Nov. 30th, 2020

zarathrustra_ink: (pic#14988014)

Jan's eyes were as wide as saucer cups. "Did you end up killing her?"

"What? No. I couldn't bring myself to do it." I admitted, shaking my head. 

"Okay, so where is she now?"

"Noir." 

When a person's eyes are already widened, you would think they couldn't go any wider but there was Jan, making it work. "Wait, wait… Hold up. You're telling me Brie, your Brie, or maybe I should say not your Brie… She's at Noir like, right now?" 

"Yes." Oh how I wished that were not true. "I couldn't handle that no matter what I did, she just didn't know me. The next time Dax tracked me down, he was more than happy to take her off my hands." I clicked a link at the bottom of the screen. "In the years since, I've seen her once or twice." 

"Wait!" Jan slapped his hands on the back of the chair. "And she's an agent?!"

Again, I nodded. "You see, that's why Noir's organization is so large. It's not just about the Luminous agents who defect. The majority of the people they bring back, they train and put to work. I've seen several dead leaders in the field." I chuckled humorlessly. "No Hitler yet, knock on wood."

"How does that work anyway? I mean, if they can go back and undo all your hard work, what's the point of any of this?"

"Because they can only do it once. When Suri defected to start Noir, she didn't have access to all of Luminous' tech. That's what Dax was after. The data breach a few years back, that's what they were looking for."

"Who's Suri?"

"Suri used to be an agent, like me. She started Noir because of our three rules. She thought they were unfair and set out to destroy Luminous. Like I said, when she decided to make her grand exit, she wasn't high ranking so her access to our tech was limited. She could only recreate certain things and all of it came with limits."

"So what's stopping her from cracking the code?" He shrugged. "I mean, I figured out time travel. What makes her any different?"

"You figured out time travel." Emphasis on the travel. "You didn't figure out how to bring people back. If a person is pre-destined to die, warning them about their death won't change anything but how they die. What Luminous and Noir does is a little more complicated."

"What do they do?" 

"That's classified. You do, of course, realize that you're only here because there's a possibility that you're my assignment, right?" 

He thought about it. "Can I ask another question?"

"Depends on the topic."

"This Dax… Is he still waiting for you to uphold your end of the bargain?"

I'm sure he is. Aloud: "I don't know. I haven't seen him since he took Brie."

"How do you… You know, still have your job?"

"You said a question, not some questions." 

My employment was shrouded in mystery, meaning I had no idea why or how I wasn't terminated after Brie. I used to tell myself that it was because they never found out but time had taught me that it couldn't be further from the truth. Luminous had eyes and ears on everyone and everything. There was no way that I'd managed to slip through the cracks. 

I still had a job for a reason…

Had to be. 

"Are there any other sectors to Luminous?"

Red flags nipped the tips of my ears to attention. "Only one other person has ever asked me this many questions about Luminous."

"Whoa!" Jan held his hands up. 

I threw a glance over my shoulder, expecting Juniper's "Shhhhh!" to hiss across the both of us. "I'm just asking." He assured me. 

"You ask too many questions." 

"Something tells me if I was even affiliated with Noir, I would not be sitting in this chair looking at you." He looked down at his belt, indicating his remote. "That Bateman guy doesn't strike me as the trusting type. He gave it back, remember?"

He had a point. In the two minutes that I'd known the man, nothing about Bateman reflected anything close to peace and love, let alone trust. His "Whatever it takes" meter was probably as bad as Toilyn's, if not worse. My posture relaxed a little, but not by much.

"Found it!" Finally. I pointed at the screen. "See, this is the facility you were working at. According to the timeline change, it never blew up in 1999. Apparently, whatever is in that envelope could change the course of history." 

"Should I open it?" He moved to get it and I stopped him.

"Before you do that, I need to speak to Juniper. I've never had something this huge happen before." I thought about it. "You can either sit here or tag along. Your choice."

"And risk her glaring at me? No thanks. I'll be here."

"Oh, before I forget, Jan?" He may not be Noir, but that didn't automatically equal trustworthy. Until I could fully trust whatever he was, I didn't want him too far from me. I stood up. I definitely didn't want to risk Juniper on my neck about him touching anything either. 

"Yes?" He looked at me.

"Don't touch anything."

I turned on my heel to locate Juniper. This was not something I needed to attempt without more intel. I found her behind her desk flipping through yet another book, eyes trained on the page in her usual haunty stare. 

I cleared my throat. "Um, Juniper?"

"I was wondering when you were going to need me." She closed the book. "Found what you were looking for?" She sat it down on the desk in order to turn her attention to me. White, glassy orbs scanned my face. "What's wrong?" 

I caught her up to speed, careful to include even the tiniest of details. She listened intently, both nodding and shaking her head at different parts. When I finally closed my mouth, she sat back in her chair. She swiveled to the left, to the right then an entire circle before dragging her gaze across me again. "So what do you need me for?" 

"I need to know if I should let him open the letter."

"This is quite the conundrum now, isn't it?"

You're telling me. 

"This is a damned if you do, damned if you don't type situation." She said matter of factly. "Opening the letter could permanently alter the timeline to where nothing can be done whereas not opening it could cause the same outcome." She leaned forward. "What do you think the higher ups would say?"

"You're like, the most high of higher ups." I replied, shrugging. "That's why I came to you." 

"Well played, Z." She smirked. "Instead of an answer, I'm going to give you something to think about: When you accepted your goggles, you signed a contract with not only Luminous, but yourself. Unfortunately, that means sometimes you have to make decisions that you cannot come back from. In this scenario, you have to figure out if not knowing is the better option because either way, there will be some kind of fallout." She swiveled in her chair once more, this time she didn't swing back around. I'd been dismissed. 

These kinds of situations were when I hated Luminous the most. Somehow, a part of me knew exactly what Juniper was going to say but a different part was lying in wait, hoping she would drop enough hints that I would know exactly what to do.

I rounded the bookshelf to where I had left Jan. There he was, envelope tossed aside, eyes scanning the letter. 

Before my voice could find its way up my throat, he opened his mouth: "Altura has been lying to us the entire time about our research. Meet me at my apartment in the morning. We have a meeting with Dr. Carlito Patil at eight. He said he has some information that will expose Altura. I know you said you didn't want to get involved but this could be the one. Altura's research could result in the end of life as we know it." He refolded the letter and reached for the envelope. "Her wreck was that night." Still not looking up at me, he put the paper away. "I've always had suspicions about Mavis' death. I mean, she'd been going on and on for months about Altura being up to something but I wouldn't listen. I needed Altura's labs for my time travel research. I all but demanded that she leave them out of her witch hunt."

"There was no way you could have known."

"But you see, that's not true." He held up the envelope. "I could have read this and who knows? Maybe Mavis would still be alive. I'll never know because I was so blinded by my own ambitions, I wouldn't listen to her. There was nothing there, is what I repeated to myself though deep down, I knew she was on to something." 

"She gave us a lead." Though I was pissed that he'd opened the letter, there was nothing to be done now. Though she gave no hints, and if I were to ask, I knew she would deny it, part of me knew Juniper knew what he was up to. 

"What lead?"

Ugh, snap out of it, Jan. "Didn't she want you to meet up with her the next day?"

"That's what it says." His face had contorted into an expression of defeat. 

"Dr. Carlito Patil." I said. "She gave us a name. That's a lead."

"She died because I didn't want to listen." He murmured. 

"Jan, look at me." 

He dragged his eyes from the table top. "What?"

"The way I see it is, you can sit here and drown in guilt or you can pull yourself together and help me." 

"Help you do what?" He blinked, releasing a single tear down the curve of his cheek. He didn't move to wipe it away. 

"Like I said, we have a lead. Ten minutes ago, we had nothing." I thought about something Juniper had said to me after the breach. "There are two types of people in this world. The first are those who have already given up.  Those who lay down and die. The second are those who no matter what, they get up and go. Those who never stop fighting." I crossed my arms. "Blaming yourself is easy. Holding yourself accountable enough to do something about it isn't… So which one are you? Are you a quitter or are we about to go find this guy?"

"I never took you as the type for pep talks." He said, dabbing his eyes. The ghost of a smile trembled on his lips.

"I'm not." I shrugged. "The wisest person I've ever met said it to me once and I'll never forget it."

"So plagiarism?"

There he is. "Sure." I chuckled. "Whatever it takes to get you there." I offered him my hand. "Come on, we're going back to 1999."

He stared at my hand for a few seconds before accepting it. 

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Profile

zarathrustra_ink: (Default)
zarathrustra_ink

September 2022

S M T W T F S
    123
4567 8910
11121314151617
18192021222324
252627282930 

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Page generated Jul. 15th, 2025 02:04 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios