"I got here as fast as I could," you say. "Do I liaise with just Ms. Clear, or do you also have on-site security?"
"What?" the secretary asks.
You pick some words out of the ether and say, "I'm here with Black Clay Security Solutions to review pen-testing with Ms. Clear. As I said in my text, this is the earliest I could get here because we've been very busy. Look, should I just text Ms. Clear again, or—"
"Oh, no, no. I'm sorry," the secretary says. "I'll call her." She picks up her phone and you hide a smile.
The secretary clearly wants to help, but the phone just keeps ringing.
"Oh wait," the big guy says, suddenly relaxed. "She's with Elton."
"Oh yeah," the secretary says, putting the phone down.
"Is she with a client?" you ask.
A little moue of distaste from both of them, inviting you into their little circle of scorn for "Elton," as if you were one of them.
"He's an independent researcher," the secretary says. She says it like that's what she's supposed to call him. Then she flashes a cool, professional smile. "Elton is helping Ms. Clear conduct market research, so she probably won't be back today." She hands you another, even more impressively embossed card. "But you can text her at this number. Should I tell her you were here about, uh, Black Tarn?"
"Don't worry about it," you say. "I'll just text her. Thank you so much."
You've got what you needed, you didn't make a mess at GRC Media, and now you can conduct some research on both Daphne Clear and this researcher, Elton.
How many days have you spent on the streets? You don't think even a werewolf can survive more nights exposed to a New England winter: you have to try getting a place to stay.
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Up early for Gorsky Manor: chiseling frozen shit out of a bathroom that lost heat overnight, causing the pipes to explode. Ernesto has a special frozen shit chisel that he lets you use as long as you promise to return it. You handle that while he fixes the heat, and by noon it's like a tropical sewer in the bathroom. You switch from the chisel to a mop and bucket. How you manage to choke down a bologna sandwich afterward, you don't know.
I see if I can learn anything more about Harmonie Palys.
I research Daphne Clear and this "Elton" person.
I go to Banicki Gunworks.
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Just turning your thoughts to Daphne Clear makes you feel as if you're being watched.
And you know that there's something worse than a Glass Walker watching you in this town, since it already tried to kill you.
That assumes Daphne Clear is the Glass Walker, of course.
After reading the brochures you took from GRC Media, you see several avenues of investigation. Internet research might reveal more about Daphne Clear and her connection to "Elton," though you doubt passive research will tell you what you need. You'd have to get online and talk to people, and you'd have to be clever not to draw attention.
But maybe it's smarter to go low-tech against a Glass Walker. Archival research at the library might yield physical records, though that'll take patience. Or you could hit the streets and investigate; a cool and friendly attitude will encourage people to talk and then (here's the trick) stop talking once you're gone.
I return to the library and perform computer research.
Back to the library to dig through physical records.
I burn shoe leather walking around town and carefully asking people about GRC Media.
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Glass Walkers can erase digital records, but console jockeys have a bad habit of ignoring printouts and analog photographs.
Increasingly, libraries don't even bother with physical record keeping, as it takes up space they don't have and requires expert maintenance, which costs money. But this actually helps: Forbes Library has an entire storage room devoted to recent newspapers and magazines that they desperately need to scan or trash. Disorganized and neglected, the room contains physical newspapers as well as tech, media, and environmentalist magazines that may tell you more about GRC Media.
You learn basic details from archived magazines: Daphne Clear is in her mid-forties and got a computer science degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Previous work in publishing, environmental research, comms. From newspaper records: married to a Linus Harrowman, then separated. Harrowman died three years ago.
That mysterious death piques your interest. You've been reading for so long that you're starting to lose focus, so instead you let your gaze wander as you flip through physical records, looking at pictures and diagrams, waiting for something to catch your eye. And then it does.
You stare at the picture attached to an article from the Daily Hampshire Gazette, the local newspaper: "Fight Over Development Deal Turns Violent."
The text of the article, including the byline, has been replaced with a completely different article from the Carter administration—an impressive hack, since this is a physical newspaper—but the picture is labeled "Linus Harrowman, 46, Elton Dey, 19, and Katherine Aslanian, 20, have opposed the Broad Brook expansion, which would—"
Then it turns into more randomized babble. The photo is in color, the newspaper maybe five or ten years old. Linus, a middle-aged white man in a faded leather jacket and torn jeans; Elton, a young Black man in a long black coat; Katherine, blonde and Hollywood pretty, with big cornflower blue eyes and a long blue dress. Local woodlands behind the trio, but something is off. That hill, for example, looks like a…barrow?
This is good. This is what you need.
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There's Elton: Elton Dey. And you remember a previous mention of the last name Aslanian. You flip back and find another gibberish article that contains only the phrase "Aslanian purchased the Main Street apartment that was formerly the site of the Words and—" Everything else is randomized fill from, you think, a Dickens novel. There's a picture of a building on Main Street.
Could Elton or one of the others pictured in the photo still own property there? If so, you should be able to track them down.
Another freezing night on the streets.
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