Zahra Nadir finishes touching up her makeup and wondering if she is passable. She grabs her carry bag of gear, then heads to work under more layers of clothing than she is used to, anxious that someone might discover her new horrific secret. The hints from her workplace that maybe her self-imposed “COVID quarantine” had run its course left her with little choice but to return to the office after a two-week absence. It was fortunate her own supervisor had just come down with COVID shortly before her “incident,” which left her with a convenient excuse both to avoid work as well as face-to-face conversations with her roommate. But she really hated treating Khepri like that – really, she did.
As she walks to work, the call to prayer plays over the loudspeakers mounted on the regularly spaced light posts, and despite her not being regular Orthodox, she pauses to look down quietly. Eventually the period of contemplation ends and she continues her walk to work. It’s not clear whether she misses the gunshot in the nearby market area because she’s adjusting to the burka she’s now wearing to hide her deformed body or because she’s just stewing in her own thoughts.
Cutting a striking figure in a coffee shop just outside the central business district, Masil Jabir Sabbal recognizes the gunshot for what it exactly is because there’s a ting at the window and he looks up just in time to see a bullet hole appear above his head. As he looks at the hole in shock, a terrified cat leaps across his lap, which in turn sends him to his feet due to his deep-seated fear of felines. Coffee splashes everywhere, sending other customers to their feet as they give him dirty glances. Trying to get his composure back, he recognizes the bullet hole is now at eye level, so unless the shooter was a terrible shot, that bullet was not aimed at anyone sitting in the café.
Grabbing his things, Masil heads out to the street to see what happened. He quickly finds a blood stain on the pavement but no shooter or victim. However, there is a mount stick and a phone lying nearby, as if someone dropped it in their rush. He instinctively grabs it but it slips out of his hand momentarily and skitters a few feet on the concrete, forcing him to scoop it back up. A quick glance shows the screen to have a noticeable crack, and the phone itself isn’t powering up. Slipping it into his pocket, he takes a quick look around the area to guess where the shooter might have been standing. While he sees no obvious culprit, he does notice occasional drops of blood heading off to his left and hurries to follow the trail as the sound of police sirens nears.
Masil follows this trail down an alley to a locked fire escape door with a crack the size of a credit card. With no continuation of the trail and no way to quickly open the door, Masil continues down the alley, assuming maybe the blood trail stopped because the victim bound their wounds before continuing and keeping his eyes out for anyone clutching their arm or behaving oddly. As he emerges into a larger street, he sees a familiar couple emerge from a nearby alley.
A minute earlier, hearing the shot as well, a woman named Samara suggests to her companion Rasheed El Sharif that they retreat down a nearby alley. Considering that gunshots within the market area are not a common occurrence, Rasheed agrees with her suggestion and both hurry between the two nearby buildings – where they run across a man sprawled on the ground. He has a hip holster with a gun in it, but no apparent injuries.
As Rasheed goes to swipe the stranger’s wallet while helping him up, he notices and instead grabs a mysterious envelope. Oblivious to the robbery, the man thanks them and hurries out of the alley to acquire a robot taxi. His Arabic is crap, suggesting he’s not local despite an appearance that would place him locally or perhaps originating from a bit south. As they watch him go, Rasheed winks at Samara and flashes the envelope, then tugs her in the opposite direction before the man realizes what he might be missing. As they emerge from an alley, they hear someone call out – an acquaintance named Masil.
“Did you hear the shot?” he calls to them as he approaches. As they share information, Samara suggests going back to check out the door, while Rasheed is hesitant because it’s close to the incident location with the police are coming and Masil fears it could trigger an alarm.
As they argue, Rasheed reports now that there are police entering the alley and maybe they should go somewhere else until the scrutiny dies down. As they walk off, he slips out the unmarked envelope and peers inside. There’s 800 euros, which he pockets, and a letter which Masil is able to read once Rasheed shares it: “I expect it handled by midnight today. Don’t screw it up.” At the note’s bottom, there are a few numbers and a collection of letters. After pondering it for a minute, Masil realizes it is stock symbols and account numbers.
Rasheed says the man who “dropped” the envelope didn’t sound Arabic and even had a small pistol on him. Was he the shooter, he suggests? None of them are sure.
In a different part of town, when Zahra finally swipes herself in at work and passes the break room, she notices TV coverage of the shooting where surveillance cameras clearly caught a man picking up a discarded camera and shooting arm. “Why, that man is just a common thief!” she mutters to herself.
She sees that the gunman stood just out of reach of the camera, because the footage catches an arm sticking out, pulling the trigger, and the victim falling while clutching at his arm – and then he is suddenly gone, as if he just vanished. How odd. It doesn’t seem to be a trick of the camera.
Elsewhere, a man named Modi who has hacked into videocam footage around the market facility recognizes both the man who stole the camera as well the two people he meets up with a minute later in a different street. (Ironically he also knows Zahra because of reaching out to her previously online, but they have never met in person.) When he finds the footage of the shooting, which is also running on the news, he notices the same thing Zahra did about the disappearing victim, even after checking frame by frame.
Noting where the trio of his past acquaintances has gone to lay low, he heads out to meet them. They are all lost in discussion when Modi walks into the new coffee shop and sits down. Other customers can’t help but take note of him a bit: Deeply tanned, dark hair, covered head to toe by clothes and even wearing gloves and mirrored sunglasses inside the establishment. The contours of his face aren’t necessarily wrong, but there is still something abnormal about his appearance.
“I saw you on the TV,” he says.
“Which one of us?”
“All three,” Modi replies. “That was unwise.” He pauses to let that sink in. “What do you know about the shooting victim?”
“Nothing. What do you know?” says Masil.
Modi says it might be someone similar to “us.”
Rasheed describes the person he got the envelope from – moustache, beard, trim hair, and a really expensive suit.
When shown the letter, Modi recognizes the stock symbols immediately – an American pharmaceutical company, a Chinese corporation, a Qi-Gen labs branch, a French cosmetic and pharmaceutical brand, and a Sweden prosthetics manufacturer with computer connections – aside from one symbol he can’t make head or tail of. Eventually this is determined to be “Autumn Health Management Systems.”
As Modi and the others discuss the shooting, Modi gets a text from Zahra advising him of the oddity of news footage this morning and perhaps the disappearing victim would warrant checking out based on their recent online discussions of shadowy conspiracies in the recent Cairo area, in addition to phenomena not necessarily explained by conventional science.
“We’re actually here discussing it now,” he texts back. “Perhaps you’d care to join us?”
The response takes a few minutes, as if Zahra had to mull over it, but she offers to meet them at the coffee shop later if it is worth meeting about.
“That’s for you to decide,” he replies.
In her cubicle, Zahra rereads this simple message a few times, feeling frustrated and anxious. Her roommate had dinged her this morning to see if she was okay, since she’d been in quarantine so long but now was disappeared from the apartment. Feeling bad because of not sharing any of her recent trauma with her, Zahra immediately lets Khepri know that she is okay but was just running out of leave and excuses to not attempt work, so today she went into the office.
Zahra thinks about Modi’s offer as she continues to work through a two-week onslaught of unanswered e-mail, meeting requests, safety appointments, and process review documentation. Her work attire had always been modest but trendy on what salary she could afford, so she had expected a lot of comments when arriving this morning in more traditional female attire, a burka, a face mask, and sunglasses – whatever she could find to cover all of her body. But despite a few scowls (perhaps at the insinuation she was nursing a hangover of some kind), most people seemed happy enough to leave her alone to get back to her work – perhaps being afraid of picking up an errant case of COVID. No one seems bothered when she grabs her bag and excuses herself early for lunch.
Back at the coffee shop, Modi and the others look at the phone, which is still messed up. Modi notes that anyone tracking it would be drawn to the last place it had power. As the others watch, he pulls and pockets the battery and hands the phone back to Rasheed. “In case they have already traced us here, we should leave this place. We can look at the phone more later.”
As they all head out, a man ramps his scooter up on the curb and then back off again. Remarkably they all manage to step out of the way of an actual collision. While slick enough to make it look like an accident, the driver appears odd in that he has no beard but way more muscle than they are used to seeing. Modi recognizes the man from his footage review as someone who tried to grab the phone shortly after Masil took it. Is that a look of alarm they all see on his face as he speeds off?
Rasheed scans the man’s surface thoughts as he wends away through traffic to get some distance. “Shit, I didn’t get the phone, Worse, they saw me and now we need to send someone else.”
Rasheed frowns to the others. “Yeah. That scooter crash wasn’t an incident – he was trying to grab the phone from us.”
“Can I just ditch it?” asks Masil, not really like all of the newfound attention.
“After we figure out what is on it,” says Rasheed. “Obviously it must have something of value.”
Samara looks around. “Where can we go to get off the street?” she asks warily. Masil suggests another coffee shop, and Modi quietly texts the new location to Zahra in case she plans to visit.
Shortly after they establish themselves at a table in the new shop, a short young woman enters, layered in traditional Muslim clothing and wearing a face mask and sunglasses. Modi waves her over and Rasheed pushes out a chair for her. Zahra’s speech seems assertive but edgy, and everyone gets the feeling she is sizing them up behind the sunglasses.
She asks Modi about the phone and then suddenly looks back at Masil. “You’re the man who swiped the phone on the news,” she blurts, which rattles Masil momentarily. He had really flubbed that snipe.
“I guess you’re a big star now,” notes Samara, elbowing him.
Masil insists he had simply recovered it from the scene, to review the contents, but there was always a plan to turn it in after he was done with his review.
“Uh huh,” says Zahra. “So – did you check for prints?”
“Do you think any might have been left?” asks Rasheed.
“Well, I think Masil is the only one who has touched the phone without gloves, so can’t we just get his prints and then look for any different ones?” asks Samara. Masil nods, although based on the oddities of his body, he doesn’t think he has any oil on his fingers to leave prints behind.
Going through her carry bag, Zahra uses some common makeup powder and items to dust the device for prints, then shares them with Modi. He takes a few minutes to crack the online local police database and quickly finds a match.
Amar Hassan (perpetrator’s name) was picked up on multiple counts of trespassing, loitering, generally being a nuisance, and filming for his streaming channel in places where he shouldn’t have been. His criminal record is now 3 years old. His channel has a number of videos that were removed. He might have green dyed hair on some videos. We note that in some of the skate park videos, he sports a nose ring he doesn’t wear in the others.
“So we now have a lead. Now we just have to find this Amar and figure out why he might have been a target.”
“This fellow Amar might have a special trick up his sleeve,” notes Zahra. “Did any of you figure out yet whether he turned invisible when he fell?” When only Modi seems to know what she’s talking about, she explains what she saw on the TV footage. If this is true, perhaps few would recognize where Amar might have actually gone.
“Masil did follow Amar’s blood trail to an emergency door,” contributes Rasheed, “but that’s where he got stuck.” Masil insists there wasn’t much he could do at the time, with the police arriving.
As they talk, Modi starts typing on his laptop, first locating information about the building, which is owned by the bank and real estate developer. He quickly pulls up a list of public leasers of the various spaces available. One of the companies was on the note that the assassin possessed.
The building had a note saying it was closed unexpected that morning, due to police inspecting the area, but it was reopening at 1pm – and it’s now a quarter after 1pm.
Discussing further, it’s clear a few of us were “made” by whoever is involved in this mess (as per the scooter incident), but Zahra likely has not been. When the list of companies in the building is listed, one of those stands out to Zahra – it was on a list of safety assignments she had received early today in her e-mail. While the storefront is on the 22nd floor, it should be easy enough for her to get into the basement under present of inspecting the utilities, to see if she can pick up Amar’s trail on the other side of the emergency door Masil found.
“But I don’t know a quick way to let you all know if there’s trouble, while I’m inside,” she says. Texting is doable, perhaps, but it’s not quick or informative if a situation quickly goes south.
“Don’t worry,” volunteers Rasheed, “I think I’ve got that taken care of.”
Zahra sizes him up. “Show me.”
She suddenly feels something prodding and pushing at the edges of her mind, while a good-natured smirk plays at the corner of the young man’s mouth. Zahra feels momentary apprehension until she realizes Rasheed cannot quite lock on her. She focuses her mind and opens a small window through which they can talk, without him seeing anything else. “That’s a nice trick,” she thinks at him. “Just don’t push your luck.”
Rasheed blushes momentarily, then nods. Meanwhile, Modi orders some earbuds online in case we need them in the future.
“Well, I guess it’s time for an impromptu inspection,” says Zahra, standing.
“Isn’t it polite to set up an appointment or something?” suggests Masil.
“Maybe,” says Zahra, “but this is far more effective.”
Staying in touch with Rasheed as needed, Zahra walks to the building and takes the elevator up, introducing herself to the facility receptionist, sharing her credentials, and saying she will need access to the location for the assigned safety review. There’s initial pushback – what’s new? -- but eventually she is buzzed in and introduced to the facility manager to look around the premises. Maybe he is used to rerouting these kinds of inspection tours, but he’s also edgy enough that Zahra knows he’s bullshitting her and finally she just nonchalantly pops open the main lab door before he can protest.
He follows along gamely as she notes a number of trivial infractions of code – and then opens yet another door he was trying to distract her from. Jackpot: There’s a number of biological samples here without permits that looks like they were placed in this room a few minutes ago to avoid her scrutiny. She carefully examines one dish that looks like it contains twitching muscle tissue – and this from a biochemical company supposedly testing antibiotics.
Both annoyed and panicked about an inspector managing to see what they’ve been up to, he stammers through an explanation as Zahra carefully observes his reaction.
“This is a temporary storage,” he insists, “and we’ll be moving it right back to where it belongs – none of this needs to show up in the report.” He slickly gets out his wallet and starts counting out money.
“No need for that,” she interrupts. “You’ll be hearing from my office once we’ve had time to write up our findings and you can discuss all of your concerns with them.” She’s a little put off but also amused to see that, by his response, instead of understanding she is refusing the bribe, he honestly thinks she’s redirecting him to discuss the details with her superiors. Won’t he be surprised by her report?
The man seems almost relieved when Zahra announces she’s finished with the lab inspection but just needs temporarily access to the basement to complete her facility review.
As he leads her from the room, Zahra notices odd logos on various items stashed in one non-descript corner. She’s seen these logos before and for a moment the world swims around her – they are the logos on the vats she had recently “fallen” into.
The other notable detail is some paperwork hastily stashed in a manila folder plopped on a nearby desk, with one paper sticking out marked with confidentiality and headlined with “Scarab Project Phase 2”.
She’s quickly handed off to another person to take her to the basement, as the manager hastily excuses himself. She wonders if he will need a stiff swig of whiskey after this.
The two women step into the elevator and head down to the basement as tinny instrumental covers of popular local pop songs play.
“So have you worked here long?” asks Zahra eventually, unsure of what to say.
“Only eight months.”
“Do you like it?”
“The pay is good.” The young woman seems almost more anxious than Zahra. She launches into an awkward description of a puppy she recently bought and named Marcel. What, after the monkey on Friends? Really?! Talk about terrible Western influence!
When Zahra remains coldly silent, the young woman ends by commenting on the nearby donut shop that adds a new terrible flavor every time she picks up a box for the facility but since she chooses last, she always seems to get stuck with it, and laughs nervously. Zahra clears her throat uncomfortably.
There’s a ding and the elevator door opens into a lesser lit area. Zahra’s guide hastily excuses herself to the bathroom, while Zahra begins to inspect all the nearby areas and labeled doorways. She finds all the expected items – utility, plumbing, air handling – to maintain a building. As she walks, she relays to Rasheed the overview of what she discovered on tour of the facility above, in case Modi can do further electronic investigation.
Eventually Zhara makes her way to the fire escape steps to reach the door that would have opened into the alley. She finds the trail – apparently Amar did enter here from the alley -- but she’s a bit disturbed to see that the alarm itself was not connected to the power, so no one would have heard him enter. There’s another potential violation to write up.
She follows the blood trail until she reaches another door, this one being locked. However, there is a small gap at the bottom of the door.
Zahra looks at the crack, and then back at the door. There’s no obvious way to get past that, unless…
The whole thought makes her feel wiggy. She has been finally feeling more like herself, today, and having everyone else see her human had been such a positive affirmation – does she really want to go back to this? “The heavens and the earth have been established through justice,” she reminds herself repeatedly. Yes. The people responsible for these troubles will never be caught unless she takes extraordinary measures -- and what is more important? Comfort or justice?
Slowly Zahra sinks down through her clothes and then slips carefully under the edge of the door, finds nothing to stop her, and simply continues to flatten out and slither forward until she’s completely on the other side of the barrier – albeit without her phone, gear, or clothes. She almost panics as she tries to reshape herself but can’t quite find the right configuration, but after a minute she finds a humanoid shape again. The area here is dark now, but she can still see and locate the blood trail. After a minute of tracking it, she realizes that she should have reached one of the outer foundation walls by now, but there is just an ongoing tunnel.
Eventually she comes to a lit stairwell leading downwards, which was obviously poured after the original construction was placed. It should not be here. She can hear the faint whirr of fans down below, as well as a moderately annoying high-pitched buzz from the illumination.
There is signage on the walls – a few signs in Arabic about the location of the fire escape, or marking hot the water, sewer, and fiber conduit lines… plus an odd extra line in English for one pipe that reads, “Extra Content: VOLATILE!” Zahra has no idea what this means, exactly, but she is sure it is not conforming to code.
The stairwell is now leading somewhere under the street, and she begins to descend. After two flights, she reaches a short landing and then another door that stymies her. It looks like a steel fire door, possessing three different locks as well as a motion-sensing keypad set in the nearby wall. As she ponders these obstacles, she notices a small plate on the door that suddenly reads, “Iris Scan Failed! Please face door.”
Unlike the first door, there is no gap for her to squeeze through, and the conduits passing through the wall were constructed well enough to seal up the gaps between pipe and wall. But her quarry definitely had access to the facility: The blood trail approaches and then stops at the door.
“Rasheed?” she thinks. “I have some good news and some bad news for you…” Zahra provides her report just as she would write it, explaining her route, the layout, and then what she is now looking at: A fire door with three deadbolts, a digital keypad lock, and a retinal scan device.
With little else to be done, Zahra heads back up the stairs and retraces her route, eventually slithering back under the locked door and slipping inside her clothes before reforming. Gathering her things, she heads back through the basement to return upstairs.
As the elevator comes back into view, she suddenly hears a scream from the bathroom. It sounds like her escort.