I don't own Loonatics Unleashed
Enjoy!
It was a revelation that Ace didn't know how to respond to. When Tech and Rev came up to him and told him about what they had discovered, Ace had gathered the group at the round table. Even though he didn't have much success on his part of the investigation, he was glad that Rev and Tech were able to find something extra that could help them.
"Great," Ace said as he bowed his head and looked down at the table, "so you're sayin' that outta all the people that work at Acme Tech Enterprises, Amber was the one that did this."
Tech felt his stomach drop when Ace said that. "I…I should hope not," he answered the leader of the team. "She doesn't seem to fit the bill of a villain."
Duck let out a scoff. "How long have you known her, Tech? Five minutes?" he asked.
Tech didn't appreciate how Duck spoke of the situation that had happened. "She is Quinn's sister."
"So?" Duck challenged him.
"I knew Quinn before you did. She does not have any bad blood in the family," Tech said in Amber's defense.
"So her being the sister indicates that she's not a suspect? Did she even mention that she had a sister to you? Why would this woman suddenly show up out of the blue and through all the people in this world, she would choose to show up to you?" Duck asked him with a raised eyebrow, "there seems to be a lot of plot holes in that situation."
"Don't-be-too-hard-on-Tech," Rev jumped in, "he's-been-through-a-lot."
"But not being mind-controlled," Duck added and folded his arms across his chest, making sure that he had his arms protected in case Miranda wanted to deliver a punch on his arm as punishment for sounding insensitive.
"Hey!" Tech growled as he stood up on his feet and leaned over to the table. "If it weren't for me, you still would have had that thing implanted in your head."
Duck looked at Tech's posture, and even heard a slight growl that escaped from his muzzle. He got up on his feet and imitated Tech's actions. "What are you saying? That it's my fault that thing attacked me?!"
Lexi looked between her two teammates as they began to bicker back and forth. They were on limited time and a fight was the last thing that they needed. She placed the tips of her fingers in her mouth and let out an ear-piercing whistle. "Guys, cool your jets!" she said to them, "we aren't getting anywhere jumping at each other's throats."
Ace gave Lexi a thankful look before he continued with his thoughts. "Alright. Unfortunately, Amber is our only lead in all of this. We need to pay her a visit at Acme Tech Enterprises."
"Hopefully we'll be able to find her," Miranda suddenly spoke up, "that is…if she didn't get suspicious and leave."
"Yeah," Ace said, "we can't rule that out. If she left, then we will be back to square one…once again." He turned his eyes over to Tech and noticed how forlorn he looked when his teammates disagreed about Amber's potential innocence. In Tech's case, Ace hoped that Amber had nothing to do with this. "Alright team," he said as he got up from his chair and looked at his team, "let's jet before we lose our opportunity."
The journey over to Acme Tech Enterprises was not as far as Ace had thought it would be. Thanks to Rev's internal GPS, they were able to find the building before the late hours of the afternoon. At least they were able to get into the building during the usual business hours before they closed for the rest of the day. Once they landed in front of the building, the automatic doors opened for them and they were greeted by a young woman by the reception area of the company.
She was of middle age, gentle features, and hadn't expected the presence of the city's superheroes to come to this company. She got up from her seat and extended her hand to Ace in greeting. "What an honor!" she said as she smiled at them.
"We can give our autographs later," Duck spoke up, "we're here on a mission."
Ace furrowed his eyebrows at Duck and then looked back at the woman. "Don't mind him," he said to the woman, "we are here to see someone. Amber Wolf is her name."
"There are so many people working in this company that I barely know who's who," she answered. She walked around her desk and clacked her nails against her keyboard for the name of the employee. "Let's see here," she said as she scrolled down the page, "I see now, she is over at office room 39B. That should be on the third floor of the building."
"What are the other floors?" Tech asked her.
"First floor is the reception area, as you can see. Second floor is manufacturing of the products with Quality, and third floor would be your administration," the woman answered them.
"Thanks," Ace nodded his head to her, "we would just like to have a word with Amber and we will be outta here."
"Would you like for me to give her a call that she's expecting the Loonatics?" the woman asked as she took a hold of her phone and was about to dial her number.
Tech shook his head at her. "I think it would be best if we dropped in," he said to her. "Thank you." He thanked her and went ahead and followed his teammates over to the elevator where they went up to the third floor of the building.
When the doors opened, each office was enclosed inside glass windows. The seats were vacant from the usual employees that occupied them. Tech wondered the amount of work that they had to do in administration. He didn't get much exposure to that but he wondered that it couldn't be as hard as manufacturing a product for the people. When they approached the office with the number 39B, it was no surprise to the team that Amber was not at her desk.
Duck rolled his eyes. "Typical," he said.
"She could be at a meeting, Duck," Tech jumped in. "Or on vacation."
Lexi loudly cleared her throat and got their attention. "Less talking and more searching boys."
"It feels weird going through someone's things," Miranda said as she walked over to Amber's desk and looked through the drawers. When she pulled one of the drawers, it was empty. She furrowed her eyebrows and looked through the second and third drawers, only to see that it was empty. "There's nothing here."
Rev looked from one corner of the office to another and shook his head at Ace. "Nothing-in-the-sections-where-I-searched.-It's-like-no-one-was-here."
"Suspecting enough for you?" Duck glared at Tech. "Yipes!" he yelled as a hand reached out and grabbed him by the wrist, pulling him down to the ground with her. "What gives?" he glared at Miranda.
"Look," she said as she pointed to a small object that she felt when she crawled on the floor to see of anything that she could find. "It looks like a chip. And, leave Tech alone!"
Duck reached over and gently took it between his fingers. Maybe this would help them in solving this issue. He got up to his feet and approached Tech. "Found something for you," he said to the coyote, "looks like one of those computer things you're so good at."
Tech gave Duck a slight glare, but at least he appreciated the type of genius that Tech was…in his own appreciative way. The coyote walked towards the computer and turned it on before he let out a frustrated groan. "Of course!" he said, "the computer is locked with a password."
"Can-you-try-to-get-in?" Rev asked as he zipped towards the computer.
"It could take hours trying to decipher this," Tech said. He only had two passwords that came to mind and he tried one. Quinn. Invalid password. He tried the second option. Tech. Invalid password. "I have one last try before it locks me out," Tech said to the team.
"Maybe we can find something back at HQ," Lexi suggested. She turned her head and noticed a group of people walking out of a room as if they were coming out of meeting. "That is, before anyone sees us."
Tech looked over at the group of people walking out of the room. He squinted in hopes that he would be able to see Amber in that swarm but to his disappointment, she was nowhere to be seen. The team hid behind or under any furniture that they could find before they were spotted. Once the group of people was gone, they came out of their hiding spots. To their relief, none of the employees occupied their offices.
Wherever they were going, it was going to be their luck getting outta this place. "Come on guys," Ace said as he took the lead and the team followed him out before anyone was able to see that they were there.
The moment that the team arrived at HQ, Tech was intrigued to see what was in that chip. He inserted the object into his computer and saw one file on the computer. "Odd," he said to the team that was gathered around him. "How can there be just one file on a chip? You would think there would be more."
"Well click on it and see what it has," Ace told him as Tech executed his order.
Within that file, there was a video that played. A video of Amber who was walking down the street. The Loonatics looked at the video attentively. Why would there be a video of someone walking down the street?
Quite odd Ace thought as his eyes never left the screen.
Suddenly, the video became static and a hooded figure appeared. Tech jumped as he turned on the facial recognition program but couldn't make out the face of the person that had appeared. "Damn it," he whispered and gave the keyboard a gentle pound with his fist. The hooded figure ran after the street where Amber had walked before it cut into static, ending the rest of the video.
The team was in silence after they had witnessed that. "When was this video created?" he asked Tech.
Tech hovered the cursor over to the file and shook his head. "Earlier this morning," he answered Ace. "Do you think something could have happened to her?"
"The video does imply that…sorry Tech," Miranda said, realizing that she had not thought of her words before she vocalized them, "but it's strange why that chip would be in her office out of all places. It's like they knew that we were going to be there."
"That's a good point," Lexi agreed, "which gives us the other question, what could they want with Amber?"
"Considering the mind control I went through," Duck spoke up, "maybe they knew that she was getting herself cozy with Tech. If I remember correctly, the voice in my head said you're not what I needed, but you'll do."
Tech folded his arms across his chest and looked at Duck. "What are you implying?"
"They used her to get to us…or one of us," Duck said to Tech.
Tech had not expected Duck to say something like that. However, it was better than him jumping to conclusions about Amber being suspicious in all of this. He looked over at his phone by his desk.
Ace followed Tech's gaze. "What are you thinking about Tech?" he asked him.
"I should call her parents," Tech said to him, "I made the mistake with Quinn…it's the least I can do for them when we know their other daughter could be in danger."
It was a noble thing to do but considering what Tech had told him a year and a half ago, he didn't know if that was going to be a good idea. However, considering how close Tech seemed with Quinn and even if her parents did not want to talk with him, perhaps it would be something that he could repair between them in case this was a repeat of what had happened that year and a half ago.
Tech looked down at his phone and going through his contacts, the only person that was listed there that had the close connection to Amber's parents was Quinn's number. He stared at her name for a beat before he took up the courage and pressed her number. The beep from the dial tone rang through his ear when the receiver picked up and a tired female voice came from the end of the line.
"Uh…Mrs. Wolf?" Tech perked up at the sound of her name. He felt his feet losing sensation, as if he was standing on air when she spoke. "It's Quinn's friend…yeah, no, no. I am sorry for your loss but…this is Tech E. Coyote. I know that I am the last coyote you want to speak with but—no, no please don't hang up! I wanted to talk to you about something important…no it's not about Quinn. It's about Amber. Amber…your daughter."
A long silence followed. Ace looked over at Lexi to see if she could pick up anything that Mrs. Wolf was saying to Tech but her words were too muffled that only Tech could hear what she was saying. After what seemed like a long silence, Tech snapped his phone shut and threw his phone back onto the table.
"What happened Tech?" Ace asked as Tech got up from his seat.
Tech clenched his hands into fists and walked past Ace and the rest of the team.
"Tech?" Slam suddenly spoke up as he looked at the devastated coyote. Whatever had gone on between Tech and Mrs. Wolf, he hoped that it wasn't anything of a great concern. Maybe Amber was fine after all and on vacation as he had assumed back in the office.
"Tech!" Ace said to the coyote, "come on, man. You gotta talk to us. What did she say?"
Tech took a deep breath and tried his hardest to control the emotions that was about to erupt from within him. He couldn't believe what he had just heard. Slowly, he turned around and looked at his team who were expecting an answer out of him. "Quinn never had siblings. Let alone a sister."
The team exchanged a look with one another. "What you're saying is—" Ace was about to say but Tech interrupted him.
"Amber is an imposter!" Tech snapped.