The best part of Horizon city was the way the skyscrapers pulled up from the ground, like the opposite of an art gallery—little squares framing the color that spread around them. But Chara hadn't seen them on the ride over—she would have had to stick her head out the window of the car to look from the right angle, or else slide down in her chair and set her face against the car door. Neither option seemed particularly ladylike, and the latter would probably crush her curls. Instead she sat motionless in her seat, back straight and legs parallel with the briefcase Joseph had placed between them.
When they didn't turn the right way to get to Joseph's office, Chara assumed they must be headed to a meeting with another shareholder. But instead, the chauffeur took them through downtown and out the other side. Soon they were surrounded by all kinds of long flat buildings for shipping and manufacturing—the kind of place you didn't go as a customer. Eventually, they turned off of the main road, and a tall gate opened for them to enter a large, sparse parking lot.
The chauffeur pulled up next to one of the only other cars in the area, like a student who didn't understand how seating in a small college class worked. It seemed strange to Chara, but honestly, that might just be because she didn't know much about her husband's job.
Joseph jumped out of his side of the car, moved like he was going to come around and open the door for her, and got stuck partway. There was another voice—not the chauffeur, not Joseph—and Chara couldn't quite make out what he was saying.
Pushing her own door open, Chara stepped out of the car.
"I am glad you could make it," Joseph was saying, and then he saw her. "Oh, sorry!"
Chara pushed the door closed and stuck her hands in the pockets of her dress. She didn't mind opening her own door. She didn't think any amount of reassurance would keep Joseph from bothering himself about it in the future.
"Vicky," Joseph said, stepping back to gesture at Chara, "Come meet my wife!"
A man slumped forward—he'd been leaning against the back of the van beside them, covered in its shadow. He had a bag slung over one shoulder and gray gloves on his hands, though the morning had warmed up after the sun rose. His hair was straight and black, a little unruly, and he was staring at Chara like he knew something about her, or else, like he hadn't gotten enough sleep.
Joseph was grinning widely. "Chara, this is—"
"Victor," the man said, "I'm Victor, his photographer." He held up the bag he was carrying. It did look like a camera case.
“And he's my friend,” Joseph said, clapping him on the shoulder, “We went to college together.”
Victor looked annoyed, but he didn't refute the statement. Maybe he just found Joseph's tone grating. Chara knew Joseph's attitude could have that effect, though she never quite had the heart to get irritated about it herself.
"Vicky, my wife is a great artist," Joseph said.
"I'm sure," Victor said, shrugging Joseph's hand off, "And I'm not here for small-talk. Are you in time for your appointment?"
“I don’t know about any appointment,” the warehouse worker explained, pulling a small tablet out of the front pocket of her overalls. “But I may be the wrong person to ask—this is an employee only area, so I don’t deal much with customers.”
“Oh, we aren’t customers!” Joseph said, clasping his hands in delight. “I’m one of the company shareholders—just stopping in to see how my investments are turning out—so you’re the perfect person to help me! Tell me your name?”
“Elise,” she blurted, looking suddenly panicked, “And I think maybe you’d better talk to—my manager or, maybe her boss actually.”
Joseph nodded. “I’m sure I’ll get the chance to hear their thoughts. But tell me Elise—do you like working here? Is everything going well?”
“Um,” Elise said, taking a step back. Automatically, her eyes turned sideways and up, toward the center of the warehouse where merchandise and boxes sat scattered across the floor or in misshapen heaps on the tall shelves that filled the room. Holes had been punched through the ceiling, like several pieces of giant hail had gotten separated from their storm system and struck here.
Chara heard a click behind her as Victor took a picture.
“Um!” Elise blurted, raising her arms to prevent them from walking any farther into the building.
Somewhere above them, a door opened. Chara turned to see a man in a business suit stepping out onto a raised framework and making his way down the attached metal stairs.
“Elise, It was nice to meet you,” Joseph said, stooping to pick up his briefcase. Then he stepped forward to greet whoever had just come in.
Chara started to go after him, but then she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Victor had darted between two of the parallel rows of tall shelves.
Before she could stop and think about it, Chara was following Victor instead. She hurried around the piles of merchandise in the aisle and sidestepped a couple of workers who had begun the hopeless job of trying to organize it. Somehow, Victor had already made it to the other side of the room and was turning into the walkway by the far wall. When Chara turned the corner and stepped up to him, she was a little out of breath.
Victor raised an eyebrow, but he didn't comment on her presence. He was still pressing forward purposefully.
Chara tailed after him, trying to calculate what he might be doing. She'd never met him, but then, she and Joseph had gone to separate universities, so she'd never met most of his college friends. But surely if they were very close, Chara would have at least heard of this man. So she couldn't trust him on account of their friendship—but that wasn't really why she had followed.
Distantly, she heard Joseph's voice as he introduced himself to what must be one of the managers of this—whatever kind of business building this was. She couldn't see Joseph anymore, since the shelves blocked her line of sight, but she could imagine the kind of face he might be making. Maybe his constant exaggerated excitement was a result of his environment—an oversaturated color in a sea of corporate beige—like he could make up for their lack of whimsey all by himself.
At the end of the room, Victor slowly opened a door and walked through it into a hall. He moved like he knew where he was going, and Chara didn't know the layout of this area, or what Joseph had brought a photographer for, or why Victor had seemed so annoyed. So she didn't question it until he led them into a small private office and started pulling open the filing cabinets.
"It looked like Irradiance," Chara said, because she didn't know Victor well enough to say is that really legal? and she wasn't particularly talented at small-talk either.
Victor stopped what he was doing and spun around. "Where?" he demanded.
"The holes," Chara explained. Her hands were fluttering, so she set them against the front of her skirt, smoothed the fabric out a little. "In the ceiling back there—that's—her lasers are about that size. And in the boxes—those tears were singed at the edges."
"Huh," Victor said, shoulders relaxing, "Are you a villain fan? Or can you do that for heroes too?"
"Um," Chara said, reconsidering every choice she'd made in the last five minutes. She was just working up the courage to insist that Irradiance was hardly an unknown figure and that anybody could have made a similar deduction, when Victor turned back to the cabinet.
"I don't suppose you know how this place is organized too?" he asked, pulling out a folder and then shoving it back in.
"I've never been here," Chara said, stepping closer in spite of herself.
"Me neither," Victor said, closing the drawer and crouching to pull open another. "Help me look for employment records. They're intentionally understaffing, then overworking the people they have to compensate. But I don't have solid evidence yet."
"That's," Chara started, and then the words got stuck. Maybe she shouldn’t be going along with this, but if Victor was telling the truth, then someone did need to tattle on this place. And if she found the papers first, then she could check how his story matched up.
There was a desk with a computer beside them, office supplies scattered around the monitor. Before she could second guess herself, Chara stepped over to it, used her skirt to cover her hand, and pulled out the drawer under the desktop where the keyboard and trackpad sat. Something had been glinting on its edge, and the light had caught her eye.
It was a key.
“Don't bother with the computer," Victor said, "I already checked the digital records. And if they’d put this stuff there, a sister company would have caught them already.”
Chara nodded, but she grabbed the key the same way she had the drawer, careful to touch it with fabric and not her fingers. Victor didn’t seem to be having trouble with the cabinets, but there were locks on the drawers in the side of the desk. The key fit.
Just when she was thinking that it couldn’t possibly be this easy, Victor reached over her shoulder and pulled out a stack of files.
“Is that it?” Chara asked.
Nodding, Victor set the files on the desk and flipped one open. “Guard the door,” he said, grabbing his camera.
Quietly, Chara stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind her. It wouldn’t do to stand right at the office entrance—it would be better to move a little ways away and pretend she’d gotten lost. That would be easy, since she wasn’t actually sure if she could find her way back. If she acted forlorn enough, she could get anyone to leave Victor alone, to take her back to Joseph.
That thought brought on a flood of others. Joseph must be so disappointed right now—she'd promised to come with him to work and then left him at the earliest opportunity. She hadn't been meaning to—she hadn't really thought about it at all—but it had still happened. What had she even come here for? She'd forgotten to look at the papers to check Victor's story. For all she knew, she could be helping a bad faith actor to access important records belonging to one of Joseph's business partners.
She came to the end of the hall, ready to wait there where she could see the door, when something on the floor caught her eye. For a moment she didn't recognize it—she was distracted by the pattern, branching out the same way trees grew, the same way rivers came together. Then she remembered the news footage, the aftermath of a fight—that pattern had been pressed into a broken piece of concrete behind the reporter. It was the mark left by Current's power, a hero with an electric ability. Had he been here last night too, fighting Irradiance?
Current often worked with Zephyr.
Reaching up to cover her face, Chara kept walking—away from the door Victor thought she was guarding—but she'd never promised to. She didn't owe Victor anything, and she couldn't stand here and keep thinking. She had to go back and find Joseph right away.