Seeking Answers

Cheers from the next booth over shook Cayce from his thoughts. A popular sports channel was playing on the television in the corner of the café. One of the teams must have scored a goal. Only now did Cayce realize that he had lost himself in his thoughts and had been staring blankly at the menu, not truly reading through the available dishes. Suddenly, a familiar voice reached his ears.

"Eating alone? That's not much fun."

Looking up, Cayce was greeted with the smile of a beauty. It was none other than the representative of the Starless Day company, Michelle Fielding. This was only their second time meeting. She previously requested him to work as an overwatch sniper on the recent collaborative mission.

She charmingly brushed some of her long, dark hair to the side.

"Mr. Cayce, do you mind if I join you?"

Cayce smiled warmly, "Please do. I'd appreciate the company."

After they had made their orders and the waitress left, a small silence visited the table. Cayce gazed out the window with a thoughtful look on his face, but he didn't speak. Michelle's brow furrowed and she hesitated to ask what she originally intended to. Instead, she decided to start the conversation on another topic.

"... Mr. Cayce? Well, I don't mean to be rude, but the last time I saw you... You didn't have that scar."

"Ah, this? This happened because someone put a bounty on my head. Thanks to that, a couple of contractors betrayed me."

Michelle observed the scar as he explained it's story. The scar was long, but very clean. The injury must have been treated almost immediately. Besides that, the eye at the start of the scar was colored differently from how it used to be. One eye was now grey while the other remained blue.

Was it called heterochromia?

She found it... beautiful.

Soon, their meals came and they continued to chat about random things. Only so much could be learned about another person over a single meal, but Michelle felt she learned quite a bit about this man by the time they had finished. He seemed like a good man on the surface. Their chat was actually quite refreshing. Now she felt it was finally time to talk business. She straightened her posture and gave off a more authoritative air.

"Mr. Cayce, the Starless Day company wants your help on another collaborative mission. This one is of a higher tier than the last one and will offer a significantly better reward."

The business talk was brief and Cayce easily agreed to participate in the mission.

"Miss Michelle, I have a few matters that need my attention so I'll be on my way, but it's been a pleasure having your company."

With that, they gave polite goodbyes and Michelle watched with a smile as Cayce left the Café. He was quite interesting. Michelle remained seated, as she planned to do some work while she was there in the café. As she activated her personal assistant machine, she overheard a news report from the television in the corner.

"-massive explosion yesterday which completely destroyed a private research facility within the territory of the Jelena Alliance. Nothing was left behind and so far, no one has claimed responsibility."

The screen showed an aerial view of a massive crater in the middle of the woods. It looked like the aftermath of a fallen meteor. The trees around the edge of the crater were blown away entirely, only charcoal and ash remaining where the stumps used to be.

"All we know is that the explosion originated from the center of the base and was likely fueled by mana. It is unknown if this was an outside attack or a failed experiment which ended in disaster."

The news reporter continued on about the explosion, giving any juicy detail that could interest the viewers.

Michelle watched the newscast intently.

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[ Greppen system expansion complete ]

It happened yet again. These messages had been routinely appearing on Cayce's visor over the last few months. He had tried contacting the company that made his AI, but they still haven't responded.

Cayce was soaring through the sky, his armor accumulating water droplets as he passed through clouds. He glanced sideways at the small black machine mounted to his left shoulder.

That little AI came from a small company which had requested a personal guard during a war some time ago. They weren't able to pay much for his services at the time, but Cayce still accepted the mission despite the high risk and low benefits.

A few months after, they offered Cayce that same AI module as a token of gratitude. It was an unexpected help and he gladly accepted it, though it was too complex for him to understand it's inner workings. He needed someone to take a look at it and tell him what was happening.

The grey jet flames on Cayce's armor grew smaller as he gently descended to the ground. He looked around in awe. This was where that company used to operate. But now... it was completely vacant. Grass was growing through cracks in the concrete and vines had begun to climb the walls of the buildings. It looked like part of an abandoned city in a zombie apocalypse movie.

Cayce gave a sigh and started to search the buildings. Since he couldn't ask anyone for help, perhaps he could find some form of documentation on his AI that would explain the system expansions.

He saved all the relevant files he could find, but they were all incredibly vague and only covered AI in general. The more helpful documents were all missing. Besides that, papers were strewn across the floor of the research building and had since been covered in dust. Whatever happened here must have happened a long time ago.

As Cayce walked through one of the buildings, his AI module suddenly whirred to life and pointed directly at a wall to his side.

beep beep beep!

[ Destination ]

"... destination? Destination for what?"

He then switched his view to wireframe, allowing him to see the limits of the structures around him. That little black box on his shoulder had all sorts of sensors, allowing him to see through walls like this. But... the space behind the wall was somehow obscured. He couldn't see inside. All he could see was a mark on his HUD, a revolving grey circle in the center of the invisible space behind the wall.

Cayce then placed his palm against the wall, wondering if he should try to break it down. The walls in this place felt like the plating on Cayce's armor. The material was also white and didn't quite sound metallic. Perhaps it could be broken? As he thought about how to get inside, a new message appeared on his HUD.

[ Do you wish to proceed? ]

Cayce hesitated. That question implied there may be a reason he wouldn't want to proceed...

"...Well, curiosity killed the Cayce."

Drawing his two combat knives, he lowered his stance and became alert. He simply couldn't walk away from something like this.