Origami Shadows

I stopped paying attention to what numbers I was dialing, falling into a repeating pattern of random button pressing, waiting, hearing the same response from the machine, and attempting again.

To my surprise, a call finally rang through.

VALID EXTENSION

"Department 809," a man answered. "Verification number, please."

I didn't know any verification numbers, of course, or even where to begin guessing at what they might be. The irony of the situation crossed my mind for a moment when I realized that I was once again to a point of randomly guessing number sequences with the hopes of accomplishing something productive.

I hesitated.

"Verification number," the man repeated.

"Listen," I said. He didn't hang up, but he didn't respond, either. I assumed that he was listening.

"I'm trying to find someone who works for Synchro Systems - specifically someone who can tell me about some initial patient testing that might have gone wrong and the patients that might have been involved with such testing," I continued. He was still on the line, as far as I could tell. "I think something bad has happened to my girlfriend and I'm trying to find out if it could be as a result of something that happened to her when she was possibly a volunteer patient during testing of a product or treatment called the Synchronicity Drive."

"The main line for news queries is clearly posted in multiple places online," the man responded. "You have the wrong extension."

"Wait!" I exclaimed. Once again, he didn't hang up.

"I'm not a reporter. I'm not really much of anything, just a guy trying to figure things out. I don't know what the Synchronicity Drive is, and I'm not trying to get new information that will break my journalism career," I offered, as a way of explanation.