Trying to keep up with the sudden rap of all the salutations the driver could think of, I turned towards the cadets. But instead of support for my plight, I found the cadets staring at me with confusion and muffled laughs.
'Why are they laughing?'
Feeling a sudden jab to my liver, I looked beside me only to find Anneliese pointing to the side of her forehead.
'...? Huh?'
I put my hands at the location on my face and felt the AR glasses I had just put on.
'Ah. They're laughing because of the kidd'sy design of the mouse on my glasses.'
'Too bad they don't know you can copy any modifications using these.'
I ignored the cadets and dropped my bag filled with AR Glasses in front of Anneliese for her to hold. While I moved to the edge of the landing deck to watch the work taking place on the building opposite to where I was.
Calling a cadet with hand gestures I said, "Take me there." pointing at the floor of the opposite building where the fire had died down.
"Yes sir." The cadet nodded and I carried on, "Take her to Hawthorne and ask him to show her how to work with forensics." by pointing at Anneliese with my thumb.
The cadet looked at Anneliese for a few seconds and then nodded silently.
With the help of his neural interface, the cadet borrowed the nearest HoverSteed which we used to reach the burnt floor that the fire rescuers were still working on.
"Please don't interfere with our work Sarg." Romeo Nightingale the chief of the fire rescue operations in Inception City stopped me by holding my chest as I got down from my Hoversteed.
"I won't ReNight. I just need to supervise this time."
"Really? I don't believe you." He said, with squinting eyes, evaluating everything I was saying.
I passed him an expressionless look which he scoffed at and struck at me using facts. "For the last eight times, I heard those words, each time the rescue has ended with three times more damage than expected! I don't want to make it a nine."
"Hey! Two of those eight were because I was drunk! Look I'm completely sober now! So why don't you let me in now!"
"So what? So that I can let you make eight 'sober' mistakes?"
"Come on ReNight, you don't need to be so harsh. I promise I'll sign a shirt for your son if you let me in!"
"..., fine. But just this once! And I'm going to supervise your supervising!"
"Yes, yes. Now move aside and let me 'supervise'."
"*sigh* you don't know how troublesome it is to work with you Dave."
With Romeo moving away I stepped into the Radioactive Protective Clothing station, RPC station. It strapped onto me a white elastic covering, leaving nothing but the face uncovered. Picking up the gas mask on my way out I placed it on my face with an elastic strap to the back of my dress.
'Protection check.'
'Now onto evidence.'
Walking out of the RPC station I met up with ReNight who was diligently waiting for me wearing the same white elastic suit I was.
"Don't you think the yellow gloves on our hands and legs are a bit too much? I look like a walking duck." I told ReNight.
"They're there for protection Dave. How else will firemen spot each other when there's thick smoke around? That yellow reflects light from a fire quite easily and shines very brightly in the darker areas."
I followed ReNight, stepping through the collapsed office wares, smashed desks, chairs torn in half, and small puddles of dried blood mixed with dust and other debris turning its bright red into something more muddy and murky.
The room had a blanket of white ash, making it look like a snowstorm had passed through.
Professionals carried unconscious people along with their torn prosthetic limbs on stretchers. A few more worked on setting up UV lights for later fluorescent examination of the scene.
We stopped at the other end with the PTV stopping at the edge of the floor, nearly touching the glass window, but not quite.
The inside of the PTV had turned into a crisp, with its metallic frame melting under the heat. Ash still floated near the PTV while the ceiling above it had turned black. The insulation paint on the walls had done its part to prevent the fire from spreading by turning into foam.
The melting of the frame had caused the dent on the top of the PTV to become distorted. At least compared to the dent I'd seen when involved with the crash earlier.
"I see...so where's the body?"
"What body?" ReNight asked pausing to look at me.
"What do you mean what body? The one that fell on the PTV while I was riding in the one behind it!"
"...there was no body on the PTV when we got here."
"...what the heck?"
'There's no body?'
'Is he joking? No ReNight isn't like that, he takes his work seriously.'
'Is he lying then? No, he doesn't have a reason to.'
"Can I see the footage of the first responders who initially responded to the scene? There might be some evidence if the body was moved before you arrived."
"I doubt it since none of the people we've evacuated have spoken anything about a person on the PTV, but we can do that."
"No one saw a person fall on top of it?"
"Nope. No one."
"What the heck. I clearly remember hearing something else fall on the PTV ."
"...you sure you didn't imagine it?"
"Then how do you explain this PTV failing and crashing into the building?"
"The driver gave his statement. It said that the AI recognition system failed and forced him to bail out after it began steering into oncoming traffic."
"....did he live?"
"Yes, he lived because he had an inflatable bubble ball that saved him after he jumped onto a landing deck below him."
"Hmm... How do you explain the dent on the PTV then?"
"Probably sunk in due to heat and stayed like that once we doused the flames using an extinguisher."
'...did I hear wrong?'
'Or am I just imagining things?'
In the time I spent thinking, ReNight called someone to bring him the first responder and then turned to speak with me.
"Would you like to examine the PTV?"
"Has no one else examined it before?"
"Gracwell did."
"I see. I still need to supervise her work anyway, it wouldn't be a problem if I did it too. You know, just to cross-check, right?"
"No, not a problem."
The shattered pieces of glass forming a ring around the PTV led me to believe the explosion had happened inside the office. But many questions remained.
Stepping closer to the PTV I peered into the vehicle.
The inside was charred. The expensive leather seats had cracked due to the extreme heat. The headrests had turned to ash with the metal inside melting into the surroundings.
The yoke had become flaccid, its internal metal frame bent due to the heat with most of it lying on the driver's seat.
"ReNight, something did fall on the PTV."
"Oh? How do you know it wasn't the heat?"
"The driver's seat is almost folded in half. Its curve follows the dent of the roof perfectly. That wouldn't have happened because of the heat melting it. The seat would've fallen backward if it was melting."
"Then what fell down and from where?"
"I don't know yet."
Not a single life around the PTV to draw any conclusions that a death had taken place related to the vehicle.
Using my AR glasses to scan for hair or similar small evidence someone might've missed I found nothing.
'Where did the person go? Did they fall down in the traffic? But the police should've found them already.'
"Aey, ReNight, did that guy say anything about when the explosion happened?"
"No, but given the AI system's failure, I assume the circuits had become faulty before the crash. It's hard to say for sure without scrapping all the data from the black box."
"The explosion?"
"From this scene, we know the explosion happened inside the office. All the light items have been flung away from the PTV. Everything points towards the direction the PTV entered from."
"Hmm... I see. Thank you for helping me out ReNight."
"I didn't do much, apart from keeping the scene intact."
"Haha~ you still don't trust that nothing wrong will happen with me here do you?"
"I don't."
"Good afternoon sir!" A rescue operator walked towards us and saluted ReNight, which prompted a nod for him to continue.
"Sir, I was the first responder. When I arrived at the scene the flames had consumed nearly half of the office space. Most were partially burnt but some suffered secondary injuries due to the explosion."
"Do you have the recording?" ReNight asked.
"Yes sir."
"Good. Share it with us."
The first responder did as he was told and shared the media with both me and ReNight.
I began to watch the recording which had begun with the first responder flying into the landing deck. Employing air cushions underneath the PTV allowed for a comfortable stop even at high landing speeds. A privilege given only to emergency PTVs.
Wearing an RPC and some necessary safety equipment to extinguish fires he rushed towards the fire inside the office. While the workers inside rushed towards the crew outside waiting for them with cool water blankets and elixir syringes.
As soon as I spotted the first responder looking at the burning PTV I paused the media and began to examine frame by frame.
Apart from the glimmering broken glass in the window behind the PTV nothing else was visible due to the extreme brightness.
There was never a moment in the life of the video that I'd seen anything unexpected.
I don't really know what I even expected. Perhaps a burning man waking up because he failed to die and jumping around, but either way, it wasn't what I expected.
I played the video several times to find anything of use but failed.
"Found something, Dave?" ReNight asked.
"No. Not yet. But I'm sure I'll find something eventually when I know what I'm looking for."
"Well, I hope you do. So will that be all?"
"Yes. That will be all for now. Unless you find something else in the media shared by the people inside the office."
"You know they can't record anything inside the office. It'd be against the policy."
"Eh. I'm sure someone recorded something."
"*sigh* Alright, I will ask around, off the record of course."
"Great."
Walking back with ReNight I found myself trapped in front of a hallucinatory wall.
'Did I mishear something falling on the PTV in front of us during the accident?'
'Maybe I can ask Anneliese about it later. The black box of the other PTV should also give me an idea.'
Not finding the Cadet who dropped me, I asked one of the first responders to take me to the landing deck on the building where I'd had my accident.
The first responder didn't agree at first but when ReNight asked him to, he did as he was told.
Arriving at the roof, I spotted Anneliese standing beside a man in his eighties with short white hair, that had replaced much of his natural orange. Both were working together to look at the blood pool on the PTV, examining how the man on it had died.
"Hawthorne, how are you?"
"Brat, I told you already! Don't disturb me while I'm working!"
"Isn't Anneliese disturbing you?"
"Why would an assistant be a disturbance?"
"Ha! Maybe you should get your memory checked, Anneliese isn't your assistant, I sent her to you to train her."
"..." Hawthorne stared at Annelisese who avoided his gaze with a shy look and then pleaded with me to shut up.
"She can learn better as my assistant." Hawthorne replied trying to salvage the situation but I didn't buy it.
Even with lifespans reaching two hundred years, Hawthorne could only recall information about his current case or longtime friends.
"Have you extracted data from the black box yet?"
"Already done. My assistant has it, she'll send it to you."
"Anneliese if you would?" I asked and she nodded but Gracewell interrupted.
"Sergeant I told you I was handling this case! Why are you interfering?"
"Correction Lieutenant Gracewell, I'm not interfering, I'm supervising."
"Supervising whom?"
"Supervising you."
"..." A fire of anger lit up in Gracewell's eyes but because she couldn't say anything to make me quit she just copied what I did.
"Intern Anneliese, could you send me the data from the black box?"
I rolled my eyes at her antics and thought, 'At least now I can find out if I was hallucinating.'