Dangan Ronpa: Unser Sommerende/Chapter 4 - Daily Life (1)

Continued from Chapter 3 - Class Trial.

[1]

[2]

MONOYAKI HOROSCOPE

Cancer!

Step on a garden rake. This should even out your misfortune and prevent stepping on a garden snake instead. Drink plenty of water, to even out your thirst and prevent you from becoming thirsty. Or don’t. Look, it’s a free country, man, do what you want!

[3]

Meeting in the cafeteria. Again. Mary and Jo were absent today. Hard to really notice at this point, I didn’t quite expect Mary to stay permanently. So, there were just eight people there, including myself.

It felt a little bit pointless convening like this. There wasn’t anything to discuss. None of us had any idea as to what to do, very few of us even said anything; when we did, it was nothing of any real importance.

It sucked. All of this sucked. Every time we tried something new, it failed, and someone had to die anyway.

What a waste of time.

“... If there isn’t anything to do...” Lucy said, before going into bemusement for a couple of seconds, “Uh... We can... I dunno.”

“Does anyone know?” Archie said, elbows on the table, leaning over. “If anyone has anything to say, just... Anything. Anyone. I don’t know.”

A silence that everyone saw coming ensued. People giving each other looks of hesitation, fingers tapping on tables, sighs, straightened postures.

“... If there isn’t anything we can do...” I said, desperate to at least fill the silence, “We could just try not to think about it?”

“Are... Are you insane?... Jane, do you actually want us to do nothing?”

“I mean, if murder’s off of our minds, then it won’t occur to any of us to do so, even in, like, a really really bad situation.”

“I mean... Maybe?” He said, looking down at the table. “I don’t know anymore...”

“That’s unviable.”, Molly said. “Monoyaki would just give everyone another motive and then it’s back on our minds. Perhaps it’s a short term solution for a few days, but... If it’s a short term solution, then we’d use it to think of a long term strategy.” The exceedingly tall girl paused, and took a sip of tea. “... It’s unlikely we’ll come up with a long term strategy if we’re actively trying not to think about our situation, no?”

“I... I guess...” I shook my head a little. “Look, I’m just saying whatever comes to mind right now. I’m really out of ideas.”

I noticed Dan had been staring at me for a good bit, looking over at him, he had that sort of blank expression as usual, but with a slight touch of boredom. “... There’s a new floor open. A new location could lead to new inspiration.”

“Hey, yeah, that’s actually a pretty good idea.”

“I won’t be going.”

“B-but you suggest it...”

“I felt it might interest you. I have no reason to visit it. The farther one travels, the less one knows.”

“Look, say what you want,” Rocky said, lightly slamming an empty cup of cactus residue (is it possible to lightly slam something? I mean it wasn’t that loud, he was just trying to look serious, I think...) “I’m going. Should give us all a distraction, anyway.”

“Whatever works...”

[4]

The fourth floor looked just like the other floors. The main noticeable difference in the hallway was that there were now windows on the inner walk; these looked out into the space above the garden on the floor below. It was pretty weird to look out a window and see another set of windows on the other side, especially since those windows were part of the same building we were in. They weren’t clear enough that you could see perfectly into the other side of the hall, but you’d definitely be able to make out someone’s figure while looking through them.

Aside from a few more blank classrooms (was it really necessary to have that many classrooms for a school that didn’t normally have that many students?), there were two interesting rooms that took up the space behind the western and eastern sides of the hallway.

The first was the obligatory computer lab: a long rectangular room with a couple rows of monitors by the outer and inner walls. Said machines were sleek and modern in design, as one would expect from a world-class institution like Wish’s Apex. At one end of the lab, in the corner, was a large blue desk with another computer, presumably where the teacher would sit. This computer was slightly more complex, at least, in terms of the greater number of wires that seemed to link from the hard drive into the nearest wall. The actual monitor and drive themselves looked the same as the others.

“... Are any of them in working condition?” Amber asked.

“Why wouldn’t they be?” I said, without much thought. “I mean, they look fine.”

“Are they?” Charlotte responded. “I mean, you’re not gonna find out if you don’t try to turn it on, sheesh.”

Giving a little push to the on button, expecting a beep or a soft hum to life, I was instead greeted with no response. Subsequent presses didn’t do the trick either, and going around, none of the other computers would work, including the somewhat important looking one sitting on the desk.

[5]

“Uwehehe.” The recognisably bothersome giggle resonated, after trying the last computer at the other end of the room. Monoyaki was just sitting at the edge of the desk at the front, yawning. “All of them? You tried all of them? Like it’d work after the seventeenth one didn’t?”

Everyone was just looking at him in that worn out sort of way, since it was obvious that he was just here to screw with us rather than doing anything out of the ordinary.

“We’re sort of desperate, I guess.” Archie said, not really paying that much attention to the suit-and-tie goat on the other side of the space. “Anything that could give us more information about what’s going on with the game could be vital, so...”

“Well it isn’t here!” He blurted back. “So stop wasting your time, it’s boring watching you mull about like cattle!” He then stood and posed, hands on hips, huffing. “How does it feel being compared to a farm animal, huh?”

“... You’re a goat, though...”

“... Yeah, and?”

“Goats’re...” Rocky explained with an awkwardly slowed tone. “Farm animals.”

“... Uhuh.” The farm animal drooped his head for a second or two, wiping his forehead as if sweat could even come out of a plush goat. “Okay, so how can I make you angry? Or scared? What are you guys frightened of?”

“I must say...” Molly said, seemingly holding back laughter. “You’ve lost your touch, Monoyaki.”

“My... No, no I haven’t! What are you talking about?!”

“Everything you’ve done recently has just felt less and less threatening over time. Really, the only reason the last motive worked was because of blind luck... And yet, you were ever so imposing at the beginning, no?... Perhaps you’ve run out of ideas?~”

“Ideas?! I’ll... I’ll show you ideas! Any day now, I’ll, I’ll come up with something to put you all into hysterics! Just... Not right now, okay?! Bah!”

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

Fuming, he leapt down from the desk and dashed outside. I could make out the sound of a smashed window seconds later.

[6]

Going back into the hall, there was indeed a smashed window on the inner ring of the building. Monoyaki’s headless suit was leaning on the wall, and looking out the shattered glass, I could see the plush head lying in the garden, horn stuck in a patch of flowers.

I don’t know why he felt the need to do that, but I suppose it’s stress relieving. He has plenty of bodies to go through, anyway. Where does he store them, though?... Whatever the case, with that drama out of the way, we moved forward to the other notable room of the floor.

Said room looked to be the sort of ‘science lab’ area that you’d expect in any high school. Once again, the white and blue colour scheme dominated this area, with the blue reserved for the tops of desks, cupboards, and on parts of the laboratory equipment, although those were mostly clear or metallic. Most of the beakers and vials were empty, aside from a number of vials sitting in a holder near the door. There were also a number of gas cylinders, most of which were empty aside from a couple which were sealed shut. Said gas canisters had ‘AMNESIAC’ written on a label that wrapped around the front side of the container.

“So, uh...” Amber eyed the canisters cautiously. Most of us were gathered around them, but she was considerably further away. “Do those actually do what I think they do?”

“Well...” I read over the label a couple more times to make sure I didn’t misread it. “... I don’t see why it wouldn’t?”

“O-okay, and they’re not going to explode or anything?”

“If they did,” Dan said, “we wouldn’t remember it, now, would we?... It’s somewhat allegorical for life itself since-”

“Let’s just, uh, not open them.” I said, turning to the vials. There were only three of them, two of them filled with something red, while the third one had a pinkish liquid. The pink was also labelled ‘AMNESIAC’ in a much smaller label, while the two red ones were both labelled ‘HAPPINESS’.

“S-so there’s a liquid one, too?” Amber said, progressively more hesitant to even be here by the looks of things.

“Again,” I tried to reassure, “if we don’t open them, nothing’s going to happen.”

“Unless they explode...”

“I mean, they’ve probably been here since the start of the killing game, so I think the chances that they’ll combust aren’t very alarming.”

“And how do you now that?” Charlotte asked. “They could have been put here just the day before, and we wouldn’t know.”

Archie shook his head slightly. “They wouldn’t be so dusty in that case.” I mean, yeah, I forgot to mention before, but they were pretty covered in dust. “What doesn’t make sense to me is just why they’re here, though... The rest of this lab has nothing in it, all the other containers are empty. Judging by the powerless state of the computers in the other room, there’s information that the Mastermind must be trying to hide from us... Yet, they haven’t gotten rid of this stuff... Why?...”

“If the varmint left this all here for a reason...” Rocky said, reservation in his voice, “Then it’s probably as a tool for settin’ up another-”

“L-let’s not think about it!” I hastily interrupted, trying to find something else to point out. “Uh, hey, Lucy?”

“Yes, sugar?~” She called me... Again...

“U-uh, you know about chemical stuff, right?” I pointed to the red vials. “What’s this stuff do? Do you recognise it?”

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

“Mm, let’s see.” Seemingly interested, she peered over at the label, and then started to suddenly look... Empty. “... Happiness... No, that’s...” She promptly pulled away, hands clutching her face, shaky. “That’s.... That can’t... No, no, no, no, no, everything’s... The fabric, it’s...” The girl then became completely still, stood up, and opened her eyes, regaining the usual glazy eyed calmness she had. “Nope. Don’t recognise it.”

[7]

... Surprisingly, nobody really commented on her reaction, perhaps just writing it off as not too unusual for someone like Lucy to act that way, but... I’d only seen her do that once before, and I was pretty sure I’d spent more time with her than anyone else had. Clearly something was wrong.

[8]

After the discussion ended and everyone left, I sort of just... Held her hand and told her that I’d like to talk with her.

“My, hand holding?~” She said. “You didn’t seem as eager earlier, Jane.”

“Well, err, I j-just did that to, uh, lead you somewhere else where, uh... Where people can’t see us.”

“Where people can’t see us?~”

“I-I don’t mean it like that!...”

It was honestly jarring seeing her with that playful attitude after what had just transpired before. I didn’t want to put her back in a state of mental instability, but I really, really needed to find out why she was reacting like that... Especially considering what triggered it. Did she know something about that weird ‘Happiness’ chemical? It would make sense, considering her talent...

[9]

I figured that the most private place to go would be my room. I know, same place we hung out last time, but if Lucy did end up breaking down again, I’d rather that nobody else got involved. The possibility made me hesitant to ask her, anyway, since whatever was going through her head at the time, it must have been beyond unpleasant. Still, if she knew anything about what was going on, it could help us track down the mastermind, so I didn’t have a choice.

We sat on the edge of the bed, and she smiled at me.

“So, how are you, then?”

“I’d honestly like to ask that to you first, Lucy... I’m very concerned about how you were reacting earlier.”

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

“Earlier? I don’t understand your query.”

“Err, the laboratory, remember? When you looked at the happiness, you...” I noticed her gaze empty out again. “L-like that. Pl-please, Lucy, stay calm... It’s alright.”

“Uh-huh... Yes, uh-huh... N-no...” She winced, eye shut tight, a little shake of the head to snap herself out of whatever was wrong. “That’s... I’m sorry, Jane, I don’t think I can talk about it. It’s not that I’m hesitant to, it’s just that I...” She sighed, and drooped. “I don’t know, either.”

“Know what?...”

“What’s happening when that... Happens. I don’t know, so, can we... Discuss anything else?”

“Yes, definitely. I just wanted to make sure you were alright. S-so, um...”

[10]

It was difficult to think of other topics since my mind kept drifting to that laboratory incident, it really didn’t feel right that some chemical’s name could just... Send her into shock like that. It was frightening, and it made me wonder if she really did know more than she was letting on. Yet, her face when she talked about not knowing what it was seemed to signify a level of distress that I couldn’t put aside. Whatever had happened to her involving the chemical must have really impacted on her psyche, and yet, if she doesn’t clearly remember it...

Does it have something to do with the amnesiacs?

“Jane, are you alright?”

“U-uh, I...” I felt my body constrict a little, tightening like a coffin. “I don’t know anymore...”

“... I understand. Me neither.” Without another word, she placed a glove on my head, and gently rubbed it a little.

“You know... I think maybe I’m just getting too stressed out at this point. I might need to lie down or something...”

“Yes, yes, take your time. I’ll make tea... And you wouldn’t like any sleeping chemicals in the tea this time, I assume?”

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

“You... Haven’t given me tea before?”

“Huh... I must be mixing the other day with another day.”

[11]

Tea always seemed to wash out the built up spiritual dirt of the murder and chaos. So warm, so invigorating. And doing that with Lucy made it extra nice... It was easy enough to forget the previous upsets that day.

“Does it taste nice, Jane?”

“Well, yeah. Like, it does. I’m not just saying it as a compliment, it’s actually really good.”

Well, it wasn’t the best I ever had, so maybe I was exaggerating a bit. I mean, Molly’s was better, but that’s kind of to be expected. Made me wonder how many of us drink tea on a regular basis, it was unusual for me to drink this much within a week.

“I’m glad you are pleased with it.”

“Do you have some sort of technique you use? Special ingredients?”

“It’s tea. It’s not very complicated, I just use the tea bag.”

“O-oh... Right.” I figured pretending to know more about tea than I actually do wouldn’t actually help me fit in more.

“By the way, Jane, I don’t believe I ever got an answer about a certain question I asked before.”

“Yes, go ahead.” I said, feeling completely calm at this point as I set down my teacup.

“Would you like to go on a date?~”

“Oh, sure.” I reached for my cup again, then stopped. “Wait, what was the question again?...”

“A date. Would you like to go on one?”

“Oh. I, I see.” And once again, the calm was fleeting. Whenever she talked about that, I always...

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

Okay, no. Enough of all this stuttering and stammering and getting nothing done.

There’s no point to it.

I had to say something for once.

“... I, I, uh... I... I’d l-like that a l-lot, if, if we went, on... On a date, Lucy. Y-yeah, it would be gr-great!...” It took a lot of energy not to get overwhelmed, but I was able to retain some thinking capacity. “... Aren’t... We already on a date, wh-when you think about it?...”

“I suppose so, sugar. I suppose so~” She just kept smiling ever-so-slightly, like my awkwardness was a form of entertainment. “Good job, overcoming your fears like that. Go ahead, have another sip of tea. Re-organise your mind.”

“O-okay, sure.” The sip gave me a chance to really consolidate what had just happened. I, uh... I guess I had a girlfriend now. It felt... Nice, I suppose. I mean, it was like... Great. A bit confusing considering that I probably should have had more important stuff to worry about, but... I was... So, so happy.

“You’re sipping it quite slowly, sugar.”

(SOUNDTRACK RESUMES)

“... M-maybe I am. So what?...”

The meetup went smoothly enough from there, and I found the more I talked about the whole ‘dating’ thing, the easier it was not to get overwhelmed with the prospect.

... It still felt kind of unreal to be... DATING someone. Like, actually dating them, as, like, my girlfriend, all of a sudden.

I didn’t mind.

[12]

MONOYAKI HOROSCOPE

Leo!

If you go into the woods today, you’re in for a big soup rise, because the river’s full of soup. All of the rivers, in the entire world. But only if you’re a Leo. Don’t fall in, I know it looks tasty, but it’s not to be touched by human hands.

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

There’s not much of a point in talking about today’s meeting. Nothing gets done any more. We just talk about empty things in an attempt to feel like we’re taking action against the possibility of murder, when really we’re at a loss. We could have talked about the chemicals and what we could or should do about them, but we didn’t. We probably would have discussed it in earlier days, but there was a rising lack of motivation affecting us as time went by. A sense that if everything we had tried was ineffective, then anything we try in the future would fail as well. Nobody dared to admit it, but the sentiment was visible. Perhaps not all of us truly believed it, as of the moment, but it seemed to gain favour with each unprevented death.

Not like there was anything I could do about it at this point. Not like I hadn’t already tried.

But... I couldn’t just give up, could I? I mean...

I had a girlfriend now.

It was still surreal, yes, but if Lucy was still around, then I had to take action, at least do something... Partially for her, but I guess my own safety mattered a lot too.

If I just laid down and stopped caring about everything, then I wouldn’t know what would happen if I kept pushing on.

I’m probably not making much sense talking about it now, and I didn’t make much sense to myself then. If it helped, I could at least try talking about it to someone else and see what they thought.

[13]

I hadn’t really interacted with Archie for a while by that point. Since he wasn’t available for the third investigation, there was a bit of a rift. He usually seemed to work well under pressure, well, so long as it wasn’t too much pressure. After all, he was seemingly more irate recently. I suppose stress works for him well when he has things under control, and I figured that, since there wasn’t an investigation or motive happening at the moment, things were mostly under control, right?

He was sitting in the garden area, not surprising considering his field of work. To be more specific, he was sitting right by the metal door leading in to the water storage building. When he saw me, he banged said door a couple times, perhaps to catch my attention, although I had already noticed him by then. If he wanted to see me as well, it was probably a good sign in terms of his mood, considering that he almost never wanted to interact with people.

Although, chances are that meant he had something important to ask, too.

He initiated the conversation before I could say anything, before I had even really gotten within talking range.

“I’d like to ask something!...”

“Just a s-second!” I said, before walking the rest of the distance. It was kind of remarkable to see him this outgoing. When I did get within a better range to hold a conversation, he just stared at me, saying nothing. “... Uh, there, I took a second. You can talk now.”

“... I’d like to ask something.”

“Yes, I know, you said so before.”

“But you didn’t hear me, did you?”

“Doesn’t matter, go ahead and ask it.” It was somewhat rude of me, I guess, but I kind of wanted to rush things along a bit so I could get my thoughts out.

“Where’s Lucy right now?”

“Huh, that’s a simple question. Uh, I don’t actually know where she is, though, not at the moment.”

“Figured you might know, since you seem to hang around her a lot, especially in the past few days. Is there any reason you do?”

“Well, uh, maybe. Probably.”

He gave me a doubtful look. “And can you say that reason?”

“I mean, uh... I guess I have no reason to hide it, so...”

“Nevermind. I can tell.” He said, with a short sigh.

“Tell what?”

“You’re blushing.”

“... Y-yeah. Th-there, you have your answer, h-happy?...”

“Just try to keep yourself in order. You could get distracted from something important.”

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

“Y-yeah... You have a point.” I looked up to the sky for a second, trying to remember why I even came here in the first place. Clearly, if talking about Lucy made me forget what I was going to say, then she must have been a punishingly tempting distraction. “... So, I wanted to ask if you think that it’s important to, uh... Keep pushing on?”

“You probably already have your answer, Jane.”

“... Is it about Lucy again?”

“I’d tell you not to get distracted, but it is about her. It must be hard when your primary motivation to survive gets you all flustered like that.”

“Well, it’s not my fault...”

“Suppose so. Oh well.” He averted his gaze from me, with a look that clearly marked the end of the conversation. He ended up staring at a plant, to be specific, the venus fly trap he used to carry in his pot; it had now been planted in the garden bed. It seemed lively, and a little bigger than before.

If that defenceless thing could survive here, how come a third of us hadn’t?

[14]

MONOYAKI HOROSCOPE

Virgo!

Breathe in, take it easy, buy a private yacht, it’s all going to be good today. Tomorrow, buy a nuclear bunker.

[15]

Rocky was absent from today’s meeting, so, also subtracting the more common absence of Mary and Jo, that left seven of us there.

At least smaller groups are easier to manage.

Archibald was looking somewhat tired compared to just yesterday, so it was easy to surmise that he hadn’t gotten the best sleep he could have. Nevertheless, he had a face that seemed somewhat more resolute than usual.

“I’ve figured out how to power the computers on the fourth floor up. I didn’t look too far into it last night, but I managed to get it to turn on.”

“... How?!” Charlotte asked. “You just got it to turn on like that? I don’t believe you!”

“... It took a lot more than ‘just turning it on like that’...”

“Then what did it take, huh? Huh?!”

“... A lot.”

“... it’s a bit surprising,” I said, “but we can ask more afterwards. Should we just look into what’s in the computer’s files for now? It could be important, and we don’t really have anything else to do...”

Despite the sudden animosity from Charlotte, the rest of us agreed that whatever was on the computers was probably important.

[16]

The main computer at the front of the room had been hooked up to some sort of battery-like contraption, which looked a bit shoddily made, but apparently it wasn’t too shoddy to power the machine, as a simple button push brought it to life, with the usual bootup screen that you’d expect. I did feel a bit distracted by the battery device, wondering who made it or where Archie even found it, but the contents of the desktop were more important, so I focused my attention there.

The first thing I noticed was that the clock in the bottom right corner of the screen was bugged or something, it didn’t really seem to display any numbers, just garbled symbols. I don’t know why, but that was the only thing that was glitched about the computer, literally everything else worked out fine. The only reason I could think of was that whoever was running the killing game didn’t want us to know what day it was...

“Hey, wait...” Amber said, leaning around, trying to get a look at the screen from behind people who were inconveniently tall for her. “Why didn’t it ask for a password?”

“I suppose they didn’t need one,” Molly responded, “considering that this computer was only meant for staff... So if someone used it when they weren’t supposed to, they’d probably be found and punished.”

It was a solid explanation, but something did feel off about it to me. If the mastermind had taken action to cut the power supply and mess with the clock’s display, why on Earth wouldn’t they add a password as well? I guess they wouldn’t expect anyone to hook-up a makeshift battery, so it wouldn’t be necessary, but... That just made me wonder more about where Archie even found that thing.

We actually spent a few minutes not looking at anything in the computer, for no particular reason other than nobody really volunteered to be the one who sat down and clicked stuff. So we just stood around. It’s not like it was a hard job or anything, but it felt a little awkward for anyone other than Archie to do it. He was the one who brought us here... But he wasn’t sitting down, either. Maybe he was a bit hesitant to do it, since it probably took a lot of mental energy for him to even ask us in the first place. And he did seem rather tired, so...

I said “Alright, uh, should I just get on?”, in my unfortunately common tone of voice that seemed to reveal a lack of real confidence. Everyone nodded though, just wanting to get on with it.

Problem was, most of the documents on the computer were cluttered about and uninteresting. Mostly digital paperwork that you’d expect from a school, textbook PDFs, organisation stuff, the usual. There was a planning calendar for the school year, which was crossed out until February the 11th. So much for the mastermind hiding what day it was... I wasn’t sure if the person in control of this scheme was incompetent or just messing with us.

I probably spent hours on there. The people around me didn’t even say anything. The boredom was somewhat fitting considering that I was basically doing office work at this point. A number of us left over time, until the only other person there was Archie, who, although he chose to remain, didn’t really seem like he was fully awake, anyway.

[17]

After far too much time, I started to lose interest in all of this. If there was anything to do with the mastermind or Monoyaki on this computer, than it probably wouldn’t even be noticeable among the countless education-dedicated documents. I was wondering why they had to keep files from over ten years ago, they made it so much more cluttered than it had to be. Of course, I didn’t look into them, since there was no way we’d find relevant information to our current situation. There was one file that seemed to stick in my brain for a while, though. I didn’t make anything of it when I first read it, and I don’t think anyone else did, but it seemed to mean... Something or another. Just as I was about to finish searching, I decided to bring up the document one more time, and take one more look at it. Perhaps I just wanted to be able to say that I found something fruitful out of this.

“Hey, Archie... I think I found something important.”

He didn’t really seem to register that I was speaking at first. At the very least, he hadn’t really fallen ‘asleep’, since he would have gotten killed immediately for ‘sleeping in class’... But his head was resting on a nearby table. Rising up, he glanced over at the screen for a second, groaned, and put his head back down.

“Just describe it to me.”

“It’s kind of weird, but I’ll try my best. I don’t know the terminology, but it’s a sort of document verifying a transfer or a purchase, I think. This guy called Derek Frankson apparently bought the school on the second of November...” The date read ‘02/11’, without any year on it. “I assume it means last year. I always thought Wish’s Apex was run by the government, and I don’t remember hearing about this.”

“It could have been privatised, I suppose, but...” He lifted his head, and turned over to me, giving me a glimpse of his muddled expression. “There wasn’t a fee for us to come here. Since there wasn’t any sort of private school fee, as a private business, Wish’s Apex would be completely unprofitable. Something’s... Wrong. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“... Do you think that this Frankson guy is...?”

“At the very least, involved in whatever scheme this killing game is for. I’m not saying he IS the mastermind, but he must be involved at the least. You said it was last year, right?”

“Yeah, it didn’t say the year in the document, just the date.”

“Did you check the file properties? Usually it says the original creation date when you right click and go into properties.”

I did so, and... More garbled symbols instead of an actual date. I suppose the file must have been a bit corrupted... Just to check, I looked at a few other files, and all their dates were bugged as well. Again, clearly someone didn’t want us to know when anything happened... But the fact that they did this means they must have expected us to boot up the computer.

A lot of this didn’t make any sense, really. Was all of this just a red herring to distract us from something bigger? If they really wanted to hide it from us...

Whatever. It’s something.

“... It probably is still last year, yeah.”

“Alright...” Archie stood up, and walked out the door, clearly satisfied with having results from our search. Well, not ‘satisfied’ as in happy, because it didn’t really feel like it meant that much, but it was progress, at the very least.

Maybe we stood a chance now.

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

Just as he walked out the door, another person walked in, suspiciously simultaneous.

[18]

“Y’all finished now?”

“Finished with what?...” I turned in my chair a little, and rubbed my eyes. “Were you listening in or something?...”

“Yep, couldn’t be bothered listening to all that. You alright with summing it up real quick?”

“Summing... Up the... Stuff I found?...”

“... Worn out. I get it. Tell me later.”

I was probably starting to hunch over a little. Explaining all of that to Archie took a lot of extra energy, since I was trying to look less tired so he’d take me seriously. He probably would have taken seriously anyways, but... I didn’t even have that much energy left overall... So I guess I didn’t feel much of a need to give much energy and attention to the guy who didn’t even show up at the meeting today.

That’s when he poked me.

“If you’re done with it, you can get off it, right?”

“... I guess... What do you want to look at?...”

“Just wonderin’ if they’ve got a stock market app on this thing. Or a website. A website’d be better, but I’d be surprised if they gave us any Wi-Fi...”

“You... You own shares?...”

“Nope. Just considerin’ buyin’ some when we get outta this place.”

“Do you... Even have... Start-up money to?...”

“Just lemme see. I wanna know.”

Interestingly enough, there was indeed an economy-tracking app. Once again, the dates were scrambled, but it was easy enough to figure that the ‘end’ of the graphs marked the present. None of it was super interesting to me.

“Gold’s lookin’ unstable. Price got inflated a bunch recently, and the same exact thing happened one year ago... Exactly one year ago...”

“And what does that mean for our wider society, or something?...”

“Just weird... The graphs’re lookin’ different from when we first came here. Six months ahead, I’d guess.”

[19]

“Six... Whole months?”

“Yeah. If this thing hasn’t got Wi-fi, then... Must be broken. We sure haven’t been here six months, so if that’s ruled out, then it’s broken.”

“So, is the inflation just part of it being broken?”

“Nah, says that the inflation was six months ago. That’s why I said ‘recently’. It’s broke.” He yawned. “Piece of crap. I’ll just figure out how the market is when we get out...”

“I guess so?... So are we done here then?”

“Sure. All finished, I s’pose.”

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

“Great...” Turning it off and standing up again, I probably would have just left and lied down a while, but out of curiosity... “... You’d be able to make a living off of your talent as a marksman, right, Rocky? I, uh, don’t really understand why-”

“Financial independence. If you’re not independent, someone stronger’s gonna dominate you... And then you’re done for.” As he spoke, he got increasingly distant. “... And... If they’ve got... Control... Over you... Whatever. I just need to make sure that the shit I’ve gone through doesn’t happen to anyone here again. Too many of us’re defenceless.” He turned and went out the door, stopping in the doorway and speaking without bothering to turn his head. “Gonna go get a drink.”

“Cactus juice?”

“Need it.”

As the door shut again, I sat down for a moment. Tried to ponder what he was talking about. What he ‘went through’... Yeah, I guess I don’t need to know everybody’s life story.

There was a lot in my head today, anyway. When I did go to my room, my thoughts were swirling, thinking that I could maybe connect the dots with some of the stuff we’d seen, these leads that could save us... Like, maybe the inflation is tied with the purchase of the school or something?...

Maybe I shouldn’t get too theoretical. That’s Charlotte’s job, I guess... But, like, what about theories that, like, make sense?! I don’t have to be crazy to come up with a theory, right?

... Okay, I was clearly getting a bit worked up. I needed some rest.

I could just think about it tomorrow, yeah.

Continued in Chapter 4 - Motive