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? 

Yes.  Please.  That would be fantastic.  What does she need?  They're thrilled to pieces at the idea of not having metaphorical unexploded adorable ordnance all over San Diego.

(Yeah, she also would like that. Very much so, actually.)

She needs a tranquilized specimen and a destination for her and her guiding partner.

Tranquilized is a problem.  Would immobilized be sufficient?  They don't have tranquilizers that'll reliably work on(instead of kill) a specimen, but they do have industrial strength zipties and gauntlets with which to apply them.

She needs to be able to safely touch it for an extended period of time during which she won't be paying much attention to her senses. She is agnostic to the particulars of the solution as long as it accomplishes this.

A teleport is rapidly authorized for a nearby commandeered you-store-it storage facility Official DRT Monster Storage Secure Facility.  Complete with armed and extremely armored guards, one of whom has bright pink hair.  It's not long before a moderately zip-tied and extremely caged unicorn giraffe is set up in a storage room secure holding cell for Causal Web's psychometric pleasure.

(It's a risk that the strain will kill the giraffe, but not that much of one.  Dungeon monsters are generally hardier than you'd expect, and if they trade one admittedly adorable unicorn giraffe for the city of San Diego, that's a great trade.)

Excellent! Causal Web and her guiding partner will accept the teleport.

Once she's in the warehouse, she gives the people there the same spiel about interruptions, how long this will take, and such. Any questions or things she needs to know before they get started?

These are the signals to slowly back off.  This is the sign someone needs to get the monster away from you.  This is the sign to give to kill the monster, but the monster is worth between five to twenty million dollars so please be responsible with it. This is the protocol...

There isn't a lot of protocol but it's extremely important to be safe with a dungeon monster.

(These instructions are mostly for the professional guide, since Causal Web is going to be Occupied, but Sam is capable of absorbing and acknowledging protocols!)

Then it's time for her to Approach The Monster.

It's making cute sad whinnying noises about being trussed up.

Yeah, well, it would, wouldn't it. 

She plops a chair in arm's reach of it, sits down, and reaches out to touch its fur.

(The giraffe was [seized|lured|trapped] by [Kuroko|the DRT liason|a civilian] <= a [bystander|sensor|drone sweep] reported -)

- it doesn't matter. None of this matters. 

Causal Web stops touching the giraffe, her hand and arm going limp.

Her partner looks at her closely, sighs slightly, and then coaxes her mouth open for makeouts. 

Well.  That's...kind of creepy-looking?  But we're all professionals here, we can pretend to be otherwise occupied while anxiously waiting for the report.

Hopefully they find this portal pretty quickly.

The next update they get is about twenty minutes later and it's "This one might take me a few hours." 

"And you can't be interrupted for any of it, correct?"

"That's correct, though I should have status updates for you before then," Causal Web says, doing her best to keep her frustration out of her voice. (Her best isn't bad.)

Resolute nod.  "Okay.  We're ready for you whenever, ma'am."  Being stuck on guard duty for an esper who can't protect herself suuuuuuuuuuuucks.

well, she's not enjoying herself either it's important, though. 

Back to it - slower and more carefully, this time. The web branches a lot more than she'd been expecting. (And Jenny isn't here, so she can't just brute-force it.)

About a half hour later (including some more makeouts, though this time Causal Web is at least a bit involved the entire time), there's a status update, of sorts. "Really wide range. Think I'm converging on the coastline, not yet sure."

"Got it."  She puts in some extremely preliminary findings in a groupchat, then takes the initiative to swap out their guards. 

Pink-Haired Guard is going to ask for a few minutes to visit the little esper's room, if Causal Web is okay with the girafficorn being taken away while this happens.

This is a good time for it - she needs more guiding before she gets zero'd out.

Pink Hair returns.  The changing of the guard wraps up.  Everyone's ready for Round Three of guarding a VIP from a tiny girafficorn.

Back in she goes, then.

(The giraffe was [seized|lured|trapped] by [Kuroko|the DRT liason|a civilian] <= a [bystander|sensor|drone sweep] reported it while it found a [friend|victim|lonely stretch of beach] <= it stepped out of the [bay|cove|channel|basin|harbor|marina]...)

...her eyes open. "the bay," she says, though it doesn't really matter.

(...Sam starts making out with her, since she clearly needs it.)

The bay.  Great.  Somewhere in fucking San Diego Bay is a portal.  Almost certainly.  He marks it as PRELIMINARY and passes the report on.  Nobody is pulling any triggers, but the prioritization of plans gets adjusted.

After a few minutes, she will type up a report on her commscreen.

Menagerie monsters are coming in from the shoreline. I've marked an approximate range on this map, but it's very approximate

My power is not well-suited for further searching. I can do it anyways, but it will take a while - given the situation I would recommend a more specialized sensor or postcog.

Given the recommendations of Causal Web, they're going to use another sensor.  Hmm.  Watershed might be perfect for this one - they'll try her next.

The State of California would like to officially thank Causal Web for her contributions towards the defence of San Diego.

Causal Web, after a little while, will say it's been a pleasure, like always.

...do they have a plan for those firetrucks?

They sure do have hopes for the firetrucks currently the best option looks like deploying Pinion with a team of five slow-capable espers to make capture without undue damage possible, or use S-rank espers such as Flay.

... if Causal Web has a suggestion, they are all ears.

...have they reached out to that kinetic esper that was on the Arrakis team? (There's a pause as Causal Web looks this up) ...Flywheel, right.

Who?

... No.  They actually have not.

Well.

Psychic Postmortem Consulting Solutions' official (and complimentary!) recommendation that the California Dungeon Response Team reach out to Flywheel for help with their rogue firetruck problem.