One Rainy Day in May takes place over one day in May with extreme rainfall—namely Saturday, 10 May 2014 note —and mostly in Los Angeles, but also in Texas, Mexico and Singapore. There are nine narrators, three of which know each other and are intertwined as they are a family; the stories of the other six don't seem to be related to any of the rest (as of now). Each chapter is timestamped, with each chapter beginning 1 second after the previous chapter ended (accounting for differences in timezones).
The text below recaps all of each narrator's chapters' separately except for the three of the narrators whose stories are intertwined from the beginning (the Ibrahim family); they are recapped collectively here.
Xanther, Anwar and Astair Ibrahim — 10 May 2014, 08:03:05 - 23:32:09 PDT, Los Angeles
"Is Everything Okay?"
Square One
Big Surprise
Dr. Potts
Bones Nest
The Horrosphere
Prey
Cinnamon
Litter
"Save him!"
"Mom, it's a —"
,dead
If Anything...
It's morning and Xanther is with her Dad, Anwar, in their car, driving to somewhere. It's pouring rain outside, and she thinks "How many raindrops?" over and over again. Her father interrupts her thoughts by talking to her. It becomes clear that this father and daughter are very close. Xanther also mentions she has two little twin sisters and a mom, but her bond with Anwar is the strongest within the family. She also starts to worry about her epilepsy and other health issues and about her always having been bullied. But now that her family moved to Los Angeles last year she finally has found a school where she fits in and has friends. Anwar again interrupts her thoughts by asking "What are you thinking about?" and she lies, answering "Dov".
Anwar and Xanther arrive at "Square One" and have breakfast there. Anwar starts to ponder about how much he loves his daughter. She actually is not biologically his daughter, as he and Astair got into in a relationship when Astair was already 3 months pregnant with Xanther—she was with Dov at the time. Anwar and Dov always got along very well. However, Dov was in the military and died in Afghanistan five months ago (last December). Anwar has turned his cell phone off because he's being harassed by thousands of phone calls; a friend (also a computer programmer) of his, Mefisto, recently pulled a prank on him which resulted in Anwar's phone numbers and e-mail addresses being published on the internet along with a fake ad, and now he's getting constant phone calls, texts and e-mails.
Meanwhile, Astair is at home with her and Anwar's youngest two daughters, twins Freya and Shasti. Astair looks at a big envelope that came in the (snail) mail yesterday; it is her thesis for the graduate program she is in to become a therapist, and it has been graded, but she hasn't opened it yet. Freya and Shasti keep asking Astair what the "Big Surprise" is that Xanther is going to get today, and Astair tells them it's a Seizure Assistance Dog note . All three Ibrahims then leave with Taymor, Astair's friend who has come to pick them up with her car.
Next, Xanther has a session with Dr. Potts, her psychiatrist. She talks with him about her feeling shut out, and formerly being bullied, by her peers; and about her guilt towards her parents and sisters that her parents have to spend a lot of attention and money on her due to her health problems.
Later, Astair, Taymor and the twins are in a pet shop to buy the stuff they need for the dog they will get today.
Anwar and Xanther have arrived to his office, where a celebration is going on because they have just finished a big and important job and will be payed much for it. Anwar's co-workers let Xanther play a Betanote of a new game they've been working on: Paradise Open. She overhears a conversation between her father's co-workers mentioning a colleague of them, called Realic, has been murdered.
Anwar takes aside his co-worker Ehtisam to talk, because their payment for their last job still hasn't gone through. They're also worried about their colleague Realic having been murdered. Xanther in the meantime is trying to play the Beta of the Paradise Open computer game, though it keeps crashing. Anwar suddenly overhears some creature crying for help; he wants to go after it, but when he's about to, he suddenly hears Xanther's enthusiastically yelling (the fault in the software has been fixed now) and goes to that instead. Anwar stays with his daughter then, who keeps playing the game.
Astair is back home now. She suddenly hears a strange sound of a creature in distress, but is distracted from it by her thoughts about Xanther, Anwar and the dog that will join their home today. She goes to her daughters and to find her thesis instead.
Xanther and Anwar are in his car again, driving to the assistance dog center. Xanther suddenly hears the sound "of a creature in distress", and without saying anything to her father, immediately and suddenly bolts out of the car and starts running frantically through the heavy rain. She runs several blocks until she locates the source of the sound—a tiny white kitten. She rescues it out of the sewage.
Anwar, after his daughter suddenly bolted out of the car, drives around the neighborhood to find her. Eventually she comes running to him / the car, yelling "Daddy! Save him!", holding, to his bewilderment, a tiny kitten that is in bad shape.
Astair is at home when Anwar and Xanther return home. They were supposed to bring home the new dog, but not only do they not bring the dog, but Xanther is bleeding from a lot of wounds, missing her glasses and looking generally disheveled. Astair initially panics, thinking that Xanther must have had another seizure, or otherwise must have been hurt, but Xanther and Anwar are in an elated mood; and after them trying to explain, Astair finally understands that the patch of white fur Xanther is holding, is a kitten, and they came home with that instead of the dog. When looking at the kitten, Astair gets the shivers, and feels it is thoroughly evil in nature; she doesn't dare say anything though because Xanther is so happy with it.
The Ibrahim family goes to prepare formula for the kitten, and they have dinner. Afterwards, Astair reveals to Anwar that to her shock, she has been graded an "F - incomplete" for her theses. Xanther is forbidden by both her parents to sleep with the kitten either in her own bed or in the living room, so she goes to sleep in her own room upstairs while the kitten stays downstairs. Late in the evening, Anwar is awake and notices the kitten has disappeared from the ground floor. He gets the eerie feeling the kitten has somehow gone to Xanther by itself.
Upstairs in her room, Xanther awakes from sleep; she first thinks back to when she found the kitten and how Anwar and her had resuscitated it. She then notices that her window and door are now suddenly wide open, even though she hadn't left them like that; and that the kitten is now somehow in her bed, despite her never getting it and her parents forbidding it. Her last thought is "And the idea that this mottled creature of white and gray and pink, balling up like a fist of ice, could have somehow experienced her as a figure of terror, a predator, death personified, never once crossed her mind. If anything... If anything.. it was the other way around."
Luther — 10 May 2014, 08:19:16 - 23:27:01 PDT, Los Angeles
Lupita's
Blue Pencil
Dawgz
Walk
St. Hopi
Luther meets his other gang members at "Lupita's" (the place of a woman associated with his gang) in the morning. Then he and the other gang members go have breakfast at an IHOP. They are joined by Hopi, a seemingly 14-year-old who wants to join the gang. Luther finds Hopi way too young, "girly", nervous and weak-looking to have anything to do with the gang, and wonders what Teyo saw in Hopi to ask the other gang members to take him along. Luther makes Hopi empty his pockets; Hopi first reacts nervous and tries to avoid it, but when he does empty his pockets, all that comes out is a blue pencil.
Luther, Hopi and the gang members go to Luther's dogs. Luther used to organize illegal dog-fighting, but when that got so popular that it attracted a big crowd, the police got wind of it and shut it down. Now he doesn't do that anymore, but he still has 9 (ex-)fighting dogs. When he's just arrived here, Luther hears the sound of what he thinks to be a cat, and he tries to make his dogs go after it, but the dogs don't pick up anything. The dogs go play in the pool, and the gang members bully Hopi (who apparently doesn't know how to swim) into going into the pool with the dogs. Hopi tries to convince Luther into taking him into the gang by telling Luther that he [Hopi] is good with computers and as such can be a good help. Hopi reveals he's 21 years old, to Luther and the other's disbelief (they thought Hopi was about 14).
The gang take Hopi to a place with big holes in the ground filled with water. They start beating him up and abusing him, and Hopi initially thinks this is his initiation into the gang—until they point a gun at him, threatening to kill him, and he realizes they brought him here to kill him. Luther goes to the opposite end of one of the water holes the other gang members hold Hopi down, and then spreads out his arms widely and "walks on water". Later it becomes clear though the water was only ankle deep. The gang members seemingly drown Hopi in another hole of water, but when they leave, Hopi is still alive. Luther then picks up a shovel and swings it at Hopi's head (with the intent of murdering Hopi, but it is unclear whether this is successful).
Oz — 10 May 2014, 10:04:08 - 14:52:24 PDT, Los Angeles
Power Draws a Crowd
View of the Sea
Oz, a Police Detective, sees a crime scene when he's on his way to his breakfast, and stops at it and chats with his co-worker, Detective Balascoe. Two supermarket employees have been killed in a robbery of a Korean supermarket; the suspect is a teenager nicknamed "Android", who is currently being held by the other police officers. Oz mesmerizes about that he actually would like to retire from his job and move away with his girlfriend Elaine; and about that he moved from his native Istanbul, Turkey to Los Angeles in his teens, and that his inspiration to become a detective and wear trilby hats came from detective novels like Raymond Chandler's.
He goes to visit Cletious later. Cletious' son Jasper has been murdered years ago, Oz was part of the police team investigating it, and he has been in contact with Cletious ever since (though the murder case wasn't solved). In the afternoon, driving around, Oz stops at what appears to be a traffic accident, then goes into a nearby building, and finds three corpses there. These three students have been murdered and left in the bath tub. The police start to investigate, but an FBI agent shows up to take over. Oz suddenly sees that the letters "VEM" have been smeared on a window, but an FBI agent accidentally (or not?!) wipes the letters out.
Shnorkh — 10 May 2014, 11:11:12 - 14:38:16 PDT, Los Angeles
"Yeah man. Something died."
Is little irrelevant
Shnorhk is at the courthouse, because he is being charged for hitting a police officer with his car and running through a red light. He firmly maintains that the traffic light was green, and claims innocent. He is a cab driver, so if he would be convicted and lose his driver's licence, that would be a big problem. Shnorhk has a witness who could confirm that he's innocent and that the traffic light was green: a college student called Dwight. Dwight doesn't show up in the court room though when he should be giving his testimony. Shnorhk calls Dwight, who gives him an obviously made-up excuse about being in Brazil because someone died. Shnorkh's lawyer advises Shnorkh to see a doctor for his coughing up blood.
Later, Shnorhk is at his friend Mnatsangan's work to help the latter move 9 boxes of full of papers, photo's, videotapes etc. Mnatsangan is a college professor who teaches about the Armenian genocide (Shnorhk is of Armenian descent as well) and the documents are related to that. Shnorhk offers to Mnatsangan to digitalize the documents. Mnatasangan tells Shnorhk that he misses Shnorhk's speaking Armenian (Shnorkh insists on speaking English) and playing his violin. Shnorhk hears what seems to be an animal in distress, but when Mnatsangan calls him in for tea and cake, he ignores it.
Cas — 10 May 2014, 11:51:10 - 19:06:32 CDT (= 09:51:10 - 17:06:32 PDT), Marfa, Texas
The Orb
Tiny Storms
Cas and her husband, Bobby, are in the van they live in. They are on the run from a sinister organization that is hunting them, and currently they are in Marfa, Texas. Cas has an Orb, which if she looks into, shows her what she calls "Clips", or visions of the past and also from other planets. They are being hunted because they have this Orb; friends of Cas also have (had?) four others of these Orbs, but they have been either captured or murdered by the organization. One friend called Realic has recently been found murdered note . Cas and Bobby themselves are also in trouble because a man known as "Recluse" has deleted information they had posted on the internet (and possibly has deleted all evidence of their existence).
Another friend of theirs, Deakin, should be staying in a Marfa hotel—but when Cas and Bobby arrive there, he doesn't open the door. Worried, they get the hotel manager to open Deakin's hotel room. Deakin is nowhere to be found, and his Orb is found smashed to pieces and destroyed.
A police officer comes to Cas' and Bobby's van, thinking they are creating and / or selling drugs. Bobby and Cas manage to get rid of them, and then leave with the van, feeling they are no longer safe here. Their friend "The Sorcerer" arrives and they look into Cas' Orb again, this time seeing a vision of a girl and her father. "The Sorcerer" is shocked to realize he knows these people, and tells Cas that they are Xanther and Anwar.
Isandòrno — 10 May 2014, 14:47:19 - 18:47:09 CDT (= 12:27:19 - 16:47:09 PDT), El Tajin, Mexico / Veracruz, Mexico
Veinte Pesos
The Fourth Crate
Isandòrno is in Mexico, waiting for a bus. He starts to cross the road towards an Indian man who's selling stuff. While in the middle of the road, he suddenly hears the sound of something crying for help, but because he can't locate the sound or identify it, he walks away to walk around the town. A woman comes to him and offers to read his fortune. She says to him "You come from a long line of—You are—" but she doesn't finish her sentence. She says "You are on the cusp of love, life but also on the cusp of death. If you have not died already, you will live forever." Isandòrno thinks "But I have died. Many times." He goes back to the Indian man, who turns out to have a totem. He buys it for veinte pesos. The Indian man says to Isandòrno "What haunts you now amigo you already own." End of chapter.
Later, Isandòrno goes to get the three crates his criminal boss "The Mayor" wants him to pick up. One contains a hyena, one a giraffe, and one an elephant. To his surprise, a fourth crate is delivered as well. He walks up to the fourth crate with the intent of opening it to see what's inside, but is scared, and doesn't get to it.
jingjing — 11 May 2014, 00:19:21 - 08:49:04 SST (= 10 May 2014, 09:19:21 - 17:49:04 PDT), Singapore
zhong
palace above the day
raeden
auntie!
It is night in Singapore, and jingjing goes to the communal place of his apartment complex. His neighbors who are there talk about how they think tian li is creepy. tian li is jingjing's employer, a woman who works as a healer; four years ago, she took him in to live in her place and work as her assistant, on the condition that he would quit using drugs. jingjing feels tian li is unfairly judged by the others, but he does feel very creeped out by her cat (she has a small white cat that always sits on her shoulder). Later, tian li and jingjing are approached by a man, whom jingjing recognizes as a billionaire, zhong, and hired by him for a job.
In the middle of the night, jingjing and tian li are in zhong's house. jingjing hears a sound of something calling for help, and leaves the other two to go wander around the (huge) house. When he gets back to the other two to help translate between them again, tian li says "We have been here before", to his utter confusion, because jingjing has never been here before; he then assumes she must mean she has been here before with her cat.
After a lot of talking, jingjing and tian li are finally taken by zhong to what he's asking for help for: his son, raeden, is in a coma after having taken a bad batch of drugs, and he's asking tian li to heal him. While tian li does her thing, jingjing goes wandering through the house again. He meets some of zhong's servants and starts to chat with them; he offers them some monster cards note . When he goes back to zhong and tian li, the latter suddenly collapses and vomits, and possibly has some sort of seizure. She immediately revovers though, and then says to jingjing "Shall we go home?"
When jingjing and tian li arrive back home (it is morning by now), strangely enough all the windows and doors of the house are wide open even though they didn't leave it like that. Nothing is stolen out of the house though. Then jingjing suddenly realizes that tian li's cat is gone. She isn't upset over it though, answering to him "Not lost. Just gone. Gone at last. Gone for good.".
This volume takes place over a much longer time-frame (33 days instead of 1) than the first.
Xanther
078*371*636 — 12 May 2014, Los Angeles
Xanther wakes up early in the morning with a gasp, terrified, from what seems to have been a nightmare. She goes downstairs and finds the cat on his back, and she thinks he's dying. Astair takes her and the cat to a vet. The vet finds that the cat actually is not a kitten, despite what everybody thought; it is very old. The cat is scanned for a chip to find out if it is registered to an owner (explanation
) but its chip identifies it as... a dog. A dead dog. The vet is once again baffled, but laughs saying this clearly is a mistake. Xanther and Astair are allowed to take the cat home, in any case. In the car, Astair tells Xanther that the chip actually read as an Akita dog, which is a remarkable coincidence as that was the (rare) breed of dog the Ibrahims originally were going to get before the cat came (see Vol. 01). Xanther doesn't really pay attention however, because she's disturbed by the fact that she sees her mother's eyes as black holes.
Stones Upon His Eyes — 15 May 2014, Los Angeles
Xanther is in a math class at school but only can think about that she wants to get home to her cat. After class, she and three other class mates are being carpooled home by a parent of a class mate. When they stop at a traffic light, Xanther sees her class mate and bully Dendish on the side walk. He walks over to the car, presses his face against the window, and makes threatening gestures towards Xanther. Xanther is terrified, most of all because nobody else in the car notices this. When the light goes to green, they drive on.
Xanther is also anxious about the fact that ever since she was at the vet, she sees black shadows/liquids over everyone's eyes. And now it gets worse: she starts to see black stones over everyone's eyes. When she gets home, she immediately gets the cat. Astair exclaims, surprised, that Anwar and her had lost track of the cat while Xanther was away—where was it then?
The Killing Machine — 17 May 2014, Los Angeles
After her ice cream (see "Due Diligence"), Xanther and Anwar go to a last animal shelter to distribute their flyers. While Anwar fills in a form, Xanther wanders off into the back of the shelter. She sees every animal is colour-coded, with categories like "free to take", "has medical problems" and "has behavioural problems". Suddenly, all the cages of the animals and all other drawers, doors etc. swing open and all animals leave their cages. Chaos ensues, and in the midst of this, Xanther goes even further into the back of the shelter, where she isn't actually allowed to go. She finds a room which contains a strange machine and is marked by the sign "3:14 PM Remember: NO ONE Get Out Alive!". She's terrified, realising that this is where they kill the (red-marked) animals.
Hunger — 1-5 June 2014, Los Angeles
Xanther still has nightmarish experiences at night, sees the "stones upon eyes" of other people, and feels sick whenever she gets away from the cat—this is accompanied by her feeling hot like she's on fire, while her body feels freezing on the outside and to the touch. When Freya and Shasti try to pick up the cat, Xanther gets angry; she doesn't want them to handle the cat. At school, Xanther has an elective Robotics class. She somehow builds the thing very quickly, even though the assignment was supposed to be not possible to finish within the class time. This surprises the teacher, and Xanther herself; she doesn't know how she did it. Xanther hears her assignment partner, Desi, say that she [Xanther] smells, and when Xanther asks Desi to her face if she smells, Desi says yes, to Xanther's embarrassment. Later, after Xanther has had her finals, she walks towards her last class, P.E. This brings her past the school's lockers, that are all locked and not in use due to school policy. She runs into Dendish there. They look at each other and suddenly all lockers spontaneously unlock and open (like what happened in the animal shelter). Xanther quickly takes off to P.E.; when she returns from that, the principal is with Dendish, thinking that Dendish must have opened the lockers as a prank.
Starving — 9-12 June 2014, Los Angeles
School's out now, and Xanther spends this first week of summer mostly playing videogames with her friends. She somehow has gotten very good at playing videogames now, while she was less than mediocre before. Dendish has been expelled from their school because of the locker incident. Astair takes Xanther shopping and hiking, but Xanther doesn't enjoy that, just wanting to be home with the cat. Cogs, one of her friends, notices that the cat doesn't eat anything—when Xanther feeds it, the formula just drips on the towel instead of the cat drinking it. Xanther had been trying to ignore/conceal this. Later, she goes to bed, but wakes up finding all the doors in the house have opened by themselves again. She walks outside, onto the street. Two headlights come towards her. She sees red everywhere.
Anwar
'Birds?' — 12 May 2014, Los Angeles
Realizing that because the payment for his previous job didn't come through (see Vol. 01) his family is in financial trouble, Anwar has taken on a difficult job: if he can debug a game called "Cataplyst-1", he'll get payed well by Enzio. The catch is that he has to before a deadline, and the program is huge. Anwar starts to work on it, but wonders that the code looks odd for a game—is it even a game? He doesn't get anywhere with the debugging; the program won't even start up.
Astair and Xanther return with the cat and tell him what happened at the vet (see Xanther's chapter). Anwar realises the cat indeed does look ancient, he just hadn't noticed. In the evening, Anwar goes to his work place for a meeting with his co-workers. They tell him they have sold their company (and thus their office building) to another company called Dead Rowboats, and decided to leave. Luckily they (including Anwar) will keep the proprietary rights to the Paradise Open game they have been developing, which was the most important thing. Meanwhile, the moving in of the Dead Rowboats company into Anwar's (as of now former) office is already taking place. Anwar notices, to his surprise, that they are bringing in lots of birds in cages and snakes in terrariums.
Due Diligence — 17 May 2014, Los Angeles
Anwar pulls an all-nighter still working on fixing the Cataplyst-1 program. He has gotten nowhere until now. He starts to wonder more and more about this source code, as it really doesn't seem to be a game. At morning, the Ibrahim family have breakfast, and Anwar tries to tell Xanther that they/she will have to try to find the cat's previous owner. Xanther even comes up with this idea before he can fully spell it out to her himself, which impresses him because she loves the cat like nothing else and wants to keep it. They go make "Found Cat" posters and go to Venice (where they found the cat, see Vol. 01) to distribute them. While there, Anwar sees a memorial for someone who died because of a falling tree during the storm last saturday (see Vol. 01) and reading the exact time and date of this death, he, chillingly, realizes that he and Xanther would have been there at that time, had it not been for Xanther having bolted out of the car to run after the cat.
Because he's proud of Xanther for doing the right thing, he treats her to ice cream, which is a big deal as she is on an extremely low-carb diet because of her epilepsy. She chooses pomegranate flavour ice, which prompts Anwar to tell her the story of Demeter and Persephone
Memorial Weekend — 23-25 May 2014, Los Angeles
Anwar has succeeded in getting the Cataplyst-1 software to run, and has sent Enzio the improved version a few days ago. Anwar is still puzzled about Cataplyst-1, because it doesn't seem to be a game like he supposed it was, and it keeps accessing random I.P.'s on internet; also he feels he has seen this code somewhere before. Later, Astair tells him about her going to write her thesis about the cat (see "Eldon Avantine"). Next day, 24 May 2014, the Elliott Rodger shootings are in the news and the Ibrahim family listens to this in shock. They go to Malibu beach, to a farmer's market, and then to a party at Taymor's house. Xanther seems to be ill the whole time they are away from home. She gets better when they get home though. Anwar questions her about what happened in the animal shelter (see "The Killing Machine"). Xanther answers that she didn't have an epileptic seizure, but it was a strange experience; that the animals with a red tag were to be killed; and that she didn't open the cages—at least she didn't mean to, and it didn't happen consciously.
The Same Ghost — 8 June 2014, Los Angeles
Anwar is at a bowling alley with his friends/(by now ex-)co-workers from Sementera. They keep bowling until 01:30 A.M. and they (except the designated driver) get drunk. Afterwards, they walk to their car in the parking lot. When they're next to the car, four young men appear, armed with guns, and rob them by forcing them by gunpoint to put their wallets, and the keys of the car, on the floor. As soon as they've done this, Anwar and friend run like hell. However, before they even reach the end of the parking floor, four women appear who seem to be associated with the robbers; some chaos ensues, and after this is over, it becomes clear that the robbers left without taking the car (the keys are still on the floor), or even their wallets. After speaking to the police (who think the men were gang members) about the event, Anwar finally gets home in the middle of the night.
He's too wound up to sleep, and calls an old friend of his, Myla Mint. Myla lives in New York, apparently is a producer of some sorts in the ballet scene, and she invites Anwar and his family over in New York for a new show of hers that will be released in September. It's called "Hades!". Afterwards, Anwar turns to his computer; Enzio has sent him his next assignment, on Cataplyst-2. Anwar works on this for hours, until it's morning, and succeeds in debugging the program. He again is perplexed about Cataplyst's functionality as it can't be a game, but what kind of software is it? Then he thinks of something Ehtisam said: Mefisto used to work for Enzio.
Astair
Mother's Day — 10-12 May 2014, Los Angeles
Astair wakes early (before 6) and finds every single door, window, closet, cupboard and drawer in the house open. Xanther and the cat are sitting outside, which surprises Astair as Xanther never is up early. Later, Astair yells and snaps at her daughters when she feels they disturb her working—and immediately feels guilty and sorry for that. She takes Xanther with her to do groceries. Xanther complains she feels ill all the time they're away, but feels well again as soon as they get back home. On their way driving back home, they also catch a dog that has ran away from its owners. The owners are very grateful towards Xanther for this. Astair generally feels very irritated and in a bad mood the entire day, and realizes she's been like that since the family (or rather Xanther) took the cat in.
(shed)) — 15 May 2014, Los Angeles
Astair once again can't sleep and distracts herself by trying to find a book to read, something she hasn't done in a long time. Next afternoon, she goes hiking with her friend Taymor and tells her about how her family unexpectedly got a cat instead of a dog, and about how she failed her thesis. Taymor asks about Astair's cat allergies and she answers that she's hasn't had a reaction, but that Xanther has been rubbing her eyes the whole time since the cat's there. Back at home, Astair calls her (current) supervisor to set up an appointment to discuss her failing grade for her thesis. Later, Anwar comes home and asks about the cat, and Astair realises she hasn't seen the cat the whole afternoon. They search for the cat around the house, but can't find it.
Eldon Avantine — 18 May 2014, Los Angeles
Astair wakes up very early on the morning she is scheduled to meet her (new) thesis supervisor Eldon Avantine, so she spends the morning driving around L.A., doing tai chi on the beach, and she winds up buying books about cats. When Avantine shows up for their appointment, he proceeds to tear apart her thesis (this current one is about what God means to humans, written from her agnostic/atheist perspective), saying nothing is sufficient about it. He tells her she will have to start over from scratch. Astair then says she wants to write about the significance pets have for humans. When Avantine asks her to elaborate, she says she wants to write about dogs, specifically the dog her family would have gotten, and as a side note she tells her family/her daughter instead have a cat now. Avantine, hearing this, tells her "Write [your thesis] about the cat".
The Reunionist — 5-7 June 2014, Los Angeles
Astair admits to herself that she finds the cat creepy, she feels jealous about its close bond with Xanther, and disappointed about not having gotten the Akita dog. She wants to work on this though, so she spends more time with Xanther and tries to be open towards the cat. She spends an evening doing research on how the psychology of the relationship between people and cats is represented in literature, but is quickly overwhelmed by the amount of info she finds, and when a poem about a cat who died makes her think of her recently died ex Dov (Xanther's biological father), she stops for now.
Next day she goes to the clinic where she does her internship. She thinks her family's financial situation is so bad she might have to stop her internship. A patient of hers describes a sexual encounter to her in copious detail; this makes Astair lust for her husband Anwar, she realizes their sex-life has been drying up the last years. Later, at home, Anwar tells her good news: he got paid $9.000 by Enzio for completing the Cataplyst-1 job. Next, Astair goes to a wine-tasting with her friends Taymor, Abigail and Gia. It is then revealed that Astair found out that a mug with a wolf painting, given to her by Dov years ago, is worth $58.000. The artist is Jim Helhenny Joab.
Luther
Frogtown — 14-15 May 2014, Los Angeles
Luther is approached by a man who recruits him to do a drug deal for Teyo (also mentioned in Isandorno's narrative). Luther and Juarez can borrow a van from Adolfo for the drug deal, on the condition that if they don't return it, they owe him $8.000. They go to the drug deal with the van, meet dealer "Memo", and see that they are offered the extremely coveted pink batch of the drugs. But before the deal can be made, Juarez indicates to Luther that he doesn't trust it, and they turn away. A shooting follows, and then Luther and Juarez run—leaving the drugs, their money, and the borrowed van behind. They manage to outrun the police and go hide in a part of town called Frogtown.
Pikachu — 17 May 2014, Los Angeles
Luther and Juarez now owe Adolfo $10.000 for the lost van and the missed drug deal. Memo (whom Juarez shot) is in a coma, and other people (cops) have been shot dead by Juarez. If Memo wakes up, he might sell out Luther and Juarez to the police. They are now with their friend Chitel, who's selling drugs in yellow balloons with a Pikachu picture on them. They get offered the $1.800 Chitel makes, but it's not nearly enough to pay back Adolfo. Also, Luther is feeling a persistent itch in his wrists and a metallic taste in his mouth.
Better Forgotten — 19-23 May 2014, Los Angeles
Luther spends a few days with his fellow gang members Juarez and Tweetie, selling drugs in order to make the money he owes Adolfo for the lost van. The subject of the drugs in balloons comes up, and it is mentioned that the blue ones had a bad batch and the pink ones are the most wanted ones (also see Oz' and jingjing's storylines). Luther also sees several girls with black braids, thick glasses and pink Converse shoes; Chitel shrugs this off as "they must be cosplayers, Comic-Con's coming".
The Loyal Hawaiian — 8-9 June 2014, Honolulu, Hawaii
Luther flies to Honolulu, Hawaii. There, he's staying at The Loyal Hawaiian hotel to meet Teyo. He's provided with luxury clothes and with cash by Teyo. The latter tells him that Memo now woke up from his coma and told his lawyer everything. This might get Luther and Teyo in trouble. Teyo asks Luther to "deal with the rat", presumably meaning for Luther to kill Memo; Luther agrees. After Teyo has taken Luther out to eat Japanese, Luther goes to some clubs in town, alone. When he takes the personal taxi provided for him by Teyo back to the hotel, he is instead driven to an unknown apartment. There are three prostitutes there, "Destiny", "Dice" and "Dawn", and after making use of their services, Luther finally heads back to the hotel. In the elevator, he sees a woman who just got out of Teyo's room and he is mesmerized by her beauty and classiness.
Oz
Planski — 12-13 May 2014, Los Angeles
Oz is in a bar after work, drinking and talking to a woman named Cally. The next day he has a lunch with his friend and co-worker (also a detective) "Planski". They briefly talk about the "Korean supermarket" murder case that Oz was involved with (see Vol. 01), and about Oz being happy in his relationship with Elaine. Then Planski tells Oz that she's found a drug smuggling ring that's way, way bigger than what LAPD usually works on—it's a worldwide network. Oz suggests she involves the FBI, but Planski doesn't trust either them or the rest of the LAPD, and insinuates she's asking Oz for help with this. She asks him if he's ever heard of "Synsnap-27".
Warlock — 18-19 May 2014, Los Angeles
At Oz's work, FBI agent Ire Slind comes to him about the Frogtown murders (see Luther's chapter). Oz asks him about Synsnap-27 but Slind has never heard of that. Next, Oz calls Planski to discuss Synsnap-27, but before he gets to that, he is interrupted by a man called "Warlock" (also see Cas's chapters) walking in. Warlock is from the Israeli Defense Forces, and is in the U.S., and asking Oz's help, to look for war criminals. Oz is annoyed by the interruption, but after Warlock leaves, Oz finds he left a folder on Oz's desk, containing a sheet of paper with the names of the three kids Oz found murdered in a bathroom in Vol. 01.
Shnorhk
Clinic — 15 May 2014, Los Angeles
Shnorhk is at home for dinner with his wife, Patil. He is annoyed by her (what he perceives as) "nagging" him to go to a clinic for his coughing up blood problem. But he also feels guilty for having put it off until now, and lying to her about it. When he realizes he also broke his promise to Mnatsangan to scan the documents (see Vol. 01 "Is little irrelevant"), he feels sad. He leaves the dinner to go to the clinic. When he gets there however, the clinic is closed. Shnorkh bangs on the door in his frustration that he broke yet another promise.
"Left it in cab." — 7-8 June 2014, Los Angeles
Shnorhk has dinner with Patil and she again tells him he should go work for Uber. She then questions him how his visit to the clinic was. When he answers "I told you, it was closed", she's shocked and says "That was almost a month ago!" (see "Clinic"). Shnorhk quickly changes the subject by starting to talk about that he's going to Mnatsangan tonight. Patil hopes that he will play the duduk (flute-like instrument). At Mnatsangan's, Shnorhk meets a group of friends. They ask for him to take out his duduk, and Shnorhk goes to his car to get it. It is in the trunk of the car, but when he goes to get it he changes his mind and lies that he left it at home. Afterwards, he feels bad about this lie, and also about the lie to Patil about the clinic, and for letting Mnatsangan down on his promise to scan the documents.
Cas
A Stranger — 17 May 2014, Dayton, Ohio
Cas and Bobby have travelled to Dayton, Ohio since their last chapter. They are staying in Sorcerer's apartment, but Sorcerer himself is still missing. Bobby leaves the apartment to do errands in the afternoon, while Cas stays behind, using her Orb to locate both their missing friend Sorcerer as well as their enemy Recluse who's trying to get to them. By night, Cas is very worried as to why Bobby still hasn't returned. She locks herself in the bathroom, very afraid that "they" (VEM, probably) will break into the apartment. Then someone comes into the apartment, to Cas's horror. It turns out to be a friend of Sorcerer's, a young woman called Marnie. She is friendly and Cas likes her.
The Bath — 26 May - 1 June 2014, Dayton, Ohio
Cas, Bobby and Marnie are still in Dayton, with Bobby working on getting their van fixed and Cas mostly spending her days sitting in the bath using her Orb. Cas thinks of a memory of hers from the 1960's. Recluse (the dangerous man now hunting them) was a friend of hers and Bobby's back then, and together with a fourth person (whose name is not revealed in the narrative) they often spent time together. In 1965, Cas saw "Clip 1" in the Orb for the first time; it showed someone who had drowned in 1962—the daughter of someone called Zeke Rilvergaile.
Then suddenly when all three are in the apartment, they hear the apartment is being broken into. They quickly try to leave via the fire escape, but someone has already gotten to them and grabs Cas, who drops her Orb. The Orb detonates with a blast.
My Love — 12 June 2014, Athens, Georgia
Cas, Bobby and Marnie managed to escape from their attackers in the last chapter; Marnie drove them to Athens, Georgia, where they now are staying in a barn. Cas greatly misses her Orb. Then Sorcerer shows up (to everyone's relief). He tells them the apartment they were staying in in Dayton wasn't his [Sorcerer's], but actually Recluse's; he had made them hide there thinking that would be the last place Recluse would look. Then Marnie addresses Sorcerer as "Mefisto"—showing he's the same person as from Anwar's narrative.
Isandorno
Between Nowhere and Nowhere — 14 May 2014, Chiapas, Mexico
Isandorno now has travelled to Chiapas, Mexico. There is a road block, so he gets out of the car. A dead, decapitated donkey and goat are on the road. Isandorno also thinks about how he failed the Mayor to deliver the crates (see Vol. 01).
The Mayor — 17-18 May 2014, Mexico City, Mexico
Isandorno has by now travelled to Mexico City, where he meets "The Mayor", his employer. The Mayor owns and trades in zoo animals, and also lets people (illegaly, probably) hunt and kill these animals for a high price. He tells Isandorno that the crates Isandorno was supposed to transport have arrived and the animals in them are alive, but strangely there's an extra crate (see "The Fourth Crate, Vol. 01). Then he tells Isandorno there was "some trouble in Los Angeles a few days ago" (ref. to Luther and "Frogtown") and tells Isandorno that Teyo (from Luther's narrative) will stay with them for most of the summer, and that Isandorno must work as Teyo's assistant and driver.
A Picnic — 7 June 2014, Mexico City, Mexico
Isandorno is taken by the Mayor to a man called Cutberto, who's the Mayor's "accountant". The Mayor and Cutberto explain that Cutberto doesn't know anything about where "the numbers" come from or what they mean, all he does is make them "add up". Cutberto's very sickly-looking wife, and their baby, are also present. The Mayor takes Cutberto for a walk to discuss something in private. When they return, things take a horrifying turn as the Mayor takes Cutberto's baby and drops it in the big deep fryer that they have brought here.
jingjing
be extraordinary — 14 May 2014, Singapore
jingjing has been wandering around Singapore the last three days because tian li told him he had to keep looking for the cat. He feels down and frustrated about not having been able to find the cat, and anxious about tian li's and his finances. He sees a snake passing him by very close in a park. When he gets home, tian li shows him lottery tickets.
so it begins — 16-17 May 2014, Singapore
jingjing and tian lee now have a sum of money, from the lottery tickets. They're still distressed about the cat missing though, and jingjing even realizes he misses the cat despite not having liked it when they had it. Their lives have gone downhill since the cat is gone. jingjing can't resist the urge to go to his old drug dealer, "23", to buy the supposedly "best-quality" pink batch of a drug note . His money offer isn't enough for 23 though, so he settles for the "lesser-quality" blue batch (after verifying it is not the lethal 2013 batch) of the drug.
smoke — 20 May 2014, Singapore
Worrying a lot about his financial troubles now that he spent all the money on drugs, jingjing cannot sleep and goes outside in the middle of the night. He draws a monster card and gets a snake deity (reminding of his encounter with a snake in his first chapter). He decides to sell the drugs back to 23 and sets off, but then runs into zhong's servants he met in Vol. 01. They take him to a club to party, but jingjing leaves when he starts to feel the urge to use the drugs. He goes home, prepares the drug and smokes it. When it "hits his lungs", he thinks "this is how we lose emptiness so in fullness we forget."
