Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Ok, so what am I supposed to be looking for here?” Will asked Jack Crawford, his immediate superior in the department. Near him Beverly Katz is doing a faux dive in preparation for her next job. Beverly insists that the faux dives help clear her brain and makes it easier to concentrate. The two times Will tried faux diving to lessen the stress that seemed to have taken up permanent residence just behind his left eyeball, he ended up having to reboot his whole biometavel system. So, he told everyone, including himself, that he can do quite well without those faux dives that felt so much like his brain in the midst of a freefall.

“He is a suspect in a case that I am doing as a favour to the present DA. His involvement is circumstantial at best, but when they tried to do a simple dive into his mnemonic cell plate, they found that they could not circumvent any of the firewalls. That set off enough alarms for the DA to ask for our help,” Jack offered as he watched Will go through the personal file, still paper and plastic and prone to disintegrate easily.

Will rubbed at his eye, a small clenching and unclenching of the muscle there giving off an uneven heat as his head seemed to thump in a slight beat. The file had been big, with reports going back to Lecter’s own country and the years before he made his escape to USA. He had thrived in USA, with a successful practise currently engaging all his walking moments. The case that Jack had alluded to was a murder, where there had been no suspects. Lecter had been the last person to see them alive.

Lecter was interesting in paper, the heft of his success coming through clear and loud in those jotted down words. He was an orphan without any living family members, and circulated in the high society both on the strength of his money, inherited from an uncle many years ago, and a penchant for lucky stock purchases. Lecter was a rich man, and there was nothing to make him go after the victim. The case had been important because there had been some particularities that was previously noticed in three other murders prior to that one. If they are in any way connected, then there is a serial killer at work in their city.

Will went through the file again, this time the digital one. The information was the same, with some parts highlighted as of seemingly import in the present case. Will could find no such standout moments or reasons as to make Lecter any more remarkable in any way.

Jack had informed Will that Lecter would be coming to their department within the hour and for Will to make preparations to do his meticulous dive. Will excelled at rerouting sync connections in an individual’s mnemonic cell plate to unearth dataplaque shields. In the brain, everything was data, data that could not be exactly erased, even though some data degraded over time owing to the level of biometavel reconstruction an individual had gone through, that in turn was dependent on the age and intelligence of the said individual.

Lecter was a design 1 biometavel construction, which in layman terms meant that his brain was lent extra working space and data storing options, but no adjustments were made enhance performance and the like. Design 1 biometavel constructs were usually reserved for people who could be termed as ‘genius’ among the general populace. That Lecter had them made to his own specifications spoke of things more than a genius. A man such as him being a murdered was not that out of the ordinary, but a man such as Lecter being so foolish as to get caught was, according to Will, enough proof that he did not kill the latest victim.

“What about him exactly is making you so sure that Lecter is not a killer?” Jack asked Will as they waited in the guest room for Lecter to be shown in a few minutes. Will gave his a side glance, in understanding of Jack’s understanding of his opinion.

“Well, it’s not like there is any particular reason for him to be. Maybe it is just a simple equipment glitch that made it hard for them to dive. He did get his mnemonic cell plate in a different country,” Will tried to explain.

“How the hell are you not being a cynic about him? That is half your personality when you meet someone for the first time,” Jack said in an incredulous voice, his face on the glass door to which a cleanly shaven man in a n expensive suit was being escorted by Price.

“Oh maybe he is just that good looking that all of my instinctual responses have been overridden by lust,” Will answered mulishly, aware that Jack knows that Will has yet to see the man even in a facial reconstructed photo identity.

Before Jack could bark appropriately at that, Price pushed his head into the room through the partially open door before pulling it back completely to let Hannibal Lecter in. Will had to take a big swallow to stop the words from coming out that wanted to proclaim Lecter as the most beautiful man he had seen in years. Jack made quick introduction and was curt enough for Will not having to make any contributions on his own. Hannibal Lecter had very arresting eyes and a mouth that seemed to be in a smirk forever, except when his eyes landed on Will, when the smirk went wider into a more genuine smile.

All four stepped into the diving room, while Lecter continued to be charming to which Will responded in his usual grunts and non committal hums. The dive room had four ports, two points to each port. Will and Hannibal selected one of the middle one and after the necessary instructions had been imparted to both for the sake of protocol, everyone stepped out of the room to let them have their quite. Will closed his eyes first and Hannibal followed seconds later. A quite whirr went through the shared port and both were in deep dive. Jack, Price and Katz looked on at Will weave his magic on the screens.

Chapter Text

The first thing that Will is always subjected to in a new dive is the medley of smell that suffuses through the memories like an enveloping cloud. Some have such a clear sense of smell related to their memories that they hold like coloured bars as he passes through. Will merely gets a sense of the smell, visually able to ascertain its existence, and Will couldn’t be more grateful. Will found that some people carry this vapid fog like smell, of the memories of death that seem to hold a sway over their emotional reaction even, in almost direct co-relation to the fear they feel towards death.

Hannibal Lecter smells nice, each of the colours that Will passes through some mixture of pastel and smell mild in it’s profusions. Will immediately made out that Hannibal had not precisely locked away his memories, but had stored them in different corners of his mnemonic device. It was a theoretically impossible thing as memories, while being data, was not that easy to be destructured to be placed in nooks and crannies. That in fact not only made memories harder to access but put a lot of strain on the brain itself to keep all the parts of a single memory intact that way.

There were some dataplaques placed in data routes so that people would go for them, convinced that they are hiding something, but there was nothing to hide there. The dataplaque essentially opened out of the mnemonic cell plate, thereby blocking further invasion. Data inside the mnemonic cell plate and the brain differed in the way they transmuted. While Will was able to discern that Hannibal did not have any hidden data anywhere, he could not make out as to why Hannibal would increase his brain exhaust by storing his data in multiple holes, holes that Hannibal had presumably put there himself as per his specification.

Unable to find anything pertinent to the case for which Will had initiated the dive, he began to withdrew, closing the routes that were closed before he had barged in. That is until he got to a chamber made of pure data, which he had no memory of entering himself nor of seeing in his previous sweep.

“It is my mind palace Will. I am not sure how you got in, but you won’t be leaving anytime soon,” said Hannibal Lecter’s voice reverberated through the data chamber.

“I am alive being Hannibal, you cannot keep my conscience on hold like this. Also, they will know as soon as I don’t come up that something is wrong,” Will replied, conviction thrumming his vocal notes that flew across the data chamber.

“Who said you won’t be coming up?” Hannibal said with a laugh in his voice now.

“What do you mean?” Will asked astonished.

“Open your eyes Will, see what you can,” Hannibal advised, his humour still coming across.

Will opened his eyes and gave a huge gasp that never left his mouth at all. He is still sitting in the guest room with Jack and Hannibal sitting before him with Price hovering around them, pulling at Hannibal’s cuff to get a blood sample prior to the dive. Will attempts to make a noise, to let Jack know that something is not right, when he feels his mouth move and sounds come out, but those are not words that he thought or planned. The other, the outer Will was talking nicely with Hannibal, so nicely that Jack was peering at him in hidden astonishment.

“No! What did you do? You cannot hijack my body Lecter, you cannot,” Will screamed loudly.

“But I haven’t done that either Will. I have done nothing. It is you who stepped into places you should not have and now you are stuck. Not even I can help you there, unless you can do something to help yourself,” Lecter explained calmly.

Will turned to the walls of the data chamber and turned to see what the data was. It was a string of number, and from what Will could read off it, some hundred place behind the pi. It was pure data, data that cannot be crossed, data that Hannibal Lecter had brought into being like real existence. This was an entirely new dimension where Lecter was using the space and the availability of a physical hiding place to hide not only memories of himself, but others as well.

Will opened his eyes again and saw Price leaning over his face as he attached the port locks to make the dove possible. Will saw himself making the dive and bypassing Hannibal’s flimsy outer security. Will saw the other Will go through the data routes and coming to the same conclusion and then Will was back in the data chamber again while Hannibal explained how he would not be leaving his so called mind palace again. Will had already heard all of that, but he could not change his response as he uttered the same words again.

Will opened his eyes again and there he was back again in the room with Jack and Lecter and Price as Price took blood samples from Lecter prior to the dive. Will tried screaming out something but things proved as ineffectual as if he were screaming at a hold in the world. And thus began the cycle. Will would be aware each time he opened his eyes and saw the here in the same room again. Hannibal too kept to his script except that he started to sound bewildered and panicky some cycles after. The words were the same, the responses were the same, but both were seemingly stuck in the never-ending dive.

Will tried to acknowledge the Hannibal he had heard in his dive but was of no use. He just continued sounding panicky and more and more scared while his voice went squeakier. The data chamber was running at full speed, the numbers flashing as quick as light perhaps, no longer discernible as separate digits, but only thick lines visible now. The room went brighter and darker and then with a resounding boom everything broke. Will pulled in a breath to scream and next thing he knows, Price is jumping back with the syringe in his hand while Hannibal sits looking aghast at Will. Jack is on his feet asking Will repeatedly what the matter is while Will can only stare at Hannibal without blinking as Hannibal stared back with the same intensity.

Will turned to Jack, said out aloud that he won’t be diving that day and after pulling a still shell shocked Hannibal after him to Jack’s loud chagrin, gave him a hard and strong hug. That had been too weird for words.