159TH

internal field account from corrective operations

May Season Studio Archives

by Gintare O.

Three weeks later, same corridor.

The call came through just after six. A woman and her dog, both dead, out on 159th between Gougar and Cedar. Less than half a mile from the furniture store, which Lorin had not stopped thinking about since they filed the incomplete and heard nothing back. Hit and run. Driver unidentified. The classification had a category this time. It wasn’t the right one.

Lorin read it on the way over and kept it to himself.

Merrit drove. March evening, that specific window where the sun is already gone but the sky hasn’t committed to dark yet. Fields on both sides of 159th. The 355 overpass a few hundred yards back. Nothing out here that explained two incidents on the same quarter mile of road three weeks apart.

They came in from the Gougar side.

Merrit eased off the gas before either of them saw the lights. Just slowed, the way he did when something reached him before it had a name. The van coasted.

“Feel that,” he said.

Lorin felt it. Low pressure over the road, close to the asphalt. Not a signature exactly. More like the ground had been holding something for a while and hadn’t decided what to do with it yet.

The scene came into view around a shallow bend. Two sheriff’s vehicles angled across the eastbound lane, flares set at a distance. Standard rural fatality response. Nothing about the positioning read wrong to anyone who didn’t know what to look for.

Lorin looked past the vehicles.

A man was standing at the tree line on the far shoulder. Not with the deputies. Not doing anything in particular. He had been there long enough that he’d stopped needing to look purposeful about it. He was already facing the van when Lorin looked at him.

Merrit had seen him too. The van slowed to almost nothing.

The man came over without being waved over. Walked around to the driver’s side, unhurried. Merrit lowered the window. Up close he was tall, composed in a way that wasn’t performed. He looked at Lorin first, then Merrit, then back at Lorin. Didn’t introduce himself.

“I appreciate you coming out,” he said. Even, not unfriendly. “This one’s ours.”

Lorin glanced past him. One of the deputies had looked over at the van and looked away again quickly, the way you do when you’ve already been told something.

“The furniture store too,” Lorin said.

Not a question. The man didn’t take it as one.

“Yes. Both of them.”

He let the pause sit. Didn’t seem to need to fill it.

“We’ll take it from here.”

Merrit looked at Lorin. Lorin looked at the road, the flares, the fields past the shoulder going dark, then back at the man.

“Understood,” he said.

The man stepped back. Merrit brought the window up and turned the van around on the gravel shoulder. They drove back toward Gougar without saying anything.

“Federal,” Merrit said eventually.

“Yes.”

“Pattern unit.”

“That’s my read.”

The Ramsey show was off for some reason. Just road noise.

“So it’s not new,” Merrit said. “Whatever’s out there.”

“No,” Lorin said. “It’s not new.”

“How long you think it’s been going.”

Lorin didn’t answer. He opened the corrective log and pulled up the 159th file. Four lines. Responded to site. Access declined, federal jurisdiction claimed. No corrective action taken. Refer to Pattern Interference Division for follow-up.

He left the status field open. No closure date.

He’d check it again next week. He already knew what he’d find.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

at may season studio, we document the quiet mechanics that hold our world together, the routines, the tensions, and the moments that should not have happened but did anyway. this entry reflects another observation from within our walls.

written and designed by gintare okrzesik, creator of may season studio, a fictional corporation exploring beauty, bureaucracy, and quiet corruption through narrative design.

Filed Under: corrective operations / from the may season studio employee files

Some things get closed.

Some things get referred.

Begin with:

The Digging Team

Incomplete Corrective Response

Pattern Interference: Field Follow-Up Report

Then follow the trail.