The morning began, as all Andrew Garfield mornings did, in the sterile privacy of the paid restroom.
Foster stared at his reflection as he applied the hair gel, slicking back the dyed-black strands.
_You look like a villain from a cheap corporate drama_
He thought, the absurdity of the situation not lost on him. A very well-dressed, severely underpaid villain.
—
At the UIAF office, the air was thick with the smell of expensive coffee and ambition. His colleague, Robert, pounced on him the moment he stepped in.
"Garfield! Just the man. We have a situation. A developer, Mr. Towhorth, wants to convert the old Granite Point Library into luxury condos."
Foster—Andrew—sipped his coffee. "And the problem?"
"The problem," Robert said, leaning in conspiratorially.
"Is that the library is a Category III Historical Structure. It's protected. You can't so much as replace a windowpane without a committee of octogenarians from the historical society waving their canes at you."
_Withersby's domain_
Foster thought. "So, we find a loophole. Is the foundation sound?"
"That's the genius part. It's not! The north wall is sinking. Has been for years. We get a friendly engineer—I know a guy—to write a report declaring it 'structurally unsound and an imminent public hazard.' Suddenly, it's not about preservation, it's about public safety. The historical society can't argue with physics. They'll be forced to agree to a 'careful deconstruction,' and our client gets to build his condos on a freshly cleared, perfectly zoned lot."
Robert grinned. "It's not cheating, it's creative problem-solving."
Andrew felt a familiar twist of disgust in his gut.
This was his life now: finding elegant ways to dismantle the city's history for profit.
"I'll review the preliminary survey reports." he said, his voice perfectly neutral.
His next appointment was with a Mrs. Selene, a woman who wanted to buy a house directly adjacent to a new light-rail line but was concerned about noise.
"The vibrations will shatter my crystal collection!" she wailed.
"Modern dampening technology is remarkably effective,"
Andrew assured her, mentally calculating the commission.
"We can install resonant frequency negators in the foundation. It's a standard procedure for properties in high-ambient-sound zones."
He was just making up words now, but they sounded impressive. Mrs. Selene looked placated.
_I'm not a consultant, I'm a therapist for the wealthy and neurotic._
He mused.
—
The transition back to Foster Ambrose was always a jarring descent.
The restroom ritual reversed, the sharp-suited consultant replaced by the rumpled policeman.
He walked into the station at 2:58 PM, the scent of bleach and anxiety replacing the aroma of expensive coffee.
Eliza waved him over. "Foster! Your brother called. Said to remind you about Mrs. Gable's data-slate. And you got a message from Neil. He said it's about the counter."
The mill case. He found Neil in his tech nook, surrounded by the eviscerated remains of Leo's counter.
"It's not just a counter," Neil said, his eyes glowing with the light of discovery.
"It's a rudimentary aetheric resonator. See these crystal alignments? The wire windings? He wasn't just counting shuttle passes... The 'whispers in the wires'... He was tuning into the background energy of the city."
He looked at Foster, his expression grim.
"He built a radio, Ambrose. But instead of picking up music, he was picking up… whatever that static is on the Davidson tape. He heard something, and it heard him back."
Foster's blood ran cold. "Can you tell what it… heard?"
Neil shook his head. "No. But the device's memory core is fried. Not burned out—erased. The same signature as the alley footage. A perfect, targeted digital void."
Later, at his desk, Foster pulled the Davidson file again.
He laid a photograph of the bone chip symbol ○ 卄 ○ next to a sketch of the interlocking lines from the stolen silverware.
They were different, but they felt related. A language.
He remembered the journal's talk of "resonance points." Was the mill one?
Was Leo's device an accidental threat to something that demanded silence?
The afternoon dragged on with paperwork and pointless follow-ups. His mind, however, was in the Heatherstone Room, listening to The Quill speak about "authorities."
The authority of concealment.
Could it hide a moment of violence?
Could it hide the very presence of a thing that lurked in the city's forgotten places?
The concept was a key trying to fit a lock he couldn't even see.
—
At 7:07 PM, exhausted and hungry, Foster finally trudged up the steps to Mrs. Gable's neat little house next door.
The elderly woman greeted him with a relieved smile.
"Oh, Foster, thank you! It's making this dreadful clicking noise, and I'm afraid it'll explode!"
He sat at her kitchen table, the offending data-slate before him. The problem was instantly familiar—a loose cooling fan and a corrupted driver.
Simple.
For twenty minutes, he lost himself in the task, his hands performing the familiar, calming work of repair. There were no conspiracies here, no hidden authorities, just a loose connection and a worried old lady.
"There you go, Mrs. Gable. Good as new."
"You're a lifesaver, dear." she said, pressing a container of freshly baked cookies into his hands. "What would we do without you?"
Walking back to his own house, cookies in hand, Foster felt a pang of something like grief.
This small, normal act of kindness felt like it belonged to a different man, in a different life.
A life that was being steadily eaten away by the shadows of his other existences—the policeman hunting entities, the consultant enabling corruption, the club founder discussing terrifying, impossible truths.
He entered his dark, quiet house. Ortego had left a plate of food for him in the icebox.
He ate it standing at the kitchen counter, too tired to even sit down. The cookie container sat beside him, a tiny, sweet monument to a simplicity that was slipping through his fingers like smoke.
He was on a treadmill, running faster and faster just to stay in the same terrifying place, and he had no idea how to get off.