Scene #7754: Digging Around in the City of Sound

Owner	Pose
Cantio	Today, the city of Cadenza is... Like any other day! The City of Songs is a beacon of great gleaming neon structures every which way, with plenty of ambient music making the whole place hospitable and welcome to tourists and locals alike. Guards are posted around to guide traffic through transparent pathways and provide directions as people clock out from their busy work days, and diners are already shilling their nightly offerings with all the smells and stenches that might entail. Distant voices start welcoming or saying goodbye through outdoor speakers at various concert halls and open-air theaters, and there's even moderately intrusive advertisements scattered throughout like any good ultra modern city. If not for what had happened some time ago outside of the city, this really would just seem like any other day. The local populace seems happy enough, and there's little in the way of actual restrictions placed on anyone's movement into or out of the city. It's a cultural center as much as it is a home for those living in it, after all, so there's plenty of tourist traps to visit and waste money at. Even the palace that Cantio calls home is no exception, with only a few uniformed guards posted around the ground floor while receptionists direct visitors around to the gift shop, the museums, and even a music sampling area with some of the Drive Core Controller's and Candidate's more experimental works.
Staren	Staren is... somewhere. Possibly at home in fuzzy pajamas and slippers. Because talking to people is not her forte. Her most pressing questions are those of culture and facts, and THAT, she can find out... on the internet! Staren and some webcrawling AIs take a look around, starting with reference and social media sites; trying to get a feel for some of Cadenza's culture, how the city is run, and such. So that she can understand the answer to the questions: Why is the town that wants to secede under the belief that math is not allowed and a life based only on music will be forced on them? And what actually happens, and what will be the political implications, if a town like that secedes?
Shotaro Hidari	Shotaro Hidari, a half-boiled detective has entered the city mostly to try and get a feel for the place. Not only that, to try and figure out where those monsters were being made. The former likely wouldn't attract much attention, but the latter...well Cantio wouldn't want her plans stopped at this stage. Really does feel like dealing with a Dopant, Shotaro sighs. <"It is, in a way,"> Philip says over their radio. <"Dopant's are just people who let their desires get out of control, and in turn, become corrupted by the Gaia memory. People are quite capable of fooling themselves into doing anything if what they want is at the end."> Shotaro grunts a bit to his partner, "Nobody's perfect." Shotaro gets to work, first getting a feeling for the city and its people. People that are happy and why, people that are ambivalent and why...and people that might be unhappy, and why. The detective will also look into these places that people can't go, even if they are few and far between. Though the fact that so much of the city is open is a bit irregular to the man. A man who usually asks for forgiveness than permission.
Rita Ma	There's an awful robotic creature in 90s clothes, firing lasers wildly from its hands. It's parasitically feeding off a victim, slowly killing them like a tumor. Rita has a choice to make: capture it to maybe help cure other people, or kill it to definitely save its victim? It feels like a hard choice at the time. But monsters that hurt people have to be killed. The Bugster tastes like burnt electronics and regret on her tongue. Weeks later, at a hospital, that doubt suddenly vanishes. Cantio- how could she? What's wrong with her? ---- Rita, the perfectly normal girl, is going to get a crick in her neck at this rate. She keeps looking up at the buildings in innocent open-mouthed awe, to the point that she bumps into people a couple of times (maybe even another Elite!) and has to frenetically apologize. "Oh! Um, excuse me!" she says to the first guard she can take her eyes off the skyline long enough to notice. Her hands are clasped in an Imouto Distress Pose; her face wears the kind of wide-eyed mild worry that tends to incite instant sympathy. "Do you know where Ms. Cantio lives? It'd be a big help." Only in passing does she get the idea to glance back and assess him: are the guards obviously armed? What are their uniforms like, and what does that suggest about their role?
Hibiki Tachibana	The Narumi Detective Agency are far from the only members of the Watch who want to dig into Cantio's going-ons. Since all this Bugster business started, from the events at the hospital to the things happening here on the other girl's home turf, Hibiki has been pretty back and forth on how she feels about it. It's a frustrating mix of different emotions and thoughts that keep replaying in her head. 'I haven't created any new ones since then. I don't plan on doing that again.' 'A beautiful face and an apology and everything is all right.' 'You're as half boiled as Shotaro is.' All the more now that she's come to visit the actual City of Cadenza for the very first time. You'd have had to fight to keep her from coming along too - the chance to see her home is equally as important as resolving all of this and learning more, in her book. She's really impressed by the entire place though; the buildings are amazing and towering, music is everywhere, and there hardly seems to be anything amiss at all...even the impressive concert halls remind her of the really big one they have back at home. "We're friends of hers, if that helps," Hibiki speaks up from behind Rita towards the very same guard, hands in her jacket pockets. "And pretty new to the place. I don't suppose you guys got any maps of the city we could use?" As she says this, her eyes drift off towards the palace in the distance. It's actually hard for her, even to this day, for the fact Cantio is basically royalty to sink in...but it can't be denied, seeing that and everything here.
Lilian Rook	What incredible fortune of fortunes it is that Rita bumbles her way directly into Lilian! Here! Of all places! This is exactly because Lilian had figured out she was there pretty quickly --and with her, obviously some other kind of Watch presence-- and at some point Casually Approached The Child. She sticks out her hand for Rita to bomp into, but misses by a couple of inches when she turns around to look at the next building, and just kinda has to take it on the chest. "Well well, I hadn't expected to see you here, but it's rather nice that I have. Is this your 'thing' where you are? Things that have to do with monsters?" Obviously, 'differentiated within the Watch' is implicit, and not stated aloud like an idiot. "That's not a bad one. In fact, certainly better than drumming them up on an ideal and a whim." She visibly debates bothering to ask something, then decides there's no significant harm in doing something. A crude euphemism dies on her lips, where she masters her pathological unwillingness to even speak Cantio's name for a while. "Do you have a reason to believe she'd be outrageous enough to keep that kind of bomb in her basement? She does strike me as the work at home type of loser."
Cantio	Lucky Staren with her newfangled internet and high speed shitpost downloading. Back in the old days, who ever even heard of the internet? She's lucky that the High Speed Cabletrain's existence connected this world to the Multiverse at large, granting her (and anyone else, really) convenient access to all sorts of information about how things work in this world. Shotaro, too, has it pretty easy roaming the streets. Lots of people compliment him on his cool hat, some even comparing their own to his or stopping by to take selfies from big purple bricks on sticks. It seems foldable mobile phones are becoming a fad again around here, and hats are always in fashion to some degree. Looking for Cantio's home is easy enough, as the guard that's lucky enough to be picked today will point this very normal human girl, her jacketed companion that definitely won't punch someone in the mouth, and the Casual Child Approacher greets the trio with an easygoing smile and points them towards the big fancy palace that also kind of looks and sounds like a concert hall. Although the guard doesn't have a map on hand, they're directed towards one of the many kiosks that do in case they want to get there without drawing too much attention (or just saving introvert energy). There's even a helpful 'YOU ARE HERE' blip that lights up briefly when the map is squeezed! As they get closer to the palace, the ambient music becomes even more apparent, and there's guards on the ground floor that'll direct visitors around the palace. The lobby is what someone might expect from a more modern palace: Big walkways, central AC and heating, plenty of places to sit (with cushions), and more of that ambient music. There's gift shops with all sorts of Cadenza branded merchandise, electronics, listening areas with borrowable headsets, and even an overpriced coffee shop. It's almost all open! Anywhere except private staff locker rooms, employees-only bathrooms, and Cantio's and Saltavi's rooms, of course. Everyone has their right to privacy, after all, and the transparent elevator doesn't even stop on the floor where the Drive Core Controller's/Candidate's rooms are. There's definitely stairs leading up to that floor, however, so it's not like getting there is particularly difficult even from inside the building aside from evading a few guards.
Cantio	The culture of Cadenza is highly focused on music. Composing, singing, analog and digital production, all that sort of stuff is generally encouraged as their primary export. They're still self-sufficient in other areas, of course, but there's healthy trade with Cadenza and the other drives for things each place is specialized in so nobody gets too screwed over even when a given city is in control of the Distribution Hub (and its big shiny pile of System Resources) that the leaders compete over from time to time. It's sort of like how having less land and, by extension, less access to natural resources. In this world, however, it's actually a lot more literal thanks to System Resources being the primary method by which each Drive grows and improves things for its own people. Even the territory around that town, inhospitable as it was, would still generate some level of those resources. People in this area are generally happy with the way things are going. The have an entertaining and charismatic leader in Saltavi, a hard-working leader in Cantio, and there's not really much unrest to go around. There's the occasional weird monster sighting within the city, sure, but it's not too different from the usual occasional Virus sighting. The guards, keeping their futuristic laser pistols and magic-blasting batons/beating clubs inside their coats, are generally more than enough for dealing with anything that pops up in the city. Their uniforms are pretty anti-dehumanizing, too, with transparent visors to keep their faces visible and padded coats that provide both protection and comfort for any lost kids that might want something to latch onto. They're clearly meant more as peace officers rather than active combatants, suggesting that they're trained to maintain the peace people rather than actively participating in warfare. Digging into those weird monster sightings does lead to more, however, as it's proven through video footage of the events to be Bugsters to those that are more familiar with what they actually look like. Thankfully, nobody was seriously hurt in those sightings thanks to timely intervention from the local guards. The damage was likely done for those voicing their displeasure, however, especially in light of the math town looking to secede. The math thing itself has never been a particularly huge issue compared to the Bugster sightings, and even discussions about the math side of things don't prove particularly helpful considering that math isn't even prohibited here, just not emphasized. There's the usual complaints about advanced math classes and their perceived uselessness in modern living, and there's even arguments about such classes being compared to weightlifting. The internet here, of course, is still like the internet anywhere else: Filled with shitposts and insinuations about people's mothers rather than addressing logical arguments.
Rita Ma	The hand bomp Misses. Rita startles on impact and outright falls backwards, landing gracefully. "Aaah! ... Oh, Ms. Rook! I'm so sorry, I just didn't see you..." Shock fades to an apologetic blushing smile, and she lifts a hand with the expectation that Lilian will help her up. She gives a firm nod in answer, once she's righted. "I'm good at a few things, but monsters are the biggest one, Ms. Rook. You fight monsters too, don't you? The things you did in Mr. I4's world..." While she walks towards the palace, a thoughtful frown crosses her face. Truth be told, the idea that you can just have your workplace in a faraway secondary location doesn't intuitively occur to a lifelong shipbound girl, but... "I'll know if there are any Bugsters here," she says confidently. "And even if there aren't... she'd probably have some information on the experiments she's doing, wouldn't she?"
Shotaro Hidari	"Mmm. Culture is very sought after here," Shotaro says to his partner after the latest batch of Cadenzians takes their picture with Shotaro. Shotaro, of course, does his best to help make the picture memorable. Either holding the hat in one hand and leaning his head up for that dramatic pose. Or pointing at the camera in his Kamen Rider-esc pose. While it might seem like he's just goofing off, he does this to get some answers. The weird monster happening reveals that it was a Bugster. That leads to video footage which leads to more tangible evidence. Nobody was hurt, thank goodness, but it was definitely a contributor factor to the succeeding town to leave. Shotaro understands, a group of people feeling marginalized because their talents were not as popular as others...more than that, the event shook the town. No, wait...why would they know it was...that's odd. Why would the leader put the blame on Cantio directly..? Did he know more than he was letting on? Shotaro files it away for later. Shotaro goes to the sight of the attack, there had to be a clue or a trail that could lead him towards the place it was. After all, they were being experimented on and created at that time. The trail might be cold, but others there might give him another clue.
Rita Ma	As they approach the palace, Rita's first order of business is to breathe deep and taste the air- there's only so subtle she can be with that; anyone watching will notice the conspicuous nose-breath and the way she opens her mouth to pass air over her tongue. She's caught the scent of Bugsters before. Where is it present here? How old are the traces? Where do they lead? Regardless, she ducks into a quiet alley before entering the palace itself and signals for anyone accompanying her to follow. By the time they round the corner to join her, she's fabricated imitations of the cops' gear, complete with transparent visors and padded coats- one set for herself, and any teammates who feel like accompanying her. (Hers come with boots, conveniently, that add a couple inches to her height. She's a little short to be a stormtrooper.) "These can't hurt if we're going places we shouldn't be, right?" Her expression's a little sheepish; implicitly approval-seeking.
Staren	Okay. So math isn't taken as seriously here (and yet... they use all this technology, which needs to be engineered, which requires math... Staren closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose and takes a deep breath,) but the comment about Cadenza interfering in how the Little Nameless Town wants to run itself, at least in that way, was an exageration, although perhaps used as a sort of... shorthand for a whole bundle of political disgreements. But Staren won't find out what those are from Cadenza, probably. This other stuff, though... literal System Resources... which are somehow part and parcel of having territory. And the Hub controls the lion's share... Would the secession invite trade or military war from the neighboring countries? How much would the loss of that much territory, and its corresponding system resources, hurt Cadenza? What IS Cadenza's relationship with that town, economically? (It may be nameless, but Staren can point to it on a map, right?)
Hibiki Tachibana	Casual Child Approaching(TM) draws Hibiki's attention away from the palace and towards said Approacher(TM). She kind of gets some petty satisfaction from watching that bomp go wide, but it doesn't last very long, mostly because she seriously doubts any of it was an accident. There are several things she wants to say right at that moment, but she settles on just flatly stating, "...Cantio's not a loser. She's trying. I'm getting that map." She temporarily excuses herself to visit the kiosk and control her urge to engage in mouth-punching, because that's not going to do today. At least the blip on this map is nice. In a place with buildings this big, it's probably easy to get lost. She's going to keep an eye on it and get a lay of the land on the way to the palace, decidedly keeping pace several steps behind the trio as she does so, with occasional glances up at both them and the palace ahead. "Even if she's using them as a defense force, would she have any here if this isn't where she's working...?" Rita causes her to ask a question on her mind out loud, going thoughtful. "I wonder if she'd keep them in the city, or..." She stops thinking about it before too long--but she /is/ going to join Rita (and Lilian, begrudgingly, if she's going as well), in the stealth op. She looks over the costume a few times, then nods. "...This brings me back to Biomare," she says a little nostalgically, despite it not being all that long ago. "And if it worked back then, it should work now. Good thinking."
Lilian Rook	Lilian presses her contextual coop button prompt on Rita. "That's right. It's considerably more important than looking for people to call 'monster', and unfortunately, there isn't any shortage of them." she says, and then sighs a little too forlornly to be entirely serious, but a little too well to be joking. "It's a shame that people seem to enjoy the latter so much more. Well, I'll save you the 'talents misplaced' speech I suppose. Not the time or place; there's no point in complaining about your friends finally involving themselves in something that matters for once. It sends the wrong message, right?" Lilian actually smiles instead. "I'll trust you to do exactly that." And then, as a whole-ass palace with its own gift shop and name brand espresso joint comes into view, she says with resolve, "You're right. She probably does. Nobody with that much privilege makes themselves commute if they have to." Even Lilian doesn't live in fucking techno-Buckingham. The sympho-female is barely given the time of day, in the form of a derisive glance, and "Losers are always trying something; and it's always 'trying' because they never succeed. If you like her that much then this isn't a place for you." When Rita goes off to give the trail enough of a sniff for the glowing direction marker trail to light up in her alternate vision mode, Lilian sends a big black bird up into the air, and then weirdly just kinda stares at the sky for a while, before coming back and saying "Even if she doesn't have anything particularly nefarious lying around on her desk, I'll be able to find where he does by seeing it." It takes her only a short walkaround the interior of the palace's touristy sections to get the idea. "Low sec. Private floors. Guards at stairwells. Probably cameras at thoroughfares and junctions, but they're not about to tape their own quarters." She picks up Rita's mysterious find gingerly. "Apart from looking hideous, I suppose you're right." Even if it's mostly just a coat and visor, she puts them on with some hesitance. "There are four or five easy ways to get in there, so . . ." "Rita, do you trust me to take you there?"
Cantio	Investigating the most recent Bugster sighting leads the crew towards the palace, conveniently enough. It didn't appear in the palace itself, but at some random street corner close enough to the palace that rumors about Cantio's somewhat sudden increase in productivity and decrease in her visible sleep schedule have gained quite a bit of traction. This is especially so in social media where anonymous posting reigns supreme. Sadly, the actual trail of where that Bugster came from is a bit colder since it just appeared in one of those dramatic toku-flashes preceding a monster attack, as if it just materialized out of nowhere. Visual traces are basically nonexistent at this point since it happened a few weeks before the incidents at the coastal town, but there's still faint traces of burnt electronics, melted rubber, and copper in the air that are just a bit too much on the former side to be mistaken for a drunk person in an alleyway. Tracing the smell would be tricky, but a keen nose might just notice that there's the same smell coming from the palace. Whether it's actually the Bugster or just malfunctions in production would be trickier to detect by scent alone, but it's definitely leading towards the palace. Following that cold trail would lead to the smell growing stronger inside, upwards, and at its relative peak near the FORBIDDEN FLOOR that is Cantio's and Saltavi's residential area in the palace. It's still a pretty weak smell, though, so nobody's really noticed enough to try and spray air fresheners all over the place. That's what the wall plugins are for (citrusy!). Luckily, the guard gear fabricated by Rita in that copper-smelling alley is enough to fool the guards into just letting the crew through with only token glances their way. They might get a few more stairs depending on how many people actually snoop around in a group simultaneously, but it's still not enough for anyone to stop them. Guards come and go in their friend groups all the time, so why would this one be any different? Upon reaching THE FORBIDDEN FLOOR, meanwhile, there's actually no guards to be seen. A few maids and butlers scurrying about handling light cleaning tasks around, but they're few and far between even considering the size of the rooms. All is quiet on that floor, so it'd be a simple enough matter to get to the doors conveniently labeled SALTAVI (in a bubbly Comic Sans-esque type) and CANTIO (in a neater, but still fairly bubbly script). The doors are locked, but instead of requiring a key or any kind of fancy digital ID... It's just a little hole in the doorknob. They're really not worried about anyone breaking in, because who would want to intrude in the private bedchambers of royalty with so much security downstairs already? Secession, ultimately, wouldn't harm Cadenza too much on a numerical level. It's a blip on Cadenza's map, nestled firmly between Cadenza and a small bit of the ocean. Considering its size, the resources generated from where that town is located don't really account for much compared to the rest of Cadenza's territory. As contests over control of the Distribution Hub control the bulk of System Resources, meanwhile, war isn't really a thing that's considered by anyone. Even political analysts in this world note that there's not much to be gained from warfare compared to the potential losses compared to just letting their leaders duke it out through their contests over the Distribution Hub, so outright war simply isn't a thing that happens. It'd be surprising to even see such a decrease register as a single percent of Cadenza's total natural System Resource generation, so any potential harm to the city and its leadership would largely be symbolic rather than real. As the town hasn't been formally recognized as a town or its own independent nation, meanwhile, Cadenza hasn't had any real contact with it beyond a few people knowing it exists.
Rita Ma	"Rita, do you trust me to take you there?" Rita's face flinches with a flicker of doubt. Her hand touches her neck unconsciously. (Where that happened, there isn't so much as a scab.) Her gaze turns to Hibiki, too, expressing an unspoken concern- or maybe asking for permission. Ultimately, though, Rita nods. Her expression's set in only slightly shaky resolve. "Yeah. I trust you, Ms. Rook."
Lilian Rook	Rita's confirmation is all Lilian needs. Yet, she doesn't fail to see where Rita's fingers wander. One might even project 'sad' into the look she gives Rita afterwards. "Alright. Maybe close your eyes if you get sick easily." She says this because what she does next is pick Rita up, and with her thoroughly equipped in her back slot, teleport directly into Cantio's room; specifically, not by wandering into the hall itself and fiddling with the door, but straight through the floor of the storey below. There's no especial sensation to it, but the visual cortex tends to find it disagreeable. "Can you find it from here?" she then asks.
Shotaro Hidari	Shotaro frowns, there is definitely something off here. The smell, he realizes, the smell lingers. His senses aren't as focused as someone who can literally attune their senses, but he knows that's off. Pulling out a small handheld item, that morphs into a toy-looing Bat, Shotaro releases it. The creature flies in a circle and then moves to trace the path. Shotaro knows where to go, thanks to the Bat, and avoids patrols and peacekeepers by slipping past just at the right moments. Shotaro has a knack for being at the right place at the right time, avoiding patrols and people. Or if he can't distract them with more selfies and slip past the moment they're too busy looking at their phones. He continues to follow Bat, following it to whatever door on the penthouse it moves towards. Breaking in isn't all that hard either, morphing bat back into a tool and using it to pick the lock before releasing it again. So where would the Bugster have come from..?
Rita Ma	Rita nods bravely and doesn't bother to close her eyes- she barely got sick at all, standing on land for the first time! And of course she's got a strong stomach. This proves a mistake. She immediately does a kind of dizzy-stagger for a moment or two after being abruptly 'teleported' through the floor, nearly falling over in the process. It isn't until she shakes her head briskly that the sensation, and the stumbling, subsides. "Let me check," she says, after taking a moment to survey the bedroom's obvious contents. The helmet comes off, tucked under her arm. She closes her eyes, opens her mouth slightly, and pulls in a breath over her tongue. The taste of a monster... I'm drooling a little already. But I can handle it- I need to focus! Where's it coming from...?
Staren	So... the town is worried about Cadenza's rule, and Cantio is worried about the effects of secession, but Cadenza doesn't even know the town exists. Staren tries to work out her feeble SOCIAL UNDERSTANDING MUSCLES and the conclusion they give is that someone has lied to the town AND to Cantio to make trouble from nothing. But... where the hell do you go from there? Stumped, Staren passes every bit of data she's gathered so far -- including every barely-glanced-at socialbook feed or article and the comments she didn't read below -- to her AI, and poses the question: >How can I track down the instigator of this and discover their goals?
Hibiki Tachibana	'Then stop. Having a partner is about trusting them, regardless of the circumstances.' With Philip's words echoing through her skull, Hibiki meets Rita's glance with a look that's still tense - but she gives a small, almost imperceptible nod. It's fine. Lilian also gets a turn of her eyes, though not one that she expects to be returned. From the looks of it, she's beneath her notice now. That's just fine by her. It's only after the pair teleport away that she straightens up some and murmurs to only herself, "We'll see about all of that..." Lacking any non-collateral damage-tastic ways of getting to places fast, Hibiki will rely on Rita's disguise for getting around the palace in a relatively unaccosted manner. Her ultimate goal is to also steadily get higher up in the floors, though there's no rush with Rita and Lilian heading straight up there; instead, she's going to take it slow, asking occasional passerby guards questions. Only one each, so she doesn't stay around them for too long and risk blowing cover, but enough to get a few things she wants to know hopefully cleared up. The most important of which being: is Cantio here in the palace, right now? What about Saltavi? As for the former, has she been out a lot recently? Well, any more than Multiversal shenanigans would lead to her being, anyway, but she could also be working from home after all in NEET fashion. What about that Defense Force? Have they been around the palace much at all? She does her best to phrase them less as direct inquiries and more like another guard shooting the crap and talking in passing. Man, she really needs to work on her acting skills.
Cantio	Staren's investigations into a potential instigator won't go particularly far, but not for a lack of trying. Indeed, there is definitely some miscommunication between the town, thinking that Cadenza doesn't have a place for them, and Cantio, thinking that she has no choice but to convince the town to return lest she lose face. Recent events certainly haven't helped said issues, but perhaps... The problem between these two places might be far simpler than someone trying to pit them against each other at all. There's conspiracy theorists on the internet, of course, but digging into any of them shows that none of them have been particularly inconsistent for what they are: People jumping to conclusions about the worst possible outcome if things are allowed to go one way or the other. Whether through teleportation or sneaking/schmoozing past the guards with selfies, getting into Cantio's room ends up being easily accomplished. It's about the size of an average David Cage apartment: Stupidly high ceilings, stairs to a raised second floor-ish area, and enough open space and extra rooms for a family of five to comfortably live in. It's even got a full size bathtub, kitchen, and storage space for Cantio's robotic experiments! A normal apartment according to assholes. Indeed, there's a buttload of drones here. They're inactive, thankfully, but it's still adding a rather creepy ambience to the room with their vacant stares and boxy heads just looking right at the center of the room from the walls, underneath workbenches and her computer desk, and even a few besides Cantio's big fancy bed. The room is also very white, very purple, a little pink, and even the working area is practically radiating with the energy of a toolset FOR GIRLS. If not for the occasional bloody towel or napkin stuffed under other garbage that she's probably hiding from the cleaning staff. The smell of Bugster remnants is particularly strong in here, too. Although it'd be easy enough to dismiss it as coming from the drones, the people here know what they're looking for. Although the smell is particularly strong around the workbenches with all her tools and things, there actually aren't any visible traces of one here. It seems that any work that might have been done here are largely gone, but the scent doesn't stop at the bench. No, the smell is quite potent on her computer desk where a tablet with a finger-smudged screen lies that's carrying the strongest traces of the smell, and it's even locked with a four number password instead of permitting face-recognition or fingerprint scanning. With the guard disguise provided, meanwhile, it's even easier to get upstairs and ask questions of the guards without raising any eyebrows. They confirm that Cantio's been out for the day, and she had called ahead of time to let the chefs know that she'll prepare her own dinner once she's back. It's something that's happened fairly often lately, and there's the occasional concerned guard over her being out so often. What if she's getting mixed up with the WRONG CROWD? Could she be getting into dangerous ELITE ACTIVITIES that you don't want your parents knowing about? Yeah, probably. Still, the guards are less concerned about that and more about her being influenced by weird stuff outside, especially in light of where Viruses have come from: The dreaded OUTSIDE. The guards are aware of Cantio's experiments with creating a Defense Force, but they haven't actually seen anything about it and generally assume it's got something to do with those drones she keeps building. They haven't seen her working on them in her room as often as before, though, so she's definitely working on them somewhere else. Apparently, the Elites present today aren't the only ones worried about what she's been up to, although they're probably way more in the loop than the guards themselves.
Cantio	Saltavi, meanwhile, has just finished up a concert of her own from earlier tonight, so she'll be back shortly. It's not a nightly thing, but it's definitely a full time job with how often she hosts those things around the palace or the many venues around Cadenza. It's probably a contributing factor to why Cadenza's people seem so happy with things in general, and other matters regarding Cantio's... Everything else she does. The guards do reassure Hibiki that she'll get a chance to see her soon, though, if that's what she really wants to see. The first sign Hibiki gets that the royal older sister's even going to be here is- "Salty juuuuniooooor!" -the first sign that Shotaro, Lilian, and Rita get that someone is approaching Cantio's room, too. It's a younger-sounding voice than Cantio's, too, as the spiky purple-haired gurl heads right towards that door, pushes a thin stick into the doorknob, and... "Can I give me some of your pudding cups? If you don't say anything, I'll take that as a... Yes?" The door is opened far more easily than she's used to, and she just stares at whatever/whoever might still be inside! If she gets that door open without resistance, anyway.
Rita Ma	Rita surveys the apartment with a distant, unfixed look in her eyes. She 'locks on' twice: once when she notes a half-hidden blood-stained towel, thankfully a little too old to be too distracting- she forces herself to put it into a tight drawer where she can't smell it as strongly, anyway- and again when she locates the tablet. She points at the device, the life returning to her eyes as she switches 'vision modes' again. "There," Rita says. "That's it. The Bugster stuff." Her reaction to the sound outside the door comes, somehow, just a hair faster than Lilian's. With sharp enough perception, it's possible to see the way her mis-synchronized eyes snap to the doorway: first her right, then her left. She has just enough time to echo those earlier words, often said between the two of them, but never yet by her. "Do you trust me?" <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Until I have a reason not to." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Whatever it is, do it." I can disappear, but I can't do that for the rest of them. I don't know their shapes as well as mine; the colors would bend wrong. But I can do this. Rita seemingly dematerializes. Lilian (and anyone else who assents to her help) abruptly has her guard disguise shredded away, the pieces disappearing. Instead, she's wrapped from head to toe in something cold, clinging, and slightly wet that twines around her body like the wrappings of a mummy. From the inside, it's transparent- despite feeling it on her face, she can see out just fine. Only by looking down at her own body can Lilian tell that she's now wearing a maid outfit identical to that donned by the help, but her skin, her face, even her eyes look different.
Shotaro Hidari	Shotaro gets into the room to close it behind him only to see that he was in fact not the first one here. He's about to say something when he hears the voice behind him. This barely gives him enough time to notice that Bat immediately hovers around the bloody towel and the pad. He calls it back, only barely able to grab it from the air before the door swings open. That and the fact that Rita is both invisible now, and... Shotaro, every the Hard-Boiled detective handles this situation as well as he can handle. He looks wide-eyed at himself, then the ground, then back up just in time to see the door open. Keeping himself from an out burst, he considers speaking. Then realizes she likely isn't able to change his voice...and he doesn't do a very good womanly voice. How does he know this? In his mind, Akiko's plans run through his head, often time forcing him to cross dress. He can not do a very good impression of a lady, and worse get mocked for it. Where is Philip when you need him..? He opts for silence. Silence is golden.
Hibiki Tachibana	Thankfully, the guards turn out to be pretty easy to talk to. And they tell Hibiki a lot of useful things! Worrying things. It sounds like that mention of Cantio not getting much sleep lately goes much deeper than she was already thinking it did, if her going out is regular enough for people to be worried about her. DANGEROUS ELITE ACTIVITIES just reminds her of all the times they've fought and broken each other's faces and just gets a muted, awkward chuckle of her. She's glad that doesn't happen anymore. But she'd probably still take that over what's going on now, honestly. It's hard to blame them being concerned over the outside world when they're all in this situation. Hibiki just really hopes it stays as concern for Cantio and not something that'll change her people's opinion on her for the worse... "So she's doing it somewhere else after all..." She speaks to herself, as she often does, as she steadily keeps heading up. "If Cantio's not here, then maybe..." Just as her thoughts go to maybe visiting the Drive Core Controller, she can hear that voice echoing across the walls of the FORBIDDEN FLOOR, and she realizes-- Oh. That's why Rita said that over the radio. And if everyone is there... Oh. Hibiki promptly powerwalks to a point she can turn a corner and catch sight of Saltavi opening up the door, and she breathes in sharply, exhales, and puffs her chest out - stepping out into view and trying to make a cool and casual approach while deepening her voice some. Act like a guard. Sound like a guard. It kind of works. Kind of. "Er--" Ahem. She clears her throat. "Miss Saltavi?" She has no idea if that's right or not, but she gets the impression that this girl isn't someone who cares about titles all that much. "You have someone looking for you downstairs. They say it's very, /very/ important."
Lilian Rook	§Rita, I am never trusting you again. We could have just jumped out again, or grabbed that girl, or even just crouched under a table or something. Why this.§ It takes Lilian longer to realize that she is now wearing a wet and clingy, possibly alive bodysuit, than it does to realize she looks like a maid, and even then worrying about her real clothes underneath happens between the two. About a hundred more emphatic, yet certainly less time critical, reactions are stuffed down the back of her throat, and she instead opts for trying to look faux-surprised and vaguely annoyed by the bothersome intrusion of what looks vaguely like Cantio's little sister or cousin-- which isn't hard, because she isn't and she is. The workflow that'd been interrupted just wasn't actually cleaning. "Please don't go taking things that aren't yours on such flimsy premises, young miss." Lilian replies on the spot. She motions to Shotaro to move along and resume working, like a more junior maid she won't abide slacking from. "I can't be held responsible for Miss Cantio's valuable desserts going missing simply because she isn't here. I can simply send someone for more pudding cups, if you like." She is, if nothing else, obnoxiously, shockingly good at totally switching character on a time. Lilian turns around casually as if getting back to work, straightening out the desk, muttering something about all these drones, and blocking the view of the tablet from the door with her body, which is pushed off to one corner neatly, and mysteriously disappears. "Please don't cause any trouble. Lady Cantio already has more than enough to worry about." The tablet is now within a trivial arm's reach of Rita, behind Lilian.
Cantio	Apparently, there was already someone in Cantio's room! A few someones, even, as Saltavi finds herself looking blankly from the disguised Shotaro (who's totally rocking that uniform) to the face-changed Lilian (who's also rocking that uniform) and... Nobody else in the room! She can't actually see through Rita's invisibility, after all, and she doesn't have her plot-detection thingy turned on to reveal her whereabouts. "... Hhn. She's still not back, huh?" The smaller sister utters with a defeated sigh, actually sounding and looking disappointed about something. "Ah, don't worry. You saw nothing. Wooo-eeee-oo-eeee... Oh." She tries to make it sound like she's a spooky ghost (badly), but her energy's already dropped several levels from how upbeat she was just before opening that door. "Guh...! Don't tell me Charta's been hiring again. It's hard enough slacking off when she's around." She pouts with a melodramatic sigh, reeling at Lilian's scolding and peering over at Shotaro when he's gestured at. She makes some kind of vague hand gesture at him, almost as if she's signaling something, but it's not really clear at a glance what that signal is. "It's not the same if it's not from /her/ fridge, though. She keeps them at just the right temperature and...!" One more overly dramatic sigh, and then she relents. "Fine, fiiine. Just gimme a ringdingdong when she shows up." Guard-Presenting Hibiki approaches, and Saltavi pouts yet again. "Another one?" She sags in the other direction at a nearly ninety degree angle like she lost all the bones in the top half of her body. "Aw, man... It better not be about my vehicle's extended warranty again. I already voided the last one!" Crisis averted! Saltavi heads for the stairs, and she disappears from sight moments later.
Rita Ma	Rita watches Lilian's face tensely for any sign of genuine irritation or disapproval when she's turned around, but the maid act is too good- that air of casual irritation is probably only meant for Saltavi, but what if it's not? The organic disguise-wrappings just perceptibly shiver around her before relaxing again as Lilian turns back, a hint at her mood. I'm sorry, Ms. Rook. This was a stupid idea, wasn't it? But it's the best I could come up with... She snatches the tablet, but doesn't try to unlock it right away. Instead she tucks the original inside her own wrappings, replacing it with a visually perfect copy that appears to be broken, perhaps by a clumsy maid. When Saltavi leaves, the tentacle-wrappings fade to invisibility to reveal Lilian and Shotaro's true forms underneath, and then tangibly slither off them, leaving no perceptible residue or wetness behind. Rita re-materializes a moment later, holding the real tablet protectively in both arms. She heaves a huge, deflated sigh, and then straightens up with a jolt of acute anxiety before giving an apologetic bow. "I'm so sorry! Really, I am. I just... if you moved us back out like that, I thought we wouldn't get a chance to get this. Please forgive me..." Once she's adequately reassured, she eventually finds a place to sit down with the pad (where everyone else can peek, obviously) and keys in the keycode indicated by the gross Gamer Girl Fingerprint smudges. That's gotta be it, right?
Shotaro Hidari	Shotaro turns back to his work, but the signal caught his attention. He releases Bat, as it flies up to the right the moment his eyes are off of him. When Lilian tells 'Her' to go to work, she's back on it, but Bat flies up and over, slipping over the door and hovering in the air. It takes the stealthy track to follow Saltavi and see what she does. In case that Shotaro WAS being signaled. It does make sense, that the help might have assigned times, or not be allowed here. There is more going on here than she knows, and it's worrisome. To say the least. Once the cover is gone, and Shotaro doesn't have slime problems, which is good. He has amazing hard-boiled clothes later. "Why are you apologizing, you saved our bacon on the fly. If anything it's something to be proud of," he says, and if not stopped gives her a pat on the head. "Anyway, what's on the tablet?" He asks, curious. "Bat seemed to indicate it was the source...and given Bugsters being a computer...something...if that's her lab that'd be interesting."
Hibiki Tachibana	"Ahaha..." Despite trying to put on the Gruff Guard Guise, Hibiki can't help a dry chuckle at seeing just how put out Saltavi is. She'd never say as much, but she feels kind of bad for her. Not just because the dramatic overreaction makes it hard /not/ too, but because of what she saw before that. The disappointment on seeing her sister wasn't here, and the sound in her voice. As the girl heads off, Hibiki takes a moment to step forward and lean in to glance into the room. Precisely long enough to see that they were all in maid uniforms of all things, and as they drop, Lilian and Shotaro are both given one of the wryest grins anyone has ever seen out of her. It only lasts a split second before Hibiki realized she was doing it and brings a hand up to her mouth to cover it and cough-throatclear it off, shaking her head at herself. "I'm going after her too," she says, in reference to Shotaro sending Bat off to follow the Controller. You guys finish up what you need to do in there." Noticing how stiff Rita is, she adds on with pursed lips and a second headshake. "You're half the reason any of this is even working out. Have more confidence in yourself, alright? Speakin' of--here, this helped a lot!" Hibiki quickly removes the portions of the cop disguise and rather haphazardly tosses them into the room before leaving the trio to it, closing the door and hurrying off after Saltavi. Not so fast to catch her before she reaches the bottom floor, but enough that she'll hopefully be able to find her searching for the nonexistent person who wanted her. That's okay, because Hibiki will fill in. All she has to do is play it cool (again) and approach like she wasn't just doing that one minute ago, waving her down on the approach to get her attention. Hopefully going back to her normal voice is enough to stop her from being sussed out. "Hey, uh--Saltavi, right...? Cantio's older sister? I'm a friend of hers, though I dunno if she ever talked about me. I was actually looking for her, but it sounds like she's not here. You wouldn't happen to know where she is right now, would you?" Beyond trying to break the ice - she needs to know if Saltavi is any more aware of what's really going on here than the guards are.
Lilian Rook	Oh well. In the end, this was probably still easier than trying to metaphorically neck chop someone. The 'broken' tablet ends up exactly where it should be in another exchange of wordless communication and impossible sleight of hand as Lilian moves away from the desk just in time, blocking view of Rita while the interloper makes up her mind and runs off. By the time Rita withdraws her tentacles, the initial shock has worn off, and the trickle-through effect of having to roleplay a calm and collected all-business 'royal' maid has had its effect. There is a great big stress-management sigh from her, and then Lilian visibly runs out of time and energy to be cross. Instead, she has proper portable hard disk media on her like a true zoomlet, in order to copy the contents of the tablet. She seems to have no expectations of Cantio's cybersecurity either. "Don't think about that for now. There are many, far worse ideas. Ah, but if you can't get that open, I'll be taking it back to have our cybersecurity experts work on it."
Cantio	With the immediate threat of being caught in the act rendered moot, Rita's free to follow the trail of Gamer Girl Slime on that tablet. It takes some trial and error with the number of possible combinations even with those smudges, but it only takes getting locked out two or three times for a minute before... THEY'RE IN. There's the usual array of standard tablet junk in there: Pre-installed apps, various mobile games, several productivity apps that have never actually been touched. There's even some that load into blank screens that don't seem to actually do anything, likely stuff she's still working on. Even copying the contents of the tablet isn't particularly hard, as it (like almost everything else built here) is designed to be used by anyone for ease of information sharing. It's probably a good indicator of how this city's gotten as far as it did technologically, although it does imply some potential issues with their cybersecurity. More relevant to this investigation is the note-taking app. It doesn't take long to find the notes and more specific information on the Bugster experiments, notably those from when the situation was still super fresh with talk of finding a cure or vaccine being the big thing. The notes have since been updated, but it's not clear how long ago. Despite being converted into easily readable text, however, the notes themselves are haphazardly arranged, as if multiple text boxes were created over prior boxes just to fit them onto one page within the limits of the app. It basically looks like a grad student's notebook, and some of the notes even contain clear typos from the app misintepreting Cantio's inputs. The totals: 5 Viruses turned into Bugsters, 2 destroyed. 8 people turned into Bugsters, 5 destroyed. 2 people killed prior to turning into Bugsters. 7 survivors. (see also: +bbread 24/228) The notes also show that Cantio had moved her work away from Cadenza after realizing that an escaped Bugster could result in greater problems for her efforts. Clearly, that's the case with the whole seceding town situation and the multiple destroyed Bugsters already indicated in her notes, and she's since moved her lab into an underground facility in the forest between Cadenza and the unnamed town on the coast.
Cantio	Outside of Cantio's room, neither Bat nor Hibiki actually need to go that far to catch up with Saltavi. In fact, they actually find her right in that stairwell, surprising her when she's addressed by the latter. "Eh? Oh, yep! Tha-at's me! A friend, eh? Ah, she's growing up so fast! Yeah, she's mentioned a couple over the past couple of months." She smacks her lips a few times, looking like she just tasted or said something weird. "Couple over.. Of 'er... Anyhoo. That depends! You with the rest of 'em snoopin' around in her private underthings? " She waggles her eyebrows at Hibiki, looking her over briefly before crossing her arms over her head and leaning against a wall in the fancy stairwell. "Come on. Your face is way more memorable than the filler crowd downstairs even with that uniform on. Besides, I'd remember a hottie like that working here." Despite apparently seeing right through some of those disguises and not indicating who that hottie is, she doesn't look worried in the slightest. "Aaaanyway. She's probably still burning through the candle out there. You know where that is yet?" She pauses just long enough to give Hibiki time to answer, then shifts her hands to her pockets while taking on a slightly (for her) more somber tone. "What're you gonna do once you get there?" Staren's persistent internet searches and simulations, meanwhile, seem to zero in on one key problem: Neither Cantio nor the town have really talked to each other one bit throughout this whole ordeal. They've exchanged vaguely shouted words in each other's directions, sure, but there hasn't been any clear opportunity to actually discuss anything. Getting them together at the table might just help put a lid on the potential powder keg there, but the tricky part will actually be getting that to happen without it exploding in the meantime.
Rita Ma	Rita glances down and away, clearly uncomfortable with Shotaro's praise. Her arms are held in against herself in a defensive position; her legs pull in too, trying to minimize her profile and shrink down as if that could let her escape notice. Discussing exactly what happened there seems to be a negative, but at least it's made her stop apologizing. Hibiki finishes the job by giving her more general praise; Rita straightens up, evidently sensing the need to Put On A Brave Face, and gives her a resolute nod as a send-off. The one remaining source of tension for her is Lilian's reaction, and she is- at least- given a graceful stay of exeuction from that conversation. Rita mirrors Lilian's sigh, but smaller and quieter, and then holds out the tablet for whatever she's going to plug into it. "Okay, but I think I can get it. It won't be too long," she says with a look of unnecessarily intense concentration for what's just rote number entry. That prediction comes true: the tablet is opened in just a minute or two. Those statistics in the notebook app visibly curdle her blood; her lips quiver and her face tenses with disgust. But she already knew the broad strokes; to some extent, she'd been braced for this. "In the forest," she finally says. "Underground. It says about where." With that done, she offers the tablet to anyone who will take it from her as if it were something inherently gross.
Hibiki Tachibana	"Ah." That's the sound of one Hibiki Tachibana caught dead like a deer in front of headlights. She freezes up for a moment before bringing a hand up to run through her bangs while Saltavi takes up position at the wall. "I guess I really am no good at the stealth stuff after all...yeah, I am. Sorry about the sneaking around." But since Saltavi doesn't sound actually upset about the entire thing, she figures it's okay to take it in relative stride herself and be forthright. She wasn't expecting such serious questions from her though. Maybe she should've, if she saw through them that easily, but she finds herself turning her eyes off to the side with a grimace. "That's what we're trying to find out. They'll probably get back to me on that soon. I wish she was just in her room instead, but..." Hibiki trails off, giving Saltavi the chance to ask her second question. The change in tone doesn't escape her, like last time, and her head remains turned away as she swallows. "...I don't know," she admits. "Maybe some of the others will want to shut the place down the hard way. They'd probably be right to do it." Lilian is the one in mind when she says that, but with how Rita is when it comes to monsters... But that's to be dealt with when it's time for it. After going quiet briefly, her hands clench at her sides and she finally looks the other girl in the eye again. "...But Cantio is my friend, and more than anything else, I don't want her to keep hurting herself like she's doing. Working herself to the limit, doing things because she thinks she's the only person who can, putting that burden on herself..." Her expression contorts some. "...It's too sad. And she's not the only one hurting because of it. Her people are...and you are too, aren't you? ...So I'm going to talk to her face to face. And I'm gonna do my best to help her, and stop her from making any more mistakes, so she can--!" Hibiki stops when she realizes she's getting kind of extra, especially without even knowing how much Saltavi is actually informed about all this. Kind of awkwardly, she lifts a hand to rub at the back of her neck and looks away again, with even more increasing awkwardness. "...Uh...something like all that, I guess. I'm pretty bad at planning ahead."
Shotaro Hidari	Shotaro looks at Rita for a moment, gives her a nod and a smile. "Alright. I'll dig around there.." he says looking at the data. He does look up to Lilian, "I hear you got a specialist on the Bugster's in your forces. Dr. Belt, right? He might be able to go over whatever data is here beyond the non-technical stuff. I can send your people the information to get in there when you're all ready," He continues. He doesn't seem too put out that she's taking charge. Cops do that, it's what they do. Most people in the Watch see the Paladins as a hurdle, Shotaro has always worked with cops. Rapport with people who handle the crimes goes a long way when solving them. He tips his hat and moves to leave. Outside, Bat drops a card from the sky, before flapping off less hidden. He'll eventually fly back towards Shotaro's hand.
Cantio	"No worries. You couldn't have known you'd be running into the one and only Saltavi, hero of Cadenza~" Saltavi announces with as much pep as she can muster even with her more serious-ish tone, clearly struggling to even maintain that considering the gravity of what they're talking about. Wait. Why /is/ she struggling so much with that right now? She's got a much easier way to handle that, but... No, now's not the right time. Taking her hands back out of her pockets, she raises her hand to snatch Bat's card from the sky, peering at it briefly before slipping it into one of her parka's pockets. "And that's another... Man, that's gonna be awkward. Yeah, they'll probably get back to you once they're out of the caution zone. Shouldn't be too long, since they never triggered the timer." Waving that concern off, Saltavi strokes her chin and nods eventually. "Wouldn't doubt it. She's been pretty quiet about all that stuff she's working on, but I don't even need to transform to see what's going on with all that biz. All that..." She trails off, letting out yet another dramatic sigh before clutching her chest. "Ah, my heart! Knowing that others share this plight, but knowing that she's got so many people that care...!" She swoons, she swings around, and she very nearly throws herself down the stairs, but she lands firmly on her feet like she practiced this whole thing ahead of time. Saltavi snickers after that, but she can't help but laugh when Hibiki stops herself from being too extra. "Do whatcha can. I'd do it myself, but... It's complicated when it's within the family, y'know? Besides, you all probably know way more about the nitty gritty, so it'd just be weird for me to join in just before the finale." "Anyway. You should get going with the rest of your party, Hibibi-bi bi-biki. You don't wanna make 'em think I kidnapped ya! I mean, unless you're into that kinda thing." She laughs, then starts heading down the stairwell. Following her will make it easier to avoid any questions from the guards, at least. "And next time you're here, make sure it's just to play games in Junior's room. She... Cantio needs more of that in her life, and not just from me."
Hibiki Tachibana	Hibiki watches Saltavi head off down the stairs, her mouth having fallen open just a little bit without her really realizing it. This girl is...really something else. She saw right through them all, still didn't stop them, and despite acting so casual, past all the silly bits... She can't imagine Cantio could have a better sister. So if she can't help her sibling herself, that's all the more reason she has to do her best in her place. "...Right! I'll--we'll make sure of it. Leave it to us! ...And I'm not the damsel in distress type, y'know! Leave that for the princesses!" She calls after her before she's gone, with some renewed energy in her voice. And she has a point. Hibiki hurries back to get back to the others, so they can exchange information and leave while they have a good chance to do it. "Just hold on, Cantio...one way or another, I'm gonna make sure you can smile without worrying...!"