Alyssa agreed.
‘Well, this here is me. I’ll see you later. Enjoy your view.’
Alyssa nodded. She ascended two more flights of stairs and stopped in front of her door. She slid her key-pass through the slot and the door hissed open, where she found a room that had a bed, desk, and clothing rack. Walls were beige with a large window opposite the front door.
It was a simple room.
This is great.
Alyssa liked it, though she suspected there would others who wouldn’t share the same appreciation toward the design.
Once she finished unpacking and setting aside her belongings to their respective areas, she along with everyone else received a message from Eikichi. It was picture of him with a grin, posing in front of the window with the Academy in the background.
Alyssa smiled as she watched the conversation on their group chat unfold.
‘What the hell, man?’ Janice said. ‘Don’t do that. This is so unfair!’
‘You just had to do that, didn’t you?’ Clara said.
‘Hehe, I couldn’t help myself,’ Eikichi said. ‘And I have a feeling Ali and Yannick have good ones, as well haha.’
‘I’m going to kill you, Eikichi,’ Janice said.
With everyone settled into the rooms, students were told breakfast were ready. They were asked to head to the Great Hall to have it.
Alyssa searched for Janice and Clara before regrouping with the others to enjoy their first meal on Mars. The passages leading to the Great Hall were full of famished students.
Upon arrival, the students found themselves in another big place. The hall was vast, stretching over a hundred meters, with rows of hovering tables set up in front a line of personnel standing beside a trolley full of food containers.
The students were instructed to sit and wait at the tables before a worker gave the entire row of students the signal to collect their meals. Everything was done in orderly fashion to promote efficiency and avoid crowded areas.
‘Man, am I hungry,’ Janice said.
‘We all are,’ Eikichi said.
‘Come on, let’s find a place to sit,’ Ali said.
Alyssa sat with her group on the third row of tables.
The first two rows were given permission to collect their trays, then next two rows were given permission to collect their meals.
Alyssa was given her container, which had a clear lid. By peeking at other students, she realised that the contents were the same. She returned to her seat and removed the lid.
Inside there was a small serving of porridge with assorted nuts and honey, wholemeal sandwich stuffed with avocado, tomatoes, lettuces, drizzled with a little mustard sauce, an oatmeal muffin packed with blueberries, and a 300-ml glass bottle with black tea.
This looks good.
The group appeared to be enjoying the meal a great deal. Hardly a word was uttered while everyone was either munching on their sandwiches or finishing off their hot, honey-nut filled porridge.
‘Oh man, I don’t remember having something this good in front of me,’ Janice said, looking at her meal as if she was asking herself whether she should eat it. ‘I kind of feel guilty that I have to eat it.’
‘Why?’ Clara asked.
‘Because of my family. We don’t usually eat this kind of stuff. We’re not that lucky to get much on the table. It seems unfair that I should be eating this while my mom and brother get nothing close to this for their meals.’
No one said a word.
Clara placed a hand on Janice’s hand. ‘Then use that as motivation while you’re here to give them a better meal for the future.’ She smiled gently. ‘At the end of the day, I think they would want to you eat in order for you to succeed here, right?’
Janice paused. ‘Right.’
Everyone started to eat, devouring it like it was the first meal they’ve had in a long time.
‘That was so delicious that I’m quite tempted to go for seconds,’ Clara remarked.
‘Do they allow seconds?’ Eikichi asked, eager to eat more as well.
‘Don’t know. I hope they do. I don’t need the whole meal – just the sandwich will do.’
‘Well, if they do, I’ll give you the sandwich. I want to eat the other stuff.’
‘Are you still hungry?’
‘Yeah!’
Ali, who was sitting next to Alyssa, leaned toward her. ‘I think our time here is going to be interesting, don’t you think?’
‘Yeah. Just by looking around,’ she said. ‘you notice people from all ages are here. I believe the one thing in common in all of them is their devotion to fixing to our problem.’
‘I agree. I was talking with some of the older people here and I realised former soldiers and police officers were here.’
‘Really? How do you know?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I wonder what they’re doing here.’
‘Perhaps they’re here for the same reason.’
Perhaps…
‘Would anyone like a second serving?’ a worker asked, speaking through a loudspeaker. ‘There are still some leftover sandwiches, porridges, muffins, and eggs.’
There were a few hands instantly in the air in response to the question.
‘Okay, there’s a few of you. A little less than I expected.’ The worker chuckled. ‘Well then, those who are hungry come on down. There will be people here with a trolley carrying specifically one of those items I mentioned.’
‘Alright, I’m going,’ Clara said as she left her seat.
‘Wait up,’ Eikichi said.
When breakfast was over, everyone was split into groups, and given a tour of the academy. First was the armoury. Area was filled with aircrafts and ground vehicles––tanks and warthogs.
Janice eyed the ground vehicles with great interest, like she found a new toy to play with. ‘Wow. I hope we get a go on those things.’
‘Don’t you worry, you all will,’ a guide told her.
‘Good.’
The groups didn’t stay around the armoury for long, as there wasn’t anything else to look at. The guide explained that there’s still equipment to be flown in from Earth.
Next area of the tour was the Study Complex, and the buildings the classes would be held in. The Study Complex was the tallest, standing ten stories high, which had individual cubicles, study rooms, computing desks and an archive desktop––an electronic collection of books, journal articles, reports, newspapers, and other public documents––on every level for students to use.
The students passed classrooms and noticed different arrangements within several of them. Due to the subjects that would be taught there, the classrooms had to be arranged differently. Some had the typical classroom arrangement such as rows of tables facing the whiteboards, others had tables paired for group activity and laboratories for experiments.
The last place on the tour was the Ventilation Complex. It was completely different from the other buildings. There stood columns of high cylindrical tubes connected to the ceiling. Inside these containers was a suction process, which gathered the air from outside––mostly carbon dioxide––and converted it into oxygen. Workers were seen everywhere, either on the floor or hovering amongst the containers.
Alyssa walked by the edge of the platform to peek at the bottom. She immediately caught sight of holes in the floor, where the oxygen would travel, and be sent to all areas of the academy.
She glanced at her group. Yannick and Clara stood close to one another. Both were examining the tubes and the area like a curious couple. While Janice and Eikichi were in discussion over something over she couldn’t hear.
‘The air in here is the cleanest and freshest of every place in the academy,’ Ali said. ‘It’s probably cleaner than the air at Interpol, and we already have a good ventilation system set up there.’
‘I can smell the difference,’ Alyssa said.
Many students stopped by the window to glance at the fields of crops on the farther side of
the academy.
‘Will we get a chance to look at the crops out there?’ a student asked.
‘Not now,’ the guide answered. ‘your spacesuits have yet to arrive. Maybe, later, when they have, you can go out during one of classes.’
‘What for?’ another student asked, who sounded as if a trip out to the crop field wasn’t necessary.
‘To teach you how to grow your own crops and how to look after them. Once you’ve completed your training here, you’re out there in space, surveying planets, and you’ll be depending on the skills you gained here to help you in any situation you might face. Growing and harvesting crops will be an essential skill to your survival.’
‘I want to know something,’ Janice said, raising her hand. ‘Is there a gravity simulation here? I feel heavier.’
‘Yes.’
Some students were surprised.
‘Why is that?’
‘Because we want to condition your bodies during your stay here. If you grew accustomed to Mars’s gravity, your body would weaken. So, the gravity simulation was increased by 5 percent of Earth’s. It was done also because it’s part of your training. When you’re out there searching planets, it’s possible you might encounter gravities stronger than Earth and you need to be strong enough to withstand the pressure.’
‘I see.’
The guide looked over at the students. ‘Over the course of your training, the gravity will increase again, once we’ve determined that everyone has adapted to this gravity simulation. There’ll be regular check-ups on your health to see if no one is experiencing adverse effects from the increases.’
Afterward, the tour came to an end.
Everyone left to roam about or go to their rooms.
‘I knew I felt something,’ Janice told the group.
‘I felt it as well,’ Ali said.
‘Looks like we’re going to be superheroes, then. We’ll probably be able to jump higher and run faster than people on Earth when we’re done here.’
He laughed. ‘We’ll see.’
Alyssa and the group decided to lounge in the Common Area for the rest of the day, enjoying the free time left before training commenced the following day.
When the sun faded away and bedtime approached, everyone headed to their rooms to for an early night, so they could be ready for their first class.
Alyssa laid on her bed with the lights off. She looked to the dark sky and thought about what tomorrow had in store for her and her friends. She hoped the day will be a good one.
CHAPTER 12
‘THIS IS NOT good,’ Mark said. ‘Cecille expects a progress report and if we don’t come up with something soon, this investigation is over, and we might be reassigned to positions that are a lot more menial compared to this job which I like doing. Or worse we’re given temporary suspension.’
‘That won’t happen,’ Evelyn said calmly despite being annoyed by Mark’s outburst.
Mark drew a long breath. He sat himself on the guest chair, alongside Luther who was in the other guest chair in Evelyn’s office.
Evelyn tried getting into contact with Martha again, but couldn’t get through. She’d even contacted several people that might know her whereabouts, though that wasn’t successful either. She called Martha’s house phone and personal mobile phone, without luck. She put her phone aside.
‘Still no luck?’ Mark asked
Evelyn nodded.
‘That’s strange. It should be working.’ He took out his phone, calling Martha’s phone. ‘I can’t get through either.’
‘Perhaps you might have luck contacting someone she works with.’ Luther suggested. ‘She might be with someone.’
‘I’ve tried that,’ Evelyn said. ‘The likely people that would be with her is family. However, they don’t know where she is.’
‘I don’t get it,’ Mark said. ‘The network is not down – it’s fully functional, so why are our calls not going through?’ He glanced at Luther and Evelyn. ‘Could it be our calls are being jammed?’
‘It’s possible,’ Luther said. Looked at Evelyn. ‘What do you think, sir?’
‘What I think we should do is focus our attention on finding Martha,’ Evelyn said.
‘How?
‘Follow me.’
The three of them got up and headed for the elevators. Twenty-nine seconds later, they were back in a familiar room.
‘Have you been successful in finding Martha?’ Evelyn asked.
‘No,’ Heidi said. ‘Phone signal was untraceable, and I called the people she met to see if they knew anything on her whereabouts, asking them if they were told by her what she was going to do next.’
‘What was her last known position?’
‘Her place.’
‘Her place?’
‘Yeah. I have footage of her entering her apartment from her meeting with the manufactures, but she never left her place.’
Evelyn was getting an eerie feeling about this development, as it sounded familiar to the husband who’d disappeared at the restaurant.
‘This is no coincidence, Evelyn,’ Mark said. ‘This is just the same as the guy.’
No, it isn’t, Evelyn thought. ‘Send a team to her home now and have them search it.’
‘Got it.’ Mark walked away, dialling on his phone.
Evelyn looked at Heidi. ‘Show me the footage.’
Heidi displayed the surveillance footage up on the big screen for everyone to see. She played the footage moments before Martha entered her place and fast forwarded until present day. Martha never came back out.
What’s going on?
‘She was kidnapped,’ Luther said.
‘By whom?’ Heidi asked.
‘By the same person or group who kidnapped the husband – the man responsible for the attack at Ascent University and fiasco on the highway.’
‘How can you be certain?’
‘Because the two situations are identical.’ He looked at the big screen. ‘Someone was already inside, waiting.’
‘But no one had gone in. I checked the footage.’
‘All the more reason to consider the notion to be true.’
‘Just do it.’
Evelyn listened to her colleagues speak. ‘What about her neural lace? It has its own tracker. Have you searched for that?’
‘Tried it. Didn’t work,’ Heidi said.’
‘Show me.’
Heidi utilized her computer skills to acquire a global position on Martha’s neural lace. After pressing her final command onto the keyboard, the tracking system fired away, searching for Martha’s phone.
Suddenly, on the screen, ‘SIGNAL UNTRACEABLE’ appeared.
‘How can that be...’ Luther said.
‘I’m just as stumped as you are,’ Heid said. ‘If Martha was kidnapped, then the kidnapper, whoever they are, must have deactivated or destroyed her neural lace.’
‘And the last destination, as well, was at her place?’
‘It was.’
‘Hmm...’
There was pause.
Evelyn saw Mark return from his call. ‘Is there a team heading to Martha’s place?’
‘Yeah,’ Mark said. ‘They’ll be there at her place any moment now.’
‘We’ll watch it. If you could, Heidi, return the screen to the surveillance feed. I want to see what will happen. Heidi in the meantime, I want to continue conducting a search to see if Martha’s neural lace or phone, or any other item of hers that can tracked and locate to give us an idea of where she might be.’
Heidi nodded.
While they waited, an officer entered the room and approached them.
‘Detective?’ the officer asked.
Evelyn faced the officer. ‘Yes.’
The officer passed her a parcel. ‘This came in for you.’
She grabbed it, sensing a weight to the parcel. ‘By whom?’
‘They didn’t say. All they said was that it was of great importance you receive it.’
Evelyn
wasn’t sure how to respond. She thanked the officer, and they left.
‘Perhaps you have an admirer, Evelyn,’ Mark quipped as he walked up to her.
‘Hardly.’ She said, opening the parcel.
‘Madam, look,’ Heidi said.
Evelyn returned her attention to the screen and saw a swat team arrived at Martha’s place. They were given access into the premise via the Mastercard the building manager owned. The team proceeded inside and cleared the area within a minute. They didn’t find Martha, nor did they see signs of a struggle.
Mark, Luther and Heidi were troubled, and their expressions intensified in a matter of seconds, when the tracking system found Martha’s location. She was inside the viewing room with them.
‘Martha’s... here?’ Mark said, ‘But that’s not possible. We would have noticed her by no––’ His eyes landed at the parcel and their he found a freshly cut forearm with the hand grasping hold of a phone.
Beside it was a notecard, which read:
Do I have your attention?
No one uttered a word.
Evelyn’s attention was fixed on the hand. She had a feeling whose hand it belonged to.
‘Evelyn...’ Mark said.
Evelyn was quiet.
Luther moved closer to her. ‘Sir?’
Before she could respond the phone in the hand started ringing.
All eyes were locked on the phone, but no one answered it.
Evelyn reluctantly took the phone from out of the severed hand, and then looked at Heidi. ‘Record and trace the call.’ She walked away into an empty room, away from other colleagues. Mark and Luther followed behind.
Heidi executed multiple commands and was ready within seconds. ‘We’re good.’
Evelyn answered the call. ‘Hello?’ she said with caution.
Everyone around the desk listened attentively as the call was put on loudspeaker.
‘Yes, or no, detective?’ a voice said.
Evelyn immediately recognised the voice, as it was the same as the voice as Mr. Khoury. But she knew it wasn’t him.
‘Who are you?’
‘Yes or no, detective? I believe you’ve read the notecard that was inside the parcel, did you not?’
Wanderers in the Dark : Part 1 Page 8