Chapter 18: The Mountain Town Crisis (3)
The paperwork arrived without ceremony.
Li Wei noticed it first, because Li Wei noticed things before they announced themselves.
The tablet on the counter chimed softly, once, then again, and the ordering app minimized itself without being asked.
A new folder appeared where there hadn’t been one before. No alert. No subject line. Just a quiet assertion of presence.
Li Wei opened it, scanned the first page, then didn’t scroll any further.
He looked up.
“The brief’s in,” he said.
The kitchen was in the tail end of its post-service lull. Containers were stacked. The burners were cooling.
Outside, the sky had already slipped past dusk and into that familiar, uneasy calm that settled over the city like a held breath.
The boss was wiping down the counter, slow and methodical.
He stopped.
“Alright,” he said. “Meeting.”
No one argued. No one joked.
They moved upstairs to the larger of the two rooms, the one with the table that had become unofficially communal.
The lights were dimmer here, warmer, but the windows showed only darkened rooftops and the faint glow of distant streetlamps.
The boss stood at the head of the table.
He didn’t sit.
Li Wei placed the tablet in the center and stepped back.
Khalid leaned against the wall, arms folded. Gorchov took a chair and immediately looked too large for it. Lena remained standing, arms crossed, weight shifted slightly forward like she was bracing for impact.
The boss didn’t speak right away.
He scrolled.
The silence stretched. Outside, something metallic clinked faintly and then stopped.
Finally, he said, “This isn’t localized.”
That alone changed the room.
Lena’s posture tightened. Khalid straightened. Gorchov’s expression, usually amused, usually distant, went still.
“Define not localized,” Lena said.
The boss tapped the tablet once. A map expanded across the screen: a satellite view, muted colors, familiar contours of mountains and valleys. Then red marks appeared. Not clustered. Not aligned. Scattered.
“Disappearances,” the boss said. “Confirmed missing persons. Last known positions.”
“How many?” Khalid asked.
“Enough,” the boss replied. “And increasing.”
Li Wei spoke carefully. “Timeline?”
“Last six weeks,” the boss said. “Accelerating in the last ten days.”
Lena frowned. “That doesn’t match the quiet.”
“No,” the boss agreed. “It explains it.”
He swiped again. New files opened, incident reports, medical scans, timestamps.
Photos were present, but he didn’t enlarge them.
“Not everyone disappears,” he continued. “Some come back.”
Gorchov tilted his head. “Come back intact?”
The boss shook his head once. “No.”
He tapped the screen again.
“Those who return exhibit severe catatonia,” he said. “Unresponsive. No signs of trauma that would explain it. Vital functions intact.
No brain death. No coma. They’re… vacant.”
Lena felt something cold settle behind her sternum.
“Like they’re not home,” she said quietly.
The boss met her gaze. “Exactly.”
Khalid exhaled through his nose. “Any pattern in who gets taken?”
“Yes,” the boss said. “And no.”
He gestured to the map.
“It doesn’t favor population centers. It doesn’t favor isolation either. It’s not preying on crowds, but it’s not avoiding them. It takes who it can.”
Li Wei frowned. “Then what’s the common factor?”
The boss paused.
“Proximity,” he said.
“But not to a place.”
Lena’s head snapped up.
“You’re saying-”
“I’m saying the area of effect isn’t stationary,” the boss finished.
For a moment, no one spoke.
The city outside remained unnervingly quiet.
Gorchov broke the silence first, voice low. “That’s not how this usually works.”
“No,” the boss said.
“It isn’t.”
Lena shook her head once, sharp. “You’re telling us the thing causing this is moving.”
“Yes.”
“Moving how?”
Khalid asked.
“Roaming? Drifting?”
The boss shrugged slightly.
“Unclear.”
Li Wei leaned in closer to the tablet, scrolling now, eyes flicking rapidly. “The timestamps… these locations don’t follow roads.”
“No,” the boss said. “They don’t follow terrain either.”
Lena laughed once, without humor. “So it’s not walking.”
“No.”
“Flying?”
“Maybe.”
Gorchov frowned. “Or it’s not constrained by geography at all.”
That landed heavier than anything else.
The boss nodded. “That’s the working assumption.”
Lena dragged a hand down her face.
“Okay. So. Moving anomaly. Unknown pattern. People disappear or come back hollow.”
“Yes.”
“And we’re running a kitchen because…?”
She stopped herself, jaw tightening.
“Never mind.”
The boss didn’t rise to it. “This region is where the data converges,” he said. “Not the origin. Not necessarily the destination. But the overlap.”
Khalid looked at the map again. “So we wait.”
“We observe,” the boss corrected. “We listen. We collect.”
Li Wei glanced up. “Any witness accounts?”
The boss hesitated.
“That’s the other problem,” he said.
Lena’s eyes narrowed. “There are witnesses.”
“There are,” the boss confirmed.
“They don’t agree with each other.”
He opened another file.
Audio transcripts.
Handwritten notes.
Translations layered over translations.
“Descriptions vary wildly,” he said. “Some report sound before disappearance. Others report silence. Some describe a presence. Others describe an absence. A few describe nothing at all, just time missing.”
Gorchov leaned back slowly.
“That suggests perception failure.”
“Yes.”
“Or adaptation,” Khalid added.
“Yes,” the boss said again.
Lena crossed the room and rested her hands on the table, leaning over the tablet.
“What about the catatonic ones,” she asked.
“Any similarities in what they were doing before?”
The boss scrolled.
“Most were alone. Not all. Most were outside after sunset.”
Lena went very still.
“After sunset,” she repeated.
“Yes.”
She straightened, exchanging a look with Khalid, then Li Wei.
No one needed to say it.
They had all felt it.
The way the city withdrew at night.
The way the land seemed to exhale.
Gorchov’s voice was quiet. “So people learned.”
“Some did,” the boss said. “Enough to change behavior.”
“But not enough to stop it,” Khalid said.
“No,” the boss agreed.
Li Wei tapped the screen. “This cluster here,” he said. “It repeats. Same general area, different days.”
The boss nodded. “We’re near one of those.”
Lena closed her eyes briefly. “And it’s not done.”
“No,” the boss said. “It isn’t.”
Silence settled again, heavier now. The earlier humor, the kitchen banter, the week of uneasy calm, it all felt like prelude.
Finally, Lena spoke. “What do we do if it comes here.”
The boss didn’t answer immediately.
“When,” he corrected.
She met his eyes. “When.”
“We don’t chase it,” he said. “We don’t provoke it. We don’t escalate.”
Gorchov raised an eyebrow. “We wait for it to notice us.”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
Khalid asked.
The boss’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “Then we find out what kind of thing it is.”
Li Wei looked down at the map again. “And if it doesn’t behave like a thing?”
The boss folded his arms. “Then we adjust.”
Lena let out a slow breath. “So the calm after sunset.”
“Yes.”
“It’s not peace,” she said.
“No,” the boss replied. “It’s avoidance.”
No one argued with that.
Outside, the streetlamps buzzed faintly, holding back the dark just enough to pretend.
Inside, the team sat with the knowledge settling in, heavy and inevitable.
Whatever was out there wasn’t bound to a place.
And sooner or later, it would pass through them.
***
The boss let the silence sit for a few seconds longer than was comfortable.
Then he spoke.
“We don’t act yet.”
Lena opened her mouth, already halfway into an argument, then stopped. Something in his tone, flat, immovable, cut it off before it could form.
“We don’t chase,” he continued. “We don’t test. We don’t escalate. Not until we know more.”
Khalid frowned.
“People are disappearing.”
“Yes,” the boss said. “And if we move wrong, more people will disappear faster.”
Li Wei’s fingers hovered over the tablet.
“So what do we do?”
The boss tapped the edge of the table once, sharply.
“We anchor.”
That word settled into the room with weight.
Gorchov tilted his head.
“You want to make this place… loud.”
“Not loud,” the boss corrected. “Present.”
He gestured vaguely, encompassing the building around them. “Right now, this structure is just another object on the map. Occupied, yes. Active, yes. But it doesn’t assert itself.”
Lena narrowed her eyes. “You want it to.”
“Yes.”
Li Wei scrolled instinctively, already pulling up architectural schematics he hadn’t been given yet but somehow had anyway. “You’re talking about a counter-cleansing circle.”
The boss nodded. “Building-scale.”
Khalid let out a low whistle. “That’s not subtle.”
“No,” the boss said.
“It’s defensive.”
Lena leaned back against the table. “You’re turning the kitchen into a beacon.”
“Into a reference point,” the boss replied. “Something the environment has to acknowledge.”
Gorchov folded his hands together, thoughtful. “You want to tell reality that this is a place where rules are being observed.”
“Yes.”
“And enforced,” Lena added.
“Yes.”
The boss straightened, finally taking a seat. “Whatever this thing is, it’s exploiting ambiguity. Gaps. Places where expectations weaken.”
Li Wei glanced toward the window, where the darkness pressed close despite the lights.
“Like after sunset.”
“Like after sunset,” the boss confirmed.
“So we give it something it can’t ignore,” Khalid said.
“We give it structure,” the boss said. “Boundaries. Consistency.”
Lena sighed. “No pressure.”
The boss didn’t smile. “A lot of pressure.”
He slid a thin folder across the table.
Physical paper this time.
That alone made Lena uneasy.
“Materials arrive tonight,” he said.
“Salt, ash, treated iron. Markers. Anchors.”
Gorchov blinked.
“Iron?”
“Yes.”
“That narrows things.”
“It narrows responses,” the boss corrected.
Li Wei flipped open the folder, scanning quickly. His expression shifted, subtle, but noticeable.
“This is layered.”
“It has to be,” the boss said.
“Single-plane solutions won’t hold.”
Khalid leaned over Li Wei’s shoulder. “This isn’t just a circle.”
“No,” Li Wei agreed. “It’s a network. Floors, walls, roof.”
Lena grimaced. “You’re basically turning the building into a diagram.”
“Yes.”
“And we’re sleeping inside it.”
“Yes.”
She rubbed her arms.
“I hate that.”
“You’ll hate it less than the alternative,” the boss said.
The room fell quiet again, but this time it was a working silence. Gears turning. Mental checklists forming.
Finally, Gorchov spoke. “Once it’s in place… what then?”
“Then we wait,” the boss said. “And we watch what reacts.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then it wasn’t looking for us yet.”
Lena pushed off the table.
“And if it was?”
The boss met her gaze.
“Then it will notice the change.”
Khalid frowned. “And come here.”
“Possibly.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“It’s honest.”
Li Wei closed the folder.
“How long does the setup take?”
“Overnight,” the boss said.
“No shortcuts.”
“And during that time?”
Khalid asked.
“We stay inside,” the boss replied.
“Together.”
Lena paused.
“Together.”
“Yes.”
Gorchov straightened slightly.
“That implies-”
“It’s explicit in the paperwork,” the boss cut in.
“No two-man teams.”
The words hit harder than expected.
Lena frowned.
“That’s… new.”
“It’s specific,” Li Wei said quietly.
“Which means it mattered enough to write down.”
Khalid shifted his weight.
“We always split up.”
“Yes,” the boss said.
“You’re not doing that this time.”
Lena crossed her arms.
“Why.”
The boss looked down at the folder, then back up.
“Because isolation correlates strongly with incident severity.”
Gorchov’s voice was low.
“Not just victims.”
“No,” the boss said.
“Responders too.”
That settled uncomfortably.
Li Wei spoke again.
“So if we investigate-”
“We go as a group,” the boss finished.
“All of us,” Lena said.
“Yes.”
“No exceptions?”
“None.”
Khalid let out a slow breath.
“That’s going to slow us down.”
“Yes.”
“And make us visible,” Lena added.
“Yes.”
Silence stretched again, heavier now.
Gorchov broke it carefully.
“What exactly does the paperwork say?”
The boss didn’t answer immediately.
He reached forward and flipped the folder around, tapping a single line near the bottom of the page.
Lena leaned in, reading over his shoulder.
Li Wei and Khalid followed.
The line was short. Unadorned. No technical language.
No caveats.
Just a warning.
Lena read it once.
Then again.
Her stomach tightened.
“Avoid isolation at all costs.”
She straightened slowly. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” the boss said.
Khalid frowned. “No explanation.”
“No justification.”
“No definition of isolation,” Li Wei added quietly.
Gorchov’s jaw tightened. “Which implies-”
“That it doesn’t mean just being alone,” Lena finished.
The boss nodded. “It means separation. Physically. Perceptually. Structurally.”
“Gaps,” Khalid murmured.
“Yes,” the boss said. “Gaps.”
Outside, something moved, not visibly, not audibly, but enough that Lena felt it in her chest.
A shift in the quiet.
A tightening.
The city remained still.
Too still.
The boss closed the folder.
“We start the counter-cleansing tonight,” he said. “We don’t leave alone. We don’t work alone. We don’t think alone.”
“And if someone has to step outside?” Lena asked.
The boss’s expression didn’t change.
“They don’t,” he said.
No one argued.
Because somewhere beyond the walls, beyond the lights, beyond the careful calm that settled after sunset, something was moving.
And it was looking for places where no one else was watching.
