NOVEL NEXT 0012 – First Attempt to Investigate the Cause of Change
Date: January 20, 2024
Time: 3:06 in the afternoon.
After a stretch of uneasy calm, Zoe Carter had reluctantly come to terms with the unsettling reality of her quasi-sterilization. With that acceptance, she moved on to the first task in her phased plan: investigating the cause of her bodily changes.
She hadn’t expected to unravel everything in one go; this was merely the initial step of a much broader inquiry. Zoe had arrived in Hamilton on the evening of January 18, 2024. She’d slept for nearly twenty hours, only awakening on the afternoon of January 20, whereupon she noticed several changes in her body. This prompted her to begin a series of cautious experiments.
Her suspicion was that these changes stemmed from the exhaustion of her rushed journey that day. Therefore, her first move was to check the surveillance footage from her return to the residential area, hoping it might offer clues. Perhaps she had encountered a state agent along the way, which triggered these peculiar changes and chosen her as the guinea pig.
It was now the afternoon of January 20, and the security room's footage from the past two days was still accessible. Zoe didn’t have the proper authorization to view the surveillance tapes, but rules, she thought, weren’t always rigidly enforced.
With a wordless gesture, she handed a pack of cigarettes to the security guard, purchased on her way there. The guard gratefully accepted and stepped outside to enjoy his smoke, leaving Zoe with ten minutes alone in the security room. She wasted no time, pulling up the footage and settling in to review it, her mind already deep in thought.
At precisely 9:45 p.m. on January 18, she appeared on the screen at the entrance of the residential area, dragging her suitcase behind her. The video quality was subpar, but one could just make out the weariness etched on her face.
The moonlight filtered through the trees, casting fragmented shadows across her form as she silently made her way home. There was nothing unusual—no interaction with anyone or anything. Just her and the suitcase, walking slowly, her fatigue palpable even through the grainy footage.
She followed her own figure on the screen all the way to her doorstep, watching as she unlocked the door and entered her home. Still, nothing out of the ordinary. No suspicious movement, no strange encounters.
If something had indeed triggered her transformation, it hadn't occurred here. It likely happened earlier—perhaps during her journey from the countryside to Hamilton, spanning a distance of 1,700 kilometers by plane and subway. A thorough investigation of that would take far more time, money, and energy than she had to spare. And, given how fruitless this surveillance check had been, she doubted such an investigation would yield anything useful.
With that, Zoe decided to press pause. For now, it was more important to observe and understand her bodily changes than to chase after possible causes. The investigation could wait—postponed, but not abandoned.
She was about to stand and leave when a thought struck her. After clearing her browsing history from the computer, she exited the security room and approached the guard, still enjoying his cigarette.
"How long do you keep the surveillance footage for?" she asked casually. "I couldn’t find anything from two months ago."
The guard chuckled, exhaling a cloud of smoke. "Ah, we only keep it for about a week, miss. Storage limitations and all that."
"A week, you say?" Zoe murmured to herself.
It was a relief, really. In a few days, the footage of her return would be wiped. It hadn’t revealed anything incriminating or strange, but still, the idea of it being cleared gave her a sense of comfort. There was no need to hasten the process—sometimes, letting things take their natural course was the best approach.
"Thank you," Zoe said, extending her hand and offering him another pack of cigarettes.
The guard accepted it with a knowing smile. There was an unspoken understanding between them. The first pack had been the price for access, the second to ensure his silence.
“Pleasure, miss,” he said with a grin, pocketing the gift.
Zoe nodded and took her leave, walking back towards her building. As she retraced her steps along the same path she’d walked two nights prior, she noticed nothing out of place. Yet, a tinge of curiosity lingered in the back of her mind.
With her newly heightened sense of smell, she began to perceive the world in a completely different way. Scents that should have been imperceptible were suddenly alive around her, painting a vivid picture of the environment. Cooking oil, cleaning supplies, the pungent odor of garbage, the sweetness of flowers, the lingering traces of smoke—all these smells mingled and shifted in the air.
She felt intoxicated by the richness of it all. Sweat from people exercising near the park, the earthy smell of children playing on the grass, the familiar aroma of neighbors engaged in idle conversation—it was a sensory overload, one that brought the world to life in ways she’d never experienced before.
More than that, she could catch faint hints of what had happened days earlier. The lingering smells of events long past still clung to the area in subtle, almost imperceptible ways. Guided by the trace of her own scent, Zoe began to search the surroundings more thoroughly, hoping to uncover something unusual. But after a few moments, she realized there was nothing.
No mysterious odors, no strange presences. Just the same conclusion she’d drawn from the surveillance footage: there was nothing out of the ordinary on the day she returned home. At least, not in this area.
With a weary sigh, Zoe rubbed her temples. She would have to set aside her investigation, at least for now. The answers, if there were any, lay elsewhere.