There was a low whistle from just outside the room. Martin straightened his shoulders and braced himself, then followed Jon to the door.
“They’re off, then?” Jon asked.
“Just left,” Past Martin replied. “Sasha and I had a bit of a go-round and she sent me down here for a few minutes to…cool off. Said I was getting a touch overwhelmed with all the supernatural stuff and to take a moment out of the Eye’s view to breathe a little while Melanie made the tea.”
Jon hummed. “Do you think he bought it?”
“I’m not even sure he was paying attention in the first place, to be honest, but we’re banking on him not…monitoring the entire three-hour drive out there. And we’ve got the mental shielding thing down, you said, so it ought to be okay the further from the Institute. So yeah, if he was watching us, he probably bought it.” Past Martin took a deep breath. “Are you, um, are you ready?”
Martin assumed he was the one being addressed. “I’m ready, unless you did something unexpected with your outfit today.”
“Nope, you’re fine. We got everything set up. It’s a straight shot from the trapdoor to my desk, nine steps and you’re there. Oh! And here.”
Something small pressed into Martin’s hand. He felt it gingerly—a tiny bit of wire with something rubbery on either end. “What is it?”
“Bluetooth earpiece,” Past Martin answered. “Sasha ‘accidentally’ took my laptop home last night and set it up with the headphones—just the one ear, though—and a screen reader. You know, so you can pretend to get work done until…until it’s time. And there’s a stack of files conveniently placed for you to grab dramatically and storm into Jon’s office with. Joshua Gillespie’s is on top.”
Martin laughed. “Thanks. Uh, which end is which?”
“Here, let me help you.” Past Martin—Martin assumed—plucked the earpiece from his hand and settled it carefully into his ear. “There. It’ll connect automatically when you’re in range.”
“Thanks.” Martin reached out and pulled his counterpart into a hug. “Be careful out there.”
“Yeah. Yeah, you, too.” Past Martin hugged him back tightly, then stepped back. “Any last bit of advice?”
Martin tried to recall what he’d heard on the extremely twisted, battered tape he’d found on his desk after Elias had been taken away in handcuffs, the one he’d listened to far more often than was probably healthy. “Don’t open any doors.”
“Oh, God.” From the sound of Jon’s voice, he’d probably just gone ashen. “Yes, that’s—I can’t believe I forgot to mention that. Absolutely that, yes. Go in, plant the charges, get out. Plant all of them. Don’t hold any back. It’s far bigger than it has any right to be in there. Don’t go looking around. You don’t need to know what’s behind those doors, and—and it’s too late to save them. Just…plant the charges, get to the extent of the detonator’s range, and blow it to hell.”
“O-okay. I’ll be sure to mention that.” Past Martin took a deep breath. “All right. They said they’d pick me up at the South Kensington station, so…”
“We should get going.” Jon sighed heavily and wrapped his arms around Martin’s neck. “Three hours, then get the ball rolling. The less opportunity Jonah has to see he’s gone with them, the better. Red star for right, green for left, and for God’s sake, Martin, be careful.”
“You, too.” Martin pulled Jon close. “Three hours. We’ll be there.”
“I’ll be ready.” Jon’s hands bracketed Martin’s face, and he brought him down for a tender, intimate kiss. “See you soon.”
“See you soon,” Martin echoed, well aware of the irony. He squeezed Jon’s hands gently before they parted, then turned and made his way to the stairs. He’d only taken a few steps when he paused and turned around. “Jon?”
“Yes, Martin?”
“I love you.”
Martin could practically feel Jon melt slightly at that, and the smile in his voice was obvious. “I love you, too.”
Okay. Now he could go up there.
He took a deep breath at the top of the stairs, then pushed the trapdoor open and stepped out. Nine steps, Past Martin had said, and he’d be at his desk. He took four and heard a faint beeping noise as—presumably—the earpiece connected, then two more before Sasha spoke up. “Hey. Feeling better?”
“Yeah. Thanks,” Martin replied. He silently counted off the last three steps and managed to make contact with the chair. “Sorry, I just—”
“No need to apologize. We’re all worried,” Sasha said smoothly.
Something clunked onto the desk, and whoever set it down nudged it against Martin’s hand; he could feel the warmth and the smooth ceramic. “They’ll be all right. You know them,” Melanie said. “Jon always seems to land on his feet. And he and Tim will look after each other.”
“Yeah,” Martin said softly. He swallowed against the lump in his throat. He’d thought that, too, once upon a time.
“Anyway.” Sasha clapped her hands twice. “We’re still here because we have work to do, right? So let’s get to it! That’ll keep our minds occupied.”
It didn’t. Even if Martin had been actually trying to do work, as opposed to just faffing about trying to look busy, he was pretty sure his mind would be following Jon and the others. He was willing to bet the other two were the same, from the restless way Sasha kept shifting and how often Melanie’s computer beeped an error message. Martin got up twice and made his way over to the tea station to make more tea for everyone. And if he spilled, well, obviously he was nervous, wasn’t he? It was only logical.
The laptop announced the time directly into Martin’s ear, interrupting whatever he was pretending to read, every fifteen minutes. A few minutes after the ten-fifteen alert, a chair scraped aggressively back from one of the desks.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” Melanie declared, loudly and abruptly, and then stomped out of the room.
Martin bit back a grin. Show time.
He slammed the laptop closed, a little harder than he meant to, and pushed back from the desk as well. “I can’t take this anymore,” he said.
“Martin? Martin, what are you—where are you going?” Sasha scrambled behind him as he strode away from the desks.
Martin reached out and encountered a stack of files. He swept them into his arms and stomped in what he hoped was still the direction of Jon’s office. “I’m done with this, Sasha,” he said over his shoulder.
“Wait—wait, let me—” Sasha put a hand on his elbow and reached past him. He heard a door creak open just before she whispered in his ear, “You were about to slam into the frame.”
“Thanks,” Martin whispered back. He strode into Jon’s office and dropped the files on what he hoped was actually the desk.
Sasha closed the door behind her, and he heard the lock snick shut, even under her saying loudly, “Martin, what are you doing?”
“Getting back at Elias.” Martin reached into his pocket and pulled out Jon’s lighter, the gold one with the spiderweb design. “He deserves it, for what he’s making them do.”
Sasha paused. “Will it…hurt him?”
Martin smiled grimly. “I hope so, Sash. I really, really hope so.”
A familiar whirring sound reached his ears, and he smiled wider. He opened the top folder and pulled out the statement, fervently hoping nobody had rearranged the pile. “Statement 9982211, of Joshua Gillespie. Statement begins.”
It took him a try or two to get the lighter to flare, but the second he touched flame to paper, it caught. It was only then that it occurred to him he’d forgotten to grab a trash can to put it in.
Something clanged on the desk directly in front of him, thankfully before he burnt his fingers, and he dropped what was left of the smoldering statement into it.
“Statement ends,” he said, not without satisfaction. “Right. What’s next?”
It was a lot more enjoyable the second time around, although Martin couldn’t have said why. Maybe because he knew it would work, maybe because he had Sasha there to help him, but he found himself a lot more relaxed, a lot calmer and more deliberate about his actions.
Martin had burned through three statements when there was a sharp, familiar knocking on the door, followed by Elias’ muffled, angry voice. “Martin. Martin, open the door.” The knob jiggled, either in an attempt to get past the lock or to make a point.
“Sorry, Elias, I can’t hear you,” Martin called. The innocence in his voice was obviously false. “There’s—a door in the way.”
Sasha giggled. Elias did not. “Martin, I do not have time for this.”
“Then maybe you should make time,” Martin said pointedly.
“Unlock this door.” Elias had the same tone of voice as a father preparing to ground a rebellious teenager.
“I thought you had a key,” Sasha called out.
There was a short pause before Elias spoke again. Martin wondered if he’d popped a blood vessel. “Sasha.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Sasha said.
Elias slammed against the door once more—not trying to get their attention, Martin thought, just frustrated—and then they heard his footsteps retreating. Martin couldn’t resist sing-songing after him, “I would hurry, though, if I were you.”
Sasha giggled again. “I think we pissed him off.”
“Oh, he’s livid,” Martin assured her. “He’ll try to play it off when he gets back, but this is actually hurting him. And on top of that, if we’ve timed this right, the others are just getting to Great Yarmouth. Which means he wants to watch them to see when the Unknowing starts, and we’re keeping him from doing that.” He offered Sasha the lighter. “Want to burn the next one?”
“Hmm.” Sasha plucked the lighter from his fingers, and he heard the rustle of paper. “Ooh, this looks like a nice, juicy one.”
Martin heard the crackle of the statement catching fire at the same time as the ominous clunk of the lock being turned, followed by the creak of the door. He turned towards it and hoped like hell he was actually looking at Elias.
“Hello?” he said with his most charming smile.
“What are you doing.” Elias spoke flatly, no hint of a question.
“That one, that was Benjamin Hatendi,” Sasha answered, a bit smugly. “You weren’t quick enough with that key!”
“What. Are. You. Doing.” Every word lanced into the room like a dart.
“Oh, I’m sorry, can you not just look into my head? Read my mind?” Martin was taking a little bit of a chance and he knew it, but Elias hadn’t tried to read his mind at the time—he knew now he’d been saving his energy—and he was banking on that being the case this time, too. He snorted when Elias didn’t respond. “What’s wrong? Too busy trying to keep an eye on everything?”
Elias sounded like he was barely keeping himself from doing just that. “Tell me what you are doing, and why.”
“Oh, just thought we’d drop a few suggestions in the old suggestion box,” Martin replied. He reached behind him without turning, picked up the next statement, and held it up. “Turns out our suggestion…”
Thankfully, Sasha seemed to know, or at least guess, what he was thinking. He heard the click and whoosh of the lighter, then the soothing crackle of burning paper.
“Is fire,” Sasha said, completing his sentence.
Martin gave a small, bitter laugh. “What can I say? I guess it runs in the family.”
There was a short pause before Elias spoke. “I beg your pardon?”
“She got good at hiding things from you,” Martin said, allowing some of the anger he’d spent—to him—almost four years banking to flare up. “Must’ve been pretty embarrassing for you. But yeah. Gertrude Robinson? Was my grandmother. Found that little tidbit on one of her tapes.” He reached out to take the lighter from Sasha. “Like grandmother, like grandson, I guess.”
“And yet, you are only burning the statements and not the whole Archives,” Elias said, but there was a note of uncertainty in his voice. They’d actually thrown him with that. Good. “Not quite living up to her legacy there.”
“Maybe I just thought it would hurt,” Martin said waspishly.
“Not as much as you are hurting yourself by acting out like this,” Elias warned. “Sasha, I would have thought—”
“Is that what you think this is? Acting out?” Sasha demanded. “Throwing a little temper tantrum because we didn’t get to go have fun with everybody else? Boiled-over frustration from not getting to See?”
“Isn’t it?” Elias sounded like he’d managed to get himself under control, which was also good. This was exactly where Martin wanted him—thinking he’d twigged onto them and that he was back on top of the situation. “What other possible reason could you have had for doing this?”
Martin tilted his head slightly to one side, as if considering that. “Maybe we’re trying to distract you. Is it working?”
Come on, come on, Melanie, hurry up…
“No, no, no—” Sasha said quickly, not quite under her breath but sounding panicky.
“What—?” Elias suddenly broke off with a yell of surprise and pain.
“Run!” Sasha grabbed Martin’s arm and dragged him forward. There was a soft, sticky, wet sound, accompanied by a thump and Elias cursing, and then someone grabbed Martin’s other arm and they were charging across the Archives and back towards the trapdoor.
“I missed!” Melanie shouted, sounding annoyed.
“What were you thinking? We told you that wouldn’t work!” Sasha bawled at her as they half-slid down the steps. “We told you what would happen—”
“Look, it took me a while to find the knife, and I wasn’t expecting him to still be down there, but it was too tempting a target not to, okay?”
“No! Not okay! It’s got to be this or nothing! Is he following us?” Martin added, dropping his voice from a shout to a near-whisper.
“Yep, followed us right down,” Melanie answered in an equally low voice, then raised it back to shouting. “Yeah, well, maybe I thought you ought to be the one to do it. He hasn’t really done anything to me yet, but—”
“Right!” Sasha yelled, shoving at Martin’s shoulder to push him in the corresponding direction.
They weren’t trying to be stealthy. Obviously. They had a goal, and stealth wasn’t it. At times Martin could hear the sounds of their pursuit—shoes squeaking, labored breathing, low cursing.
“I think you really hurt him,” Sasha called over to Melanie.
“I bloody well hope so,” Melanie replied, her voice loud and angry. “Left! Left! Your other left!”
There was a moment of too-familiar disorientating warping. Martin’s skull throbbed, and then a voice he knew well spoke from nearby. “Well, well, well. Do you need a door?”
“No, we’re good, thanks!” Martin yelled, dragging Sasha and Melanie forward.
“Are you sure?” Melanie asked in an undertone.
“I don’t think she can go where we’re going. She can get close, but not there. Turns?”
“Not yet.”
Sasha cursed, and there was a clatter, then another. “Don’t know why I wore heels today, that was stupid. What are we looking for?”
Martin stumbled over a loose bit of rubble on the floor. Luckily, the other two kept him from falling. “There’ll be a circle of worms. In the wall. Maybe ten feet in diameter?”
“Got it.” Melanie raised her voice again. “Are you sure these marks are right?”
“Does it matter at this point?” Sasha yelled back.
“Yes, because if we’re wrong, we’re going to die!”
“Do you always waste breath like this when you’re running?” Martin demanded. He was honestly getting a little winded—he was definitely more optimized for endurance than speed—but he was managing.
Thankfully, they didn’t have to go down any more stairs; Martin honestly wasn’t sure how he’d have managed if they had. Instead they followed the twists and turns of the labyrinth Robert Smirke had created and Jonah Magnus had made his own cruel use of, occasionally shouting at each other when it seemed like they might be losing Elias. He knew where they were going, of course he did, but just in case…
“There it is! There it is!” Sasha shouted.
“Okay, big circle of worms in the wall, dead ahead. Now what?” Melanie asked.
Martin caught his breath quickly. “That’s our way in. Run straight at it.”
“Are you insane? That’s solid rock!” Melanie cried.
“Not solid.” Martin still remembered the odd sensation. “Just trust me.”
“We don’t really have time not to.” Sasha adjusted her grip on Martin’s arm. “Go for broke!”
They poured on the speed and ran forward. Melanie yelled, either in defiance or fear, and Martin braced himself for the sticky, gelatinous feel of the ersatz wall as they impacted it and more or less oozed through it and into a large, open space.
“We—” Melanie’s voice caught. “Holy shit.”
“This is it. This is the Panopticon.” Sasha sounded awed. “Is that—is that him?”
“Yeah. That’s him,” Martin affirmed. “Go. Quick. Pick a tunnel and run down it. Don’t go too far, and stay together. Even if it’s not the Lonely, they all work better when you don’t have someone to rely on.”
“Right. Come on,” Melanie said. She pressed something into Martin’s hand—the knife. “Make it hurt.”
“I will,” Martin promised her.
He heard their footsteps, then Sasha hissed, “No, this one! Trust me, come on!” The steps faded away into the distance, and Martin stood alone, knife in hand. Taking a deep breath, he moved forward towards where he remembered the low, squat guard tower containing the eyeless corpse of Jonah Magnus.
“And what do you think you’re doing?”
Martin spun around and hoped like hell he was meeting Elias’ glare. “What does it look like I’m doing?” he said coldly.
“It looks,” Elias said, and if Martin’s voice was cold his was positively glacial, “like you’re making a very foolish mistake.”
“Am I?” Martin shifted his grip on the knife.
“We have been over the consequences of what you’re thinking, Martin. If you stab me—”
“Everyone in the Institute dies?” Martin completed derisively. “Yeah, see, we don’t actually believe that. We know about Thomas Fitzwalter.”
“And so you’ve chosen to prove it. How dramatic of you,” Elias said.
“Technically, Melanie chose to prove it. She just thought I might find more satisfaction in it than she will. And I do,” Martin added. “I really, really do. I’ve wanted to for…a long time. And anyway—I’m not going to stab you. Or at least, I’m not going to stab the body you’re currently standing there in.” He gestured behind him with the knife. “I’m going to stab that.”
There was a short pause, which told Martin that he’d successfully caught Elias off-guard again. “How did you find out about that?”
“A tape. Gertrude left a tape to warn Jon about everything,” Martin answered. “He played it for me, as soon as he found it. I know everything.”
Technically, not a lie, he thought, waiting for Elias’s response. Gertrude had left a tape, and Jon had played it for him. That just hadn’t been how he’d found out about this place. But still…
“I believe I have already warned you, Martin, that a little knowledge can be dangerous.” Elias was obviously trying to speak calmly, but Martin had spent almost a full year now only being able to judge people’s emotions by their voices, and he could hear the tiny, tiny note of fear in it. “I suggest you drop that knife and go back upstairs. Now.”
Martin lifted his chin defiantly. “Or what?”
“Or I use the means I have at my disposal.”
Martin almost stumbled then, almost threw what Elias had done to Melanie at him. At the last minute he caught himself. “What, like you did last time? Just the perfect bit of information to leave me a wreck?”
Elias took a deep breath. “Yes.”
“Do your worst,” Martin challenged him. “I don’t know what you think can possibly be worse than that.”
“Oh, you think someone else’s pain is bad?” A soft crunching noise told Martin Elias had probably taken a step towards him. Or to the side, or back; he couldn’t be sure. Either way, he held perfectly still and waited. “Your mother. She’s always been… difficult, hasn’t she. You take care of her for years, feed her, clean up after her, and now, with her condition degrading even further, she is the one that asked to be moved into a home. To have it left to the nurses. She’s the one that refuses your visits.”
Knowing this was coming didn’t make it any easier to bear up to, but Martin took a deep breath and reminded himself that he already knew what Elias wanted to plant in his head, and more than that, he knew the truth from the other side. “She’s always been—”
“Strong-willed?” Elias sounded like he was settling back into his usual evil asshole self.
“Stubborn,” Martin said. All at once, he decided to steal some of Elias’s thunder. “She always hated me. I just never—never knew why.”
“Would you like to?” Elias may have phrased it like a question, but Martin braced himself for the slimy onslaught of words he knew were inevitable. “Just bad luck, really. How old were you when your father left? Eight? Nine? When your mother began to sicken, and he decided he was done with you both—”
“That’s not true,” Martin interrupted. He let a little bit of anxiety slip into his voice. “He—I heard that tape, too. He left to protect me, because Peter Lukas offered him a deal—”
“That’s not what he told her, though,” Elias told him. “She never got over that betrayal. He just tore her heart out and took it with him. And you were too young to really remember him, weren’t you? Especially when she refused to keep any pictures of him around. The thing is, Martin, if you ever do want to know exactly what your father looked like…all you have to do is look in a mirror.”
Martin latched onto the last memory he had of the Keeper, the grey-haired, weatherbeaten man with the kind blue eyes and the smattering of freckles, looking at him tenderly before turning him to face the portrait of Jon in the safehouse reaching for a cup of tea. He held onto that as Elias continued. “The resemblance is quite uncanny. The face of the man she hates, who destroyed her life, watching over her. Feeding her. Cleaning her. Looking down on her with such pity.”
“Shut. Up,” Martin ground out, his hand tightening on the knife.
“You want to know what she sees when she looks at you?” Elias asked.
This was it. The moment of truth. Martin sucked in a deliberately shaky breath and held it as the static began to build—not the comforting static of Jon’s statements or the discordant squeal of the Distortion’s arrival, but an almost harsh, grating hiss and crackle. He stood his ground, waiting as the static grew louder and louder—
—and suddenly died away, almost abruptly. “What the—?” Elias said, sounding shocked and angry.
Martin dropped his frightened facade and let a smirk curl his lips. “What’s the matter, Elias? Didn’t your little trick work?”
“What did—no.” All traces of his usual smarm had dropped out of Elias’s voice. “Martin, what have you done?”
Martin’s smirk broadened as he heard soft footsteps slowly approach. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Hello, Jonah.” Jon’s voice from behind Elias was dark and dripping with malicious satisfaction. “Apologies for the deception.”