Anneliese quickly sent the two of us the recording of the PTV.
Connecting to the server I began scrubbing through the older recordings of the PTV that were mostly about people talking around in the back seats.
And soon I reached the point in the recording that was me and Anneliese talking.
I closed my eyes and began to focus on every noise that was being made.
It began with me talking.
'Are you alright?'
'Are you alright?!'
But in the background, I could also hear the constant hum of the propulsion systems along with the wind whistling by as well as the other PTVs on the flyway as they passed us or followed us.
'Are you-'
'What do you think? You left me alone for a week in a place I knew nothing about! I thought you were going to take responsibility!? The first day I studied for the tests thinking I'd surprise you when you'd be back since I thought you were busy because of the case, but by the fifth day? I was so angry that I think I wanted to toss you out from the landing doc-'
*THUNK*
Since I could also see the audio waveform I opened my eyes and watched the waveform for the last few seconds. With it I could tell this *thunk* was from the same PTV because of how loud it was and how the waveform of the audio had picked up many other higher frequencies that would've been lost given the distance between us and the second PTV.
There was silence for a bit before another *THUD* sounded and then soon after there was a loud, *BBBBBOOOOOOMMMMMM* that was reminiscent of an explosion. Most likely the explosion of the PTV in front of me from when it crashed into the building.
I paused the audio and analyzed the waveform of the audio in front of me.
The sound was distant and quite clearly metallic in nature, it also bore a striking resemblance with the sound that was produced when a body had fallen on my PTV. But the problem was that it wasn't clear.
It could be anything from a car door being pulled shut to a body falling onto the roof of the car.
The trouble for me was that to prove that it was a body falling on the car and not its door closing I had to find the body that had dropped onto it.
'Where did the body go?'
Feeling someone staring at me I turned to look at Gracewell but she turned away as soon as I did.
'Did she want to tell me something? Whatever it is, it probably wasn't important. Hopefully.'
"Did you find anything Dave?" Anneliese asked as she stepped in front of me.
"No, not yet. I'm looking for another body, but somehow I can't find it."
"There was another body?!" Anneliese asked with surprise.
"I think so."
"It's just instincts then?"
"I trust them quite a bit. They've helped me through some tight situations before."
"Hmm...but they could also be wrong you know?"
"Could be. We'll see. Can you give me the rundown on the details of the body?"
"Sure, the victim's name is, Prometheus. A civilian from the outskirts as his lack of a family name suggests. He worked at Mnemosyne Memory Restoration. Hawthorne concluded that the person jumped off of his own violation. There are no fingerprints anywhere on the man's clothing that are not his own, and he died instantly when he landed head-first on the roof of the PTV."
"Good, that was a decent summary." I nodded in appreciation.
"Now what?"
"For you. You're going to stay with Hawthorne and keep me updated on the status of the individual who was killed. I will on the other hand go visit our dear business from the roof of which this person jumped."
"Roger that Sarg!" Anneliese saluted me and broke into a soft giggle as she turned around and left to go visit Hawthorne.
'They are too similar.'
'Both act to cover up things they don't want to remember.'
'I wonder how much longer they'll pretend to be something they're not.'
I turned around and walked towards Gracewell, she had something that I needed.
"Lieutenant, Gracewell a moment of your time please."
"I am billed by the minute Sergeant, so if you want a consultation it better be qui-"
"You still have my AeroStrider locked up in evidence."
"..." Gracewell's hands paused for a second as her lips puckered.
'She's thinking of an excuse because she forgot, isn't she?'
Gracewell looked back up in my eyes and spoke in a low tone, "I had ordered for it to be released, unfortunately, it was delayed because no one had picked it up even after I repeatedly sent out notifications for someone to."
'Ha! As if I'm going to let you gaslight me.'
"I see. Then please send me a list of those notifications, I would like to have a copy."
"Will do." Gracewell spoke with full confidence.
'Huh? Am I confused about something? Did I really miss out on those notifications?'
'...maybe my old AR glasses were faulty?'
'Or maybe she's just lying.'
"Could I borrow your HoverSteed in the meantime?" I asked.
"You may not. I need it for my own investigation."
*sigh*
"Alright, then can you send a ticket to the evidence department to free my AeroStrider so that I can pick it up?"
"It will take about three days since it has been moved into long-term evidence after no one picked it up."
"..." 'What the hell. You didn't have to do that.'
I took a deep breath to calm myself and nodded as thanks before walking away to the edge of the landing pad.
Connecting to Vanessa, I ordered a HoverBoard to drive around the block.
After waiting for a few minutes, a platform with a steering handlebar attached to one end of it floated up, to my location, from where I stepped forward leisurely onto the platform confident that it would bear my weight.
The platform had four thrusters underneath it which would help orient the speed and the direction of movement of the HoverBoard as I moved along with it.
Tilting the handlebar slightly forward I found the platform moving at a comfortable pace which I relaxed into as I moved towards the building that had the logo of a large brain on it.
The same logo that matched the one on the ID card of the employee who died jumping off the building.
'Why did you jump from here, Prometheus?'
'What gave you the courage to choose your own office as the place of your death? Did you want to draw attention to something?'
I floated along the HoverBoard path and soon crossed the flyway, ending up right in front of the landing deck of Mnemosyne Memory Restoration.
'Let's see what secrets you hold.'
Greeting the Cadets guarding the area I landed on the landing deck and left my HoverBoard in parking mode for it to park itself. I bent over slightly to explore the landing deck which was officially a point of interest from where the deceased had jumped off of.
Finding nothing in the area marked as evidence I tried to see if there was anything I could find myself using the scanning feature of my AR glasses but found nothing except that I was standing in front of expensive soundproof glass doors that opened on their own to let me in.
I walked into the lounge ahead and felt the doors shut behind me as all the noise of the flyway vanished. And that was quite the feat when you realized we were on the PTV rung of traffic, the worst one where everyone drove with their horns blaring all the time.
"Greetings Mister…?" A receptionist immediately greeted me without actually looking at me since she seemed to be busy with something on the side, 'Are they this understaffed that they have to work so hard even after a suicide? Or is it just some last-minute coverup because of the suicide?'
"Dave, my name is Dave and I work with the-"
The receptionist's head snapped in my direction as she stared at every detail about me causing her eyes to widen like saucers when she realized who I was.
"Da- da- da- Dave!? Sergeant Dave!?" The receptionist almost screamed surely alerting everyone in the office.
"Yes, but I would like it if you kept your voice a little lower please, I'm not deaf."
"Yes, apologies, my bad. I'm sorry. I profusely apologize for having offended you, sir."
The receptionist got up and was about to bow down to me when I held her and stopped her as I said, "It's alright, I understand that you were busy with your work, please don't mind me and carry on. Could you point me in the right direction if I want to know more about the employee who jumped off of your landing deck out there?"
"...?" The receptionist looked at me with confusion as I rephrased my words like I was talking to a child.
"You know suicide?"
"Yes, but if I may ask, what of it?"
"What…?"
The receptionist and I looked at each other for a few moments as we simultaneously realized what had happened.
"THERE WAS A SUICIDE ON OUR LANDING DECK?"
"YOU DIDN'T KNOW A SUICIDE OCCURRED ON YOUR LANDING DECK?"
Both of us were rather shocked at the fact that the office still hadn't realized there had been a suicide at the landing deck so I confirmed again from the now trembling and already tearing receptionist.
"You really didn't know there was a suicide?"
*NOD* *NOD*
"Are you sure you don't just have a memory problem?"
*SHAKE* *SHAKE*
"What did the police Cadets outside tell you when they cordoned off the area?"
"I...I wasn't paying attention…."
"Oh my god…." As soon as those words left my mouth, the receptionist began to bawl her eyes out and collapsed to the floor.
I hurriedly held her and tried to comfort her but it was to no avail.
'Isn't this much crying for a random employee of your office too much? Did they love each other or something? Or is she just mentally unstable?'
"What happened here? What is this about suicide?" A manly voice that emerged from the pathway on the left of the reception broke my attempts at trying to console the receptionist.
"Evelyn! What happened? Did something happen to your family!?" the man asked.
'Oh? He knows the name of his employee?' I remarked in my brain since he was dressed loosely enough to either be the boss of the place or on his way out of the place.
He was wearing a white shirt, unbuttoned till his third button, sleeves rolled up messily, hair set using a gel but even that was messy, his pants were jeans but they seemed a little old fashioned with the tears, and a fruity smell wafted from him which was probably a perfume or an aftershave but overall there was no sign of anything being wrong with him.
"Who are yo-" The man attempted to question me but the words were stuck in his throat when he looked at me.
"Ser- Sergeant Dave!?" The man looked at me shocked.
"Yes, in the flesh."
"What brings you here Sergeant?" The man asked, getting up along with Evelyn the receptionist.
'If they're acting, they're doing a pretty good job at it.'
"There was a suicide right outside the office, a man, your employee, I assume since he had an ID card, Prometheus, jumped off of the landi-"
"Prometheus! What!? Why!? When!? How!?"
"...Please remain calm, I want to ascertain this once again, did you not know about the death of your employee Prometheus before I informed you about it?"
*shake* *shake*
The man shook his head furiously tears also threatening to spill out of his eyes.
'What's wrong with this place? Why are they working so much that they couldn't even see the death of their own employee when they clearly love him so much?! Did he really kill himself because of stress? Or was there a scuffle involved with the second person I imagined?'
'What a troublesome case. Everything seems to be against me. That Sherlock quote doesn't do me good now does it?'
'A missing body I seem to have hallucinated, and people who haven't even heard about the body that was already found, what is going on here.'