The Sigma Asset 🏳️‍🌈 (bxb)║AMBYS WINNER 2022

29: The Investigation

Namasté, Welcome to the West Coast Yoga Summer Retreat. It was only eighty-thirty but I was already in my usual place, lying on the sunroom carpet next to the keyboard, looking up at my phone.

I tapped my finger through the menu options on the web site. About the Retreat, Teachers, Classes, Livestreams, Contact Us. I tapped on Livestreams. Livestreams of all classes will be available during the Retreat. Please register with your email address to view livestreams.

I'd register when I got back to Korea. I figured that if I didn't make it back home by Cruz de Mayo weekend, I'd just livestream the classes with Gloria in her living room. Apart from Lars Eriksen's classes, because he was a shibal-seki.

Tapping on to the Teachers menu, I scrolled through the photos of the yogi and teachers leading the different masterclasses. Lars Eriksen's masterclass was on self-realization, whatever that was. His face looked back at me, even more like Noah when viewed in high-resolution on a phone, although it was stern, with no trace of the inscrutable smile that Noah always wore.

Curiosity and fear mingled as I typed Lars Eriksen FlowYoga into my browser search. The FlowYoga web pages, merchandise sales, news articles, and reviews all went back seven years. From the news reports it looked like Lars had appeared on the yoga scene in Oslo seven years ago, and had rapidly built an empire by acquisition of gyms, tennis clubs, and smaller yoga schools across Norway and Sweden.

The same photo of Lars that was printed in the Retreat program was repeated on multiple web sites, along with promotional photos and a few screenshots of Lars in action on his Youtube channel. I scrolled through them; although eerily similar to Noah, most of the photos showed Lars with a blank expression and a wiry beard, rather than Noah's expressive face and short stubble.

One of the smallest images, a grainy screenshot of him from one of his earliest YouTube videos, showed a younger Lars, perhaps from five or six years earlier. He had just a day or two of stubble, and hair that curled about his ears. Just like Noah's.

My heart suddenly felt like it was being pressed, and I put the phone down, taking in slow, deep breaths. It was too much of a coincidence. It was too uncanny to ignore. Coincidences happened, but this one felt so twisted.

If only I could find out more about Lars, who he knew, and what he wanted with Jules, then I could warn her. But then, Jules already knew that Lars was bad for her, and could mess with whomever she wanted. It wasn't any of my business anyways; maybe she got a kick outta that shit.

Besides, how would I even begin to find out more about Lars Eriksen than the carefully-cultivated Internet version of him?

Just ask the one person who owes you a shit-ton of favors, Zeph.

I swiped through my contacts. It was asking too much of her. But we were friends now. Weren't we? She wouldn't mind.

"Hi, Zeph," Charlotte said, surprise in her voice at the early morning call. "I'm just about to go to work. Is everything OK?"

"Yeah. I was wondering...can I ask a favor?" Maybe Jules would be upset with me snooping around. Last chance to back out.

"Ask anything, Zeph. Really."

Famous last words, woman.

"There's someone who may be...connected to the case with Sigma."

Charlotte gasped, and began to ramble frantically. "Has anyone contacted you, Zeph? Did someone follow you? Are you safe? Are you at home now?"

"Woah, woah, Charlotte. I'm OK, I'm safe. There's just someone...coming to the States, from Norway, and he looks...uncannily like someone in Sigma. Someone high up. It's not him, but I thought that the resemblance is so..."