May 25th - Final Day

[cartesio]

Final Investigation

It's Friday. It's the last day marked in your calendar. Presumably, the few without medals will leave at some point today, and the rest...you're not sure what'll happen to you, but it'll be what the Sergeant wants.

How to defy him when you have so little time left?

Whatever plan you had today, it's guaranteed it won't go like expected. Early in the morning, the ground rumble slightly, and something pops in the sky. Fireworks! One after another, blasts from firework spread through the sky. Many of the residents of Cartesio come to the street, gathering and making all the noise they can.

It's a very radical change of behavior, compared to the once peaceful demeanor they had, and then the hostile behavior showed towards the visitors, but now they're making hubbub and causing disorder. Everyone does it spontaneously, and nobody's approaching the motel at all.

At least none of the townspeople.

Not long after that started, you may hear the noise of horns and whistles from vehicles, right outside the motel. Go take a look?

Links

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Comments

[cartesio]

[You hit the motherload, Gant. It's Workshop #5, unlocked and available.

Inside, the room is...strangely, in what seems to be a middle point between clean and destroyed. Several operating tables are there, there's strange pipes on the ceiling, and the walls are covered with tools.

The operating tables are not empty, though. All but one have figures prone on them]

[protectandselfserve]

[OH BOY, THIS ISN'T MORBID AT ALL. WHO'S ON THE OPERATING TABLES]

[cartesio]

[It's nobody you know.

Because they don't have faces, that is.

For some reason, these seem to be mannequins. Transparent mannequins, made of some sort of resin. There are tufts on the head that seem to be hair, and the mannequins are very articulate. Almost in an uncanny manner]

[protectandselfserve]

Oh, that's just creepy, isn't it...

[Is the hair different colors, or is it all the same? Just... for posterity's sake.]

[cartesio]

[They all seem to be of the same white color. So many mannequins in the same position, lying around...

When Gant's taking a look, he gets a bit too close to the mannequin. Something changes.

Suddenly, the transparent cover takes color. The mannequin expands, fabric grows, the face takes features, the hair turns a bit brighter and life-like...

...until on the table there's an exact copy of Damon Gant, just that he's unconscious. Well then!]

[protectandselfserve]

[...........................................................................................]

Oh. Well, alright, then.

[cartesio]

[Weird, eh?

Careful, Gant. If you approach another mannequin too much, the same thing will happen. We don't need 57 Damon Gants in the world, do we?

There's something in a corner, though: a mannequin standing up. What's more, it's...it's in a T pose]

[protectandselfserve]

[YOU KNOW WHAT, HE'S TEMPTED, but yeah. Maybe he'll check this T-Posing thing. He's not quite familiar enough with this stuff to be like "VR CONFIRMED about it, but...]

[cartesio]

[When Gant approaches, he'll notice it doesn't change. It continues empty, standing there, until it does change, but not into Gant.

It takes the form of a person Gant may have seen around town before -- just a bystander, nobody special.

Then it tries to speak. It moves its mouth in silence for a moment, then the voice starts to come out, like he hasn't used the voice in a very long time.

You may want to call everyone here, Gant]

[quickpersuader]

[WELL NOW WE ARE CHECKING OUT THIS PLACE I GUESS. She sees Gant go for the mannequins and starts looking around for other stuff to examine.]

[cartesio]

[There's something on a table at the far end of the room. Do you remember the PDA Sarge used to pronounce Jughead's very old-school name?

It's there]

[quickpersuader]

[TIME TO LOOT or at least just see what it's got.]

[cartesio]

[It seems to be rather limited. Something to control the amount of money in your debit cards -- all of them set to $99999999 -- something to pronounce complicated stuff...

...the only thing that seems to be of use or interest is an app to send messages. Opening it makes it clear Sarge sent a message not too long ago. Want to look at the past messages?]

[quickpersuader]

[Hell yeah she is gonna snoop through his texts let her at 'em.]

[cartesio]

[From the start! Around six months ago:]

Sergei? I don’t recognize the surroundings. Some places in the building seem to be in disrepair, someone should get that fixed. I checked the orders I have, no problem there, but I’d like to know why we’re here instead of back home. Please advice

[Around a day later]

Sergei, what’s this town? The information I gathered says it’s called Cartesio, but I’m not familiar with it. I have a feeling we’re not in our world anymore. Are we really going to try to destroy this world? I’m trying hard to remember, but I think we weren’t even done in our world.

[quickpersuader]

[Weird that there's no responses, but she'll continue looking!]

[cartesio]

[Months pass]

It has been several months and you still haven’t replied. I made a copy of the town, I configured its people based on the lives I saw in Cartesio. Please check it and tell me if it’s a fitting testing environment.

[And then another month later]

I brought twenty-two minds. I made some good choices here. It’d be great if you could check them and tell me if these choices are correct, I need your input to know if I should keep bringing minds like these ones.

I await your response. Reply as soon as possible, I’m getting annoyed.

[marmoron]

[WELP time to be here in the workshop of horrors. He'll start looking in a corner of the workshop that Kino and Gant aren't occupied with. ANd I guess track water everywhere if that's a thing....]

[cartesio]

[Making a mess like always, eh, Keith?

On the table near you, there's a book and a list pinned to a wall. Take a look!]

[marmoron]

[NOT HIS FAULT THIS TIME.

But yes, let's go check out this list first!]

[cartesio]

[It's a list of names! But for some reason, some of them are separated from the rest. Take a look!]

[marmoron]

[...Somehow he wasn't expecting to see the names split that way, but he'll take this list for safe keeping. Is this list handwritten or typed out?

But with that, he's going to take a look at the book next.]

[cartesio]

[The list is typed out very neatly. Like from a computer, yup.

The book has more lists. Worth noting there are many, many, many names in it, and a short blurb about them. It'd be difficult to know if it wasn't for what's on the very first line:

James Williams: Founder.

It's all in chronological order. Keith may recognize only a few names, names of people he knows: Nanette, Lucille, Davis, Mason, other random people around town.

And, at the end, there's names he recognizes: those from Sakura, Millium and Wayne's group. Those from Keith's group. Those from the hostages]

[marmoron]

[...... yeah that's not fucking creepy at all.

Time to read some of these blurbs. He's going to start with his since he's apparently "interesting" to these people and he wants to know why.]

[cartesio]

[It seems to be a very general description of Keith's traits. Very analytical. Nothing worthwhile.

Everyone else from their group has the same kind of thing. Those from the mock week don't, neither do the hostages or anyone from Cartesio.

Looks like you won't get anything else from this book, Keith. You're done]