Chase Harlow
No more stuffing around, no more keeping this to himself.
It had turned ugly and serious fast, and though Chase was a lot of things, he was not above the law.
He called the police, specifically one of his friends from high school.
Hell, in the mood Chase was in right now, he could have called the Army, called the President herself, a personal friend.
Because he was ready to move earth and heaven to get her back.
He’d dragged her into this, and now Keiko Teshi was facing a danger she couldn't comprehend.
'It'll be a small unit,' Frank said as he stalked around in front of Chase’s desk.
Frank was a detective, the best the city had, and he was also Chase’s long-standing friend.
'I didn't recognize the guy,' Chase pointed out for the umpteenth time.
'That means nothing. He could have been a mercenary or a local hired gun. Though I doubt the last one; we are dealing with professionals, after all,’ Frank snapped.
Chase nodded slowly. He felt sick.
He had a reason to feel sick. He couldn't stop thinking about her, and more to the point, what they would be doing to her.
She didn't seem to be the kind of girl that could live through something like that. She seemed to be the kind of girl that would fall apart at the first sign of trouble.
Well now she was in trouble, more trouble than most people could imagine.
The guilt crashing into him in another thick and powerful wave, Chase pushed himself backwards in his chair.
'They would be keeping her locally; they're not stupid enough to drive across the border with a body in the back,' Frank pointed out.
These were already facts Chase had thought of.
He didn't need any more brainstorming; he needed someone to do something. He needed somebody on the ground to find out where they were keeping her, and he needed them to send in their best team to get her back.
'Chase, we’re doing everything we can,' Frank paused, looking directly at his friend, his expression reassuring.
There was nothing that could reassure Chase right now though. Nothing save for Keiko walking back through that door.
Though in that moment the door did open, Chase did not snap his glance up to see her face.
Instead Victor leaned in.
He was aware of the situation, and aware of the fact Chase had specifically asked not to be disturbed. But the expression on Victor's face was a crumpled, confused, strange one, and it got Chase’s attention.
'You really need to see this,' he said in a careful voice, giving a light cough at the end.
Chase was about to sell him to close the door and go away, but something about the way Victor looked at him made Chase pause.
He got to his feet, mumbled at Frank that he would be right back, and walked out into the corridor, closing the door.
Maybe Chase needed to be distracted right now, because if he sat in that chair, staring at Frank and listening to every single suggestion the competent Detective could make, he would probably go insane.
'What is it?' Chase said through a clenched jaw.
'I've pulled up the security footage on her,' Victor said.
Chase ground his teeth together. 'Victor, let it go, she doesn't work for them. They just kidnapped her,' he snapped, the guilt plucking at his spine again.
Victor put up his hands quickly. 'Come and have a look at it, that's the only thing I'm asking.'
There was a very strange quality to his tone, and his expression was one Chase rarely saw.
Victor was a hard man to surprise. The perfect man to track down a mystery like the one that surrounded the wind goddess Aiko.
But right now he looked shocked, confused, and rattled.
So Chase walked with him, down the corridor, into another office, and sat there as Victor manipulated the keyboard, running forward through footage Chase suddenly realized showed the area just outside his office door.
The footage ran forward, and nothing much happened until suddenly the door burst open and Victor leaned out, a clearly angry expression on his face. Then the footage showed him shouting at somebody, presumably off screen, before he grumbled, went back into the office, and closed the door.
Victor paused the replay.
He looked up at Chase meaningfully.
Chase stared back.
‘What the hell is this? Victor? Did you just pull me out of my office for this? It shows nothing.’
'What it shows, is me shouting at your friend Keiko,' Victor said mysteriously.
Chase got up from his chair. ‘Did you really drag me out to see this? She is obviously off screen.’
‘She is not off screen. She was standing right in front of me,' he pointed out carefully.
‘Victor, I'm looking at the footage now, there's nobody there,’ Chase said through an exasperated breath.
‘But there was somebody there, that's what I'm trying to tell you, she was clearly in shot, she is just not... on the footage,’ he managed. Then Victor, a man fiendishly hard to rattle, looked up at Chase with a shaky expression.
Was this some kind of game? Was Victor trying to distract Chase away from his guilt?
‘What the hell are you talking about, Victor?'
'I don't know. All I know is that she was standing right in front of me. She was in line of the cameras. She should be on the footage. But she’s not.’ He looked up sharply.
Silence spread between them.
Chase could hear the wind outside, however mutely, as they were protected from it by thick, reinforced windows.
It caught his attention.
Did it blow harder and faster in that moment?
Chase was not a suspicious man. He was a man of science. He'd wanted to devote his life to being a doctor, after all.
He was not religious, and he always wanted something to be proven before he tried it.
Nonetheless, Chase had gotten stuck up in this world. The mystery of Aiko.
And despite the fact he kept on telling himself, trying to prove to himself that he certainly was not superstitious, the wind outside clearly blew louder, buffeting against the windows despite their strength.
There was no such thing as a goddesses of the elements or spirits of nature.
They were relics from histories long past, myths no longer needed in the modern age.
Yet Chase Harlow, 15 years ago, had been sitting in his father's office when a statue of Aiko had exploded.
Some things could not be explained, and right now as Victor looked up at him, his expression certainly not one of jest, Chase realized this was another one of those things.
Swallowing hard, he tried to comprehend what he was being told.
She was in view, she couldn't be seen.
What the hell did that mean?
Chase knew that there were certain technologies being developed by the military that would allow the wearer to scramble footage taken of them. But they wouldn’t disappear. The footage itself would simply become filled with static. It was interference, not this, whatever this was meant to be.
‘I'm telling you, she was in view,' Victor assured him again.
Chase shivered. His whole body felt cold, from his skin to his very bones.
He didn't know what to do with this fact, because he had no idea what it meant, and no idea whether it was true. Perhaps Victor was mistaken. Perhaps she hadn’t been in view or perhaps he had brought up the wrong footage, some other moment of Victor tugging open the door to shout at some unfortunate person along the corridor. It wouldn’t be the first time, after all, that Victor Woolworth had let loose with his trademark bluster.
But no matter how hard Chase tried to convince himself that this was nothing, a strange feeling niggled at his gut.
He backed off, heading towards the door. 'I don't know what this means,' he said very honestly and candidly.
'Neither do I,' Victor confirmed.
'Just make sure...' Chase trailed off as he latched a hand onto the door and opened it.
Make sure of what? That Victor wasn't mistaken?
How could he do that? Chase only had his friend’s word here, and though Victor was trustworthy, what he was suggesting seemed ridiculously fantastic, beyond the realms of science, into an area Chase was not and would never be comfortable with.
'Are they any closer to finding her?' Victor asked in a low, respectful voice.
Chase shook his head and finally walked out.
No they weren't.
But he knew enough to realize that the longer this drew on, the more time would run out for Keiko.
The Sect were not forgiving. They were not incompetent, and they would get exactly what they wanted, no matter what they had to do to obtain it.