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Martin had been in the corridors for. A while. He didn’t know how long, he didn’t know how short, either- but he knew he and Tim needed to get out and help Jon. Even though Tim, conversely, knew they needed to get out and stop Jon before he did something stupid.
But still, the twisting mess of false starts and dead ends was loath to let them go. They hadn’t seen a single door since-
Wait.
Where was Tim?
Martin froze and turned around. Nobody there. The topography of the hallways didn’t even have the decency to change. However he turned his head, left, right, back to where he started, the corridors were the same and Tim wasn’t there.
“Tim?!” He called. “TIM!”
Martin turned and began running. If it didn’t matter what direction he went, it stood to reason it was better to go in that direction really quickly , right? That tracked.
“TIM! ANYONE?!”
He tripped, falling onto the shag carpeting. Somehow, under the flat surface, the angles changed from moment to moment, always wrong. Martin quickly stood up in revulsion and continued running.”TIIIIM!”
He didn’t know how long it was between that moment and the moment he saw the door. It was yellow, like the one they’d taken to get in, nestled in between physically impossible formations of ceilings and mirrors.
Martin cast a final glance around- still no Tim- and ran towards it. Tim had surely seen the same door. He was probably with Jon somewhere already!
He opened the door and
he was somewhere else.
More specifically, he was in some kind of… nurse’s office? Medical bay? The walls were metal, the floor was metal, and there were medical instruments scattered around. Martin stepped back, trying to get his bearings. His back hit metal. Oh god, the door had already disappeared.
It was only then that he noticed the man.
He would have been considered mostly normal-looking, and Martin would have been happy that he’d finally found another person, if it wasn’t for the maniacal gleam in his eyes and the weird, anachronistic, sort of steampunk-ish clothing he was wearing.
And the hat.
It wasn’t that bad of a hat, technically. It had a little spike on it.
But it was a weird hat.
"Hm? A drop-in! Terribly sorry, but I only take patients by app-"
“What?!” Martin yelped. “Who are you?! Where am I?!”
"Good question! I am Baron Marius Von Raum! Illustriously decorated and completely legitimate medical doctor! But for your outer two questions…"
He pulled out a violin from- where, exactly?
"Well, LIKE WHISKEY LACED W-”
He was interrupted in his sudden recital by a bullet to the head. Martin cringed away, flattening himself against the metal wall as the man slumped forward and fell, face-first, onto the floor.
When he gathered his wits enough to look back up, there was someone standing on the far side of the room. Someone with a smoking gun.
Someone with a familiar face.
“That should shut him up for the next few minutes.” The man grinned rakishly.
Martin blinked.
“...Jon?”
" Jon? I haven't been called that in… some indeterminable long amount of time. Not sure if I like it! No, you're looking at Jonny D'ville, the captain of the starship Aurora, which-"
"First mate." Croaked the corpse on the ground. Wait, how was he not dead-
"As I was saying , the captain of the ship you have somehow managed to stow away on. And you are…" He gestured to Martin with the gun. Martin flinched bodily, trying even harder to press himself against the wall.
“Oh! Uh. Martin. Sorry, I thought you were someone else, uh- please don’t wave that gun at me? Um, please?”
The man on the ground scooted to the left, standing up and wiping away the congealing blood on his conspicuously un-shot forehead.
"Is this one of your stowaways, Jonny? Because I remember someone getting all pissy when I invited Lyf over-"
"Hm. Actually, he might be." The man with the violin, the one that had just survived a shot to the head- yes, Martin was still hung up on that- seemed surprised by the serious reply.
"Oh?"
"I… no, forget it, definitely not. Might as well get rid of him or something." He shrugged, an uncomfortable expression crossing his face as he twirled his gun.
Martin stared.
Was this how he died? Shot by immortal steampunk cosplayers?
“Well, we can do all that later. Introductions first,
not
in song because you’re the only one who thinks it sounds good when you sing and play the violin at the same time,
Marius.”
The other man scoffed.
“
You
do it, then.”
“Gladly! You see, as I’ve begun
twice
now, you’ve somehow managed to stow away on the Aurora, a starship populated by an
illustrious
band of semi-mechanical space pirates and miscellaneous vagabonds.” He punctuated the words with a theatrical flourish. “You also saw we can’t die- not the
best
way to find that out, I’ve gotten some hilarious reactions out of people by pretending to die in interesting ways- but we all
have
died. At some point in time.”
“You… died?” Martin repeated carefully.
“Oh, it’s a whole sordid story.” He said, looking at Martin with a smile that quickly devolved into an unreadable expression. “... I, personally, died of a broken heart."
It felt like there was a greater meaning to the words than anything either of them could realize.
Then, as quickly as the moment began, it was shattered.
“It’s hilarious, really, when you get into it. Lots of good one-liners from yours truly, if you’ll just give me a moment to make them up.”
In that moment, he’d looked so much like Jon that Martin had to remember to breathe. But a second passed and it was gone.
“Now, Martin, was it? How did you get here?”
"I-"
But he said Martin’s name the same way. Like Mahtin. His voice vaccilated between unrecognisable and almost, so, so close to familiarity, but Martin could never in a million years scrub from his mind the way Jon said his name.
"I don't know." He ended up saying.
Was this all some strange hallucination? Was Martin still in those eternally twisting corridors?
But, if he was, where was Tim ?
As this thought crossed his mind, somebody appeared from around the bend.
“Nastya! Going somewhere?” His captor/tour guide hailed her.
“Tim is somewhere on this side of the ship.” The woman informed them with barely restrained rage and a Russian accent. “He has interrupted critical hardware updates for the last time. ”
“Ooh! Manhunt!” Said Jon… Jonny? Jonny. “I’m sure you won’t mind if I join in.”
“Feel free.” She hefted up a sparking cross-section of cables like it was a gun. The other man- Marius, it seemed- also moved over to her.
“Wait, Tim’s here? You know Tim?” Martin interjected.
“
You
know Tim?” Jonny raised his eyebrows, giving him yet another once-over. “Really?”
They blinked at each other. Martin got the sudden creeping feeling that there had just been some critical misunderstanding.
The Russian woman shoved past, still dragging the cables.
Just like that, the moment ended, and he had no time to protest before he was taken by the arm and dragged along with the procession.
They made their way through hallways without windows and with windows both. Martin lagged behind as a window approached, staring wide-eyed at the stars. The stars in every direction, because they were actually in space.
His stomach lurched. Managing to tear his eyes away from the sight, he broke into a jog to catch up with the rest.
They may have been dangerous, but if Tim was here they were his only chance of finding him and getting out alive.
Lights on the wall began blinking as they continued.
"There's someone with him. Human." The woman said.
"Really? How did another human manage to get in here?"
"You, uh- you're not human?" Martin questioned carefully, struggling to keep up with the other three. Jonny laughed.
"You saw Marius get up after I shot him, didn't you? How many humans do you know that can do that? Not to mention my whole story about my own death. I mean, really."
"Ahaha. Right. Sorry. Um, look, I think we might have misunderstood each other, about me knowing, uh, Tim, and-"
The space pirates continued marching on. They set a brisk pace, forcing Martin to almost jog.
"Say, have you seen the Toy Soldier anywhere?" Jonny asked the woman. "If you're gathering forces, it might even be helpful enough to balance out having to deal with it."
"Not even close.”
“Oh, I ordered it to eat Ashes’ hat the other day. It’s probably still out of order.” Said Marius.
They walked for another moment.
“Oh, ugh, now Marius’s gotten that song stuck in my head.” Jonny groaned as the other let out a delighted cackle.
And then he started singing.
The fire’s burning lower and the stars are shining bright!
We’ve stories grim as pistol lead to tell to you tonight!
So grab yourself a mug of beer, gin or vodka, hold it near
The book is lying open. There are tales to be told!
Marius yet again pulled out a violin.
“C’mon, Nastya, I know you’ve got your viola in there somewhere!” Jonny cried, still tapping the beat. Nastya gave him a pointed look, and hefted up the mass of cables.
“I don’t have my hands free.”
Jonny continued tapping.
She sighed, moving the cables over her shoulder and pulling out a viola. Seriously, what was it with concealed string instruments? Next, Jonny would be grabbing a double bass from inside his vest.
So mind your manners, sonny Jim, we’ve seen beyond the stars!
And if you care to prove it we can show you all the scars!
We know the void is screaming mad, no happy endings out there, lad
The book is lying open. There are tales to be told!
Martin felt himself falling behind as the trio half-walked, half-jogged and another half-performed on. What did he think he was doing? He didn’t even know if his Tim was the same Tim they were talking about, or if he was the human they’d mentioned. He didn’t know if they would kill him! And he’d gotten a stitch three minutes ago but kept walking because he didn’t want to disturb the others. He slowed down to a walk, breathing deeply.
“Jonny. You’ve lost your stowaway.” Informed Nastya, putting her viola back wherever it had come from.
He turned around to see Martin, still red-faced but only half from exertion.
“Huh? Oh, right.
Humans.
” Jonny said derisively. “With your whole…
sweating,
and getting stitches and things. Eugh.”
Okay, there was no way this man wasn’t somehow related to Jon. Nobody but Jonathan Sims could possibly manage that specific tone of
look at Martin, being irredeemably awful and a nuisance as usual
. It was uncanny, and also very hurtful.
Luckily, they seemed to be at their destination.
Nastya kicked the door in.
“GUNPOWDER TIM, SURRENDER AND/OR FACE A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH!”
Half the room was filled with weapons. Cannons, machine guns, he was pretty sure those were rocket launchers, and some threatening-looking weapons whose purposes Martin couldn’t even begin to guess at.
A man stood atop it, laughing maniacally. In his hand, a conflagration of ropes and pulleys led to seemingly each and every trigger or launch button in the room.
And there, just on the side away from the giant pile of guns, there he was. Tim Stoker, looking relatively undamaged as he locked eyes with Martin.
" Tim?!"
His hair was smoking slightly, his shirt was buttoned wrong, and he was grinning from ear to ear.
"Oh, hi , Martin! You won't believe the day I just had."
“I- er- okay?”
Martin managed to jog towards him, being met in the middle by Tim’s markedly more exuberant stride.
“C’mon, let’s get out of here before the alcohol fumes get ignited. Tim said it’d probably take out half the walls!”
“Wait, what?” That was… What? And they’d just left the corridors fifteen minutes ago-
Before he could ruminate further, Tim- Tim Stoker , specifically- had already grabbed him by the hand and pulled him away from the room.
"Going so soon, Martin? At least stay for the fireworks! I've heard they- heurgk-"
Jonny's voice calling after him was cut short by the sound of someone choking on their own blood. And gunfire. Almost deafening gunfire.
Oh god, okay, he would be fine. That other man had survived being shot, Jonny would be fine. Even though it sounded so much like Jon bleeding out that Martin couldn't help but shudder.
Something exploded.
The first door they reached was already yellow wood. Tim glanced back to Martin to quirk an enquiring eyebrow, one Martin replied to with a dubiously steely look of determination. If they wanted to find Jon, they needed to return to the tunnels first. And to return to the tunnels… Even if Martin wanted very dearly to find out what the hell had just happened...
Tim squared his shoulders and turned the knob.