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“Martin, could you get Elias for me?”
Martin yelps, dropping the files he’d been carrying. They spill across the floor in a flurry of ink and paper. Great, that’s his next hour of work sorted.
“Jon! I, uh, I didn’t hear you come in!”
Jon is standing in a doorway, watching Martin with an unreadable expression. It’s a fair bet that he’s irritated at Martin for being generally unobservant. That seems par for the course, even if it’s been over a month since they last saw each other.
“No, I— I was being quiet.” It’s a blatant lie, made all the stranger by how unnecessary it seems. Martin furrows his brow, letting his concern show on his face.
“Are you alright, Jon? Do you want some tea?”
“I… Can you get Elias, Martin? I think there’s some things we have to discuss.”
“Right. Okay.” Of course Elias rates higher than Martin. A month gone for some mysterious reason, and not even so much as a hello. It figures.
Martin turns to go, with a glance at the messy pile of statements on the floor. Jon’s gaze stays firmly fixed on Martin, as though the disorder isn’t even registering. It’s probably not as urgent as whatever he’s planning to talk to Elias about, but it’s still… worrying. Martin will have to start clearing it up when he gets back; it won’t be fun, but it might be pleasantly monotonous in comparison to actually reading the things.
“I’ll just, uh, go?”
Jon hums and doesn’t comment. Martin goes.
The walk through the corridors passes in a blur. Every so often, Martin thinks he catches something shifting in the corner of his eye, but whenever he looks, there’s nothing there. He’s just off-kilter, he tells himself. Nothing to worry about — beyond the usual.
As always, the door to Elias’ office is unassuming: dark wood, a few carvings in the corners, and a plain bronze doorknob. It has a window of opaque glass in the centre, and Elias’ name is written on it in immaculate writing.
“Come in, Martin.” Martin jumps. He hadn’t even raised his hand to knock yet.
The door opens with a soft click. Elias doesn’t even look up as Martin steps inside, scratching away at a paper with a fountain pen that looks like it cost more than Martin’s monthly rent. Martin stands there for a moment, expecting Elias to chime in with some comment about Jon’s return. Elias just carries on writing with an expression of faint annoyance.
Finally, after what feels like an eternity, Elias sighs, looking up and making eye contact with him.
“You wanted something, Martin?” It’s pretty impressive how he can convey an eye-roll without a single movement. Something about the unguarded dismissiveness in his tone, as though Martin’s very presence is a waste of good air.
(Jon’s good at that too, but he’s cut down on it since everything with Leitner.)
“I, uh — Jon said he wanted to talk to you.”
Elias blinks in something that looks like surprise. His eyes narrow as his gaze turns piercing. Martin can feel the way Elias is looking through his being, like he’s flipping through a book of everything Martin is and everything he knows. It hurts, deep in his chest, as Elias lets that metaphorical book slam closed.
“Apologies,” Elias says, breathing heavily. He sounds rattled, and not just in the sense that he’s apologising; there’s a thread of alarm woven into the fabric of that one word.
There’s no chance to say anything before Elias stands up, chair screeching across the floor. He pushes past Martin without so much as a by your leave. Martin has to hurry to keep up with him as he storms towards the entrance of the Archives.
Jon is standing exactly where Martin left him. His expression is as close to neutral as Jon ever gets, tiredness and annoyance and fear wrapped up in an untidy package that makes Martin’s heart ache to soothe all of Jon’s worries. Sue him, he’s a romantic.
It’s clear that Jon has moved while Martin was gone; all of the fallen statements are sitting in a neat pile on the desk closest to Jon’s office. The writing on the top one is blurred into illegibility, like it’s been held under running water until all the ink has just… washed away.
Elias’ expression sours; his mouth curls into a sneer. His eyes turn sharp and cold, the pale colour of icicles in midwinter. For the first time that Martin’s seen, Elias actually looks like the type of man who could kill someone without an ounce of regret.
“You aren’t Jon.”
Martin stops dead in his tracks.
“What?”
Jon — or someone, some thing that looks like Jon — winces. It’s a very Jon sort of expression, flustered and uncomfortable and not sure what to do with either of those emotions.
“I’m more Jon than Michael was Michael.” The statement is irritated, with an undertone of sharp defensiveness, and Martin feels his stomach drop in horror. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
The voice is Jon’s too, but crisp and clear, like the words are being spoken directly into Martin’s brain. The sensation is familiar in a way that leaves unease curling in Martin’s throat, but he can’t put his finger on why. Michael — who’s Michael?
“It would make things significantly easier if you weren’t here,” Elias replies, low and furious.
“I’m sure it would.”
“I’m sorry,” Martin interrupts, not feeling particularly sorry at all. “What’s going on?”
“Do you want to tell him,” snaps Elias, “or should I?”
The thing that looks like Jon blinks, as though Elias has just asked a difficult question. In all honesty, Martin doesn’t care who tells him, as long as he gets an answer. Preferably one that doesn’t involve Jon being dead.
Elias smiles thinly, full of an acidic satisfaction, and turns to face Martin.
“This irritant is known as the Distortion. It primarily manifests as impossible doors and twisting fractal corridors, but in recent years, it has been acquiring the identities of people in the wrong place at the wrong time. In this case, well…”
Doors and corridors. Surprises are better. Now Martin remembers who Michael is.
“Right,” he says shakily. God, if he starts crying in front of Elias and this— the Distortion, he’s just going to die on the spot. That’s not the kind of thing he could ever live down. “So Jon’s…”
“Dead,” Elias pronounces with finality. “Which means I need to begin the arduous hiring procedures for a new Archivist and clean up the mess left in Jon’s wake.”
The Distortion curls Jon’s lips in an expression of bitter amusement, shaking its head. It begins to laugh, and laugh, and laugh; the low sound rolls and distorts in Martin’s brain until it is utterly meaningless. When it glances at Martin, those familiar eyes are wet with— tears?
“Oh, no, Elias,” it says, with the kind of pure burning anger that Martin has only heard in that voice once before — when Jon returned to the Institute after Leitner. “I’m not going to let it be that easy for any of us, and especially not you.”
For the second time in one day, Martin sees an expression of awful realisation flicker across Elias’ face. Then it vanishes behind the veneer of sneering anger and exasperation.
“You can’t be serious. This obstinance will hurt you more than it hurts me.”
The Distortion holds its hands up in a silent stubborn ‘so be it’.
Now that Martin knows it isn’t Jon, the differences seem obvious. The hair seems too curled; the fingers too long and unhealthily thin; and most tellingly of all, the expression is open and guileless, with none of the tired cynicism that had so endeared Martin to Jon in the first place.
(Then again, maybe he’s just overthinking every little detail, and the Distortion wears Jon’s face like it was born with it. Hard to say, and Martin would really prefer not to think about it.)
“You were going to kill us,” Martin says, interrupting whatever the next argument was going to be. “We were trapped in those corridors for— days! And there was that woman—”
“Helen,” the Distortion says. “Her name is Helen Richardson. I— Jon— I wanted to save her. And now that I can… I’m not sure I’m going to.”
Elias scoffs, arms crossed, and the Distortion glances at him.
“So much of what I am now just wants to watch her go mad and die. I’m still the Archivist,” it says, and there’s the cynicism, a familiar humourless smile curling on its face. “Maybe more than I ever was before.”
“That’s entirely self-contradictory,” Elias snaps.
“Isn’t that the point of me?”
“I don’t believe you know what the point of you is. Besides, just because there is a living Archivist doesn’t mean I can’t appoint another one.”
The Distortion smiles wider. It’s not a nice expression, too sharp at the edges, with too many teeth. It finally steps forward, and between one blink and the next, the door behind it vanishes.
“That’s what happened with Gertrude, isn’t it?” It sounds very calm, but the kind of calm that’s dangerous, knife-edged. “Two months between her disappearance and her death, and you hired me.”
“I hired Jon.”
“Mm.” It rests its chin on its hand, and Martin can almost see the echoes of those sharp fractal fingers. “These things are messy, Elias. I still haven’t worked myself out yet.”
“Then leave,” Elias demands. “You didn’t want to be here, and now you don’t have to be. I have no doubt you could sever your remaining ties to the Institute easily enough.”
“What would I be then?” The Distortion’s voice has gone very quiet, and if Martin felt any sense of charity towards it, he might even call it vulnerable. Elias, am I human, he remembers hearing on a tape he shouldn’t have listened to. It has the same strain of desperation in its tone.
“Does it matter?”
“What would I be then?” The words echo in Martin’s brain until he feels dizzy.
Elias goes still, all colour draining from his face. It’s as though he’s struggling against the movement of his own mouth, desperately trying not to let it form words.
“The Distortion is a direct manifestation of the Spiral,” he grits out. “I’m sure it’s already difficult for you to pick apart what impulses are your own, and I imagine you’ll fall to it completely outside of the influence of the Archives. You’ll be a monster in the truest sense of the word.”
“And if I stay here?” The Distortion takes another step forward. It raises one hand towards Elias, though it seems to think better of the motion, pausing in mid-air. “The Eye isn’t any better than the Twisting Deceit, just different.”
“It won’t be pleasant for you to stay.” There’s a grim satisfaction to the set of Elias’ mouth. “If I were a lesser man, I would enjoy seeing you suffer under your own stubbornness.”
“Of course you would. Useless as always.”
“You’re going to let it stay?” Martin doesn’t realise he’s speaking until he hears his own voice raised in outrage. He’s sure his cheeks have gone a very unflattering shade of furious red, but self-consciousness slips through his fingers.
“If he decides to, I don’t believe I have a choice.” Elias’ lips twist in displeasure. He pauses, sighs, turning on his heel as he continues speaking. “If you’ll both excuse me.”
He leaves without another word, the door shutting behind him with a brusque click.
When Martin turns to look at the Distortion, it’s vanished, and so has the door to Jon’s office.