OCTOBER 3rd, 2022

“Takieddine, I never called you, nor did I ever intend on calling you.”

“Don’t be silly!” Takieddine insisted, a slight sense of panic. He seemed to be cowering ever so slightly, despite the fact he was taller than Bailey. “I remember your words exactly, you said, ‘A strange car has been mobilized. Can you set up camp? I’d like your input.’”

“Your input on what?” Director Tristian Bailey, in true Sloth’s Pit October Chaos fashion, had lost a lot of his patience. “You don’t study vehicles.”

Site-87 Director Tristian Shelley Bailey was a friend to many of the staff. At least, he had been, until Former Director Weiss had stepped down for a well-deserved retirement, leaving him in her place. Foundation work was rife with stress-- Directorial positions moreso, especially considering the added confidentiality. The Three Brothers Bailey always seemed to have exponentially more on their minds than a lot of their coworkers, and Tristian had felt himself growing distant because of it.

The white trench coat that hung on his shoulders and wrapped around his waist seemed to suffocate not just his body but his black shirt, white tie, black dress pants and shoes underneath. His own complexion wasn’t too far different from Takieddine’s, but what there wrinkles to Takieddine became the comically wardrobe-like consistency of eyebags, Tristian Bailey’s own being particularly visible as of late, his heavy eyelids not helping.

Parts of his own facial hair were a lot scruffier, like he’d been trying to cover up the lopsided shave job he’d somehow managed. However, like his attire, his hair was at least well taken care of and obviously groomed. His face looked a bit more gaunt, like his cheekbones were a bit more visible, and the lounging posture he once had 24/7 was long dead in Miami. The upbeat tone his voice usually took had been molded like it was clay into a much flatter pan that seemed to only crop up if he was being sarcastic at someone else’s expense.

The second Director’s Office, at the Administrative Sublevel of the S&C Plastics building, was well insulated, given that it was underground, but it meant sound also didn’t travel too far. The floor was a carpeted dark grey with thin lighter grey lines going from one end of the wall to the other. Hooked up to the walls were screens showing simple desktop screensavers on repeat, almost hypnotic in nature, causing the same kind of ambience expected from light bouncing off of icicles in an ancient frozen cave. Bookshelves lined the wall behind him filled to the brim with books, some of which local, and before Bailey was a massive desk littered with papers, folders, three different monitors, and god knew what else.

“Well--” Takieddine was at a loss. “...I don’t understand.”

“I don’t either!” Director Bailey shouted, slamming his fist on the table and turning his gaze beyond the man. “You all realize what this means, don’t you?”

Bordering the wall behind him was a familiar group: Hastings, Reynolds, Sinclair and Jonathan West. Bailey was met with the concerned looks of coworkers who seemed to be stuck in years in the past, still training a concerned look upon their Boss.

“I said on our way here that it’d be the obvious assumption.” Reynolds shook his head. “But what reason would they have to lure Takieddine here? Do you have anything that would be of threat?”

Takieddine shook his head. “Nothing that would be of value, or easily accessible for that matter. Just prized possessions--”

Bailey stood up, hardly even waiting for the other man to finish his sentence. “You stay put. Go back home. Don’t go moving around or do anything stupid. I’m quarantining myself.”

The entire group ogled at him.

Your empire is now like a tyranny:

it may have been wrong to take it;

it is certainly dangerous to let it go.

“I don’t know how the hell they managed to do that. But if it means they’re going to try to do it again to get things done, fuck it.” Bailey had a large, plastic smile on his face, eyes vacant. His arms were held out in an open shrug. “Who knows what the hell they’ll try to do with my voice.”

“Now, hold on.” Doctor West jabbed a finger at him, eyebrows furrowed. “There’s no need for you to go and have a meltdown. We still don’t even know what we are dealing with, and there are plenty of countermeasures to be taken.”

"Say that to me again, Jon. I dare you."

Bailey hadn't even moved his head, or his gaze.

West lowered his arm.

“If there’s anything I learned from taking up this role from Weiss, it’s that sometimes it’s best to assume the worst. First it’s the voice, then it’s the face.” Bailey pointed at Takieddine. “I don’t even know how the hell they came across you. I intentionally didn’t put your Universe on file.”

“Well, say that both me and the person in the car were mobilized by the same person. Why would they drag me to Sloth’s Pit to check it out?” Takieddine prodded a finger at his considerably sized beard. “They want me to look at the car, and they want you to know that I looked at the car.”

Bailey blinked, and folded his arms again. “Helen. The renders.”

The big screen to the left of Bailey’s room hooked up to the wall buzzed to life, displaying the photos from two days prior, and some quick 3D renders of what the rest of them may look like.

“Does the car ring any bells?” The group found themselves looking at Takieddine, who looked rather inquisitively at the car.

“You know what?” Takieddine had a slight grin on his face. “It does look odd--”

Bailey followed his gaze to where it’d stopped, at the top of the tab window that showcased the size of the image, alongside what seemed to capture his attention: the name of the file.

“Oh...” Takieddine spoke slowly. “..Tin Lizzy!”

“What?”

“That’s so cute!” He laughed, the realization setting in. “Like, the music?”

Bailey looked him up and down. “The band?”

“Yes!” Takieddine giggled, his hands covering his wide grin almost bashfully. “That’s so goofy! Who did that? Where’s the H?”

“...I thought you’d never been to this universe before?”

“What?” He responded, blankly. “No, they were in my original universe, too.”

“...Exact same name and pronunciation? The Boys Are Back In Town?”

The four employees still silently lining up on the wall had a split second to experience what a hive mind was like, imagining what the hell the Band would sound like if it existed in whatever year Takieddine had just hopped out of.

Takiedinne clasped his own face, his jaw hanging. “Tris, do you know what this means for that old ‘Multiversal Constant’ idea we had? How long ago was it?”

“Won’t be helping us much right now, will it?”

The Site-87 Director was not in the best mood. He’d been up since the early hours of the morning surveying virtually all the cameras situated around town. So little movement, so little people walking around town, typically just going out and tuckering out somewhere indoors despite the fact that plenty of wardrobes were decked out in winter clothes.... he had been about that he’d begun to suspect he was going insane. Had he a choice, he’d have preferred paint drying, because at least the blue light that seemed to melt his eyes at snail’s pace couldn’t reach him there.

Students bustling into their own safe corners of the world, crawling into whatever crevices for a chance to be alone and be in their own worlds. Adults bustling to work and settling down, living their days peacefully, not treading too far from where they were supposed to so as to not disrupt some unspoken and invisible law the Nexus had imposed that morning and that morning alone. No indication of Halloween dotted the down, no horror-adjacent memorabilia, no memorials for those lost. The once chatter of the town had quieted into hushed murmurs for a show that had yet to start, or a storm that had yet to hit.

The stacks of folders and paper that corralled him, from all corners of the immediate known world, from Overseers and other Directorial Positions alike swarmed his desk, yet seemed to say nothing whatsoever. Just word salads, requests for information, status reports, bloated word counts.

If the thousands of words before him were a picture, they’d be the kind of art ridiculed online in modern museums, a single dot an entire centimeter in diameter amongst a blank canvas whiter than any blizzard, large enough to rival a stadium, a remnant of what might’ve just been a money laundering scheme filled into the lungs of investments that went nowhere.

The cold whispers of autumn, soon to be winter, licked at virtually anything Bailey hadn’t covered up in at least a layer or so despite the fact the room was fully insulated, not to mention soundproof. It pressed itself into his neck, its ghostly, ostensible lips violating principles of personal space, whispering into his ear in droves.

It treated him like a postmodern Umayado, a nothingness that had to be heard, a cacophony in a desolate yet echoing expanse, in a plethora of languages he had yet to learn even the names of. A shush occasionally erupted, yet it felt more like a rattlesnake, a descendant of an Uktena with an urge to burrow into the crevices of his ears, down his veins and invade his soul like it was snow.

Yet, they were kin.

The papers before him spoke in droves of menial concerns and demands, through pipes of bureaucratic toil and bustle.

The plan that attempted to marinate in a soup of Nexus chicanery before him, as a quaint Wisconsin semi-rural town sat seemingly in standstill, miles away from him yet so close he could almost touch it and feel just something.

The words of autumn nights fortelling him of a mushroom sunrise that would make the long-dead scarecrows sing, whilst stealing the ink lathered upon the funeral homes of evergreens, poured so cautiously into a cauldron of asphalt, sidewalk, soil and plumbing, a solution dark enough to swallow the starry sky, a wooden ladle dipped in daringly like a rowboat to a tsunami, and pouring it over his head like a mimeo of a Christian baptism upon a man who was going to hell.

They all demanded his attention, priceless as it was. And they all said nothing, did nothing with it.

Everything was black and white, yet rendered in technicolor.

“Is that seriously the only reason they brought you here, Takieddine? So you could laugh at a filename?”

All who have taken it upon themselves to rule over others

have incurred hatred and unpopularity for a time;

Although the comment wasn’t even intended to be so hostile, there was a silent, communal recoil between the four personnel and the sole visitor in the room, like an open wire to a puddle.

but if one has a great aim to pursue,

this burden of envy must be accepted,

and it is wise to accept it.

“I will be carrying that quarantine out by tomorrow morning. You’re all dismissed. Except Sinclair.” Bailey sighed, ever so slightly slumping back into the well-worn and loved wine red leather chair of his predecessor, a muttered whimper of wood barely audible as he did so. “Keith’s coming back to report.”

Takiedinne was the one to shuffle out the quickest. The other three followed behind him, much slower. They did not give each other looks, or gesture to each other, or anything of the sort as they left. Sinclair’s gaze seemed to escort them out softly.

Dr. Keith Partridge appeared before the doorway, where the group had disappeared. “Good afternoon.”

“To you the same.” Bailey remained where he sat.

Sinclair quietly nodded. Her lips were pursed, her reddish brown brows slightly furrowed as she entered. Her hands, well-bandaged and donning fingerless gloves, were crossed. Her veiled hostility seemed to only be aimed at one of the men in the room, eyes still trained upon him as Partridge entered.

Partridge, sick of what felt like an unarmed Mexican standoff, began to talk. “According to The Madame, our driver in question is both a woman and not human.”

“Go on.”

“She couldn’t say much. Just that her kind were a bit more prevalent in her homeland long ago. Not like that sheds light on anything.” Partridge shrugged. “That’s all she had to say about the driver.”

“...That’s it?”

Partridge shook his head. “She reprimanded me for thinking of the situation simply and thinking the answer lied in that mystery. Pointed out how spontaneous it felt. I think she means that the Tin Lizzy is just one small part of a conspiracy.”

“A conspiracy.” Director Bailey slouched in his chair again as he spoke. A vacant smile seemed to burn into Dr. Partridge’s soul. “We are playing a waiting game.”

Partridge almost thought his veins were turning into roots attempting to implant themselves into the ground again, as he was as still and tensed as humanly possible.

“We are. Sir.”

“And with no way to coax out more.”

Partridge remained silent, like a piece of bark was stuck in his throat.

Bailey shifted his seat, closing his eyes, and opening them again, a vacant gaze in his black eyes. When the mushroom sunrise hit, he sincerely hoped it’d be aiming for him. Though his hands were still clasped together, Bailey gestured his thumbs towards the door. “Sinclair’s next in line.”

Partridge exchanged looks with the other Doctor, only to be met with a simple, unenthused shrug-- not to mention the glowing aura she’d been producing for the past couple of minutes. “She liked the offering, man. We did good. We did real fucking good. Woe be not upon us.” Sinclair was at least giving him a gentle smile, putting her fingers into 'OK' symbols as the glow dropped.

“I’ll take your word for it, you tell me all about it later...” Partridge turned back to Bailey, a little bit of pressure off of his chest at the confirmation that he hadn’t angered her. “...The Madame said she’d like to speak to you sometime soon as well, Director.”

“I need to confirm something with Sinclair, Doctor. Thank you.”

Partridge held in a huff as he turned heel, his ponytail swishing in the pivot, and marched on out. Sinclair’s sole greenish-blue eye met Bailey’s own pair.

“The hell’s up with you?” She asked bluntly.

Bailey didn’t hesitate. “What is this I’m hearing about you being pregnant again?”

Sinclair brushed her hands through her fiery orange hair, from the top of her head, and smacking onto the sides of her body, sighing exasperatedly, slouching ever so slightly in defeat. “We fuck with Hastings once and now everyone’s gonna think I wanna go through labor again.”

“Don’t take it personally,” said Dr. Jonathan West, as a chilly breeze brushed his hair in the late afternoon light, basked in a sour yellow. It’d be a couple more hours until the sun would be low enough to bring the sky from blue to black. “You saw Hastings, most people you’re going to come across are going to be aggravated like that. I’m sure you’ve seen your own shit storms, but when Foundation-caliber nightmares get localized here, it’s more than just the straight up horror that gets to people.”

“Hey.” Hastings hissed, albeit not fiercely.

“We’re all big boys, here. We’ll be fine.” Reynold’s eyes were squinting to avoid the glaring sunlight.

Takieddine smiled as he walked alongside the other three men down the road towards the Madrasa, the looming entrance visible even at a considerable distance. “Well, no wonder... I was going to ask him for help getting back, but oh well. I suppose it was weird he reached out so soon again.”

West stopped in his tracks, forcing the other two men to suddenly halt. “I'm sorry, ‘Getting back’?”

Takiedinne pursed his lips, shrugging cautiously. “I camped out somewhere quite toxic last time. I have to stay nomadic, because my existence constantly rebels natural laws and expectations. I have to hide the Madrasa underground a lot, so I never get to take advantage of the skylights. And even then....” He sighed, slumping slightly. “...It’s hard to haul a building with me everywhere, not to mention terraform the space it does take up no matter how much I try to size it down, or how quickly I make the transfer. Director Bailey knows that’s the case. That’s why he told me to stay put...”

“Ooooh.” A nod of realization came from Reynolds. His black eyes smoothly drifted in West’s direction, whose own hazel gaze matched his.

“Well, you’re not gonna be getting much done just sitting here, are you?” West met Takieddine with a smile that hid more than was to be seen. “How’sa ‘bout this: You’ve got a school, don’t you want students?”

Takieddine looked nervous. He looked in the direction of Jackson Sloth Memorial High, then back at West, in an expression that could have rivaled Hastings’ resting face had it not been for the fact the mask was still covering his eyes. “Teenagers?”

West rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. Would you rather be with elementary age children? Sloth’s Pit is small enough that you don’t get too many jackasses. Most of the kids are pretty mellow anyways. Graduating class is what, 130 kids? Most of them stay in town after graduation, anyway.”

Reynolds and Hastings gave him a look.

West leaned into Takieddine. “It’s their parents you need to worry about. Real hit or miss.”

“And there are curfew laws.” Reynolds added. “Typically 11-5 for kids under 18. Was law long before we got here.”

“It’s a safety thing.” Hastings shrugged.

“Aaaaand, it’s been law since the 80s that we help fund certain civic duties, and that includes their sports teams.” West added, placing his palm upon his chest proudly as he continued. “I’m a member of the Town Council, because I’m one of the few employees that can go a full work day talking to mostly civilians and coordinate the best. Also... I’ve, er, been here forever.” West pried his hand away from his chest to make a circling motion, slipping his gloved hand back into his labcoat pocket.

“How strange!” Takieddine smiled. “You know, when I first met Tristian, he spoke very highly of Sloth’s Pit, always making me wish I could check it out... Oh, do you know where his brothers are?”

“Oh damn, you’ve known each other for a long time.” West looked him up and down. “They haven’t formally been working here since like... Help me out here, Monty. A decade?”

“Stop making me feel old, Jon. I’ve only been working here since 2014.”

“Seriously? I could’ve sworn you came yesterday.”

“So why the hell are you asking me how long the Baileys have been here?!”

Jonathan West turned away from the two men in order to feign ignorance. “Look, Takieddine. Bailey’s just one person with plenty of experience under his belt, and he’s panicked enough as is. There’s a reason you’re not seeing many people out and about. We’re not allowed to tell a lot of citizens without risking more damage, or at worst, further veil breaking.”

“Go on...”

“However, we do get a lot of outsiders... Hell, we’ve been getting lots of Time Travelers for the past couple of years, and half the reason we even catch sight of them in the first place is because of civilians. And god-- I can’t even get into... Whatever, you’ll meet him soon enough... As experienced as the civilians are in dealing with things by themselves, we still feel a sense of responsibility over these people, you understand? And Tristi-- Bailey is our boss, but he can only do so much himself. I think you’d be excellent at helping quell their anxieties towards this October.”

Takieddine blinked. “You don’t already do that?”

West pursed his lips. “It’s complicated.”

He nodded. “...Alright.”

Reynolds smiled at the two of them. “We’ll figure this out. It’s only the third. That’s plenty of time for any kind of damage control necessary.”

Jon’s smile was much softer. “You’ve been doing great yourself, Monty. You saint.”

“Well, Takieddine, you better start thinking of how your first impression’s gonna go. Either fuck it up or don’t, okay?” Takieddine jumped at the sound of Hastings’ voice. His faux go-get ‘em attitude was lampshaded by his slightly manic default expression.

“Christopher has never been encouraging a single second of his life.” Reynolds criticized, adopting a similarly back-handed tone in his own voice.

“You’re not Ruby. I don’t need to listen to you.” Hastings chirped in an almost singsong tone, beginning to skip towards the Madrasa until Reynolds snuck up behind him. Hastings yowled an octave or so higher than he usually spoke as Reynolds jabbed his pinky between his ribs suddenly.

West thought the two of them looked like a small animal trying to wriggle out of the clutches of a young child who didn’t understand how to deal with animals yet.

“I know a good amount of the kids in both highschools.” West guided Takieddine’s chin with his gloved fingertips away from the two grown men disproportionately trying to wrestle with each other. “You’ll be fine, trust me.”

“I’ll take your word for it, Doctor West.”

“Trust me. You’ll warm up to the place, especially for a newcomer like you. You only think there’s nothing because you haven’t seen much yet.” West’s gaze drifted towards the Madrasa. “You know, I’d love to take a look around myself.”

“You certainly won’t be disappointed!” Takieddine assured him. “I’ll need to start cleaning up if I’m going to actually start teaching more than a handful of students at a time...”

Jonathan West found himself enraptured in a specific portion of the Madrasa: the tapestries.

Massive wall scrolls hung upon the walls, some of them hand-painted if not custom made, upon wildly different canvases and different materials. A couple of the landscapes and imagery looked familiar.

The first was a painting of a man submerged underwater guiding a small boat away from a tropical island, his hand cupped as if the boat would fall and land perfectly in his hand-- what stuck out to West, however, was the fact that he had a lower half that looked like an amalgam of tentacles both squid and octopus, a couple of them stretched in a similar motion.

The second tapestry looked as if it’d been taken out of a modern exhibit. Something felt faintly familiar about the figure depicted before him, but he couldn’t put his finger on what. It was like an impressionist had a stake of fury, a forest of bright and muted reds was dotted in view. A figure painted white, save for black eyes that held a sorrow that was only ever mirrored in reenactments of Greek tragedies, was the only figure in proper focus. Its hand wrapped around one of the trees like a longing embrace.

The third was an odd one-- a figure in some kind of ornate and antique pink dress curtsied in dim lighting with a sickly-looking helmet of some kind. It was hard to make out, because it didn’t look like an artisan’s work whatsoever, moreso a printed blurry photograph.

There were several more that caught his eyes, but West undeniably had a favorite:

A scroll in odd proximity to the wall bordering the entrance door looked to be depicting a similarly semi-rural area to Sloth’s Pit. It gave him an odd sense of deja vu, but the real cherry on top was not the similarity, but the true centerpiece: an odd yacht hung above the sky above. There was no telling how big it truly was since the perspective of the building was so warped, but the way the ship basked in the dark blue ambiance and the gentle glittering of the waning crescent moon lingering behind it sparked a sense of wonder within West.

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.

To West’s direct left, the ground had parted and left way for a quiet belowground staircase, home to what had been made clear to him as the much more sensitive material that Takieddine had. It was a dark hallway away from the vibrant light that rained down below, a far cry from the actual Madrasa that Takieddine cared for.

Belowground, meanwhile, Takieddine’s blood went cold.

He was gracious that West had busied himself outside the hidden basement, observing all the much more menial and easy treasures Takieddine had collected.

Less of a hallway, moreso a cellar: it was advice he’d taken from Bailey to ensure the containment of anything hazardous he picked up along his travels, less in an attempt to keep it away from the world, moreso for Takieddine to not have his studies limited by genuine threat and keeping his relatively freelance studies as risk-free as he could humanly achieve.

West could not see Takieddine’s sweat despite the eerie cold of the sublevels of the Madrasa, ignorant to what he’d done.

Rather, what he’d failed to do.

Ensnared in the glass Takieddine loved so much and reinforced with several levels of steel was supposed to be his most recent antagonizer, crushed into a bowl-like shape. He thought he did everything right-- the layers of glass and steel, the solid stone floor and walls, the box of plexiglass, even some comical cellar bars as an intentionally farfetched last resort that in retrospect was likely a joke on Bailey’s behalf.

The bars had been physically lambasted through so smoothly it could’ve been clay. The box of plexiglass looked like it’d been concocted out of cheap plastic given the crunchy tear it left, and the bean-like cacophony of metal and glass had been shattered. In the center, a small clump of what looked to be soil and sawdust, and some big footprints cascading from the scene, yet left no residue, no indication of which direction it could’ve gone in, no hope for where in the world he would find it next.

The Madrasa door had been left locked. There was hope.

“You can see down there, Takieddine?” West’s voice called out from above. “I don’t know if you can do the thing Sinclair can do, with the fire conjuring and everything.”

“I’m all good!” Takieddine sung back, gracious that his shock had been quiet. “Give me two seconds, I need to be quiet down here.”

“You don’t need any help?”

“No.” Takieddine spoke, his hands clammy. “We’re all good, Doctor West. I’ll just need to prepare proper reinforcements down here, just in case.”

It is right to endure with resignation what the gods send, and to face one's enemies with courage.

He prayed that the mushroom sunrise would not be aiming for him, or anything else, for that matter.