After reading this Sara leaned back in her chair, her head spinning. An organization that keeps ‘anomalies in the fabric of reality’ – whatever that meant – hidden for the good of humanity. Could such a thing be real? Surely it was made up. And yet, she had found a connection to an organization with the same name in her husband’s bank statements. There must be at least a grain of truth in all that. She decided to dig deeper and find out if the person who posted this had written anything more. It didn’t take her long to find out that the account hadn’t made any other posts, they hadn’t even replied to any of the comments. Looking at the account itself, she couldn’t find any information about who owned it or how they could be contacted. Clearly the account was created specifically for that one post, and never used again, just like the poster had said.
Some further digging, aided by the info in the BBS post, led her to a third forum post discussing The Agency. It was in a thread about strange experiences at work. The poster said she was working for a cleaning company, and she and two colleagues had been hired out to clean an office building. The sign in the lobby said Minaro Holdings but unlike most offices, she couldn’t see the company logo anywhere else in the building. From the name she had expected a lot of finance bros constantly on the phone but the place was surprisingly quiet and none of the people working there seemed like the typical financial industry types. In fact, none of the people there seemed to be working with finances as far as she could see. It was almost as if the lobby belonged to a different company than the one she was cleaning. In the poster’s experience, people tended to act as if the cleaning staff wasn’t there, and this company was no exception. She then started listing some of the weird things she had overheard while working. As Sara read she immediately recognized several things from the BBS post. It seemed clear to her that this woman had been cleaning one of The Agency’s facilities. A quick check showed her that the woman’s account was still active, so she sent a DM asking for more details. After a couple of messages back and forth she had all the info she needed for the next step in her search.
Minaro Holdings didn’t have an office in Sara’s area, neither did Lightfoot, but Investibles did, and it was located in the same industrial park as her husband’s company. A quick search on Google Maps showed that the two were within a couple hundred meters of each other. Sara immediately knew what was going on. While she had been spending her lunch breaks researching, her husband had been spending his lunch breaks in the office of Investibles, doing Agency work. Next step, find out exactly what his work consisted of.
A couple of days later she told her boss she had to run some errands during lunch and would be back later in the afternoon. She drove across town to the industrial park where her husband worked and navigated her way to the building where Investibles had their offices. It was a steel and glass building among many similar ones along a wide, mostly empty street with sidewalks lined with trees. There was no good vantage point where she could keep an eye on the door without being seen. She double checked that Investibles was indeed on the sign outside the building then parked just around the corner where she hoped the car wouldn’t be seen, then checked her watch. She had 20 minutes until her husband’s lunch break ended and, assuming he was in the building, he would likely exit at that time and go back to his normal work. She got out her sandwich and ate while she waited. When there was five minutes left until her husband’s break ended, Sara took up position behind a tree. It wasn’t a great hiding spot, if her husband paid enough attention he would likely notice her. But seeing as it was the only place where she could get a clear view of the door, it would have to do.
A few minutes later the door opened and sure enough it was her husband. He turned and started walking down the street without even looking in her direction. She gave it another ten minutes before making up a pretense for calling and confirming he was in the office. Now all she had to do was get in.
She only had to wait a couple of minutes until she spotted a group of young guys in jeans and light colored shirts heading towards the entrance. She took a deep breath then followed them into the lobby without so much as a glance at the receptionist. She squeezed into the elevator with them just as the doors were about to close. The guy by the control panel looked over to her. She mumbled ”eh, seven” and he swiped his badge and pressed the button, then went back to talking with his buddies. She kept her eyes on the floor the entire elevator ride and when it reached the seventh floor she stepped out without looking back at the young men. The elevator lobby was empty so she took a few moments to calm herself down before continuing. She had to look around a bit before she found the offices of Investibles. To her surprise the whole place was dark and the doors locked. She thought about coming back another day but instinct told her the place would be just as dead then; she was sure her husband was the only one working there. If she wanted to find out more, she would have to confront him but she wasn’t sure she was ready.
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