Chapter Text
Lucas’ heart rate sped up as he glanced as the clock for about the fifth time in the past minute. He shouldn’t be scared, but it was hard to be calm when his entire career and his life's work was riding on the presentation that he was set to give in a few minutes.
He’d been preparing for days, gathering all the notes and information that he’d compiled over the past several years. If mirrors could wear out, the lopsided one nailed to the wall across from him most likely would be from the number of times he’d practiced in front of it.
Lucas edged around the mess at the back of the room that was hidden behind the large chalkboard which separated the room into halves. He’d never really been the organized sort, and, when he really got absorbed in his work, it could be weeks before he finally got around to rearranging everything into more functional positions. It was a miracle that he’d been able to clean up at least the front of the room in time.
He peered through the small gap between the chalkboard and the wall, admiring the work he’d done. When the museum had been kind enough to give him use of the boiler room, it had been a mess of discarded cardboard and various museum exhibits that no longer held the wonder they must have once possessed.
It was an awkward transition between the back and the front. The chalkboard swiveled, and the bolts on either end of the rotating board were just loose enough to make it inconvenient. It never quite faced one way, and, whenever Lucas tried to write on it, he had to hold it still else the board shifted away from him.
Part of the world map that he’d drawn was smudged, so he tilted it forward just slightly so that he could reach the bottom edge of Greenland without messing up the rest of the map. Just as he applied the finishing touches, a canister fell from the pneumatic tube, and he flinched, pulling back his hand quickly so that the chalk didn’t add any extra marks to the board.
He let go of the board and edged back to the other side of the room, extracting the canister and reading its contents quickly. It was a notification, an hour late, informing him that his appointment had been moved forward by...precisely one hour. He was about to reach for the phone when another canister descended from the unforgiving heavens.
“Dear Lucas Wahl, due to your absence, we regret to inform you that your appointment has been cancelled,” he read aloud, his stomach dropping.
Part of him understood fully what had just happened, that the business tycoons think he’s obsessed with what’s clearly a myth, but the other part of him was in full on denial. Quickly, he gathered up the maps that he’d intended to use during the presentation and ran out into the hallway.
The pomp men in fancy business suits scattered the second they saw him. Were the circumstances any different, Lucas might have found the whole ordeal hilarious, but at the moment it was little more than an insult. Doors slammed around him as he rushed through the hall, trying to catch at least one of them.
“There’s been a mistake,” he yelled, pounding on one of the doors with his spare hand. “I only just got the announcement!” He could feel the rolled up maps crinkling under his arm and he loosened his grip on them, only to have a few fall to the floor.
“I have further proof that Atlantis exists!” he said, trying another door when he noticed that one of the tycoons hadn’t managed to get into one of the surrounding rooms in time and was trying, in vain, to hide behind a nearly leafless potted plant.
“Please!” Lucas shouted, running up to him and pushing aside the few leaves that covered his face. “The Shepard’s Journal, it’s in Iceland!”
The man gave him a queer look before bolting for the door. For someone who looked like he hadn’t worked a day in his life, he ran really fast.
Lucas chased after him, maps scattering across the ground as he burst out of the front entrance just in time to see the man jumping into a taxi.
“Please, sir,” Lucas said, gasping for breath as he pushed aside the curtains that covered the passenger side window. “I’ve really found it this time.”
The man almost looked constipated, but he didn’t tell the driver to leave just yet. It’s a stroke of luck, Lucas decided.
“The route to Atlantis I mentioned last year,” he continued, unrolling one of the maps and showing it to the man, hoping that it was something relevant, “it can be found. I just need to get the Shepard’s Journal from Iceland—the translation was wrong, it isn't Ireland—and it’ll lead us straight to it!”
The man sighed. It was negative and paternal, which was an undeniable ‘no’. Lucas' stomach dropped with his hopes.“I’m sorry, Wahl,” he said, “but we simply don’t have the money to fund a trip to send you to Iceland.”
That was a lie and they both new it, but by the time Lucas managed to pick up his sinking heart and strengthen his resolve, the taxi had already begun to drive away.
“Wait!” he called after it, running as fast as he could to keep pace. The man had rolled up his window, so Lucas took the opportunity to press a map against it. “Once I get the journal, there’s a one hundred percent chance that I can find Atlantis. I swear it’s not a myth!”
There was no response from behind the curtains, so Lucas took a leap of faith and tried the windshield. “Please!” he yelled over the thrum of the engine and the clattering of the wheels over the concrete. “Please just listen to me!”
Startled, the driver pulled the car to a stop, effectively throwing Lucas off. He fell to the ground, his maps scattered around him.
The man rolled down his window, slowly for effect. “The answer is no.”
“I’ll quit?” Lucas tried.
“Then quit,” the man said with a sneer before the car drove away, the man’s fat head no longer poking out of the window.
Grandpa would be so disappointed.
--
By the time Lucas reached his apartment, it had started raining. He'd been unfortunate enough to forget his umbrella at the library, so he was soaked to the core, perfectly representative of the day's experiences.
It took him a while to figure out how exactly the key fit into the door. It had been weeks since he'd been in his apartment last, and since he practically lived in the museum's boiler room, he'd never really gotten around to making it feel like home. The blank walls and simplistic furniture were almost foreign to him.
Lucas hung up his dripping trench coat and progressed to the kitchen. What he really wanted to do was binge on something. Anything. Though, preferably, food, if anything was still good.
He opened the bread drawer and squinted at the roll of moldy bread. The unmaintained icebox had melted into a puddle of water and a variety of spoiled fruits scented the kitchen with something foul. Perhaps it would have been better if he'd bought food before he'd come home. He walked to the small living room with the intent of sitting down and sighing with emphasis, when he was stopped by a strange sight.
There was someone in his chair. Someone that he definitely Did Not Know. Startled, he took a few steps backward, his back pressing against the wall as he tried desperately to remember if he'd somehow entered the wrong apartment. As his hands searched the area for something he could use to defend himself with, he rifled through what he knew. For instance, his keys worked at the door, and all the little landmarks were familiar: the small nick on the wall, the odd stain on the ceiling left by the room's form tenant, and the scratch on the countertop left by a series of bad days.
His hands closed around something round, a wooden stick, and he brought it up in front of him defensively. It wasn't as if he actually knew how to use it, but it was fun to pretend.
"Who are you?" Lucas asked, gulping. It was hard to sound menacing when your voice shook.
The person, a woman, stopped examining the wall across from her and fixed Lucas with a authoritative look, her coat falling from her shoulders as she stood up. She had a knowing face and rather intimidating eyebrows. "My name is Nora," she said, the corners of her mouth turning up slightly. "I know someone who is very interested in your work."