It Was 2020

Friday went exactly as Kay planned. She spent hours at the zoo, geology museum, and science hall. The zoo was an absolute blast! Giraffes, otters, lions, chimpanzees, penguins...the list goes on. Truly a sight to behold. She stayed at the zoo so long she had to eat lunch from one of the vendor carts. Of course she purchased a stuffed penguin from the gift shop and a Henry Vilas Zoo postcard to send to her family. On a whim, she purchased a beginners fossil excavation kit from the geology museum. She had a 12 year old cousin back home that would love it. While the U.W. Geology Museum had fluorescent minerals, a vast array of fossils, and meteorites, the haunted Science Hall made her absolutely giddy. She found the building to be very castle-like and learned that there were underground tunnels linking the campus systems together. While on her self-guided tour, Kay swore she heard a bird flying around in an otherwise empty room.

Everything was going great and she was having a spectacular time touring the area around her new home.

Saturday morning also went as planned. Kay checked out of the Double Tree and started, what she had dubbed, “Art Day”. After visiting both museums of art, and purchasing two more postcards, she had a delectable lunch at The Old Fashioned. After an appetizer of Poutine (cheese curds with matchstick fries and sausage gravy), followed by Pork Schnitzel with a bowl of Wisconsin Beer Cheese Soup, and Pear Cider, Kay was ready to take a nap. If the food in Wisconsin was this rich and tasty everywhere, Kay would need to invest in a gym membership. Though the need to sleep lay heavy upon her full stomach, she decided to stay on task and head to the Capitol building for the scheduled group tour.

Immediately upon arrival Kay noticed there were a lot of people in suits walking around. She figured they must have been having a Saturday congressional meeting since they were all dressed exactly the same; black slacks, white shirt, black blazer. Plus, what did she know about Wisconsin politics; or politics in general? Not enough to have an opinion on why these people would be out on a Saturday, that’s for sure.

She admired the Capitol exterior, with its exquisite architecture, before the tour started. With all these suits walking around, it made the Capitol look a lot busier than it actually was and they were detracting from the beauty of the buildings. Kay went inside to see if there were any remnants of the 1904 fire that almost completely destroyed the interior only to find that apparently a new and larger building had risen from the ashes.

When the guide arrived, the tour consisted of Kay, an Asian couple with two children, three of the men in suits, and a pale looking young man that coughed every five minutes. Not a huge group, but definitely not the one-on-one size she was expecting. The tour guide, whose name was Jacob, took them through the Capitol Rotunda, the North Hearing Room, and the Assembly Chambers, ending with the 92 foot high observation deck view. It wasn’t the Lantern Balcony view that Kay wanted, but it was still high enough to provide a nice view.

Jacob started the tour discussing the ethnic heritage present in the architecture of the building. “You will notice that the walls and ceilings of the Governor’s conference room are bedecked with twenty-six historical and symbolic paintings by Hugo Ballin. The council chambers are styled after the Doge’s Palace in Venice. The capital itself is topped by the bronze ‘Wisconsin’ statue. The rotunda is the only granite dome in the United States, and once inside, there are 43 different stones from around the world. The State Supreme Court room is German and Italian. The Senate Chamber is French and Italian and, down the hall, the Assembly Chamber is New York and Italian with Wisconsin oak furniture.”

As Jacob reached the end of the tour, he turned around and herded the group down the stairs, “Alright everyone. Time to go back down.” Kay noticed the three men in suits continuing upwards. It seemed as if the tour guide, and everyone else in the tour group, was oblivious to their actions. Since the men in suits gave her a feeling of trepidation, she was glad to ignore their absence and enjoy the rest of the tour without them. After all, if the tour guide didn’t care, why should she?

However, Kay could not let them get away with doing something she had her heart set on herself and she found the words pouring from her mouth before she could stop herself.

“Hey! What about the others?”

The tour guide cocked an eyebrow and gave her a look that told her she must be special.

“What others? Everyone is accounted for. Perhaps you included some of the people we saw downstairs by accident?”

“Ummm. Ok then. I must be...mistaken?”

Kay knew better, but as a mental health professional you learned to keep your mouth shut and your eyes and ears open. You learned a lot more that way and you didn’t sound crazy in the process.

The tour continued uninterrupted and Kay pushed the incident to the back of her mind. No sense in ruining an otherwise great day.

Kay checked into the AC Hotel by Marriott Madison Downtown that night. As she was checking in, the concierge told her there was a special meeting going on that weekend, and to be prepared to see a lot of people in suits and ties. He didn’t know what the meeting was about, but the organization was called Theoth-E.R.S. and apparently they flew in from overseas. Theoth was the last name of the group founder and E.R.S. stood for Emerging Residentiary Seeds.

Kay didn’t care about the meeting, or the mini history lesson on them, but she did appreciate the heads-up. Thanks to her tour at the Capitol building, she knew they might be traveling in large groups and, though it seemed like they could basically disappear, she didn’t want to deal with them any more than she had too. Getting up earlier than planned the next morning should prevent any unnecessary encounters and allow for an enjoyable breakfast without interruption.

Upon finishing the check-in process she headed to her room. Along the way, she noticed small groups of Theoth-E.R.S. in the lobby, as well as the hallway, dining area, and elevator. There really were a lot of them. Whatever this out of town/overseas group did must be important for them to come to Wisconsin with this show of force. Kay noticed they weren’t really talking or doing anything. They were just standing in groups. She had a less than zero desire to converse with them and made a beeline to her room. All the more reason for her to get up early, eat, and get on with her vacation. Using the gym and pool were out of the question since Kay had a feeling she would have a run-in with one, or likely many, of them while she was alone and that was something she was not prepared to handle. For reasons as yet unknown, they creeped her out, and the further away she was from them the better off she would feel. Kay undressed quietly, took her shower, and lay in bed watching Stranger Things until she fell asleep.

Thanks to the preplanned wake-up call, Kay was up before dawn Sunday morning. She packed, got dressed and headed down to the hotel restaurant. Breakfast was supposed to start at 7am so Kay arrived at 6:30. Lucky for her, the businessmen didn’t arrive until 7am on the dot (all of them, at the same time, wearing the same kind of suits). Since she was first in line for breakfast, she was also the first one to finish eating. Checking out simply meant dropping off the room key at the front desk. She headed outside and set her bag on the curb. Even though it was before 8am on a Sunday, there were still a handful of cars, the occasional mass transit vehicle, and a few people strolling down the sidewalks.

While she waited for the valet to bring her car around she noticed one of the Theoth-E.R.S. guys hanging around outside. He was alone, which seemed odd from what Kay had gathered from her previous encounters with them, and he was looking intently at everyone that passed by and muttering under his breath. What happened next left Kay confused and scared.