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“—Oh for gods’ sakes. Two decades, and I still can’t get used to this equipment.”
Juno clears his throat then sits back with his hands tightly clutching the armrests. “Today is Tuesday. 18:40. Would you look at that? We’re only two-thirds an hour late today.”
Juno picks up his comms and mumbles as he fiddles with it. “The forecast is looking a little windy, which means you better be wearing your sunglasses. Huh, guess I missed out on that one. It’s just really one of those days where a bunch of acid-infused sand in your eyes sounds like a blessing more than anything else. Well, maybe not your eyes. Definitely mine.”
Juno breathes in sharply and unwraps a little paper on his desk. “To get us started: Today’s Rita Minute request is Martia— Wait a goddamn minute. Rita! Hey, Rita! No, I’m not going to— No. No.” Juno frantically signals to his secretary, who, just past the window of the recording room, only motions back urgingly.
She frowns deeply when he crushes the small paper in his palm and tosses it, just barely missing the trash can.
“Alright! No Rita Minute,” Juno sighs, rubbing at his temple, “Just someone send something in. Please.”
His comms beeps, and his shoulders immediately relax as soon as he sees the name. He hopes nothing weird seeps into his voice when he reads the message out. “Agent Glass says, ‘Could I do the honors?’ Sure. Go right ahead.” Juno chuckles, purposefully avoiding the betrayed, piercing gaze of Rita.
Agent Glass. Bold. Always the first to make a move but with a good sense of dignity to them. Sure, their chosen user resembles a certain someone that Juno is pointedly trying not to think about right now, but he’ll give them a pass.
Another beep. Juno reads out again, “‘Martian artifacts.’” His smile immediately drops. “Oh, ha-ha, so you could tell where Rita’s note was going, very funny. Well,” Juno taps his desk impatiently, “I guess there’s no use running in circles around each other. Travellers, you’ve surely noticed. I’m quite surprised the entire city hasn’t, but keeping things under wraps isn’t anything short of Dark Matters quota.”
A beep. “Durrien says, ‘I thought you just didn’t want to talk about martial arts.’ Hm.” Juno spots Rita trying to tell him something, waving her hand in the way she does when she finds his response too curt, but before he can add anything, his comms beep again.
This time, it’s with a message from an occasional listener that Juno hasn’t seen in a while. Intrigued, he reads, “‘Like Grim’s mask?’ Uh, ask from Cass. Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly what I meant. See–”
Juno scatters the piles of papers on his desk until he finds a particular bundle of messy paragraphs and begins flipping through them. “Grim’s mask was actually the first in this weird series of uncovered Martian artifacts. Someone’s after them. I’m sure of it! And they’re up to no good.” The annoyance in his voice is rapidly turning into anger, and it’s showing. “So many people have gotten hurt. They managed to cover up some of them but not all, not the famous ones like Anthony DiMaggio. You just haven’t been told it’s all connected.”
Juno’s comms interrupt him with another beep, and Juno pauses at a name a little more special than the rest. Even a little more than Agent Glass and Duke Rose.
He clears his throat with a little embarrassment, “Peter Ransom says ‘It’s quite wonderful when you get so excited.’” Juno feels all the heat that had bubbled through his chest and into his voice now warm his cheeks. “‘But if so, what’s with the surly attitude at the beginning, dear detective?’”
‘Dear detective’ was really the last bit of conflict that Juno’s day needed to shoe him in the face with: a pet name, if you will, that Ransom calls Juno every now and then when he gets a little too invested in his pile of newspaper cutouts and threadbare evidence. He’d noted before that this didn’t really resemble detective work, but that didn’t stop Ransom, and Juno wasn’t going to argue about it. Not out loud anyway. He’d have the time to think about why in a couple of decades more.
“Well, you see, just this morning, I tried to talk with a good old friend of mine. It wasn't very pleasant, but when is it ever?” Just then a different beep comes through, a more persistent one, and Juno raises a brow at Rita who shrugs and shakes her head urgently.
Tentatively, he accepts the call the way Rita had taught him. “Uh, hello?”
“Juno.” Sasha’s voice cuts through sharp enough to make him wince.
This is where sitting in your office talking to a mic all day gets you. You become a conspiracy theorist, several people you don't know on your comms make you feel all funny inside, and your friend that you haven’t properly spoken to in 15 years is about to chew you out with some secret code on your own show. All in signature Juno Steel style.
“Agent Wire,” he mumbles back petulantly.
“I’m here on behalf of my agency to offer you some advice.”
“I’m good.”
“A warning then.”
“That’ll do.” Juno turns back to his mic, unsure of how much of this conversation it’s picked up but decides he’ll investigate the matter later and settles for, “Looks like I’ll have to cut things short today. I’m sure this is very upsetting news, but catch me next Tuesday, almost same time, but always same place. Bye, Travellers.” Rita signals a thumbs up, but her expression is strained.
“‘Travellers?”’ says Sasha, amused.
“I still think the name’s stupid, but it grows on you after enough Tuesdays. And Rita’s nagging.”
“Rita’s stuck around you this long?”
Juno scrunches his nose at the idea that Rita’s the one stuck with him and not the other way around, but he instead chooses to ask, “What do you want, Sasha?”
“What do I want? Opening Dark Matters for discussion across a distributed medium without permit is code violation. And you not only did that but you also went ahead and accused us of being responsible for a massive coverup.”
“Which you are.” Sasha doesn’t reply to this, but Juno can hear sighing across the line.
“You’re lucky you have a limited audience and that your ‘show’ isn’t automatically recorded. It means this doesn’t have to be dealt with like a bigger problem than it is. Just be careful.”
“I’m just surprised you really care all that much after the way our conversation went this morning,” Juno points out, “It took Rita forever to reach you, and as soon as I brought up the Martian artifacts, you hung up on me!”
Sasha’s response comes after a thoughtful moment, and she speaks deliberately. “Look, Juno, you chose a... Peculiar field of work after you left the HCPD. I didn’t understand it at first; I still don’t think I do, but I realized, after a while, that this was probably for the better. Anything you do now is getting your hands dirtier than they have to be. The same goes for me if I have to call you again.”
“If you really don’t wanna get involved with this, then what were you doing listening to my show?” Juno presses, maybe just a little too much because the exasperation cracks through Sasha’s next words.
“I wasn’t. You got flagged by another agent, but I managed to convince them I’d get it dealt with because I know you. Call it repaying old debts.” Juno cannot imagine a single thing he’s done in his entire life that has left Sasha better off and not worse. She continues. “But also because I know you, and I know what you’re trying to do here, and it’s not going to work. You either do things right, or you stay out of them. Otherwise, things get worse. More people get hurt.” Juno opens his mouth, then shuts it, chews his lips as an image of his bloodied childhood bedroom flashes through his mind.
“Goodbye, Juno.”
Two decades, and he can’t get used to this in general.
Juno isn’t sure why he does it. None of it feels natural, but it’s what he knows, and well, if that doesn’t sum up just about every role he’s ever had to play, he doesn’t know what will. And anyway, he’s not sure he'd be much better off not doing it.
Under that, too, there is a small part of him, small but still there, that feels important this way. A smal, stupid part of him that still makes him feel like he can change something by sitting here, scribbling notes, barely making ends meet with what he’s got.
Is it about time he toned it down? Or gave it up entirely and faced reality?
His comms beeps again, and Juno eyes it with suspicion. No one comm’s after he’s off the air.
He reaches out to see a small pop-up with a message from Cass. “I’ve got some firsthand experience with the artifacts,” it reads. Then, another: “Meet me tomorrow to discuss?”
“Boss,” Rita’s voice, uncertain, calls from the open door, “Is everythin’ alright?”
Juno hesitates. Clutches his fist.
“Rita, I’m going out tomorrow. We’re getting to the bottom of this ourselves if we have to.”