AUDIO FILE NUMBER 1.1: TRANSCRIPT OF BRANDON JONES
DATE: SEPTEMBER 30, 2019
LOCATION: DECK DOMINION CARDS & GAMES, TOWNSHIP OF ARCHANGEL, WASHINGTON
AUDIO FILE BEGINS
BRANDON JONES
I wish I could say that I was surprised when I first heard about Thomas Novak's disappearance. This isn't New York. This isn't Los Angeles. Archangel is barely a blip on the radar, but this isn't the first time teens have vanished from our streets. And it sure as hell isn't the first time TARN was involved.
I remember the night my sister, Amanda Jones, went missing. It was October 1999. My breath fogged the cold night air. Below me, the high school homecoming game was in full swing. I wasn't actually in high school, mind you, but in a town like Archangel there wasn't much else happening on a Friday night.
My sister wasn't at the game, but that wasn't out of the ordinary. She wasn't big on football. Hell, she wasn't big on anything that didn't involve raising hell at TARN. She hated the company, mostly because of the environmental damage they'd been wrecking on our community for decades. That particular night, she and her friend Crystal Mira were at Frank's Diner hammering out plans for yet another protest at a TARN R & D facility. At the time I wasn't real clear on the particulars. Thirteen-year-old me wasn't the kind of person who could wrap his head around something outside my small bubble of the world. But Amanda, she was different. Even at seventeen she saw how important it was for regular people to take a stand against organizations like TARN their cronies in the Archangel Sheriff's Department.
Amanda and Crystal left the diner around 8. That's where we lost them. That's where the world lost them. Our parents reported my sister missing to the Sheriff's office, but they got the brush off. When Sheriff Donovic, the nepotistic mother of our current Sheriff Donovic, finally bothered to do her job, she investigated for a whopping two days before declaring my sister a runaway. Because apparently teenagers who organize protests must be delinquents, even when they're pulling straight A's.
You can't imagine how her disappearance changed my parents, how it destroyed who they were. Not knowing if someone had their daughter, not knowing if she was dead or alive–it turned them into shells of the people they were. Our house changed from this living, vibrant home to a cold place.
TARN did that to us, and it's the same thing they did to Thomas's family. I'm convinced of that. They stole my sister the way they stole Thomas, except the difference now is that the media has their eye on Archangel. For the first time since they stole Amanda from us I see a real chance to drag those responsible out of the shadows and into the clear light of day.
I have no illusions about how difficult this will be. The people at the helm of TARN hold the kind of power that people like me have a tough time comprehending. I'm recording my observations, both for my own use and also to ensure a record of what I see and do will survive if something happens to me. I've enlisted the help of a friend to help keep me objective throughout the process, given how close I am to all of this.
That's it for now. Good night and may whatever you believe in go with you.
AUDIO FILE ENDS
AUDIO FILE NUMBER 1.1: INTERVIEW OF SEAN O'CONNOR BY BRANDON JONES
DATE: OCTOBER 1, 2019
LOCATION: STORAGE ROOM, DECK DOMINION CARDS & GAMES, ARCHANGEL, WASHINGTON STATE
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The TARN Conspiracy
Mystery / ThrillerPeople all say that Archangel is as safe as can be. You can ask anybody around. They'll tell you as much. That sleepy logging town is the kind of place where people spend their summers grilling down by the lake, and where they know their neighbor's...
