The reply comes in about 2 minutes later.

I'll be at the Santa Fe Depot station in twenty-nine minutes. Please keep me apprised of new developments at your department's convenience. 

- Causal Web 

A signed copy of the contract is attached. 

(The contract was one of the standard issue ones the California DRT uses, which means she didn't even need to send it to a lawyer.)

"Hey, uh, Evan?"

"Yeah?

"Causal Web is a postcog, right?  She doesn't see the future?"

"... yeah, she's a postcog.  Why?"

"No reason..."

Juanita sends over the high-level summaries, with links to the actual reports.  They have a sedan available to her, with a little undercarriage spiderbot still resolutely attempting to spin the wheels.  It seems harmless, and it's up on a nearby garage's lift that got commandeered for the duration of the emergency.  Still intact, should that be relevant to Causal Web's power or sense of curiosity.  Seems unlikely that it'll survive the confluence, and at any rate it's arc-welded itself into the mechanism of the vehicle itself.  And frankly, all of these cars are goners - nobody is going to trust any components that got suborned by a dungeon monster.

(Huh. Maybe she'll come out of this with a lead for Jenny?)

Intact is useful, yes. Sounds like she and her guide should head there when her train arrives. 

It's inconveniently far from the train station.  Given that she's a Very Important Esper, they have a helicopter sitting in a parking lot for her.

(It's theoretically a medical helicopter, but triage and finding the portals is more important than one medical flight.)

That makes sense! She and Sam will get in the helicopter. 

Then it's not long before her LifeAssist-branded helicopter drops her and Sam off in a parking lot outside of JAMES' AUTOBOX.  James himself is not in evidence, but there's a pair of DRT operatives and a rather larger contingent of engineers, researchers, scientists, and other subject matter experts crowding around a cute little beige sedan.  It's turning its front axle angrily left and right, but it's not going anywhere, being as how it's on a lift six feet in the air.

Causal Web strides in briskly, her guide behind her. "I'm here to trace the portal," she announces, which is only probably redundant. 

Can she get a stool set up within arm's reach of the monster? 

She absolutely can.  Given that she's not remotely close to a membership in the WNBA, they also will lower the car so she can hold onto the spiderbot without jumping first.

Causal Web appreciates that. "This may take several minutes - it's safe to interrupt me in an emergency, but I will lose my progress," she warns them. "My guide Sam can handle judgment calls if you're unsure." 

She gets situated, pulls off her jacket, and reaches up to touch the spiderbot. (Sam wraps themself around her in anticipation of her rising backlash.)

"We'll leave you be, ma'am." Her request is interpreted as 'Leave her in place unless the building is actually on fire'.

She reaches out with her mind and into the past.

The [ċ̴̠a̴̫̚r̷͇͋ĵ̸͓á̴͓c̶͈̎k̶̙̈́é̴̗r̸̞̃] was taken to the [garage|prison] <= its [host|body|frame] had its [wheels|legs|wings|freedom] removed violently <= it was [trapped|captured|kidnapped] by [S̸͒͜i̸̟͝n̴̟͐ǩ̸̪ȟ̵̖o̵̮̕l̶̢͗e̴̫̍] and [P̶̭̚i̶̯͑n̵̥̄ĩ̶̼ò̷͖n̷̻͋] and lost access to its [f̵͍̄ô̷͖ọ̸̒d̴̛͉] <= it was [happily|dutifully|excitedly] extracting [nutrition] from its [f̵͍̄ô̷͖ọ̸̒d̴̛͉] <= it waited [dormant|patiently|restlessly] for the signal from [h̸̚͜ǫ̵̌m̶̤͠ę̶̛] to [attack|harvest|surprise] the unsuspecting [f̵͍̄ô̷͖ọ̸̒d̴̛͉] <= it left [h̸̚͜ǫ̵̌m̶̤͠ę̶̛] and attached itself to its [host|body|frame] along with [dozens|hundreds|thousands] of its [kin|siblings|rivals] -

(About ten minutes later, she stops touching the carjacker and opens her eyes, which her partner takes as a signal to start making out with her.)

You know, he knew working with espers was weird as shit.  And he knew that occasionally, he'd see hot people making out.  And like every other DRT op, he'd have to pretend that it wasn't kind of hot.

This one isn't hot.  It's almost like the blue one is just kind of...standing there?  The lights are on, but no-one's home.

Well, she's a bit involved in the process, but - probably not enough for it to be hot, no.

However, after a minute or two, she will, without pulling away from Sam, pull up a map on her commscreen big enough for them all to see and highlight a hundred meter span of the 805. 

[Postcog-verified]: Carnapper's portal almost certainly on this stretch of highway 805 or close by. Individual minions were breaching unnoticed for hours onto passing cars. 

The text floats in the air and also goes out on appropriate channels.

Damn, she's good.  Despite being all of fifteen feet away, it feels a bit awkward to interrupt his postcog in the middle of a makeout session.  So instead, he'll message Stavi directly through the app, as conflict-avoidant types are prone to do.

Do you need anything else from us for the foreseeable future?

Not for Carnapper. We can get out of your way if you want to experiment on it.

(She could follow her power into the dungeon or jump to one of the other little spiderbots, but it would be very expensive and not especially useful. And there's other active problems here.)

Whatever's convenient for you.  We do have things we want to check, but they're not time-sensitive right now.

Causal Web's spurred a flurry of activity.  805 isn't particularly dangerous to travel down, but it's definitely not easy, either.  Thankfully, the response was already planned: DRT team lands a helicopter WELL AWAY from the suspected portal location, then a team goes on foot to secure the portal's immediate surroundings.

That's the plan, at least.

Alright! Works for her.

...hey, California DRT, do you want to contract PPCS (at the same reduced rate, of course, less travel expenses because they're already here) to find Menagerie's portal?