Chapter 253 - 205: External Interface

The dormitory room was a small cubicle.

A cot, a small table, and a gas wall lamp.

Richard placed his shoulder bag at the head of the bed and hung his jacket over the back of the chair.

He walked over to the bed, intending to lie down and rest for a bit.

But as soon as he lay down, he felt wide awake.

When he closed his eyes, his mind filled with fragments of the day’s events.

The grain of salt crushed under his tongue, the peaceful smile on the Answering Head’s face, and the pool of blood Mrs. MacNeil had made.

He lay in bed for a while, sighed, and put his jacket back on.

Sometimes, the more physically exhausted you are, the harder it is to sleep.

Richard pushed open the door to his room and walked down the stairs.

When he reached the first-floor lobby, he saw Old Big walking from the other side of the hall toward the underground passage.

"Old Big."

Hearing someone call his name unexpectedly from behind, Old Big’s shoulders visibly tensed.

He relaxed when he turned and saw it was Richard.

"You little rascal, not asleep yet?"

"Can’t sleep."

"How can you not be asleep? With the amount of energy you burned today..."

"I want to sleep," Richard said with a wry smile. "But my mind won’t shut off."

Old Big looked him up and down, then tutted.

"I’ve been there before. The more you fight it, the more awake you feel."

"Normally, this old man could stay and chat with you, but I’ve got something else to do tonight."

He jutted his chin toward the underground passage.

"My senior and I are about to deal with the Answering Head’s body."

"If you can’t sleep, why don’t you go back to your room and read a book? Dealing with corpses... for you, it’s..."

"I want to come and see."

The corners of Old Big’s mouth twitched. He swallowed the latter half of his sentence: "not a good idea."

"...You’re not scared?"

"I’ve already seen so much during the day." Richard looked completely innocent. "It can’t be much different at night."

Old Big chuckled twice with a "heh" and slapped him on the back.

"Alright, fine. I could use the company anyway. You can come along, but there’s one condition..."

He held up a finger at Richard.

"You do exactly what my senior says."

"If she says don’t look, you close your eyes. If she says don’t ask, you keep your mouth shut. That’s the rule of the trade, and it’ll keep you alive."

"Okay."

The two of them walked down the underground passage toward the lowest level.

When they reached the thick wooden door of the autopsy room, Old Big stopped and knocked three times.

"Senior, I brought the kid, Richard."

Mrs. MacNeil’s voice came from inside.

"...Did he ask to come?"

"Yeah, he can’t sleep."

It was quiet inside for a few seconds.

"Then come in. It’ll be an education for him."

As Richard pushed the door open and went inside, Old Big went to change into an autopsy gown.

"Richard, you change too," Mrs. MacNeil’s voice drifted over. "It’s on the hook behind the door."

Richard did as he was told, his eyes scanning the room as he changed.

The Answering Head’s body was laid out on a slab, covered from head to toe by a gray cloth that had been sprinkled with salt.

Mrs. MacNeil was in another corner of the room, laying out her set of tools.

To her left sat a shallow Copper Disc, filled about a finger-deep with "Developer Solution" in which extremely fine silver powder was suspended.

"Come over when you’re changed," she said without looking up.

"Stand behind Bigelow, to his right. Half a step from the table."

Richard walked over.

Old Big, having put on his gloves, lifted the gray cloth.

There was no nauseating stench of death, likely because the human parts of the Answering Head had been almost completely hollowed out.

But seeing it this close, Richard’s breathing hitched.

Winterworth’s blade had gone from the back of the heart through to the front of the chest, splitting the sternum wide open.

Inside the opened cavity, nothing was where it should be.

"First step," Mrs. MacNeil directed. "Remove all his personal effects."

Using a long pair of forceps, Old Big removed items one by one from the corpse’s pockets, belt, and hidden inner compartments.

In the end, three items lay on the work table.

The black medium, two small steel tubes, and a piece of paper folded to the size of a palm.

The two steel tubes were the most conspicuous. Both ends had been machined.

One end was a screw-cap, while the other tapered to an extremely fine opening, as if designed to "spit" something out.

Next to the tubes was the length of black medium that had been clutched in the Answering Head’s right hand, woven from some unknown material.

That piece of black medium was not cloth, not hair, and certainly not the fur of any animal.

It lay spread out quietly in an enamel tray. When the light from the wall lamp hit it, its surface showed no reflection at all.

After one glance at the object, Richard felt a visceral urge not to look at it again.

Mrs. MacNeil unscrewed one of the steel tubes.

The tube was stuffed with a compacted, dark-gray herbaceous material, its texture close to that of dried moss.

The Spirit Medium used forceps to pinch out a small tuft and placed it in the Developer Solution in the Copper Disc.

A very thin layer of mist slowly rose from the surface of the water.

"Many-eyed Black Moss. A product of the near-shore transition zone."

She picked out another small tuft, this one a dark green.

"I recognize this one," Richard spoke up. "It was in *Behind-the-Curtain Products*. Silent Fern."

"Correct." The Spirit Medium nodded. "Silent Fern is from deeper in, already close to the edge of the Deep Realm."

She set down the forceps.

"Our previous speculation is confirmed. The Echo Society has a stable channel for harvesting from the Deep Realm."

Her brow furrowed even more tightly than before.

"...This is much more troublesome than we first estimated."

"How so?" Old Big leaned in.

"The name ’Echo Society’..." Mrs. MacNeil was speaking to Richard now. "The North Branch Office’s file on them is just a single, thin stack of papers."