Of Companies and Corporations
Being CEO of The Company didn't have the same ring as "Queen of the World," but Nicole Noone was content in taking what victories she could find.
Not that she was exactly short on victories right now. She'd spent 500 years getting little victories of her own – if her old self was to die the death of a thousand cuts, in the knowledge that Flynn and the Library had abandoned her, then she could at least stitch the wounds. And achieving her final victory, shattering the Librarians' faith in their institution and removing it from the minds of humanity, well, you couldn't do much better than that now could you? And when, in the world that came as a result, as she found herself at the head of one company, one planet, one people, watching over the drooling masses acting as the idiots that they were, then, what else could one want from life?
Maybe Jenkins she supposed. Someone who knew the Library, and the world it had once belonged to. Someone who could live in the knowledge of their failure, in a world where knowledge counted only so far as being able to do the job you were assigned for. Whether it be car salesman, admin assistant, or in one case, comedian. He Fell Down wasn't exactly a comedy as she remembered it, but watching Ezekiel Jones be miserable, well, that got her watching the TV every so often. A black and white TV, as no-one had the imagination to see the worth of colour, but again, every victory she could find. Just because the rest of the world was miserable didn't mean that she couldn't be. She was going to have fun.
Which today, meant a visit to Psychiatric Unit N5563, located in City N5159. The city itself had used to be called New York, and at some point it had had a name, but names weren't of much use in this world right now. Certainly it was a New York without the Statue of Liberty (why waste time building something like that?) or the Metropolitan Library (why have a library when The Company provided you with everything you needed to know?). If the healthcare facility had had a name in the old world she didn't know what it was, but it didn't matter. She'd been in her share of shrink wards, in times when she'd had too much to drink and yelled that she was from the future and worked for a secret building that collected artifacts to protect mankind from them, but hey, whatever. She could drink now, thank you very much. Not the best grog in the world, but it kept the drooling masses docile. That, and drugs.
Stepping off the grey N5159 city streets, and into the grey interior of N5563, she took her time to take in the sights. Most of the patients here were docile – the drugs had seen to that. In truth, some of them had genuine mental illnesses, and she had no time for those people. No, it was the troublemakers that kept her on her toes. The ones who knew something wasn't right with the world. The ones who asked too many questions. The people like Flynn, who…
Forget about Flynn.
She walked over to the reception desk. Flynn was a holdout. No amount of drugs or therapy seemed to be able to remove him of what the doctors called delusions, and what she recognised as memory. It was almost touching. Mainly irritating, but still, touching. Like a puppy who kept peeing on the floor, but looked at you with those big eyes that you just couldn't hate it.
"Miss Noone?"
The receptionist however? The one who looked up from her filing cabinet with a smile that made Nicole want to punch her?
"CEO Noone, actually."
She could hate her.
"Oh, I'm so sorry Miss Noone."
Hate her a lot.
"May I inquire as to the reason for your visit?"
Nicole put her hand on the desk, leaning forward, smiling. "You may." She nodded to her two bodyguards. "But I understand you're very busy these days, and I'm a very busy woman-"
"But-"
"And besides, you already know who I'm here for."
The receptionist, smile gone, along with her spine, nodded. She handed over what Nicole knew to be the facility's master key, and one particular file. The one that was always kept on hand.
"Thank you so much," Nicole said, smiling like a shark. Not that there were any sharks left in this world (no-one saw the value in conservation), but the receptionist nodded and suddenly found interest in one of her pages on the desk.
Good girl. She turned around to her bodyguards. "Stay here boys."
They nodded, standing there like golems waiting for orders – just the way she liked it. As she walked down the hall, she glanced at one of the patients being dragged off.
"Writing?! How did writing start?! Doesn't anyone want to know?! Why does no-one want to know?!"
And kept walking, even as she heard the sound of a taser being used and those screams turning into a moan. Her mind flashing back to the old world, she recalled that how writing had started there had been a mystery as well, but then, what of it? No-one even wrote these days. Certainly nothing beyond reports, fines, and guides on how to better serve The Company. No. Mysteries were best left unquestioned. That was a lesson that many people in this facility didn't understand, as they let their minds wander, but she was a kind evil corporate overlord. She'd provide cures for their imagination as long as she got to have her fun.
Here we are.
She stopped at one of the wards and took out her master key. She took her time opening the door, to let the occupant inside know that she was coming. And as she stepped inside, as she saw the human-shaped lump huddled on the bed, facing the wall, she took just as much time to close the door and lock it. And after that, let the silence linger for as long as it was required to remind the patient that she was powerless, and could do nothing.
"Hello Kiera."
But the silence had to end at some point. The fun had to start. Silence was the start of the game, not the meat of it.
"Get up Kiera."
The lump under the sheets didn't move.
"Oh for goodness sake…" Nicole walked over and gave the lump a kick. It let out a yell, spun over, and looked ready to kill someone.
"Good, you're awake."
The look remained, but Nicole had played the game long enough to see the change in the subject's eyes. The desire to kill her remained. But the knowledge that she couldn't get away with murder? That entered her eyes as well.
"Go away," the subject whispered. She laid back down on the bed, putting a hand over her eyes.
"Not yet Kiera." Nicole drew out her file. "We've got to cure you."
"Don't need curing."
"Oh but you do, Kiera, you do." Nicole, smirking like a creature long dead, opened the file and began to read as she always did.
"Kiera Cameron, case number N-4175. Claims to be from the year 2077, and ended up in Vancouver in the year 2012 as part of an attempt to pursue a terrorist group called Liberate." She paused, smirking. "That's Liberate with an 'eight,' by the way. Like, you have the t, but replace the e with an eight. Very clever."
"Go away," Kiera whispered.
"Then you get up to all sorts of shenanigans with people named…" She paused – she knew the names, but wanted to convey the impression that she didn't. "Oh, well, there's so many. Alec Saddler. Carlos Fonnegra. Jack Dillon. That isn't even covering your terrorist friends, one of whom you sleep with because you were so damn lonely."
Kiera had got up and was now seated on the edge of the bed, looking up at the smirking woman above her.
"And then there's your dear son Sam, who you love so very much, and just have to get back to, even though deep down you realize that because of how time travel works, you can't get back to the future that you came from. You…" She trailed off, skimming through the file's pages. "Well, there's a lot in here Miss Cameron. Enough for three seasons of television. Four if your stretch it out, though I really don't get this Brad character. Seems to come out of nowhere."
"Get out," Kiera whispered.
"Oh but Kiera, I can't do that," Nicole sneered, closing the file slowly, and making sure her patient heard the 'click.' "You're unwell, don't you see? We need to make you sane again."
Kiera let out a yell, got to her feet, and swung a punch. It never made contact, as Nicole punched her stomach, then kicked her back onto the bed.
"I had over five-hundred years to train myself in self-defence Miss Cameron. Whatever 2077 provided you with, it isn't going to cut it."
"Why?" Kiera asked. She put her hand over her face again. "Why are you doing this?"
Nicole didn't say anything for a moment. The simple answer was 'for fun." It was the answer she'd given plenty of times before. But Kiera kept asking the question, and saying "for fun" just didn't cultivate the same atmosphere of dread that it once did. Silence, though…well, that still had some menace to it.
Yet Kiera kept asking the damn question. She always had to try and play the poor innocent.
"Come on Kiera," Nicole said eventually. "I think you know."
Kiera said nothing.
"Come on Kiera, look at me."
Kiera said nothing.
"Look at me, and the game will end sooner."
Slowly, reluctantly, Kiera obliged. She sat on the edge of the bed and met Nicole's gaze.
"Now tell me you don't see yourself."
Kiera said nothing.
"Come on Kiera, say it."
"I won't say it."
"Why?"
"Because…" She swallowed. "Because you want me to say it."
"That we look the same?" Nicole asked.
Kiera said nothing.
"You've already said it Kiera, even if it was long before now." Nicole sat down, leaning against the door – it meant that Kiera was sitting slightly higher than she was, but it didn't change the room's power dynamic.
"We're not the same," Kiera whispered.
"You silly girl, of course we're not the same." Nicole smirked. "I've succeeded in everything I wanted, while you…well, that leaves us with only three options." She got to her feet. "Would you like to hear them?"
Kiera said nothing.
"One is that you're genuinely insane. Not out of the realm of possibility of course. But having seen genuinely insane people across time and space, I don't think you're one of them. Paranoid delusions are rarely so intricate, and they usually don't involve the failure of the person having them."
Kiera said nothing.
"Option two is that you're lying. That you've caught imagination illness, or whatever my people in PR are calling it." She began to pace around the room. "Also, technically possible. But then, that doesn't quite fit either. Imagination illness usually involves asking questions that aren't meant to be answered – getting too curious about silly things like culture and language." She paused, looking at Kiera. "You aren't asking questions my dear. You're just making stuff up."
Kiera said nothing.
"Or," Nicole said, starting her pacing again, "is that you're not making this up, and you aren't insane. Which leads me to the third possibility that you're telling the truth. That you are from the year 2077, that you are indeed a civil protector for the Global Corporate Congress, and that you did travel back in time and did all that fun stuff." She sighed. "Do you know that The Time Machine doesn't exist in this world? One of the drawbacks of removing the Library I guess. No-one can conceive of time travel because that's purely in the realm of fiction. And fiction here doesn't exist."
"It's not fiction," Kiera whispered.
"Oh, but I know that," Nicole said. She knelt down and took Kiera's face in her hands. "You know that, I know that, I…" She smiled. "Don't you see, Kiera? We look the same. In many ways, we are the same. You came from a world dominated by corporations, I run a world that is a corporation. We worked for people that screwed us over, and we both got sent back to the past, and both wasted our time trying to get back to the people we loved." She let go of Kiera's face and got to her feet. "Of course, difference is that I succeeded, while you failed."
Kiera said nothing.
"Oh Kiera," Nicole said. "You don't understand how this works, do you?"
"You come in here and be a bitch for ten minutes?"
"No, I come in here and ask questions, and you respond to them as you're meant to. Because I've got to have some fun, Kiera. And seeing your profile, seeing that you look like me, seeing that in many ways, you are me…well, where else am I going to find something like that?"
"I don't care," Kiera said. She looked up at Nicole, and the CEO of the world could see that the crazy woman in front of her was fighting back tears. "I don't care. Drug me, beat me, abuse me, I don't care."
"Hmm, maybe," Nicole said. She turned, and walked over to the door – Kiera wouldn't try to attack her when she opened it. She'd tried, and failed. "Of course, I could just order a lobotomy and get you to forget everything, including, oh, what's his name? Sean?" She looked back at Kiera, who now had a look of horror on her face. "Simon? Steve? Oh, what is that boy's name that the nurses tell me you whisper in your sleep?"
Kiera said nothing.
"Come on, say it. What's his name again?"
"Sam," Kiera whispered. "His name is Sam."
"Sam," Nicole said. "Such a lovely name. Well, try to remember it Nicole. Because if I don't see improvement in your condition, we may have to do something…drastic."
Kiera said nothing. She just stood there, rooted to the spot.
"Farewell, Miss Cameron. Or Mrs. I assume you miss your husband as well, but given your file, maybe not."
She exited the room, locking it from the outside. Taking her time to savour the moment.
But only for a bit.
With a smile on her face, and a spring in her step, she headed back down to reception. Past some other smuck being dragged by orderlies, yelling something about poetry or pottery.
It had been a good day.
A/N
So am I the only one that really dislikes the season 4 finale for The Librarians, or rather, the last five minutes (the actual episode is quite enjoyable)? Because of Flynn time travelling, basically none of the final season actually happens. At least some of it will happen, but presumably some of it won't, which is a shame, because it has some good character-building episodes (something I thought the show was always good at, even if its overarching plots/season villains left something to be desired). This also includes Nicole herself, who basically gets off scott free for her whole "kill Jenkins and remove the Library" plan.
That aside, what actually gave me the idea to drabble this up was something similar to Of Martians and Magic. Seeing Nicole, I thought her actress looked familiar, but it wasn't until the season finale that I realized she was played by Rachel Nichols, who played Kiera in Continuum. So, is it coincidence that Nicole becomes head of "the Company" in an alternate timeline, while Kiera comes from a corporate-dominated future? Well, yeah, probably. But regardless, drabbled this up. Because if nothing else, I got the sense that Nichols was having fun in the whole "evil and loving it" paradigm, so hey, fun's fun.