Finally found the mood to start writing again. 
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“A few more days dealing only with car salesmen and I will become insane” Zenigata murmured as he arrived at his room in the evening. “This whole search feels like a huge waste of time, but we are so close... I sometimes think I just have to grab the evidence.”
Unfortunately he was still not a single step closer to solving the case. But at least he had learned that it was unlikely the truck had been waved and sold at Helium.
‘I will just look what Mizuki is doing and then get a shower’ he decided and knocked at the door of the apartment next to his own. The camera in the door light up for a moment and he heard a click as the door unlocked immediately.
“Mizuki, are you here” he asked carefully as he opened the door and took a look into the badly lit room. “The door just opened!”
The room behind the door was in a state of chaos.
Zenigata nearly stumbled about a strand of cables growing out of an opened panel next to the door. A stream of blue blinking lights ran over the ground through the cables between a number of electric circuit boards and a group of household devices. A trash can filled with empty fast food boxes and tin cans were standing next to an open microwave.
In an edge of the room he could see a pile of printouts with Catgirl Industries logos, on the right a large holographic display with piles of numbers running through was glowing in a dim red color. In the background he could hear a quiet humming.
In the middle of the small apartment room, in the only free space on the floor, Mizuki was sleeping on a thick blanket, her arms tightly wrapped around a large pillow.
Just as Zenigata decided to come back later, a small bell rang out in the room and Mizuki began to stir.
“Just a few more minutes Nina” she whispered and yawned, turning over and got instantly tangled up in the cables next to her sleeping place. Finally she opened her eyes and sat up. “Oh, its you... hope I didn’t overslept the breakfast. What time is it?” She took a look through the room and to the closed windows. “What day is it?”
“Its evening, third day we spent on Mars” Zenigata said and chuckled. “I was getting worried when you didn’t showed up for three days... what has happened here, I had hoped that you would help me finding the maker of the truck!”
“Oh, at first I had planned to go with you through Helium... but then I had a crazy idea I wanted to try out first” Mizuki said and looked left and right. “So I bought a little bit of hardware in the local shops and started... hmm... well, I needed a bit more computer power. And I had to record a bit holo-tv.”
“Why didn’t you just asked, the local police could have supplied you with access to all the computer power you needed?” he asked while carefully stepping over the cables to the window. The red light of sunset finally lightened the room. “You remember that we are on an official mission, right?”
“Bah, borrowed equipment. That stuff never works right, it is no fun to use.” Mizuki replied, blinking a few times to get used to the light. “Its just not compatible with the way I like to do things.”
“So what DID you do in the last days?”
“Wait, I will show you” Mizuki replied and grabbed a VR helmet that was laying next to her sleeping place.
The holoscreen suddenly flashed bright and filled the room with all kinds of holographic objects. Zenigata could see numerous clusters of machine code floating in the room, receiving data from outside sources, filtering them and putting some of it in some kind of data storage. On the blanket besides Mizuki he could see the holographic images of six Exocomps.
“Welcome to my part of the Grid” Mizuki said with a smile. “Took me some time to download the necessary data from Jenga through the PODs comlink, but as I said I like to work in a familiar environment.” Mizuki stood up and a wave of her hand she activated her holographic overlay.
“Wake up my friends, we have more work to do!” she said and the six Exocomps came alive and began to float around the shape of her avatar. “Lets show our guest what we have done!”
Holographic code and data moved aside to make place for a video playback. Zenigata watched the video presentation of the ‘Catgirl Industries promotional Marsbase Sara competition’, then he looked back to Mizuki.
“You released the information about our evidence to the public? What did you really told them for this competition?” he asked slowly. “If the bad guys learn we are on their trail, they might vanish even more!”
“Calm down and listen, I didn’t released the evidence” Mizuki said annoyed, swiping the video away from the holographic screen. “The competition is about finding someone who owns a sample of Handwavium as close as possible to a randomly selected batch we collected a year ago. Oh, and you also get a price if you are the one who found the person with the right Handwavium.”
For more than a minute Zenigata remained quiet while he thought through Mizuki’s plan.
“Yes, I think it could work... the method is a bit strange, but you might have just saved us from days and days of walking through Marsbase Sara, looking for the right cars salesman” he finally said and smiled. “Do you already got results?”
Mizuki called up screen with statistics and images from persons.
“These three are our best hit, one of them entered the database last night... ehh, this morning” she explained. “One of them is very close to the data I provided, the other twos seem to be nearly exact matches to our probe. Maybe they use the same batch of Handwavium or got it from the same source. Or maybe its just the same Handwavium breed with different materials. We have to ask them and run their wavium through our taster.”
“So what are we waiting for, lets get to Marsbase Sara and talk to this people!” he finally said.
###################
“A few more days dealing only with car salesmen and I will become insane” Zenigata murmured as he arrived at his room in the evening. “This whole search feels like a huge waste of time, but we are so close... I sometimes think I just have to grab the evidence.”
Unfortunately he was still not a single step closer to solving the case. But at least he had learned that it was unlikely the truck had been waved and sold at Helium.
‘I will just look what Mizuki is doing and then get a shower’ he decided and knocked at the door of the apartment next to his own. The camera in the door light up for a moment and he heard a click as the door unlocked immediately.
“Mizuki, are you here” he asked carefully as he opened the door and took a look into the badly lit room. “The door just opened!”
The room behind the door was in a state of chaos.
Zenigata nearly stumbled about a strand of cables growing out of an opened panel next to the door. A stream of blue blinking lights ran over the ground through the cables between a number of electric circuit boards and a group of household devices. A trash can filled with empty fast food boxes and tin cans were standing next to an open microwave.
In an edge of the room he could see a pile of printouts with Catgirl Industries logos, on the right a large holographic display with piles of numbers running through was glowing in a dim red color. In the background he could hear a quiet humming.
In the middle of the small apartment room, in the only free space on the floor, Mizuki was sleeping on a thick blanket, her arms tightly wrapped around a large pillow.
Just as Zenigata decided to come back later, a small bell rang out in the room and Mizuki began to stir.
“Just a few more minutes Nina” she whispered and yawned, turning over and got instantly tangled up in the cables next to her sleeping place. Finally she opened her eyes and sat up. “Oh, its you... hope I didn’t overslept the breakfast. What time is it?” She took a look through the room and to the closed windows. “What day is it?”
“Its evening, third day we spent on Mars” Zenigata said and chuckled. “I was getting worried when you didn’t showed up for three days... what has happened here, I had hoped that you would help me finding the maker of the truck!”
“Oh, at first I had planned to go with you through Helium... but then I had a crazy idea I wanted to try out first” Mizuki said and looked left and right. “So I bought a little bit of hardware in the local shops and started... hmm... well, I needed a bit more computer power. And I had to record a bit holo-tv.”
“Why didn’t you just asked, the local police could have supplied you with access to all the computer power you needed?” he asked while carefully stepping over the cables to the window. The red light of sunset finally lightened the room. “You remember that we are on an official mission, right?”
“Bah, borrowed equipment. That stuff never works right, it is no fun to use.” Mizuki replied, blinking a few times to get used to the light. “Its just not compatible with the way I like to do things.”
“So what DID you do in the last days?”
“Wait, I will show you” Mizuki replied and grabbed a VR helmet that was laying next to her sleeping place.
The holoscreen suddenly flashed bright and filled the room with all kinds of holographic objects. Zenigata could see numerous clusters of machine code floating in the room, receiving data from outside sources, filtering them and putting some of it in some kind of data storage. On the blanket besides Mizuki he could see the holographic images of six Exocomps.
“Welcome to my part of the Grid” Mizuki said with a smile. “Took me some time to download the necessary data from Jenga through the PODs comlink, but as I said I like to work in a familiar environment.” Mizuki stood up and a wave of her hand she activated her holographic overlay.
“Wake up my friends, we have more work to do!” she said and the six Exocomps came alive and began to float around the shape of her avatar. “Lets show our guest what we have done!”
Holographic code and data moved aside to make place for a video playback. Zenigata watched the video presentation of the ‘Catgirl Industries promotional Marsbase Sara competition’, then he looked back to Mizuki.
“You released the information about our evidence to the public? What did you really told them for this competition?” he asked slowly. “If the bad guys learn we are on their trail, they might vanish even more!”
“Calm down and listen, I didn’t released the evidence” Mizuki said annoyed, swiping the video away from the holographic screen. “The competition is about finding someone who owns a sample of Handwavium as close as possible to a randomly selected batch we collected a year ago. Oh, and you also get a price if you are the one who found the person with the right Handwavium.”
For more than a minute Zenigata remained quiet while he thought through Mizuki’s plan.
“Yes, I think it could work... the method is a bit strange, but you might have just saved us from days and days of walking through Marsbase Sara, looking for the right cars salesman” he finally said and smiled. “Do you already got results?”
Mizuki called up screen with statistics and images from persons.
“These three are our best hit, one of them entered the database last night... ehh, this morning” she explained. “One of them is very close to the data I provided, the other twos seem to be nearly exact matches to our probe. Maybe they use the same batch of Handwavium or got it from the same source. Or maybe its just the same Handwavium breed with different materials. We have to ask them and run their wavium through our taster.”
“So what are we waiting for, lets get to Marsbase Sara and talk to this people!” he finally said.