AN: Thank you to everyone who messaged me about the mess up! Sorry it took me so long to fix it.
Ch. 12: "Time Stands Still" - Ace of Base, Perfect World
Qui-Gon wished he were closer to Obi-Wan when he woke up the next morning. He couldn't quite put a finger on the feeling he'd gotten through the bond during the night, but it hadn't been good. Morning meditation helped calm him, and he gestured the door open just as Kalifa raised her hand to know.
"Halldor is waiting to meet with us," she said, and turned away before he could ask any questions. For an instant, he felt a strong enmity from her - like he had the day she'd picked them up - but it disappeared as soon as it registered. He paused, then filed it away to think about later, and strode after her. Her voice sounded normal, the Force calm around her, but he couldn't shake the feeling that it was all a lie.
The servant let them through a different door into a tall, well-lit room with a large table in the center. Halldor, the head of palace security, and the representative from the city security force, a woman named Miqueta, conversed quietly, not looking up from the table when they entered. As they got closer, Qui-Gon noted the changes in the map from yesterday.
"We conducted a thorough search here," the rep from the city said, outlining an area on the map. A red line followed his finger, marking it. "We flushed out a few illegal businesses, but saw no sign of her, and none of the people new anything."
Halldor nodded, then looked at the Jedi. "Have you heard anything?" he asked Qui-Gon.
"Only that Obi-Wan feels he is drawing near," Qui-Gon said. "Communication was spotty."
"It generally is, out that way." Halldor gestured to take in the map, out the direction Obi-Wan had gone. "We haven't found anything yet that will strengthen communications."
"Where will you search this morning?" the palace security head asked.
Qui-Gon studied the map, taking in where they'd already searched. At a nudge from the Force, he pointed to an area to the northeast, near the edge of the city, to the north of the road Obi-Wan had taken out to the mountains. The area remained unmarked, so hadn't been searched yet. "I'll start here," he indicated an area about halfway between the Palace and the edge of the city, "and work my way toward the mountains."
"I'll start from the palace and go south," Kalifa said, indicating where she intended to start.
Qui-Gon listened to the head of city security as she explained where she'd stationed her forces. He took note of the streets so that he wouldn't stray into their territory by accident.
"Thank you," Halldor said. "Breakfast is in the dining room, and my cook is making a packet for your lunch."
A servant showed them into the dining room. Qui-Gon trailed slower, mulling over what he'd heard. They just had so little information.
"I am heading out to the area where you are going to search," Miqueta said as Qui-Gon picked up his lunch. "Would you like a ride?"
Qui-Gon smiled. "Thank you," he said. "I would enjoy that."
She smiled and picked out her own packet, and then led him out to the vehicle courtyard. They drove through streets that gradually narrowed from wide avenues to smaller thoroughfare, and increased foot traffic. Miqueta didn't speak to him, coordinating today's search over the comm. Qui-Gon didn't mind. He watched how the people moved and thought about how he wanted to approach this day's search.
Miqueta let him off at the corner, and he thanked her as he got out of the transport. She wished him luck and drove off.
Qui-Gon stepped out of the way of the foot traffic and oriented himself to the palace as he looked around to find a place he wanted to start. He started off down the street, following the flow of traffic. He matched the pace of the others, stepping out of the flow regularly to check alleys and to speak with the people inhabiting them. While he got a fair amount of information - and lessened his load as he gave out his lunch, bits at a time - he heard nothing about Dorlisa or what might have happened to her.
The force had stayed quiescent all morning, except for a couple of nudges, but as he passed by a business, it nudged him, hard, to go inside. He checked to see what it was - salvage and restoration - and pushed the door open.
The building extended further back than Qui-Gon had expected, both walls lined with transports. The back wall had a closed retractable door, going into the ceiling. The sound of bangs, curses, and drips came from the rear of the garage. The transports near the door looked in good shape, but as he walked toward the door and the noise, the condition of the transports worsened, at least from the outside. He stopped at the head of the last transport on his right, noting the booted feet sticking out from under the machine. "Hello?"
With a final clang and a hair-raising curse, a Hanani slid out from under the transport. He sat up, wiping his hands on a black-stained red rag. "How can I help ye?"
"Where did you get all of these?" Qui-Gon asked, gesturing at the transports.
The Hanani grinned. "Scavenged, most of them," he said. "Sometimes people drop them off, but usually I get them because they get left outside the city. If they're usable, I can restore 'em and sell 'em. If they're not, I can get parts from 'em, and sometimes sell those, if I can't use 'em. Looking for something?"
"Possibly," Qui-Gon said. "Did you get anything from the Northeast in the last few days?"
The Hanani scratched his head. "Let's see," he said. "Do you have a specific "northeast" in mind?"
"Beyond the edge of the city, probably, maybe within the limits, but not by much, and not too far from the main road."
The Hanani got to his feet. "I got a call about an abandoned transport a couple days ago, and towed it in yesterday. I'll keep it untouched for the next sev'n days, but then it's legally mine. Belong to ye?"
"No," Qui-Gon said. "But may I look at it?"
The Hanani winked. "Just in case, eh? This way." He led Qui-Gon through a door next to the larger one, and into a courtyard mostly full of transports that would never run again. A gate at the other end of the yard let out onto a quieter road than the one Qui-Gon had just left. Four transports waited just inside the gate, all of them in good repair, if dirty, and tagged. The Hanani navigated through the debris littering the ground toward the gate. He stopped next to the transport closest to the gate. It was large, closed, and filthy enough that Qui-Gon could see nothing through the windows. He opened the driver's side and looked in.
"Navigation is shot," the Hanani said. "Literally. Someone shot it up enough that it'd have to be replaced. I figure it's whoever left her; anyone else would have ripped it out."
"Did you find anything inside?"
"Nope," the Hanani said. "The boy that comes in to catalog for me will be in this afternoon."
Qui-Gon nodded and closed that door. She wouldn't have been up front. He opened the door to the back. "Did you see anything belonging to a little girl, in your initial check-over?"
"Nope. Did ye lose one?"
"I'm helping search for one," Qui-Gon said, and bent down to check under the seats. He saw nothing under the driver's seat - he didn't think anything could have gotten under there - but something pink caught his eye when he looked on the back seat, wedged between the seat and the back. He could just brush it with his fingers, but did not have enough room to get a grip on it. Narrowing his eyes, he concentrated on it, using the Force to ease it out. As soon as he could, he grasped it and gently pulled it out.
A child's bracelet, pink beads on stretch-wire. In the still of Dorlisa, had she had a bracelet? Qui-Gon closed his eyes and studied what he remembered. Yes, she had, and he felt this was what she'd worn.
"What'd you find there?"
Qui-Gon looked at him again. "Something that belongs to the missing child," he said, and held it up.
"Ye sure?" The Hanani peered at it.
"I am. May I take this?"
"Let me get the inventory started, with yer name and how to reach you, and yes, ye can take it."
Qui-Gon handed it over. "Thank you." The Hanani wove back through the yard to the building, and Qui-Gon contacted Miqueta. "I found something," he said when she answered.
"I'll send someone to you," she said after he'd explained. "Tell him we'll take the transport and all responsibility for what happens after."
"Thank you," Qui-Gon said.
He had just told the Scavenger what he'd learned when the city security showed up, four Hanani coming through the gate and swarming the transport.
"Well, that's okay, then," the Scavenger said, handing the bracelet over. "I hope ye find the girl."
"Thank you," Qui-Gon said.
The city security people offered him a ride once they'd hitched the transport up to theirs to take in, and he accepted. He spent the ride thinking about it, the bracelet loose in his hands.
The transport he'd found it in had come from the same direction that Obi-Wan had gone, on the same road he'd taken. Qui-Gon knew better than to rely on coincidence, but on the other hand, if the kidnappers had taken Dorlisa to the mountains, that road got them there the most directly.
Kalifa waited for him at the door from the transport yard, a dirty yellow sweater in her hands. "Another clue," he said, and showed her the bracelet.
Kalifa's eyes narrowed. "Whoever took her is trying to confuse us," she said, and led the way to the planning room.
They'd handed over the things they'd found to Palace security and marked where they'd found their evidence by the time Halldor joined them, interrupting their discussion of where they might do the most good for the next day.
"Where did you find them?"
Kalifa pointed out where she'd found the sweater, a bright yellow dot marking the address. "I found her sweater in a trash bin behind a bar," she explained. "Neither the bar tender nor any of the regulars remembered seeing her, and they would have, someone that young. Garbage pickup is today."
"A decoy?" Halldor asked, his voice reasonably steady, but his hands gripped each other hard enough to turn his knuckles white.
"Possibly," Kalifa said.
"I found her bracelet here," Qui-Gon said, pointing at the pink dot in the northeast part of the city. "A scavenger brought in a transport from out here." He pointed to another area, further northeast. "Her bracelet was wedged in the back seat. City security is going over the transport now."
Halldor released his hands with some effort. "Your apprentice is checking in this direction," he said, gesturing toward the mountains. "I would like it if both of you would check to the south, see if you can find anyone who saw Dorlisa. City security will continue as planned." He cleared his throat. "Thank you."
Qui-Gon and Kalifa both bowed as he left the room, and turned back to the table to revise their plan for the next day's search.