10. Geneviève
+ CODE

Geneviève


Asterisk43.png

There's a kind of camaraderie you can't find on the field
But which grows in great abundance underneath an earthen shield
A sort of social sorting sets the sterner set apart
And allows the seeds of leadership a healthy growing start

The words rang from ear to ear, bouncing off everything in between. Everything in between was her skull and her brain.

"Hey, I found—"

It wasn't anything meaningful. It was probably nothing important. It wasn't apropos or well-timed. It was simply what Jeff Bergman had been saying, one hand in a steel archival box — most of them had boxes in front of them, whether still on the shelves or on tables or the floor — when everything briefly stopped happening except for one thing that was starting.

The world started to fall apart, and something struck her hard in the head, and she fell to the salt floor, and the Bergman's voice bounced around inside her head as all other sound was consumed by the endless crashing and crunching which made her ears ring. Hey, I found. An earthquake, or an avalanche. Hey, I found. Screams, as from a massacre. Hey, I found. Distant explosions. Hey, I found.

She found that her ears were ringing, but she could open her eyes. She hadn't intentionally closed them. She intentionally opened them.

The cave was still largely intact. A great many of the shelves seemed to have fallen, but they were laid out so as to prevent any kind of domino effect; someone on the architectural committe had seen The Mummy. There were cracks in the ceiling and the walls, mostly along the dramatic striations in the rock, and dust and salt streamed every which where. Her people were caked in the stuff, scattered on the ground like she was, but they were groaning — she thought that was the sound, fighting to penetrate the ringing of the words and her tinnitus — so they, too, were largely intact.

Not intact at all: the entrance to the Salt Mines.

As opposed to the salt mines, where they were now. The Salt Mines, the primary workspace for Archives and Revision, was now inaccessible behind a mountain of zebra-striped rock. It had all fallen in. And there was no back entrance.

They were trapped.

A strange splash of red became visible in her periphery, stark against the chalky clouds, and she realized it was coming from Bergman. He was still standing, somehow, though he'd dropped the box. It was nowhere to be seen. The red was on the end of his forearm. His hand should have been there instead…

She forced herself up, and jolted erratically across the polished ground. Bergman looked like he was about to scream, but what came out instead was "I found…!" She shrugged off her labcoat, and clapped it around the wound. Tied the sleeves tight. It wouldn't do, but it was better than nothing.

"I found," said Bergman, and she nodded, gently tugging at his shoulders until he sat down on the floor. She caught Louise Childer's attention — the copyist was sitting cross-legged, staring at a box between her feet which had been pulverized by a chunk of stone — and jerked a thumb at the east wall. "First aid kit. Jeff's hurt."

Louise, to her credit, stood up without obviously understanding what had happened. She even headed for the red and white box.

"Genny?" a strident voice called from across the battered hall. "Genny?!"

It wasn't getting any easier to see, but she rushed in the direction of the voice anyway. She was by no means the senior researcher here — wasn't even a Senior Researcher, in fact — but she was assertive enough that people generally followed her lead. Now, apparently, they were expecting it.

Yu Ong, the second-oldest member of A&R's staff, was lying against the bare stone wall and clutching at his knee. He might have clutched at his shin instead, except that it was completely covered in rubble. He was obviously trying not to scream. It was obvious, because he had his entire labcoat sleeve tucked into his mouth, and his mouth was shut very tight.

"He's too old," the high voice proclaimed in obvious terror. "Too old for this. We have to get him out." Ignaz Achterberg, Ong's only senior, was standing next to one of the only shelves that was still upright. His hands were covering his mouth, but his reedy tone came through just the same.

"Everybody stay calm," she said, even though nobody but Ong and Achterberg could hear her. The others were already stirring to life, helping each other or calling out for that help. A quick examination told her that most of the rubble would be easy to shift, so she started shifting it. Ong would be no help, and Achterberg, well. He probably couldn't even bend down, at his advanced age.

"It was DISCIDIUM," the older of the two old men whispered. She barely heard it above the shouting, and the sound of the cavern continuing to settle into its new configuration. "Oh, my god, they blew the entire Site."

"Sit down, Iggy," she sighed. Tears streamed down Ong's face, carving channels in the dust on his cheeks. "Catch your breath."

"Catch my breath? Catch my…" Achterberg coughed, then coughed again, then began to make a strange sound, so strange that she whirled to see what it was.

Achterberg was ashen-faced, and clutching at his chest.

He was having a heart attack.

"Hey." Jeff Bergman was at her side, missing hand now clumsily wrapped in bloody gauze. "I found."

And he stared at her, as though expecting an answer.

Achterberg fell to his knees, and he stared at her. As though expecting a solution.

Ong bit the cuff off his labcoat sleeve, spat out a tooth, and stared at her. As though expecting an explanation.

Nothing meaningful, nothing important, nothing apropos or timely came to mind.

Genevieve.png

Transparent.gif

Melissa

Indivisible

Transparent.gif

Ilse

‡ Licensing / Citation
_cc_licenseboxillustratedon-guard-43tale
page revision: 3, last edited: 11 Jul 2026 21:48
Edit Rate (+31) Tags Discuss (3) History Files Print Site tools + Options
Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License