Archive of Our Own ^beta

"Was there anything unusual going on? Did she mention anyone new?"

"Yes!" she replied, mildly exasperated. She hardly needed the prompting. "She was going on about something strange that had happened to her and her other friends. She... I tried to get her to focus on the project, but-"

The officer, Jen, according to the nametag she wore, interrupted again with another question, "What did she say was going on?"

"I was getting to that," Marcie said, struggling not to snap at the officer. "She wasn't making much sense though. It was so unlike her! She mentioned something about having to tell the gang, and Schrodingers Cat."

"Gang activity?" Jen broke in, her eyes widening. "Your friend was involved with a gang?"

Marcie wrung her hands in frustration. "No! If you would just listen... The gang, that's what she called her friends. The other three who went missing." Before the obvious question could come again, she plowed on. "They left somewhere, or something happened to them! Are you going to keep asking stupid, pointless questions, or are you going to do something about it? The last thing I knew, she went to go talk to them, and it's got 'everything' to do with the concept of multiple universes."

"Calm down, girl," the police woman reprimanded, lowering her clipboard, a stern expression punctuating her words. "You really shouldn't yell at an officer of the law like that. I'll let it slide though, since you're so worried about your friend."

Marcie opened her mouth to correct the last statement, but closed it again with a sigh. It would only bring up more questions, and she didn't have the patience to deal with that any longer. She'd hoped the law could help her, but she'd been talked in circles, asked the same questions fifteen times by fifteen different people. At least Jen bothered to write them down. "Yes, ma'am. May I go. That's all I know."

Jen's expression softened. "Sure thing, dear. It's not often we get mysterious things going on in Crystal Cove. We'll get to the bottom of it though."

With a curt nod, Marcie walked stiff-backed from the room.

About thirty minutes later, she collapsed onto her bed, closing her eyes to rethink things. Velma had seemed off the whole time. Marcie spun over in her bed, burrowing her face into the pillow. She' just assumed that the excitement had been over some sudden insight. It wasn't the first time such a thing had happened, and if Marcie could help it, it wouldn't be the last either. As sudden and jarring as Velma's bursts of intuition were, Marcie loved the way her eyes lit up when the realization hit, and even more so when the explanation came hours later. That’s my girl.

Pulling herself out of her reverie, she put her mind back to the problem at hand. She had an idea, of course, but surely it was impossible...

The pink sun of morning rose, breaking through the window into Marcie's room. She lay sprawled on her bed fast asleep, her computer humming softly as the idle image bounced from one side of the screen to the other. As the light hit her eyes, she shifted, bumping the book she'd been using as a mousepad, and the screen lit up. At least five tabs listed articles written about various types of alternate realities, another two showed the local news articles that had been posted about the four missing kids.

The open tab showed Marcie's e-mail outbox. Most of the e-mails were to Velma, many of the more recent ones concerning the upcoming science event, and research on soil minerals. The latest one had been sent to Velma as well, the topic reading, Where are you?

"You've got mail!" the computer chimed loudly. The empty inbox icon filled to indicate the new message. At the sound, Marcie jolted awake, and pushed herself up to her hands, momentarily glad she'd set her sound so high before she'd drifted off.

"Velma?"

To her disappointment, it was spam. Mister E. knows what you are looking for! the e-mail proclaimed. Blearily, Marcie grabbed for her mouse. "Don't even bother," she muttered. "Like that would fool me." How it had managed to slip through her spam filters, she didn't know.

The mouse slipped off the book as she went to click, and she opened the e-mail with a grunt of irritation. She did not feel like dealing with a virus right now. Not on top of everything else.

"Miss Fleach," a voice boomed tinnily. Marcie flinched at the blaring speakers and quickly turned it down. "I hope this message finds you well?"

"How did you know my name?" Marcie asked, mostly to herself, more frustrated than curious. This was an elaborate spam, that's for sure. A personalized video? She'd have to run a virus scan once she got it to shut up.

"I understand that you are worried about Miss Dinkley."

Marcie's blood ran cold at the mention of Velma. What did this stranger in the video know about her?

"I implore you not to worry. She and her friends are quite well. As you know, if I may judge by your search records, you are at least marginally aware of the odd circumstances of their sudden change in behavior? What might have driven them to unite and leave Crystal Cove?"

Her research had indeed turned up interesting results. She'd spent the past hours absorbing the theoretical information great scientists collected on theories of alternate realities, parallel universes, and more. Most of it seemed more like science fiction than reality, but it had been her only lead. 

"I assure you, the five of them are quite alright. They have a higher calling that could not be fulfilled by remaining in the meticulously non-mysterious municipality that is your tiny town."

She could tell where the scrawny man in the video was going with this. They have a higher calling, her town.

"Don't bother to look for them. They have import-"

"No." The word of defiance is out of Marcie's mouth, louder than she thought it would be. Her mind was already made up. If this man didn't want her to go after Velma, he'd sent her the message in error. She hit print screen and pulled up Google as the man continued speaking in the background.

"-ant business to attend to elsewhere. They have each other, and that's all they've ever needed. There have, of course, been timelines where others have attempted to tag along."

Marcie loaded the image into the reverse image search. It was a longshot, but if she could find a background that resembled the one in the video, she might have a chance.

"The worst of course, was a servant of the Evil One masquerading as a harmless relation to Scooby."

Nothing close enough turned up, and she sighed, rubbing her eyes. For a second, she'd hoped she had a chance. There was something about him though. She felt like she'd seen him before.

"Like I said, don't bother trying to find them. It's not worth wasting your time or theirs."

Marcie closed out of the e-mail. What did he know about what, or who, was worth her time. He had no idea what Velma meant to her. What it had been like to finally find someone who could approach her wavelength. Like she would give up just because some old coot told her they didn't need her. What did he know?

She slammed shut one of the books she'd fallen asleep reading. The Incomplete Encyclopedia on Alternate Universes and Inter-dimensional Travel by Harlan Ellison. It had seemed so promising with the title, but the contents were utter garbage. It was science fantasy at best, like most of what she found. To think he'd published it as theoretical physics. Who did he think he was?

Propelling herself back onto her pillow with a sigh, Marcie wished she could show Velma the evidence she'd gathered. It wasn't much, but V always seemed to know how to piece the clues together. She'd always thought the two of them worked great as a team, but maybe she was never as useful as she'd thought. After all, Marcie was a mess, while Velma had ran off with her other friends without so much as leaving a message.

Marcie woke up several hours later feeling much better, but rather disoriented from sleeping all day. The wonderful smell of smoked bacon set her stomach rumbling, and she looked over to see that her father left her a platter full of food. Hungry since she'd skipped breakfast and lunch, she promptly dug in. 

The food vastly improved her outlook, and with her plate on her lap, she scooted back towards her laptop. Hunting down a match for a screenshot had been a decent start, but she mentally kicked herself for that being all she'd done immediately following the electronic trail. She investigated the e-mail more, not sure if she was relieved or not that it was just a dream. He'd been clever, hiding the trail. The return e-mail led to a throwaway account and also a dead end. Even hunting down the IP led to an anonymous proxy server.

The video hadn't given her much more than a face and a voice, both of which were useless to her until she had something to compare them with, and the e-mail itself even less. Or hopefully less. She set a virus scan running while finished eating.

No longer suffering for a lack of sleep or food, Marcie's mind whirled with ways she could track down Velma and the other missing kids. If Velma had taught her anything, there was much more to figuring things out than just using books and the internet. If the four of them had left town, she wouldn't find them by sitting around! 

Marcie hopped up out of bed, and dashed to her closet. Velma chose mineral erosion for this year's science project, but Marcie's idea had been more unique, if less practical. In her spare time, and with leftover materials from her father's booming amusement park, Marcie managed to design a new sort of gas reminiscent of helium yet lighter even than hydrogen. She pulled out the heavy tank she kept it stored in, and set it by her bed along with the air bladders she'd bought last week to test it.

She already had a plan forming even as she heard her father calling her down for dinner. Had she really slept that far into the day? It's a good thing summer break started a week ago, that's for sure. Sliding the supplies under her bed, she left for dinner.