Continued From Part 1

It's late-afternoon in a working class part of town. The houses are spacious, but they're cramped together, as if a city planner 80 years ago had a quota to fit as many homes on a block as physically possible. There's a man walking down the street, heading home. He walks the same path he's taken over the last 16 years, but this might be the final time. He's dying.

For the last few days, he'd been experiencing rolling fatigue, along with random spells of exhaustion and sleepiness. He figured he just needed to catch up on his rest tomorrow; can't do it tonight, because tonight's important. He's about to learn "tonight" is a concept he might not experience.

The symptoms had been manageable up to now. He opens the door of his house, and immediately collapses. His wife is close enough to catch him and keep him awake. She notes the lack of color in his face, as if he's suffering from serious anemia. He weakly claims to be okay and is back on his feet within a couple of minutes. She implores him to go to the doctor, or at least call off his plans for the night. He assures her that he just needs to take a quick nap, and that he'll be alright. She brews him a cup of tea, which he drinks before falling unconscious.

I can see it clear as day, but I don't know what it means. I don't recognize the man or his wife. But I can see this man dying, like a plea for help that will never come.

---

Back in the food court, I was staring straight forward at nothing. Someone kept waving their hand in front of my face. "Jackie. Hey, Jackie; what are you looking at?" Suddenly, the wave turns into a clap, and I'm snapped out of whatever spell I was in. I didn't know how much time had passed, but I was awakened to Mike holding a very thin file and looking down at me with concern.

"You alright?"

I rubbed my eyes and stretched a bit while signaling for Mike to take a seat. "Yeah, I'm fine. What'd you find out?"

"You were right: 'Elise Thorne' doesn't exist."

"Figures. Everything about this is preposterous."

"However, I did find the kind of printer that she mentioned. In the current local black market, only one fits the description: it's at a fence that does business out of an abandoned public school book repository in McKinley Park."

And, the plot thickens. I took out another cigarillo and lit it. I'm trying to dash forward, but I'm still at fifth place. "How do we know this is related at all?"

"Because the racket's run by a 'Roger Thorne'; a man who notably does not have a wife, sister or other association with anyone named, 'Elise'."

That's all I needed to hear: This was a set-up. Someone wants me to crash that party, but I don't know who and I don't know why. "It's crazy that a huge fencing operation pops out of nowhere right under our noses, and we didn't notice."

"...I've known about this operation, Jackie. And they've been in business for a while. These guys... they're not who you're looking for, trust me."

"Friends of yours?"

"No. I... may have obtained an enterprise-level server rack from them a while back, but that was expressly a professional exchange."

"Mikey, for one reason or another, these people are now on my radar. This whole thing stinks to high heaven; I have to figure out what's going on." I could have dropped this. I could have written this off as a potential trap set for me that will never spring. I could have considered "Elise Thorne" a prank. All of this could have been avoided. But I'd never be able to let it go. Call it curiosity, call it obsession, call it paranoia; the wave had emerged, and we had to ride it to the end. Mike's jaw locked, because he knew that trying to change my mind would be futile.

"Of course." Mike opened up the file and laid out the information he could find, and these people weren't amateurs. Their secrecy didn’t show in what Mike found; it showed in what he didn’t. This man could typically piece together the hierarchy of any outfit, with robust dossiers describing every person involved. However, with this operation, he was only able to track down two collaborators. And the information found was next to useless.

"I'm just going to throw this out there: You don't have to do this. Whoever that woman was, it sounds like they're fucking with you. It sounds like a wild goose chase."

He was probably right. At best, I find nothing and look like an idiot. But with how these people are moving, the absence of evidence isn't the evidence of absence. Elise Thorne may not be real, but there's still something going on. And I really don't like not knowing what's going on.

I stood up from the chair and Mike followed suit. He looked at me shocked, "You're going over there now?"

"The night's fading." I put my coat and hat on, because if I'm going out to investigate the shadows of the city, I might as well look the part. I couldn't spend all night having hallucinations of the damned; a mystery was afoot, and it was time to figure out exactly what was going on.

To Be Continued...

[ https://hisvirusness.com/textbook-case-part-2 ]