“GET OUT! LEAVE!” Sue, Gloria and Gyuu Park left the residence of Mrs. Li with her yelling at them from behind: “I don’t have money for you! How DARE you!? HOW DARE YOU!?”
“I’m so sorry! We’re so sorry!” Gyuu Park turned back and shouted back, while Gloria and Sue left with their heads low and backs hunched like they were in shame. Only a worn shoe answered him the apologies of Gyuu Park.
This was of course an act they had to put on. After they were certain that they were not being followed, Gloria and Sue each took out half a pile of random files that they carried from Mrs. Li’s place from under their jacket and were already examining some of them, one piece of paper at a time.
“Let’s find a place first. We have time.” Gyuu Park sighed as he led the way.
Three of them found a small bistro that just opened for the day, ordered some drinks and sat in the innermost booth.
“The things in this pile are just so - so random.” Sue shook her head as she laid down a piece of torn paper with two sticky notes stuck on it: “This seemed to be some kind of project tracking sheet - I don’t know why would he keep this - why would SHE keep this?”
“It was the last of his files. So we should still treat them with respect.” Gyuu Park sighed as he took a piece of paper from one of the piles: “This one is - well, looks like another project tracking sheet.”
“Wait wait wait - these tracking sheets, do they have anything in common?” Gloria raised her right hand, with two separate pieces of torn paper tucked between her fingers, both of which were also project tracking sheets: “Looks like we have a lot of these - let’s organize them together - ”
“Yes, but we don’t really have a date. We just have - some reference numbers and addresses.” Sue collected all of the torn sheets into one pile, then said: “I’ll try to ask around if I could find out more on this. ”
“Turner? Could he help? He’s the curator of a local archive, he would be good at this.” Gloria smiled at Sue.
“Yeah yeah yeah, I will ask him.” Sue shook her head.
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“And some of these look like diaries - I wonder why she’d given these to us.” Gloria found a few pieces of paper in the piles that seemed to be rolled up and then flattened. As she looked closely at the content, it was a handwritten note about how the one who wrote this, presumably Ling Li himself, started to feel uneasy at work, especially during the night shifts. She skimmed through a few sentences, then started reading out but with a low voice: “... I am not the only one that found the lights constantly flickering during the night, other nightshifters all reported the same. They become functional when it is 6 A.M. But will start to flicker again at around 11:30 at night again… they never said anything or explained…”
“Curious. I mean, since we KNOW, flickering lights could be something paranormal. But - ” Sue scratched her head: “But it’s hard to tell, and usually things progress, right? Flickering lights are just preludes. If things escalate - ”
“But if it’s been going on for quite a while, it will be super unusual, no?” Gloria looked at Gyuu Park, awaiting his comment.
“It’s hard to say. Remember the talk about frozen tides of Qiyun?” Gyuu Park sighed and started rubbing his temples: “If that phenomenon spread to other places, it could happen - in theory, of course.”
“Geez, Gyuu, take a nap once a while.” Gloria pulled the small pile of file in front of Gyuu Park to her: “Let us look through it. You go back and rest. I feel like you’ve been burning the candle from both - no, multiple ends.”
“Do you ever see superheroes sleep?” Gyuu Park chuckled and yawned, then picked up a piece of long but relatively thin paper: “Let’s get this over with, and I’ll buy a drink and head home.”
“Alright, alright, but let us handle most of it. You take it easy.” Gloria frowned, worried that Gyuu Park might just fall over and bump his head on the desk.
“Hey! This is a contact information sheet - from one of those old school phone books.” Sue took the long and thin piece of paper from the fingers of Gyuu Park: “I just found some contact information as well. Maybe we can compare these with the official employee list of the S&S Corp and see who might know about these things?”
“Wait, wait, how many people are killed in that substation again?” Sue seemed to have an epiphany and picked up a piece of paper with a red letterhead and yellow patterns around the edge: “You see, this is some kind of official letter, warnings, telling them that they will need to fill a position on the emergency reparations team - so…”
“Yeah, Mr. Ling Li took additional shifts for more pay. What do you see?” Gyuu Park yawned again, then turned his head to look at the paper with letterhead.
“I - I think I remember some chat about the emergency reparation teams having a certain size, and when a facility like that gets damaged, I’m assuming they would send a full team there. ” Sue looked through her phone, trying to find some notes: “Hold on, I think I asked Turner this some time before, I never thought too much about it. But - ”
“Six of them in total, I believe.” Gyuu Park rubbed his temples, then answered: “I got a look at some of the tabloid articles before they were taken down. I think we counted five from the pictures from that file, right? Gloria?”
“Four at least, one of them was kinda blurry so it could be one or two people piled on together.” Gloria sighed.
“Okay, 7, right! 7!” Sue showed Gloria and Gyuu Park her phone: “At least according to Turner, emergency reparations teams usually have at least 7 people, sometimes more. But 6 deaths would be - I would say missing something.”
“There are survivors in the team.” Gloria felt that her head just became more clear: “And - it is likely that they actually know something. Maybe it’s even BECAUSE they knew something, they didn’t die.”
“And - we know some of the victims’ names right?” Sue circled two names on the slip of paper with contact information on it: “I can count two of them here.”