Chapter Text
"You gotta be kidding me," she spat, refusing to take the screen from their hand. "Another cartoon?"
"It's just a cartoon relic, Maya. The 'verse itself is postmodern, realistic; it's fine."
"Nuh-uh. No way. You keep saying 'relic', which means you don't even know what this thing is. I just had a cartoon two relics ago, I am not getting my atoms rearranged again. Give me something else."
"You don't get to choose, James," Domiviic growled—she hadn't seen them this riled up in a long, long time. And they were using her family name, too? Damn. "That collision event has been hard on all of us, you don't get special treatment just because you're..."
"Because I'm what?" she snapped, rising to her feet. "An Aut? Yeah, you're right, it hasn't gotten me any 'special treatment'. What it has gotten me is twice as many cases as the next fastest specialist, and I have you breathing down my neck about getting my reports in on time, the entire time I'm here. I know this has been hard—I know it better than anyone else, because I'm doing more retrievals than anyone else! This isn't even a formal complaint, I'm just letting you know: I am getting close to the bottom of my barrel, here, so when I say I can't do another cartoon this soon, I mean it."
Domiviic stared. She fought to stifle the urge to apologize, the sharp spike of guilt that lanced through her at their expression. They'd been her case manager—supervisor and mentor and friend, all rolled into one—for as long as she could remember, and she'd never spoken to them like that. But she'd meant every word. She was swimming in reports, she'd had jet lag for what felt like weeks, and her shoulder was starting to ache again because she hadn't had time to visit the clinic since long before some asshole got their hands on a quantum supercollider. That cartoon relic might be nothing, but—at least physically—she really didn't think she could take that chance.
Domiviic squared their shoulders, slid the screen back into the stack in their hands, and started flipping through the others. "Fine," they huffed—still angry, but at least they were listening to her. "I can't afford to give you an easy one right now, but you can have this one instead. No cartoons involved."
"I never asked for easy. " Maya took the offered screen, eyes skimming through the report. "Tch. Who's doing these assessments? We don't know what this relic is, either?"
"It's an object, most likely inanimate, from a postmodern 'verse. I suspect it's from the level that hosted the collision. But...yeah," they sighed heavily, rubbing the bridge of their nose. "The new recruits have been assigned to recon, collating the assessments, so we're missing a lot of data from—"
"Hold up," she cut them off, swiping to the next page. "It's in a monochrome?"
"I'm sorry, Maya," Domi said, and it sounded genuine. "I know you hate those, but it's the best I have for you now. Unless you wanna reconsider the cartoon?"
Groaning, she sank back down into her chair and ran a hand through her hair. "No, no, I'll take it. Fuck, though. Is this..? Does that really say 1934?"
"It does. Make sure you stop by the armory, get yourself a vest, just in case." They turned and started to head back toward their office, but called over their shoulder, "Oh, and Maya?"
"Yeah?"
They grinned. "Make sure it's black!"
It was a stupid gesture, and didn't really mean much of anything around here, but it still felt good to flip them off.
Maya jumped into the world for less than a second before jumping back out again, checking the plotter on her wrist for the image it'd taken in that half-second.
As usual, her instincts had been good. There wasn't anyone else in the alleyway she'd jumped to, and the windows to the factory it was tucked behind were boarded up. There was still the possibility that someone was looking out from the flophouse on the other side, but she didn't see any faces peering down, and chances were good that no one inside could make any real trouble for her anyway. She nodded to herself, pulling up the map to the apartment where the client was supposed to live, making sure she had her route memorized; no way could she consult her wristwatch for a holographic, interactive layout of Manhattan out in the middle of the street in 1934 .
It was just a precaution, anyway. Never hurt to double-check, but she couldn't remember the last time she'd been lost in any way that mattered. So long as the intel was good, she'd be golden.
That was the problem, she thought, reappearing in the alleyway a split second after she'd last left it. Was the intel any good? The recruits she'd met so far showed a lot of promise, but they didn't have the experience or the freedom for the sort of thorough investigation she was accustomed to. A good recon mission could last for weeks, but that was time they just couldn't afford right now, and baby Maintainers would never be allowed that amount of unsupervised travel.
With a sigh, Maya turned her collar up against the chill, and made her way out of the alley. She'd hated the time she spent in Reconnaissance, had put in her transfer request for Recovery as soon as possible, and never looked back. Maybe, if she hadn't literally been born to this, she might have been able to see the appeal; but she lacked both the patience and the interest to spend her life as a glorified dimensional tourist, just sitting around and people-watching and waiting for something interesting to happen. Of the millions of worlds she could travel to, she would never be able to jump to the only two that mattered.
So she'd found a niche that better served her interests. She got to be something interesting, reclaiming artifacts and relics that didn't belong and returning them to their rightful home before they could do any real damage to the multiverse. It was good work and she was good at it, though admittedly there were only so many of Domi's "you're here to save the worlds" speeches a person could endure before even that emotional reward felt meaningless.
If nothing else, at least it got her out of the house—though after this latest collision event, that felt much more curse than blessing. She might have to treat herself to a little staycation after this job, give herself some time to relax, her shoulder some time to heal. She could always jump back to work before they really missed her, or Domi would eventually come knocking. She could really use the rest.
Especially since she had a feeling about this case. Not a good one.
Not bad, necessarily, but...unsettling. True, she didn't prefer worlds like this, disliking the disorientation the reduced visible spectrum caused and the ways she had to disguise herself to go unnoticed. But this felt bigger than that.
Maybe it was the strange energy out here in the streets, the bustle of grayscale people moving about, working or shopping or desperate for diversion. Even for New York, even for this era, everyone seemed...tense. Furtive glances, shuffling feet, the few conversations she could almost overhear held in hushed whispers. It made her feel on edge, in a way she rarely did while traveling.
Still, she had a job to do. Whatever was upsetting the delicate equilibrium of Midtown Manhattan, it had nothing to do with her. All she had to do was find the relic stolen from another dimension and return it. She could always jump away if things got too hot, try back a different day.
It wouldn’t be ideal. She didn’t know what the relic was, what kind of danger it posed to this place and these people. Every moment that passed was another step closer to the possibility of it destabilizing this entire dimension.
So Maya kept her head down and hurried her steps toward the target, trying to shake off the crowd's ambient unease.
At least the weather was favorable for wearing the gloves and scarf that masked her skin color, this iteration of New York refusing to release its grip on the last dregs of winter. She'd almost enjoyed retrieving an outfit from the quartermaster, pleased by the fleece-collared flight jacket and heavy knickerbockers she'd discovered. She was short enough to pass for a teenaged boy, maybe a little older. The loose pants hid her hips well, and with the oversized ivy cap pulled low to hide her eyes and short hair, she looked every bit the bedraggled street kid in his big brother’s hand-me-downs, walking the streets in search of work. An effective disguise that kept her from drawing any degree of interest from passersby, especially at a time like this.
But the driving wind and sleet made her wish she'd worn something more substantial beneath her armored vest than the impact bra that kept her chest flat. She hadn’t wanted to feel too bulky; the report had stated the relic was probably in the client’s apartment, so she’d had to anticipate the likelihood of a quick escape, the possible need for a full range of motion. The last thing she needed was the client coming home with a civilian or two to find her rooting through their things. She’d leapt out of windows more than once to keep from being seen making a jump, and those cases had come with much better intel than this one. If her gut feeling was anything to go by (and it rarely steered her wrong), she’d end up running from something on this job, and would be glad for fewer layers when she did.
Still, she was shivering and grateful when she finally slid between the doors of the apartment complex. A five-spot pressed into the doorman’s hand was all it took to clear her way to the stairwell without question. The client lived on the top floor, 16 stories up, and she cursed that fact with every flight she took.
Still, these were no penthouse suites. Not tenements, either, thank the void; the client had a private room, and there was no one in the hallway to watch her retrieve the multi from her pocket and swiftly pick the lock. She hesitated at the click, pressing her ear to the door to listen for any sound of movement inside, but there was nothing.
So she let herself in, waiting for a minute with her back against the door for her eyes to adjust to both the gloom and lack of color. There were windows along the far wall, looking out to a fire escape and the street below; but the overcast sky was a dreary gray, even for this dimension, and the light they let in was hardly substantial.
But it was enough for her to check the readings from her plotter. A little dimensional warping, but no sign of any serious destabilization. It could be nothing more than the lingering ripples of the collision event. Either the relic was harmless, or it was lying dormant, or it wasn't being kept here.
Regardless, it didn't belong in this dimension. There was nothing to do but look for it.
The studio apartment was nothing too special, but a decent size for this time period. The windowed wall was exposed brick, which wouldn’t be considered chic for several more decades, the others papered in a pale plaid pattern that left her grateful she couldn’t see it in color. There was a wrought-iron bed in the corner, half-obscured by a rack of clothes; a sagging couch and a worn armchair around a scuffed coffee table; a mismatched dining set by the window, one of the two chairs doing double-duty as a laundry hamper; a gas stove and a small Frigidaire and a sink. The report supposed the client was some sort of investigator, which explained the filing cabinets along one wall, the heavy wooden desk with a tube radio and a stack of folders and notebooks, a folding Kodak resting like a paperweight on top.
The place was haphazard, but not terribly messy. Whoever lived here didn't spend much time on tidying up or decor, but who was she to judge?
Domiviic had said "probably inanimate," but she scanned the ground for any food or water dishes anyway, even muttered a, "Pspspspsps..." for good measure. It was always her first try for unknown relics, certainly never hurt to check; no matter the dimension, no matter the species, people always love taking in strays.
But she heard nothing in response; no tinkle of a little bell, no padding of little feet. Frowning, she sidled over to the narrow bookshelf, overflowing with heavy tomes and pulp magazines and loose pages of obscure text that seemed torn out of library books. She scanned the titles for anything anachronistic, checked the covers and pages for any colors that seemed out of place. Books weren’t particularly common relics, but they could be powerful ones.
Still, no dice.
A peek into the cramped (but at least private) bathroom proved that it could be used as a darkroom in a pinch; there were trays stacked beneath the sink, a clothesline and pins stretching across the far wall, and the exposed bulb overhead appeared to have been switched out for a safelight. The jars of developing solutions arranged above shelves of towels in the cabinet were the cleanest, neatest things she'd seen so far. At least that meant this client wasn't reckless. But still, nothing seemed unusual or out of place.
With an annoyed huff, she turned back to the main room. “If I were a private eye who’d gotten my hands on an interdimensional relic,” she murmured, tapping a finger against her cheek, “where would I hide it?”
She stepped over to the desk, crouching down for the bottom drawer. It was locked, but not for long, her multitool picking it clean in a matter of seconds. There were more folders inside, labeled with ridiculous names like “Vulture” and “Goblin”, most of them full to bursting with newspaper clippings and police reports, autopsy records and crime scene photos—horrible, disgusting, tragic things, even muted as they were by the lack of color.
But the folder on top was thinner than the rest, and unlabeled.
Maya grabbed it and stood, thumbing through the pages. There were articles from the Daily Bugle about some tycoon named Wilson Fisk, a few blurry snapshots of a large person in a crisp white suit, a map of the harbor covered in circles and x’s and handwritten notes.
She was peering at this last one, thinking the harbor would be a great place to hide a larger relic and trying to decipher the scrawled black writing on the gray-and-black image, when the papers fluttered in her hand.
Her breath caught in her throat.
She snapped the folder closed, snapped her eyes up.
A person was there, one foot in the apartment, the other perched carefully on the sill of the now-open window. Almost definitely the client, they were tall and broad, intimidating in black clothes and boots, an enormous trench coat, a fedora resting at an angle on their head...and a black mask that covered their face, except for the big, round goggles where their eyes should be.
They weren’t moving, just staring at her.
With a steadying breath, she slowly set the folder down, stepping away from behind the desk.
They moved when she did, stepping fully into the apartment, letting the window (and her possible exit) close behind them.
She opened her hands, showing herself to be unarmed. “Easy, there. This isn’t what it looks like.”
In a flash, they lifted an arm, pointing one gloved hand at her. Something shot out of their wrist—a net of thin white rope that clung to her.
"Eugh, you gotta be kidding me," Maya groaned, looking down at herself, now cocooned in glistening white webbing, arms trapped at her sides. The client seemed to hesitate, outstretched hand lowering in surprise. Disgust probably wasn't the usual reaction they got to this shit. "What, are they making you fuckers in a factory somewhere?"
With another curse, she hung her head, and jumped.