The Mighty Doc Stalwart #255

 The Chronicle

Adapted from The Mighty Doc Stalwart #255 (June 1984)

By Dr. Mike Desing

Doc tried to smile, “It doesn’t hurt too much.”

            It looked like it hurt. His entire left arm was wrapped in a cast, elevated, and suspended from the ceiling by a half-dozen metal cables.

            Mikah adjusted Doc’s pillow. He had been there when the medical staff delivered their prognosis. The arm would take six months to heal, and he would likely never have use of his hand. Doc Stalwart was never going to be Doc Stalwart again.

            “I still have my mind, and that’s what matters.” Doc said, finishing Mikah’s thought. 

            Augur, the Voice of Ro, had used powerful cosmic energy indeed. To do this to Doc Stalwart…

            “Well, Doc, I gotta say it - you look like crap.” Mr. Silvers had arrived. 

            Doc smiled, “Hope you aren’t here with a mission… not exactly up to it right now…”

            Reality hit. Without Doc, Mikah had no purpose. He had to be honest; their group WAS Doc Stalwart. Heck, he didn’t even know how to communicate with the other two members of the team. Zirah was a ghost who projected an aura of silence, and Jynx was an imp from the underworld who spoke in gibberish. Mikah, at thirteen, was going to lead them? To do what, exactly?

            “Nah,” Mr. Silvers answered, setting a folder down on the table next to Doc’s bed, “just some paperwork for Mikah.”

            It struck Doc now, too, “Aren’t reassigning him, are you? I mean, I can still…”

            The movement caused him to wince.

            “No. Nothing of the sort. Just some forms I need. Routine stuff.”

            This seemed to put Doc at ease.

            They spent the next hour recounting the previous day. Mr. Silvers seemed interested to hear all of the details, asking questions and seeking clarification on various points. He seemed particularly interested in the role Mikah had played, “so, he examined Mikah…”

            “Yes,” Doc answered with a mix of pride and… something else, “he decided Mikah was worthy.”

            “I think it was both of us, together,” Mikah corrected, but he knew it wasn’t true. There was something that Mikah had. Or, there was something Doc was missing. Both options were troubling.

            They waited until the medicine had lulled Doc into a deep slumber before Mr. Silvers excused himself. “Don’t forget about those forms… going to need them ASAP.”

            “Sure thing,” Mikah answered, lifting the folder. He started to thumb through it. The door to the elevator closed, and Mikah was alone with the sleeping Doc.

            The set of forms was pretty standard post-mission stuff. He was checking to see if it had the appendix for inventories (The notorious Appendix N. He hated doing those), but found instead a note at the end. “My office. 6 pm. Tell no one. -Silvers”

            Who was he going to tell? The phantom who lived in a bubble of silence, or the imp who wanted to eat his face? So many options…

***

At ten to six he stepped from the elevator into the lobby in front of Mr. Silvers’ Office. Mr. Silvers’ receptionist (Missy?) was typing. Quickly. He waited for her to finish, but she kept typing. 

            “I’m here to--”

            She held up a finger. More typing. And more typing after that.

            Mr. Silvers emerged from his office. “Mikah! Or do you prefer Finder? Never know which code names are going to stick.”

            “Oh. Either, I guess. Mikah is fine.”

            “Mikah it is.”

            “Maggie, we’re going to the records room.” Maggie! Of course. 

            She stopped typing. She gave Mr. Silvers the look that Mikah assumed only Mrs. Silvers would give when Mr. Silvers did something like spend their retirement on a Delorean.

            “He’s ready. It’s okay.”

            She shook her head in obvious disagreement (what did Mikah ever do to her? Other than forget her name, he supposed) and pushed a button under her desk. A section on the opposite wall parted, revealing stairs.

            “Follow me.”

            The stairs took them down one flight into a dark, large basement area with a low roof. Mr. Silvers began flipping switches on the left wall. A few seconds after each switch, banks of lights popped on. This happened six or eight times, until the whole area was revealed. There were identical dull metal file cabinets in rows. And rows. 

            And rows.

            “What IS this?” Mikah couldn’t fathom what filled those cabinets.

            “You’ll see. Come on.” Mr. Silvers walked, passing maybe fifteen rows, then took a sudden right turn. He passed seven filing cabinets, stopping at the eighth. He opened the second drawer and started flipping past folders. He didn’t find what he liked and moved to the next cabinet in line.

            Mr. Silvers opened the second drawer of that cabinet, pulling out the drawer with a dull metal squeak. 

            There were hundreds of these cabinets here, thousands, all indistinguishable. Somehow, Silvers found the right row, and the right cabinet in that row, and the right drawer in that cabinet, and the right file in that drawer. His life was spent sorting needles in the world’s biggest haystack. 

            “Mikah, tell me this. How many stories are there?” Mr. Silvers gestured towards the filing cabinets. There were hundreds of them. Thousands. Row upon row of dull, cream-colored, three-drawer filing cabinets - dozens of rows, with dozens of cabinets in each row.

            “You can’t count it,” Mikah answered, “infinite. There are an infinite number of stories.”

            Mr. Silvers paused. He drew a breath. “Try again.”

            Mikah scrunched his nose. “I guess… I mean, if everyone who has ever lived has their own story, then it would be the same number as the number of people who ever lived. Whatever that number is. A couple billion? I don’t know…”

            “Nope,” Mr. Silvers replied, scratching behind his ear.

            Mikah drew a breath. He scanned the cabinets. Thousands of them. Each filled with tens of thousands of words. Stories within stories. But… “There’s one,” Mikah concluded at last, “there is only one story.”

            Mr. Silver smiled. “Explain.”

            Mikah struggled. This seemed like an advanced thing to be asking a thirteen-year-old. Shouldn’t he be, like, learning about rocks or something? “Okay. There are all of these stories. But they all connect. I mean, you have your story, and I have mine, but at some point we cross over. You appear in my story for a bit, and I appear in yours. So, we are sharing the story. And that happens for everyone. Everywhere. All the time.”

            “For all times,” Mr. Silvers corrected, “Yes. For all times. All one story.”

            “And your job is to keep track of it all?”

            “Kind of. My job is to write it all down. And file it.”

            “When did you start doing this?”

            “Hard to say. I estimate four thousand years. Memory is a funny thing.”

            “So you’re... immortal?”

            “No. Not really. Kind of. I am the Chronicle. I record and file things during my life, and then the next in line does it when I am gone.” 

            “How do you know what to write down?”

            “Depends. The Dark Ages? Not much happened worth keeping track of. So not much was written down. There’s a lot about Doc Stalwart in here, because he’s pretty important. Actually has two file cabinets just for him. The entire Dark Ages only has one.”

            Mikah nodded. He didn’t understand, but he nodded anyway.

            “I serve from the time I’m called until death. Bodies I get are pretty rough. Weak. This one has a bad kidney, and I’m probably only a week or two from total failure.”

            Mikah stammered, “I. I’m so sorry…”

            “Happens. But, it means that the wheels are in motion. Here. Read this.”

            Mikah opened a folder. It was empty. Blank paper.

            “Uhm. I don’t think it’s…”

            “Touch the paper. You know. Read it.”

            Mikah closed his eyes. He was swimming in search of the truth of an object. This time, he realized he was swimming in search of himself. He found it. Mikah opened his eyes. They were wet.

            “Anything?”

            Mikah looked down, and the file folder was imprinting itself. The pages were filling in with text. He looked up and around, signage appearing over the rows, labels appearing to reveal a sophisticated level of organization. Each cabinet was color-coded and alphabetized. 

            “Now you see it. You’re ready.”

            “Ready for what?”

            “To be the next Chronicle. You ever know something that you cannot know, but also know that you cannot say it?”

            Mikah thought of the coin, and Doc Stalwart’s wife, and the daughter Doc doesn’t know about, that he can’t know about. Mikah nodded.

            “That’s ‘cause you’re the Chronicle. Or you will be soon as I’m gone. You’ve got some work to do.”

***

Mikah lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. It was only three files, but it had contained... I mean. Wow. He couldn’t even believe half of it.

            And when Mr. Silvers had mentioned not being able to say things, he assumed it would be a burden. Like a secret that you were dying to tell. But it wasn’t like that at all. It was just a simple knowledge of things. And with it, the knowledge of what couldn’t be said yet, along with the confidence that when it could be said, he’d know who to tell and what to tell them. All information was on a need to know basis, and Mikah would know when others could know. It was really that simple.

            It was a weird sensation, to be sure.

            There probably wasn’t a security clearance high enough for what he now knew.

            And the one thing he knew more than anything, and which he saw with infinite clarity was this:

            Mikah was going to save Doc Stalwart.