“Don’t they have to?” Mariana asked. “You’re their boss!”
Honestly, I was wondering the same thing.
A small smile crossed Jon’s lips. “I’m afraid that’s not entirely accurate. My job is primarily administrative. I’m in charge of coordination between offices; allocating funds and resources or facilitating communication. I’m the main point of contact or representative if multiple field offices are involved, among other duties. While I am briefed and involved in the day to day operations of every field office, each one is autonomously operated by its own branch manager. I have the final say in many matters, including personnel in regards to hiring or transfers. I do not have the authority to assign agents to field work, with the exception of this office, because I also continue to serve as the branch manager here.”
“Oh,” Mariana said. Ember and I echoed her.
“I can request the agents needed, as I outlined to the other branch managers in my plan, but they have every right to refuse. Unfortunately, this leaves my hands tied. Without the cooperation of nearly every field office in the region, a large-scale investigation is too dangerous. I would simply be putting even more lives at risk, instead of giving us an advantage.”
“Why are they refusing?” I asked.
“Some believe, as I do; that this calls for a large-scale investigation and recognize the risk should we go in without enough agents. As such, they refuse to join unless the number of other offices who are willing is high enough. Others… do not believe the situation is serious enough to require assistance from other branches,” he said.
“People are vanishing left and right!” cried Ember. “And now there’s blood magic! How can they not think it’s serious!”
Jon inclined his head to her in a single nod. “They are not all convinced the missing persons are connected. Some do not believe the blood magic is connected and others are not certain there is blood magic involved at all. They want evidence.”
“But—” Ember began.
Jon held up a hand and she fell silent. “There is no evidence, Ember. Both our theory that these disappearances are related and our belief that blood magic is involved are based solely on conjecture. The fact is, we do not have evidence to prove it.” He shook his head. “As it happens, were I in their position, I would be hesitant to provide assistance as well. I am asking them to take their best agents away from local incidents, leave their offices short-handed, and send those same agents into unknown danger. I cannot fault them for wanting to know more.” He took a deep breath and frowned. Fend jumped onto his shoulder and nibbled his ear affectionately. “And yet…” Jon went on. “There are some who are asking for evidence because they know I cannot get it. I will not send my people back in there until we know more…”
“But you can’t learn more without sending agents in,” Mariana groaned.
“Sound like assholes to me,” Ember snorted.
“You can understand my frustration,” said Jon, spreading his hands helplessly. “Which brings me to why I am here. I need your help.”
The three of us looked at each other in confusion. Who was he talking to?
“All three of you,” Jon clarified. “I need your help.”
“To do what?” asked Ember.
“I need evidence to prove these cases are connected.”
“You want us to go to the park?” I asked.
“No!” Jon said quickly. “No, absolutely not. I refuse to send my top agents to the park without more information. I certainly would not send a couple of young employees and an intern in their place.”
“Then how are we supposed to find evidence?” Ember asked.
“And why us?” I added.
Jon smiled. “Because the three of you are in a unique position to assist me.” We exchanged confused and skeptical looks. “First, I trust each of you. Do not misunderstand, I trust everyone in my employ. But there are some who work here who are more… shall we say, mercenary. I trust them to do their jobs. Yet they are also happy to seize opportunities when the outcomes benefit them. There are some field office heads who asked me for evidence, not only knowing I cannot provide it, but because they do not want me to provide it. You all know how rumors make their way around the office; those same rumors reach other field offices as well. If word spreads that I am launching a preliminary investigation to collect evidence in order to convince other heads to join, it could lead to complications. Including some which could jeopardize the mass investigation itself. I trust the three of you to be discreet. In fact, you may not relay this conversation or what I ask of you to anyone.”
“What about—” Ember began.
Once again Jon held up a hand, this time with a wry smile. “Except, of course, your fathers.” He nodded toward me. “Thomas and Tethys as well. The four of them just happen to be the agents I trust completely, both to keep this as discreet as you will and to not use it in any way against me.”
I swallowed nervously. There were certainly plenty of tricky policies and co-worker relationships to navigate at MES, but I hadn’t realized there was so much happening between offices. “What do you expect us to do?” I asked.
“You, Jennifer,” Jon said. “Are an intern. This means you have access to everything. You are free to go anywhere. You can ask anyone for whatever information you need and take anything you like from the filing room, without suspicion. You also have a great deal of study time in your schedule, which allows you to work on this, with access to the full resources in the office, without taking you away from your regular duties.” He turned toward Mariana.
“We do understand you have to study, Jen-chan,” Fend spoke up suddenly. Jon flashed his familiar a smile and I suspected he had forgotten to say it.
Jon nodded to me. “I will make sure you are allotted additional time if it becomes an issue. Now, Mariana,” he turned to her. “While I understand your frustration with Peridot’s management style – and I will be speaking to her regarding her difficulty in designating work for you – it works in our favor now, as you too have time to assist me. You are also skilled in analyzing and finding patterns in data. That is exactly what I need.”
“What about me?” asked Ember.
“You, Ember, are critical for the success of this. You have access to the whole of the MES database. You can generate any reports you need and view any files. Better yet, you can use the IT side of things to access files without leaving evidence behind.” Jon smiled for a moment, then his face fell. “I confess, I do not know what I am looking for, yet I must produce something and that is where you three come in. Find me evidence that these disappearances are related, by more than just location. I need to prove that it is not coincidence, but an unknown force taking them. Some people have suggested that these missing persons are vanishing on purpose, either to start anew elsewhere or to take their own lives. I want proof this is not the case. I want, need, something concrete that will convince enough of the heads that an investigation is warranted and critical. I want this done quickly, but thoroughly.” With that, Jon slowly rose and bowed deeply. “Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.”
Chapter Six
Jen
“Well,” Mariana said, after the three of us had recovered from Jon's surprise visit, “I guess we should get started.” She closed her book and rested her chin in one hand. “But where do we even start?”
I shut my binder and leaned back in my chair. “We need to prove that these disappearances are connected somehow… I'm not even sure how many people have gone missing. I've only been here for a few months. How long has this been going on?”
“It's been years,” Mariana said.
“I'm pretty sure someone vanished right around when I started my internship,” Ember said. “And that was over five years ago.”
“So, I guess the first thing to do,” Mariana said, “is figure out just how many people have gone missing.”
“I can do that easily enough.” Ember opened the laptop she had closed upon Jon's arrival an
d began typing. “I can generate a report to bring up everyone whose status has been set to missing in the last um… ten years?”
“Ten sounds good,” Mariana said.
“One thing though,” said Ember. “We have to remember not everyone who comes back as missing went missing in the park. So, we're going to have to go through the activity log in each file to see who was reported missing there. Ah, here we go! Oh…” She frowned and I saw her eyes flare.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Ten years ago,” she said softly. “There was one person reported missing to our field office. Nine years ago, there were none. Eight years ago, there was one…” She looked up and glanced at us. “Seven years ago, there were eight.”
Mariana and I looked at each other.
“That's a big jump,” Mariana said. “What about six years ago?”
Ember looked at the computer. “Eleven. Then nine, then fourteen. Twelve, ten, thirteen, and then six so far this year.”
“Can you do twenty years back?” Mariana asked.
“Yeah, hang on.” Ember shook her head after a moment. “Wow.”
“Wow?” Mariana echoed.
“Twenty years ago, no disappearances,” Ember said. “Then one, three, none, none, one, one, two, none, and one.” We all looked at each other grimly. “I know this isn't enough proof,” Ember said. “But I think it’s clear that something is happening. These numbers shouldn't jump like that unless something…” She shrugged. “Something changed seven years ago in the park.”
“Well, one thing we have to do,” Mariana said, “is make sure that these additional disappearances can be attributed to the park and aren't being caused by something else.”
“What else could it be?” Ember asked before I could.
Mariana shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe the way they classify missing persons changed seven years ago, so now there are more. Or maybe they pulled out some old files in the digitize-the-filing-room project and any old cases they added are being counted as recent.”
“Both plausible,” Ember said with a grimace. “And happened before I started here, so I can’t say for sure.”
“Can we check everywhere?” I asked. “By um… field office or something? If we’re the only ones with a huge increase, then it must be something here, right? And not something related to the database.”
“Absolutely,” said Ember. For a couple of minutes, the only sound in the room was clicking, both from Ember’s keyboard and from her as she chattered to herself in Sadehic, the fire elemental language. “Okay,” she said at last. “There are hundreds of field offices, so I broke it down by region. The numbers are, of course, a lot bigger, but I’ve got another column here with a plus-minus breakdown when compared to the previous year. So… South-East eight years ago saw six more disappearances than the previous year. Seven years ago, they saw four less than that. Mid-Atlantic saw five less, and then three more.”
“Could that one be at all influenced by the people who were abducted for the facility?” I asked.
Mariana shuddered at the reminder; the two of us had been captured and brought to a place simply called “the facility” a few years ago. We were lucky to escape with our lives.
“I don’t think so,” Ember said. “MES was able to identify everyone who was taken, so none of them should be listed as missing.” She studied her screen for a moment. “And I don’t see anything too crazy in the Mid-Atlantic numbers. But…” She glanced up at us. “Our region was minus two, eight years ago. And then it was plus twenty-three. It doesn’t drop back down again and none of the other regions have jumps like that.”
“So, it is just here,” I said. I wasn’t sure if I was happy to confirm that or not.
“Wait,” Mariana said. “Did you say plus twenty-three?” Ember nodded and Mariana frowned. “What was it that year for just our office?”
Ember checked. “Eight.” She frowned too.
“Then where are the others coming from?” Mariana asked. “Maybe it’s not just us…”
We sat quietly, thinking. My mind wandered back to my experience at the facility and the pieces fell into place. “Oh!” I gasped. They both jumped a little and I spotted a couple of sparks fly from Ember’s fingers. “It’s just like when I was taken!”
“It is?” Ember asked.
“When I was kidnapped and brought to the facility, nobody knew where I was,” I reminded her. “So, if Thomas hadn’t already been looking for me, my disappearance would have been reported to my local office in Maryland, not the one in West Virginia where I ended up.”
Mariana caught on immediately. “Of course! These people are going missing in the park, but nobody knows they’re there, so they’re being reported to their local offices and not us.”
“That makes sense,” Ember agreed. “Okay then, so what I need to do is run another report of everyone missing in our region for… let’s do ten years just in case. This will take a little longer though, I have to run to my office to print it. We’ll need the activity logs… what else?”
“There’s a printer in here,” Mariana said.
Ember shook her head. “I have to do it on the backend.” It must have been obvious that Mariana and I weren’t sure why. Ember giggled and explained. “So, the MES database has two um… sides to it. The frontend is what you guys see. It has all the files and info and stuff. But in IT we can see the backend. It has way more details and information in it. I can run some simple reports and see stuff in the frontend, but in order to get one with the activity logs from other field offices, I have to use the backend. And that can only be accessed from a hardwired computer, like my desktop in the IT office.” She drummed her fingers against the desk, releasing tiny sparks as she did. “Other than the basic profile info and activity logs, is there anything else I should grab?”
“Is there anything else that could prove a connection?” I asked. “It’s one thing to show a bunch of people are missing there, but Jon wants us to find a connection between them.”
“And to prove they aren’t going missing on purpose,” Mariana added.
I frowned; I had caught that bit when Jon said it. “I don’t understand that,” I confessed. “I mean, I get that some of them might be going in there… to die, but what did he mean by ‘start anew’?”
“Some old magics get bored,” Mariana said. “I guess they’ve just been doing the same thing for so long… Instead of changing jobs or moving they change their entire lives. They change their names, lie about their ages, and just go somewhere totally different and start a brand-new life as, I guess, a new person.” She shrugged. “It’s possible some of them might see the park as a good place to vanish but… I can’t imagine just letting your family think you were missing or dead. My brother died decades ago and my parents are still crushed.”
“You…” I didn’t know what to say. I tried to recall if Mariana had ever mentioned a brother before.
She noticed and flashed me a weak smile. “I never knew him so… I guess I don’t bring him up much.” I didn’t want to ask how, but she told me anyway. “He got killed in Vietnam.”
That caught my attention. Her brother wasn’t the only magic I knew who spent time there. “In the war?” I asked.
“Yeah.” Mariana smiled grimly. “That’s how I met Dani. They served together.”
“I’m sorry,” I offered. I wondered how well he and Dani had known each other and added it to my small mental list of what I knew about Dani’s past. He rarely volunteered information about it and the more I learned, the more I understood why.
Mariana nodded sadly. “Anyway,” she said quickly. “We should also try to prove these people are not going into the park planning on never coming back.”
“But with what information?” Ember asked. It was clear she already knew, unsurprisingly, about Mariana’s brother, but I had a feeling she found the topic uncomfortable.
I pushed Mariana’s brother out of my mind and tried to think about what other information th
e database contained that could help us. But I couldn’t shake the surprise that some magics got so bored they literally started their lives over. I couldn’t imagine it. I also couldn’t picture just leaving everything behind. In fact…
“Wouldn’t people planning on starting a new life bring something?” I asked. “I mean, they aren’t just going to go off somewhere else with just the clothes on their backs. They’d have to bring a few supplies; food, money, spare clothes…”
“Money!” Mariana cried. “Of course!” She turned eagerly to Ember. “Can you print accounting records?”
“I think so. Why?”
“Jen’s right, if these people are going missing on purpose, they’d probably withdraw a bunch of cash first. But…” Mariana paused and I could almost see the wheels turning. “And if they were just camping, they may have gone to a sporting goods store or something! Or even rented a uh, a kayak or an inner tube! Yes! We could use transactions to help figure out if some of them were going to the park. They might even have made purchases at local gas stations or stores! Or!” she went on excitedly, “Maybe some shopped at the same places! We could find a connection there!”
“Done,” Ember said. “Accounting records. Anything else?”
We kept brainstorming, but that was all we could come up with. It was late enough that Mariana and Ember were going to need to go back to their desks. Even with Jon’s blessing, we decided we wanted to try and keep as low of a profile as possible and stick to our usual schedules, if we could. Ember said it would probably take a couple of hours to compile and print everything anyway, so we made plans to regroup after our shifts were over. Mariana was happy to drive us home and if it took even longer, Dani and Thomas would both be coming in for their shift.
Rise of the Arcanist Series: Books 1 - 6 Page 7