Semua Bab Field Team 42: Paranormal Responders: Bab 11 - Bab 20

By Wednesday, May 22nd, we had left Flagstaff and were rolling across Arizona toward Dust Bowl. We had, due in no small part to the fact that we had not stopped to sleep in Hays, Kansas the night that we had met the Black-Eyed Kid, made excellent time in our journey. The original road trip itinerary planned for us by Control had included “fudge factor” time that we had not needed, so that we might reach Dust Bowl and begin our investigation in advance of the Memorial Day week phenomenon there.Along the way, Liz had shared some of the information, what little there was, about the 2022 Control team that had gone there. It turns out they had lost contact with Control and disappeared. I could sense the palpable unease that divulgence created within our vehicle as it tootled its way down desert highways. I thought about all the subjects that had come up over the course of our group’s time together that my companions had just taken in stride as normal (at least their world’s version of norm

We ate at a local establishment with an all-you-can-eat salad bar. Since I knew about Spitfire and we were out of sight of the restaurant’s front room, Rachelle didn’t have to be so sneaky about stuffing food into one of her pockets for the little dragon. I watched an entire banana disappear into a pocket for which the banana was too tall, leaving the pocket flat afterwards. It was like watching Mary Poppins unpack her bag or Santa Claus empty his sack. The normal physics of volume were entirely absent. Extradimensional space, I thought.While we were there, I tried to book hotel rooms for us with my phone over the internet. However, as the briefing for the mission had told us, none of the businesses in Dust Bowl were associated with corporate franchises, they were all mom-and-pop local operations. Thus, online services such as Expedia, Kayak, Priceline, or Hotels.com were useless. No hotels in Dust Bowl even showed up on those websites. We’d have to actually check in at the desk in pe

Around noon that Thursday, before the Dirt rolled in, I found myself headed to Parker, the county seat of La Paz county, in the Ford Expedition with Mont, Rachelle, and Spitfire. Our mission was to visit library archives of newspapers and other sources of records for La Paz county. Until the 1970s, Dust Bowl had had its own newspaper. As a precaution, we weren’t all leaving Dust Bowl in case it might become more difficult to return for some reason, such as if the roads back into Dust Bowl became closed, for example. Liz had wanted Jonie and Mitch to stay there since their particular talents made them more useful onsite there in Dust Bowl, such as when Mitch had seen the peculiar aura emanating from the statue of Lt. Sees-Like-A-Hawk. So, it was left to us “muggles” as Rachelle described us, who weren’t mages and who didn’t have the Sight, to slog through old records.Once we got into Parker, we grabbed some burritos from a Taco Bell drive-thru and headed for the county library. We fini

“What do–”, Liz began but Alice cut her off. “Please,” the Dust Bowl native said, “not here. We'll be safer at my place. Voices carry.” So, we walked in silence across the field where something otherworldly had hovered over us before we met this mysterious Alice lady. Mont brought up the rear. I could tell from the way he walked that his hand was ready to pull his gun from its hidden holster if that turned out to be something necessary. Mitch and Jonie walked in front of Mont. Mitch’s eyes were wide open scanning both the sky and the horizon, no doubt looking to see if his Sight showed him something. In contrast, as I saw her face in the moonlight, Jonie’s eyes were nearly closed as she walked. A true mage, she was reaching out with other arcane senses than Mitch possessed. Liz and Rachelle walked behind Alice, Rachelle looking down at her feet, probably concerned, as I was, about stepping into an ankle-twisting hole in the dark. Liz’s face looked as if she were working to k

Alice didn’t return, at all. Eventually, after thirty very tense minutes according to my watch, Liz’s voice in the dark said, “They must have arrested her. Let’s get out of here. Mont, push the fridge out.” Cautiously, we emerged from our hiding place. The basement light bulbs, dangling from the ceiling, had been left on. The basement looked as we had left it. “I’ll scout upstairs,” Mont said. He pulled his gun. “We’re dealing with a duly authorized sheriff’s office,” Liz reminded him. “Put that away. Don’t go waving a gun around law enforcement if you don’t want to get shot.” Mont nodded with a slightly sheepish expression as he put his firearm back in its holster and covered it up. Liz was right. Whatever they were involved in, they were the sheriff’s office, a normal part of law enforcement and society. We were Control. And what was Control? Was it a secret part of the government? Was it a private entity? Was it even American? Was it international in scope? I wondered why I’d n