“A house divided. Two rivers united.
A lone ermine watches from afar, waiting, waiting for its prize.
A star that lies within the cube.
Find the face of eventide.
Find the hope.”
Zach dropped the tablet onto the desk. The resulting rush of air forced several scraps of paper off the beladen surface. Groaning, he labored from his chair to retrieved the confetti from the floor.
“Not another riddle,” he muttered under his breath.
A particular scrap, which included a crucial password, slipped from the developing pile in his hand to under the desk. As he crawled under, a knock came thrice.
Thunk!
“Ow!” He got up, rubbing the new bump on his head and whispering, “Of course.” Lumbering over to the door, he opened it to reveal a familiar face.
The woman looked at his stance, off-kilter with one fist full of crumpled scraps and the other rubbing the back of his head, and raised an eyebrow.
“It’s been one of those days.”
“I see.” She offered a large pile of papers and folders.
He stared down at the new pile. “What’s this?”
“It’s your turn for committee shmoozing.”
“What? No!”
The woman brushed aside and veered towards his desk.
“No way, Maria! You can’t –”
“It’s been two years. Your turn is overdue and you know it.” She let the new pile drop with a thud, miraculously leaving the other contents undisturbed. She furrowed her brow at the tablet. “What’s this?”
“Oh, someone slipped that under my door while I was out.”
“A stone tablet?”
He shrugged.
Maria picked up the new item. “Is this new?”
“It’s certainly not ancient.”
“Looks like granite. What does it say?”
“It’s in Latin.” Zach shuffled through the piled papers in his hand. Pulling one less crumpled piece, he handed it to his boss. “Here’s the translation.”
She read over it thoughtfully. “Any other ‘presents’?”
“This is the first one.”
Maria mulled over it for a moment. “Have you decided to pursue this?”
“Not yet.”
She mulled it over for another moment. “This isn’t going to require me to call up old contacts from more than ten years ago, again, is it?”
“Oh, come on! You met your husband that way! It also generated the company a nice profit.”
“My husband nearly lost a leg from your very next case!”
“Bu –”
“And the company lost a tidy sum on that one! I can’t even argue against any of the committee duties anymore.” She shook her head. “Whatever you decide, don’t let it interfere with committee duties and watch it with the marionettes.”
“Will do,” he conceded, despite the fact that the marionette episode had been completely out of his control.
An hour later, Zach was in the basement laboratory. The new technician – the spec lab always seemed to have a new technician whenever Zach went down there – was scratching his head.
“So, you want a full analysis done on this rock?”
“Yes,” Zach answered. “And possible origin, if possible.”
“Origin?”
“Yes, any information that you can skim.”
“Uh, Zack, this is a spectroscopy lab with a minimal range of assay equipment. I can tell you the majority of the elements in the rock, including contaminants, and a bit about the crystal structure, but that’s it. You need a geologist to maybe determine its origin and we don’t have a geologist on staff.”
“We do have a geologist on staff. She’s just away on assignment for another month.”
“Oh! Where is she?”
“In a naval vessel somewhere in the Pacific collecting samples. She’s been out there for nearly two months now.”
“Huh.” The technician muttered to himself, “Is that why I’ve been getting all of these strange requests?” He turned back to the investigator. “Is it radioactive?”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Wha-! Uh, no. I don’t think so.”
The technician turned around and picked up a metal, green box with a silver handle. Upon turning it on, a quiet clicking sound emanated from the box. As he held the Geiger counter over the stone tablet, the pattern of clicking remained unchanged. “Probably not.”
Zach gave out an audible sigh.
“If you need a high precision analysis, I may need to keep this overnight or longer. When do you need this back?”
“Not soon, so go ahead and keep it overnight.”
The technician nodded silently and went about his business near a large cylindrical container.
“So…are you starting now or…?”
He paused, back still turned. “Oh right.” Behind Zach lay a lab bench with a stack of manuals, three clipboards and a concrete cylinder. The technician picked up the middle clipboard and handed it over to the investigator. “I need you to fill out these forms.”
“Of course.” As he filled out the forms, which included where to send the findings report, he noticed a change in the paperwork. “This seems longer than before. I don’t recognize this last form at all.”
“Yeah, I got an email this morning from the CEO. Something about a review, so an additional form was added to make a full paper trail for a while.”
“Argh!”
“I need to make a photocopy of your ID card, too, come to think of it.”
“A photocopy?”
“Yes. I think it was for a cybersecurity cross check.”
Zach handed over the card and completed the remaining forms, dreading the pile remaining in his own office for the very same review.
“Here you are.” The technician handed back the card when about a half page of the forms remained. Zach thanked him, took the card and bolted before any additional paperwork could appear.
Back on the main floor, the investigator took a detour to the company cafeteria for coffee. The espresso machine lingered on the other side of a wall from the front desk and lobby. While he waited, another familiar face peered around from the front desk side.
“Mr. Smith?”
“Ah, hi, uh…” He paused in the attempt to remember her name. “Shaylene. You don’t need to call me Mr. Smith. That makes it sound like I’m a spy or something.”
“Um, right. Okay, Mr. Zach.”
Really?
‘I texted you this morning about one of your clients.”
“You did?” He whipped out his phone. Four unread messages appeared on the screen, two were spam. One was a copy of that very same email from the CEO about review season and the last was from ‘Lobby Office.’ “Right. I can get an update on that report before the end of the day.” The update was a routine report for a long-term client, and which also allowed him to put off tackling that committee pile possibly until tomorrow.
Shaylene waved to get his attention away from the phone. “There’s another thing. Another client is here to have someone look over a biology model.”
“Uh, that’s not my area of expertise.”
“Mrs. Hernandez said that you could handle it.”
Maria! “Okay, but I can’t promise anything.”
His espresso fresh and ready, he passed by the administrative assistant and into the lobby. To his confusion, Shaylene followed him out from behind the desk and motioned towards the seating area to the right.
“The person has been waiting here?”
“…Yes.”
“No appointment?”
“He insisted on waiting instead of making an appointment.”
She led him towards the most worn, charcoal couch against the wall. Underneath the nondescript painting, sat a nondescript man of unknown age and a floppy hat.
“Mr. Prata, this is Mr. Zachary Smith. He will be helping you with your model.”
The investigator reached out his hand. “Please call me Zach, Mr. Prata.”
Mr. Prata gingerly arose and took the hand. “Duly noted, Zach.” Pulling out a large, lumpy bag from the side of the couch, he added, “Shall we get started?”
“This way, please.” Zach led the new client to one of the smaller conference rooms just past the elevators.
“Is this your office?”
“Hm? No. We need to discuss more about what you need before going to any of the other rooms.” And protect all those papers laying around my office. “Don’t worry. Everything we talk about here is just as confidential as if we were in my private office.”
Mr. Prata nodded and took a seat.
Sliding into the neighboring chair, Sach took a deep breath and a sip of his espresso. “Oh, pardon me. Would you also like some coffee?”
Mr. Prata shook his head, the hat sliding askew. “I never touch the stuff.”
“Tea, then?”
“No thank you.”
“Alright then…” He set down the espresso and interlaced his fingers on the table. “So, what is this model that you need help with?”
The client gently placed the bag on the table. With slow, deliberate motions, he pulled varying boxes from the bag, setting them presumably right side up. With this completed, the bag was unceremoniously tossed to the floor with a low thunk. He then began to open the boxes and remove items here and there, pausing occasionally to mull over the placement of an item. Several colorful rocks here, a scrap of paper there, some highlighters and a plastic bag filled with...
“Ah… Are those marshmallows?”
“Yes…” He continued to pull out paraphernalia, undeterred: A box of toothpicks, a Newton’s cradle, and some petrified wood. He moved to the last box and pulled out an unfinished marshmallow and toothpick model.
Zach pressed his lips together, using all his willpower to prevent any telling twitching. Don’t swear! Don’t swear!
“This,” the client held up the petrified wood, “landed on my head a month ago and ever since I’ve had a recurring dream about a model, but I can’t seem to get it right with this.”
He blinked. “Dream?”
“Yes. I don’t normally take stock in these things. But then again, I don’t dream much anyway. Until, well, I saw some of the pattern in a biology article.”
“What was the article about?”
“I don’t recall. It was one of those magazine articles that a very talkative friend is always carrying around. If I had asked to see it, he would have talked so much, that I wouldn’t know if he had actually mentioned what the pattern was.”
“O…kay.”
He pushed one branch of the model a bit to the left. “What do you make of it?”
“Truth be told, this looks like a geometric frame with missing sections.”
“Well, it’s supposed to be a repeating molecule.”
Zach bit his tongue. “Uh, sir, organic molecules aren’t typically in a geometric structure like this. Chains, yes. Crystalline structure, not likely.”
“Can you find out what it is, then?”
“Let me take some photos – the pictures will be kept confidential like everything else – and do some checking. I can’t guarantee that I will find anything though. There’s a lot of missing information.”
“Isn’t that why you were the one sent to me?”
“Yeah.” Trying to think of whether to take this request seriously or not and if not, how to get out of it, he picked up a number of other items on the table to buy some time. “What about the rocks?”
“The rocks are for adding different colors if needed.”
“And the Newton’s cradle?”
“…Cradle?”
“The swinging, metal balls there.”
“Ah, that’s not relevant.” He pulled the wire frame away from the others.
The investigator could only force a smile.
As the clock struck 5pm, Zach was already on the elevator to the main floor. While others around chatted about the upcoming weekend, this particular investigator was looking forward to solitude and quiet for the evening. The doors opened and he bolted out of the elevator before anyone else. Past the cafeteria and around the corner into the lobby, he veered out of the flow of bodies into the empty space near the front door, grateful that his apartment was less than a five-minute walk from those very same front doors. As he stepped outside, a gust of wind swept up a lone autumnal leaf and slapped off his hand, swirling up to the large letters of Solutions Consulting framing the entrance. As he stepped of the final stair, his phone dinged.
What now?
A single message popped on the screen. It was from Maria:
You got another present.