Chapter Thirty-Four
“Aaia, get me on a spaceflight to Earth!” Stratos barked as he bounded into his penthouse. “Have the robo pack a bag for me. I’m going to bring Savannah home.” He charged into his bedroom, yanked clothing from his closet, and flung it onto the bed.
“There are no direct flights. There is a flight departing Oberia tomorrow morning from the northwest province spaceport to the Icarus Space Station. From there, you could catch a flight leaving the next day for Earth. You could arrive there in three days.”
“That’s the best you can do?”
“Yes.”
“My travel documents are up to date, right?”
“Yes, I maintain them. If you intend to bring Savannah home, why are you going to Earth?”
“Because that’s where she is.” He tossed undergarments atop the pile on the bed.
A house bot wheeled into the bedroom with a suitcase.
“No, she’s not,” Aaia said.
“Yes, she is. She left a week ago.”
“No, she didn’t. Remember you had me check the spaceport departure flights.”
“Her name was listed on a passenger manifest!” He did not need an argument with the AI right now!
“I have accessed all manifests for all the spaceports, and she is not on any of them.”
“I saw the manifest.” He’d never known Aaia to be wrong before.
“I’ll show you. Go into your office.”
Atop his desk, Aaia had called up the universal manifest. He inputted the dates and Savannah’s full name. NO RECORD FOUND.
What?!
He reentered the information. Same response.
“She didn’t leave the planet?”
“There is no record of her leaving.”
Then what did Corona show me? Flek it. She faked a manifest! Why? To get me to stop looking for her? Or to get me off planet? Planning had gone into this. For some reason, she wants Savannah out of the way and doesn’t want me to find her. Why?
The notion his sister had had a hand in Savannah’s disappearance—or at least knew where she was—became much more plausible.
He had to pay her another visit, this time at her apartment, but not until he calmed down.
Right now, he’d strangle her. In the meantime, he’d double back and start his search at the beginning again.
The last place and time he’d seen Savannah had been in his mother’s conference room. Then she left. He’d arrived home maybe forty-five minutes later. Sometime in between, she’d disappeared. Almost like she was…abducted.
A chill shivered down his spine. “Aaia, show me the surveillance vid of Savannah leaving my mother’s office the day she disappeared.”
A holo of a distraught Savannah crying in the corridor appeared over his console. His heart clenched. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
“Run the vids of her from that point.”
He watched her board and then immediately exit the tube and walk to his office. After retrieving her purse, she stood in the doorway of his office and stared inside. She’d stopped crying by then, but her expression looked so sad.
Two strange men entered the suite.
Stratos went rigid.
“May I help you?” she asked.
“Savannah Mays?” one responded.
“Yes.”
“You’re under arrest,” he said.
“Flek!” Stratos burst out.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” the other man said. “The easy way—you come willingly, and we’ll walk out the entrance like it’s an ordinary day, saving you embarrassment and humiliation. The hard way is we put you in restraints and perp-walk you in front of everyone in the building.”
These men were not law enforcement. With a fake uniform and the threat of humiliation, they’d tricked Savannah into going with them. He watched her exit the building with the men, get into a vehicle, and fly away. Flekkery! Why hadn’t he checked the surveillance footage sooner?
“Do you have any way to identify those men?” he asked Aaia.
“One of them—no. But the other has a criminal record. His name is Tron.”
“Can you track him?” Convicted felons were implanted with tracking devices so they could easily be apprehended if they reoffended.
“Yes, of course,” she said.
“Where is he?”
“He is currently in an unused warehouse five blocks from OberTech. I have scanned the building. Besides him, there are two other Oberians and one female human inside.”
“Savannah?” His heart leaped into his throat.
“Given only three humans, one male and two females, are registered in this province, and one of them is Savannah, there is a 50 percent probability it is her. Factoring in soft data, i.e. that she is known to have encountered Tron, boosts the probability to 100 percent.”
He transmitted an urgent hail to Kep.
His friend, chief magistrate of the Central Province, appeared in hologram. “Have you found her?”
“Yes. I need your help.”