Diane held back, taking in the apparent emptiness of the room, preparing for what might happen next, but Jackie was already out and running for the microfiche shelves. Diane gasped, unable to grab Jackie, to protect her from her own bravado.

Jackie, all teenage breathlessness, broke her run on the archive cabinets with a dull slap and whirled around, arms out, eyes wide, ready to take what would come. Nothing. Diane held her breath. No one.

“See? No one.” Jackie’s grin was edging toward smug, but Diane had developed a patience for this kind of thing from years of her son. She scuttled over in a crouched position from her hiding place under the desk, standing only when she made it to the cabinet. They put their backs to the archives and looked at where they had come from. Children’s section, then computers, then reference section, then the turn toward checkout and escape.

If they needed to run, they wouldn’t make it. So they would just have to not be found.

“All right, what are you looking for?” Jackie mouthed, trying to whisper without sound.

“Troy,” Diane mouthed.

Jackie made a face.

“It’s for Josh’s sake,” Diane mouthed.

“What?” Jackie mouthed.

Diane wasn’t sure if Jackie had not understood or was expressing incredulity; either way she waved her off. Finding information on any citizen of Night Vale was as simple as looking under their name and sorting through the comprehensive life details kept on record.

And there he was. “Walsh, Troy,” between “Vos, Natalie” and “Winged Creature, First Name Unknown.” Here was his birth certificate with everything but his name redacted. His death certificate, postdated to the correct time. A cool rock that someone had found and had written “Troy” on with a black permanent marker. Blood samples. Urine samples. Saliva samples. Writing samples. Fingerprints. Photos taken while he was sleeping. A paragraph-length, poetic description of his aura. A video of the same description presented through the language of dance.

Diane shook her head. Nothing unusual or useful.

Jackie placed a hand on her shoulder, patient as she could, and squeezed gently, trying to convey all of “That’s cool. But there’s nothing. Sorry you came all this way and wasted your time. Let’s go.”

Diane poked a finger at her but then reconsidered and lifted the defensive gesture into a plea. “Just one more moment?” her finger asked.

“Whatever.” Jackie crossed her arms and returned her bored stare to the empty room behind them.

Diane searched through the whole file again, flicking quickly, looking for whatever it was she had missed, because surely she had missed something.

A fluorescent light flickered on the high gray ceiling above them. Jackie squinted. She hadn’t seen anything. That had been nothing, she was sure.

BRRGGHHHHH. The fountain. But was that a noise hanging on for just a moment after the fountain’s moan?