Chapter 230

“Rachel, aren’t you eating lunch? Looks like everyone else went out.”

At Anna’s question, Rachel lifted her plastic lunchbox with a little shake.

“Of course. I packed my own. Sit, eat with me.”

She rolled her office chair aside and dragged over a spare plastic stool for Anna.

“But what about you? Don’t you have work?”

“I’m under disciplinary suspension, stuck in retraining. I smashed the chief’s face in.”

“...That was a bit much.”

“Try staring at that Botox mask every day without wanting to.”

“You could’ve just endured it, no matter how ugly.”

“My only hobby is pissing people off. Can’t help it.”

Anna grumbled in her usual sharp tone. Rachel watched her carefully before asking, hesitant:

“Did I say something wrong? I’m sorry if I did.”

“Why apologize? I was joking. You don’t know sarcasm?”

“I do... sorry. I’m just dense, I can’t always tell the line between sarcasm and outright malice.”

“...”

“See, I’ve put my foot in it again.”

Rachel laughed awkwardly, ducking her head.

We don’t match. We really don’t. Anna forced a smile that didn’t reach her eyes and hurried to change the subject.

“Do you still go to the meetings?”

“Every time. You should come back. Haven’t seen the new center they finished last month, have you? It’s a comforting place.”

“I’m too busy. Too many members now—I can’t tell who’s who.”

“True. After the Langford collapse, the membership skyrocketed. They’ve had to split into groups.”

“Starting to sound like some missionary cult. Just keeps growing.”

“No, it’s just more people in pain. That’s all. It happens more often now. Here—have some salad, I’ll share from my lid.”

Anna had first met Rachel years ago in People Who Overcame Grief, a group therapy circle in Baggers City. Rachel had joined after losing her husband suddenly in a car accident. Through the group she had slowly rebuilt a routine and now spent her time volunteering. They were never really compatible, but in the nature of such meetings, they knew each other’s scars more intimately than anyone else.

Remembering that volunteering was Rachel’s only social outlet, Anna recalled a woman who’d messaged her days ago through Peoplebook.

Kelly Welch... that was the name. There’s more than one support group in Baggers City, so why the fuss that she can’t attend this one?

Choking down the bitter, leathery salad, Anna asked casually:

“Do you know someone named Kelly Welch? I heard she went to the group.”

“Hm? Kelly Welch?”

Rachel furrowed her brow, staring upward as if sorting through a mental roster.

“Never heard the name. Since when was she coming?”

Rachel might not know her now, but if she crossed paths with Kelly later, Anna’s question could resurface. Not wanting to spark anything unnecessary, Anna shook her head.

“Forget it. Back to the point. Did you run the plate I asked about?”

“I did. This was the last trip logged.”

Rachel handed her a printed sheet. Anna studied it for a long while, then lifted her head, incredulous.

“This is all?”

“Yeah. ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) That was the last movement. Looks like the thief was careful. Was the stolen item valuable?”

“...Not particularly.”

Ever since Baekgyeong had stolen rut suppressants and tranquilizer rounds from her house, there had been no further records on the white Ford van he’d driven. The last ping was on a road near her home. He had either abandoned it, switched the plates, or driven south of the Nason River.

Where the hell are you hiding, bastard.

If he had gone south, Anna would have to hunt him by foot herself. That region was still wrecked from the hurricane—electricity and roads barely restored, license-plate scanners nowhere near fixed.

Her anger was building when Rachel spoke again.

“Oh—I do have a photo. Want to see? The thieves were caught on camera.”

She clicked through the program, and a pixelated image appeared. Midday. A white Ford van wrapped with Amazonia Home Service branding. In the front seats, two blurred outlines.

Anna stared, stunned. Driving was Baekgyeong. And beside him sat the very man she’d been desperately searching for—Siron.

Digging through old articles about the Langford Bridge collapse, Siron leaned closer to the screen without realizing. He had found the obituary of a New York Times journalist whose trip to Camtiva Island now looked far from innocent.

September 3, 2014

Obituary: Tessa Spencer, New York Times Investigative Reporter, Dies in Langford Bridge Collapse

Tessa Spencer, Pulitzer finalist and George Polk Award–winning journalist for the New York Times, died Monday in the Langford Bridge disaster off western Helso. She was 47.

She had been visiting Camtiva Island when the bridge collapsed. State officials confirmed her death, bringing the toll to at least 223 dead and 58 missing.

Spencer had shaken industries with her exposés: a 2001 cover-up of toxic contamination at a food-processing giant, a multinational pharmaceutical’s falsified clinical trials. In 2009, her reporting on abuses in a state psychiatric hospital made her a Pulitzer finalist.

Her husband, En Bakke, remembered her as “a journalist who combined strength with moral clarity, a wise wife, and a mother who set a standard.” A funeral was scheduled for the 8th at The Campbell in Manhattan.

Vacationing on Camtiva?

Camtiva housed not only Somora Prison—where lifers and death row inmates were kept—but also advanced research labs and tourist resorts. So her choice wasn’t implausible. Except the timing—late summer, when most had already ended vacations. And she was married. A solitary resort trip without her family suggested something else.

Perhaps she had another reason for being there. Perhaps her destination was Somora Prison. Then again, maybe she had simply needed solitude in an unexpected place. But the timing and path overlapped too neatly. She could very well have been the journalist who interviewed Gezar Bazelli.

Siron, pulse racing, jumped onto the Times website and searched her name. A short profile popped up.

“At last, I’ve done something.”

Baekgyeong tugged an earbud out, looking up.

“Done something?”

“...Until now I’ve been deadweight. Maybe all of that was just trial, for this moment.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Siron had been gnawed by his role among Isaac and Baekgyeong. The alpha supplied money, Isaac ran the team with brains and brawn. Yoon Siron, the omega, was only baggage—protected, not contributing. For someone who had once dominated Korea’s entertainment industry with his beauty and scandals, it was an intolerable obscurity.

But this—this was different. He could feel it. He’d found something monumental.

He scrolled through her articles, then clicked into her linked social media. It led to Tessa Spencer’s Twiver account.

The header image showed a DNA double helix. Her profile photo: black-and-white, shoulder-length dark hair, faint smile, eyes steady and righteous.

New York Times investigative reporter. Former AP New York bureau chief. Covered pharmaceutical scandals, epidemics, and survival in conflict zones. The more painful the truth, the more I’ll write it.

Reading her profile, Siron realized what the world had lost. He’d never read a line of her work, yet his heart sank. The balance of the world had tipped further toward darkness.

He clicked her final post.

Taking a short rest. A comma before the next leap toward truth.

Knowing she was already dead made every word of her farewell look like a will.

“Hey, what’s with the face now?”

Baekgyeong paused his playback, pulling out his other earbud.

“It’s nothing. Later. Let’s just keep working—”

“No. Whatever it is, share it with me. Joy and grief both.”

Baekgyeong shot up, circled the table, and dragged a chair close to Siron’s side.

“...I’d rather mourn alone.”

“Shut up. Let’s mourn together.”

In truth, Siron wanted to share it. So he began recounting everything he’d pieced together about Spencer.

Her posts touched every topic: patents, vaccines, drug abuse, predatory insurers. She had even reposted news of Catherine Choi of the Vile Group’s death. Siron quickly scrolled past before Baekgyeong could notice.

She used social media as an information funnel, too. Half a year ago she’d posted a call for testimonies from victims of a drug—NeoPeak.

“This has to be the journalist who interviewed Gezar, right?”

Siron’s voice trembled. Baekgyeong nodded.

“She must’ve stumbled onto alphas while digging into NeoPeak. Who knows how that led her to Somora. But as AP bureau chief, she’d have seen streams of intel.”

Siron scrolled further down her page—and froze.

“...What?”

An older post appeared. A call for help finding a missing journalist. Posted a year earlier. Attached was a photo: a slight man with a faint smile, tapping away at his laptop.

Andy Leclair. Former New York Times reporter, now freelance. A man who had struggled with schizophrenia and drug addiction, drifted homeless, and—on the island—had been kidnapped and paired with Siron himself.

“I was a journalist once. Studied exobiology at Harvard, wrote for the Times on the soul of the cosmos... before the light found me.”

“This man... it’s 3547.”

Both of them exhaled in shock.

The homeless lunatic who raved about alien signals triggering rut in humankind—he had been telling the truth. 3547 really had been a New York Times reporter.