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Hunch Curio didn’t know where he was.
That happened quite often to him, if he was being honest. It was part of the fun. Finding new parts of Elias Hodge’s brain. There were always new places to explore, if you knew how to look. Or if you had a bad enough memory. And Hunch Curio always knew where to look to find new experiences. And, well, he had been hit in the head a lot during fights. But, still. Hunch wasn’t unfamiliar with finding himself in new places. It was what he lived for. Novelty. New experiences. Something for him to explore, and sink his teeth into, and fight to understand. That was what he craved. Although, he had gotten himself into less scrapes with danger lately. More simple cases, so he could spend more time with the gang that had saved Elias. His- his friends, he supposed. But, still, Hunch still craved hunting for answers. And he was still used to the feeling of getting himself lost. But when he got himself lost, he always knew how he had gotten in the mess he’d put himself into.
Except, well, not this time. This time, Hunch Curio didn’t know how he had gotten where he was.
That was a lot rarer, when it came to things that Hunch was curious about. He often didn’t know where he was, or what he was doing, or why he was doing it, but he always knew how he had gotten there. And most times, it had been through a combination of too much coffee and a night of solving cases. But he hadn’t been outside, solving a case. He had been inside, solving a case. Very valiantly, he might add. The case of the itchy elbow was a treacherous one, but Hunch was working on it. Or he had been working on it, at least, until he had blinked- and suddenly he was no longer in his office at all. He could have fallen asleep, and been moved somewhere, he supposed, but he doubted it. It had felt like just a second had passed, and then he had just been- somewhere else.
Wherever he was. Which he still didn’t know.
He was already pacing the street he had ended up in, looking for clues as to where he ended up. Or how he ended up there. It was- well, it looked a lot like Elias’ brain, if Hunch was being honest. If he had been walking, and suddenly ended up on these dirty streets with fog and rain, he wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But he hadn’t just been walking. He had been- been transported here, somehow, and that made Hunch suspicious of everything around him. So even though, on the surface, wherever he was seemed like Elias’ brain, Hunch had to admit that there was something just slightly off about it. The streets were narrower. The few cars that lined the streets were more advanced than anything Hunch had ever seen. The streetlights looked different, too. Everything was similar to Elias Hodge’s brain, but not quite right.
And, perhaps most different of all, were the people.
“What are you doing out here all by yourself, handsome?” A voice asked from behind Hunch.
The words could have been Imelda’s. Or even Dan Fucks. But the voice- the voice was one that Hunch had never heard before. He turned around, and saw someone that he had never seen before, either. They were tall and lanky, and a dark sort of grey.
“Nothing,” Hunch said. “And you?”
“I’m looking for all things strange and unusual,” the person said. “And you, my friend, look rather strange and unusual. I’ve never seen you here before.”
“I’m good at hiding,” Hunch lied. “I’m Stacy. Stacy Fakename.”
“Stacy Fakename,” the person said, shaking their head. “That doesn’t sound like any name I’ve ever heard before.”
“That’s because I’m unique,” Hunch said, with a grin.
“That you are,” the person replied. “I’m Andi. Andi Tension.”
That just sealed the deal for Hunch. This wasn’t Elias’ brain, afterall. It was another brain, with another A. Tension. And probably another Conscience, and Fixation, and-
“You ever heard of Curiosity?” Hunch asked, on a whim. As most of the things he said were.
“Do you live under a rock?” Andi asked. “Of course I know Mayor Curiosity. Who doesn’t know the mayor?”
Hunch couldn’t hold back a smile, at that. Curiosity, as the mayor. How neat was that. “And where’s about that mayor’s office, then?”
“You don’t know where the mayor’s office is?” Andi asked, staring at Hunch. They titled their head. “Is your name really Stacy Fakename?”
“Gotta run!” Hunch called out, speeding away as fast as he could.
He, luckily, did manage to run away from Andi. He had always been fast- but he was also pretty sure that something else had caught their attention- ha- and that was what really had given Hunch such a clean getaway. He still didn’t know where he was going, since the whole city was new to him, and he wasn’t even sure who’s brain he was in. But he knew where he wanted to go. To the mayor’s office. Because if anyone could help him, it would be another Curiosity. Especially one prestigious enough to be the mayor . He just ran in one direction as fast as he could, trying to find his bearings. If this place was laid out anything like what Hunch was used to, the mayor’s office and town hall would be somewhere in the center of the city. At some point, he realised that even if the layout wasn’t exactly the same- Hunch still had intuition on the city. It was built to make sense, and it made sense to Hunch. So he got his bearings, headed in the direction that seemed to feel right, and-
“Welcome to the mayor’s office, how can I help you?” A tired looking man said, sitting at a secretary desk, asked.
“I need to talk to the mayor,” Hunch said, sounding as confident as he could muster. “Please.”
“Do you have an appointment?” He asked, as Hunch noticed the little plaque on his desk that said ‘Ezekiel Function’. “You need an appointment to speak to the mayor.”
“It’s important,” Hunch rushed out. “Just- check if they have a minute? Please?”
“Fine,” Ezekiel Function said, standing up begrudgingly. He was Executive Function. Ha! “Stay right there.”
Hunch, of course, followed right behind Ezekiel. What was he expecting? For Hunch to stay at his desk? Well, maybe if he had any interesting papers there- but no. Hunch wanted to meet the mayor.
“Mr. Mayor?” Ezekiel asked, knocking on the door. There was no answer. “Mr. Mayor?”
“Okay, screw it,” Hunch said, and he pushed back Ezekiel to open the door. And inside the mayor’s office was- Nobody. Absolutely nobody.
“Where’d he go?” Ezekiel cried out. “He hasn’t left his office since this morning!”
Hunch looked around. There were no windows in the office, just towers of drawers and mountains of files. “And you’re certain you didn’t see him leave?”
“I would have heard the door open,” Ezekiel promised. “And, besides, the mayor rarely leaves. I bring him lunch, and dinner, and have to practically drag him outside when it;s time to go home. So where did he go?”
“He just disappeared,” Hunch said, mostly to himself, as he walked around the office. “Disappeared one place, and reappeared another.”
“What are you talking about?” Ezekiel asked. Then he shook his head. “Oh, it doesn’t even matter what you’re talking about. There’s so much to do! The mayor has so many appointments, so many bills to sign, what are we supposed to do without the mayor? We have homework . Homework!”
“I think I know where the Mayor went,” Hunch said, slowly, as he stared at the panicking secretary.
“You do?” Ezekiel asked. “Did you have something to do with this? Give me the mayor back right now! We need our curiosity! What are we as a city supposed to do without curiosity-”
“Calm down,” Hunch said. He wasn’t often the one telling other people to calm down, but here he was. “I didn’t take him! But I think I know where he is.”
“Then where is he?” Ezekiel asked. “And how can we get him back?”
“I believe he’s in another brain,” Hunch said, slowly.
“Another brain? How preposterous,” Ezekiel said.
“I’d think so too,” Hunch said. “Except, well, I'm not from this brain. I think me and your mayor switched, somehow.”
“And how would you do that?” Ezekiel asked.
“I don’t know.” Hunch admitted. He didn’t like not knowing. But also, not knowing was what led him to being able to find things out, so he supposed it wasn’t so bad. “But I will find out. Because just like your mayor, I’m curiosity, too. Private detective Hunch Curio, at your service.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Ezekiel breathed out.
“Yes, yes,” Hunch said. “I’m on the case. I’ll go and figure out how to get your mayor back-”
“Oh, no, you can’t do that,” Ezekiel said, oddly enough blocking Hunch from the door. “There are far more important things for you to do than go and solve a mystery, no no. Sit down, sit down.”
“What?” Hunch asked, still trying to get to the door. “You don’t want your mayor back?”
“Oh, of course I want Mayor curiosity back,” Ezekiel said, slowly pushing Hunch towards the desk. “But until he can be found, you’re the next best thing.”
“I don’t know anything about this brain,” Hunch pointed out.
“Oh, there’s files for that!” Ezekiel cried out. “Files on top of files. Here, here, read. This is the brain of Riz Gukgak, detective extraordinaire. Goblin, rogue, investigator of all things at Aguefort-”
“Goblin?” Hunch asked, with wide eyes.
“You don’t have goblins where you come from, do you?” Ezekiel asked. “Well, no matter. I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Just- sit down, take some meetings, read the files. You’ll do just fine.”
Hunch sat down, and started looking at the files he’d been handed. They- they were interesting, okay? And finding more out about this brain could help him figure out a way to get home more than running around the streets lost would, anyway. Maybe there was something in the files that would explain why Hunch was here, and why their mayor was, potentially, in Elias’ brain. Hunch could think of a million other places that the Mayor could be. But this definitely seemed like the likely option. More likely than murder or a runaway mayor, at least. Especially when it seemed that this world that this new brain was in was full of magic . Magic could have done this, somehow. And magic- magic was so interesting. Hunch Curio came from a world of science, and yet- here the files were, talking about adventuring schools and wizards and whatever a ‘cleric’ was. Hunch hadn’t even noticed when Ezekiel had left, but he clearly must have, because there was a knock on the door, and Ezekiel’s voice filtering through the wood.
“You have an appointment, Mr. Mayor,” Ezekiel called out.
Mr. Mayor, Hunch thought. That was a title he could get used to hearing. “Come in!”
“Mayor Curio, this is the police chief,” Ezekiel said, as he came inside.
He led a tall, green woman behind him, in a police officer’s uniform, but one that looked different than the one’s that Hunch was used to. It was- sleeker. With less buttons. Odd.
“And Police Chief Session, this is Acting Mayor Curio,” Ezekiel continued, before seeing himself out.
“Police Chief Session,” Hunch mused. “What’s your first name, then?”
“Obelia,” the police chief grit out. “My friends call me Obie. You’re not a friend, though.”
“No, I suppose I’m not,” Hunch said, as he tapped his fingers on the table and thought. And thought. And- he snapped his fingers. She was Obsession. Of course . “So, what is this meeting supposed to be about?”
“We need to reduce crime,” Obelia Session said, flatly. “You are not doing enough to get rid of the rogue thoughts in this brain. And we should be doing more to deal with the crime in the outside world.”
“Right,” Hunch said, his fingers once again tapping out a smooth rhythm on the table. He had read about that. The missing teenagers. Their own babysitter. It really was an interesting mystery- “Yes. Yes, we’ll prioritise that right away.”
“Good,” Obelia said. “None of the homework or friendship getting in the way.”
“Wait,” Hunch said, quickly. “Homework is important, that was written down here somewhere. It teaches us more about magic, so we can learn what happened to Penny. And your- our- Riz’s friends are helpful with that, too.”
“Are they?” Obelia asked. “They seem more like distractions, to me.”
Hunch suddenly understood why Obsession wasn’t the mayor, here. That would be a lot. Though, the job of mayor was a lot, too.
“I promise, Riz is doing all he can to find Penny. Probably more than all he can,” Hunch leveled a hard stare at Obelia. “Okay?”
Obelia frowned at that, but- “Okay. Fine. I’ll be back to learn about the progress,” she said, and then she stalked out of the room.
Hunch went back to his files. Or- the mayor’s files. Hunch wasn’t the mayor here. No matter how interesting the files were. He wasn’t the mayor here. But, well, until he could get back, there wasn’t much harm in just continuing to look at the files-
“Mr. Mayor, your next appointment is here,” Ezekiel called out.
Hunch blinked, looking up from a file. Had that much time really passed? Well, he was certainly more caught up with this magic business, at least. It really was interesting stuff. And this mystery -
“Mr Mayor?” Ezekiel asked.
Right. He had lunch coming. Or, rather, the other mayor had lunch coming. Either way, Hunch sighed. He just wanted to read more of these files. “Come on in!”
“Here’s your sandwich,” Ezekiel said, placing it on his desk. “How have the files been treating you?”
“They’re interesting,” Hunch admitted. He poked at the sandwich. It looked so boring . “Did the Mayor really ask for this?”
“He asks for me to surprise him,” Ezekiel said. “And I’ve run out of odd combinations, at this point.”
Hunch laughed. “At least the files are good.”
“Have you made any headway?” Ezekiel asked. “Here at the Mayor’s office we’ve been trying to figure out the disappearance of Penny for a long time.”
“I can tell,” Hunch said. He almost opened his mouth to talk about the case, when he remembered another case that was far more important. “Have you figured out anything about why I’m here? How to get me back to my brain?”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Ezekiel said, passing Hunch a new file. “This is far more pressing.”
“I’m pretty sure getting your mayor back is pretty pressing too,” Hunch said. Still, he read the file. Oh, it was interesting. It was so interesting. Something about crystals, and a prom, and- No. “And me back, too.”
“No, no,” Ezekiel said. “You’re doing great as Mayor! You handled the Police Chief wonderfully , and you said you were a private detective. We could use a detective, not a mayor.”
The case was interesting. And Hunch would be doing more good, solving cases here than in Elias’ brain. But-
“No,” Hunch said, putting the file down on the desk. It was woefully anticlimactic, as it pitifully flopped onto the desk. “This isn’t my mystery to be solving. No matter how interesting something is- being curious about something doesn’t matter if I’m not doing it to help Elias-”
And then Hunch blinked. Once again, as if nothing had changed. he was back in his office.
Was it a dream? Unlikely, considering that people inside of brains didn’t dream. They didn’t hallucinate, either, even though those seemed to be the only explanation. It was as if no time had passed at all. Or- maybe time passed after all, Hunch thought, as he touched his coffee cup. It was cold, now, not warm like it had been. Huh. So time had passed. And whatever had just happened to Hunch, it had really happened. Or maybe Hunch had just fallen asleep, but- No. Hunch knew what had just happened. Not that he actually knew what happened, actually, but- he knew what he had to figure out, at least. Now that Hunch thought about it, he was pretty sure his office was a different mess than it had been when he’d left. Maybe that had been from Mayor Curiosity waltzing around? Although, Hunch hadn’t started in the mayor’s office, so Curiosity must have found it somehow, but he didn’t think it was impossible. Maybe they really had swapped. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Hunch grinned. There were so many questions to be answered.
He left his office, and walked down the dark street, in the direction of Fucks’ nightclub.
It was just a hunch, he had, like so many of the things that drove him. He had a hunch that this hadn’t just happened to him. Because, well, why would it happen to just him? Because he got bored while solving a case? Unlikely. But even if it had just happened to him, he knew that the others would be able to help him, anyway. And yet- and yet, Hunch didn’t think it had just happened to him. There was a feeling hanging in the air, a taste in the fog, that- well, that the others had gone somewhere else, too. He doubted they had gone into the same mind, he would have found at least one of them, but- He just had a feeling that they had left, too. So, he walked. It didn’t take him long to find Conrad. And then Imelda. And then Anastasia. And then the Fix. And then, finally, they ended up at Fucks’ club, sitting at a table with drinks and moody music, sharing what had happened to them. To all of them.
Everyone seemed just as confused as he was. And, they confirmed, they had also just gone to another mind. Different minds.
This was shaping up to be a mystery, indeed. Not just a mystery about Hunch, but a mystery about all of them. A mystery that Hunch got to solve. There were a lot of moving parts to it all- The different people that everyone had entered the brains of. The different parts of the brain that everyone had met. How they had all returned. It wasn’t exactly the same as what Hunch had experienced, but that only fed the mystery further. Hunch was curious. Oh, was he curious. There was so much to understand. So much to learn. So much to dig his teeth into. Oh, this mystery was even better than the magical brain that he had been transported into before. Because-
Well, Hunch thought, as he grinned into the darkness, because he was solving the mystery with his friends.