Transmission: A Supernatural Thriller by Ambrose Ibsen
Authors: Ambrose Ibsen
getting weird.”
Reggie shook his head. “It's been weird, man. Now it's just getting weirder.”
Kenji tried to work through the tidal wave of questions that struck his mind. How and why had this woman appeared in two different pieces of media, each released on the day she'd apparently gone missing in rural Minnesota? And why had she cryptically disseminated the coordinates to an exact location in Akeley during these inexplicable appearances? Had something bad happened to her? Had she somehow known in advance that something was going to happen, and given out the coordinates in this way to try and let the world know where she was? But how was it possible to have appeared on the album and in the documentary to begin with? It simply wasn't possible, as far as Kenji was concerned; that was still the most unbelievable part of this entire thing.
“Goddamn,” said Kenji. “More questions than answers, as always. I can't get to the bottom of this. It just doesn't make sense. This is definitely the woman in the video, the woman whose voice I heard in the song, but knowing her name doesn't make this any easier. We've just hit a different dead end. What I really want to know is how she could have possibly ended up in both the audio recording and the documentary. That shouldn't be possible, especially since she had no part in making the two of them. But that's what happened.” He gnawed on the lip of his cup ans sighed so that the steam from his coffee washed over his face. “I'm lost here.”
“Well, keep looking for more info on this woman,” suggested Reggie. “Maybe there's something more on the web about her. Something that'll clear this up.”
Kenji half-heartedly began searching for information on this woman, Agnes Pasztor, but it quickly became clear that there was nothing else to be found. The digital trail was cold.
There was a single detail to which they could pin their hopes of further progress, however.
The user MARA_ANTALL had left a contact number in her posting. The web wouldn't yield any more clues for them, but this contact seemed a promising lead.
“So, that's it, huh?” Dylan loosed the evening's excitement in a single, drawn-out sight. “Kinda sucks, coming all this way only to turn up nothing online.”
“Yeah, but we have this friend's phone number. We can call her and follow up, you know?” Kenji was quick to add.
Dylan arched a brow, glancing at Reggie incredulously. “I dunno about all that, Kenji. You really think we need to descend any deeper into this rabbit hole? Calling up some random woman to ask about this chick on the tape... I mean, that's...” He paused, chewing on the rim of his paper cup. “What are you supposed to say when she picks up? ' Hullo, ma'am, I'm calling because your creepy missing friend lured me, my roommate and this random guy to a shack in the middle of nowhere. You know anything about that? ' It's stupid. Nonsensical. If anything, she'd think we were calling to mess with her.”
Reggie's expression softened a bit. He reached out and tapped Kenji's arm. “Your buddy here is right. I don't think there's much to be done, at this point. We could call, but if this woman hasn't seen Agnes in ten years, then she probably won't be any help.”
Feeling a bit betrayed by his fellows, Kenji shut the laptop and fumed for a moment. Looking out the window into the cool night, where a thin flurry of snow was beginning to fall, he stuffed a piece of donut into his mouth to chase the last, bitter dregs of coffee. The trail wasn't completely cold-- not so long as they had this MARA_ANTALL to speak with. But the other two were apparently uninterested in that. They'd come all this way, gone to a great deal of trouble to make it this far in their investigation, only to throw in the towel when a simple Google search failed to bring up anything concrete? It annoyed him to no end. “OK, so are you two giving up, then? No longer interested in this weird shit that brought us all
Reggie shook his head. “It's been weird, man. Now it's just getting weirder.”
Kenji tried to work through the tidal wave of questions that struck his mind. How and why had this woman appeared in two different pieces of media, each released on the day she'd apparently gone missing in rural Minnesota? And why had she cryptically disseminated the coordinates to an exact location in Akeley during these inexplicable appearances? Had something bad happened to her? Had she somehow known in advance that something was going to happen, and given out the coordinates in this way to try and let the world know where she was? But how was it possible to have appeared on the album and in the documentary to begin with? It simply wasn't possible, as far as Kenji was concerned; that was still the most unbelievable part of this entire thing.
“Goddamn,” said Kenji. “More questions than answers, as always. I can't get to the bottom of this. It just doesn't make sense. This is definitely the woman in the video, the woman whose voice I heard in the song, but knowing her name doesn't make this any easier. We've just hit a different dead end. What I really want to know is how she could have possibly ended up in both the audio recording and the documentary. That shouldn't be possible, especially since she had no part in making the two of them. But that's what happened.” He gnawed on the lip of his cup ans sighed so that the steam from his coffee washed over his face. “I'm lost here.”
“Well, keep looking for more info on this woman,” suggested Reggie. “Maybe there's something more on the web about her. Something that'll clear this up.”
Kenji half-heartedly began searching for information on this woman, Agnes Pasztor, but it quickly became clear that there was nothing else to be found. The digital trail was cold.
There was a single detail to which they could pin their hopes of further progress, however.
The user MARA_ANTALL had left a contact number in her posting. The web wouldn't yield any more clues for them, but this contact seemed a promising lead.
“So, that's it, huh?” Dylan loosed the evening's excitement in a single, drawn-out sight. “Kinda sucks, coming all this way only to turn up nothing online.”
“Yeah, but we have this friend's phone number. We can call her and follow up, you know?” Kenji was quick to add.
Dylan arched a brow, glancing at Reggie incredulously. “I dunno about all that, Kenji. You really think we need to descend any deeper into this rabbit hole? Calling up some random woman to ask about this chick on the tape... I mean, that's...” He paused, chewing on the rim of his paper cup. “What are you supposed to say when she picks up? ' Hullo, ma'am, I'm calling because your creepy missing friend lured me, my roommate and this random guy to a shack in the middle of nowhere. You know anything about that? ' It's stupid. Nonsensical. If anything, she'd think we were calling to mess with her.”
Reggie's expression softened a bit. He reached out and tapped Kenji's arm. “Your buddy here is right. I don't think there's much to be done, at this point. We could call, but if this woman hasn't seen Agnes in ten years, then she probably won't be any help.”
Feeling a bit betrayed by his fellows, Kenji shut the laptop and fumed for a moment. Looking out the window into the cool night, where a thin flurry of snow was beginning to fall, he stuffed a piece of donut into his mouth to chase the last, bitter dregs of coffee. The trail wasn't completely cold-- not so long as they had this MARA_ANTALL to speak with. But the other two were apparently uninterested in that. They'd come all this way, gone to a great deal of trouble to make it this far in their investigation, only to throw in the towel when a simple Google search failed to bring up anything concrete? It annoyed him to no end. “OK, so are you two giving up, then? No longer interested in this weird shit that brought us all