Project Destiny
What is your Destiny?
The Missing
Posted on Tue Jul 13th, 2021 @ 12:05pm by Norul & David Banninga & T'Lisa Anderson & Taranlia "Lia" Lesan & Mara Xul & Travis Morgan & Ryan Blake M.D.
Mission:
Home Base - Grey zone
Location: Level -3 Main Operations Center
Timeline: MD 5
Travis made it back to headquarters as soon as he could. As he accessed the building, He asked for the person in charge. So now he waited until the morons in charge could answer a few questions for him. “I’m trying to find the last person to speak to Norul,.” offered Travis
Taranlia walked into Operations, still wiping sweat from her cleavage and neck from her workout in the gym. “Did you try his office?” the Betazoid asked, looking toward Norul’s office. The lights seem to be on.
Travis nodded and proceeded over to his boss's office. As he stopped at the door, there was no sound coming from within. Travis found this curious and looked inside. Nothing, and no one there. He turned and looked for his assistant, and they were also not there. As he turned back on himself, he asked in a rather loud voice, “Has anyone seen Norul or the assistant that looks after him?” And waited for someone to answer.
“Give me a moment.” Lia paused and closed her eyes, stretching out her telepathic senses to see if she could find Norul somewhere in the complex. The process was easier if he was closer, but got more difficult and chaotic as she moved her mind out farther, encompassing more minds. If she hadn’t been sweating from her workout, this would certainly do it.
Travis watched to see where this was going. “Can I do anything to help?” he asked.
Norul's mind could be read in the far distance. He remained inside the complex, but far enough away to present issues for most telepaths.
“Tch!” Lia clicked at Travis a moment. Then she sighed and relaxed, rubbing her temples. “Got any pain reliever?” she asked. “He’s inside the complex, but far off. I would need to get closer to pinpoint where.” She indicated the direction she had sensed.
“I’m sure we can find you something. Let’s go to my office,” said Travis as he led the way. “It’s a shame we have no way to just call him!” said Travis, not being familiar enough with the complex and their communications abilities.
Even less familiar with the way things worked was Ryan Blake, newly hired therapist, behavioral analyst, and forensic psychiatrist for the unit. This was her first full day on the job, and she had been expecting to meet with Norul himself, but after waiting a while, it was clear to her somewhere wires had been crossed. Spotting Travis and Lia, she hoped to get to the bottom of things. "Excuse me," she called out, approaching the two of them. "My name is Dr. Ryan Blake. I am new here, and we're supposed to meet with the Director to discuss the details of my role here, but I've been waiting for a while and he hasn't shown. Can you tell me if there's been an emergency of some sort?"
“Welcome,” Lia said, removing her hands from her temples and offering her hand to Ryan, since that was the way Humans liked to be greeted. “Taranlia Lesan, though you can call me Lia,” she introduced herself. “We were just looking for Director Norul as well,” she admitted. “He doesn’t seem to be where he is supposed to be,” she said with a chuckle. She looked over to Travis. “The reception desk should be able to page his comm. I can try and send a message, too.”
“Well, it’s obvious to me that something isn’t right, so I suggest we start looking for him formally and start an investigation. It could be said that I’m jumping the gun. But if there is a reason for concern, better safe than sorry,” said Travis.
-unknown-
From within her own dark domain she sat on a floor in a lotus posture, silently meditating as she had been for most hours. Until a friend appeared out of thin air. "You know, they're looking for him."
"So the void has told me," came a cold reply from the figure on the floor.
"Should we tell them?" Gemini asked.
She opened her eyes to reveal a set of glowing light blue irises that turned towards the hovering ball with a diamond shaped iris that shared a similar color to Mara's. "His instructions on the matter were very clear."
"Well, that's no fun," the orb replied, pouting.
"It is his wish," Mara replied as she rose from the floor that she had been sitting on and walked to a nearby table with several large lit candles and a black tea pot from which she poured the contents into a black mug.
"Fine, I'll respect his majesty's wish. You're taking this job or whatever it is too serious," Gemini replied sarcastically, and shimmered into nothingness.
“Well, call up a security team,” Taranlia told the receptionist. As one of the teams’ tactical leaders, she had some authority over base security. “I’ll take one with me across campus to where I felt Norul, but have a couple others start a search. If it’s nothing, it’s nothing,” she said. She wanted a shower after her workout, but that wasn’t going to happen until this was resolved.
“All very good ideas. I suggest we get some communications equipment passed out for this search. And since I’m the company investigator I’ll try to coordinate the leads we get in,” offered Travis.
“I’ve got my comms,” Lia said, digging hers out of her pocket and pinning it to her sports bra.
Travis reached into his pocket. “That’s what’s in this little box. A communications device. Cool, now I’ve got one too. I assume it works like most of them do. I’ll figure it out,” replied Travis with a light-hearted smile.
The security team arrived, and Taranlia gave them a quick briefing. “Check in every fifteen minutes,” Lia told Travis, setting a timer on her Social, which she pulled from her pocket. It keyed up with her comm unit and pulled multiple duties, from communicator to providing access to the planetary holonet. She’d been using it to play music for her workout. “Let’s go.”
Feeling a mixture of concern and curiosity, as Ryan followed the two of them, she offered, "Is this common behavior for the Director?" As the new member of the team starting out, she never expected to be participating in an investigation so close to home. Blake was partly trying to understand how best to help in the current situation, but also to get to know her colleagues.
Having been informed of Director Norul's disappearance, T'Lisa contacted Security. "This is Alpha Leader Anderson. I've just heard of the Director's disappearance. Is there any way I can be of assistance?" she asked.
“He hasn’t disappeared like this before,” Taranlia told Ryan. Then she answered T’Lisa’s comm. “All hands would be welcome. Cover more ground faster. Feel free to join the search.”
Travis watched and listened to ever bit of information that came and went. He surmised that if there was foul play, whoever was behind it was very good indeed. But there were no signs either way. Now they needed to speak to the last person who saw him. Perhaps his family members or a work colleague? Now this investigation was afoot, as the amazing Sherlock Holmes would say!
So Travis tapped his communicator and called for Norul’s assistant to meet him in Norul’s office. ”Travis to Narul’s assistant, could you please meet me at Narul’s office?” he requested.
The young assistant was sitting there in her outer office when Travis and Taranlia arrived.
“Good morning. For expediency sake I’m going to assume that you know who I am. After all, you were here when Narul welcomed me not a month ago. So I need you to think back to the last time you saw him and if you can tell us about his movements since then?” asked Travis, bypassing all formalities.
The young woman blinked at Travis’ bluntness. “I haven’t seen him since lunch,” she said. “He had a meeting on the schedule before lunch, but that was cancelled,” she said, consulting a padd. “And then Mrs. Banninga burst in here to see him. They had a brief meeting in his office, and then they both left together -- I assume for lunch…” she said, leaving the implication hanging.
Travis stopped for a moment in deep thought. “Have you any idea why he cancelled his meeting?” asked Travis.
“No, sir,” the woman said. “He just told me to cancel it.”
Travis began speaking out loud, but to himself. “There’s only a couple reasons to cancel an appointment. The most common being whoever was supposed to be at the appointment decided for whatever reason they weren’t coming, or an emergency popped up. Whatever the case, I suggest we find out who that appointment was with and it’s topic, so we can exclude it from the investigation and move forward.” Then he looked to the assistant again. “Do you have that information so we can move on?” he asked.
“Ehm, I have who it was with,” the personal assistant said. “I don’t know what it was about.” She picked up her PADD. “The meeting with with Miss Saoirse O'Shea, sir,” she told Travis. She gave a bit of an eyeroll.
Travis let the eye roll off and continued his questioning. “I’ll need the contact information for this person and I’ll need you to stay available just in case I need to ask you more important questions. You’ve been very helpful, thank you.” Something bothered him about her attitude, but he brushed it off. Now to go find and question this O’Shea person.
“Yes, sir,” Norul’s assistant said. She tapped her PADD a few times. “Information should be on your personal PADD,” she told him. “Good luck with Miss O’Shea,” she said with a smirk.
Travis checked his PADD and the info was there. And so on it went. Find every lead and see where it took you. Hopefully there would be a break in the case, but until that happened you followed the crumbs that got left behind, because there was always something left behind. Finding it was the problem. “Okay, on to find Miss O’Shea,” replied Travis.
Standing, Ryan smiled her thanks to the assistant. She was new to the team, but Blake recognized the eye roll of someone who felt steamrolled. Of course, she could also recognize the all business attitude of an investigator like Travis. Particularly under these unnerving circumstances, she could understand how all niceties could go out the window. Ryan couldn't help but notice he seemed determined to find answers on his own, almost like the rest of them were an afterthought. She wondered if that was typical of him or if it was just an indication of the stress of this particular situation.
Whatever the reason, Ryan resolved to see if she could tag along. Perhaps with the two of them speaking to Miss O’Shea they could be each other's eyes and ears. First things first, however, she needed to reach out to Travis.
FIN
Taranlia Lesen
Beta Team Tactical Officer
Norul’s assistant
NPC Taranlia
Woman of mystery
Mara Xul
Dr. Ryan Blake, M.D.
Forensic Psychiatrist/Medical Officer
