The Lost Signal
"Assistant, you came today?" The sound of her legs—smooth, dark-blue exoskeleton clicking sharply against the kitchen floor—made my body instinctively try to retreat, but I forced myself to stay put. .. She won't hurt me.
"I'm sorry. Something came up this past week, so.."
"No, no, you don't need to apologize. I already knew you were busy."
I had expected a scolding for disappearing without proper contact for an entire week, yet Arachne greeted me with genuine warmth instead.
I thought you might not come back at all.. I'm glad you returned properly.
"But.. did something good happen?"
"Ah..! Well.."
The excitement must have shown on my face, because I nearly blurted everything out. Then the Team Leader's warning flashed through my mind. The child had shown signs of trying to break free from its egg, so they had called me in a hurry for the sake of its first parental recognition, but this matter was strictly for those involved. Especially someone like me, who frequently interacted with female entities, was told to avoid mentioning it at all. The reason was to avoid stimulating the reproductive instincts of the confined beings..
".. I was just happy to see Chef's face after so long. I've been really busy lately."
"Hmm, is that so?"
I'm glad you told me honestly.. but it's a little embarrassing..
Even without her massive spider lower body, her pale skin with a bluish tint, the black sclera instead of white, and her numerous red eyes would still make anyone flinch during conversation. Yet that revulsion had lessened considerably. I knew she wasn't a bad person. Despite her cold and frightening appearance, she was surprisingly lonely at heart. Probably because of how the staff on this floor reacted whenever they helped in the kitchen.
".. Well, I guess I'm happy to see you too. It's just that the kitchen work piled up and I needed an extra pair of hands, so don't go getting any strange ideas."
"Strange ideas?"
"..."
Thud, plop..!
.. I messed up.
Pretending not to notice, I watched Arachne retreat to the ceiling while I piled up onions and green onions that needed prepping. I decided to smile and focus on helping her instead. Since I had skipped out for a whole week without permission, I poured everything into assisting with the ingredient prep.
"Ah.."
Satisfied that things felt almost normal except for how early I had arrived, I stepped into the elevator and habitually reached for the button to the 69th floor where Undine was. I yanked my hand back just before pressing it, as if someone might see. Then, as if on cue, my personal terminal rang for the first time. Flustered, I found the call button and pressed it, only to hear the Team Leader's familiar voice. Thankfully, it wasn't about what I had feared.
"Ung-ssi, can you come right now?"
"Huh? Y-yes! I can."
Lunchtime was nearly over, and I had originally been scheduled for Undine's afternoon session. I had even considered stopping by the Alchemist's isolation room to talk to myself again. Curious about the sudden summons, I headed to the meeting point displayed on the screen.. only to find it was the Response Team Leader's private office. In other words, Yerin's room.
Knock knock knock.
I knocked first, of course, to avoid overhearing something I shouldn't or causing an accident. But either she didn't hear or she was too focused—the voices inside continued without pause. Worried about being late, I stopped hesitating and opened the door. The Team Leader's voice came through clearly first.
"You've confirmed everything, including the surrounding security cameras and the black boxes of parked vehicles?"
"I've checked them all."
Yerin sat in front of nine brightly lit monitors in the otherwise dark room, answering.
"And the owner and manager of that abandoned building?"
"Nothing suspicious there either. The field team already has surveillance on them, but.. I think it's a waste of effort."
"Haa.. Even if that fox is arrogant, she wouldn't fall for something this easily."
Knock knock knock.
Since there was no answer to my knock, I opened the door anyway, unintentionally catching part of their conversation. They had been so absorbed that I had to knock again on the open door before they finally looked my way.
"You got here quickly."
"I happened to be near the elevator. By the way.. were you in the middle of something important?"
"No, it's something you needed to hear anyway, Ung-ssi."
"Me..?"
I had caught the mention of the field team, and if possible I would have preferred not to hear about it. But I knew how favorably the Team Leader treated me and what her intentions were, so I couldn't just walk away. Still, I hadn't expected to get involved with outside matters this quickly.
"Actually, three days ago, the Field Team Leader's signal was lost."
"The Field Team Leader.. you mean that Field Team Leader?"
Three days ago, I had been completely drained by Undine. I had been too out of it to notice the atmosphere, but now that I thought about it, the Team Leader had seemed absent more than usual.
"Because the number of missing persons reports in certain areas has surged recently, the Response Team started investigating with the possibility of a hostile anomalous entity in mind. The location is quite close."
The red dot the Team Leader pointed to on the screen was only a short distance from the museum—barely a five-minute walk from a main road where people passed by.
"We quickly identified it as an abandoned building.. but the first field team we dispatched lost their signals all at once. Then the Field Team Leader herself went in, and as I just said, the same thing happened."
Wasn't this a full emergency..? Three days had already passed since that powerful Field Team Leader's signal disappeared. With everyone already on edge from the Vatican raid.. The Team Leader shook her head, perhaps reading my expression.
"It's only the communicator signal that's gone. It doesn't mean she's dead yet. Besides, if she were the type to die that easily, I wouldn't have had such a hard time with her in the first place."
"I.. see."
The first hostile containment entities I had seen after arriving at the facility—the Sirens starving for blood and flesh—flashed through my mind. I could feel my hands trembling. Ironically, the one thing keeping me steady was Yerin's presence in the room. Whenever I was with her, a strange sense of composure and confidence welled up inside me.
"That's why we prepared properly this time. We succeeded in grasping the internal situation using the wired cameras and communication devices Founder made for us."
Founder.. Come to think of it, she had been disappearing right after arriving at the facility lately. That "pitch-black box" and "dog collar" she had helped with during Lav's counseling.. I recalled the oversized white lab coat she often wore around the facility, though I hadn't seen it recently.
"Let's watch the footage together."
"Ah..?"
While I was lost in thought, a video began playing on one of the screens. If watching this meant I was truly getting involved, I wanted to close my eyes and avoid it if possible—but it was already too late.
Chzzzt..
It was footage from inside that ominous location where an entire field team and the Field Team Leader had lost their signals. The video came from one team member's body cam, showing outstretched arms and a pistol gripped warily in hand. He glanced back at his teammates at the building entrance before stepping inside without hesitation.
"Tail Two, successful entry.. What the hell. Where did everyone go?"
Beyond the doorless entrance was no longer the outside where his teammates had been, but the entrance to a room he had never seen before. He now stood in a pitch-black hallway.
"Did the line.. get cut?"
He tugged on the camera cable. It pulled out easily with no resistance, but he couldn't tell where the line was coming from. It seemed to emerge from empty space near the doorframe, yet when he tried to examine the cut end, his vision blurred and he couldn't see it clearly.
"Tail Two, order the team to stop entry! High possibility of a space-type ability!"
He immediately warned them through the communicator, but only static came back.
"This is brand-new equipment.. but the comms are dead again. Tail Two will proceed with exploration, prioritizing escape."
Watching the footage, I wondered how this field team member could stay so calm. If my location suddenly changed and my teammates vanished, I would have panicked immediately.
"The surroundings changed again. Does passing through a doorframe randomly shift your position inside the building? Is the building itself an anomalous entity..? But for that to be the case.."
He shone his flashlight and pistol toward the window. It had been daytime when they entered, yet the view outside the glass was pitch-black, like the deep sea—nothing visible, only darkness that made the scene even more unsettling.
".. This is bad. From the second shift onward, the camera cable won't pull anymore. I'll remove the camera equipment from now on and continue exploring. As a marker for equipment recovery.. this location appears to be a piano academy. No hostile reactions so far. However, dispatching support recklessly also seems dangerous."
Assuming the dead communicator might still allow one-way transmission, he kept feeding information outward while turning his body to show the room's interior to the camera. Just as he finished speaking—
"Is someone there..? Did you come to save us? Please help me!!"
".. I hear a voice. It seems to be coming from beyond that door. It might be a missing civilian, so I'll approach first."
It could be a trap, but he moved toward the voice anyway. Once again, the moment he crossed the doorframe, his clearly visible back disappeared without a trace. The woman's voice continued a little longer, sounding closer, before cutting off abruptly. Only an uncomfortable silence remained.
"..."
"That's all the useful information from the footage."
It was unmistakable evidence of an ability—or the entity's anomaly and irregularity.
"What happened to this field team member..?"
"He appears to still be inside. He hasn't come out yet. Since communications are down and there's no GPS signal, he might have been transported somewhere else entirely.. but there was definitely a piano academy in that abandoned building. Drone footage from outside confirmed the same exterior, yet the camera equipment he left behind wasn't there."
"What does that even.."
"Who knows. It probably has something to do with how the outside wasn't visible even during the day."
Most answers were still uncertain, but now I had no choice but to ask.
"Then why.. did you call me?"