Chapter 4

Luckily, the rest of the morning went off without a hitch. I stayed at the greenhouse’s monitoring room the entire time, so I had a front row seat for the event regardless. The feed’s video quality was crisp, and the audio went through perfectly.

Not that I was paying much attention, of course. “...eenhouse will… lifeline during na… calamities and other such catastrophes…” A round of loud applause tore my attention away from my phone. “Thank you very much for your presence, ladies and gentlemen. I bid everyone a good morning.”

My boss, Nathaniel Green, exited the podium, and the crowd began dispersing. Some of them had security details with them, with lapel mics and everything. As the greenhouse slowly emptied, I put away my phone to do one last round of checks on the room’s hardware. I was about to put my gloves back on, but the flame on my hand caught my attention. I took a closer look at it.

It seemed… darker than earlier. I ran my fingers over it, and the black brand turned slightly orange when I did. I took away my fingers in shock and the mark went back to being dark and inert.

“Strange…” I wondered out loud.

“What is, Blaze?”

I almost fell off my chair. I scrambled to stand up and put my glove back on at the same time, eliciting a chuckle from the person who surprised me. “Never gets old,” said my boss.

“Hey, boss.”

Nathaniel Green stood on the doorway, his body blocking out the light from the corridor. “So what was strange? Nothing in our monitoring gear, I hope?”

“Uh, no, of course not!” I replied quickly. “It’s just that, uh, the people in the event. Y’know. They all seemed a little… up there. Most of them didn’t, uh, look like scientists or gardeners or whatever.” That part was true, at least.

My boss laughed again as he approached, then gave me a pat on the back. “Always did like your eye for detail. You’re talking about the guests with guards, aren’t you?” The light of the monitor illuminated his tired yet smiling face.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, I’ll be honest, I don’t know either. We were outsourced to design this greenhouse, but our crown jewel would be the security systems. This event was supposed to unveil it all.” My boss began inspecting the room himself, running his fingertips all over the walls and the hardware. “This room alone, well… let’s just say it wasn’t cheap. So maybe it’s to get investors or something interested, for more greenhouses in the future.”

I nodded. That made sense. “Understood, boss. You need me for anything else, sir?”

Nathan walked back towards the open door. “Not really. Just wanted to check on my employees, but I didn’t see you at the event itself.”

“Right. I’ll finish up here soon.” I turned to the controls and pressed a button to activate the greenhouse’s sunshield. Without any plants to actually grow yet, the roof and walls were usually shielded 24/7.

“Oh, and Blaze?” My boss said from the doorway. “Turn up the temp before you go home, please. It’s freezing cold in here.” The door slid shut behind him. As the greenhouse - and the video feed - slowly darkened, the room’s lights automatically adjusted to be a little brighter. The greenhouse’s main area was now empty.

I went to the thermostat, but I froze in my tracks when I read the temperature:

-15°C

I blinked and peered closer at the number. I tapped the screen to check if it was broken - but the number stayed. I pressed several times on the arrow pointing upwards, until the screen now read:

0°C

I stepped out the door and made sure to lock it behind me.

The thermostat must be busted… right?

The broken thermostat was still on my mind, but I had to put it aside. I had to investigate Laura’s place, and I could not afford to be distracted. The elevator dinged open and I immediately went to the fridge to grab a nutribar. No time to waste.

In my room, I changed back to my casual clothes and quickly recolored both my shirt and my pants to black. “Passcode: Blazalphon. Open drive storage.” The wall near my computer desk glowed a soft blue, and a drawer popped out when I pressed my hand against it. I took a couple of flash drives and put them inside the bag now also slung over my shoulder.

Just in case.

I moved my mouse to wake up my PC; no messages anywhere. Finally, I put on a pair of glasses on the table. I pressed a finger against the right arm and a couple of icons flashed before my eyes. I blinked several times to adjust.

“Close drive storage.”

The blue wall turned back to white. My PC monitor turned black. My glasses were now blank again; it’ll turn on when I need them.

Time to go.

It was around 3 PM by the time I got to Laura’s apartment - it took way longer to get here than I thought it would. She lived along Erikonig, one of the outer spokes between the Market and the Metropolis. There was a police officer pacing around his vehicle impatiently when I arrived, but he held up a hand when he saw me approach.

“Sir, this building is off-limits to all non-residents due to an ongoing investigation,” he said, holding up a hand to stop me. Weird - I thought the police had no time nor interest for this? In response, I took out Laura’s ID and explained myself to him.

“I’m her cousin, officer. I was given this card by the building owner; told me I could check out the place myself and maybe try to find out what happened.”

The police officer removed his sunglasses, eyeing me suspiciously as he took the ID. After giving me a lookover, he examined it. “Hm, well, fine. We’re basically done here anyway; once my partner’s done getting our equipment you’re free to go up.” He handed the card back to me and put his sunglasses back on, making a point to reflect the sunlight towards me as he did so.

Sigh.

I stood there like a good boy for around three minutes before the building’s main door opened and out came another police officer. This one looked significantly younger than his partner, and he was struggling with a gigantic box, taking one step down the stairs at a time. I took one look at the first officer, but he was just staring at his partner impatiently. I rolled my eyes and approached the other guy to help.

“Ho...hey...hold it, man…” The guy was very much out of breath. “You a civvie…. you can’t... touch police gear... without permiWHOOAAA-” He had missed a step, and he lost his grip on the box - and it fell towards me. I caught the box on reflex, and it was heavy enough to make me lose my balance. I fell on the asphalt with a loud thud, and the gear inside the box rattled about. I grimaced a little, but I’ve had worse.

“Oh no. Oh no. Oh god no.” The younger officer sounded panicked, and he lifted the box off of me. There was still no reaction from the older officer; in fact, he now had a bigger scowl instead. “I’m so sorry, sir, please tell me you’re not injured.”

“I’m fine, officer.” I put my hands up to show my gloves. “No fingerprints on the box, either. You’re welcome.” I stood up and dusted myself off, causing my clothes to change to different colors before I gave them one last swipe back to black.

The younger officer (Private McJoel, according to his nameplate) whistled. “Nice nanoshirt. Well, anyway, thanks for the assist, civvie. Extra thanks for not getting your prints on the box.” McJoel walked off towards the vehicle, putting the box into the backseat before going inside. The older officer grunted, shot me one last look of suspicion, then got inside the car himself. Its engine started up - pretty quiet, might have been a fuel cell - and drove back towards the Market.

I checked my bag; thankfully the flash drives looked undamaged. My glasses didn’t show anything, so either nothing was wrong or it was broken. Just to make sure, I gave the building a complete lookover, scanning for its electrical wirings. A blue line now weaved around the building, with clusters around the windows of each floor. No view of any possible security room from here though.

The lobby was pretty empty, my footsteps echoing against the brown porcelain walls. A woman was behind the counter, her eyes still a little puffy from crying. “Good afternoon,” I greeted her, giving my best smile at the same time. My glasses highlighted all the wires in sight in the meantime; a particularly large bundle led towards the elevator at the back of the lobby.

“Good afternoon, sir,” replied the lady, trying to steady her voice. “How may I help you?”

I handed her Laura’s ID. “I’m Blaze Alphon, a cousin of Laura Ilirya. I heard about her… situation,” I said as tactfully as possible. “The building owner’s allowed me to check her place, and maybe get some of her stuff.”

The woman gulped, and tears slowly welled up in her eyes. She gave me back Laura’s ID as she took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. “S-swipe the ID inside the elevator. It will auto travel to her floor.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

The elevator trip wasn’t too eventful, though Laura’s apartment was all the way on the 23rd floor so it took a while. Some elevator music - what was this, robot jazz? - played in the background as I kept my eyes forward to allow my glasses to scan for the electrical connections, but pretty much all of them looked the same. The control room might be higher up.

In hindsight, I probably should have asked first if I could check out new security footage instead of planning to break into their system. Oops. Well, that’s a little too late now. Instead of kicking myself mentally, I checked Laura’s ID one more time.

Laura Ilirya

Floor 23, Room 32

Hummingbird Houses, Erikonig Street

New Pines

I put it in my pocket again, and absent-mindedly rubbed my right hand. I kept my gloves, because I really didn’t want to draw attention to my new… mark? Tattoo? I needed the gloves to not leave my fingerprints on anything I touched anyway. I had an inkling about what this mark was, but… it was still hard to believe. And somehow, a man I thought dead seemed to know that I was gonna get it today, even warning me to bring some gloves along. And there’s also that weird soldier lady at the greenhouse, who DEFINITELY knew what was going on. I made a mental note to find Grant when he arrives in New Pines next week, as well as to search up anything about mysterious black-clad mercs hanging around the city. Couldn’t be that hard to find evidence of those kinds of people…

“Floor 23. Please mind the gap,” announced the elevator’s voice. The doors slid open into a three-way hallway. A sign along the wall said:

^1-16

<17-32

>33-48

I took a moment to scan the electrical cables again, running my eyes all over the beige walls. Finally, I noticed where this floor’s cables all converged into - right at the end of the hallway north. That should be useful for later. The entire floor was very quiet, with only the air along the vents making any sort of noise. The hallway itself was kinda wide - about a meter and a half across. I made sure to check every door, as I still needed some sort of stairwell access to go higher up.

Unfortunately none of the doors were of any use to me until the very last one at the end of the hallway - Laura’s room. There were still some sunken spots on the carpet, probably where the police put their stuff. I put Laura’s ID against her door, and with my glasses I could see the nanomachines activating and operating the door’s mechanism. After a few seconds the door swung open, and I immediately a massive blast of cold air hit me.

I stepped back in shock and raised my hands to protect my eyes - why would Laura’s AC be on after all this time? But… wait… something was weird. I slowly opened one eye, and the first thing I saw was the orange glow underneath my right glove, roughly in the shape of a flame. My mark was pulsing in time with waves of warmth that traveled over my entire body.

“Shit.”

There was no longer denying what this thing was- it was a Brand.

As my temperature normalized, the waves of warmth came less often, until it was all gone and my Brand stopped glowing. I put my hands down, slowly. I could still feel air coming out of the room, but I could no longer feel its cold.

While my body itself was fine, the lens on my glasses had cracked, so I stuffed them into my bag. The air from Laura’s room wasn’t just cold; it was freezing. Not that I could feel it at that point, but there were freshly formed ice crystals all over her furniture, and the floor was slick with ice. More ice crystals formed on my hand as I gripped the doorknob to close the door. It stung a little - ice can be pretty sharp - and my palms were a little red with frostbite, but it returned to normal after a few seconds.

I gulped nervously. There was no way any of this was coincidence. I checked the thermostat right next to the door:

-40°C

“What the fuck?”

I wanted to raise the temperature, but some of the ice might melt too fast and damage the frozen electronics beyond repair. My phone could also freeze in this cold, but… my clothes were untouched. Not even a speck of snow had formed anywhere on my body, despite the freezing temperature. I took a risk and brought my phone out - as expected, it didn’t freeze at all. If I could extend this warming effect to things I touched…

The frustration was getting to me. None of this was part of my plan. I was just supposed to go in, check the place for anything the police might have missed, grab Laura’s laptop and possibly copy some security footage from the building itself. As I wracked my brain for a way to salvage this operation, I began to notice my clothes were… getting wet. At first I thought it was due to ice or snow finally forming on them, but instead it was getting drenched from inside. I took a peek inside my shirt and balked at the amount of sweat I was suddenly making.

My nanomachine shirts were rated for water use, thankfully, but this might be a problem. Sure enough, while my skin was soon covered by sweat that was freezing and melting at the same time. Even worse, the comfortable warmth my Brand had given me was slowly starting to heat up…

Hundred bucks says I’m running out time.

There was a silver lining to all this - I was now generating enough heat to melt the ice on the carpeted floor, greatly reducing the risk of slipping on the ice. Okay. I started by lowering the temperature of the room to a nice and toasty -15°. This should stop any air from freezing, while keeping whatever was already frozen, well, frozen. Laura’s laptop shouldn’t be damaged by condensation this way. Next, I needed a small room to warm up.

It was about a medium-sized apartment, with one room serving as both the living room and the dining room, with a counter separating the kitchen to the left. There were three doors, all closed; the one near the entrance was a storage closet. It would be easy to warm up - the ice melted as soon as I opened the door - but the brooms, bottles of chemicals, and other cleaning materials were packed too tightly.

As I explored the place, I left puddles of water all over the floor, which quickly re-froze as I got further away from them. I had no idea how much of it was from the ice, and how much was from my sweat.

Laura’s room was in the second door, to the right of the living room. The third door was right next to it and led to the bathroom. As expected, everything was also frozen, but it slowly melted when I closed the door and let my heat do its thing. The water all went down the drain in the middle of the bathroom. I couldn’t let anything else refreeze while I wasn’t here, so to keep the room warm I opened up the shower, turning it all the way to the left until the water scalded me.

That should do it for now.

Laura’s room was well-organized. Frozen posters of her favorite bands lined the white wall. Her bed was unmade but otherwise neat. Her cabinets and drawers were all locked, so that’s a bust. I could probably brute force it because the locks were probably frozen over, but I really didn’t have the time.

Finally, I checked out the living/dining room. As Bertram told me earlier, a laptop sat on the wooden table, a single light still blinking on the side. The battery was fine, despite the cold, so at least I didn’t have to take it back home and risk ruining it further. The screen itself was cracked with cold and half of it was covered with bright, prismatic lines. A pile of clothes were on the chair in front of the laptop - a yellow shirt, cloth shorts, and a pair of underwear.

The rest of the living room had nothing else interesting, aside from the huge TV. I tried to turn it on, but the LED screen cracked in response instead, followed by a loud spark. Well, that’s a no-go. The kitchen looked clean, and the dishes lay neatly in the sink. They thawed as I got close, revealing a pristine surface underneath the pan and the plate.

Something’s not right.

I could feel my sweating getting worse; in fact, my hair was starting to get uncomfortably drenched. I rushed back to the laptop as fast as I could, snatched it up and went to the bathroom. There was no more ice, and steam wafted around as I entered. I closed the door immediately and put the laptop on top of the toilet.

I grabbed two flash drives from my bag - thankfully undamaged by both the cold and my sweat. I plugged in a yellow drive with a lightning bolt symbol on it, and the laptop’s battery immediately began charging. I should have enough for at least 10, maybe 15 minutes. Next, I found a second USB slot and inserted a black flash drive. The laptop booted up into a special safe mode, bypassing Laura’s password.

I accessed the black flash drive and clicked on a program my old friends made. Nothing happened for about a minute, then the laptop’s webcam activated. I could see my face on the screen now - man, it wasn’t looking good, even if I could only see half of it thanks to the ruined LED. The feed went blank, before abruptly popping back up into an unfrozen version of Laura’s apartment.

Laura’s clothes floated in the air, and then… she appeared, out of thin air. I could only see half of her right now, but her fluffy and curly brown hair left no doubt. She was laughing at something she was watching… then she stood up and walked backwards offscreen.

Finally. Solid evidence of a Disappearance!

I checked to make sure I had the video copied on my black flash drive, then unplugged both it and the power drive. I rushed to the table and put it back more or less where I last saw it. My body still sweating heavily, I opened the door and ran straight into a familiar gun pointed right at my head.