vivarium | THE HEART OF THE MATTER

This morning starts off with Calhoun blowing an air horn at precisely 6AM. He will not tolerate anyone sleeping in, and if they attempt to he’ll just keep blowing his horn until everyone gathers in front of the table that he stands on. Upon closer inspection, characters will realize that beside him is a large cage, being held shut with a heavy duty lock, and contains numerous brown envelopes, some more bulky than others. Beside that is a container of lighter fluid and a stack of matches.

He puts down his air horn and raises his arms, shaking his head.

“Even as tiny as your little brains might be, you should all know that your time is now up! No more shows, because you know what, this is pathetic. Is this really the best that you test subjects can do? We got two more shows yesterday, yeah, but nothing that tingled my spine. How disappointing.”

He shakes his head, and then nudges the cage with his paw just a bit.

“Well, you all know what that means! You can say goodbye to all your precious memories and further details about your secrets. Everything that you’ve so carelessly gave up on and didn’t care about is right beside me. I will burn everything away, so all twelve of you will never have the chance to get them bac--”

And then he suddenly stops.

“--Hmmm?”

Calhoun stands on his tips of his bottom paws and looks at the room, from one side to the other, pointing at each one silently.

“Wait a minute, there’s only eleven of you here! Who are we missing?” He takes a second to go through everyone before answering himself. “We’re missing the Hat-Wearing Test Subject!”

During the entire commodation of suddenly being woken up and seeing all your secrets/memories in that cage, minutes before they’re burned away, no one might have noticed that they might have been one person short. Now, looking around, it’s true. Akiko is nowhere to be seen in the group, nor does she seem to be in the warehouse’s lobby.

Calhoun lets out a long (clearly dragged out and exaggerated) groan.

“Ugh, of all times that she’s out. Just when I was getting all dramatic and in the mood too…”

He slumps over, but then he stands right back up again, as if hit with lightning. He points at everyone.

“Okay, time out!! Instead, you’re going to find this Annoying Test Subject and bring her out here! I don’t care if you have to drag her from the toilets, just go find her, so I can get to burning your precious things and reveal your secrets!”

He will end it with that, and should anyone try to argue against him or attempt to negotiate with him, they will find it worthless. He will refuse to speak and just tell them to hurry up, find their dumb Hooky-Playing Test Subject! He’ll be here waiting, should you find her, so the search begins.

However, characters will soon discover that Akiko is nowhere to be seen. She’s not in the warehouse lobby, that’s for sure, but she left her hoodie and hat behind, so she must have stepped out quickly to the washroom. Once going in and calling for her, though, characters will only be greeted by silence in the washroom. Then how about the lounge? Perhaps she couldn’t sleep and wanted to go through a few video games, but yet again, she is not there. How about the second floor of the warehouse? The stairway? The elevator? Everywhere they look, she cannot be found. It’s almost as if she has complete disappeared. Eventually, it will come to the fact that while they have thought they’ve checked everywhere, there was still one room they haven’t searched:

The cafeteria.

That’s not possible, though, since it’s not like she could be in there. She doesn’t have enough BP, but there’s no where else she can be. A feeling of dread and fear might begin to pool up, as someone pulls on the lever. A metallic groan fills the air, and the doors slide open...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

We'll have to determine what to do with the murderer now or it could easily spiral out of control, depending on who it is. We'd need to...hold or a trial or contain the murderer somehow. *Won't that be a giant pain in the ass when it happens? Because all they needed were reprisal murders.*

So we know what happened but we have no idea who did and we can only surmise the reason it happened was to either regain a memory or protect a secret. And by the way, there probably is something wrong with my brain because I can't come up with anything other than this.

"It ain't just up to us," said Heiji. "It depends on everyone else here, too." As much as he believed in the rule of law, he also knew it was possible that someone else might not see it that way. And depending on who the culprit was, it might not be so easy to contain them...

"I said there ain't anything wrong with your brain 'cause what you're sayin' is true," said Heiji. He was still facing Snake, but looking off slightly to the side, almost like he was speaking in a begrudging fashion. He touched a thumb to the center of his chest. "It's this."

Oh, right. Snake couldn't see what he was doing. "I think ya got something wrong with your heart."

True. Depending on who did it...*What if it was the least likely person? Or that person you would never suspect?*

*Well. That was a pretty damning statement. At the same time, Heiji wasn't yelling, just stating the facts. Snake couldn't really deny that.* Because I didn't hesitate to hurt myself or other people to essentially get something I wanted. Is that what you're telling me?

"No, 'cause you care about that girl so much, you were willing to go that far. Only if she was that important to you, ya think she'd get all bent out of shape just 'cause you lost your memory? She stuck by you after you lost all that other stuff; she'd be over the moon just to see you alive. If you end up dead, I bet she'll be cryin' her heart out, damn!"

"And the way you keep saying all this stuff about people havin' to put up with you and being useless... the heck is that about? You think it's impossible people just like havin' you around? No wonder you got that attitude!" In other words, Heiji was alternately angry at Snake for taking the risk, worried about him and Ema, upset that he saw the need to pull this stunt, and mad at himself for having lent the knife to Snake in the first place.

Edited 2014-09-01 16:25 (UTC)

*Well to be fair, it's not like Heiji had any idea Snake would use the knife for stabbings. It's...also hard to hear that you've done everything wrong and here were actually good reasons why. Why did he want to go so far for someone he didn't have a complete memory of? Because she was worth it. It was the only explanation that made any sense. He was not sorry he did that, only that he took Ema along in his madness.*

*He wasn't an optimistic person. He was so opposite Heiji that it wasn't even funny. And yet, without prompting, he did basically say "what are friends for?" Either he was just doing it for fun and he didn't mean it and honestly didn't have a lot of people around him...or he did know the value of friends, but was really bad at consideration.*

*Between him and Hershel, they were giving Snake a whole lot of introspection he really didn't want to get into. So he gives a really annoyed noise in his throat. Which leads to another thought. If he really doesn't want to hear this, he could just get up and leave. It'd be so easy. Except for an even BIGGER annoying reason is he can't do that.*

...what are you trying to be, Heiji? My conscience?

"Don't be a dummy; I ain't any good at that stuff." If Heiji were just trying to be the voice of reason, he probably would have been a lot calmer about the whole thing. Besides, it was incredibly unlikely that he'd even thought it through that far. Those were way too many feelings to articulate clearly, even if he were chill right now.

"I just... don't want anything to happen to ya, that's all."

*There's so many things he could answer that with. So many wonderful biting retorts. He can't do it. Snake can't do it because although it was difficult information, it was -true-. So...he tries something different for a change.*

Point taken. And, now that I think about it, potentially offing myself would be a waste considering two things. One, I promised to show you the Space Needle. Two, you promised to give me an audio tour of Osaka. Then we can compare and contrast the two towns on their merits and ultimately see which one is better.

Edited 2014-09-01 20:46 (UTC)

Heiji's whole face and voice lit up at once. "Ain't it obvious? Of course Osaka's going to come out on top!"

Snake couldn't see it, of course, but the smile on Heiji's face was comprised of utterly honest and open happiness. He just didn't hold anything back!

We'll have to see about that. *At least Heiji didn't sound pissed anymore so Snake supposes he did one thing right for a change.* I don't hear Hershel anywhere.

"Probably cause he ain't around. Why, you duckin' him?" What on god's green earth would someone have to do to be forced to avoid Hershel Layton?

No, idiot. With Akiko's passing, I suspect he might be hurt. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing him here. I...suppose that I want to see how he's doing in light of all this. *Dammit Heiji, look at what you're making him do. CONSIDERATION.*

Heiji stuck out his tongue. Good old Snake, ruining the moment forever.

"Already talked to him. He'll be okay. He was sayin' some weird stuff about a Get Out of Death Free card, but he didn't seem as down as he did at the start."

Well...I'll go talk to him anyway. Consider it the start of making better decisions. If I find out any clues, I'll let you know.

THE HEART OF THE MATTER - CONCLUSION

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