"I can't believe Alessa's got a school file," said the father to the conduit. "I didn't think she would."

"She shouldn't," confirmed the resident to the tourist. "The ritual occurred when she was younger. She got burned up and was in Alchemilla through her teens."

"So we know it's bullshit," Harry painfully snuffled, turning the page to skim the one behind it. His voice carried the badge of a head cold, all clogged up by a mucous cork. What's more, every breath sounded like wind over a tin can, and frequent swallows were sticky gulps, then gasp. Harry, true to his nature, tried to be courteous of the volume; it was kind of unpleasant, at least to his ears. Fortunately, James didn't hold him in contempt for the noise; to be candid, he found it funny.

Oblivious to his private mirth, Harry kept talking. "All of these blackouts.. I feel like I'm looking at an FBI, or CIA profile. A matter of national security." He grunted a short laugh. "Might as well be. For Silent Hill, at least.."

James cruised Claudia's records. "So this girl's dad was the one who donated the moth?"

"Yep. Mr. Leonard Wolf. He mentioned anywhere? Is anything jumping out at you?"

Green-clad shoulders lifted and fell. "No. And I don't really know what I'm looking for." He paid the nearby throaty hum a glance.

"Do we ever, really?"

Answers weren't required for rhetorical questions - chiefly, not this one - and so quiet consumed conversation. The air was calmer now. For both their sakes and preferences, they pretended Harry's troubling burnout never happened, making starting their project nearly seamless when he returned. Everything, for all intents and purposes, was ordinary.

James eyeballed the lone folder on the table. "What was the deal with Vincent?"

Suspiring, Harry closed Alessa's file, and drew the mentioned's over. "He'd caught my attention in the biology room," he restated, opening it on his thigh. "He wrote this huge, elaborate club pamphlet; some 'truth-seekers' club he was the president of. I think I already told you about it.. anyway.. —oh, damn! I should've taken one," he groused at his oversight. "Ah, you idiot. Oh well. Shoulda picked up the others, too. .. though I bet they'd just wind up taking up space. Whatever, screw it. You got one of 'em. What'd you even want the DJ club one for?"

His associate's short attention span put James off enough for it to mildly seep into his tone. "I said I dunno. I just felt like we should take it."

Harry conceded before things got snippy, flicking his hand. "Alright, alright. Anyway, back to Vincent." Looking up, he bridged, "I had to get a look at the guy after reading that drivel. It's pure coincidence that he's relevant after all, seeing as he's related to her." He nodded at the file in James's lap. James took his eyes down to it.

"Half-brother. He's her half-brother. I read it already."

"Yeah."

"I read all of them. There's not much else to say about Claudia and Vincent being half-siblings other than what's here. So that's really about it."

"Hey, we'll take it. Something is better than nothing; and it's a huge breakthrough, anyway. And at least we know our timeline's set in the nineties," Harry offered. "Ninety-what, no idea. I think we can figure it out, right? We better; it's driving me nuts not knowing a date." The writer caught James's nod out of his peripheral vision and looked up to his regard.

"I did some math while you were upstairs," James said. "I think it was '92."

He looked surprised. "'92? Where'd you get that?"

"Birthdates. I guessed they'd've been about fourteen or fifteen."

".. huh. Hm. Yeah; that's a pretty safe range. Good thinking. Did that include Alessa? Wait, I got her file right here—"

"Technically, yeah, I guess - but she didn't have a birthdate. She was—"

"Blacked out," Harry grumbled at the open folder. James grunted.

"It doesn't really matter, anyway; you could just lump her in with them as the same age since, like I said, she died in her teens. It would've been easier to determine if we had the yearbook so we'd know what classes they were in, for accuracy or whatever, but I figured fourteen or fifteen would've been a safe guess, yeah. It puts them in a middle ground."

Harry cringed, suctioning a tight, noisy breath past his teeth and dismayingly rolling his head as he flopped the file down. "Ah, shit. Yeah, we shoulda snagged one.. we could've also seen if Alessa's picture was in it.. ah, well, damn me to hell. Hindsight is 20/20 and all."

"Yeah." James's charge puffed.

"'92, huh? God dammit. Really wish I grabbed a yearbook," he whinged. "There were probably other things we coulda used in there, if anything at all. It would've been worth a shot; fuck, it could've been ripe. Ah, Harry, you idiot.. I'll be kicking myself for that one.. and for forgetting to pick up anything else, like those pamphlets, too.. man! I forgot to grab a shitload of things, huh?"

Slanting his head, James dedicated an uncommitted thought to the gaffe, then closed Claudia's folder. Soundly dropping it on the table, the resident set his elbows on his knees and stared at the floor. Soon his brows furrowed, peering at Harry from beneath them. "Those monsters were weird."

Redundantly sighing, Harry followed his example, collecting and tossing Alessa and Vincent's packets onto Claudia's, then assumed the same position. He ducked his head, passing his hand over his hair, and kneaded the back of his neck. "Yeah, I.." Pursing his lips inward and setting his jaw, Harry clasped his hands betwixt his knees and distractedly rubbed his thumb over the other, staring unfocused at the table ledge. "I dunno what to make of 'em." After a beat, he pensively murmured, "We had the usual girls there, which.. I guess would be expected, since they're everywhere, but.. those boys, if you could call 'em that.. no, no. They were boys."

"Yeah."

"We've never dealt with boys before."

"Yeah."

He spread his hands past his knees. "So, what the fuck? What gives?"

Duplicating the gesture in a more minute way, James alleged, "I dunno."

"Rrrrgghhhh," Harry groaned, massaging his temples, which led to, twice now, pushing back his already neat hair - an action James sussed as frustration. "I don't get it." Harry sagged his posture, propped up by his elbows. "They looked really fucked up. That big eyeball and the sewn mouths were horrible up close."

"Yeah."

"They were damn nasty; was kinda afraid somma that gunk was gonna fall on my face.." Looking to James and giving him a once-over, he added, "Looks like they gave you a thrashing, too."

James lifted an neutral shoulder. "I'm fine."

Wisely selecting to leave it alone, Harry licked and bit his lip, continuing, "Yeah, they were a handful, huh? They were fast, and smart . .. they all were. Faster than I expected, if I'm gonna tell the truth." He twisted his mouth and tried to sniff, but struck out yet again; it seemed as if breathing through his nose would be as tangible as a trip to Neverland for a while. Woe is he. "Did it seem to you like.. like they'd gotten more intelligent? The one making all the static, at least, seemed like she'd gotten more cognizant." He cast a frowning glimpse. "She was acting like some queen bee. The boys were scared of her."

Slowly bobbing a nod, the town ambassador absently wrung his hands as he took that memory into court. "I did notice that.."

"She had some control or sway over them, giving me the impression that they knew her, that.. there was some kind of social hierarchy, as far-fetched as it sounds. It gets me wondering if they all know each other on some level; or, what I mean is, if the monsters all know each other, if there is some kind of pecking order, or if they understand what each of 'em can do, are capable of," he soggily defined. "Which is kind of terrifying, to me."

James looked at him sidelong. "Why's that?"

"Well, you saw how organized they were an' how it looked like she was leading the pack. If there're leaders around, so to speak, what's that mean for us in the future? What if they start grouping together like a regiment, specifically grouped to get at our weak spots all at once, make it harder for us to react?"

".. I think you might be reading too far—"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm making mountains out of ant hills," rebuffed the judgment. "But you have to admit I have a point. These guys are intelligent - mostly, intelligent. We've already saw it with that pregnant monster lady." Distaste curled Harry's lip; he didn't like mentioning, or thinking about her at all. James shared the sentiment by mimicry. "She knows how to separate and mark us both at the same time. And it's not just her - they can all plan for attack. They've shown us they can strategize. —except for those crying ones," he spared, wagging his finger. "Those seem kinda stupid as a whole. They haven't given us any real reason to believe they have any kind of brains knockin' around up there, yet."

James nodded once again. "Yeah. They just follow the herd. Like back-up."

"Yeah. Right. They're back-up; they're pretty much like extra muscle. They don't hit very hard, they're just there to overwhelm, so you can see where my earlier concern has merit. The other girl, now.. she doesn't hit quite like a truck, but she's got some power in her. I don't know if you saw this," Harry broached, looking at James, "but she grabbed my weapon at one point."

He conveyed hesitation. "Yyyeeaaah, but that isn't too unusual. The nurses would grab my weapon, too."

Then, like a kill-shot, the world came to a standstill. James realized straightaway what he'd said and fired Harry a craven look. The dumb shock plastered on his face triggered a glower, hot as a lava bed, within his narrowed green eyes. Harry quickly exposed his palms as if to say, 'I know, take it easy,' whilst passively dropping his gaze in immediate surrender. James's scowl nevertheless lingered to make the warning perfectly clear, compounded by a wordless, 'Good.' The author went on.

"Fine, maybe they're all just smart enough for self-defense. But what you didn't see was how she tried to use the move to fling me. Now, to me, unless you've also seen something like that before, that says she's definitely leaning more towards the intelligent side, if she knows she could do something like that."

".. I haven't."

He opened his hands again. "Ssssooooo..."

Thoughtful cessation took place. ".. so.. I guess you didn't see the boys, either."

Curiosity inclined his neck. "No. I didn't see anything going on over there. What'd they do?"

"I got the impression they were playing with me," James presumed. "Like I was some mouse to them, or whatever. The small one only went after you when you killed that static girl."

"Technically, you did that," Harry corrected. "You shot her, remember?"

James lifted a shoulder; the credit was nice. "Whatever, he only broke off when she was dead; he must've been waiting for that, because when he left, the bigger one got more vicious with me. It was like they were biding their time until she was dead."

Harry processed that for a moment. "Yeah. You might have something there. And that little fucker broke my nose. Just, slammed his palm right down." He illustrated the act for James's entertainment value. "That fucking asshole." James, in turn, was sufficiently entertained.

"So that's what happened."

"Yeah, and it hurts like hell!" He slapped his hands to his thighs, firmly but distractedly rubbing them. ".. but.."

"But what?"

Harry pursed his lips, trying to find phrasing that'd make him sound less off his rocker. "When he was on me, he made.. he was making some garbled noise," he carefully began. "Like.. he was trying, to.. talk, to me."

The silence, of course, served as commentary to James's trouble subscribing to the idea. Skirting his own petty ire, Harry tried to put some meat on the bone, saying, "And to add to that, when we were in the snow, and that pregnant one had me by the balls? She also sounded like she was trying to talk to me. And then, even weirder, before she let me go, she looked off like she heard something, or as if she was being called away. She lost interest in me, like.. immediately," he expounded with a snap of his fingers. "Dropped me like a sack of sand." James contorted his mouth.

"I don't think I saw that."

Harry compressed his lips, tallying a third time in pathing his hand over his hair and absently rubbing his nape. He sniffed. "You don't see a lot.. I wonder if it's intentional.."

"It was snowing pretty hard. I could barely see you. I don't know how snowing would have been intentional just so I couldn't see what she was doing."

Discouraged and abashed by his harebrained idea, Harry forfeited it for good by a click his tongue. "Yyyeeeaahh.. I know. That's a good point. But, still.."

"Also, what makes you think they were trying to talk to you? They could've just been making noise, Harry. That's what they do: they make noise. You sound a lot like a conspiracy theorist about this. Actually, more like ALL of this. You're really reading—"

"Reading too far into things, I know, I know, yadda yadda, save it. Cut me some slack here, James; it doesn't hurt to look at it from all angles, conspiracy nut or no. Just like the Lord God does, Silent Hill works in mysterious ways," he aped, shivering his hands in the air. Harry's spoof, silly and aptly relatable, garnered an amused smirk from James - a welcome sight repaid by a warm smile.

"Heh. Yeah."

"We've got a lot of problems on our hands, and even more problems to solve," reckoned the veteran to the soldier, "and there's no real way in prioritizing them, other than finding Heather, first and foremost."

"That's prioritizing."

He tossed him a facetiously dirty look. "Isn't that what I just said? Shaddup."

James's smirk interwove muted, lighthearted elements in his face that gloated: 'I'm right.' Shrugging his brows, he then looked down, inadvertently snubbing Harry's waggish snarl and stuck-out tongue. "Nothing we can really do about the monsters right now."

"Eh, no," expired Harry's reluctance to end the much-needed banter so soon. He shifted his weight on the cushion. "But I do have a question."

"Okay."

"You've mentioned before that the monsters have meaning."

".. yeah."

"You didn't explain what that meant, or how you came about that. How you figured that out." They snagged each other's keek. "I want to know what they mean; I wanna find out what they mean, and how to do that. How does this work?"

He briefly struggled with his words. "Harry.. I have explained this before."

"I'm getting old, James. My memory's going faster than Dale Earnhardt's peak race in his career. Help a poor guy out."

Rolling his eyes to himself, James cut him the slack humbly requested. "They derive from the subconscious," he unhelpfully simplified. When it appeared that was all he was going to offer, Harry gusted impatiently.

"Okay, great. That's informative. I learned a lot there, thanks for answering the question. Keep going, James. What does that mean?"

"You really don't get how Silent Hill works," he said, annoyed with the information-rehashing merry-go-round. "Silent Hill—"

"No, I don't. That's why I'm asking."

"Would you shut up? I'm trying to answer you. Silent Hill is in your head. It knows you. It knows your fears, it knows your past, and it knows where you're vulnerable. It takes all of that and puts it into something physical and vague to intentionally fuck you up. It's supposedto make you wonder what the fuck things are supposed to be, what the monsters are, and why they're like that. It's a mind trick; a mind fuck. When it decides you're ready to understand it, you will."

Harry gruffly replied, "Love it. I love having no free will over my experiences." James grunted. The writer peered at him. "But you've also mentioned that they're split up; there are 'yours,' and there are 'mine.' What's the difference? —okay, hold on, let me try that again - how can you tell the difference?"

James reproduced the eye-roll in his speech. "Harry, they derive from the subconscious, just like I just said. I don't know what these mean. Okay? I have no idea. What I can say is that, whatever's out here? Those aren't mine. None of them are."

"And you know that for a fact."

"Yes."

"James, how? Buddy, I'm gonna keep asking that same question over and over," he restated, condescendingly wheeling his hands. "You've gotta learn to give me all the information you've got at once so we don't have to keep going in these same circles and get fed up with each other when we can skip it. Okay? Make it easier on both of us. —unless you wanna get into a fight we don't need to have."

James yielded. "I know none of these are mine, because everything that was, is, was in South Vale."

Then, as if their lives were a sitcom, Harry (the doltish one) waited for the conduit's testimonial proceedings, and quickly realized he'd been stranded in another informational drought. (Cue the laugh track.) He stared at James, stupefied, and wonderstruck. It was phenomenal, frankly outrageous how blockheaded this man was, or chose to be, because he clearly did not learn his fresh lesson. What a disaster; it really begged the question if he even had any smarts. Harry cynically admired him, then collapsed his head between his shoulders, whooshing the air from his lungs.

"Goddamnit, James.. okay." Drawing up his head with a rib-expanding, calming breath, he said, "Well, alright; how'd you figure out how the monsters in South Vale worked?"

Having banked on a browbeating, which came in the form of a sharp glare, Harry coolly refused to partake by gently throwing better light on the question. "I'm not asking you what they mean. I'm asking how you came to the conclusion of what they meant to you, and why. What's South Vale got anything to do with what's here or not here? What's the difference?"

James, in the name of sarcasm, chose to subdue his individual sensitivities. "Well, Harry, I spent eighteen years in South Vale and never stepped outside of it until you came along. It was kind of an important place for me. Everything there was all specifically crafted for me. Not anybody else."

Harry evaluated him and held his tongue. James broke their eye contact. "It's imperative that you understand that."

"I do."

"Okay; good. So since I've spent all my time in South Vale, I have no connection to this side of Silent Hill. There's no reason for me to have anything 'new' wandering around."

Harry's anvil-flattened look almost seemed premeditated. They were both steadily reaching the fray on their ropes. "Okaaaay. H—"

"Harry, there's really no way I can explain this to you in any way that's going to make sense to you, okay? I'm gonna say it again, just in case it gets through your head this time, because I dunno how many times I'm gonna have to fucking say this: whatever wanders around out there. Is a product. Of the subconscious. They have meaning. Purpose. They derive from your fears, guilt, memories.. all that kinda shit. You get that." Harry apprehensively nodded once. "Okay. But."

James stalled like a new driver handling a stick shift. He'd never really committed deep thought to the enigma, much less digest it in full and try to verbalize it - and it showed. There'd been only one time prior to this that he put words to the concept, and that was way, way back, when they first launched their adventure together. He dug around in his scrapyard of thoughts for the right words.

".. this.. isn't going to make sense.. but.."

Nope, it definitely wasn't; he foresaw a turbulent flight by the seat of his ass on this one. He wagered it'd be alright; Harry's a smart man. He'd get the gist. "There's no real reason for me to have anything here in Old Silent Hill. I have nothing to do with this place. But you do. Alright? This is all on you. Not me. Not ever me. —And before you fucking ask why," he cut in on himself, sharply holding up his finger to ward off the threat, "it's because South Vale is my home. That fucking matters. It's me. I'm it. I completed the place, remember?"

Harry's silver-striped head slowly bobbed. Maybe they could actually get somewhere - or maybe James's optimism might be jumping the gun. Nevertheless, James held fast to determination and kept his guard up. "I'd never left South Vale until you got here; which tells me, now that I've had time to think about it, because of you, or.. I.. I wasn't, uhh.. .. uhhh.."

"Without me, you weren't ever gonna leave."

James stooped his neck in a manner that implied thanks for the articulative help, and embarrassment because he lacked the caliber to do it himself. "Yeah."

"Mhm."

"Which means.. since you were in Old Silent Hill before, you— fuck, fuck it, just— listen," hissed building intolerance for himself and the subject. "I have. No. Fucking. Connection. To. This. Place. And you. Fucking. Do . So, Harry, what I'm fucking getting at, is that whatever's going to be roaming around out there, is probably gonna come from you,and yourbullshit, because you'rethe one attached to Old Silent Hill, not me, so they're not. Going. To be. Fucking. Mine. Okay? Take it or leave it. Are we done now?"

".. basically, what I'm getting from this, is.. you're just guessing."

The conduit, entranced by someone so vacuous, gawked; he couldn't decide whether or not to believe his ears. One could marvel at the fact that they were, unbeknownst to them, on the same page about one thing: the wholehearted diagnosis that the other was dumber than a cat lost in an open bag. It was kind of poetic.

"Hh— how do you—" He exhaled hard and short, exhausted by the ouroboros-ian rigamarole. Conforming to Harry's postulations would be easier than to keep trying to get him seeing his side, so that's what he did. Arguing with stupid wasn't worth the hassle and headache. "Yes, Harry, I'm just guessing. Guessing is all I can do."

The room was caustic as hell. Harry and James danced an uncooperative waltz homogenous to two queens in a contentious scrimmage around a chess board. Neither man could seem to reach the other, no matter what or how they tried to explain. Unfortunately, Harry - ever refractory, ever dead set on an answer that'd satisfy - realized he had a wild card to play to get what he wanted.

"Sure; alright. But. If you remember, the crying girls and the radio mimic did come from South Vale."

And just like that, James's expertise was challenged in all matters South Vale by a man whose brain operated on a flimsy circuit, bested at his own trivia game, and whereupon his winning streak screeched to a halt. None could predict that it'd be Harry, not James, to produce a fine, important detail that the goddamn conduit didn't. Privately tickled to watch, by the looks of it, the slight existential crisis beginning to take place in front of his eyes, Harry impressively kept his gloating undercover. He bargained that if James was at all a living thing (a curious personal debate still up in the air), the guy would've gone red in the face. The schadenfreude felt devilishly good.

One point for good ol' Harry Mason.

"That was the first time we saw them. They were new to you, right? I think you even told me once that they were 'mine.' Do you remember that?" Resentment nodded the resident's head. Harry made a bold bid. "Maybe they originated in South Vale, but they followed us here, to Old Silent Hill. And like you've just said a million times - and I heard you, don't worry, I did - when you talked about how it's 'my' part of town.. or, we'll call it that.."

James warily eyed him. He wasn't sure he liked where this was going. ".. yyeaaahh..?"

"And so, in that.. just like you said you have nothing to do with 'my' part of town.. I have no connection to South Vale either, James. So with that in mind, now tell me, how you factor THAT in?" Elbows balanced on his knees, Harry flared his hands and forearms to the sides, held for patented effect, then his dully clapped palms before knotting his fingers together. "Kinda puts a little hole in what you just told me, don'tcha think?"

Ohhh, that incorrigible schmuck. All it took was a tiny little script error for James to feel disparaged and defrocked. That was ages ago! How the fuck did he remember that, when he didn't?! "Uh.."

"You hadn't seen them before. Right? That's what you'd said."

".. I.."

"Right?"

James grit his teeth and shot Harry the most trenchant glare. "Right."

Harry re-enacted that patronizing 'tadaa' gesture. James cocked his eye; oh, if only there were a way to tell him how lucrative it'd be to his future welfare not to adopt that pantomime into his portfolio. "Okay then, let me do a little spitballing here, and hear me out," pitched the father, "is it possible that monsters can, or could be, be created out of both of our subconscious. Combined."

The conjecture was so ridiculous and insulting that James was dying to use the rest of his rope to hang him. "I don't know, but it sounds undoable," spoke a choleric monotone. "I really fucking doubt that; it sounds like bullshit."

"You know what I'm gonna ask, right?"

Their breaths were like the stamping hooves of stags at an impasse. Identical lours portrayed the role of posturing stags shimmying their heads. Interestingly, in spite of this abstract threat, each had scouted that the other wasn't as hostile as thought; just more aggrieved than anything else. In this light, it solicited the question of whether or not it was even worth the trouble to lock antlers. A long, heavy moment volunteered equal portions of temperance to each. James maturely backed down, delivering a final, alkali warning: "Drop it, Harry."

The message was as loud and clear as the nighttime siren. Harry backtracked to an earlier, but still relevant, keynote. "In any case," he sighed, "I'm just surprised by seeing two males."

".. yeah."

"I don't recall having to deal with boys before. Do you?"

"No," he stiffly replied. "Nothing's coming to mind."

Harry ho-hummed, but when he went to truly put the subject to bed, James changed his mind. "W— wait. We have come into contact with boys before. Well, not— not a boy. A man, actually."

Harry's head canted like a bird's, brows stitching together. "Where? Who?"

But it swiftly dawned on him. Malaise saw Harry regarding the floor, his face a little more pale, and mollified, unnameable shame in his demeanor. "Oh.. right."

The town's ageless man in army green, in a timbre that could be mistaken as sympathy, murmured, "The one that's you."

Contrarily, the father engendered ten years to his visage, quietly and wearily agreeing, ".. the one that's me."

Amplified in the stuffy room, Harry's congested respire filled the introspective, awkward lull. Soon though, like clockwork, his nervous tic and addiction to levity saved them. "Y'know, I've been starting to toss around the idea of giving them names. Like identifiers. Make a cheat sheet.. flex the creative muscle a bit.. might be a little fun, too."

James frowned. ".. why?"

"Well, unless it's escaped you, we're starting to wrack up a bunch of friends to deal with," he cited. "Calling them something might come in handy, in case we need to, I dunno.. warn each other in a pinch, maybe?"

James would've concurred if he had any stock in the idea, but he'd fired his broker back in 2001. He bluntly responded, "I'm more concerned about the janitor."

"Jesus! No kidding," Harry scoffed, slumping back into the couch. With the confrontation and dour conditions ostensibly adjourned (for now), the entire townhouse climate finally breathed easy. Phew. "What the hell was that about?" he asked. "Was he real?"

He shrugged back. "Maybe. He seemed real."

"The town didn't, or doesn't, have anything to say about it?"

James shook his head. "Nope. It's been quiet."

The middle aged Silent Hill-trotter prolonged a noise that married a growl and a groan. "Great. I feel like we should be.. happy, in a sense? to have seen someone else? At all? But on the same token.. you really can't be happy about it. He seemed alive.. and it was hard to tell if he was actually friendly.. .. eeugh. None of that was right." He studied James nodding and stoically wringing his hands. "I have a hunch we'll see him again."

"Mmm."

Preoccupation grooved its lines on his forehead, and framed his mouth. Harry chewed on his teeth, staring at the documents. "Did you happen to take another look at my notes when you were going through all that? Do you know when Alessa died?"

Frisking the backpack, the conduit fetched the sacred notepad and thumbed through it for reference. "Yeah, I went to look in case you had a year."

"Did I put an age down?"

"Not that I found. And like I said, she'd be around fourteen or fifteen, like the other two."

"Nyeeeeh. Well, while you're in there, could you hand me the other one? I need to start keeping track of this shit. .. and thinking about it, I think I'm gonna need another notebook. Keeping all this information on a pad isn't feasible in the long term," he forecasted, taking and flipping the thin square pages. "It'd be easier to keep together in an actual notebook. Easier to write in, too."

Pumping his head in agreement, James watched his companion brush up on recent history. "Maybe make a list of things we need. Or you need."

"Hey; not a bad idea." Creasing the pages on their pliable glue binding, Harry tore a fresh sheet from the pack and laid it on the wood. He, with James's input, commenced drafting their needs, a "wish list" (such as a cassette player and handgun for Harry, having lost it to the moth chasm back in the middle school), and catalogued inventory. Seeing their things out and arranged, they forby decided it was as good a time as any to re-examine the gaggle of children's drawings hogging up backpack space, too. Resurfacing with them were the clues they'd foraged (and forgotten about) from the church.

"Do we really need to keep this clipping about the Walter Sullivan case?" James asked, dangling the fragmented columns. "Or this one about the hotel?"

He outstretched his hand. "I dunno. Did you read them?"

"No," he said, beginning to transfer, but Harry suddenly redacted.

"Give 'em a look-over. The hotel is kinda your thing."

"I have no idea how the hotel could be relevant to finding your daughter or the cult."

"Humor me."

"I've been humoring you a lot."

"Yeah, James, because you warm my heart and make me laugh."

James espied him snidely. "What about this?" The tourist glanced up at the colorful picture of people in a row in front of a house.

"Yeah, give it here. I'll take a look at it."

The art, bequeathed via a relatively indignant toss, landed on the open sketchbook he was looking at, blocking everything. Moderately piqued, the author tepidly clocked him feigning unawares, then slowly spun the page to face right side up. "This was with the Walter Sullivan article?"

The softened excerpts slid over under two of James's kind fingers. That was nice of him. "Thanks. You've never heard of this?" James shook his blond head; Harry's dark brown responded opposite.

"Nah, not really. I came across something about it once, but I didn't really read it through."

"I'll fill you in later. It's a hell of a story. .. yeah.. god, I dunn—"

"Hey." Shifting towards him in the easy chair, the conduit held a page from which he read: " 'You need to re-evaluate your choices. See me later.' Signed, V." They met eyes. "V."

Harry's gaze fell to the reprimand and slackened his hand at the wrist, lazily pointing at it. "We found that at Balkan."

"Yeah. And now we have someone who's a 'V.' Maybe it's Vincent."

"Maaay-be. Great; we'll take a comprehensive look through Balkan while we're there. On that note," he mused, scanning the drawing and clippings, "let's keep these for now, since we found them over there, too. We'll have to really case everything in that room."

The civilian then lifted his head and noticed the sunless grey "morning" beams sifting in through the sliding glass door beyond the couch. "The fog's up."

Harry twisted to look behind him. "Yep. Well, that's our cue." He gathered the clippings and files, tucked them into Cheryl's sketchbook, then checked the couch and floor for any stragglers whilst James finished putting them away. Before he stood, Harry grabbed his jacket and went through the batch in the inner pocket. Indexing didn't take him long to complete, stuffing it all but one thing back in. Biting the extended map, Harry rose, donned his jacket, and assigned the map to his right hand and the pipe, the left.

"Okeedokee, artichokee; hi-ho, we go."

"Did you find clothes?"

Tutting in annoyance, Harry looked down at himself, then evaluated James. "Didn't look. You want me to run up and check? You look like shit."

"No. I can wait."

"Yeah, me too. We'll pick up another set some other time, we don't need to waste any more of it."

With that agreed and one last look around, the men were off on the road again.