Hope you are starting to get into this as much as I am. I am still getting used to everything so bear with the few changes I make to the format until I like it. I haven't decided on a release schedule yet as I will need to find a balance for RL but hopefully that wont take too much time. Anyways to get into the mood of the story I definitely suggest listening to some good synth like Pertubator, Future City Records, or Retro Synth Radio on soundcloud. as always please comment on any errors, questions, or concerns you may have. Now onto the story.

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Chapter 2: Specters and Phantoms

Date: Sep, 8, 2597

Somewhat satisfied with dinner, Emma set the dishes in the washer and returned to the living room. With a glass of water in one hand she sat on the couch facing a coffee table and a blank white wall. Once she settled down she motioned to the wall with her right hand and a menu popped up only visible to her.

She then placed the holo-data card on the coffee table and a video thumbnail and loading bar popped up on the screen. Emma pressed play and the lights in the room dimmed. “Ok, let’s hope this has more answers than Kara.” She remarked as she choose a view of the couple’s room.

Soon a 3D hologram of the room was displayed on the coffee table with first person view from each Synth as well as the cameras showing the hallway and the elevator donning the blank wall behind. First she chose the 3D view hoping to get an overview of what all went down.

The room was a standard for any hotel on Nirvana and had nothing remarkable. A large bed, a small table and chairs, a coffee table, and a tiny bathroom adorned the whole place.

The scene started with the couple walking in through the door. It was obvious they had been drinking and were already flirty by the time they made it to the door. The two slowly made it to the bed, shedding clothes as they went. Emma felt a little awkward so she sped thru the whole session.

Once finished the girl got up and took a shower while the guy ordered some room service.

About 30 minutes later there was a knock at the door. The girl was done with her shower and was still drying off when the man answered the door. Seeing the dark figure that was obviously not room service he took a step back.

The figure was tall and was wearing something like a black hooded robe which completely obscured the vision of the cameras. Before he could finish asking who they were the figure’s left arm which was twirling something like a pole threw the baton at the man. What came next made Emma doubt her eyes.

In the blink of an eye a large two foot long curved blade of plasma lunged through the poor man’s chest. His eyes went wide and he took another step back, then he weakly grasped the pole attached to the blade in his chest.

The figure walked into the room toward the man and reverse gripped the handle of the plasma scythe. Then with a quick movement he jerked the blade upward through the power coupler in the man’s chest all the way to the collar bone.

A sizzling sound accompanied with wisps of smoke indicated the power coupler's failed attempt to remain functioning. The impaled man’s hands went limp and his head fell back. The figure then reverse spun the blade to extract it from the now dead Synth and let the body slump to the floor still smoldering from the damage.

Obviously hearing the door open then a few groans and a large thump, the curious woman opened the door to the bathroom. The scene before her was so alien she just stood there for half a minute, her brain trying to process what was going on. She finally noticed the cloaked figure standing motionless above her loved ones corpse.

The woman fell to her knees and took a deep breath to scream. While not even looking her direction the figure pointed his right hand towards her. She froze, but not out of fear. Suddenly her eyes went wide and her body began to sweat profusely.

She tried to scream but her body wouldn’t move and no sound would come out. The figure finally turned toward her and it made a fist with its right hand as if grasping something.

The woman frantically grabbed her head and finally screamed. This was not a scream of fear but a scream of pain, one of pure anguish. She screamed for only a moment, and then her arms fell to her side.

The woman’s eyes rolled back and she crumpled face first to the floor as a puppet with its strings cut. The figure simply turned the scythe off and the blade vanished into thin air. It then walked out the room as if nothing happened and closed the door.

Emma then rewound a bit and paused just as the woman slumped over. She had never seen anything like what she had just witnessed. Firstly, every plasma scythe she had ever seen was different. They normally had unwieldy handles that tended to be much thicker than the one on display and the blades were only as large as a foot.

They were a weapon that was always inferior to guns or knives. Even normal plasma swords were still easier to use and more effective. No plasma scythe she ever saw could so easily be thrown or cut so effortlessly. Then there was the case of the woman’s death.

There was no knife, no gun, not so much as a breeze that the figure used. The fidelity of the holo-data was perfect. Not even a grain of sand could get past its detection. Yet all it did was point and the woman died. On top of that she noticed something odd.

“Didn’t she die by power coupler overload? Then why was she grasping her head and not her chest. When the coupler overheats it should transmit to the pain sensors in the chest not the head. She looked like she was listening to an unbearable sound.”

Emma then restarted at just before the knock at the door and changed to the view of the hallway outside the couple’s room. She wanted to track this figure to when and where it left the building. As the video started back up, she watched as guests and staff walked down the corridor to the elevator at the end.

Emma waited for the right time, but what she saw made her scowl even more. A simply dressed maid pushing a meal cart stopped at their room and knocked. Emma thought maybe she had gone too far until the door opened and she heard the same confused voice that was obviously the man. Then she heard the impact of the blade as the maid walked into the room with the cart. A minute later she heard the woman’s scream then watched as a maid with an empty cart waltzed out of the room and down the hall.

Now Emma was completely confused. [Is the holo-data corrupted? Is it possible they grabbed the wrong camera feeds? Maybe it was a different day but the same room? Why did I hear the two same people though? The audio is right but the video is absolutely wrong!]

Emma then went to the elevator feed and matched the time the phantom maid walked in and started both videos. She became even more confused when she witnessed the elevator stop at the floor, open, and then close with no one in it.

The camera angle of the elevator was from the ceiling and was facing the door so she should see the maid. Yet when the door opened, the maid standing in front of the elevator on the hallway camera was nowhere to be seen on the elevator camera. The elevator opened and closed exactly at the same time and the time-stamps matched but the maid was a phantom.

She was sure now. Emma immediately minimized the holo-data and started a video call to the Evidence department so she could yell at whichever greenhorn wasted her time. Some dumb idiot mixed up the holo-data and now she had wasted her evening. She was more frustrated because this meant she would have to go back to HQ and that was no walk to the corner store. She wasn’t even sure the Transfer-pads worked this late.