“You landed a date.”

“She was recommending local haunts to a newcomer. Nothing so intimate.”

“You got a time and you got a place. The girl turns up, you tell me what that looks like.”

“Leave it there, Rai, please. The week’s over, I thought I’d get to know the town a little, I’ve never had a reason to visit the southern district before now… hm? What’s the face for?

“You kidding me, never? All buses seem to wind up here. The crowds have been unbearable.”

“You’re actually making me a little nervous. How about you come along?”

“No thanks. Got a busy night myself.” Rai was however, at present, watching another fictional axe murderer barrel through the forest, fullscreened on his right hand monitor. Sao’s fresh transcript sat untouched on the printer.

“Have you heard of the place?” Sao asked, checking the address again.

“Heard, yeah. I don’t go downtown often, but I’ve been to that one. Last time it was for--” Rai rubbed his eyes. “I don’t remember. It wasn’t for drinks.”

“Formal dress code, not formal, semi?”

“You’ll fit in.”

Rai hadn’t even looked his way. Not overly concerned, Sao pulled on his jacket. It was the only one he had on him, so it would do. “I’d imagine Zen, after being on her feet the whole day, could only want to go home and slide into bed. I doubt she’ll be there to meet me.”

But she was. Her hair was brushed down, but amazingly longer than it did when hanging loose in the restaurant, like it had burst into bloom once she'd been freed from her toils. Her shirt was untucked, but like Sao, she was otherwise working with her everyday uniform as there hadn’t been time to get changed - and yet she’d achieved a style entirely separate from the rustic attendant he’d met during the daytime. A magic touch. He told her so, and she laughed.

“See,” she addressed her companions, “He’s a real character. In a good way!” The last comment was directed at him.

Zen was accompanied by two friends, one tall who they all seemed to refer to as “Icy” or “Isa” or some variation thereof, and a smaller girl with dark trimmed hair whom Zen introduced as “Marina.”

“Looks like the actor, doesn’t he?” Zen said. “The one from the camera ads. 'The next best thing to angels, call now for a free trial' - that guy.”

“Noo-o-o, that guy’s way too perfect. You can see every eyelash and curl through the TV, it’s creepy. He looks like those dolls my grandma collects. No, no - I bet he’s actually CGI,” Icy or Isa said. “Chimera makes crazy convincing holograms now, right? Perfect untouchable makeup and hair, all the time. Just put them to sleep when you're done – no fuss, no personality. But your friend here’s not like that, I bet. Plus this dude's not as… you know, sugary. Not girlish enough.”

“Not your type then?” Zen snickered.

They gave him a collective inspection. He hoped the result was positive, as they burst away in laughter.

A close friend of Zen's, Icy also appeared to be in the restaurant business and was soon swinging a loosened tie, regaling them with the tale of a family of diners who had deposited a week’s worth of house trash on their table for inventory, competition, or some other incomprehensible activity. Upon finishing their meal they left the whole menagerie on display, arranged in a clearly intentional circular pattern. Highlights of the trash mosaic were crusty socks, she said, and bread crusts with living mold. She recounted the color of said mold with glee. The smell, she recalled, required five cans of aerosol to mask.

Marina, the third of the group, clearly hailed from a more upscale office sector, coming packaged in sharp indigo-blue and satin, perched on polished leather pumps. Her ensemble was harder to dress down. It wasn’t a matter of losing a tie and undoing a few buttons. She seemed acutely aware of the difference and remained quiet, hands on lap, as Icy spoke her fill. However, once the story was done she rose to greet Sao without hesitation.

Despite her delicate formal sheen, she jingled faintly as she walked, as though hiding bells in her pockets.

“So you’re the new arrival at the detective’s place.” Marina said. She beckoned him with a handshake. “You’ve been a hot topic for the last few days. Right, Zen?”

“Well, when a guy magically gets a Chimera super-card...”

Sao politely declined her handshake, almost too late. Icey and Zen found this a fascinating trick. Marina took it remarkably well.

“It’s funny though, isn’t it?” Zen said. “The boss insists on gloves. Had half a heart attack today, right? And then there's you who won't do handshakes.”

“You could call that a match made in heaven,” Marina laughed.

“Total gentleman otherwise, you said?” Icy added quizzically.

“It's not actually an reasonable condition,” Marina chided gentle. “Haphephobia, was it? Or is it aphephobia? I’ve met two at the company I work at, believe it or not. They both felt it was related to a dramatic transition to life in the city, having come from some high-end - in their own terms, eccentric - schools and hometowns. So ‘gentleman’ may be right. That, or a particular kind of etiquette. Not that I’ve covered all cases--”

Sao rewarded that bit of information with a smile. “A particular kind of etiquette. The headmistress would have liked that. You’ve got me. It’s almost like I don’t have to introduce myself at all.”

Zen gave Marina a cryptic nudge and turned to Sao. “Rai didn’t tag along?”

Sao shrugged. “Has a busy night ahead of him. His words.”

Zen snorted. “After all I’ve learned today, I shouldn’t be surprised. I guess I’ll still have to wait to learn anything more about him. But god damn, up all day and night, no wonder he’s always sucking down coffee. It’s crazy to think he works with anyone, you seem so chill. No offense to him, of course. What’s he like? At work, I mean.”

“A little soon to say, but no major complaints. It’s actually refreshing, compared to my old office. It feels like work is actually getting done.”

“He found any haunted houses yet?”

Sao tilted his head. “You know what, I forgot to ask.”

“Oops. I shouldn’t rub it in! He didn’t like me mentioning it, but it was just a silly case he used to talk about when he was a regular. Should I try to tell it? No - let him do it when he's ready. It’s a shame he couldn’t make it though, maybe you can get him to hang out with us next time. Marina here was interested in meeting up, she’s apparently heard of his... studies.”

Marina’s cheeks flushed red. “During graduate work. I used one of his old existence materialization posts as the basis of my thesis. I pretty much owe him my career, so when I heard--”

“See, she was really hoping- ow!” Just starting that thought earned Zen a light slap on the arm. “It’s a big deal, though. You know Marina here, her job’s nothing to scoff at, her cards got the biggest discounts around out of anyone outside of Chimera's brass--”

She was shushed, but it was too late. As the night drew on, onlookers had began to migrate to their area for refills. Money had that sort of attraction.

Sao pitched in a bit, and hoped he wasn’t going to run the Chimera card too high, if that was even how it worked. The flock shifted between him and Marina like hungry birds, but as the night eased on they became more talkative, and he even hoped they’d hover his way more often.

It was a fascinating mixture of shapes, colors, sounds. Men and women alike, in the crisp shirts of the food service, the loose coarse vests of construction, sculpted coiffs and unraveled shapes of the warehouse loft design crowd, and naturally, the the dark starchy suits of the inner city office towers. The music was running light, and someone requested something heavier. The lamps were dim, and the spirits were perfectly non-committal. He had a sensation of being here before. A world he he could take anything he wanted but also had the freedom to escape from anything.

He had to remove a hand from his neck and facial area once or twice. No offense intended. And none taken. People could take rejection if they were told it was a condition of mine, they were ever more gracious when told they were looking good tonight, even beautiful - honestly so.

The topic of Rai came up again within an hour, along with that of Marina’s salary. Sao felt sorry for them both. Rai wasn’t there to defend himself, yet there they went talking about his table manners from years back, times he’d sat in the bar until closing, griped about the bill, and the gourmet provisions of his mother, which sounded like a jarring turn of conversation. Sao guiltily strained his ear for a little more of that gossip, but talk had turned to blander gaffes and injuries.

A time Rai had been short on money. Arguments with building staff. Put a rusty nail through his hand while tackling a little DIY home improvement to save cash. This was apparently the punchline of a joke, as he’d recovered in record time. Even better than before, the speaker said.

Sao took a drink.

Marina, the other popular topic of the night, was in the same boat as Rai. She was spoken of but not heard, set afloat with so many voices riding over her. They only turned to her to mine more fuel for the flames. How much do you make? I heard you bought… are those shoes... Oh, I can’t say… She fended them off politely.

She had a voice like an old friend. Sharp, but small, it wouldn’t quite cut the flood.

What-- was he thinking about her again? There was the commune, and the boarding school, but that old friend of his was even further back in the hazy past. She had red hair like Zen, right? No, it did not burn as much. Her hair was more like Marina’s, though not in color. No, no. The style would surely have changed by now. Was she sitting high in some jet-setting company like Marina, now? She had seemed suited for it. She’d had the drive, was a regular workhorse, like Rai. A few steps short of his uniquely awful intensity. But Rai wasn’t exactly elevated for his efforts.

In any case, all of these people were miles over Sao himself, weren’t they? He drained his cup. It was terrible to direct thoughts back into himself.

“Oh, let's not talk money.” He stuck that right into the middle of the conversation. “Sorry for being such a spoilsport but let's not talk prices for bit. Okay, okay, the reason I’ll let you in on: this card's my friend's. I’m just a meager civil servant.”

A few words of approval, a few jeers, carried off easily on cigarette smoke and the soft trumpets rising up from the cottony radio speakers. Up and beyond the swaying bronze lamps, into the ether of the clear night sky. Now the crowd was talking about what they did, what they had, no longer picking and grabbing and now the voices rolled easily on the ear. Individual souls and characters split out from the waves, became distinct thinkers and builders and lovers, and there was so much more to catch his interest.

He also caught Marina’s eye just afterward and she gave a small dip of the head, an effusive smile on her lips as she spoke. Much better. Her bell-rattle footsteps moved smoothly through the crowd.

Sights and sounds into the brain and out again. Now the flow was balanced. He yawned and sank into the warm vibrations all around.

---

They departed into the night and were showered with a wave of crackling autumn leaves. The whirling orange mass sailed around, rustling like metal shavings, then then regrouped against the cinnamon brick and blackened windows of the nearby bike shop, detangled, and continued down the road. An emptier, chillier breeze soon followed. The wind stripped a piece of paper off the wall by the restaurant door.

Icy and Zen chased it down the street cheerfully, but when Sao approached them, their smiles had dropped.

“Is this…?” Zen gasped.

“Yeah, I thought we saw him just – just last night. The solstice thing at the Western Market? Damn, if I knew... You haven’t heard anything?”

Marina caught up with them, breathlessly, pockets rattling. As she came to a halt Sao saw the source of the noise fly onto the pavement: an enormous set of keys and a glittering keychain.

When he caught up, he saw the keychain was in the shape of a butterfly. Its wings were looking rather ragged after being looped and dragged with a dozen-plus metal keys.

She was hurrying to stow the clanking mess when Zen held the paper out for her to see and she took it, stern in an instant. “Oh, no.”

“I know, right? It's crazy.”

“We just saw him. Remember, half price night--”

The paper was small, standard printer size, and entirely in black and white. Cheaply done, but no less desperate than the many of its kind - at the top ran the bold letters MISSING PERSON.

The women slowly walked back to the front of the bar to return it to its rightful place, taking tape from another nearby paper that had been hanging beside it. Sao stopped a few feet back. “Unlicensed advertising” was technically not allowed in public places, but the law had long been ignoring the presence of Missing Persons posters. Of course, the posters were hoping not to be ignored. In any case, they were not taken down, but rarely brought any resolution. Sao himself had only noted them in the corner of his eye. They tended to just wear out over time.

Here, taped just beside the cheery glowing window, were three such posters. Two had decayed to near-unreadability, though the basic shadow of their photographs still persisted, their expressions. The poster Zen and Icy had rescued, though, was clearly recent.

Someone named Oliver G_______. His grainy photo, half-lit by the bar’s front sconces, was grinning broadly, as the poster photos always were. He had a round, youthful but somewhat attractive face, wide eyes, and wavy hair that the poster described as “brown with amber streaks.” Tall, well-spoken, last seen in a brown suit coat and matching trousers. There was a hint of admiration to the descriptors.

“You never think it’s going to be someone you know,” Marina said softly.

“Police really have to do something about this,” Icy growled.

“Like what?” Zen sighed. “It sucks, but where do you even start? The way things are now it could be ghouls, vampires, black holes, plain old lunatics – what is anyone gonna do, right?”

“But there are cameras everywhere these days too. What are they even for, spying? How could someone really go missing, with no way to even start looking?”

Sao buttoned his jacket as another gust hit the street and thought about Rai’s case, his conclusion from that very morning. We’re never short on disappearances. And more specifically, officers get to be choosy. He felt a sliver of guilt.

Zen was scrutinizing the posters for clues. “Looks like the others, doesn’t he? God, it feels so bad to say that - talk about him like that.”

Marina stood on her toes for a better view, waved a phone spotlight on the posters, left to right. “You mean the type of person? Now that you mention it's all men, right? Usually it’s the other way around. Still... I can see what you mean, but these other posters have been here a while.”

“No that long. The paper’s not in complete shreds, like they get after rain, so not more than a month. It could totally be the same person behind it all.”

Icy stroked her face. “Youngish guys. Good looking, and if I remember Oliver, you said he’d gone to a special school too, right…? So people like that should be...” Three pairs of eyes traveled away from the posters, across the sidewalk, to their awaiting companion. “... should probably be careful.”

Sao was cornered by three pairs of shining eyes. “Well. On that reassuring note, I guess I’d better head home.”

All three insisted on accompanying him to the bus stop. In a flurry of conflict he was bombarded with laughing apologies and grave precautions. He chose to laugh with them. The bus was inspected carefully before he boarded, in case a murderer was waiting for him in the back seats. All they found were a few elderly passengers snoozing up front.

And so Sao ended the night with three girls’ phone numbers, promises of calls and future meet-ups, and the warm but contradictory feeling that he had been seen as a hapless child, bundled up and seen off armed only with advice. Remember to call grandma when you’re nearly there. Follow the road. Don’t talk to strangers.

He set his arm against the bus window and looked out. It was hard not to consider what they had said, though he did not feel particularly worried about his own safety. But wasn’t that the whole point? So many disappearances, so many officers without spare energy to care, you never think it will be someone you know, least of all yourself.

The bus passed the whitewashed facade of Rai’s apartment block on its way to the highway. Sao automatically scanned the windows for his window, the one he looked out of when he was in the office and needed a reprieve from the constant coffee mist. He looked for it every evening on the way home. Of course, it was a little later than usual.

The lights were off.

Sao set both hands on the seat and turned his body as the bus rounded a corner and the last strip of white brick and black window swung out of sight.

Every day when he had left, and every morning when he walked in, the lights had been on. According to Rai, this was because they had been left on all night, since he did not sleep. Confirmed as of today. Unless he had been lying. He could be sleeping. But it wasn’t even late. What if he’d just gone out? No, that only made the situation worse. Oliver must have been out at the time he’d disappeared.

Sao pressed his fingers to his temple and smiled, this time only for himself, but his reflection looked an irritating mess. Making strange faces wasn’t going to settle anything. Maybe he’d gone a little too far at the bar. Maybe he’d even let up on the touch-phobia story - no, that wasn’t the problem at hand. Rai’s flat. He could have been looking at the wrong windows. No, that was ridiculous too.

Was there even a problem? Clearly no reason to go running to the police. Unless there really was. How about something smaller? Jump off the bus for a quick check? He sighed. Don’t overthink things. First-day advice. Don’t get stuck in a thought. Do something. Just don’t do anything extreme.

---

R:

you tried to call me?
sry couldnt answer before
Just got home

S:

I thought I left something at the office. No worries
Good night

Upon revisiting the messages in daylight, Sao discovered that Rai had actually arrived home just before 5 am. It made him exhausted just to consider that. He went back to sleep.

---

With Rai found safe in his office chair on Monday morning with a fresh load of case files, and they moved smoothly into their daily routine without mention of the messaging mishap.

There was also no further talk of disappearances in the week to follow from Zen and her friends, but Sao could not help but turn his head at every poster he passed. They were everywhere, the shops, on building bulletins, bus stops, trees, even in the backs of alleys. The epidemic did not let up even in the city where he got off the bus to walk to his apartment. It was stunning that he had not noticed them sooner. Many of them were brown with age, dissolving against the plaster walls where they hung, tattered and faded from sun and rain and once you could recognize the traces older layers it became quite alarming. Walls and walls of old lost loved ones, piled over with the new who would one day also be covered over. The sheer number of them spoke of something unnatural. Crimes, accidents, runaways - he could rationalize but there was no way they could cover such an sweeping phenomenon.

Rai was unimpressed. “And that’s only the ones who have people looking for them, people who are looking and have a printer at the ready. It gets real bad when you dig deeper.”

He had been doubling up with report-writing and yet another cinematic blood-fest at the same time. One look at the monitor to his left, one to the right. Hammer out a few words, quickly turn back to see a screaming, flailing woman getting her skull split with some farm tool. He was running his mouth without even thinking. An impressive feat.

“No family, no house, no money, you know what that makes people say: screw them. The main office, the real world - it’s the same thing. No money in the case, who cares. Though, I don’t even know if the posters work, so maybe it’s not such a difference to have a printer after all.”

Sao leaned on the wall by the open window and watched their own printer toiling at its duties in spite of its owner’s dismissive speech.

Sometime early in the week, Oliver’s poster began to appear in color print, ever more desperate with the text highlighted in red and ever more real with the man’s brown and amber-streaked hair showing true to life. Moth-white sheets coated the walls. With the churning winds they soon also littered the road and sidewalks. It became common to see Oliver’s genial face caked with decaying leaves, and printed with tyre marks. And sometimes, finally and fatally, crumpled into a streetside trash can.

“This is a little extreme,” Rai commented during one of their trips out for lunch.

Sao brushed dirt off a fallen poster. It was still in good condition, though the tape had lost its stickiness.

“They shouldn’t be printing so many. And hope that’s not an unfiltered phone number, they’re bound to get some complaints. Or worse.” Rai inspected a poster tacked to the nearest light post. “Looks like a personal email too. They're going to get spammed to hell and back, and that's about it.”

“You think it’s a waste.”

“I wouldn’t say that to anyone’s face. If there's even the tiniest chance and you don't mind getting rude calls, why not try? But you don’t need ten per wall-”

“So it doesn’t do anything concrete.”

“There’s always a… non-zero chance someone who sees the posters will know something. They’d probably end up going to the police if they were serious, but you never know.”

Sao stared at the paper. The phone number, the bullet list of descriptors. Look, look, look. Rai says you’re observant. Can you see anything that could help?

Of course not. You’ve never met the man. You can observe these posters all you want, you don’t know his voice, you've seen nothing but one angle of his face, the one expression in the one photo. He could have just walked by, you wouldn’t know.

Rai’s eyes moved slowly over to Sao, then to the poster. “You’ve been giving this guy’s disappearance some thought, huh? Did you know him?”

“Never met him.” Sao sighed, and gave a defeated smile. “He's friend of Zen’s. The night I met up with her and her friends, we spotted the poster and I guess it just stuck with me.”

That now-familiar faux-hostile glare peered over the collar of Rai’s rather dusty seasonal coat. “And now he’s all over town.”

“That does make it hard to ignore. I’m sure it’s harder for her, though.”

“How many people were with you at the time? That night?”

“Two friends. I think I told you about them, Icy and Marina, Icy’s a-”

“And they all were surprised to see he was missing?” Rai was now getting a bit of a glower lowered at him in return. “Just to be clear. I’m not saying they had anything to do with it. But did they say anything about the last time they saw him?”

“This whole ordeal is making me paranoid,” Sao laughed. “Man, what did they say, do I even remember-”

“I’ll bet you do.”

“Half price event, somewhere. The market? Is there one of those anywhere nearby?”

“Market’s a broad term… a lot of places use that name. If it’s a food and drink place then they go half price at any possible excuse to get people in. Business around here sucks. No holidays recently, so... probably the solstice.”

“Solstice at the Western Market. That’s it.” Sao applauded lightly. “Zen did call you a detective. You do this a lot in front of her?”

Rai only ground his teeth behind his upturned collar. “That’s just when they last saw him, and posters didn’t go up until a few days ago, so there’s a chance...”

“You think he went missing there?”

“Possibly. It could be nothing. Give me a few days.”

For what, Rai did not say. They wound up heading to the more exotic quarters for lunch and there Rai became very involved in a conversation about incense burners but shut his mouth like a clam when Sao made a jab at the haunted house story Zen had previously mentioned.

Rai may have still been smarting from that, or the restaurant’s lack of proper coffee, because he didn’t speak more than a few words and a final goodbye at the end of the day.

The following weekend, it rained. The streets darkened under the massive storm cloud. By midday the nighttime lamps were already lit. The final leafy husks left clinging to the trees were soaked and fell, matting to the drains until the torrent pushed them under. And naturally, hundreds of papery Olivers slid off the walls along with a few of their poster predecessors, several valiantly catching onto cracks and potholes, but eventually grinding against the cement and metal grates into indiscernible pieces that rolled down with the leaves and waste water, into the dark and out of sight. Sao wasn’t there to see it, of course. Zen left him a few messages regarding the terrible weather, but nothing more.

By Monday, it was freezing. There was ice on the windows. Sao could see his breath misting in front of his face as he sat in his swivel chair. Typing with gloves on was difficult. He complemented Rai on his ability to do so daily. But Rai took this with total seriousness. A cup of coffee steaming furiously in hand, he harassed building maintenance over the phone until they turned on the heating.

Soon the room was filled with the clattering of the central pipes warming up, the floorboards creaking as if they too had been tensed in anticipation. Gradually, the winter chill was overtaken by a calm, if noisy, wave of warmth. Gloves set aside, Sao prepared some tea and set another pot of coffee up for Rai. And finally able to and make halfway accurate keypresses, he got to work.

Headquarters had sent him a fairly lengthy set of written confessions relating to gangland attack three years ago. There would be a bit of thought needed to record things correctly, as the leading detective noted; nearly every account was in contradiction of another. We want to see who’s blaming who, so don’t try to make them all tell the same story. In other words, leave in the ‘mistakes.’

The majority of the gang members had amazingly clear handwriting, it was not cursive but sophisticated in its own way, and Sao admitted, something far more practical. The story itself was an interesting read, almost humorous. Something Rai might want a look at. Rai’s black-rimmed eyes were currently staring daggers into his own assignment.

Without all those helpless smiling faces lining the streets, things seemed to have returned to a slow-paced, drowsy norm. Shamefully fast to boot - or so it seemed.

---

“Finally got your guy on tape.”

Sao was startled out of half-stupor, raised his head from his palm. “Who’s this now?” The heaters of the office, though generous, were far too much of a luxury and made it very difficult to stay awake. The air was so thick and comforting it was like being draped with blankets every time he sat down. After a numbing sprint from the bus stop, it was exactly what he needed.

Rai was looming over the desk, closer than he’d been anticipating. Sao bolted up, sending the floorboards squeaking with complaint.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, all good. Just the weather, it makes you-” Sao twirled a finger by his head.

Rai could not relate in the slightest. “Are you sick?”

“No. I really hope not.”

“The flu always comes around at this time of the year.”

“It absolutely does. I come in with the morning commute, you should see some of the poor riders coughing their lungs out. But I don’t think I’ve been caught yet. Just a little tired.”

“Tired,” Rai echoed. “Have some coffee. Wait, you like tea more, don’t you? But you know, I don’t think that stuff’s strong enough.”

Evidently not. Sao rose to his feet. “What did you have to show me?”

Rai gulped his own coffee down as a sort of last word, and led Sao over to his desk. His workspace had recently been cleared with his usual papery whiplike cracks to straighten the sheets of his latest file, punctuated with the slapshot of a stapler. More effective than any alarm clock to Sao’s periods of shuteye. In any case, Rai now had nothing on his mind but the determination to share this mysterious ‘tape’ with Sao.

There was a padded envelope on the desk marked with the address of Central Police Archives, already torn open. Rai shook out two discs in plastic cases and held them up. Sao did not remember requesting anything, so he nodded, neutral. Rai’s face revealed no more than an intent focus on the task at hand. In other words, nothing beyond the usual. Sao wondered limply if he was in trouble.

The first disc was loaded into the humming computer tower under the desk, Rai pulled a video from its files.

“I made the call for these videos when you first mentioned it. But it took this long for anyone on the management side to do anything about it.” Rai clicked his teeth with irritation. “Security footage is usually just kept a month or so before recording over it, guess this place keeps their a little longer. Can’t be that much longer. If those idiots had waited another week, I bet there would have been no point even asking.”

“I didn’t know that.”

A silent grayscale video flipped on before them. In the corner, the indicators for time, signal and power ticked away. Aside from the occasional scanline sliding down the screen, the footage was remarkably clear.

“A low-end Chimera camera, probably,” Rai said. “Compared to anything else for that price, these things are great. Could be, but these guys really cheaped out on the setup too.”

“Hm. I don’t know much about these things.” Devoid of noise and color, Sao found the video touchingly reminiscent of an old silent movie. The scene before was even decorated like an antiquated film set, it appeared to be a farm-themed eatery, with lights shaped like old gas lanterns and tables made of wooden planks and pallets. A variety of farming implements were suspended on racks, there were even a few hay bales against the wall decorated with bundles of corn, gourds, and smaller fruit. Quite an authentic setup, if you ignored the electric speakers standing at the other side of the room. And the people, in their alternating office gear and party clothing, setting handbags and wallets down next to bundles of wheat. Taking photos with the pitchfork hanging off the wall. Flashes of light. Time travellers.

When the clock showed 9pm, the room was more people than decoration, and the illusion was gone.

“Half-price special that night. It’s probably never so busy otherwise.” Rai leaned close to the screen, chin on hands. “Look close. See someone familiar?”

For the first time in the past month, Sao felt his drowsiness getting in the way. Complacency had always set in for him way too fast, and now he was reaping the results. He leaned toward the screen and tried to pick up on something. Anything.

Dozens upon dozens of bobbing heads, bodies weaving around each other, bar to table to door. Mouths moving but not a sound. It all blurred together. Then all of a sudden, took a spill, catching onto the end of a particularly loaded table, and dishes went flying. The crowd backed off for a moment, and he caught someone, in the ring of confused faces at the edge of the circle.

“Is that Zen? Gotta be. And the tall one is Icy, the friend I met a while ago.”

“Is it?” Momentarily distracted, Rai rewound the video a few seconds. “Oh yeah. Good eye.”

But not what he was supposed to be looking for.

A face surfaced at the back of Sao’s mind. It wasn’t much of a face really, more of a sketch. Perhaps even that was generous, it was just a shadow. An impulse even, that he should be recognizing something he’d seen before, but that thing was too indistinct in his mind’s eye to even start.

But wait, he had a reminder. Too bad it was sitting on his desk.

Evidently disappointed, Rai stopped the video and jabbed a finger right in the middle of the crowd.

Sao slumped. Results reaped and more to come. “The missing guy from last week.”

“His name is Oliver. And he’s still missing.”

“So this is part of the investigation?”

“There is no investigation. I only looked for it because you mentioned that he was here. And he was.”

“I’m amazed you managed to track the security video down. And… the video’s clear, but lord.”

Rai was frowning straight at him. “You didn’t know who you were looking for?”

“I guess I forgot.”

“Forgot,” Rai echoed. “I thought you were interested in his disappearance.”

“Forgot what he looked like, I actually still have one of his posters in my-”

“But you haven’t looked at it since you picked it up.”

Sao was feeling a bit self-conscious with the missing man’s last known footage right in front of him. Happily conversing with friends, with no idea that two strangers would one day be watching his final motions, freely speaking of his disappearance, like some sort of awful ironic comedy. Meanwhile his family was worrying they might never see him alive again.

“Admittedly not. I was keeping it, but I didn’t want to keep looking, it’s a little depressing.”

“Must have been a relief, when the rain got rid of all that paper. All the photos on the walls reminding you that this could happen to anyone you know, at any time. An actual face looking at you.”

Yes. It was a relief for everyone. But what Sao said was, “I wouldn’t say it was a good thing. I only hope, at least, it ends the risk that they would get nasty calls and mail.”

“So you remember what I said that day.”

“And I wouldn’t have spotted him on the video if you hadn’t said anything, either. There’s a reason you’re the one in charge.”

Rai crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. Sao eyed him carefully. Rai had apparently hit a dilemma. He had been heating up towards an argument, but was now flattered enough to want to suppress it.

“You remembered some garbage I said. But you forgot about the missing person.”

“It wasn’t garbage, it made sense. And Oliver here,” he motioned at the monitor, to show he hadn’t lost track, “I didn’t forget everything. It’s just hard to remember specific things, I hadn’t met him after all.”

“Neither have I.”

“You’re a better detective than I am, that much was always clear. Your memory is near perfect, as far as I can tell so it’s-”

“It’s not perfect. I can’t remember what I ate yesterday or what time I did anything once it’s already passed. I’m useless as as the main office is concerned. I just remember… if someone came to me, personally, I try to remember what’s important, in case...”

It seemed best not to retort.

Rai violently hit the keyboard, rewound the video, let it run again. Oliver now the center of their attention, speaking to a few friends, meeting a couple more, all well dressed, and approached by Zen and Icy, and soon Marina surfaced from the crowd too. Hugs, waving, exit stage right to the entranceway, or perhaps the washroom.

“I’ll look into this a little more later today,” Rai said.

“You don’t have to.”

The look Rai gave him could have razed an entire field. It was not the heated aggression with which he faced his cases, but blacker. Anger in the face of hopelessness, like he was hearing something terminally wrong.

“I can handle it if you don’t have time,” Sao said quickly.

“Do you really care about this case? I have to return the discs anyway. If you would rather put it out of mind, if it really bothers you or whatnot, I’ll just do that.”

Sao laughed, but it took some nerve. “But it isn’t an official case yet. If we can get it going, that would be great, but I don’t want to throw off your schedule. I’ve probably already wasted so much of your time-”

“Time is not the issue.” Rai threw up his hands and for a moment Sao was sure he was going to hit something, and really cut loose. But what he did was run his worn gloves over his face and finally set his hands down, with strained tameness. “Alright. You can get back to work.”

And the conversation was over. Sao returned to his corner desk. He didn’t have much to do, so he checked the news, re-read some of his past transcripts (already sent out, and too late to edit, so this was truly a pointless endeavour.) The printer rumbled to life a few feet away from him, and started its song of rhythmic whirrs and snaps. Almost immediately, his eyelids began to feel heavy.

“Sao,” Rai’s voice cut in sharp. “Do you know why you’re always so tired?”

So his sleepiness hadn’t been well masked at all. And after their barely-avoided argument, Rai wasn’t going to stand for it.

But what in the world was he even upset about?

Sao gave it some genuine thought. “Something about the heat, it’s relaxing, and I haven’t slept too well. My upstairs neighbors have a new baby, and the baby's been sick and crying, so-- you know what, I’ll go get some coffee.”

“Do you have a lot to do today?”

“Not much. Like I said, if you need me for anything...”

Rai arched his fingers over his desk and stared out the window. The end to the rain had brought on a flawless day, the sunlight beaming in near-blue in its clarity. Rai was cooling off at the sight of it. But it did make his eyes look more exhausted than ever.

“I’d like to propose a little extra work.”

Ouch. Was this his punishment for that undefined slight? “I can start now, when do you need it?”

“No deadline.” Rai went and removed two sheets sitting on the printer. The sunlight hit him full force, he was washed colorless as the grainy camera footage but far more grim than any of the partygoers had been. “I’d like an eventual answer, but - that’s not important right now. This is really more of a puzzle than a formal assignment, so if a real job comes in, you should work on those first. Huh. I should begin at the beginning.”

Sao listened quietly at his desk. It was like being lectured back at the schoolhouse again.

“Do you know why the independents, or more commonly named 'Level 3' investigator force was initiated by the police?”

“The chief started it. Not too long ago, although private informants and civilian specialists had always existed. The movement simply made it easier for them to be considered official, so they could expand, get more done faster with less overhead.”

“But he didn’t just start it up for no reason.” Rai straightened the papers on the edge of Sao’s desk. The same violent force. Two sheets did not make quite such a thunderclap of noise as a whole stack. “The reason was not publicized or written up in detail, if mentioned, it was only in passing, part of a list of bigger and more obscure crap, to make it not sound like such a big deal. But it was big, or he wouldn’t have been so ready to open up the force, hand out badges to all kinds of people of the street. The chief was never an open doors sort of guy. So what pushed him over the edge? Why were more able bodies needed, despite the cost of accuracy?”

Pencils and papers at the ready. It's a pop quiz.

“All the abductions,” Sao said. “The disappearances got out of hand.”

“Yeah. When anyone bothered to ask around, it was something like one in ten families had lost a member within the last two years. At first, it all got covered up, but then the epidemic started hitting the upper crust.” Now Rai was headed for the stapler. Sao cringed-preemptively as he smashed down on the head with an open palm. “The rich folk lost their kids too, and well, you’ve heard me say it before. Money talks. So investigations got started. That’s when things got scary. What kind of person would usually be assigned to such things? A detective, right? But what qualifies as a detective?”

Rai laid down the papers, face down. “You talk to people. You know a normal person’s ‘rights.’ What if the person is dead? Dead and walking, powered by some chemical - they took it themselves, signed up for it, now they’re legally dead, but they’re going to keep moving forever. Don't say 'zombie', that's demeaning – are you trained to do blood tests on a corpse that fights back? How do you restrain one that doesn’t feel pain? Do you return them to their families, do the families want them back?”

Sao waited patiently for the answer.

“How about another case. The borders open, and in come creatures that helped us win wars, except they’re people now, not creatures. We owe them that much, right? But what made them so good at wars also makes them great at killing people, including themselves. Winged humans, what do you do with them? Do you change the city to suit their needs, the buildings of the majority all have to be knocked down and modified for the sake of a few who by all measures, are already more mobile and able bodied than the rest? Do you force them to the dirt, against their natural instinct? Do you arm everyone against them, occasionally have one crash out of the sky, hitting a moving car, do their wings give them the inborn right to kill on accident? Or do you let them fly free, spread their wings, and risk the inevitable crazies among them grabbing some cash or kid or woman off the ground and making a free getaway?”

The infamous griffins of Central. Sao nodded slowly.

“Case 3. Creaky old houses protected by nothing more than the words ‘private property’ and ‘haunted’ and a bunch of stuck up homeowners. These places are irresistible to kids, of course. So when they go missing what’s more important? Well it’s the satisfaction of the owner, at least until the floorboards start smelling and they need someone to remove the corpse for them. But does the average detective know what it means when the walls spout blue fire? Doors slamming, disembodied screeches into the night? Of course, the owners will call the cops for that too. Spells are documented nowadays, but these old places created before regulation are hotbeds for illicit curses, who knows how many never got dispelled, or if those thousands of pre-regulation wizards even cared about dispells? But no, landlord's gotta show the cops who’s boss until it’s too late and the fields are ridden with locusts and half a dozen kids have already been assimilated, leaving nothing but their damn clothes and bones and a house that is basically calcified with lost souls.”

“That case doesn’t sound familiar… hang on, there really was a haunted house incident--” Sao started.

“More and more ex-fantastical explanations will come up as investigations continue. Though you can only call them ‘explanations’ if the investigation actually uncovers anything. Which brings me back to the original point. The so-called independent rank of officers was supposed to serve a couple of purposes. The police needed specialists, and sometimes those specialists weren’t really trained for normal police work. Black magic and the alchemic drug trade aren't exactly academy courses. The breadth of specialists needed was so wide that there wasn’t time to fully integrate them all or start up training, but they did need some sort of qualifier, a way to be registered into the system at very least. So a new, unregulated level opened up and they just got pulled in as-is.”

“I hadn’t heard much about this.”

“Recent stuff, but not things anyone bothers to write down,” Rai said dismissively. “So you understand that the third level officers exist because of the disappearances. Which is to say, detective work suddenly went beyond what detectives were actually capable of, so the definition of detective was just expanded. Though, they aren't officially detectives.”

“You know quite a bit about your ranks, then. I don't think you should sell yourself short, though.”

This statement went ignored. Instead, Rai flipped over the printout on the desk. With the loudest slap possible, of course.

“The day you joined this office, you saw this article, right? You knew what it meant. I was kind of surprised by that, I thought everyone had forgotten.”

Sao saw the headline Incredible Success. “How could anyone forget, the raid seven years ago. The one that started the Life Fountain movement in the force.”

“So you know about the Life Fountains.”

“Yes. Er, that’s an overstatement. Everyone only knows the basics. They’re creatures with healing aura, obscenely powerful. They were banned during the last war, an international agreement. At first everyone was saying it was because they were superhuman weapons, but it turned out to be something different. It was because they would keep everything alive too long, too well, it would have made any conflict pointless and endless. But since regions got self contained, and Life Fountains started coming to the city themselves. They appear at the scenes of medical miracles, and there's some testing to use them in hospitals… well, research is still being done, isn’t it?”

“And that’s all you’ve heard?” Rai was staring at him skeptically, but his anger seemed to have waned. “Have you ever met one?”

“Honestly, I don’t even know what one might look like. Supposedly they look like ordinary humans, so I may have passed one and not known. Is it even safe to be around them? I see mentions here and there about their power and potential, but I’m not completely certain why they were called to some cases and not others. Names and photos are under lock and key, even to the archivist team.”

“Ugh. Sounds like privacy policies.” Rai frowned. He looked out the window, into the blinding sunlight. “But I didn’t think the chief made it so difficult… I didn’t get the notice… no wonder.”

“No wonder…?”

“In some ways this makes sense. But I don’t understand, how do you know about the raid seven years ago if you know so little about how Life Fountains function within the police force? Do the redacted notes just… make it sound like a battle, a shootout, or something like that?”

“I suppose… a dedicated healing squad can always turn the tide. They were banned in literal war, so I would assume they’re only called when it’s something major.”

“‘Something major’, that’s one way of putting it. Did you hear what they found and how the night of the ‘great success’ ended?”

“The papers said police found the bodies of twenty or so abduction victims, and all the perpetrators were killed. Cult? Mini-army? Whatever it was, there hasn’t been a sign of that particular MO since. Case closed.” Sao laughed, but his laugh sounded shaky even to himself.

“Great. So I take it you don’t know what caused the bulk of the disappearances in last ten years?”

“There are a lot of questions.”

Rai was doing something Sao had not seen him do before. At first it looked like he was stroking his face tensely, but he was actually biting the knuckle of his glove.

“Rai?”

“Alright. That complicates things a little. But here’s the start to your little puzzle. The police have Life Fountains on one hand, and Level 3 independent investigators pouring in on the other. Put them both together with the main police force, and we've got a huge army going up against the biggest disappearance epidemic ever seen. What is the effect?”

“You would hope the disappearances stop.”

“That’s unrealistic.”

“It would have to change something, and I doubt more hands at work would cause any harm? I’d settle for even a little decrease in vanishings.”

Rai moved back to his desk, suddenly craving the comfort of his coffee. His mug was empty. He analyzed the bottom of the cup, looking somewhat betrayed. “That’s what happened. At first. Especially with Life Fountains in the mix. But soon -” He swung out his arms, cup too - “Things were right back to normal. And by normal, I mean we were losing people. Again. Nothing had changed. One in ten. In some places, like the city, where everyone’s gotta be ID’d, Chimera’s got cameras up everyone’s ass, the winged citizens stick to the law, no ghost houses - alright, it’s gone down. But it’s like everywhere else has gone into overdrive to compensate. Meaning...”

“Meaning… if it’s true, then the problem hasn’t reduced.”

“Exactly. And here we are now, bad as ever.”

“That’s impossible.”

“I don’t spend hours digging through reports, reports that aren’t even assigned to me, to say something I could just pull out my ass. I’ll throw together an internal report, if you need proof. I don’t even need much time, I have the numbers already. I’ve been sending them to the main office for years.”

“I believe you, only… what happened?”

“What went wrong? That’s the question. And the puzzle. What I want to hear from you is why the number of disappearances hasn’t budged. Or if you prefer, why did the Level-3 and Life Fountain movement fail?”

“I take it you know the answer already.”

“I have an answer in mind. You don’t need to think of the same one. I’d look forward to another answer. If any.”

“You've been writing to the office. If you know, why not try to turn it around?”

“That’s not the point here. This is an exercise for you.” Rai’s glare hardened again. “If you come to the same answer that I did, it will be painfully obvious why someone like me can’t just fix it.”

Sao set his hands down against his desk. He had been looking at an article about the tiniest possible electronics before Rai had come up with this strange scheme. Now he had the printout of the old news article sitting there as a reminder. As soon as he touched it, Rai tossed out something he had apparently been sitting on a while.

“Oh yeah. It didn’t make it into the papers, but this might help you with your study. The breakthrough seven years ago - I always think the papers exaggerated, but in truth, there was a bit of a battle after all. I don’t like to call it that, though. The officers were heavily armed; all the perpetrators died, and all the missing persons were found dead. According to the officers.”

Sao remained motionless at his desk. Rai seemed to be expecting something. Even the creaking heating pipes, which had not shut up since they had been activated, seemed to be holding their breaths.

“Is that so?”

Not the reaction he’d wanted, but Rai was too far to quit now. “When you check the records, though, the details aren’t all there. Actually, it’s a little too perfect - exactly half-perfect. Every single victim’s identity was confirmed by the families, bodies in completely recognizable condition, even though they disappeared - and presumably died - years apart. But for the perpetrators - not a single name or face. Their bodies, their identities - nothing was released. It would have helped, wouldn’t it? Try to track down the network of criminals, make an example of the deceased kidnappers, a media roundup with the families to raise funding - you would think. But the police force didn’t do that. Twenty nine killers and killer-adjacents just disappeared into the incinerator, no further questions. Who were they? What do you think they looked like?”

Sao crossed his arms and frowned. Was his reaction still being gauged? Rai was staring his way. There was dull grimmness that seeped through every line and shadow of his face, he was not expecting much of a result. He looked down at his cup, which was apparently just as disappointing.

“Think about it, when you’re trying to stay awake. Hope I didn't bore you too much. I'm going to get some coffee.”