In the wilderness, there was a tiny little cabin that sat over  a cave.  Inside that cave, which had an opening into the woods of its own, was a cache of things.  Some basic items, clothing, toiletries, and an enormous amount of canned goods, beef jerky (and other types) and protein powder stocked up enough to make even a GNC branch green with envy.  The titanium crate which had housed the edibles was now unlocked, and the emptied tins of SPAM and TREET were heaped off to one side, along with two crumpled Honeycomb jumpsuits.

The tiniest little portal no bigger than the head of a pencil appeared high in the sky over the location.  There it hovered for several moments.

~Nope.  Nope.  Nope.~  Miss' Adventure's thoughts subconsciously droned as one location after another got ruled out.

The portal disappears.  A feeling disappears with it.  Like a long forgotten memory imperceptibly slipping the mind before it ever had a chance to even rise to the level of unnoticed déjà vu.

Try location 14 again, the Alien Tech A.I. suggests.

~Huh?~ she thinks, ~But I didn't sense anything.~

Down-tick in your Theta Waves when that location's portal closed, Space Alexa explains over the mental interface.

~OK.  Boop.~  The portal re-opens, this time the size of a dime.

~Nope.  I'm not feeling anything.  Zwoop.~  The portal closes.

Detected another variance in your Theta Waves.

~Huh.  Guess I'll give it a closer glance.  Maybe Chimera and side-kick have mastered the art of non-existance.~

Three small portals appear, behind them an eye, an ear, and a nose.  They fly together closer to the cabin.  ~Looks unoccupied.  Sounds unoccupied.  Smells unoccupied.~

Civilian-grade FLIR scope is go.  Nope.  No heat signatures either.  Not even any residual warmth on any of the beds.  ~Nothing.  True masters of non-existence.  Still.  It's all I've got...~

A text is sent to Daystar.  "Not sensing anything at any of the locations you gave me.  :/  However, I got the slightest of pings at #14.  No sign that anyone was there recently, but I have a tiny bit of precog, so it's possible that I'm inadvertently sensing where they're gunna be in the near future.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  Say the word and I'll portal the real detective there.  =n.n="
This message was last edited by the player at 22:52, Mon 08 June 2020.

The text is answered with his coordinates.

Understood.  Coordinates follow.  I will look in to it, you have found more than I have.

As the portal opens for the Osprey the craft flies in uncloaked.  While some stealth was warranted he felt surprising them would be unwise, entirely.  Landing nearby he begins to approach the cabin.  As Mittens suggested, he was treating it as a potential future spot for them to visit.

"Alfred, get a grid search going of the area.  Silent running but stay visible.  See if you can find anything."

Moving around the immediate area of the cabin, he doesn't see any signs that show they were here recently.  He starts to turn and to call back the Osprey, but then he hears it.  That familiar sound that he had almost got to the point of completely tuning out.  The sound of wind playing across the entrance to a cave.  Moving easily through the underbrush and partially made trails he makes his way towards the source of the sound.

Before entering he takes a look at the entrance, just to ensure there were no traps set up or make shift alarms.  Then entering the cave the eyes of his suit light up slightly as he adjusts for the reduced light.

"Is anyone here?"  Even if there was, he was seriously doubting he would receive an answer.  He was staying on guard, measuring his steps and slowly looking over everything.  Looking for signs of recent passage.

The titanium crate would be the first thing he would notice, if he got that far unchallenged.  As well as the discarded jumpsuits from the Honeycomb.  He would need to place a call to Director Sharpe, but first he wanted to insure that the location was secure.

Miss Adventure's proxy, a hand puppet that looks like her, follows after Daystar.  Most "serious" type heroes would be thrown off by a floating puppet following them, get annoyed with Mittens for messing up their vibe, and she'd likely be forced to choose between hanging out with friends at the park and being a part of the action.  Fortunately, Daystar's not like those guys, so Mits can still have her cake and eat it too.

"Wowzers!" the pigtailed puppet whispers, "You found the secret cave nearly instantly!  And from the smell of things, our friends were here not long ago.

"Not sensing any danger, or any emotion, or even a small animal.  Strange...  Mmm.  Maybe not so strange.  Even with that yummy smell to attract them, I think most animals have common sense enough to figure this must be the den of a big predator."

  There was no answer, and he could tell, once he got past the entrance, that they were no longer here.  They had been,  but had definitely not lingered longer than they needed.  Of he looked inside the crate, it had been emptied, all of the stored foods (whatever they had been) had been taken and or consumed.  There were some plastic bags, the large ziplock type, that had most likely held clothing, because of the discarded Honeycomb jumpsuits.  The names Warrior and Chimera were on the breasts of the two jumpsuits which had been discarded.  There were three different sets of footprints in the dust, two sets of boots, and one set that definitely did not come anywhere close to human.  It looked more like the pawprints from an unusually large grizzly bear.

"I just hope you do not see this as a failure involving a cave."

His mask shifts to obviously show he is sparing a glance towards the puppet pointedly, before going back to looking over the area.  Noting especially the foot and paw prints.

"I almost missed it as well.  Thankfully there was a little gust of wind, however.  Much like a woodwind instrument, there is a certain sound you can hear in that situation.  It was something I heard a lot, I probably spent more time in the cave than I did the manor."

He speaks as he continues his search, taking in the amount of food and other supplies that had been stockpiled here.

"A large predator, recently.  Though the cabin above us and the sheer amount of supplies that are here.  This has been an active place for some time."

Kneeling next to the container after making a quick circle of the area back to it, he slips out a small tool from his belt and scrapes it against the surface.  There's the sound of metal on metal though no damage is done to the container.

"Do you have a material known as Titanium here?  If you do and unless it is something you can purchase down at the corner market, this container is not cheap.  At least, not back home."

As he speaks he draws out another set of tools, this one more focused on handles, areas that someone would have touched with fingers unless they were able to levitate the box in.  He also starts looking for fingerprints on the supplies that seemed were untouched by Warrior and Chimera.

"Alfred, get in contact with Director Sharpe and Dragon Fist.  For the Director, give him our location about ten yards away from the cave opening within plane sight of it.  Give him a heading as well.  Let Dragon Fist know where we are as well, but that we missed Chimera and Warrior."

"Mittens can't even tell you what it was that made her Alien Tech A.I. tell her, 'Down-tick in your Theta Waves,' when checking this location.  Didn't even start lessons on Psychometry, much less graduate.  Maybe the 'Cosmic Ki' Sensei kept going on and on about is actually a thing.  But I call it, 'The Plot.'  When I stumble upon an interstellar smuggling ring simply because my Galactic Positioning System sent me to the wrong space station."

The puppet nods sagely.  "You can buy titanium on Amazon for about nine bucks for a 100mm square sheet.  You can also get a titanium thermos for about sixty bucks on the low end.  Woah!  Rainbow tactical zombie machete ninja katana set for twenty four bucks?!  Mine!

"I wouldn't be one to knock living in a cave.  And yeah.  It does have a distinctive acoustic, doesn't it?  Certainly different from the inside of a ghost ship.  Or even an ancient sandstone temple.  Guess I need to broaden my experiences some.  Surprising lack of terrestrial spelunking experience now that I think of it."
This message was last edited by the player at 23:24, Fri 24 July 2020.

"The Lord works in mysterious ways."

He stands up a little straighter, even for him and his voice while still augmented takes on a different but easily familiar tempo as he says this.  Before returning back to his search of the area as well as his standard timing.

"So accessible...  but still not exactly cheap."  He says this as he thinks, just looking over the scene as he continues to search around.  "After this, I need to do a little Detectiving in Weston, but after..."

He pauses as he wonders how much she knows about what Meg has been working on.  The craft she has built is not his to talk about or offer rides on.

"I owe you an apology.  And a thanks.  I spoke with Lifelight as you suggested.  She really has been a huge help.  Between speaking with her and the events at the museum, it has placed things in to perspective.  I should not have simply given you information to look in to tracking the aliens.  I have a way to get out to space, around where the aliens were first detected in our solar system.  I can not make any promises but I will ask if you can come along.  If I can get through to where they are and if by some machination of 'The Plot' your Teacher is there on the other side, it would be good for him to see a familiar face I am sure.  What can you tell me about your Teacher's people?"

The Mittens puppet looks stunned.  "That was very Christian sounding.  Mittens is surprised.  She expected more Atheist comments.  Agnostic at most.  No offense.  If it helps, Mittens was raised Christian.  Granted, she was so irreverent she got herself banned from Sunday School.  I should probably stop there before I bring up the kaiju mecha Pope puppet."

"Owe me an apology?  Not hardly.  Just too bad that that didn't get us anywhere.  But I'll accept the thanks.  And even then not without paying you a compliment in return.  Not just anybody I send Antoinette's way.  Too innocent for her own good, and could be taken advantage of by not-so-well-meaning persons.  But you'd proven yourself plenty trustworthy enough for me to send you her way.

"As for seeing Sensei again, I'd love to!  Thanks for the invitation!  Not expecting to find him, though.  I popped over to a few of our old haunts and no one had seen him in a while, nor were there any messages waiting for me.  Not surprising.  His message made it pretty clear he and his race would be behind enemy lines if not all waiting in line at the Pearly Gates by the time we received it.  So uh...  What about his kind did you want to know?  They like to add hot sauce to their liquor, for one thing.  But I guess that's not what you'd be looking for."

Daystar actually gives a soft laugh as he pauses from looking over the scene.

"I wasn't raised Christian, but a close friend took me to a few Tent Revivals while I was visiting her in Kansas.  Her talking to me about it certainly got me thinking.  I guess the voice modulator gets in the way of impressions.  Still, if this world doesn't have the Blues Brothers, as soon as I find a way back, that is going to change."

He goes back to investigating the area as they talk.

"Physical description, anything that might help them stand out from the Yokai Ninja Zords.  As you said, it is likely they are behind enemy lines.  If I am able to find him, the Zords will probably be there as well.  They may not be the only ones captured and if my ring can even penetrate their defenses to try to scan, they are alien races that the Corp has never encountered before.  So it may simply be trying to find a specific needle in a bag of needles unless I can pick something out to look for."

"Though Mittens can infer from context that there must have been some 'Lord works in mysterious ways,' catchphrase, she hasn't a clue about Blues Brothers.  But that may not be due to a lack of said Blues Brothers in her version of reality.  Could very well just be a lack of overlapping demographic.  Mittens grew up on Star vs. Evil and My Little Pony.

"More than happy to banter about spiritual mumbo-jumbo.  Not often Mittens meets a person who's not terrified of her take on the topic.  Actually... there's parts of my philosophy that's based on experiences I'm technically forbidden to speak on..."

In her opinion, Daystar has every right to know what she experienced, but she does not recall being given an exception for reality sliders.

"Nah.  Actually that stuff hasn't changed my mind, really.  Just provided more evidence."

She pulls up a holo-projection of her space zen samurai sensei.  "There ya go.  Is what Master looks like.  Presumably if he's still alive and on the same planet, he'll sense me and telepath a hello."