Cecelia couldn't get over the fact that Agent Fisher drove her own car in the city. The subway didn’t have traffic and no driver in their right mind would try to take on a bus. Sitting in the backseat, the brunette kept checking her phone for more information on either the airship or the restaurant they were heading to. ‘Two more ‘squished’ people. That… That can’t be my fault.’ Her little machine wasn’t that powerful. Scrolling down, she saw that P.A.R.A.L.L.E.L. had put out a statement for the former - a general, ‘We’re looking into it.’ Reading the statement, she had to snort at one of the possible reasons listed.

  “What?” Agent Fisher asked without looking back. “You better not be thinking about asking if we’re there yet.”

  “No.” Finding nothing on the restaurant besides what she already knew, Cecelia turned her phone off and slid it into her pocket. “It’s just that one of PR’s expnations for the airship sighting is a rge, holographic movie projector.”

  Groaning, Agent Fisher pulled over into a parallel parking spot on the first try. “I’d bet that was Bobbie’s suggestion.” Two clicks as they both removed their seatbelts. “I don’t suppose the media’s falling for it?”

  “Nope.” Cecelia almost hit her head getting out of the car. A cool night breeze blew through and she cursed herself again for not grabbing a jacket before leaving her apartment. The sounds of the city fell into the background even as the lights everywhere flooded the world. “They seem to have tched onto a mass hysteria event, possibly caused by a secret government experiment. Or aliens.”

  The woman sighed. “Wonderful.” The agent’s pace was faster than Cecelia’s so she jogged to catch up. A few feet ahead, police had blocked off the area around the restaurant, meaning she and Agent Fisher had to push through a crowd of onlookers. ‘Really?’ Cecelia thought. ‘People see bright yellow ‘Danger!’ tape and rush to get a closer look.’

  Slipping under the warning tape behind her kinda-boss, Cecelia took in the scene. The Glowing Fme was one of the few restaurants still open in the mostly empty shopping area, hovering between ‘too expensive for regur dates’ and ‘not quite high priced enough for special anniversaries’. The handful of times she’d walked by the pce, it was half-lit lights and soft Italian music. But now the sidewalk outside was covered in gss and, as Cecelia followed Agent Fisher into the building, she caught a glimpse of a lump-covering white sheet on the marble tiles. She quickly looked away.

  One of the three police officers in the restaurant sauntered over. His slicked-backed blond hair was as shiny as the polished silverware scattered everywhere and his hand kept drifting a little too close to his gun for Cecelia’s comfort. “Are you two with that weird-stuff agency?”

  “P.A.R.A.L.L.E.L., yes,” Agent Fisher replied in a clipped tone. ‘I can’t tell if she’s just grumpy or as uncomfortable here as me.’ While the agency did work with w enforcement on occasion, it was typically through reports and forwarded ‘possibly paranormal’ cases, not physical interactions. “Where are the witnesses?” ‘That’s… a good question. We’re after the dinner rush, but this pce is usually busy.’

  “We sent them home already. A few were going to drive to or take a taxi to the hospital for minor bullet wounds,” the man replied. “Not that there wasn’t an ambunce, but you know how it is.”

  (‘It’s messed up,’ Cecelia bitterly filled in. ‘Like everything else in this stupid world.’)

  Agent Fisher pinched her nose. “I see. Do you have their statements?”

  The officer tilted his head towards another blue uniform talking with a woman who looked like one of the chefs (going off the stained apron) across the room. “Boss does,” the officer said. “But the summary is a shooting without bullets. The owner originally reported it as a fight that broke out between two dinners, but then the fatality dropped. The windows started breaking about the same time.” He poked at a broken pte on the floor with his foot. “The guy under the sheer clearly got shot in the chest, and there’s an exit wound, but we’ve searched this whole pce. No sign of ammunition or even a shooter. Hell, no one reported hearing any gunshots.”

  ‘Overp event,’ Cecelia decided as Agent Fisher asked the man a few more questions that she didn’t bother listening to. She’d never been in a pce where someone had died so recently. Despite the police offer saying they had searched the area, it was still a mess with turned-over chairs and food on the floor. She probably had pasta sauce on her shoes. (She really hoped the red liquid was only pasta sauce.) Once the officer was gone, the brunette repeated her conclusion to her semi-boss.

  Giving the pce one more look around, Agent Fisher nodded. “I’d agree,” she said quietly. “Even if it doesn't make sense that the main things pulled were bullets. And that no one saw the shooter. ‘Ghosts’ can be hard to see, but with this many people….” The frowning woman shook her head. “First the airship and now this. I don’t know what Miss Echo thought we could do here.”

  ‘Right. The event’s over, so dimensional separators are pointless.’ Cecelia wandered over to the shot-out main window, taking care not to step on anything. The shadow of a small chandelier and its fme-shaped lightbulbs swung across her feet. “Maybe Mr. Caldwell was right and these rger-scale things happen more often than we know. This is smaller than the airship.”

  “Perhaps. But there was no need to make us come all this way,” Agent Fisher huffed. She had followed behind Cecelia to the window but now she gestured towards the exit. “The report could have been emailed, like normal. We’re no use here. No one is, because there’s nothing to find.”

  Cecelia hummed. She was tempted to run her finger over a bullet hole in the wall, just below a painting of some bread, but didn’t want to contaminate anything. Or risk setting herself up to be bmed somehow. “Since we’re close to where the ghost blimp was, should we look around the neighborhood for anything suspicious?”

  Agent Fisher didn’t respond as the restaurant’s front doors swung closed behind them. “You’re awfully invested in this.”

  “Three days to investigate, remember?” Cecelia tried to wave off.

  “I suppose we are near that pile of bricks you call an apartment, and Darryl did imply he thought there could be a connection” Agent Fisher’s tone took on a prodding tone. “He had an interesting take on your thief of the separator.”

  ‘Shit. I knew there was a chance at getting caught, but this sucks.’ Three days. She just had to figure out how to get back on track in three days. “Or, since there’s nothing else to do here, how about we just head back?!” Sheesh, Cecelia knew she wouldn’t be able to cover up her nerves, but did her voice have to come out that high-pitched and frantic? She walked faster, reaching Agent Fisher’s car well before the woman did but then had to stand there awkwardly until her kinda-boss unlocked the door. And, of course, she bumped her head getting into the vehicle.

  It was almost as if Cecelia’s base universe hated her as much as she hated it.