Sample 887-2877: A list which purports to be Kentucky Fried 
Chicken's "eleven secret herbs and spices". Barring poison oak 
(Toxicodendron spp), none of the names listed are known to apply 
to any plant species. 


Researcher: Dr. Gallow 


Sample 887-3387: Sewing patterns for a soft toy elephant, drawn to 
have a trunk that splits into three halfway along its length. Elephant 
has no tusks and prominent udders. 


Sample 887-3391: One page, apparently from a script for a Bobble 
the Clown TV show. Bobble is demonstrating how to 'catch some 
more’ cyclists by stringing wires across cycle trails. Handwriting is 
extremely florid and includes a border of loops and smiley faces 
around the page. Show not intercepted by the Foundation, though 
tone is a good match for known episodes. 


Sample 887-3395: Twenty-three (23) pages of extremely detailed 
diagrams of how a bramble bush has grown over the shallow grave 
of four people. Bodies are marked as having been fully skeletonised; 
diagrams indicate the positions of every large bone as well as the 
shape of the bush. One skeleton is a juvenile female, the others 
juvenile males. Plant biologists estimate that the bush has been 
growing for three (3) years, and the steep sides of the grave suggest 
that it was dug in heavy clay soil. 


Sample 887-3245: A full transcript of the 2003 Academy Awards 
ceremony. Matches actual event, except that each award-winner's 
acceptance speech includes the words "Heil Hitler”. 


Sample 887-3289: Fragmentary revision notes in English and 
Mandarin Chinese, course titles matching the University of Oxford 
2008-09 year Computational Biology MSc course. Many references 
and criticisms made relating to an apparently unreliable Ubuntu 
release titled Perky Polecat with features (none anomalous) not 


Priss took a deep breath, "What did you do...?" 


"I'm going to assume ‘Yes’. I'm going away for a while, Prissy. You 
won't see me for a bit. Don't worry, I'll instant messy you often. We 
can set up meetings until this all..." She made a popping sound with 
her mouth, "...blows over." 


Priss was too tired to fight with her for information, "Okay. If you 
need bail money, just ask, I'll... Just call me in the morning when 
you're sober." 


Rhiannon pursed her lips suddenly, arching a brow at Priss, "Did 
you see Annie today?" 


"Yeah, | did. | went to her house." 
"What happened?" 

"Nothing... we drank a little, talked." 
Rhiannon smiled, "What did you drink?" 
"What difference does it make?" 


"| always figured Annie for a finer winer and diner. And a real sweet 
girl. Did you drink something sweet?" 


"Yeah, we did. What difference does it make?" 


Rhiannon smiled again, and gave a choked out sob. She then 
wrapped her arms around her sister, and pulled her in to a deep, wet 
kiss. Her tongue pushed into Priss's mouth, slobbering on her 
tongue. Priss could taste a liquor-tinged sweetness on her tongue. 
Priss drove her knee into Rhiannon's gut, shoving her away. 


Rhiannon turned and skipped away, laughing wildly. Priss sighed 
and turned around, walking along the end of the block. She thought 
about what Rhiannon had said... Hopefully she'd end up passed out 
back home. 


Priss glanced up to see two police officers approaching her. They 
demanded to see her ID, and asked where she'd been around 


7 o'clock that night. 


"|... |was drinking with a friend," She muttered as she fished for her 
driver's license. 


"Who is this friend?" One officer asked. 
"Her name's Aurianne Sharpe." 
"Where's she live?" 


"What difference does that make?" She furrowed her brow. They 
glared at her intensely. She started reciting Sharpe's address. 
Suddenly her foot slipped on the curb, and she stumbled, flopping 
onto the side of the street. The officers helped her up. 


"Ma'am, have you been drinking?" 


"Uhh..." She looked up at him, eyes unfocused, her head still 
spinning from the fall, "It's... | have." 


She didn't notice just how flustered the officers were. One turned 
away, muttering something, as the other pulled out a pad and 
started scribbling a ticket, "Ma'am, please get yourself home as 
soon as possible. Do you need a cab?" 


She blinked at them. She hadn't even taken out her license yet. She 
shrugged, making herself sway a bit, "I can make it | just live... a 
few blocks that way," She pointed in one direction, then the other. 
One of them grabbed her hand forcefully, and pressed the ticket into 
it, "Oh thanks! I'll read this in the tomorrow. Thanks so much 
officers." 


More sirens, and then a police cruiser flew by. What did you do, 
Rhiannon Locke? 


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Kids with Guns 


Nathan peeled a rheumy eye open. The phone was ringing. It 
automatically picked up after the third ring. 


Where are you? said the voice on the other end. 


Nathan didn't ask who was calling. There was only one person that 
had the number. 


The Director. 


"Not telling." He was just two days into a week-long leave. The point 
was irrelevant though, as the phone — surgically implanted into his 
skull and hardwired to his nervous system — had a GPS the 
Director could easily access, assuming he hadn't already. 


How soon can you get to Massachusetts? 
"Commercial?" 
Preferable. 


"It's going to take about a day." If he didn't want him to fly private, it 
would all depend on the availability of flights. 


Arrange it and call me back. The line went dead. 


Nathan's head throbbed and his stomach was percolating. Too 
much wine with dinner last night, and he wasn't used to all the 
cream and butter the French put in their food. He lit a cigarette as he 
made his way to the bathroom, accelerating his bowels’ already 
pressing needs. He snatched the travel kit off the credenza and 
rifled through it while perched on the toilet. A B12 syrette he injected 
into his thigh. Nathan probably didn't need it — usually his stomach 
was a garbage compactor, and he hardly ever got hangovers; on the 
rare occasions when he did they never stuck around. 


Showered and dressed, he gazed out at the Paris skyline through 
the balcony window and slipped on his watch and sunglasses. Then 
he placed a call to the Charles de Gaulle Airport and booked a direct 
flight to Boston departing later that afternoon. Nathan put it on the 
company card. After all the fees and surcharges it totaled over ten 
thousand American dollars, just for a one-way trip. If the Director 
expected him to fly economy across an ocean he could go fuck 
himself. 


Nathan mentally dialed him back. "Done," he reported. 


Jacques’ bakery on the Rue Anais. Ask for last month's special. 
Already paid for. 


So the bastard knew where he was. 


It turned out that Jacqeus' Bakery was only several blocks away 
from where he was staying. Nathan packed his suitcase, checked 
out of the Hotel D'Aubusson and walked over to the shop. The girl 
behind the counter looked like she was still in high school, had 
blonde hair in curls, a button nose and wet lips. 


"Umm..." He hesitated. This seemed wrong, but he'd never known 
the Director to make a mistake. He looked up the French translation 
for ‘last month's special’ and mimicked the pronunciation while also 
running a search to see if there were any other Jacques bakeries in 
Paris. It seemed like a common name. 


The girl smiled and bobbed her head. She flipped the sign in the 
window to boutique fermée. "This way," she said in accented 
English, and with a playful finger, lacquered with red gloss and 
dusted in flour, motioned him to the doorway behind the register. 


Beyond the kitchen with its convection ovens and deep mixing 
bowls, downstairs into an insulated cellar and through a sliding door 
on casters, he was led into a room dominated by a surgical chair, 
the surfaces galvanized steel and a drain sunk into the middle of the 
floor. 


Nathan smiled grimly. "You're Jacques?" 


"Yeah Gl Joe," she said, and blew a bubble of gum, snapping it with 
teeth that clicked. "Get in." 


He sat in the chair and waited patiently while she administered a 
local anesthetic before getting to work on his face, changing the hair 
color and adjusting his hairline, new pigments to the iris, higher 
cheekbones with a harder jawline, molding his earlobes and 
sharpening the nose. She leaned over him, loudly chewing gum as 
she went about carving up his face, sculpting it like a lump of clay. 


Or a wad of dough, he thought. 


It was all cosmetic, nothing functionary. Her bosom pressed warmly 
against his shoulder as she leaned over. She smelled like cinnamon 
and almond extract. He focused on the cupid bow of her mouth, the 
thin picket lines in her lips, and found himself wishing he had more 
time in Paris to get to know her better. 


She cleaned him off with a sterilized swab, looked him over, eyes 
narrowed, wiped his temple and chin, then nodded, apparently 
satisfied with her work. All told it'd taken a little over twenty minutes. 
Jacques produced a mirror and Nathan looked himself over. He had 
to admit she'd done a good job. It was a face, nondescript, plain, 
looked just like any of a billion other faces circulating the world. Not 
too pretty and not too ugly, nothing to draw attention. He pulled on 
the skin, still numb but elastic, responsive. Besides some mild 
swelling that made him appear slightly bloated, there was no 
indication of surgery. 


"Want me to do your hands?" she asked. 


"Don't bother." He only had a quarter of the epidermal ridges on his 
palms and fingers as a normal human, and had just gotten them 
changed a month prior. He would've liked to have had his 
fingerprints removed entirely, but a person with hands as smooth as 
glass could raise eyebrows. "You've got something else for me." 


Jacques handed him a manila folder. Contained inside was a new 
wallet with all the standard contents — license, credit cards, even 
photographs of a fake family — a new passport, and a key 

emblazoned with the Toyota car manufacturer's logo. Attached to 


the key ring was a tag which read: 


BOS INT Lot 16 Blue. Make: Toyota. Model: Camry. Year: 2031. 
Color: Gray. Plate Number: HG36T10. 


He looked at his new name. It was the same one he'd provided to 
Air France when purchasing the ticket. He almost had to admire the 
Director — that cocksucker knew his every move. 


He swapped the cash out of his old wallet to the new one, then 
handed it along with his previous passport to Jacques. 


"What do you want me to do with this?" 


Nathan shrugged. "Sell em if you can make money, but it's probably 
not safe to use, and the credit cards will have already been 
cancelled. Otherwise burn em." It never hurt to have a stranger 
traveling under one of his old pseudonyms to throw Interpol and the 
feds for a loop. 


When he left the bakery he still had several hours to kill, and so 
Nathan decided to grab an early lunch at an outdoor café, the 
hangover already a fading memory. He ate an overpriced plate of 
steak-frites paired with an even more expensive bottle of sparkling 
water. From the café he hitched a cab to the airport. 


Are you on your way? 


Nathan sighed. "Heading there now," he responded. The driver 
glanced up at him through the rearview mirror, and assuming his 
passenger was talking on a mobile phone and the remark wasn't 
directed at him, ignored him for the remainder of the ride. "You know 
| have to get there three hours in advance just to check in." 


You're flying to Logan? 


"You know | am." It was annoying to be asked questions he knew 
the Director already had the answers to. 


Emailing the dossier to you now. 


The call disconnected. 


The next ten hours were spent wading through the minutiae and 
hassle of air travel. The actual flight was just under seven hours, 
and Nathan spent the majority of it sleeping, not sure when he'd get 
another chance. After leaving the international terminal of Logan 
airport a little past four in the afternoon — the sea breeze 
refreshingly cool coming in from the harbor — he found the Toyota 
sedan right where the tag said he would. He appraised the hardware 
and firepower in the trunk then climbed into the driver's side, tossing 
the travel kit next to him on the passenger seat. 


He hopped onto the Massachusetts Turnpike westbound. At this 
time of day the highway was a parking lot, and he set the vehicle on 
autopilot, cranked the AC and shut his eyes. 


His destination was a town called Millbrook, located in the central 
part of the state. He'd passed through the area once or twice but 
knew next to nothing about it, and so browsed the web for 
information, the results appearing in his heads-up display against 
the dark background that was his closed eyelids. The details were 
dry, encyclopedic. Nipmuc tribe deeded the land and it was 
eventually incorporated in 1715. Consisted of 14.5 square miles of 
land and 6.7 square miles of water. As of the most recent census 
the population was listed as 2,963. 


All that told him was that it was a small New England town 
consisting mostly of swampland. He checked local news articles, but 
except for a domestic murder-suicide three years ago, a particularly 
severe impact felt from the opioid epidemic in the first quarter of the 
century, and possible inspiration behind some of the stories by an 
author named Lovecraft, there was nothing of interest. 


The car inched forward and stopped. 


Millbrook bordered the Quabbin Reservoir, the primary water source 
for Boston, and the creation of which had necessitated the flooding 
of four towns back in 1938, almost a hundred years ago to the day. 


Who gives a shit? Nathan thought. Discouraged and out of patience, 
he exhaled and closed out of the search. 


It took over an hour just to get out of Boston, and another two to 


reach Sturbridge, where the sedan took the off-ramp of Exit 9 and 
button-hooked onto Route 20. The sun had already set, the sky 
changing from shades of rose and orangeade to velvet as the stars 
wheeled overhead. 


His stomach growled, reminding Nathan that he hadn't had anything 
to eat since Paris. He'd passed on the in-flight meal. 


He usurped the car's controls and manually steered into the first 
fast-food drive-thru he saw. He ordered three bacon cheeseburgers, 
a large fries and a fountain drink, and then pulled back onto Route 
20, shoveling the food into his mouth after handing the controls back 
to the Toyota. The burgers were swaddled in wax paper, piping hot 
and delicious in the cheap, dirty way only American fast-food 
seemed to posses. The fries were a sodium blitz and the soda liable 
to turn him diabetic. He didn't care. It was like masturbation. 
Afterwards he might feel filthy and ashamed, but in the moment the 
act was pleasurable. 


By the time he was finishing off the last burger, tossing the wrapper 
over his shoulder into the backseat, the car was turning off Route 20 
and onto back, surface roads. Beyond Sturbridge was Brookfield 
and then Ware. 


According to the dossier he'd read while he was still seven miles 
above the Atlantic, the Thaumaturgical Array Sensor — a black 
satellite in low Earth orbit — had detected a spike within the Sothian 
spectrum at 0300 local time the previous night. The witching hour, if 
you believed European folklore. Supposedly due to the canonical 
hour's lack of prayers. 


Coordinates pinpointed the source to a half kilometer square patch 
of land in Millbrook. But the technology the TAS utilized was still in 
its infancy, and often gave false positives. 


So basically Nathan had no idea what he was walking into. For all 
he knew it could've been a couple of teenage girls at a slumber 
party playing with a planchette and Ouija board. 


Night was deepening as the Camry hung right onto a road called 
Hammond Hill. This was the street where the four residences within