Chapter Text
The Thief tried to wave everyone on ahead of him, keeping eyes on the collection of survivors as well as the suit that had contained Mick Mercury. Juno was already hustling Sasha and Rita forward, and there was a moment when both The Thief and Juno paused, waiting for the other to go ahead so they themself could make up the protective rear.
“Alright,” Juno conceded, grabbing The Thief by the hand. “We don’t have time for this.”
There was a bang of a blaster shot, and for a moment The Thief believed that the thing puppeting Mick’s suit had started shooting at them. Instead, Sasha was posed holding a blaster, smoke drifting up from the nozzle. Rita’s hair was still sticking vaguely up with the static from the blast, looking vaguely like a startled cat with all her curls on end. The handles of the door and the book that had previously held it shut had both been reduced to a sizzling hole, and the door swung loose and open.
“Good going Wire, now we can’t lock it in,” Juno griped, pushing Sasha ahead of them as he pulled The Thief along. Rita hurried along at waist height with her hands in swinging fists, needing no encouragement.
“We’ll worry about it further along,” The Thief snapped, pushing through the doors at Juno’s heels, only just able to keep from stumbling at the unfamiliar sensation of being the one dragged along rather than the opposite.
“Is he even followin us?” Rita wheezed. Juno spared a glance over his shoulder, hair flying in its tight coils. There was a shine of keloided skin over the bridge of his nose that reflected the shifting light as he ran, and his one sharp eye was wild with the chase.
The Thief was beginning to form a few theories as to how they knew each other.
“There’s a trapdoor on the floor up ahead,” Sasha called out. She’d pulled herself from Juno’s grasp, blaster re-holstered by her side. The Thief dimly realized that Mick’s suit hadn’t even featured a holster or blaster at all, unlike Juno or Sasha’s. It was mostly a relief, but he doubted the swarm-in-a-suit would need such a thing to harm them.
Their crooked quartet screeched to a halt above the trapdoor, The Thief breaking rank to lunge forward, using his sonic screwdriver to unlatch it and throw it open. Juno rushed Sasha and then Rita in, holding the trapdoor open with his legs and lower half already half in the passage downwards. His one free hand was outstretched towards The Thief, expectant.
“Just a second, detective,” he said absently with a wave, looking back down the hall to where Mick’s suit was still advancing. “I’m right behind you.”
“Like hell you are,” Juno grumbled, already dragging himself out of the passage with a sigh.
“Juno,” The Thief hissed, glancing over his shoulder and down. “One of us needs to keep an eye on Sasha and Rita. Go.” The Thief returned his attention back towards Mick’s suit, now mere meters away. Behind him, Juno made a small noise, somewhere between a groan and a whine in the back of his throat. The Thief couldn’t tell if it was offense or hurt; vaguely he realized he actually wanted to know, wanted to figure out what expression came with the cry, what emotion it entailed. Wanted to solve this detective, clue by clue. But now wasn’t a time he could afford to be distracted, could afford to take his eyes off the advancing foe.
“I’m so sorry, Mick,” Juno breathed behind him, and the trapdoor clicked shut.
The Thief breathed in the silence, focusing his full attention on the suit before him.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded of it. “Why puppet a dead man around like this? What purpose does that serve?” The suit paused in its approach, feet going still. Even so, it was a few moments before an answer came.
“This is our home.”
The Thief found himself half-expecting the skull to move with the words in some parody of speech. A mimicry of speaking in the same way it stumbled in an attempt at walking. Instead, the words issued weakly from the same microphone Mick’s voice had ghosted through. Their speech was soft, scattered, dissipating the moment it hit open air. Building and dispersing like the murmur of a crowd. The consensus of a swarm.
In the back of his mind, The Thief wondered what other species, what humanity could accomplish with the coordination and consensus of a swarm. Then he remembered what humanity so often did when in such single-minded agreement- what his own people had done with that ability. He quickly abandoned that train of thought.
“What do you mean ‘your home?’ Vashta Nerada grow in forests,” he pressed, pacing nervously, taking careful steps back. The suit either didn’t notice or chose not to follow.
“This is our home.”
“Yes, you’ve said,” The Thief dismissed. “What happened to all the people who were here five years ago?”
“We will defend our home.”
“What do you mean ‘defend your home’?” he spat, stepping closer. “You’re a swarm in a suit- what could you possibly do to all those people?”
The swarm took another step forward, and it was only then that The Thief realized he had been foolish enough to get within arm’s reach.
It reached out, gloved hand aimed this time at his neck. It had had a bit more time with Mick’s skeleton now; time enough to learn its weakest points.
Something seized him from behind. The Thief stumbled back, pulled away from the swarm still reaching for him.
Juno’s hand fit snugly back into his own as they ran. The Thief tried to think about anything other than the way it had felt achingly empty from the moment Juno had released it the first time.
“Knew you’d be stupid enough-” Juno panted, already wheezing like Rita did whenever she ran, “-to let it get close.”
“You really do seem to know an awful lot about me,” The Thief grit out. “And I know so little about you, Juno Steel.” Juno didn’t look at him. Couldn’t, The Thief realized; Juno had placed The Thief quite firmly in his blind spot.
“Here,” Juno said. They took a turn, keeping best they could in the sunbeams that seeped in from the windows beside them. It was brighter here than it had been in the other hall- the sun was setting, slowly dipping below the distant horizon beyond the glass. “I found this route back- we’re gonna take a few weird turns to throw it off.” For a second, there was nothing but the slap of feet on the hardwoods beneath them.
“I’m a private investigator,” Juno continued. “I collect bad art.”
“On purpose?”
“Nah. Just bad taste.”
“Where are you from?” The Thief tried. Juno did shoot him a look then.
“Can’t tell you that.”
“Why are you with Dark Matters?”
“Can’t tell you that one either.”
“Your birthday?” The Thief demanded in a raised voice, unsure if he was joking or yelling.
“December 24th,” Juno said stiffly. “Can’t give you year though, that’s-”
“Classified, I assume,” The Thief spat, following Juno to a stop outside of another large pair of double doors. “Along with any other relevant info beyond your bad taste in art and obvious asthma. And the fact I apparently trust you with my name sometime in the future, which means you expect me to trust you now.”
“Yeah,” Juno spat. “Or maybe the fact that I just saved your life.”
“Who’s to say you don’t torture it out of me- hold something or someone ransom-” his mouth went dry, but Juno eagerly stepped in to fill the silence.
“If I was really one of the people that you worked so hard to hide your name from, do you really think I’d be stupid enough to contact you for backup? Think I’d waste my time saving your ass? Trust you with Sasha’s and my life?” Juno scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’ve already lost a friend today, and you’d better not be saying that crap when that finally catches up to me, alright Nureyev? Don’t want us both saying things we don’t mean.” And at that, he turned on his heel, yanking open the double doors and ducking inside.
The Thief took a couple seconds more, still reeling from the first and now second time in what had maybe been centuries of not hearing his real name. Of replaying the image of Juno’s lips, the way they moved around that name.
He ducked inside before he could imagine the way those lips would move around anything else.
Sasha and Juno were arguing, predictably, stood in the center of the room where the bulbs burned brightest. Rita was off to the side, typing frantically on another console with several book stacked beneath her so she could reach.
“We need to call for an extraction,” Sasha emphasized, hands thrust out between them as she spoke. Juno let out a mocking chuckle.
“Yeah, let’s invite the rest of the gang to the murder library. I’ve got a few coworkers I wouldn’t mind being eaten alive.”
“We don’t need to call in anyone else. We still don’t know where everyone vanished to, and if we don’t find out, I don’t think they’ll give you another chance to check,” The Thief cut in. Juno scowled at him.
“Didja learn anything from Mistah Mercury’s suit swarm?” Rita asked from her spot at the console. The Thief adjusted himself, striding over without casting a look at the other two.
“Nothing useful yet,” he admitted, leaning over her shoulder. “You?”
“It seems here that there were 6,783 people in the library last time there were people here- before us I mean,” she said, typing furiously. “And then…all at once…” she continued, bottom lip protruding. “None!” The screen blinked a proud red zero back at them. “Poof!”
“Strange,” The Thief agreed, shifting closer until the screen threatened to push his glasses back onto his nose. “Rita, what would you do if things started to get very, very bad?”
“Come find you?” she said slowly, squinting at him like she was waiting for confirmation. The Thief chuckled, ducking his head.
“That’s very sweet, Rita, but I mean more generally. If a building caught fire, or began to crumble-”
“Or fill with strange hungry shadows with no manners whatsoever?”
“For example.”
“I think I’d get the heck out of there, Mistah Thief,” Rita concluded, “Fast as my little legs could handle it, and maybe a bit faster.”
“And the fastest way out of any building?” The Thief pressed further, leaning back and pressing the head of his screwdriver to the screen itself, buzzing disinterestedly.
“Besides Ruby, you mean?” The Thief hummed in agreement. Rita considered.
“Well, a few of the places we’ve been have had those teleporters, like they have on my streams?” Rita threw her head over her shoulder. “Miss Sasha, do you guys have those teleporter doohickeys in the library?”
Sasha blinked in confusion, posture ramrod stiff from where she’d been having her own tense, private conversation with Juno.
“Yes, several.” Her expression cleared. “Are you suggesting they’re still operational?”
“Barely,” The Thief murmured. “But there might be enough power. Nearest station to us?”
“Just around the corner,” Sasha said, gesturing to a string of shelves.
“Quick as we can,” The Thief agreed, pulling his screwdriver away and following Sasha with a few long strides. Juno and Rita wheezed from just behind them, following at half the speed as they darted between bookshelves.
“Rita, you first,” he said, gesturing to the platform with his chin the moment they reached it, his screwdriver already between his teeth as he began to tap away at the new keyboard. Rita hurried to comply, adjusting her skirt as she settled herself on the platform.
“Where are we going?” she asked, fidgeting with her glasses nervously. “Will we be able to solve the mystery from there?”
“Back to Ruby for you,” The Thief answered dismissively, pressing the screwdriver to the keyboard with a decisive twist. A wall of buzzing green surrounded Rita, dissolving away to pixels and taking her with them.
“What do you mean-” Rita demanded, one foot already in the air to leap from the platform. The next second she was gone, carried away with the stream of the teleporter. The Thief spun and faced Juno and Sasha, both of them panting for breath behind.
“There was only energy enough for one trip. I lied,” he said brusquely. “Which means from here on out, the only way out for us is to figure out what happened to everyone else.”