Jarod sat in the dim room, the projector lights flickering over a table strewn with Pez and scraps of paper. Eight red files. Eight film reels with very young children performing cognitive tests. He paused to change reels, back to his own for the fifth time that day. He had already digitized all the films, but there was something satisfying in watching the scratchy originals, looking for faint clues.

When he had initially found the files in the NuGenesis basement, he had only had time for a quick survey of the written records, plus a brief glance at the film to identify which child was which. He had managed to cross- reference a few of them with Catherine Parker's rescued children photos to get a preliminary identification of all the children, but that was it. Due to the events of the past few weeks -- the Angel Manor raid, Angelo's recovery and subsequent regression, Fenigor's death-bed revelations, nearly getting blown to bits, Sydney going blind -- there just hadn't been time to properly dissect the Red Files. Jarod had another Pretend planned, but he was willing to spend a day or two first on the problem.

On cursory glance back at NuGenesis, the files appeared to contain little of value. The written files contained dates, physical measurements, cryptic acronyms related to obscure blood tests, and equally inscrutable notes that Jarod later deciphered as the results of each child's performance on the cognitive tests. Names were not included and the only likely addresses were under the heading "destination," redacted out. The films themselves had no obvious identifying features either, but were fascinating nonetheless. Miss Parker, for instance, had been an adorable, hilariously bossy five-year-old. Timmy was a little strange even pre-kidnapping, staring at his interviewer for uncomfortable lengths of time before answering any questions. Kyle looked bored, as if he had done similar testing on many previous occasions, and had scored the best out all of them. Alice and himself were the most eager to please, looking at the interviewer for validation at every question.

It broke Jarod's heart a little, knowing that all of their parents were probably right outside during the testing. There was no sign of them on the actual film. The camera had been shut off immediately after the examinations, eliminating all adult chit chat.

As Jarod began to watch them in detail, certain clues began to pop out. For one thing, most of the testing occurred not at NuGenesis, but at what appeared to be different school settings for each child. That told him that children were not being brought to single location, but that the Centre had been screening them in different communities, likely under the guise of the local school system. It was possible some school districts may still have records, particularly if they had screened large numbers of students. Another lead to follow up on, around Delaware at least to start.

Another clue: he was almost certain that Miss Parker's and Kyle's testing had taken place at the Centre. Miss Parker had been in one of the conference rooms in the Tower, judging by the bright sunlight from the windows and Art Deco decor. Kyle, though, had been in an utterly featureless room. Jarod had no proof that it was in one of the sublevels, except for the gut feeling that came with living thirty years in that cement bulkhead hell. Everything about it felt like the Centre, even the tone of the unseen interviewer, who was harsher than with the other children, less like a teacher and more like taskmaster ordering his captive around.

After awhile he turned his attention from the old reels and back to the paper files. Something about the "destination" lines bothered him. The areas that had been blacked out took up much more room than was necessary to write out, say, "SL-27." If the paper had been modern photocopies then uncovering the missing words would have been quite difficult, but the old mimeographs might leave a trace of the redacted material. Using an ultraviolet light on his own file, he was barely able to make out:

Destination: SL14/S Green, loc: 240 rte 1, Charlevoix MI

It was information he already had, but Jarod was gratified by the discovery anyway. For once, independent confirmation that he existed. He had a life before the Centre.

He rifled through the pile of papers to decipher the other children's addresses. Henry and Alice, two children he had identified using Catherine Parker's photos, were both listed as Destination: SL14/J Green. A cursory public records search indicated that Henry's address was an apartment building in Detroit that had been torn down to make way for a freeway in 1968, while Alice's belonged to a home in Massachusetts that had been sold seven times since the sixties. Dara's file (Destination: SL14/S Green) had burned down in 1967 and the lot was currently owned by a subsidiary of the Centre. Bobby's file (Destination: leave in vivo/Raines) listed the Bowmans' Nebraska address. Miss Parker's and Kyle's contained no "destination" line at all, not even redacted, leading further credence to his theory that Kyle was already at the Centre at the time of testing.

That left Timmy. Angelo. Destination: SL27/Raines, loc: 45 Hales rd, Fleetwood PA

Jarod's breath caught when he checked the county records. The address belonged to an 80-odd acre property in rural eastern Pennsylvania, zoned for agricultural use. The owners had been the same since 1956: Joan and Roger Wallace. Prior to that another man named Wallace had owned the property, and a bit of poking around at the neighbors revealed that several other nearby farms, too, were owned by Wallaces.

It was a long shot, but Jarod decided to do a Nexis search for variations of "Tim Wallace missing/disappear/kidnap 1967," Angelo's intake year according to the red file. Most newspapers didn't have online archives going back that far yet, especially the smaller local papers, so odds were he'd have to trudge down there and dig through some community library's microfiche. But he'd been lucky so far with just the address, so it was worth a shot. And there it was, the very first hit, a tiny filler item in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

NOVEMBER 13, 1967 --

The search continues in rural Berks County for Timothy Wallace, 6, who has been missing since Monday. Fleetwood sheriff's office believes he may have wandered into the woods while walking home from school. Tips and volunteer inquiries can be made at 555-690-5358.

That was it. Jarod closed his laptop, leaned back in the office chair and tapped his fingers rhythmically as he mused. He'd found Angelo's family. He was sure of it.