On the High Frontier

4. Trick or Trap (part 2/6)

"Saki, there wouldn't happen to be another Sachi would there?" Kimiko doesn't need this right now.

"Maybe one metre fifty-five, long straight hair, black when I last saw, amber-brown eyes, and with a small mole above her left eye?" That matched, even the mole was there in Chloe's imagebank, somewhere, someone was laughing. "What have you done?"

"Thank you for the vote of confidence, it's not my fault. She's skipped out, got her bracelet off, probably using a code from her mother's tech, and vanished. I imagine she wants to go to the park with her friends." Like all reasonable people with a pulse, but that was just Kimiko's opinion.

"What are we going to do?" It's nice Saki doesn't believe problems are just someone else's. "How can we tell Mariko?"

"We don't, I just need to find Sachi's contact details, and now I know her name." Kimiko pulls up her enhanced access to the station's directory services. "You show me a teenager without their techlink and I'll show you a dead teenager." Nuts, she's being morbid today, not the mood she's after at all. "I mean ..."

"Thank you for that image." Saki's tone was ice-cold, and she really needs Saki on her side to run interference. With the best will in the world Kohana did not seem one for a crisis. "How are the other girls?"

This is why she needs Saki, don't forget all the little things. "They're treating it as a bit of a joke, I'm sure you remember being 13. My partner's a groundie student named Kohana."

"The agri-student?" Saki did seem to know everyone, but if Kohana's an agri-major then it made sense. Saki works hydroponics and cultivation at the bureau, and is a college liaison. "She'll be fine with the children." That emphasis on the she hurt Kimiko's feelings a bit. "Can you conf us?" When she glances up Kohana is looking nervously at her. Kimiko signs joining the call and she nods vigorously. In a moment she is linked into the conversation.

"Hello?"

"Hi Kohana, it's Saki here." A look of relief crosses her face, and Kimiko is starting to feel picked upon.

Whilst they talk Kimiko starts tracking their stray. The directory yields her contact, but the location services show that tech is back in her apartment. How can that be? A private contact, a girl like that will want something her parents can't monitor, Kimiko can understand that. Colocation. Using her less than completely legal resources she sets going a search to look for other contacts that normally move around with Sachi's registered number.

"Are you listening Kimiko?" She checks the voice-to-text of the recent call to see what she missed. Saki's persuaded Kohana to continue with the trick-or-treat for the girls, and is on-call if there are issues. Now she wants to know how Kimiko is going to fix her mess, thanks roomie.

"I can trace and find her contact, then all I need to do is get her back." Persuading a reluctant 15 year old home, yeah that's going to be a piece of cake. Well one step at a time, she has to find her first. "She's left her regular link at home, but she must have a private contact or how's she going to find her friends?"

"What can you do? Do we need to alert the VE?"

"Definitely not!" Just what they'd need. "Saki, you'll have to trust me. What you don't know can't hurt you." or be told to the VE by accident. "This is my world." She hopes Saki takes this as a bureau operations department reference. In the corner of Chloe's HUD she sees the telltale for a completed search. "I have a lead. Need to get going. Call if you need me."

"Okay, best of luck. Kohana you need to ..." The voices cuts off as Kimiko drops out of the conference and hands call control to Saki.

She calls up the search results as she heads towards a back stairway. This could well be how Sachi left the building as it bypasses a lot of the monitoring. Quite a bit of planning went into this, the girl she's tracking isn't stupid. There are several candidates but the contact with the highest correlation is named Bliss of the High Wilderness: not stupid but maybe naive. The tracking on that contact shows it nearby outside and moving away, that's a hit.

The path to the street passes the small shrine in the grounds. Pausing to give a quick bow of supplication at the torii she moves on. The spirits'll understand her need for haste. As she reaches the exit her target's trace passes a local loop station that she should take to get to the park, but instead continues towards the cold lip of the P2 plate. Maybe if her friends are only 16 they aren't going to the big party in Grand Park, but one of the smaller affairs. Yeah right, the pit of her stomach reminds Kimiko this is not her lucky tonight. Sachi is heading for the residential ring cold transit loop and a ride to Prime. Kimiko speeds up to catch her before she has the chance. Chloe can move quite fast when she has to.

Almost there, the trace shows Sachi just around the corner, and definitely heading towards the transit station. She must have decided if she's going to break curfew she might as well go all the way, and in this case that would be the grand party in Prime. Kimiko is not paying enough attention and trips over a low kerb on the walkways as she rounds the corner and collides with two unfortunate bystanders. The noise attracts her quarry, and she sees Sachi recognise her and dodge down a narrow accessway. At least it's away from the loop station.

Kimiko enters the accessway and activates Chloe's mimetic camouflage, using the magnetic attachs to get off the floor and up the walls. Now Sachi knows she's being followed she'll have to be more careful. She's quick enough to have already disabled her LS, but Kimiko is still tracking the base comms connection to the local nodes. She's working her way back and round to the loop. Well with the station maps it's possible to see where she'll come out and beat her there.

Kimiko's waiting behind a thick conduit with the camouflage field deactivated as she hears Sachi's footsteps coming. She steps round the pipe. "Stop Sachi." There's a look of mixed fear and frustration on the girl's face. "We haven't told your mother. If you come back now it will be as though nothing happened." The conflict between conformance and rebellion is clear in the girl. Sachi jumps as her tech ring buzzes for an incoming call. Kimiko moves to block her from retreating back down the accessway, but her quarry retreats behind the conduit and dodges into an open hatch hidden there.

What? That's sealed on the schematics. Kimiko follows just in time to see Sachi slipping into an open material transit tube. Forget naive, Sachi has just graduated all the way up to reckless. Kimiko reluctantly wonders if they might be related. She examines the transit tube. These are meant to be closed with interlocks and guards to prevent people from putting anything too large, including themselves, through them. These don't come off by accident, and as the tube is still active someone had to disable a lot of fail safes to do this. Telling her professional instincts that this isn't the time, she hurries to catch up to Sachi.

Chloe's sensor array shows no problems or issues on the tube, apart from being comprehensively hacked. It's a transfer link to a local operational systems unit. Chloe's sheath will protect her so she steps in and allows the stream to whisk her away, closing her eyes against the blur. She feels herself fall out at the end and looks to see the plain walls of a storeroom. The door at the far end is open where her quarry seems to have fled. Checking the maps she is in one of the three power supply cores where the solar energy enters the P2 plate. She's getting no signal from the contact but Sachi has probably turned it off. This is a sealed zone and the transit tube is a one-way link. She is close enough that Chloe's sensors should allow her to find Sachi. Hopefully before she has a chance to fry herself.

Outside the storeroom is a large machine hall. The heat traces show the girl crossing the room and going through a door labelled for the control suite. Kimiko's about to follow when she hears the thudding of boots on the floor behind her and turns to see a small cadre of VE moving her way. She isn't in stealth so there's no getting cleanly away, she'll have to try and bluff it out. She faces them and holds her hands out away from her body, open with the palms towards them. They stop, keeping their weapons trained on her.

An officer pushes past them and takes in the situation with a glance. "Well, well. Hello Yoshida Kimiko. Long time no see." She looks past the uniform at the face below the violet cap. Oh great, Char had been Fee's boy friend when they first met, and he's always blamed her for them breaking up.