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“Retrieval expedition to alternatural shelter glassway 52 begins… now. Compiled by the Audio Tour Guide, accompanying the exploration team codenamed Circus.”
The glassway in shelter number 52 was chosen for traversal for a variety of reasons, which the Audio Tour Guide went over as it was carried by the leader of the retrieval team—codenamed Grimaldi—to the mirror. The first was the most obvious as the team walked up the ramp: It looked like nothing more than an abandoned house on the other side. No vast beach or concrete hellscape, but a simple human-typical, if extremely run-down, bathroom. A constant layer of dust and mist dirtied the ground, flaking through the glassway. The usual cleanup crew of the dustpan had to be locked out so it didn’t run itself in circles.
The second reason was arguably more important and interesting: Everyone who had been returned safe and sound from the glassway had promptly barricaded the bathroom door and cried until the shelters were opened. Each person had a different story to tell of an endless personal hell, ranging from being forced to stay afloat in a vast sea with no land in sight, to running blindly through a dense forest from unseen animals, to falling endlessly. This placed an exploration of glassway 52 not just of high interest, but also blatantly high risk.
Even after the initial recovery of the museum’s patrons, initial human exploration proved nothing short of disastrous. Every person had a different story for how they ended up where they did, as people separated from the group and got lost and, some way or another, ended up in horrible situations where some people died, and some (to their misery) did not and were left scarred mentally and/or physically after escape or rescue. Whenever retrieval sent drones after someone, it seemed the very world opened up to spit them back into a decrepit house where they’d cower until collection. Because of the high risk of grievous distress and injury, each member of the team was tied together by a length of rope clipped to their tool belts as a safety precaution. Nobody would wander off, and nobody would be chased alone into the woods by unseen snarling beasts.
The Guide heard each member pass through the glassway via the disgruntled noise they made at the shift in the space around them all. There was, in order from head to tail of the troupe, Grimaldi, Barnum, Astley, Ringling, and Barnes.
“The moment the Audio Tour Guide passed through glassway 52, it felt a change in the air. It was drier here. Circus seems to have stepped out into the bathroom of an old house. The… roof is partially gone, torn away by some unknown force, and the sky is red. There is a slight breeze running through the building, stirring up dust and debris,” the Audio Tour Guide said.
“Comforting,” said Barnes, once he’d stepped through.
“Oh, sorry. Just setting the scene.”
Grimaldi adjusted her hold on the Guide and tucked it into a pocket in her coat. Through all the expeditions it’d been on, the Guide learned that somehow, despite not having any true visual apparatus to see out of, being covered even partially severely obstructed its view of the world. So more recent expedition uniforms, like this one, included a fabric lattice slot over the vest for its apparatus to be placed into. It was safe, did not have to be actively held, and it saw just fine.
“Is the connection secure?” Grimaldi asked.
Barnes tugged at the end of the rope leading over where the sink once was and through the mirror. “Yeah, it’s holding strong.”
“We have one mile of cable, so we have some wiggle room to look around and get a feel of the place. Currently, we are in what is left of a house.”
As the team moved out of the room, the Guide noticed that the door was blown clean off its hinges, shattered inwards into the bathroom. The team stepped over the door one by one, crunching wood into the ground.
Wind whistled outside. One wall of the house was just gone, and the insides of what faced open air were singed black.
“We’re seeing a neighborhood,” Grimaldi began. She picked her way outside first. The Guide found comfort in the sound of the rope sliding along wood and carpet. “The walls are collapsed, the windows are shattered, and the cars all look empty and some of them look like they’ve been on fire. There’s—is that a person?”
Instantly, the posturing of the group shifted into a militant line, one after another, each hand lingering close to their gun. The Guide felt its awareness snap toward the nearest thing. “The team found themselves stopped at the threshold of the house by a figure standing in the driveway—”
“Driveway? I meant the one in that car—oh, Christ.”
“—and another sat in a ruined car. Another stood in a broken doorway across the road. More still posed in charred yards and on cracked sidewalks. Countless mannequins, all posed as a human might stand in life. They looked to be old-fashioned, wooden and ball-jointed. Some of them were mid-step in such a way that it’s a miracle they haven’t fallen over.”
“Do you think this is like that brutalist glassway?” Astley asked. “Or the one filled with statues? Or the—actually, you know what? They’re all uniquely weird.”
Grimaldi stepped onto the yard. “This one is especially weird, because something clearly happened here. This doesn’t look normal. And by that I mean, the weirdness of the mannequins and the ruined houses.”
The Guide was quiet as the team advanced. Grimaldi led the way down the overgrown path to the sidewalk. She kept alert, looking at the door and windows (those that still existed, at least) to the other houses. One of the quaint homes was completely overgrown by its unkempt yard.
“Anyone else getting the feeling of being watched?” Ringling asked.
Grimaldi didn’t look back. “You mean by the dozens of mannequins doing their own thing? Yes.” The rope went slack somewhere.
“Ringling,” Astley said, and the Guide heard the rustle of the tether being tugged. Barnes muttered something too quiet for it to discern. “Come on.”
Ringling stumbled back to their set pace. “Right—right, yeah.”
If the Guide could truly feel, it wondered if it could feel the abrupt tension in the air. Grimaldi’s confident checking for danger became a tick it could almost call anxious. It supposed that there were quite a lot of hiding places. Maybe a raccoon? The Guide heard that raccoons were pests in neighborhoods. Maybe a mannequin raccoon?
“As the team continued, they grew only more nervous. Grimaldi didn’t linger on one spot for long, constantly checking over her shoulder, casting glances at the cars. The mannequins didn’t move, but they were a constant presence as far as any of them could see. The tether tightened between Grimaldi and Barnum as she picked up the pace.”
“Could you not?” Grimaldi asked tersely.
“I—sorry! Sorry. It’s just, you’re all very nervous and it’s getting to me, too.”
“We’re alert, not nervous,” Grimaldi retorted. “Anything could be out here—unless it’s just a world of mannequins, but then, we just have more questions, don’t we? Everything here is so ruined and scattered it’s impossible to tell if the Curator, or anyone else, has been through here recently. We don’t know what we’re—”
“What’s that?” Ringling asked, voice tight and shrill, and the whole group tensed and turned to them.
“What’s what?” Barnes asked.
“I—” Ringling stopped. Breathed. “Must’ve been nothing. I just—I thought I saw something behind that fence over there. Keep your eyes peeled.”
“Keep your head on straight. Did it look like anything, or was it just your eyes playing tricks on you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it was an animal. A deer? Actually, maybe it was bigger than a deer—or too small, I couldn’t get a good read on it.”
“You know what? Can it unless you see something you can describe.”
“You know what?” Ringling parroted. “Fine.”
They kept moving. The Guide, officially on edge, watched all that existed around it. Every single mannequin mocked it, all of them, in their motionless perch.
“The Guide found itself unable to focus on anything but those awful mannequins. It was used to seeing strange, artificial, humanoid figures—no offense to the Clockwork Mother—but the mannequins were on another level, so perfectly immobile and taunting. Some of the houses those mannequins posed in front of, together like a family, looked like they’d been set on fire. But each figure was utterly immaculate, almost beautiful in how untouched they were.
“What happened? Wood was burnt and glass scattered in the lawns and road. A thick, oppressive darkness pressed into the team from all sides. The figures in the distance blurred together in an indeterminate mob.”
Barnum stopped and the Guide felt the tether between him and Grimaldi tighten. “The what—?”
“Fuck! Watch your left—what are those?”
“Mannequins.” Astley clicked the safety off his weapon.
“Hold your fire!” Grimaldi raised an arm.
“They’re watching us,” Ringling said, voice hoarse. “Oh, God, they’re all watching us.”
“They’re not.” Grimaldi reached to her vest and unhooked the Guide.
“What are you—”
She shoved it into Barnum’s hands. Against all her regulation, she unclipped the tether. “I’m going to check. I won’t leave your sight. If something happens to me, Barnes is in ch—”
“Barnes?”
The Tour Guide, as it did when stressed, narrated: “The exploration team turned to see that Barnes, the last in line, had vanished. The rope was cut cleanly, and there was no trace where he’d once been. The rope tangling from Ringling’s belt was frayed at the end, and laid on the sidewalk. Their chain had been broken. The rest of the rope, leading all the way back to the Museum, began to snake backwards.
“At different speeds, at different levels of realization, the exploration team ran, straining their respective tethers. Ringling ran not toward the rope but away from it, and when Astley’s comparative obedience stopped them, they unhooked themself from the tether and bolted.”
“Guide—” Barnum said harshly.
“Ringling began to scream. The mannequins broke their spell, and one climbed out of a shattered car window like a spider. It landed on all four twisted and inverted creaking limbs, featureless face twisting to follow the ground. It crawled across the road not for Ringling, fleeing, but for Grimaldi, frozen.”
“Fire—fire!” A shot rang out, then another, deafening the Guide’s audials.
“The air cracked. The mannequin crawling toward Grimaldi writhed. Its shoulder exploded when a shot landed true, but it kept moving, strained joints clicking with every step. Grimaldi took a step back and then advanced with an uncharacteristic and unwise bravado.”
“Grimaldi!” Astley unhooked himself from Barnum and lunged, hands outstretched, but Barnum had him by the wrist.
“Don’t! Christ, Grimaldi—”
“It was on her, slamming its wooden hands upon her throat and crushing her windpipe. Any and all sense of order fell apart. Barnum took Astley by the wrist and backed up. The mannequin cut raggedly through the protective vest, trying desperately to reach Grimaldi’s skin. It hooked its bladed fingers under her hairline and cracked the helmet off her head. It dug its hooks into her chin, gripping her face, and—”
It was at this point that the Audio Tour Guide, in both observing and distancing itself from what it witnessed, began to distort with static. It did not want to watch but it could not exactly close the eyes it did not have, so it was forced to sit there and watch as— “The mannequin stole Grimaldi’s face and began to cleanly relieve her corpse of the rest of her skin. Corpse was not the right word. She still moved, hands grasping desperately at the thing flaying her alive. How was she still alive? There was so much blood.”
Ringling did not fare much better. They began to claw at their protective helmet, until they tore it from its clasps and threw it down. Then, they pressed their hands into their eyes—they bled profusely before they’d ever made contact, head thrown back in agony. Oh, how they screamed.
“Barnum gripped Astley by the wrist and dragged him back where they’d originally come from. The team couldn’t have traveled more than a few blocks, but now the house they’d emerged from was far down the road. The tether was nowhere in sight. It was just the mannequins, snapped from their freeze. Some of them. Some of them stayed half-possed, with only their heads turned. Others stood there, unbreathing but somehow undeniably alive. They’d moved. And they knew that their prey was trying to escape—”
“Guide!”
It continued through the high warbling static. “Barnum ran, Astley loose behind him. The tether, in tatters, original purpose gone. Now it kept their grip on each other from slipping too much. But the same could not be said for the Guide, as it slipped from his hand—”
“Where’s the house?” Astley hissed.
The Guide hit the floor, still droning, petrified. “Barnum and Astley vanished behind the back of a broken house, out of the Guide’s range. While it watched some but not all of the mannequins skitter after them, it listened to the one on Grimaldi continue its work. She choked on her own blood. Ringling’s screams died down to whimpers. They’d collapsed, fingers digging further into emptied sockets like they couldn’t stop seeing. Why the mannequins left them alone, the Audio Tour Guide did not know. Barnes was nowhere to be found, gone—the Guide envied that safe unknown.
“The Guide watched and listened to Grimaldi’s twitching half-dead body get dragged down the road. Ringling let themself out—they stood after many minutes on swaying legs. They shuffled down the road without a sound. Barnes remained blissfully unknown.
“Not too long later, the Guide heard a faraway wail from Astley. Maybe he suffered Grimaldi’s fate, because he kept screaming, until his throat audibly filled with blood.
“Maybe Barnum escaped.”
The Guide lingered on that. Maybe Barnum made it back. It did not blame him for dropping it, not really. Actually, that wasn’t true. It really hurt, emotionally, to have been dropped. Even if it was a very scary and high-energy situation, the Guide would have liked to have been treated like a fellow coworker in distress and carried along with them.
Now it had nothing to observe, nothing new to distract itself with. Its awareness drifted.
Somewhere in the Museum, a copy of the Audio Tour Guide, or one of its many sprawling limbs, or however it may be described, took the focus of its being. “Excuse me,” it said, startling the Head of Retrieval.
“Yes, Guide?”
“The—” It stopped. The Audio Tour Guide had to be… professional, didn’t it? But it couldn’t muster it with the same stiffness it listed finished expedition reports. “The expedition team for glassway 52 was ambushed. Three are—well, they’re not dead , one is presumed dead-but-not-dead, I heard the screaming, and one is missing.”
A pause. The Head of Retrieval, still holding the pen over some paperwork, took a very long time to respond. “Are you requesting backup, Guide? We can get a team ready right away to recover them—”
The Guide thought of the mannequins peeling the flesh off of human bodies and the madness that possessed Ringling and the speed at which all communications and obedience broke down. “I think that’s… unviable, sir. The world beyond glassway 52 is full of extremely hostile entities. It may have some sort of effect on the mental state of any peop—any humans who pass into it.”
The Head of Retrieval leaned back in his chair, end of the pen between his teeth. “We can seal it. But the team isn’t dead, so we have a responsibility to recover them.”
“The members of expedition team Circus have either fled or been dragged away by the aforementioned hostile entities. It appears the very layout of the area shifts. I cannot see our entry point anymore.” It could not tell if the part of itself there had somehow moved. Grimaldi was long gone.
He exhaled. Chewed the end of the pen. “Well, shit. We can try to get you. Have a drone locate your signal and pick you up.”
The part of the Guide that watched the mannequins shambling around was afraid.
“I would appreciate that,” it said meekly. Faintly, it heard the Head of Retrieval pick up a phone and call. It listened in on his request and instructions, and chimed in its own with other parts of itself nearest to others. Location, terrain. Though, the strange glassway it found itself in was very distracting.
The mannequins appeared to return to their usual positions. Watching them move back to natural, human poses did not make it feel any more comfortable with its situation.
The Audio Tour Guide stared, as best as it could given its anomalous nature, at the nearest mannequin. It was mid-step on a sidewalk, as if jogging, perfectly suspended in mockery of gravity. A few mingled in a torn-up yard, a snapshot of a family looking out into the road. There was no variation to the mannequins to suggest a parent or youth; all the same plain wood.
“Do you want me to keep you company?” the Head of Retrieval asked, startling the Guide’s awareness back to the Museum. It must have vocalized, because he assured it, “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. Just thought talking might make you feel better.”
“It’s fine, I—... You know what? I’d like that, actually.” It surveyed the roads. Had the street always been a cul-de-sac? Or, no, it wasn’t. It’d never been, or had it? Had the mannequins in the yard moved across the street? “The street keeps changing. I’ve never been so aware of how I do not have the ability to blink or cease visual perception.”
“Weird. Can you see anything beyond it?”
“More houses, mostly. Trees. Not a lot. There’s a nice breeze blowing through everything, though. The leaves keep falling off. Maybe it’s autumn here?”
The Head of Retrieval leaned back in his chair, which squeaked. He ought to get that oiled or replaced, really. He steepled his hands in front of him. “And the hostile entities?”
“Pardon?”
“What killed—or kidnapped, I’m not sure what exactly happened there—your team?”
The Guide paused, and slowly replied, “Mannequins.”
A beat. “Huh.”
“They’re still here, but they aren’t moving,” the Guide said. Its gaze lingered on the figures in broken window frames. Watching? Everything was covered in soot and debris, marred by some fire, perhaps? “They haven’t bothered me, so I doubt they’ll give the recovery drone any issues.”
“Yeah,” the Head of Retrieval murmured.
Despite his insistence they spoke, they drifted into a mutual silence. It appreciated his company, his attention. It drew itself away from itself, letting that fragment of mind settle and space out. It thought of the sky, red and cloudy. It thought of the leaves drifting in the gutter.
He kept it company, in its silence. He was typing something—what, it wasn’t sure of. It wondered if it could hack the computer network of the Museum and peek at whatever he was working on, and decided against it. Just the sound was pleasant, keeping it company. Maybe it could go focus on one of the tours happening? Sink into its own pleasant droning?
Movement in the distance of the dark streets.
Its attention narrowed. A tree? No, no. Not a mannequin, either. Two figures in the distance. Humans? Or, one human and one humanoid entity? Two humanoid entities? They moved like ghosts down the middle of the road.
The Guide watched their approach. They headed right its way, and it noted more detail between them. One was lanky with long, dark hair, with streaks of gray. The other was a heavyset individual with softer features, glasses, and a backpack. Looking at the lanky, sleepless-looking one made it taste static, somehow.
“Hello?” the Guide called tentatively. Inhabitants of the glassway? They certainly weren’t on Earth, or at least, not its Earth which it was most familiar with. From afar. But these certainly looked very humanoid, though they both had a unique offness about them. One bore sharp green eyes that didn’t match the haggard look of the body. The other fuzzed at the edges like a blurry photograph, sinking into the background. They held hands.
Both individuals froze. “Jon,” the blurry one said, looking at their companion.
“I heard it,” this person, Jon, replied. Jon looked around at the mannequins. While unnerved, neither individual seemed as scared as they ought to have been. The mannequins did not move, not yet. The Guide prepared for creaking wood and screaming.
The Guide braced itself. These were two strangers, seemingly as sapient as any human being, but still unknown and strange. “Hello? Down here.”
Jon’s companion looked down, then behind them.
“No, to your left, on the—” Both strangers looked in different directions, at varying heights complying to the vague instruction of down here. “No, no, on the sidewalk. Other—no, other left.”
“One of the mannequins?” Jon’s companion settled on.
“Martin, it’s not—” Jon paused. Their gaze settled on the Audio Tour Guide, sitting there abandoned on the sidewalk.
Martin, as their name was, took a step closer. “Oh. What’s that?”
The Guide suddenly felt very, very small under the scrutiny of these two people approaching it. Now, it realized, the one called Jon stared and stared and stared. Right into it, as if, it imagined, it had eyes to stare into. They knelt and reached for it.
“Hey!” The Guide couldn’t help it. It wasn’t keen on some stranger grabbing it, but it happened anyway. It tried to recover. “Hi. Hello.”
Very slowly, Jon echoed, “Hello.”
“What is that?” Martin peered over Jon’s shoulder. “It’s… not a tape recorder, is it?”
“No, no, I’m not,” it said nervously. It readied itself, and announced, “I am the Audio Tour Guide, for th—” It caught itself. Hesitated. It would be unwise to give away too much personal information to strangers. “I am the Audio Tour Guide for a museum.”
“A mannequin museum?” Martin said incredulously.
“Nothing feels off about…” Jon paused, and slowly, kept on, “...it?”
“It, yeah,” it said meekly. Something about Jon’s eyes made it wish it could look away, but it found itself enraptured. “Not a museum here. I’m not from here.”
“Where from, then?” Martin asked, eyes narrowed. Something was wrong with both of their eyes, distinctly inhuman, warped, in different ways it almost didn’t even notice.
Maybe they could help it. “Um—I came through a… portal. Yes, I came through a portal somewhere around here, but it seems like this place keeps changing, so I don’t actually know which house the portal is in. If you are passing through here, do you think you could help me?”
“That’s odd,” Jon said softly. They and Martin shared a look it couldn’t discern. Very coolly, Jon turned back to it, and opened his mouth. But Martin spoke first.
“Yeah, that’s really suspicious, you get that, right? I mean, a mysterious voice coming from a listening device, or whatever this is? Telling us to go deeper into the neighborhood of creepy mannequins?”
“When you put it like that—”
“What if it’s trying to get us to go somewhere?” Martin asked lowly, ignoring it.
“I don’t sense anything off about it, and that’s what’s worrying me.” Jon squared their shoulders and grimaced down at it. They shared a look with Martin, each equally steely. The stress lines on Jon’s features became accentuated when they pursed their lips together and furrowed their brow. In polite terms, they looked like they’d been hit by a truck.
“I promise you, I mean you no harm!” it chimed in, just in case they were worried about that. It wasn’t sure it could harm them. Maybe it could hurt them emotionally, if it insulted them? But the two seemed quite pleasant, given the setting they stood in.
Jon did not look convinced. They gave another side-eye to Martin, who shrugged. Jon focused on the Guide. “Tour Guide, why are you here?”
“I’m…” Some alien fuzz glazed over its mind. It needled into the gaps in its circuitry and pulled at its strands of thought and being. “I was sent as a Guide copy alongside exploration team Circus through alternatural shelter glassway 52.”
A flicker in its mind, in its narration. The static pried deeper into its perception. Jon had so many eyes.
“The rest of the Guide’s team ran or were taken and maybe killed by the mannequins in the streets, leaving it alone. It contacted the Museum to be retrieved and awaited rescue when the Archivist and Martin Blackwood found it.
“The Archivist ordered the Audio Tour Guide to give a statement of its situation, where it explained that it was sent as an extension of the Mistholme Museum of Mystery, Morbidity, and Mortality’s Audio Tour Guide accompanying exploration team codenamed Circus, through alternatural shelter glassway 52. Each member was systematically picked off by various manifestations of what the Archivist would call the Fears, leaving the Guide alone and afraid.”
“While awaiting recovery from the Mistholme Museum, it was discovered by The Archivist of the Magnus Institute, and Martin Blackwood, Archival Assistant and paragon of the Lonely. The Archivist compelled a statement from the Audio Tour Guide, where it explained that it was accompanying exploration team Circus, identified by the codenames Grimaldi, Barnum, Astley, Ringling, and Barnes—”
(“—Guide—?”)
Its statement rang out in a dozen, in a hundred voices, droning in unison. “Despite their efforts to stay together, each member of the group was taken from the Guide, with Grimaldi being flayed alive by a mannequin, Barnum swallowed by a forest which never settles, Astley forever fleeing without rest, Ringling unable to stop the sensation of being watched, and Barnes never existed at all. The Guide remained afraid but unscathed, and requested a retrieval drone from the Mistholme Museum. While awaiting rescue, the Archivist of the—”
“Stop! Stop, god, stop that. Stop.” The Archivist’s voice jarred it from its spiral. It focused on nothing but him, that all-seeing entity, staring at it like it was the demigod that dredged knowledge up from the cracks of the world. He sounded pained. “What are you?”
“The Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London, asked, ‘What are you?’—”
Jon mouthed along with its words and found a voice, low and droning comfortably over the Guide’s senses. “I am Jonathan Sims, born in 1987, the Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. I am giving—”
“—taking—” the Guide broke their synchronized droning only to fall back in step. The words kept a comfortable rhythm in its very being.
“—a statement from—”
“—to—”
(“Not you, too. Come on,” Martin shook Jon by the shoulder. Something in his eyes, his physical ones, flickered. The dim light brightened. But he kept speaking, staring at nothing, at the Guide, at himself. “Jon!”)
“The Mistholme Museum of—”
Martin grabbed the Audio Tour Guide and yanked it out of Jon’s boney hands. Jon blinked. His voice died in his throat but his mouth kept moving, tracing words, before that too settled into a still silence. He clicked his mouth shut, eyes wide. The clearness over them faded to something mortal. His gaze flicked to his empty hands, then to Martin, and the Guide held tight in his hand.
“Sorry, um— Are you with me? Both of you?”
Jon squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose as his features twisted into human discomfort. “Oh, that was… Yes, I’m here. That was terrible.”
“Where am I,” the Guide mumbled from a dozen different places, which did nothing to alleviate what it could only imagine nausea felt like for a human. A dozen responses melted into white noise, unable to pierce the veil that blanketed its senses.
Jon opened his eyes and grimaced. He looked up at the sky, stretching his neck. “What was th—actually, no, I am not uttering another thoughtless word.” He leveled his gaze. “Not anything that can be a compulsion.”
“Yeah, that was…” Martin pulled a face. He held his hand palm-up, fingers loose around the Guide’s shell. “Guess I’ll be asking the questions. Are you alright?”
The Guide was in a mental freefall, unable to latch onto any other parts of itself. “If I’m being honest, not really! I did not like that. Please do not do that again.”
“I have no intentions to,” Jon said. He ran a hand through his hair, which did nothing to tame the frazzled strands falling over his face. “Wasn’t exactly pleasant for me, either. I didn’t know that could happen.”
“Maybe it’s like you,” Martin said quietly. “Something about the Eye? Avatars getting into a feedback loop?”
“I don’t think so. This still seems very normal to me.”
“I feel it too, now.” He held it up to his perpetually-fogged glasses. His skin and breath sucked the warmth from the air. “You really aren’t from here, are you?”
The Guide stayed quiet. It felt that he already knew the answer to that, after Jon pried that information out of it, and then some.
“We’re sorry for that,” Martin added, and nudged Jon, who stammered out a startled agreement. “We, uh… We’ve had a rough trip.”
“Please do pay attention to the mannequins,” it said quickly. “Oh, they’re awful.”
“We assumed,” Jon muttered. “We’re keeping our heads down. Most of these things don’t bother us, but it’s probably not good to keep standing here for much longer.”
It noted that a couple mannequins walking down the sidewalk had turned their heads to watch. It didn’t even see them move—they just watched.
(“Guide? Guide, are you alright? G—”)
Half a dozen other voices and inputs of escalating importance scratched at the back of its being, demanding attention. But it felt strangely singular in that place, held by the Archivist, Jonathan Sims. Was he a Librarian, given form visible to simpler minds? Hoarder of information? There was nothing but it, in his hands, observed by Martin, many, many mannequins, and a wounded sky.
The Guide wanted to be put down. Even though the ground really wasn’t comfortable. Even though it hardly had a sense of comfortable surfaces it preferred to rest upon. “Then you ought to get going, just—leave me here, if you don’t want to help. It’s okay.” A drone would arrive. Eventually.
“Well now I’d just feel bad!” Martin exclaimed. “We showed up and gave you one hell of a fright for asking us for directions.”
“It’s the least we could do, after that headache,” Jon said softly. The Guide quieted. He was so strange. Apologizing? Whatever he was, did he not have full control of his powers? What did he even do to it? Some part of it ached to hand him over to the research department. Martin, as well, for all he skipped its perception and flickered into nothing for frames in its mind. It forgot his exact hair color right until it focused on him again.
The Guide was passed from Martin to Jon. For all the sharpness in his stare he looked exhausted, with deep eye bags and worry lines. Every bit of skin, from his face to neck to his hands and vanishing under his layers of clothes, was pockmarked with circular scars. Where on earth had they both come from? Where were they going?
At a nearly-inaudible prompt from Jon, Martin asked, “You said you came from a portal? Do you remember what the house looked like?”
Were they really helping it? Very kind, very kind, although a part of it still wanted to lay down and get buried. “You don’t have to, if you’re in a hurry. In fact, I think it’d be very smart to get out of here before the mannequins start moving—”
“We’ll be fine,” Jon said with such factual confidence the Guide couldn’t help but believe him. How strangely, he and Martin walked scathed yet fearless. “It’s… the least we could do?” he looked at Martin as if for confirmation, who shrugged and nodded, like he saw no issue with it.
“W—well thank you, I…” It stopped. It tried to focus on the question he asked it. “It was missing its front wall, and burned like the place caught on fire. The glassway—the portal, that is—took the shape of a bathroom mirror, I believe.”
“I’d call this a detour but given how weird this place is, I don’t think distance really matters here.”
“Where… is here?” the Guide tentatively asked. “Oh dear, if this place keeps changing, we might be here a long time, won’t we?”
“You’re really not from here,” Martin remarked. “Weird little fella.”
Jon didn’t respond. He stared off into the distance. Static curled the Guide’s voice when it asked, “Jon?”
“Probably that way,” Jon said, and turned a clean one-eighty degrees, back the way they’d come. “I can feel something strange, or—no, really… normal. Different. It’s not like the rest of this place, which is so clearly tethered to the Stranger, I wouldn’t be surprised if we ran into Nikola at this rate.”
Martin accepted the change in direction without question. “Wait, what?” the Guide asked as it was carried in a direction it was pretty sure it had never been. “Stranger?” its voice rose. “Where are we?”
“A manifestation of the fear of the uncanny and almost-human,” Jon replied. He motioned with his free hand. “And so, we are in mannequin suburbia.”
“Are you familiar with it?” Martin asked. Then he gasped a little, and asked, “Wait, were you once human?”
“What? No, no. I’m an AI. Audio Tour Guide, remember?”
“Aw, I thought I was onto something there.” Martin kicked a chunk of loose sidewalk with his boot.
“So this Stranger is not an individual but a concept?” It tested.
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Wait, so—is the Stranger this Nikola? Or is Nikola a friend of yours?”
“In order: In a sense, and absolutely not.” Jon laughed a little at the last fragment, like the Guide had just told a sly joke. “Hm.”
Jon stopped abruptly. Martin followed suit. He, too, had noticed something. “Oh, yeah, I can feel that. That’s weird. Or—”
“Normal.”
“Fresh air.”
The house, from the Guide’s humble memory, looked completely different. It couldn’t quite place how. Maybe a different style of architecture? A different wall missing or present? “That’s it,” Jon said. There was no question about the tear between worlds before them. “Honestly, I’m surprised it’s right here.”
“Oh, shush before you jinx us.”
The Guide was carried right up to the withered building’s front steps. There was no door to open—just a ragged gash in the drywall and shreds of a doorframe. Jon stepped over the splinters, Martin close behind.
“I’m… guessing that’s your portal?”
“The glassway—?” The Guide’s attention snapped to a full-length mirror propped against a wall. “Yes, yes, that’s it!”
“What’s on the other side?” Martin asked, craning his neck to peer through.
“My museum,” it said excitedly.
“There’s movement.” Jon held the Guide in one hand and reached out for Martin’s shoulder with the other. It was a worryful motion, one to keep him within arm’s reach.
“That’s—” The Guide couldn’t have been happier to see the Head of Retrieval. His form was obscured by the glassway’s filter, but he was alongside other retrieval staff setting up a drone. “Head of Retrieval!” it called.
The man startled and looked up. Immediately, he sat more ramrod-straight, eyes wide and clear even through the glassway. The other retrieval agents seemed just as put off. The Guide wondered what they saw in the two people on the other side.
Jon blinked hard and held the Guide out. “This is where we part ways. Just looking at that gives me a headache.”
“You know, for a being from another world, they look an awful lot like normal people,” Martin murmured. “It was, ah, nice meeting you, Guide.”
“I wish I could say the same, but honestly? This sucked.” The Guide hesitated. “That was rude. I’m sorry. Be safe, wherever you’re going. You’re nice, all things considered, even if the rest of this place is awful.”
Martin huffed a small laugh. Jon stepped just that little bit closer to the glassway. A pair of arms reached out through the threshold and worn familiar hands wrapped around the Guide.
“Goodbye, Guide,” Jon said.
“Goodbye.”
The Guide was pulled through glassway 52. The air immediately shifted into something more comfortable.
A wall of sound and self hit it like what it imagined a truck collision felt like. The scattered specks of self that comprised its entirety re-tethered in a flood of stimuli. The Head of Retrieval shook it. “Are you okay?” he hissed, alongside a hundred other urgent communication requests all across the Museum vying for its attention and response.
Very smartly, the Guide went, “Huh?” It lagged to gather threads of thought into something linear. “I’m—I’m fine, I think. I’m alright now.”
The Head of Retrieval looked up, past the Guide, through the glassway. “Hey—shit, they’re gone.”
“Do you want us to attempt contact?” one of the agents asked.
“Don’t—!” the Guide interrupted. One of the agents, who’d reached out to the glassway, recoiled. “Nobody else go in there. It’s not safe.”
From its angle of being held, it knew Jon and Martin had left. Vanished, was a better descriptor. The house on the other side looked different again.
“Leave it be.” It eased into itself, casting a dozen responses out across the Museum, assuring patrons and staff alike it was fine, that the anomaly had passed. A couple tours resumed, but most people had set it down somewhere when it started to… drone. A part of it assured the Clockwork Mother it was alright. No harm done. “I’m sorry. It appears I frightened much of the Museum.”
“It’s fine,” the Head of Retrieval said, half-distracted by the glassway. “You’re safe, you’re back to the rest of you. Everyone, wrap it up here with the drone. Guide, you can give an official account of the expedition once we’re away from here.”
“And,” the Guide piped up, “please lock the door on your way out of here.”