Chapter Text
Martin Sims was an unremarkable man. Or at least, he would have been, if he hadn’t been born a mutant.
His birth had been peculiar, to say the least; his parents were perfectly normal, with no unidentified organs, bipedalism, or external skin, and no family history of any oddities. But however alien he seemed, Martin was, of course, human, so the doctors had written off his curious anatomy as a series of congenital birth defects and told his parents to stop smoking.
There was not much to say of his childhood, beyond the mockery of his peers. It was only to be expected, for though his parents made him cover the unsightly spherical tumors embedded within his skull, Martin refused to use the cognitosensors in his psychic glands to sense his environment, and was constantly disoriented as a result. His teachers tried to correct his defiance, and when he complained that he didn’t understand what they wanted from him, they sent him home and told him to come back when he was ready to learn.
Martin didn’t want to be different. He was convinced that he was simply doing something wrong, and as soon as he figured out what it was, he’d be able to fit in. But no matter what he tried, his existence was always incorrect somehow, and his attempts at conformity only made the derision worse. Even his own father couldn’t stand him, and he left when Martin was barely 8λ cycles, which earned him the blame of his mother.
Despite his troubled beginning, Martin managed to overcome it to the best of his ability. He no longer flinched at the curious bioscans of passers-by, or lamented always having to cover his mutated tissues in psycho-resistant cloth (even as the heat made him dizzy). He even tolerated a revolutionary surgical procedure that could give him the abdominal tentacles he’d been born without. His body rejected the limbs, but he still paid for them with his own money.
Eventually, the sheer abnormality of his existence earned him some ill-fated notoriety. It was not exactly new to Martin, just on a more public scale - and yet he was still unprepared. Some insisted he was a divine being. Others declared he should be locked away. Others still wanted to control him, to study him, in a lab or on suburban streets. It didn’t seem to occur to any of them that he was as human as they were.
In hindsight, it was inevitable that he’d snap one day.
The shame of knowing his own face was under every headline, every news site, every trending page, was unbearable. If only he’d grinned and bore it, like he was supposed to, like he’d done every day of his goddamn life up until this point, he wouldn’t be dealing with the endless rubber-neckers crowding his inbox and his front yard. But no, he just had to let that one ignorant twit get under his skin, and his single lapse of composure had been recorded and shared everywhere. It no longer mattered whether the onlookers were well-meaning or not, Martin only wanted them to leave him alone.
And, contrary to his most grounded predictions, this wish was granted.
On a bleak day, when the annual noxious gas storms blotted out all seven suns, on a day when no good news could be expected, Martin had a visitor. He didn’t quite remember inviting him in; he couldn’t have, for all visitors were intruders to him now. Nevertheless, he was in Martin’s home, and it was a silly thought to have, but it was as if he always had been.
Mr. Lukas, as he introduced himself, was the son of a top investor and the owner of Tundra Editorial, a subsidiary of Rusty Quill. The strange thing was that, despite Martin having worked as an editor in this district for most of his adult life, he had never once heard the name Lukas or learned of his company. He wasn’t even aware that RQ had any subsidiaries, and he had even worked for them, once.
That was the miracle, Mr. Lukas said. He was rich, he had a successful business, and he had achieved all of it without being subjected to the public eye. He didn’t even advertise.
Martin was in disbelief. How could someone become a millionaire without even trying? The man had to be lying. But it was all true, Mr. Lukas said. He simply had a knack for knowing what people wanted before they did.
Then he offered Martin a job.
“I am aware that you have suffered from unwanted recognition due to your… condition,” Mr. Lukas ventured. Martin scowled out of habit, but he went on. “I believe I can offer you a unique opportunity. After all, if my company is unknown even to local industry professionals, if no one in the world knows my name, what of my lowly employees? Who’s to say you wouldn’t just… fade into the background? Work under me, and soon, no one will remember you.”
Martin was intrigued, despite himself, but was still far too cynical to assume Mr. Lukas had no ulterior motives. “And what makes you think I’d even be a good fit? Why would you even want some fre- someone like me working for you ?”
Mr. Lukas shrugged. “Sometimes, it’s the least fortunate of us who have the most to offer. I think you have great potential, Mr. Sims.”
Then he was gone, as inexplicably as he’d been, and the space he had occupied looked as though it had always been empty.
Martin took off his mask and stared at the business card that had been left on the kitchen table. He was shocked to realize that he was actually reading it, not with his mind, he had never achieved so much as that, but instead with... his face. It felt right, somehow. Perhaps this Lukas fellow knew what he wanted after all.
No, no, that was crazy. He wasn’t about to accept a job offer from some creep whose “company” was probably just a cover for the mafia or something. Besides, Martin already had a job. He was perfectly happy working at minimum wage after 5ε cycles, where he had only a few rude coworkers and the translator read emails to him with just a trace of mockery.
… And happiness was relative, he reminded himself.
But as he lay awake that night after enduring another rambling lecture from his mother, Martin thought of how it felt to read the words “Tundra Editorial” and know that his understanding wasn’t an accident. He wished with all his heart that the card wasn’t sitting at the bottom of a trash bin, if only so that he could relive the feeling again…
One midnight dumpster dive later, Martin held the thing in his hands. It was crumpled and dirty, and smelled of his latest attempts at digesting ordinary food. But the words were still legible. On the bottom, which he knew was the bottom because of how the letters moved his gaze across and downwards, were a series of symbols that corresponded to the shapes of buttons on the telephone. If he entered them in that order, would he ring Mr. Lukas’ business number…?
He didn’t sleep the rest of the night, waiting til morning to test his theory.
Mr. Lukas didn't answer the phone, but Martin left a message saying that he accepted his offer. A week later, he received a letter detailing the specifics of his new position and welcoming him into the company. That was the extent of his orientation. It was preferable, honestly.
After getting settled in at Tundra Editorial, Martin came to know that many of his fears and doubts surrounding the new job were unfounded. Even better than that, he was pleasantly surprised by certain things: his employer was accommodating of his disabilities to a degree that was unprecedented, his job consisted of editing literature in a medium he could actually, inexplicably understand, and perhaps best of all, he was left alone while he did it. It wasn’t unusual for Martin to arrive at nine and leave at five without once encountering a single person. He could finally live without the questions, the sarcasm, the innocent, invasive perception.
Martin wasn’t just surviving, he was thriving.
That blessing followed him outside of work, too. Mr. Lukas had been right after all. Almost as soon as he’d taken the job, Martin noticed that strangers never approached him anymore, never stood outside their vehicles as he passed, or hid their children’s minds when they felt him. It was as if he didn’t exist. Even the online notifications had ceased. A spell had been cast over the whole world just for his sake, and it was wonderful.
Sometimes, though, Martin was aware that this solution was not perfect. He had never stopped being different, only better at hiding it. And hiding only exacerbated the loneliness. Mr. Lukas was kind to him, but he didn’t actually understand what it was like to be Martin. No one did. And he didn’t want them to, of course; gods knew he didn’t wish his life upon anyone else. But there was an undeniable isolation in being the only person to feel something, a void that he knew could never be filled. Martin had always tried to embrace it.
One afternoon, Mr. Lukas was in Martin's office. He was startled by his sudden presence, and even stood to greet him without remembering to put on his mask.
"Mr. Lukas! Um… I w-wasn't expecting you today. I haven't seen you since… you offered me a job…"
"I have important news to discuss with you today, Mr. Sims." He never called him Martin. It wasn't an official policy that everyone at Tundra was to be referred to by last name only, but Mr. Lukas spoke that way, and everyone else followed suit.
"I've decided to bring some new people onto our team. Here are the candidates who accepted my proposition for an interview - which was all of them, by the way," he said proudly, placing a list of names onto Martin's desk.
"You never gave me an interview," said Martin.
"I didn't need to. I already knew you'd be perfect for the job. It's that intuition of mine, you know, which is why I'm such a good businessman." He used a tentacle to nudge the paper closer to Martin.
"Anyway, I want you to take a look at this today. See if any of them stick out to you, you know? I have a mind to give you some assistants - you're a hard-working man, but you could stand to delegate a few things, hm? Put that one-of-a-kind mind to only the most important tasks."
Martin wasn't sure if he should feel condescended to or not. He decided not, because he couldn't do much about it if he did.
Mr. Lukas continued. "And, not to brag, but I did include some blind folk on the list. You know, like you. It wasn't on purpose or anything - just sort of happened," he shrugged. "You won't ever have to interact with them in person, to state the obvious, but I think it gives a sort of synergy to have similar people working together."
Martin was not actually blind - he could see, in a certain sense, but it was a sense that no one had except for him, so he didn't say anything.
"Yeah, I suppose."
"Anyway, good talk. Hope to hear from you about this by the end of the day," said Mr. Lukas, and vanished so quickly Martin wondered if he had imagined him and his entire job had been a dream.
He reached down and touched his mask, still sitting on the desk, and flushed, realizing the upper half of his face had been bare for their entire conversation. He would have noticed had he thought to open the membranes closed around the accursed growths inside his skull, but they were squeezed shut out of habit... He was glad Mr. Lukas hadn't said anything.
He sighed and stared at the symbols on the sheet of paper. It was a barebones list of names and qualifications without even pictures to accompany them. Martin didn't even want an assistant; they would only get in the way of his workflow… only find reasons to disrespect him…
But wait… they'd have to respect him, wouldn't they? He'd be their boss. He'd never been anyone's boss before. He could write them up if they acted less than professionally towards him, or - or fire them, even…
The prospect of having this tiny modicum of control excited Martin more than it would have anyone else. It was true - Mr. Lukas really knew what he wanted better than he did.
Martin scanned the list with his face. All of the candidates seemed highly qualified, with experience in the field, better degrees than Martin had, even nicer-sounding names… it would have been nigh impossible to make any cursory decision without meeting them first, save for what should have been an irrelevant factor -
One of the names awoke the most acute sense of deja vu Martin had ever experienced.
MR. BLACKWOOD