Chapter Text
This was, by any stretch of the imagination, a bad idea.
This is a bad idea, Jon told himself forcefully as he walked up the concrete steps from the underground into the midday sunshine of late spring. Admittedly it was the only idea he had, but that didn’t go a long way to making it good. Or sensible. Or practical. Its solitude coupled with the fact that Jon’s mounting restlessness had come to eclipse his paranoid neurosis had driven him to implement it just the same.
He was heading to a cafe near Chelsea. One that, until last summer, was frequented by archival assistant Sasha James on her daily commute. Thyme and Tide Brewery, it was called. Its ninety three Yelp reviews averaged four and a half stars, and made mention of its cozy atmosphere, allergen conscious bakery, and wide selection of herbal teas in addition to its excellent, fairly priced coffee, which came with unlimited refills with the purchase of a baked good. Free wifi was available to guests, and there was ample indoor and outdoor seating, which made it popular among students and aspiring novelists. The building boasted floor to ceiling windows, rustic inspired decor, and an impressive array of well cared for house plants.
Sasha was dead, now. She had been for seven months and change, though Jon had spent seven months ignorant of the fact. He was being framed for her murder, so it wasn’t a good look, skulking around her former haunts in broad daylight.
But, he reminded himself, they hadn’t been her former haunts for over half a year, now. The thing that had replaced her, that had plucked all trace and memory of her from the world and burrowed into the space she left like a parasitic worm, had never been to this cafe. But she had, and it had met her there, and now he was going to go see it, CC-TV be damned.
It was there waiting for him, sitting at a corner table by the window, pretending rather poorly to be a someone. Its spindly frame was tucked neatly into a wrought iron chair with a brightly patterned fabric cushion and it had its many jointed hands folded primly around an empty coffee cup as it gazed serenely out into the busy street. Its reflection, held in the floor to ceiling window to its left, broke apart in the late afternoon sun and melted into nonsense. Those wild, pale blonde curls seemed to writhe out of its head like a crown of deep sea tube worms.
Jon sat down across from it. He cleared his throat, and a silence stretched between them that seemed to bleed into their bustling surroundings like gore in open water.
Finally, after a few minutes passed at a glacial pace, it spoke, its voice a damp finger on the rim of a cut glass.
THERE IS A TAPE RECORDER IN YOUR POCKET.
“Yes,” said Jon, “I feel safer having them around.”
THAT IS STUPID.
“Yes, well,” Jon huffed, his eyes darting around their table in discomfort, “not any stupider than coming here to find you.
YES, the distortion said thoughtfully. It was very difficult for Jon to rest its eyes on. They seemed to slide off its slender frame and settle elsewhere independently of his intention. He found his gaze resting on its many reflections: in the window, the metal napkin holder between them, even in the polished floor. An inverted Michael even appeared in the concave surface of its tea spoon, resting neatly inside of its empty mug like a stage prop.
“I, uh,” Jon struggled, “I came here t-”
YOUR WILL IS YOU OWN, ARCHIVIST, it interrupted, AND NO CONCERN OF MINE.
“I came here for answers,” he said firmly.
YOU WON’T FIND ANY.
“No?” Jon laughed softly, leaning back in his chair with a weary sigh, “No. But I can ask anyway.”
IT IS YOUR NATURE TO ASK, ARCHIVIST, the distortion reassured, BUT IT IS NOT MINE TO ANSWER. STILL…
Finally, it turned its head, and Jon was met with several rows of teeth stretching into the distance of its smile. Its eyes burned brightly in all the corners of its face.
WE ARE HERE TOGETHER AS WE ARE, AND WE CANNOT GO AGAINST OUR NATURES, AS IT WERE.
It folded its hands primly beneath its chin. They did not fit together properly.
ASK YOUR QUESTIONS, it purred.
“Jurgen Leitner, he told me about these beings, these gods, that govern things like you. Monsters. He said you were an extension of their influence on us, like a limb reaching into our world,” Jon spoke hurriedly, aware that his window of opportunity was narrow.
AND NOW HE’S DEAD, said Michael coldly.
“Yes,” said Jon, “so he can’t tell me much more.”
YOU WOULD BE SURPRISED…
“Try me.”
I INTEND TO.
“Where,” Jon pressed on, trying to outrun the loop of wire he felt closing around his throat as he spoke, “do I fit into all of this?” He felt tears sting at his eyes and blinked them away forcefully. As he looked at Michael, it seemed to swim into sharper focus through the haze.
YOU ARE THE ARCHIVIST. YOU SERVE BEHOLDING.
“The force behind the Magnus Institute,” said Jon, trying to seem slightly less ignorant.
YES, said Michael, with deeply held disdain, THE EYE WATCHES. IT CATALOGUES. IT KNOWS. It clacked its fingers together as it spoke and they rang out with a throttled chime like rusted blades.
“And you s-”
WHAT YOU SAW, it interrupted testily, WHAT I CAUGHT YOU RUNNING OUT FROM BETWIXT THE JAWS OF, WAS THE NOT THEM. IT IS ITS NATURE TO CONCEAL, TO OBFUSCATE, TO BE UNLIKE THAT WHICH IT IS PERCEIVED TO BE.
“And Jane? Jane Prentiss?”
HER NATURE WAS HERS NO LONGER WHEN YOU MET HER. THE HIVE CONSUMES AND CORRUPTS FECUND FLESH FOR ITS PURPOSE.
“Which is… what? Breeding? Spreading?” Jon guessed.
DULL, BLIND WRITHING IN THE WARM, WET DARK, said Michael, an irritated rattle weaving through its words.
“So these… things, they --”
YOU HAVE REACHED THE THRESHOLD OF MY PATIENCE, ARCHIVIST, WOULD YOU CARE TO CROSS IT? Michael’s smile grew wider, splitting at the corners.
“You saved my life,” said Jon, deciding to toe it, “You gave me a door. An escape route.”
I THOUGHT I MIGHT WATCH YOU DIE
“You didn’t.”
NO
“So what happens now?”
NOW WE ARE FINISHED HERE, ARCHIVIST
“Maybe you are,” said Jon, setting his mouth into a hard line.
ARE YOU GOING TO DETAIN ME? It laughed, and halos spread over Jon’s vision like the beginnings of an ocular migraine.
“No,” said Jon cautiously, wincing at the well remembered pain in his gut from their last altercation.
THEN TAKE YOUR LEAVE WHILE I OFFER IT…
Jon sat staring at it for a moment longer before standing from the table with a disaffected grumble. He had no parting words for the thing, and didn’t waste his time crafting any. He turned to leave, cursing himself for indulging in what he had known would be a futile excursion. It had been needlessly dangerous and utterly fruitless to come so close to the Institute so soon after he’d fled from it. The fact that it had been there at all had been the kind of coincidence that borders on miraculous. Had it… the thought stopped him in his tracks, halfway to the door, had it been waiting for him?
There was nothing that Jon knew of which tied the distortion to Thyme & Tide Brewery, no more than it was tied to the flower shop across from Sasha’s old apartment or the tunnels under the Institute. How had he known it would be there? He had a list of places he suspected he might find it, but what were the chances it would be seated at the very first one on his list? Had it known that he would go looking for it? Had it planned on him coming? Was this its regular coffee stop on its way to whatever the hell it did with its time?
Jon spun on his heel to face the corner table they had been seated at, his head so abuzz with newly formed questions he thought his eyes might rattle out of their sockets to make room for them. There was a young couple seated there, each sitting behind their laptops with their left hands intertwined on the table between them. One was typing, the other was watching her adoringly, her own coursework ignored.
Jon stared for too long, trying and failing to relax his eyes in a way that might unveil whatever optical illusion was playing out before them. The scene did not change until both young women were staring daggers at the haggard stranger leering at them from across the room. Jon began to stammer through an apology but thought better of it fairly quickly. He turned again and made his way out the door, back into the spring sunshine, back towards the tube, back into his temporary safe house knowing no more than he had when he’d left.