Archive of Our Own ^beta

This is not how Vi thought her day was going to go. 

It had started perfectly normal, so routine, it was hardly memorable. That is, until about an hour into her Friday morning lecture. She’d been instructing a small group of trainees on the physiology of electrocution based homicide and what evidence to look for in the field. 

Lost in the rhythm of her monologue on necrosis in the heart and reddish abrasions to the skin. When, a man, utterly unassuming, suddenly entering her classroom stole her and everyone else’s attention.

He strode up to her podium and silently handed her a note calling her into headquarters with Section Chief Hoskel at 1600 hours. 

The plain man was gone as quickly as he arrived, but he had fully taken her focus with him, and she stumbled through her points for the rest of the class, thoughts stuck on the little card in her pocket and what the chief could possibly want with her. 

Vi would like to think that this little meaning might have something to do with her outstanding performance or status as everyone’s favorite professor. But hours later, as she makes her way up to the receptionist, fiddling with the buttons on the blazer she luckily had in her car, Vi is becoming more and more sure it’s going to be some baseless complaint about her conduct, again.

The woman behind the desk is friendly enough, Vi gives her as warm a smile as she can manage while she checks her in and directs her up to the third floor. 

Vi tries to settle her rising nerves, moving through the crowded floor of the violent crimes division with sure steps, weaving between the tidy rows of desks and people bustling about with absolutely no concern for who or what could be in their way.  

She smiles politely as agents and assistants lift their heads to look at her or as she side-steps around them, while they all go about their business. She lets it drop again the moment she makes it to the hallway. Steeling herself as she comes to knock on the appropriate door. 

Vi runs a hand over her perpetually unruly hair, tucking a few of the loose strands behind her ear. 

A beat or two later, a male voice calls for her to come in. 

Chief Hoskel sits behind his desk at the far end of the room, looking down at some kind of document in his hand. He doesn’t look up from his work or acknowledge her when she enters, as he’s simply far too important and busy for that.

Vi valiantly holds back the urge to roll her eyes. Her gaze then naturally shifts to the other two people in the room. A thin, blonde man seated in a chair beside the main desk with a stack of files on his lap and then to a woman in the corner, startlingly tall and just as beautiful, with deep brown skin and gray hair, smoking a cigarette and watching Vi intently. 

They probably find themselves very intimidating. Vi hates that she has to act like she thinks so too.

Hoskel finally looks up, placing his papers fully onto his desk. “Agent Wilk, thank you for coming on such short notice.” He motions for her to take a seat across the table. “Please.”

Vi sits down in the offered chair and crosses her legs on instinct as though she’s not wearing her usual gray slacks. 

“We see you've been with us just over two years.” Chief Hoskel says vaguely. 

Vi nods and wrestles her attitude about what this could possibly be about into submission. “Yes, sir.” 

His expression stays flat and unreadable as he looks at her across the desk. “You went to medical school but chose not to practice. How did you come to work for the FBI?” 

“Well, sir.” Vi hesitates, quickly tacking on the honorific, increasing weariness setting her on edge. “I was recruited out of med school. My dad probably still thinks it was an act of rebellion, but I saw the FBI as a place I could distinguish myself.”

Vi usually likes to sugar coat herself in moments like this, wrap up the tattered pieces of her life in presentable bows, and maybe she is, but that is technically the truth. Coming to work for the Bureau in the glittering city of Piltover wasn’t always the plan, and it definitely wasn’t Vadner’s, but out of the options available to her, it’s not the worst place she could have ended up. 

Vi smiles tightly, switching her crossed legs uneasily in her seat. 

Chief Hoskel continues to leaf silently through his folders. Typical. 

Suddenly the other man beside the desk speaks up. “Are you familiar with agent Caitlyn Kiramman?” 

Vi blinks at the question. Curious, but the name does ring an immediate bell in Vi’s mind. She’s never met or even seen the woman before, but she’s certainly heard of her. Kind of impossible not to. There are still a dozen directions this conversation could go in, but Vi is at the very least, grateful that the immediate focus has shifted away from herself. 

“Only by reputation.” Vi hedges. And what a reputation indeed. Agent Kiramman has managed to carve out quite a name for herself, interestingly without much help from her mom, Cassandra Kiramman, a prominent member of the Council. To the point that most people aren’t even aware they are related. 

The three continue to stare Vi down and she goes on. “Um, she's an Oxford educated psychologist who wrote a monograph on serial killers and the occult, that helped catch Monte Propps in nineteen eighty-eight. She is generally thought of as the best analyst in the Violent Crime Section.” A chuckle bubbles in Vi’s throat before she can totally stop it. “And she had a nickname at the academy, Spooky Kiramman.”

Her laughter dies almost as quickly as it bloomed, catching the women still watching her from the corner, eyes burning like the cigarette in her hand. 

Hoskel nods at her explanation. “What I'll also tell you is Agent Kiramman has developed a consuming devotion to an un-assigned project outside of the Bureau mainstream. Are you familiar with the so-called X-files?”

Another bell goes off in Vi’s head, she is unable to fully choke down her amusement this time, an incredulous smile tugging at her lips. “I believe they have to do with unexplained phenomena.” 

“More or less.” Chief Hoskel says. “The reason you're here, Agent Wilk, is we want you to assist Kiramman on these X-files. You'll write field reports of your activities, along with your observations on the validity of the work, which you will report exclusively to this group.” 

Vi eyes the chief for a moment, reading through the less than subtle subtext there. 

Okay, some of this is starting to make some sense now. They are chucking her off to deal with their problem agent. 

By nature, Vi would imagine, the X-files is a project that largely flies under the Bureau's radar. Vi’s certainly never heard so much of a peep about it outside of breakroom gossip, and even then, it’s rare. 

She’d also be willing to bet it still manages to be something of a dark spot for Hoskel and his pristine reputation, to have such a silly department and there should-be golden girl working on it. And now they want Vi to find a reason to shut it down. Force Kiramman back onto normal homicide cases. Without disturbing the mom, perhaps? 

Vi really hates that she can almost follow the logic here; she is a scientist, and educator, unaffiliated with any other fieldwork and generally well liked by the other agents. If anyone could go in, make nice and find the holes in the legitimacy of this operation, it’s her. Which is in many ways more frustrating than if they were wasting her time simply on the basis that they don’t respect her. 

Vi clears her throat. “Am I to understand you want me to…debunk the X-files project, sir?” She really tries to keep the dubious tone out of her voice, she’s only so successful.

“Agent Wilk, we trust you'll make the proper scientific analysis.” He says simply, pointedly.

Oh yeah, I’ll bet you do. Vi thinks, but lets the obvious threat drop, rolling her shoulders against the back of her chair. 

“You'll want to contact Agent Kiramman shortly. We look forward to seeing your reports.” 

It’s as clear a dismissal as Vi has ever heard. But Vi holds chief Hoskel’s gaze. She wants to ask more questions; she wants to call this ridiculous; putting the teacher's pet next to the class clown doesn’t work and grade school and it certainly won't do any good now. But with these three staring her down, all Vi can do is grit her teeth and nod. 

...

It takes Vi a while to find the right room, she hasn’t had much reason to come down to the basement before and navigating the space is turning out to be quite the challenge. 

It’s fairly dim, no windows and only a few scattered fluorescent lights along the ceiling. Though there’s not too much to see really, just dusty equipment and file boxes stacked tightly on the shelves that line the walls, making the hallways all the more difficult to distinguish. 

Eventually Vi turns the right corner, and finds the room she’s looking for, with the door helpfully labeled “X-files” and just ever so slightly ajar, with a light spilling through the gap. 

Vi knocks, mostly as a formality, hand already gripping the handle. And as soon as she does, a voice, deep and accented, follows. “Sorry, nobody down here but Piltover’s most unwanted.”

It startles Vi, the sudden joke sending her reeling like every other part of today, but she doesn’t hesitate to push the door open the rest of the way, or to enter. 

The room itself is another odd sight, but not a particularly surprising one, given everything. Though it’s unkempt in a way that feels very out of place at Bureau headquarters, reminiscent of both a teenage boy’s bedroom and noir detective’s a murder board. More clutter than anything, stacks of papers, reports, photos of strange lights and what are probably meant to be UFOs, images as blurry as they are dubious, and in the middle of it all, a wall poster that reads: I WANT TO BELIEVE. 

The final thing Vi’s eyes land on is Agent Kiramman herself, hunched over a handful of slides splayed out on a light box. 

After hearing however many stories about her for however long, the image Vi concocted in her head was never going to be anything like the real thing, but it’s still surreal seeing her in the flesh. 

Even from behind, Vi can get a decent read on her appearance. There’s a charmingly messy look to her as well; she’s wearing a suit with no jacket, sleeves pushed up to her elbows, and she’s got dark cobalt blue hair in a high ponytail with a few strands falling loose around her face and neck. 

“Agent Kiramman.” Vi says as warmly as she can manage, announcing herself properly to the woman before her. 

Kiramman swivels around, leaning back in her chair as she looks up to greet her – and Vi takes in the sight like a blow to the head. Instantly struck completely dumb, her brain and eyes moving sluggishly, as she takes in her features one by one. 

Kiramman is – absolutely stunning, in a way Vi didn’t know people could be in real life. Walking the line between classically handsome and eatheraly elegant. Like an old movie star. Though that sharpness is all softened considerably by her messy hair and the glasses perched low on her strong nose.

“Uh, Hi. I’m Violet Wilk. I’ve been assigned to work with you.” Vi says, after what was hopefully not too long of a moment, smiling and holding out her hand for a shake. 

Kiramman’s face doesn’t change as she takes Vi’s hand. “Well isn’t it nice to suddenly be so highly regarded.” 

Her tone is mildly suspicious but not necessarily unpleasant. She’s eyeing Vi closely as she gives her offered hand a steady shake.

She turns back to her slides again, sweeping a few off the table to put back in their case. “So, who on earth did you piss off to get stuck with this detail, Wilk?” 

Vi can feel her hackles raise at the woman’s demeanor, no pleasantries, or formalities, vaguely dismissive of her presence. Everyone finds their own way to adapt to the boy’s club, but it’s no less irritating each time.

“I think it's more who I didn't piss off, actually.” Vi says, eager to correct her. “But, I'm looking forward to working with you. I've heard a lot about you.”

Understatement of the century. 

“Oh really?” Kiramman says, eyes flitting between Vi and the slides she’s putting away. “I was given the impression you were sent to spy on me.” 

Once again, her words hold no real animosity, just a simple statement of fact. But there's a challenge, in her acknowledgement of what most people would pretend they didn’t know or at least politely ignore.

“But you have any doubts about my qualifications–” Vi starts, her amiable smile starting to slip into a frown.

“You are a medical doctor.” Kiramman interrupts, standing abruptly and beginning to dig through her messy stacks of files. 

And Vi is promptly struck stupid once more, this time by just how fucking tall Kiramman is. She’s not that much taller than Vi, really, but she’s exceptionally lanky and Vi still takes a preemptive step back to stop herself from having to crane her neck backwards to look her in the eye. While Kiramman, casually towering, moves through the cramped space. 

Vi shakes her head internally. She didn’t know there was a limit on the number of searingly intense, tall, beautiful women she could meet in a single day without her senses turning to actual mush. She certainly didn’t know that it capped off at two, but here we are. Of all the meaningless gossip she’s been subjected to, why wasn’t this ever mentioned? 

“And you're teaching at the academy.” Kiramman goes on, completely oblivious to Vi’s plight. “You did your undergraduate degree in physics…” She pulls out a folder from the stack and reads off the title. “Einstein's Twin Paradox. A New Interpretation. Violet Wilk’s senior thesis. Now there's a credential, rewriting Einstein.” She seems amused as she says it, placing the papers haphazardly on the cluttered desk, already on the hunt for something else.

“Did you bother to read it?” Vi works her jaw, already bracing herself. 

“I did.” Kiramman replies, easily. “Twice, I thoroughly enjoyed it.” 

Vi blinks, some of her frustration settling down, replaced instantly by shock. That was – not what she was expecting. She’s had lots of people offer their opinion on her theory, few that have been genuinely positive and fewer still that were based on anything beyond the introduction.

Kiramman starts fiddling with the projector, putting the slide roll into place. “It’s only that in most of my work, the laws of physics rarely seem to apply.” 

Vi narrows her eyes. Hmm, that’s more like it. 

Vi isn’t quite ready to write her off as an asshole just yet. Maybe it’s optimism, maybe attraction, or maybe it's the fact that this chick is just all over the place. She’s known Kiramman for barely two minutes and she’s already been jerked in about eight different directions. She’s never seen someone with posture so rigid, with a presence so unprofessional; it’s impossible to get a read on her. 

But that doesn’t mean she likes her.

Vi lets some more of her irritation properly show on her face, tongue running across the edge of her teeth while her eyes track Kiramman as she fiddles about with the angle of the projector. 

Kiramman moves past her again, face still completely blank. Then she flips off the overhead lights and the room is lit up again by the image of a deceased young woman lying on the forest floor projected on the far wall. 

“Maybe you can give me your medical opinion on this though.” Kiramman stands beside the projector again, picking up the report she’d apparently been looking for and begins to speak just slightly louder than before, to be heard over the whirring of the projector. “Oregon female. No explainable cause of death. Absolutely nothing in the autopsy.” She announces, sounding vaguely exasperated. 

Kiramman changes the slide, it clicks loudly. “There are, however, these two distinct marks on her lower back. Doctor Wilk, can you identify them?” 

Vi tries not to give much attention to Kiramman’s tone, or the fact that she just had this presentation ready to go apparently, how long did she know Vi was coming? Focusing her eyes on the victim, moving closer to the image, studying it. 

At first they almost look like bug bites, but their placement is too uniform, the skin too raised. 

“Needle punctures, maybe. An animal bite. Electrocution of some kind.” Vi offers, shrugging slightly as she turns to look back at Kiramman. 

“How's your chemistry?” She says instead of an answer and switches the slides again. 

Vi doesn’t even try to stop herself from rolling her eyes. So this is a test she is meant to fail, goody. 

The image changes to a diagram of some kind of chemical compound. Vi stares at it, eyebrows pinching as she thinks. “It's inorganic.” She pauses briefly, counting the bonds, mind flipping through memorized shapes, but she can’t ever remember seeing something like this. “I don't know...is it some kind of synthetic protein?” Vi looks back at Kiramman again, unable to quell the genuine curiosity in her voice, despite her persisting annoyance. 

And to her utter shock, Kiramman shrugs, looking at a total loss herself. “I have no idea. I’ve never seen it either.” 

Huh.

“But here it is again in Sturgis, South Dakota.” She clicks to the next slide, this one showing a large male biker with those same marks on his lower back. Then another slide, a photo of a second male with the marks, lying face down on the pavement. “And again, in Shamrock, Texas.” 

“Do you have a theory?” Vi asks, invested. 

“I have plenty of theories.” Kiramman says with a humorless chuckle, and she walks back over to Vi. “What has me stumped is why it’s Bureau policy to label these cases as unexplained phenomena and ignore them.” 

She raises a good point, but Vi can tell there is more, so she simply puts her hands on her hips and waits for her to continue. 

Kiramman puts her own hands behind her back, shoulders straightening. Her face and voice are so genuine when she speaks, it’s a bit startling. “Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?” 

There is also obvious trepidation in her tone, like she already knows what’s coming, the condescension, the dismissal, the laughter. Huh. 

Vi isn’t going to do the disservice of lying to her, but she can’t quite quell her grin. She gives one shoulder a chick shrug. “Logically, I’d have to say no.” 

Kiramman nods easily at that, the first smile of her own pulling at the side of her mouth. It’s a small, wry thing. 

Vi continues, because she really does have a point. “Given the distance needed to travel from the far reaches of space, the energy requirements alone would exceed–”

“–Conventional wisdom.” Kiramman interrupts, for the second time, and she takes a step closer. “That girl in Oregon, she's the fourth member of her graduating class to die under mysterious circumstances. When convention and science offer no answers, might we not consider the fantastic as a plausibility?” 

Vi looks at her for a second, taking that in. Again, it almost feels like a challenge, like she’s seeing how far she can push this point before Vi goes running.

Vi huffs. “The girl obviously died of something. If it was natural causes, then it's plausible something was missed in the postmortem. If she was murdered, it's plausible there was a sloppy investigation. What I find fantastic is any notion that there are answers beyond the realm of science. The answers are there.” Vi takes a step forward herself now, looking up right into Kiramman’s eyes. “You just have to know where to look.”

A real, proper smile spreads across Kiramman’s face, and she leans in closer then too. She’s close enough now that Vi can see that there's a tiny gap between her front teeth. 

“And that’s why they put the I in FBI.” 

She walks past Vi then, heading back over to her war zone of a desk, speaking again without looking back. “I’ll see you bright and early then, Wilk. We leave for the very plausible state of Oregon at eight a.m.” 

Vi watches her, with her hands still braced on her hips. What a freak, she thinks, shaking her head as a smile of her own breaks out without her permission. 

...

Later, Vi’s sitting on her bed with most of her working wardrobe spilled out over the floor. She came in here with the intention of packing and eating dinner, but she’s mostly just reading through the case file she got from Kiramman, glasses on, and picking idly at her take out that’s long gone cold. 

The assembled documents contain the autopsy reports and several newspaper clippings from the initial incidents. With yearbook photos, accompanying headlines like: "FORMER HONOR STUDENT'S BODY FOUND IN STATE PARK" and "4TH TRAGIC FATALITY BEFALLS CLASS OF '89." 

Vi makes note of the name Dr. Nemman, which pops up multiple times throughout the articles, identifying him as the one to have performed the autopsy. In all except the most recent case.

The phone rings then, the shrill sound smashing right through Vi’s cursory thoughts of what this man could have to do with this. What he could have missed? Why? 

Vi reaches her body over to the bedside table, grabbing the phone and tucking it between her shoulder and ear as she settles back into her spot. “Hello.” 

“You know, sis, I love a cryptic voicemail as much as the next guy, but if you keep leaving them, I’m not gonna know when to take them seriously.” Jinx’s raspy voice comes through the line and Vi smiles. 

“It wasn’t cryptic, I really am going to Oregon this weekend.”

“For what, a field trip?” Jinx teases. “Does your academy do field trips? ‘Cause if so I chose the wrong major.” 

“Pfft no, it’s a new assignment. I’m consulting on a case that may or may not involve aliens.” Vi says, making one handed air quotes around the word even though Jinx can’t see her. “I doubt we’ll actually find any, but either way I’m definitely not making it up to dad’s tomorrow.” 

She’s a little bummed out about that actually. Vi has been wanting to fix up some things around that house for months. Vander’s knees are getting so bad he can’t really do it on his own, and he absolutely won’t ask for help, so Vi’s strategy is to flat out beat him to it.

“We?” Jinx asks, stretching out the vowel with a palpable thrill in her voice. 

“What?”  

“You said, I doubt we’ll find any.” 

Vi purses her lips, annoyed at herself and her slip-up, that wasn’t even a slip-up because it’s not interesting or a secret, and even more so that Jinx somehow still managed to catch it. VI still tries to push her original point anyway. “Jinx, dad’s? You know if I don’t go you’ll have to.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll go, don’t worry about it, I hope he enjoys the sound of me typing and not helping him fix the back steps. But you will not evade me Violet, I knew I sensed a hidden meaning. Who’s we?” 

Vi huffs and lays back against her pillows, cord stretching over her chest. “Would you cool it? It’s just another agent. It’s Caitlyn Kiramman, I barely know her, I’ve just been assigned to work on a few cases with her. Offer my scientific opinion, write reports, things like that.” 

There’s a pause on the other end of the line. “Creepy Kiramman?” 

“It’s Spooky, actually, but yours is way better.” Vi wishes she could be surprised no one ever thought of the obvious alliterative choice, federal agents really suck the creativity out of everything. “–Wait, you know her?” 

Jinx blows through her lips. “Not really, but a year or so back, she supposedly got one of the Council members to sponsor some kind of UFO project. We tried to cover it but nobody would talk to us.”

Jinx is currently interning at a local paper down in Zaun while she finishes up her journalism degree. It’s hardly a tiny operation, certainly not by Zaun standards, Vi’s seen their paper for sale all over even in Piltover, but Jinx still easily could have worked somewhere of a little more widespread notoriety, but for some reason she insisted. 

Vi sits up at that, propping herself onto her elbow. “Her mom right?” 

“You’d think, but Kiramman – Councilor Kirammam – made it pretty clear that it wasn’t her.” 

“Do you have any idea who it was, or why they did it?” Vi asks. 

“I have my guesses, but I’m not actually sure, no one ever managed to get the full story.” Jinx’s voice takes on a conspiratorial tone. “But I’m thinking, if she’s got even more connections like that on the Council, it makes sense why the FBI hasn’t shut her down, even after embarrassing them like that.” 

Vi’s eyes trail over the files laid out across her bed. “Maybe.” 

As unsure of Kiramman as Vi is, she seems entirely genuine in her pursuits. Vi can’t imagine devoting so much time and effort into something she didn’t believe in, but that still doesn’t really explain the why. 

Why does she care enough about aliens of all things to spend her career hiding in the basement when she’s more than talented and clearly connected enough to rise through the ranks with ease. Even as weird as she is. Which also begs the questions, how does she have these connections, why are they so willing to help her and why isn’t her mom one of them?

“But hey,” Jinx says, snatching Vi back out of her thoughts. “If you do have any close encounters, try to get a picture. Maybe it’ll be my big break and I won’t have to murder my boss with the coffee pot he has me glued to.” 

Vi snorts. “I’m pretty sure leaking classified information to the press goes against the most basic procedures of my job, but I’ll see what I can do.” 

“I’m not the press, I’m your baby sister.” 

“You’re a pain in my ass.” Vi retorts. “Now, can we please talk about something else?” 

Jinx giggles at her misery but easily dives right into a story about her miserable day and Vi listens dutifully while she stares at her half-packed suitcase lying open on the floor. 

...

They’ve made it into town easily enough, acquired a rental car, some snacks and now Kiramman is driving them steadily down an interstate highway, passing through thick woodlands on their way to their meeting with the coroner. 

Kiramman tries to find a good station on the radio, flipping through channels before ultimately giving up and letting the local news play softly between them. She sits back with a bag of sunflower seeds, shaking a small handful in her palm before tossing one in her mouth. 

Vi watches her, with an elbow leant on the window, the files from the previous night lying in her lap. 

“You didn't mention yesterday that this case has already been investigated.” Vi comments, idly running her fingers over the empty piercing holes in her ear. A habit she picked up after having to take out all her studs.

Kiramman swallows the seed currently in her mouth. “The FBI looked into the first three deaths after local authorities failed to turn up any evidence. Our guys came out, spent a week, gave a thorough inspection of the local salmon, but without explanation, they were called in and the case was reclassified. Buried in the X-files until I dug it up last week.”  

Kiramman drops her seed shells in the ashtray, fiddles again with the radio when it switches to a noisy commercial; a remarkable intensity about her, even in repose.

Vi huffs, valiantly dragging her eyes away from that long nose, and sharp jawline and out through the windshield. “And you saw something they didn't.”

“Mhmm.” 

“The autopsy reports on the first three victims showed no unidentified marks or tissue samples.” Vi says, tapping the folder in her lap. “But those reports were signed by a different medical examiner than the latest victim.” 

Kiramman turns her head slightly, a genuine smile blooming on her face. “Pretty good, Wilk.” 

“Better than you expected or better than you hoped?” Vi challenges. 

Kiramman shrugs, tossing another seed in her mouth. “I'll let you know when we get past the easy stuff.” 

Vi studies her blank, inscrutable profile. She still can’t get a read on what kind of person Kiramman is, definitely strange but she seems nice enough, even if she’s far from personable. Every interaction leaves her with more questions than answers, in one moment she will seem to be so much, all eager enthusiasm and pure heart on her sleeve passion, and then in the next it’s gone, shuttered behind a stiff, icy facade. 

“Is the medical examiner a suspect?” Vi asks in favor of more aimless contemplations.

Kiramman shakes her head slightly. “We can’t know until we do a little gravedigging. I've arranged to exhume one of the other victims' bodies to see if we can get a tissue sample that matches the girl's.” She startles a little at her own statement, eyes flashing to Vi before going back to the road. “You're not squeamish about these things are you?”

Vi stays quiet for a beat, a long gone memory flashing across her vision, over the trees that pass by, fire and blood and wide empty eyes. Her fingers tingle a bit where they rest against her lap and ear, and she lets a practiced calm wash over her, keeping her gaze out the window as she says, calmy. “No.” 

Kiramman nods, and gives her another smile, this one a little tighter but no less genuine. Then it’s gone again, just as quickly as it appeared

In the next moment, they both react to the radio suddenly switching rapidly between channels like someone is spinning the dial, even though neither of them had touched it. It’s then followed by a loud, low hum of garbled static. Vi only pulls her eyes away from the dash at Kiramman sitting bolt upright, looking out the windows, every which way. 

She brings the car to an abrupt stop in the middle of the road, Vi opens her mouth to ask what's wrong. But Kiramman is already on the move, popping the trunk open and she’s out the door before Vi can even blink. 

A beat or two later, Vi’s brain finally catches up to what’s happening and also exits the car after her to see what’s going on. She finds Kiramman rummaging around the trunk, searching beneath their suitcases for something. 

Then she has a can of orange spray paint, of all things, in her hands. Did she bring that with her? Utterly baffled, Vi silently watches Kiramman as she walks about five yards from the car, back down the highway, looks around, then paints a large orange X on the asphalt.

Vi stares, hands on her hips, incredulous, a joke about a federal agent vandalizing government property fighting to form in her head, but it can’t seem to stay together.

When done with – whatever she’s doing – Kiramman just walks back to the car, throws the paint can back in the trunk, stacking their suitcases back into place and closes it. Then goes back around to her side of the car, reaching for her door, as though nothing at all is amiss about her behavior in the past twenty seconds. 

“What the fuck?” Vi says at long last. 

Kiramman’s immaculate brows are furrowed, but she doesn’t look at her, eyes scanning the area intently. “Probably nothing.” 

With that incredibly vague not-reply, she gets back in the car, leaving Vi standing out on the road, shaking her head, wondering if this strange, strange woman is actually just fucking with her for some kind of ‘first case in the field’ hazing, or if this trip is how Vi dies. 

...

It was a quiet drive the rest of the way, but at least the radio started working again. Vi doesn’t try to ask about what that was and Kiramman doesn’t elaborate, and it ultimately doesn’t matter because soon enough they’re pulling up the service road towards the gravesite. 

A man who is probably the coroner they’re supposed to meet and his assistants are standing at the base of the knoll. A group of laborers, cemetery workers, and local cops mill about in the area as well. The coroner and his men start toward their car as they exit. 

The coroner holds his hand out to Kiramman as they approach. “Ms. Kiramman? John Truitt, County Coroner's office.”

“Yes, hello.” She says, taking his hand. “This is special agent Violet Wilk.” She gestures and Vi follows the lead, offering a hand of her own. 

“How soon can we get started?” Kiramman asks then. 

Kiramman has an easy, unapologetic command of the space, her lack of further pleasantries instantly send a different sensation curling through Vi's stomach than they had the day before in her office. 

“We’re ready to go.” Truitt says and whistles up to a man leaning on a backhoe beside the grave. 

“Wonderful.” Kiramman says. 

As they climb the knoll and Vi tries to settle yet more information about her new partner in her head, another car pulls up at the base and comes to a very hasty stop on the access road. 

A thin man, with thinner hair, probably around his mid forties, exits the vehicle, and starts toward the scene. But then he stops, turns back to address a young woman who's now gotten out of the car too. There's a tense exchange Vi can't quite make out, but he obviously wants her to wait in the car, practically shoving her back into the passenger seat. 

Kiramman has also turned to watch this interaction unfold, head tilted curiously. She stays in that pose, staring at the girl who finally gets back in the car and the thin man continues his stride toward them. 

“Excuse me.” He says, moving quickly, jaw clenched in clear irritation. “Who do you people think you are? You come out here and just do whatever you damn well please, don't you?”

Oh, well isn’t he a joy. Vi thinks. 

“I’m sorry, you are?” Kiramman asks, entirely unfazed by his presence or actions, and seeming suddenly towering as she stares down at him from her full height.

It’s weird, Vi had sort of forgotten how tall she is. They’ve been standing next to each other basically all day, but there’s something about seeing it from this angle. Maybe that’s the real reason Hoskel hasn’t shut her down, pure intimidation. 

“Dr. Jay Nemman. The County Medical Examiner.” The man introduces himself, a displeased lilt to his voice. 

Vi perks up at that, recalling the name littering their case file. 

“Agent Kiramman, FBI.” Kiramman says, then gestures to Vi. “This is Agent Wilk. With all due respect, we're investigating a possible homicide here, sir. We don't mean to step on any toes.” Kiramman looks down at him, largely impassive even as she performs all the proper placations. 

There’s something almost amused in her expression though, mouth twitching like she’s made a joke that only she is in on, that takes Vi by surprise. 

Nemman’s face flashes with rage, stepping closer to Kiramman, like that doesn’t make him have to look up further. “We've grieved for these kids. Their families and friends. My daughter...she's beside herself right now.” 

Kiramman looks at Vi, acknowledging that the man, while obnoxious, has something of a point. Vi’s attention goes immediately over to the young women in the car. 

“This comes as a bit of a surprise. You must have been informed of our intentions–” Kiramman says, a little softer now, almost confused. 

“I’ve – I’ve been away…with my family.” He says, vague enough to have Vi immediately raising an eyebrow. 

“Oh. Well, that answers a question we had.” Kiramman looks towards Vi again briefly. “Why you hadn't done the recent autopsy on Karen Swenson. You are aware of the tissue sample taken from the girl's body?” Kiramman asks, demeanor perfectly calm again, tone innocent. 

Dr. Nemman is now the one taken by surprise. His face screws up. “What's the insinuation? You think I missed something in those other kids’ exams?” 

Vi blinks a few times at that, really not expecting such obvious and aggressive defensiveness right off the bat. He may as well have run up to them with “I’m suspicious” written on his large forehead. 

Kiramman’s head, once again, ticks to the side. 

“We’re not insinuating anything, sir.” Vi doesn’t fight to hide her amusement, only turning to demonstrate that the conversation is over.

Kiramman starts to follow Vi up the knoll, but it seems they’ve pushed the wrong buttons on Dr. Nemman, and he follows after them. 

“Hey! I’m talking to you. You come here making accusations – you better be able to back them up.” With that, Dr. Nemman grabs Kiramman by the shoulder. 

It’s not necessarily rough, but it is immediately jarring to see the man grab her this way. Vi feels her mild frustration morph into real rage, igniting in her chest and doesn’t even try to force it down, she steps back down toward them, ready to get him the fuck off her, professionalism be damned. 

Kiramman has also turned to look at him, her countenance more annoyed than anything else. But before any one can really react, and Vi can properly earn a complaint about her conduct, they are all startled by a young woman shouting, “Daddy, please! Let's just go home.” 

His daughter has apparently gotten out of the car, clutching the open passenger door as she yells out to her father. Vi can finally get a good look at her, loose clothing, dark tousled hair, she looks tired and a little frantic. 

Vi pauses as she looks at her, and feels a faint tug of sympathy. It must be exhausting, being so close to a tragedy like this and having to babysit her almost certainly guilty father on top of it. 

“Let's go home. Please.” She urges again. 

Dr. Nemman pulls away, glaring towards Vi and Kiramman, he turns around, fully ignoring the small group of cemetery workers and cops that had gathered around them and stalks off towards his daughter. 

Kiramman turns towards Vi looking rather perplexed. 

“I think he needed a longer vacation.” Vi says, giving her a small grin. 

Kiramman smiles a little then too, before she shakes her head and directs them up the short hill. 

The gathered group looks on as the backhoe dips its bucket down into the dark rectangle of earth. Wilk and Kiramman stand off together, opposite them and out of the way. Kiramman has apparently brought her sunflower seeds. 

Vi is reading from the file, trying to speak over the loud rumbling of equipment. “Ray Soames was the third victim. After graduating high school he spent time in a state mental hospital, treated for post adolescent schizophrenia.” 

“Soames actually confessed to the first two murders. He pleaded to be locked up, but couldn't produce any evidence that he did the crimes.” Kiramman says. “Did you read the cause of death?”

“Exposure.” Vi reads off. “His body was found in the woods after escaping the hospital.” 

Kiramman nods seriously. “Missing for only seven hours. In July. How does a twenty year-old boy die from exposure on a warm summer night in Oregon?” 

Normally Vi would assume that maybe he was already sick, or maybe he was missing longer than what was reported, but after meeting the lovely Dr. Nemman, she’s thinking that perhaps the true cause of his death was missed entirely – if not intentionally excluded from the report.  

The rootbound coffin is finally hoisted from the ground with a special apparatus. Kiramman and Vi look on as it rises up out of the grave, and as the backhoe's arm is maneuvered into position to transport it away from the site. 

Then suddenly a strap on the hoist breaks, causing everyone in the immediate area to flinch and step back. 

The coffin slips from the other band and bounces off the backhoe arm and begins to roll downhill, luckily catching with a hard crack on a large granite headstone before it manages to get all the way down to the road. 

Vi, Kiramman and the coroner hustle over to the upended coffin. In its tumble, the lid has been lifted partly ajar. Kiramman moves to open it further but Truitt protests. 

“This isn't official procedure.” 

Kiramman just looks at him and then moves to pull the lid open. 

Vi steps up and peers intently over her shoulder. 

A series of startled gasps follow from the small crowd around them at the sight. And Vi, even with all she’s seen, is right there with them, staring down in abject horror at a shrivelled, child-sized figure lying in the soft bed of the coffin. It’s generally humanoid but has a strange football-shaped head and stiff leathery skin. Vi’s first stumbling thought as she takes it in, is that it actually may not be human at all.

Vi feels like the wind had been knocked out of her, no chance that the shock isn’t plainly spelled out across her face. 

A few of the workers around them clutch at their noses and take a step back as the smell wafts outward. 

Kiramman, however, looks – maybe rapturous is overstating it a tad, but it is by far the most expressive Vi has seen her to date. Clear wonder in her gaze. Though she too has to hold her nose.

Truitt’s assistants properly appear now, peering down with confused revulsion at what lies in the coffin.

“It's probably a safe bet Ray Soames never made the Varsity Basketball Team.” Kiramman says softly just to Vi, the words sound like a joke, but the delivery is so thoughtful, Vi honestly doesn’t know what to do with it, just giving her a look, with her hand over her mouth and nose.

Kiramman calls to the coroner, voice turning instantly to steel. “Seal it back up. Nobody sees or touches this. Nobody.” 

Everyone moves to follow instruction immediately, the workers all around them bustling back into action.

Vi and Kiramman back away from the site now, watching as the coroner's men move to re-seal the coffin. 

Then after a handful of moments, Kiramman and Vi’s eyes meet properly, and a silent acknowledgement passes between them. Neither of them has the faintest idea of what the fuck they’re looking at, it doesn’t just throw a wrench in their case but defies all basic logic – and still Vi feels absolutely certain that they’re going to find the truth. 

...

Kiramman is downright bouncy, moving excitedly around the lab table where the strange corpse lies, firing off picture after picture while Vi conducts the autopsy; taking external measurements and entering her findings into a microphone suspended above the table. 

They’re both wearing medical grade masks along with small white smears of odor-masking ointment below each nostril, as added precaution.  

Kiramman snaps another picture. “This is incredible Wilk, do you know what this could mean? It's almost too big to comprehend.” 

Vi, while trying to maintain her well practiced professionalism is fighting a certain visceral reaction both to the strange corpse and to Kiramman’s utter lack of one. 

Vi speaks for the recording. “Weighing fifty two pounds in extremis. Corpse is in advanced stages of decay and desiccation. Distinguishing features include large ocular cavities, oblate cranium. Indicates subject is not human.” 

Kiramman isn’t necessarily in the way, but the whole situation is putting Vi so on edge, that just her proximity, even at a respectful three feet away, added with all her eager picture taking, is becoming maddening. 

“Could you point that flash away from me, please.” Vi asks, agitated as she moves around the table. She’s not trying to pick a fight, but she wouldn’t say no to one either. 

Kiramman takes a step back, but she doesn’t lower the camera. “If it's not human, what is it?” 

Vi looks her dead in the eyes, wanting to take great pleasure in her hypothesis, to smile and watch as that anticipatory glee in Kiramman’s face twists into frustration. But all it does is settle a pit of anger deeper into Vi’s stomach. “It's mammalian. My guess is it's a chimpanzee or something from the ape family. Possibly an orangutan.” 

Kiramman frowns at her. “Wilk, come on. Buried in the city cemetery? In Ray Soames' grave? How do you think that is going to sound to the good townsfolk? Or the Soames family?”

Vi pins Kiramman with a long-suffering look. 

Kiramman doesn’t back down. “I want tissue samples and X-rays. I'd also like blood typing, toxicology and a full genetic workup.” 

“You’re serious.” 

Kiramman nods in full sincerity. “What we can't do here we'll order to go.” 

Vi huffs and shakes her head, stepping around the table towards Kiramman. “Tell me you don't honestly believe this is some kind of extraterrestrial. Kiramman, this is somebody’s sick joke.” 

Deranged is what it is. It makes her fucking blood boil. Someone defiling two corpses and a grave like this. Who knows how long ago, or where Ray’s body is now. And to what end? Play into local legend, run rings around the cops, waste some federal resources? It’s aimless and stupid and cruel. And to top it all off, Vi is working with the supposed best analyst in the division to catch this creep, and she’s just…buying it? 

Once again, Kiramman stands firm. “We can do those X-rays here, can't we? Is there any reason why we can't do them now?” 

Vi blinks a few times before she can muster a response. “We're wasting time here, Kiramman. Whoever killed that girl, and Ray Soames, wherever he is, is still running loose. And we have every reason to assume they aren’t done yet.” 

Kiramman takes a step closer, looking at Vi intently. “You’re right, I’m not saying this solves anything, quite the opposite. But sick joke or not, this is what we have.” 

She gestures to the corpse beside them, mottled gray and purple, rigid and crumpled in on itself with decay. 

“No one has been able to catch this person in three years, and we won’t either if we go out guns blazing for…who exactly? We still don’t know anything about who could be behind this.” 

Vi grits her teeth, and looks off to the side. Unfortunately her lunatic partner makes a good point. 

“All I’m suggesting is we take a few hours to conduct a proper scientific, medical exam that might help us determine who or what this thing really is. And maybe some sort of clue to who…or what left it in that grave.”

Vi looks up at Kiramman again, holding her gaze. Those electric blue eyes, steady and sure.

“I know how I can come off. But I’m not crazy, Wilk. I have the same doubts you do.” 

Vi stares for another second, takes in that perfect face and the open honesty, sincerity, and hope spelled out across it. Wearily, Vi turns to look at the clock, reading at just past eleven, and then back to Kiramman before she nods. 

...

Vi is back in her motel room, typing up today’s examination into her report. She’s got the X-rays paperclipped to her bedside lampshade, paperwork laid out in a half-circle all around her. 

She is dressed in sweats, a thick pullover, and her reading glasses. She’s listening to her own tape recorded voice, transcribing the information into her portable laptop.

As the tape plays, Vi brings the implant they found embedded in the corpse’s skull in one of the X-rays, up to her face, a small metal cylinder now resting in a glass vial. She studies it with rapt curiosity, letting it tap on one side of the glass to the other. 

Vi’s immediate thought was that it’s some kind of tracking device, especially if whatever that creature is came from a zoo or something and escaped. It looks a bit on the large side for something like that, and the placement was certainly strange, but it’s not impossible. She thinks maybe they should call around, see if any local animal sanctuaries lost an ape recently. 

But if they had, why hasn’t anyone already come looking, or a story about a runaway chimp made the local news?

Then there is a knock at the door. Vi’s heart jumps at the sound, clutching the mysterious object in her palm. “Who is it?”

“FBI.” Calls back a familiarly accented voice. 

Vi smiles to herself as she moves to get up. God, she’s not funny. 

Vi walks over and opens the door. Kiramman stands dressed in sweats of her own, a t-shirt and baseball cap with her ponytail threaded through the opening in the back. A big smile on her serious face. 

“Can I help you?” Vi asks, leaning against the doorframe and smiling up at her, in a way she’s sure is a little too fond. 

“Can’t sleep, far too wired. Thought I’d go for a run, would you like to come?” 

Vi yawns. “Pass.” 

Kiramman nods at her. “Figure out what that little thing in Ray Soames' nose is yet?”

“No, but I’m not losing any sleep over it.” Vi says with a quick quirk of her eyebrow. “Good night.” 

Vi goes to close the door, but Kiramman gestures for her to wait. She pulls out a small slip of paper and hands it over. “I believe this is for you.” 

Vi looks at it. “Thanks.” she says and with one last smile Kiramman heads off. 

It’s a phone message from Jinx. 

“Hey.” Vi says, hearing the line pick up. She’s walking around the room, phone to her ear. 

There is just a soft, irritated grunt on the other end. 

Vi winces a little. “Did I wake you up?” 

“What time is it?” Jinx asks, voice gravely with sleep. 

Vi turns to find the clock of the bedside table, numbers spelling out 4:56 in a taunting red. She winces again. “Nearly five.” 

“Jesus Vi. Why are you doing this to me?” 

“Sorry, I only just got your message, I didn’t think.” 

God, that was probably from hours ago, she and Kiramman hadn’t even stopped to check in when they got here, just went straight to the gravesite and then to the lab.

“Hmm, it’s fine. Just wanted to make sure you made it. How’s Spooky?” 

“Spooky.” Vi says, peering through the blinds and not at all disappointed when she doesn’t see Kiramman through them. 

“You haven’t gone full tin foil hat yet, have you?” Jinx is still a little croaky, but she’s sounding slightly more awake now. Enough to make jokes at least and there’s some faint ruffling on the other end, like she’s moving around. 

Vi huffs a small laugh. “No…but we did find something.” 

She can’t really go into what, of course, and it’s not like Jinx would be able to offer any help if she could. But there is something about the implant that is giving her pause. 

There’s no reason it should be, an unexplained body and an unexplained object inside of that body doesn’t currently add up to anything meaningful. Hell, they may be entirely unrelated to one another. It almost feels designed to throw them off course, but of all the misleading evidence out there it’s just…odd. And she doesn’t know how to talk about the off feeling she has with Kiramman without making it seem like she’s buying into the insanity.

Vi suddenly hears a whirring sound over the line. 

“What is that?” Vi asks, weirdly jumpy tonight. 

“Microwave.” Jinx says around a yawn. “Dad gave me, like a gallon of spaghetti to take home.”

Vi’s nose wrinkles. “Isn’t it two in the morning over there?”

“Excuse me, who woke up who here?” 

“Still.” 

They argue over heartburn and sleep cycles for a while until they hang up. 

Vi puts the receiver down, the smile from her sister’s antics immediately dimming. Inexplicably nervous now that she’s gone. 

She then pulls the X-rays down from the lampshade, studies them again as though this time it might reveal the hell they have found. 

...

Kiramman and Wilk walk along the wide lawn leading up to the state psychiatric hospital with Dr. William Glass. A psychologist at the facility that treated one of their victims, and stop-one on their list of outings today. 

“Ray Soames was a patient of mine, yes.” Glass says, staring out over the courtyard as they walk. “I oversaw his treatment for just over a year. For clinical schizophrenia. Ray had an inability to grasp reality. He seemed to suffer from some kind of post traumatic stress.” 

“Is it something you've seen before?” Kiramman asks. 

“I've treated similar cases.” Glass confirms. 

“Were any of those Ray Soames’ classmates?” Vi continues the point, easily volleying the questions back between herself and Kiramman. 

Dr. Glass looks at her, seeming reluctant to answer but after a brief pause says. “Yes.” 

“We understand these may seem like odd questions, but we’re just trying to find a connection in these deaths, whatever that may be.” Kiramman says. 

“Are you treating any of these kids now?” Vi questions. 

“Currently?” Dr. Glass hesitates, once again. “Yes. I've been treating Billy Miles and Peggy O'Dell. Both have been long term live-in patients.” 

Vi and Kiramman come to an abrupt and unanimous stop at that reveal. “They're here? At this hospital?” Vi clarifies. 

“Yes. Going on four years.” 

Kiramman is looking around, a curious look on her face. “Would it be possible for us to speak with them?” 

Dr. Glass tips his head from one side to the other. “You might find that a little difficult.” 

They meet Billy Miles shortly thereafter, in a large room with a half-a-dozen or so beds in neat rows, the space beige and sterile. He’s sitting up in one of these beds, propped against the pillows, expression blank and utterly still, aside from the occasional blink. 

“Billy is experiencing what we call a waking coma. Functionally, his brain waves are flat and persistently unresponsive.” 

“How did it happen?” Vi asks, looking him over briefly from their spot at the end of the bed. 

“He and Peggy O’dell were involved in an automobile accident out on State Road.”

Next to Billy's bed, sitting in a wheelchair, is a thin girl with mousy brown hair, presumably Peggy. She is reading to Billy from a book of poetry, which she pauses from briefly, taking this as an opportunity to regard Kiramman and Vi suspiciously, fiddling with her book. Her mouth, drawing up in a nervous twitch. 

“Peggy. We have some visitors. Would you like to talk with them for a moment?” Dr. Glass hedges. 

“Billy wants me to read now.” She says, her voice waifish and a little petulant. She clutches the book closer to her chest, almost protectively. 

Kiramman steps forward and kneels down in front of Peggy, a new softness settling over her face and voice. “Does he like it when you read to him?” 

Peggy stares for a second and then nods. “Yes. Billy needs me close.” 

Vi is watching this when her attention is suddenly drawn to Billy Miles without her really meaning to. She catches Billy's neck tightening, and his throat jumps in a peristaltic tremor. Then it's over, as if it didn't happen. A twitch like that isn’t medically interesting, but Vi doesn’t look away immediately.

“Do you think you might be able to answer a few questions for us?” Kiramman asks her gently. 

Vi drags her gaze away from Billy just in time to see Peggy becoming extremely agitated at that question, throwing her book to the ground. Kiramman takes an immediate step back.

“It's okay, honey. It's okay.” An orderly says, coming to step between Peggy and Kiramman as she rises back to her full height. 

Peggy tries to roll her wheelchair out of the room. Struggling against the wonky turns of the wheels and grunting in her effort to escape. Then, with seemingly no reason, Peggy's nose starts dripping blood, down over her lips and dotting her shirt. And in her continually mounting frustration, she throws herself out of her chair and onto the floor, curling up onto her side. 

When Kiramman leans down to help pick her back up, Vi watches as she carefully pushes the bottom of Peggy’s shirt up, exposing two familiar red welts on her lower back. 

Vi sees them, looks up at Kiramman who is already looking back with her sharp, knowing gaze. Then she turns away, holding Peggy by the arms as she and the orderly help guide Peggy back into her chair. 

But how are they – How could she have–? Kiramman turns back and without a word, Vi spins on her heel and leaves the room. 

Vi is hurrying down the front steps of the building, attempting to tug her coat on as she goes, the frustration she’s been pushing down for two days finally boiling over. 

Kiramman catches up with her far too quickly. Her and those long legs, managing to get in front and fully cut Vi off halfway down the stairs. 

“What’s wrong?” She says, looking for all the world like she genuinely doesn’t know. 

For the first time since they've met, they’re practically eye to eye, with Kiramman on the step below her. 

Vi takes this opportunity to look her dead, in those bright, intense, too earnest eyes. And lets her suspicion loose. “How did you know she was gonna have the marks?” 

Kiramman blinks. “I didn’t really. But based on what we know, I just assumed.” 

“Dammit, Kiramman. Cut the crap. What is going on here? What do you know about those marks? What are they?”

Kiramman crosses her arms over her chest. “Why, so you can write it down in your report? I don’t think you’re ready for what I think.” 

Vi grits her teeth. “I am here to solve this case before anyone else dies, Kiramman. I don’t give a shit about the problem the Bureau has with you or this project. I want the truth.” 

Kiramman takes a breath and says, calm as anything. “I believe these kids have been abducted.” 

“By who?” 

“By what.” 

Vi lets out a breathless, incredulous laugh, shaking her head as she walks to the railing to lean against it. Her mind starts shifting through what they know and all the strange pieces that don’t add up. The marks, the body, the little metal object in its nose. On paper she can agree that it certainly looks – weird. Ugh, she can't believe she's even considering this as an explanation. 

“You don't really believe that.” Vi says. 

“Do you have a better explanation?” 

Vi takes a steadying breath of her own, running her hand through her hair. “Okay, I'll buy that that girl is suffering from some kind of pronounced psychosis. Whether it's organic or the result of those marks – I can't say. But to say she's been riding around in...flying saucers – it's crazy, Kiramman. There's nothing to support it.” 

“Nothing scientific, you mean.” 

Vi gestures emphatically with her hands. “Yes, that is what I mean!” 

Kiramman just looks at her and waits. 

“Look, there's got to be an explanation. We've got four victims. All died in or near the woods.” Vi steps closer to Kiramman again, counting off the points on her fingers. “They found Karen Swenson in the forest in her pajamas, ten miles from her house. How did she get there? What were those kids doing out there in the forest?” 

They’re argument halts in place, an idea silently taking shape between them as they just hold each other’s gaze. 

...

Kiramman and Wilk have made it out into the woods, just after sundown, clouds starting to roll in overhead. They stand beside each other, flashlights in hand as they look out over tape that demarcates the spot where Karen Swenson was found.

Finding nothing immediately obvious, they give each other a quick look and duck under the tape to move into the dark forest, in search of...well, whatever there is to find. 

Vi moves in one direction while Kiramman stops and pulls a compass from her pocket. 

Vi leaves her to it and moves forward, dropping into a clearing up ahead, the ground surprisingly soft beneath her feet. Curious, she kneels down, pointing her flashlight right into the dirt. She takes a pinch of it and rubs it between her thumb and forefinger.

The earth here appears scorched all over, dusted with gray ash, all the scattered leaves and branches in the area looking singed and burned. It seems like the aftermath of a campfire. But Vi can’t imagine this has been too popular of a spot for camping in recent years. 

Vi, without a second thought, scoops up a handful and puts it into her jacket pocket. 

Then while she’s wiping the excess off on her pants, Vi’s attention is stolen by a sudden noise. Some part of it is rustling in the trees, but it’s accompanied by something else, rumbling, and the distinct sound of metal on metal. 

“Kiramman?” Vi calls. 

No answer. The sound grows louder, closer. Vi looks around again, there’s nothing obviously amiss and still no Kiramman, so she pulls her gun from its holster at her hip and she begins to walk back carefully, retracing her path up towards the trees.

Vi is stopped in her tracks then by a bright white light illuminating the area in front of her and something else mounting the small rise that forms the edge of the clearing. She doesn’t move, peering forward with her gun still aimed at the ground, but ready. 

The light behind, whatever is coming her way, is blinding and intense and has no clear source. Then even louder, that percussive rumble of metal on metal is back and much closer. 

The unidentified figure continues toward Vi. She draws down on it then, gun and flashlight angled at the shape. When finally, the figure moves into the beam of her flashlight, which shines on its face, revealing a very dour looking man, gray hair, fifties probably, and wielding a shotgun. 

Vi holds her position. “FBI drop your weapon.” 

His wrinkled face is blank and dull as he stares down at her. “I'm with the county Sheriff's department. You're trespassing on private property here.”

“We're conducting an investigation.” Vi explains, immediately annoyed. 

Kiramman appears then, stepping out through the trees, her gun already out and trained right on the man. 

“Get in your car and leave now or I'll have to arrest you. Both of you. I don't care who you are.” 

“Hold on.” Kiramman says, looking properly exasperated, eyebrows tugging into a scowl. “This is a crime scene.” 

“Did you hear what I said?” The man shouts, voice rising dangerously. “You're on private property without legal permission. I'm only going to ask you once more. Get in your car and leave.” 

Vi’s body goes hot with outrage as the man yells down at them. He’s likely not used to being outranked around here, let alone having his authority challenged by two women, certainly not someone like Kiramman. Who Vi spares a quick nervous glance towards. And now he’s throwing a little tantrum that the two of them aren’t intimidated and didn’t immediately comply. 

There is a brief staredown between the three of them. 

They could make this a thing if they really wanted to, and Christ is it temping, but unlike this guy, they do have real work to do, a murderer and a grave robber to catch – who are unlikely to even be the same person, and this is only going to slow them down. 

Vi can practically feel Kiramman’s sigh, as she is the first to lower her gun, and Vi follows suit a beat later. They holster their weapons and find each other’s gaze through the darkness. 

Overhead, a flash of lighting is followed barely a second later by rattling thunder as the two silently agree to find their way back to the rental car. 

...

“Now, what was he doing out there at night by himself?” Kiramman muses, after long minutes of silence as they make their way down the highway. 

Kiramman flips the wipers on as it finally begins to rain in earnest, abruptly coming down in buckets all around them. 

Vi doesn’t respond immediately, reaching under her seatbelt to dig into her jacket pocket, before she holds her hand out between them. Revealing a fist full of earth.

“Maybe it has something to do with this.”

Kiramman flips on the light overhead, studies the substance as best she can while trying to keep her eyes on the road. “Is that ash?” 

“Looks like it. Could be from a campfire.” Vi says. 

“You think it’s related?” 

“I’m not sure, but it was all over the ground. There’s gotta be something more going on out here. Some kind of…sacrifice, maybe. What if these kids were involved in some kind of cult? And what the hell does that guy have to do with it?” Vi speaks all her thoughts out loud, trying to find where all these scattered pieces might connect. Or if they do at all. 

“Whatever it is, you're wearing a lot of it.” Kiramman tells her. Vi looks down to see the ashy smudge marks dotting her shirt and slacks. She doesn't care. She's onto something. And this blouse is ugly anyway. 

“I want to come back here.” 

Kiramman offers nothing in the way of a comment. Instead she pulls the compass from her pocket again, and silently lays it on the dash. 

Their rental car continues to zip down the road, hugging the right shoulder, rain lashing against the windshield. Vi is carefully putting the black dirt into a baggie. 

When done, she looks at Kiramman who is wiping the side window with her sleeve, squinting out into the dark, rainy night. Checking her watch. Checking the compass. There is something decidedly anxious about her movements. 

“Y’alright Kiramman?” Right as the words leave Vi’s mouth a bright streak of lightning flashes across the sky. So close, it fully lights up the interior of the car as well, practically consuming every part of her vision in its intensity.

Then darkness returns and the car rolls to a stop. 

Kiramman looks a little dumbfounded, she is trying the key in the ignition, pressing buttons, changing gears. Nothing happens. The car won't start, it won’t even flicker. It's dead. Vi watches her, just as, if not more confused. 

“What happened?” Vi asks frantically. Did the lightning really do this? 

“We lost power. Brakes, steering, everything.” Kiramman answers, uncertainty suddenly becoming excitement and lighting up her words and face.” She looks at her digital watch, equally, unexplainably thrilled. “We lost nine minutes!” 

Kiramman is out of the car like a shot, moving out on foot and into the downpour. She stops at a spot in the road, like she’s waiting for Vi to catch up. 

Which Vi does, eventually, but only so she can drag her crazy ass back in the car before she gets struck by lighting or another vehicle. But then Kiramman is grinning so wide, eyes alight, even as she squints through the deluge of rain. 

“I looked at my watch just before the flash. It was 9:03. Now it just turned 9:13! And look!” 

Kiramman points to the road where they stand. And there it is – her spray painted orange X from their drive in. 

Vi stares at the marking, shocked yes, but still unsure what any of that actually means. 

“Abductees, people who've made UFO sightings, they've reported unexplained time loss!” Kiramman explains, loud and elated. 

“Come on–”

Kiramman snaps her fingers. “Gone, just like that.” 

“Smell the air. Smell that, Wilk? That’s the sweet, rotten smell of sulphur.” 

Vi stutters, partly in incredulity, but mostly due to all the rain getting in her mouth. “You're saying time disappeared? Time can't just disappear. It's a universal invariant.” 

There are a number of principles that remain true and constant across all systems, that are, by definition, constant. The tools they use to measure them, however, are subject to all kinds of mishaps. Human error mostly, a misplaced decimal, a wonky diagram, a malfunctioning clock. 

Vi doesn’t want to keep playing Occam's razor here, but is it more likely that Kiramman’s fancy watch is broken or that reality as they know has bent around them? 

Then an equally bizarre thing happens – on the rental car, sitting perfectly still, ten or so yards up the road – the high beams back come on of their own accord, and the radio starts playing softly through the open doors. 

Vi turns to look back at Kiramman whose face gleams with delight. “Implausible isn’t it?” 

Kiramman starts back to the car, leaving Vi staring after her for the second time in as many days, squinting into the car's headlights.

...

Vi is sitting at the small table in her room, wearing just her underwear and a motel bathrobe, having only taken the time to peel off her soaked through clothing and drop them on the floor, before immediately getting to work. Her hair is still up in a small ponytail, hanging limp and damp with stray strands falling around her face. 

She continues typing up her report, increasingly frustrated by the steadily rising number of holes in her knowledge. 

Agent Kiramman’s insistence of time loss, due to ‘unknown forces’ cannot be validated or substantiated by this witness…

Vi taps her thumb against the space bar without pressing down, thinking of how to possibly explain the situation out on the highway in logical terms, in any terms, how to explain anything she’s seen today – when the lights in the room flicker, once, twice and then go out. 

She sits in total darkness, staring at the mocking black screen of her computer. 

“Shit.” 

With no other real option, Vi decides to properly wash the rain off of her skin and hair. Placing the room’s lone candle on the sink, Vi opens the shower curtain, checking to make sure there isn’t a spare towel hanging up or a wash-cloth stored inside before she turns on the spray. 

Vi leans back out and looks at herself in the mirror, tugging the elastic from her hair as gently as possible and pushes back the short flop of pink away from her face, dragging her nails through the slightly grown out undercut at the base of her head.

Then she takes off the robe, hanging it on the hook on the back of the bathroom door.

Now standing in only her underwear, she finally turns the shower on, taking a few tries before she finds which direction is for hot. She absently wipes off her wet hand on her towel as she looks at herself in the reflection again, waiting for the water to heat up. 

Her face, a little tired, and sporting a terribly dull and smudged make-up look. Then down to her body, turning just so, to see the dark ink painted along her back, standing stark against her practical white cotton bra and not quite matching boy shorts. 

She stretches her arms over her head, eyes the flex and contours of her muscles that stay buried under smart blazers and knit sweaters, now shadowed in the soft glow of the candlelight. 

Vi sighs and leans into the shower to check that the water is hot enough, satisfied by the sweet burn it leaves on her palm, she goes to remove her underwear, but just as her hands graze her lower back, she feels something amiss. 

A mark, or a bump, small and raised on the skin at the base of her spine that makes all the blood in her body run cold.

Vi is knocking at Kiramman’s room door before she even realizes what she’s doing, barefoot and clutching the motel bathrobe around herself in an iron tight grip. 

Kiramman opens the door on the fourth or fifth knock, face curious as she comes into view. 

“Wilk? Is everything alright?” Kiramman asks, looking her over briskly. 

Kiramman is standing in the small gap between the door and the frame, candle in hand, hair in a towel and wearing what looks to be a set of men’s striped pajamas. That under normal circumstances Vi would probably make a comment about. 

Vi just stares at her, no idea what her face could be doing right now, but her voice is flat and frightened when she speaks. “I need you to look at something.” 

Kiramman nods a little warily, but immediately opens the door wider and gestures for Vi to come in without further question. 

“It’s my back, I felt something.”

Vi steps inside the room, tense, flustered, her head rushing with every worst case scenario it can cook up. Kiramman watches her, head tilted, as Vi turns from her, and without letting herself hesitate, she unties her bathrobe and lets it drop to just below her hips. 

For a moment Kiramman doesn't move, and Vi who is not in the headspace to appreciate hesitant courtesy right now, turns her head to give Kiramman a look, and finds her standing motionlessly a few feet from her just staring at her back. 

“Kiramman.” Vi hisses. 

That finally gets her moving, jolting her right out of whatever she found so interesting and she steps closer.

Vi’s quick breaths catch in her throat when she feels the tips of Kiramman’s fingers on her skin, pressing near the middle of her back. Goosebumps instantly rise all over her as one hand runs gently down to the base of Vi’s spine, while the older one holds the candle, near enough to light her up but not to burn. 

Kiramman stoops to the floor, drawing her face up close, but still a fair distance away, Vi’s pretty sure. 

She feels her fingers again, tracing around the raised bumps. It sends a sharp zing of adrenaline through Vi’s body. 

She’s breathing through her nose, scared and shallow. “What are they?” 

There’s another pause and then a puff of laughter, that Vi can almost feel against her oversensitive skin. 

“Kiramman!” 

“Mosquito bites.” Kiramman says at last.

“Are you sure?” Vi asks, residual panic and relief making her throat feel thick.

“Oh yes, I should have known, I got like twenty of them out there. Look–”  

But she doesn’t get to show her, Vi is stepping away and tugging her robe back on. Pressing her face into her hands. Trying to keep the dam of emotion from spilling over, taking slow deep breaths. 

There’s a long stretch of silence, the only sound from the steady rumble of rain outside the room.

Vi can feel the burn of humiliation replacing her panic, and heating her skin. She can’t believe how swept up she’s gotten in all of this. Just felt a little bump on her skin and couldn’t think of a single thing besides; oh God, I’m next. 

Her body is still buzzing with terror, but not enough to keep her from realizing how very undressed she is right now. She should probably thank Kiramman now and go back to her room with whatever remains of her dignity still intact. 

“I wasn’t expecting the tattoo.” Kiramman says after a long while, soft voice cutting through the silence. 

Vi turns, pulling her face out of her hands and sees an terribly awkward look on Kiramman’s face. She’s standing there in her dorky pajamas and a candle, looking like the bear on a box of sleepy time tea. And it suddenly hits Vi that this is the woman that just sent real shivers down her spine. 

Vi laughs then, loud, genuine, a little hysterical. She glances at Kiramman again, who is now looking properly horrified, which only makes Vi laugh harder. 

“Are you okay?” Kiramman asks, hand outstretched like she wants to touch but doesn’t quite finish the motion. 

Vi coughs, forcing her giggles to slow down, and she takes a couple more deep breaths. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I just…need to sit for a minute.

...

The storm continues outside, the sound of rain and wind coming in loudly through the windows. The power is still out, not a light in the building, save for the glow of low burning candles on the dresser in Kiramman’s room. 

Wilk and Kiramman are sitting on the floor next to the bed, a half empty bag of sunflower seeds between them. 

“I was twelve when it happened.” Kiramman says, staring straight ahead. “My family went for a little getaway in the mountains for the summer. And my best friend, Jayce, came along. My parents were his sponsors and he eventually became very close with the family, kind of like a brother to me, really.”

She pauses, and her voice goes cold and distant as she speaks the next bit. “We went out into the woods one night. And…he never came back. He was only nineteen.” 

Vi doesn’t say anything, waiting for her to continue, but her chest goes tight, and her hands start to ache – sympathy pains. 

“There was a look out a short walk from the house, he claimed there was going to be some kind of meteor shower, but really he just spent an hour showing me different constellations.” 

There’s a fond exasperation in Kiramman’s voice that makes Vi smile. 

“And all of the sudden, Jayce was looking out into the forest, he claimed he saw something. He didn’t say what though, just told me to wait. I didn’t think much of it, really. He walked off, and I waited for a few minutes, peered out the telescope like I had any idea what I was looking at, and then…I saw this light through the trees. Instantly I felt totally panicked, I went over to see what it was. And when I got there, maybe ten yards away, all I could really see was Jayce’s silhouette surrounded by that glow.” She pauses then, dragging her front teeth hard over her lip. “There was a flash and he was just gone and I was back at the look out by myself.” 

Vi lets that settle over her, barely skimming over what possibly could have happened to her friend, fixed entirely on the image of a twelve year old Kiramman – Caitlyn – experiencing that kind of terror, the disorientation, the pain, and being left completely alone. 

“I sat there for I don’t know how long, waiting like maybe he’d come back.” She goes on. “But eventually I just went back to the house, I tried to explain what happened. You can probably imagine how that went.” 

Vi silently nods at her, even though Kiramman isn’t looking back. 

“No one would listen to me. Why would they? It’s insane.” Kiramman chuckles hollowly. “The prevailing theory was that he fell off the edge of the lookout, I saw it and cooked up a delusion of alien abduction to cope with the trauma. Some people thought he ran away and I was his cover, others thought I pushed him.”

Vi’s head jerks back like she’s just been slapped, absolutely horrified. She opens her mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. 

Kiramman just shrugs, still staring ahead. “I’ve never been very popular. And I was the last person to see him, it’s not unreasonable.” 

Vi can’t stand it, the matter-of-fact way she’s talking about this, the detached objectivity she speaks about herself with, like she’s just another suspect in a long cold case. Vi wants to comfort her, rub her arm, hold her hand, but she doesn’t know if it would be welcome. 

“I never got in any trouble of course. No one ever found anything that even hinted towards my guilt. No one found anything at all. No leads, no evidence, no body. He was just gone. It tore…everything apart. No one wanted to talk about it. And therapists weren’t very in, in the seventies, so.” 

“What did you do?” Vi’s voice cracks audibly as she says it. 

Kiramman, thankfully, doesn't comment on it. “Eventually, I went off to school, came back and got recruited by the Bureau. And despite my lack of people skills, I found I had a natural aptitude for deduction and applying behavior models to criminal cases. I solved a difficult serial case and became the FBI's hot new thing.” 

Vi almost smiles at that, it’s more like a twitch.

“My success gave me the freedom to pursue my own interests...that's when I came across the X-files.” 

“By accident?” 

Kiramman slowly shakes her head no. 

They’re both silent for a minute. Sitting beside each other, listening to the slowly weakening rain. 

“And you know what’s ironic?” Kiramman swallows hard. “He would have believed me, if I came running to him rambling about alien abduction. He wouldn't have doubted me for a second.”

“Jayce?” Vi asks, already knowing the answer.

Caitlyn hums. “He was actually an arcane conspiracy theorist.” 

Vi’s eyebrows shoot up, something between amusement and pure shock, pulling a real grin on her face. “You’re kidding.” 

Kiramman is smiling a bit, herself now. “Hm-hm, he had all the runes memorized. Probably would have gotten them tattooed eventually. Oh, and if you ever told him they were just a myth, you were in for it. I even got lectured a couple times.” 

“How the tables have turned.” 

Caitlyn laughs ruefully.

Then her tiny smile crumples and Vi’s heart stutters in her chest. 

“If it were me – if I had gone missing that night – he’d be here right now, with you, the laughing stock of the Bureau, knee deep in anomalies and conspiracy theories, looking for me.” 

Vi feels her eyes sting and throat go tight at the wet quality of Kiramman’s voice. Vi’s been through the ringer with grief in her life. She knows that feeling, trying to talk about them, wanting to talk about them, but barely able to get through a single sentence without shattering. That permanent ache of loss and the anger at the unfairness of it all, to have someone taken, that should by all logic still be here.

That alone has nearly destroyed Vi ten times over. She can’t imagine that kind of uncertainty on top of it and to live with it for over twenty years. Vi can safely say she’d be doing much worse than government funded ghost hunting, if it were her.

“And it’s not just that. I mean, you know how hard it is for women to get ahead in this field.” Kiramman says, tiredly. “That with my being asian, a lesbain and…generally off putting. Their words not mine. Even at my best, the esteem I acquired was all contingent on my willingness to behave, or to start name dropping my mother every ten minutes, and I don't see that changing. So…” 

She says it all so quickly, like no point there is more special or interesting than another, and the first and last are of no real surprise, after meeting Kiramman properly a lot of the Bureaus' casual and persistent hostility towards her has made a lot more sense. But that middle point leaves Vi reeling, her heart instantly ticking up with the urge to give some kind of stuttered reply of “Me too, I also. The lesbian thing is for me as well.” But she can’t think of a casual way to do that and even if she could, now’s really not the time. 

“So?” Vi urges, gently. 

“So, when I got into the X-files, and everyone was so eager to start treating me like I had lost my mind, I figured why bother anymore? I'd just do whatever I wanted.”

Kiramman lets her head fall back against the side of the bed. “But sometimes…I don't know, even with all their feigned respect for my obvious skill or my last name, I know I could have fought for it, I could have been the FBI’s superstar, or something like it.” Kiramman shakes her head, her poised demeanor cracking more and more around the edges, voice going thick. “But I just can’t let it go. I can’t let him go.” 

Vi finally reaches for Kiramman’s hand, squeezing over the back of it where it rests on the floor. 

Kiramman looks up at her, and flips her hand over to return the gesture, their fingers easily slotting together. 

She takes a deep breath in, it shudders in her throat. “When I first stumbled across the X-files it looked like a garbage dump for UFO reports, alien abduction cases; the stuff everybody laughs off as ridiculous – me included, if you can believe it. But it was the first thing I’d found that was anything like what I had seen that night. I read every case. Hundreds of them. I learned everything I could about the occult, about paranormal phenomena…” 

Kiramman turns her body fully to Vi then, a moment of uncharacteristic hesitancy taking over her features. 

“What?” Vi gives her hand another squeeze.

“There is classified government information I've been trying to access. But someone is blocking my attempts to get to it.”

Vi frowns. “Who?”

“Someone at a higher level of power.” Kiramman shrugs. “The only reason I've been allowed to continue with my work is because of the connections I've made on the Council.”

“Not your mom though?” 

Kiramman looks at her briefly. “No, not her.” 

Vi sits with that, and Kiramman’s lack of elaboration. 

“Okay, and they're afraid of what – that you'll leak this information?”

Another look from Kiramman. “You're part of this agenda. You know that.”

Vi’s mind flashes back to that meeting with Hoskel. She turns her body to fully face Kiramman too. “The…reasoning behind my assignment notwithstanding. I’m not part of any agenda. You've got to trust me. I'm here just like you – to solve this” 

Kiramman searches her face. 

After a long moment, she scoots closer on the floor, the two of them kneeling towards each other, hand clasped in the space between them. “I'm telling you this because you need to know. Because of what you've seen.” Kiramman squeezes Vi’s hand, Vi squeezes back. “Listen to me, Wilk. This thing exists and the government knows about it. I have to know what they're protecting. Nothing else matters to me. And this is as close as I've ever gotten to it.”

Kiramman’s eyes burn with passion and honesty, practically piercing straight through Vi’s. And Vi feels like she’s properly seeing the woman holding her hand for the first time, not just the odd, obsessive agent she met in that messy basement office, not just a believer, whatever that means, but a little girl that never once gave up on her friend. 

They both nearly jump out of their skin in the next moment when the sharp ringing of Kiramman’s phone smashes through the moment. 

They both pull apart and start hunting in the dark for the source of the noise. When Kiramman gets her hands on it, hidden under her coat thrown across the table, she answers without hesitation. 

“Yes, hello?” Her brow furrows. “Who is this?” 

Kiramman holds the phone away from her ear, staring down at the thing in her hands. She looks up at Vi. “It was a woman. She said Peggy O'Dell is dead.” 

Vi’s standing up now. “What happened? Where did they find her?” 

If she is out in those woods, where they let that little man chase them off, Vi is going to fucking lose it. 

Kiramman is already reaching for her clothes. “She said she was just in an accident out on State Road.” 

...

Kiramman and Wilk pull up to the scene a short while later, the area is scattered with cops and EMTs. Squad car and ambulance lights illuminate the dark street, bouncing off the surrounding trees and the long trailer of an eighteen-wheel truck, parked crookedly on the side of the road.

Exiting the car briskly, the two begin to split off without comment, Vi moves toward the accident scene while Kiramman moves to a group of patrolmen talking to the overwrought truck driver. 

“What happened?” Kiramman asks the driver, flashing the man her badge as she comes up next to them, voice stern but not harsh. 

One of the patrolmen turns to her with a huff. “Who are you?” 

Kiramman fully ignores him, and continues her questioning. “Was that girl running? On foot?” 

“Like someone was chasing her.” The man confirms. 

As Vi moves out of ear shot, Kiramman gives her a quick worried glance over her shoulder, Vi returns it with an equally lost expression. 

She's made her way to the body and finds it covered by a blanket. She kneels down and gingerly lifts the covering to reveal Peggy O'Dell, the girl she’s seen just this morning, her pale face now still and lifeless.

Vi then notices a watch on Peggy's wrist, the face cracked and the hands unmoving. 

She doesn’t know what possesses her to check the time. But when she does, it appears to have stopped just after nine. Vi sits back on her haunches, the pieces wanting to connect, her heart picking up with the urge to click them together and an implacable fear for if she does. 

A few moments later, she’s re-covered Peggy and walks back over to Kiramman, who is now locked in conversation with Truitt. It doesn’t appear to be going very well. Kiramman turns and quickly regards Vi with a troubled look. 

“Let's go.” Kiramman starts back to the car with no explanation, a furious set to her jaw. Vi takes a moment to react, eyes tracking her before snapping back to meet the Coroner’s.

“What's the matter?”

“Someone trashed the lab and autopsy bay you were working in. The body we dug up was removed.” 

“What? They took the corpse?” Vi asks, voice rising, horror and indignation bubbling over and right of her mouth. 

She turns back towards Kiramman only to find that special agent long legs had already made it back to the car, causing Vi to run to catch up and get in, barely able to shut the door before Kiramman pulls away in her haste. 

…

They don’t make it to the lab, barely have enough time to discuss what just happened. They take the road that leads back towards their motel and suddenly see smoke all the way up the street. 

Vi can see Kiramman look at her in her periphery but she keeps her gaze ahead and almost manages to maintain her denial about the situation right until they pull up to the path into the motel's parking lot, where they find just their two rooms engulfed in flames. 

They park, barely, Vi is starting to think maybe she should be driving, and run into the crowd of frazzled motel guests, dressed in pajamas and bathrobes, watching the firefighters try to contain the blaze. 

“Fuck.” Vi grumbles. Then louder to be heard over the commotion. “Well, there goes my computer!” 

“That, and the X-rays, and my pictures.” Kiramman says, far quieter. They both aimlessly stare at the fire for a beat or two. 

There’s no fucking way this is a coincidence. Nothing in their rooms could have burned. The power was out and Vi knows for a fact they put those candles out before they left. 

Kiramman presses her hand over her mouth and turns back towards the car in silence. Vi watches for another moment before following. 

Vi slowly comes up behind her and places what she really hopes is a comforting hand on her arm. Kiramman turns around at the touch and she places her own hands over Vi’s, but her face is like stone. “Someone around here doesn’t like us, Wilk.” 

Someone definitely doesn’t like them poking around and they are going to a lot of lengths to hide their involvement. Obvious peculiarities, repeatedly missing details in the autopy’s, destruction of evidence, officials impeding their investigation into the gravesite and the woods. Who ever is behind all this has been running them in fucking circles all night. And now they’ve lost everything. 

“I guess we should head to the lab, see if anything was left behind. All of this at once, I’ll bet someone got sloppy.” Kiramman suggests weakly, taking back her hand to tighten her ponytail at the back of her head. 

Vi nods at her. “I’ll call the coroner’s office, see if any of our faxes made it.” 

Vi starts digging around for her phone and feels a tiny object resting at the bottom of her jacket pocket. It’s the vial holding the tony metal object from the corpse’s nose, safe and sound. She had totally forgotten about that. 

Just as Vi opens her mouth to speak, she looks up to find Kiramman is already zeroed in on something behind her. Vi follows her gaze to see a young woman coming toward them. 

Vi recognizes her the moment she steps into the light. It’s that girl, Dr. Nemman's daughter, practically stumbling out of the bushes, looking just as frantic and exhausted as she did the day prior; now also wearing a dirt covered sweater and pants. 

“I’m – my name is Theresa Nemman.” She says as soon as she’s close enough, voice shaking. “You've got to protect me.” 

...

They managed to locate an all night diner not too far up the road. It’s mostly empty, save for a pair of truckers sitting at the counter talking with the waitress, and the overheads are so bright they’re near blinding, but it’s quiet and warm and smells pleasantly of grease. 

They got some coffees and a booth towards the back, where Theresa is sitting next to Vi, with Vi’s jacket over her soiled clothes, and Kiramman across from them, ripping open her fourth splenda packet. 

“This is the way it happens.” Theresa starts. “I don't know how I get out there. I'll just find myself out in the woods.” 

“How long has it been happening? “ Kiramman asks. 

“Ever since the summer we graduated. It's happened to my friends, too. That's why I need you to protect me. I'm scared I might…die, like the others. Like Peggy did tonight.” She struggles to get the words out, staring down at the table top. 

“You were the one on the phone? You told me Peggy O'Dell had been killed?”

She nods mutely. 

“‘How did you know where to call?” 

“I overheard my dad. He was talking to Billy Miles' father on the phone about…what happened.” 

Kiramman’s brows furrow. “What time was that?”

“Um, a little after nine, I think.” 

“Theresa. I want you to tell me very specifically what happens before you find yourself in the forest.” 

“I told you I don’t remember.” Theresa’s voice raises a bit then, breathing picking up. 

Kiramman squints across the table at her. “Not a thing? A sound, a smell, a light?” 

“I don’t know!” Theresa says, emphatically, voice cracking roughly before looking down at her coffee cup again.

Vi gives Kiramman a look, prompting her to chill the fuck out. It’s been a really shitty night, with just one problem after another and losing all the physical progress they had and Vi gets what all this means to her, she really does, but pushing Theresa like this isn’t helping. 

Vi puts a hand on the girl’s forearm. “Theresa...your father knows about it, doesn't he? About what happens?”

“Yes. But he said never to tell anyone. About any of it.” She’s looking pleadingly between the two of them. 

“Why?” Kiramman’s voice is softer now. 

“He wants to protect me. He thinks he can protect me from it. But I don't think he can.” Theresa shrinks down in her seat, tucking Vi’s jacket tighter around herself.

Kiramman nods, gaze still intent and unmoving on her. “Do you have the marks Theresa?” 

She stares down at her coffee again for a long time, mouth pressed tight and trembling ever so softly. 

“Yes.” She says, at last. She sniffles quietly. “I'm going to die, aren't I?” 

Vi takes her hand now, looking in her frightened, teary eyes. “No. You are not going to die.” 

A quick glance at Kiramman says that she isn’t so sure. Vi wants to tell her to fix her face, but in the next moment, with no apparent cause, Theresa’s nose starts pouring blood. 

“Oh, God–” Vi scrambles from her seat, grabbing a napkin from a booth across the aisle. Kiramman follows suit, moving around the table to help. 

After barely handing the napkins to Kiramman, the three of them turn at the sound of the bell above the entrance jingling, to see Dr. Nemman and that supposed detective man from the woods push through the door and move directly to their booth, intent on Theresa.

Nemman pushes past Kiramman, and sits down, pulling out a tissue of his own and holding it up to Theresa’s nose. 

“Let's go, Theresa. We're taking you home now, honey.” Dr. Nemman says. 

Theresa looks to Kiramman and then to Vi, fear and dread playing on her face.  

“I don't think she wants to leave.” Kiramman says. 

“I don’t care what you think.” Nenman replies, obnoxious as ever. “She’s a sick girl, she needs to be with her family.” 

Vi hates everything about this. 

These two, who have been popping up to slow them down at every turn, now barging in to take Theresa, who is completely terrified and as far as they know, currently marked for death. Not to mention the disturbingly overbearing way he’s touching and speaking to her. And absolutely worst of all, there is nothing they can do to stop them. 

“Your father wants to take you home. He'll get you all cleaned up.” The other man interjects. 

“We'll take you where you'll be safe, Theresa.” Dr. Nemman goes on, a frantic edge to his voice. “Detective Miles and I won't let anything happen to you.”

Kiramman goes ramrod straight where she stands, turning to acknowledge the other man for the first time. “You’re Billy Miles’ father?” 

It’s the most incredulous Vi has ever heard her, emphasis straight out of an episode of scooby doo. Vi has a lot of things stacking up to make fun of her for, later. 

But Detective Miles just gives Kiramman a cold look, and keeps his voice low and imperious when he speaks again. “That's right. And you stay away from that boy.” 

Kiramman’s eyes narrow and Vi’s hands clench into fists at her side. 

…

Wilk and Kiramman are standing outside the diner now, watching them take off with Theresa back down the dark road. Vi keeps watching long after they’ve disappeared from sight, silently fuming. 

“Oh, how I adore small towns.” Kiramman says. “Every day’s like Halloween.” 

“They know, Kiramman. They know who's responsible for the murders.” Vi says, turning back to face her with her hands on her hips. 

“They know something.” Kiramman says, eyes staying on the road they drove off in.

Vi shakes her head. “Dr. Nemman's been hiding medical evidence since the beginning. He lied on the autopsy reports, and now we find out about Theresa, and the Detective’s connection to Billy. Who else would have reason to trash the lab and our rooms?” 

Kiramman frowns slightly gaze shifting around in thought. “Why? Why would they destroy evidence? Who are they protecting? And what could they want with that corpse?” 

Vi huffs out a breath. “I don’t know.” 

The stealing of the corpse all but proves that it’s related, they would have left it be if it were some hoax, meant to throw them off the scent. It had to be able to prove something, but what? 

Vi paces in a small circle, working back through the facts. The answer is in here somewhere, they’ve got just about all the pieces laid out in front of them, but they’re still scattered and turned over in her head, impossible to make a clear picture out of. 

“Makes you wonder what’s in those other two graves.” Kiramman says. 

Vi’s head snaps back to look at her, she almost wants to ask if she’s serious, but even after just three days, just by meeting those electric eyes, Vi already knows the answer. 

...

Another light rain has begun to fall as Kiramman and Wilk tromp though the soggy graveyard. They come up the path to see a backhoe silhouetted at the top of a knoll. Next to it are two large rectangular forms, coffins, unearthed and opened. 

They instantly run up the small hill without a word and find exactly what they were both expecting. 

“They’re both empty.” Kiramman says with a sigh. 

Vi shakes her head looking around the dark expanse of graves, with no real goal in mind. “What is going on here?” 

Kiramman doesn’t answer her, just staring down at the rain soaked coffin bed in front of her. And then slowly, her eyes crawl upward to find Vi’s. 

“I think I know who did it. I think I know who killed Karen Swenson.” 

“Who? The Detective?” 

Kiramman has something a little too close to elation in her eyes. She shakes her head. “His son, Billy Miles.” 

Vi just stares at her for a second, wipes some of the rain off her face. “The boy in the hospital? The coma patient?” 

Kiramman nods slowly, like somehow that will make her theory seem less insane. 

“Billy Miles?” Vi says again. 

Kiramman nods a little more eagerly this time. 

“You think the kid who hasn’t moved independently for the last four years got out here and dug up these graves?” Vi clarifies one more time, just for good measure. 

“No, but I do think he was the person who chased Peggy O'Dell out into the road, who if you’ll recall also could not move independently without her wheelchair but she still ran in front of that truck.” Kiramman insists. “The driver said it himself…look, I'm not making this up, Wilk. It fits the profile of alien abduction.” 

“The profile?” 

“Peggy O'Dell was killed sometime around nine. About the time we lost nine minutes out on the highway. I think something happened in those nine minutes. Time as we know it stopped. And something else took control over it.” Kiramman absently wipes the rain off of her mouth as she speaks. “I think there's a force at work here. We experienced it out on the highway. With the radio scrambling, the car shutting off and my faulty compass reading. I’m thinking there was some kind of magnetic anomaly.”

Vi just keeps staring at her, half grinning in her incredulity.  

“I know you don't believe it.” Kiramman says it with a somber little half smile of her own. It shouldn’t, but it tugs at something in Vi’s gut, thinking about all that they talked about back in the motel. No one ever believing her. The words spin around in Vi’s head, some of those jumbled puzzle pieces finally settling into place. 

It must show on her face because Kiramman asks, “What?” Looking at her curiously. 

Vi wipes her mouth again, clearing some more of the water before she speaks. “Peggy O'Dell's watch stopped a couple minutes after nine. I made a note of it when I saw her body.” 

Kiramman’s eyes light up. 

“Yes! You see – that's the reason those kids are in the woods. I think the force has control over them and they're summoned there. And the marks – they're from some kind of tests done on them. Maybe it causes a genetic mutation, which would explain the body we dug up.” 

Vi nods, following the logic with her. “And that…force, it summoned Theresa Nemman there tonight?” 

“Yes!” Kiramman says, with an honest to god hop. “But it was Billy Miles who took her there, acting on some kind of alien impulse.” 

Vi nods for a moment like she believes Kiramman’s theory. Then she starts to laugh. Giddy, stupid laughter, wonderfully entertained by what they’ve just cooked up, and the beautiful satisfaction of it all over Kiramman’s face. 

Her shrieks eventually get Kiramman going too. A giggle spilling out of her serious mouth and then quickly morphs into a terribly unrefined guffaw that she tries and fails to hide in her hand. 

They laugh so hard they bend over and hold their knees. Every time it starts to peter out, one of them catches the other’s gaze and lets out a chuckle and that starts the other back up again, giggling even louder than before. They have to fully turn away from each other eventually, desperately trying to catch their breath. 

After a while, Kiramman steps closer and puts a hand on Vi’s shoulder as the aftershocks finally start to taper off. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” 

“Where are we going?” Vi asks, grinning up at her. 

“To find another motel, dry off, and get some sleep. Then we're going to pay another visit to Billy Miles.”

...

“Now we could stand here ‘til the second coming waiting for Billy to get out of this bed – it ain't gonna happen.” The orderly that has shown them to Billy’s bed, speaks dispassionately as she puts her clipboard to the side. “He blinks and I know about it.” 

There is a decidedly somber atmosphere in the hospital today, the hallways emptier, the workers and patients that do mill about, all quiet and sniffling. And it’s made all the worse by the gray clouds still looming overhead. 

“I’m assuming you changed his bedpan last night then?” Kiramman asks. 

Vi begins her inspection, as she speaks, looking for anything out of the ordinary about Billy’s hands, skin, or clothes. 

The orderly looks up at Kiramman with a playfully rueful expression. “Nobody else here's gonna do it.” 

Kiramman nods and smiles at her politely, but it is noticeably tense, standing there with her hands locked behind her back.

Vi almost lets herself get distracted watching Kiramman try to perform social niceties – she’s really not good at it – dragging her eyes back to the subject. 

“Did you happen to notice anything unusual?”

The orderly frowns a bit, then shakes her head no. 

Kiramman nods her understanding and goes on. “Do you remember what you were doing last night at nine o'clock?” 

“Let’s see…”

While the orderly tries to recall the night before, Vi moves over to the end of Billy's bed, lifting and untucking the blanket and sheets out from the edge. 

“Um, miss?” The orderly turns back to Kiramman. “What’s she looking for?” 

Vi’s eyebrows furrow the moment she pulls back his covers, recognizing that strange black dirt instantly, and a thin layer of it is clearly caked all along the tops and souls of his feet, even stuck under his nails. 

Vi feels a strange mixture of fear and satisfaction start to swirl around her head. “Kiramman.” Vi says, nodding her head for her to come take a look. 

Kiramman immediately comes around the bed, bends down and turns to trade a serious look with Vi. 

Vi stays where she is, taking a scraping of the substance from under Billy’s foot, while Kiramman straightens up with another question on her lips. 

“Who was taking care of Peggy O'Dell last night?” 

The orderly looks between Vi and Kiramman a couple times before responding. “Not me. Not my ward. I’ve got my own job to do.” Her gaze goes to Vi again, brows furrowing. “What’s she doing now?” 

Just as Kiramman opens her mouth to speak, Vi raises, sample obtained, and steps back beside her partner.

“Thank you for your time.” She says with a winning smile. 

“Okay.” The orderly says hesitantly. 

Vi feels Kiramman place a hand on her lower back and direct her towards the hallway, calling back over her shoulder. “Have a good day.” 

The moment they make it to the door, Vi strides briskly down the corridor and right out of Kiramman’s reach, fear morphing into something more akin to horror as adrenaline washes over all her good sense. Kiramman hurries to keep up with her. 

“That kid may have killed Peggy O'Dell. I don't believe this.” Vi mutters, walking fast down the long hall. 

“Wilk–”

“This is crazy.” Vi practically yells it, voice echoing around them briefly. 

Vi stops, turns, holding up the vial of sooty scrapings. “He's been out there. In the woods.” 

Kiramman looks at her seriously. “You're sure?”

“This is the same stuff I took a handful of in the forest.” 

“Okay, well maybe we should run a lab test to–” 

Vi shakes her head. “We lost the other sample in the fire. What else could it be?” 

Kiramman takes a step closer, sharp eyes firm, but cautious. “Alright. I just want you to understand what it is you're saying.” 

Vi points at her. “You said it yourself.” 

“Yes, but you have to put it in your report.” Kiramman says, pointing back. 

That gives her pause. In all her panic and rage, Vi had nearly forgotten how she came to get this assignment in the first place. What she’s meant to be doing. How whatever she puts in this report will reflect on her, considering. She turns from Kiramman, hands on her hips, suddenly struck by her own leap in logic. 

Whatever that stuff on Billy’s feet is, and however it got there, it still has got to be related in some way, it’s too much of a coincidence. But, a waking coma isn’t something he can just fake – that is, unless it’s something else entirely. 

Vi’s thoughts race through a new rush of theories and she takes a breath, after a moment, she turns back, sobered. 

“You're right. We should take another sample from the forest and run a comparison before we do anything.” 

Kiramman nods at her. 

...

Kiramman and Wilk pull up to the crime scene in the forest once again. Only this time, they obviously aren’t alone. Their headlights wash over what is surely Detective Miles' truck parked on the grass a few yards in front of them. 

They look at each other before Vi gets out and walks over to the vehicle with her flashlight, turning it on the interior of the truck. It’s unsurprisingly totally empty, there was no way they were going to get that lucky. She turns to see Kiramman coming around the rear of their car. 

“What do you think?” Vi asks, gesturing with the light. 

Kiramman starts to answer but is halted by the piercing sound of a woman’s scream coming from the woods. 

Neither of them hesitate, no glances or words exchanged, turning right where they stand to duck under the tape and take off into the woods. Kiramman and her stupid legs, outstripping Vi almost immediately to run ahead. 

They start taking slightly different paths, as they run, both zig-zagging through the trees and low bushes at their own pace. It does mean that they are intermittently losing sight of each other, but Vi resigns herself to finding Kiramman again farther up ahead. If they come upon them at different points, they may even be able to cut them off. Whoever ‘them’ ends up being. 

Another scream echoes through the trees, spurring them both on. 

God it has to be Theresa. Vi’s mind so helpfully supplies, her dread mounting with every hurried step. She was so scared and she asked them to protect her and Vi told her she wasn’t going to die and then they just let her go. 

Kiramman has gained a good lead ahead of Vi, but she’s not so far behind that she can’t keep up. They’ve got to be close to the clearing now anyway. Vi’s may have no idea what might be waiting for them up there, but so help her they are not going to lose Theresa too, not after promising her they wouldn’t. 

And then, Vi’s sure steps are interrupted by something hard and metal striking the back of her head and she goes down hard. A loud oomph pushes out her chest as she hits the dirt, just barely managing to get her arms out in front of her. 

Vi still has her breath but her ears are ringing and the ground under her is blurry and shifting, and she stays down while she tries to regain her bearings. 

Vi’s always been good at taking hits, stealing herself against the force and ready to come back swinging through any amount of pain. But right now, if she plays like she’s not, when she doesn’t know what hit her, then she’s less likely to receive another and can hit back while whoever attacked her won’t expect it.

Vi hears a faint rustling beside her and then a pair of boots enter her peripheral vision. Vi turns her head towards them, cautiously. Her eyes, steadily regaining focus, but still decidedly in double, follow the boots upward to find Detective Miles, standing over her with a shotgun. 

Vi almost scoffs. Of fucking course. She’s going to squeeze the life out of that little weasel. When there’s only one of him again. 

“I told you to stay out of this.” Detective Miles says, in his low voice, before he too, tries to take off into the forest. 

But Vi stops him, grabbing onto his ankle and tugging, knocking him clear off balancing and down onto the ground with her. The man lets out a hard grunt at the impact, dropping his weapon in the fall. 

Vi didn’t really have a plan after that and her grip goes weak in his tumble, easily releasing her grip when he starts kicking his leg behind him. She still lets herself feel satisfied even as he scrambles back to his feet, picks up the shotgun again and turns it on her. 

It’s dark and her head hurts like hell, but she can still make out his old face glaring, furious, and spotted with that black dirt. 

Vi just stares back at him, the barrel pointed directly at her face, entirely unfazed by this little performance. He isn’t going to shoot her, he doesn’t have it in him. He might be able to get someone killed, and hide the evidence once they're dead but he was still only willing to hit Vi when her back was turned. 

So Vi keeps looking, unmoving and unimpressed until he’s had enough of his attempt at intimidation, his grim face twisting up and after a few more seconds he finally turns to take off once more. 

Once he’s far enough away, Vi pushes up onto her hands, scowling at the disappearing figure, fury burning a hole straight through her. 

… 

Vi isn’t sure how long she sits there, just kneeling in the charred earth, rendered completely useless, after such a tiny fucking hit and staring woozily off into the direction the detective vanished into. It can’t be all that long, really, but every second feels like hours as her head swims, more with what might be happening to Theresa, to Kiramman, than with the effects of a blunt metal object slamming into her skull. She must have bought them a little time with all that, at least, but anything could still go wrong. 

Fuck she needs to get up. She leans back on her haunches, letting her head sway with the movement, it’s already significantly better than it was, she’s probably not even concussed. 

The sudden gut-wrenching sound of a shotgun blast pushes Vi from her knees, the rest of the way to her feet. She grunts and stumbles briefly, grabbing onto a nearby tree, world still a little hazy around the edges, before straightening up again and taking off, if far slower than before, towards the sound. 

Steadily, Vi is moving more and more surely through the forest, she thinks she can hear voices shouting up ahead right when – a bright, white light flares out in the distant trees. 

It appears like a blast, but it doesn’t dissipate. Instead it lingers, then seems to grow. 

The intensity of the light turning into a wave, so searing that it has Vi desperately squeezing her eyes shut and turning her head, even as badly as she wants to keep looking, to see what’s causing it, to find Kiramman.  

And then, in a blink, it's gone, like it was never there to begin with. The forest is dark and quiet again when Vi reopens her eyes, and she stands there stunned for probably a good twenty seconds. 

She's maybe managed a couple staggering steps forward, when she hears her name being called through the trees, in that oh so familiar voice now, and whatever kind of fearful uncertainty had risen up in her from seeing that light is gone just as quickly by the sound of it. 

“Wilk.” She hears again. 

Vi can see Kiramman back coming through the clearing, alive and alert, holding the shotgun in her hands and Vi hurries forward to meet her halfway. 

“Wilk!” Kirammans voice turns startled when she gets a good look at Vi, running the last few steps between them, dropping the gun unceremoniously to the ground and grabbing hold of the side of Vi’s face, and using the other to push her hair back from her forehead. “What happened? Are you hurt?” 

“I told you the Detective knew something.” Vi grumbles. 

Kiramman gives her a weak huffing laugh, firing back, “I never said he didn’t.” But the concern in her eyes doesn’t dim. 

“Fucker wacked me with that thing.” Vi says, gesturing with her chin to the gun lying on the ground and trying for a reassuring smile as she squints back up at her partener, but she can tell it’s strained. “I heard a shot. Was, was anyone–”

“No, no.” Kiramman interjects. “It was a warning shot, no one’s hurt.” 

Vi breathes out hard, patting Kirammans hip for no good reason. “Good, that’s good. But what the hell was that light?” 

Kiramman opens her mouth to speak, thumb stroking gently across Vi’s cheekbone. She shakes her head. “It was…” She trails off, still not letting go of Vi’s face. “Incredible.”

Vi grabs Kiramman’s wrist and lets her eyes fall shut, relaxing into the hold, her smile going a little softer. “I’ll be sure to put that in my report.” 

...

Later, much later, after everyone is cleared of any immediate medical concerns, Kiramman and Wilk spend the next three hours at the station trying to get anything coherent out of Theresa and anything at all out of Detective Miles or Dr. Nemman. 

Vi, sitting in a chair holding an ice pack to her head and Kiramman pacing around the room with her jacket off and tie loosened to the point she may as well not be wearing it, as they listen to their assembled witnesses give some version of ‘I can’t remember’ or 'I was just protecting my kid,’ respectively. 

A fat lot of good that’s done for anyone so far, and it certainly isn’t going to make a hard difference in the case now. 

Billy Miles, on the other hand, suddenly has a lot to say. 

“We were out in the woods, for graduation. We thought it would be a cool place for a party.” His voice stays even as he speaks, and doesn’t look up once from the ice slowly melting in his soda.

Vi and Kiramman sit on the other side of the table, listening intently to his story. 

“And then the light came.” He swallows. “It took me away. To some kind of testing place. I don’t know what happened until it brought me back and...I was sent to get the others.”

“Who sent you?” Kiramman asks. 

He sniffles. “They would tell me to gather the others. So they could do the tests. They put something in my head. Here.” He touches the top part of his nose, he finally looks up, eyes red rimmed and wild. “I would wait for their orders, I couldn’t do anything but wait.” 

“Billy? Who gave the orders?” 

Billy shakes his head. “The light. They said it would be okay. No one would know. But the tests didn't work. They wanted everything destroyed.” Tears fully gather in his eyes now, and he squeezes them shut. “I'm afraid they're gonna come back. I don’t – I can’t–”

“Alright Billy, that’s more than enough, thank you.” Vi interrupts, reaching across the table to place a hand on Billy’s.

Billy looks at her, shaking and sniffling and Kiramman silently hands him a tissue from her pocket. 

When Kiramman leans back in her seat she turns to look over at Vi and they hold a silent conversation between their gazes while Billy calms down. 

It’s quite the story. Though despite the emotion in Billy’s retelling, that doesn’t stop it from being, in short, highly unusual and more to the point, completely uncorroborated by the surviving evidence or anyone else’s version of events. 

The only tangible thing they do walk away from this night with, is that the mysterious marks on both Theresa and Billy have totally disappeared. 

When the interviews and paperwork are as concluded as they're likely to ever get, Vi and Kiramman head back to their new motel for the night, sitting on the floor again, with a couple of greasy burgers from that nice little diner between them. Kiramman tries her best to explain what she saw out there. 

Even if Vi remains unconvinced that the light wasn’t just overbright headlights, or lightning, or one of the other half a dozen things that it could have been before extraterrestrials – at this point in the evening, most of the insanity has settled mostly into background noise and Vi at least can appreciate Kiramman’s willingness to be forthcoming about it. And she is, at present, a bit too busy investigating her fries to interrupt at any point to call bullshit anyway.

“So it really was Billy.” Vi says, after a sip of her soda. 

“Something like that.” 

Vi rolls her eyes good naturedly. “Well even if it was the doing of whoever he claims to have been controlling him, the fact is, they aren’t here now, and there isn’t any hard proof they ever were. Billy and his father, on the other hand, are. And even with all the missing pieces, it’s…pretty damning.” 

Kiramman eyes Vi over her milkshake. “Is that your official conclusion then, Wilk?” 

They stare at each other for a beat, both trying not to smile.

“Officially…I think there are a lot of undetermined aspects of this case that, as much as I could speculate on, I ultimately can’t speak to with any certainty. But I do know there were four victims that Billy brought to the woods, by his own admission, and I know they are all now deceased. I know that Peggy was chased out into the street – by Billy. And I know that he brought Theresa there tonight, and the same thing would have happened if we hadn’t shown up in time. We know that Detective Miles and Dr. Nemman knew something about what Billy was doing and attempted to cover it up.” 

Kiramman nods and then raises a finger to accompany her points. “But that doesn’t explain the coma, the marks, the light, or the bodies.” 

“It does not.” Vi concedes. “But that doesn’t negate any of our other evidence, and based on what we have, Billy appears overwhelmingly guilty and will almost certainly be charged with manslaughter or at the very least kidnapping. But given his…state and testimony, he has a strong case for receiving psychiatric care instead of prison time. His father and Nemman on the other hand–” Vi mimics Kirammans’s action of counting off the items on her fingers. “They’ve got mishandling of a corpse, grave desecration, tampering with evidence, interfering with an investigation–”

“Assaulting a federal agent.” Kiramman chimes in with a certain displeasure on her face. 

Vi smiles and shakes her head, it does not feel good. “That too.” 

Despite Kiramman fussing at her, like she’s the one with the medical degree, Vi really is fine, she was right, didn’t even get a concussion. And in all honesty, Detective Miles hitting her is at the very bottom of the list of Vi’s problems with that man. 

“So?” Kiramman starts, expectantly. 

“So what?” 

“Would you call this work legitimate?” 

Vi hesitates then, looking away from Kiramman and down at her food, she can instantly feel the broken rhythm of their back and forth. She takes a hearty bite of her burger to buy herself some more time. 

In everything that Vi has seen, strange and inexplicable as they were – her faith in science and the basic principles that govern their existence, she can safely say, have not been shaken. The only belief of her’s that has been tested, however, lies exclusively on the reasoning behind her assignment. 

Assist Kiramman on a case, write observations on the validity of the X-files and her work within it – that’s what she came here to do and that is what she did, with full honesty and with no allegiance but to that of the victims and the truth.

Vi was so sure that her sole purpose on this job was to come in as just enough of an third party, so she could follow everybody’s least favorite agent to go measure crop circles or whatever they think she does, and come back with enough unbiased justification to finally get the funding pulled, and have the embarrassing UFO project permanently shut down, or just fully have Kiramman committed. 

And Vi is still confident that's part of what they want out of all this. But the why, she had been so tangled up in, has  shifted completely. She knows why Kiramman cares so much, but the Bureau has absolutely no reason they should be giving this much of a shit about any of this. 

They don’t seem to have an issue with the X-files on its own, they couldn’t, as it has already existed in some sense for seemingly decades, and the project, nor the amount of unexplained cases that have been tossed into it and promptly forgotten, have ever been an issue previously. 

Kiramman pointed it out in their first conversation but Vi was so busy reeling from the insanity of it all, that she hadn’t heard the truth in it. Piltover, not just hiding anything they deem unseemly in the basement, but actively going out of their way to leave them uninvestigated, marking them unexplained, statistical whoopsies, and leaving cases to collect dust in the dark until they resolve themselves. 

It certainly looks like run of the mill governmental indifference, which just reads as sinister anyway, but if they really didn’t care, then Kiramman should just be allowed to run wild, no one would give her any more attention than teasing her about little green men. So why are they so desperate for no one to look? 

While Vi doesn’t think it’s extraterrestrial life, she does still think Kiramman is right, they are hiding something. 

Vi swallows and looks at Kiramman in her waiting eyes. “I don’t think another department could or would handle a case like this. But we did, and now no one else is going to be taken to that forest to die.” 

Kiramman blinks, startled, mouth open just wide enough that Vi can see that little gap in her teeth again. “That’s what you’re going to put in your report?” 

“Among other things.” 

...

Back at headquarters, Vi sits at the desk with Chief Hoskel and the skinny blond man again, she’s almost getting deja vu, except this time the woman with the cigarette is noticeably absent. There is also a new, palpable tension in the silence from the men as they stare her down, seeming unsure of how to proceed. 

Vi waits, patient, one leg crossed over the other, hands folded neatly on her lap.

Chief Hoskel leans onto his elbows, fingers laced tightly in front of him. “Based on what we've read in your field reports...the scientific basis and credibility seems wholly unsupportable. You're aware of that?” 

Vi nods. “Yes, sir. My reports are personal and subjective. I don't think I've gone so far as to draw any conclusions about what I've seen.” 

“Or haven't seen, as seems to be the case.” The other man interjects, incredulous in a way that almost makes Vi’s iron tight composer slip. “This...time loss. You did or did not experience it?”

Vi holds his gaze. “I can't substantiate it. No.”

“What exactly can you substantiate, Agent Wilk?” Hoskel asks, irritated and doing a pretty poor job at hiding it. “I see no evidence that justifies the legitimacy of these investigations.”

Vi quirks a brow at that. “There were, of course, crimes committed. Several.” 

“But how would you prosecute a case like this? With the only person willing to give a testimony is a boy who claims he was given orders by some alien force through an implant in his nose. You have no physical evidence–” 

At that, Vi’s mouth twitches and she takes the glass vial containing the small metal cylinder out of her coat pocket and puts it on the desk.

The two men sit up a little straighter in their seats. 

“This is the object that was described by Billy Miles as a communication device. I removed it from the exhumed body. Luckily, I kept it in my pocket, and so it was the only piece of evidence not destroyed in the fire.” 

The two men take turns holding up the strange object to inspect it. Vi relishes in their stunned faces for just a moment, before going on. “I had a lab test run on it. The material could not be identified.” 

She doesn’t elaborate further, letting the statement hang there. 

Chief Hoskel’s mouth presses into a thin line, peering at the vial, then back at Vi. “Agent Kiramman – what are her thoughts?” 

Vi takes a breath. “Agent Kiramman believes we are not alone.” 

Hoskel nods and then quietly says, “Thank you agent Wilk, that will be all.” 

Vi rises and moves to leave the room, perhaps more smugly satisfied than she should be after such a technically incomplete case. 

As she makes her way back down the hallway, a woman passes her on the way into the office. It takes Vi a moment to recognize her as the woman smoking from the first meeting. There is a fleeting moment of eye contact between them as they move past each other. 

Vi registers the look, stride slowing momentarily, she almost turns to follow the woman with her eyes, but then she lets it drop just as quickly and exits back into the main offices. 

...

Vi has been laying in bed, wide awake for hours. She’s on her back with the covers kicked off and staring at the digital clock beside her bed, the only light in the room, as the minutes tick by. 

Everytime she manages to close her eyes for more than a second, her mind snaps back to the case, that little metal object, Kiramman. 

Right when the clock changes from 11:21 to 11:22, the phone beside the bed blares to life. Vi leaps to answer it on the first ring, angled awkwardly, practically hanging off the side of her bed. 

“Hello.” 

“Wilk?” Kiramman’s voice answers. “It's me. I just made a phone call to the D.A.'s office back in Raymond County. There is no case file on Billy Miles. The paperwork we filed is gone.” 

Vi can barely process what she’s hearing. A dozen questions blaring through her head too quickly to catch. How did they manage to pull them? Who did it? Why? And what the hell is going to happen to Billy? When did she give Kiramman her number? 

Vi ultimately doesn't respond, but she doesn't hang up either, just silently holding the phone to her ear, leaning on her elbow and listening to Kiramman breathe.

“We need to talk, Wilk.” 

“Yes.” Vi agrees, a little stilted. “Tomorrow?” 

There’s a pause and then with a certain cautious surprise. “You’re staying on then?” 

For some reason Vi tries to fight a smile even though Kiramman can’t see her, burying it in her fist. “Seems that way.” 

What the hell that actually means for her will remain to be seen. 

One case with this woman nearly sent Vi over the edge – working full time with this leggy nut job, with what seems to be the basic laws of science, sanity and the entire government against them – she may never sleep again. 

But for better or worse Vi’s favored work has always been the job no one else wants, or wants for her, for that matter. And – fuck her – Vi wants to be there. 

“Well, I’m looking forward to continuing working with you then.” Kiramman says, echoing Vi’s sentiment from their very first conversation. Vi can practically hear her grinning, she can almost see it too. 

“Hmm. And I’m looking forward to cleaning our office.” 

“What?”

“Goodnight.” 

Vi hangs up and flops back down, a long sigh spilling out of her. She’s no more certain or uncertain than she was a few minutes before, head still buzzing with their strange weekend, but now she has the faintest smile lingering on her face. 

She’s still going to be up for a while, but she finally drags her eyes away from the clock, and looks out the window, through small gaps in her blinds, up toward the sky.