When The Fallen Stands (Temp Tittle)

Prologue - Part 3: Dawn

With the dawn of a new promise
The ghost of the past
Leaves the echoes
And the broken wings of the maiden Starts to heal the wounds of the forgotten
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And onto the buzzling sound of the city i walked.
Idion emiter energy efficient cars flies in the air, thanks to the discovery of the resources under mars surface the bio friendly engineers and scientists made a breakthrough that more or less made the dream of flight on planetary surface along with the electromagnetic pulse motors that helps stabilize the traffics with static pulse rails for the high speed highways.
Switching between magnetism and idion propulsion in some highly complicated machinery that i have no knowledge how it works, but its somewhat fascinating that it works at all.

Im living in the apartment megacomplex in the mid level economy class,
its on the 9th floor out of the 13 mid floors available.
Building 9b on the Catlain & Rockwick street.
Its next to an old school electrical train, one of the cheapest train and a historically preserved piece, more of a novelty ride since its slow by todays standard.
Not too shabby, not too expensive, its a decently good place to live but you have to nag on the land lords every now and then when something breaks, which happens more often then not.

"Another busy day" i sigh as i turn to lock the door, my head giving off a slight heaviness and the sense of weakness as the memory that tries to pop up becomes suppressed by the pills and by the fact ive gotten used to suppressing them, it usually fine but when i get emotionally stressed they slip though the cracks.

After I've locked the door i take a deep breath and start walking to the stairways i hear my neighbors fighting, its a couple, bit older then me, from what i hear in bits and pieces from my everyday walking by they having an argument over having a child, and the debate to sign the family expansion forms is what going on more recently.
So much fighting over having a baby, if that is before the child then they shouldn't get one as the chaos would expand even more once the child is born.
Oh well, considering i dont know them beyond the yelling which most neighbors knows what's going on, its not really my problem to deal with.

Continuing down the stairs i look on the wall as i walk, new Holographic graffiti have been sprayed, kids these days are getting very complex with their designs, triple layered and five layered ones showing all kinds of shifting art.
Not that im such an art fanatic, but its still impressive for me with the technique and complexity of it.
But at the same time, such wasted time.
"morning Jameson" Said a familiar male voice around the corner as i stepped out into the garage.
"really Jack, still going by last name even though we have been working together for over a year now?" i sighed and looked at him.
He was a tall, decent looking guy, not muscular but not fat either, kind of healthy lookin if you ask me.
Short light-rat-brown hair and a scar on his jawline, he told me it was from a childhood accident, not that i bothered asking in the first place.
He'd be quite the guy, if he could drop his formal behavior, because hes acting like a cop on the clock.
"sorry Jameson, not happening while on duty" he said with a straight face.
He is a nice guy from what I've seen, but stiff.
"fine, whatever Mr.Hagheim let's just go already.." i sighed.
He gave me a puzzled look, like as if he didn't understand why i used his last name.
I walked over and got into his idion car, we been carpooling since half a year ago when we found out that we live in the same building, he insisted on driving me saying i shouldn't waste electrovite juice.
Was a lot on guard at first thinking he had some ulterior motive, but in fact he was boringly straight laced.
Didn't talk much in the car unless i brought something up.

"so Jack, anything new happen yesterday while i had a day off?" i stared out of the window as he got in and started driving.
"yeah, the boss came in with one of those new automated receptionists androids, bunch of wasted money if you ask me, the costumer service will drop in quality." he muttered
"well it was only meant to handle the front desk so, the emergency line is still occupied by a human thanks for that."
I looked over surprised, didn't expect straight laced Jack Haghem to be of the Anti-android opinion.
"ya' sayin' its a bad thin'?" i said while raising an eyebrow my accent slipping through in my surprise.
"not really, just thinking its a shame on the previous receptionist job" he replied
"Ah, well Annabelle is moving up to 3rd floor and working with the archives so she's not getting fired"
"well in that case then its all fine" he said with a hint of a smile.

Huh, who knew, he had a thing for Anna Carver, that would be gossip material if i was as boring as Martha McGeezer, its not Martha's real last name but she is acting like a old prune that office gossiper.
still though, Martha was good with people and getting people talking so if you ever where stuck for a price or emergency she was useful to have around.

The ride was quite uneventful as we arrived at the crossing section, even with all the cars floating these days its nice to see things on a grounded perspective.
I rubbed my templates as the headache started to come back.
Ugh why did it have to be like this today.
As i was thinking that the radio started making weird sounds, like static going through the signal.
"your car is dying Jack" i muttered
He frowned and poked a bit on the display
"i have no idea why its doing that, the repair shop said my car was fine yesterday" he said with a sigh and kept poking at it.
I decided to focus avay from the noise so i looked out towards city center, you could see it from here, The Atlas, our city's Crown achievement, a living area completely lifted to electromagnetic idion propulsions, but the massive amounts of electromagnetic fields makes it so very few electronics works there, and no radio waves can be translated in or near the area.
I herd that there was a prison built on top of it but i wasn't sure of that detail..

In the edge of my vision something moved fast and attracted my attention, it was a person falling, i grabbed my phone to call the emergency number but when i looked back at the building they where gone.
How?? I had maybe looked away for a split second. I should still been able to see them as they fall from that height.
I stared in disbelief, trying to find the person in the air somewhere.
Until a hand was put on my shoulder and pulled me my attention back to the inside of the car
"you okay there Jameson?" Jack said worried.
"Uh.. Yeah, might just had a bit too much to drink last night" i answered, still, not sure what to say about what i saw.
"Ah yeah, drinks can do some weird things with you if you are not careful." "Oh which reminds me, be careful from now on when heading out, i herd there is a serial kidnapper out there drugging their victims at bars" he said with a stern look.
"Yeah yeah, I'll be careful Mr Haghem".
His thoughtfulness is nice, if it was not for that he did these warnings on the regular when we carpooled.
We hovered on while i was lost in thoughts.
He couldn't just have disappeared.. Could he?
I find myself looking back to the building complex but i don't know what i expected to see, maybe the falling person falling again in the same place?
All i did see though before the building got obscured from view was just normal reflective yet slightly see through glass on the side of the building with its myriad of workers.

Eventually we arrived at the office  building, "Harthwood"
I had asked them why they used a name that sounds like a jewelry store or a antiquary back when i started instead of something like "Private Detective Agency Harthwood" but they had replied with that the building is a antique in itself and the name had been a long standing tradition to use for the new building owners whenever they switched, while most of the stonework and such been replaced over the years due to fires, remodeling and violent infractions since its foundation most likely.
it is something nice in knowing something from the ages past made it to present day is what he said.
Harthwood is made up of individual investigators with Sylas Rennegan as the Chief investigator, the business is a bit different, sometimes we co-operate and sometimes we work with private clientele, generally working as private investigators but sometimes we do take government jobs by assisting the police, how Sylas managed that cookie is beyond me, but it resulted in a steady income and a interesting work environment

We drove up on the ramp to the garage and Jack slowed down as he got into a parking spot, sliding into the spot so the clamps could secure it.
I opened the door to get out and felt a hand on my shoulder.
"Hey, you sure you are doing fine? I know its been a while but you seem still kinda out of it today, maybe you should consider asking for a extension on the sick leave?" Jack said with clear concern in his voice.
"No, if i don't get back into things i might start get out of touch with how we work." i replied as calmly as i could but my voice sounded so monotone, as if i was saying it more for myself then for him, either way i did not face him while saying so.
And it seemed to be enough to alleviate some of his concerns since his hand left my shoulder so i got out of the car and closed the door behind me as i made my way to the office.