Good news was all relative. The last time Sao heard of Marina’s condition was from Rai, the night of the discovery. She had been sedated for treatment at the hospital. Then radio silence. The news of her recovery finally came from Zen, rather than the police. Since Marina appeared to be stable and the culprit was safely locked away, the files had been shifted from the already-outsized priority pool, into the greater depths of the archives. Zen’s plain little phone message was all there was for him.

She’s up

Just so. He took it gladly.

Sao passed on the news from his desk. He was also able make a lunchtime recommendation. Rai was buried in a papery whirlpool on par with HQ’s archive, but agreed to the proposal without looking up, until it was time.

A warm welcome awaited them, like the embrace of an old friend. The polar bear welcome mat and snowflake decals were now joined by a parade of red baubles and garlands rimmed with plastic gold tassels. The large bartender the rest of the waitstaff were wearing alternating green and red fur hats, held on with clips.

“Been a long time, gentlemen,” Zen said. “What can I get you?”

She already had a coffee in hand, and set it on the table. She smiled brightly and Sao returned one easily.

“Beetroot salad?” Rai questioned the menu. He removed his gloves, as if that would help him gather clues.

“Holiday special. You want to try it out?”

“Give me a little more time.”

“Of course.” She turned to Sao. He ordered the steak. It felt like a time for celebration, and if free burgers were not in range, this was the next best thing. Zen wrote down the order in full with a flourish. He had never seen her do such a thing before.

“Beautiful handwriting.”

“Thanks. A boyfriend bought me calligraphy classes once. Sometimes I write out orders like this to kill time, practice my signature, change it up a little… you know. Don’t tell the boss.” She held the notebook at arm’s length for inspection. “Thankfully the chef hasn’t had a problem reading them.”

“A talented man.”

“I’ll have the beetroot salad,” Rai said.

“Coming right up.”

“I heard Marina’s awake,” Rai continued.

Zen took the less-than stellar delivery of her own news back to her with grace. She replaced the notebook in her front pocket and nodded. “Yep. I dropped by this morning to check in, actually. She’s sitting up, she can reach the bed controls and eat on her own, and...” She paused. Sao realized she was struggling to find more capabilities to list - Marina was down several limbs and appendages.

“She’s feeling better, she’s really taken this all in stride. She’s talking a little?” Sao offered.

“Oh yeah, she’s talking.” Zen’s smile reappeared, faintly. “Fearless after all that. She talked my ear off, gave the nurse few choice words for mixing up the meds for the bed across from her too. I had no idea what they were really talking about but I could tell - that was her, for sure.”

“Yeah, that was an interesting outcome, how she managed to stay somewhat alert during the whole time she was confined to that room.” Rai only had eyes for his coffee. “She started talking just about the minute we found her. And she made sense, too, she asked if she was dead, but that wasn’t really unreasonable.”

“It must have taken some incredible strength to get through it all,” Sao said.

“And it’s a miracle she was found.” Zen scratched and fingernail on the table’s edge. There was a network of similar scratches. “I didn’t even think about it until recently, but since I started following the news, it started looking really scary. There are so many kidnappings - or murders or disappearances around here every day, and you hardly ever hear how they are solved. The posters…” She shuddered. “But she’s back. She did it, you guys did it.”

“We also have you to thank. Passing information so we did not have to go diving into police reports, letting us bounce ideas off… right, Rai?”

“Yeah.”

“A team effort.”

“The stars aligning,” Zen agreed. “Reminds me of the stuff Marina used to say after a couple drinks. She could go on about the sort of crazy things that could happen if every little thing surrounding it happened to fall into the right place. The raw energy of a coincidence, like some kind of chemical reaction. If they happened to involve stars, and the energy was enough to say, sink a boat or unearth a missing person, then you could say the stars did indeed align. She was usually the most logical of our friends, but sometimes she’d get onto spirits, fate, intuition-”

Rai slapped his cup down mechanically.

“Maybe there really is a scientific method to these things. She was an engineer, she would know.” Zen sighed.

Sao sighed along with her. “I still don’t know what exactly her job involved.”

“I’ve asked her. She answered, but it was all whoosh - clouds over my head.” Zen set her hands behind her. “Don’t know if it’s a good idea to ask again. She lost her job. The fucking company.”

“That’s awful,” Sao said. “I’m so sorry.”

“These shitty monster corporations, cited too much unwarranted time off, but she’s sure it’s because of the… hand situation. They have employees in wheelchairs, but no! They won’t even return her calls. It’s not like the job involved track and field, right? Fine… I don’t actually know what they do, but...”

“Someone like her, I’m sure she’ll find a new job wherever she goes,” Rai said.

“You’re right.” Zen collapsed onto the booth. “I’ll have to tell her that. I’ll tell her you said it.”

Rai studied the table. “Better not. I don’t know what dimensional engineering is either, but the city always finds a way-”

Zen snapped her fingers. “Crap, I forgot to tell you, I should have started with this but Marina’s going to be leaving the city.”

“Leaving?” Sao and Rai said at the same time.

“Her family came in to check in with her at the hospital, mom, dad and an aunt, troll of a cousin or something, a teenager. Anyhow, when she got me along, she said they want her to come home. She just lost her job, and after what happened to her she’s going to need rest for...a while, so she will probably be going with them when they fly out.”

“When’s this going to happen? I have to say hello before then,” Sao said.

“Don’t know. If you’re free today or tomorrow evening, I’m going to be headed there again for our yearly present exchange. Ah - this also skipped my mind -- I’ll also out of here in a couple of days for the week-long vacation.” Zen tweaked her green felt cap. The miniscule bell, tangled in her flame red hair, tinkled weakly. “Visiting my folks out west. You two have any plans?”

Primarily family matters. Sao smiled and upturned his mind for possibilities. “I’ll be in town, probably helping man the emergency lines if they need any more hands. Other than that, catching up with friends, sleeping in...”

“I have to visit my mother,” Rai said, dull as the dime store bell pinned to Zen’s hair. “But she's not far. Then it's back to the usual.”

“Hanging out with friends, being productive then,” Zen said. “That’s not a bad time, I wish I could spend my vacation on that, actually.” She laughed, but Sao was feeling the divide between them beginning to crack open.

“Come to think of it,” Sao said, “Icey deserves a hearty thank-you and apology as well, after I got her involved. Don’t tell me she’s out of town too?”

“I’m so sorry! She left this morning - I think. She took a detour on the way to the airport she she could see Marina and then rushed out. She probably caught her plane, because she didn’t reply to my messages…” Zen bolted up. The worst possible scenario was repeating itself in her head. “Should I--”

“I’ll ask if there’s anyone who can check the airport records, to make sure she got there safely,” Sao said, drawing out his phone. He had no idea if such a short-term request were possible, but his words were enough for Zen. She must have been strung out for news too.

“Thanks. God, I’m sorry to bother you with all this. Not just this airport thing, but with Marina too. I’m so grateful you guys found her, but if not - not that it would have been your fault but... “ She pressed her head into his palm. She was slumped, one leg out, poise dropped. “I don’t know. Let me know if this is crazy, but after all this, I’ve been thinking about moving away too. Marina’s going to be gone, and Icey’s not doing so hot after the knife incident - we were all thinking about it this morning. You two are cops, right? You don’t have to say anything if you aren’t allowed but… things are bad here, aren’t they? This town's looking good, but things could come crashing down for any of us, any minute.”

Sao was compelled to give comfort, no, you shouldn’t let one incident put you off this beautiful city, there’s so much more-- but caught himself. There were the numbers and the records, and even without seeing the sealed files, Zen could see their outlines. Thousands of Marinas, and compounded lost limbs, lost skin and lost lives.

“It’s up to you, of course,” he said carefully. “There are still things worth staying for - and the chances of anything more happening are low - but I know that once you’re watching for news, it’s hard to take your mind off it all. Perhaps a break will let you know what’s best.”

Rai was watching his drink. “Don’t overthink it. Leaving is a fine idea to me.”

All eyes were on him - even a few from the next table, having caught onto something that sounded like heresy.

But all Rai had to follow up with was, “But what Sao said. It comes down to you.”

---

It was a warm day. The heating was turned off, and with the windows closed, it was the perfect temperature. The lack of stable background noise was keeping Sao awake. So was the thunderclap tapping at Rai’s keyboard, and accompanying lightning flashes as he progressed through a report. And then there was the thought of their conversation at the bar.

“Rai.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you really believe that leaving the city would be the right choice?”

Rai shoved a pile of papers aside so they could talk face-to-face. “I have reasons. You've got some arguments, I'm guessing.”

“Not arguments but was surprised to hear you outright. You sounded awfully sure at the time.” Sao folded his arms over the smooth, familiar wood surface of his desk. A proof-read transcript lay before him. “As for me… you could tell, I’m split. It’s difficult to say such a thing to a new friend. So many possibilities, times to be had, just barely brought back -- now driven off. Nothing lasts forever, but hurrying to a goodbye is...”

“It’s difficult to know they’re wasting away, staying up late at night in paranoia. It’s also difficult to have more and more people you’d be afraid of seeing on a metal slab one day.” Rai glared not at Sao, but past him. At the outside - the enemy, in a manner of speaking. “Call it selfish, and maybe there are even more reasons on her end that I’m not seeing - but this is enough proof for me. If someone starts seeing the darkness, they aren’t going to suddenly stop seeing it - because it’s not a hallucination. It’s all there, maneaters, serial killers, huge overhanging accidents that don’t even need more than a fly landing to initiate. You’ll go crazy thinking about it. Until something gets its claws in you. Or you move safely out of reach.”

“Should I apply this to myself, too?”

“That’s up to you. Okay, as a member of the police, you’re afforded some protection - at the cost of being watched, but I noticed you don’t care about that the way others might. Forget the cop registry - your apartment is bugged to hell, isn’t it? There’s no way someone like you didn’t notice. Who's watching?”

Sao smiled. “Confidential.”

“Whatever. There's also the fact that this is the only city authorized to use Life Fountains. And those guys… I mean, we, have less to be afraid of than normal. My mom could shrug off a hundred stab wounds like they were flea bites, so I don’t need to move my family out. Old man Cadmus, he’s another wall. On the force we also have Van and his crew. Van who isn’t a Life Fountain, but damn close to superhuman. He won’t burn a shifter, but he can probably pull one apart with his bare hands. And the chief… there are a lot of us, but we can’t cover for the number of people who can’t do the same...”

“It’s a start, though.”

“Yeah. Personally, since those guys were all I had, I never had to worry. But now, there's you.”

There was a fitful silence. Rai had run out of coffee. He was sitting still as a statue, positioned like a gargoyle over his stacks. Like he could sit there forever.

“Motivation,” Sao said.

Rai waited.

“That’s the answer to your quiz. When you asked me why the Level 3 movement and Life Fountains failed to bring down the disappearances. It’s all in the mind - or rather, the hundreds or thousands of individually acting minds that aren’t quite working in sync.”

Sao wheeled his chair out to the center of the room.

“Technically, an army of humans should work against any other army of living beings found on earth. And the city has numbers - and experts - shapeshifters and serial killers shouldn’t stand a chance. And even against the new supernatural, you have the Life Fountains. A proclaimed half breed such as yourself can already brand and capture a shifter with ease, move up and you have beasts that take a hundred stab wounds, as you put it. A supernatural force themselves with more than enough to match shapeshifters in power. But power’s not all there is in conflict.” Sao touched his head. “It’s a matter of the mind. Simple smarts do not cover it. Desperation breeds sharpness by necessity. Shapeshifters that survive must have been born and bred to fit in. While the Life Fountain army is only a fledgling-”

“You're getting mushy,” Rai said. “The exiles we’ve hired don’t tend to be that sharp. Glowing blue, blowing fumes and dripping skin - top that off with hundred-year-old adults who don’t even know basic math, and only want to eat all day.”

“That highlights the point,” Sao said. “It’s in the mentality. Minds are elastic but that doesn’t promise they can simply devote themselves to a single case. Hundred-year-old minds no less. And humans, humans seem to come with innate justice without even living a century. But they fall to all kinds of traps, knives and cannibals aside, even losing someone and never receiving an answer can crush a man, and failures weigh even more heavily on the well-meaning. When you fear walking in one day to hear a friend’s on a slab, and you were supposed to have done something, well, wouldn’t you stop walking in? Stop seeing people? Stop caring? And what sort of investigator will that create?”

“An ineffectual one, or nothing at all. A hole to be filled by bottom feeders, supposed specialists who are really no use anywhere else and just want to be handed a check and a title.” Rai said. “But what can you say, especially if they are finding their family and friends picked off, one by one?”

“One only has so much heart to give.” Sao raised his hands and set them together. “Shapeshifters, murderers and mystical disappearances versus the combined power of humanity and their allies. The unstoppable force against the immovable object. But that’s just it -- the immovable object is immobilized. It will not push back.”

“And it may just crumble one day.” Rai leaned forward, pushing his screen back slightly, sending papers dangling off the other side of the desk. “So...”

Sao separated his hands. “So I probably shouldn’t mention the word apathy in front of you again, since that’s what’s bringing down the movement you began. Though at the same time - it’s what keeps our level populated at all. Sorry, I mean your Level 3s.”

Rai smiled, mostly without menace.

“And that’s my answer.” Sao pushed his chair back to his desk. “Sorry it took so long to get back to you. Do you need it in writing?”

“The wording isn’t important. I’ll admit you do have a… a fancy way of putting things together.” Rai stood. “The important thing is, do you believe anything can be done?”

“I’m still here, aren’t I?” Sao tilted his head around his laptop screen. “So the quiz isn’t over. Was it not the answer you were waiting for?”

“The solution to the first question, you handled that like a pro. But this is a separate matter.” Rai gazed at the windows. “A matter of the mind, to stay on topic. Do you think the whole thing should just be shut down? Is it a lost cause?”

“Oh, I’m sure it needs nothing so dramatic.”

“When I started, I made a mistake of believing it would be. Dramatic, I mean. So as an objective… no, as a friend - do you think this path should be wiped clean? Is there another way?”

“You’re asking me to examine the aspect that may cause me to leave.”

Rai stopped.

“It’s fine, I’m set up for another season here at the very least.” Sao laughed, light and stiff. “If you’re asking for a solution, you’re better off asking virtually anybody else. I’ve only been through one case.”

“Let’s simplify it then: what were your thoughts on this case?”

“I suspect it turned out better than it could have.”

“Is that a good result?”

“Good?” Sao swivelled left, then right, feeling rather dizzied even without the movement. He almost had to move to balance out the sway of the conversation. “That night, I was elated. Call it the hero complex, if you wish. But after seeing the results in full, with the reports buried and the friends headed out of the country -- to tell you the truth, it hasn’t been particularly rewarding. But it’s the job. We only have a job as long as the horrors continue. If there are no incidents, we have no work. The prospect of a job where the positive is a net result of nothing is...” Sao shook his head. “Well, you know already how people react.”

“But you’ve seen worse?”

“What’s that mean?”

“Sorry, that came out wrong.” Rai gave the window a long, tired, red look. A bird flew by, enjoying the brief spell of warmth. It wouldn’t last - they were only in the early stages of winter. He scraped the back of his heel against the desk. “From the start, I was wondering if someone with your history could cope - okay, that's not much a question, since you were there - the question was how. When I got your transfer notice, your bio, I suspected you'd see things differently. Even when I thought your touch phobia was a ploy, having that on paper spoke of something unusual. You say you don’t see your family anymore, and that you sit in for the emergency hotline over the vacation. You're not like me. I don't expect anyone to be like me. But you're not exactly like the other office goons. I have trouble with that, and that makes me wonder how this experiment got to you.”

Sao gave this some time so dissipate. He half wanted to walk out or club Rai with his enormous stapler. But that wasn’t going to magically instill him with perfect manners, and it wouldn’t stop him from investigating either. The latter was a reason for the police to keep him around. In the grand scheme of disappearances and flesh eaters, he was nothing, and he knew it. And yet, there he was, on his phone, files stacked high, thinking about a problem that had streamed from him for years.

A small, sympathetic grin found its way onto his face. “It's hard to say,” Sao said. “I still hardly believe what I saw. It'll take some time to answer that.”

Rai frowned. “Too early for heavy talk?”

“In a way. Too early in the day, too early in my career. But allow me to make another observation.” Sao straightened his jacket with an air of formality. “The one man who keeps picking cases out of the shipload, keeps going day and night, who won’t stop until they’re done, this man keeps going because he simply does not find time to think about the past. Everything is ongoing until it is not, but you can't stop - when you hit a success, you ride quick and far as you can until the next crest. If there’s no time to worry, then worrying does not happen. At least, in such quantity.”

Rai’s eyes, normally narrowed when Sao started his sweeping statements, were now round as fishbowls.

Sao flipped his palms towards the ceiling. “And clearly, not everyone can do the same. The ‘solution’ to lost motivation is never going to be a simple thing. It would have to be different per person. That’s what makes it so difficult to think of a fix that will elevate, motivate, the entirety of the police’s civilian squad. But myself, I know have the unique position of having reached the end of a case along with you, and it ended well. So I have the chance...” A mountain was rising before him. “I have the chance to continue, too.”

“What a beautiful picture you’ve painted. But what does it mean?”

In spite of his level tone, Rai had circled around behind his desk and was ducking behind his papers, hiding his expression - he’d understood already.

“There were several reason I opted to stay at this office. One was so that I could continue to try to find Marina. Another was so I could avoid having to give an exit interview.” Sao said, stretching his arms languidly behind his head. “But also, and know this is not loose flattery: I feel that I can accomplish more. Perhaps I'm riding the high you've built. Or perhaps your work tendencies are spreading. Whether its at the desk or away from it, well, it’s good to be busy. There is no shortage of cases, for sure.”

“No kidding,” Rai said. Sao did not like the look of the additional files that had materialized on his desk. “So you want more cases?”

“I’ll keep it elliptical: I wouldn’t say no if I were invited on another.”

“Invite? You were the one to dig up the last one. But--” Rai slapped down a thin, sand colored folder with inexplicable force. “-- if you’re willing… how’s your schedule for today?”

“Let me check,” Sao said, looking over his completed transcript.

“If you have work to do, get it done, get your night’s rest. But if you’re interested, well, I don't need a case to be bloody to look into it...”

“Excuse me?” Sao laughed.

“How's a house call strike you? A haunt- nope, shouldn’t label it before I’m sure, but I checked it out the other night and I’m pretty sure there’s some sort of unforseen spiritual activity going on down there. No runes, no scrolls, no artifacts of note, it’s not even an old building. But you've got these noises, and when it's dark--”

“Hold back a moment - you want to investigate a haunted house.”

“I gave it a run-through it the night before, after we got Marina to the hospital. Like I said, none of the standard signs of magic, so there could be some new form in play. Or, if we’re lucky, actual spirits. Though, according to the realtor, nobody ever died there, but during construction, you know how sites tend to go unguarded-" Rai pulled on his coat. “So are you free?”

“You’re going now?”

“While it’s daylight and if you’re awake. I could use an extra pair of eyes.”

“Sounds exciting.”

“We'll see.” Rai was nearly out the door.

They were at an impasse and Sao felt the mountain he’d built up before him tilt, sway, brace to split apart and rain down on him. He’d opened his arms to future Marinas, future Zens and Iceys and Lockes and Olivers. More nights out, more work piling up, more people met and more people to lose.

You’ve seen worse. Now there was a good saying to keep one going. Alongside Don’t overthink it. Neither improved the situation at hand, but the place he was in, for now, was acceptable. He wasn’t bloodied and hiding in an empty apartment, or shoved in a trunk or lying one room away from a murderer, or being skinned in a basement by the train tracks. Yet, others might be.

Sao pulled his coat off the back of his chair, followed Rai to the foyer, and once again admired the corkboard. The dwindling trail of peaks Rai had been using to keep him afloat. He just had to hope they would find another.

There was one last mantra that struck him as the door opened. It was not spoken in his voice.

You can leave whenever you want.

Well, no need for that one just yet.

“Almost forgot. Can you turn off the lights before you’re out of there?” Rai asked.

It was midday, still hours before nightfall.

“Yes, sir,” Sao said.

“Don't call me that. Makes me feel old.”

---

On ground level, fresh posters were being taped up by a small host of smartly dressed recruits. On the poster was a woman with a small smile and a gray suit jacket. The freshly printed sheets were mounted where the afternoon sunlight fell, top of the last layer of posters, featuring a woman with long blonde hair. Underneath that was a yellowed layer of posters for a child, aged 12. This poster was printed on higher quality paper, though no one would ever notice.

Beneath the child’s beaming face, which reached nothing but the sheet above, was Marina. Navy blue and perfectly trimmed. And below her, others, matted permanently to the paint. Layers upon layers of printed faces, pressed flat and back to back, the sun growing dimmer with each new initiate, until the wind or rain finally wore off their eyes or banished their memories to the depths of the city drainage system; to the rivers to the ocean, far out of sight.

Traffic wailed. Wind hummed in vents. Birds sailed from the trees as drilling and demolitions began. A street camera turned at just the wrong time. Old bodies were buried and a young man emerged from the grocery and was dragged into an alley and never recovered.

Rai's hands were on the wheel, in their gloves. No more knives, and safe distance away. As safe as they'd ever be.

Rai's hands flew, the wheel swerved. Sao closed his eyes and tried to think only of the tinny rattling of the car as they sped towards a place he’d never heard of, to do something equally unheard of. The radio was playing a song he knew. It reminded him of his camping days.

Time to leave, just for a spell.

As he and Rai hurtled willingly towards the unknown, he fell quickly and easily into a nap.