Holden

Holden could do nothing but wait for news from the search and rescue team. Well, that and clean.

He scrubbed the mildew stench out of the third-floor bathroom, dusted every knickknack in sight, and ran the vacuum over the shag carpet four times. He went through all the linen closets and washed and refolded it all. The window to save the research team was closing, so he did everything he could to keep his mind off it.

After finding a bottle of fabric softener from the early aughts, he washed the quilt from his bed until it smelled like the one from his false memory.

When he shook the clean quilt out and spread it back over the bed, his nose prickled at the scent of the fabric softener and attic wood. At first he thought it was a sneeze coming on until a memory slid into focus, like with the old projector in the basement of the Forest Science Complex. Becca on his lap, the quilt wrapped around them as they sat in bed. She pressed her finger to the window and traced the trees.

"My family isn't really in the picture, either."

Holden frowned at the blanket. No... that wasn't right. Becca's parents lived in Beaverton, only a couple of hours away from Corvallis. She drove up there twice a month. When they were dating, she and Holden had spent every holiday with them.

It's fake, he reminded himself. It didn't matter if this quilt had been in a memory he'd contrived. He'd created a false Becca admitting a falsehood, a scene that had briefly made him feel less alone in the world.

It was pathetic, and he didn't want to wallow in it, so he kept cleaning.

A couple of days passed. He finished the upper floors and started on the kitchen, washing every stale and slightly greasy plate, bowl, and cup stashed away in the cabinets. He threw out condiments that had expired eight years prior, organized the spices, and made a list for a stocked pantry. Eventually he'd have to make a trip into town when he ran out of dog food for Francis. Maybe Zaid would spot him cash for supplies.

Zaid hardly ever left the main room, the place the scientist had lovingly nicknamed the Hub. Every once in a while Holden would peek his head in to see a new flat-screen hanging near the mantle, or another laptop added to the collection on the table.

Holden finished reorganizing the last of the kitchen on the day Frank stopped by to provide a no-news update, and paused while mopping the floor as the ranger spoke with Maidei and Zaid on the other side of the nearest wall.

"This is dredging up bad memories," Maidei said.

"And I don't blame you." The floor creaked beneath Frank's heavy footsteps. "I've run a lot of missing folks cases over the past twenty years, but there are only two where every second is burned into my skull."

"Third time's a charm," Zaid muttered.

Two cases. One had to have been the Deadswitch Five. The other... maybe it had happened during Maidei's and Zaid's study.

"You can go home, Maidei," Frank said. "I wouldn't blame you. Zaid, on the other hand—next thing I know, he's going to be siphoning electricity from the station just to fund his operations. Can't get rid of the guy."

Zaid chuckled. "Ah, Frank. You'd be lonely without me."

Maidei hummed softly. "Zaid and I deal with many things in completely different ways, including our trauma. Perhaps that is why we get along so well."

"I do enjoy your company," Zaid said. "And I'm glad you're here. The kids aren't too bad, either."

Frank returned through the hallway, waving at Holden when he passed the kitchen. "They're hardly kids." He shared a smile with Holden.

Holden couldn't remember the last time he'd been called a kid. A part of him liked it.

"I haven't seen Zaid since yesterday afternoon," Angel told Holden the next morning as she exited the bathroom, drying her hair with a towel. "It's getting quiet around here. Sort of giving me the creeps."

Holden went downstairs to inquire of Maidei, who sat at the Hub's table.

"Don't worry, he does that sometimes," she said without looking up. "Barters for gear in the city when he's low on funding. When we worked together, sometimes he was gone for days. I never knew what he would bring back. One time he returned with a houseplant and nothing else."

Holden nodded and stood there awkwardly, scuffing his foot before asking, "You hungry?"

"Maybe, but I'm afraid to look in that fridge."

"You like eggs?"

She paused in her typing to shoot him a funny look. "Are you going to cook for me?"

He shrugged and turned back toward the kitchen. "I have nothing better to do."

The half-full carton of eggs was only two weeks expired. He scrambled them with a bit of mayonnaise and bouillon he'd found, sprinkled in some hard cheese, and cut up a few apples from the back of the fridge. It wasn't the most elegant meal, but it didn't taste terrible. The stairs creaked as Angel descended, and Holden brought three plates out to the table.

"I love a man who cooks for me without being asked," Angel said with a yawn.

Maidei took a plate with a thank you. Holden sat and pushed the eggs around with his fork. He needed to eat, but felt more sick than hungry, and instead petted Francis's head as the dog lay at Holden's feet.

Maidei hummed in approval. "This is good."

"I can make better." Holden dropped his fork and picked up an apple slice. "I had little to work with."

"It's the sign of a good cook when you can make something edible with the contents of that kitchen."

A silence fell over them as they ate. Holden hated it. He hated sitting here, eating eggs as if they had all the time in the world.

"Dr. Dupont sends her last message in ten days," he announced.

Maidei set her fork on the edge of her plate. "I'm aware."

"It doesn't mean we have those ten days. We don't know when Isaac is supposed to die, exactly."

"I know—"

"They could be in danger now."

"Frank will be here in a couple of hours. One of the SAR teams should reach the cabin by then." Maidei frowned. "Another duo was supposed to reach the lakes this morning and scout for the ranger, but they haven't called in yet."

Holden shifted uncomfortably. "I don't like waiting."

"We aren't waiting." Angel pointed her fork at him. "If I remember correctly, I spent over sixteen hours in a car with you this week. If we were waiting, we'd still be back in Corvallis."

Holden shook his head, worrying his bottom lip. It wasn't good enough.

Maidei rested her elbows on either side of her plate. She watched him over the screen of her laptop. "What do you propose we do?"

Holden couldn't tell if she was humoring him. "I don't know... Can we get more teams on the ground? A helicopter in the air?"

"We have no hard evidence something is wrong. The Forest Service... they try to avoid bureaucratic bottlenecks by only calling in backup for emergencies. We have a handful of audio files from ‘the future.'" Maidei air quoted the last part.

Holden gritted his teeth and glared at his lukewarm eggs. He should have come up with a more convincing tale of why he believed Dupont's team was in danger, even if it was a lie.

Like Angel was reading his mind, she said, "We're doing everything we can, Holden."

He knew that. He'd gone above and beyond for strangers. But his Siena-filled dreams made this whole situation so much more personal.

He didn't believe in God, spirituality, or divinity in the universe. Dreams were just an element of his subconscious and a way to process the absurdity of finding Dr. Dupont's audio files. But maybe that was the most anxiety-inducing part of it all.

Frank arrived exactly two hours later, his satellite phone perched on his hip. "My namesake," he said with a chuckle as Francis greeted him. He looked more tired than the other day. "I listened to those recordings."

"And?" Holden pressed.

"I'm..." Frank shook his head. "Disturbed by it." His eyes flitted to Maidei. Hers were pleading, as if she was silently asking him to be more than just disturbed. "I will admit, I'm not sure what to believe here. But I understand why you are worried about Dupont's team."

Holden's shoulders sank. "Understanding won't help them."

Frank nodded. "I know, I know. All we can do is wait for the call to come in and see what Search and Rescue finds at the research cabin."

If the call comes in at all. If it didn't, at least that would be an incentive to deem this an emergency.

Holden made tea, and as he brought a stack of mugs to the table, Frank abruptly stood and pressed the satellite phone to his ear. "Frank here."

Holden's heart leapt into his throat.

"Sandy... hold on, slow down... you're cutting out." Frank's brow furrowed in confusion. "What do you mean, they aren't there?"

Holden and Angel shared a look of alarm.

"What? I need you to repeat... You're cutting out, Sandy... You don't think what? How can you tell? Sandy? How can you... Okay... okay... Anything else? Hello?" Frank pulled the phone away and glared at it. "Lost her."

"What happened?" Holden asked.

Frank dipped his head and rubbed the space between his eyes. "It doesn't make any sense."

"What did she say, Frank?" Maidei's voice was tense. "What did Sandy say? What did they find?"

"She was cutting out. I don't know for sure..."

"I can handle this, Frank. Just tell us."

Frank dropped his hand. "Nothing. They found nothing. It doesn't look like anyone has set foot in the cabin for years. There's no evidence they even made it to Agnes. I only caught bits and pieces... something about no footprints, dry water barrels, and an empty outhouse tank."

Warmth drained from Holden's body. Whatever he'd been expecting, it wasn't this. "That's impossible. They had to have made it there. The recordings..." He felt dizzy and sat.

"What do we do now?" Angel's voice was quiet.

"I need to report this to the sheriff and wait to hear from the other two teams. We need to contact CalTech again—maybe their families—to figure out if Dupont and Yarrow changed plans last minute. If not, then something else happened. They got lost... maybe sidelined."

Maidei slammed her laptop lid shut. "Frank, we should go to the sheriff now. We need to gain traction on the urgency of this situation, preferably in the next couple of hours."

Frank grunted. "Let's go, then."

As Maidei followed Frank to the front door, she pointed at Holden and then swiveled her finger toward Angel. "Stay here."

Holden threw his hands up. "Where the hell would we go?"

Maidei hesitated for a moment before saying, "The woods." She followed Frank out the door before either Holden or Angel had the chance to respond.

"You won't catch me dead in those woods," Angel muttered when it was just the two of them.

Holden buried his face in his hands. Nothing made sense.

"Okay, okay." The table creaked as Angel stood. "We don't need to leave the house to help. Let's think for a sec. What do we know from the recordings?"

Holden's hands slid down his face. Angel stood in front of the bay windows, the forest far too dark for the early afternoon.

She continued. "We know Dr. Dupont was in a cabin at some point, because she mentioned it."

"She mentioned the mountain and Alpenglow Glacier," Holden added. "Is the CalTech cabin the only one on Agnes?"

Before Angel could respond, the front door slammed open. Zaid tromped down the hall into the Hub carrying two mechanical devices in his hands. Drones.

Zaid held the drones up with a grin. "Who's ready to hunt some researchers?"