Chapter Text
(Warning: This chapter includes the Scotland Yard bomb, which involves an active shooter. Nothing graphic and no death is described.)
On the morning of the worst day of Thaniel Steepleton's life he woke up with dread in his stomach. It was nothing particularly new, but still he lay in bed for a few minutes wrestling with the almost overwhelming desire to call in sick and get out of the city for the day. Maybe he could take the whole week off if he put on a hoarse voice and really milked it. But gradually, as it always did, his rational brain made itself heard over the fear, saying practical things like /you can't call in sick every day until the end of May/ and /where will you even go, you don't have a car/. And as he always did, Thaniel gave in. He swallowed the bile rising in his throat, told himself firmly that nothing was going to happen, and got up to make some coffee.
The dread had started six months ago when an anonymous threat was emailed to every single employee of Intel Corporation, Thaniel included. The threat promised vaguely but certainly that the following May "an attack" would be launched on the company. As a major figure in the tech field Intel was no stranger to cyberattacks, but the fact that these people had somehow managed to gain access to their internal email list and contact thousands of employees directly lent a bit more of an edge to their words. Of course the company had immediately assured everyone that it was nothing and they were handling it, but Thaniel noticed that the vacation time slots for May filled up suspiciously quickly.
Thaniel didn't even try to get the month off, even though the days weighed heavier and heavier as the wet Portland winter dragged itself into spring. He was a technical writer, nobody important, barely making more than minimum wage even after a few years at Intel. His coworkers were nice, but they were mostly recent college grads and never stuck around long-- they were on a career fast track that Thaniel could never access without a degree. Still, when one of them cornered him at the office and whispered a frightened rumor that the "attack" was actually a bomb threat, Thaniel felt a rush of protective instinct and invited the lot of them out for drinks to take their minds off it. He wasn't usually the most social person in the office, but in the last few months he'd started making exceptions more often than not just to keep an eye on them. Intel headquarters was in the suburbs, over an hour by train from his city apartment, and making friends had never come easily to him. Thaniel was used to being a loner. It was comfortable, even if he sometimes ached with an undefined sense of loss.
As much as Thaniel tried to put on a brave face for his young coworkers-- he was only 25, but felt decades older around them-- he couldn't quite shake the threat from his mind. It was silly, of course. Even if it was a bomb threat, those were hardly uncommon, especially at a large company like Intel. They never went anywhere, and when he heard about bombs on the news they never mentioned a warning like this one. He tried to comfort himself with the fact that logically he was just as likely to be blown up or shot at in May as he was any day in a country with such loose weapon laws. For some reason it didn't work.
It had been May for two weeks now, though, and so far nothing had happened. Thaniel didn't need to go into the office every day, but his manager, whom they all half-affectionately called Dolly, had him on a new project that meant he was coming in more often lately. Dolly liked him and always gave him interesting things to work on when he could. Thaniel wasn't sure why, but he was grateful. He suspected Dolly might see him the same way he saw his young, fresh-faced coworkers-- almost paternal.
He thought about work as he quickly showered and ate, mostly to distract himself from the sad state of his apartment. It was nearly barren even though he'd lived there for years. He'd never done much decorating, but now most of his non-essential things were packed into boxes in the corner next to a duffel bag full of winter clothes. He had done it almost unconsciously a few weeks ago until he realized that he was packing up in case he didn't come home one day. He stopped then, but the thought was there, floating over the boxes and the clean, empty floors. He was just a neat person, he told himself, never one for clutter; but underneath it was the truth that he didn't want to leave all the packing to his sister if something did happen. It would be too hard, and she had enough on her plate.
Thaniel was almost done with his coffee and about to put on his coat when he saw a lime green flash in the corner of his vision. At first he thought it was just the LED on his coffee maker, but the color was wrong and he realized it had been a sound. Thaniel had always been able to see sounds, an ability that sounded cool and in practice was mostly annoying. He was always getting distracted by the colors and flashes, and loud places overwhelmed him. He had taken a psychology class in high school and so he knew it was called synesthesia and resulted from crossed nerves somewhere behind his eyes, but he'd never looked much into it beyond that. It was just part of him. He used to enjoy it on the long MAX rides to work because he could put in his headphones, close his eyes, and watch the music play out in front of him-- until he caught his fingers twitching as if trying to play a nonexistent piano and found himself waking up with scraps of unfinished music in his head. After that he'd switched to podcasts.
The green click still echoed in his vision as he looked around the kitchen for the source of the noise. Now that he was paying attention there was something else, too, faint but rhythmic. A soft, almost golden ticking sound. Thaniel believed that extra devices were unnecessary if his phone could do the same thing, so he didn't have a clock. So what could...
He realized the moment before he laid eyes on it, sitting as it had for months on the corner of his desk. The watch. It had been silent since he got it six months ago, but now it was alive and ticking as if it had never stopped at all. The time was even correct.
Thaniel picked it up without thinking and turned it around in his hands, but nothing was different. It was the same old-fashioned pocket watch, beautifully engraved and elegant, except now the tiny second hand was sweeping smoothly around its face and he could just make out the minute hand creeping from one mark to the next. The morning's dread surged in him again and he threw it on the bed.
The watch was something else Thaniel had tried to forget about. It had appeared in his apartment the same day that the threat was sent with no clues as to how it had gotten there. He'd been so frazzled when he got home from work that he hadn't been paying much attention, but he was sure nothing else had been disturbed. There was only the watch, sitting on his desk. It looked expensive, but still he had initially assumed his sister had ordered it to his apartment as a belated birthday gift simply because there was no other explanation. But when he'd called her to say thank you she was confused, then worried, and Thaniel had to say that it must be from his boss.
It wasn't Dolly, though, or anyone at the office. It couldn't have been a gift; there was no note aside from a slip of paper with his name, and anyway who broke into someone's apartment to leave them a birthday present? He had to imagine it was somehow related to the threat at work, but that didn't make much sense either. It worried him, but he didn't think the police would care since nothing was stolen so he filled it away in his growing bank of worries and tried to forget about it.
This couldn't be a coincidence, though. The dread was back in full force and Thaniel had to sit down. Did it mean something? Was today the day? He knew nothing about watches or clockwork. Could you do that, set it to start six months in the future?
/Think clearly/, he told himself. He had to ask someone, but he was already late for work and the only person he could think of was a manager in another department, Francis Fanshaw. Thaniel was pretty sure he collected old clocks and things. He examined the watch again, but it seemed too small to be a bomb and when he opened the back there was nothing inside but gears steadily clicking each other around. He tucked the watch into his bag and headed for the train.
Nothing else that day was unusual, and under the florescent lights of the office his anxiety about the watch seemed almost silly. Dolly was full of the somewhat forced cheer that he'd had the entire month and invited them all out to their usual bar after work. Thaniel almost declined, thinking of the long late-night train ride back to his apartment, but he hadn’t seen Fanshaw yet and still wanted to at least ask him about the watch. Fanshaw was an excitable but intelligent person, and Thaniel was sure he could provide some completely normal and not bomb-related reason for it to have suddenly started up on its own. So it was that at half past five Thaniel was standing in the lobby of his building with the watch in his bag, half-listening to Dolly talk about the latest college football game and watching for Fanshaw in the gathering crowd of engineers and technical writers.
At 5:29pm Thaniel's phone rang. Surprised, he fished it out of his pocket and squinted at his lock screen. Not a number he recognized, but the area code was from Boise, Idaho, where his sister lived. Thaniel felt a flash of concern and ducked out of the group, catching Dolly's eye and raising his phone in explanation. When he pressed the phone to his ear it crackled maroon with static-- for a tech company, the Intel building had terrible reception. He found an access door and slipped outside to the loading dock.
"Hello?" he said. The static was gone, but there was no answer. "Hello?" Nothing but the faint golden ticking of the watch in his pocket. Thaniel took the phone away from his ear and realized that the person had hung up.
He was about to call back when a loud, sharp sound broke across his vision. He jumped, but it wasn't until the second, and then the third, that his brain caught up and he dove behind a concrete pillar. They were gunshots.
The shots came quickly and without stopping, and Thaniel realized that they were coming from the lobby. He crouched behind the pillar, heart racing. He had the overwhelming sense that he needed to do something, but his mind was blank. All he could see were the gunshots like green fireworks. His hands shook, or maybe it was his whole body shaking, and he dropped his phone on the concrete.
His phone! Thaniel grabbed it, remembering suddenly what you were supposed to do in situations like this. His hands were still shaking too badly to dial, so he pressed the "emergency call" button with his nose and held it firmly to his ear.
When the operator picked up he told her everything in a quiet, controlled voice that surprised him even as he spoke. She instructed him to leave immediately if it seemed safe, and Thaniel realized that the gunshots had stopped at some point in the last couple minutes. He slowly rose from his hiding place and scanned the empty loading dock. The street was just a few dozen feet away; he could be around the corner in less than a minute if he ran.
As he turned around he saw movement in the corner of his eye and ducked down again, heart pounding. Someone was at the window next to the door he'd come through, waving frantically. Thaniel realized that he knew them, although only vaguely-- someone from another department, one of the technicians, maybe. As if in a dream, he stood up again and walked toward the door. It was locked, he realized, and the people inside were trapped. He swiped it open with his key card as if it were a normal door on any other normal day and ushered out the three young technicians hiding behind it. They paused outside and looked back at him, but Thaniel gestured for them to run and ducked back inside. He had forgotten about the others, how could he have forgotten? He had seen no one else escape; they must all still be trapped in the lobby.
Again it seemed like he moved automatically, without any idea of his actions until he was already in the middle of them. He walked down the hallway that led to the main lobby, dimly aware that someone was speaking to him. It was the 911 operator; he was still holding the phone to his ear.
"Sir, can you update me on your situation, please? Are you safe?" she asked.
"I'm going back in the building," Thaniel answered honestly. He couldn't wrap his mind around a lie. Vaguely he became aware of faint green flashes-- more gunshots, but distant and muffled. In another building, maybe. That was good, it meant he might have time to get everyone out.
The operator was speaking to him again, more urgently now.
"Sir, do not enter the building. Police will be there very soon, they can control the situation and help your friends. You need to get to safety."
"I'm sorry," Thaniel said, because it was all he could think of to say, and hung up on her.
He came out into the lobby, looking for movement or sound-flashes, but there was nothing. He walked quickly across to where they had been standing, where he had been standing. A few people lay on the ground. One was Dolly.
"It's me," he said as he got close, and to his relief Dolly sat up.
"Thaniel! Thank God, you're all right," he said quietly. He seemed to grasp the situation quickly and as Thaniel bent down to pull him to his feet he asked, "Did you see where he went?"
Thaniel shook his head. "It stopped for a while and then I heard shots in the distance. I think he's moved." He didn't say, even if he hasn't, we have to try; but he knew that Dolly understood. He only nodded and threw his arm over Thaniel's shoulder to support himself. He was injured, but Thaniel couldn't tell how severely. They limped together toward the exit as quickly as possible. The rest of the lobby was empty, Thaniel realized; that was probably a good sign. It meant most people got out, or at least found good hiding spots. Part of him wanted to stop and make sure no one else needed help, but he couldn't risk the extra time and Dolly couldn't move on his own. He allowed his world to narrow until it was just the hallway ahead of him and then, finally, the door, and then they were outside.
By the time Thaniel realized that the flashing red and blue lights outside were police cars and not his synesthesia, paramedics had taken Dolly from under his arm and were halfway through strapping him to a gurney. Someone guided Thaniel to the back of an ambulance and made him sit down and take off his jacket while they checked him for injuries. Before they could do more than drape a silver blanket over his shoulders, though, something came through on the radios and half of the police cars peeled out and sped off down the street. Everything was chaos: paramedics and police running all over, people being brought out on gurneys or stumbling in shocked groups to the curb. Thaniel couldn't think. He looked around, but there was no one to notice him slip off his blanket and walk away toward the MAX station.
He rode home in silence. Usually he couldn't stand the hour-long trip without a podcast or music to listen to, but his brain felt slippery. He didn't notice the odd looks from other passengers until he got off at Skidmore and a man sitting on the sidewalk nearby let out a whoop as he walked by.
"What happened to your leg, man?" he called. Thaniel looked down and was surprised to see that his pants were soaked in blood where he'd supported Dolly. There was some on his hands, too.
Luckily it was a short walk to his apartment and the stairs were empty. He threw his bloody clothes directly into the trash and showered until the water ran cold, then sat on his couch and tried to think of what to do. He had no way of knowing who escaped, or if anyone was killed at all; Dolly was almost certainly at a hospital and he couldn't bring himself to try any other numbers. He didn't know what he'd ask, anyway; no one else knew any more than him. He saw in his mind's eye the place where Dolly had fallen and himself standing right next to him, back to the door. He could have been shot, would have been if it hadn't been for that phone call.
The phone call-- it couldn't have been a coincidence. Thaniel realized with a sinking feeling that he was now somehow involved in this. Someone had known what was about to happen and had tried to warn him. Or distract him, maybe. But why? Thaniel wasn't anyone special, he had come to terms with that long ago. If the shooter had wanted him out of the way they could have just shot him. Why go to the trouble? It only made him look suspicious, but he couldn't think how that was useful either.
His head was starting to spin when he remembered the other odd thing that had happened that day. The watch. His stomach sank even further. He leapt up from the couch and ran to the front door where he'd stuffed his clothes in a garbage bag. It had been in his jacket pocket, but it wasn't there now. But he'd had it, he remembered hearing it ticking...
Wait. No, he'd put it in his bag to show Fanshaw at the office. He didn't have the bag anymore; he had forgotten it in the chaos. But he'd heard the ticking on the phone call. It was the same golden color as the watch, he was certain. Which meant that whoever called him had one, too.
Thaniel's blood froze. They were connected after all. It was too much of a coincidence, and Thaniel had never put much stock in coincidences. Everything happened for a reason, you just had to find it. Besides, the whole watch thing had bothered him for six months and he was ready to finally get to the bottom of it. His dread eased somewhat and was replaced with an itching anger that rose slowly in his chest. He was just trying to live a normal life, for God's sake. Why was he part of this? Why him, of all people?
It was unlikely that work would be on tomorrow, so he resolved to start the day at the nearest watch repair shop and go from there. He had photos of the pocket watch on his phone that should be enough to track down its maker. He still had the note with his name, too; it could be useful for comparing handwriting. Decided, he went early to bed with 3 Benadryl tablets to make sure he slept. If he dreamed, they weren't nightmares and he didn't remember them in the morning.