Okay. Fuck. Enough stalling.
Dressed as a journalist (what did journalists even wear in this alternate? Conrad was glad that suits tended to be suitable fashion for formality in any alternate) Conrad pressed the buzzer on the gate to the estate. He had figured out the leads to this guy months ago, but only now had he worked up the courage to do anything about it.
He'd been spoilt. Months of peace and relative quiet had done this to him. This alternate was small. Quiet. Most of the books published on the island had never seen Library shelves, and somehow this island, which should definitely have teetered into chaos on the Library's radar from all the supernatural elements and narrative patterns its citizens had fallen into, somehow remained a zero in terms of whether it teetered too hard into chaos or order.
It truly was a mystery. One he wanted to solve. But the pure fact that he hadn't gotten any action whatsoever was proof that he kind of had it easy here. He didn't really know what he'd done to be promoted to Librarian in Residence here except donate a few hundred original... okay. Maybe that explained why he'd been promoted. There were just so many books here that were unique to this alternate, and getting his hands on them had just been so... easy.
But he supposed he knew this alternate best. And he was still researching it even now.
Anyway.
This writer knew too much about his adventures with Jack. The plots pretty much followed their escapades hunting down books to a T, except for some embellishments for thematic strengthening (a plus) and addition/removal/rearranging of scenes to support a more coherent plot (admirable, he had to admit.) But the fact stood, no matter how thoughtful (not necessarily good) a writer this man might be, he knew too much.
"Excuse me, is this the house of J.T. Anderson? I'm Joseph Rodriguez, a columnist working for The Independent! I'm here to interview you for your new release?" He phrased it as a question of confirmation as he spoke to the interface, smiling earnestly at the security camera.
He was going to get to the bottom of this, whether he had to dirty his hands or not.
Dressed as a journalist (what did journalists even wear in this alternate? Conrad was glad that suits tended to be suitable fashion for formality in any alternate) Conrad pressed the buzzer on the gate to the estate. He had figured out the leads to this guy months ago, but only now had he worked up the courage to do anything about it.
He'd been spoilt. Months of peace and relative quiet had done this to him. This alternate was small. Quiet. Most of the books published on the island had never seen Library shelves, and somehow this island, which should definitely have teetered into chaos on the Library's radar from all the supernatural elements and narrative patterns its citizens had fallen into, somehow remained a zero in terms of whether it teetered too hard into chaos or order.
It truly was a mystery. One he wanted to solve. But the pure fact that he hadn't gotten any action whatsoever was proof that he kind of had it easy here. He didn't really know what he'd done to be promoted to Librarian in Residence here except donate a few hundred original... okay. Maybe that explained why he'd been promoted. There were just so many books here that were unique to this alternate, and getting his hands on them had just been so... easy.
But he supposed he knew this alternate best. And he was still researching it even now.
Anyway.
This writer knew too much about his adventures with Jack. The plots pretty much followed their escapades hunting down books to a T, except for some embellishments for thematic strengthening (a plus) and addition/removal/rearranging of scenes to support a more coherent plot (admirable, he had to admit.) But the fact stood, no matter how thoughtful (not necessarily good) a writer this man might be, he knew too much.
"Excuse me, is this the house of J.T. Anderson? I'm Joseph Rodriguez, a columnist working for The Independent! I'm here to interview you for your new release?" He phrased it as a question of confirmation as he spoke to the interface, smiling earnestly at the security camera.
He was going to get to the bottom of this, whether he had to dirty his hands or not.