Page 118 of Mayhem and Minnie

Sure enough, a few moments later, I get a notification that I’ve been invited to join the beta version of the software.

I upload a video from my surveillance feed in which Minnie’s features are visible from all angles. Just like Leonidas said, the software isn’t without its glitches, and before I can run the search, I have to refresh it a few times so the video can upload.

Once the results loading window appears, I lean back in my chair and wait.

I can’t say I’m very hopeful at this point. If someone went to such lengths to erase every record of Minnie from the internet, I doubt I’ll be able to find anything. But I won’t know until I try, and truthfully, I’m too damn curious to let this go.

If I wait for her to tell me her identity, then I’m putting all the power in her hands. She could make up anything, and I’d have no other choice but to believe her.

The software finishes running the search, and to my surprise, it pulls up a number of hits. The first few ones are the same ones I’d found when I hacked into the police database. The last two hits, however, are new.

I frown as I click on the first one.

It’s a scanned photo from the Library for World War II Studies dating back to 1943. This must be wrong. Why the hell would it show me a picture from the mid-twentieth century?

There’s a short description next to the picture.

Red Cross nurses outside an infirmary.

Confused, I pull up the picture.

It depicts some ten women dressed in Red Cross uniforms posing for the cameras in front of a makeshift hospital.

Why the hell would the software give me this result?

I scowl. Maybe the software is more faulty than I gave it credit for.

I’m about to exit the window when one of the women catches my eye. She must be in her late teens, early twenties by the look of it. She’s smiling brightly at the camera, excitement shining in her features. Her hair is tied in a tight bun at the base of her head and she’s holding her nurse’s cap in her lap. All the others are wearing their caps on their heads.

I zoom in a couple of times so I can get a better look at the girl.

“What the fuck…” I mutter to myself in disbelief.

Now I realize why the software pulled up this picture. She looks eerily similar to Minnie. She’s smaller than the other women next to her, and the uniform hangs loose around her body. Almost as if she’d borrowed someone else’s clothes. Around her neck rests a silver necklace with a small cross pendant.

It’s striking just how much the girl looks like Minnie. It’s not just her diminutive stature, although I suppose historically women were much smaller back then.

It’s her eyes.

They’re the same.

Big and expressive, almost filled with wonder.

I’ve spotted the same expression on Minnie’s face before, the latest being when she opened the box of cookies.

Maybe it’s someone related to Minnie?

I continue to peruse the photo.

Her lips, too, are the same shape and size. There’s even a small black dot atop her upper lip just like the mole Minnie has.

I freeze.

That’s one too many coincidences, isn’t it?

Even if by any chance it’s her grandmother, how could she look exactly the same, down to the placement of the mole?

Yet the alternative is simply ludicrous.

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