There had been a mix-up, but a fortuitous one (according to Rai, who appeared eager for confrontation). The house in which Orchid had hung herself actually belonged to her grandfather, and he’d rushed back from his trip up north after hearing the news. He was terribly upset.

“Should we give him some time before trying to take a look at the place?” Sao asked.

“The guy’s way ahead of us.”

He’d been preparing to sell the big house and didn’t plan to let a decapitation in the family obstruct his timeline. Immediately upon his return he’d given the go-ahead for police to inspect and take whatever they wanted from the scene, as soon as possible. The place was going to undergo a deep cleaning which had been scheduled long before Orchid snuck in and executed her plan.

“Besides, she didn’t actually die, did she?” he said when they gathered in the sitting room.

Orchid’s grandfather, the senior J____, was unexpectedly spry. A smooth and serious man of vague middle-age, he lacked the freckles but had the height of his granddaughter, and thick hair of a similar, burnished coloration - a shade or two lighter. The color of the early sunset, compared to his granddaughter’s late orangey dusk.

The house had an understated opulence, all high ceilings and gentle curves, a lot of black and white, reflected in polished glass and marble. In the thin stairwell, visible from the sitting room, was the tall window. White-hot afternoon sun was beaming through with vigor, searing into the step where Orchid had made her leap.

“Her grandmother would have been devastated. She’d say it’s such a waste. We had her mother young,” her grandfather said. “I’ll say we had our ups and downs, but we made it through. Orchid’s mother had her young too. It was hard, but we learned commitment. Orchid didn’t take after us much. She was like her father. No direction. She started running away from home at age 13. Hell, last I saw her, she was storming out of the house. Always acting without using her head.”

How hard could it have been to avoid metaphors involving heads? To his credit, her grandfather seemed to catch his gaffe, and redden.

“I suppose the pressure really did come down on her in some ways. Her grandmother died; cancer, young. Then her mother…” He sniffed, though it was more allergic than tearful. “Orchid was the one who wanted the genetic screening. I didn’t even know it was possible. She went into it bravely. But it wasn’t news she wanted to hear - and it came so soon after her mother passed... I bet her following egged her on about it. Some fifty thousand voices pretending to care, hoping to see the fallout. She called them her friends, but I know how these things work. I’m not so old that I can’t use a computer.”

“You know about her online life?” Rai asked.

“How could I not? It was… something she made us aware of at any opportunity. She rarely spoke of anything else. She claimed it was a full time job. What a joke. When we asked her about getting a job, she said that was her job. But come the end of the month, she’d always claim to not have money. Payments were tangled. She wasn’t making enough. At worst, she’d flip the script. It was no longer a job, it was a hobby. But ask her to get a job? No, too busy with the hobby –”

“How much were you able to learn about her activities? Did she ever have people over, talk about any friends in particular?”

A crinkled expression crossed the man’s face, aging him for a moment. “I don’t think her work produced any ‘friends’. Like I said, it was a following, trying to goad her into a breakdown or another damn blue stream, to make a better show for them. Those perverts didn’t really care about her welfare.”

“You never saw anyone stand out, not even a username? She never mentioned anybody?”

“Orchid was a troubling child, I can’t lie. But I respected her - I stayed out of her affairs.”

Despite its airy architecture, the room had become very hot.

“We’re asking because of the condition she was in during her final show.” Rai folded his gloved hands. “Orchid and her motivations for suicide are a concern, of course, but there are reasons to suspect someone was involved in, or interfered with the act. Someone Orchid was either unaware of, or is protecting.”

“She certainly didn’t tell me about her plans, I wasn’t even aware she had come back to the house. I don’t know what else to say to you, gentlemen. I’d ask her myself, but the doctors said she doesn’t want to hear from me. I truly am glad she’s alive… Perhaps she’ll get the help she needs in the hospital. The girl needed therapy.”

Rai flinched, almost imperceptibly. “She was already in therapy.”

“She said that?” The older man frowned. “I suppose I really didn’t know anything about her.”

There was a forced meter to his words. Sao had the impression he was trying to convince himself as much as anything.

“I’m sorry I can’t help any further.”

—

The house was sweltering even with the air conditioning, and the basement promised an even toastier experience, but they kept their jackets on as they descended, past the fierce heat of the window, past the step where she’d jumped, into the muggy shadows below.

“They took the noose down,” Sao commented.

“Grandpa probably didn’t want it up. Bet he mopped the blood up himself.”

“Not a fan of his?” Despite a building ache in his neck, Sao smiled. Rai didn’t look at him.

For the most part, the basement was styled like the floor above - white and plexiglass minimalist, a patternless rug, shelves sprinkled with ornamental books and abstract metal sculptures. By the stair was a sleek black dining table with hollow aluminum chairs, which had been wiped down and straightened up since Orchid’s departure.

Sticking out like a sore thumb was Orchid’s makeshift studio. There were two laptops, powered off, set up on a coffee table that had been shoved to the far side of the room, facing the staircase, with a blocky swivel chair pulled up against it. The larger laptop was circled by a series of light fixtures clipped to the nearby shelving.

Rai searched the shelves. “Not many personal effects. There was a handbag with her phone and wallet when the ambulance picked her up. They took it to the hospital with her. Orchid requested her computers be sent to the hospital later, but I guess nobody got around to it.”

The basement was cavernous. Sao wandered down the hall, passing a bedroom, a room filled with boxes, and another with long clothing racks, packed side-by-side like fish. He came to a bathroom at the end. Nothing stood out immediately. There was toothpaste, a massive paddle hairbrush, a host of cosmetics balanced around the sink, and more lotions and eyeliners in a travel bag sitting on the toilet tank. He thought again of Orchid’s comment on his own application and inspected himself in the mirror. She was right. The heat had melted his masking foundation just enough for a line of sludge to sink and congeal near his chin.

“The laptops are all password-locked. What are you doing?” Rai poked his head in and stared. “C’mon. You heard me say she was like a high schooler, right? Don’t stress over her makeup assessments. Not like she was looking any better.”

“Hm.” Sao detached his gaze from the mirror and glanced at the pouch balanced on the toilet tank instead, nudged it gently. A stack of square folded napkins, with a strangely familiar looking circular logo were stuffed in a corner. A tiny purple notepad was visible at the bottom.

“Anything interesting?”

Sao flipped to the first pages of the notepad. “Saints Clinic. xxx Street. December 2. Then December 9th, 16th. H Clinic. Jan 6. Then 13th, then 20th… It goes on for a while. Meeting places? They’re all a week apart. Room 201, xxx Hospital Road…”

“That one’s a counseling center. I’m guessing those were her therapy appointments.”

“Hospital Road’s dates go on for a while. Sert, PZ… and some more numbers. 2 per dia.”

“Sounds like a prescription.”

“I wouldn’t know. You deduced that quickly.”

“I’ve seen that kind of thing. Around the hospital.” Rai shrugged. “Anyway, the emergency responders picked up a few empty bottles of medication when they were here. There were antidepressants, hyperactivity meds and sleeping pills. Cops did a quick sweep and found her stash of stimulants too. As Cole said - not the healthiest chemical cocktail, but nothing that’s known to make its takers into talking heads.”

Sao flipped to the end of the notebook, where the dates became squashed as Orchid ran out of pages, and tried to conserve space. The last recorded appointment was one week prior. “She was in appointments right up until the suicide. She really did try. And she was so diligent with recording.” He closed it. “Would we be able to talk to her psychologists?”

“I don’t know.”

Sao followed him back to the dining room-turned-studio.

Rai folded his arms and glared up at the window above the landing, through which the sun glared right back. “I can see if we have permission to browse her phone messages, emails, psychiatric records. But I’m not sure it will work out.”

“We’re trying to figure out what happened to Orchid so we can help her, correct?”

“We know that, but whatever happened, this doesn’t look like a murder. The victim herself says it was a suicide. And technically speaking, she didn’t even die. She has a say, and if she says no, that’s going to make it hard to get at anything sensitive.” The sun won the staring contest. Rai turned back toward the laptops. “That’s why I wanted to dig into the stuff she - and people she knew - put online willingly, first.”

“The Neocam angle. I see. Well, now that I’m logged in and friended, I can help with that.”

“You mean ‘following’.”

“My mistake. Oh - I’ve gotten a follower. I haven’t even made anything yet.”

“Are you planning to?”

Sao smiled and brushed the question off. “Still, as easy as it was to get one… Orchid’s twelve thousand? That’s quite impressive.”

“She really has twelve thousand followers?”

“Twelve thousand six hundred and thirty.” He flitted quickly through the thumbnails, Orchid’s mixture of video and image posts. Having adjusted to the initial shock of seeing her pictured alive and mostly-nude, he noted half of the photos showed nothing more than her everyday life. Posed with foamy drinks, a close up of a flower shop arrangement (‘my namesake’ was the caption) and sitting on a statue in the financial district. The sky, blue and pleasant. Her hand with freshly painted hot pink nails. Interspersed with these were the too-close-for-comfort stream stills, harshly lit by spotlights and laptops, in various states of undress. Some days she posted dozens of times. The striptease shots averaged two thousand heart-shaped responses while the ordinary ones seemed to earn fifty at most.

He stopped when he came to one image that was simply composed of text, advertising a date. “What is a blue stream, anyhow? Orchid said it in her video. Even her old man brought it up.”

Rai paused, then released a guttural chuckle. “I didn’t even notice. That asshole.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s slang. It refers to an old site, Neovision Blue. It was a… controversial spin-off of Neovision, the big video site, by people who got kicked out when the company tried to go child-friendly. It was basically all porn, with some snuff videos tossed in for good measure.” Noticing Sao’s face, he added, “But the way it’s used by kids today, especially when talking about ‘streams’, it pretty much just refers to risque shows.”

“Strange how her grandfather knew that. He’s more knowledgeable on these things than I am.”

“I can’t confirm anything, but…” Rai’s cruel smile hovered over his phone. “The old man knows about blue streams, knows her latest follower count, but denies knowing anything about his granddaughter’s activities at all? Yeah, right. I’ll bet anything he ran his eyes over a few of these bikini teases. Didn’t do much listening, I imagine, since he was still mumbling about her needing therapy. She talked about her counseling experiences on-stream. Although, even if he heard her cries for help, why would he wanna stop the free flow of entertainment?”

“D-do you really think that? Should we report him?”

“I’d like to, but… I’m speculating.” Rai took a seat on the staircase. “If the only act we know of is watching a public stream, it would be hard to pin down any kind of crime. We could tell Orchid, see if he ever made a tangible threat, press the issue of indecency or harassment, but I don’t know if it’s related to the… zombification issue.”

Sao was quiet.

“I’m sorry,” Rai said.

“No, you’re right. I just spotted something in these older photos. It appears Orchid did have a set of close friends, at least for a time. Scroll down - it’s quite far - there’s a series of them, in a bar or restaurant. Look for the checkerboard table or palm tree sign.”

Gloves off, Rai’s hands flashed as he panned around his phone screen. Sao continued searching - another photograph showed the same location, at a different angle. The same girls, three of them, in any case.

The cluster of photos dated four to five months ago had caught his eye for a different reason, but he wasn’t quite prepared to make any declarations yet.

“Damn, this is pretty far back. Does she say who they are? No… just ‘me and the girls’... okay, the first post has some names.” Rai squinted. “Hazel. Storyteller. Rolls with the punches. Tells it like it is. This is angry looking girl, lot of makeup. Another variety streamer, huh? Forty thousand followers. I’ll never understand what people are into…” He made a noise like he’d been punched. “Shit.”

“Yes?”

“Last message from her, a little over a week ago. ‘I’ve done everything I can, and I’m all used up…’ Don’t tell me she attempted suicide too…”

“Okay, I’m looking at the one named Jasmine-” Sao’s voice lodged in his throat. Jasmine was a younger woman with a sweet, round face and hair dyed bright lavender. She appeared to be an artist, with a follower count around fifty-thousand. The last post on her profile, adorned with watercolor floral decals, was the notice for an impromptu stream - dated four days ago. The comments attached implied very strongly what the result of the stream had been.

Rai let his head fall back, eyes upward, up to where the noose had hung. “What is this, a trend?” Rai clawed at his hair, looked furiously at Orchid’s laptops and back at his phone. “We need a deeper look into these friends.”

The next girl Sao checked, the last of the group, was blonde-ponytailed Maya. She, thankfully, didn’t have any sort of sendoff for her most recent post. It was a link to a human rights fundraiser dated over a week ago. Her activity overall seemed sparser than Orchid or Jasmine’s, which allowed a familiar scene to surface quicker. “I can’t tell if this one’s…”

“Don’t say ‘dead,’” Rai cut in. “Orchid didn’t die. That’s how we got to this point. So let’s play it safe.”

With some difficulty Sao smiled at that. “Right. Let’s be positive.”

“Not much of a positive if she’s stuck living in pieces.”

—

Rai’s apartment office lost some of its ethereal ambience in the evening. The pleasant wash of light was gone with the darkened sky, but it wasn’t quite dark enough to turn the lights on. The sun lingered just above the horizon like an odious guest who just wouldn’t leave; eyeballing them through the shades. Not done yet. You’re not done yet.

His back purposefully to the window, Sao listened to Rai finish up a call with Cadmus at the hospital.

“You spoke to him? How did he act…?” Rai’s brow furrowed. “No, he’s pretty young looking, decent shape. Orange hair like her. Bushy eyebrows. Are you sure?” A pause. “Well, good thing he didn’t, then. Okay, thanks. I gotta go over this. Talk to you later.”

And one more, unusual signoff: “Yeah, I’m fine.” He set the phone down, turned to Sao. “The hospital’s got way more going than the cops do. This is why Investigator connections are important. How did you do?”

“I’ve got some basic notes on Orchid’s friend group.” Sao pulled his laptop over to the sitting area. “The five we discussed. I didn’t see any further links on Orchid’s page. Jasmine and Maya had photos of the same meetings in essentially the same places, though Jasmine took significantly more. Hazel had fewer, but did post more about their earlier meetings. Sapphire never posted about the other four at all.”

“I can sift through their profiles tonight to see if there’s anyone we missed. Let’s get the timeline straight for them, to start with.” Rai leafed through the yellow legal pad he’d been scrawling on during his calls. “Okay. Beginning with Sapphire - she was one girl we didn’t spot in the most recent batch of photos. It seems like she stopped hanging out with the rest of them last month, because, well…” Rai paused, shuffling papers. “Only Hazel and Jasmine had pictures of her on their profiles, and much further back in time, so it’s harder to tell if she’s relevant.”

“Still worth a look.”

“Especially considering her final batch of Neocam posts. So, she was 30 years old. Lived alone in the city. Oldest of the group, from her medical examination.”

Sao read what he had gathered of the dark-haired woman. “Her content was mostly about wellness, mental health awareness, and meditation. She was quite transparent about not having any sort of academic qualification, but was a big advocate for psychiatry, seeking help and treatment, having herself suffered depression and anxiety since she was young. Her channel had a partnership with an online counseling company, sometimes she gave out discount codes and holistic treatment materials.”

“Ugh. I’ll keep my thoughts on those enterprises to myself, for now.” Rai kicked back in his chair. “So, the big thing about Sapphire - she ended up taking her own life three weeks ago. She left a goodbye message on all her online profiles and then jumped off the top of her apartment building - she didn’t stream it. There were witnesses in and around the building, and the emergency response was there within half an hour. She was confirmed dead at the scene.” He bit his lip. “It doesn't look like she experienced reanimation like Orchid. Five days after her death, her family held a funeral, and had her cremated.”

Silence over air conditioning. Sao murmured, “I imagine if she were alive or conscious, someone would have noticed before then.”

“We just have to hope.” Rai pulled back a page on his notepad. “Okay, Hazel next. Kinda short, frizzy brown hair, a couple of premature grays, that black-eye makeup. She was 22.”

“Right. She was, er, a gregarious one. Front and center in many of the photos. The internet commentators called her an… alternative blogger?”

“Yeah?”

“Her routine seemed to focus around anger. Her videos are largely rants. About family, fashion, politics, food, films, other Neocam users - anything on her mind - played over some clips of the topic, or video games or crude animation montages. She often made abstract - occasionally violent - posts insinuating an abusive family, though she never named anyone in particular. Compared to the others, she’s posted rather explicit suicidal imagery for years. Cuts on her wrists.” Sao rubbed his forehead. “I’ll be honest - I couldn’t quite get a feel for her content. But she was very popular - the second-highest follower count of the group. I also did notice plenty of provocative comments being made on her videos. She was prone to responding, not always professionally.”

“Not your kinda thing. I get the picture, though. So… Hazel committed suicide nine days ago. She also left a message on her profile, and recorded a short, agitated video from her bathroom, describing what she was about to do. She planned on taking all the sleeping pills she had stocked up. More importantly, she had also researched and ordered sodium nitrite - a kind of meat preservative, but highly poisonous to ingest as is - filled up a glass and drank. That was likely what did her in…”

Sao was eager to hurry to the next, but Rai continued, thoughtful. “Her parents found her when she didn’t come to dinner. She had been lying in the bathroom for about an hour. EMTs pumped her stomach in the ambulance, but it was no good. Her parents explicitly refused an autopsy, but haven’t said any more, so her body is still being stored at the hospital. They just don’t want anyone touching her until they come to some kind of decision. Those were Cadmus’s words.”

“I suppose we shouldn’t rush them. I can’t imagine what it’s like.”

“Yeah.” Rai turned to the next page of his notes. “Okay, Jasmine. The youngest - she was eighteen. The purple girl.”

Sao found a mite of indignance at Rai’s description. “Jasmine was an artist. She had a very detailed style, favoring flowers in pastel colors; all quite nostalgic and whimsical, like the illustrations in old faerietale books. She recorded her sketching or painting processes and talked about her day, reviewed films or books, or stories she’d heard. She had a partnership with some of the same wellness sponsors that Sapphire did. She was the most popular of the group, in terms of following.”

“Yeah, art storytime streamers are a hit these days.”

Brushing off his lingering irritation, Sao pressed on. “She’d just graduated this spring, and was planning to take a year of leave before applying for colleges. Then, just four days ago, she posted a message about an unplanned livestream and...”

“And like Orchid, she streamed her suicide.” Rai cleared his throat. “According to the video the cops got from Neocam, she was alone, and extremely anxious the whole time. She hanged herself from a railing in the shower, but it didn’t go smoothly. She stepped off a stool and struggled for at least seven minutes on camera, before the feed was cut by the administrators - same as what happened with Orchid’s stream. A family friend and fan of hers eventually caught wind of the stream, and called it in, but the response was too late. She made the attempt around 5pm, when her dad and stepmom were out. The cops and ambulances were waiting when they came back.”

He took a breather there, retiring to the kitchen to fetch coffees.

Rai gripped his cup. “Her body’s still in the mortuary as well. The parents have yet to respond as to whether they want an autopsy or not. Police acquired the delisted video recording from Neocam, to confirm the cause of death but I only read the summary. I haven’t looked at it yet.”

“Maybe let it sit for the night. She was so young…”

“You doing okay too?”

A strange question, Sao thought. “Yes. We’ve come to Orchid.”

“Right. Orchid, she was - I mean, she is 28. Yeah, yeah, a tiny bit older than I am.”

Sao smiled. The stress built by the landslide of awful details eased, just a bit, at the mention of the girl who survived. And the sun had finally set below the horizon, the ragged remains of daylight dissipating little by little. He could breathe again.

Notepad on his lap, Rai stretched and gulped coffee, sharing in the relief. “We saw her stream, heard what she had to say, so we’re pretty well-versed on how her attempt went down.”

“I don’t have much more to note about her character than we learned from the woman herself. She’s been engaging in ‘blue streams’ ever since she was fifteen, though all the recordings of her as a minor have been removed according to Neocam’s legal terms. She had an unstable home life and engaged in a fair bit of substance abuse, on camera and off. Though it wasn’t fully detailed on-camera, she had been pursuing therapy for several years - but still felt hopeless enough to attempt suicide last night.”

“And the way that went is the motivation for us to dive into the case.” Rai flipped back another page of his notes. “Now for the last one…”

“Maya.” Sao opened what he’d jotted down for the elfish blonde woman who, while less elusive than Sapphire, had still been relatively camera shy. “I don’t have a lot on her. She was far less active on Neocam than the others in the past months. From her posts, she seemed involved in human rights movements. She went to marches and fundraisers with her girlfriend, whom she mentions but doesn’t present any pictures of. I gleaned from some comments that she cut contact with her whole family because they disapproved of the gender of her partner, and that motivated her to share her story and engage in the activism that she does. Admirable stuff, and considering her past it’s not too shocking she’s cautious with her personal details. Although, that means there’s an important gap between what we can know of her and the others at the moment…”

“That and there’s no suggestion of her having attempted suicide. Ergo, no reason for the hospital or police to have ever looked into her. Ergo, no name and details, no idea where she lives, who’s the girlfriend, who the bigot family is, or anything.”

“And there we have it.”

“Or in Maya’s case, what we don’t.” Rai slapped the legal pad down on his desk. “But something’s taking shape.”

Pulling up one of the group photos, and pointedly blocking out the locale in his mind, Sao mused, “Quite the eclectic crew they were. In age, appearances, interests…”

“We don’t know how friendly they were. Although, I guess the pattern so far indicates they were close in some way.”

“They seemed so happy in their photographs. It’s difficult to look at them in retrospect, isn’t it? Just knowing each other, they would have seen so many possibilities for life. How could any of them have suddenly found the resolve to stop living?”

“I don’t know, if I made my life public record, with thousands of eyes on every update, I’d find reasons to wish I never existed, soon enough.” Rai wheeled away to avoid Sao’s baffled stare. “But I’m not a pro, like these girls were. What we see is curated - their jobs were curating themselves - and you said it: the public profiles are fabrications.”

“That was before I realised suicidal declarations were so common on the platform…”

“They’re not. That’s why the whole thing is suspect. End of the day, the look of a person could have nothing to do with how their inner life’s going.”

“Until the inner life spills out, consuming what once held it back. Did they trigger each other? Maybe there was some dark agreement. Or perhaps…” He had an inkling that chilled him deep, in a recess of the mind he thought he’d completely buried. “Could it be a situation like Sigma’s?”

“There hasn’t been any Sigma-like phenomena reported since the day he died. The chief is pretty sure it ended when we collected and dispelled every part of his weapon. Even if these girls did meet him, and were harboring some lingering hypnotic suggestions… the suicides causes by Sigma were never overtly public. And I doubt Orchid’s living-dead situation can be attributed.”

Sigma was essentially out of the picture, then. Sao couldn’t decide if this was the answer he’d wanted to hear.

“I don’t want to discount the idea that they were manipulated, though,” Rai said.

“By whom? I suppose Maya’s the most prominent, since she’s the only one who's clearly alive. No - wait - with her details being so scarce, she may have gone before Hazel or Jasmine, for all we know.”

“With Orchid ending up the way she is, it could also be a seemingly dead person pulling the strings. I have to write all this up. Maybe it’ll make some more sense then.” Rai roused his sleeping computer. “As for actionables, I asked Cadmus if we - barring that, someone - at the hospital could check on Hazel and Jasmine’s bodies, to be sure there were no delayed zombie-like symptoms. Also get Cad - or Cole, since Orchid likes him - to ask about each of the other girls. In the meantime, tomorrow we can try to question the families in regards to the girls’ relation with Orchid. And tonight? I think I’ll find something else to do. You should too.”

Sao draped himself over the back of the sofa, indulging in the night sky. He yawned.

“We didn’t eat lunch today,” Rai said, suddenly.

“Got a bit sidetracked.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Rai shuttled himself back to his desk. “Man, it’s late now. Get out of here and get a snack. Didn’t realize I was keeping you on overtime.”

“It’s alright. I’m having a good time, hanging out.”

There was Rai’s good old soul-piercing stare. “Really? After that gauntlet?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I’m not sure I do.”

Sao looked out over his shoulder again, at the street, catching the old-fashioned lamppost flickering on. While his own residence was certainly nothing to scoff at, he found the quaint stylings of the refurbished factory district where Rai lived infinitely charming. It was cozy, warm and a little bit musty, like a well-used sweater. He’d call his own apartment more of a pressed and fitted suit. Not that he had anything against a good black-tie occasion…

He turned skyward again. It was smoggy, the moonlight diffused into a beige stain. Though the air was cooler in the evening, humidity was just as bad and mosquitoes would be out in force.

It was so much easier to be fanciful when looking out from a nicely air-conditioned room.

“Bet it’s still gross out,” Rai said absently from his desk.

“You read my mind.” Gathering his remaining energy, Sao hopped to his feet. “You must be hungry too, no?”

“Not really. I have my coffee.”

Sao laughed. “If only everyone could find full appreciation in the little things like that. Am I remembering your exchange with Orchid correctly? I’m much too greedy, I suppose.”

A slightly pained look slipped across Rai’s face. “If you need me to drive you somewhere, you can just ask.”

“There’s no need.” Sao collected his jacket again, shook it out and pulled it on. “See you tomorrow.”

—

“I caught two more trying to sneak in. Put ‘em down in the logs.”

Axelle looked up to see two teenage boys being hauled toward the hospital reception area by the scruff of their necks. Doing the hauling was the surgeon, Cole.

“And guess where they were? I’m thinking I might have finally caught whoever’s been looting the staff rooms too.”

“What did they take?” Axelle asked.

“We didn’t take anything! Didn’t know what room it was when we went in. I was looking for my aunt…”

Cole let his two captives drop. “Why don’t you let the receptionist know the name of your aunt so we can make sure you find her? Maybe you’ve even got your aunt’s phone number, a picture? Let us help you.”

There was no way out of it, Axelle thought, feeling somewhat sorry for the boys. Her sympathy was edged out somewhat when the taller of the boys brought out his phone and Cole pressed it to the counter with his finger. The lock screen flashed on.

It was Orchid, in her better days, wrapped in a precarious string bikini.

Axelle restrained herself from reacting. An older visitor, who’d somehow managed to place himself just a few feet behind Cole, did not. He gasped, as if in pain, and almost tumbled headfirst into the little gathering.

“This girl. Orchid. Is she still here?” he wheezed, grasping the counter for support. “I need to talk to her. Please… can you at least give her a message–” He fell into a fit of hacking coughs, stringy pale hair flapping like a wounded bird.

“Sir?” When Axelle stood, the man fell back, grasping his chest with a hand, knuckles bumpy with varicose veins. “I’ll call you a doctor.”

“There’s a doctor here.” Cole looked about to drag him by the collar too, but thought better of it, instead gingerly nudging him back against the counter. “Weren’t you here yesterday, old man? Grandpa, was it? She said she didn’t want to see you. We told you that. And - but, right - yesterday, weren’t you still supposed to be on that ski trip up north? Why don’t you tell us what that’s like–”

“This man claimed to be Orchid’s grandfather?” Axelle glanced pointedly at Cole. He’d orchestrate a whole drama if left to his own devices. “Cadmus said the police talked to her grandfather today. He was in the news too… the man looks nothing like this.”

The old man before them trembled as if about to fall, then abruptly stopped, face and limbs taut. He turned, made for the exit without further comment. The two boys took the opportunity to escape as well, pushing past the old man, nearly sending him toppling as they did.

Cole gave a long-suffering groan, and set his elbow on the counter. “Like a swarm of roaches. Swat one and another appears in its place. They just keep coming and coming.”

He rubbed the mark under his eye. The bruise had turned an angry plum purple over the course of the day, rimmed with jaundiced yellow. The old man who’d just left had skin almost entirely of the same yellow coloration.

He hadn’t looked well. Axelle hoped he hadn’t been a patient frightened away from seeing a doctor. The guilt softened her a little. “They’re concerned. People feel awfully close to their internet idols, nowadays.”

“That proves my point more than anything - they’re just sightseers. You should have seen the glee on their faces when I found them.” Cole turned to her. “Write up a description of those intruders, won’t you? The police are supposedly interested in those who might have a relation to her.”

Axelle did not want to comment on the enthusiasm Cole had shown when volunteering to attend to the disembodied head when she’d come in. “How’s Orchid taking it? This all can’t be easy for her, either.”

“On the contrary. She’s enjoying it.”