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Your ears are ringing but the noise cancelling headphones means you're also sitting in silence.
Just you and the ringing.
There's the smoothest of breezes tracing across your cheek as you sit on your front step.
But the ringing, fuck you wish that would stop sometime soon.
It always happens. The tinnitus.
It's the high pitched steam-whistle of the pressure of testimony finally being released, at least temporarily anyways. It always happens to you though.
You often liken the preparation for testimony to spending weeks building a spear out of clay, and then hardening it to a point at the moment you provide evidence. No room for mistakes.
So your brain, like many other investigators decides to offload the pressure by squealing in your ears.
Fuck the breeze feels nice, though, and tinnitus sounds the same outdoors as inside.
So you don't move.
[[A crow suddenly lands near you...->Crow Lands]]
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> [[The Astronomer->The Astronomer]]
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<p>
One of the crows -- or 'crowmies' as you've named them -- that live in your neighbourhood, bounces toward you in the yellowing lawn, pausing to cock their head inquisitively as if to say, "you good bro?"
"Oh I'm fine, bud," you smile at them, "you know as far as someone talking to crows goes."
By all measures the investigative testimony you had given this day went well, but it wasn't finished. You ran the clock out on the court, through no fault of your own, and now you gotta do it again next week.
So there's another day of ringing ears in store in the near future.
It also means your client is still in county jail, and that is always going to feel like failure to you. . Objectively speaking, it truly isn't -- but to you, every minute an innocent person spends behind bars is a tortorous thing. You take it to bed at night, and you feel it a personal duty to make it stop as swiftly as possible.
Your gaze wanders to the southeast of your front step. If you look at just the right angle between the weathered bark of the poplar tree in your front yard, you can see the local university campus with concrete and glass splintering up around beautiful greenery.
You don't know why but the sight of it makes you chuckle.
How the fuck did you go from building websites in a cramped office on those university grounds, to squealing ears after testifying in another murder in Kansas?
Your mind starts to unroll backwards, like a tattered scroll covered in color-coded Google Calendar sheets.
Saskatchewan. Kansas. Oklahoma. California. New York. Alaska. Minnesota.
Murder, rape, cults, mediums, possessions, robbery, child abuse material, wrongful convictions, wrongful sentencing.
Human rights violations.
You gaze at the crow, and wonder, if you were to tell it where this story could start, where would it be?
</p>
[[You open your notebook->Open Notebook]]
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You peer into the dimly lit garage.
A man is hunched over a 55-gallon oil drum, rhythmically moving his hands over something that is fastened to the top and hidden from your view. The man blows dust off of his workpiece and stands back far enough that you can see what he's working on.
It's a curved piece of glass, and judging by the telescope standing not far away, you guess the man is an amateur astronomer.
The man is handsome in a nerdy way. Neat, dark brown hair pulled back to reveal large glasses perched over a square jaw and trimmed moustache. There's a pocket protector present in his front shirt pocket, and a wear spot where he attached his identification for his day job at the US government research facility he clocked into each day.
You can hear the faint crackle of a radio playing in the garage.
[[You press your ear to the garage door...->Listen to Radio]]
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In what Canadian town did Dave Robertson discover crop circles in 1999?
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Select a location to begin your investigative journey:
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You smile to yourself.
You know this place but this mysterious incident is not one you're familiar with.
You've now unlocked [[Saskatchewan]] in your Notebook.
[[Continue in California->A Slow Night in Modesto]]
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As the conspiratorial tones of Art Bell can be heard playing over the silver Sanyo ghettoblaster, with the occasional disdainful snort from the man polishing glass.
He pauses and looks at his watch, then swiftly he dusts his hands off and wipes them on the front of his jeans.
Work time is over for the night.
He stands at the lightswitch, staring at his telescope perched on its tripod, his face beginning to pinch as though a pain is coming from somewhere that can't be found on a CT scan.
He stares a moment longer at his telescope, before his head drops and he turns the lights off in the garage.
As he closes the door he abruptly turns your way and you slide around the corner of the garage out of his view.
All you can hear him say is, "what a nightmare."
[[You need to learn more about this man...->The Astronomer's Life]]
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Before you head to your rental car, to start crawling the darkened streets, you need to double check the weather.
Based on the episode of Art Bell, what was the high temperature on this day in Modesto, California?
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The heat is oppressive, and the time you've spent on foot has given the car a chance to create its own oven and you're the bun.
You turn the engine over and think about your next moves, while the A/C complains about having to work overtime with no pay.
The Astronomer had mentioned a nightmare tomorrow, but tomorrow won't come for a few hours, so it might not be a bad time to do some quiet investigative work.
Sleep never came easy for you anyways.
You look at the Tourism Modesto brochure on the passenger seat and out of reflex you pick it up.
The childhood home of George Lucas, and the world's largest winery, courtesy of E&J Gallo, Modesto seems to be one of those places that is steeped in the legendary but often only pops its head out to reveal the ugly.
'Methdeasto', as some call it. It's had its problems, but like any other city that gets a bad rhyme assigned, the moniker may not be exactly accurate.
What's your next move, partner?
> [[Investigate Astronomer's Place of Work->Astronomer's Work]]
> [[Go For a Drive->Drive Modesto]]
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