Chapter 294

The one who greeted Anna and Rachel at Gulf Line City Library on the outskirts of Baggers City was a middle-aged woman dressed as if she had just come back from a Halloween party.

“I told you to be here before seven. We’re past closing.”

“Just this one time, please. I almost never ask for favors.”

“Rachel. Don’t put me in a spot.”

In a black lace blouse with a black cross necklace, a chain belt cinched to her plump frame, and studded boots, she carried the lingering nostalgia of early-2000s emo singers.

Not easy people.

Watching Rachel and her librarian friend—two women with aggressively distinctive fashion—trade words, Anna, who had been observing, absently fiddled with the helix of her ear crowded with piercings and found herself pointlessly auditing her own plainness.

The librarian, who had been staring at Rachel with a disapproving look, shifted her gaze to Anna, standing blankly behind. Her eyes ran over the piercings, the black leather vest, the tattoos wrapped around Anna’s left arm, and her expression turned satisfied, as if acknowledging Anna.

“Wrestler? Love the style.”

“I’m police. I’d appreciate your cooperation so I can review some materials.”

“Police? ...What have you gotten yourself into, Rachel? This isn’t your lane...”

“Quit sniping and just help.”

Still looking put-out, the librarian cocked an eyebrow and asked, “You’re looking for a periodical on drainage facilities from about fifteen years ago?”

“Yeah. All I know is it’s a journal tied to public works.”

Grumbling, the librarian tapped at her keyboard.

“Infrastructure Insight... Citizen Works Quarterly—you mean things like that?”

“Maybe?”

“Anything older than ten years is in the upstairs stacks. It’s specialized, so it won’t mean much to me. You’ll have to come with me.”

Rachel and the librarian headed off to the records preservation stacks to search. Left alone, Anna stood where she was and stared vacantly at the shuttered library spread before her.

Freshly rebuilt, the library was so unrealistically clean it felt like stepping into a computer game. It was only seven, but outside was already pitch-dark. The surroundings were blacked out while the lights inside blazed so brightly it felt as if this place alone were what remained of the world. With a faint, formless sense of menace and emptiness creeping up her spine, Anna took a step.

She checked the floor directory at the entrance. General stacks on floors 1, 2, and 3; from the 5th floor up, specialized materials that required a librarian’s permission to enter. Disliking the suffocating stillness, Anna took the elevator to the 5th floor where Rachel was.

Rachel and the librarian were at the periodicals corner for administrative materials. Covers with basic fonts and plain design—only the issue numbers different—filled the shelves end to end. Loitering near the two women, Anna drifted to the opposite shelves and began skimming.

Helso Economic Innovation Fund Summary Report, Helso Economic Development Major Achievements 2003, Public Technology Insight—periodicals the kind reporters and civil servants would consult. Anna pulled the one that first caught her eye: Helso Economic Innovation Fund Summary Report.

She flipped through and checked the table of contents first. It read like a compendium laying out selection criteria for startup investments and the status of various supports. The contents didn’t grab her, and she was just about to slide it back into place.

“What exactly are you looking for?”

The librarian had suddenly appeared in front of Anna, regarding her with a flat gaze.

“Pardon?”

“Rachel says she’s looking for blueprints for a deep drainage tunnel, and you’re... looking for startup materials? Is your suspect a white-collar criminal?”

“White-collar? Suspect?”

With a tired face, the librarian knit her brow, stared at Anna, sighed softly, and answered, “That report is a summary of the state government’s investments in startups. Are you actually looking at something related to your investigation?”

Anna checked the title of the book in her hands again. Then, after a brief hesitation, she nodded.

“You are police, right?”

Casting a skeptical look, the librarian gave Anna a once-over and hovered nearby.

She was remarkably prickly. Anna, thinking about how everyone around Rachel—herself included—seemed contrary by default, turned obediently and slid the book back onto the shelf. Even so, she stood there for a long moment, glaring at the spines. She couldn’t explain what kept snagging at her, or why she couldn’t make herself leave this spot.

Then one vague line of thought suddenly began to take shape. She asked the librarian, who was still orbiting her:

“Does the state also have funds that support places like research labs?”

The librarian looked at her as if to say why that, out of the blue? and answered, “Of course it does.”

Her hand moved toward the shelf behind Anna. She tapped a book with a fingertip and, in a tone that said she wasn’t buying it, asked:

“And this is related to your case, is it?”

“It is.”

“What case?”

“I can’t go into detail at this time. But thank you—this is very helpful.”

Drawing a line with that thanks, Anna quickly scanned the titles lined up on the shelf. Helso Research Promotion Fund Summary Report—volumes from 1999 through 2003 were on file. All of it was a decade old.

“Where are the recent volumes?”

“Fourth floor.”

To check the last ten years, Anna headed to the Government Publications Room on the 4th floor. Unlike the other floors, the fourth had an open plan with no walls or partitions, and she could take in the entire space at a glance. She threaded through the stacks straight to the section she needed. Thankfully, the book she wanted was where it should be, and related materials were neatly shelved around it.

Arms full, Anna carried an armload to the nearest table. Opening the most recently published Helso Research Promotion Fund Summary Report, her eye snagged on an item in the table of contents on the first page: “Investment by Research Institution.” She flipped rapidly, combing through the pages that listed each laboratory and science center with their funding amounts laid out at a glance. Nowhere did the name “CellGuard Research Laboratory” appear.

Kelly Welch, sister of a missing homeless man, had come to Baggers City to find her brother and vanished without a trace. Somewhere in captivity, she used an online messenger to beg for help. Anna traced the messages and, through the dark web, uncovered that the network contractor for the site confining her was the CellGuard Research Laboratory.

CellGuard Research Laboratory. The name—evoking some biotech outfit—was something Anna had pried loose only after pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency onto the dark web. But aside from the fact that Kelly Welch was being held by CellGuard, she still didn’t know what that place did or where it was. Anna had a formless sense that a thin thread leading to the vanished Lewis might connect there.

Calmly, she checked the periodical’s issue dates. There were no new reports for the latter half of ’12 or for ’13—perhaps the library’s closure during renovation had blocked acquisitions. She opened the volume from the first half of ’12, the most recent on hand. If CellGuard had received public investment from the State of Helso, its name would have to appear on the grantee list.

Don’t get your hopes up, she told herself, and traced the “Investment by Research Institution” section with her fingertip. Pretending indifference, her finger stopped dead.

V. Investment by Research Institution