home.
NINE
The following Tuesday, the rooms of their apartment were filling with first light as Kera tiptoed from bed to bathroom to kitchen, a dance just delicate enough to keep Parker from waking. She skipped her morning run, swearing it would be the only time this week. It was counterintuitive that she ran more when she was engrossed in a case, but it had proven to be so. Her body seemed to crave the morning exertion. Today, though, she was on a mission to beat Jones to the office, just once, and the run was sacrificed.
When she pushed through the Control Room doors a few minutes before seven, there he was at his workstation, every screen around him lit as if he were a stockbroker hours into the trading day. He was exactly as sh e’d left him the night before, except he was wearing a different T-shirt.
“Have a look at this,” Jones said by way of a greeting.
“What time do you get here every day? I’v e never seen your workstation empty.”
“Missing people do n’t find themselves,” he said, not looking up.
“Is that what gets you out of bed?” Sh e’d meant it as harmless ribbing, but Jones fell into a tense silence. She realized she did n’t know anything about him other than what sh e’d gleaned from their interactions in this room.
The moment expired when, without looking up at her, he said, “I think I found something.” Except for a HawkEye map of the city on his center monitor, all his screens were filled with images of murals and sculptures. “ I’v e been looking for additional cases of missing people who fit the profile of our A TLANTIS subjects. I have n’t found any of those yet, but every time I run a new query, I stumble across these.”
He leaned back to let her get a look at all the monitors. She recognized the colorful billboard mural and the odd sculpture bolted to the pavement at the center of a city intersection. Sh e’d seen him looking at those before. But now, in addition to those, there were other murals, sculptures, and even video projections. She counted nine of them total.
“What are they?”
“The y’r e the work of an anonymous street artist called It.”
“It?”
“Tha t’s right. Ever heard of him? Or her?”
Kera shook her head. “Him or her?”
“No one seems to know. Ther e’s quite a bit of chatter about it online.” He moved one of the images aside and pulled up a list of articles and blog posts about the artist.
“Wha t’s the connection to the A TLANTIS case?”
“I did n’t see it at first either. Tha t’s why I kept dismissing these every time they popped up. But then I saw this.” He tapped on a link to a Village Voice article titled W HO I S I T ? “ I’l l spare you the artsy bullshit. What caught my attention is that nobody knows who the artist is. I do n’t mean that the artist keeps him- or herself anonymous, you know, as some sort of gimmick. I mean that there is no earthly evidence that this person exists, other than these works of street art that seem to just appear. At least, tha t’s what this article claims. Obviously, that did n’t sit well with me. I do n’t believe in ghosts, and tha t’s because I believe in cameras. I take it kind of personal when HawkEye ca n’t ID someone.”
“You used HawkEye to look for the artist?”
“Yes. And it turned up nothing. Ther e’s no trace of this person,” he said, as though hating each of the words as they came out of his mouth.
“Except for the art itself,” Kera said, admiring it. “You think this artist might be connected to the others?”
“Tha t’s what I was thinking. But the timeline does n’t fit. The first person we know of to go missing disappeared eleven months ago. The first piece of art like this appeared a year and a half ago.” He pointed to the billboard mural.
“Are you sure i t’s the same person creating all of these?”
“ I’m not sure of anything. But look at them and you tell me.”
He was right. The nine works of art were
NINE
The following Tuesday, the rooms of their apartment were filling with first light as Kera tiptoed from bed to bathroom to kitchen, a dance just delicate enough to keep Parker from waking. She skipped her morning run, swearing it would be the only time this week. It was counterintuitive that she ran more when she was engrossed in a case, but it had proven to be so. Her body seemed to crave the morning exertion. Today, though, she was on a mission to beat Jones to the office, just once, and the run was sacrificed.
When she pushed through the Control Room doors a few minutes before seven, there he was at his workstation, every screen around him lit as if he were a stockbroker hours into the trading day. He was exactly as sh e’d left him the night before, except he was wearing a different T-shirt.
“Have a look at this,” Jones said by way of a greeting.
“What time do you get here every day? I’v e never seen your workstation empty.”
“Missing people do n’t find themselves,” he said, not looking up.
“Is that what gets you out of bed?” Sh e’d meant it as harmless ribbing, but Jones fell into a tense silence. She realized she did n’t know anything about him other than what sh e’d gleaned from their interactions in this room.
The moment expired when, without looking up at her, he said, “I think I found something.” Except for a HawkEye map of the city on his center monitor, all his screens were filled with images of murals and sculptures. “ I’v e been looking for additional cases of missing people who fit the profile of our A TLANTIS subjects. I have n’t found any of those yet, but every time I run a new query, I stumble across these.”
He leaned back to let her get a look at all the monitors. She recognized the colorful billboard mural and the odd sculpture bolted to the pavement at the center of a city intersection. Sh e’d seen him looking at those before. But now, in addition to those, there were other murals, sculptures, and even video projections. She counted nine of them total.
“What are they?”
“The y’r e the work of an anonymous street artist called It.”
“It?”
“Tha t’s right. Ever heard of him? Or her?”
Kera shook her head. “Him or her?”
“No one seems to know. Ther e’s quite a bit of chatter about it online.” He moved one of the images aside and pulled up a list of articles and blog posts about the artist.
“Wha t’s the connection to the A TLANTIS case?”
“I did n’t see it at first either. Tha t’s why I kept dismissing these every time they popped up. But then I saw this.” He tapped on a link to a Village Voice article titled W HO I S I T ? “ I’l l spare you the artsy bullshit. What caught my attention is that nobody knows who the artist is. I do n’t mean that the artist keeps him- or herself anonymous, you know, as some sort of gimmick. I mean that there is no earthly evidence that this person exists, other than these works of street art that seem to just appear. At least, tha t’s what this article claims. Obviously, that did n’t sit well with me. I do n’t believe in ghosts, and tha t’s because I believe in cameras. I take it kind of personal when HawkEye ca n’t ID someone.”
“You used HawkEye to look for the artist?”
“Yes. And it turned up nothing. Ther e’s no trace of this person,” he said, as though hating each of the words as they came out of his mouth.
“Except for the art itself,” Kera said, admiring it. “You think this artist might be connected to the others?”
“Tha t’s what I was thinking. But the timeline does n’t fit. The first person we know of to go missing disappeared eleven months ago. The first piece of art like this appeared a year and a half ago.” He pointed to the billboard mural.
“Are you sure i t’s the same person creating all of these?”
“ I’m not sure of anything. But look at them and you tell me.”
He was right. The nine works of art were
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