"Here's his photo, the one with the green hair is Ricky," Pena gave them an old photo of them.

"Interesting look, would you recognize him if he changed his hair?" Perfida asked.

"Honestly, no."

"Do you know his natural hair color?"

"Hmm... brown, I think."

"There you go, thanks," Leyo said after he took a picture of it.

"I'm not gonna put this in the blog but do you think this was done on purpose?" Perfida questioned.

"I don't want to believe that it is," Pena sighed. "But why else did Ricky ran away?"

"Good point."

Later they left, seeing that they have the information they need and met up with the two other boys in Vance's place "so he really is a vegetable?" March asked.

"Yeah, he's alive but barely living," Perfida answered. "Pena believed that he'll be back to normal once the Ghax are able to figure out what to do with vegetative patients."

"Wait, seriously?" Vance quipped. "I mean sure, they've cured cancer 80% at a time but that's very tricky."

"I know but anything is possible. I almost forgot, we have Ricky Ridell's photo, green hair, just like in my vision, speaking of which," Perfida put her hand on the photo to get a vision and she got one.

----

In the vision through Void's eye, she saw Ricky coming inside the control room "hey, food is here, let's go" he said.

"Yeah, yeah, but can we test this game first ?" Void asked. "I worked on it all night, I think I fixed the bugs".

"Can't we do it later after lunch? I'm hungry and there's a lot of gamers coming in later, we have a lot to do, and I don't think it's good idea to play this game when there's a bug when they're here, it'll break the machine".

"There's still an hour left after our break is over, please. Five minute, just five minutes".

"Alright," Ricky reluctantly replied and that was when the vision ended.

-------

"What did you see?" Vance saw Perfida came back to reality.

"I... saw Ricky," Perfida answered.

"And?"

"I just saw Void begging him to try this game but Ricky said there were something wrong with it."

"What are you saying?"

"That maybe Void did this to himself."

"Pema said that when she was about to confront Ricky, he disappeared," Leyo reminded.

"Oh, yeah, this is so confusing."

"We need to find Ricky, he's our key to know what happened to Void," Vance said.

"How? his hair could be pink or yellow or any color in the rainbow by now," March respond.

"I have no idea, he could've changed his name too."

"Automated age-progression," they heard a voice said then turned their heads to the doorway and saw Capt. Howes standing there while fixing his collar in his uniform.

"Oh!" Vance expressed after his father reminded him what to do. "Thanks, dad."

"No problem, son, good luck," Capt. Howes walked away after that.

"Auto...what?" Perfida looked confused.

"It's this software that help you picture what a kid would look like when they age."

"Stellar," she impressed. "We can use this picture and see what he'd look like now and we can go from here".

"Yes," Vance then stood up and went to his laptop. "We can use website to age the picture, send me the photo in SnapGram."

"Okay," Leyo said.

"Pena said his natural hair might be brown, if he changed it to that," Perfida said.

About few minutes of uploading, Vance began aging the the face "aging it to ten years later and brown hair". Ricky's face that was in his twenties went to his late thirties, it gave him a stubble, different face shape and hairstyle. "That's him, maybe."

"Let's just say it's him for now, where should we find him since we can't put up a flyer and say we need to find him because the spirit of his business partner is haunting the VR park?"

"If he is in Ares city... Where do people in their thirties go?"

"Most likely a bar."

"But we can't go there," Leyo said.

"Then let's start at the place were we can go."

"Needle in a haystack, stellar," March whined.

"No, wait, Pena mentioned that he and Void used to work in AresPlay Tech before opening a VR park."

"So?"

"Someone there knows him and where he is," Vance figured out what Perfida was going with that.

"Oh!"

"I was going to say that he might be working back there now with a different identity but your theory is better," Perfida voiced.

"Anyway, you did your part now leave the Ricky Ridell to us," Vance referring to himself and March.

--------

The next afternoon, the two boys went to AresPlay Tech. building, video game company in Ares city, opened way before the cosmic citizens arrived but eversince they came, they have contributed and introduced new games to the humans.

March and Vance were standing outside watching employees coming out the building for their lunch break "Now, I know what Perfida and Leyo meant when they say this is nerve-wrecking, I can't believe we're doing this," March said in a jittery tone, he was nervous and excited at the same time.

"Just relax, we got this," Vance told him.

March took a deep breath to remove the tension he was feeling "where should we start?"

"Well, we can't go inside, let's see where they eat when they have their lunch break," Vance answered, they watched most of them went to a cafe just at the other end of the street. "Bingo, come on". They went inside the busy cafe and saw some of the employees there, they weren't in uniforms but they have their work I.Ds on their left chest, "let's sit over there by the high chair."

"Okay."

They were choosing their food by tapping on table that was projecting the menu so that it won't raise suspicions "now follow my lead," Vance whispered. "You know the new VR park is so cool, right?" he said it out loud so that the people from AresPlay heard them. Vance signalled March to play along because he looked confuse but eventually he understood what to do.

"Oh! yeah, so cool, the owners let us play for free," March said. "Good marketing there."

"Good, good," Vance mouthed, he grinned and gave him two thumbs up, few of them were starting to get their attention. "And NOTHING went wrong."

"Yes, NOTHING, they were so careful and thought about our safety."

"Not like the previous ones, they're so lame," Vance voiced, the employees turned their heads at them with an irritated expression. "Just little nudge."

"Yeah, one of them became a vegetable."

"Excuse me," one guy stood up and heard enough from them, Vance and March smirked that their trick worked. "How dare you talked about the two legendary gaming developer that way?"

"Oh my word, did you hear all that? I didn't notice that you listen," Vance acted prudish.

"Yeah, we heard you," the guy scowled. "You two should never speak ill of them."

"Okay, we're sorry, we don't want any troubles," Vance apologized now that they were talking to them. "You seem to know about them, what can you tell us about them then to change our minds?"

The guy was puzzled at their change of atittude not knowing that was just an act to talk to them "oookay, like I said they're legends in the gamer world after opening the VR park."

"Then what happened?" March asked.

"Short circuit but didn't know how it happened" said the other guy.

"Sounds like who ever was in the control room was a cluts," Vance commented.

"Ricky Ridell? no," the first guy defended. "He's as careful as cragsman."

"Really?"

"Positive, he's so careful that he checks his horoscope every morning, he's very superstitious like that. Probably not today, because those things are stupid."

"So where is he now? I heard he just disappeared after that accident".

"That's true but we don't know, probably the people they used to work with knows something," the second guy said, the two felt like they have a break through. "Their social media page is still up to this day."

March subtly checked it the page in his phone while they kept talking and sure enough, it was still there that he showed it to Vance then their food they ordered came. "Oh wow, look at the time, we should probably get going, we'll eat that to go," Vance interrupted, he and March took a quick sip on their drink and shoved a sandwich in their mouths, they put some cash on the table then stood up from their seats. "Thanks for convincing us about those two are not as careless as we thought they are, okay bye!". They ran out the door as the two guys they were talking were confused at what the heck just happened.

"That was easy," March panted feeling overwhelmed once they got away from the cafe. "But why not just ask them?"

"Oh yeah," Vance realized that it could've gone simpler.

------

At night, the soulpadres were having another meeting via videocall "we got the lists of the names of the people that used to work in the V&R park, there's just twelve of them," Vance sent them the names and their details through the shared screen. "We'll each have three people to ask where's Ricky and what do they know about the accident."

"We'll say that we're intern bloggers," Perfida added. "That's what me and Leyo used so we could talk to Pena."

"Good idea, let's do that."

"Thanks, Vance," Perfida expressed. "This is really good stuff you got here."

"Happy to help," Vance replied.

------

After their meeting, Perfida was having dinner with her family in the kitchen "I must say, you kids are getting in peculiar stuff," Archie said. "Should I be concern?"

"Not really?" Perfida answered.

"I forgot to ask, how is the investigation going?"

"So far, one has fell off the ends of the earth and the other is a vegetable".

"Vegetable?" Bryce was too young to know what her sister meant.

"She's joking," Archie said to him then turned to Perfida. "So you mean he's not... you know what?"

"Apparently so, me and Leyo saw him... just sleeping."

"That is very odd."

"And he's been like for ten years."

Archie nearly choke on his food "ten years, you're kidding."

"It's true, Papoli," Perdita interjected. "I can't imagine being that way for so long."

"Is he aware of things?"

"I didn't ask," Perfida said. "I was afraid to ask anything about it but the sister wanted to wait for the Ghax to be able to treat him."

"Ten years is long enough, I'd pull out the plugs, that's just me."

Perdita looked at Archie in a begrudging way, since he couldn't see her, she was affected by his words "what if he didn't to be pulled?" she asked him.

"We don't know that, Purdy, but try to put yourself in his shoes, do you want to live like that?"

"No but his sister wants him to stay."

"If he can speak and say he wants stay then that's fine but what is he staying for?"

"For his sister."

"Why are you two fighting?" Bryce asked even Perfida felt that the atmosphere was heavy.

"Ahem... We're not," Archie stuttered. "Just eat, we'll have dessert after this."

Perfida just kept eating her food and decided not to say anything when Bryce was with them.

---------

Later back in her room with Perdita "what was that about, Purdy?" she confronted. "Why are you and Papoli at it again?"

Perdita was still too scared to admit what she did that caused her and their grandfather not see eye-to-eye lately, not literally at least "I just feel like he's talking about me when he talked about..."

"Pulling the plug?" Perfida finished her sentence with her brow lifted, Perdita nodded in respond. "No way, that's not what he meant and he's definitely not talking about you when said that, it was the vegetable, I mean Void, he was talking about Void. Damn, I should really stop saying that. The point is, you saw how he is now, he's like a living ragdoll, who wants to live like that."

"I guess I've over-reacted back there."

"Maybe. Papoli doesn't want you to go yet and so do I and Bryce, we love you being here with us."

"Me too," Perdita smiled. "Thanks, Peachy, I'll talk to him tomorrow when he wakes up."