“Jonathan Sims?”
Jon turns from where he’s been discussing their latest “difficult” statement with his team to find a woman standing a few feet away, arms folded across her chest and a challenging look on her face. He’s never been all that good at judging ages, but he would guess she’s around the same age as the rest of them. She scowls slightly as she watches them, and her lips tighten slightly as they skim over Tim and Sasha. That, combined with the dark green headscarf, tells Jon who she probably is, even though she’s in plainclothes.
He doesn’t want to give credence to the idea that he might be a spooky eldritch being, though, so he only says, “Can I help you?”
The woman gives him a sharp nod. “Police Constable Basira Hussain. I wondered if I might have a word with you?”
“O-oh, of course.” Jon tries not to be flustered. It’s not like he wasn’t warned this was going to happen. The Primes had mentioned Basira often enough, Jon Prime with studied detachment and Martin Prime with guarded understanding. Neither of them trust her, that’s obvious, but Jon clings to the faint hope that things will be different in this timeline, this now. Maybe she won’t be as…prickly.
One look in the eyes of the woman he leads into his office, of course, and he knows that’s a futile thought, but he can dream.
“This isn’t an official visit,” she tells him as soon as the door shuts behind her. “I’m not here as…I mean, I s’pose you know I’m the officer assigned to the case here.”
“Ah—yes, I did,” Jon says. It’s not technically a lie. It just wasn’t Sasha or Tim, the two people who theoretically spoke to her the night of the attack on the Institute, who told him. “Have a seat…can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee? We might have some hot cocoa somewhere, Martin will—” He checks himself. Martin might know in theory the contents of the cupboards in the break room, but given that this is his first day back on the job after almost eight weeks of medical leave, he probably doesn’t know what the actual levels are.
“I’m fine. Thanks.” Basira—it’s impossible to think of her has anything else—waits until Jon sits behind his desk before cautiously taking the visitor’s chair. The one where statement-givers usually sit. Two so far. Naomi Hearn and Melanie King. Four if you count Martin and Sasha. “Like I said, this isn’t an official visit.”
“Then why are you here, Ms. Hussain?” Jon forces himself not to use her first name. Not until—
“Call me Basira,” she says, and something in Jon relaxes. “I just…thought I should come talk to you, you know?”
“I’m afraid I don’t,” Jon lies. Can she tell? He isn’t sure. Her eyes flick over his face, but she doesn’t call him on it.
Basira sighs. “I’ve heard stories about what this place is like. You collect statements, right? About…weird things that happen to people?”
“Yes. Anyone who’s had a…paranormal encounter is welcome to come give a statement to the Institute.”
“And what do you do with them?”
“We—ah, research them, as best we can,” Jon says, fumbling a little over his words. “Catalog them, store them here. We’re in the process of making audio recordings of any statements that haven’t…already been committed to tape, but—”
Basira’s gaze sharpens. “That what was in those boxes we retrieved with Gertrude Robinson’s body, then?”
Jon flinches at the stark words. “Ah. I—I actually don’t know. I didn’t see them, and, well, she was…I wasn’t part of the Archives when she was in charge here. I got promoted out of Research. I—I assume that’s what they are, but I don’t know.”
“Mm.” This time, Jon is sure Basira doesn’t believe him, but she lets it go. “Well…I’d like to make a statement. If you don’t mind.”
“Oh. Of course.” Jon isn’t surprised by that. “About what?”
Basira shrugs. “I’ve had some…experiences since I got shuffled into Section Thirty-One. They might be of interest to you.”
“Yes, I’d imagine so,” Jon says, half to himself. He sighs and reaches for the tape recorder, checks to be sure there’s a blank tape in it. Of course there is. There’s always a blank tape when he needs one. He sets it on the desk between them and turns it on.
He wonders, as they go through the preliminaries—her pointing out that she shouldn’t be talking to him, him reminding her that she came to them—if he should warn her. If he should tell her about the nightmares, the hauntings. If he can persuade her to write down her statement so that Jon Prime can record it later and they can all be spared (that’s shot down quickly; I’m not really big on writing, I’m more of a talker). At the same time, there’s a part of him that’s—there’s no other word for it—hungry, that’s reaching out for her statement. He can sense the tiny, tiny tendrils of fear curling through her, and he wants them.
Suddenly, abruptly, he wonders if she’s luring him on purpose. If she’s deliberately being cagey, teasing him with the forbidden nature of the information she wants to give him, just to see how desperate he is for it.
He almost walks away, but the truth is that he is very desperate.
“Statement of Police Constable Basira Hussain regarding her time investigating… strange occurrences as part of Section 31. Statement taken direct from subject, July the fourth, 2016.”
Jon listens. He prompts Basira with questions when she stops, but for the most part, he…drinks in her statements, his eyes locked on hers. He can sense that she’s disconcerted, that she’s not used to being on this end of the interrogation, but he doesn’t think he cares. She spools her story onto the reel in a flat, businesslike tone. He’s almost disappointed that she doesn’t have more than two “official” stories.
“It’s…I don’t know,” Basira concludes. “I’ve been meaning to come in ever since that call-out.”
Jon wants to warn her to be careful, to watch what she says to the Institute, to him. At the same time, Jon Prime’s instructions are explicit; he needs to play the game, and he really does need the information on those tapes. Even if Jon Prime tells him about them, Elias will eventually start getting suspicious about where he’s getting this information if he doesn’t know Jon is getting the tapes from Basira. “So, um—so no one is helping you with Gertrude’s case? No oversight?”
“Not really.” The gleam in Basira’s eye is brief, but Jon, unlike his counterpart, is in control of himself and his emotions…mostly…and he catches it. He sees and interprets. She thinks she’s got a hook on him. “I tried making the argument that the murder didn’t seem to connect to any of your ‘paranormal business’, at least not directly, but nope. I’ve got a shot corpse, three boxes of cassettes, and Daisy, who’s CID now, which I suppose means it’s technically her problem, but she’s now the only detective who’s already sectioned so she’s always way too busy. As far as I know, neither of us have even had a chance to actually start listening to the tapes.”
“Interesting.” Jon’s heart beats a bit faster. “Er, listen—” He reaches over and switches off the recorder. Not that it’s going to do much good, but he might as well go through the motions. “M-maybe, er, maybe I could help?”
“Help?” One eyebrow almost disappears into her headscarf.
“I-I mean, if you’re…so behind on the work, and—well, I mean, we have the equipment here.” Jon gestures to the tape recorder. “We actually have more than one. I—I could listen to them, if you can bring them to me, and…let you know if they’re relevant to the case? It’s, it’s possible one of them might have her murder on it.”
He knows one does, of course, but he has no idea if it was with Gertrude or if Elias has kept it all this time. Jon Prime isn’t sure either, is only sure—now—that it’s Elias who eventually left it on his desk, in his timeline. The final clue Jon Prime needed to find Martin Prime, to rescue him from Peter Lukas and the Lonely. He’s not even sure if the tapes Basira will bring him will be the same. He can only hope they’ll be of use to them. To the Primes and their plan.
Basira studies him. “You want me to bring you police evidence. To help with the case.”
“We do have some resources you don’t,” Jon points out, and instantly regrets it. “I-I mean, we have those files marked ‘For Internal Use Only.’ If something on one of Gertrude’s tapes connects to one of those files, you wouldn’t be able to requisition it, but we can. A-and we have a bit more time than you do. In theory.” Mentally, he crosses his fingers. Jon Prime hadn’t coached him on this, which he gets. It has to sound natural.
“Hmm.” Basira looks skeptical, but nods. “All right. I can’t promise it’ll be that often, or that many. I mean, I will have to smuggle them out of police custody, and that won’t be easy. But I’ll see what I can do.”
Jon exhales. “Thank you. And I will keep in touch with you with what we find.”
Basira studies him sharply. “How do you expect to get your assistants to help you without knowing where these statements come from?”
“Do you think my assistants read every statement I have them research?” Jon retorts. They do, but Basira doesn’t need to know that. “All I have to do is give them a name or a date and see what they come up with. I generally do the recordings of these statements myself, in privacy. They’ll never have to hear.”
Basira doesn’t respond for a moment. Jon tries to look innocent. At last, she sighs. “Fine. Obviously I can’t guarantee they’ll be relevant to the case, but we’ll see. I’ll be in touch, Sims.”
“Thank you,” Jon repeats. “Ah, let me walk you to the door.”
“Think I can find it for myself, thanks.” Basira backs out of his office and slams the door.
Jon gives her to the count of thirty to actually leave, then emerges from his office to find his assistants studiously pretending they’re ignoring him, while all sitting tensely. He looks around, then comes over to the cluster of desks and sits on the edge of Martin’s. “All set. She’ll bring us tapes when she can.”
“Brilliant.” Sasha claps her hands together. “It’ll be fascinating to see what she thinks might be relevant to the murder.”
Martin looks up at Jon a bit anxiously. “You don’t think she’s…suspicious, do you?”
“Oh, no, she’s plenty suspicious,” Jon assures him. “I was watching her face, as best I could anyway. She definitely thinks I killed Gertrude. But if you’re asking if she suspects why I really want those tapes, no.”
“I mean, you’d have to be pretty in on what really goes on around here to know that,” Tim points out. “But seriously, why would anyone think you killed Gertrude Robinson?”
“Because I’m ‘jumpy as hell’, obsessed with the murder, and the only person who visibly benefited from her death,” Jon recites.
“Okay, rephrase: Why would anyone think you were capable of killing Gertrude Robinson? You don’t look like you’ve got the upper body strength to kill a spider.”
Jon leans on Tim’s desk, drops his head, and hits him with the most menacing stare he can come up with. In a low voice, he says, “You have no idea what I am capable of, Timothy Stoker.”
Tim yelps and almost tips backwards out of his chair. Sasha and Martin both burst into giggles, and Jon straightens up, laughing as well.
He scrapes a hand through his hair, which is starting to grow out a bit. God, it feels good to be able to be himself again, to stop being afraid that his team won’t take him seriously if he’s not professional at all times. There’s an almost palpable air of relief in the Archives, and he can see its effects in the others as well. It’s like they’re on more of an equal footing. They’ve found common ground and begun to build on it, and they’ve drawn closer together, even Jon.
It’s only taken them close to a year, but they’ve done it.
“Oh, Martin,” Jon adds when they’ve all calmed down a bit. “Can you add a note to the file for case number—damn, I’ve forgotten the number. Ms. Saraki’s, the one where we first heard the phrase ‘the lightless flame’.”
“0121102,” Martin replies immediately. Of course he has all the case numbers memorized. “What am I adding?”
“A name. Our mystery burn victim’s name is Diego Molina.” Jon adjusts his glasses. “Apparently Basira had a run-in with him a few months before that incident. Her first Section Thirty-One.”
Martin nods and gets up to fetch the file. Sasha cracks her knuckles. “Need me to look into anything else from her statement?”
“No,” Jon says, reluctantly. “There’s not much we can do that hasn’t already been done—not without exposing her. I did promise we’d keep everything confidential.” He glances up the stairs. “I don’t know how much additional research we can do into the tapes she brings us from Gertrude, but we’ll see. Just…don’t let on that you know what she’s here for when she does come back.”
“You’re sure she will actually come back, then?” Tim’s expression goes serious. “That she’s not just…saying she’ll bring you the tapes?”
Jon shakes his head. “No, I think she really will. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and find out, though.”
“Right.” Tim sighs. “What do you want us to do while we wait?”
“Keep digging into Ms. Sloane’s statement. Carefully,” Jon adds, since they’ve already told him the Tundra is registered to Nathaniel Lukas. “I don’t want Elias coming down here and nagging at us about it…honestly, if I can keep him out of here for good, so much the better. I’ve got a bit of paperwork to catch up on.”
“Right-o.”
Jon retreats to his office and rewinds the tape, then plays it back. He’s struck again by the calm, near-emotionless way Basira describes her experiences. Just the facts, ma’am. The line from that dry, somewhat cheesy old American detective show he used to watch with his cousin some nights comes back to him.
As the tape spools out, he thinks about his cousin, the summer and autumn he spent in New Mexico. He only intended to be there for a few weeks, but he had also nearly had a nervous breakdown in his last few months of school and needed the rest. His cousin provided exactly what he needed—a change of scenery, air to breathe, and a complete lack of pressure. Mostly he left Jon to his own devices while he worked, but occasionally he asked if Jon wanted to come with him for some field research, and occasionally Jon said yes.
One trip in particular stands out in his memory. There was a dry gulch, a crevice in the earth wide enough to walk through, and two families of some sort of desert animal living a few meters away from one another at its bottom. They were the same species, roughly the same numbers in each, more or less the same age; the only difference, his cousin explained, was that one set had lived there as long as he could remember and the other had been relocated by a rescue group just that summer after they were discovered beneath a new construction site. Rain was called for that day, and the purpose of their observation was to see if the two families reacted the same way to the change in weather.
Jon hadn’t known until the rain started that New Mexico has what residents call “monsoon season”, where sudden heavy downpours are common. Or that flash floods can overtake even the shallowest of ditches in a matter of seconds. He remembers seeing the water start to come down the formerly dry ravine, remembers realizing that it would go straight into the creatures’ holes. Remembers seeing one group of sodden, bedraggled animals scramble to safety just before the waters came and no movement from the other. His cousin’s face was tight with emotion, but still he hunched in his tarp-and-canvas shelter, peering down and scribbling notes. Jon watched, too, unable to do anything as the water came rushing forward. Wanting to interfere, but at the same time wondering what would happen if he didn’t.
That’s what the dreams feel like, he realizes. Like a damned science experiment, one he can’t interfere with because it will compromise the integrity of the results. He should hate it. He does hate it, but at the same time, he can almost hear his cousin’s voice from when they talked about it over their grandmother’s chilindron: That’s how science is sometimes, Jonny. They would have died even if we weren’t there to watch. At least this way, we can make their deaths mean something.
Is that how it works? Do the nightmares make the fear mean something? Is it possible that, by taking their fear and feeding it to the Ceaseless Watcher, Jon is distancing these people from the entities trying to claim them? Is he saving them, just a little?
It’s a question Jon isn’t sure there’s an answer to. Or that he necessarily wants to answer.
He dictates his follow-up comments into the recorder, then shuts it off and sits back with a wince. He’s tired, for it being a Monday morning, and he’s not completely sure why. It’s happened before, though, when he tries to take statements. Especially after he sat through everyone’s statements about Jane Prentiss’ attack and—
Oh.
Jon suddenly feels the need to talk to the Primes. He’s still tired, but he needs to do it. There are questions he should really have asked over the last eight weeks that he hasn’t, and he’s hoping they can answer him. Also, it won’t hurt if Elias thinks he’s wandering about in the tunnels looking for clues.
He fishes a torch and the key to the tunnels—which he stole from Elias weeks ago and hasn’t worked up the nerve to use yet—out of a desk drawer, then stands up and comes out into the Archives proper.
Tim and Sasha are both gone, which tells Jon it’s probably close to lunchtime, but Martin is still there, eyes going back and forth from his laptop screen to the file spread out across his desk. He looks up and offers Jon a warm smile when Jon approaches. “Oh, hi, Jon. I was just doing the background checks for this statement.”
“Is this a real one?” Jon means to say difficult, but he’s tired, and anyway, it’s not like he wouldn’t have started believing after the whole mess with Jane Prentiss anyway.
“Don’t think so,” Martin admits. “It doesn’t feel right. But I’m trying to do the research anyway.”
“No, I appreciate that, thank you.” Jon smiles, then holds up the torch and the key. “Ah, since we’re not…busy at the moment…I thought I’d take a chance to, to poke around in the tunnels. If I’m not back up in an hour…”
“Panic?” Martin suggests.
Jon can’t help the small laugh that escapes him. “I suppose that’s as valid an option as any.”
Martin smiles, too. “Do you have something to mark the walls with?”
“I—no, I’m afraid not. I’ll have to…deal with that.”
Martin holds up a finger, then pulls open one of the drawers on his desk. His fingers close around something, and he looks a little hesitant, but then he pulls whatever it is out and hands it to Jon. “Here. Better than nothing, right?”
Jon is about to ask why Martin has chalk in his desk, assuming that’s what it is, but then he actually takes the object from him and does a double-take. It’s a tube of Boots No.7 lipstick.
Jon has several questions, chief among them how he never managed to notice Martin wearing this, but Martin is blushing so hard Jon decides not to ask. Maybe he’ll ask Martin Prime. “Thank you. I’ll…I owe you another tube. Even if I don’t use all of it, I doubt you’ll want it back.”
Martin laughs, a bit awkwardly. “It’s fine. Hope it shows up.”
“I’ll be back in an hour,” Jon promises. He takes the key and heads over to the trapdoor.
It takes a moment of fumbling before he figures out how to expose the lock, flips the handle up, and unlocks the trapdoor. It opens silently—he hasn’t been expecting that—and lets out a rush of cool, stagnant air. The opening is utterly black, the stairs steep. It smells faintly of decay.
Alone of the Archival staff, Jon hasn’t been down into the tunnels, and for a moment, he’s deeply afraid. He almost backs out, or calls to Martin to come with him, but…no, Tim and Sasha aren’t here, if Jon and Martin are both down there then there’s nobody to know if they go missing. This is his responsibility, his burden. He can do this.
He turns on the torch, relieved when its light penetrates the gloom easily. The walls are rough grey stone; Martin’s lipstick ought to show up well. He hopes, anyway. Taking a deep breath, he descends the stairs, pulling the door shut behind him.
As he reaches the bottom step, he feels something odd—almost like a physical silence. He struggles to come up with what it feels like, and then, suddenly, a memory comes to him, the memory of dodging through stage hands and costumed extras in a crowded backstage and slipping out a door that ought to have been alarmed, never mind locked, of stepping from oppressive heat into blessed coolness, from bright lights into star-spangled skies, from constant chatter to sudden, blessed quiet. That’s what it feels like—as though he’s stepped away from the world. No, cut himself off from the world. The surface seems so far away, all of a sudden.
Jon rallies himself and fishes out the tube of lipstick. It’s a dusky sort of red, but when he marks an arrow pointing up the stairs, it does at least show up. He takes a deep breath and ventures deeper into the tunnels.
It’s a good thing Martin gave him the lipstick to mark his path, because otherwise he would be lost before long. As varied and distinct as the passages are, the tunnels seem intended to confuse. Which, well, he supposes they are. Whatever Robert Smirke hid at the center of Millbank Prison—the Primes refused to tell them, only that that was where the confrontation with Peter Lukas had been—it seems sensible that the corridors want to protect it. Jon wants to call out to the Primes, but he’s afraid of what else might be lurking down there. And Martin’s right, the halls seem to just…swallow sound.
He dutifully marks the walls, an arrow pointing back in the direction he came, every time he comes to an intersection. Every time he finds a room with an open frame instead of a door, he looks in; every time he finds a door, he tries it. He begins making symbols: an X on doors that won’t open, an S on doors that open but reveal only blank stone behind them, a check mark on the few that open to reveal a room. Each time, he wonders if this is the room where Tim and Sasha found Gertrude Robinson.
He has no idea how long he’s been wandering when he sees the first worm carcasses. There are…far too many of them for his peace of mind, and he almost retreats in disgust, but he has a purpose for being down here and he can’t violate that. Gingerly, he crosses the line, half-expecting the worms to come back to life…but no, they stay dead. He tries to avoid stepping on them, going slowly and cautiously, but he accidentally treads on a small pile of them. They crunch under his feet like dry autumn leaves, and the sound—oddly—echoes in the otherwise muted halls.
Jon freezes. He swears he can hear movement from up ahead. He knows it’s the Primes—probably—but he also knows it could be something else. It could be Jurgen Leitner. It could be something else entirely. Jon swallows hard and tries twice before he’s able to call out. “Who’s there?”
There’s a short pause, and then a faint voice calls back, “Jon?”
It’s Martin’s voice. Jon swings the torch towards it, and the beam flashes off a pair of glasses. “Oh,” he gasps. “It is you.”
“It’s us,” Martin Prime assures him. He reaches behind him, and a moment later, Jon Prime steps up beside him. “Come to explore, have you?”
“I, ah—sort of?” Jon tries to get his heart rate under control and lowers the beam to point at their feet. “You’re not staying back here, are you?”
“No,” Jon Prime assures him. “We were just doing a bit of investigation, I suppose. Martin’s better at navigating down here than I am.”
“Well, I’m already blind, it’s not like it can throw me off all that much,” Martin says with a shrug. “It’s just counting steps. Come on, we’ve got our camp set up back this way.”
“Just a moment.” Jon pulls out the tube of lipstick and draws a line on the wall next to where he’s standing, then after a moment’s thought adds the date. Just so he knows how far he’s come. “Right, let’s go.”
Jon Prime raises an eyebrow. “Is that…lipstick?”
“Ah, yes. I told Martin I was coming down here, and he was…concerned I might get lost, so he pulled this out of his desk and gave it to me to mark the walls.”
Jon Prime turns to Martin Prime in obvious astonishment. “Why on earth did you have lipstick in your desk drawer?”
“My lips used to get really badly cracked sometimes. Lipstick covered it up. Just an old habit, really. I don’t—didn’t wear it often.” Martin Prime shrugs. “I was always kind of surprised you never noticed, actually.”
“Yes, well, I think I spent most of the first couple years we worked together trying to avoid looking at your lips for fear of making an absolute tit of myself,” Jon Prime drawls. Martin Prime laughs.
Jon follows them along several corridors. He remembers to mark his direction with an arrow when they veer off the halls he’s already marked out. At last, they wind up in a small chamber, sealed with a wooden door. Inside, the Primes have set up a rather comfortable-looking nest in one corner and an area clearly designed for eating in another.
“So,” Jon Prime says, indicating a patch of the floor for Jon to take a seat. “What brings you down to the tunnels?”
Jon sits down and waits for the Primes to do the same. “I…well, part of it is I wanted to see how close you were to the steps. Not very, by the way. I’m…not altogether sure how long I’ve been down here, actually.”
“We’ll follow you back when you go and recamp somewhere closer,” Jon Prime promises. “No sense in having you all get lost every time you come looking. But what else?”
Jon hesitates. “I just…I have some questions I probably should have asked sooner. And I suddenly felt the need to ask them.”
“Ask away.” Jon Prime nestles against Martin Prime and closes his eyes. “I’m listening.”
“Is it…normal to feel tired after taking a statement?”
“Yes,” Jon Prime replies. “At least for you, at least for now. The statements take their toll. The more…comfortable with them you get, the more you’ll be able to do, but for now, one real statement a week is going to be about as much as you can safely handle without hurting yourself. It’s why you were so tired, slept so heavily, after taking your team’s statements. You essentially took three statements in a row. And then the next day you sat in on Martin’s statement…that’s honestly probably part of the reason you reacted so badly to it. Your system was overloaded. My being there…mitigated some of it, but not quite enough.”
“What if I don’t want to get comfortable with them?” Jon asks quietly.
Jon Prime sighs heavily, but doesn’t open his eyes. Martin Prime brushes a lock of his hair back behind his ear. “I mean…you can stop. Probably. At this point, you might not be in too deep, so you might be able to stop. It was, what, another year before you started noticing you couldn’t go long without a statement?”
“Before I noticed. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t happening before,” Jon Prime says softly. “After all, even after I got framed”—he raises his voice slightly—“for Jurgen Leitner’s murder”—then continues in a normal tone—“Elias was still doling out statements to me. The longest I went without recording one was when I was recovering from Jane Prentiss’ attack, and I’m still not altogether sure that the reason I felt compelled to come back so quickly wasn’t because I needed the statements.”
“But I haven’t been recording them,” Jon points out. “I’ve been giving them to you to record.”
“You’ve still been reading them. I don’t know if that’s enough to count. But I can sense that you took a statement today, didn’t you?”
Jon sighs. “Basira finally came by. You were right. I, ah, I managed to convince her to give us the tapes, but…” He swallows. “That’s when I noticed I was tired. I, I listened to the tape again, after I talked to the team, and I was just…tired.”
“Listening to it twice will do that. Especially right on top of one another like that. It’s a bit like breathing recycled air.” Jon Prime opens his eyes. “Like being down here, really.”
Jon tenses. “What do you mean?”
“You didn’t feel that sensation when you came down the steps? That almost…weighted silence, like an absence of sound? The Eye can’t penetrate down here. It means Jonah can’t see down here, but it also means that anything coming from it is…muffled.”
“No, I—I did notice. That was the Eye?”
“Yes. That was you being separated from it. It’s not hurting you right now because you aren’t as deeply connected as—as all that, but…”
Jon gets it, all of a sudden. Horror runs through him. “You can’t stay down here. It’s literally killing you.”
“It’s not,” Jon Prime assures him, though he sounds tired. “I’m not as…strong as I would be if I wasn’t down here, that’s true, but trust me when I say this is still the best option.”
“So…what, you’re going to just—just sit down here and let your energy drain away? Like some kind of punishment?” Jon knows himself well enough to know that’s exactly what Jon Prime is doing, and it’s a lot easier to call himself out when his self is literally another person.
Martin Prime snorts. “I’ve been telling him that for the last day.”
Jon Prime sighs heavily. “Fine. I admit there’s a part of me that feels like I…deserve this, somehow. But no. If we can get closer to the steps…well, we can come up after dark. Once the Institute is closed. Just sitting in the Archives for a few hours ought to be enough to—” He flounders for a moment.
“Recharge your batteries?” Martin Prime suggests.
“Essentially, yes. It’s not as bad as it could be.”
Jon wants to argue, but he’s pretty sure he’ll lose if he does. “F-fine. Fine. I…if you’re sure.”
“I am.” Jon Prime closes his eyes again. “You had more questions? Or was that it?”
Jon plays with the torch and tries to decide if he really wants to ask any of his other questions. Finally, he asks, “Should I have…told Basira what giving me a statement would mean?”
“No,” Jon Prime answers immediately. “She wouldn’t have believed you. Not without proof, anyway. She’s—it’s just how she is. Always has been. She has to pick everything apart, see it through to the logical conclusion. And I don’t think she’ll ever mention to you that she has the nightmares. I only found out she’d ever had them because of a passing comment she made to Daisy on a tape once, about how she hadn’t had any since joining the Institute. I—I didn’t realize what they were, not then.”
“God. Elias really didn’t tell you anything, did he?”
“It was in his best interest to keep me—us—ignorant. Because if I knew too soon what was going on, I’d be able to stop him.”
“Like we’re going to.”
Jon Prime smiles. “Exactly.”
“Basira being…getting trapped here…that’s not inevitable, is it?”
“No.” Surprisingly, it’s Martin Prime who answers. “Melanie either. We should be able to avoid both those scenarios. I don’t think she’ll stay with the police, though. That feels inevitable.”
Jon Prime nods slowly. “That much you ought to be able to warn her about. It didn’t do much good when our Tim tried to warn her, as I recall, but at the same time, that was…a very different situation altogether. Hopefully, we’ll be able to keep things from trending in that direction.”
Jon nods as well. They sit in silence for a few moments. The silence feels even more oppressive than before, now that Jon knows what it means—now that he knows they’re cut off from their master. Patron. Overlord. Whatever in God’s name it is.
“What do you call it?” he blurts out. Jon Prime opens his eyes and blinks at him and Martin Prime tilts his head to one side, his brows knitting, so he clarifies, “The Eye. Is it…is it your master or your patron or…”
“It’s a bloody great nuisance is what it is,” Martin Prime mutters.
Jon Prime smiles. “In truth, I don’t know. I suppose ‘patron’ is still the best word. I do have free will, after all. I can refuse it. It’s…unpleasant, sometimes, when I do, but I can refuse to do what it says and there’s precious little it can do about it. The Eye doesn’t control me, but…oh, I don’t know. It grants me powers, abilities, and all it asks in return is that I feed it. Which, I suppose, is what I do. So to that extent, yes, it’s…my patron. Honestly, I don’t like thinking about it as my anything.”
“Nobody else ever referred to it as ‘your’ anything, either,” Martin Prime muses. “Except Elias, I guess. Most people just referred to you in relation to the Eye, not the other way around.”
“Mmm.” Jon Prime looks up at Martin Prime. “What was it Melanie called me? ‘The Ceaseless Watcher’s special little boy’?”
“Also ‘Snoop God’s favorite kid’,” Martin Prime says, his lips twitching upwards in a smile.
Jon Prime laughs and closes his eyes again. “You don’t have to call it ‘your’ anything, Jon. Not if you don’t want to. You still belong to yourself. Just…hold onto that.”
Jon swallows. “I’ll try.”
“Hey, don’t go to sleep on me,” Martin Prime says, a gentle note of teasing in his voice but also an undercurrent of worry. “I’m not carrying you and all our supplies to wherever we’re moving to.”
“I’m not falling asleep,” Jon Prime claims. “Just resting my eyes.” He sighs, then admits, “We got too far from…everything. I’m afraid it took a bit more out of me than I expected.”
“I’ll bring you some statements later,” Jon promises. “Or get Tim to leave them on his desk or something. There are a few he was trying to get me to re-record. I don’t know if they’ll be any good, but…”
“It’s better than nothing. Thank you.”
Jon watches the two of them for a moment. Something that’s been bothering him almost since the first day prods at him, and he knows he has to ask. “One last question?”
“Ask away.”
Jon looks from Jon Prime to Martin Prime and back. “When you…that first day, when we were talking. You kept calling me ‘Archivist’, and—and then you said something about knowing why he was doing that. Why were you doing that?”
Martin Prime stills. Evenly, he says, “Jon? Do you want to explain?”
“Not really.” Jon Prime sighs. “But I know you will if I don’t.”
“Damn right.”
Jon Prime takes a deep breath and opens his eyes. He actually sits up straighter, too, although he doesn’t pull away from Martin Prime’s arm. Jon suspects part of that is that Martin Prime wouldn’t let him if he tried. “Even before I fully understood what I was, what I was involved in…every monster or—or avatar or whatever you want to call them I met called me ‘Archivist.’ There were only two who ever addressed me by my name, really, and one of them was Elias, but even he called me ‘Archivist’ when he wasn’t concentrating. I—I suppose I felt, at least at first, that…well, if monsters are going to address you that way, I might as well do the same.”
“But you’re not a monster,” Jon protests. “Why would you class yourself that way?”
Martin Prime harrumphs rather pointedly. Jon Prime avoids looking at him. “Some days it’s harder to remember that than others.”
“Which is what I’m here for,” Martin Prime says. “To remind you.”
“Martin, you’re—” Jon Prime swallows hard, and he does look up at Martin Prime now. “You aren’t just reminding me that I’m human. You’re keeping me human. I don’t want to put that on you, but…”
“You’re not telling me anything I haven’t known since the end of the world, Jon.” Martin Prime leans over to kiss Jon Prime’s forehead, but Jon Prime tilts his head back to meet his lips with his own. It’s soft and tender and brief, but Jon still has to look away.
After a moment, Jon Prime sighs. “Anyway, that’s…that’s what that was all about. It’s a very bad habit for me to get myself into and Martin was right to call me on it.”
“So, basically, I can assume anyone who addresses me as ‘Archivist’ likely means me harm?” Jon asks.
“I think that’s a fair assessment, yes.”
Jon swallows. “I’ll keep that in mind. That, ah, that was it, really. I just—I needed to talk to you. And, well, I thought it would help if Elias thought I was…exploring.”
“Probably,” Jon Prime agrees. He unfolds his legs from underneath him. “Give us a moment to get packed up and we’ll follow you.”
Martin Prime gets to his feet and holds out a hand; Jon Prime takes it and lets him lever him to his feet. In a surprisingly short amount of time, they’ve got everything stowed and ready to go. Martin Prime takes Jon Prime’s arm on one side and hefts his cane in the other. “After you, then.”
Jon leads them back along the halls, following his arrows in reverse. As they go, he explains his logic, both about the direction of the arrows and the marks on the doors. Jon Prime seems impressed with the latter. “I—do you know, I never thought to do that when I was exploring these tunnels myself?”
“Would it have made much of a difference?” Martin Prime asks. “I mean, you told me Leitner was…moving the passages around a bit to keep you contained.”
“True, but he wasn’t trying to mess with my mind, not really. I don’t think he ever changed anything I had already explored.” Jon Prime sighs. “Although I don’t know that it would have mattered to me exactly. My only concern with the rooms was which one Gertrude Robinson might have been in.”
“I was wondering that myself,” Jon confesses. “I don’t suppose you remember? I-I mean, since you found her the—the first time.”
“No,” Martin Prime says. “I was lost, and also panicking. I didn’t know where Jon and Tim were, or if they were okay, and I was definitely not handling that well. Finding a dead body didn’t help. I’m lucky I found my way out at all. If I had to guess, I’d say she was in the room nearest where the worms stopped, though.”
Jon almost trips over his own feet. “What makes you say that?”
“Just a hunch, but I always wondered what made the cleaning crew Elias hired decide to stop there. It just seemed…arbitrary? I figured the only two options were that they were on a time limit and that was as far as they got before their time ran out, or they went as far as they needed to. If they were cleaning ahead of the police, or behind the police, well, that would make sense, right? Gertrude Robinson’s body was found, no need for the police to go further. And if the cleaning crew didn’t see any reason for the rest of us to be down there, which they wouldn’t have, why would they bother cleaning any further out than that?”
“That’s…actually brilliant,” Jon Prime admits.
“Don’t sound so shocked.”
“I’m not. How often did you come down here?”
“Not counting the times we came down for nefarious plotting purposes? Three times.”
Jon sweeps his torch up to check an arrow. “I can’t imagine why you’d want to.”
“The first time, I was trying to show the cops where I’d found Gertrude’s body,” Martin Prime replies. “They wouldn’t accept ‘I literally have no clue’ as an answer, but after about an hour and about a half-dozen burst worm carcasses, they gave it up and said they’d come back on their own with proper equipment. I kind of wondered, later, if they thought I was deliberately trying to mislead them because I’d killed her, but I don’t think I was ever seriously marked out as an official suspect. The second time I came down looking for Jon.”
“You did?” Jon Prime sounds startled. “I don’t remember that.”
“I’m not surprised. You were pretty out of it when I found you. I had no clue how long you’d been down here, but when you weren’t at your desk by the time the rest of us got in, I knew something was up. I thought you might’ve got lost or something, so I dug out my torch and went after you. Found you in one of the rooms without a door, barely conscious and…” Martin Prime trails off. “Like I said, you were pretty out of it. At the time, I figured you were just…hungry or dehydrated or something. Sleep-deprived, maybe. I ended up having to carry you most of the way. Couldn’t get up the steps that way, though, but you were…starting to do better by then. A little, anyway. I made you go lie down in the storage room and spent the rest of the day making excuses to anyone who asked.” He pauses, then adds, “And before you ask why I never said anything, you were already so paranoid and…I just didn’t want to make things worse between us than they already were by telling you I’d seen you like that. I didn’t know how much you’d remember and I didn’t want to embarrass you. Figured I’d let you take the lead on that.”
“I’m not sure I would have minded,” Jon Prime says softly. “Then again, I’m also not sure I wouldn’t have been even more suspicious of you if I’d known you were down in the tunnels, too. What was the third time?”
“That same night. I didn’t want to leave you alone while you were sleeping, so I stuck around, but…I realized you’d had a kit with you and I hadn’t grabbed it before I came out, so I went back for it. Did some exploring while I was at it. Followed your arrows—at least, I assumed they were your arrows—just to see how far you’d got.”
Jon glances over his shoulder at Jon Prime. “You’re lucky to have him, you know.”
Jon Prime’s smile is visible even in the black. “I know.”
They’re just getting to the stretch of the tunnels where most of the doors are when Martin Prime pauses. “Do you hear something?”
Jon doesn’t, actually, but he clicks off his torch and closes his eyes. While he knows the whole thing about people losing one sense having their other senses strengthened is largely malarkey, he also knows it’s easier to focus on a single sense when the input from the other senses is minimized as much as possible. Sure enough, he can faintly hear movement. He flattens against the wall, his heart pounding suddenly, praying the other two have the sense to do the same. And then he hears…voices?
“Jon? Jon, can you hear us?”
“Jon! Answer us, damn it!”
An involuntary gasp escapes Jon’s lips as he realizes who the voices are. He turns the torch back on and aims it towards the next intersection, letting it play against the wall. “Martin? Tim?”
“Jon! Hang on, we’re coming—”
“Did you tell anyone you were coming down here?” Jon Prime asks in a low voice.
Jon glances over his shoulder and favors Jon Prime with a glare. “Of course. I’m not an idiot.”
Before Jon Prime or Martin Prime can respond to that with the derision it probably deserves, a torch beam crosses Jon’s, and he lowers the torch to the ground just as Martin and Tim charge around the corner. They don’t slow down, either; both of them bull right up to him and envelop him in a tight hug that drives the air from his lungs for a moment. He’s momentarily stunned before he hugs them back.
“Christ, Jon, you scared the hell out of us,” Tim grinds out into his hair.
“I told you where I was,” Jon protests, his words slightly muffled from being pressed into someone’s shoulder, he’s not actually sure which one, and also slightly choked.
“You also said you’d be back in an hour,” Martin scolds. He does ease up the hug, a little bit, but not much. “It’s been almost three.”
Jon feels the color drain out of his face. “What?”
“We’d have come after you sooner, but Elias came down and we had to do some fast talking,” Tim tells him. He pulls back enough to study Jon anxiously. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m fine, I was just—it took me a while to find—them.” Jon jerks his head back over his shoulder. “I had some questions, a-and I thought—I was helping them find someplace to set up camp closer to the entrance into the Archives.”
“You didn’t tell us you were on a time limit,” Martin Prime says, a hint of reproach in his voice.
“I honestly didn’t think it took me as long as it did,” Jon says. He refocuses on Tim. “What did Elias want?”
“Just to know where you were. Something about you not answering your phone and a meeting about the budget, which is clearly bullshit, since he always does the budgeting on Tuesdays.” Tim snorts. “I told him the last time I’d seen you was before I left for lunch, which was true. And Martin told him you’d been agitated after talking to Basira and that he thought you might’ve gone on a walk to clear your head, which was obviously a lie, but weirdly, I think he bought it. At least he pretended to.”
“He probably bought it, actually,” Jon Prime says. “Or at least bought that you believed it. I’m sure he knows your Jon came down here. All he wanted to confirm was that the rest of you didn’t know he was down here. The idea of you poking around down here probably delights him.”
“I thought that, too,” Jon says with a sigh. “Right, how far are we from the steps?”
“Not very. Like two turns and a straight shot,” Martin replies. “We figured you weren’t behind any of the doors you’d marked.”
“We’ll settle ourselves,” Jon Prime assures Jon. “You’ve told us how you marked the doors. Either come find us before you leave or…well, just leave out those statements you need redone. I’ll get them tonight. You three best get out of here before Elias notices you’re missing. I don’t think he pays that much attention to you—yet—but if he can’t sense all three of you…”
“Right. Right.” Jon takes a deep breath. “Thank you.”
“Thank you. Take care, you three.”
Tim links his arm with Jon on one side; Martin takes his other arm. Jon’s surprised but not displeased, and he lets them escort him up the steps and back into the Archives.