“The level of vitriol is making us feel unsafe. My sister of course, and me too because she is close to me and she’s done so much. So please...”

A fine day. Birds on the windowsill, flowers in the trees, and Rai with his chin jutted out and resting on his knuckles. Sao heard Rai say, “Looks like your letter got to him after all. Whether he can follow up properly is another matter -- emoting isn't his forte.”

Rai’s impression was fair, almost too fair. He was enjoying the horror-show appeal of this. Sao stood flat against the wall as if pinned to it, watching over Rai’s shoulder with a fist over his mouth to stop himself from saying anything.

Cadoc pressed on. “Since a lot of you asked, and just so you all know, Carme does want to pursue charges against Kep, but I won’t let her, I don’t want to cause trouble.”

“Well, that’s not going to help. Look at these comments.” A whistle. 

Sao saw the word DIE and LIAR blocked out with a mosaic of emoticons. “They’re still going for Carme.”

“Still going, alright. This fanned the flames more than anything.” Rai scrolled. There were some essay-length attacks on the list. “Contrarians. Well, I think this proves that it’s not just bots posting. Some of them are pretty creative.”

Sao crossed the room and dropped into the office couch. The springs were as tired as he was, and let him sag into the depths of the stuffing. He thought he felt the jab of their metal tips.

“Well, they’re so quick they could still be paid spammers. Kind of strange that they would be paid to contradict Cadoc like that, though.” Rai said. “Well. He tried to do the right thing.”

“And a special thanks,” Cadoc concluded, “To my friends Sao and Rai for helping me through this troubling time.”

“Hey,” Rai said. “Did you hear that?”

Sao rolled his head back so he could look out the window. “Do you believe in aliens, Rai?”

Instant pickup. “If you mean extraterrestrial life forms, of course I do, they’re proven reality. Just a couple weeks ago, scientists found what looked like a metallic boulder on the coast after a meteor shower, and it turned out to be hollow with these metal sticks inside, and the next day a nearby radio station picked up these strange signals...”

“That’s wonderful.”

“Nobody’s translated the signals yet. Who knows if they’re peaceful or not.”

“I hope they are.” Sao kneaded his skull. Where was he going before Rai kicked them off course? “I suppose I’m thinking in the fanciful sense. I wonder if transplanting a being from one world to another will inevitably cause trouble. If it just won’t work, whether the cause was moral or not.”

“Is this about Cadoc’s video?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

Rai folded his arms and chewed the side of his mouth for a few minutes, staring at Sao, or just past him. Like Cadoc and Carme, Sao though, Rai could give the impression that he was about to speak, any second now. But Rai’s buildup did not end with predictable pleasantries, you had to brace for it. His outbursts were not fatal - sometimes he was even kind - but Rai had a penchant for packing in discomfort, and the anticipation was like waiting for rubber band to snap. 

But sometimes, Sao thought, you needed a slap to the face. Rai was as good as it got without actual contact.

“You think that you brought this onto them. That Cadoc was doing just fine - or fine enough - and now both he and his sister are getting dragged through the mud twice over. Because he’s fine droning on about work and listing names, but he’s just not the kind of person who can put together heartfelt appeals.” A snort. “Well, don’t feel too bad about it. It was his choice to use your letter.”

“It wasn’t just the letter.” Sao sighed. “He called me last night, asking if I thought it was a good idea, and I said yes, because she's his family. I suppose I made it sound like an obligation, and I could already tell he wasn’t crazy about it. He used what I told him almost word-for-word in that video. The defense of Carme wasn’t his.”

“The words don’t matter. He could have made up his own speech, and the same thing would have happened. You bring something to the forefront of attention on the internet and you’re going to get backlash. And his particular sphere of influence can be overly heady. At least when it comes to these videos.”

“I wish I’d known that earlier.” Sao shook his head. “He must have. That’s why he was so reluctant...”

“He called you, and put in the segment anyway. I’d say he didn’t know one way or the other. He was just cruising along on his boring FAQs, ignoring the garbage going on in the comments, never the wiser - or intentionally ignorant - with nobody speaking up in favor of sense. So in the end...” Rai rolled back in his chair and reached for one of his many mugs. “What you did was a kick in the right direction.”

“I’ll admit it’s hard to see the upside. These comments are more violent than ever.”

Rai took a loud slurp of coffee. “Armchair tough-guys. Just screaming profanities over the net won’t cause any real harm, especially if they’re just being paid to do so. Although, if you see anything too personal, we can get it on record. Crazies tend to encourage more crazy, and if it touches the wrong person…” Rai let the omen hang. “Chances are low that any of these people really know much about Carme, or will ever so much as see her in person. Keep an eye out if you can. But don’t think too much about the mental vomit of strangers, it's not worth it.”

“You’re probably right.” Sao tried to pull himself out of the sinking couch, wishing Rai hadn’t brought up vomit again. Undeterred, Rai slurped coffee, watching him, or looking out the window. Sao emerged with a crackle of static and a wheeze from the couch’s exhausted depths. “I realized, as much as I’d like to say he’s my friend, Cadoc’s a total stranger. Why wouldn’t he be? Last night, what shocked me the most was when he asked why.”

“Why what?”

“Why he should bother to defend his sister.” Sao stood. “I was stunned. Although he did correct himself. What he meant was, he needed a reason he could use on the video.”

“That isn’t much better. Aren’t they essentially the same question?” Rai lifted his cup again. “You know what that would make me think? That Cadoc is the one Carme needs to watch out for.” Then he scowled so hard Sao nearly fell back onto the couch. “Damn. No more coffee.”

Sao waited for Rai to lumber off to the kitchen, and then leapt up. 

---

Sao huddled in the hallway outside the office, which lacked the warm walls and indoor heating, but did afford a bit more privacy. He leaned against the monumental window, clouded at the edges with everyday grime, remnants of old rain and snow. In the gaps between the neighboring buildings of Southside - pretty white and brown brick structures with a smattering of with outcrop patios and rooftop gardens - he could see the bridge, and past that, the projection of Central city. 

A crystalline sky was begging admiration, but his mind ached for Carme, when he remembered her home view of walls, dark, machines and boxes and cameras. Not a soul for company but her brother.

At the tail end of a droning dial tone, someone picked up.

“Am I speaking to Carme?”

“Yes.”

“Hello Carme. This is Sao. I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

Carme spoke as if ashamed. “Why now...?”

Sao forced the immediate comparison to Cadoc from his mind. “I was concerned. I saw that Cadoc recovered nicely from his latest videos, and thought it would be good to make sure you were doing alright, too.”

“I wasn’t the one who was sick.”

“So, you’re doing alright then?”

“That’s…” A sniff, of boredom, or of cold, or something else. “Yes, I’m fine.”

Another echo of Cadoc. Sao closed his eyes, brushed away some vacant cobwebs from the windowsill and sat. Carme faintly snuffled again. Once again, in the dark behind his eyelids, he was flooded with fearful possibilities. “Carme, is your brother nearby?”

“I don’t think he wants any calls at the moment.”

“Is he still resting?”

“Yes.”

Sao opened his eyes. The hall suddenly seemed very bright. “I’ll keep it down, then. But what do you say to a video call?”

A long silence, but a little shakier than the others, in his estimation. “W-why?”

“Because I’m worried about you. Following Cadoc’s log this morning, I realize things may not be… well, I owe you an apology. I’d like to do it face-to-face - although if I’m being too forward, just say the word, and I’ll be on my way.” Pressing close to the receiver (or where he thought it should be, modern phones were a mystery at times) he added softly, “In case you need to go, I may as well say I’m sorry now. All those comments, they’re like rabid dogs. You deserve better.”

There was a blip. He drew the phone back and was met with a blurry black rectangle. It took a while for him to catch the edges of Carme’s face in the video feed.

“What did you...” she cleared her throat, “I mean. What happened?”

“I guess that means he didn’t consult you. No doubt you’d have known better.” Sao turned on his own camera, startling the shadow on the other end. “I wrote to Cadoc asking him to say a few words in your defense. All that slander going on during the supposed kidnapping - I felt that I just had to say something. And then he called me last night, to ask if he should really go ahead with it...”

“Uh huh.”

“He didn’t seem sure of what to say about you. And I didn’t advise him well. It seems to have only made things worse, and I must apologize. I’m glad to know he was willing at least, and not intentionally throwing you under the bus-”

“He’s not.”

“Yes, I’m sorry. I wish I could take it back, for his sake as well.” Sao sighed. “You’re stronger than I thought. Both of you.”

A sniff again.

Sao scrutinized her shadowed face. “Are you really doing okay?”

Another sniff, then another. And finally, the head dipped and caught the light, and he saw the glassy streaks running down her cheeks, and the puff of reddened eyes. 

“I couldn’t have stopped him. I can’t stop any of them.” she said. The breathiness was something he had never heard in Carme nor Cadoc before, it was like a third person had sprouted to life, someone he didn’t know. “I deserve it. If I can’t stop them, I deserve it.” And there was an unmistakable sob.

“Carme,” Sao said as smoothly as he could muster as his throat clenched. “Do you feel safe where you are? If you need any help at all, please - and don’t worry about your brother-”

“No, no, it has nothing to do with him.” There was a snort, and this one may really have been in dismissal. “Cadoc hasn’t done anything. He can’t - that’s the problem - he’s not that kind of person. For me, I think… it’s my problem, it’s the job, it’s life. There’s always some problem. Always some nasty word, some rumor or failure. It’s not just the people on the video, or eating contests, sometimes I have my eyes closed and I can see them. The inevitable. Sometimes... I feel that I can’t do anything right.”

Cadoc’s echoes were back. But on Carme’s tongue, they threatened total collapse.

Sao held the phone steady. “I know. The words coming at you lately have been extremely harsh. It does seem unfair, believe me, you aren’t the only one who notices. I just wish there was something I could do.” He pressed against the window, searching the streets below for answers. The only immediate sight was Rai’s beat-down automobile, which only made him more nervous. “Rai, my colleague - he thinks the comments are paid for. Perhaps overzealous fans of Cadoc, or some sort of smear campaign by a rival company. Not real people.”

“They’re real enough that I have to deal with them.” Carme wiped her face, and got up. “There are always things I can’t control. I just need some time. Sorry you had to see this.”

“Come on - I’m the one who called to apologize. Hit me with your worst.”

She stepped into the light - a rosy yellowish hue that Sao recognized as the light from her medical lab. She stood against the door, looking very tired, but ethereal in the halo of light. “You call this your worst?” he laughed. “I can finally see your face. This isn’t bad at all.”

“I look terrible.”

“Well, you do look...” He smiled. “Tired. Like you need a vacation.”

“A vacation...” She stood with her back to the door. “Haven’t had one of those in a long time.” Through the shifts of light, he saw in a grainy haze the shape of some large machine, with a distinctive logo. 

“Think you can get away for a while? Maybe head for the beaches. Or the mountains, if that’s your style.”

Sao barely resisted shoving the screen up to his nose for a closer look. The logo on the machine’s cover wasn’t the image of overlapping hands that he’d seen during his last visit. This one was something larger, sharper, and instantly recognizable. The machine itself remained an enigma, but...

“A vacation,” she said again. “That would be nice. I can ask.”

“Maybe meet up with some old friends?”

“I’ll see where Cadoc wants to go.”

Sao would have winced at that, if he wasn’t fumbling with his phone. “Sorry,” he said, and giggled nervously. “I’m apologizing a lot. Sorry, I might have touched some incorrect button… give me a second.”

“That’s alright.”

“Do you like travelling with your brother?”

“I don’t know. It’s fine.”

She was holding her end of the camera mercifully still, while Sao’s little thumbnail looked like it was braving an earthquake.

“I mean, ideally you’d get some time alone, away from the computer and the nursing side job, a chance to relax. But I suppose a trip with Cadoc will make for good practice when you two go down South for the Cup finals.”

“Ah. Yes.”

Things were winding down. Lapsing from stiffness once again, Carme gave her eyes a hard wipe, and Sao found the right combination of buttons just in time. He hit them, then again, and again for good measure. “I’m a broken record, but I do hope you’re alright,” he said.

“I am.”

“Well, then Carme. I’m not sure I was of any help this time either, but I’m glad to see you well. As always, please let me know if there’s anything you need, or anything you just need to get off your mind. Get some rest if possible. And get some lunch.”

“I will.” The mandatory pause. “And Sao. Thanks.”

---

Rai was barging out the door just as Sao opened it to re-enter. “Crisis averted?” Rai asked.

Sao had not yet recovered from the pace of conversation he’d had with Carme. “What was the trouble?”

Rai pointed a gloved finger in his direction. “You were taking an emergency call of some kind.”

“Oh. No, just a status update. Everything seems...” His thoughts couldn’t quite focus at the sight of Rai’s stationary jogging. “I won’t keep you. Where are you headed?”

“Lunch order. You alright with tomato soup in your noodles?”

“Yes, if it’s the usual place.”

“Good. Because I already placed the order. I’ll be back in fifteen.”

Rai scuttled into the hall and, not content to wait for the elevator, made for the fire stairs, leaving Sao in the office, feeling vaguely guilty, as if he had been missing for hours. His thoughts were abuzz with the silhouette of Carme, snuffling and crying in the dark, her sober thankyous, and the uncertainty of Cadoc. And how Sao had told her to get lunch. 

What a ridiculous thing he’d said. 

He had to imagine what Lunch meant in the North household. Cadoc, he pictured with piles of spaghetti and crabs. Cooked and stewed, garnished and smoking. At the helm of the table, but without a smile. And Carme - somehow, he couldn’t place her in the picture. As much as she looked like her brother, he couldn’t envision what she looked like eating. She didn’t seem the type to enjoy it.

In the gradual thaw from winter to spring, neither air conditioning nor heating pipes were needed, so Rai kept them switched off. But it was too quiet; there was no pop or click or rattle to stem the flow of silly daydreams. Sao twisted in his chair a while and turned to open a window. 

The street, testament to the latest bills regarding noise pollution, was also silent. Sao pricked his ears, almost desperately, for birds of the sounds of traffic, and found nothing. 

He saved by Rai returning with a storm of takeaway bags and sloshing soup.

“Anybody call while I was out?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Okay.” Rai tossed Sao a utensil set and slapped down the cardboard bowl for him, tomato-red streaks leaking bloodily from the rim. “So, your status update. You were talking to Carme North.”

“Yes, and I was only checking in...”

“You didn’t exactly explain how it went. But,” Rai removed his gloves and uncapped his bowl, freeing a cloud of sour steam. His soup was a watery white. “I did notice that you chose to do it right after I suggested Cadoc might be the dangerous one.”

“True. But I was also feeling a bit bad about the comments situation and how Cadoc handled it. And how it was my suggestion.” Sao stirred his food, picking out the shreds of meat to savor later. “She was crying.”

Rai eyed him over the milling steam.

“I don’t know the specifics, or what had been going on before I called. But she didn’t seem particularly upset with Cadoc, she said it was something else. It might have just been the all the vicious comments, and general stress.” Sao snapped his wooden chopsticks into their two parts. “She got fairly emotional past that - said she sometimes felt she couldn’t do anything right, that she should have known it would come to this. Oddly enough, Cadoc said something similar when he called last night. Felt he couldn’t do anything right, doesn’t know what to do sometimes...”

“Impressive.” It took a second to register that it was not Cadoc that had impressed Rai. “You must have a good handle on them if they’re willing to pour their hearts out for you.”

“Not exactly. There wasn’t any screaming of head-in-hands sobbing, both of them maintained the same tone they always have. You know the one - not exactly what you’d call out of control. It’s just the choice of words, the face going with it, that seemed off. But then, I’m used to just seeing hyper-prepared Cadoc on videos and interviews. Seeing a star at rest is always a strange feeling. Seeing his twin sister even moreso...” He gazed upward, another foolish thought resurfacing. “I told her to take a vacation.”

Rai didn’t laugh. “And?”

“She said she’d ask where Cadoc wants to go.” Sao lifted a wad of noodles. Tart red and tangled with specks of onion and mincemeat, it beckoned the thought of spaghetti training, and the joyless imaginary table. Not enough of a deterrence to stop him from eating it, though. “I was hoping to imply she should spend some time on her own, since the job’s a stresser, but maybe it’ll be okay. It can be nice to get out town a while with family...”

“Not a thought that I’ve ever had. My family vacations were always… lacking. It doesn’t sound like your wheelhouse either.”

He smiled faintly at that. “You’ve got me there. But they’re twins, they work together, and they seem close. I can’t know for sure. If she really would want to spend time away...”

“So you still think something’s up with Cadoc.”

Sao slouched over his lunch, absorbing a faceful of steam. It was a pleasant feeling, it reminded him of washing makeup off. He slurped up a mouthful and sighed. “My handle on them, as I’ve found, is flimsier than I suspect at any given time. I keep having to remind myself that I’m only speaking to them on a casual basis now, as there’s no ongoing case. But I’m not a genuine friend to them, either.”

“You do what you can. I wish someone would tell me to take a vacation.”

“You should take a vacation.” Sao smiled. “I’m not joking.”

“I need someone a little higher up in the force to say it.” Rai slurped some of his pungent broth. “Anyway, if you feel like you can’t get to them, don’t push it. Digging further through their files gives me a weird feeling too. Those twins are bizarrely private for such public - and I gotta say - bland figures, in a wacky niche community.”

“The world of eating certainly is more scandalous than I would have imagined.” 

“And where were they before that? Carme’s old company, Cadoc’s teen years: it’s all a big zero. I gotta wonder if it’s all on purpose.”

Sao started on the pile of stringy meat he’d set aside. “If there’s something I’ve learned since working live cases, it’s how easily people can slip between the cracks and off records. It might be cynical to say this, but for a runaway like Cadoc, that kind of hole is expected. As for Carme, with no major successes… perhaps that's just as bad.”

“Yeah, life can go like that. When you’re nothing special, your story just fades with insignificance. Another possibility,” Rai skewered up some sort of fish-meat tube. “Is when they happen to be involved with someone powerful, who scrubbed the slate for them.”

Rai was suddenly staring hard, fingers twirling the skewered fish tube like a tiny baton. Sao ignored him and chewed through some damp shreds of chicken. “Someone powerful, was it?” Sao mused and set his phone on the desk beside his lunch. “Did Carme or Cadoc’s scant files say anything about affiliation with Chimera?”

The question knocked Rai’s focus askew. “Why? Did she say something about it?”

Sao opened the pictures he’d nabbed. “Something in the background of our video call caught my eye.”

“You got her on a video call? And you say you aren’t a friend of theirs.”

“I almost forgot how to take a screenshot, but I got two decent pictures, just in time. It’s a bit off in this one...”

“Screenshots are laggy. If there was something going down, you could have just recorded the whole call. Beats trying to hit the right combination of buttons at the right time.” A blip on Rai’s phone indicated he’d received the images, and so he turned the unmitigated force of his glare onto Carme’s blurry face and what lay behind her. “Well, that’s Chimera’s logo alright. What’s that machine?”

“No idea. But if she’s associated with them, somehow, I got to thinking...”

“Smart.” Rai set his phone down. “Then that might explain the shitty comments.”

Sao gnawed on a shrivelled strip of meat. He coughed. “How so?”

“If Chimera’s a sponsor, or was a sponsor, and Carme was the main point of contact...” Chopsticks gripped sideways, Rai made the motion of a slit throat. “If she pissed them off - just a smug word or a bad meeting, not enough for a real silencing - then it’s no surprise that she's being chased by trolls.”

Sao coughed again. “Really?”

“Paid commenters, automated, AI, the hard work of some overly pissy admin, it could be a number of things. You have to have heard of the legendary smear campaigns. There have been tons of them in the last three years.” Rai gave an introductory count on his fingers. “The tablet spec leaks from last year, how the whistleblower was suddenly revealed to be a wife-killer and driven out of town. How suddenly, a million dissatisfied litigants surfaced to chase down a certain phone service competitor, all at once. A top-ranking developer who left to join a company down South was mysteriously discovered to be a terrorist as she boarded her flight. Bombarding small corps with bad service reviews… of course, Chimera always denies it, but anyone with sense can see a pattern.”

“How sinister. I hadn’t heard.”

Rai threw his hands down. “You know a Chimera guy, right? See if you can get anything out of him.”

Asking his Chimera guy about such charges would likely result in Sao kicked out of his luxury apartment and ground to dust, jammed down a gutter in the packing district. Not to mention the tongue-lashing that would make Rai look like a knighted gentleman in comparison. Sao spooned soup and flipped through his photos again. “I didn’t think Chimera would be a sponsor in competitive eating.”

“Yeah, it’s a little too gross for - wait.” Rai snapped his fingers. He did so with remarkable loudness, and a spark of blue from the tips that made Sao jump. “Carme was in the tech industry, right? Maybe she worked for a partner company.”

“Or... an acquisition.”

“Right. That would explain the secrecy of her job history. A lot of Chimera devs have contracts to keep their resumé a secret, indefinitely, to try to avert the eyes of moles and reporters, and of course it bites them when they try to find work after leaving. Appropriately enough, the guys who leaked that tidbit are now persona non grata of Central.” Rai snickered in a way that unsettled Sao’s stomach. “So maybe Carme worked under Chimera in some fashion, and made a misstep shortly before leaving - or getting kicked. Imagine having Chimera on your back - anyone would be stressed. Chimera’s a real monster. Whoever’s in charge named it well, huh? But I think I’ll be able to catch a ghost or alien before I manage to take on something even half the size...”

It was a bit early for suicidal musings. So Sao quickly added, “I’m not sure what use Chimera would have found for a hospice equipment company, like the one Carme worked for. As far as I can tell, they aren’t particularly involved with healthcare.”

Rai’s dragonslayer dreams were halted with this dilemma and he shook his head. “And it’s better they aren’t. Thought I guess that doesn’t bring us any answers.”

Despite the heavy presence of Chimera that had descended over their lunch break, they continued to slurp and chew in good-natured silence, until Rai finished. He drank the last of his soup and set the bowl down with a conclusive slam. 

The echoes were still ringing when he checked the time and stood. “I gotta head out for a while. I might not be back until late, so if that happens, see you tomorrow.” Rai stuck the lid back on the top and took it to the kitchen. Then he checked the time again, cursed, threw on his coat and flew out all in one breathless whirl. 

Sao thought he’d long gone, but when he looked up, Rai was hovering in the doorway of the office, scuffing his feet in hesitation.

Looking left, then right, Sao asked, “did you forget something?”

“You know how to record the screen of your phone, right?”