₴₮Ɽ₳₦₲ɆⱤ ₮Ⱨ₳₦ ₣ł₵₮łØ₦ | 4 | The Groundwork
The next morning, while Gracie is still sleeping off their night at the lab, Juniper notices a woman silently circling the trailer park. She stands out, not because she's infected but because she's meticulously groomed, dressed in designer clothes, and heavily pregnant. She's sleek and sophisticated, more like a starlet from Del Sol Valley than anyone Juniper's ever seen around here.
She pulls Gaby to the window and points in the woman's direction. "Do you know her?"
Gaby's eyes widen instantly. "Oh god, that's Ana. My half-sister. Gracie's wife."
"Shit," Juniper says simply. Gaby's already on her way to the air mattress to rouse Gracie from slumber.
Gracie's a mess of tangled hair and wrinkled black clothing, but as soon as Ana's name escapes Gaby's lips, she's on her feet, dashing to the bathroom to make herself presentable. She'd given Ana the trailer's address as a last resort, in case something went horribly wrong at the lab, but had never expected her to actually show up. She hastily dresses, brushes her hair, and smears on some red lipstick. There, now she feels much more like herself. She heads outside to greet her wife.
"Honey, what are you doing here?" she asks, tenderly taking Ana's hands.
"I was worried when you never came home last night."
"I told you I might be a while."
"Yes, but you didn't even call! I was so worried." She cradles her belly, and Gracie could swear it's nearly doubled in size, though they've barely been apart twelve hours. "I know this story is important to you, but I need you at home now. Are you really going to leave a pregnant woman to fend for herself?"
Gracie sighs heavily, guiltily. "No, I guess not. Just let me say goodbye."
Inside, she and Gaby briefly discuss what their next steps should be. At some point between last night and this morning, Gaby has acquired a bizarre hat - what appears to be an upside-down pasta strainer crudely decorated with Christmas lights - to go along with her t-shirt and vest. It makes her almost impossible to take seriously.
"This ensemble is getting me places, okay?" she says brightly. "Speaking of, we can check out the library while you're gone. One of those conspiracy theorists told me there might be something juicy buried in the archives."
"The library?" Daphne exclaims. "I loved that place when I was a kid! I know it like the back of my hand."
"Another thing," says Gaby. "I saw the other day that Erwin is selling listening devices at his stand. If I get my hands on some, can you show me how to use them, Juniper?"
"Absolutely! I've been dying to plant some bugs since this whole thing started. It's the only way we'll get anything good since no one in this town talks."
Gracie nods. "It's settled then: archives and espionage." She can't believe she doesn't balk at the thought of illegally spying on random citizens, but Juniper's right: the traditional route simply isn't working. "I'll be back when I can."
When Gaby first sees the library, stately and elegant, with two bronze lions poised on the roof, it strikes her as a safe place, a quiet, calming reprieve from the madness that seems to permeate the very atmosphere outside. But who knows what secrets lie buried in its dusty, unassuming shelves.
Daphne is assured and purposeful, having finally found a task she feels comfortable helping out with. She leads Gaby straight to the archives. There are rows upon rows of identical-looking books, each of them dense with historical documents and records. This could take hours, even days, if anything useful comes of it at all.
They read until their eyes cross, scanning pages and pages of heavily-redacted information. Even the town's original name has been wiped from the records. Although mysterious, the few words they pick up on seem irrelevant to the current circumstances. Gaby's interest is peaked by one clipping in a collection of preserved newspaper articles:
The Military Arrives in Strangerville!
Residents rejoice as a new base opens near the crater. The City Council welcomes the opportunity of new jobs for the struggling town.
She flips quickly through the rest of the clippings but finds only praise for the military's revitalizing effect. There is no negativity or suspicion whatsoever. Either whoever compiled these archives did so at the behest of the military itself, or they've been meticulously altered to scrub any incriminating evidence. "I think this is a dead-end," she tells Daphne.
While Daphne continues combing through the archives, just to be sure, Gaby wanders the rest of the library. She notices several conspiracy theorists congregating and senses an opportunity. She slips into the bathroom to put on her purchased garb, which she'd luckily thought to cram into her bag before leaving, and cautiously approaches, knowing how immediately wary they'll be at the sight of an unfamiliar face.
One theorist in particular, despite his obvious paranoia, seems drawn to Gaby. Eventually, he introduces himself as Alvin, but he clams up again when her questions become too probing.
"I have a few theories about what's going on in that lab," he says vaguely, his muscles visibly stiffening, "but I'm not going to share them with just anyone."
Gaby lays the charm on thick. "I'm not just anyone," she says, leaning coyly toward him. Although it's only a game to get him to talk, she finds herself enjoying it. After all, he's very attractive, even if slightly unhinged.
She can't make sense of his rambling, which is disconnected and disorienting, seemingly a real-time enactment of the half-formed thoughts tying themselves into knots inside his brain. He mutters something about the explosion a few months back and how it isn't what people think it is, even surreptitiously passes her a partially blacked-out report like the one she found in the lab. He keeps repeating the word "sinister." Finally, she draws him close enough to allow her to plant her first bug. Maybe his theory will become more tangible when he believes he's alone with it later.
Downstairs, she finds Daphne napping on a sofa, while a white-coated military scientist hovers nearby. The scientist is anxious and fidgety. It's clear that whatever she's involved in has left her shaken. She wants to talk but is too afraid. Of what, Gaby wonders, or whom? Has the military threatened her with dire consequences if she spills?
She's wringing her hands and muttering to herself when Gaby approaches. "The implications of what we've discovered..." Then she whirls around, sees Gaby, and exclaims without prompting, "What we've been working on in that lab is hardly worth digging into, I assure you! It's entirely above board and totally run-of-the-mill!"
Does she know Gaby's looking for answers or just assuming? Gaby tentatively reaches forward to comfort her. Surprisingly, the woman accepts, and a second bug is planted.
Later, at 8 Bells, while attempting to seduce information from one of the young soldiers taking a load off after a long day of military drills, Gaby spots an oddly familiar-looking bartender. Then it hits her. Aha! He's one of the black-suited men who showed up at the trailer on her first day there! But why is he moonlighting as a mixologist? Is whatever government organization he surely belongs to looking for answers like her, or are they also part of the cover-up? When she questions him, his response is too vague for her to know either way: "Nothing to see here, ma'am. Move along."
Still, she succeeds in shaking off his penetrating gaze long enough to bug her military man, who is too drunk to catch on.
Then she manages to plant one on the shady bartender himself by convincing him he's got something stuck in his dreadlocks. Either this guy isn't as covert as he thinks, or Gaby's tapped into an innate talent for espionage.
Her final target is one of the infected. In fact, he's the town's mayor, Ted Roswell, who's lately been abandoning most of the responsibilities of his position, for obvious reasons. Gaby needs to know if the possession is overtaking him at home, too, or just when he's blindly wandering Strangerville's sidewalks, terrifying his constituents. By now, she's so confident in her bug-planting skills that she does it in plain sight of military personnel, who either don't notice or turn a blind eye.
But Mayor Roswell, or whatever entity is controlling him, isn't as oblivious as his spaced-out expression implies. He wrestles Gaby away, nearly breaking her fingers with sudden inhuman strength. Just as abruptly, he lets her go and ambles woozily away. She thinks she managed to secure the bug, but his (or its) parting words send a shiver up her spine.
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Back at the trailer, Ros is as silent as she was in the early days of their friendship, which worries Juniper. It's like a heavy cloud hangs over her, composed of the repressed memories of her military days she refuses to share with anyone. All this business with the lab is clearly dredging them back up. Juniper turns the dial on the crackling transistor radio to a Top 40 station and begins to dance, daring Ros to catch sight of her from the corner of her eye.
The tiniest of smiles creeps onto her face and she begins waving her arms in imitation of Juniper's moves.
"See, doesn't that feel better?" Juniper asks. Lately, it feels like they've been so wrapped up in the mystery of their surroundings they've forgotten to have any fun at all.
"Oh, you think I can't bust a move?" Suddenly, Ros shimmies low to the ground, her hips swinging back and forth enticingly. She wiggles upright and flashes Juniper a real smile this time, teeth and all. "Think again, Junie." Just like that, she's so light and carefree. Juniper wants to tell her she's beautiful, but something inside holds her back for the thousandth time.
Once Juniper shows her how to work the equipment, Gaby is neck-deep in audio surveillance for days. She only seems to be picking up static on the bartender/government agent's feed (somehow, this doesn't surprise her), but, amidst the hours of background noise and uninteresting small talk, she picks up a few intriguing nuggets to add to their docket of evidence.
From Alvin, the conspiracy theorist: "Yeah, a 'weather balloon' crashed in the crater. That's what they want you to think."
From the scientist: "That... thing... in the lab... The whole town is in danger!"
From the soldier: "No one knows where it came from. Even the eggheads can't figure it out."
From Mayor Roswell: "I mean, what's one... okay, ten... little lies?"
She's spent so long listening intently to grainy audio recordings, not daring to rip her ears away for even a single second, that she has no idea what time or even what day it is when Juniper's voice pulls her back into the real word. "Learning anything interesting?" she asks.
Gaby blearily rubs her eyes. "It's all so jumbled up, but there's obviously something hidden in the lower levels of the lab that's at the center of everything. Whatever it is, it's making people sick. It maybe even caused that explosion."
"Is it just me, or did Mayor Ted sound normal in his recording?"
"Yeah, I can't wrap my head around that, either. Unless the possession isn't continuous. Something in the environment could be triggering it. The flowers? But why doesn't it affect everyone, and do the victims have any memory of it after? Or is the mayor actually faking his own possession to hide his involvement?"
"Sounds like we just have more questions without any answers," Daphne chimes in.
"Yeah, but it further confirms that we need to get into the rest of that lab. Any news on that key card, Juniper?"
"It should be here any day."
But "any day" isn't soon enough for Gaby. The urgency in the scientist's voice especially frightened her, and she thinks she knows someone who might have gotten their hands on a key card they'd be willing to part with for the right price.
"Oh, I've got one, all right," Erwin says when she approaches his stall. "But I need proof you're on the right side before I just hand it over. What can you give to me?"
Grudgingly, she agrees to part with her audio recordings. She's learned everything she can from them, and if Erwin wants to blackmail those involved, that's his business. He seems impressed. The paper bag he surreptitiously slides across the counter contains a single stolen key card. It's battered and filthy, trodden over by dozens of feet attempting to outrun the explosion, she imagines, but hopefully it'll get the job done.
Meanwhile, Juniper checks the mailbox and feels excitement surge in her veins at the sight of an unassuming manila envelope tossed carelessly inside.
"Guess who just managed to procure a key card?" Gaby asks upon her return.
"Me? In the mail just now?"
"No, I got one from Erwin!"
"Well, we should definitely be able to get in then," Juniper responds. "Shall we call your reporter to tell her the news?"
When Gaby's number flashes across the screen, Gracie knows it's the call she's been silently willing into existence for days. Gaby catches her up to speed with everything they've learned since she left. It's maddeningly vague and riddled with unknowns but enough to tell them the answers they're really after almost certainly lie in the restricted areas of the lab. Gracie doesn't hesitate before telling Gaby she'll be there as soon as she packs a bag and secures a cab out of town.
At first, she tried to settle back into the domestic routine. With Ana temporarily on leave from her acting career, Gracie did her best to pamper her and make the remaining length of her pregnancy as comfortable as it could be.
When their twin children, Ari and Cleo, were born, she was happy at first. She felt joy when she looked into their placid faces while they slept, but she was also gripped with horror and dread. In part, she knew it was because she felt guilty for so badly wanting to continue her investigation. But she also fears what will happen to them if she doesn't continue her investigation. What if the infection spreads beyond Strangerville? She can't bear the thought.
The more normal she tried to appear on the surface, the less normal she felt underneath. How can she possibly go back to her old life - walking the dogs with Ana, sorting through an endless mountain of paperwork at the office - when the very existence of humanity hangs in the balance?
She couldn't keep pretending not to feel the mystery's undeniable pull. Instead of spending time with her family, she found herself increasingly drawn to her computer, where she began compiling the notes she'd gathered so far into a pitch for an article. When she turned it in, her boss loved it. He even implied the piece, if done well, could be front page material. She yearned even more deeply to return to Strangerville and the addictive rush of on-the-ground investigation.
Now, Gaby's call finally gives her a reason to go back. They have tangible leads on something big being secreted away in that lab. Whatever they find could change Strangerville - and their lives - forever.