AGENCY FOR THE RESEARCH AND INVESTIGATION OF THE SUPRANORMAL
MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD
TO: DIRECTOR, AGENCY FOR THE RESEARCH AND INVESTIGATION OF THE SUPRANORMAL (ARIS)
FROM: OFFICER [redacted], CODE NAME EDWINA
SUBJECT: REPORT ON PROJECT RINGER ARTIFACT 200
For the purposes of this report, I will be referring to Project Ringer Artifact 200 by its common name, Koschei’s Needle.
The Needle is an object of significance in Slavic folklore, with Koschei (also known as “Koschei the Immortal” and “Koschei the Deathless”) typically taking the form of an antagonist who has a fear of death. He therefore places his soul inside an object that is nested in other objects: for example, he places it in a needle, then buries the needle in an egg, then hides the egg inside various creatures or, in some stories, a trunk. He is unable to die if the needle that contains his soul is intact.
ARIS has been paying attention to so-called mythical objects since the agency’s inception, particularly to those objects to which other governments ascribe value. There has been chatter on and off about the Needle for a few decades, but the Cold War brought it to the fore, according to our field officers in Russia. We managed to trace the Needle to a Soviet spy ship, the Sakhalin, that sank somewhere in the Pacific Ocean in 1972. Surveillance technology revealed the ship’s exact location in 2007, and we deployed a Project Ringer task force, including Subject 2, Sloane Andrews, to retrieve the Needle in 2008. The events of that mission are detailed in the enclosed documents following this report.
ARIS certainly does not subscribe to the belief that the Needle truly contains a person’s soul, that there has ever been an immortal person, or that a man named Koschei ever existed; however, we do not at this time have an explanation for the Needle’s origin. The Needle is not, in fact, made of any metal that we can identify, though it appears metallic. It is only about two inches long, and its somewhat jagged edges suggest it is a fragment of something larger, but we have not located anything else that resembles it. We have been able to match certain microscopic particles to deep ocean material, especially the pelagic sediment particular to the Mariana Trench. More information about pelagic sediment as it relates to analysis of the Needle is attached. Further investigation into the trench will be necessary if we are to understand the Needle’s origins.
Additional examination of the Needle’s properties is ongoing, though it is clear that we can categorize this object as an active channel of supranormal energy. We hope that in the future, we will be able to devote more time to this task; as it stands, the Needle is one of our most powerful weapons in the fight against the Dark One.
TOP SECRET
15
SLOANE WORE SUNGLASSES, though the sky was dark with clouds, and made her way through the crowd.
Lake Shore Drive had been a parking lot. She had given up near the Michigan Avenue exit, pulling her car over to the shoulder and leaving it there. Sweat dotted her hairline, and she was breathless from half walking, half jogging all the way downtown.
But she had made it to the monument site—or at least to the security barrier that the police had set up there.
She walked up to the nearest police officer and took off her sunglasses. The woman gave her an odd look, but nodded and gestured for her to go through.
“Thanks,” Sloane mumbled, and she put her sunglasses back on, stepped around the barrier, and speed-walked away before anyone in the crowd behind her figured out why she had been let through. She spotted Esther ahead, dressed in a long black coat that just brushed the pointed toes of her patent-leather boots. Esther raised a perfectly penciled eyebrow at her.
“Where the hell have you been?” Esther demanded, then she wrapped Sloane in a hug. “Matt said you freaked out.”
“I guess that’s one way of describing it,” Sloane said. “How did word get out?”
“Don’t give me that look,” Esther said. “I haven’t been on social media since yesterday.”
Sloane snorted.
“It was Matt,” Esther said. “He contacted the police to let them know we’d be doing this today, just in case anything weird happened. One of them probably has a big mouth.”
She should have known it was Matt’s fault. He had never understood why she wanted to stay so private. He didn’t mind sliding his name into dinner reservations to get a better table or