Before they leave, Gideon has pinpointed the time of the ledger's appearance in the Reading Room to Sept. 1, 1882. If Hunter's eyes and mouth narrow further at this news, he still doesn't comment on it.
But Snart, watching, makes note of it.
He's never been pleased about how little they know of the Waverider's captain. Thanks to Gideon and the technology of the Time Masters, the man knows everything…or at least, a whole lot… about them. But he's a mystery himself.
They've heard a few stories of his lost wife and son (to which Snart is not unsympathetic), and the little gleaned from the trip to the Refuge. (Little Rip was a little badass; Snart will also give him that.) But this…oh, this could be interesting...
"East London and the future, eh?" he drawls, sprawled (insomuch as the Victorian gentleman's suit, complete with overcoat, will let him) in the shotgun seat of the jump ship as they take off.
Hunter doesn't bother to look at him. He doesn't bother to refute the basic premise, either. "Well," he says in a clipped tone, eyes fastened on the screen as they dart through the temporal zone, "at the time, that was true. I had been living in 2166."
"So, are there going to be two yousin this time we're going to?"
That, he does not dignify with a response. Snart looks thoughtful, but treats it like the confirmation it effectively is.
"Family?" he inquires, sounding genuinely curious.
"No."
And then the ship is out of the temporal zone, flying in a wide arc over land that looks far too green and lush for an urban area - although, ahead in the distance, an already visible pall of smoke hangs over the land. Hunter immediate cloaks the ship, then dips down to fly low over the treetops.
"We'll be able to get far closer than we would in 2017, but we'll still have a walk ahead of us," he tells the other man. "You're up for that?"
Snart rolls his eyes, tips his top hat to the side, and brandishes his cane. Enough said.
It isa walk. And while Snart shows absolutely no sign of his recent…infirmity…for the vast majority of it, eventually his steps lag, just a bit, and he can be seen to occasionally lean on that odd cane he'd had made in the fabrication room.
The look in his eyes dares Rip to comment. The Time Master does not, but he knows for a fact that he doesn't look pleased. He's long since lost the knack of completely concealing his feelings, the knack he'd learned from experience not so far from where they're walking at this very moment. (Not that his younger self is there now. He hadn't lived at the Foundling Hospital for about five years, at this point.)
This would have been so much simpler if Snart had just listenedfor once...
"So, this is Bloomsbury?"
Rip blinks and glances at other man, who is eyeing him with an expression that makes him think his thoughts had been plastered all over his face. "Pardon? I mean, yes. How did you know that?"
Snart sighs, a touch theatrically. "Research. You think I didn't go read everything I could find about the museum, and the neighborhood, and the time period, as soon as you told me where and when we were going? Rip, Rip, Rip, that's no way to pull off a successful heist." Smirk.
The Time Master can't completely hold back sarcasm of his own. Snart has that effect. "What, you mean you've never robbed the British Museum before?"
"Nope." But the comeback earns Rip a thin smile. "Why did you think I wanted to come along?"
"To be a pain in the ass, actually," he mutters, and is actually surprised to hear a bark of laughter.
"Nooo, that's a fringe benefit. Seriously, though, the area's quite interesting. The museum, of course; the Bloomsbury Group – Virginia Woolf, you know – all the gardens, the university. The Foundling Hospital..." Is that a pause? Surely not. "…and the businesses. Did you know that T.S. Eliot worked as an editor here? Although that wasn't for about another 40 years."
"You're quite well-read, Mr. Snart."
"Always the air of surprise. I happen to like books. So, do you have readers' tickets for us? Or are we supposed to just sweet-talk our way in there?" The smirk says he'd be happy to try, given the chance.
"I do, actually. The Time Masters maintained a variety of identities for use at the museum and Reading Room, as well as at other institutions around the world. They're still valid. Gideon just updated the dates for us."
"Hmmm..." Snart looks intrigued. Belatedly, Rip wonders if giving the crook that bit of information had truly been a good idea…but then they're there, right at the steps of the storied British Museum, and both of them go quiet.
It won't look much different in 2016, or even for quite a long time after that, actually. Rip, who has also seen it in smoking ruins, all its treasures looted and lost, regards it for a moment, then sighs and turns to his compatriot, dipping a hand into his overcoat pocket for the readers' tickets.
"I am …" he considers the ticket in his hand, "Mr. Luke Beaumont. And you, Mr. Snart, are one Mr. Bartholomew Grey."
"Excuse me? Why do I get..." But he has to stifle the indignation and catch up, as Rip (a tiny smile on his face) heads for the entrance, doffing his hat as he approaches the doors.
The tickets elicit no comment as they enter. They're both admitted through the doors, strolling into the entryway and past all its sculptures, through the Room of Inscriptions and to a corridor where they're required to present the tickets for scrutinization. (Snart retains his cane, pleading a "war wound," although they both have to leave their overcoats.) And then, they are allowed to walk into that bastion of knowledge, the Reading Room of the British Museum.
It never ceases to amaze him, although he knows that, by the close of the 20th century, it will no longer exist quite in this form – and not long after that, will cease to house books at all. The great dome, inspired by the Pantheon in Rome; the long, lettered tables for readers, with the numbered seats and ink and pens and blotting-pads; the iron bookstacks, made to protect their precious contents; the thousands upon thousands of books themselves, arranged in tiers about the room.
Glancing at his companion, he sees a curiously arrested expression on Snart's face, the man's eyes goingflickflickflick from one thing to another. Even several hours ago, he would have assumed the career criminal is merely casing the place for this job or another one, but recalling Snart's earlier words, he wonders.
The crook does allow Rip to lead the way to one of the smaller, two-person tables and deposit his hat there; he follows suit without comment. Then he merely lifts an eyebrow in question.
Rip sighs.
"This," he says, sotto voce, to the other man, "is where we pray that it's on the bottom tier and we don't have to go through the process of writing for it." He nods to the desks in the center of the room, where attendants, under the watchful eyes of the Reading Room clerk and superintendent, accept requests for books that are shelved in the second and third tiers of stacks.
Snart merely rolls his eyes and turns away to inspect the room further. Rip frowns and taps his comm.
"Gideon, we're here. Guide me."
Fortunately it's a busy day in the Reading Room, and there's a certain amount of bustle. His muttering goes unnoticed … or unremarked, in any case. It helps that, by accident or design, Snart moves to shield him from the room at large, casually studying his surroundings, the bookshelves, or individual books, blocking the other man from view.
In a strange, lengthy sort of game of "hot and cold," Gideon manages to guide them to the ledger, which proves to be a handsome volume bound in blue leather, resting amidst volumes dealing with ancient history – the Phoenicians, to be specific.
By luck or prayer or merest chance, it isshelved in the bottom tier. Rip pounces upon it with a small noise of triumph, something treated as unremarkable by the scholars around him – most of whom have undoubtedly done something similar at one time or another. He carries it back to the desk and sits, Snart trailing behind, a book (apparently snagged from the section on British history) in his own hand, still continuing his slow perusal of the room.
"Ah. Daniel Haynes. Captain of the Relentless. Good man..." Rip frowns as it occurs to him that that "good man" is likely dead. "…but sometimes a little absent-minded. Let's see..."
Snart leans over, peering at the pages. "You called it a ledger. Why is it printed?"
"They're generally dictated to the ship's AI, backed up, and then printed and bound. It can be necessary to have hard copies of such things...and, well, it's a tradition of sorts, as well." Rip frowns. "Very careless, more so than usual, to leave it behind..."
He leaves the puzzle and continues to flip pages. "Indeed. About three-fourths of the way through, we go from a treatise on the Phoenician government to a report on a family tree in which a few…tweaks…have had to be made over the years, including far in the future, for this time anyway. Tsk. Yes, we'll need to take this."
Rip closes the book firmly and glances at Snart, who is leaning against the table and looking thoughtful. "If you'll create some sort of distraction near the front of the room or the clerks, Mr. Snart—ah, nothing that will get you arrested, preferably—I'll slip out the rear exit and we can meet near that fountain I pointed out earlier."
"You're going to have a few problems with that."
"What?"
The other man points with his chin toward the door near the rear of the library, which he's been watching for a while now. "Looks like they think something's up."
If it wasn't for the fact that his neck is on the line here, too, Snart would almost be amused by the way Hunter visibly restrains himself from whipping around to look, instead turning in a slow circle. He already knows what the other man will see: a attendant now stationed at the rear door, guarding that exit.
Hunter's "bloody hell" is a mere exhalation. Visibly, however, the former Time Master just frowns. "Something very strange is going on."
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think you're right."
The two men both look back at the book in front of them.
After a long moment, Snart speaks first. "Put it back on the shelf."
Hunter starts to argue, then gives him a thoughtful look. The crook nods.
He's surprised, to tell the truth, when Hunter nods back in agreement, replaces the ledger on the shelf and returns to the table, looking at him with narrowed eyes. But all Snart does is give the other man a thin smile before he sits down with his book on history and starts to read.
Hunter stands for a moment, then shrugs, vanishing to return with another book to take his own seat.
And they read, the very image of perfectly well-mannered and non-suspicious Reading Room visitors, in silence.
After maybe an hour (Hunter just starting to give him odd little looks every few minutes or so), Snart closes his book, rises and returns it to the shelves. Hunter does the same, and the two men leave the Reading Room via the front entrance.
Hunter starts for the front doors of the museum, frowning as Snart, cane tapping on the floor, walks purposefully to the right, heading for the exhibits proper.
"Where are you going?"
Snart doesn't turn.
"I want," he drawls, "to see the Rosetta Stone. And the Elgin Marbles."
"Mr. Snart..."
He keeps walking. A moment later, glaring, Hunter falls into step beside him.
"I thought," he hisses, "the idea was to leave now and...come back...later."
"Nope."
"Then, what the bloody...," he pauses, smiles as a couple passes them, "...hell isthe idea?"
Snart keeps walking...but as soon as they round a corner and there's no one there, he rounds on the other man.
"It's much easier," he hisses back, eyes narrowed, "to break outof someplace like this than to break in. Especially if they're on their guard."
Hunter stares at him a moment. Then: "Ah."
"Ah, indeed."
So they see the Elgin Marbles. They see the Rosetta Stone. Gradually, they work their way deeper into the museum.
Both of them know the importance and the power of acting like you belong somewhere, even when you don't-both from hard experience. And they're both, actually, quite good at it.
They're in a lower level, walking purposefully, when Snart starts casually rattling doorknobs. Without a word, Hunter moves to the other side of the hall and starts doing the same.
Eventually a door on Snart's side opens. He's inside, followed by Hunter, in a blink. He keeps the door cracked, letting in a hair of the electric light from the hallway, while Hunter cautiously lights an oil lamp on a table, then closes and locks the door. Silence.
"The museum and Reading Room are both open until 7 p.m., correct?"
"A bit over an hour," Hunter acknowledges. "Then a little more time to sunset."
"Guess it's a good thing Gideon gave me a pocket watch." Snart tosses the cane into the air, catches it, then slowly lets himself sink down onto the floorboards, inspecting the storeroom as he does. "Boxes and record books, looks like. Nothing anyone will be looking for, we can hope. Good thing they moved the natural history stuff last year or we might be in here with all manner of things in jars..."
Hunter ignores the drawled final three words, although he is a touch impressed at the continued evidence of research. "Too bad the electricity hasn't been extended to every room yet, so you could seethat pocket watch," he says wryly. "I need to turn this down so it's not obvious we're in here. Ready?"
"Ready as I'll get."
He watches as Hunter slows turns down the oil lamp, leaving them in near-darkness, then listens as the Time Master settles himself on the floor as well.
"So now," he says with a sigh," we wait."