Giving up the Hunt
Both Jon and Daisy figured they should probably move locations, for now, to discuss Jon’s plan in more details. While she was confident that normally interaction without dropping information about the future, for Jon to share his idea on how to help her, there were some things that would need to be said that shouldn’t be overheard. Thus the destination was Jon’s apartment.
Jon sent a text message to his assistants telling them he will be out for the rest of the day, and that they don’t have to come back to the office till tomorrow. It also included that they were more than welcome to record their normal hours even if they finished up early. It was in fact encouraged to slack off. If the archives weren’t in such a mess, Jon probably wouldn’t push for any actual work to be done at all, but the state of the archives Jon could still feel in his core.
Jon was slightly concerned about the time frame for when her hunger will kick in again, and drive her to hunt. She wasn’t starving, but he wasn’t sure how her feeding time frames went other than how long it took for her to feel the temptations. He was worried it would only take a glance to trigger those last memories and he wasn’t even sure if they were triggered to the Hunt. It would’ve been so much easier had he known the control while panicking, but Daisy always had that one-up on him.
Along the way, he filled her in about his system to avoid extracting statements, and even showed her when there was a lady who’d had a run-in with the Dark. Daisy called him a shitty salesman afterwards, but she was impressed with him. He seemed more like himself than she had ever remembered, or would learn of him? Daisy spent a while on that thought before coming to the conclusion she didn’t like thinking about the implications of her memories in relation to how long she’d actually known Jon and how long she’d interacted with Jon now. After all, she basically just met him this afternoon.
--
“Nice place. I pictured your place being more, dunno, more gloomy? Maybe more eyes around?”
“Thanks.” Jon replied dryly as he headed down the hall. “You want anything to eat? I don’t bother stocking my kitchen with food, so probably should order take-out to give it time to get here..”
“Sure, if it’s your treat. I’ll order something to bring back to Basira with me.”
“Yeah, go ahead and order whatever. My address and card information is on the board next to the door. You can grab me whatever. It's nice to eat when others do. ”
“Wow Sims. You know how incredibly unsafe it is to just have this in your doorway?” Daisy was on her phone looking at what she might want to order.
“I’m not concerned. I’ll Know if someone uses it, and besides, no information is safe. Safety precautions are simply to make it a little harder for a passerby with weak morals to do anything. If someone wanted to use that card, they would, it on the board or not. Plus we give it out over the phone and the internet all the time. Not worth pretending keeping it safe matters.”
“Yikes. Shoulda guessed the mighty Archivist would know privacy is a lie.”
Jon chuckled as he came back with a whiteboard, and situated it on the coffee table. “ If someone was bold enough to try stealing my identity, they would be in for a world of regrets.“
“Yeah, you got things out to kill you all the time.”
“Yup. I would say the murder pull on me is less at the moment, but you did just try to-…” Jon paused at that thought. He’d forgotten about the blade earlier. It’d already healed, the blood was still there. “I just did my full commute back covered in blood next to a cop…” His voice sounded hollow as Daisy started cackling like crazy.
“I’m going to change and throw this shirt out…” Jon tossed her a marker. “If you don’t want me to just Know, write down every entity that you have had a run in with that was enough to feel like a mark. We can go from there figuring out a good match. Maybe write down ones you would hate, too”
Daisy gave a motion of agreement while still laughing. She’d only been back in his life for less than 3 hours and their old habits were back. It was nice not being alone in the past. Well, he wasn’t alone, he had Georgie, but she only had the second-hand knowledge. This was different. He hadn’t realized how out of time he’d actually been till someone else was here with him. For a moment his mind drifted to Martin while he tossed the bloody shirt into the bin.
“All ordered. Food will be here in 30.” Jon was informed by Daisy when he came out in his clean clothes.
“Thanks. So what are we working with?”
“Well, obvious ones are from the Hunt and Buried, but neither seems to be a real option.” Daisy had written a ‘yes, maybe’ and ‘no’ and under the ‘no’ was Hunt and Buried.
“Other than that, you could put Beholding in the maybe, though you aren’t all that compatible with it, I could probably force a nasty enough experience with it to get you to change alliances.”
“Not like my time as an employee did that. Hm...That's a maybe.” Daisy wrote Eye in on the board. “Hard to think of any of the others I’d be willing to throw my fate to. None are Ideal, and all other run-ins, I was the one that came out on top.” That last bit was said with an odd bit of pride. Jon almost felt bad he was the reason she would need to separate herself from it because of him. Almost.
“Want me to Know which might be compatible?”
“Is that something you can Know? Wouldn’t just give the default ‘join the Eye’ cause the Beholding is greedy?”
“The Beholding had all the fears in the future. If it holds any sentient capacity past hunger, it probably considers all fears belonging to it. Honestly probably even before I ended the world.” Jon looked at the board. “The Eye isn’t a good fit anyway. You aren’t curious enough for it where feeding it would be easy. London’s got enough Eye monsters anyway.”
“Ooo do I smell a touch of someone being territorial? Also, I’m telling Georgie you said monsters plural.”
“I- Daisy no. Don-”
“Daisy yes. And done.” She’d texted Basira to pass the message along.
Moments later Jon’s phone goes off. “Seriously...I shouldn’t have told you that.”
“Too late. It's good for you. -It’s nice you know. Seeing you not drenched in misery.”
Jon smiled softly. “Having friends is nice. I should’ve done this the first time”
“Yeah, now enough about you. Let's figure this out shall we? Know away all-mighty Archivist.”
And Jon Knew. He erased the stuff Daisy had written, and began writing under two categories. The first one was labeled ‘good fit’ and had the Hunt, the Desolation, the End, and the Eye. The Eye did surprise him, but maybe it was he’d never noticed. The second list was labeled ‘good solution’ and had the Vast, the Dark, the Stranger, and the Spiral.
“Quite the selection. The good solution bits seem a bit less compatible but more for maybe confusing your memories away?” Jon was looking at what he’d written then to Daisy.
“Yeah. lets cross out Stranger for sure. Spiral too, I don’t want to mess with Helen.”
“Michael.”
“Hm?”
“They are still Michael right now. They’ve never met Helen yet.”
Daisy frowned. “That’s. That's confusing.”
Jon laughed. “They would probably enjoy that.”
“Right. Either way, that is off. So what do we do with what is left?”
“We look for a way to get you affiliated. I was thinking about contacting another Avatar for help, or looking for a Leitner depending on what you wanted to do with.”
“Yeah well...I’ll think while we eat.” She stared hard at the list. Her and Jon had talked about it on the way there, if it were literally any other situation they would be able to work with the Hunt, but Jon Knew feeding the hunt would unlock memories.
Jon nodded and left Daisy to her thoughts. He closed his eyes and did some mental searching.
There were 3 Leitners that were within 500km that could help Daisy shift if she truly embraced them. Jon made a mental note to get them regardless cause Leitners shouldn’t just float around. There was also Oliver, but he wasn’t an avatar yet. Ex Altiora would’ve been a great option had Gerry not burned it.
--
Daisy had decided to sleep on it for now. It was a pretty big choice to make, so Jon couldn’t blame her. He’d made sure that she made it home alright, and made the current plan to gather as much as he could so her options would be ready.
This plan consisted of another text message to the archive crew. It was a simple, “rest of the week is PTO. have fun with the long weekend”
Tim was the first to respond with something along the lines of “what kind of mess are you into” followed by a string of thinking emojis.
Which Jon smiled at and responded. “Nothing, just on a Leinter hunt to a town little south of London. Shouldn’t be dangerous or take long.”
Which rather than going back to his place, Jon booked a trip to a small town in France.