The Archivist: The Dept of Possible Futures, #1

By Xavi Frey

Malcolm Barclay Bain is an Archivist with the Department of Possible Futures. He spends his day conducting research, managing the Department's physical collections…and retrieving dangerous objects carelessly misplaced along the waves of time. When he is instructed to retrieve an item that his handlers refer to simply as the tech, he travels back in time to Kansas City, 1927. He hunts through the vibrant city to find his treasure–but he's not the only one, and soon Mal finds himself clashing with--and drawn toward--a handsome adversary. The Archivist is the first novella in the Department of Possible Futures series, a collection of queer cyberpunk stories following Malcolm and Archie with an eventual HEA.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xavi Frey
• Release date: Mar 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224073757

Xavi Frey

Xavi Frey is a lifelong fan of speculative fiction. It's always just clicked with their neuroqueer brain. They thrill in bringing strange worlds to life on the page. Contact: [e-mail]

Book preview

Chapter 1

Kansas City, Missouri. June 24, 1927.

AS HE SLIPPED FROM the shadow of the alleyway, Malcolm Barclay Bain was more figment than man.

This is what he was good at, though the fact had surprised him. In his daily life, he was nervous and awkward, never sure where to put his hands. On an extraction mission, he came alive.

How he had ever thought he could while away his days working in a library, he had no idea.

Incandescent light wavered warm and orange against the wet Kansas City street. As Mal joined the zipper of traffic along the busy night sidewalk, he slipped a hand into his pocket. The device inside was heavy and warm and no larger than a compass.

Malcolm dragged his thumb over its surface. The device seemed to vibrate against his skin. He supposed it might, with its various humming electrical components. He didn’t understand all the inner workings of the chronodial. He didn’t have to. He only had to make sure not to hit the button until he meant to.

Mal’s extensive research had told him how vibrant and bustling Kansas City would be. He knew all about Chairman TJ Pendergast and the bribed police force. The blind eye turned toward Prohibition and gambling and prostitution. He knew. He was hardly a stranger to vice himself. But then he stepped into the throng of the downtown district, and the energy of it all sent Mal’s blood ringing. Books had not prepared him for the reality.

A mass of people writhed around him, slithering past in nice clothes. Women wore their hair in complicated swoops and bundles. The men wore smoky colognes and shiny shoes. Mal smoothed a hand down the front of his fashionable double-breasted coat.

Part of him panicked at the press of the crowd and the volume of it. Even the roots of his hair longed for the quiet of the Archives. But part of him thrilled at it. That part of him knew that crowds made him safer. Anonymity allowed him to set aside professional obligation.

A man’s hand brushed his in the chaos, and Mal’s nerve endings sang out. He knew it was an accident of proximity, and the man hadn’t even noticed his presence, but it didn’t matter. Touch was touch. Mal allowed himself a moment to absorb the electric pleasure of it, and then he steadied himself. Refocused. Returned to his mission.

He found the unassuming cafe, plopped between two more bustling establishments. Warm, yellow light seeped out the windows. Through the panes, Mal could see how full the place was. When a pair of patrons opened the door to step outside, the dark scent of strong coffee drifted out with them. Mal breathed it in deep. He hadn’t had so much as a glass of water since arriving in Kansas City.

He caught the door before it swung shut in the wake of the last customers, and he slipped inside.

The small room buldged not just with people but with stuff, too. Artwork covered the walls in a discordant assemblage of color. Chairs and tables slotted into corners and alcoves. They ran densely along the walls. He wasn't a big man, but the space afforded little breathing room. If he moved, he may fall right into one of those damn, comfortable-looking chairs and never leave.

No single person in the cafe was as rowdy as anyone Mal had seen outside. Still, their large number transformed even their low conversations into a gentle roar.

He liked and loathed it in equal measure.

Malcolm found his way to the counter through the cacophony. He ordered a cup of coffee, and while the waitress fetched it for him, he scanned the establishment.

First, he worked as an operative. His handlers had trained him to identify points of ingress and egress. Malcolm noted the location of the front and side doors. He located the door to the kitchen, and he was nearly certain that another exit could be found inside it. But without a clear visual, he would have to count that as mere speculation and a last resort.

Next, he evaluated the people around him. A mix of race and gender, most gathered in raucous groups or intimate pairs. No one who looked like hired muscle. No one else analyzing the room like he was. Not for the first time, Malcolm Barclay Bain was the most suspicious man in any room he was in.

The waitress returned with his steaming cup.

As he scanned back toward the counter, his eyes snagged on a man alone at a table in the corner. The man was watching him.

Mal tried to contain the startled flinch. He was deep in his work, and he hoped he hadn’t given off the air of a man who didn’t belong as he so often did. Usually, it was just his personality, a little skewed to the side of anyone he spoke to. But tonight, he was very much a man out of place.

Recovering, he gave the man a brief, single nod.

The man smiled at him then, and all Mal could think was, rogue. The name sliced into his mind along with that white-hot blade of a grin. And for the barest moment, his chest tightened around his breath. The rogue, the man, had the most striking blue eyes Mal had ever seen. Pale chips of ice in a tanned face below thick black brows and black hair swept to one side. Broad cheekbones. A jaw that was just slightly too pointy. The imperfection rendered it only more attractive.

Malcolm looked away.

He often took full advantage of the time that the Department allotted for his missions. He liked the past. Felt...more at home there in some ways, his quiet eccentricity not quite so noticeable as it was in his own time. And there was something else, too.

At home—and he might always think of the present as a place and not a time, a location, a city just next door to 1867, like he could just walk down the street and ask the early twentieth century for a cup of sugar—at home, if he wanted intimate company, he could get it, of course. But his job made longer-term relationships difficult. If he wanted someone for longer than a night, then he would have to eventually tell them who he was and what he did. That was hardly allowed. Company policy. Sorry. Too bad.

So that was another thing about the past. He could, if he set aside time for it, and if he were careful, he could find somebody. Find a man who was willing to spend some time with him. It was a perk of his employment, even if it left him with a sad heart, come morning.

Normally, he was all right with that.

But tonight the stakes were too high.

A man had died. The previous operative had been shot here. In this cafe, or near it. The man's partner had redacted his name from the mission report, but of course, Malcolm knew it. The Department wasn’t nearly as vast as it liked to appear and not nearly as locked down. By the next morning, Malcolm and everyone else knew that the dead man's name was Solomon. And Solomon had left something behind in Kansas City, 1927.

If locals discovered it, the results could be disastrous.

But the danger of it didn't mean the occurrence was rare.

Malcolm and his fellow Archivists often served as the extraction team. On a typical mission, they