()

I didn't know it at the time, but meeting that little invalid was my first step to becoming the invisible man. I'd show up every few days, whenever I could find a newspaper with a story I thought she'd enjoy, and we'd sit and read. Through the help adds that she always ignored I found a side job as a clean-up boy for a renowned scientist, Dr. Cranley, and his students.

Rude and untrustful, they were, always worrying about someone coming along to steal their research and making all sorts of money off it. You should keep in mind, of course, that's what they were trying to do to everyone else. Of course, these ridiculous suspicions made it incredibly difficult to be their cleaning boy. Everyone was always skulking about as if I was trying to make off with their precious research I didn't even understand. Yes, I'm a thief, but I wasn't at all interested in stealing their musty old books and chemicals… at first.

Every once in a while I'd come across a paper of formulas or a book open to the effects of the strange smelly liquid in the glass out on the table and I'd read through it. For a while, I had no idea what any of it meant, but eventually I started recognizing things. If enough chemicals were left out, I'd see what the letters and numbers did in the real world. I'd never consider myself a scholar but I knew enough to follow directions.

I took care not to get caught and it made me almost as paranoid as the old bastards who ran the place, but at least I kept the job. It was only a few pence every week but combined with what I earned from the Dodger and the fact that I didn't have to worry about paying rent and I rarely went hungry. Science was a great and wonderful thing, full of logic and reason and an explanation for everything, according to the discussions I'd eavesdropped on.

I always took the time to share these views with Cathy as Alfred would never put up with someone talking longer than he could, but Cathy was the best audience a fellow could have. I would add details to my stories, suspenseful moments when I was almost caught by my superiors, slightly overdone accounts of what machinery and chemicals could do. Tiny creatures that lived inside of us, liquids that could destroy metals, blueprints for carriages that moved without horses, science could do it all and more. In the dimly lit room of Cathy's family apartment, science became almost magical and in this new world anything was possible and everything could be explained by those who had the intelligence to explain it. No matter if we didn't understand, someone else always would.

This might be why I was not at all bothered by what I eventually found out about sweet little Cathy.

It had been a while since we'd met, a few years at least, and I'd never asked Cathy about her illness. It was another thing I'd left to science to explain as I wasn't all that interested in medicine, too much blood. However, I'd recently come across a paper translated from German about diseases of the mind and since I found them to be slightly less full of blood I'd taken an interest and thought perhaps this could relate to my lady confined to her room.

"Cathy," I asked, "what exactly is this sickness of yours?" I was planning on diagnosing her (oh, lovely scientific words!) with a mental disorder that would be easily cured with a simple electroshock therapy that would free her from this prison of a room.

"Oh, I'm not actually sick," she answered, not looking up from the pages, "Did you hear that the youngest Bennet is rumored to have run off with an infantry man? Staggering, isn't it? He's so far below her station!"

I paused. She wasn't sick? But she had said that she was when we met. Why would she be locked up here in this room if she was not ill? I was confused. Investigations were in order.

"uh… what?" I said, very eloquently.

"It's simply not done! They say it's an elopement, you know."

"No, what… I thought… you said you were sick," she put down the paper and turned to me, "when we first met, you said you were sick."

"I thought you were going to rob me, and it's not far from the truth. My parents believe that I'm sick and that I'm possessed by demons. I find it is far easier just to agree with them and promise that I'll try to get better," she sighed, "but there's no getting better from this, and I wouldn't want to. It's a very useful talent." Her eyes lit up and she turned to me, very excited. "Would you like me to show you?" I nodded, unsure of what to say. Perhaps my poor Cathy really was a lunatic and what if she could never get better? She'd end up like Mrs. Hope, insane and alone on the streets, begging for crumbs and turning street urchins into men for a half-rusted penny. The insanity would be the least of her illness problems.

I sat watching her, terrified at these thoughts, though I couldn't really place why, not really paying attention to what she was doing until there was a loud crack. Her thin wrist had hit the wooden paneling of her bed. She began to thrash around and I began to panic. Another loud noise like that could draw the attention of Mrs. Dean and what in the world was going on? I grabbed her arms, holding them down at her sides, pinning one with my knee so I could reach up and keep her head away from the ornately carved boards she'd just thrown her arm against. The red mark on her wrist looked like it might become a bruise. Cathy shook against my side.

"Cathy, please stop this. Cathy, this isn't funny anymore," I heard the panic creeping up in my voice. I had no idea what to do other than wait this out and that didn't seem like such a good idea when this… whatever this was could last for hours. I pushed that thought out of my mind and focused on keeping Cathy's body still. She couldn't be hurt. She'd done this to herself, right? She knew what she was doing, after all, it was her- I didn't want to call it an illness when she'd insisted she wasn't sick, but I what else could it have been? My hands were shaking just enough that I couldn't blame it all on keeping Cathy still and I realized she was settling down. I let her go and sat on the bed just close enough to grab her again if she started up. As I watched, she began to glow. It was bloody strange but for some reason I wasn't worried anymore. The light began to move away from her until it floated up near the ceiling. Cathy gasped.

"Cathy? Cathy, are you hurt?" She coughed like a chimney sweep for a long while.

"See? Isn't he grand?" she croaked afterwards, nodding towards the lantern fog floating in midair.

"No! Not if you could've killed yourself!"

"I'm getting better at it, you know."

I stared at her. "This was better? God, Cathy, that's sick is what this is, you're sick and you ooze green light. There must be a scientific record of something like this."

"It's not green light, silly, it's a person" I stared at her. My friend was undeniably a lunatic, poor girl. I shook my head.

"Cathy, look at it, that isn't a-" I turned around and choked on the last word. The green light had shifted and taken the form of a man in military garb, hovering above our heads.

"Good day, Miss Catherine." He greeted her with a stiff bow. "May I be introduced to your friend?"

"Of course, Sir Rodney Skinner, I am terribly honored to present the late General Wallace Roberts." I stood up and made a sweeping bow.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, sir," I said, realizing with surprise that I wasn't actually surprised by the man's appearance.

The general frowned at me, "Now, Cathy, are you certain it is a good idea to let strange men into your room, without a chaperone? People might talk."

"Oh, Rodney's a real gentleman, sir, and people can't talk because they don't know about this."

"Is that so? He doesn't sound like much of a gentleman to me."

"He's in hiding," she whispered, "you must tell no one, but Sir Rodney is royalty in disguise. He's running from his wicked uncle who wants to kill him and take over the kingdom, but as long as Rodney is only missing, his country will be ruled by the kind Steward who raised Rodney since he was a boy." I bowed again, playing along with Cathy's far-fetched story.

"It's true, and every day I mourn the loss of my gentility and all those fancy little place settings and cups with my name carved into every one," I placed a hand on my chest for dramatic effect, "why, some days it's near unbearable to go on without my fancy silk pillows for to rest my royal behind."

The general stared at me, obviously unamused, "Yes, well, if it would not be too rude of me, I'm going to go pay a visit to the man who killed me, tell him it was a good show. Until next time, dearest Cathy." She waved at him as he floated away, passing through the wall of the room with ease. Then she picked up the slightly crumpled gossip section, smoothed it out and began to read again.

"I'm not sick, Rodney, I can just talk to ghosts."

"Well, isn't that interesting."

()

Someone else might have doubted what they saw, assumed they, themselves, were going insane, or worried about the repercussions of speaking with the dead. Not me. Science could explain all this, someone smarter than I was would understand and the more I thought about it, the easier it was to believe that Cathy knew what she was doing. She didn't need help, she was doing fine. Yes, the first part had been… odd, but the time before the ghost would appear was becoming less and less with each attempt. I began to take her word as the truth, at least about ghosts.

"Some of the formerly living are far less sophisticated than the general, they would hurt me if I gave them the ability to do so, but I don't"

"Sometimes the formerly living are sad and I give them their final wishes."

"I let a five year old cholera victim use my body so she could eat a chocolate tart. Poor darling. However, this was an interesting discovery for the field of possession, I think."

"Oh no, I never have to worry about possession I don't authorize, I'm always entirely in control."

"Relax, Rodney, darling, I am in control of the situation, the poor man just wants to smell a rose one more time. Now, be a dear and fetch me one, will you?"

"Seances have become all the rage, dear, of course it would be a good idea to get in on the business."

I agreed with her, my little Cathy was growing up and she knew what she was doing. I have to admit, I was proud of her and a little bit jealous when she started raking in the shillings on her own, but it only lasted until she handed me a loaf of bread. I am not a prideful person, dearies, food is food and a friend willing to share it with you is a true godsend, I tell you.

()

While I was working for Dr. Cranely, I only ran into the invisible man once. At that time he was known as Dr. Hawley Griffin and was, well, clearly visible, of course, and I was technically working for him.

I was cleaning up the chemicals someone had spilled on the floor when he stepped into the room. I looked up to see who it was and stared. See, I'd never seen another albino before. I reckon it's hard to tell, seeing as you can't see me, but I happen to be one, myself. An albino street rat ain't a good thing to be in the alleyways of London, though, I soon found out. I'd dyed my hair with shoe polish I stole from a stand on the street and the dirt and grime of where we lived was enough to keep my skin from attracting attention. Griffin, on the other hand, was an upstanding scientist which meant he kept his hair short and his skin clean. He was mostly clean shaven, if he had stubble it was pale enough to blend in perfectly with his skin. While my eyes were shaded enough by my black shoe-polished bangs, he wore a pair of dark glasses that were almost like goggles. I realized that he was staring back at me.

Immediately, I looked away, back to the mess I was cleaning up. I heard Grifffin grunt, gather up some glass bottles and leave the room.

My first encounter with the invisible man had gone quite smoothly.

()

After that, things went very bad, very fast. The invisible man scandal was in all the papers. A scientist fallen into madness who became a mass murderer with a body count in the hundreds over the course of a few weeks. Science, itself, was responsible for giving him the power to do this and people grew afraid. Dr. Cranely's laboratories had a difficult time finding people willing to sponsor the group of geniuses who had accidentally created a monster. Funding dropped, budgets were trimmed, and I was fired.

It was back to being a full-time thief for me.

I didn't have much time to sit and think anymore, but when I did I thought about Griffin and his invisibility. True, it was awful what he'd done to all those people, but the man must have been brilliant. Imagine it: to be able to move, completely undetected by human eyes. It sure would have helped me in my current business.

Not only that, but Dr. Kemp assured the worried public in an interview that the method used by Griffin would only have worked on an albino. This could have been a lie just to keep a worried public from becoming an all-out mob, demanding that Griffin's notes be found and destroyed, but it still spoke to me.

No other thief would be looking for the notes because how many ambitious albino thieves could there be in England?

I'd studied the reports, the interviews, even the gossip columns and I knew where I needed to start my search.

Thomas Marvel had a puffed-up look to him. He looked like a man who put a little too much stock in his own worth, especially since he'd been a drunken, homeless rotter until he came into some money recently. The old bastard owed the invisible man everything, the papers said it all. People talked that he'd got the money from when he helped Griffin rob banks. He'd been his accomplice and had stabbed him in the back. Not only that, but he went and named his inn The Invisible Man, as if being beaten to death by an angry mob wasn't insult enough to the scientific genius.

Perhaps if I'd known how Griffin was, I'd have been more sympathetic. I knew he was a murderer, but other than that, he was brilliant. And he was like me. Maybe I wouldn't have killed anyone, but stealing from a bank, now that was a thought for my poor, empty stomach.

I quietly stepped off the train at the station near Port Stowe. I had no luggage and simply walked calmly out over the tracks to avoid security. I was in no mood to pay for a train ticket with money I didn't have, especially when I had spent the entire ride huddled among boxes and gypsies in a supply car. I'd save my money for the inn.

I didn't have very far to walk, and by that time at night most of the town was fast asleep. I slipped unnoticed through the streets to a newly repainted building. The sign out front informed me that I'd arrived at the right place. I scoffed at it and turned to knock on the door. As soon I did I heard scrambling and a slamming of doors, small doors, as someone yelled "Just a moment, I'll be there in a moment." I grinned. This was almost too easy, if the man behind the door was Thomas Marvel then he was hiding those books, or something else just as valuable, in a safe in that room. If it weren't true, I'd eat my head.

The man opened the door and, sure enough, introduced himself as Thomas Marvel. "I'd like a room for a few nights, if you don't mind. How much is the cost?"

"Well, it's ten shillings each night if you won't be eating," he laughed, "Fourteen if you'd like supper on the house." I cringed. I guess I would be going hungry until I could pull this off. I pulled the money out of my pocket and handed it to him.

"I'll take a room for the night."

Mr. Marvel nodded, "Right this way, sir." He led me up a set of creaky stairs and down a hallway. After fumbling around in his pockets he pulled out a ring of keys and opened one of the doors. It groaned as he opened it and turned to me, pulling the ring apart to hand me the key. "If you'd like food, you can come down to the bar, but don't be ridiculous about your times." I nodded at the useless information and grabbed the key. "There's a gas lamp on the bedside table, but that'll be extra on your tab. I ain't made of money."

"Of course," I said. I'd never had any use for a lamp anyways. I stepped into the room, trying to make out where everything was from the fuzzy outlines in the dark.

"Will you be expecting any luggage?"

"None. I'm thinking I won't be here very long, places to go and things to see."

"Of course," I heard the door slide shut and the latch fall in place. Mr. Marvel's footsteps slowly faded as he walked down the hall. Was he going back to where the books were? Or was he going to sleep? I couldn't tell, and I had to be certain before I went after it, but I didn't have much time. My funds weren't exactly unlimited. I took a breath to calm my nerves.

"Relax, Rodney," I whispered to myself, "First things first, we have to make sure that he's asleep. So we wait, nice and quiet-like. Enjoy this while you can." I turned to the nearest shadowy object. "For example, you've never spent a night in a bed that didn't have rats and fleas in it, now have you?" A grin spread over my face and I flopped face-first on the mattress. Not nearly as soft as what Cathy had but she was some ancient line of royalty with money. I rolled over on my back and stared up at the ceiling.

Cathy had gotten a lot better since she had started bringing up ghosts for the wealthy thrill seekers. Séances were all the rage in London and she had an actual talent for summoning the dead, so it fit, and her father went along with it because he believed it was all a hoax. She was finally allowed out of bed, out of her room, and she was getting better, and it showed. She still looked like someone who had been locked in the house her entire childhood, but now she looked like a lady who'd been locked up her whole childhood. And now she was up and about most of the time, walking for the sake of walking, skipping, dancing, all in real top-notch outfits. Very tight-fitting dresses, most of them, or when I usually came over and she still wore her nightclothes, just a light cotton dress and bloomers, a dress easily caught and pulled tight over certain places… hm…

I grinned; now at least I had something to do while I waited.

()

The inn had been quiet for long enough. Marvel had to be asleep, so it was time for me to go. The books were in some secret safe in the parlor, that much I was sure of from the amount of noise he'd made before opening the door. All I had to do was find it, pick the lock, grab the books, and get the hell out of there. I almost wished I could stay longer, relax a while, but even with the books, I would be a long ways away from becoming invisible and that was my top priority. I had to keep moving before anyone could figure out what I was up to.

As quietly as I could, I snuck down the creaky hallway and stairs. I slipped the metal box of matches out of my pocket, striking one on the rough wooden counter and using it to light the oil lamp sitting there. I picked it up, looking around for anything suspicious looking. Nothing seemed out of place so I turned to the locked doors in plain sight.

It wasn't unusual for a cupboard to be locked up at an inn, but it would be a safe place to hide the books. I reached up with my lock picks and started on the first door. The house-breaking had been wonderful practice for this, eventually I'd realized that getting in through windows was not always going to be an option and had invested in some lock picks. A few minutes later the lock clicked, the door swung open and I was disappointed. There was nothing out of the ordinary inside. I moved on to the next locked door.

Fifteen minutes later, all the drawers were opened and I had nothing to show for it. I thought I'd found it when I unlocked a box hidden in cupboard number three, but there was nothing out of the ordinary to it. I was stuck. The books had to be in this room, they had to. I'd heard him hide them, I knew they were here.

"If I were Thomas Marvel, where would I hide my invaluably precious books?" Perhaps he didn't know how valuable they were. No, that didn't make sense, he would've handed them back over to the scientists if he didn't think they were worth something. I opened the box again and felt around inside. Silverware, still just silverware. I sighed and stared at the wood paneling. Pulling the drawer open again, I noticed something. The drawer was not as deep as the box.

I held the light up to the side of the box and there, down near the base, was a seam. I reached around the back, jammed my fingers into the gap between the drawer and the wall, and pulled to the side. The drawer scraped open and I had to stop myself from cheering.

Griffin's notebooks, tattered and wrinkled, were mine.

()

Woo, second chapter done.

Griffin and his backstory are mostly based on the book. One thing I disliked about the League comic was that they disregarded the pseudoscience Wells put into the creation of an invisible man. Namely, they were like "oh, the guy was albino? Well, Griffin uh… wasn't, yeah, that's how they know he ain't dead" when the lack of pigment in one's skin, eyes and hair was a key factor for Griffin's experiment to work. True, it's fiction and invisibility doesn't work as science anyways, but I think it's important to consider the original cannon.

For those of you who haven't read the book, and I don't blame you, Thomas Marvel was a homeless guy that Griffin forced into becoming his accomplice. He ends up with the invisible man's money and lab notes, though he denies it.

Cathy is reading about Lydia Bennet's scandalous elopement with George Wickham. Pride and Prejudice and whatnot.