Fragment 18

The college where she worked was no help. She died years ago, if she did die. But why would she fake her death? Did she start losing time, just like me? Is this thing hereditary?

It was raining. The rain was falling on the roof in morse code. My head hurt. The morse code read I-A-M-R-E-T-U-R-N-I-N-G. 

Canto said that seeing codes everywhere is another one of the symptoms of the Slender Man meme. There are no codes. The rain wasn't coming down in morse code. That would be silly. My mind was just making me think it was. I don't even know how to decode morse code. 

We were waiting. We were waiting for the power to go out. The code Guillemet put into motion would happen soon. The power would shut down in a certain section of the Pinnacle City and we would move. We were going to break into the pharm. 

We were going to break into one of the most secret places on Earth. No pressure. 

<<The code is working,>> Guillemet said in my ear. <<Power is down.>> 

We moved. The rain made pattering sounds as it hit my face. The pharm would have information. Information on what we needed to stop Arkos. To stop the Slender Man meme. It had to. It was his base. Wasn't it? Am I remembering this incorrectly? 

Canto said that memory loss is another one of the symptoms. I hope I don't have that yet. 

Even with the power down, it took us hours to break into the pharm. Hours to bypass manual security systems, self-powering security drones, and everything else. And then we finally got there. And, just like Canto said, it had its own generator. It still had power. Good. 

Breaking in is no good if we can't get what we came for. The systems were encrypted, but Guillemet wrote that encryption. He had his fingers in a lot of pies, I know. I'll have to ask just how many one of these days, but not today. Today he was being helpful. 

Encryption bypassed, the system loaded all information about "SLM MEME" onto our drive. It's large. Very large. It finally finished loading and I grabbed it and left. 

And just like that, the power came back on the rest of the building. The sensors found us and the drones surrounded us. 

Crap.