It wasn't terribly unusual to see a new face around the office - the Bureau was a place of work, just like any other, and there were new hires occasionally. However, it dawned on Emily as she noticed the mopping figure that it was, in fact, unusual to see a new face... in a janitor's uniform.
New Girl is a Control fanfic by mortimermcmirestinks, set in an Alternate Timeline where Jesse infiltrates the Federal Bureau of Control as a member of the janitorial staff.
This fanfic can be read on Archive of Our Own here
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This fanfic provides examples of:
- Happily Married: In the original timeline, Jesse had married Emily.
- Mythology Gag:
- The alias Jesse uses in the Oldest House is Courtney Hope, this being the name of the actress who plays her in the game.
- The place Jesse meets Emily to tell her the truth is called the Oh Deer Cafe, a reference to the Oh Deer Diner from Alan Wake.
- Non-Linear Character: Jesse and Emily theorize that Polaris is a being that exists beyond the human perception of time, hence how it seems to know where things are before it and Jesse find them. This is what they use to create a time machine.
- Peggy Sue:
- While the ETC Experiments was supposed to let Jesse do this, all it does is have Polaris from the new timeline give that version of Jesse visions from the original timeline with no context for any of it.
- Somehow, this did happen with Langston, waking up with all of his memories from the canon timeline despite his lack of involvement in the experiments.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis: Langston cites the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Yesterday's Enterprise" to explain the alternate timeline situation. While Emily gets the reference, Arish doesn't, switching to Back to the Future Part II as another comparison.
- Power Incontinence: Because of Polaris's Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory, Jesse sees images from the canon-game's story. Unfortunately for her, these visions come to her at random, and with no personal context for any of it, it has a profoundly negative effect on her psychologically.There was a mirror. An anchor. A cell with "P6" printed across it. A floating corpse. Every time she saw someone eating an orange, she shuddered. Someone had turned on an old Justin Bieber song and she'd almost collapsed. She couldn't look into dark places anymore – not since her star had shown her that thing with the twisted antlers. She'd walked past a refrigerator and suddenly been overwhelmed with the image of a gigantic, bulging, pulsing, glowing, staring eye. And, for some reason, panini.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory:
- When Jesse enters the Oldest House and becomes a member of the staff, all Polaris shows her are events and images from the original timeline, Jesse confused and afraid without the context for them.
- When Jesse tells Emily her backstory, she admits to believing it, feeling like she was told the whole thing once before.
- It's implied that Ahti remembers the original timeline too, noticing how Emily is worried about her "boss", Emily unsure if she means Darling or Jesse.
- While Emily and Arish try to break Jesse out of the Containment Sector, they have a run-in with Langston, who acts exactly how he did in the original timeline.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: The purpose of the ETC Lab experiments that created the new timeline was to prevent the hundreds of deaths brought on by the Hiss invasion. When Emily, Arish and Langston regroup and confirm the situation — that they are living in a wildly different timeline — they question if they should undo the newer timeline, Langston admitting that the canon timeline wasn't exactly pleasant.
- Spotting the Thread: The entire story starts when Emily sees Jesse cleaning in the Research Sector. What makes this weird is that she has never seen any janitorial staff other than Ahti, Ahti himself a potential paranatural entity. The fact that he took on an assistant seems suspicious.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Emily notes that whenever someone finds Ahti suspicious or unusual, all anyone has to say about it is "good old Ahti."
- Wham Episode:
- Chapter 4: Emily introduces Darling to Jesse and he recognizes her instantly.
- Chapter 5: Trench meets Jesse and recognizes her too, Darling asking him what they'll do about it.
- Chapter 7: The chapter ends with Darling and a group of rangers apprehending Jesse.
- Chapter 8: Ahti gives Emily Slide 36, merely touching it making her a new host for Polaris.
- Chapter 11: Jesse escapes the Panopticon and binds with the Floppy Disk.
