Late at night, and he couldn't sleep. Around 5:15 AM, Jordan gave up entirely; he wasn't sleeping tonight. He pulled his clothes on and slipped out of his room. Most people were still asleep; the halls were echoingly quiet, and even his softest footsteps sounded loud. He'd go get something to eat, he decided. Not in the cafeteria; the early birds would be starting to filter in, and he didn't feel like eating packaged food with morning people. Morning people were aggravating enough when you had actual food to eat; dealing with chirpy cheerfulness while putting up with stale packaged pastries was out of the question.

There was a vending machine in the labs that had the best candy bars, he remembered. He wasn't sure how it was that Life division's machines always had the best variety of stock, and he didn't really want to know. He assumed bribery, and made sure to check the wrappers for runes before eating anything. Some of the weirdoes in Life were really, really weird. A bit of healthy paranoia went a long way towards keeping you out of the infirmary or the experiment rooms.

On the way through one of the computer lab rooms, though, something caught his eye. Someone had left their account logged in, and there was a sheet of paper beside the computer; somebody's notes, left behind. Would they be returning shortly, or had the notes been left behind accidentally? He changed course to go over to the computer, and leaned over to touch the seat of the chair. Completely cold, which meant that whoever had been here had been gone for some time. It was likely that they'd forgotten, then.

The window left open on the computer was a page of search results with only a single entry on it. He checked the keywords, and his eyes widened slightly. No results returned on the topic, and a potentially dangerous topic to have left sitting open. He backed out of the search, checked swiftly to make sure no other programs were running, and made a mental note of the username before logging her out.

Then he turned his attention to the page of notes she'd left beside the computer. She'd had information already. Not much, it looked like, but more than he'd had. Again, the Horsemen, the lairs, the symbols; the part about the 1999 mission was new to him, though. 200 sent. Two survivors.

And now, in 2012, a large mission linked to the Horsemen and the Apocalypse. 1999, 2012; what did the years - of course. The end of the world, in 2000 or 2012. If enough humans feared something, it manifested in Halloween. The Y2K scare, the end of the millennium, naturally regarded as an endpoint. As far as he could recall, the Bible said nothing about the specific time of the end of the world, was vague enough about the signs leading to the Apocalypse vague and easily enough interpreted into terms that would fit almost any time and place. It was far too logical and deeply chilling. How many casualties were expected this time?

Hunters with only runic weapons - that didn't make sense. They'd have had no Fear shields. The freaks were dangerous enough to hunters with bonded weapons; runic-only hunters would have been little more than cannon fodder. Jordan stilled, another piece of the puzzle clicking into place in his head.

Caelius was old enough to have been a hunter in 1999, and he regarded trainees as disposable; had that attitude come from a time before all hunters carried real weapons? Heavy casualties had been expected in 1999; the mission had been - what? An act of desperation?

Memory ambushed him out of nowhere. 1999, when his family had been in New York City; well, 2000, technically, after the ball had dropped, up too late and jittery with overtired energy, Andy asleep on Dad's shoulder while Dad grumbled about him being heavy. Dragging Milton along with him, insisting no, they weren't tired. Seeing something in the gutter, something he had tried so long and so hard to forget. A dead person. Half a dead person in a white coat, and his parents had been unable to see it. Had he - had they - been there, blissfully ******** folded the paper carefully and tucked it into his pocket, checked once more to be sure the computer was properly logged off. Better if there was no reason for anyone to be checking into what Clerise had been doing. He'd talk to her later, see if she had more details about the points she'd written down. Find out how she'd gotten the information and when.

For now, he'd go get his snack and some coffee and mull over what he'd found out.