21 Chapter Twenty-One: Miscalculation (1/2)
The night passed by slowly, and the next day eventually fell upon the crew. The Ueda sisters had left before anyone to find a place to sing while also not being in the open to avoid any interruptions for their performance. Holly stayed at the hotel and the rest of the group went traveling around town trying to blend in. When evening fell upon them, as the sun began to set, all of the volumetric displays shut off simultaneously. The crowd of people on the street nearly froze in place as there was lots of mumbling and light bustling amongst the crowd in panic. After a while, the Ueda sisters appeared in every display in town. Through the displays, the Ueda sister's voices could be heard. As both of them raised one fist in the air they said ”Good evening, Shibuya!”.
The crowd grew silent, and after just a few seconds that felt like a few minutes amidst all the panic, they began to sing their first song. The group couldn't understand what the Ueda sisters were singing about at all, since they sang in Japanese and none of them understand Japanese. At least none of them understood Japanese well enough to know what they were singing about. The crowd seemed unmoving, but fixated on the sisters. The crowd seemed to still be worried about what was happening.
After inspecting the crowd's reactions, Alex crosses his arms and says ”They're not bad, but I don't think they're doing well enough to get the reactions we need”.
”Maybe our approach was way too aggressive” Rose adds.
Looking over his shoulder in surprise, Alex says to Rose ”That's the most sense you've ever made”.
”Rude!” Rose says in a pouting manner.
After a while of standing in the street with the crowd, the first song ended and the next song began. Few people in the crowd began cheering as the Ueda sisters began their next song. One by one, the rest of the crowd began to join in. Suddenly, the crowd all seemed to be enjoying their performance.
Now impressed, Finn says ”They're actually pulling it off! Maybe, for once, just maybe things will go as planned”.
”They're pretty good for people who started off with just singing karaoke” Alex says. ”By the way, did they write this song or is this more karaoke?”.
Thinking to himself for a moment, Siran replies ”I have no idea, but I like it”.
After a while of listening to music with the crowd, The Six Guns crew found themselves enjoying the show with the rest of the crowd. For a while, everything seemed to be doing just fine. After the fourth song ended, and the fifth song began, suddenly all the volumetric displays shut off again. Everyone fell silent again. Eventually, the crowd began mumbling again, until the crew noticed that a lot of people were running from the south side of town. They saw people running out of the streets in a hurry. As the crowd grew more and more thin, the sound of a megaphone turning on could be heard over the subtle panic.
”Go to your homes” the voice over the megaphone said, ”this is not a drill. We have a security clearance level nine, cyber terrorism attack, operation in motion”.
As the crowd nearly completely dispersed, the crew could see a line of soldiers walking down the street with a megaphone in one of their hands. Ly'Lum soldiers. Lightly pushing the others out of the streets and towards the direction of the hotel, Siran said ”Come on, we need to go”.
As the crew hurried along, Rose asks ”What's going on? The show wasn't supposed to end so soon, was it?”.
”No” Alex replies, ”it wasn't. It was supposed to go on for a little longer. This is also a strange reaction to a cyber attack, if this situation can even be considered as such”.
Once again, the soldier with the megaphone could be heard over the crowd, saying ”We have reason to believe the attack is from a local area. Wait in your homes until further update on the situation. This is for your safety!”.
Suddenly stopping, Zia begins to panic. ”We need to go find the Ueda sisters before they do!” She says. ”If they know this operation is being pulled from inside the city, they could be in danger”.
”You're right” Siran replies. ”Their faces will be known because they projected themselves on the volumetric displays. They basically just gave the military an animated wanted poster”.
Alex suddenly getting more worried, which already seemed alarming to the rest of the group, asks ”Do you know where they went?”.
”No” Siran replies, ”but Holly does. We have to hurry to the hotel!”.
As they got close to the hotel, the ran into Holly not far from the hotel. Holly had ran outside to find them as well. After running towards the group, Holly fixes her glasses on her face and asks ”What happened? This all went down before I planned on shutting down the servers. Why aren't any of the displays responding?”. As she talked, she folded her gun into a case for her laptop, and attached her case to the back of her belt. Letting the computer rest on the small of her back.
”No idea” Siran says in a panic, ”but the Ueda sisters might be in danger. We need to go find them, immediately!”.
”Understood” Holly says, ”follow behind me”. As Holly runs, the rest follow behind her. Trying to stay out of the streets so they don't get spotted by the soldiers, they run through alleys and fields. Arriving at a small entrance to a building that looked like a recently shut down business in a shopping complex, they stop outside to listen at first. Holly lightly pressed her ear to the door, but couldn't hear anything inside. Eventually, the crew quietly enters the building, closing the door as quietly as possible after they all enter. They come to the room where the Ueda sisters should've been, with several cameras standing in the room with a green screen behind them. The room was empty besides the cameras. The Ueda sisters were nowhere to be found. Starting to worry even more, Holly pulls her laptop back out and uses it to call Satomi's phone again. The room fell dead silent and still as they all waited for someone to pick up. Unfortunately, no one ever answered the phone. Visibly panicking more, Holly says in a harsh whisper to herself ”Shit!” as she tracks down both Satomi's and Mikoto's phones. After a while of inspecting the screen, without saying a word, Holly shows the rest of the crew her laptop.
”We have several problems right now” Holly says. ”Luckily, they're together, but they're traveling fast. They're either in a car or worse”.
”Worse how!?” Alex demands.
Looking at her laptop again and squinting her eyes as if she's focusing more than before, Holly says ”Their travel pattern isn't following any of the streets. They'd either have to be in the air or underground, and I didn't see any planes or helicopters before coming inside. I also didn't see them with a car before today, so I'm assuming they're not driving and most certainly not getting the VIP treatment”.
After thinking to himself, Alex looks up and asks Holly ”Can you try tracking them over a map of the subway lines?”.
Still staring at her laptop, Holly replies ”Already working on that but I'm not having any luck. This either means we didn't pay enough attention to the sky, or they're in the military subway lines. Worst case scenario, they're in the military subway lines, which are old subway lines that were shut down long ago”.
Jumping to the conclusion, Rose proposes ”Then we have to go to the subway and follow them!”.
”Only problem with that is” Holly interrupts, ”I have no idea how we can get in, and we can't get there through the regular subway system. Those tunnels would've been walled off long ago”.
Turning around and approaching the door, Siran gets ready to leave. As he starts walking towards the door, he says ”Then we follow the signal from above ground. We get there and find out where they're going. We still don't know for sure whether or not they've been taken or if they just had an escape route we didn't know about”. Holly nods her head in agreement, and then runs ahead of the group to lead them. As the rest of the group follows behind Holly, they notice that the signal from their phones is getting farther and farther away. The Six Guns frantically followed the signals to the south. Eventually the signals stopped moving. After finally getting close to the signals, the crew came across a group of buildings that looked like CEO offices for big businesses. However, the buildings had tall gates surrounding the entire area and soldiers everywhere. It was clear to them that this was what The Ly'Lum were using as a base here in Shibuya. One look at Holly's laptop would make it obvious the phone signals were coming from inside that base, however, the phone signals eventually stopped as they seemed to completely drop off the radar. As if the situation weren't bad enough for them, they all now feared the worst was coming for the Ueda sisters.
The crew froze with fear for their friends. Eventually, Rose spoke up through a shaky voice. ”We have to go in there somehow” she says.
”How?” Finn asks, ”are we supposed to just walk up there and knock on their front door? Yes, hello, sorry our friends got captured by you. We were wondering, if by any chance, can we have them back!?”.
Clenching his fists, Siran says in a low voice ”If that's what it takes, I'll open their damn door myself!”.
The crew fell silent for a moment until Finn began to panic. ”Whoa, whoa, whoa” he exclaims, ”hold your horses! I know you're a little crazy, but think more realistically here!”.
As if ignoring Finn, Siran turns to Holly and asks ”Which direction did their phone signals last show before they went off the radar?”.