Work Text:
The epidemic of organ failures that had ripped through the world, leaving every other town a body pit, had hit London perhaps the hardest. Although no cause was ever found for the sudden failures, a savior had emerged: GeneCo, the leading (and perhaps only) successful synthetic organ manufacturer. Although Jonah Magnus could hop into a new body the moment his current one began to fail, he found it useful to get on the good side of the owner of such a successful company.
Of course, Rotti Largo initially had no interest in this "Elias Bouchard," who had emailed him with all the formality and propriety of a Regency man penning a letter to his homoerotic business associate. The Genterns that managed his accounts were clearly interested, though. And when they informed him that this man had a research institute dedicated to the esoteric and supernatural, Rotti knew he had to either crush this business (even with all his power, the place was easily 200 years older than GeneCo -- unlikely) or pay them to get off his back. If they found a cure for the organ failures or discovered the source of his synthetic organs, his business was obsolete. So he had the Genterns email back.
And so began the partnership that would change everything.
The Archives staff had each been hit hard by the epidemic, each in different ways. Sasha thought she'd gotten off easily, losing only her eyes to the outbreak. Tim's voice began to fail him not long before his lungs did, and poor Martin's heart stuttered, skipped, and stopped at a moment's notice. He started carrying an AED in his pocket, as he didn't have the money for the replacements and was too afraid of accruing debt to even apply for a contract.
Jon had been hit the hardest, though, his constant state of overwork worsening what would've been a single isolated failure into a complete systemic shutdown. He was in the hospital for days, but insisted on bringing his computer in to continue working.
Martin vetoed that.
Jon was debating whether he could afford more debt on top of his student loans when the announcement came.
"You know him!?" Tim exclaimed, unable to even pretend to be professional anymore. He coughed hard, his once-smooth voice reduced to a weak rasp. "This is the richest man on the planet, and you're just... mates!?"
"I have friends," Elias replied, the picture of Edwardian offense.
"No, you have business partners and investments," Sasha countered, stepping forward as Tim gestured helplessly. His poor imitation of the sign language he'd only seen in passing made no difference to her. Even sightless, she could always tell what the man was thinking.
"Well, this business partner is offering to fund all of your organ replacements," Elias replied curtly, adjusting his cufflinks like the bastard he is. "You can all go back to work within the month. Tim gets his voice back, Sasha gets her sight, Martin gets to stop carrying an AED everywhere, and Jon...."
The collective attention of the room turned to the Archivist, barely breathing, looking more machine than human. They would be both naive and wrong to assume he couldn't hear them. The man's stubbornness was likely the only thing keeping him lucid anymore. Martin was worrying himself to death over it (quite literally -- the anxiety that plagued him just further complicated his heart problems).
Jon already valued his work more than his life. You would be remiss to assume he didn't sign that contract faster than you could say "bodily autonomy."
In the end, Elias was correct. GeneCo's eyes gave Sasha not only perfect vision, but also the ability to project things from them. They were a weaker, cheaper version of the opera star Blind Mag's eyes, but they did their job, and allowed Sasha to return to hers. Despite insistent offers from the Genterns to change Tim's voice, it was returned exactly the same as it was before, meticulously reconstructed from countless recordings. Martin's replacement was much simpler, just that weak, failing heart replaced by a stronger, newer, better one. Jon was under for hours, and when he finally came back to himself, the ache that permeated his very existence was gone. Just... gone. There were side effects, of course, but compared to the constant misery of his former state, stiff joints and slight delirium were practically a spa day. Besides, the high of Zydrate softened the pain of the stitches.
"Return to work within the month" wasn't even hyperbole. Although they were allowed to take more time off, Jon was back in the Archives as soon as he could possibly be. He fully expected his coworkers to take advantage of the extra days off, but they knew him too well for that. They cared too much for that stuck-up twat to let him work himself to death, let alone allow him to do so in isolation. Martin was particularly worried about his boss, knowing how stressful the invasive surgery must have been. After all, his was merely the heart transplant, while Jon's must've been... well, whatever it was, it certainly wasn't doing any favors for Martin's anxiety.
"Jon, please, you just got out of the hospital," Martin pleaded, pushing a cup of tea towards the Head Archivist. "You'll exhaust yourself."
"I'm fine, Martin," he mumbled. "The new organs are state-of-the-art. I'll be okay."
"I'm not talking about the organs, I'm talking about you." Martin wrings his hands. "I said you'll exhaust yourself, I don't care about the organs."
Jon paused. Then froze completely. His nostrils flared, a tell Martin recognized as the shorter man collecting himself before replying. "Well... well I'll be fine regardless, Martin. It would be a much bigger help if you went back to work, instead of fussing over me. I can handle myself."
Martin drew back slightly, his face softening from solicitude to sorrow. "Right. Sorry. Just..."
Whatever he was about to say was lost. He changed his mind and began to walk away, nearly missing the soft "Thank you for the tea."
Jon shook his head free of the buzzing thoughts. No time for pining, there's work to do! For example, case #0092302 just crashed his computer, so now he has to record it to that stupid tape recorder. What's so special about... what, Keiran Woodward's account of this random house's trash? Why do half these stupid statements resist digitization with every fiber of their being? Ugh. Just more mess for Jon to clean up.
Life in the Archives continued as normal. Well, about as normal as it can be when you're constantly surrounded by misfiled accounts of the supernatural. Their augmentations even made it easier somehow; Sasha's new 20/20 vision, accompanied by the ability to project things from them, made organizing the archives that much easier. Tim's voice, dripping with the same charisma it always had, could now be changed at will, pitched higher or lower depending on what would get his... informants... to spill more information they weren't supposed to. After the initial recovery time, Martin noticed a steep decline in the amount of times he thought he was about to have a heart attack from sheer stress -- nothing had changed about his circumstances or anxiety, so it must've been the synthetic heart auto-regulating. And with new, sturdier organs that required much less upkeep than before, Jon could finally work the long hours he convinced himself he wanted to, without risking yet another hospitalization.
Months later, across the Atlantic, the most powerful man in the world has just been diagnosed with an uncurable illness that would likely take him within the year. Of course, the messenger was shot without Rotti needing to lift a finger. At the same time, a successful Graverobber just hit the jackpot, accidentally accompanied by a seventeen year old girl who only wanted to chase rare insects. Whoever she is, she was rescued by her father, a successful Repo Man who keeps his profession a close secret. The two worlds never should have crossed.
But with Jane Prentiss's attack on the Archives, things changed.
She barely made it out alive. She shouldn't have survived, really, not when so much of her Hive was killed. Despite the failure of the ritual, her patron hasn't forsaken her. The Corruption still loves her, still thinks her failing organs and rotting flesh is beautiful. It was just a boat ride to Los Angeles, where the body pits had been turned to giant graveyards, where her rot can fester freely. She snuck on with ease, frightening or infecting anyone who might have caught her. A month later, she's comfortably settled into the plague pits of the city.
One of her grown-up babies, a tarantula hawk wasp that grew up within her, finds its way into one of the graveyards, where young Shiloh was in her mother's mausoleum. Coincidentally, the bug had snuck into the very same tomb. Shiloh flips through her book of insects, finding it quickly within the pages. She takes out the jar she usually uses to capture them, but once she's almost upon it, the wasp flies just out of her reach. Outside.
"I'll capture it," she says, "And run back inside... and be back home in time."
She does capture Jane's baby, but the jar is not soundproof. And through the hivemind, Jane hears the Graverobber telling Shiloh about the state of the world, and about Zydrate, the addictive painkiller that he harvests from bodies. Shiloh panics, of course, as she watches him extract the glowing blue chemical. While he sings at her, she never expected the man(?) to scream at the grave guards. She follows him as he runs away, foolishly taking the captured bug with her. The building he breaks into is full to the brim of corpses. The bug hears Shiloh's terrified pleas to go home.
Jane is cut off as one of the Repo Men finds Shiloh and carried her back home, unconscious, without the jar containing the wasp. While Shiloh and Nathan argue back in her room, Jane has already crawled into the body pit, to make her new home. A little Flesh-aligned perhaps, but the disgust feeds Corruption perfectly, especially if it allows Jane to fester. The Graverobber has already departed by the time she's wriggled through the hole in the brickwork, presumably having harvested all the Zydrate he had room for.
While Jon spirals into paranoia, putting stress on his synthetic organs, the situation across the world gets worse and worse. With Rotti Largo's borderline-predatory behavior towards Shiloh, tempting her to join him at an event with the prospect of meeting Blind Mag, and with Nathan's manic, almost Hyde-like state getting worse; more erratic and sadistic, there are bound to be repercussions. After all, this is the most powerful man in the world and his best debt collector. The second most powerful man has framed his Archivist for murder, sending him on the run. Traumatized and starved for information, not to mention the cigarette relapse, Jon begins to value his own life less and less, actively seeking out Avatars. An eventful two months sees him kidnapped by Breekon and Hope, on behalf of Nikola Orsinov, the mannequin wearing human skin. After he escapes thanks to Helen taking Michael's place (putting him on house arrest) as Distortion, he starts to run all over, retracing his predecessor's footsteps to try and stop the Unknowing.
In America, after being kidnapped by Julia and Trevor, Jon speaks to Gerry, and shortly after finds himself at... what was advertised as a support meeting for Zydrate addicts. What it really is, he comes to find, is a drug ring. The Graverobber, having rescued Shiloh from yet another event that Rotti dragged her to, happens to be at this place at the exact same time. Despite Shiloh’s anxiety for the alley, she finds herself captivated by the brightly colored hair and clothing of the addicts, who nearly worship the Graverobber as a savior as he flaunts the Zydrate he’s harvested. Jon, in his drab clothing that could generously be called "dark academia," stands out like a sore thumb. And you can bet that the drug dealer noticed.
"Do I see a new face?" they ask, tilting their head. "I remember everyone who comes here, and I've never seen you. New to the scene?"
"I, um... I haven't actually... I'm not... in the scene...?" Jon stutters. Technically, he had been on Zydrate before, but despite its highly addictive nature, he never got properly hooked. Besides, he wasn't even sure where to get it up until a few months ago. He'd fought hard to quit smoking, and still relapsed after being hunted for sport for the first time. "I just... I heard that you... you were a friend of... of Gerard Keay's? Er... Gerry's?
The Graverobber hums, accompanied by the merry band of drug addicts hanging on to his every word. "Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time."
"You know him then?" Jon asks, suddenly hopeful.
"Knew him," the Graverobber corrects, twirling a little glass vial in his hand. "As far as I know, he’s dead. Didn’t want his brain replaced."
"Yes, that’s what he told me," Jon mumbles, and only catches what he’s said after he notices the seventeen year old girl staring at him. "Um…"
"You talked to him?" she asks, looking like she wants to be here about as much as Jon does, but fascinated despite herself. "This ‘Gerry,’ he’s dead, and you spoke to him?" It’s not hard to discern her thoughts, especially not for a man who Knows things unwillingly. Most people could at least tell you someone close to her is dead, and that she wants to talk to them, but most people are not Jon, and Jon knows that Shiloh’s mother has been dead all her life. He doesn’t want to Know, but he does, and he chooses his next words very carefully because of it.
"I… y-yes, I did speak to him, and he is dead," he begins, trying for all the world not to say something that could upset this girl. "But his circumstances were… incredibly unique. And I doubt they could be replicated." His hand drifts to his pocket, where Gerry’s page sits, feeling like it’s burning a hole in his pocket.