1:2:3 Missing (Part 1)

Stairs. It wasn’t the quantity, more rather the steepness and harshness of the chosen medium. Each step was ever so slightly taller than Lore was expecting and the fact that they were solid concrete only made them harder to scale at the same speed of Undulia. They reached the roof with only a step missed and a shin bumped. Waiting for them on the roof, two fully charged speeder bikes; shining white with red and blue sirens.
“Loren.” She tutted. “You may not look any older but I swear you used to be a lot more agile.”
“Just saving my energy.” Lore made sure she wasn’t looking before rubbing their shin.
“You still fly as well as you used to? Or don’t you fly yourself anymore?” Undulia looked to Destiny and Char.
“I can fly.” They were beginning to tire of the façade.
“Fine then. Two to a bike.” She summoned Destiny to her side. As soon as Destiny was seated, she moved off and hovered just off of the edge of the station.
Lore and Char made their way to their speeder. Lore forced their way to the driver’s seat. “She can’t question anything.” They whispered. They placed a finger on their temple and gave it a brief rub.
“You seem to have a silver tongue at the moment.” Char snarked back.
“For the moment. I’ve got a feeling it won’t last.” Lore turned the key and the bike hummed to life. They checked Char was securely seated before turning the grip on the right handle bar.

They shot off like a blast from a disrupter in a hall of mirrors; ricocheting from invisible wall to wall. Their speeder bike, for a moment, was more akin to a bucking bull than a civilised piece of Protectorate machinery. Undulia and Destiny sat there, floating in place laughing to themselves.
“Ease off of the right and use the left!” She yelled. Lore was unable to hear her over the frantic whirring of the superconductive engines but, thankfully, Char did. The message conveyed, Lore ceased all handle turning. Now calmed, they gently turned the left grip.
The acceleration was much more manageable now, allowing them to join up with Destiny and Undulia.
“It’s a little counterintuitive when you first start riding them but you get used to your turbo being on the right hand.” Undulia smiled. “Come on then.” And with that, she was on her way.
They set off. Lore was shaky at first but soon got the hang of it. They supposed that, like the old adage suggested, one never truly forgets how to ride a bike. Their first time felt like the hundredth. Lore followed but ensured they kept enough distance between their bikes so they could talk without Unduila hearing. That wasn’t necessary. Char wasn’t afraid of much, at least not much she had actually experienced, but she now knew that she was indeed afraid of Lore’s low altitude flight skills. This fear resulted in her clamping herself around Lore’s midriff, limiting the efficacy of their diaphragm. Breathlessly, they flew over the ironically breath taking streets of Celreagaire. It was a perfect settlement to look at. The streets and pavements cleaned to within an inch of their lives and perfectly maintained; not a spot of weather damage nor a sign of litter to be seen. Luscious green grass, last touched when it was laid, in perfect rows with precise borders and not a weed to be seen. Everything was beautiful yet there was something missing. The weather, while artificially maintained, was fine; it was not too hot, not too cold, but still enjoyable. The sun was visible and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. It hit them as they approached the crime scene.

Compared with the streets they had just flown over, the square before the museum was abuzz with activity. Mostly Undulia’s people and museum staff but there were a few visitors being questioned too.
“It’s too quiet.” Lore turned to Char.
“That’s it.” She responded as if the contents of the tip of her tongue had just been realised. “Where is everyone?”
Lore lowered the speeder at the same rate as Undulia, eventually coming to a complete stop and deactivating the engines. Destiny made her way over to them and helped Char off. The square was nowhere near capacity.
“They’ve established a perimeter and everyone is accounted for.” Destiny relayed.
“Apart from the criminal I’m guessing.” Char smiled.
Undulia looked busy getting caught up which gave Lore the opportunity to do some snooping of their own. The square wasn’t the only point of interest near the museum. To the right, in a break in the border wall, the outcropping they had noticed during their flyby. It was segregated off by an old, rusted chain door. It was just wide enough to fit a speeder bike through or two lines of single file foot traffic; on either side of the gate, complicated locks held it shut. It was also the only section of Celreagaire, apart from the buildings, that had a roof. Artificial sunlight illuminated the interior but only barely. It hid most of what was behind the gate apart from the figure of a small child. Lore made sure to look around before approaching them.
“Hey, what you doing in there?” They used their softest voice to talk to the noticeably dishevelled child. They just smiled back at Lore. “Can you get out? Could you let me in?” Lore asked and, again, their questions went unanswered.
“She can’t and she probably doesn’t understand you.” Undulia may as well have mounted them she was that close. “You don’t want to go down there.” She shook her head, “come on. Could use your eyes on this.” She took Lore’s hand and dragged them towards the museum’s broken window. Instead of taking them through the front entrance, Undulia kicked the remaining debris out and continued to drag them into the building. The newly created mess merged with the one made by the thief, creating a fragmented carpet for them to walk on. They passed a few cases that were unscathed; they contained mostly masks and other ceremonial gear, obviously not designed for human use, alongside biographies describing how the researchers believed the items were used. She stopped abruptly in front of a series of singular cabinets. Each one was tall enough to comfortably house the human shaped mannequin and the oversized armour they were displaying. There were four cabinets in the series with the third one being the centre of their attention.
“What was stolen?” Lore looked around. The glass of each of them was nearly five centimetres thick and appeared to be shattered from the inside.
“Apart from the dummy?” Undulia double checked the biography. “A sword. It’s about yea tall,” she dropped to the floor then extended her hand from there to about thirty centimetres above her head, “and yea wide.” She started to spread her fingers but decided against it, using her hands instead to illustrate the twenty centimetre width of the blade.
With the stolen item being apparently taller than Lore, they began formulating a theory. “I’ll need to see some pictures of the sword then and I want the museum quiet so I can think. Only my people in or out for the next five, ten minutes.” Undulia nodded. She handed Lore a folder and pecked them on the cheek as she passed, evacuating her people from the area in front of the museum. Lore fingered through the papers. In addition to images and transcriptions of the limited CCTV footage they had gathered, there were several notes; each one had some form of sexually forward remark written in Undulia’s script bar one which bore her lipstick print.
“She wasn’t even wearing lipstick. She put it on to kiss a sheet of paper then wiped it off.” Char shook her head. “What did you do to her?”

“I don’t know. According to my limited memories of this place, I was only here a week while I set up something to do with the satellites.” Lore stepped into the display. “These transcripts say that staff were alerted to an individual in non-native clothing appearing in the museum by the security alarms before they escaped triggering the ticket alarm.” Lore looked to see how far they were from the exit. “Char, try to leave the museum through the front door.”
“Okay…?” She walked off. Even at her walking pace, it didn’t take long to reach the front of the building but as she crossed the threshold, the first step onto the concrete outdoors she took, an alarm began to sound. Char retreated as Undulia came charging toward her. She didn’t get far.