January 15, 2009

Three thousand, eight hundred and forty-three.

That’s how many people were found in that one warehouse. Each one in a box, each one kept alive in some bizarre sort of stasis. The hospitals in the surrounding districts filled up by the second day, and they started having to make arrangements with districts even further out, even as far as my own hometown. I’ll finally get a chance to return to an actual civilized precinct, once we finish processing the victims in this area.

I know I haven’t written in a couple of days, but things have been busy here. A few other guys in the Riventon precinct took over as liasons with the hospital so Grif and I could “focus on more important parts of the investigation.” That’s what the boss said, anyway.

It’s a load of crap, of course. According to Grif, some of the medical staff had complained that I was rude and pushy on my last visit. Obviously they have personal issues with anyone who actually gets work done—an observation further proven by the fact that they haven’t gotten anywhere with the victims. Today’s report stated that a few people have recovered enough to be sent home, but they still have no recollection of what happened to them, and the doctors have found no possible explanation for why Willsey had kept so many people in that state.

Useless.

Grif and I, on the other hand, have spent most of our time checking around for Willsey’s aliases. The boss, being so concerned to keep his hindquarters securely covered, refused to let us examine all the surrounding warehouses in case Willsey had registered another under a different name. If we could find the specific names she’d used in the past, however, any warehouse registered under those names would be fair game.

It’s been a tricky road, requiring occasional leaning on various informants, but we managed to trace her steps back from her little rendezvous in my area to a precinct more toward the midwestern area of the country, a podunk little area called Sonimet. Mostly a bunch of backwater mouthbreathers, but there’s one pretty significant city in the middle of the district. Seems she played her “spiritual guide” game in that town, too, but no warehouses or other potential storage facilities were registered under the pseudonym she’d used there. Nothing under Willsey, either, or any of the other names we’d compiled.

It was the same story in the town before that, and the city before that. Though we’ve managed to collect a handful of names, none of them connect to anything useful. A few turned out to be names of obscure authors from a few centuries back, but that doesn’t tell us anything, just that she fancies herself some sort of literary connoisseur.

Of course, the name she used here in Riventon was a completely different name from what the warehouse was registered under. I know we’d be much further along in this investigation if the boss would let me personally interrogate those contacts she’d made in this area, but he’s blocked me each time I bring it up, insisting that these people have already shared what they know.

No one tells everything, not at first. I’m personally disgusted that someone who doesn’t know that could possibly have been promoted so high—but I suppose that’s what you get in these smaller districts. I’m thinking that I might go out and “accidentally” run into some of these people just to show the boss how much more hasn’t yet been shared.

But at least he keeps things in some sort of order. The precinct has been packed with more action over the last few days than it seems to have ever seen, but he keeps things clipping along well enough, dividing the building into different sections based on task, assigning people as they come in, maintaining clear communication and coordination between each section.

Don’t think it escaped my attention that Grif and I were the only ones assigned to this particular task, either. It’s a bit annoying, but it amuses me, too. I’m pleased to see that Grif has improved himself enough to be considered a threat to the status quo around here.

And don’t think that stopped me from doing my own checking, either. While Grif spent time doing the legwork to find names and phone numbers of people I could question for leads, I was keeping up communication with David back at home. He’d been doing a little personal investigating for me—a little checking into things that might have been overlooked otherwise.

He should be calling me with answers by tomorrow.