“Hey, come on…” Noel scolded quietly.
“Sorry,” Celeste apologized, beginning to slot the tiny folders back into the box from whence they had come.“I’ve been at this for hours and I’m fucking exhausted.It’s super frustrating to have not made more progress.”
“Sorry,” Marin apologized, hanging his head in dejection.“Again, thank you so much for helping out.”
“Yes, thank you both so much,” Blake offered, although he knew that it did little to lessen the load of disappointment—he was doing his best to try to stay positive, despite the looming deadline lurking in the shallows of his hindbrain.“If you want I can buy us a round of Dutch Bros?”
“Ugh, no thanks.”Celeste shook their head, fastening the box of microfiche markedMercury News 1998with a lid.“If I consume any more caffeine I’m going to have a brain hemorrhage.I want to get out of here and take a nap.”
“I can keep going,” Noel offered, gesturing towards the computer screen.“Matt’s stream doesn’t start until later, so I don’t have anywhere to be for a while.”
“You’re so sweet.”Marin smiled at him.Noel flushed in response, flipping up his hoodie once again.
“I think Celeste is right.”Blake sighed.“We should all break from here and go get some rest before we meet back up tonight—were you interested in coffee, Noel?”
“No, that’s okay.”Noel held up a hand, shaking his head in polite refusal.“It makes me too anxious.”
“Then we’ll see you guys tonight?”Marin asked.
Noel nodded and signed off of the terminal, grabbing his empty Tupperware.“Yeah, I’ll text you when Matt and I get back into town.”
“I’ll see you two at my place around six, in that case,” Celeste told Blake and Marin, dragging their tote off of the table and slinging it over one shoulder.“Don’t worry about bringing anything, I’ve got pre-gaming covered.”
“Okay, we’ll be heading over with Ryan once he gets back from work,” Blake confirmed.He reached out for one of the boxes of microfiche next to Celeste.“Here, I’ll help you bring this back to the archives.”
As they carried the boxes down the stairs, Blake asked: “Have you heard from the right Paul Aberley yet?”
Celeste shook their head.“Unfortunately not.I’m gonna send out a few more e-mails before I go to sleep, so hopefully I’ll get a hit from one of those—are you okay?”
“What?”Blake asked, taken aback by Celeste’s sudden inquiry.They sighed, heaving their box up onto the counter as they arrived at the archives.“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You’re a shitty liar,” Celeste accused, turning around and propping their elbows up next to their boxes.“You’ve been chewing your lip for five minutes straight.I can tell you’re stressed.”
“I’m not—” Blake began, but was silenced by an arch look from Celeste.He glanced over his shoulder, checking to see if Marin had followed them down.“We’re almost to the halfway point and we still aren’t any closer to finding out where he died or what his final wish was.I was hoping that we’d have at leastoneof those by now.”
Blake leaned on the counter next to Celeste, picking at the fraying edges of one of the microfiche boxes, where the honeycombed inside of the cardboard had been exposed.“I’m at a loss at what to do next.I’m failing him.And at this rate…” he drew his hand into a loose fist, loathe to admit to his fears out loud.“At this rate, we’re going to lose him.”
To Blake’s surprise, a warm, gentle hand squeezed his shoulder, grounding him.Blake turned to Celeste, who was staring into the depths of the archive, their brow furrowed.
“You’re not failing him,” they said.“You’re doing everything you can and you’ve hit a roadblock.We’re dealing with magic and mermaids and memories—not everything is going to be completely straightforward.”
Celeste turned to Blake properly, taking his biceps in their hands.“We’ll figure this out, okay?”
“Okay.”Blake nodded, a small smile playing at the corner of his mouth.“But Celeste, how areyoudoing—?”
Celeste cut him off, pressing the buzzer that called for the archive aide.“Look, Noel said it best: the most important thing we can do right now is try to jog his memories.He seemedreallyinterested in going out dancing the other night.If it’s an activity he did often in his past life, it’s bound to bring something up—hi!We wanted to return this.”They greeted the aide as he materialized from around a corner.
Blake was only minimally soothed by Celeste’s words, but he supposed they had a point—their only option going forward was to rely on Marin’s memories.It wasn’t as if they were at a complete loss—he was remembering more and more day by day.
But if what was written on the vase was true, those days were severely limited.
Blake spent the rest of the afternoon attempting to track down the commenters on the old Pinterest post of the vase or the owners of the defunct Splashgrounds Manufacturing.By the time Ryan arrived back at the apartment, the rest of the day had evaporated with no solid leads and it was time to depart.
?
Blake’s Ninja streaked past aging homes.Marin was riding pillion again, body pressed warm to his back amid the evening summer air.Ryan drove in front of them on his Bolt, leading the way.
Ryan signaled that he was about to turn and Blake slowed down.He took a moment to soak in the surrounding neighborhood, the streets lined with thick-trunk oaks and crooked brick sidewalks.
