A war had ensued in the streets of Factory Town, or it might be more accurate to call it a hunt. It started small at first, but then more joined. In just a couple of hours, the streets were teeming with enraged youths chasing the strange drones roaming around.
Some believed they belonged to the police, others swore they were deployed by corpo grunts. Whatever it might be, such a swarm wasn’t going to be tolerated. Drones have always been a sour spot for many of Radmir’s residents and spreading them around was like a declaration of war.
Many of the spherical machines were felled, but more many remained. The locals had braced themselves for a long battle, knowing that whoever was behind the swarm wouldn’t just let their property get destroyed, but at one point the situation took a turn in the opposite direction.
All of a sudden, all around the district, the drones rose to the sky at the same time then took off in the same direction, leaving the bewildered locals staring at the sky. Just a few seconds later, the streets were filled with cheers and applause.
Unbeknownst to them, the drones never cared for them, and neither did their owner or the operators controlling them. The flying spheres had only one purpose and it was to look for a certain red-haired girl, and when a clue of her location was discovered, every last one of them was redirected toward it.
Standing in the shadow of a tall building, Liliana looked up at the sky, watching as the swarm of drones took off toward the west. A short distance behind her, Dante sat on an old crate, hands in his pockets, eyes closed shut. Seeing him like that, one would think he was fast asleep.
"I can’t believe it worked..." The girl said, turning to him with a wide smile. "How did you know?"
"What makes you think I did?"
Though they obtained an address, Dante had no way of knowing what awaited them there. It was unlikely to be anything significant, but he still wanted to check it nonetheless.
Of course, going there himself would have been suicide, that’s why he decided to have his partner get some help from her filthy rich parents. All she had to do was send them the address through a message.
"To think you were such a skilled Diver." Said Liliana, still smiling as she plopped down beside him. "Who could’ve guessed."
Opening his eyes, Dante gave her a half-lidded look.
"And what made you think that?"
"Well, you don’t strike me as the tech-savvy kind."
"Appearances can be deceiving, you know?"
Dante didn’t want to argue the point too much. After all, he was the farthest one could get from being a Diver. Volcan was the only reason he could pass for one.
Speaking of Volcan, the AI had long since deduced that the drones swarming Factory Town belonged to the Eisenbergs. They were sparing no efforts to look for their missing daughter so Dante expected them to rush to the abandoned warehouse right away, and thankfully they did him the favor of sending their drones ahead to scout.
What made those drones different from all the security systems Volcan had accessed so far was that they were operated directly by humans. Lower-level AIs were easy to trick and control -easy for an advanced one like Volcan, at least- but humans were different. Humans can’t be convinced to erase the presence of certain individuals from the footage cameras capture, and as long as they pay attention they can discover if someone tries to manipulate the systems they supervise.
If not for those reasons, Dante’s first option would have been to have Volcan hijack one of those drones so they could use it to infiltrate the abandoned warehouse. Since that would have drawn too much attention to them, the next best choice they had was to capture the signal emitted by those drones and access the camera feed transmitted through them.
Obviously, Volcan was doing most of the heavy lifting. Dante only sat down to watch the footage captured by one of the drones, having felt the need to see what the place looked like at least once.
The factories in Westpoint are usually active both day and night. That made it easier to spot the ones no longer in use. Time had left its mark on the old Satori plant. Whoever acquired it after the company went under, it’s clear that they didn’t pay it much attention. Most of the equipment had long since been sold while what remained was picked up by scavengers, leaving the buildings to collect dust.
With his eyes closed, Dante watched as the swarm of drones zoomed toward the intended building. While he could’ve adjusted the screen to fill his entire field of sight, giving himself a first-person perspective of the flight, he chose to keep it in window mode. When they reached the location, the drones stopped just outside.
[They are performing a cursory scan of the surroundings.] Volcan said. [I will switch your feed if the drone you are currently watching through is not sent inside.]
The swarm was divided soon enough, with the majority being sent to sweep the area more thoroughly while the remaining dozen or so went into the warehouse. As Volcan had predicted, Dante had to switch to a different drone since the one he was watching from was among those who remained outside.
Once inside, an infrared filter was applied to the footage, making it possible to see what was hidden in the darkness.
The warehouse was mostly empty, save do some old pallets and empty crates. In one corner, the stripped carcasses of two forklifts remained. Layers of rust covered the beams supporting the walls and roofs, while old oil stains painted the floor.
[As expected, this place was not as abandoned as is publicly known..]
Saying that, Volcan began highlighting some of the signs he caught with a neon green color, pinning each one on a different screen. Barely noticeable tire tracks, footprints invisible to the naked eye, empty beer cans, and shattered glass bottles.
The drones were equipped with sensors that made determining the age of each trace possible, but one didn’t need a forensic lab to be able to deduce how long it had been since someone had entered the warehouse, seeing as the date on one of the beer cans shows it had been produced just a week ago.
The warehouse might be empty right now, but someone had definitely visited it at some point in the past few days. That someone could be whoever is tasked with meeting those looking to buy Catalyst, though Dante doubted they would be so careless as to leave such obvious tracks.
[Dante, I might have found something.]