Gabi

--|Sids (Ziekls) Pov|--

-In Sids Room

I hurry through the door inside my room with plenty of drinks and food in my hands and arms. Dropping everything on the floor I look at my phone that lays on my desk, 'I just need to upload the recorded footage to my computer and let an AI do some face recognition magic, at least there should only be a few invalid recognitions or complications! Well, hopefully...'

I proceed to close my door and lock it with my fingerprint, then I grab my phone and configure the lock to only let me access it. Next up is getting the files to my computer, I turn the machine on and place my phone on top of it on a designated charging and transferring spot. The PC takes about half a second to boot and synchronizes all the files in a quarter of the time.

Then I search for an AI service online, that allows me to search for faces and match them with a database of registered people in this area. I find countless offers but they are either too crappy, some even recognize 3d printed faces as real ones, or really expensive.

I continue to search for 3 hours but only one AI catches my interest, 'She ain't perfect but I can work with that if I find out which trainer it uses', neural-network-based AIs are able to learn and that's what I am betting on. I will train it while it helps me to find all the people visiting the game center and it'll get more accurate along the way, so I'll have to do less and less as we progress through the footage.

After downloading the AI and its trainer, which only took me five minutes to find it was actually on the same site, I start up the AI and tweak some parameters on the interface.

"Search Radius? How about 30 kilometers? I'll just leave age at unspecified, and gender doesn't matter, actually I don't think I'll need to tweak any of the other options!"

Feeding the AI with the data was the next step and then I'll just have to help the AI if there is more than one result, that should only take one to three hours.

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-19 hours later

*ding*

|face matching complete saving data to memory.

Surprised I look up at the message then at the clock, then at the message again. At this point, I am way too exhausted to even complain about how long that took, "I now understand why GOS still uses Human workers in the security department!" I try to get up from my chair but it is as if my exhausted body can't even manage to lift itself off it more than ten centimeters. With the second try and with the tiny amount of willpower I have left I manage to stand up.

Then I stumble in the direction of the kitchen, suddenly my door catches me by my face, 'Ouch! Right, forgot I locked it!', I swayingly bring up my hand to the fingerprint scanner and the door unlocks. The sensor instantly picks up that I am standing right in front of the door and said door slides to the side freeing up the way.

In the kitchen I search for the coffee powder but not your ordinary coffee powder, I search for the super revitalizing stuff, the old man uses this stuff daily! It may take its toll on your body but using it just once is like drinking one beer, you won't even feel the ethanol and it gets broken down pretty fast. So if you manage your consumption to just a little bit a day then there is no harm done.

With haste, I brew the coffee and gulp it down in less than a minute. After a few seconds, I can feel my body's energy refilling and my mind getting clearer while enjoying the aftertaste still lingering on my tongue I hurry back up into the bathroom to get a quick shower.

Now the second phase can begin, questioning all of the possible witnesses, or at least all the AI found.

After the much-needed shower, I take out my phone and get comfy on my bed, then I start messaging all the people the AI found, I even call some of the individuals that were in a certain time frame of the incident with Gen.

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-5 hours later

"Nothing!", I barely hold myself back from ripping my hair out and banging my head against the wall, but I manage, "This is the last person on the list. Maybe, just maybe, she at least saw something of what happened", I don't even believe these words I only speak them out to convince myself that there is a slight chance that I at least find out if my sanity is still intact and what I have seen on that day wasn't some spook made up by my mind.

"Hello?", the voice of a young woman sounds from my ear implant, she accepted the call within seconds, "Oh, hello there, I will make it quick not to waste both of our time, I questioned about 500 people and some of them were really tiring, I hope you understand.", even with help from the coffee you can hear the fatigue in my voice.

"Oh, ehrm... OK."

"About two days ago you where in the GOS Game-Center, am I right?"

"Huh? Ah! I mean yes.", the woman seems to be incredibly insecure and shy, but in course of these five hours, I have dealt with even harder to speak to people.

"And you where there somewhere around 16:15?"

"I, I think so, yes.", suddenly you can hear a slight hint of nervousness in her voice, 'Interesting, I might be onto something, maybe she's even involved!'

"OK, I think you were near the new section with the VAR pods, or am I wrong?"

"No! Uuh, yes you are right, I was somewhere near there.", I can barely hear the last part.

"OK, then did you see something weird happening with or near the pods, or something weird in general?"

"Uhhm, I don't know what you mean!", her voice is now plagued with nervousness and anxiety.

'She's getting more and more suspicious, but she doesn't seem like she would willingly be involved in a scheme like that, maybe she got blackmailed into doing something for a mastermind, or she could have witnessed something she doesn't want others to know about, out fear of being tested in a psychological-health care center. Like if she has seen something physically unexplainable, something like a man walking through a certain solid lid!', I decide to take a gamble and tell her what I have seen.

"I'll be honest with you, on that day around the before mentioned time, I have lost a dear friend of mine in one of these pods, that was why you and the other customers got kicked out of that place. And as I noticed what happened to him it was too late, sadly. The overseer wasn't doing his job and after I got to the console to see what happened to my friend I saw him! The guy in a suit just walking through the lid like it wasn't even a solid object but a projection. I need to find out if that was just my mind or if there really was something weird going on. Please say it if you know something!", I withheld the information about Gens uploaded consciousness to get her to feel guilty if she withheld something.

And as it seems that my 'outbreak' was enough to convince her to spill out what she knows, with her shaking voice she speaks, "I... I don't know who or exactly what happened to your friend but I saw something on this day, that made me question my sanity. Yes, I saw that man in a suit too, then he suddenly vanished, but I don't know anything else. I just got kicked out a few seconds later, still trying to comprehend what I saw!"

With that, I at least know that there definitely is more to Gen's incident than I initially hoped, something far greater than me. 'Maybe the government found a way to bring humans in higher dimensions?' I quickly shake my head and turn back to my conversation partner, "Thank you so much! Thanks to you I now know that I am not alone in this and I am not going insane because of the tragedy, but I have to go now! I wish you a good evening.", as I have likely now collected all the information this woman has, I don't need her anymore and hurry to hang up. She doesn't even get a chance to say something only a cut short, "Wai-", escapes her lips.

I lay aside my phone and stare at the ceiling, then I fall into a deep slumber, the tiredness has caught up to me.

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-In the morning

I open my eyelids, something has torn me from my sweet and hard-earned sleep, then I hear it *ding doong~*. I grab my phone and see a pretty girl standing in front of my door, maybe in her late teens to young adult years.

I hurry to open a voice channel and ask the somewhat suspicious girl, "Do I know you?", I know it's rude but I don't care at the moment, who dares to disrupt my sleep?

The girl replies with a frown, noticeably upset at being greeted so rudely, "I am Gabi!"