"Anya Golver, at your service!" Anya saluted at Gaz while sitting down.
Gaz laughed, "I will be...you are! I'm unbelievably glad! The gods of this world might have some mercy after all. How have you been?"
"As you can see, outgrown myself a little bit. Sorry if I don't quite remember a lot of your faces, by the way." Anya said.
"It's fine, really. I don't remember seeing you much anyway. Perhaps a hide-and-seek champion?"
"Nah...Just that, I was studying a lot, I guess. Didn't always have time to play like others did, but I did have to inherit a multi-trillion dollar company and assets."
"Oh, right. Golver, as in Golver Industries? The company beginning off Maid Bot's, those caretaking hunks, before expanding recently?"
"Well, as recently as before I was born, but yeah! I'm that Anya."
"Ah, I knew I saw your face somewhere before when we high jacked those photos. On the news, that is."
"I mean, impossible to avoid it. But all's well that ends well, I'm actually super excited to see Terna again! Man, she must've grown to quite the talent!" Anya wagged her tail.
"Indeed she has. If anything, I think she also grew fond of you too, as I think I saw your name in some of her lyrics and everything. Your name rhymes unbelievably well, by the way."
Anya chuckled, "Well, I guess because 'Anya' isn't exactly my correct name."
"Wait, what?" Yuno wondered.
"Wait, are you actually serious?" Lass wondered.
"Relax dudes, I'm not like an undercover assassin with fake IDs and everything."
"I think I did see your name through some scrambled files we found with your images, though not very well visible after the censored encrypted files," Gaz said.
Anya chuckled, "Alright, alright. I guess I'll let me explain about 'Anya'. Though it's more of a nickname, to be honest. My official name, my birth name, is 'Ana Emilia Golver'. I went to Vardard once with my dad on official business, seeing how the ropes worked and everything, and I was so bored out of my mind while waiting for some company idiots to review choices. I met a Calico demi-human girl around my age who couldn't actually pronounce 'n' very well without adding 'nya' right after. I told her my name, Ana, and she told me hers, Naia. And then I remember spending a good thirty minutes to an hour trying to get her to pronounce 'Ana' and not 'Anya', as well as gradually finding that her name was not 'Nyaia' but 'Naia', once I realized what was going on. All my attempts failed. I met up with my friends' right after, Terna definitely included, and told them about it. Of course, the name stuck ever since."
"That's quite interesting. So, do you have a preferred way of being called?" Gaz politely asked.
Anya chuckled, "I don't want to either be special or am that insecure, relax. Ana or Anya, both is cool with me."
"I'd rather keep 'mutt', honestly." Lass tried to joke with her.
"Hey, when we inevitably turn into some badass war machines after all this super-secret mission goes down, I want a name change too, in the form of codenames and stuff. Imagine this. 'Hellhound'. That sounds hella good and badass, especially since it's relevant to my subspecies!" Anya got goosebumps, "Man I want that!"
"And I want peace, not so much world peace as in personal, uninterrupted peace. We can't have everything." Lass said with a straight face.
"First time I see a preacher of 'peace' carry around a sword that conducts and amplifies deadly powers, that's over half his size." Anya pointed out.
"Checks out." Yuno looked at Lass.
Ikarisa stroked the guitar strings again, playing a soft tone and humming quietly, "Hm-mm-m. I really like the tune of this guitar thingy."
"Then there's you saying something random," Lass told Ikarisa.
"Nope, it's relevant due to the fact that it drowns out bickering I'd otherwise step into."
"Fair enough. Though I gotta say, you're pretty good with that guitar." Anya said.
Ikarisa chuckled, "I used to practice very, very little when I was out and about with the rest of my team, the Trail Blazers. This is just a tune I remember. So please, don't make me hear another unnecessary fighting." she rubbed her forehead.
"If that is a constant issue, I can offer some disciplinary lessons that are highly effective." Gaz offered.
"Nah, won't be necessary. Besides, I don't think we've shown otherwise in-battle, right Risa? Come on, you've gotta admit that at least!" Anya lousily pointed at Ikarisa.
Ikarisa sighed, "True that."
"I guess I am starting to form a rough image as to why that won't necessary too. A very rough image..." Gaz said.
"So, before we dally any longer, can we do something about the Terna situation? We are supposed to be solving a crime, right?" Anya said.
"Solve what exactly? We don't have anything to go off of. Unless we include all these pictures on the board there, which I'm very sure just tells us what she wanted to do, not how she disappeared." Yuno pointed at the webbed board.
Gaz exhaled deeply, "It pains me, but...there is one thing you can start with, I'll forward it to Riko in a couple of hours to be absolutely safe that he will be alone in the police department. There's this message she left on her computer's notes which I found out after she left. 'I'm sorry for all I did and all who I hurt. I really, really am. I never wanted this to turn out the way it did. I heard voices and saw footage of the cameras of people specifically looking for me...Gaz, get them all out of here or talk them into surrendering. Please. Had more people listened to my voice, maybe we would stand a chance but there's no point in wasting lives without even a sliver of a chance. I need to get out of here...I might get lost along the way, but at least I'll be gone, far away from anyone I could hurt by drawing more attention. Maybe, in the end, it's like you said. I wanted to dream big and make big but...I came to realize more and more how stupid it all was. My songs are about heroism and bravery, the stupidity of this company and all the force on me. I would never make any dreams big or small come true...I'd only make money enough to pass by. I've long since grown out of the need to have anything done in this place. I write my songs to hear them and sing them to myself, I release albums that never even get touched by anyone or have their song touch anyone's heart, and I'm stuck in a loop that I can never escape, with voices and music that I hate. At the very least, since we got to where we are today because I wanted to "make a difference and touch hearts", the least I can do is back down, let this all die down and hope that whatever Neviro has in store for you all is not as horrific as I envision it to be. Don't bother looking for me, or put that suspicious guy, Riko, on it. Within 8 hours of you reading this, I'll be further away than you can reach me. Don't bother looking for my notes elsewhere too. Those are gone too...Gaz. Thank you and Viola for all you ever did for me. In the end, though I know I made you proud...I failed you. And before you call me a coward, I'll do it myself. Because I can no longer look you in the eyes the way I did. I filled your head with my dreams and then I gave up on them myself. And when your time goes too...I will be drowned in my fear of nobody ever remembering me again. Goodbye."
"Oh...wow. That sounded awful." Ikarisa put her guitar aside.
Gaz reached for a low drawer, "It does. But I can't leave Terna like that. I found this in the trash two floors up.", he placed a burned notebook on the desk, "Her work, years' worth burned to a crisp."
"She did say she hated them...but why?" Lass approached the notebook, flipping through unreadable burned pages and trying to find something.
"The manager she was appointed always specifically chose the theme and the must-have lyrics that Terna should produce. Almost always pop genre with upbeat vibes or happy hardcore. Now, besides the paper here, there are of course notes in the system that have the exact same things written in there...well, almost. Company notes save the songs, but you can bet that the notebook here definitely had more than those songs."
"I think I instinctively remember downloading albums that had Terna's name on it as the artist not being that." Lass checked his phone, "Yeah, look at this, 'In And Out Of Dreams, Out And In Of Nightmares'. That's easily one of my favorite rock to hard rock albums." Lass showed Gaz his downloaded album.
"Those were independent projects that never reached a broader audience. Terna obviously adored every single music genre and music instrument, music in general and more. But...love for something won't pay for your food. Unfortunately what she sang to make dew was...not to her taste. I'll pull one up right now." Gaz opened a file with lyric notes.
Anya approached the computer, "let's see...' Candy Candy Love'?"
The title alone was enough to change both of Lass's and Anya's face in an instant as they looked at each other, having the mutual feeling of squeezing an entire basket full of ripe lemons straight into their mouths, with their hands covering their contracted face muscles to at least try and hide some of the intense discomforts.
Lass moved away, "Yeah. Nah."
"Precisely what Big guy said. Nah.", Anya moved away too, "But...ugh. I'll suck it up.", she approached again, cleaning her throat and beginning to read out loud.
"Candy, candy, candy, candy, love
Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, more
Candy, candy, candy, candy, love
Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, more
Come along and stand under my arms extended side
Pull me in closer, don't be afraid, I don't bite
Shake me, shake me like we're on a rollercoaster
Love me, love me, and make my heart beat faster"
Anya then abruptly stopped vocalizing whatever she was reading, "Nah, dude. Nah. I can't deal with shit like this." she nervously and awkwardly chuckled as she stepped back.
"What the hell is this? Seriously? What is this supposed to represent and do?" Lass rubbed his forehead.
"To make people fall in love with her voice and probably support the artist financially. Also inspire them, according to what the marketing experts said." Gaz answered him.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
"Oh, it inspires me alright. Inspires me to swallow a shotgun." Lass said with a straight face.
"Who the hell is into this?" Yuno somewhat annoyingly said.
"Young fans, I guess. I don't know how to quite put it."
"Put it in the trash is where you should put it.", Anya said, "I'm not surprised she hated this."
"Wait, that's nonsense again though. Terna sings them, right? She can't be the lyricist of the songs and also sing them. According to what you said, it should've been 3 idols in a group total, right?" Ikarisa wondered.
"Yeah, about that. Terna was a solo practitioner. She had a lot of disagreements with the other two girls all the time, to the point where they were hindering each other's performance. The other two actually like these types of songs, having heard them their entire life in Delpha, while Terna wanted to 'diversify and hit those who were waiting for it with the unexpected' like she used to say. Hence why she was left to practice alone, and the other two girls moved a little bit higher up the ladder when they clicked with another one and made a new group. Unfortunately, while she thought it'd be her doing what she wanted, write, compose and sing, it obviously didn't come out like that when the higher-ups had something to say about it. That being said, she was actually the only idol out of a list of around 31 girls to be a solo practitioner, which would've normally led to a termination of her contract, had it not been for a guy named Felix, who was the one and only one of the company's higher-ups who believed in Terna enough to give her a new contract with new terms that would allow her to do things like this. Unfortunately, he could only do so much, as I don't think he could've stopped the demands of the rest of the higher up's coming in all the time for Terna to dish out a specific, company on brand music out. Had that guy escaped to Vardard with some other male and female singers before this spiraled down to becoming a warzone...hope he's doing ok."
"Based on that message then, is it possible for her to get out of here in some way that can be undetected? Something tells me she didn't want to be seen by not only you, but others too, according to the tone it was written in.", Lass thought.
"Nowhere to go but up, from what I know."
"We should probably relax a bit and make a comprehensive list of what we found up until now. We should be able to connect with Riko uninterrupted in a bit, so might as well give him all that we know to speed up the process.", Yuno suggested.
"That's actually not a bad idea. Plus, we can hope that Riko is able to see more than us with the files he's got access to. Risa, do you wanna do the honors? I kinda want to fidget with that guitar next too." Anya grabbed the guitar.
Ikarisa took a pen and a pencil, "Sounds good to me, honestly. We have her message, career and location underneath the building. The radio thingy over there with the computer. Anything else?"
"Those are pretty significant details already. Cause, location of the disappearance...but we have to account for the first 48h being lost too, which significantly lowers our chances to find her.", Lass thought.
"Yo, Big guy. Are you getting into the spirit of it now? Thought you said that was bs back in the previews headquarters when I did it."
"Of course it is. Do you think I haven't watched enough Crime Scene Scanning to talk some basic shit out of my ass as well? Those are some things Riko will appreciate more than us even." Lass shrugged.
"Then write a small synopsis with each subject too. Might as well give him a little bit more with each thing, to speed up the process even more." Gaz suggested.
"Alright...noted some down. Do we wait now?" Ikarisa kept writing.
"I mean, if there is anyone that's gonna be able to help more, it'll be Riko." Anya shrugged.
"I'm fine with relaxing a little bit. After all, we literally had a BPM in the tens of thousands a few seconds ago." Yuno said.
"Hah. Good one. You should see what happened back in Reingard. Man, it was literally no rest just a rush...add up to big monsters too. I'd love to just go ahead and face like a skyscraper-tall monster at some point too, that will actually be cool as hell." Anya said.
"You want an epic soundtrack to go with that too? Because my bet is on the monster winning within the first 30 seconds after it notices ants moving around it." Lass shut her down.
"Eh, who cares, I still want to see it, and it'll be epic." Anya cracked her knuckles.
"I might join, honestly. Sounds quite fun." Yuno agreed.
"What makes you all think that I'll allow you to do it in the first place?" Ikarisa stopped them.
"Well then...I guess I found out how you all make time pass for yourselves." Gaz sighed.
"Kind of obvious to begin with. Sorry, I guess?" Lass shrugged.
After that, between their hopes of an epic battle and the detailed description of what they all wished to happen, it was irresistible for even Lass to not want to join in the conversation. Gaz, still searching through files left behind by Terna, was calmly watching them from behind the computer, as he watched the minutes pass from the computer's clock, seeing them all in the circle, Anya on the poof, Ikarisa on her chair holding the guitar, now giving in to the temptation of the conversation and joining in and Yuno sitting on a shelf in the back, next to Lass who was leaning against it. Around two hours passed before they realized that they had skipped time along in their minds. Bringing them back into their troubles, as they gathered around the computer once more. Aside from the computer, Gaz had set aside his phone, dialing Riko's number as they all hovered above it and eagerly waited for him to pick it up. Eventually, after retrying a couple of times, they succeeded in getting into contact with Riko, sharing with him almost everything they knew at once, trying their best not to catch cold feet as they had just begun getting into the rhythm.
"So from what I can tell, the people who actually went there were above ahead, but you managed to trick them off with that whole underground thing you did. Message says she went off on her own, dead of night as well...but she has been thinking about letting go for a while. Hmm..." Riko thought.
"That's all we got for now. Any ideas at all?" Gaz asked.
"Several of them actually. But let me check a few things first. Company records had her connect with several people. Does any of them ring a bell? I'm bringing them up on your screen right now."
Gaz checked all the photos, "Yes, I helped a good bunch of them escape. But they weren't at all close to Terna, or so I know. But being chief of her personal security staff, I was around her most of the time, so I'm pretty sure I never actually had her really get to know any of them that well."
"I see...but, have you also brought Terna along during the time you were helping them escape?"
"Terna was always above ground helping the others set up with the resistance and all that when she wasn't broadcasting. That includes helping others get off this place and to Vardard."
"That's it then. You obviously had to avoid everyone, police and military included to get everyone out of here. Very highly likely that Terna would've chosen a similar route. What's the end location then?"
"Down by the beachside on the far left."
"Yeah, that usually has lower security because there are not that many vulnerable points. But that still doesn't mean anything, considering she's not half as used to navigating in this way...man. I don't want another dead end." Riko exhaled into the phone's microphone.
"Maybe she actually did manage to get away without being noticed?"
"Impossible with all the people that I've got out at night, plus we had everything fenced heavily back a couple of months ago. Before we had to take them down after getting pointed out by the military, to avoid escalation." Gaz crossed his arms.
"Wait, what can she do with Obsulyte, exactly?" Ikarisa asked.
"Apart from the regular things that follow Obsulyte users, strength, durability and all that, she could control the elements very well with her voice, aside from the fact that she could make someone completely enhanced as well. Those, however, wouldn't have helped her in this situation. Though she is an Obsulyte user, she would never come close to having as much physical strength as others, to overwhelm all the people I had set up around here."
"So that's out of the question too...however, I can kind of see why her being a musician the way she came to be is actually her true talent. Imagine how powerful she could make others be with a simple manipulation of Obsulyte from something as ordinary as her voice. Maybe that's why she was feared by Neviro. A full army of normal people who are enhanced could probably overwhelm him." Ikarisa thought.
"That's probably why she was chosen by the company anyways. Mad potential with her, considering that she could make others feel good enough to be her fans and on top of that support her with merchandise. But that still doesn't help us much here. Her abilities with her Obsulyte are strong, but no way would her abilities helped her escape without being noticed." Riko was heard clicking around on his computer, "But...that's interesting. According to this, from files from the company that I have gathered here, Terna was actually the only Obsulyte user idol in there, hell, throughout their entire 30 yearlong lineup. Three idol generations down and she's the only one with Obsulyte. I guess they wanted to try something with that?"
"But what? I don't think she ever made a debut here, has she?" Yuno asked.
"Moderate success from what I saw. Looked her up on Semori!, her follower count, like ratio on posts as well as overall traffic on her social supports that she's up and coming, but not really out there." Anya said.
"I mean, you take a bright star and shove it at your basement, you expect the world to see it?" Lass said.
"She came about at a bad time. Remember that the Great War that happened a few years back left everyone with a sour taste for Obsulyte users. They might not lay hands on you because of your innate strengths, but not fighting doesn't mean they like you.", Gaz said, "Even she had her doubts when we had to escape her previous home, and the small colony of people that had escaped along with us, once they too were pursued."
Riko grabbed onto Lass's words, "Wait, basement? Do they have basements in the company headquarters? I thought they just had ground-level storage rooms. Wait a minute...how I didn't think of this. You're down below! Two floors down the same style building as the others, having left those behind in favor of the new ones. This means, since we didn't close them up after the whole resistance situation happened, they must've been properly working departments...Gaz, it'll sound weird, but winter is coming, have you guys ever been cold down there before, when the department was up and running?"
"Uh...no. We still had the luxury of an AC system."
"Uh-huh. Any smokers in there, by chance?" Riko asked again.
"Not really...only one person was a chain smoker here from what I remember. But there was smoking allowed in the break room in the back." Gaz recalled.
"Wait...give me a moment!" he began to mumble, "Company, company, architectural designs..."
"Did we trigger a switch? He sounds somewhat excited!" Ikarisa happily said, realizing that they might have found something.
"I did, I think! Yes, here it is! Gaz, take a look at this, does the design of the blueprint remind you of the old Musica building room allocation?" Riko brought up another image on his computer.
"Yes, that's it! Riko, did you find something?" Gaz got excited.
"Ventilation, baby! Hell yeah! For an underground floor to have an AC, allowed smoking and be legally accepted for contraction, in case of a fire, ventilation must be installed on every floor. Even the one you're in."
"You're suggesting that Terna vented out of here?" Anya asked.
"Have you seen her figure? She's as slim as the shorty that was with you, cute in every way and almost perfectly able to squeeze her way out of there from the ventilation system, out into the open and away from there!"
Gaz got up and went out of the room with the flashlight, going over a few small cubical offices and into the break room. Having to clear a lot of chairs and lousily placed furniture that supported their hidden area, a loud thud was heard throughout the building, as the illusionary trap collapsed from him throwing around the supporting furniture. Finally clearing the way inside after a few minutes time, he happily yelled to the others to come in, all quickly realizing what his yelling was for. The single vent on the side of the small kitchen area inside the break room was completely taken out, then solidifying the fact that Riko's theory had more than enough validity to move forward with.
"I can't believe it! Riko! You were right!" Gaz said.
"Nice! I'll get you the exact location where the ventilation system ends up, follow it there and confirm the location. I'm taking the car right now, if the location is right, from what I see, she had more than enough space created from you to go away. Chances are, if that's actually the case, she would've followed the same escape route as you did to help the others. No time to waste, let's go!" he ended the call.
"So...uh. What do we do?" Yuno asked.
"Follow me! We are taking a car of our own and going after her...big star or not, I won't leave Terna like that. I made a promise." Gaz went towards the now clear staircase leading up.
"Guess we finally got our breakthrough. Let's go!", Ikarisa followed after Gaz, having everyone behind her quickly climb the stairs and Yuno quickly merged with Lass, nobody saying a word as they got carried away in the nature of the rushed state they just got themselves in.
With evidence enough for them to finally be able to untangle this mess that had been created, they all eagerly went off above, to the lobby area, and headed outside. Having passed by a few dozen people who gathered from the loud noise, calming them as much as they could in their hasty states. Ignoring efforts to try and explain what had happened, they instead quickly went outside in the nearby parking lot, taking a car that Gaz had the keys for, and dashing along a straight line right after.
Despite the somewhat cramped and bumpy ride, they quickly stopped for a moment, with Gaz looking at his phone with his face lighting up even more, showing that the location of where the vent ended up was precisely according to what Riko had forwarded to him. Stepping on the gas even harder, it took them less than ten minutes to go from the second lower floor of the company headquarters to the open road, now going full speed towards the direction Gaz had in mind, as everyone went along with it. Their hearts beating as fast as they could, it was hard for them to say a word as their bodies worked faster than what their minds could think, now on the path of uncertainty, towards what they had hoped to be their targeted goal.