She led Agent Lee to the far end of the collapsed mill where an emergency crew gathered around a corpse laid upon a gurney.
“One of the day shift supervisors identified him as Guy Mann, employee of six months.”
Lee snorted. “Guy Mann? Guess that’s better than John Doe. You guys have a cause of death?”
One of the medics looked up. “Flatline. That’s all I can tell. No sign of stroke or heart failure. All organs seem to be intact. Almost as if his brain just…shut off.”
Dylan surveyed the body. The man could have blended in anywhere without standing out. In fact, he was the most nondescript person she had ever come across. It actually took concentration to focus on his perfectly average features, as if his face was purposefully meant to be dismissed. His clothes were scorched and torn in a few places. He lay as though asleep; his lips slightly curved in a peaceful smile.
Lee scratched his head. “Ok, what’s so strange about a dead guy?”
Dylan gave him a sideways glance. “Don’t you find it strange that the body is almost completely unharmed? Only a few lacerations and bruises. There’s hardly a scorch mark even though he was found in the middle of this wreckage.”
Lee shrugged. “Stranger things have happened.”
Another medic spoke up. “He was covered in some black substance when we found him. We thought he was severely burned. But it was some type of…covering. Appeared organic. It deteriorated as soon as we peeled it off of him. We just managed to get a few samples for the lab before the wind blew it all away.”
“Some kind of fireproof shield, maybe,” Lee said. “Maybe he was responsible for the explosion.”
“It will be hard to prove that now,” Dylan said. “What do you want to do?”
Lee gestured indifferently. “Process him. Maybe an autopsy will give us a few answers. Check if he had any psych records, mental illnesses. Known associates. Find out what kind of person he was.”
He turned away as the medics zipped up the body bag. An emergency worker ran their direction, gesturing frantically. “Over here! We have someone!”
They saw a group of emergency workers supporting a tall blond man. He was smothered in soot and bruises. A bloody bandage covered one of his shoulders.
Agent Lee shared a smile with Dylan. “I’ll be damned.” The entire group scrambled toward the man, leaving the gurney unattended.
“So can you please explain how a dead body just…vanishes?”
Philip Dirk drummed his thick fingers on the weathered surface of his oak desk. Like the desk, the Field Director had seen better days. The years of running ops, public relation spins, and bureaucratic wrangling had paid off with interest in premature scowl lines, heavily bagged eyelids, and a graying hairline in the process of rapid retreat.
Dylan created the façade of nervousness by shifting uncomfortably in her chair. Most people approached a summons from the Director like an invitation to their own funeral, so she felt it only appropriate to feign the proper sense of anxiety. Not that it mattered. Having hacked the FBI system long ago, she had downloaded all of their personnel files into her mental data banks, including medical records. Instantaneous recall of Dirk’s last physical exam revealed a near-certain likelihood for a major heart attack or stroke, whichever caught him first. His intake of medication for high blood pressure and related maladies didn’t seem to buffer the onslaught of stress from upper management demands, budget slashes, personnel disasters, and a rather aggressive smoking habit.
“A dead body belonging to the only real suspect behind this explosion, by the way,” he continued. “A dead body under the watch of the FBI, not to mention the local police force and emergency crews. Yet somehow this ‘Guy Mann’ pulls a resurrection act and nobody notices? How is that possible, Agent Plumm?”
Dylan hesitated for a moment. “I thought Agent Lee was the lead on this case, sir. Shouldn’t he be debriefing you?”
Dirk frowned and sat back in his chair. His eyes shifted away as the words reluctantly dragged out. “Agent Lee has been taken off the case.”
“Taken off the case? Why?”
“Incompetence.” Dirk’s fingers tapped a staccato across his desk again. Itching for a cigarette, Dylan figured. The Director went through an average of a pack and a half a day. Unless it was a bad day, when he’d smoke until he ran out.
“Agent Lee can be called many things,” she said. “Incompetent isn’t one of them.”
Dirk glared at her. “What do you want, the official report?” He picked up the tablet on his desk. “Says here that his ‘mental state no longer warrants field work. Intensive psychiatric evaluation recommended.’ You ask me what that means, I say incompetent. Now that we got that out the way, why don’t we get back to the original topic: the dead body of a main suspect disappearing into thin air?”
“I have nothing to tell you that’s not in my report, sir. We left the body for the forensics crew to handle. Standard procedure. Our main focus was on the lone survivor, Michael McDaniel.” Her memory core automatically pulled the dossier: The tall, blond man they recovered at the scene was currently in an agency psychiatric ward in San Francisco, recovering from severe mental and emotional trauma.
Dirk’s mouth twisted. “Another loony toon. Know what he spouts when he’s not heavily medicated?”
“I’ve seen the videos, sir.”
Dirk went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Keeps going on and on about faceless monsters. Giant spiders and rats. Doorways to another dimension. Your average horror movie feature. I swear, the shit these guys pull to get a crazy card. This case will never make it to court, mark my words. It’ll just go on and on…”
Dylan nodded as thousands of possibilities for the conversation’s outcome processed through her neural net. Less than a second later she chose the appropriate query to bring the discussion to an end. “What do you want me to do, sir?”
Dirk’s attention refocused. “Bodies don’t just disappear, Agent Plumm. My best guess is Mr. Mann took some kind of sedative cocktail which put him in a temporary coma state. Once it wore off he slipped away with none the wiser. I’d say that makes him the main suspect in this bombing. You find him and bring him in.”
“That might take some time, sir.”
“It’s your case now, Agent Plumm. It doesn’t close until you get some results. The top brass are breathing down my neck on this one. Do what you have to do to get it done.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, and one more thing.” He flicked the tablet screen over to a file of case photos. “Try to keep your hands from shaking when you take pictures, Agent Plumm. Every shot of Guy Mann’s face is blurred.”
Dylan hesitated only for a moment before delivering the appropriate response. “Yes, sir. I’ll try, sir.”
The case went nowhere.
An inexplicable outbreak of insanity had completely sidetracked her original investigation. It occurred in the surrounding vicinity of the mill explosion, and had the entire area in a panic. Mass suicides and bizarre behavior had become the norm in the small radius of neighboring homes. Apparently even Agent Lee had been affected. He had taken his life shortly after Dylan’s meeting with Director Dirk.
Even more unusual was the complete information blackout as the situation was yanked from the FBI and given to a newly formed agency called the Aberrant Investigation Team, or AIT for short. Dirk had been closemouthed about the deal, telling her to focus her attention on locating the ghost named Guy Mann. As if there was any trail left to follow. But Dylan kept her opinions to herself, if only because it left her with the solidarity she preferred. With no official interest in the case, she was free to pursue her own investigation.