Reina pulled up her feed, watching information scroll before her eyes while she munched down on some simple boiled noodles. She added an egg into the noodles and watched the yolk dissipate amongst the broth. Noodles always tasted better this way.
If Cassy was here, she would’ve found Reina’s current situation uncultured. Wearing a plain white t-shirt, dark bags under her eyes, hairs splitting off at its’ ends, and wearing glasses loose enough that it hung for dear life on her narrow nose bridge, Reina was the poster child of a shut-in. But the only thing is, she wasn’t really one. Appearances can be deceiving, and she chooses to forego ill necessities such as fashion, for the sake of doing her job in the most efficient way possible.
Today, she was looking over the data gathered by Mimi and Alyx regarding what they’ve seen in the Ecreville warehouse, where the bodies of dozens of mercenaries were held, trying to glean any information that might prove useful to Mimi in the hunt for the Trepidor brothers, though just the scene of the battle alone piqued her interest.
She stopped at the photos of the bodies, looking through each of them in turn. On another feed, she pulled up the autopsy reports. Though she hated relying on the Auditors for anything, she had to admit that their organization does offer a fair amount of transparency when it comes to providing requested information. Apparently, a few of the bodies were dissolved to the point of nonrecognition due to the Hunter Curtains placed over the corpses. By the time Mimi and Alyx had begun sifting through the warehouse grounds, only a few corpses contained enough identifying elements to be considered usable.
From the facial recognition software Reina possessed, most of the recognized deceased were members of a variety of unrelated underground mercenary groups. At first glance, there didn’t seem to be a connection between any of them. However, some things didn’t click for her. Inners should all be registered with the hunter boards, so the dead Augmentor from the warehouse should still have information on him. However, scanning through the files, it appeared none of the current records match his DNA, which gave Reina pause.
Mulling over the issue, she decided to investigate older records and let her system run through the various names of each major Division. This was going to take a while, so she decided to boil some more noodles. As she waited for the results, she pulled up another screen, looking through the information about Tor, hoping to find something.
Why would they take out his head? she thought. His method of death seemed too clean, as well as gruesome, to be anything other than deliberate. She let the possibilities run through her mind, thinking back to an ancient tradition where wartime commanders would take the heads of their enemies as trophies in a victorious battle. It sounded stupid, but she didn’t have many other leads currently, so she gave every possibility its due consideration.
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So, who wanted him dead? Too many to name. However, the groups that kept popping up were the Vipers, the Paladins, and…
The screen on her left pinged, stopping at a 100% match. The name on the screen was marked “Deceased” and read “Orbis Valotruant.” Her face was stuck in surprise.
It can’t be, she thought. But, if he really was a member of the Revenant’s Balance, then it would make sense why he would go after the new leaders. But why work with Tor to stop the brothers? Did the Revenant’s Balance collude with him, rather than go after him, like she originally thought?
Reina racked her brain. There had to be more to this. She needed some of the deeper records from the hunter boards although she wasn’t certain if her authorization extended so far. Why did Tor wait until now to make an appearance?
As she delved through the hunter board files she faced pushback after pushback. Classified. Classified. Classified. She slammed her fist on the table. She wasn’t getting anywhere. She looked to public records regarding the event in the past.
POV surveillance drones capturing the event showed the Vipers chasing Tor across the air space on their Suncycles. Tor wasn’t on his own but appeared to be ducking in and out of alleyways in what looked to be…Lucens Mundi? If she recalled, Taysa Polaris from the Paladins were the ones who were the closest to capturing Tor at this time, but he managed to escape under the veil of darkness. There was only one place he could have gone.
The Night Market, Reina thought.
A thought struck her. Who authorized the recording of these videos? It wasn’t the Auditors it seemed. Some were POV shots from various team members, but some of the overhead shots documented the events from above, showing Tor disappearing under an overpass into darkness. After that, the recording stopped, and she could see no more.
Just then, a notification ping popped up on one of her other screens, indicating that one of the lost signals from the week prior had popped up again.
Vera…she noticed. One of her songbirds. Just as quickly as it came, the signal disappeared once more. Reina didn’t remember posting her in Magrest. However, she’ll have to check on that later. Signals come and go all the time, and she knew Vera frequented visits to the underground, where signals often failed. Perhaps there was an underground location beneath Magrest she was unaware of. Regardless, she had a more important matter to attend to right now.
She turned to look back into the metadata of the recordings from earlier. The system denied her access, but she inserted a dummy access program which feigned attempts to break into the file, while she did her actual hacking work through the backdoors. Looked like it worked, and what she saw was “Council_IC_Shot4”.
IC…as in the Imperial Court? The Clan of Tributes were watching over the Twindust event?
There were no records that the Clan sent out any militia men to mitigate the conflict, and everyone knows they couldn’t utilize hunters as per the Second Agreement of the city. And yet, there were multiple footages of the same event. Was the Twindust event really so bad that the Clan had to get involved? There were too many pieces of the puzzle missing.
…Shit. My noodles got cold…
Careless. Careless. Careless Reina. She groaned loudly to the ceiling.