Chapter Text
Initial Observations on Contact with Paranatural Entity EID-19929, Designated Polaris
…contact was established at [REDACTED] and lasted approximately thirty seconds. Subject (me!) reports the experience feeling significantly longer—cross reference with other instances of time dilation?
Sensation was pleasant but not obtrusively so. Reminiscent of [REDACTED]. EID-19929 is able to communicate audiovisually as well as access memories in subjects. Subject (still me) reports no physical changes aside from slightly increased heart rate and shortness of breath.
As the cadence of Polaris’ speech bears a superficial similarity to the Hiss incantation, it’s worth further exploring the study of how resonant-based entities express that resonance to and through humans. This could potentially be huge in opening up communication between us and extradimensional forms of life.
Sidenote: in keeping with Dr. Darling’s theories on archetypes, I wonder if [REDACTED] naming the entity Polaris didn’t effect her development, or their relationship in some way? A guiding star is a pretty significant symbol…
Refer to file [REDACTED] for full report.
The previous Director would not have lifted coffee cups with his mind for Emily’s tests.
Jesse Faden really does not resemble the old Director in any way, save for an instinctive approach to their work and a confidence in the way she carries herself. When they talk, she says she’s unsure about her new position. But you’d never know it to look at her, walking into every situation with a swagger and her service weapon spinning.
It drives—used to drive—Dr. Darling crazy when Trench would just show up and demand they handle things one way or the other with no explanation. Standing in their shoes, she doesn’t really get it. If she’s all theory, then Jesse is all practice. So far, they complement each other nicely instead of butting heads.
It comes down to trust, she thinks. If Jesse wants to go off and ‘handle’ an angry refrigerator on her own, Emily trusts her to come back and trusts her to use whatever she found wisely. How can she not? Jesse told her everything, openly. Even though revealing her secret could have gotten her into serious trouble with practically anyone else, she trusted Emily to trust her. That has to count for something, right?
(The whole savior thing helps, too. The way she had mowed through Hiss corruption like a wildfire. The fact that she had kept them all safe despite what she must have thought of the Bureau.
When everything started, Emily thought she was going to die. Or at least end up a floating, murmuring husk.
And now she is tracking vitals and watching sweat on the Director’s brow. In a few hours they’re both going to learn some deeply unpleasant information, but for now Emily is feeling something that she could almost describe as fun.)
“I’m thinking next we can try mapping your brain activity while you talk to Polaris.” She says, scrawling notes while Jesse idly bounces the mug up and down in the space between them. “It might give us a better idea of what’s going on, physically—though I guess there’s no reason she would adhere to normal human physiology, can you ask her?” It’s probably the thousandth time she’s said that, but it’s just not every day she has an open line of communication with an extradimensional lifeform in front of her.
Jesse doesn’t laugh—she hasn’t heard Jesse laugh properly, she doesn’t seem the type—but she does smirk a little at the exuberance. “You’re probably not going to see anything. We’ve had plenty of checkups, none of them noticed her.” She catches the mug out of the air and takes a sip, effortless. So cool.
“So she must be pretty integrated into your body. Does she feel what you feel? How does she perceive our dimension?” It feels rude talking about Polaris like she’s not there, asking Jesse to play telephone. Which gives her the idea. “Can I…talk to her?”
She expects to be shot down immediately, but Jesse just raises an eyebrow. At her audacity, no doubt. “Give us a minute.” They confer. After a moment, Jesse nods. “Yeah, we can try.” She gestures for Emily to come closer. And she’s not particularly sentimental, but for a second it feels like her stomach is doing flips.
Jesse reaches out—not like she does when cleansing something from a distance, her arm extended with assertive intent. Instead her hand brushes the side of Emily’s face. Though she’s no less intent.
It’s not that her vision changes so much as it changes texture in her mind. She’s still looking at Jesse’s face, but the image slides around, her focus moves off it. Other sensory input is coming from somewhere, making vision only a fraction of what she can really see.
A kaleidoscope. Emily as a small child, on the beach, struggling between delight and frustration when her parents cannot explain to her why seashells grow in fractal shapes. The long halls of the bureau. Sunlight on a pillow, on someone’s hair. Her hair, Jesse’s hair, it’s all the same. Stained glass. Stella illa quae polaris dicitur. Sea glass. Refracting light. I am as constant as the northern star. Is that her own voice? Around one constant they revolve.
Laughter. Jesse’s voice, but not Jesse’s laugh. She has never heard the Director laugh, not fully. A slide projector running against a blank white wall; the slide it shows is Jesse’s face. Around one constant they revolve. A flicker, a spiral of refracting light again in her vision and then it withdraws—Jesse’s hand withdraws from where she’s been unconsciously leaning into it.
“Wow.” Emily exhales. She’s not sure what she had expected. A voice, maybe, mysterious but still recognizable. She should know by now it’s never that simple. But this is better, way better, something truly alien for her to puzzle through. “She’s incredible.” A completely different tone from the Hiss incantation, but there are some similarities in the cadence. So her theories about resonant-based organisms might need some work. The idea makes her giddy.
Jesse has learned to hide when she’s listening to her companion, but now there’s no need to bother. She tilts her head a little, eyes briefly unfocused, then looks back to Emily. “I think she likes you too.” She says with that half-chuckle on the end.
And if that doesn’t make her heart skip a beat. It’s not like that—of course it’s not like that—but it’s been a long time since she met anyone outside of work—though Jesse is from work now, technically, and Polaris too, and she’s not really sure what the policy on relationships is when it comes to the Director--and it doesn’t matter because it’s not like that anyway.
So she ducks the comment. “You two are pretty close, huh?” Emily tries to say in a way that doesn’t indicate I may be slightly hot under the collar for you and your alien friend. Because it’s not about that. It’s about the science. Ulterior motives would be highly unprofessional.
The little head tilt gesture again, somewhere between listening and leaning on someone’s arm. “You could say that, yeah.” Her voice goes so much softer when she’s talking about Polaris, moreso even than when she mentions her brother. Her eyes flutter closed, as if to better pay attention. “She was gone for a long time. I…I missed her.” Then she straightens up. Whatever softness or sadness was in her voice is shaken off. “I guess that must sound a little weird to you guys, given everything going on.”
“She saved you, right?” Emily shrugs. The attitude that some of the Bureau has always had—that the paranatural is ultimately their enemy, to be destroyed or controlled—has always grated on her. It’s the fear of the narrowminded, not willing to embrace the unknown. “You trust her, and I trust you.”
Jesse stares at her for a moment, then shakes her head. “You know, that’s the thing about you. I tell you I have a magic voice in my head and you don’t question my sanity or worry about if it’s safe. You just say okay and start talking to her like she matters. You just trust me.”
And Jesse’s stare is just a little too intense, her eyes a little too blue, so she deflects again. “Of course we all trust you. You’re our Director.” Our guiding star.