"I'll take control of myself and I will fight through hell to make you whole. I swear I will, I refuse to fail. I'll take what's left, my chest still gets heavier the farther I go. But my best has yet to make it out of the unknown. We'll make it out alive, and realign." – Re/Align, Divide
A few hours after everyone had left, Oslo found himself wandering the isles of the drug store on Lumina Square, across from the Janus Quarter PubSec HQ. His primary purpose was to restock his medical bag with some of the basics; but that didn't mean this trip didn't have ulterior motives. After all, there was a perfectly good convenience store with basic medical supplies in it closer to his house; but this drug store had a specialty item he hoped would be useful.
And so there the wolf stood, eyeing the various boxes of rat poison. He always found it interesting that things like this were sold in stores. Sure, there were the actual animal rodents that existed and caused problems for home and business owners across the city; but then you had the thirens. That had to be a weird thing to see in a store while shopping, right?
"You know, some might see this kind of thing as a threat." A feminine voice whispered in his ear. He hadn't heard her sneak up on him, but there was no denying the sharpness of the blade pressed to his back and the tail wrapped around his leg.
The wolf couldn't help but a grin a bit, she was right on time.
"We both know you see it as foreplay, Jane." He chuckled, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. She let out a laugh, withdrawing her weapon from him. He turned to face her fully, "I was wondering when you'd show up."
She gave him a once-over, standing back with a hand on her hip. "So what are you doing here? Using our old contact signal? How'd you know I would even remember it?"
The wolf let a sly grin cross his features. "Because you're you and I'm me." He replied, stepping out of the way of a passing customer. "Listen, is there somewhere we can talk? Preferably without an audience?" He asked, nodding his head to indicate the busy drug store.
She gave him a curious look before nodding, motioning for him to follow. Making a left onto the side street outside the store, he followed her up the fire escape to the rooftop. He was surprised to see she had set up her own little seating area up there. "I like to sneak up here sometimes and get a look at the city below."
He didn't answer, nodding as she turned to face him. "I'm guessing that you turning up using our contact signal and my favorite video store burning to the ground aren't coincidence."
He raised an eyebrow. "Favorite video store?" He echoed, showing off his inner canine when he tilted his head slightly. "Though you would be right."
"I tried to visit to see the scene myself. Belobog's folks were there however. They wouldn't let me anywhere near it." Jane stated, crossing her arms over her chest. "So? Tell me what you know, Wolfy."
"I know I've asked you to stop calling me that." Oslo sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I don't have the full story yet myself, but at a glance? Someone was targeting the head of Victoria Housekeeping who appeared to be trying to hide nearby. I don't think he intended to use the store as a hiding place, but they ended up throwing him through the door regardless."
Jane seemed surprised at this statement. "The head of Victoria Housekeeping is Von Lycaon. His combat rating is off the charts. You're telling me someone threw him through the front door of Random Play?"
Oslo nodded, "Damn near killed him in the process. I have him stashed away for safe keeping. He's pretty sedated at the moment, otherwise I imagine he'd be tearing this town apart."
"One of my contacts within VHK went quiet yesterday. I haven't been able to reach them at all." Jane pondered aloud, Oslo filled in the gap. "The whole organization is compromised. Those who aren't dead have gone to ground."
"Someone must really hate Lycaon." Jane said, turning to face the city. She was trying to hide a worrying thought that had crossed her mind. Oslo's fine hearing picked up her muttering to herself about something being "impossible".
He was about to ask what she was talking about when she turned towards him suddenly. "The Managers!" She blurted out, causing the wolf to step back. "What about the Managers? I haven't been able to reach either of them since the fire. I assumed they'd been dealing with everything going on but one of them should've reached out by now."
The look on Oslo's face caused her to cover her mouth with a hand. He held his own up defensively. "Whoa, whoa. One of them, Belle, is at my place. We don't know where the other one is, though."
"Wise is missing?" Jane asked, rubbing her chin. "When I was at the scene of the fire I could smell gas, burned wood, burned plastic and singed fur. But I didn't smell any burnt flesh."
Oslo's ears perked at that. It hadn't occurred to him, but since Belobog had dedicated it's thirens to protection services and PubSec hadn't been allowed on the site yet, the only folks who had actually been there had been humans.
"Jane, if I could get you in, would you help me investigate?"
She didn't bother answering him, she was already running for the fire escape, making a dash for the metro with the wolf barely keeping up behind her. He was surprised when she actually boarded the train instead of trying to run the rest of the way there in the tunnels.
The train ride to Sixth Street was short but heavy. Oslo couldn't help but feel the pit in his stomach grow a bit. When he woke up today he didn't imagine he'd be going to the scene of a fire to look for human remains. But as the doors of the metro train opened, he made peace with the fact that it was a task that needed to be done. He was glad that Jane didn't run from the metro stop to the store, he was in shape but keeping up with the mouse was hard work sometimes. As they both approached the burnt shell of the store, a tall man in a white coat with a jackhammer attached to his arm moved to stop them. "I'm sorry folks, but this property is owned by Belobog Heavy Industries, there's been an incident and it isn't safe for you to be here right now."
Oslo opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by another voice.
"Anton! Let them through – they're friendly."
Oslo eyes traveled to the second floor where he spotted Koleda standing next to another woman who was tapping away on a tablet screen. "Yes, President!" The man, Anton, answered, turning to offer them an apologetic smile. "Sorry about that, I'm sure you understand." He said, holding out his hand. "I'm Anton," He said, the smile growing wider when Oslo shook his hand. "Oslo," The wolf replied, nodding to the mouse thiren next to him. "This is Jane."
Oslo glanced to his right and found Jane to be deep in thought, eyes scanning the wreckage. Her casual, flirty persona had taken a back seat to the hardened and talented investigator she was.
Oslo followed as she made her way to the front door, looking over her shoulder to Anton. "Is it safe?"
Anton nodded. "We added a few beams to keep everything on lockdown until we know what happened. Just mind the areas marked with red construction tape, those are still a bit weak."
Finding the answer acceptable, Jane ducked inside the burnt out building. Oslo followed close behind, the wolf being forced to cover his nose a bit as he was instantly assaulted with the heavy smell of burned plastic. He followed her up the stairs towards the bedrooms. Jane stopped where the hallway split into the different rooms. Oslo watched as she took a few sniffs of the air. He could see into the bedroom on the left from where he stood. Everything in it was burnt up. The bed and couch had been reduced to just their wire frames and springs. A bangboo charging station held the charred frame of a bangboo labeled "Eous".
Oslo couldn't help but feel sorry for the thing. He had learned about them when he had returned to the city as an adult. At first he thought they were just little robotic assistants, but in time he'd come to learn just how complex they were. To the point of developing feelings and personalities. Even the ones mass produced for Public Security all ended up having little traits unique to them. While he was glad the AI had managed to get their personalities to safety, that didn't make seeing the charred remains any less jarring.
Everything else in the room was a complete loss. Oslo stepped through the doorway into Belle's room, casting has gaze on the lost memories the fire had burned up. Various records, tapes, clothing, and personal items were either charred by the fire or saturated in the water used to put it out. The wolf had seen the aftermath of a fire before, this was no different.
He glanced at the wall, seeing what appeared to be a memory board. A number of the photos were burnt. Much to Oslo's surprise, two of them had survived. One appeared to be taken on top of a skyscraper. He remember Lycaon telling him about a mission to save a hacker. It had been the first time he'd met the proxy twins.
Next to that one was a picture of Belle and her brother sitting in a small office with a large number of computer monitors behind them. Belle had Eous in her lap. Judging by the height the photo had been taken at, they had likely asked one of the bangboo to help.
Ever so carefully Oslo reached up to the board, removing the pins that kept the pictures in place. He took them both down, placing them in one of the inner pockets of his vest. He looked back to the doorway to see Jane watching him. She gave him an approving nod.
"I think I found something." She said, turning to walk into the other bedroom.
Oslo followed, taking notice how this bedroom had been even more damaged by the fire than the other one. Oslo tilted his head. It was kind of odd to him. Belle's bedroom door had been left open when she'd ran downstairs to see what was happening. It stood to reason that if this door had been left open as well they would see the same level of damage in both rooms.
"Find anything?" He asked Jane, as he took in the destruction. The wall facing the street had crumbled away, leaving an open, gaping hole. Part of the roof had collapsed as well, allowing the wolf to look up at the sky.
"You're the explosives expert, you tell me." Jane countered, arms crossed over her chest again.
Oslo rolled his eyes in response, not much in the mood for a test. But she had a point, he was pretty well versed in explosives. He walked to the far end of the room where the wall had given way. The problem he faced was that the fire had done a significant amount of damage to everything, so if there was explosives involved- he stopped mid thought. Why did Jane suspect explosives?
He took a deep breath through his nose, doing his best to ignore the burning sensation that came with it. He closed his eyes and took a moment to filter through what he smelled.
He smelled the burned versions of plastic, fabric, and computer parts amongst the background scents of burned wood and wiring that was typical of a house fire. Committing those scents to memory, the wolf took another long sniff.
After a moment he opened his eyes. "Pentaerythritol tetranitrate, cyclonite and tributyl citrate. They used a plastic explosive." Oslo said, looking around him. "High explosives don't burn like this though. They tend to rip stuff apart. So what caused the fire?" He asked himself, shuffling some debris around. It took a few moments but he found the spot that gave him the answer.
He picked up a piece of burnt red metallic shrapnel. "This belongs on a gas canister." He said, "But the way this is blown apart tells me they had explosives taped to it."
Jane nodded. "See? I knew you were the expert. This took some planning. This isn't something you throw together when your plan falls apart. This was intentional."
"Are you saying Lycaon wasn't the target? The proxies were?" Oslo asked, looking around him for more evidence.
"I don't know yet. Maybe it was something they had on hand for other reasons." Jane answered, shuffling some debris with her foot. "Something isn't right."
Oslo looked to where she was standing, near a blown out window frame. "Not uncommon with high explosives," he commented, "the shockwave blows the glass out. It likely ended up somewhere in the street."
"True," Jane said, crouching down, her fingers grazing the spot she had been standing. "But there's melted glass here. If the explosion was used to trigger the fire, why would there be glass here."
Oslo didn't have an answer for that, moving to see what she was looking at. He moved more debris out of the way, uncovering more of the floor. It had a large amount of melted glass near where the window had been.
"The window was smashed in before the blast." He said, looking from there to where the heaviest burn marks were. "That's a bit of a distance away from here for it to have been from them throwing the device through the window." He commented, looking to Jane.
"A smashed in window, a possible targeted attack, and no odor of burnt human flesh." Jane said, standing to her full height as she looked at her co-investigator.
"This was an abduction." Oslo sighed, cursing under his breath.