A warning flashed on the screen on Juna's and Piroska's communication devices. "I just need to check the time because of something will come up for me later." Piroska said to the people she was chatting with. She looked at it then glanced at Juna, who was heading to the closer hallway to the entrance.
"They're not picking up and it's not clear where he's going or why." Piritta said, noticeably worried. The map on the console screen updated which showed that Piroska and Juna were still in the cafeteria, but Damien was walking with someone down a hall.
"It's a problem with Human World technology not being up to our level to not draw attention." Piper said dejectedly. "Maybe Piroska is having a lovely conversation with those people, but also our devices aren't stealth enough." She said and grimaced.
"I couldn't follow Damien where he's going." Juna said. Her message appeared on the screen.
"We see that on the map, but do you know who that is with him?" Piritta asked.
"His former manager."
"Is this person a threat?"
"I'm not sure and there's not much time- he could be in trouble." Juna quietly said, but in a panic.
"Can you go through that hallway?"
"I wasn't told I couldn't."
"Alright then. Try going there; Piroska can keep talking with those people for now if she can gather intel about the area but we might need her to join the search."
"Yes. I'll head out." Juna said and ended the call. She walked back into the cafeteria.
"I need to check something, but you can keep talking with them if you keep your eye on the time." She said to Piroska. "Hello. I'm one of her friends, but need to check something." She quickly introduced herself to the other people that Piroska was talking with, whom Damien would've recognized as a few of his former coworkers, and friends or spouses that they brought with them. They quickly greeted her and returned to their conversation. Juna left for the other hallway.
"How did you and her know that coworker; Damien, I think he was?" One of an employee's friends said. "The manager must've been surprised to see him return."
"Juna and I knew each other for years, but I recently met Damien after my return to the city." Piroska said.
The people she was talking with looked curiously. "Were you away from the city for months at a time?" An employee asked. This employee looked to be in her thirties and had medium-length white hair with light blue eyes. She wore thick-framed glasses, and was dressed like a vampire with a suit and flowing cape. Her hair had light blue lowlights and was tied back into a ponytail.
"It's been eight years!" Piroska boasted. "I traveled a lot; mostly lived in remote places and was busy sightseeing but I also researched. I rarely watched TV, so I don't know what's popular.
"Wow! You must've seen so much!"
"I have!"
"Where are some of the places you went?" This question put Piroska's ability to improvise to the test, but she quickly and confidently gave an answer. "I started out traveling much of the country in a van, but I hiked the Appalachian trail. I went out west to see the Mojave Desert, but I stayed away from Vegas since I was avoiding big cities. However, I tried trekking Death Valley, but I knew when to head back."
"Wow! Hahahaha... You're a lot better at hiking than I am!" The employee said and laughed before she reached for another cookie and took a bite of it. "Did you go to other countries too?" She asked.
"I toured the parks of Patagonia, camped at the Kimberley of Australia, and spent months in the lush landscapes of Saint Helena. I also spent part of the years stationed in South Georgia Island." Piroska confidently recited some of the geographical knowledge that she retained.
"I don't know where some of those places are, but that's so impressive!" The employee chuckled.
"Thanks! Have you visited any places for fun or a mission?" Piroska asked.
"Hahaha yeah. I visited a space museum recently!"
"That sounds fun too!"
"During the years you were traveling, were there any places you wanted to get to but couldn't?"
"I didn't have enough time or money to visit the fjords. Oh, I'm pining for the fjords, but I'll have to look for a job!" Piroska said dramatically, feigning fainting, but the employee she was talking with laughed.
"Great use of that reference, and an apt commentary on the corporate grind!"
Piroska looked confused by the laughing. "What's the connection with what I said?"
"'Pining for the fjords' came up naturally and can mean dying. Uhh... From the Dead Parrot sketch of Monty Python? It's one of the most well-known." The coworker tried to explain further, but looked embarrassed and went quiet for a few moments.
"That must've aired while she was traveling." The employee's friend politely told her.
Piroska nodded; "It's cool and I get what you're saying now!" She chuckled. "I'm wonder though, did you and Damien talk to each other much?" Their conversation continued.
"He and I were friendly acquaintances. We talked at lunch, and outside of work I sometimes met up for his tabletop gaming group. We and some of our friends went together to UNIX user groups." The employee said, now sounding more confident.
"I knew him from those groups." The employee's friend said.
Piroska's eyes lit up in excitement, though not literally in her disguise. She thought about what Damien told her about UNIX; its origins and its spread reminded her of Juna's own path. Just as UNIX had several variants, Juna had several students that Piroska also knew and worked with. "I'd love to go to one, but I don't think the schedule would work out for me." She said.
"I hope it can work out for you some day. He was in my department, but I wasn't there the day his disappearance happened. However, I know a coworker that claimed to witness it." The employee said.
Piroska's eyes widened a bit, but she hid her excitement over a potential lead. "If that was someone he knew well, I hope they had enough time to say goodbye." She thought.
"There was enough time, but the coworker I knew that witnessed it said Damien tried to tell him something but got cut off by a portal before then."
"Has there been any public statement about what happened from the company?" She asked before she reached for another cupcake to eat.
"There's something on the bulletins board here and in the lobby." The employee said, pointing to a large board labeled the "community board" across the room.
"Thanks, I'll take a look." Piroska walked over to the board. She saw posters and cards pinned to it of state and local events. One of the local ones was a Halloween event on it. There were other posters with the same company logo and name on them. "It must be this company." She thought. One of them was of this Halloween party.
"New and departed members" a long and narrow strip of construction paper read. Below it was a card with the names of new employees on it with a message to welcome them to the company. "Well, that's nice!" She thought, but the card next to it drew her attention further. "Recently departed employees" read the top of the card. It listed the names of the employees and the dates they departed, and she found the name she was looking for on it.
She was taken aback when next to these cards, she saw another poster of a familiar-looking man. He had scruffy black hair and had brown eyes, and was wearing a button-down shirt and tie. It was a missing person report. "Name: Damien Beasty". "Age: 30 years old" "Height: 5 ft 9 in." "Went missing..." She thoroughly read the details, but the only information it gave about him going missing was that he was last seen at his workplace around noon.
"That's the official narrative." Another employee at the event said. He was standing next to Piroska and also looking at the posters.
"Whoa! Dude! Has there been anything in the news about this?" She asked.
He looked confused at her for a few moments but answered. "One of the last coworkers he talked with tried to bring it up with the local news but got dismissed for a lack of proof."
"Really? Wouldn't that have caused a panic?"
"If it were taken seriously, but it's better that it's not" The man gruffly said before he quickly walked off to the table to eat a cupcake. He took a few steps then looked towards her again. "I saw you chatting with Glorinda. Be careful that she doesn't drag you into her investigations."
Piroska also walked back to the table and continued a conversation with the employee she was previously talking with. "So, someone I chatted with for a moment said your name is Glorinda and that you're trying to investigate something. Is that true?"
"That's me and I don't deny it. I have a reputation around here for wanting to investigate the paranormal." She said.
"Did any of you get any details about what caused Damien to disappear? Whether it was magic, an advanced technology, or something else?"
"That's what I hope to find out!" Glorinda boldly said. Moments afterwards, the man that was looking at the bulletin board walked over to join the conversation. He looked critically towards her."
"She doesn't work here. We never met her before, and you may have been telling her stuff- how do you know she doesn't work for the media?" He asked her, then turned towards Piroska.
"She recently returned to the city after sightseeing and being stationed for years." Glorinda said. "I met one of your coworkers shortly after I returned from my travels, so that's why I was invited here." Piroska added, but the man was still suspicious. Other people also looked at the conversation suspiciously.
"That coworker you claim to be friends with got taken in for questioning. He claimed to be the guy who went missing so he could be undercover too."
"He got past the security system. He must've used his own account to log in." Another person said, but another argued that the person that claimed to be Damien was an impostor that stole his credentials.
"Paranormal lady, isn't this like that other incident you tried to investigate?" That person asked Glorinda.
"Another incident like this?" Piroska asked.
"Eight years ago in another state, there was a graduate student that suddenly went missing when she loaded a tape into a computer." Glorinda said. "Someone brought it to the media in a sloppy way that caused a mass panic around using computers while I tried to investigate the truth."
"Will you try to bring the recent one up to the media?" Piroska asked. "She described my disappearance!" She thought, but she concealed her fear behind a mostly stoic expression.
"Only if management allows it, and that may not be likely. Regardless, I want to investigate how these tapes work and if they work the same way between these incidents, find if they're linked, and find out how Damien returned- if that was him for the sake of knowledge."
"This is why you won't be taken seriously." The inquiring employee sighed. "What's that supposed to mean?" Glorinda grumbled at him. Piroska cautiously stepped away to eat another cupcake after a new batch was brought in.
I continued walking through the hall to where I'd meet my fate. My former manager was walking beside me. He was quiet but surely had a lot of questions in stock for me. His appearance and his demeanor reminded me of Gerald, though not as tall though still taller than me, his hair was more gray and he was dressed in a suit and tie.
"Huh? Do you hear footsteps?" I asked him. I heard one or two sets of them walking behind us; one close by and the other further away, just barely in earshot.
We turned around, and saw a one of my former coworkers standing just a few paces behind us. Immediately after we looked at him, he jumped back a step. He could've been a good basketball player with how high he jumped. "It's true! I saw it happen! I witnessed Damien's disappearance-- Damien?! How are you back?" He said.
"You know not to butt in!" My former manager said to him and glared.
"I'm as astonished as you are." I calmly said to the former coworker, trying to play it cool.
My former manager looked irritated and suspiciously at him, but he relented. "What do you know? We can keep talking while we go to the private meeting room."
We thanked the manager and continued to a brisk walk towards the meeting room. "I thought I heard a second pair of footsteps, but I might've mistaken them for yours." I said to my former coworker. I momentarily glanced backwards; there was a large trash can by one of the doors and a potted plant by another, but nothing of interest behind us.
"I'm trying to follow them but hiding spots are few." Juna quietly said into the device on her wrist. She was crouched over and hiding behind a trash can. Immediately after she spoke, she looked ahead again; Damien, one of his former coworkers and his former manager were still in sight but growing further away.
"Scan the closest rooms to you." Piritta suggested. Juna promptly scanned them on both sides of the hallway.
"Check if the closer one is unlocked." Piritta added.
"Damien and the others are about to enter a room- I can see it."
"You need time to hide and plan his rescue."
Juna looked reluctant as each second passed, her student she tried to look after walked further away, but she promptly entered the nearest room since it was empty and its door was unlocked. It was a small room that had janitor supplies in it on the shelves and more in the cupboards.
"Your timing was just right; another person entered the hall and would've seen you. They're still heading in this direction, so look for somewhere to hide." Piritta said. Juna looked around; there was a desk that was just the right size to hide behind. She went over to the desk and brought up her concern: "By now he must be in the meeting room. I may need to use magic to disguise myself."
"That worked when you brought him here, but they could be on alert towards any unfamiliar looking staff members."
"I'm hiding in a phone booth to talk. Where are you?" Piroska asked; she just joined the line and spoke in a hushed, cautious tone.
"In a janitor's office. What did you find?" Juna asked her.
"I met a few people that told me clues. I had a nice conversation with someone who is trying to investigate how the tapes work, and uhh... she brought up my disappearance."
"Does she know that was you?" Piritta asked in an urgent tone.
"No, but she knows enough to put me on edge."
"When Damien returns, we should ask him if he might know who that is trying to investigate." Piritta said. "You are both authorized to use magic for concealment and to get closer to Damien's location. Follow emergency protocols if you are spotted."
"Alright!" Piroska said, but Juna was silent. The door to the room she was hiding in opened. A janitor entered and turned on the ceiling light. The janitor walked closer towards the desk, but was simply looking for where to find a spray bottle on the shelves. She sighed with relief after the janitor turned off the light, left the room and closed the door.
"Which room is he in? I can try something." She said into the communicator.
"Four doors down from you on the same side of the hall."
"Thanks." Juna said. She peeked out the door, and went back into the room. A stream of magical energy radiated from her hands and she focused it intently to reach through the walls of four more rooms. The amount of concentration that was required increased as the stream of magic got further away, it started to drain energy from her. When she sensed that it was in the room she was looking for, she had to use the magic stream to feel around for any electronic devices she could control to see or hear what was happening.
"I hear him." She said into the communicator.
"Voluntary resignation? What's voluntary about getting sucked into a portal when I was calling out for help?" I asked in indignation, and barely kept myself from raising my voice. We were in a spare office that was being used as an impromptu meeting room. It was a contemporary office but with a gray and white color scheme though posters added some color to the walls. Shelves had electronic equipment on them, and the cabinets probably had more.
"Oh, Beasty. You weren't expected here. Somehow you passed through security." My former manager said. I was ready to confront him.
"I didn't know that tape would-- do what it did!"
"I'm not here for a confrontation, Beasty." He said, shaking his head sideways in exasperation.
"Management is allowing you to attend the party because that is an extenuating circumstance, but on the record we said it was a resignation and put up posters to report you went missing since-- how do you think the public would take a report about people being taken away by portals to unknown places with causes we still don't fully understand?"
"They wouldn't take it well." I quickly said.
When Piroska told me she ended up in Techlandia the same way I did, I didn't remember the aftermath but what my former manager said jogged my memory. "I remembered that similar incident from eight years ago, and the mass panic that it caused!" I said.
"Exactly. We were luckier this time. One of the coworkers told the media, and he's only on probation because what he brought up was dismissed as a Halloween hoax!"
"He risked his job over my disappearance?" I asked. The assurance I had quickly turned to guilt. "I wasn't feeling that great. If I-- if I just called in sick that morning to catch up on rest, then that wouldn't have happened." /p>
"If it weren't you, it could've been me instead, or another of us in the same department if we can assume that strange tape didn't only activate for you." The coworker said.
"Were you able to test that out without anyone else getting caught by it?" I asked.
"No. That spell-- or that program seems to work only once."
"You have no control over that, Beasty." The manager calmly said; he was still stern but was trying to be assuring.
Piroska stepped out of the phone booth with a plan in mind. For the first step, she planned to scan the perimeter of the building to look for any open windows and an opportunity to shapeshift to fly through an opening.
"Are you feeling sick?" Glorinda asked; she stood next to the phone booth and was holding a gray three-ring binder notebook. Piroska briefly jumped up in surprise.
"I may have had too many snacks. I called someone to say I wasn't feeling well." She calmly said.
Glorinda looked concerned. "Do you need somewhere to lie down?" She asked.
"I might be feeling better now, but that wouldn't hurt."
They began to walk back to the lobby. Before they did, Glorinda stopped walking and said "You sounded interested in that incident from eight years ago. I have something about that. You may have been lucky to not know about the mass panic from it." She looked excited, but Piroska hid how on edge she was feeling though she also stopped walking.
"I'm interested. Aside from it, how well-known is the incident?"
Glorinda sounded confident with her answer, but there was also a tinge of sadness to it. "The case went cold. Her family and school were interviewed, but after the mass panic related to her disappearance, media outlets were discouraged from publishing the interviews. I had to search around to find what I could. Not every media outlet caved though."
She opened her notebook which had a few pages of news clippings. A printed public relations statement from Digital Equipment Corporation that tried to assure their customers that nothing was unusual about their minicomputer line-up to contribute to the incident. Along with them were more pages of hand-written notes and diagrams about the possible mechanisms behind the tape that caused the incident. She flipped through more pages to show a missing poster.
Piroska froze for a moment when she saw the poster and her photo on it. She looked to be in the same age range as she was when she left. Her make-up and costume were just a couple of things kept her from being immediately recognizable. In the photo, she had brown hair and blue eyes, her hair was neatly styled. After a few moments, Glorinda closed the notebook.
"Piroska Lewandoska was her name. I hope that if Damien could be found, that she could be too and her case can be resolved after all these years." She said.
"You're really diligent with this." Piroska said, sounding impressed but also trying to hide her shock. "Being told about it couldn't prepare me for seeing my own missing poster!" She thought.
"Thanks! Heh. When I flipped to her missing poster again, I thought she looks like you at a first glance, but it's just a coincidence. What would she be doing at a workplace party in New Jersey? Oh well, we should keep going forward."
They continued their walk to the front lobby. Some fears were averted, but others continue.