Archive of Our Own ^beta

**

“Project Marzanna has been… uncooperative lately.”
Project Icarus- though he calls himself Dirk Gently nowadays, and won’t be told otherwise- isn’t used to hearing about the others here. He knows about Moloch, everyone knows about Dirk’s assistant, even if they don’t want to hear it. He knows about Incubus because he hears their hysterical screams when they go out on mission, monitored and led around by Riggins, and how they put a hole in his door that got repaired within hours. Dirk stands at his door, waiting for the scientist to come inside to poke and prod him as they do every day, but the door does not open. The door always opens.

“Right. That’s new.”
He whispers to himself, tucking his hands into what would be pockets if his jumpsuit had any. Instead his hands just hang loosely at his sides as he tries to best to hear the rest of the conversation happening in the corridor.

“Maybe it’s time that we gave her a visitor. Someone… different to the others.”
“Incubus cannot be reasoned with. They’re growing rebellious and more violent. Since adding Vogel… things are changing, General.”

“Things cannot be changing. The projects need stability, routine.”
The General. The man who used to sometimes give him time to himself to read and explore, to have a break from testing in the hopes that he’d finally test positive for psychic abilities. Riggins has tried to be good to him in a lot of ways, and Dirk can’t fault him for that because after Project Moloch and his trusty pencil, Riggins is the closest thing he has to a friend.

“What about Icarus? Surely she wouldn’t… kill him?”
The scientist sounds uncertain. Dirk tangles his fingers together and tries not to think about the possibility that the universe intentionally sets him up to be in danger. He picks up his single book from the floor and flicks through it, knowing the few words that aren’t blacked out by heart. His fingers are trembling and his head aches. He is going to be a visitor to someone called Marzanna, someone no doubt not that dangerous. Riggings wouldn’t send him to see a fellow Project who could possibly hurt him; he hopes at least. The universe often doesn’t listen to what Dirk wants nowadays and likes to put him in harm’s way.

“Push it through. Don’t tell the higher ups.”

A different voice says. Riggins says nothing in reply. He is gone and he won’t help now.

Dirk stands there, shaking, and wonders if he’s about to die.

**

Bart lays on the floor.
She likes it down here. The lights can’t reach her here. No-one comes in any more, not since the universe demanded she kill her last visitor, and she’s not in the mood for company. She is a calm, patiently waiting object of destruction. She is bored in her white, four walled room with its metal door and the slab she’s supposed to sleep on.

“Up. Get up. Move away from the door.”
Bart is nowhere near the door. The only thing she can see is the bloodstains left behind by a man she’d known she had to kill, no-one is willing to come inside and face her head on. She shifts in her dirty hospital scrubs, rubbing dried blood onto the concrete beneath her, and tangles a hand in her matted hair. If she was meant to be clean, she would be, so she doesn’t really mind the knots that have turned her head into a mess of old hair ties and stained blood.

“Project Marzanna. You have three seconds to stand up.”
A voice crackles over the radio. Her gut won’t let her kill this one, no matter how much her head wants her to, because that’s how these things work. She doesn’t choose when to do something. This is the one who brought her here when she was younger.

When the door opens, she’s met with men with no faces. Helmets and armour cover every part of their bodies and they are armed with guns, some of which shoot electricity in her direction. Bart considers them from where she’s spread out on the floor, her legs tangled together, before letting out a long sigh. She levers herself upwards, her hair bouncing around her head, the legs of her scrubs hanging over her feet. Head tilted to the side, her hands curled together, she doesn’t look all that dangerous.

“I can’t be hurt.”
Bart croaks, unused to talking. Her voice is deeper than she remembers it being, like her vocal chords have been attacked by a chainsaw; she doesn’t like to talk to herself, Bart doesn’t really have anything to say to herself. They should know she can’t be hurt by their bullets and any knives thrown in her direction will just bounce off.

“Project Marzanna, hands in the air.”
Someone says. It is the Priest. He is the only one with an uncovered face and his smile is wicked. The universe won’t let her kill this one either. It has plans for him, whatever they are, in the future, even if he had been the one to drag her away… from whatever she’d had before. Bart raises her hands just because she has nothing better to be doing, mind half focused on the lives outside she should be ending, and waits to be cuffed.

“That’s not my name.”
She adds. She doesn’t know who Marzanna is, or what that even means, but she knows it’s not her. Her name is Bart. It’s always been Bart. Priest’s eyes narrow and his smile vanishes. Bart bares her teeth at him in a mockery of a grin. The faceless men shuffle uncomfortably, hands shaking around their guns and electric sticks. One of them moves, too close, the universe yells in her ear, and that is the end of it. She lashes out towards the nearest gun, knuckles colliding with the barrel just as the man holding it panics and fires. A bullet ricochets around the room, cracking against the slab behind her and into the forehead of Bart’s would be attacker. He crumples to the ground. She rubs at the blood on her scrubs, only making the mark worse, before looking back up at Mr. Priest.

“They won’t hurt me.”
Bart says. She has the strangest feeling in her chest, a buzzing, that has her tensing her fingers into fists. Bart regularly listens to the universe and what it wants but right now it is asking her to do something that she’s not used to doing. To be just a leaf on a stream and nothing more. To lie in wait until Bart is told to not be quiet.

Something bigger is coming.

**

“What are you doing?”
He doesn’t mean his voice to go so high pitched, honestly. It’s just he’s not been forced into cuffs since his first day here and the feeling of metal against his skin brings back unpleasant memories. Thoughts of constant testing and electric shocks send shivers down his back.

“Let me go! You’re not meant to move me! I’m not to be moved!”
“You’re not a statue, Icarus. Get moving.”
Dirk would struggle, but in the past it’s never gotten him anywhere and he’s less a struggler and more likely to just accept his situation. He’s very good at making things worse when he tries to make them better. The guards shove him down the corridor, poking at his back if he so much as pauses for a second. He remembers walking this floor as a child, being led to his room every night after a day of a recorded voice calling him a failure. He remembers being led into the room of Project Moloch and told to make him better.

“Where am I going? Can you tell me that at least?”

“You’re being socialised. Think of it as a new form of testing.”

A new form of testing. He’s tired of being used for Blackwing to try and solve things, all the buzzing alarms and the constant reminders of how he’s a failure have left a tight ache in his stomach that hasn’t left him in years now. The guard shoves him into a room he’s never seen before, just as clean and sparse and white as the others, but different in some way that he cannot describe. Not padded, protected, as if they’re expecting someone to be thrown at a wall at an incredibly fast speed. He imagines blood on the walls. The door slams behind him.

“Hello? You can’t do this, you know.”
“They aren’t listening.”
Dirk squeals. There is a huddle of blue clothing curled up against the wall, knees pulled up, the only thing visible a mess of tangled brown hair. He lets out another squeak when the person moves, rising to their feet slowly. It’s a woman, he thinks though it’s hard to tell underneath the splattered blood and hunched posture. Biting his lip, forcing another yell down, Dirk takes a single step forward before shuffling back again as the woman begins to straighten out into something vaguely human shape.

“Excuse me?”
His voice is still too high. He would try and put his hands in his pockets if he could still feel his hands, which seem to have gone numb from genuine fear. It’s not every often that he speaks to someone who is both conscious and capable of speaking back; even if that person is drenched in blood, looks as if they’ve been dragged through a hedge and speaks with a deep croak.

“You’re dirty. ”

Dirk says, his thought to mouth filter somehow even worse than it normally is, instead of never allowing himself to make any kind of noise again. The woman across from him just nods, like she understands why he’s squealing..

“Universe doesn’t want me to be clean.”
“The universe?”
Now this is something he almost, occasionally, understands. Dirk has been dealing with the universe’s whims for a very long time, since before he came to Blackwing, and very rarely does it lead him to anything good. His hunches- his abilities, as Riggins likes to describe them- are a gift that is never rewarding. If this woman is like him, special, then she must be able to see things that the rest of the world can’t too.

“Yeah. If it doesn’t want me to do something, then it won’t happen.”
“Who are you?”
A burst of static comes from the intercom above their heads. A warning. Dirk forces himself to not jump out of his skin at the noise; he’s come to associate this with bursts of electric shocks and the repeated utterings of “failure, failure”. He meets the woman’s wild eyes and slowly untangles his hands from the front of his jumpsuit, compulsively straightening the fabric. She smiles at him, a little like a dog baring its teeth.

“No names, Icarus and Marzanna.”
“That’s not my name.”
He says, and blinks when he realises the woman- Marzanna- is echoing his every word. Again, she grins, only this time she bounces forward until there is mere inches between them. Dirk has to swallow down the urge to yell. He stares at her, long and hard, trying to figure out if she could be a clue- though a clue to what, he doesn’t know- and she watches him just as carefully. There is a slyness to her face he should be wary of.

“Tell me your name.”
“No. Names.”
The voice is more intense this time, more forceful. The woman shifts closer, until she’s practically digging her nose into his jumpsuit. He is immediately overwhelmed by the stench of blood, by the sheer mass of her curly and wild hair, and can only gape wide-eyed at her.

“I’ll tell you if we meet again, okay? We will meet again.”
“Okay?”
He can’t not agree. He’s not entirely sure what he’s agreeing too, only that Marzanna- the woman like him- wants to meet again, as if they’re ever going to get out of her. Dirk just nods, she smiles at him again, before sitting back down on the floor.

“Marzanna, get up.”
“No.”
The door swings open. Armed guards, carrying so many guns, storm inside and make a beeline towards Marzanna. Dirk is shoved to the side like rubbish on the side of the road until one of the scientists catches him beneath the arm and pulls out of the room.

“Who is that?”
He questions, but once again- like every minute of his life so far- no one answers him.

**

Years later...

“Find Dirk Gently.”
In her dream, the first she’s had in a long time, Bart dreams of a voice. She is curled up beneath a tree, head resting on a stump and hand clutching onto one of her three guns. She never dreams of speaking, unless it’s the universe revealing her next target to her. It’s been five years since someone said anything other than “don’t kill me” to her. It has been over fifteen years since she met a boy who spoke too much.

“Kill Dirk Gently.”
The voice says.

Bart’s eyes snap open. She jerks upwards, tangling one hand in her hair, and watches as a tan station wagon passes her by. The universe presses her to kill the driver and drive west.

A week later she meets Ken.

The End.