[Transcriber’s note: The free Lexington Letter e-book is formatted for viewing on a narrow screen and the original line lengths have been preserved for this transcription.]

TO: JIM M (jm@topekastar.com)
FROM: DARIA T (dt@topekastar.com)
SENT: November 12 at 12:43 PM
SUBJECT LINE: Lumon letter

Hey Jim,
I received the letter below from a Severed employee at Lumon.
I also scanned the employee handbook that she mentions in her
letter here too, so that’s attached.

The whole thing seems pretty out there… but perhaps worth
pursuing? What do you think?

Daria
—
Daria Thorne, Reporter
The Topeka Star

Attachment 1 of 2:

[Transcriber’s note: Scanned attachment of printed pages]

PLEASE READ IMMEDIATELY
Daria Thorne
c/o The Topeka Star
Saturday, November 10
Dear Ms. Thorne,

My name is Peg Kincaid. Until yesterday, I was an
employee at Lumon Industries here in Topeka. I’m
writing on behalf of myself and my friend, Peggy K,
who is now no longer with us. Maybe it’s strange to call
her my friend, but it’s how I think of her. Depending on
how much you know about Lumon and what they do,
maybe you already know what I mean.

I chose to reach out to you because I’ve seen, among
other things, your thorough coverage of the Dorner
truck incident on November third. I thought about
going to the cops with what I’m about to tell you, but
people say Lumon has a lot of connections with the
police and City Hall and so I don’t think they would
believe me anyway. I hope you believe me. I really
need someone to believe me.

With that in mind, I’m going to try to give you the full
story. Forgive me if I get a bit rambly… I tend to go on
and on when I’m nervous. And I’m really very nervous
about this. Right now, I’m staying in a motel because I
can’t shake the feeling that someone has been watching
me. The same black cars seem to always be parked
next to mine. And for the last few weeks, my mail has
been all crumpled when I’ve gotten it at night, like
someone’s digging through it. It all feels so off.

So yes, I just want to get this all written down, in case
something happens. Something beyond what’s already
happened. Alright. Here goes:

As a bit of background (I think, in your field, you call
it “color”), up until about two years ago, I was a school
bus driver for Clover Elementary down off Route 2.
I’d been there for about twelve years. I loved my job. I
love kids, even though I don’t have any of my own. And
I sincerely believe they liked me too. At some point,
the kids learned that I was the youngest driver on the
school’s payroll (even though I was already fifty), so they
gave me the nickname “Baby Driver,” a reference to the
beloved action film of the same name. But despite this
fun camaraderie and my relative youth, I’ll confess I was
starting to feel burned out. My route had gotten longer, I
had a few real misbehavers, all that stuff.

It all came to a boiling point one day in February.
It was a cold day; the kind I used to call a “booger-
freezer” to get a rise out of the kids until a
fundamentalist mom heard about it and complained. I
was near the end of my afternoon route when, through
no fault of my own, my bus hit black ice. I pumped
the brakes, as per protocol, but our momentum kept
us sliding and for the first time in my career in child
transpo, I landed my rig in a ditch.

All the kids screamed. I wanted to scream too, but
you know how it is — gotta be the adult. Thank the
good lord no one was hurt, just shook up. But we were
stuck for nearly two hours, with the heat knocked out.
The kids were crying, scared, cold, asking for their
mommies. We had three urination events, which in the
low temperature proved a real issue. Finally, another
bus was able to come by and get my kids. I remained
with the vehicle (again, protocol), and listened to the
radio to try to stay warm. I don’t know, it made sense
at the time.

Now this is the part that, when I look back, still makes
me squirm. While I was sitting there waiting for the
tow, boogers freezing, I distinctly remember thinking
to myself, “Fuck this job”. I may have even said it out
loud, I’m not sure. But I either thought it or said it,
and right at that moment, as if it had heard me, this ad
came on the radio. It was an employment recruiting
ad, but they were weirdly vague about the job. Lot of
flowery talk about “making history” and “rethinking
the notion of work.” I was sort of tuning out until the
end when they said the name of the company: Lumon
Industries. I knew who they were — I’d been using
their deodorant since puberty — but I didn’t know
they had a branch in Topeka. I remember thinking
“Well, that was weird”.

Anyway, two hours later, the tow truck finally came
and yanked my rig from the ditch. I got home five
hours later than usual, with an angry voicemail from
my supervisor accusing me of driving recklessly. I
wasn’t asking for a medal or anything, but a word of
acknowledgement over the hell I’d just been through
would have felt more appropriate than a chewing out.
That night, I told myself I needed to start looking for a
new job.

I was off the next day, and I went downtown to run
a few errands. On the way home, I passed what I
realized must be the new Lumon site, which had been
under construction for the past few months. It was a
big building that looked almost like a mall. I thought
back to when I’d heard their ad while shivering in that
freezing bus. And even though I had ice cream in the
trunk, I found myself turning into the parking lot. I
parked, and I went in.

At first I figured no high tech company would hire
someone like me. I mean, I only got through a few
semesters at Kansas State. But the nice Lumon lady
who greeted me told me that didn’t matter. She said
that I could get a great office job, incredible benefits,
manageable hours, and all I had to do was this tiny
little procedure called Severance.

I’m guessing you know what that is. Well, I didn’t —
remember, this was a few years back and it took them
longer than it probably should have to explain it to me.
They told me that after a screening process, I’d have a
small, totally painless chip inserted into my brain. That
freaked me out for a beat, but they assured me it was
easier than getting a cavity filled. Then they told me that
the chip would make it so I wouldn’t remember work.

That was the real benefit here: I’d have absolutely no
memory of work. Never. I’d just go into the office
and the chip would turn on in my brain, activating
my work self — my “innie” is what they called it.
That person would do all the work. And then when
I’d leave work, the chip would turn off, and I’d be
back and have the whole rest of my day ahead of me.
No memory of work and four times the pay? Despite
it being quite a drastic procedure, all that made it
feel like, well — a no brainer. Or, ha, a half-brainer?
Because of Severance? You get it? Sorry. My dad
always hated it when I joked when I was nervous, but
here we are!

So where was I? Right. Back to Lumon. I got the
procedure, I was Severed, all that, and it was totally
fine. They even gave me a really nice four-cheese
panini afterward because my procedure time slot
butted up against the lunch hour. I thought, “This is so
great! What a great place to work!”

I was wrong. Very very wrong. But I wouldn’t learn
that for another two years.

I started at Lumon the following Monday and settled
into this nice day-to-day routine. I’d show up at work,
swipe my fancy Lumon badge and then change out of
my outdoor clothes and into some Lumon neutrals, as
they call’em which means no labels, tags, patterns,
no words at all, on anything. Company policy. Lumon
wanted a complete divide between innies and us
people on the outside, a.k.a. the outies. No written
word, no messages back and forth were allowed — all
of that is what you sign up for when you get Severed.
In my orientation, they even talked about these code
detectors built into the elevators that would sense
written words. It was a fancy place.

Then, after changing my clothes, I’d take the elevator
down to the Severed floor in the basement and then
— nothing. Sweet sweet nothing. In the middle of
the elevator ride, my Severance chip would switch
my consciousness over to my innie, this whole
other personality, with no memory of my life here
in Topeka. She could walk and talk and all that, but
didn’t remember, say, my third-grade teacher’s name,
or me falling off a horse and breaking my arm when I
was eight, or when my ex-husband told me he wanted
a divorce. Lucky girl.

She was ME, but NOT me.

So yeah, my innie would wake up and head to work
— doing whatever it is my innie did down there. Some
desk job with data, I’d been told. And meanwhile, the
other half of the brain that is, ME — would basically
get to just take a nap for the day. At the end of the
workday, I’d come to, in that same elevator, maybe a
little tired after what I assume was a hard day’s work,
but otherwise none the wiser for earning that paycheck.

And that’s how it went, day in and day out, for two
years. Until one particular Tuesday, when I messed it
all up. Or, actually, we messed it all up.

That Tuesday, I got off work — in other words, I came
to in that elevator — and went to my locker. Nothing
odd there. But then, as I was pulling on my jacket, I felt
something in my pants pocket — a surprise, since we’re
not supposed to bring anything in or out. I pulled out
a half-sheet of typing paper, neatly folded into pocket
size. Seeing that the upstairs security guard was busy
watching soccer on his phone, I opened it up.

Now, at this point, I need to back up again and give you
more “color,” but I promise it’s for a very important
reason. My sister Meryl is only about eleven months
older than me. We actually were born in the same year,
funnily enough. We’ve since grown apart as time’s gone
by, but as kids we were really close. In fact, we were so
close that we invented a secret language together, called
Puglish. We’d write long letters to each other about
what boys we liked or teachers we hated in Puglish
so no one else could understand. I say “language,”
but actually, all we did was replace each letter with
a different symbol. “A” was a seahorse. “B” was a
lightning bolt. “X” was a pair of boobs, which got us
in trouble once or twice, but not too often because it’s
an uncommon letter and we were sneaky. Anyway, like
I said, Meryl and I had grown apart over time, and I
hadn’t thought about Puglish, let alone read or written
it, for more than thirty years.

So, on that Tuesday at Lumon, you can imagine my
surprise when I unfolded the paper and found it lined
with rows of little seahorses, lightning bolts, and other
distantly familiar symbols. There was even a boobs in
the second paragraph. I stood there, baffled at how a
full note in perfect Puglish had ended up in my pocket
while I was down on the Severed floor.

I took the note home and looked it over. It was strange how
quickly my memory of our code came back to me, and I
was able to read the message almost as if it had been in
English. Understanding its contents proved a little harder:

Dear Peggy K,
I don’t know what this language is, or why it’s in
my head. It’s been coming to me slowly over the
past few weeks. I find myself writing it at my desk. I
thought if anyone would know what it was, maybe it
would be you. I don’t know if this will even pass the
code detectors, but I felt I had to try. I know this is
a breach in protocol. Please don’t be angry with me.
If you cannot tell, I am your innie. I live down here in
the Macrodata Refining Department, with my three
co-workers. I have often thought of you and what your
life might be like out there, and why I exist in the first
place. Why does one choose to get Severed?
Maybe this language isn’t real and I’m writing
nonsense. But if you can read this, I would love for
you to write me back. I understand if that is not
possible. I do not mean any harm.
Sincerely, your innie,
Peggy K
—

Well, this knocked me on my ass, I’ll be honest. I
hadn’t really given my innie too much thought before
then. Like, I knew she was down there, doing her thing,
but part of what I loved so much about this whole
Severance thing is that I didn’t need to think about it.

But then there she was — Peggy, my innie, writing
to me. In Puglish. I stared at it for a long time. It also
tripped me up because I hadn’t been called Peggy since
elementary school. I’d been told during training that
my innie would be like a little kid, with little to no life
experiences, but I didn’t think it’d be so… obvious.

I stared at that note for the rest of the night. I thought
of her, or me, or a different version of me I guess,
down there in the dark, on the Severed floor, clearly
desperate for more information.

I was really torn about what to do. I loved my job, or
what I knew about it, and I didn’t wanna mess that up.
Writing messages to my innie was definitely against
Lumon policy, there’s no question about that. Was it
possible a code invented by two grade-schoolers could
be enough to trick the detectors? Granted, it was a
new technology, but still!

To this day, a part of me wishes I’d done what I
was supposed to: Call my Lumon supervisor, Mr.
Alvarado, and report my innie’s infraction. But
sometimes, at the end of the day, I’d come out of the
elevator feeling, I don’t know… different than I’d
ever felt before. Maybe a little giddy or sometimes all
wound up, or scared even, and it made me wonder:
What were they doing down there with my body?

So, the next morning, I decided to write her back —
just this once — and ask her.

She wrote back right away — I got a message in my
pocket that next night. She told me she worked as a
Macrodata Refiner. When I asked her what that means,
she told me it involved working at a computer, putting
these special numbers into special bins, which made
no sense to me — that’s a JOB?? And I’m making four
times as much as when I was driving a bus?

Once the floodgates were opened, I couldn’t help
myself — I wrote back to her more and more, asking
follow-up questions. She responded with such a weird
description that I had to write it down here:

The best I’ve come up with is that the numbers make
you feel things. It’s not an individual number, but a
whole cluster of them, and after a while, they’ll sort
of *throb* a certain emotion at you. Sometimes it’s
joy or sadness or worry. Sometimes it’s obvious,
other times more subtle. Each type of number
has its own designation, like the angry ones are
called MA. Once you’ve identified the numbers, you
surround them with the arrow on your computer
and into a bin they go.

I want to take a moment, Ms. Thorne, and say that th1S
sounded as nuts to me as it does to you. These numbers
made her feel things? Peggy tried to help me out, and
describe it more, but the more detail she’d go into, the
more confused I got. I asked her if the numbers ever
ended. She told me yes, when you finish a file. I guess
there’s a whole wall of them on her computer screen,
but eventually, the wall runs out, and all the numbers
have been sorted, and that’s that file completed.

Peggy told me that they get prizes when they finish the
files: Some weird stuff, like a melon bar and something
called a “music-dance experience” and a waffle party.
It all sounded pretty infantilizing to me, but I hope they
at least get different types of syrups to go along with
those waffles.

It wasn’t always me drilling her though — she also
asked me things too. And over and over again, I was
beside myself with how much it felt like I was talking
to a kid-version of, well, myself. She wanted to know
everything about outside life, like what it felt like to
be drunk, or asleep (I’d never thought of it before, but
she’d never been asleep, because I do all that on the
outside!), or to fall in love (that one was a toughie to
answer, just ask my ex-husband) or to have someone
you love die. It was strange to see how the procedure
filtered her knowledge. She knew what beer was but
couldn’t name a specific brand. She knew she lived in
America but couldn’t draw a map of it to save her life.
She knew that movies exist, but not who David Niven
was (despite him being by far my longest-standing
crush). It was like she’d seen only the vaguest shape of
the world through a foggy window.

She asked me what snow felt like (I sat on that one
for a while, and finally came up with holding a cold
cotton shirt that melts in your hands), and if I knew
how to ride a bike. (I do. Not very well, but I don’t tip
over either.) And if I ever regretted getting Severed. To
be honest, I hadn’t — until I thought more about her
sitting down there, in the dark.

So anyway, yes, Peggy and I wrote these letters back
and forth for, I don’t know, maybe three or four weeks.
Not every day, but enough that it started to feel like…
this sounds crazy, but like I’d found a new friend. She
made me see my life in a different way. I used to think
my life was boring, and pretty mundane, but Peggy
found all the little details I’d mention fascinating, even
glamorous. Once I painted my nails hot pink (which is
really not my style), just to see what she’d think. That
night, she wrote me back saying tears had sprung to her
eyes, our nails were so beautiful.

Sorry, I could go on forever. Like I told you, I ramble
when I get nervous and I’m jumping out of my chair
over here. No joke — Housekeeping just knocked on
my motel room door and I shrieked.

So anyway — Me and Peggy kept thinking we’d get
caught, but nothing seemed to come of it. Peggy grew
concerned that their head of security, Mr. Dooley — a
“pale little man with a terrifying smile” was watching
her more closely than usual. She described seeing him at
the far end of the hall when she’d leave for the day, “Just
standing there, smiling. Like he knew what I was doing
but wanted to play with me a while before dragging me
to the Break Room.” I asked her what the Break Room
was, but she never told me. Despite the forbidden nature
of our whole interaction, this seemed to be a specific
topic she was afraid to broach.

Still, those code detectors never seemed to bother us
or pick up the Puglish. If they had, I would’ve cut it
off, played dumb, blamed my own idiocy — and never
Peggy’s — but it never happened.

But then we get to that morning of Friday, November
3rd, which is why I’m writing to you in the first place.
I come-to in the elevator as usual that night and check
my pockets, just like I’ve been doing for months
— and there’s another note from Peggy. And she’s
really excited. She finished her file, which was named
“Lexington,” earlier that afternoon, at 2:30 pm. She
says she’s been so excited to tell me about it that she
could barely wait to go home, even if it meant cutting
her melon bar party (???) short.

She told me that the Lexington file had been extra
complicated and particularly exhausting to do (this made
sense to me — I’d felt fried for the last few weeks after
coming-to in the elevator and didn’t know why). She said
she’d pushed through and completed it and that everyone
at Lumon, including her boss and her boss’ boss, was
thrilled with her work. They’d even given her an extra
melon bar party to cash in later in the week. Whoopee,
right? Again, I don’t fully get this whole refining-files
thing, but a big win at work makes me look good too,
so what the hell. And our whole body just felt JAZZED
when I came to in the elevator, which wasn’t a bad
feeling either. I drove home and went for a jog for the
first time in weeks. I felt like I could tackle the world.

Later that same night, I’m watching TV and I see you,
Ms. Thorne, on the news. Your face was as serious as
I’ve ever seen it, your voice steadfast and resolute, as
you reported about the truck that had been blown up in
New York at 2:32 pm that day. The Dorner Therapeutics
truck. Dorner, of course, is a major competitor of my
now former employer Lumon. God, watching that
footage made my heart stop. Seeing bystanders running
for cover, the destroyed street, all of it seemed like hell.

That’s when a sudden, intrusive thought dumped a hard
knot right into the pit of my stomach. I looked back at
my earlier note from Peggy, and read again when she’d
completed the Lexington File.

The time had been 2:30 pm.
Two minutes before the bomb went off.

I was stunned. I tried to tell myself I was being
paranoid, but I couldn’t stop the thoughts from coming.
Two people were burned alive in a truck. Four others
were dead, too. No explanation, no terrorist group
claiming credit. The next day, Dorner said that some of
their devices had been destroyed. Their prototypes or
whatever. It almost seems like this was some kind of
corporate espionage.

It all seems like too much of a coincidence, doesn’t it?
Is that why these numbers are making the innies down
there feel things? Because they’re dropping bombs or
blowing things up from down there? What had I gotten
my body — and my innie, my friend — into?

I barely slept that weekend. On Monday morning, I
wrote Peggy another note, asking her to send me any
information she could about the file she’d just refined.
Told her it was super important. She didn’t know
anything about the Dorner truck down there, of course,
but I tried to press her more about the numbers. I asked
her: What do her bosses tell her about the numbers?
About Lexington in particular? What is this data they’re
refining? Not much, she said, other than it being very
important work. Finally, I worked up the nerve to tell
her about the truck. It took me over an hour to write
that note. I told her I couldn’t be sure there was a
connection, but that the timing felt too close to ignore.
I told her not to refine another number down there, no
matter the consequences. I told her that, if I was right,
then Lumon had been using us both for something
insidious and horrifying. I told her none of this was her
fault. And that I loved her.

I didn’t hear back.

A day passed, then three. Every day I went down,
hoping to feel the familiar pressure of a note in my
pants pocket as I came back up. But there was nothing.
Was she mad at me? Horrified by my claim? Or was it
something else? Was there something stopping Peggy
from responding?

It’s a funny thing, worrying about your innie. I was
leaving each day without a scratch on me, and I was
certainly still alive, which meant that physically Peggy
had to be fine. But her silence every evening grew
more terrifying as the days turned to weeks. I wanted
to write her again, ask what was going on — but
was Lumon on to us? If so, another note could spell
disaster for my dear friend.

One Tuesday, I emerged to find my hair wet. A note
on my windshield from Lumon informed me that my
innie had had a “visually comedic but painless mishap
with the water cooler”. I was given a gift card to
Murray’s All-Day Breakfast Buffet as an apology for
the inconvenience. That night, over hashbrowns, my
mind raced. What the hell were they doing to her down
there each day? How could I help? Should I resign?
Since Lumon was the only place she was alive, quitting
would essentially mean killing her. Surely, I couldn’t
do that, no matter how bad things had gotten.

It was two weeks later when, upon ascending for the
evening, I felt something thick and firm tucked in the
back of my waistband. I struggled to show no emotion
as I went to my locker, retrieved my personal items,
and went out to my car. When I was safely off Lumon
property, I breathlessly pulled it out and saw a faded,
spiral-bound booklet with a teal cover marked “The
Macrodata Refiner’s Orientation Booklet.” A note was
taped to the front, written in the King’s English in my
very own handwriting:

Dooley found your last note. Been in Break Room.
Don’t know how long.
Think you’re right about Lexington.
Lumon updating code detectors but they’re down
today. Hope this booklet gives clarity.
Be careful. I love you too.

I opened the booklet and was startled to find an eerily
chipper creature smiling up at me from the page. He
looked — pardon my indelicacy — like a little dildo with
translucent skin revealing a spiral-shaped digestive tract
leading down to his anus. After reading his intro, I
learned that this was “Sevy,” a personified Severance chip
and the internal mascot Lumon uses to train its innies.

Describing this document is probably a fool’s errand,
so I’m enclosing it here for you to look at too. I’ve
spent hours going over it, trying to decipher what the
numbers might mean, as explained by the all-knowing
Sevy. Maybe you can figure out more, ’cuz to me this
whole thing feels like it was written for a child. That’s
all you’ll tell me about what all this stuff means? The
only thing the handbook says about it is, “We know
you may be curious about what the numbers mean.
However, knowing the true meaning behind the
numbers could inhibit your natural intuition.”

Well, my natural freakin’ intuition is telling me
something horrible is happening here.

After that, I didn’t hear from Peggy for a week. I
didn’t write anything either, worried that Lumon’s
updated code detectors would be able to read Puglish
and I’d land her back in the “Break Room”, which I
could tell by now wasn’t a fun place with bean bag
chairs and a pinball machine.

This brings us to last Friday morning. I sat in my car
in the Lumon lot, trying to mentally prepare for my
strange daily descent, and wondering what horrors the
day held for my dear Peggy. For some reason, I thought
of that moment on the bus, skidding across the ice
with the kids screaming behind me. Knowing I was
responsible for whatever was going to happen to those
children in the coming seconds. As their screams rang
in my head, I did something that contradicted my better
judgment. I grabbed a fast-food receipt out of my cup
holder and hurriedly wrote a note in Puglish. It was a
very quick note. All it said was “Are you okay?”

I went into work and descended in the elevator as
usual, trying not to look nervous as I went down.
When I came back up, my heart was RACING, my
palms were sweaty — though of course I didn’t know
why. More troublingly, I felt a dry clump of something
in my mouth. I looked at my watch: 9:10 am. Only ten
minutes had passed since I’d gone down.

Trying to look casual and avoiding eye contact with
the security guard, I made a beeline for my locker.
There, I deftly spat out the object in my mouth, which
I found was a wadded-up sheet of paper. Unable to
wait, I opened it and read:

Peg,
Leave now. Get somewhere safe. They will try to
follow.
Nothing they say is real.
Distribute the training booklet. Answers are there if
you look.
Thank you for my life. You were the best part of it.
I’ll be with you always,
Peggy K
—

And that was it.

I called Mr. Alvarado and quit on the spot. I left
Topeka without returning home.

I only wish I could talk to Peggy again, tell her that I
was going to get help for her and for all the Severed
people down there, and that somehow… somehow I’d
get the word out about what Lumon is doing. That
attack killed six people, and I can’t even begin to tell
you why — even though I may have been the one (or
two) who pulled the trigger.

But the thing that hurts the most is the only way I
could ever talk to Peggy again is to go back to Lumon
to switch my Severance chip back on… and I can’t do
that again. Not ever.

So instead, here I am, writing to you. I considered
putting this up on social media, but I have about
sixteen friends on there, including my ex-husband, and
figured you could get the word out faster than all that.

I hope so anyway. For me and for Peggy.

Thank you for your time, Ms. Thorne. I look forward
to hearing from you as soon as possible. My cell is
785-555-4332. Please hurry.

Very sincerely,
Peg Kincaid

[End of Scanned Pages Attachment]

[Email from Jim Milchick replying to Daria Thorne]

Jim M (jm@topekastar.com)
Re: Lumon Letter, November 12 at 12:43 PM

TO: Daria T (dt@topekastar.com)
FROM: Jim M (jm@topekastar.com)
SENT: November 13 at 10:03 AM
SUBJECT: RE: Lumon letter
Hey Daria,

Read through this letter. Interesting stuff but all, as you said,
pretty “out there”

I don’t think we have the resources right now to put you on this
type of story. Besides, seems more like a disgruntled employee
making stuff up. I called over to a source I trust implicitly at
Lumon and it sounds like she was let go because of too many
absences.

Let’s have you focus on the high school basketball playoffs, as
discussed.

Thanks,
Jim
—

TO: Jim M (jm@topekastar.com)
FROM: Daria T (dt@topekastar.com)
SENT: November 13 at 10:08 am
SUBJECT: RE: Re: Lumon letter

You’re sure? I can still file that story and then move onto this.
These allegations, if true, are pretty astonishing.

DT
—

Jim M (jm@topekastar.com)
Re: Lumon Letter, November 12 at 12:43 PM

TO: Daria T (dt@topekastar.com)
FROM: Jim M (jm@topekastar.com)
SENT: November 13 at 1:03 pm
SUBJECT: RE: Re: Re: Lumon letter
Too late anyway. Just saw this — from Carolyn over in Obits:

Margaret “Peg” Kincaid, 54. Peg Kincaid passed away from
complications from a car accident on November 11th. She is
survived by her sister, Meryl Rasmussen, of Tacoma, WA, and
a group of supportive and loving friends throughout the Topeka,
KS area. A dedicated school bus driver for several decades,
Peg enjoyed bridge, spy novels, gardening, cats, and David
Niven films. She will be missed by all who knew her. A memorial
service will be on November 20th at 10 am. In lieu of flowers,
please consider a donation to the Topeka Humane Society.

Tough break. Sorry. Not to sound too harsh here, but all this
might be for the best… her whole letter felt really loose and it’s
not like we want to get into a libel suit with Lumon. You may
remember what happened with the Nashville Tribune when
they printed what they thought was a well-sourced exposé on
Lumon’s feeding tube devices: They got sued into oblivion and
folded six months later.

Please send me those basketball pages ASAP though. I want to
run them in tomorrow’s edition.

Jim
—
Jim Milchick, Editor
The Topeka Star