The Revelers (Serial 1)

Act 1 - Chapter 16: Samza

It turns out that the news of Ari's disappearance is a bigger deal than I had expected. I mean, compared to Livia anyway. She took a little convincing to join us. Something motivated Livia to leave her team, the Brick City Sirens. It could be a contract dispute. I do not know, and I don't give a shit.

Still, Ari seems too attached to her team, the Neon City Valkyries. She sometimes refers to them as her sisters. Still, I think with The Doc's help, Ari might just join our crew here at Amelia and do some awesome stuff with us. That would be dope.

I'm chilling now at my humble workshop, sectioned off in a corner of Rowynn's Machinist Shop, barely lit with a single floodlight at the top, emitting a soft shade of amber. Unlike the rest of Rowynn's shop, I don't like my crib too bright. Four small racks stand with server equipment and caged at the corner, all of them with blinking red, blue, and green lights, flickering like the lights of Winter Solstice celebrations, except these lights have no rhythm or beat at all. Just random blips. I even rigged some for Bitcoin mining using hydro power.

Spanning the opposite side sit two cars. On the right is my 870 horsepower Dodge Challenger, a.k.a. Mr. Westfall, in Plum Crazy Purple.

Next to it is a beat-to-shit Civic FK8 hatchback from the Black Rock Contingent. It has a classic transmission. Those Black Rock guys love putting their fleet of FK7s and FK8s through all kinds of abuse in the desert. However, this one needs some fixing.

I return to my workstation next to the server racks and check my notifications. It appears someone had pinged the servers recently. They must be after for Ari, considering the pings are querying the network addresses from Ari's phone and cybernetic augments. To accomplish that, the pings bounce from around server equipment. I attempt to trace it back and find the source of the pings. It looks like it's coming from a CrystalCorp-owned VPN. Unlike most popular VPNs that mask out of everything like a black permanent marker, these corporate VPNs are easy to work with and often resolved to an employee-owned machine. And, just like that, I get an employee number, translated from a decrypted hash key: C3I-7V-B8-0100-CJO.

C3I - Crystal Corp's stock ticker.

7V - Las Vegas area.

B8 - Boulder Beach laboratory.

0100 - Department code. 0100 suggests it's a manager or supervisor of the facility.

CJO - The user's initials.

I run through the initials of the employee against an updated roster list of the lab of interest, which The Savants gain during their hacking missions. After a quick minute, the employee ID resolves to an individual named Cithara Jillian Orphea. A quick Google search reveals her LinkedIn profile. She's the Supervisory Mechanical Engineer of the Boulder Beach Laboratory just east of Las Vegas. Her LinkedIn page even has a shoulder-up portrait, a young black girl with long, straight, blonde hair, pastel blue eyes, and sparkling white teeth.

I take another deep dive, bumping into Cithara's Instagram. It seems she likes to post pictures of random gadgets, her water-cooled RGB-lit gamer PC, her classic Porsche, and eventful photos with Ari. Looks like she might be a close friend.

Another search begins. This time, I unearth TikTok videos featuring Cithara. There's one posted last night of her alongside members of the Neon City Valkyries. Looks like they were at a sports bar, having a good time, drinking some pop, watching some wrassling on the big screens. Cithara seems to be a big fan of the UEW World Champion Philadelphia Ngannou. I don't watch wrestling too much, but I swear — that Philly guy looks a bit like Mr. Sandman from the Punch-Out! video games.

Upon further research, Cithara is seems to be Ari's girlfriend, according to the engineer's Facebook page. There are photos of the two together at various outings, like restaurants, hiking trips, and even sporting events. Seems to me that Cithara is trying to track down Ari's whereabouts. An idea sparks in mind. I hack into the CrystalCorp workstation, leave a calling card, and redirect the pings to some place remote, like the middle of Mongolia or something. I'm sure Cithara would enjoy it.