Conspiracy
The city streets were becoming lively again around Rosette now that the all clear had been given in most areas. Xander was walking down those very streets with his hands in his pockets, wearing fairly casual clothes and shades so he would not stand out. He was fairly famous even outside of the Vanguard, superficially he was hailed a local hero, though that was a title he rarely boasted himself.
Xander approached a large sign hanging over the street, signifying the boundary between one district of the city and another. Reading the tattered sign which juxtaposed the beautiful scenery of the lush green and rustic architecture, it displayed the words District Thirteen. The one area of the city that still had yet to be opened to the public.
The road and sidewalk had ben cordoned off by a digital barrier, once Xander walked through it the pixelized shield turned blue then back to its translucent shade almost instantly.
There were city workers fixing damage to residences and garbage collectors carrying the remnants of what was too damaged to repair. The area was still restricted to the general public, but most operations were getting back on their feet. Some military personnel also marched along the streets, heavily armed.
While still moving at a steady pace, eventually, Xander approached the apartment that he had left for Atlas and Lena, walking through the dilapidated wall he approached the steps leading up to their room. The door was wide open and the household appliances were spread around all over the place, most of the building was ransacked by looters. Even with the security measures put in place, lawlessness conquered these streets for a period of time.
Xander knew this fact well, because the purpose of his visit to this forsaken district was related to a similar troubling subject of the law.
There was one major discrepancy still lingering in the shadows of this district. Xander had been chosen for this assignment because he still was not entirely fit for duty, and for his loyalty to lady Tempest, who gave him the order to investigate this heinous crime:
Find out the circumstances that led to the murder of Alva Blake.
He walked down the block, almost retracing his steps of the horrific scene four months prior. The remnants of the Battle for Rosette.
Once he came around the corner he saw the diner that he had once used as cover along with his two companions, there was another cordoned section surrounding the diner. This one restricted access to most people outside law enforcement and military investigators. The contents of this restaurant were grim even from the exterior, Xander walked through the access point to the restricted area and it shined blue. Signifying his authority to enter the crime scene. A little robotic voice even echoed out: Access Granted.
He approached the front of the diner, the open windows remained exposed to the elements of the outside, dried blood still remained in small quantities on the street and walls of the destroyed business. He took a few steps back and saw something that stood out to him, reflecting back into his golden gaze.
On the roof of the business, there hung a portion of a severed rope. Drifting in the wind as it dangled from the two story building.
Xander was briefly reminded of the ghastly front page article a few days ago that featured Alva Blake, a void mage who had been operating within the Regional Defense Force who had been murdered, partially flayed, and hung from this exact spot. Though they were unacquainted, Xander knew her name. She was a mage who had been scouted into the R.D.F, under the direct supervision of Caleb Graham. The treatment of her deceased body suggested it was a personal vendetta. Or so they claim.
The golden-eyed soldier pondered his thoughts as he observed the place were the mage had met her end.
She had to have been meeting with someone she had a great deal of trust in. To meet in a desolate place, in a restricted zone.
"What led to this Blake–"
Xander walked into the diner. He moved attentively through the door as to not disturb the scene when he entered the building, he approached the booth with the bullet marking her place of death, observing the surroundings of the table and the diner around this one section.
"Hmm.."
Xander turned around and spotted a stack of leaflets and advertisements from months ago littered across the floor. Other remnants of a time not so long before this moment laid to rest all around him.
The investigation had mostly concluded publicly, Blake was a single woman with no surviving family members. No one really pressuring the government to intervene in the case, and though the details of her murder had shocked the public so soon after the greatest disaster this city had ever seen... It was almost as if she was fading into distant memory, similar to the papers that rested on the floor.
There was nothing more to see here, Xander knew that. He starting walking back towards the entrance of the diner, stepping down onto a pile of papers.
A slight crunch echoed from his feet, broken glass still littered the floor. But there was something else, like a snake in the grass.
A small stringed set of red and blue wires were lying amongst the glass shards and leaflets, he lifted his boots carefully picked up the destroyed device. What's this doing here?
Turning to inspect the floor near the booth closely, he spotted pieces of a broken transmitter lied in pieces on the ground near the seat where Blake was killed.
The military police missed something like this? The board is still mostly intact!
It made him wonder who exactly was on scene originally, they recovered a good amount of material but none of it tied to any specific suspect. This was a diamond in the rough kind of find, if he could trace the contents of this communicator he could at least find out where it last connected to. A solid lead.
* * *
Xander kept his head down as he brushed past the shoulders of the busy citizens of Rosette.
There was a rather large structure that towered high above the city, more spectacular than any other structure in the rest. The soldier marched up the steps to the rather large skyscraper and entered its marbled halls. It felt strangely ancient like a cathedral or government building yet flowing with neatly lined wires and electronics. Definitely high-tech. Various screens and holograms displayed the news, others with Vanguard messaging and other various things.
On the floor of the rotunda-like ground level was a massive encased pink hued crystal rose. Outlining the large artistic piece was a pictogram of the history of the Western region. Some event depicting battles with beasts and man alike, also of reconciliation and unity. Outlining the artwork were the founding oaths of the Urandus Union and the famous motto for the Vanguard in an Alpha world language called Latin.
This building was known simply as the Annex. The headquarters for all Vanguard activity in the Western region as a whole, and also the location where Xander's investigation has led him.
Though open to the public, access to the upper floors were for military and official persons only. Xander made sure he was not followed and proceeded to enter an elevator which carried him to the twelfth floor. Only about one-tenth of the way up the massive structure. He continued down a long hallway, luckily no one was on the floor to disturb him.
The golden-eyed man approached a sliding doorway and typed in an access code into the touchpad. It opened immediately and he stepped inside a room with pieces, parts, bits, and bobs scattered about. A hoard of components and technology.
A single man was mumbling to himself as he hunched over and soldered away at some device he seemed to have no intention of finishing, this was proven by how he chucked the device into a pile of other abandoned projects.
"Doctor Mateo…" Xander cleared his throat after saying the mans name.
The elderly man seemed startled, he turned to look Xander in the eyes as his gaze drifted behind him. Seeing that the door was closed he then replied while moving his glasses back to the bridge of his wrinkled nose.
"The answer is no!" He crossed his arms like a child throwing a fit.
"I haven't even asked–"
"Every time you visit... You ask me for a favor. No more favors!" The old man swiveled around in his chair and grabbed a new piece of tech. His leg bouncing up an down anxiously as he worked.
Xander stepped over to Mateo's left and placed the broken transmitter on his workstation.
"Alva Blake. I need to find out where this device was used, can you get the location data from it?"
The nervous old technician stopped in his tracks when he heard the name.
"Such a shame that happened to the lady... But no." Dr. Mateo brushed the communicator to the side. And then be went back to fiddling with his machine.
Xander shrugged and then spoke once again. "You were the only person I could count on Sam–"
"I will not be swayed Xander..." The man hesitated to speak his name, almost as if he was fearful of it.
Xander sighed and then reached for the device, before the elder man swatted his hand away.
"Not for you. Not for you father... But for the poor girl. I will do this one favor." His raspy voice echoed out those final words before pulling the tattered circuitry into the main workspace. The man tapped the heads of some disabled miniature androids, they spring into action right as they turned on, eager to server their master.
Xander remained silent, which spoke more of the situation than anything else. He was grateful to this man, Dr. Samuel Mateo, the chief engineer of the Experimental Technology Division of the Vanguard. As was the title displayed on his many plaques tossed throughout the room. A man who was just as obsessed as he was cautious. Once a friend of Xander's father, they had burned that bridge long ago. He knew that reaching out to him was a gamble, but it was about to pay off. If anyone could uncover the secrets lying within this device... It would be him.
Many of the little machines assisted him in the reconstruction of the small technology. They were crude little rust buckets, in various shapes and sizes. All grabbing various pieces of scrap through the room and bringing them to Dr. Mateo's workstation. He patted them on their heads as they brought him the parts and they cheerfully beeped as they moved onto the next treasure hunt.
Without a single world between the two men in the room, the frail and grey doctor handed Xander his device without glancing over. He finally broke the tension with a command.
"Plug it into my console over there will you kid?" His leg started to shake again as his focus was off of his work now.
Xander complied and as he used a USB cable to attach to the new opening Samuel made, a prompt began glowing on screen. A sequence of commands flew by at near lightning speed as the encrypted data on the communicator was unlocked. A green thumbs up showed on screen before revealing a short list of data. Most of it a random string of numbers and errors.
"Most of it is corrupted..." Xander spoke out loud to the technician.
The Doctor pressed a button on his chair and it rolled through the junk piles over to the console. He drove up to the console and then pointed to a few of the dates that were still intact.
"Look there! The Nexus Historical Archive was pinged the day of her murder." The old man swiped the screen over to the news article that shared the same date as Alva Blakes estimated time of death.
He drove his chair over to another pile of scrap as Xander wondered what else the man had figured out. He pulled out a tablet of some sort and placed it on his desk. Dr. Mateo typed away furiously while Xander simply observed.
"Xander!"
The man walked over as soon as he heard his name.
"Cycle through these camera logs at the timestamp matching the ping."
Without even hesitating he swiped through various screen captures of the footage and even played some of it back.
"She wasn't there... Was the footage altered then?"
"She was there! But Alva Blake wasn't just visiting, she was infiltrating."
The Doctor zoomed in on a section of the restricted section during an afterhours visit. No one could be visibly seen on screen but there was one monitor from the computer room that was dimly lit. Even on the black and white footage you could see it clearly.
She broke into the archive? But why would a soldier need to–
"Dr. Mateo, could you pull up a record of who accessed that terminal?"
Before Xander could even finish the elderly technician was already tapping away at another tablet he pulled from another pile of junk. After a few moments he froze and dropped his handheld device on the ground.
"Im- impossible!" He seemed to be having a panic attack.
"Samuel!" Xander rushed to his side as the man trembled, curling up into a ball and exposing his bare feet. He tugged what little strands of hair remained on his head.
"Get it together Sam!"
"Fa...Va..."
Mateo recovers from his episode and then hands Xander the tablet face down. He pushes him towards the sliding door vigorously without even giving Xander a chance to ask if he was alright.
"Don't EVER come back here Gale! I'm done!!"
The door slams shut behind Xander. He pulls up the device that Samuel gave him and his eyes widen in shock. The named of the person who appeared at the top of the Archival Access History page simply read:
Vandermus Gale.
Sweat drips from his brow as he hastily taps the accessed archive. The only listed entry is labeled: Nexus event 70121.
Xander's concerned face turns to panic as he pulls out a tiny device that unravels into a sort of burner phone. He dials a number hastily and waits for the ringer to click.
"Atlas and Lena are in danger!"
