Holden

Holden hurried through the dark IT-staff wing of the campus library.

All the overhead lights were off, and for once he was happy the IT staff were a bunch of goblins. His headache was killer. He'd been googling all night, trying to find out anything he could on Dr. Siena Dupont, her strangely familiar voice Holden couldn't shake, and the dead researcher named Isaac.

Uncovering the truth wasn't only to fulfill his own curiosity. He was supposed to confirm that any files on the hard drives were no longer needed before deleting them forever. It was his job, after all.

He'd found some abstracts in JSTOR written by a Dr. S. Dupont, who either was or used to be a CalTech faculty member. He'd also found a handful of social media accounts, though all of them were private. Holden had tried calling the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at CalTech, but he'd gone straight to voicemail, and no one had called him back yet.

The study's connection to Oregon State University still eluded him.

Holden shoved open the heavy door of his office. Office was a loose term. It was more like a Best Buy break room decorated with some cheap LED strip lighting, a bunch of monitors teetering on folding tables. Chase and Angel sat at opposite ends of the space, both drinking diet Monsters and snacking on...

"Are those carrots?"

Chase spun toward him, a carrot between his skinny teeth. "Doc told me to lay off the Flamin' Hot Cheetos."

Holden raised an eyebrow. "Diabetes?"

"Rectal inflammation."

"I... can't say I'm surprised." Other than the acne, Chase appeared healthy, with a soccer-on-weekends sort of build, but by the way he ate, he had to be rotting somewhere.

Holden kicked a chair out of the way and sat in front of a Dell. He dropped his bag, unzipped it, and pulled out the external drive. "I need you two to help me with something."

"I hate helping you." Angel tied her curly dark hair into a knot on top of her head and smeared her lips with a gooey gloss, all while her eyes remained glued to an endless video feed on her propped-up phone. Knowing her, she'd completed her daily assignments an hour ago and was sticking around because she was supposed to be on the clock.

Holden wiggled the mouse on the Dell and typed in his username and password. "What if I need help solving a mystery?"

Angel tore her attention from her phone to stare at him with skeptical brown eyes. Usually some variant of disgust filled them, but he'd caught her interest. "What kind of mystery?"

"Involves a dead guy and a creepy audio file."

Angel didn't skip a beat. "You owe me Twizzlers, two Monsters, and a burger and Cajun fries from Five Guys."

"Can't you just help me because we're coworkers?" Holden asked.

Angel threw her head back and cackled.

Holden plugged the hard drive into the Dell. "I'll get you a strawberry milkshake the next time I'm at Five Guys, but that's it. Both of you should have dropped your bad eating habits in college, you know."

Angel clucked her tongue. "We are technically in college, you know. I think the term is Lifers."

On the monitor, the file explorer launched, and Holden navigated to Dr. Dupont's research project.

Chase sauntered over to them. "What's that? I heard something about a dead guy."

"I'm..." Holden hesitated and stood. "Not really sure. I think it's a collection of recent files from a study, but I can't find any info on the researcher or the project. I was wondering what hidden metadata I missed." He scratched his head. "Normally I'd just lie and write in the log that I got deletion confirmation because no one ever cares anyway, butif someone died..."

"Sounds like the start of a true crime podcast." Chase popped his thumbs and sat at the computer. In the file explorer, he pulled up the properties of several individual files. Every field was empty.

Holden sighed. "I already did that."

"Move." Angel took Chase's seat as he ungracefully left it. Within seconds, she had a browser open and was downloading an EXIF editor tool. "This only works on images, but it's a start."

Holden was more interested in Dr. Dupont's audio files than her image data, but it ended up not mattering. After Angel launched the tool and spent several minutes searching the code within the dialog box, she shook her head. "I can't find anything."

"No time stamp?" asked Holden.

"No, it's so weird." Angel slid a Twizzler from the package and chewed on it thoughtfully. "The fields where the dates should be are nonsense. Random numbers and symbols."

"A cipher?"

Angel slowly turned toward Holden, her eyes narrowing. "Calm down, DaVinci Code."

"What?"

Angel waved a hand in front of her face. "I see you are as versed in pop culture as you are in women."

"That's... not nice."

"No, not a cipher. More like some weird corruption. Though I've never seen a corrupted file like this. Why do you need to know the dates of these files, anyway? Shouldn't you turn this over to the right department, mention the dead guy, and let them deal with it? I don't think we get paid enough for this shit."

"It belongs to CalTech, and I'm working to get ahold of someone there. Just thought I'd see what I could figure out in the meantime."

Angel stood from the chair and stretched her arms, stepping aside for Holden. "I'd be careful with nosing around in research projects. You don't know how much of this is confidential."

Holden sat. "It's not exactly like they are being diligent in securing their data." They. Holden only knew the full name of one woman. Maybe he could find the last names of the others she'd mentioned, specifically Isaac. There had to be an obituary listed somewhere.

There were 324 files on the drive. There was no rhyme or reason to their names, and most were gibberish, but some referenced funding and permits. He clicked on a file labeled KEY CONTACTS. The date on the form was blank, go figure. He scanned through a bunch of bureaucratic crap until he found a typeset list.

Lead Principal Investigator: Dr. Cameron Yarrow, Dept. of Geomorphology, California Institute of Technology

Co-Principal Investigator: Dr. Siena Dupont, Dept. of Geomorphology, California Institute of Technology

Researcher: Emmett Ghosh, COtwo Industries, California Institute of Technology MS graduate

Graduate Student: Isaac Perez, Dept. of Geology, California Institute of Technology

Dr. Dupont had mentioned all of her team in the recording: Emmett, Cam—who must have been Cameron—and Isaac... the dead guy. Holden scrolled past the study sponsors to the list of other contacts until one of them caught his eye.

Contact:Dr. Maidei Chari, Dept. of Forestry, Oregon State University

Dr. Chari was the only contact on the form from OSU, which meant the drive had belonged to her at some point. Maybe she had forgotten to erase the data before returning it.

If this were any other case, Holden would take the drive to the College of Life Sciences and drop it off at the front desk with a sticky note. He didn't know Siena Dupont, and the data was so corrupt that the study was clearly years old, if not decades.

But her voice... her fear on the recording struck some deeply personal chord in his chest. He wanted to know why.

Holden pulled up the roster of faculty at OSU on his computer and clicked on the Department of Forestry. A list of names populated. Dr. Maidei Chari was still faculty on campus. Even better, her office hours were right now, and she had enabled direct messaging. He could contact her through the student and faculty portal.

Holden logged on, searched for Maidei Chari in the chat app, and started typing.

SHARPE: Hi, Dr. Chari. My name is Holden Sharpe, and I'm with campus IT. I found an external drive with some of your data and was wondering if I could drop it by your office.

CHARI: ?

CHARI: What data?

SHARPE: A study you were involved in? I can't find the study name or date, but the PIs were Dr. Cameron Yarrow and Dr. Siena Dupont.

CHARI: I don't recognize either of those names. Can you give me more info?

SHARPE: They're from the Dept. of Geomorphology @ CalTech. I can walk the drive over to you to see if anything is relevant? If you don't need the data, I'll wipe it for someone else.

CHARI: I suppose that's fine. Where was the lab location? Perhaps that will spark my memory. When you've been in the field as much as I have, everything blurs together :)

SHARPE: I don't know a lot about the study, but I listened to one of Dr. Dupont's audio files, and she mentioned Deadswitch Wilderness. Ring any bells?

Holden sat back and waited for a response, disappointment weighing in his gut. If Dr. Chari couldn't remember the study, finding out what happened to Dr. Dupont was going to be difficult, especially if CalTech didn't get back in touch with him.

Holden checked his phone. He swiped away a text from Kyle and opened one from Lauren to a photo of Francis on the couch, belly up and out cold, tongue flopping out of his mouth.

Wish I were doing the same, Holden texted back.

He stole one of Angel's Twizzlers before she slapped his hand away, and was almost finished eating it when Dr. Chari began typing again.

CHARI:Is this a joke?

SHARPE: ???

SHARPE: I don't understand.

CHARI: Wipe the drive. Don't come to my office.

MAIDEI CHARI HAS BLOCKED YOU. IF YOU THINK THIS IS A MISTAKE, PLEASE CONTACT OSU IT.