VRDET Op: The Marraketh Connection
Seg #5: "The Great Outdoors, Part 1"
By: nexxus 3 kline 
Coauthor: Shadur
==================================

	Having collected Shad and sorted out I.D. Badges and 
such, the group headed towards the Entries and Departures 
Tracking Building. Phoenix had brought up the subject of tracking 
devices, and how much easier it would be to find the missing VR 
people if everyone was carrying one in their survival packs. He 
had also mentioned a specific agency that did nothing but track 
teleporters where he came from. Nexx kicked herself for not 
having thought of the EDT people in the first place. If the three 
missing people had ended up anywhere within a 1000 mile range of 
Chi-lin, there was a good chance the EDT people had seen where 
they landed. It was worth a try in any case. Shad had proposed 
trying to raise them by 'Linker, but some kind of static was 
rendering all standard frequencies inoperable and Phoenix wasn't 
able to bypass the problem.
	"...and that huge building over there is an apartment 
complex type thing." Nexx pointed towards a building the size of 
the Statue of Liberty. "We need to go in here." she said, 
stepping into an alcove which looked like it *could* have been a 
doorway, except that it was just an alcove. "It'll be much faster 
if we don't walk and much safer if we don't use the open 
transport system." She pulled a card out of her back pocket and 
ran it under a scanner that was attached to the wall just inside 
the door.
	"Aye-toor blinden ekki naah merhoor," an electronic voice
announced, followed by a brief pause and 2 more nonsensical 
sounding statements. "Present proof of residency now." it said 
lastly. Nex slid her ID badge under the scanner. "Sekjerst?" the 
voice began again. "Tlart." she stated, giving the voice no 
chance to continue. "Okee guys, right this way." she motioned 
towards an opening that had appeared where the back wall of the 
alcove had been.
	Immediately after entering, the doorway closed behind 
them. They were in a large open space that looked much like the 
lobby of an office building. There were several doors on each 
wall, each with a sign over it indicating where it lead to 
written in three lines of what looked like gibberish and a line 
in what looked like English at the bottom. Nexx lead them towards 
the door which said 'To Irvenish and Terra Sectors.' "Right 
through this door. Let me run my card through." she said, running 
her card through the credit card like scanner. "Mijnaha" said the 
electronic voice. "You're welcome." Nexx answered as she motioned 
for Shad and Phoe to step through.
	The door slid silently to a close behind them as they 
stepped onto the street in a completely different part of the 
city. "The EDT is just across the street." she said, dodging a 
pedestrian and stepping towards the curb. "Watch out for traffic, 
it can be heck to cross a street here."
	The EDT building was fairly small, about 50 stories tall, 
and from the outside appeared to have no windows. Once inside 
however, it was like being inside a glass building. The young 
woman at the front desk informed them that all of the equipment 
was down, they suspected it had something to do with an unknown 
form of transport at the MC earlier in the day but they weren't 
sure, she directed them towards the 19th floor anyway. "You can 
see if they will try and access the log files, I don't think 
they've got the problem sorted out enough yet to do it, but it's 
worth a try." Nexx grumbled to herself, thanked the woman and 
threw Shad an angry glance as she headed for the lift. Shad 
glanced at Phoe with a "What'd I do this time?" look, turned and 
followed Nexx. Phoe shrugged quickly in reply and followed.
	As the doors closed and the lift began its ascend, Shad 
turned to Nexx. "What's our next move if they can't find out from 
the logs where the rest of the team arrived or even if they did?"
	"I don't know." she replied. "Aside from going out an 
actually looking for them, this is our only option. At least 
until we can get back to HQ. Mal might have a log of some sort. 
We don't even know if they made it to this side." Shadur nodded, 
and remained silent for the rest of the trip.
	The group had run out of luck. After a 30 minute search 
for the Comm of EDT amongst machines and stacks of graphs and 
charts, they were informed that it would be, at the very least, 
another five hours until the logs could be brought back online. 
So much for an easy out. They made arrangements to come back and 
collect a copy of the logs in six hours, provided the logs could 
be retrieved, and headed back down to the lobby.
	"So what are we going to do in the mean time?" Nex asked 
of no one in particular. "Anyone have any bright ideas?"
	"Depends.... Either of you scared of heights?" Shad asked 
after a moment's thought.
	"Not especially... What do you have in mind?"
	"Aerial recon. We can cover a lot of ground from the air. 
We'll start over the city and spiral out... It's a long shot but 
it's better than sitting on our thumbs."
	"But we don't have aircraft- oh." Phoenix stopped himself 
as the coin dropped.
	"Right. Let's get up to the roof." Nexx turned around. 
"Elevator's this way."

***

	Nexxus looked out over the city while the wind blew in 
her hair. The EDT building was one of the largest in Chi-Lin, and 
she looked down over endless rows of roof tops. She glanced 
sideways to where Shad, still in human form, sat perched on the 
edge, looking down with a feral grin on his face, just staring 
down at the city below. Finally he got up and began taking off 
his jacket and stuffing it into his backpack. Zipping it shut and 
tossing it to Nexx, he said "Could you hold this? I'll be right 
back..."
	And jumped.
	Nexx and Phoenix shouted in shock and rushed to the edge 
and looked over to see Shad shift to dragon form and spread his 
wings, turning a 10 meter per second per second fall into a tight 
swoop that took him several hundred metres away before sliding 
into a turn that brought him back over the roof.
	Nexx grabbed hold of Phoe with one hand and Shad's bag 
with the other, and 'ported onto Shad's back. Shad held his wings 
as motionless as possible while they both scrabbled for purchase 
on his back.
	Once they both sat more or less securely, Nexx thumped 
Shad's neck a couple of times an yelled "Okay, let's go!"
	Shad responded by banking sharply to the left and beating 
his wings. Nexx and Phoenix held on for dear life while the 
dragon ascended until he levelled off on a thermal and headed 
north over the city wall.

***

	Nexx had flown before. But never in all her life had it 
been in anything other than some form of *enclosed* aircraft, 
belted to a seat with a parachute nearby. Now, she realized that 
that experience had been to flying as hearing someone hum a few 
bars of Metallica was to a full live concert.
	It was frightening. It was exhilarating. It was 
wonderful. Her heart pounded in her throat and the wind streamed 
through her hair, an effect you just couldn't get sitting 
strapped into a chair.
	With an effort of willpower, she turned her attention 
back to studying the ground below for signs of their missing 
comrades. To do this, she was hanging away from Shad's back, 
holding on only with her left hand so she could see around Shad's 
bulk. On the left side, Phoenix' position mirrored her own, the 
whiteness of his knuckles indicating his uneasiness with this way 
of travel.
	She sighed. They'd been looking for several hours now and 
there was still no sign of Kapella, Selvane or Aris.
	*We'd better get back to EDT and see if they've got the 
logs we asked for... At least that'd give us a clue where to 
start looking*
	She turned to Phoenix to inform him of her decision just 
as his hand lost its grip on Shad's dorsal ridge and he fell.

	Shad's reflexes, however, were up to the task, and he was 
grabbed by a claw the size of his body before he'd fallen more 
than four metres.
	"Shad! What the hell happened?! How'd he fall?"
	"His body suddenly slumped, his hand relaxed and he lost 
his grip. My guess is he 'nodded off'... excuse the pun!" Shad 
bellowed to be heard over the slipstream, "I'm taking us back to 
the city. Neither us nor your missing operatives have anything to 
gain by you killing yourselves trying to find them."
	"I was going to suggest heading back anyway. Let's see if 
those logs are available yet. If they are, we'll know where to 
look!" 
	"Good idea. But I am *NOT* taking either of you up again 
until you both have had a good night's sleep. Understood?"
	Nexx grimaced. "Yes, Doctor."

	"Tomorrow morning." the technician replied before Nexx 
could so much as open her mouth to ask. "We can access the files, 
but not from the machine they're in now, it's totally inoperable. 
We'll have to do a bit of part swapping to be able to access 
them. I can 'port a disk to you as soon as we've finished 
though."
	Nexx thought for a moment, nodded and said, "Ok. We'll be 
in Talgareth, Vin Vetur 193n562w. You know the building?"
	"Yes, I know it. Who should I list as recipient?"
	"Send it priority Z, I.D. code 001954-K3 epli lesa 
773939, kline." Nexx answered. "Anything else?"
	"No, that's all I need." the tech replied as he punched 
the information into the system and went back to his desk. Nexx 
turned to Phoe and Shad, "Lets go claim a suite and see how much 
of my expense account we can use up in one night. It isn't like 
we can do much more tonight anyways."
	They nodded in agreement, and set off with Nexx in the 
lead again. Back down the street, through the transporter, and 
onto a completely different street, this one closer to the edge 
of the city. They walked about 15 minutes before Nexx stopped 
them in front of a modest [by Chi-Lin standards] 150 story 
skyscraper the width and length of 2 football fields. "This is 
where we'll be sleeping tonight. It's my favourite place to 
stay." she noted with a smile.
	"Now this, is a hotel!" Phoe exclaimed. "Room service?" 
he asked. 
	"Yeah, room service, hot-tub, vr, maid, and just about 
anything else you could possibly want." Nexx replied. "They'll 
even wash and iron your clothes for you here, or send a personal 
shopper out to get you new ones."
	"I get first dibs on the bath!" Shad claimed.
	"No need to call dibs, we're getting the entire top floor
and there's more than one bath. Plenty of hot water too, since 
this sector of Chi-Lin is geothermal. Now come on, food, a bath 
and a warm bed are only minutes away." Nexx stated before making 
her way inside.
	The lobby was enormous, filled with plants, marble 
statues, and fountains. It wasn't like being inside a huge 
skyscraper at all, the walls were covered in murals, giving the 
illusion of being in a park. Nexx fought the urge to stand and 
gawk all night and made her way to the front desk. After showing 
her ID badge and punching in all the information requested on the 
electronic form, the desk clerk handed her a card and called for 
a bellhop to carry up their packs and escort them to their suite. 
She called out to Phoe and Shad, motioning for them to follow and 
after they caught up, followed the pampered looking bellhop into 
the lift. It was a quick ride to the top, no more than a minute 
long and unlike earth elevators, you didn't get that funny 
feeling in the pit of your stomach when it shot upwards, nor did 
you get jostled when the elevator came to a stop.
	The elevator doors slid open to reveal a small parlor
type room, sparsely furnished with thick white carpet, and dark
green walls. The ceiling was painted white, and there were 
several large plants in each corner along with a green and white 
sofa on the left wall, a low table in front of it, two matching 
chairs on the opposite side and a very ornate set of double doors 
on the wall at the other end of the room. The bellhop, motioning 
for them to follow, lead them to these doors and taking the card 
from Nexx, swiped it under a scanner that was located where the 
doorknobs should have been. Pushing the doors open, he walked in, 
placed their bags on the floor, and turned on the lights 
revealing a rather large living room decorated in the same colors 
as the one they had just walked through, although not as 
sparsely. To the left was a doorway which led to a dining room, 
kitchen, and library/den. To the right was a hallway with seven 
doors, three on each side and one directly at the end and on the 
wall directly across the living room from the entrance were two 
huge picture windows and a pair of french doors which led to the 
garden and a fantastic view of the mountains the trio had just 
spent the last seven hours flying over. Nodding her approval, 
Nexx took the card from the bellhop who bowed slightly and left.
	"Well, here's home for the night. The hot-tub is on the 
balcony, there's a well-stocked bar in the den," she explained, 
pointing to the left. "bedrooms are down that hallway," she 
pointed to the right. "and the kitchen is fully stocked as well. 
If we want room service, all we need to do is order using that." 
she said and pointed to a small laptop looking device sitting on
a table by the door. "That can be used to order anything, and I 
do mean anything... short of illegal weapons and somebody's head 
on a platter." she added, grabbing her pack off the floor and 
heading down the hall on the right to claim a room.

To Be Continued in, "The Great Outdoors, Part 2"