The elevator ride to the top floor of the capitol building, where Mayor Hendricks tended to his office affairs, took approximately thirty minutes. To accommodate the wait, seats, and snacks and water dispensaries were provided within the unit. Superior Orion Yates took advantage of both amenities during the ride. He was only accompanied by a few other passengers, most likely employees, and thankfully, they did not try to spark up a conversation with him. Orion disliked mingling with civilians. The typical sports and interstellar politics that were commonly brought up, annoyed and turned him off socially. Coincidentally, a game of Panelball was on the screen just above the elevator doors. Panelball, or more commonly referred to as P-ball, was the daughter sport of traditional basketball. Only, in Panelball, there was an extra hoop in the center of the court, erected eight feet into the air by a thin rubber pole. Surrounding the court were invisible panels that would light up different colors at random for a limited amount of time. If a player managed to rebound the ball off of one of these glowing panels and into the center hoop, they would score and get a score multiplier based on the color of the panel that was hit by the ball. Orion was not interested in watching sports, though he found his eyes observing the men running around the court throwing a ball at an invisible wall that would light up occasionally, with an absent mind that almost unwillingly stuck to the screen.
Orion eventually snapped himself out of it and moved his eyes over to the timer and current floor reading below the screen. Still Twenty minutes left. The other passengers were quietly indulged in their handheld screens except for one woman who was standing directly in front of the doors. She held a cup of some steamy beverage in her hand and a parcel in the other. Orion could tell by her stiffness and unwavering composure while standing there despite knowing the length of the ride, that she was not entirely human, if at all. He could see in the reflection of the doors that she did blink occasionally, but other than that, virtually no other movements could be detected. Orion passively concluded that she may be a bio-mechanical artificial intelligence person (BMAIP), a common sight within government buildings such as this one.
Orion found himself trying with great difficulty to keep his mind from wandering into itself, and he dare not close his eyes for too long. His last rescue mission was a critical failure. On top of that, the life of one of his closest squad members was lost, and in one of the most gruesome of ways that he had the misfortune of witnessing with his own eyes. Nepatunio, or Nep, as they called him for simplicity reasons, had been captured within a teflon fibronic box trap; a contraption that sealed itself, then slowly decreased in size once it was activated by a certain weight placed inside of it. Nep was six foot five and nearly three hundred pounds. The box had shrunk to about the size of an ice chest with zero resistance to the mass it contained. Orion had fell to his knees that day, unable to speak let alone scream out in terror at the fate of his friend. He could remember hearing the breaking of tree branches and the grind of stones, only there were no trees or moving stones nearby and it took Orion a minute to realize the sounds were coming from inside the box trap. When the locals of the area had deactivated the box, allowing it to expand back to it's original size and open the chamber door, the air was filled with screams of terror from both men and women and all Orion could do was look away and barely contain a rage filled scream of his own. The tragic event and subsequent events for the duration of the mission, continued to intrude his mind. He even tried to return his attention back to the game of panelball, but it seemed that once his mind had allowed those thought pulses to the front of his thinking priority, the stronger in persistence they became and harder it was for him to push them to the back of his mind.
He considered heading to a psyon, a psychological surgeon or mind surgeon, and have the intruding thought pulses surgically erased, though, this did come with a risk of permanent amnesia or memory loss in other unwanted areas. An alternative was having them extracted, completely removed from his mind. However, the thoughts could, and will most likely be saved to a cloud and sold. Orion would rather destroy those thoughts, and now that he thinks of it, there are plenty of thoughts and memories he'd like destroyed.
When the elevator came to a halt and the doors slid open, the other two passengers got up and exited except for Orion and the BMAIP, who stood there unmoving with her cup in her hand and her head now looking up at the screen as the doors closed and the elevator continued its ascension, with five minutes left until the very top floor. An invisible weight in the air had been lifted once the other two passengers left the elevator and Orion found it easier to clear his mind for a few moments until the elevator started to slow down again.
Once the smooth moving machine came to a halt on the last floor, and the doors slid open without a sound, the BMAIP struts out stiffly, heading straight down the faintly, neon lit corridor. Orion tailed her all the way to the doors on the right wall of the corridor of which she turned to face and without ever once glancing behind her at Orion as he caught up to her. The doors slid open after a short moment of video verification and the BMAIP strut into the office of Mayor Hendricks, Orion entering not long after her.
Orion couldn't see the mayor behind the thick cloud of black vapor that had spewed from his mouth the moment Orion walked in, but Orion knew that once the vapor cloud had cleared, a dark man with a brick built structure of a face would be revealed. The BMAIP set the cup and parcel down on the desk in front of Mayor Hendricks as Orion made his way to be seated, and sure enough, by the time he had taken his seat, the cloud of black vapor had dissipated and Mayor Hendricks' busy, black eyes gazed back at him.
"Nice to see you again, Superior Yates." Hendricks' voice was like listening to the soothing rumble of a brand new muscle type engine of a Ford Celeston.
"Likewise, Mayor." Orion responds with a slight nod of his head. Hendricks takes a sip from the cup that the BMAIP had set in front of him and grunts in satisfaction.
"You might think I called you in here with another simple and easy search and rescue mission", Hendricks begins, "but I assure you, this one will be far from simple. I assume you'd enjoy a challenge."
Orion was once again forced to think of his former squad member, Nepatunio. The bloody image of Nep, crushed into more than a third of his size, flashed once more in his head. He wanted to cuss at Hendricks for making the assumption that this line of work was some kind of game and that he lusted for an increase in difficulty, even at the expense of his squad members lives. But Hendricks, who only ever saw the matters of state propositions, the passing of state laws and communal affairs, didn't know any better.
"No mayor", Orion finally says, "as a search and rescue operative, the lesser the challenge and easier the rescue of someones life, the better. That being said, I will accept any challenge if it means that I have a chance at saving someones life."
"Of course", Hendricks gazes at Orion admirably then blows out another huge black cloud of vapor before continuing, "there are plenty of lives to save on this mission, twelve to be exact. They are all law officials ranking from experior to superior, and they are all scattered across a dead city located four hours north of here."
"A dead city?" Orion asks with a raised eyebrow. The term had never entered either of his ear canals in his life.
"You know, like a…ghost town. It's economically inoperable. Dead." Hendricks tried his best to explain what he considered common knowledge to a younger man who, like other young men of his age, only witnessed thriving cities of satiable populations and very little, if any, visual contact with poverty and famine.
"Anyway", Hendricks continued, "the place is a shithole, basically. It was run down by the scum and corruption that plagued its once thriving streets. The corruption led to gang violence growing out of control, drug use and addiction at an unprecedented high- no pun intended- and this led to most of the companies and business owners leaving and or going out of business. A good portion of law officials who refused to succumb relocated and the remaining were left to fend for their lives in an attempt to protect any innocent civilians that remained in the city. Ones that couldn't leave. Needless to say that eventually most of the remaining law enforcement officers had perished, and rapidly, according to the brain map activity recording timelapse.
"A force that was once five thousand men and women strong, is now twelve. According to the timelapse, at first it seemed that law enforcement had successfully eliminated hostile threats all around the city as brain maps that were determined hostile, dwindled into nothing. All threats seemed to be eliminated. But then the brain maps of our law officials darkened as well. They seemed to just be dying for no explainable reason."
"What about the cloud?" Orion asks, "I'm sure some Highperiors were able to dissect the moments before death from the officials to see what happened."
"I did manage to get into contact with some Highperiors over at the cloud, and all they gave me was this single memory still " Hendricks taps his finger on the desk which functioned as large touch screen when activated to do so. The mayor slides a digital document across the screen towards Orion, who leans forward in his chair. The image was slightly blurred but not due to image quality, but rather, the movement of the subject from the perspective of the victim. Upon closer examination, Orion could make out that he was looking at someones face, barely made out from the total blackness behind it, however, the features of this person appeared drastically off. They did not appear to be human or at least any human that he's ever seen. It was a three quarters side angle and the subject seemed to be in mid sprint towards the right of the victim. It was difficult to tell due to how dark the overall image was, but it seemed that the persons right arm was outstretched and a flash of light concealed his hand. Orion quickly determined that the unknown person was aiming and firing a handgun while running, and that the light at his hand was muzzle flash. Upon closer study of the face, the bone structure was morbidly protuberant through the mud colored skin that hung loosely under the eyes. The eye sockets were prominently visible and folds of skin bagged under his eye holes which contained beads of glowing, light brown and hints of green irises. The rear of his mandible, where both sides connected just under the cheek bones, were positioned and elongated down much lower than normal. The back of his skull slightly protruded outward and sagged over the back of his neck. Orion described him in his head as sculpted jaggedly out of clay. The sight of this mysterious persons head was just an irregular shape that deeply unsettled Orion, but what drew him to the conclusion that the person- or creature- in the image was of true malicious nature, was the delighted and joyful smile carved into his harrowing sculpture of a face.
"This horrific, seemingly disfigured person", Hendricks says, feeling that Orions study of the memory image was long enough, "was the last sight of this particular law official before he was murdered."
"And we have no idea who this person in the image may be?" Orion asks.
"Not a damn clue." Hendricks takes a break from his thermal vape with a sip from his cup. The BMAIP was standing so still by the wall that Orion forgot she was even there until she decided to fold her hands in front of her stomach.
"My last contact", Hendricks starts again, "was Sheriff Clackamans. He was the head of the enforcement in the city and last I spoke with him he had pledged that before he fell to any kind of corruption, he'd shoot himself in the head."
"What ultimately became of him?" Orion asks, still examining the image.
"I don't know. His brain map is still detectable. Apparently, he's still alive. We just can't get into contact with him anymore. I don't know what's out there that they're dealing with, but whatever it is I am confident that you and your team will get to the bottom of it and bring our honorable law officials back home alive." Hendricks touches the screen and the memory still retracted back into a digital folder. He then pulls up and slides another digital document across the desk with his finger. The digital document impressively mimicked the movement of what would've been a piece of paper sliding across the table hundreds of years ago. Orion spread his pointer and thumb over the screen, expanding the document so he could read it and examine the details better.
At the top of the document was the general information of the location. The largest letters read: THE VILLE project. Under the title was a basic map outline of the city and below that was an image of the same map, only dark and dotted with small, hexagonal shapes. This was a screen image of a brain map activity scanning. The orange, hexagonal shapes were the brain maps of the law officials. Brain maps were the preferred alternative to fingerprint identification. They were much more accurate and couldn't be burned off like fingerprints could. This eliminated non record having criminals flying under the radar with phantom identities. Even if a brain map was not scanned in upon birth, special satellites were able to scan the earth and retrieve any formerly unidentified brain maps by detecting the unique brainwaves. Human surveillance was at its peak with the introduction of the brain map cloud, disallowing anyone from escaping sight or flying under the radar unless actual death occurred. Once a brain map was uploaded to the cloud, it could, and often times was, dissected and reviewed by Highperior officials concerning its content such as memories and recurring thoughts. The Highperiors have assured the public in the past that only criminals and persons of interest would be subject to brain map dissection for possible leads on crimes, but the public knew that was a lie, at least to a great extent. Advertisements for products and other desirables based on what a person had thought of recently, began to present themselves sneakily to an unknowing citizen who would usually dismiss it as coincidence. However, once it became the norm, that was obviously no longer the case. Orion was born with his brain map uploaded to the cloud, and thus, he knew not the importance of what was once a sacred sanctuary of the mind that no one else was allowed within.
"Why did it take so long to realize that these brain maps were still active after the city fell?" Orion asks after a brief moment of silence.
"Remember when I said my last contact was the sheriff?" Hendricks says, "he was the one who tried to contact the capitol before me. For whatever reason, they tucked his message into the back of the file cabinet. I guess he finally got tired of waiting and decided he was going to contact me directly and I had no idea the severity of the situation. I thought everyone had left after Highperiors informed me that they abandoned support for the city. So I ordered a brain map scanning of the city and sure enough, not only was sheriff Clackamans still there, but so were other law officials. I sent a message back asking why he's still there and what's his situation look like, and that was that. No reply yet." Hendricks blew more vapor out of his face. "He must be living off of some kind of stored rations or something. That last message was over two weeks ago and his attempt to contact Highperiors of the capitol was a month before that."
"So either we're running out of time or it's already too late." Orion says as he places his handheld screen over the document on the desk and touches a button on the screen. The document was instantly downloaded to his device for later reference.
"I've been keeping an eye on the brain map activity of the city", Hendricks assures, "the sheriff and the others are miraculously still alive as of this morning. They seem to be in fixed positions spread out all over the place. I'll keep you're map log updated hourly so should any changes occur, you'll know as soon as possible."
"Sounds good", Orion gets up from his seat. "I'm just confused as to why this matter wasn't placed in file of urgency."
"My guess is as good as yours," Hendricks gets up from his seat as well. "I urge you to be extremely cautious of your surroundings once inside the city of darkness, superior. Three thousand law officials were killed in a place where no other brain maps or brainwaves are detected. Not even small animals." Hendricks finished that last part of his sentence gravely and reaches out his large hand.
Orion grasps Hendricks' hand firmly, and though, he could sense the mayors concern for he and his team, it was also warmly accompanied by confidence in their experience and capabilities.
Orion left the office and took the half an hour elevator ride back down the one thousand flights to regroup with his expert exclusive team that were waiting below. This would be his first rescue mission since the last and first failed mission, and since his start in the Search and Rescue division of Intra-Earth Operations, Orion Yates has never felt so uncertain.