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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Audrik" data-source="post: 7294290" data-attributes="member: 73653">Whereabouts Unknown - Session 1cHe set his briefcase outside and went back to take a picture of the map. He then grabbed his coat and tie, his briefcase, and the manuscripts before rushing next door to Cabin 16. As he entered, he found Dempsey putting the finishing touches on what he was sure was an improvised explosive device of some sort. He wasn’t sure why they might need that or why the kid was tinkering with it, but it was something to keep an eye on.Atwood explained his theory to the Irishman and was more than a little surprised to hear that the kid not only agreed with him, but Dempsey also seemed to know a fair bit about ley lines and magic himself. Astrology eluded him, but magic and ley lines were the stuff of every Irish lad’s bedtime stories.If the center of those lines was where she’d gone, that’s where they were going to look. Dempsey checked his camera one last time to be sure it was recording and had a clear view of Cabin 17 in case anyone came back. The agents then drove west down an old state road. They had a few hours of light left.They’d only been driving a few minutes when Atwood noticed frost on the ground and the trees. It was 70 degrees at the campground, and a couple miles west the thermometer display on the dashboard was telling him it was 30 degrees and dropping. Another mile or so, and the frost was so thick it almost looked like it had snowed. Now the Irishman’s sense of fashion seemed to have been incredible foresight. Atwood turned the heater up and drove on.Eventually, they came upon an abandoned Ford Fiesta, the same car Ms. Valladares drove. Atwood pulled the SUV off to the shoulder of the frost-covered dirt road, and the agents got out. The car was every bit as messy as Cabin 17. Fast food containers and plastic water bottles littered the backseat. The keys were still in the ignition. A trail of footprints led away from the car and into the woods.The agents began to follow the trail. They hadn’t made it fifty yards inside the tree line when Dempsey slipped and fell nose first down an embankment. Atwood rolled his eyes and suppressed a sigh as he watched the Irishman tumble to the bottom. Dempsey laid motionless for several seconds before raising an arm and giving a thumbs-up. This was presumably to tell Atwood he was uninjured, but the profiler took it as his cue to leave the dead weight.He continued to follow the footprints to a white clearing at least 100 yards in diameter where he found a thermos of cold coffee, a commercial star chart, and surveying equipment. There was also a circle of silvery powder in the frost which seemed to circle the entire clearing. Atwood wasn’t sure what the powder was, but it held significance for whatever ritual Ms. Valladares had performed. He took out the disc, and the glyphs were glowing faintly. He hadn’t noticed anything in the etchings that might cause that sort of reaction, so he decided it was some sort of magic. That also helped him explain the electronic interference.The clearing was flat except for something jutting up in the very center. Atwood was just taking out his binoculars when Dempsey caught up. The agents took turns looking at the thing. It looked like a hole with a mound next to it, but they couldn’t be sure, so they followed the footprints closer. They stopped about twenty yards away when it dawned on them what they were seeing.It wasn’t a hole and a mound. The earth and air had turned in space. It was as if a twenty-foot-diameter invisible sphere half in the ground and half out had rotated roughly 30 degrees counterclockwise and forward. The dirt revealed both inside and outside the sphere looked perfectly smooth. The footprints led directly to the edge of the area, and they continued inside the sphere, but they, too, were shifted. Atwood tossed a rock in the direction of the sphere, and as soon as it entered, it disappeared from its point in space and appeared roughly 30 degrees to the right. It was still heading toward the center of the sphere, but its trajectory had altered. Space inside the sphere was tilted.The footprints led to the center and stopped. Okay, so … she was gone. That’s all there was to it. She wasn’t coming back. Or, as Atwood pointed out, it was probably for the best if they ensured she never came back. He planned to disrupt the circle of powder, but Dempsey knew that wouldn’t be enough; the ley lines would still converge. This area would still hold power, and someone else could do what Ms. Valladares had done. No. They had to disrupt the ley lines themselves.The agents headed back to the abandoned car and drove it to the clearing. Dempsy couldn’t rig it to explode with what he’d brought with him, so he did the next best thing. He aimed the car at the sphere and placed a weight on the accelerator. When he put the car in gear, it drove right where he hoped it would, but the result wasn’t quite what he expected.When the car entered the sphere, everything – car, air, dirt – the whole sphere rotated wildly like a giant hamster ball. The car was thrown straight up into the air and fell back to earth. Dirt, rocks, and snow were thrown in all directions, and the glyphs on the disc faded.That was that. Migdalia Valladares of Hannover, New Hampshire had driven into the Vermont woods and abandoned her car in a clearing. If the boys in Boston wanted to follow her trail from there, best of luck to them.</blockquote>

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