Author note; Thank you for your support! Happy reading.

  Chapter 16 Part B

  Approximately 1 weeks earlier...

  The two drone operators were fresh off the boat that they’d just come in on. Both of them pros and at the top of their game skillwise. They’d been called out a few days ago for a job to find a missing helicopter that was over due and had been fgged as being ‘overdue for a maintenance’ check in the robot garage servicing them. Then it was also fgged for not returning to the garage after they reset the helicopter’s OS settings. But the overdue for maintenance light had gone off first.

  That was weird too. An odd malfunction. It shouldn’t have even have happened, since technically the ‘not returned to garage’ light should have fgged first. And then the overdue for maintenance should have shown up after that. Not backwards. And for it to only have the warning lights go off when they reset the OS settings for the program running the automated helicopters was also weird.

  The st known locations were what they were here to check. The helicopter should be at one of them. And the helicopter was very expensive. So they had expedited sending these two out.

  God forbid it had crashed. But they had to consider that st. Even though it was logical it was ‘company doctrine’ that their vehicles could NOT crash! They had to consider other things.

  So the current story was… maybe someone parked it somewhere and turned off its… ability to return home.

  A strange set of coincidences though.

  “I still don’t see what could have happened. They say these are uncrashable so...”

  “Maybe its a software bug. You know they make this stuff cheap,” the one guy said.

  “Yeah… I hope its just that,” the other operator sounded more worried.

  But first they had to find what was going on.

  These 2 search drone operators had found all of it to be strange.

  First, they weren’t hired by the company that owned and ran all of this though. Instead the main company had a contract with a sub-company B, that held the contract that owned about 8 to 10 automated and driver-less helicopters that operated under a contract to run all the air transportation for their sponsor company. Not air transportation for all employees. Just for the higher ups. The company B that ran this setup was under Company A in a shell company contract and much smaller. It was company B, the helicopter charter company, and their insurance and security program that had activated the search to send out these drone operators to find what was left of the chopper.

  But immediate programs were occurring.

  First, when they contacted the big main company, Company A, that company seemed to not know or be able to reach anyone in their isnd branch’s office zone. So they couldn’t even ask anyone what they’d heard or seen st. On the phone the parent company was all happy and cooperative. But then whenever they’d get transferred to the local branch office there were problems, like going to voice mail only. But it was the isnd branch people that they needed to talk to solve this. Without them they couldn’t interview any staff or follow up on the purpose of the st flights and who was involved. And an issue is yes there were passenger manifests for ships and aircraft, but sometimes the people changed at the st minute; but they weren’t supposed to know about that discrepancy. The mainnd office seemed entirely separate from this division of their company for some reason.

  Also, it actually looked like in their records that the company B, that ran the air transportation had records of the Company A groups flying to 2 isnds, not 1, in that loose archipego isnd chain. But there were only records for 1 branch office on the first isnd, and no records of any kind for the second isnd location that was further out. And they’d been told not to talk about site B. There wasn’t even records of a building being there for the second isnd site, yet when they used certain software programs for mapping, lydar, etc there appeared to be a box like structure resembling a big tall building there.

  “We should ask them what site B is,” the first guy said.

  “Are you kidding? Don’t do that. Its trouble.”

  “Why is it trouble?”

  “Are you kidding? Big businesses like this sometimes do military contracts and research. If they don’t tell you about something you don’t want to surprise them. Keep them happy and the checks keep coming in. Trust me, avoid asking about anything that looks controversial. Instead let’s look at something else to look into first. And be careful what you ask them. People like this in these big companies if they get up on the wrong side of the bed, heads roll,” the more experienced operator told the other.

  “Are you saying they are doing military contracts?”

  “No. What I’m saying is there’s some times where you’re better off to not kick up a hornet’s nest. You get it?”

  “OK… I’ll trust you on this. I don’t want trouble.”

  This complicated the search immensely that they now had so many weird things going on. It left blind spots in their ability to search for the downed helicopter. So they weren’t sure where to start since they couldn’t reach any of the staff connected to the site.

  But the main office headquarters in mainnd had said there was a cultural festival going on in the nd, and that that was why everything was shut down.

  “Ah… a local holiday. That expins it,” the one investigator said after they got off the phone.

  “Oh. I forgot about that. Our DEI training seminar did mention we should be extra careful of not offending any locals with their customs,” the other said.

  “If there’s a festival maybe there’s some cute isnd girls to rescue,” the one drone investigator had said.

  “OH! Good idea. We might have to find a reason to make this job st more than just 2 days as originally pnned.”

  “Yes. We can say there was emergency maintenance. I like it.”

  “OK. Focus. Let’s work now. I want to work hard earlier in the day so we can py hard.”

  “Sure. So I have an idea of where to start looking for this missing chopper...”

  They’d gone into the automated flight history logs that were on the company’s server that ran the helicopter contracts for this country. And they’d been able to find the st known ping of its locator beacon very quickly.

  The original flight log looked stale and boring with no drama. It seemed strange that it would go down in this location. Yet this is where they’d found the helicopter’s remains. It seemed like there would be red fgs for a crash like this but there weren’t any. It was in fact, the perfect scenario for not having any accidents. The helicopter was only 2 years old, and had perfect records on maintenance and performance. It was an aircraft model that was at the top of its safety and performance records also, with zero risk categories. The driver-less program and software running the helicopters was also perfect and was known for stability and avoiding wrecks also.

  When they were looking at the data for the company on this crash it didn’t make sense.

  So why the crash?

  The helicopter pilots’ pnned route looks like it had been coming back from… some unlisted isnd owned by said certain corporation to the west. The hidden Site B location to get to this local branch office. That unlisted isnd to the west was the same one they’d also found records for of previous flights but a strangeness in why it wasn’t listed with the contractor company’s holdings seemed odd.

  The flight path was supposed to come here to the local branch office here. Then they were supposed to connect with a super yacht here at this isnd before going back to the mainnd with a rger group of passengers.

  And they were supposed to do that obviously with all passengers on board and everything intact.

  When the drone operators were here looking for what happened they saw some weird things themselves. First, the yacht wasn’t here. Nor was anyone on the isnd. It was like all the isnds inhabitants had disappeared overnight.

  “Is it possible the yacht left early?”

  “There should have been a yover. And I’d asked about that too but the pce on the mainnd where the yacht was supposed to go hasn’t shown up. And they can’t reach the yacht either.”

  “This whole thins is weird. And where’s all the isnd people anyway?”

  And there wasn’t any festival. At least not that they could see. The whole pce looked completely abandoned.

  “This isnd looks like a nice pce to retire. I like the look of these housing units. And the climate seems ideal, a nice cool ocean breeze.”

  “I wouldn’t mind it either. But focus please. What about the festival? Could we be in the wrong pce?”

  “No. We’re at the right pce. This is the vilge center.”

  “Maybe they were too poor to put up decorations for the festival?” the one operator said.

  “I don’t know. People have jobs and stuff to do. They wouldn’t just close down the whole town. Even if they did we should see somebody, the die hard types that are too insane to take vacations and want to work to death. Every vilge or town has one. And its weird that they forgot to lock the doors on some of these buildings. Everyone locks up now days. I suppose some rural pces might be able to do that but it still seems weird.”

  “Man this stinks. The electricity was out in that gas station. And they left the side door completely open. I had leave money on the counter for beer that isn’t even cold. I’m getting pissed off man. I can’t wait to get back to home,” he told the other guy.

  “Oh. You have a work break after this?”

  “Yeah but it sucks because its the wrong time of year to go back to Wisconsin.”

  “Oh that’s where you are from? I thought you were from New Chicago?”

  “Oh no. That’s just for my uh… tax pnning documents. You should do it too. They let you cim to be a resident of New Chicago for less money on taxes. Its a pretty big % taken off. You just have to rent a mail box or something and pay like 50 dolrs a year to do it. But most of the time I’m back home in Wisconsin see?” the other said.

  “So you aren’t one of those loons that live in Chicago huh? I think I trust you more already.”

  “Haha, very funny.”

  “You save very much doing that? And what about your pension fund? Can they get you with a pension tax ter if you aren’t in New Chicago or suddenly move when you retire?”

  “Hell no. No pension tax gouge. And yes its worth it to do. But that is something you have to check for. Lots of pces do a pension tax to try to keep people from leaving when it gets too costly to live there. After California ruined itself decades ago, everyone’s checking for pension tax pitfalls now.”

  “Yeah that happened to my uncles when they fled California too. Almost broke them.”

  “Uh. Back to work. Anyway this beer is gross. Why don’t they have their refrigerators running in this dump?” he tossed his beer bottle over to break on some side cement, shattering loudly.

  “Let’s call the contractor company again. This pce is like dead. I don’t like it,” the one said.

  “While you are doing that I’m going to get a drink. Water this time.”

  “Sure. But watch out. I don’t know if the tap water for the locals is safe here. You know how these tropical pces are. Only drink bottled water with seals. That’s how it should be anytime you leave developed society by the way. Oh hey did you know you’ve got a cut on your hand? Your hand is bleeding.”

  “Ah come on. Its not that big a deal…” then he’s also swearing about the cut on his hand that he’s not even sure how he got. “Weird. When did that happen…?”

  And again for the 12th call today, they couldn’t reach anyone that worked for the company branch office located on the isnd, with the helicopter contracts. Normally they would at least get a secretary and a voice mail. And after walking around for 2 hours straight they still couldn’t find a single person.

  Now he was getting nervous. They can’t come back empty handed or without talking to someone. This is expensive to send 2 people this far away out from the mainnd also. So they had to have a report and ask questions. But to do that they had to reach real people.

  There should be people on the isnd. But nobody was there.

  There was supposed to be a petro station here that boats used for some tourist company nearby. But when they’d driven up to that it had the closed sign up.

  Yet online it was listed as ‘open’.

  The isnd was small, having only about 90 inhabitants. And there were other isnds also nearby in a very loose archipego. And virtually all of the isnd inhabitants and their industries were involved in yacht and tourism businesses, except for mystery Site B.

  “I want to go home. This pce sucks,” the guy swore while lighting up a cigarette.

  Hey what’s that?

  Nearby there was a young dy walking towards him from the road. But it was strange that she was walking right in the middle of the road. Plus, it looked like she was injured or something with a really weird stiff limping posture…

  And there was something wrong with her skin. It looked sort of gray and washed out like she had hepatitis K.