The Great Outdoors, Part 1

by nexxus 3 kline

Having collected Shad and sorted out I.D. Badges and such, the group headed towards the Entries and Departures Tracking Building. Phoenix had brought up the subject of tracking devices, and how much easier it would be to find the missing VR people if everyone was carrying one in their survival packs. He had also mentioned a specific agency that did nothing but track teleporters where he came from. Nexx kicked herself for not having thought of the EDT people in the first place. If the three missing people had ended up anywhere within a 1000 mile range of Chi-lin, there was a good chance the EDT people had seen where they landed. It was worth a try in any case. Shad had proposed trying to raise them by 'Linker, but some kind of static was rendering all standard frequencies inoperable and Phoenix wasn't able to bypass the problem.

"...and that huge building over there is an apartment complex type thing." Nexx pointed towards a building the size of the Statue of Liberty. "We need to go in here." she said, stepping into an alcove which looked like it *could* have been a doorway, except that it was just an alcove. "It'll be much faster if we don't walk and much safer if we don't use the open transport system." She pulled a card out of her back pocket and ran it under a scanner that was attached to the wall just inside the door.

"Aye-toor blinden ekki naah merhoor," an electronic voice announced, followed by a brief pause and 2 more nonsensical sounding statements. "Present proof of residency now." it said lastly. Nex slid her ID badge under the scanner. "Sekjerst?" the voice began again. "Tlart." she stated, giving the voice no chance to continue. "Okee guys, right this way." she motioned towards an opening that had appeared where the back wall of the alcove had been.

Immediately after entering, the doorway closed behind them. They were in a large open space that looked much like the lobby of an office building. There were several doors on each wall, each with a sign over it indicating where it lead to written in three lines of what looked like gibberish and a line in what looked like English at the bottom. Nexx lead them towards the door which said 'To Irvenish and Terra Sectors.' "Right through this door. Let me run my card through." she said, running her card through the credit card like scanner. "Mijnaha" said the electronic voice. "You're welcome." Nexx answered as she motioned for Shad and Phoe to step through.

The door slid silently to a close behind them as they stepped onto the street in a completely different part of the city. "The EDT is just across the street." she said, dodging a pedestrian and stepping towards the curb. "Watch out for traffic, it can be heck to cross a street here."

The EDT building was fairly small, about 50 stories tall, and from the outside appeared to have no windows. Once inside however, it was like being inside a glass building. The young woman at the front desk informed them that all of the equipment was down, they suspected it had something to do with an unknown form of transport at the MC earlier in the day but they weren't sure, she directed them towards the 19th floor anyway. "You can see if they will try and access the log files, I don't think they've got the problem sorted out enough yet to do it, but it's worth a try." Nexx grumbled to herself, thanked the woman and threw Shad an angry glance as she headed for the lift. Shad glanced at Phoe with a "What'd I do this time?" look, turned and followed Nexx. Phoe shrugged quickly in reply and followed.

As the doors closed and the lift began its ascend, Shad turned to Nexx. "What's our next move if they can't find out from the logs where the rest of the team arrived or even if they did?"

"I don't know." she replied. "Aside from going out an actually looking for them, this is our only option. At least until we can get back to HQ. Mal might have a log of some sort. We don't even know if they made it to this side." Shadur nodded, and remained silent for the rest of the trip.

The group had run out of luck. After a 30 minute search for the Comm of EDT amongst machines and stacks of graphs and charts, they were informed that it would be, at the very least, another five hours until the logs could be brought back online. So much for an easy out. They made arrangements to come back and collect a copy of the logs in six hours, provided the logs could be retrieved, and headed back down to the lobby.

"So what are we going to do in the mean time?" Nex asked of no one in particular. "Anyone have any bright ideas?"

"Depends.... Either of you scared of heights?" Shad asked after a moment's thought.

"Not especially... What do you have in mind?"

"Aerial recon. We can cover a lot of ground from the air. We'll start over the city and spiral out... It's a long shot but it's better than sitting on our thumbs."

"But we don't have aircraft- oh." Phoenix stopped himself as the coin dropped.

"Right. Let's get up to the roof." Nexx turned around. "Elevator's this way."

Nexxus looked out over the city while the wind blew in her hair. The EDT building was one of the largest in Chi-Lin, and she looked down over endless rows of roof tops. She glanced sideways to where Shad, still in human form, sat perched on the edge, looking down with a feral grin on his face, just staring down at the city below. Finally he got up and began taking off his jacket and stuffing it into his backpack. Zipping it shut and tossing it to Nexx, he said "Could you hold this? I'll be right back..."

And jumped.

Nexx and Phoenix shouted in shock and rushed to the edge and looked over to see Shad shift to dragon form and spread his wings, turning a 10 meter per second per second fall into a tight swoop that took him several hundred metres away before sliding into a turn that brought him back over the roof.

Nexx grabbed hold of Phoe with one hand and Shad's bag with the other, and 'ported onto Shad's back. Shad held his wings as motionless as possible while they both scrabbled for purchase on his back.

Once they both sat more or less securely, Nexx thumped Shad's neck a couple of times an yelled "Okay, let's go!"

Shad responded by banking sharply to the left and beating his wings. Nexx and Phoenix held on for dear life while the dragon ascended until he levelled off on a thermal and headed north over the city wall.

Nexx had flown before. But never in all her life had it been in anything other than some form of *enclosed* aircraft, belted to a seat with a parachute nearby. Now, she realized that that experience had been to flying as hearing someone hum a few bars of Metallica was to a full live concert.

It was frightening. It was exhilarating. It was wonderful. Her heart pounded in her throat and the wind streamed through her hair, an effect you just couldn't get sitting strapped into a chair.

With an effort of willpower, she turned her attention back to studying the ground below for signs of their missing comrades. To do this, she was hanging away from Shad's back, holding on only with her left hand so she could see around Shad's bulk. On the left side, Phoenix' position mirrored her own, the whiteness of his knuckles indicating his uneasiness with this way of travel.

She sighed. They'd been looking for several hours now and there was still no sign of Kapella, Selvane or Aris.

*We'd better get back to EDT and see if they've got the logs we asked for... At least that'd give us a clue where to start looking*

She turned to Phoenix to inform him of her decision just as his hand lost its grip on Shad's dorsal ridge and he fell.

Shad's reflexes, however, were up to the task, and he was grabbed by a claw the size of his body before he'd fallen more than four metres.

"Shad! What the hell happened?! How'd he fall?"

"His body suddenly slumped, his hand relaxed and he lost his grip. My guess is he 'nodded off'... excuse the pun!" Shad bellowed to be heard over the slipstream, "I'm taking us back to the city. Neither us nor your missing operatives have anything to gain by you killing yourselves trying to find them."

"I was going to suggest heading back anyway. Let's see if those logs are available yet. If they are, we'll know where to look!"

"Good idea. But I am *NOT* taking either of you up again until you both have had a good night's sleep. Understood?"

Nexx grimaced. "Yes, Doctor."

"Tomorrow morning." the technician replied before Nexx could so much as open her mouth to ask. "We can access the files, but not from the machine they're in now, it's totally inoperable. We'll have to do a bit of part swapping to be able to access them. I can 'port a disk to you as soon as we've finished though."

Nexx thought for a moment, nodded and said, "Ok. We'll be in Talgareth, Vin Vetur 193n562w. You know the building?"

"Yes, I know it. Who should I list as recipient?"

"Send it priority Z, I.D. code 001954-K3 epli lesa 773939, kline." Nexx answered. "Anything else?"

"No, that's all I need." the tech replied as he punched the information into the system and went back to his desk. Nexx turned to Phoe and Shad, "Lets go claim a suite and see how much of my expense account we can use up in one night. It isn't like we can do much more tonight anyways."

They nodded in agreement, and set off with Nexx in the lead again. Back down the street, through the transporter, and onto a completely different street, this one closer to the edge of the city. They walked about 15 minutes before Nexx stopped them in front of a modest [by Chi-Lin standards] 150 story skyscraper the width and length of 2 football fields. "This is where we'll be sleeping tonight. It's my favourite place to stay." she noted with a smile.

"Now this, is a hotel!" Phoe exclaimed. "Room service?" he asked.

"Yeah, room service, hot-tub, vr, maid, and just about anything else you could possibly want." Nexx replied. "They'll even wash and iron your clothes for you here, or send a personal shopper out to get you new ones."

"I get first dibs on the bath!" Shad claimed.

"No need to call dibs, we're getting the entire top floor and there's more than one bath. Plenty of hot water too, since this sector of Chi-Lin is geothermal. Now come on, food, a bath and a warm bed are only minutes away." Nexx stated before making her way inside.

The lobby was enormous, filled with plants, marble statues, and fountains. It wasn't like being inside a huge skyscraper at all, the walls were covered in murals, giving the illusion of being in a park. Nexx fought the urge to stand and gawk all night and made her way to the front desk. After showing her ID badge and punching in all the information requested on the electronic form, the desk clerk handed her a card and called for a bellhop to carry up their packs and escort them to their suite. She called out to Phoe and Shad, motioning for them to follow and after they caught up, followed the pampered looking bellhop into the lift. It was a quick ride to the top, no more than a minute long and unlike earth elevators, you didn't get that funny feeling in the pit of your stomach when it shot upwards, nor did you get jostled when the elevator came to a stop.

The elevator doors slid open to reveal a small parlor type room, sparsely furnished with thick white carpet, and dark green walls. The ceiling was painted white, and there were several large plants in each corner along with a green and white sofa on the left wall, a low table in front of it, two matching chairs on the opposite side and a very ornate set of double doors on the wall at the other end of the room. The bellhop, motioning for them to follow, lead them to these doors and taking the card from Nexx, swiped it under a scanner that was located where the doorknobs should have been. Pushing the doors open, he walked in, placed their bags on the floor, and turned on the lights revealing a rather large living room decorated in the same colors as the one they had just walked through, although not as sparsely. To the left was a doorway which led to a dining room, kitchen, and library/den. To the right was a hallway with seven doors, three on each side and one directly at the end and on the wall directly across the living room from the entrance were two huge picture windows and a pair of french doors which led to the garden and a fantastic view of the mountains the trio had just spent the last seven hours flying over. Nodding her approval, Nexx took the card from the bellhop who bowed slightly and left.

"Well, here's home for the night. The hot-tub is on the balcony, there's a well-stocked bar in the den," she explained, pointing to the left. "bedrooms are down that hallway," she pointed to the right. "and the kitchen is fully stocked as well. If we want room service, all we need to do is order using that." she said and pointed to a small laptop looking device sitting on a table by the door. "That can be used to order anything, and I do mean anything... short of illegal weapons and somebody's head on a platter." she added, grabbing her pack off the floor and heading down the hall on the right to claim a room.

To Be Continued in, "The Great Outdoors, Part 2"