It’s a funny thing—ever since the first Matrix people have been saying “there aren’t mysteries anymore.” Ignoring the fact that there are entire universities and trillion-dollar companies focused on plumbing the depths of our ignorance, just because something is written down doesn’t mean it’s a permanent record.

Maybe you’re too young to remember much of the world before Crash 2.0, but I’ll tell you we lost a lot—a lot—of information. Whole towns were wiped off the map because they weren’t in the system any more. Heck, there wasn’t even a system any more. Everything got pieced back together, bit by bit and byte by byte. Well, almost everything.

There’s a low-rise building on the outskirts of town—one of any number on that side of the tracks—a building that has caught my attention, if no-one else’s. The papers I’ve been able to find put its construction in ‘48. Or ‘51. Or ‘52. Aerial photographs of that area are few and far between, and they show it as fully-built in ‘53, but without ground even being broken in ‘42.

Something’s odd about that building, and I don’t mean the missing records—we lost a lot of records. Supposedly it’s been empty for years now, maybe even before the crash, and though many in the neighborhood are destitute, it seems that none have any desire to find shelter within those walls. Word on the street is that the structure is “a bad place” and local culture tells that nobody should ever go poking around inside. It’s like they have an understanding with the building—they won’t mess with it, and in return it won’t mess with them. Even the modern urban explorer crowd give it a wide berth.

All that aside, this is an easy job, especially if you’re not frightened by local superstitions. I want you to get inside and take a full-sensory recording of each room. Those of you with datajacks will each be issued a simrig—not only does it record the sights and sounds you experience but also your emotions. Those of you without a direct neural interface—what you kids call a “D-Ni”—will be issued ‘trode rigs that will catch the same, at lower quality. Think of them as a hair net with electronics.

Walk the grounds, find your way inside, and investigate the spaces it contains—preferably with several of you each so we can get a good composite reading. If there’s a basement, walk it. If you can make your way to the roof, map it as well. I want to know about every inch of that building.

Are you up for some easy money, chummers?

Header image taken by @RaulHundson1986, an aerial night-time shot of Seoul, South Korea. Story inspired by the Archive 81 podcast, to which I recently started listening.