Author note: During the writing of this chapter, the name of the setting got retconned from Techlandia to Tekterria. Renaming the setting after having written so many story chapters and articles for the wiki isn't practical, but well, Tekterria ("tech" + "terria", based on the Latin word for land "terra") gets the same point across in a less corny way. Techlandia might've worked better if this setting were entirely silly.
This rename will gradually be rolled out across the wiki, but since the setting name is in the full name of this story, I'm going to have to update each one š
"Alright, enough was cleared up that you can return to the party. We can announce that you were found." My former manager said.
"Thank you." I said; he, the coworker and I started walking back to the cafeteria.
"If you want to return to your job, you'll have to apply again. That shouldn't be an issue with your experience and reliability."
"I found a new opportunity after I disappeared, so I'm here to give closure. I wish I could've given my two weeks' notice, but that didn't happen because you know." I nonchalantly said. Briefly I let myself be a few steps behind the other two to speak a quick and quiet message into the communicator "I'm okay and heading back to the party."
"Well, congratulations on that." He said.
"I'll miss you but I'm glad for you!" The former coworker said.
"Hi, Damien!" Piroska quickly spotted me and waved when I entered the cafeteria.
"No way- but he went missing in a portal!" One of my former coworkers said.
"Wow, so it is possible to return after ending up in that portal! Welcome back!" Glorinda said and greeted me. I greeted her and the other people in the cafeteria; former coworkers, their friends, spouses and relatives.
"Yeah, it's him. We can now remove the poster about him being missing. Beasty didn't say what happened, but he returned here on his own." My former manager said.
I chatted with Piroska and Glorinda, and they started to get me caught up on their conversation. Soon afterwards, Juna entered the cafeteria through the first hall to appear like she didn't go anywhere she shouldn't have, and she carefully approached us.
"Are you the person my friends have been talking with?" She cautiously but stoically asked Glorinda.
"That's me! My name is Glorinda, and Damien is, or was, one of my coworkers and a friend. I saw earlier you're his other friend he invited to the party. You can join in!" She said. Juna accepted, but kept her stoicism.
"Since you told us your name, I should too." Piroska said, but she sounded prepared with an alias. "I'm Pyra, and I've been told I live up to my name with my personality!" She gave in her cover story. Juna didn't hesitate either. "I'm Jenna." She said as her cover.
"Nice to meet you, Pyra and Jenna!"
The conversation was pleasant. Other people walked up to me to say they were glad that I was found and complimented my costume. I was flattered, but these moments felt bittersweet as I'd soon have to say goodbye to them for real.
"You've been away for a while, so take this." Juna handed me a couple of cookies from the table. "Don't eat them with the soup." She advised. Her voice sounded tinged with regret.
"Thanks! I only would on a dare." I said and ate the cookies, quickly but still enjoying their flavor. One was a vanilla cookie with orange frosting and brown sprinkles, and another was chocolate chip.
The conversations continued for a few more minutes until being cut off. "What happened?" Several people asked. The lights, TV and other electronics all suddenly turned off. "I assume this isn't part of the event." Piroska said and grimaced. Worried chattering filled the room, and panic could be heard from the halls and the lobby.
A receptionist rushed from the lobby to alert of the outage, but the power turned back on again. He looked as confused but relieved as the rest of us when the lights were back on. He went back to the lobby, but fear and worry still filled the room. The lights stayed on but often flickered. I looked at the TV, which was playing a horror movie in black and white, but its picture was less visible due to flickering static.
The conversations continued, but with unease. On the TV, scenes from a movie got mixed with scenes from something else for a few seconds at a time. A system administrator ran into the cafeteria. "Everyone got logged out of their shell accounts and no one can log back in, so everyone will have to stay here to be accounted for until this issue is resolved!" He warned.
"Something's not right. This isn't an ordinary electrical issue!" I asserted, and pointed him to the TV. He looked like he thought I was exaggerating. "If there were no issues with the antennae, I can call the station to check if they are having any technical issues, but you need to wait here." He said and went to the lobby.
While we waited, Piroska, Juna and I focused our attention on the TV screen for any patterns in the unusual footage and pictures that were mixed in with the movie. One of the recurring scenes that appeared about 5 seconds at a time was of three men in an office room. An older and authoritative man in a fancy office chair. Another man meekly standing off to the side, while another is seated in a chair looking resigned to his fate. The camera was filming from above in most scenes, but it lowered in another shot, and another to almost be eye-level. "Far out! Is that you on screen?" Piroska asked, sounding impressed and a bit scared at the same time.
I was taken aback, but I wanted to answer her question. It took just a couple of minutes for the movie to cut out to the mysterious footage.
"I-- I think so." I said when I saw it again. I felt a chill from it. The previous shot was in an office that looked like the one I was in. The shot I just saw was a close-up of the man seated in front of the authority figure. A close-up shot that showed that his hairstyle and the devil horns on his costume were unmistakably mine.
"I know why this happened, I'm sorry." Juna said to Piroska and me, looking down at the ground.
"Wow! I never saw anything like this!" Glorinda exclaimed; her enthusiasm cut across the room and snapped Juna out of her despair to replace it with annoyance. My former coworker's own excitement turned to brief annoyance in response to our less than enthusiastic reactions. "Hey, we could learn a lot from this and I'll be taking notes.
The tension in the room continued. Employees and their guests nervously chatted with each other. The receptionist returned to the room to confirm there were no issues with the station, but the unusual activity on the TV had to have another cause.
"I can help you investigate." Glorinda offered and grinned. She looked at Piroska, Juna and me. I nodded, but asked to talk only with my teammates first. In a corner of the room we huddled to talk it over, but the tension carried here.
"I'm worried about including her in our investigation. I'd rather not." Piroska said in a disappointed and hushed tone, the one disagreer. She noticed my surprised expression, and sighed. "She knows too much. She knows of my disappearance and even showed me my own missing person poster. She has notes about my incident and yours, notes about how the tapes work!" She added, starting to raise her voice but shushing herself. I nodded and started to hesitate, hearing how panicked she was.
"Her knowledge is impressive but concerning." Juna said.
"Certainly. Should we still ask her to join us?" I asked.
"Yes. She may be our best ally." Juna said, flatly but more confidently than my hesitation.
"I still object. Why would you want her to after what I said?" Piroska asked.
"We need her help, but couldn't we be careful to make sure no humans, including her, overhear our conversations?" I asked.
"I approve under that condition." Juna said.
Piroska sighed. "I'm outnumbered. I just ask for her to follow some rules, so no asking personal questions." Juna and I agreed.
After we wrapped up our conversation, we walked back to the volunteering investigator, and I told her our final decision. "You can join us, but let's just focus on this immediate mystery." She still looked happy to accept this, but as we were going to head out through the entrance to the cafeteria, we were stopped.
"No entry past this point except for management and administrators." A tough and stern security guard said as she stood by the entrance, but commotion continued in the background.
"Is it supposed to do that?" An employee in the room said. I turned towards that employee and saw that the TV wasn't in its original position behind the serving tables.
"We didn't set it up this time!" Another employee said. I recognized him as one of the administrators, and looked back at the security guard.
"Were they trained to handle this?!" I argued at the guard, and pointed at the TV which now integrated into the wooden console it was on which grew mechanical legs and was a few steps from where it was.
"None of the engineers or admins set this up this time?" The security guard said. She looked as stumped and unnerved as everyone else, so I believed she wasn't in on it.
"I would've liked to, but I didn't have enough time to try." Glorinda shrugged. The security guard narrowed her eyes at her, looking further displeased.
The TV integrated into the console it was on, the legs of it turned mechanical and the TV console hybrid began walking out the room. The security guard buried her face in her hands. "How can we report this without it being mistaken for a prank call?" She asked.
"I'm an administrator so that should give me the authority to investigate!" Glorinda said and confidently pulled her employee badge from one of her vest pockets. The security guard looked annoyed, but sided with us. "Do you what you have to do as long as there's no property damage, otherwise you're paying!" She told us. We all nodded in agreement.
We were in a hallway and I was leading us to the meeting room while we were trying to chase the TV-console fusion.
I looked determined, but was still worried, curious and excited. None of my training with Juna yet covered investigations like these. I only had a briefing about the rules of visiting the Human World. I assume that usually would've been enough, if everything went to plan.
Juna looked stoic but resolved and was a step ahead of me. Piroska, usually confident, walked a step behind me and looked uneasy. Glorinda was two or three steps ahead of Juna and could've been further ahead if she didn't try to remain go in her excitement.
Aside from us, the only other person we saw in the hall was a janitor, just dressed in his regular janitor uniform. He looked to be around my age, was sweeping the floors and didn't get the memo that we were allowed here.
"Where do you think you're going?" He sternly asked us, stepping right in our way and pointing a broom at us.
"Solving what's causing this incident." I said and we started to walk past him, but he caught up to us. He glared but then looked confused at me. "Aren't you the guy who went missing in a portal last week?"
"Yeah, that's me." I nonchalantly said.
"Huh. It seems you made some new friends, but who do you think you are, Mystery Incorporated?" He scoffed and looked at all of us.
Piroska and Juna blankly stared at his remark. "It's a reference to Scooby Doo." Glorinda said. She looked confused towards Juna. "You too have barely watched TV in more than 8 years?"
"Yes. I traveled the world, but there's no time to explain." Juna fibbed and she started walking ahead.
"You can't keep going ahead!" The janitor insisted. He started walking after her, but we caught up not far from the meeting room. "Iām not making this up! A TV on a console grew legs and it walked or ran through here!"
"Exactly!" Glorinda beamed, and presented her employee badge to the janitor. "I'm authorized."
The janitor promptly looked at the badge and sighed. "You better go catch it then."
"We will!" I said, and started walking ahead. "There's that excitement!" Glorinda cheerfully said, and was the first to follow along. Juna and Piroska followed suit, but more cautiously.
He watched as we headed through the hallway. "I don't get paid enough for this." He grumbled before he returned to sweeping the floor.
We arrived in the spare office that was used as a meeting room. Being in it again felt as tense as before. I flipped on the light switch; the lone ceiling light illuminated it.
Juna was the first to walk to the shelves, which had some electronics and knick knacks on it, but there was no camera on the lower shelves. "It could be on one of them." She said and pointed to the top shelves. While the rest of us could get a better view than she could, it still wasn't immediately clear. We started reaching our hands up higher than we could see to feel for it.
I started reaching the upper shelves. My mind went back to the footage that I saw on the TV. If it came from a camera in this room, it had to be on one of those shelves. My eyes widened I spotted the camera and grabbed it, first from excitement then from a sudden jolt of pain. "Ow!" I shouted as I lost touch with the camera held my hand that now had a throbbing pain in it.
"What was that?" Glorinda asked.
"Too much electrical build-up. We have to contain it." Juna said.
"You've seen these before?" Glorinda's eyes widened and she asked with a tinge of excitement.
"Yes."
"This is the first time I saw this up close for myself. I read rumors of this before. Call it a theory, but this might be an electronic glitch becoming physical." Glorinda said. Her words cut through our sense of caution; there was no point avoiding referring to the unusual activity as glitches any further.
We scrambled around the room for a container large enough to trap the camera, but not too large. An emptied box of files ought to do it. It took several minutes of fumbling around, getting on chairs or stools to reach up to the height the camera was levitating, and moving them when the camera moved. I was in just the right spot to catch it. Holding a box in one hand, the lid in the other while the other investigators carefully watched in case I stumbled.
"I got it!" I exclaimed. They cheered, and carefully helped me off of the chair I was standing on while I still held onto the box. They put the chair back in place and I set the box on the desk, but our relief turned to confusion. The box was levitating above the desk to about eye level.
"Are we going to have to go through catching it again but put it where it can't float away?" I asked. After the difficulties and pain from the first time, going through that again was the last thing I wanted to do right now.
"Perhaps we should test this hypothesis. Let's say the null hypothesis is that the glitched camera won't pass through the wall." Glorinda suggested, and she quickly wrote something down in her notes. Juna, Piroska and I agreed. Testing a null hypothesis, and whether to reject it brings me back to my days in college, but never have I tested one for something that'd be considered paranormal in this world!
She grabbed the box containing the camera and held it near the wall. Nothing seemed unusual. The box touched the wall and she pushed at it. Still nothing. "I'm going to take it out and hold it against the wall." She said. Carefully, she took the camera out of the box, grabbing it before it could float away. Patches of visible static glowed and warped around the camera, but she was unfazed by it.
We all looked in anticipation as she tested it out. She gently pressed the camera to the wall, and gasped. There was no physical resistance between the camera and the wall. She immediately put the camera back in the box. "By itself, it may be able to phase through walls, but cardboard is a shielding against that." She stated, but then looked like she had another idea. "What if we tested if a metal box would also shield it?"
"Admirable idea, but not now." Juna flatly said. Glorinda briefly looked disappointed, but then smiled again. "Just as long as they're only floating here and can't go through walls or doors, we can confine them here until this is all sorted out." She said.
It was a relief to all of us, but it still wasn't time to celebrate when we still needed to catch another electronic that we now suspect became glitched. Sprouted legs and started walking. What other explanation could there be?
"Thanks for your helping us!" I thanked her. Juna and Piroska also thanked her. "I was hesitant, but you're the right person for this." Piroska told her."
"No problem. Inviting me along made this the most exciting Halloween event I've been to in a long time!" Glorinda laughed, but then she looked serious towards us. "I'm not affected by these glitches the way that you are. Is it an increased sensitivity to electromagnetic radiation that you suddenly developed?" She looked towards me. "However, I have another hypothesis. Going into those portals like you and Piroska did has side effects, which'd imply you went through them too." She added, looking at "Jenna" and "Pyra".
"Could it be that your situation is the unusual one?" I asked.
"Hahaha-- Coming from you, that's funny!" She let out a big laugh. "However, that's also a hypothesis I have to test to determine which one is true." She said, but still cheerfully.
While we were in thought, there was a sudden knock on the door. "Hello, you Mystery Incorporated people? I need to sweep in this room." The janitor said. A small window in the door showed to him that the lights were on, and someone had to be there. I opened the door, and briefly panicked since we didn't hide the box with the glitched camera.
The janitor looked in that direction and sighed. "It's still not the weirdest thing I've seen tonight." He then looked at us. "I'll need you to step aside so I can sweep the floor."