googly eye-pocalypse
With some plans set in motion with Georgie for Sunday night, Jon started to shift through some of his haphazard notes for being human with her till late Friday night. They both ended up agreeing that some things would be really easy to slip up on, mostly his eating habits and potentially that he’s gotten into the habit of rarely blinking, so probably better to tell his assistants before they figured things out. Georgie offered to help if Jon needed a back up when telling them, but he turned down the offer. If anything, interacting with Georgie’s friends would be a good test run of how well he could keep himself from slipping.
Georgie wasn’t at all taken back by Jon using his abilities, and was happy to help him test them a bit since he wasn’t all that sure what the lack of the apocalypse meant for the skills he’d become used to. It was key to know with the way that the plan set up as it relied on his less than human features. He wanted to jam the camera’s to keep them hidden, so he would be Seeing all of them so any camera’s he missed would still end up with the others being distorted. Plus if anything went wrong, he would be able to assist.. He Knew how Elias was able to mess with camera feeds but Jon wasn’t entirely sure how, since cameras didn’t work after he became the archive of doom. He and Georgie had tested it with one of her cameras and Jon seemed to figure out the trick. If he stared right into it, then it stopped recording. Only problem if the Stare was off, or got distracted, then the camera would work again.
And they also tested if he would just See what was happening in the room, and wherever his eyes were, the video stream would cause static. That was how they figured out he would need to have an eye on each camera, and each of the infiltrators. It didn’t seem like it would be a problem for him.
Georgie had offhandedly joked that any ghost hunter would kill for static like that in their feeds while looking at the footage. While Jon was just relieved it looked like only his Voice corrupted files, he could still be in videos to some extent. A very odd thought passed through his mind or how he could use that to cultivate a statement, but he let the thought pass, pinning it slightly on the Beholding.
On Saturday Georgie and Jon planned to meet up at the local craft place to stock up on the eyes, so in the meantime, Jon went on his way back to his apartment for the night.
Almost as soon as he had walked through the door, Jon took a stupidly long shower. He’d forgotten how great those were. Was also a little mortified that his last shower for this body of his was probably the Wednesday morning before he signed his existence to his patron. It’d been 3 days without showering. Its a wonder he remembered to change his clothes. He probably looked like a wreck, though Georgie had lent him her brush at least before he left.
Saturday came and went, with them meeting for lunch, and purchasing the eyes. They also grabbed some cloth gloves in case someone was worried about fingerprints. Jon was pretty sure no sectioned officer would be checking for prints due to a prank.
Step 1 of the plan was to meet at Georgie’s place with her friends for lunch, which was courtesy of the Institute card that Jon had approved.
Four people showed to assist them, and Jon was excited. They had small talk while eating, mostly talking about what they did, and why Jon was doing such a grand while petty prank on his place of work. Melanie wasn’t planning on making an episode, but some spooky photos would be fun for the instagram page. There was Jane who mostly helped Georgie with editing in a pinch. Mitch, who worked at a cafe nearby and was more friends with Jane than Georgie. And Jess who did a lot of spirit photography and would share their findings with ghost hunters if they found anything.
One of them, Jane, looked excited about the whole ordeal. “Pretty bold of you Jon, to just let a handful of strangers into your place of work in the dead of night. Not to put you off of it, but aren’t you worried about that?”
“Not really. My boss is a petty man, so he can have dozens and dozens of eyes watching him so he can know what it feels like to always be breathing down my neck.“
Melanie cheered to that. “From what you’ve said, the prick earned it. And you are sure you don’t mind us filming?”
Jon had a bit of an amused smile to that, he doubted she would stop filming even if he told her not to. “Not at all. Any footage you get is yours and I’ll vouch for you if police come calling. Highly doubt the police would bother you over being granted permission to enter the building from an employee.” After the tests he ran with Georgie and cameras, he highly doubted that they would get any useful footage with him around.
It was odd how normal this it all felt, like breathing. Aware of his abilities, but not always actively thinking about it, able to control it when needed, but otherwise automatic. Back when he’d first gotten them, he was terrified, but now, it felt standard. Not like full-blown Avatar power trip, but like, how they were his skills. Terrible skills, and he was planning on using for a petty prank. It felt like that should worry him, but with how Georgie, and Martin before her, how they just saw past that and knew the person in him was still Jon. Maybe not human, but still a person. It was a kindness he felt he didn’t deserve, but here it was anyway.
“Alright, so here is the plan. Melanie and I will take care of the top floor cause she is a pro at picking locks and big boss bitchard locks his office and the main target room. I’ll be her backup in case something goes wrong. Jane and Mitch, you both will be in charge of the library, there are a lot of portraits in high places so make sure to spot each other. And Jess, you got the rest of the first floor to go to town on. Jon’s got the basement floors since it’s a bit of a maze and he knows it well. Any questions?”
“Are you sure that security won’t be around?“ It was Mitch who raised the question.
Jon nodded. “Yeah, There aren’t many security cameras around, and I got a friend helping with looping some footage while we’re there. The security guard is also pretty chill. I’ll distract her away from the entriance so you can get in, and she won’t be wandering from her station outside of that. The place weirds her out.” Jon both knew and Knew that about the lady on security from all the times he stayed late in the future.
They all looked pretty hyped for some good old pranking in a weird building.
Thus, soon as the sun set, they were on the tube, all equipped with bags of googly eyes and masks for once they were inside.
Something in Jon was buzzing, but he couldn’t quite figure out what it was. It was much like how he felt when a statement was calling to him, but not quite. It didn’t feel bad though, so he didn’t think much of it.
Soon as they went to the back door Jon had the key for, he began Watching everyone before they entered and he stared at the cameras. There was the buzzing feeling again. Was it coming from his eyes viewing people trying to be hidden? Some reason, the strongest of it came from where he Watched Melanie. He didn’t like what that could mean for her, especially since all the stuff she went through in his time. Jon decided to put that off for later as he approached the guard.
“Hey there Jenny, sorry to be a bother. I seem to have forgotten one set of my keys for the basement and I would really like to get some prep work done for tomorrow. Would you mind letting me in?”
“Trying to make up for Friday I see?” She laughed and grabbed her keys. “Glad to see you are doing better. Elias has mentioned that the whole Archive crew came down with something. “
“Yeah, seems it was something pretty light since I’m feeling loads better after some rest. Least how it went for me. I hope the others will be-” Jon continued with the small talk while the other 5 that were with him hurried into the building to do the deed.
The plan was executed without trouble. The place looked terrifyingly overrun with googly eyes after about an hour. Georgie and Melanie put the eyes on everything they could in Elias’s office. Georgie was most proud of the eyes on his ink well, while Melanie took a point to have eyes on every single coat hanger, and on the underside of his desk, and all the cabinet drawers. Those ones she was hoping that he wouldn’t notice, so any time he opened one while there was a visitor sitting, the visitor would see it and Elias would be none the wiser to what his guest would be seeing. She worked at finding a few more hidden spots, and even let herself into some cabinets to see where she could hide some. By the time she closed them, every cassette in the drawer would stare up at Elias next time he opened to grab for one.
Jess had run out of eyes to cover, so they proceeded to give eyes to computers, all the items in the fridge and snacks around. Chairs, pencils, mugs, nothing was safe from the extra eyes.
Jon took a bit more of an overzealous approach with artifact storage and skipped over his archives. There wasn’t anything in artifact storage that could hurt him, he realized while he walked through. He Knew everything that was here, and Saw every way to avoid any negative effects they might have. He was careful to not put the eyes on anything that might hurt any of the people that would have to remove them. It felt amazing to put the eyes on one of the items that Jonah had donated waaaay back when he was still in his own body. Jon almost hoped that Elias could see him do it, but Elias couldn’t look at him, as much as he couldn’t look at Elias.
Jon spent the rest of the time watching everyone from his office. It was no wonder Elias was always watching. If this was the sole way that he feed their patron, or the main way, it would need to be a near 24/7 effort. It did seem similar to statement reading, but the fulfillment stopped as soon as Jon stopped watching. He couldn’t help but laugh as this fact made Elias seem more and more of a weak link for the Beholding. Jonah really only had his schemes to offer. It eased something in Jon, though he couldn’t pinpoint it. Was it the irony that Jon was tricked into thinking Jonah was the strong one?
The text came that they were all ready to head out, so Jon returned to the security guard to have her lock up after him, giving the crew the time needed to make their escape.
They met back up about a block away to share their favorite eye locations and photos. Which was when the joy and terror sparked in the crew. In all the photos with one of them in it, there was a slightly glitched green object glowing behind or around them. Looking right over their shoulder. Melanie wanted to go back. Get more footage, maybe even try to record it now that she knew what to look for.
Jess looked like they were about to faint as the object was in one of the selfies they took with a chair, right behind them. Mitch and Jane were both taking pictures of themselves to make sure that whatever it was, didn’t follow them. Jon couldn’t help but stare watching their reactions to the fear he created. Oh that was delicious. He didn’t even need to ask them for their statements as he was Witnessing it.
Georgie elbowed Jon in the side and he snapped out of it. She pointed to her eyes then to him in a very subtle way. He must’ve been staring too hard, and they were probably going to have a talk later if he understood her intentions. He didn’t want to Know though, so he didn’t. Jon forces a blink as Georgie went to her friends to distract them from noticing Jon.
“Thank a bunch for your help guys. Those photos are gunna be wild for your pages.”
“Are you kidding me? I can’t post this. It looks terribly photoshopped even if real, we all know this is real right? Right?” Jess stayed frozen on their selfie photo. It was so close to them, it made their skin crawl.
“Yup. I would say that checks out as real to me.” Jon joined the conversation now that he was out of his daze.
“Freaky. I would hate to work there. Are you going to be okay now that you know there is something like this??” Jess looked back at Jon.
“I don’t hate it there, I just hate what’s there.”
“Wow, that's not cryptic at all.” Mitch laughed. “Let’s put all this spooky stuff behind us a hit up a pub.”
“Dude, it’s Sunday, some of us have day jobs.” Jane punched him, but didn’t appear to stop him from leading the way.
Jess fell behind a bit, and took a picture of the group to help ease their mind they weren’t being followed since they couldn’t quite shake the feeling the group brought something out with them. As soon as the photo saved, the green objects that were in the institute, they all hovered around Jon, and in this picture, they were all clearly eyes, no static at all. All eyes were looking directly at Jess through the screen. Then the file was corrupted almost immediately and caused the camera app to crash.
“Jess, you okay?” Melanie looked back at them.
“I- there were- the picture?” They shook their head. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But um, Jon, I think you should quit your job before something terrible happens. That place isn’t normal.” Jess took a deep breath. “Now I don’t know about you all, but I need to get wasted. I’m calling off tomorrow”
--
That night Jess was in Jon’s dreams.