Town to Town
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“What the hell is this?” you ask Alex, putting down the notebook.
“I don’t know! That’s why I called you!”
“Is it some kind of prank?”
“I don’t think so,” Alex says. “I looked through the records for our lab, and Ellen Valentina was a real person – a post-doc in Physics and Astronomy. She seems pretty normal – she’s a co-author on some papers about particle physics – and then suddenly she just disappears.”
“What, she dropped out?”
“No, I mean, like, she disappears. I went on the Archives website and pulled up old newspaper articles and there are notices asking for any information regarding her whereabouts.” They show you a scan of an old newspaper clipping, featuring a faded photograph of a young woman with long red hair and a serious, faraway expression.
“Whoa, creepy.”
“I did some googling, and she never turned up,” Alex says. “She completely disappears from the university records. But her name appears from time to time on conspiracy theory sites, UFO discussion boards, stuff like that.” They click over to a tab open to r/UnsolvedMysteries. “February 13, 2026 will mark fifty years since Dr. Ellen Valentina disappeared,” the headline reads. “Is the Canadian government covering up what really happened to her?”
“It’s mostly just paranoid raving,” Alex says, saving you the effort of reading the wall of text. “Combined with the basic facts of the case. Though they do mention some unusual astronomical activity in the Northern Hemisphere in the months before, which I thought was pretty interesting.”
You grin. “Of course you’d think that was the most notable part.”
“Okay, but there’s one more weird thing, Alex says. “Because right after I called you – like less than a minute after – someone slipped this manilla envelope full of polaroids under the door. I ran out into the hallway but I couldn’t see anyone.” With a magician’s flourish for the dramatic, they produce the envelope from under a messy stack of papers. On the outside, in small block letters, someone has written: WE ARE WATCHING YOU WITH INTEREST.