“Can anyone even remotely tell me what the fuck just happened?!” Jennifer paced behind her desk, too agitated to sit. Standing in front of it was her tech team, the three individuals assigned to attempting to trace the Stream. Manuel Huerta-Ramos and Andrea Smith both stared at her desk, refusing to look her in the eye. Andrea, already pale and blonde, was paler than usual and looked like she was on the verge of crying or puking. Manuel, on the other hand, had a slight frown, his face turning slightly red, looking like he wished he could explode. Sometimes Jennifer felt like the kids these days were too emotional, too easy to read. It irritated her.
Terry Greene, on the other hand, stood straight, staring back at her almost impassively. When she made eye contact with him, he offered the faintest eyebrow quirk. She had worked with Terry many times before, had known him for years and even loosely considered him a friend. She could see the look for what it was – the slight questioning of whether this matter warranted this much anger, or if she was the one letting herself get too emotional because it had involved Cassandra. “We don’t have the information we need to make an accurate assessment. What we can assume is that something about their location caused the Blackout,” he said.
The Blackout. The phenomena already had a name then. “And why can we assume that?” Jennifer asked, focusing solely on Terry.
Terry paused for a moment. “We think that the stone ruins once belonged to a temple or holy site of some sort.”
“How do you figure?”
“First off, it’s been established that only Elves can cast. If Asterollan can cast magic as a human, it means one of two things. Either he has Elven heritage that he hasn’t mentioned or doesn’t know about, or he is wielding the same divine magic the Graces have. If he’s a Grace as well, then the holy site of the god that favors him would likely increase his powers.”
Jennifer frowned. “If they have their gods back, why do they even need our people for their mission.” Terry shrugged and opened his mouth to respond, but she held up a hand to stop him. “I know. We don’t know enough about any of it,” she said, stifling her frustration. “Still doesn’t explain the Blackout.”
“It might. If the site is heavily protected by the divine magic of one of their deities, maybe that somehow interfered with whatever is recording our people for the Stream.”
Jennifer sat down and studied the three standing before her as she considered what Terry had said. She wondered, not for the first time, exactly how every movement and moment was being recorded for Cassandra and the others. Whatever it was, the subjects themselves couldn’t see it – no one ever reacted to the camera viewpoint at all. There were never any cuts to the video, no clear edits. It was like a continuously powered completely invisible drone camera buzzed around them, circling as needed to catch every moment.
She studied the younger members of the tech team for a moment – both were still avoiding her gaze, and seemed to feel relieved that Terry had done all the talking. “You can go,” she said curtly. Andrea practically fled from the room, probably to find a bathroom to cry in. It wasn’t the first time she had done so. Manuel flashed Jennifer a slightly menacing look, but turned quickly on his heel and left her office without a word.
Terry made no move to leave. He glanced pointedly over at the couch. It was the sort that converted into a bed by allowing the backrest to lay flat. It was in that position even now, and there were blankets and a pillow sprawled across it. Terry sat on the edge of the bed and began petting Larry, who had been snoozing there throughout the entire briefing. Jennifer watched, frowning as she thought of the Blackout.
It had happened maybe an hour ago, and she had already pulled up their own recording of it and watched it several times over. Of course, it had to be Cassandra’s stream. The Blackout had been a lapse of about 10 to 15 minutes. From the moment Cassandra descended the dark stairs with the Hunter, her own stream had gone pitch black. There had been no video or audio for her, although the other three continued to play just fine. Jennifer had played the moment back, the volume on her computer as loud as it would go to see if any sound filtered through. She had adjusted the brightness of her monitor to see if any image lay hidden in the darkness. There had been nothing.
She had been watching when it happened, as she often did. She had sat, tensed, staring at the screen, her eyes flicking to the time constantly as she counted every passing second that she couldn’t see her daughter. Nothing like it had occurred before. The Stream did strangely respect nudity, casting a soft blurriness on the video whenever someone in the scene was naked. There were some perverts online that were working on how to sharpen the images with varying degrees of success. It wasn’t that anyone was missing much – someone bathing, or using the bathroom, or changing clothes – but that didn’t stop the idiots from trying. The shifting of colors could always be seen behind the blur and the audio was always present in the background though, and this instance had been dead silent and dark. Hence being called the Blackout.
It had resumed when Asterollan exited the cavern alone. Jennifer had feared the worst initially, feeling the bile of rage build in her throat as she wondered what this man had done to her child. She had physically reached out to grip the edges of her computer monitor, on the verge of screaming at it. But Cassandra appeared as well, stepping out of the darkness of the cavern and blinking against the light of day. Completely unharmed. Safe.
The internet was already blowing up with speculation and analysis, and no one had any better answers than her own team of professionals. “When was the last time you dropped by your apartment?” Terry asked, breaking into her silent musing. She shrugged noncommittally, almost ashamed to tell the truth. He glanced around her office. The door to her private bathroom was slightly ajar, and it was easy to see that she had her toothbrush and make up and other personal care items stored in there. Her duffel bag with her shower supplies and gym shoes sat on a cabinet next to her office door – she had started exercising nightly at a local gym, so she could shower after and return to the office to work and sleep. “Jennifer,” Terry said her name a bit severely when she didn’t answer.
“I go back to it regularly,” she said a bit defensively. Not entirely a lie. She used the apartment laundry room to wash her clothes weekly. She just didn’t set foot in the apartment itself. There was nothing wrong with it – it was a nice place. But she wanted to be here. She wanted to be working on this.
Terry sighed, reading through her lie. “Is there any point to even paying for it?” he said, but she had the feeling he had asked rhetorically so she didn’t bother with an answer this time.
“I should take Larry for his walk,” she said instead, standing to retrieve the leash. Larry perked up, immediately awake at the word ‘walk.’ He wagged his tail happily as he carefully climbed off the couch. Larry had his own bed here as well, but she had gotten used to sharing the couch with him. She had initially been concerned over whether the team would mind his presence, but they liked him quite a bit. In fact, he was gaining weight, and she suspected that most of them were giving him snacks or feeding him between his meals. She had a food bowl and a water bowl set up for him that she refreshed daily as well. The pet supplies were another sign of how lived-in her office had become.
“Jennifer,” Terry said again, his tone softer this time.
She grinned at him, a thin, forced smile. “The walk will clear my head. I was probably more pissed that it happened with Cassandra rather than anyone else. Just… Try to find out what you can.”
He sighed and shook his head. “Of course. By the way, Linda said to invite you over for dinner sometime. Tomorrow sound good?”
Jennifer hated the idea of spending time away from the office, but she also didn’t want to have this argument with Terry. She smiled and said, “Sure, that sounds great.”
Her team was massive for the moment, but they weren’t getting results. She had four people assigned to each individual stream, three of which worked in 8 hour shifts and watched every tedious second for anything that might remotely be a clue. The fourth carefully watched and re-watched relevant moments from the notes of the others. She had at least 5 individuals working phone tip lines or sifting through online content. There were a lot of Stream fans that were very observant, and any theory or analysis provided, even on an amateur level, was being considered if it merited looking into. Anything that seemed important was pushed on to the tech team. Some of the problem though was that in regards to such unknown phenomena, it was hard to narrow down what to take seriously and what to disregard as hogwash.
They also had a young man named Vincent Underwood that was studying everything about magic possible. He had screenshots of the magic circles used to summon their people to that other world. That had been so early in the Stream that she had no clue how he had even obtained them, but they were in his cluttered office, posted on his whiteboard, with notes scribbled all around them. Most of what he studied seemed to be fables and myth. He was currently fascinated with researching stories of Avalon, though she wasn’t sure how that would help.
She had a field team in case they found anything that merited physical investigation, but had to eventually loan most of them out to other assignments because she couldn’t find anything substantial for them to do besides helping with research or twiddle their thumbs. There were two individuals she kept working with the airlines and continuing the search for the plane, but it had been long enough since the disappearance at this point that hopes that they would find anything were low.
They held meetings twice a day, morning and evening. Major events in the Stream were discussed, and information that could provide hints about what they could be researching next. But whenever the floor was opened to what they could actually do, there was always an immediate and crushing silence. Everyone had theories, but no one had answers. And all they could do was watch.
So Jennifer spent her days leading meetings, and taking Larry for walks in the park across the street, and going to the gym to work out more intensely than she had in years. And between all that, she watched the Stream for as long as she could remain conscious. Sometimes Larry would whine when he heard Cassandra’s voice on the computer speakers, and she would pat him on the head and say, “Me too, buddy. Me too.”
When she wasn’t watching the Stream, she was still online, more obsessively than she had ever been in her life. The internet and its culture had always been something belonging to her daughter’s generation. She had never really been interested in it beyond its practical uses. But now it was the only connection she had to Cassandra. She watched analysis and video montages, scrolled through memes, looked at fanart. She read essays and articles and top 10 lists all centered around her daughter. She rewatched significant moments that had occurred to her daughter over the weeks that she had traveled with her new Elven friends.
When she wasn’t looking up Stream content or watching the Stream itself, she checked the Facebook community for the family members of Flight 5071. It was run by Anna Hobbs, Peyton’s mother. Anna had reached out personally to every immediate family member of the missing and had invited them to what she had termed an “online support group.” In fact, when she had initially reached out to Jennifer she had revealed that she knew that Jennifer was leading the investigation team trying to find the source of the Stream. Jennifer wasn’t sure how she had gotten the information and had been clear that she couldn’t divulge anything (not that there was anything to share) and Anna had been very understanding about that. Still, a loose friendship had formed between them.
Over the past few months, Anna had also become the public face of the families of the missing. She spoke in interviews and held press conferences and always seemed to be doing something to keep the matter firmly in the minds of the public. She had even volunteered to foster two children whose parents had both been on the Flight. They had no other close family to take them. In fact, she and the children were living in Jennifer’s house in Reno. Anna had been in the process of relocating to Reno to foster the kids, and Jennifer had been in the process of moving to Virginia to lead her team. It had worked out quite nicely, and Anna had made quite a generous offer on the house.
The Stream was very popular, but a lot of people were beginning to treat it like any other form of entertainment. It was thanks to Anna Hobbs that everyone still remembered and talked about what could have possibly happened to Flight 5071. Sometimes Jennifer had to fight off the feeling that Anna was doing more substantial work by continuing public interest in the matter. After all, as long as interest continued, the funding would keep pouring in, and that was important.
Anna also included her in a group text with Lexie’s father, Jordan Saint, who was distraught at having lost his entire family on the flight, and Leanne and Frank Kearney, Lucas’s parents. She rarely contributed, but she read every message. In a way, she felt that her life had faded into her being nothing but an observer. A position she wasn’t sure she was comfortable with.
It was interesting watching the analysis come out of the Blackout. A new thing that Jennifer learned was that apparently there were people that “shipped” her daughter with the Hunter. This meant that they thought there was a potential for a romantic relationship between them. They were vehemently opposed by people that “shipped” her daughter with the elf, Lyre. Some argued that the Blackout was perhaps due to a tryst, though Jennifer doubted it. There were no signs of physical exertion, or misadjusted clothing, or mussed hair.
Jennifer played the video back again on her computer multiple times over the next weeks, staring at the dark rectangle on her screen. It lasted exactly 13 minutes and 52 seconds. What had happened in that time? Certainly, it couldn’t have been anything significant.
mehryment 