Chapter Text
[Recorder clicks on; a soft whirring can be heard through the background of the statement]
[ARCHIVIST]
Hey everyone- uh, wait, I need to be more professional… what do I say. How do I do that. Uh, statement begins? …Yeah, that sounds fancy enough.
Statement of William Wisp, Head Archivist of the Prime Institute, on the new organization system here. Statement begins.
Oh, that’s so cool.
Um- so before this, we would just have people come in and write their scary stories on a piece of paper, because any technology just glitches out when we try to record it. Or at least, Ashe told me it would. But we finally figured out something that works better!
[…]
I’m doing jazz hands. Sarcastically.
The ‘something’ is this… contraption. It’s got way too many buttons and dials, the auto-transcription is terrible, and it takes up like a whole desk. Absolutely horrible design, even for a prototype, although I guess anything normal wouldn’t have worked. Vyncent’s been bragging nonstop about how he got around the issue, and I know a decent amount about tech from my ghost hunting phase, but at this point I’m pretty sure the words he’s saying aren’t even from this world. I can barely look inside the thing without getting a headache; I have no idea how he managed it. He did eventually show me which buttons to push, though, so… that’s a win, I guess.
There’s a little box I record the statements into, kinda like those old-fashioned tape recorders? Then it plugs into the big machine, and that processes the audio and sorts the statements. The default isn’t chronological order for some reason, you have to specify.
And… okay, exclusively audio recording is not a big improvement… honestly, I think the only thing this fixes is the handwriting problem? And the files just break if we try to transfer them. But it works. So now my job is to read the old statements out loud so they can be recorded, and conduct interviews with anyone that comes in to give one. Not what a Head Archivist is supposed to do. Whatever. I’m not bitter. It’s certainly better than all the filing Ashe had to do, too…
[……]
And there's the reason I actually accepted this job.
[Deep breath]
My friend Ashe Winters was Head Archivist before me, and about a week ago, he disappeared. The police have no idea why, or where to.
As the new Head, I have a lot more resources- things like newspaper access, camera feeds around town, and quite a bit of authority. I’m gonna do everything I can to find Ashe. And I’m gonna record it here, instead of to a YouTube channel like I used to. So if- if anyone is listening back to these, I guess?- that’s what you can expect, in addition to the normal statements.
Ashe got… weird, over the last few weeks- we all knew the job was messing with their head a little bit, but when your boss-slash-best-friend is warning you about imminent demons and carrying around a dark mysterious book all the time, that’s a lot more concerning...
And now he’s gone, and the only things that vaguely resemble clues are a newly red apartment door and a letter taped to the machine we’re using for statements.
I don’t know what to think about the door. And I couldn’t find the book Ashe was reading, although I do think someone that came in to give a statement left it here. But this letter…
[Paper slides out of an envelope]
First off, it’s almost completely in code. The first line- “Hey, Will”- is in normal Common, and the last one where they signed their name is too. But the rest is scrambled, and I know a lot about solving codes, but I haven’t been able to get anywhere on this one. I’ve spent the last few nights in my new office until midnight trying all the ciphers I know, and even brute-forcing the thing hasn’t worked at all!
[Sigh]
I have to figure it out. I didn’t believe Ashe at the time, but disappearing without a trace is sure a good way to get my attention… and if he was right, something big and very bad is coming. I hope he was wrong.
Uh, other than that, I’ve got Vyncent and Dakota- who are now the only Archival Assistants, now that I’ve been promoted- combing through the shelves for who could’ve given Ashe that book. There are a lot of statements, so it’s gonna take a while. Especially when I dunno how much work they’re actually doing. (Affectionate laugh) None of us are very good at staying on task, except Ashe- that’s why he was the one in charge. It’s gonna be hard for me to adjust to that, especially with the new system.
[…]
We have to find him. I promised Dakota because he almost quit this job, and I’m promising now, I am going to find Ashe even if it kills me.
[Machine clicks off]