AN: I just had to write this after CuriosityCollection made the countdown post.
Warning: Tragic ending. Further note on this at the end.
She never thought when Douglas Adams wrote that the number 42 is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything, he wasn't kidding. Apparently, Adams was a Warehouse agent. And of course the Question and Answer are both in the Warehouse.
Artie doesn't seem too fond of him.
"He liked to touch things," Artie says.
"Like Pete?"
"No, worse than Pete. That's how he discovered the Answer and if I hadn't caught him in time, he would've seen the Question too."
Then he published it, driving all who have read his books crazy trying to figure out the Question when he himself did not know what it was. This slightly annoys Myka as she was one of those gullible readers who spent much of their free time trying to figure out what went on inside Adams' mind when he chose the number 42 as the Answer.
Someone has stolen the Question from the Warehouse. This is a huge problem since the Answer is already known throughout the world. So if the thief decides to read what the Question is, the Universe as they know it will change and what is worse is that no one would have noticed the change.
"What's so bad about that?" Pete asks.
"Anything could change," Artie says grimly.
"Like cookies don't make you fat?"
"Or you could be eating using your nose," Myka says causing Pete to cringe. "Sex might not be as fun. People could reproduce just by multiplying themselves so instead of having cute babies, we'll just have another copy of ourselves which won't diversify our physical appearances. Actually, everyone could look like Voldemort. And—"
"Fine, I get it," Pete interjects before Myka could give more examples. "It's bad."
"Great," Artie says. "Now that everyone," he looks to Pete, "is aware of the consequences, now go save the world."
But there is one change Myka would like and she feels tempted to try it out. If no one notices them, all those changes won't be so weird. And if she gets this one thing out of it, she doesn't think all those other things would matter as much.
"Have you ever thought about it?" Myka asks. Pete is driving. Usually, she would fight him on it but she doesn't mind it today. Her mind wants to wander and it will be hard to do that while driving. Not to mention dangerous too.
"About what?"
"About what you'd want to change," she says.
"But what about the creepy clones and pooping with your mouth?"
"Pete!" she scrunches her nose in disgust. "I said eating with your nose."
"Well, it's still possible," Pete says. "Anything could change, right?"
"But what if it's a better place where…"
"Claudia isn't a fugitive? Where Jinks isn't somewhere out there brooding about his immortality? Where…" he pauses for a moment, grasping the wheel a little too tightly, "H.G. is alive?"
Myka doesn't respond. She desperately wants to say yes but she can't possibly say it out loud, can she? It is one thing to have an impossible wish. It is another to make it known. That will just leave it open to ridicule or worse, hope.
Music is playing but somehow, it feels so quiet in the car. They never really talked about it. They were just too busy trying to fix what they can, forgetting that the things that can't be fixed still need to be tended to. They didn't even realize that Claudia had the Metronome. Leena tried to tell them but they wouldn't listen. They didn't think that Claudia could do something like that. Not after she almost lost her brother to an artifact. Not after seeing how cruel Marcus could be.
But apparently a grieving twenty year old doesn't think about those things. Loss can do that to a person, blind them from reason. And they should have known better. They witnessed the lengths that Claudia was willing to go through to get Joshua back. It shouldn't surprise them that she would do it again.
Then when Steve came back, they tried to hide it from the Regents. But that wasn't their only problem. He wasn't the same person as he was before. He was never a cheerful person to begin with but it was like he brought a dark cloud wherever he went. You could tell that he didn't want to be here. He didn't want to be alive.
One evening, as they were about to have dinner, they heard a piercing scream. They rushed towards it and found Claudia sobbing while clutching the Metronome and Steve lying on the floor, his face already blue but still breathing. He left the inn the next day.
A few weeks later, he was arrested for assault in Omaha. They did try to cover up the incident but the Regents found out about it anyway. They decided that Steve was dead even though he was walking, talking and breathing like any other living person. They said it was unnatural and he needed to be put down. Well, they didn't exactly say it like that but they might as well have.
And while everyone was arguing about Steve, Claudia disappeared with the Metronome, automatically making her a wanted criminal.
"Yes," Myka says, echoing the pop song that is playing. She has heard it a million times but she still can't remember its name. "I'd like that."
Pete slams the brakes.
"Are you crazy?" she cries out when the car comes to a complete stop.
Instead of flinching because he should know what's coming, Pete is smiling.
"I was thinking the same thing," he says. "Because if you're serious—"
"No," she cuts him off. See? Hope. It spreads faster than any kind of disease.
...
They are at the door of 943 Lincoln Street. Behind it, there is a box, if opened, could change everything. And she keeps thinking, it can't be any worse than this, can it? But people die every day. She isn't the only person who has lost someone. Her worst could be someone else's better. What gives her the right to take that away from a person?
Pete kicks the door in when nobody answers.
The house is quiet. Part of her wishes that they're too late. That this Greg Henderson is gone and could be opening the box right now.
"I'll go check the second floor," Pete says, pointing to the stairs. She nods in agreement.
She is in the kitchen when Pete calls her. "I found him!"
When she enters the bedroom, she sees an unconscious Mr Henderson with the box next to him, unopened.
"Did you do this?" she asks.
Pete shakes his head. "He was like this when I found him. Do you think he opened it?"
"Well, the lid is still closed. I don't think so."
"Do you wanna…"
"No," she says. To be honest, she is a little curious but no, she can't do it.
"Are you sure? I mean what if we get superpowers? That'd be pretty cool."
"No."
"I don't mind pooping through—"
"No," she repeats before he could finish his thought. She really doesn't want that image in her head again. Besides, why would she want the world to change?
...
When they arrive at the Warehouse, they are greeted by none other than H.G. Wells. She isn't the H.G. Wells being a woman and all but she is a descendant of the author.
"Artie won't let me in," H.G. says as Myka and Pete get out of the car.
"Because you're not a Warehouse agent," Myka tells her.
"Leena is not an agent but she comes and goes as she pleases."
"Well, Leena is," what exactly does Leena do? But whatever it is, she is, "an authorized Warehouse personnel which you chose not to be."
H.G. calls herself a freelance artifact hunter. She does everything that a Warehouse agent does minus the inventory. Her history is murky to say the least. Before she started retrieving artifacts for the Warehouse, she was selling them to the highest bidder. Then she got caught but she claimed to have no knowledge of the Warehouse which Artie says is a big lie.
"Then I won't have a place to store this Minoan Trident," H.G. says.
"Why won't you give it to us and we'll bring it into the Warehouse?" Pete says, reaching for the trident.
H.G. pulls it back just enough so that Pete misses it and briefly loses his balance. "I can't do that because then you will be the one who logs it in."
She made a deal with the Regents that require her to bring in any artifacts she finds to the Warehouse in exchange for her freedom. In order to make sure that she complies with the deal, she has to log in two artifacts a week or she has to report every minute detail of her week to the Regents.
"I value my privacy," she says, "however little of it that I have left."
Oh, and she has someone following her everywhere she goes. She slips away from him once in a while but she has said that it gets a bit exhausting.
"Come on," Myka sighs, clicking her transponder. "Ed!" she calls out to H.G.'s stalker. "Don't you want to come in too? I think Artie made cookies."
"Ugh, cookies!" Pete shudders.
You have to admit, a world where Pete hates cookies is pretty tragic.