<div class="floatleft">(https://i.imgur.com/zB1pHVO.jpg?1)</div>Jax nods at his questions, shrugging at the observations.  "Fair questions," she begins, and begins twirling the stylus she's been using to draw schematics and equations on a Surface tablet.  "When these events were brought to my attention, it's because there were red flags in the pattern of events, you see?  The incidence of key human behaviors and world events are cataloged and kept in a database with scripts running to monitor frequency of certain behaviors and events."<br/><br/>He can see her eyes dancing as she explains, and she stops her pen-twirling for a moment to flick up a blank 'slate' on her screen to draw with.  "You can refine or refract the scale to various levels for the sake of statistical analysis, of course, depending on the potential severity of the occurrence.  So... a population shift from Manhattan to Brooklyn over twenty years--" and she draws a quick 2-d line graph with a slow, gradual curve, "it's noticeable, eventually, but it depends on other correlations, like property prices and gentrification, entertainment options, school district performance, crime rate--" and she overlaps different wave-form lines, "all influencing one another, and being influenced in turn."  Interconnecting lines of varying color, with hastily drawn arrow-points.<br/><br/>"So, for anomalous instances-- like a terrorist attack, a "Fortune 50" company moving in, a Superbowl win, an archaeological discovery-- you have an expected impact."  She uses a distortion effect to draw all lines in a particular direction-- up, then down-- then clicks a button and draws in a star and labels it 'incident'.  "Usually we can pinpoint the effect, but sometimes we just... can't."<br/><br/>Drawing out the report of missing persons, she flips through a few files, and then comes to rest on a single spreadsheet.  "Here you go... White Sands AFB's rate of absences without leave for the past two years."  She shows him a column of decimals, touches them with the pen, and-- viola-- a simple line graph.  "And there's three weeks ago."<br/><br/>Despite the relatively few AWOLs that they've had, it still represents an increase of over 1600% per week.  "And... here's by duration."  Of prior AWOLS, only 4% have been longer than 48 hours.  All those over the past 25 days are still missing.  Similar disappearances correlate with missing person cases, as she demonstrates and explains, with local townships.<br/><br/>"And here's the real kicker."  She pulls up a digital map of the area.  A red box indicates their target area.  Disappearances appear in an animated map as she clicks 'next' to step forward by date.  The missing person and AWOL reports form a widening spiral from the dig site.<br/><br/>"So... yes.  Possible cannibalism, war, or human sacrifice from a 15th century culture that the Apache actually called, for some reason, 'the Ancient Enemy,' indecipherable writings, and a kiva that we've barely scratched."  She grins a bit.  "I did some research and you stood out.  You had a passion for your subject, an expertise-- you weren't... you know...<i>reading from note cards</i>or anything in your lectures, you were speaking from<i>understanding</i>.  That's what we require."<br/><br/>Her hand is on his thigh, now-- easy to accomplish in the close-quarters of the small plane.  But she doesn't seem to notice if she's invading his personal space.  "I was watching every available lecture in the library of congress from the past<i>decade</i>, six at a time, and I found yours on the Dakota Archaeological Institute's<i>YouTube</i>page of all things."  Grinning, she gives his leg a pat.  "Feels like serendipity to me."<br/><br/>*<br/><br/>Just on the outskirts of Albuquerque, they're parked at a roadside stand where, as she had promised, there is better-than-decent Southwestern food for sale.  She's eating frybread and sipping a longneck Corona under the shade of the SUV's raised rear door, where there's just enough carpeted space for the two of them to sit in front of a couple large cases of unlabeled equipment.  She's watching him from behind her Wayfarer shades, which are doing little to hide the concern in her face, when she starts speaking again.<br/><br/>"You know why I didn't balk when you started talking about Enochian, don't you?"<br/><br/>With a dry smile, she takes a long pull from the water-beaded bottle of beer, then continues.  "It's because part of this<em>incident</em>... Or, correlating with it, I should say... have been some strangely supernatural occurrences."  She furrows her brow behind the black sunglasses and sets her mouth, clearly regretting not bringing this to the forefront earlier.  "If it is Angelic script... no one<i>alive</i>really should be able to recognize something like that, from what I know about it.  Which is not much at all, honestly.  So... how is it you<i>do</i>know what it is, and how can you... well... read it?"<br/><br/>Then, with a bit more concern, she sets her food and beer aside and brings one knee to her chest, unconcerned about the non-businesslike way of posturing herself in the otherwise slick, gray suit.  "And what could happen if that kind of writing, or relics like it, fell into the wrong hands?"