Sunblind Serpent: The Zodiac Without A House

Marek did not return directly to the car.

After Celeste’s warning, doing exactly what someone following him might expect seemed like a very stupid idea. That was like serving yourself as a free dish to a predator.

He crossed the street and entered an empty hardware store through one of its side entrances. There were open cabinets and missing tools, but Marek ignored all of these and continued toward the loading area at the back.

From there, he passed through two alleys before stopping somewhere he could see the warehouse lot without standing in the open.

The sedan he had used all this time remained where he had left it. Nobody approached it after a few minutes. He waited for another five minutes. Then, ten. Even after fifteen minutes, there was still nothing.

’Either nobody is there, or they’re more patient than me.’

”You sensed someone?” he asked.

”Not exactly a person.”

Marek frowned. ”Then, what?”

”Attention.”

He stared at the road.

’That’s somehow even less helpful.’

”Define attention for me.”

Celeste remained quiet long enough that Marek almost expected her to ignore him again.

”Several observations began converging on the same route.”

”Through what?”

”Not one system.”

”Government?”

”I don’t think so.”

Marek thought about another possibility. ”Prime Continuum?”

Celeste did not answer.

’Of course, she won’t answer me.’

He continued watching the sedan.

A woman crossed the lot carrying a water container. Two men pushed a damaged motorcycle toward the road while arguing about one of its tires. Nobody seemed interested in Marek’s car.

Marek returned using another route and started the engine.

Instead of driving north, he went east.

If someone was following the same facilities he had been visiting, changing direction might at least force them to reveal whether they were following Mara’s trail or Marek himself. He just had to do it. Even if it meant delaying him from finding his sister. This concerned either his or her safety.

’However, considering Mara was following that silver-white-clothed woman, it is somehow a big relief because that woman from their descriptions should be someone strong enough to protect her, but if she turns out to be a tigress just waiting for her prey to bite her trap... then that’s dangerous.’

He passed the next road leading north and continued until he saw another stabilization post beside an elementary school.

Marek parked several streets away. This time, he did not enter. He waited across the street behind a damaged delivery truck.

’Let’s see if anyone follows.’

Twenty-three minutes passed before someone interesting appeared.

A woman with short dark hair approached the registration area. She wore a brown jacket that looked slightly too large for her and walked straight toward the clerk without showing much hesitation.

She started talking and continued talking. Marek watched from behind the truck. The clerk eventually pointed north.

The woman thanked the clerk and left.

Marek took out his phone and photographed her from a distance. ”Her?”

”Probably.”

”You can’t tell?”

”I can tell she is searching for the same movement pattern you are following.”

”That’s basically not the same thing.”

”No. I can’t be certain.”

Marek waited until the woman disappeared around the corner before leaving his position.

’Short hair. Talks too much.’

That matched the description from earlier.

He entered the stabilization post several minutes later.

The clerk recognized neither Mara nor the silver-white woman when Marek showed their descriptions. However, he immediately remembered the woman who had just left.

”She asked about Gemini transfers,” the clerk said.

”Any specific person?”

”No.”

Marek looked toward the road she had taken. If that woman was specifically looking for Mara, she was being careful enough not to use his sister’s name everywhere she went. That made Marek even less interested in meeting her.

He returned to the car and turned north again.

Several kilometers away, Nadia Corin was becoming increasingly pleased with herself. She still had not found Marek. However, she had found what his search looked like.

The first person she questioned remembered a young man looking for one fourteen-year-old Gemini girl. Another registrar remembered the same man reacting strangely after being told that the girl complained about metallic-tasting water and asked for noodles.

Nadia had written NOODLES on the back of a grocery receipt.

The third report was even better.

A nurse had encountered someone calling himself M. Vale after he corrected the dressing of an Ophiuchus patient and immediately left when she began asking questions.

Nadia met Eren beside a closed bakery near the old northern transit road.

”He’s going north,” she said. ℯℯ𝘭.

Eren looked at the grocery receipt.

”This says noodles.”

”Yes.”

”How does that establish direction?”

”It doesn’t.”

Eren looked at her.

”The facilities underneath it do,” she continued.

He flipped the receipt over. ”You wrote those on the other side.”

”I ran out of space.”

”So the noodles got the front?” Eren asked, his face flat.

Nadia chuckled. ”They were memorable.”

Eren handed the receipt back to her. Arguing probably would not improve the information.

Silas arrived next.

He had spent enough time near the Exhibition Center to confirm that security had not publicly announced Marek as missing. Patrols around the western halls had increased, however, after maintenance personnel discovered that the shelf hiding one of the utility access hatches had been moved.

There were also signs that someone had used the hatch.

”So Marek went underground,” Nadia said.

”We know somebody used the hatch,” Silas corrected. ”Well, based on the traces, at least.”

”Who else would it be?”

”Unknown.”

Nadia looked at him strangely. ”I don’t think I’d even consider that as a proper answer.”

”It was the most accurate one.”

”Fine. An unknown person used the mysterious hatch immediately after the mysterious Ophiuchus disappeared from the mysterious building.”

Silas nodded. ”Correct.”

Nadia stared at him for a while and finally said, ”You are genuinely unbearable.”

”You are guessing.”

”I’m guessing with evidence.”

”Still guessing.”

Nadia forced a smile. ”You’ll apologize when I’m right.”

”No.”

”See? Unbearable.”

Kellan arrived before they could continue. He brought a vehicle plate number.

Eren looked at it. ”Whose plate number is that?”

”From a car that keeps appearing near the facilities Nadia marked,” Kellan replied.

Nadia turned toward him. ”You followed him?”

”I followed the car.”

She rolled her eyes, crossing her arms. ”That’s technically just the same.”

”No. I haven’t seen the driver.”

Silas took the number and checked it. The sedan belonged to a municipal utility employee who had apparently evacuated West District during the first light period.

Nadia smiled and remarked, ”Marek stole a car.”

”We don’t know that,” Eren said.

”Fine. He borrowed someone else’s car without asking while the owner was somewhere else during the collapse of civilization. Okay, borrowed. Assuming.”

Eren considered it. ”Closer.”

Kellan pointed north. ”It went toward North Learning Route.”

Rafe had already mapped the area.

When they to the freight office, Rhovan listened without interrupting.

Nadia explained the people trail. Eren gave him the changes in the registry records. Silas explained the Exhibition Center hatch. Kellan gave him the plate number. Rafe placed another map over the broken table and marked the roads that were still usable through the northern district.

Dario looked at everything. ”So where is he?”

Rhovan did not answer immediately.

He traced the facilities with one finger.

Marek had not been taking the shortest route north. He kept stopping wherever Gemini minors might have passed through. At the same time, he avoided government concentrations whenever possible.

And apparently, despite doing all of that, he still stopped long enough to correct somebody’s medical problem.

Rhovan looked at Nadia’s receipt and asked, ”Why did you write noodles?”

Nadia pointed at the word. ”The registrar said she mentioned noodles and the guy reacted as if she’d just confirmed something important.”

”For the fourteen-year-old girl?”

”Apparently.”

Rhovan considered what they already knew about Marek. ”His sister.”

Nadia blinked. ”You got that from noodles?”

”No. I got it from a nineteen-year-old crossing half a broken city, looking for a specific fourteen-year-old girl, while recognizing her from complaints about water and noodles. Even a stupid baboon could decipher this.”

He tapped the receipt as soon as he finished saying that. It earned Nadia a displeased look, but she later harrumphed as Rhovan ignored her and continued his observation.

Rhovan marked the northern route. ”We have his search.”

Not Marek. Not yet.

Rhovan placed the reports beside one another and crossed out every facility Marek had already visited. The remaining possibilities formed an uneven arc around the northern districts.

Two had no capacity for Gemini minors. One had closed after losing its water supply. Another was behind a government facility with several checkpoints that Marek would probably avoid completely.

Three remained.

Silas watched him cross out the others. ”You’re assuming he avoids government contact.”

”He left a government-controlled facility through a utility route nobody knew still connected anywhere.”

”We don’t know that was him.”

Rhovan looked at him.

Silas waited.

”I admire your commitment,” Rhovan said. ”Even when you’re wasting it.”

Silas’ expression remained bland. ”Oh, thank you.”

Rhovan ignored him.

Meanwhile, Eren moved another note closer. ”He’s also stopping for Ophiuchus cases.”

”Yes,” Rhovan replied.

Kellan frowned. ”Then we watch medical facilities.”

”No.”

Kellan looked at him. ”Why no?”

”We watch the places where people leave medical facilities talking about a stranger who fixed something and disappeared before anyone got his information.”

”That’s so specific,” Nadia commented.

”Specificity is one of the few available treatments for six people giving me different versions of the same day.”

Dario picked up the grocery receipt. ”And the noodles?”

Rhovan took it from him and placed it beside the map. ”Those stay.”

They still did not have Marek’s location.

But now they knew what he was looking for.

And if Marek continued searching the same way, eventually the two searches would meet.