One day, I went on an alternate-reality adventure to find a missing girl.
As I mentioned earlier, Nathan was smarter than the average bear, lived in San Francisco nearly all his life, and knew quite a few of the city's secrets.
Secrets like the Humdrum Institute.
On a blue, sunny day, Nathan sent me an enigmatic text message to meet him in the lobby of a building in the financial district. I don't remember which building. Almost all the buildings downtown look the same. Fifty stories of dark glass windows and steel.
I found Nathan sitting on a couch with August and a young man I'd never met. Despite not being conventionally attractive, Nathan had a way of meeting attractive twinks. He was short, had a belly, and a nasally voice, but he was an intelligent, decent human with a sharp wit. He usually treated people with kindness and respect. That was probably his secret. Sometimes pretty young men found Nathan attractive. Other times, they became friends, and Nathan liked introducing me to his new friends.
"Hi," I greeted August, Nathan, and the new guy at once. "I'm Sebastian," I said, extending my hand to him.
He blushed, smiled warmly, and held my hand softly. I felt instantly safe with him.
"I'm Rufio." He was light brown, with dark hair, my height, and somewhere between cute, sexy, and beautiful.
"Okay, now that's over, everyone's here," Nathan complained, looking at me because I was five minutes late. "Let's get going. To the elevators."
We stepped off onto the 18th floor. A woman sat behind a desk in a dark corner of the building. Nathan stepped forward as the leader of our expedition and asked her for the key to the Humdrum Institute. She reached into her desk, pulled out a small wooden map attached to a keychain, and handed it to us without a word. We huddled for a moment to decipher the map and, when we reached agreement, set out to find the X.
X turned out to be a room designed like a 1960s business office. Curious timepieces and plants filled the shelves. As soon as the door shut behind us, the television turned on, first to static, then to flickering images of esoterica. Meanwhile, a velvety smooth disembodied voice filled the room.
"Welcome to the Humdrum Institute. Simply by coming here, you have taken your first steps on your journey to discover the truth. The truth is: all around us, a secret war is being waged between the Cult of Nonchalance and myself and my colleagues at the Humdrum Institute. I would explain more, but these secrets are too dangerous to tell here like this. Besides, you wouldn't believe me. You'll have to see for yourself to believe.
"To aid you on your journey, please open the top drawer of the curio encasing the crystal dragon; there, you will find several maps and sheets for information. Please fill out the forms. Then, each of you, take a map and return the key to Aubrey at the desk. Don't speak to her or anyone else until you leave the building.
"The guards on the ground floor lobby are Nonchalant spies. Surely they will have alerted the others of your presence and will try to follow you. Shake them off. Don't use the elevator. Instead, leave through the fire escape. I will shut off the alarm for the next 5 minutes. Once you're outside in the alley, consult the maps. The Nonchalant are on their way to capture you! Hurry now! Go!"
We hurried silently out, returned the key to Aubrey while enacting Mission Impossible poses, and stepped out onto the 18th-floor fire escape. Rufio was scared of heights, which I found adorable in that moment, so I distracted him with questions.
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"Where are you from?" I asked him.
"A suburb of Los Angeles. My family emigrated from Mexico, so I would be born in the US," he said.
"Do you speak Spanish?" August asked, and Rufio shook his head.
"No, my parents didn't speak Spanish at home. They said I wouldn't need it. Sometimes my abuelos spoke Spanish, but they wanted me to grow up all-American, so they never spoke Spanish to me."
"That's sad," I said. "I wish I grew up bilingual." Rufio and I held eyes briefly, and there was a connection. By the time we reached the ground, Rufio and I were inseparable. Together.
For hours, we journeyed through the financial district and into Chinatown, gathering and deciphering clues to yield a jumbled warning: 'Find Eve. Beware the Nonchalant! They have infiltrated every level of government and society, and they will stop at nothing to keep secret the entrance and nature of Elsewhere.'
"That's ominous," August concluded as he carved his initials into a nearby tree. "Now that we know they exist, they're out to get us, is that it? Way to screw us over, Humdrum. Telling us put us in danger!"
Nathan stayed quiet through most of the day's exploits. He'd been this far before, but the entire story took several days, and he'd never gone past the first chapter. Rather than give the answers away, he let us decipher the clues ourselves.
Since Nathan was staying silent, August and I tussled over team leader. He wanted to be in charge, but I figured out most of the clues first, so I led most of the day. "It says the next clues can be seen through that telescope," I deciphered from a jumble of letters and pointed at a balcony in a building across the park from us. We walked up to it, and I waved to Rufio to look first, then August, then me. The telescope was locked in position and focused on a church several miles away at the top of Dolores Park. It was a timeworn but majestic church, distinguishable even at a distance by its golden dome that shone like a sun in the daylight.
It took several minutes to travel to Dolores Park, so I got to know Rufio better. He was a student at SF State, majoring in Philosophy. He was at once thoughtful and silly, handsome, but also anxious and unsure of himself.
With the men before Rufio, I was the quiet, passive one, but Rufio was even more shy and passive than I, so when he was around, I took charge. He said he felt safe with me, and that made me brave for him. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
We got to the church around 4 pm and looked for the next clue. After several minutes without success, Nathan led us around the back of the building to a nondescript door. It looked like the entrance to a small shed, perhaps tools or garden equipment. A padlock with a six-number combination blocked our path.
"The missing girl, when did she go missing?" Rufio asked. I consulted the key I picked up at the Institute. It gave a short bio of a girl named Eve, who went missing several years ago, and seemed to be the story's MacGuffin. But Nathan saved me the trouble and said it was instead Eve's birthday, 07-19-86.
With the right combination, the door opened to stairs leading down beneath the church. The lights were low. Spiders lived in the several wide cracks in the concrete foundation. I tried not to let my fear shake me, but Rufio was thoroughly spooked. August laughed at us both and went first down the dark stone stairway. I grabbed Rufio's hand and followed behind August. Nathan took the rear and closed the door behind us.
The stairs led to a circular stone room, clearly meant as a worship space, with little cushions to kneel on, strange banners on every wall, and a tiny sunroof that cast a single beam of light.
"This is as far as I've gotten," Nathan confessed. "On the altar, you'll find the last clue."
On the altar was a large ornate clock, stuck at 8:00. Next to the clock was a sign that said, 'Come to Sunday Morning Service!'
"Shit," August said. "You're telling me we gotta be up and here by eight in the morning?! Ugh."
"That's the end of chapter one," Nathan said. "I don't know what happens here, and I haven't convinced anyone else to meet me for chapter two."
"I'll do it," I said without hesitation. "This was the most fun I've had... maybe ever." I was determined to see where the story led. And what a unique first date! Rufio said he would come back, too. August glared at us with envy and jealousy, standing so close to each other. He would spend several weeks irritated with me. I ignored him, and Rufio became my first boyfriend.