Sovereign

Entry 36: Private Correspondence - 03/18

Date: 18th March 2011

From: Allen E; Internal Affairs.

To: Sanders, Zoe; Paranormal Div.

Subject: More Updates.

I cannot put into words how thankful we are for all your efforts in uncovering this mystery that is the Pine Street incident. Even though the details from the documents are not exactly clear, it gives a better understanding of what happened there than all the speculation from when we had nothing at all. I know the retrieval of those files was hard work. But if anybody can get these things done, it's you. I'm not saying this because of what happened with Ms. Stryer. I don't know anything about the allegations that Heath made, and I do not understand them or what he's trying to imply by calling you an Anomaly. You are an elite Paranormal. You have always been, right from when we were teenagers and going against things that seemed clearly beyond our level. Maybe Heath is reinterpreting your abilities in their own terms. The lines between Paranormal and supernatural are often blurred.

Agent Darren from the CIA had got people working round the clock to try and retrieve any clues that may help us work out the missing information. One of their recent discoveries is what really prompted me to send this message. They've found the Pine Street apparition - or at least its real life equivalent. According to what we got from the translators, it was built in Lithuania in 1975 , and belonged to a wealthy Soviet businessman who had planned to use it as a luxury complex before his death in the early months of 1977. As there were no successors and nobody to manage the running of the building as a business, it quickly fell to ruin and was abandoned. In 1978, it was refurbished and used as an orphanage, sponsored by the government. The constant skirmishes between Soviet leaders and local oppositions had the place filled in little time and also contributed to the neglect it faced within a few years of operating as their prime sponsors were often more engaged in peacekeeping and politics than making sure the 170+ orphans were taken care of. The orphanage was destroyed in a fire in 1985 (26 years ago). At least 100 children died. Some newspaper reports from the time say it was arson, others say it was an accident probably involving the heating system, and some even tried to paint it as oppositionist propaganda (since the building was technically owned by the Soviets). The surviving children were relocated to other orphanages in surrounding cities, some as far as surrounding countries, like Latvia and what is current-day Belarus.

Not much else could be found regarding the building. And the only thread tying your investigation to this new discovery is Crystal, because the employee profile you sent stated that her country of origin was Latvia. In light of the culmination of events seen in the final containment report, Darren says (following his hypothesis) that there is a strong possibility that the building may have been used as a beacon to draw out Crystal, who was once resident in it. He is currently has trying to find which orphanages in Latvia were involved in housing the relocated orphans, and whether or not the enigmatic Crystal was one of these children. His digging into her past has not yielded any info whatsoever and I think he's grasping at straws at this point, but we'll see.

The main question I have with his theory is this: Even if the apparition was supposed to have some symbolism meant for Crystal, why was that building used? If timelines are to be followed, Crystal could not have been more than six years old when the building was destroyed. There are a hundred more obvious ways to single out a person. And what if Crystal had never been involved in the containment operation and Heath had sent another team instead? I don't want to go off on tangent, so I'll leave the allusions and postulations to Darren.

I didn't want to add this last bit, but I feel I would be neglecting my duty as a friend and colleague if I didn't. Norman has gone missing. He was last seen on the security footage of the street outside the hospital. I don't know how he did it, but I'm not surprised. After all, we both ended up in the tower at St. Andria's for being escape artists. We're all looking for him, and I'm especially worried since he had not fully returned to normal (as at his last mental status exam). The people here believe he's probably roaming the streets in his confused state, but every bone in my body tells me that he's headed your way. The last time he was this obsessed with finding someone, we all ended up in a bunker fighting his psychotic exgirlfriend and her undead mother.

Please, be careful.

Edwin.