STATUS UPDATE

FROM: Anonymous_Watchdog_Member

TO: All

Satellite images updated for the following risk areas:

Pauini, Brazil-NO OBSERVED RIGEL ACTIVITY

Pangar Djerem, Cameroon-NO OBSERVED RIGEL ACTIVITY

Uzo, Indonesia-NO OBSERVED RIGEL ACTIVITY

St. Andrew Island, Australia-NO OBSERVED RIGEL ACTIVITY

Anyone at/near these locations should remain cautious and follow all safety procedures. Protect yourself.

No further information at this time.

STATUS UPDATE

FROM: Anonymous_Watchdog_Member

TO: All

Satellite images updated for the following risk areas:

Mubendi Preserve, Uganda-NO OBSERVED RIGEL ACTIVITY

Wells Town, British Virgin Islands-NO OBSERVED RIGEL ACTIVITY

Bharanpala Lake, India-NO OBSERVED RIGEL ACTIVITY

Anyone at/near these locations should remain cautious and follow all safety procedures. Protect yourself.

No further information at this time.

Sam finished the second fax and looked up at Dani. She glanced at him, then returned her eyes to the page, her forehead furrowed.

“What the hell are we caught up in?” she said softly.

She traced the fax’s header with her fingertip. “From Anonymous Watchdog Member … to all. It sounds like these faxes are being sent to lots of people at once.”

Sam nodded. “I guess that’s why this machine is still getting them, even when Pierce has been gone all this time. The messages are just going out to … some kind of group, I guess. And he was part of it.”

“Watchdog,” Dani said.

She was quiet for a long moment, her eyes narrowed.

“Watching for Rigel activity,” she said, “whatever that is.”

“I wonder if Watchdog is Pierce and the other people who worked on the project with him,” Sam said. “I mean, it almost has to be, doesn’t it?”

Dani thought about it, nodding.

“In that recording we just listened to,” she said, “Trent told my dad there were people in D.C. and out west who worked on the project, too. So there could be lots of these people out there.”

“I don’t get what they’re doing now, though,” Sam said. “I mean, they’re watching these places all over the world for something that has to do with Rigel, but … why are they doing that, if the project got shut down five years ago? Pierce himself told the government to pull the plug.”

“What if he didn’t trust them to really do that?” Dani asked. “What if he and the others wanted to keep an eye out, just in case someone started it up again?”

Sam trailed his eyes over the two lists of locations in the faxes. The risk areas. He’d heard of the countries, but none of the specific places were familiar.

“There’s some reason these places matter,” Dani said. “Why, though?”

Sam thought about it, but came up empty.

“We’d have to know more about what Rigel is, to understand any of this,” he said. “I still feel like we’re at square one.”