Fragments Gallery
Scrubbing Footage
Lauri stared through the glass before her wincing as she witnessed the events unfold. She'd seen this happen before, she'd lived through it before, but still she winced and growled as she witnessed the pain and suffering before her. All of that had been caused by one man.
She reached the end of the recording and swept her hand through the air before her to rewind it. The holograms began once more in the glass box.
She watched as the black cloaked figure swept down the street, killing indiscriminately as he walked. Unnoticed to him a small girl, a young Lauri, slipped beneath an overturned cart and huddled there, shaking yet silent. Lauri focused on the image of her younger self. She remembered clearly how she had felt; she remembered her trembling hands and the overwhelming fear that had consumed her. Yet still through it all she hadn't attempted to run as so many others had tried, and failed, to do. Instead her instincts had told her to hide. That was how she had survived. He had never known that she was there.
The image in the glass wavered and she tapped the cube powering it roughly. The original footage had been from an old fashioned two dimensional security camera, sometimes when the computer converted it to the holotech standard it caused abnormalities. Abnormalities she was almost willing to live with because of the increased perspective the newer tech gave her. Almost. She couldn't afford to miss anything that may give her an advantage.
She returned her focus to the man strutting down the center of the street and her eyes narrowed. She hated that man with all of her being. Yet she didn't even know who he was.
That was what she was here to find out.
"Got something yet!" called Calvin from the next room over.
"Not yet," she called back, "I'm still scrubbing."
"Well hurry up! Watchdogs are sniffing your archive link. I'm pushing them off as they cycle closer but it's only a matter of time before a handler gets curious about the commotion."
"Yeah, yeah," She muttered, bottom line was she was running out of time and she'd waited too long to find out about this guy. She had to find something soon else they'd have to wait for the next maintenance cycle to again gain access to the archive storage systems. If the Watchdogs got too close, or if a human handler got too curious, they’d have to pull out.
The Watchdogs, the term used to refer to both automated security programs as well as real world drones. Even law abiding citizens feared them. They were cold and merciless in their enforcement of public order.
The hologram reached its end and once more she reset it. There had to be some clue in the video of who this man was. A few minutes later the hologram once more froze as it reached the end of its source material. She slammed her first into the desk in frustration, the little glass box jumped from the force and landed with a clunk. Alarmed she examined it closely. There was no visible damage, the devices were stronger than they looked and felt, just as they had been told.
"Hey!" roared her brother from the other room, "you know what I had to do to get that thing! I want it in once piece."
"It's fine!" she snapped back at him, "There's nothing in the footage! He doesn't have tattoos, you can't see his face and I don't see anything distinguishing about him. He could be you for all I know!"
"Get us out of here then! We go to ground and we plan our next move."
"Our next move? We have nothing! What could we do next! This was our last lead!"
"Hey Lauri. Listen to me," he called back, "we're going to find this guy ok? We'll find him."
Lauri glared at the doorway leading to her brother before throwing herself into the pilot’s chair. She flicked a couple switches and swiftly brought the engines online. The craft separated from the wall and launched itself forwards much more violently than was necessary but at the moment she didn't care.
They had nothing.