Jareth’s next shift rotation wasn’t diving. Instead, it was another rotation of boring busywork that made him feel like a glorified hall monitor. Three out of every four rotations were busy work to ease the bodies of the divers or help the lab process what they found.
He passed the transcribing task off to someone else after listening to Vance’s voice for longer than he would have preferred. The man really had been looking for fish and had detailed every movement he had spotted. Then, of course, there were the subsidized farms, but wild fish were either extremely mutated from mercury and oil spills or extremely rare and terrified of human technology.
A detached flag swished in the distance, and Vance dictated how fast he swam to reach it. Then he cursed at the orange, black, and red designs. He called it stupid, directly, like he was trying to make a piece of slowly decaying plastic yield to him in some way.
He dove into small caves and dug around the rocks for clams, or oysters, or shrimp.
Jareth admired his dedication and wondered if the other divers were on the same mission.
When the schedule shifted, he placed himself near the airlock room during the scheduled dive return.
“You look like a creep.” Hellen Stacey raised her eyebrow as she entered the hallway.
Jareth’s face flushed for a second. “Sorry, I just have a question.”
Hellen’s lips curled into a soft smirk. “What kind of question needs asked right here? At this exact time?” Her eyes scanned him from head to toe and then back up again. “You got something going on you don’t want the rest of the team knowing about?”
Jareth’s mouth opened, but words didn’t immediately fall out.
Hellen shook her head, an amused smile on her lips. Then she walked forward.
Jareth pulled away from the wall and placed himself next to her in the 3-4 person wide hallway. “Vance mentioned that he was looking for fish. In his tapes and everything.”
“Did he?” Hellen never shifted her gaze as they walked, focusing on the mostly empty space ahead of them.
Jareth huffed. “Yes. So my question is —”
“Am I also looking for skittery scaley creatures that the old world left behind?”
“Yeah.”
The pair turned down a hallway without slowing down their pace. Jareth wasn’t accustomed to walking in pairs, and found himself unsure where they were in the lab.
“I guess the better question is this, Jare. Aren’t you tired of looking backward? Or are you satisfied with scraping metal off ancient buildings for the rest of your life?” Hellen stopped and turned to face him. “Do you want to spend the next ten years digging up what’s left of the earth’s core, or try to figure out what comes next?”
Jareth opened his mouth, but she didn’t wait for him to speak that time, either. Instead, she winked and walked off even faster than before. There was no invitation for him to follow her.
She had given him an answer, but he wasn’t entirely sure it was to the question he meant to ask.
Fish. The single word sat in his mind as he watched Hellen turn down another hallway in the distance and then disappear.
The sound of her shoes faded into the distance, replaced by muted conversations and vague doors unlocking, opening, and closing again.
His watch vibrated.
He looked down to find it reminding him that it was lunchtime. The morning had escaped him a bit. He counted his steps on the way to the cafeteria, reciting them by tens with every hallway change and finally ending when he was through the double doors. He made a point to read the menu while standing in place, being mindful and at the moment. It was the only trick he could think of to stop his lips from moving as unfocused thoughts bounced around his skull.
The menu was, well, exactly the same as it always was. On special occasions, usually government holidays, they would give an extra option or two - but that day wasn’t a special occasion of any kind. Factory-born burgers and vegan macaroni and cheese, and third-generation tofu in various forms made up the bulk of the screen. The black font on the buzzing white background made his head hurt if he stared at it too long, so he blinked and walked up to the counter so he would be able to still see straight on the bus ride home.
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He scanned his badge at the checkout and carried a tray of dark orange noodles to a small table with two plastic chairs. He occupied a corner of the large room, but the position didn’t shield him from the commotion - it simply gave him a place to prop his feet up while he ate.
He made it through half the bowl and his entire afternoon coffee before his watch vibrated again.
Time to go back to work - which meant heading back across the building. Busy tasks to complete until it was time to go home and digest his conversation with Hellen.
A chain of goosebumps fled down his back when he spotted her near the door, and she wiggled her eyebrows in his direction.
He continued out the door, and she didn’t follow him.
The rest of the day felt like a montage video in the old movies, way back when they had more time to film and watch such things.
He walked down a hallway to go back to work.
He walked down a hallway to go to the bathroom.
He walked down a hallway to go back to the lab.
He walked down a hallway to try and catch Hellen again.
He stood in the hallway outside of the airlock station for far too long, tapping his foot on the ground.
He realized he missed her and walked down another hallway.
He walked down a hallway, but this time he had his briefcase.
Jareth walked onto the platform to wait for the bus. His mind snapped back to his body when he felt the telltale vibrations coming down the track.
As it came to a stop in front of him, he tried to think back on what he had accomplished since lunchtime, but only the stilted sequence came through. He couldn’t remember a single billable task he had done — which meant he was going home and hoping that he had clocked his day properly. But, unfortunately, it seemed unlikely that he would remember any better the following day.
Possibly, he supposed. But unlikely. The doors of the bus had opened, and he came back to reality again to see someone walk inside with no one in line behind them. Which meant that much longer with his head in the clouds, and he would have had some time to kill, but thankfully he slid in before the double doors closed. The interior of the bus seemed more crowded than usual — or at least more crowded than it had been the night before. Jareth was unable to get a row by himself. Instead, he sat in the aisle next to a large man with a thin, yellowing book in his hand.
Most of the non-governmental, non-lab issue books were yellow. The pages were thin, and the spines were cracked beyond recognition. Few folks who could afford to outright buy the physical copies carried them around with them in public.
After getting settled in the seat, Jareth leaned over to try and look at the title of the book, curiosity getting the better of him. He wanted to know what would be worth it, in any sense of the word.
The man sitting beside him shifted in his seat. “An Unkindness of Magicians.” The man glanced at Jareth.
A very brief glance.
Jareth leaned back in his seat, feeling mildly awkward and not knowing if he should respond or not. He knew for sure that the title didn’t ring any bells. He wasn’t sure he had ever heard of it and hadn’t been able to spot the author’s name on the cover.
Unkindness of magicians. The words rolled over in his head, feeling strange on his tongue at the idea of saying them. It didn’t really matter. He knew that much. He looked at the man and opened his mouth but forced himself to close it again.
How often did he complain about other citizens invading his space, shattering what little peace he got throughout the day? The least he could do was, well, not do it to others. So instead, he turned forward and waited for the bus to reach his platform.
When the bus rolled to a stop, Jareth stood and walked through the doors, but the man did not. There was another section of residential stops, but it was impossible to say for sure what the situation was. He likely would never know, as he didn’t usually see the same folks regularly—different jobs, changing shifts, high-capacity busses that came every hour.
He shook his head at the train of thought and pushed his way off the platform, and made his way home.
When he got himself through the door, without incident or conversation, he piled his stuff on his table as usual and walked straight into his kitchen.
Hometime was dinnertime, and if anything was going to help bring him back to earth, food should. A real meal that hadn’t been sitting on a shelf for the better part of a year, like his lunches.
A pleasant dinner and a glass full of good whiskey.
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The amber-colored fluid was bitter on his tongue. It filled his mouth with heat and stung his nostrils with every sip. It had been many months since Jareth had last allowed himself to open a bottle of alcohol - it was expensive. Rationed, like so many things. It wasn’t exactly easy to mass-produce the stuff at humanity’s current altitude.
A glass every so often was enough, though. By the time he was finished eating dinner and had rinsed off the dishes, he felt fuzzy. The floor moved just a little bit when he walked around, and his thoughts were going a bit wild, which was fine. He had no reason to stop them, and short of yelling, there was no one around to hear him.
If he really tried hard enough, he could intrude on his neighbors through the walls they shared — they all did it to him. Often, actually. He almost always heard one of them arguing or laughing or watching some program with an insane volume. As if one person making the budget for it meant everyone should get the privilege of listening in. But even buzzed, Jareth tried not to return the favor. He liked to pretend he had some privacy.
As he got changed and laid down in his bed, he thought about work the next day. He thought about all the following days that he had to roam around the lab and look busy. He would be busy, but there was just something in the air that was pulling his focus and staggering his satisfaction with the everyday routine. Even on the weeks, he wasn't diving. He tried his best to appreciate his lucky position.
Instead of feeling sorrow for the time left between dives, he thought about Hellen and her dancing eyebrows and sarcastic grins, and he hatched a new plan. He would go to work, but he would also find his way to the airlock station again. Jareth had more questions.