The Edge

Adoette: Part Five

They went back to the ship to start making calls.

It took ages to get their various devices linked up to the local network. That was always a frustrating endeavor, but for once, it wasn't the worst part. The actual worst part was making calls and getting nothing but dead ends. The various charities tried to help, but they all said one of two things.

We only just recently put up those listings and we've never had any similar listings.

No, we don't have anyone under that name working for us. We hope you're able to find her, though.

No variation, no middle ground. Adoette had to fight the urge to heavy sigh every time she heard them. She didn't want to harass these poor people. It wasn't their fault that her sister had vanished into the deepest reaches of space with zero explanation, leaving them to try and hunt her down. She wasn't going to take her frustration out on them.

But damn if she wasn't frustrated down to her bone marrow.

"That just leaves Solo Industries, right?" she said after their latest failed call. Helen had to take over a lot of the calls, as she was pretty much the only one of them who could keep a professional tone in the face of increasing frustration. "Because if I'm being honest, I feel like I'm going to have to do some legally questionable things with those people."

"Can we maybe keep the talk of legally questionable things to a minimum?" Helen said as she brought up the company's number. "At least until we know for sure?"

"Fine, fine." Adoette leaned back in her chair and picked up her tablet. Helen might not want to hear it, but that wasn't going to stop Adoette from preparing for the worst. Always accurate gut instincts might have been Matteo's thing, not hers, but her gut hadn't let her down much yet. Especially when it came to sketchy activities. You didn't work as a white hat for as long as she had without getting a nose for these things. "You try sweet-talking them."

Helen gave Adoette a look—the I know you're going to do something I don't like but I also can't stop you, but please don't look—and dialed their number. Adoette half-listened as she got to work poking around this planet's 'net. Someone out there had to know something about these people. Any amount of information could be useful.

She heard Helen get stuck in the robo-answering-machine runaround for a good five minutes. When it finally sounded like she was about to speak to a real person, her call got dropped. She came very, very close to swearing, but kept it together as she re-dialed, starting the whole runaround all over again. Meanwhile, Adoette's digging actually started to produce information. There were some forums that contained useful information. Some of it stretched into the realm of conspiracy theory, but...

"Yes, hello, my name is Helen Demarchis," Helen said, her voice dripping with relief. "I'm...yes, I'm doing well, thank you, how are you? ...That's good to hear. I'm actually calling to ask about a possible freelance worker of yours. Her name is Cassandra Demarchis. She's my sister. She's been missing for several weeks, and I think she may have been employed by your company. We're very worried about her, and..."

There was a long pause. Adoette glance up in time to see Helen looking very, very annoyed. It stayed out of her tone, for the most part. "No, ma'am, I don't care about what materials she was shipping. I just want to know if my sister was working for you. We haven't seen her in some time. I'm worried she might be hurt."

Another pause. Helen looked even more annoyed than before. "I don't expect you to give up company secrets. Has a woman named Cassandra Demarchis worked for you recently? Yes or no?"

Looked like Adoette was right about them being sketchy. She couldn't think of a single legitimate business that would dig in their heels over a simple question. Either that or this one secretary was just super bitchy. "Okay, thank you. Can you tell me where her shipment went?"

That probably wasn't going to get an answer. Something as simple as a destination could point to whoever their mystery clients were. Even legitimate businesses had some level of client confidentiality, and it sounded like these people took it even more seriously. Adoette wasn't very surprised when she saw the frustration start inching from Helen's face into her voice. "Ma'am, I can promise you, I don't care about your clients. I just want to find my sister. Can you at least tell me which system, or...did she return here? Please, anything could really help."

When Helen stopped talking, Adoette's first thought was that she was getting an earful about the importance of keeping company secrets. But it wasn't that, because Helen hung up, put down her phone, and breathed a long, heavy sigh of frustration. "She hung up on me," she said.

Arian laughed, a startled oh, damn, are you kidding me laugh. "Seriously? Wow, bitch much?"

"Doesn't shock me. I've found a lot of talk about how this company is shady as hell." Adoette kept scanning through the forum posts as she spoke. "Lot of people are saying that you shouldn't work for them. Underpayment, dangerous jobs, and...something about possible ties to the Crypto gang?"

Almost immediately, everyone looked to Arian. He was the local expert on gangs and crime. His nose wrinkled as he thought about it. "I mean, if they were working with the Crypto Gang, I'd have to know which branch before I could nail down a planet," he said. "And I'd have to know if they're really Crypto or just a smaller group using their name for notoriety. That happens a lot. As long as they don't start working in actual Crypto turf, they can get away with it pretty easily."

"So, basically, knowing Crypto might be involved doesn't help much?" Helen asked. Arian nodded. "That's...not the best news I've heard, but thank you for your honesty." She looked genuinely, visibly frustrated now, which wasn't a great thing to see. "We don't have time to check every planet."

"Definitely not. And even if it was a small list, you'd have to get multiple ships, sync up everyone's communications, and trust that one of us wouldn't get shot on site for nosing around, so, y'know..." Arian shrugged. "Not worth it."

Definitely not worth it when he put it like that. Helen seemed to agree, though she didn't say so immediately. She chewed on her lower lip, deep in thought, before speaking slowly and deliberately. "Before we jump to anything too drastic..." Damn. Guess it wasn't time for legally dubious behavior. "...maybe we should try visiting them in person."

"You going to put on your I want to see the manager face, or should I?" Luca joked.

Helen smiled, just a little. Score one for Luca. "I'm going to try. Maybe seeing us in person will help? It can't hurt." It sounded like she was trying to convince herself that it would work along with the rest of them. "Maybe while some of us go the front desk, the rest can try asking employees directly."

Sneaky. Not usually Adoette's speed, but it felt more proactive than waiting around for people to answer their questions. Shame none of them were full-on mind readers. That would've made a visit a lot more productive. "Sounds good to me," she said. "When do we start?"

Unfortunately, they learned the answer to that question as tomorrow. The place's offices were closing in fifteen minutes, and they wouldn't be able to make it there in less than twenty. Even if they could, showing up to make demands in the last five minutes of the place being open was bad form, and definitely wouldn't get them what they wanted. As much as it hurt, they would have to wait until the next day to try for answers.

I just hope Cassandra can hold on that long.