“Stop this farce!” A young cockney voice rang out through the sound studio, matching up with an animated video projected on the wall. Though it was only the storyboards, it was clear what was happening. The boy on screen had just marched into the police station, lackey in tow, and a room of adults just looked on incredulously. A truly realistic portrayal of crime-fighting. The next image had one of the officers stepping forward, but no sound came to match the picture. Headphones hanging around his neck, the grown man reading the script mouthed the response, waiting for the cue mark for his next line.

The picture changed back to the kid, and a green arrow appeared in the corner. “I’m afraid you have the wrong man, detective.” He spoke in to the hanging microphone, gesturing along with the words, “You missed the most crucial piece of evidence.” The teen paused his musings, walking past the detectives and stopping on the far side of the room. With a smirk, mossy green eyes watched as the cartoon hero, wearing a trenchcoat and deerstalker cap, spun around dramatically. As the green mark appeared, he threw up his arm and declared, “The thief was obviously a woman!” He watched the other character’s silent reaction shots before the video stopped. A second voice crackled into life, coming from the back room.

“Good take, Jannic. You happy with it?” The accent was normal to Jannic by now, he’d lived in London long enough. But his own response was with his real voice, American with just a hint of a southern drawl, and not quite so high pitched. “Almost, I want to run it one more time. Any more scenes after this?” He stretched a bit as the rustling of papers came over the intercom. “No, you’re even ahead of schedule. I’ll cue up the video again.” The storyboard went up again, but this time Jannic voiced all the lines. Using a teen’s voice for Sherlock and a gruff, Scottish voice for the officer, he acted out both sides and threw in a few different gasps at the end, just to round it out.

“You’re showing off again,” the second man snapped once the video ended, even as laughter echoed from the background. “Oh, come off it Greg,” The first voice stopped laughing, the technician it belonged to taking control again. “Not bad, but I think we’ve got some other applicants for those roles. We’ll call you.” Jannic chuckled, pulling the headphones back over his tawny hair and hanging them on the stand. “I bet you say that to all the ladies,” he shot back as he moved to the exit, the light from the projector flickering out behind him. “Only the pretty ones,” the response echoed from both the speakers in the sound room and the source in the control room as he pulled the door open.

Past the tinted glass, little lights danced across the boards as one technician fiddled with knobs and sliders.  The voice of Young Sherlock was being played in Greg’s headphones, while his partner’s lay on top of the controls. Franklin swiveled his chair around to greet Jannic as he walked in, “We can still find a native to play Sherlock, you know.” Both the technicians were pale and looked like phantoms in their dark room, but Franklin at least acted human. For all Jannic knew, Greg lived in the booth without a shred of emotion. Except for irritation, he had plenty of irritation. “You’ll never replace me, Frankie, I’m one of a kind.” Grabbing his jacket and satchel, he gave a quick wave to the pair before heading out. “See you next week, Greg. Franklin.” An annoyed grunt and a bemused chuckle followed him out the far door.

Even inside the office building, the sound of the city hit him harder than a bus.  The glass walls were like an inverse fishbowl, the city swirling around outside. Each day he left work, Jannic had to take a minute to just enjoy the view. But the ding of the elevator drew his attention away. “Hold it,” he called out, sliding in as a young woman pressed the button. With a grin, he felt a bit of pride as she blushed and looked away. The ride was short, only six stories, and he lost the woman as the elevator emptied and the crowd swept toward the main doors. The noise only got worse outside, and he found himself missing the soundproofed studio, as he did every day.

A quick bus ride followed by a longer train ride found him in a much quieter part of the city. As if breathing for the first time, Jannic sighed deeply while letting the afternoon breeze wash over him. He shifted his bag when he stepped off the car, then started to walk the final leg home. This district was slow, residential except for a few small shops. For several blocks he walked, nodding to the occasional passerby with a grin, until he turned on to his street. His favorite bookstore, partly because of the old books it stocked and partly because his landlady owned it, was in sight. “Mrs. Williams,” he called as the little bell on the door announced his arrival, “Afternoon, your favorite customer and tenant is here to see you.”

The smell of old paper and glue filled the air, stacks of books older than Jannic piled high where there was no more space on the shelves. There wasn’t another soul in the room, but the sound of hurried footsteps sounded from the back, muffled by the literature. “Oh Ryan, you’re early,” Mrs. Williams turned briskly between the bookshelves, “You finish your work too quickly, it’s not healthy.” A thin woman, her grey hair pulled back into a tiny ponytail, Mrs. Williams looked perfectly at home with these books. A map of light wrinkles traced across her face, just like the crumpled pages around her. “Nice to see you too,” Jannic chuckled as she reached him, “Still can’t convince you to call me by my middle name?” But she just tutted, walking further into the store again. “That’s the name you put on the lease, that’s the name I’ll call you. Now come along, dear.”

Jannic followed, eyes checking the stacks for any new titles, even though many of the books were so old the words had worn off the page. “What, need me to change a light again?” But she shook her head, glasses chain rattling softly. “No, your book came in this morning.” Eyes lighting up, Jannic waited as she went around the back counter, pulling a brown paper package out from underneath. “A bit bigger than I was expecting, but here it is. Folktales of Southern Germany, Volume Two.”  She dropped it gently on the counter, letting the man pull it across. “I don’t know why you want to write a compilation, there are so many already. And you always have the best stories.” But he just shrugged, holding the package under his arm and reaching for his wallet. “Thanks, Mrs. Williams. How much do I owe you?”

After a bit of friendly haggling, Jannic paid Mrs. Williams her asking price for the book, wallet a fair bit lighter. He never could convince her of anything she didn’t want convinced of. With a smile and wave, he headed back out of the store, moving to the door next to it. Two silvered numbers hung on the door, 35B and 35C, a bit worn with age but perfect for the building. Trading the wallet in his hand for his keys, he unlocked the door, heading up the two flights of stairs to the top. 35C was a small flat, but comfortable enough for him. Less space meant less cleaning, not that he did much anyway.

He only made it to the first floor landing though before he was stopped, a young woman’s voice calling out to him.  “What are you doing home so early?” The tenant from 35B had just left her flat when she’d caught sight of the actor. “I did such a good job at work, they sent me home early with a bonus.” But the girl with the charcoal hair just laughed, “More like you got yourself into trouble again. What, you tell Greg off again?”

“No, I did just finish early this time. No bonus though, you got me there.” Jannic chuckled as she noticed the package under his arm. With a sly gleam in her dark brown eyes, she walked over to take a closer look and scanned it quickly. Book-sized, if a bit large. Mrs. Williams’ normal wrapping, so it must be old. But of course, the biggest clue was the many times that month when he’d talked about the book he was expecting. She knew exactly what was inside. “So you actually came home with less money, definitely not much of a bonus.” Looking to his face though, she smiled, “Glad it finally came, now you can tell me some of those lost German stories you’ve been ranting about.”

Jannic nodded, patting the tome with pride, “It was worth it, some of these haven’t been heard of outside academic circles in centuries.” They’d make fine additions to his own book, a collection of lost stories from around the world. Mrs. Williams wanted him to write his own stories, but rescuing these came first for him. “I can crack it open, read you a few now.”  She smiled, nodding to her own flat, “Over some tea?” Shaking his head with a grin, he replied, “Kiara, you are peculiarly normal.” Her reply was just to turn around and walk back to her door. “Just come down when you’re ready, I’ll start the water boiling.”

“Weren’t you going somewhere?” He called as he went back to the stairs, “And for that matter, why are you home so early?” But Kiara just waved him off, “I was sent home early too, nothing to worry about.” With that she slipped into the flat, door closing with a squeak behind her. Jannic just shook his head, moving up to his own squeaky door. He pulled out the same key again, Mrs. Williams had never gotten around to putting different locks on all the doors. This one key opened both flats and her store, a sign of her trust in her tenants. A little creak in the wood as he entered, and Jannic was finally home.

The inside of the flat was reminiscent of the bookstore two floors down.  Shelves lined one wall, old tomes sitting next to colorful new books, almost making a piece of modern art. The rest of the room was equally jumbled, a gently worn brown sofa from the previous tenants occupying the most space. A wooden coffee table that acted like his dining table and footrest sat in front of it, several more books sitting on its smooth surface. His laptop sat on a desk in the far corner, next to the kitchen door. He had the smallest kitchen possible, the cabinet doors barely able to open without hitting the other side. For all he loved to cook, he rarely did so in his own flat. The rest of the space was just as cramped, bedroom barely holding a bed big enough for him. It was cozy and quiet, and as he placed the new book with the others he really felt at home.

As he moved to put his satchel down in his bedroom though, that sense of comfort evaporated. A whisper echoed from his computer, a quiet ‘Shush’ that sent shivers down his spine. He had hoped never to hear that sound again. Frozen in place, he scrambled over to his computer as it quietly shushed him another time. He tapped a few keys, waiting impatiently for it to wake up. “I get it already,” Jannic snarled as the sound went off again, anxiety in his eyes as the black screen finally faded, revealing an odd symbol in the middle of his screen. Even as he blinked a few times, not believing what he was seeing, there it was: Two feathered wings, one black and one white, twisted together and raised toward the sky, sat on the screen. The symbol of Mercurial. They’d found him.

Whipping out the old chair under the desk, Jannic collapsed into it, fingers typing madly even before his back hit the wood. He’d left New York City two years ago, left Mercurial in his past and prayed he would never hear their name again. But his monitors had picked up activity, they had their eyes on London, and he only knew one reason why they’d come. Following the bread crumbs his program had left, moving back through the pathways of the internet, they pointed him to an airplane ticket. One of the names he’d flagged so long ago had just arrived in London. When he pulled up a photo though, Jannic just laughed. That wasn’t who he was expecting, just some kid who must have inherited the moniker. If they knew he was here, they’d have never sent a rookie. He stood back up, relief flooding his system. Of course they hadn’t found him, his getaway was clean. Nothing traced back to him, no one in Mercurial knew his real name.

But someone did, nagged a little voice in the back of his head. One man in Mercurial knew his name. The name he’d put on his passport, the name he’d put on his lease. The name that rode merrily across the screen every Friday at nine. He returned to the computer, blind panic gone, and the remaining fear refined into eagle-eyed focus. Searching the plane, he pulled up all the tickets, checking all of them for photos. After twenty flops, he started to hope his gut was wrong. But lucky number twenty one was familiar. A second member, one he recognized too. He kept digging, finding another, and another. By the time he finished, Jannic had found twelve members in all. Something was off though, he noticed, there were far too many infiltrators to be coming for him. As he reviewed the list he realized, they had no idea he was here. If they were here for him, they’d have sent hit men, not thieves. Not men like he used to be.

Fear transforming into curiosity, his focus was broken by a quiet knock at the door. “Jannic, were you coming down?” Kiara’s voice called through the old wood with a laugh, “It’s been quite a while, the tea’s getting cold.” He looked to a clock, surprised to find almost thirty minutes had passed. “Sorry,” Jannic replied, eyes returning to the screen, “I got wrapped up in the book. I have got to get this rewritten.” He could have sworn he’d heard a disappointed sigh, but she sounded cheery enough when she responded, “It’s fine, I know you’re really excited. I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

Her footsteps went down one flight of stairs, then a second. She had been going somewhere earlier, he though as the outside door swung open, and she’d stuck around just to talk to him. But Jannic’s guilt was tempered by reason and fear, he had to figure out why Mercurial was here. They were dangerous, and they’d never worked a job outside the States before. If they had decided to extend their reach this far, something major had changed while he was gone, and that could spell big trouble for him. Pulling up news sites, auction reports, and anything else he thought may help his search, he settled in for a long night. ‘Shush,’ went the computer, and the race began.