"What about Reza?" Sebastian offered. Alex did mention he'd be cut and leave blood everywhere, right?
"I'm going to have to level that, Sebastian. These boards are metal and full of tiny chips. Anyone trying to break them without thick gloves would be cut to ribbons. Let's also not forget the blood that would be all over the place." The human shot down the idea. As much as he hated it, there was a point there.
"Maybe he stole some gloves." The smaller officer fired back.
"But where would he go without being detected? Every store I've been to has had some form of security, and humans in a world of dragons stick out like sore thumbs." The brunette pointed out bluntly.
"Well, shit. You got me there. There haven't been any reports of a break-in to anything but an office building." The officer relented.
"Either way, our ability to communicate with mankind has just been cut off. Maybe we shouldn't have kept this investigation secret for so long." Bryce admitted. Both of the others shared his pain. The former was cut off from contacting Mongoose, whilst the latter was in a similar boat to his superior.
"At least there's one positive to this. It proves Reza's actions as his own." The stormy-eyed male attempted to reassure them. It... did little to say the least.
"Hey, I already trusted you on that." The chief argued.
"It could also just be a stunt to grant humanity plausible deniability." Sebastian piped up once more. Alex swore that damned runner will be the death of him.
"I wouldn't think so. Things would have to be pretty dire if they're willing to kill everyone upon a mission failure." The largest male shot the theory down.
"Then there must be something we're not aware of." The runner muttered, thinking hard about what that may be.
"Maybe we're looking at this from the wrong angle. Anyone could've broken the portal if nobody was here to guard it. It doesn't have to have anything to do with Reza or Maverick." Bryce theorized.
"But they still have the greatest motives." The brunette butted in. He really needed to work on throwing his two cents into every conversation.
"Sure, but they're definitely not the only ones with one. There could be private groups interested in the technology or its significance as a human artifact." The chief reasoned. Alex's expression soured at the mention. Of course there would be something like that around.
"So that puts us exactly nowhere." Sebastian deadpanned. This whole thing was getting worse by the second, and the human was tangled deep within.
"At least as far as speculation goes. Maybe we'll get some clues from forensics once they sweep the scene. Can you take it from here, Seb? You've been just as dedicated to this case as I have. I'd like you to take charge while I'm stuck at the minister's side." Bryce stated with his usual authority.
"I won't let you down, Chief." The smaller officer saluted.
"Weird that she chose that as your punishment. I'm suspecting an ulterior motive behind all this." The human uttered, wanting to know a lot more.
"Are you kidding? I could've lost my job back there. This is a way better outcome. She probably did it more for her own sake, but you won't hear me complain. Now if that's it, I'm heading back to the ministry. I shouldn't keep her waiting." With that, Bryce plodded off to his fate. Alex prayed he'd take his warning to heart.
"I guess you're the case leader now, eh?" He turned to the remaining officer.
"Yeah. You won't need to stick around, by the way. Thanks for the help." Sebastian waved the human off as he trudged back to his apartment for some much needed lunch...