Chapter Text
“Hey,” the word is said as Nic Silver, Alex Reagan’s personal assistant knocks on his boss’s closed door as he opens it. “Alex, have you looked at your email yet this morning? Something weird is going on.”
Sitting by the long clear lines of her glass desk, and framed by the dual windows on either side of her, Alex looks up from her meticulously placed pages from the file on Simon Reese, the fine silver of the pen her parents had given her for her graduation from college stops scratching careful notes on her stretch of legal pad as she studies him.
Nic’s been her best friend since college; her ‘only real friend’ the sultry contours of Amalia’s voice opines in her head. It’s hardly the first time that her ex and friend had said that to her, and Alex is well aware of the fact that it will not be the last. Excitably has long been a defining trait for him, so she normally wouldn’t be bothered by this but he’s not wrong; her anxiety is too high for it to be.
Without waiting for her to ask, Nic comes over and flops into the right of the two expensive chairs before her desk. It’s the right chair, as always because he always claims that it’s the more comfortable of the two. When his concerned puppy dog eyes move over her, Alex Reagan, the most senior and decorated journalist at PNWS, knows that there’s nothing out of place.
Her hair is twisted up still, her contacts well established. The suit that she wears isn’t quite bespoke, but it is expensive and tailored, it’s unwrinkled and armor. Despite everything else, she knows she looks normal. Even with that said, Alex’s sharp eyes never missed the silent censure in her friend that only photos on her desk were carefully laid out crime scene photos of Simon Reese’s parents. At the moment, they were the only photos in her office at all; her shelves presented the awards she’d acquired over the course of her time working for Pacific Northwest Stories.
Knowing that Nic was about to start on a well trodden tangent about his opinions on that subject, Alex instead opened up her computer email box. The email from Fred Barnes is sitting there at the top, but what captures Alex’s gaze is the accusation of the already read tick next to the email that she’d already seen. The very sentence that was the sender feels pointed, and Alex isn’t quite sure why.
‘ [email protected] .’
Flipping back through the collection of her memories of work, Alex cannot recall a Strand anywhere in it, and yet the very familiarity of the name had been the only reason that she’d opened the email at all. People emailed her all the time for assistance with stories, pleas for her help to investigate something, threats because she was a woman who is competent and has opinions.
Alex never just reads random emails anymore. Most of the time they don’t even get to her assistant, never mind her inbox, and yet she’d opened this and read it simply based on ‘Dr. Strand of the Strand Institute’ and she’s not at all sure why. None of it makes sense, and it makes even less sense than before when she reads the email.
Ms. Reagan,
I’m sure if you’re familiar with my work or reputation that you’re going to think that this is some sort of joke, and your doing research is only going to confirm that, but I do believe that there is something that you are the only person who can help me with and I know that you’re going to need my help as well.
I ask you to keep an open mind and call me so that we can meet and discuss this. I can come to Seattle to meet at your offices at your earliest convenience. You can reach me by phone at (312) 555-5215 whenever you wish.
Remember, Alex, there are more things in heaven and on earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Please call.
~Richard
Alex hasn’t called, she hasn’t done research into this mysterious Richard. She’s not going to. She won’t. None of this is real and Alex Reagan has an actual real story to work on.
So, Alex opens the email from Fred Barnes instead, and glances at the video files that are attached to it. “So what’s going on with Simon, Nic?”
Nic shifts in the chair, his fingers crooking in around the length of a phantom vape, before he attempts to cover that by plucking a long gray hair from his BigFoot t-shirt, one of many left from his monster Maine coon, T. C.
“I know we’re supposed to fly out tomorrow for our interview with Reese now that he’s starting to talk again in more than just one tap for yes and two for no.” Alex doesn’t need to tell him that knocks on audio aren’t a compelling narrative even if what they mean would be. “After we confirmed with the hospital, and Simon’s legal team last week, Simon seems to have attacked another patient at the hospital.”
The way that Nic’s framing it captures her attention and she lifts her eyes from the email and focuses on him. “What does ‘seems to’ mean?”
“Fred Barnes included a video,” he explains but both of them know that Alex isn’t going to watch it until she’s ready too. “But the other patient, a kid named Trent Orville, was attacked while in his room. The security camera went out and the staff intervened only because they heard the kid banging on his bed. When they got there, he was alone and his neck was covered in bruises. He said Simon did it but Fred Barnes is claiming that Trent Orville and Simon Reese have never met. Not only that they never met but that the two of them have never even been in the same room together while they’ve been at Three Rivers.”
“So, Dr. Barnes is either lying to himself or to us. We both know that he can’t be sure about something like they’re meeting. There’s always too many holes in security when it’s working perfectly for that to be true. We already knew that Barnes thinks Simon is a seriously ill kid,” Alex looks away from Nic and down at her notes in her neat handwriting. “At least five different diagnoses from five different providers, all in the last seven years and some of them with completely contradictory criteria. And all of them come from before Simon Reese started to speak again. I’m not at all surprised they don’t seem to actually know what’s going on there.”
But Nic knows Alex, and he knows her well so he doesn’t let her dismiss Barnes' obvious panic. At least not yet. “There’s more, Alex. I think you should watch the video before you make any decisions based on this.”
Because Alex trusts Nicodemus Silver more than she trusts anyone else on the planet, she hits play on the video and makes it the full size of her monitor. All of her attention is focused on the recording, and she just tilts her head into an expression of casual disinterest as she takes it in. Despite the sense of impending wrongness somehow, Alex doesn’t allow it to show.
There has never been anything to fear in the darkness for her.
But her feigned disinterest falls off of Alex’s face as she sits up to pause the video as soon as Barnes had shown the black etchings that had been hidden behind the doorway to Simon’s room. Oh, it’s not the large pentagram that’s double ringed that’s drawing her attention; everyone knows that means something occult going back to their earliest childhoods so far that they may as well have been on Sesame Street, it’s what’s around it.
“Hmm. Cuneiform and advanced equations? Not the sort of thing I’d expect for a teenage boy to know, let alone someone who has been locked in an institution since he was eleven. How does an eleven year old kid know this much about Ancient Sumerian?” Alex doesn’t know anything about what the symbols could mean, but she knows that it’s what they’re based in.
“Hyper fixation and the internet?” Nic jokes blandly as Alex gets up to pace, her heeled books clacking against the carpet.
“They’re not supposed to have access to the internet.” But Alex isn’t done. “Did you ever read the full case file? Simon Reese was homeschooled and his parents had pretty severely restricted his internet access even when they were alive. Besides, it’s not as if Sumerian mythology is widely known like Greek, Egyptian or even Norse. There’s nothing like that they found during all of their investigations either. Not the DA, and not Simon’s defense team.”
Alex’s voice tracks off as she moves back and forth, her suit providing her soundtrack as she keeps asking herself that question. None of this is new, however but something unexpected happens that Alex Reagan will never even attempt to explain. For a moment, she’s in front of one of the large exposed windows of her office, staring into the blank islands Terry swears will have actual landscaping done to it eventually, but then she’s gone.
Instead the world is far too big and white, and it feels too cold. The view outside is an expanse of snow opening to a bright blue of water penned in by mountains. They are not the mountains of Alex Reagan’s childhood on Vancouver Island, always reigned by the roaring of the sea. It’s not the Mount Rainier of her adult life either. Intellectually, as an adult, Alex knows that wherever this is, it’s fresh water, a lake somewhere but she has no idea where.
“Come along, Alex,” a deep voiced man says to her uncomfortably but not unkindly, as if he’s speaking an unfamiliar language. “We have to make sure to get you all tucked in safely.” The child she is doesn’t look up at him, instead staring out at that water. He reaches down to take her hand, Alex is sure, and she can feel herself staring to turn—
But then the memory is ripped away by the feeling of Nic’s careful press against her fingers and the concern in his voice. “Alex? Where did you go?”
It’s a reflex for her to lie, to make light of the worries of people who cared about her. “Sorry, I was just trying to remember what some of those symbols mean. Like from The Rosetta Stone but I’ve got nothing.”
Nic, of course, knows she’s lying about this, and after two decades of friendship they allow it. It’s simply a part of the fabric of who they are to one another. When he speaks again, Alex knows that he’s not trying to tell her what to do, but he is appealing to the logical parts of her brain. “Alex, there’s more on the video but Simon says that he attacked Trent. He says he like teleported to the room, just like he did when he killed his parents.”
“Simon confessed?” Alex blinks, “and the legal team still agreed to the interview? That doesn’t make sense.”
“It’s more the timing of all of this that is the problem. All of this came out after everyone confirmed that we are a go for tomorrow. Simon Reese would have known that. This?” Nic gestures quickly to the arm of the chair. “This feels deliberate.”
Pausing in her pacing to pick up her large reusable coffee cup, Alex just leans against the desk next to him and thinks aloud. “If he really wanted out of this interview, then we would have heard about it over the weekend or something. Well before now. Maybe he just really wants this interview to happen.”
Nic’s posture is protest, but he doesn’t give voice to his doubts and concerns. “You still need to watch the rest of the video, Alex. And maybe let’s talk to the other kid before Simon, in case there’s something weird going on, okay?”
“Of course, Nic. Besides, it's not like someone hasn’t tried to manipulate the interviews before. We’ll keep our eyes open. In the meantime, grab a couple of interns and see if we can prove that Reese and Orville had met before, and let’s try and figure out what the math is.” While Alex finishes her orders, she sits down at her desk again and restarts the video from the beginning.
Despite her pen poised over her pad as she watched the video, but when they got to Trent’s room it’s up by her mouth. Nic, who had lingered at the door way comes back over to the desk, and when she rips her gaze up to his at the comment about Simon being on video at the time of the alleged attack, he makes a subtle just wait gesture.
Knowing Alex as well as he does, he anticipates what would have been her next question. “Yeah, they’re both identical as far as we can tell from the video, but they match up, Alex. It’s really fucking weird. ”
Despite the way that Alex’s nose crinkles up the slightest bit when Nic swears—it annoys her cause it’s too easy for it to come out on audio when you use it all the time—she doesn’t think he’s wrong. This is pretty fucking weird.
“They’ve got to be working together, though. It’s the only thing that makes sense. It’s something they’re doing to either get a rise out of us or the staff. Either way I think I’m going to have to talk to Paul and Terry. If Three Rivers is dealing with this many security issues, and either honestly don’t know or are actively covering it up, then we’re going to need to put a stop to it. You go call legal and make certain that they know what we may possibly be looking into. No one wants to be on the receiving end of a panicked phone call from you, Nic.” She can feel herself giving him a quick smile that feels like her old self, and Nic’s reflects that back.
“While we’re doing that, let’s get the interns going on FOIA paperwork for all of the hospital’s visitor logs; those are public just like they would be in any other prison system. When they come through, have the interns start going over them with a fine tooth comb. Remind the kids that it’s Sushi night for anyone staying late.” It had long been a rule since Alex had been made the lead producer on PNWS that those who chose to work late got dinner and a Lyft home from the studio and back to work later the next morning so she didn’t burn them out.
“After I’m done with Paul and Terry, or even better, while I’m waiting for them to put together the conference call, I’ll start seeing if I can find out if the two boys have ever been inside together somewhere else, and how long he’s been there now.”
With everyone’s marching orders given; including her own, Nic actually gets as far as the open doorway this time before she calls him back again. “Have Legal remind Dr. Barnes that he’s the one who asked for our help with this. He’s the one who brought Trent Orville into our investigation. He doesn’t just get to take him out of it because it’s not going in the direction he expected it too. But only if we have too.”
Alex Reagan spends the rest of the day burrowed into the story. Of course it was the one that would demand her focus, challenge her skills and devour her attention. When she finally leaves the studio at three am, it’s armed with the knowledge that the studio has her back completely, there are experts lined up to go over the things that had been drawn on the boys walls, the weaknesses within the system of the prison’s security itself! Locked in the confines of the monogrammed ‘A.C.R.’ Briefcase held over her shoulder there’s even more irrefutable evidence in the form of hard copies of the visitor log irregularities and photographic evidence of how the camera could both have been rigged to fail on Trent’s end and had exposed blind spots that are spotted on the video that Barnes had sent. Digital files are handily present on a zip file including the video. Just in case.
When Alex steps out of the doors to the studio at 1:46 am, she’s the last one to do so and it comes with no small amount of satisfaction as well. All she wants now is to get home and have an obscenely long and hot shower, a brief nap and pack in order to get to the airport by seven am. It’s even before the furthest light in the parking lot starts to sputter that the general sensation of being watched that she always has at the studio—a side effect of sitting in front of such big windows day in and day out—solidifies and sharpens itself into a dagger somewhere against her spinal cord.
While Alex Reagan is a skeptic she’s also not a fucking idiot. Fear can be a gift and right now, it’s screaming at her that something is not right. So right then; the safety cap is off the mace clenched in her hand and her car keys are bared between her knuckles. Danny Reagan had taught his daughter to fight since she was small and she was ready to do so now.
Before the security light on the building behind her starts to even flicker, Alex runs. She’s always been a runner, because it helps her think so her brain kicks into gear as well. Only car in the parking lot is hers, hitting the starter and unlock button on her keying is an acceptable risk. She doesn’t see anyone but that definitely doesn’t mean that she can’t not check the car for safety.
As soon as Alex’s hand touches the door handle to her car, all of the lights in the parking lot turn back on at once. They even glow brighter as if to make her aware of the fact of just how alone she is here. But that’s a spare panicked thought and not a logical one so Alex fights to force her fingers to jerk her door open. Before she can actually make it inside of her Subaru, the wind races up, gathering all of the debris in the parking lot as it hisses past her. For the briefest second, the air around her almost seems to have a voice that scratches out three words in her mind.
See you soon.
Even Alex Reagan herself doesn’t know just how far her best intentions will fall short. In three business days, she’ll receive not one but two automated speeding tickets for the whirlwind of her trip back to her apartment. The only thing that Alex will be able to remove is her shoes before she crawls into her bed with a bottle of scotch and her blankets around her like a nest including over her head.
Every time she starts to even approach drifting off to sleep, something that Alex can’t remember wakes her gasping from gossamer nightmares that vanish as soon as she opens her eyes. The nightmares have been something that she’s carried her whole life and they’ve always been the same.
The difference comes when Alex hears that same man’s voice from whatever weird thing hadn’t happened earlier but it’s changed now. There’s everything less kind and more urgent about the man now, and she can feel the way that his words wired groves into her heart and lined the stone pathways in her brain. It’s something that she’s never been able to fully remove from her hardwiring even if she’s not known what it was.
“ Apophenia, Alex. You must remember apophenia. It’s the only way to keep everyone safe. It’s the only way to stop anything from hurting you.”
“Why does something want to hurt me?” Alex doesn’t remember asking whoever the man is that question, just like she doesn’t remember how young her voice is when she’s asking it.
“You're special, Alex. Most people have no idea how special you are. Most people have no idea what it’s cost to ensure you get safely out of this. To ensure that you have this lesson. If you don’t remember the logic, that these things aren’t real. If you turn away from scientific fact, Alex, then we’re going to lose you. If we lose you, we lose everything and everyone.
The man seems to realize then that he’s scaring her to death, so he tries a different tactic instead. “But if you remember this, you will be safe , Alex.”
“From my father?” There’s such fear in Alex’s voice that she doesn’t understand, the shorthand way that ‘my father’ actually means ‘that fucking bastard’ hits something deep inside of her.
“Yes, Alexandra. It’ll keep you safe from him most of all. Now tell me again! What’s apophenia?”
Alex in her dreams doesn’t answer, instead she’s woken by the shrill and persistent beeping sound of her phone. Even then Alex can’t stop herself from saying aloud to her blankets and her hangover from the too much scotch: “Apophenia is the need to believe without proof, and to find some sort of supernatural reasoning in normal everyday patterns.”