Chapter Text
Managing the bulletin board was never Tim’s favorite activity at the library. There are far too many clown centered activities available in London, and due to his former boss’s frankly odd adoration of Mr. Bonzo, many of them came to his branch to promote their events.
When they write the newspaper about the scandal and deaths that Mr. Bonzo caused, they mostly focused on Nigel Dickerson. The story of how the newly promoted librarian, Timothy Stoker, had to manage herds of true crime and clown criminal enthusiasts flocking to the workplace of one of his victims wouldn't even make the fifth page. But that was his life now, and he wasn’t going to let the uncanny valley mannequin candle making event poster he had been asked to put up ruin his day.
Was this ai? It had that feeling to it but he couldn’t spot any artifacts or inconsistencies. Either this was a scary good fake image, or it was human made and just felt like that. The idea of it not being artificial or human made, but being created artfully with intention by something distinctly nonhuman, something Else, wasn’t really on the table for Tim at this point, so that avenue remained unexplored.
Now that Tim was running the library, and Sasha the archives attached to them, they had a substantial amount of control over how things went around there. The no ai generated posters rule had been high on Sasha’s list when she had been promoted, partially it was from an academic point of view (considering how dangerous and horrible for the world and the minds of the people that live there it is) but when someone had taken her likeness without her permission and generated an instructional video for the archival assistants she worked with- let’s just say that certainly didn’t help her relationship with them (both the person who generated it, and ai in general).
Tim wasn’t one to give in without a fight, and he would be standing by the rule that he and Sasha had fought for. Well, once Tim was unexpectedly promoted, he quickly approved the rule that had been sitting on his predecessors desk for months by then, so Sasha did most of the fighting, but Tim was still going to enforce this as a matter of principle, also he really didn't care for it. Snapping a photo of the strange mannequin, he sent it to his brother Danny, who he hoped would have a better idea, good to have a second set of eyes on it anyway.
Shoving the poster, maybe a little too aggressively, into a folder to deal with later, he left the bulletin board and returned to his desk. He had volunteers helping that day to help with shelving and Sasha was downstairs so there wasn’t really anything to do but sit in his designated area and appear available and approachable if anyone had questions.
A ding from his phone drew his attention away from the paperwork he had found to shuffle about (it’s good to look at least a little occupied) as he looked down to see a message from Danny. The “???? wth tim??? hello???” he had gotten in response made a bit more sense when he realized that he had included no context to the absurd image he had sent. Grinning mischievously, he began to type back: “yeah dan don’t you wanna go? it’ll be fun 🙂 that’s tooootally why I sent you this poster, this is SO much up our alley” when a familiar, impossible voice cut into his plotting.
“Oh um excuse me, sorry to interrupt! I just needed to check really quickly where the bound periodicals section is? I’m looking for newspapers specifically but I can go ask someone else if-” the man in front of him was looking around the room and clearly trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible.
Tim didn’t say anything for a moment as he stared at the friend he had lost years ago, the friend he had watched destroy himself trying to take care of someone who didn’t do the same for him, the friend who now looked the age he should be- he deserved to be, this wasn’t possible, and yet it was happening. Lowering his voice, both appear more intimidating than he felt in that moment, and to hide the cracks in his voice as emotion welled up, he leaned in across his desk and stared intently.
“First of all, how dare you-”
“TIM?” Martin's voice was high, very conspicuous, and cut him off as he looked up at him for the first time since entering with a start.
“Martin K. Blackwood,” Tim hissed, anger was easier than sadness or confusion, so that was what he was going with, “How are you here? What the actual–”