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An indeterminable, but comparatively small, amount of years into Jon’s tenure as a Mechanism, there was a moment of stillness between two destinations.
Jon had found a quiet spot in the Aurora, a storage bay with a large window.
In an almost meditative manner, he carefully unscrewed the cover plate of his harmonica and began to clean it.
The door opened. Perfectly equal steps heralded the entrance of the one not-person in a whole menagerie of people and/or not that he didn’t want to see right now.
“Guess who?!” A cheery and utterly inhuman voice called.
“Nikola.” He didn’t bother excising the malice from his voice.
The mannequin leaned over the crate beside him.
“Wrong! It’s Ashes. Or, no, it’s Brian! Or…” She trailed away, doing a single jazz hand for emphasis.
He palmed the small screws from the harmonica and put them in his pocket. Then dumped the reed plate into a small bowl of water and vinegar.
“You know, Archivist, we really should work on our stories.”
“Our what?”
“Our backstories! You haven’t been listening to the rest of the crew, have you! They’ve all got songs , ready to go… I thought we might like to join in!”
“There is no we. ”
Nikola attempted to leer non-threateningly.
“Come on, give me your best backstory!”
“I was grown in a test tube and fed only saltine crackers until the age of thirty-seven.” Judging it to be soaked enough, Jon took the reed plate out of the water and began to scrape at it with a small brush.
“Nope! Take another try!”
“I’m from… Space Texas.” Derision dripped from the words. Nikola tutted.
“Can you even
do
an American accent, Archivist? I don’t think so! Try again!”
“I have time to workshop it.” He bit out. She just laughed. “And I’m
no longer the Archivist.
”
“Oh, yes, yes. How nice for you! What should I call you, then? Just Jonathan?”
“I’d rather you left me alone.” But he didn’t move from his spot, just continued watching the stars spin as they ripped through the time-space continuum like a flaming knife through wet tissue paper. His half-cleaned harmonica lay forgotten in his lap.
“But the others think I’m annoooooyiiiiing!” She leaned backwards over the crate, falling to the ground with a heavy thunk.
“Brian’s switched his morality back on. You can bother him.”
It was strange how quickly he’d acclimated. The Mechanisms- the other Mechanisms, technically, because he himself was one- were a singularly violent motley crew of people Jon would have normally been able to terminally piss off within five seconds of meeting him.
Well, he kind of had done that. They’d killed him, he’d gotten better, and then they were somehow so absolutely flabbergasted at the idea that that meant they didn’t want to be friends with him that Raphaella had just come out and suggested Jon kill her.
“ Just to get a feel for it.”
He stared at the winged woman.
"You…want me to kill you?"
"Well, since you're being so weird about it, it might help!"
Marius grinned and began chanting.
"Kill her, kill her, kill her," Why had Jon ever thought that man was anything less than completely unhinged? “Kill her, kill her, kill her, kill her,”
Ashes quickly joined in. Because of course they did.
"Kill her, kill her, kill her, kill her,"
Before he could think better of it, he grabbed the first thing he could reach- some kind of heavy decorative vase- and swung it wildly at Raphaella’s head.
She splattered.
Marius and Ashes erupted into cheers. Even Nastya clapped politely while the concave remnants of Raphaella’s head went fwomp and returned to their original shape.
And quietly enough so it wouldn’t be heard over the noise, Jon laughed. Just for a moment. Just for that one second, standing triumphant as the blood dripped down his face.
“That was my favourite vase,” Brian said dejectedly.
He was brought back to the present by Nikola walking away, that stupid new soldier’s uniform she’d pilfered from some battlefield or other clinking lightly. Finally bored of him, it seemed.
Jon sighed and let his head rest against the cold metal. It’d be months yet before they reached another planet. Perhaps years.
What would he be like, then?
Revived without the Beholding in his head, he’d been left to flounder. And he wasn’t stupid enough to believe that the Aurora was in any capacity filled with well-adjusted, sensible crewmates.
He returned to his cleaning, finishing the scraping part and carefully wiping at the harmonica with a clean rag.
At some point, he would have to take a page from the other Mechanisms’ books and throw Nikola Orsinov out an airlock. Preferably some time soon.
Well, he could worry about all that later.