Not-Magic
A JSE Fanfic
Septics Inverted AU
First IRIS Chapter | Previous
(Heyyyy, what's upppp, it's meeee. Back with another chapter after so long. Seriously. So long. This has been the longest gap between IRIS Inverted chapters yet, I think. Tbh that's because I started writing Many Roads Diverge. A CYOA-style fic takes a LOT of work. But here we are now! Jackie and Frederick continue their investigation into IRIS by visiting other magicians. Meanwhile, Jack is having some trouble. Then Jackie makes a phone call. Enjoy!)
- - - - - - - - - -
Jackie couldn’t sit still for the rest of the car ride. He wanted to jump out and run until he found Chase. One of his best friends had just been basically kidnapped by a shady semi-magical organization, and he was just supposed to stay in the car after that? What the fuck? But Frederick was right, they had a limited window of time to meet up with the rest of the magicians. And Jackie needed more information about this IRIS, information that they could help him with.
The safe house was in Mirygale, which naturally made Jackie nervous. He was still technically a wanted criminal in this city. But he told himself that nobody would see him, as they were just going straight to the house. Not like they were walking around where a crowd of people could see his face. And even if they did, most people probably wouldn’t recognize Jackie, anyway. He’d changed a lot since his arrest and escape.
“Is this it?” Jackie asked as Frederick parked on the side of the road in a residential neighborhood. “Doesn’t look like much.”
“Good, that’s the point.” Frederick turned the car off. “We’re going in that one.” He pointed at a brown brick townhouse, identical to the rest of the brown brick townhouses around it.
“Alright, let’s go then.” The sooner they could talk to the magicians about IRIS, the sooner they could track them down, and the sooner Jackie could beat the shit out of them for taking Chase.
The two of them left the car behind and walked up the steps to the front door. Jackie hung back a bit, allowing Frederick to take the lead. Which he did, knocking on the door. And the door opened almost instantly. “Ah, I was wondering where you two were.”
“Hey, Eve.” Frederick grinned. “Sorry, we got, uh... delayed a bit.”
Jackie leaned around him. “Hi, Yvonne.”
“Hey, Jackie.” Yvonne gave him a nod. She was wearing a casual brown suit—dressed for work, clearly, as that wasn’t her usual style. But her hair was as vibrant as ever, cut short and dyed in blues and purples. “Come on in, Briony’s beside herself.”
Frederick sighed. “I know. Let’s go.”
The interior of the house was pretty normal. The front door led to a short hallway with a staircase for second-floor access. “That’s where we’re keeping all the magical stuff,” Yvonne said to Jackie, gesturing up the staircase. “But Briony and Nick are just in the living room here.”
“And it’s just them? I thought you guys had a whole team?” Jackie asked.
“Not everyone could make it right now,” Yvonne explained. “But the other four will be here later today if you want to hang around.”
“No, that’s fine.” Jackie shook his head.
“We do have a bit of a drive back,” Frederick added. “Let’s just... hurry along.”
Yvonne nodded. “Over here, then.” She walked over to an arch leading into a wide living room. “Hey guys, they’re here.”
Two others were in the living room. A dark-skinned man with his hair pulled back in a ponytail, and a woman with blonde frizzy hair and glasses. He was sitting in the room’s singular armchair while she was pacing back and forth in front of the window. They both wore similar casual suits to Yvonne—the ABIM must’ve had a dress code. That certainly made Jackie feel self-conscious in his favorite hoodie (black with red patches, he’d had it for ages now.) Frederick wasn’t wearing this suit uniform either, but his usual way of dressing was nice enough that he didn’t look too out of place.
“There you are!” The pacing woman whirled around to see them. “I swear, Frederick, you’re never—oh my god!” Her eyes had locked onto Jackie. Specifically, Jackie’s face.
“Briony,” the man said in a warning tone.
Frederick casually took a step closer to Jackie. “Sorry about that,” he said quickly. “We got delayed for a bit, but we did find out something that... well, I don’t know if it will help with the investigation, but it is some new information. Briony, Nick, this is Jackie, I’ve told you about. Jackie, Briony and Nick.”
“Hi.” Jackie forced himself to smile.
“Lovely to meet you,” Nick said, standing up. “So sorry about Briony, she has no social tact.”
“Wh—hey!” Briony said, glaring at him. She turned back to Jackie with a guilty expression. “I’m so sorry about that, I just didn’t expect—I-I didn’t mean any offense. I’ve never seen—I’m so sorry. Truly.”
“It’s fine.” It wasn’t, but Jackie could get over it. His scars and eye-patch usually got stares. He looked at Frederick. “So, I’m guessing you didn’t tell them everything about me.”
“I told them everything important,” Frederick said. “And everything I thought you wouldn’t mind.”
“Hah.” Jackie gave him a small smile. “That’s, uh... yeah. Good.” He leaned a bit closer to him.
“Let’s not waste any time, shall we?” Yvonne said, hurriedly jumping in. “The camera we got is still in the detection box.”
“Right. Time to go take it out.” Nick checked a watch on his wrist. “Head on upstairs, everyone.”
The group left the living room and went up the stairs. And it’s here that the resemblance to a normal house faded away. There were symbols painted on the walls. Runes, drawn in lines, squares, and circles. Jackie vaguely recognized some of them. They were geared towards protection and containment. As they walked past, Briony tapped some of the runes, little zaps of mauve magic leaving her hands and causing the runes to glow the same color. Were these the wards?
“So, Jackie, Frederick said you met while on a case?” Nick asked, trying for some casual conversation.
“Huh? Oh, yeah. There was this guy I knew, he was a magician. A fucking evil one. H-he went all crazy one day and attacked me and my friends. Frederick and Yvonne were on that case, so they showed up to help us.”
“Then you guys stole my car,” Frederick added.
“You got it back eventually,” Jackie said defensively, making Frederick laugh.
“That’s the same guy who burned Frederick’s hand off, right?” Briony asked.
“Well that’s a light way of putting it,” Frederick said. “But yes.”
“That’s... where all this came from.” Jackie gestured at his face. “The magic lingered for a while until Frederick found me and healed me.” He shook his head. “So glad that guy’s in jail now. Hope he rots.”
The group walked into the last room down the hall, a medium-sized room that could’ve been a bedroom in an actual house, but was instead filled with tables that held all sorts of strange objects. Crystal spheres of many colors, mirrors and painting with abstract designs, feathers and bottles and thin wands of wood and metal. In the center of the room was a table with a box the size of a printer. The box was made of a silvery metal. Its surface shifted with faint designs, like sunlight passing through ocean waves.
Briony tapped the side of the silver box. The designs stopped, shifting to form a phrase: OBJECT READY. REMOVE OBJECT. “Right,” she said. “Nick?” Nick nodded and walked over to join her. Each of them put their hands on two corners of the box. They whispered something in unison, their eyes glowing together—Briony’s that same mauve color, Nick’s a brighter yellow-green—and then lifted the top of the box off. They set the lid on the table next to it and Nick reached inside, pulling out... another box. This one was made of a coppery metal instead of silver.
“So, I’m guessing that’s the detection box,” Jackie said, pointing at the big silver box. “What’s that, then? Doesn’t look like a camera.”
Briony smiled a little. “We keep unknown magical items in these. They muffle all magical waves and signals.”
“Here, come look,” Nick said, sitting the box on the table. Jackie hesitated, but when Frederick and Yvonne walked over he did as well.
The top of the box was transparent, like glass. Inside was what looked like an old-fashioned security camera made of white plastic and metal. On the side of the camera was a symbol in black. Like an eye with three pupils. “Hmm. Looks pretty normal,” Jackie said, aware of how unhelpful that was.
“It does, doesn’t it?” Yvonne agreed. “That’s what the detection box is for. Picking up stuff that is abnormal. Now where’re the results?”
“Briony puts the paper actually in the box, remember?” Frederick said.
“I don’t want to lose it!” Briony said defensively, already reaching back into the detection box. After a couple seconds, she pulled out an ordinary piece of printer paper and slapped it down on the table next to the camera. “Here we are.”
On the paper was silvery writing, like someone had used a metallic glitter pen to record the results. Magic signature detected, it said. Combat: none. Divination: none. Soul: none. Necromancy: none. Health: none. Transformation: none. Conjuration: none. Illusory: none. Mental: none. And it kept going like that. Jackie skimmed the list to the bottom, where something was finally different. Light magic object. Black magic object.
“That’s... weird,” Yvonne said.
“There are several things wrong with this,” Frederick agreed. Nick and Briony just looked concerned.
“And what are those several things?” Jackie asked.
“Well, it’s not supposed to list out every branch of magic like this,” Frederick explained. “It’s just supposed to tell you if the object is light magic or black magic, and what branch of magic it is, not all the ones it isn’t. And, of course, it’s supposed to tell you what the object can do.”
“So... the camera short-circuited your magical detection device,” Jackie summed up.
“Pretty much,” Nick agreed.
“Frederick, you didn’t mention this.” Briony pointed at the two phrases at the end. “It’s impossible for a single object to use both light and black magic.”
“What?” Jackie blinked, confused. “But... magicians can use light and black magic, can’t they? I mean, I’m told black magic has side effects, but using it doesn’t somehow close you off from using light magic. It’s like a spectrum, right?”
Frederick gave him a small, proud smile. “It is. But it’s different with objects. Objects can’t choose to use magic, they can only do what the person intended them to. And once you imbue an object with a purpose that leans more to the light or the dark, then any attempts to put the opposite end of the spectrum into the enchantment don’t work. They fizzle out if you’re lucky and literally blow up if you’re not.”
Jackie nodded slowly. “Alright. So that’s super weird for the camera, right?”
“So weird,” Nick muttered.
“What if you put something that’s not magic in the detection box?” Jackie asked. “Like... a regular pen or something.”
Briony shrugs. “Then the detection won’t work. The cycle will cut short if there’s no magical signature. And before you ask, the containment box is built to work with the detection, the detection will go right through it.”
Jackie went quiet for a moment. “What if it emits a different type of signature?”
Frederick tilted his head. “Like what?”
“I dunno. Radiation, or something.”
Yvonne raised an eyebrow. “Why and how would we have something radioactive to put in the detection box?”
“I don’t know! I’m just asking!” Jackie said defensively. “People are stupid and curious, surely someone in the history of magicians has tried to put fucking... plutonium or whatever into the magic box.”
Frederick leaned back against a nearby table. “Are you saying the camera is radioactive?”
“No, I’m just...” Jackie shook his head.
“No, keep going,” Frederick said. “I think I know where you’re going. It’s about the weird magical signature IRIS locations give off, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Jackie nodded, relieved. “What if that’s not really magic? But something else? Not radiation, obviously, otherwise people would know, but... something like it?”
Briony’s eyes lit up. “Something similar to magic that isn’t actually magic? That... that would make sense, actually. It’d be close enough that we can pick it up, but different enough that we couldn’t actually identify it.”
“If we’re opening up the possibility, what if IRIS has just invented a new branch of magic?” Nick asked.
“Well, we’d have to think about what IRIS could do with a new branch of magic,” Yvonne said. “This camera—it’s called a WTCHR camera, remember? And we’ve all read the description and instructions that came in the box.” As she said this, she walked over to a table by the door and picked up a manual, looking just like any other instruction booklet that came with any other electronic product. “Most of it is just a really good camera, but it claims it can identify emotions and whether or not someone’s telling the truth. That’s the odd part, and that could be accomplished with scrying magic or mental magic. IRIS wouldn’t need to invent something new.”
“But what if it’s not magic?” Frederick pointed out.
“It would definitely explain why your fucking... magic box got error’ed out,” Jackie said.
Nick frowned, doubtful. “We can keep it in mind. Talk about it with the others. In the meantime, what do we do with the camera?”
In unison, they all looked at it. “I guess we just keep it,” Briony said. “Run it through a couple tests, maybe? I’m wondering if there are any other unusual properties it has.”
“What sort of tests?” Jackie asked, intrigued.
“Oh, you know. See how durable it is, see if it retains its weird magic signature after taking parts off, see if we can make it do stuff that it’s not supposed to.” Briony looked excited listing off these ideas.
“But, uh, we don’t need to be here for that,” Yvonne said. “Just the wizards. That’s... sort of their specialty. Learning about magic stuff.”
“Should we leave, then?” Frederick asked.
“Seems a waste to ask you guys to drive all the way out here and then send you right back,” Nick said. “Besides, didn’t you say something about new information, Rick?”
Frederick winced, irritated. “Frederick. Or Fengge.”
“Sorry.”
Frederick gave Jackie a long-suffering look that said this wasn’t the first time Nick had pulled something like that, then looked back at the others. “Yeah. We, uh... do you want to talk about it, Jackie?”
Jackie nodded. He and Frederick had discussed it in the car, and Jackie had agreed the others needed to know. He took a deep breath, preparing himself. “We’re, uh... We were... Part of the reason we were a bit late was because I wanted to go visit a friend of mine while I was already out. But when I got there, I was told that he was... moved somewhere else. Somewhere IRIS has control of.”
The others all instantly sharpened their attention. “You... you mean Chase, right?” Yvonne asked.
“Yeah.” Jackie asked.
“IRIS is kidnapping people?” Nick asked, shocked.
“Well, no, not—I mean, it is basically kidnapping, but...” Jackie paused, conjuring up his pre-prepared vague explanation. “Chase was living in a, uh, facility, of sorts. I-I don’t want to give out too many details if I don’t have to, it’s his business, but basically, it’s a place where it’s not weird to get transferred somewhere else. And they transferred him to IRIS.”
“A government-run facility?” Briony asked.
“...Basically.”
“Those are not good implications,” Nick said darkly.
“We know,” Frederick said. “It means that IRIS is able to freely contact the government and make demands of them. And it means that they want people for something.”
“Your friend... Chase, was it?” Nick asked. Jackie nodded to confirm his name. “Has he had any exposure to magic? Like you have?”
“Yeah, we both knew the same magician,” Jackie said. “Marvin Moore.”
“Moore hurt Chase, but his wounds were tended to immediately,” Frederick added. “There was no time for the magic to fester. But he spent a long time in contact with Moore. It’s possible that some magic traces linger. Very faint traces.”
Yvonne frowned. “I doubt that. It’s been, what, a year since those two had contact? I think the traces would’ve faded by now. Maybe... maybe IRIS grabbed Chase randomly.”
“If they were grabbing random people, they would’ve grabbed someone with no connections,” Jackie said. “Chase has connections. I visit him, his kids sometimes visit him, and people—people know who he is. They’d notice if he vanished. Case in point, I noticed when it happened! No, i-it has to be something else.”
“I suppose IRIS could’ve somehow... heard about Marvin Moore and realized Chase was connected,” Briony said reluctantly. “But that means that they were aware of us before we were aware of them.”
“It would also mean you could be in danger,” Nick said, looking at Jackie.
Frederick straightened. “They wouldn’t go for him. We live together. It’s too dangerous to try and grab him.” There was a hard edge to his voice that Jackie rarely heard but which made his face redden a little.
“Is there something special about Chase?” Yvonne asked. “Besides his location being easier to reach? Because I would argue that it would be quite difficult to get him out of there. Did Chase go through something you didn’t? Magically-related?”
Jackie thought about it. “Um... it’s not magic, but... he was in a coma for a while. About two months.”
Frederick’s eyes widened slightly. “Wait, if I’m remembering right, wasn’t that coma caused by Anti?”
Jackie gritted his teeth. “Yeah. It was.” Fucking bitch... you don’t just put people in comas no matter how much you hate them.
“You know... Anti isn’t magic,” Frederick said slowly. “But he can do things that seem like it.”
Jackie stared at him. “Are you saying... IRIS is like Anti?”
“Um...” Briony raised her hand. “Who’s Anti?”
Jackie sighed, already feeling exhausted at the idea of explaining all this. “Anti is Anti. He’s not human. He’s not a demon. He’s not a spirit. He’s something else. One of a kind.” He paused. “He’s also an asshole, but he’s not like... evil. He doesn’t hurt people.” Or at least, people who don’t deserve it.
“Didn’t you just say he caused your friend’s coma?” Briony asked.
“Long story. The point is Frederick thinks that IRIS’s not-magic could be like what Anti does.”
“Maybe not exactly, but it’s a good starting point,” Frederick said.
“Can you guys contact this... Anti?” Nick asked.
Jackie frowned. “I don’t know... It’s kind of hard to reach something like him. We could try to track down Jack—that’s a friend of his, he’s human. But, uh... don’t know if it would look that good coming from me. Jack and I... have a rough history.”
“Then we’ll do it,” Yvonne said, gesturing at herself and the other magicians. “We have ways of tracking down people.”
“You make it sound menacing when you say it like that, Eve,” Frederick said, a faint smile on his face.
“I... guess you guys can try,” Jackie said slowly. “Even just getting close to Jack will probably cause Anti to react. Jack is... sensitive.” That was a mild way of saying ‘traumatized by being kidnapped multiple times.’ “But I can’t be involved in this. Not until you explain the situation to Anti. We don’t exactly like each other.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll be careful,” Yvonne assured him.
“Please do be.” Jackie didn’t like the idea of Anti getting involved, but if he could help... Maybe he would recognize the greater evil of IRIS. An organization that secretly takes people couldn’t have good intentions, regardless of what those people had done.
- - - - - - - - - -
Jack pulled the blinds on the window back a little bit, looking down at the street below. It was empty. But he didn’t trust that.
Static fizzled next to his ear. “Are they gone?” Anti asked.
“I don’t see them anymore,” Jack said slowly. “But I don’t think they would’ve just left.” All morning, there’d been a white car parked on the street below. Not unusual in and of itself. But who would park in this tiny side street in between apartment buildings? Combined with IRIS’s repeated phone calls, it made Jack nervous.
Anti’s form fizzled a little bit. “They didn’t,” he reported. “I just checked the building’s security cameras. The car moved to the front. I don’t know if we’re still in range of their equipment, but they’re definitely not going anywhere.” When Jack had pointed out the car to Anti, he confirmed that—as normal as it looked from the outside—it belonged to IRIS. He could sense some of their equipment inside.
Jack shut the blinds. Sam flew over and nuzzled against his face, telling him not to worry. “No, I’m going to worry,” Jack said. “How the fuck am I supposed to not worry about this? People have never shown up at my house! Even the crazier fans haven’t gone that far yet. And even if they had, they’re just one or two people, not a whole fucking organization!”
“Nothing’s going to happen,” Anti said firmly. “I’ll make sure of it.”
Jack sighed, pressing his head against the window. “Do we have to move? I don’t want to move. I don’t want to go on the fucking run again.”
Anti hesitated. “I’m sorry. But... we might... have to.”
“It just... everything was finally working out,” Jack mumbled.
“I’m sorry,” Anti said quietly.
“No, don’t be, it’s not your fault.”
“It really is,” Anti admitted. “IRIS is after me. They’re only going after you to get to me. Maybe... maybe if I leave for a while—”
“No don’t!” Jack said hurriedly. Sam jumped up into the air, bobbing up and down in agreement with him. “I-I don’t—If something happens—B-besides, that’d just mean they win, wouldn’t it?”
Anti blinked. Then grinned. “I guess it would.”
“Y-yeah.” Jack gave him a weak smile. “Uh... I’m going to... try and keep my mind off this. Try and do something to relax. Maybe I have a game that I can... Uh, I-I’ll be in the other room. Tell me if anything happens with them.”
“I will,” Anti promised.
“Great.” Jack smiled again and turned around, heading deeper into the apartment.
Sam stayed where they were, watching him go. {Anti.}
Anti jumped a little. Even though Sam could talk to him, they usually didn’t, so it always surprised him when they decided to. “What is it?”
{You stay here.} Sam flew closer, pressing against his chest and looking up at him, pupil dilated wide. {Bad things might happen.}
Anti looked down at them. “Anything... specific?”
{No. But there’s a bad feeling. You should stay here. Don’t leave.}
“A bad feeling, huh?” Anti nodded slowly. He’d known Sam long enough to trust their feelings. They had an uncanny ability to know what people should and shouldn’t do. “Alright. I won’t leave. And I’ll... be prepared.” His hand glitched, turning into pixels, and he showed Sam the knife he’d conjured. “If you know what I mean.”
{Uh-huh.} Sam backed away, bobbing up and down in a nodding gesture. {Jack be safe.}
“He’ll be safe. I’m ready for anything.”
{Yay!} And with that, Sam bopped against his shoulder, then flew down the hallway after Jack.
Anti watched them go with a faint smile. Then he thought about IRIS again, and the smile faded. If he was stuck in Jack’s apartment, he wouldn’t be able to hack IRIS’s servers, backdoor or not. They were very secure, and he needed to be close by to access them. But... it was a small price to pay to keep Jack safe. And if disaster was averted, he might be able to return to the servers later.
He put the knife away, letting it vanish into pixels, and jumped back into the building’s outside security cameras. The car was still there.
And it would stay there for another hour before finally driving off.
- - - - - - - - - -
Dadalada-dadalada— “Hello?”
“Wait, you’re actually awake?! Isn’t it like five in the morning over there?!”
Schneep glanced out the bedroom window at the early morning sky. “The ringtone woke me up,” he lied.
“Mm-hmm.” Jackie hummed. “So if I FaceTime you, you’ll be in bed.”
“Absolutely.” Schneep hurriedly got up from the desk chair in the corner of his room and sat down on the bed instead.
“Okay, I’ll do it, then.”
“Fine, do it.”
Jackie hung up the call, but a few seconds later Schneep’s phone began ringing again—Dadalada-dadalada—with the Caller ID screen now identifying a video call. Schneep accepted it. Jackie was clearly in a car, as evident by the headrest and seat belt. There was afternoon light coming from the windows. “There you are,” Jackie said. He narrowed his eyes. “If I woke you up, why are you wearing your glasses?”
Shit. “I put them on when you said you would video call,” Schneep said.
“Oh, okay. And you combed your hair, too?”
Schneep hesitated. Then groaned. “God damn it, Jackie, how do you fucking know what my bed hair looks like?”
“We lived together for, like, four years! What do you mean ‘how do I know’? The question is how I wouldn’t. And why are you up at five in the morning?”
“Why are you calling me at five in the morning?”
“I didn’t think you would answer! I was going to leave a message!”
“Text me instead, you dunkoff.”
“Uh, can you two get back on track?” A voice called from off screen on Jackie’s end. “Don’t you have important stuff to talk about?”
“Hello Frederick,” Schneep said, giving a little wave as Jackie turned the phone to show Frederick in the driver’s seat of the car.
“Hi.” Frederick smiled at the screen, not taking his hands off the wheel as he drove.
“What sort of ‘important stuff’ are you two calling about?” Schneep asked.
“Uh, well...” Jackie hesitated, the worry clear on his face. “I went to see Chase today... You know what, I’ll work up to that. Start at the beginning. There’s a sort of investigation going on...”
As Jackie talked, Schneep sat there, eyes growing wider with every sentence. But he stayed quiet until the end. At which point, he immediately started shouting. “What the fuck do they want with Chase?! Chase has not done anything in his l—well, no, he has done quite a lot, but he was already where he should be! And where he wanted to be, I will add. What the fuck! They cannot just—just grab people! Especially not him!”
“Right? Right?!” Jackie cried. “What the fuck are they doing?!”
“Clearly nothing good!” Schneep growled, then took a moment to breathe, calming down. This was not the time to get carried away in anger. He punched the pillow a couple times and then was fine. “Jackie. I believe I have something relevant.”
“Oh?” Jackie asked, already intrigued.
“Anti was here yesterday,” Schneep said.
“Last night, I was going to bed—”
“At what time?”
“A perfectly reasonable one, please not now.” It was 2 am. “But while I was heading there, the House did its twisty thing and I ended up somewhere else. Anti was speaking with Dark. I was curious why he was here, so I listened in. Your suspicion about Anti and IRIS is right; he has some sort of history with them. And now this organization is going after Jack. Possibly to get to Anti.”
Jackie’s expression hardened. “So they probably did take Chase because of Anti. What, does he still have traces of Anti’s power in his system after the coma?”
“It’s possible,” Frederick added. “I’m not sure how Anti’s power works in comparison to magic.”
“If you and your magicians are looking for Jack, you should keep that in mind,” Schneep continued. “You may have to beat IRIS to him.”
Jackie sighed. “This would’ve been good to know before we left the house.”
“You’re the one who didn’t want to call your friend while we were there,” Frederick said calmly.
“I am, I just—ugh.”
“It’s okay, I’ll call Yvonne about it when we get home.”
“That’ll work. In the meantime,” Jackie turned his attention back to the call. “Schneep, seriously, why are you up at five am?”
Schneep sighed. “Because I still have fucking insomnia.”
“I thought you were going to ask about sleep aids.”
“I am, but it is hard to find ones that work with my other medications.” Schneep glanced at the collection of pill bottles on the nightstand.
“Oh.” Jackie’s voice was soft. “Well... that sucks. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it, I am sure Peter can find something,” Schneep said, referring to his psychiatrist. “He is very good at what he does. I just have to wait until then. Is fine. I do not mind being up so late. I am not the only one awake in the House at night.”
“That sounds a bit ominous,” Jackie muttered.
“No, I find it comforting. Though if any of them tried to actually talk to me during this time, I am sure I would be annoyed the second it happens.”
Jackie laughed. “God, you would, wouldn’t you? Well... do you want me to stay and chat, or do you think that wouldn’t help?”
“In all honesty, it would not help,” Schneep said. “I have to be very awake to keep up with your energy, and this is not the time for that.”
“Alright, I’ll head off, then. Maybe I’ll call you later, when it’s evening here?”
“If you want. Or you could wait until tomorrow, that would be fine, too.”
“I’ll wait, then. See you, Schneep. Frederick, say goodbye to Schneep.”
“Bye, Henrik!” Frederick added.
“Goodbye, you two,” Schneep said, laughing a little.
“Bye!” Jackie waved for the camera. “Sleep well.” And with that, he ended the call.
Schneep closed out of the video call app on his phone and instead returned to what he’d been doing before Jackie called. He re-opened the phone’s browser. It had a couple different tabs open... all relating to this IRIS organization. Their website, their social medias, any page or article he could find about them.
He’d been curious about them ever since he overheard Anti’s conversation. No, more than curious. If they were really looking for Jack, he wanted to at least know as much as he could. Even if Jack probably wouldn’t appreciate his help. But now it was different. Now IRIS had Chase. He couldn’t just sit by while Jackie and those magicians handled this! God damn it, Chase was his friend, too! Though, there wasn’t much he could do while he was halfway across the world...
Wasn’t IRIS an American company first?
Schneep went back to their website, scrolling around for information. Yes, this lists their “hometown”—the place they were founded—as somewhere called Kronolle, California. Yes, Anti mentioned that, too. With that established, Schneep closed the browser and opened the GPS, searching up the town. Yes, it was there. North of Los Angeles, with the driving time listed as 2-3 hours depending on traffic. That was a long way to go. Especially for someone who couldn’t drive.
...It was late. This wasn’t the time. Schneep sighed and turned off his phone. When it was this late, it was probably better to lie down and close your eyes. That was more restful than sitting up and doing stuff. He got up, closed the window’s blinds, and got ready to change for bed. He’d think more on this in the morning.
Maybe there was something he could do to help Chase even all the way out here.
