Chương 144: Book Five, Chapter 47: The Test

Some tropes just won't work outside of a storyline. These are usually rule tropes that would have absurd results. For instance, if you had a trope that made everyone have a physical tell every time they were stressed, avoidant, or deceptive, that would only work in a storyline. So, we went to a storyline because I had a trope like that and a player whose honesty was in question. Kimberly came along, too, along with the recent rescuers, but only for a little while. On-Screen.

"I can't talk you into staying any longer, can I?" I asked. Kimberly stood in front of me, looking like a 1970s movie star. Behind her was a French door, and she was backing toward it.

"You know I would stay if I could," Kimberly said.

"If I had my way, we would stick to this story until we found that little girl. But unfortunately, life moves on, and there are a lot of other stories that need my attention." We exchanged a knowing smile, the kind only old friends can share.

"I suppose there are a lot of other missing kids," I said.

"I hope you find some happy endings."

"I hope so, too," Kimberly said.

"If you find anything, if you find any hint, you get on the phone, and I will be right back here."

"I know you will be. Hopefully, you'll have a message from me with good news waiting for you when you get back to the city," I said, "and hopefully, I'll still have a job whenever we finally find her."

"You will find her," Kimberly said.

"I told you this was a big one, and as long as you think there's more dirt to turn over here in Eastern Carousel, you can stay as long as it takes, and I'll make sure you have your job."

"Thanks, Kimberly," I said. She turned and waved as she walked out of the boarding house toward the car waiting for her. Until we went Off-Screen, that was—because as soon as we did, she turned right back around, walked back inside, and said, "I still have a little bit of time. Do you mind chatting?"

"Of course," I said. I gestured toward the large, comfortable couches in the living room of the boarding house. The first time we ran The Final Straw, we hadn't spent a lot of time at Miss Moreland's Boarding House because our actions within the story had drawn us away from it. But Kimberly's The Penthouse trope had given us this luxury accommodation—well, at least luxury for Eastern Carousel—so it was nice to be able to use it. Kimberly was not going to be in the story much longer.

Her new trope, Uncredited Cameo, allowed her to enter just long enough to get in one good scene and then leave. That's what we had done. Of course, she had actually been in multiple scenes, but only one substantive one. Apparently, she had a timer telling her when to skedaddle. We were rerunning The Final Straw to test our newfound allies, specifically Lila White, who had allegedly been tricked into getting her team postered. It was just me and them—or at least it would be once Kimberly left the story.

We had spent her scene interviewing the Harless family. The interview was largely the same as the one we had in our first run of this storyline, with a few tweaks. One difference, of course, was that Kimberly didn't get to stick around for the rest of the story, so she wasn't the focus of that scene. I was, strangely enough. She was just here to give the audience a small taste of her dramatic stylings and to set me up as one of the story's investigators.

Another difference was that, because we did not have Dina, the little girl's name was Tamara Rae Stome instead of Tamara Cano, but such alterations were to be expected. Plus, her Penthouse ability was a nice perk, and it was nice to have a friend—because if it turned out that Lila White really was some rabid psycho betrayer, I was likely going to die in this storyline. Well, if she was good at being a rabid psycho betrayer. Otherwise, I'd be safe. At least, that was one of the reasons for running this storyline.

Andrew and I had made a plan. And so far, everything was running smoothly. Kimberly and I sat on one of the cozier-looking couches, and I waited for whatever Kimberly wanted to say. It took some work to focus because the day had ended in the story, and I had received the dailies, which allowed me to look at a little bit of the footage of our new allies, as well as Isaac, performing their roles in the story.

Isaac was in the story because he wanted to run one with his brother, and I didn't have a good enough reason to keep him on the bench. Michael, a Soldier archetype, got cast to play a cop in pretty much the same way that Antoine had been—except without all the popularity from Antoine's tropes. Andrew was playing a county coroner, and his presence had changed this story in some ways that I had not predicted.

Carousel was not going to waste an actual doctor, so as I sat there talking to Kimberly, I watched Andrew perform an autopsy on Benny Harless, the mechanic, without the benefit of the camera cutting away during the gross parts. It was pretty hardcore. The 10-year time skip had gotten delayed. I didn't know how long for. I'd only seen Lila On-Screen once during a search party looking for Tamara, but that was understandable.

Lila was, for the most part, an Extra-Wallflower and wasn't even cast as a named character, which made it hard to keep an eye on her because my Dailies trope only gave me footage from On-Screen moments.

"Are you sure about this?" Kimberly asked.

"I'm a little tense, sure. But I also don't want to call the whole thing off over a case of nerves," I said.

"Best case scenario, we have nothing to worry about, and we can get some shopping done." Kimberly didn't look amused.

"I don't trust her, and even if she doesn't throw the storyline, I still won't," Kimberly said.

"She knew she was getting one of her teammates killed even if it actually was somehow part of Project Rewind. How can we ever be okay with that?"

"Who says we have to be okay with it?" I said.

"We don't get the luxury of being able to trust all of our allies. What we can do is make a plan and choose to accept the results of that plan because we have no other options."

"Well, I'm glad that it's so easy for you," Kimberly said.

"I didn't say it was easy. Are you willing to kill her just because we're unsure? Because if we follow through on the promise of Project Rewind, we're going to be rescuing a lot of people we won't be able to trust completely. We're still a long way off from rescuing anyone we've actually met before." If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Kimberly wasn't comfortable—I could tell because she was scratching her nose when she said, "I went along with this because you had your mind made up. If you think whatever happens in this storyline is enough to trust her, I'll try to get comfortable with it." I had equipped my He Has a Tell trope to assist in our interrogation of Lila. As stated, that trope did not work outside of a storyline, which is why we needed to go into one.

It wouldn't be enough to tell if she was telling a half-truth or what she was lying about, but it would show us what she was nervous about. That, combined with Andrew's tropes, might be enough for us to get some level of confidence in Lila.

"I'm not trying to dismiss your feelings," I said.

"I don't feel good about it either, but there is no version of this where we don't have to make hard decisions. We're either going to conclude that Lila is worth some level of trust, or we're going to conclude—in front of her teammates—that she isn't. Even if she is no good, her teammates need to see us give her a chance. It will help them trust us." At least, that's what I told myself. Kimberly leaned back on the couch and then said, "Is this how it's always going to be?

We rescue people, and instead of getting a thank you, we have to worry about whether one of them is going to betray us?"

"Yeah, it probably will be like this every time. All I know is that we need to start collecting new bases so that we don't have to worry about giving strangers our home address." She looked at me, smiled, and said, "You know if she does betray you, at least we won't have to worry about her anymore."

"That would be strangely relieving, wouldn't it? I'll be dead, of course," I said.

"For a little bit," she said.

"And at least I'll have you to mourn me at my funeral," I said.

"I'll do my best," she answered.

"Look, I've gotta go. My timer is ticking down, and I need my driver to get me back to my loft before I'm out of this storyline."

"I understand," I said.

"If everything goes well, I'll be back at the loft with a wheelbarrow of food soon enough."

"The cup is half full," Kimberly responded while scratching her nose. Then she got up off the couch and walked out of the front door, completely out of the story. I laid back and watched the dailies. Andrew was not just movie-smart—he was actually smart, and I knew that because, as I watched him perform an autopsy on Benny Harless, he was making observations that had nothing to do with Insight tropes. Even if he gained Insights the longer his autopsy lasted, he was figuring things out immediately.

He must have been running Carousel through its paces as he discussed liver temperatures and lividity, which combined meant that Benny's body had been relocated before the car crushed it. And just like that, Benny Harless didn't die of an accident. He was officially murdered, and the story would pivot around that. No wonder we hadn't had a time skip yet. First, we would have to fail to solve Benny's murder; then, we would jump into the future.

The whole thing made me wonder if we could do so well that Rustle never had a chance to grow up and seek revenge. The movie would be over in thirty minutes. I fast-forwarded through a lot of footage taken from around town while I waited for Andrew, Lila, and Michael to arrive at the boarding house as planned. It didn't take long. Once night came around, there wasn't much more story to tell that involved players—not for a few more scenes, at least.

I was almost done with the dailies when they walked in: first Michael and Lila, and then Andrew a few minutes later. Michael sat in a wingback chair and didn't speak. I didn't take it personally; he had just met me. Lila had gone somewhere to freshen up, but I didn't expect her to run away, so I didn't keep an eye on her. When Andrew arrived, we didn't talk about Lila. He wanted to talk about the story.

"I've been noting strange behavior from many citizens around town, mostly of the Patcher family. I assume that's the result of your trope," he said, "but when I inquired further, I was unable to get any useful information from them. I'm not certain what could cause that. If they were somehow involved in the disappearance of Miss Stome, surely I would have been able to get some information from them by prodding them." He had run into the same problem we had in our first run of The Final Straw.

The Patchers acted like they were hiding something, but they would never tell us what. It had been frustrating.

"I pulled one of them over," Michael said.

"They were speeding—or at least I said they were. I tried talking to him about the missing girl, and they acted all funny, but I couldn't get anything out of them." There was no point in not spoiling them, so I just came clean.

"The Patchers are guilty in one way or another. They're a family-worshipping hive mind of some kind. We didn't really learn a lot about that, but I think that's why they don't fess up even though they should—because they're one entity, even though they don't seem that way. You have to solve the mystery of what happened to Tamara before their true nature is revealed. You know how these things work." Andrew nodded.

"I see. We should table that, then. I suppose we have other matters to attend to tonight."

"Unfortunately so," I said.

"Isaac will probably not be joining us. He was cast as the fiancé of one of the Patcher bachelorettes, and I don't think he'll be able to get away from them tonight, although he may learn some interesting information about how the hive mind thing works if, you know, he tries." Andrew scratched his ear. This was not a comfortable subject for him.

"Yes, after our parents' death, Isaac developed a habit of feigned apathy in all aspects of his life. Unfortunately, he does not have a lot of control over it. It would seem that even Carousel hasn't been able to break him of that, but in time, I hope to help him work through it," Andrew said. We had played The Final Straw twice for grocery shopping purposes, so I was fairly confident that whatever twists and turns Carousel threw at us, we would be able to rise above them.

After all, if you could solve which Patcher did what to Tamara, then you would need neither a First Blood nor a Second Blood sacrifice. That was ideal for our purposes.

"Michael," Andrew said, "As I've told you, I'm going to have a therapy session with Lila. My tropes will work better in a storyline, so I should be able to determine if she intends us to do further harm. I'd appreciate it if you let us do this in your absence because I don't want her to become emotionally overwhelmed. And I realize that you are in very understandable pain because of Lila's betrayal and are interested in witnessing the session. She might not be able to open up in your presence."

"Then why does he get to be there?" Michael asked.

"We find ourselves with a three-way impasse," Andrew said.

"Everyone wants to know who they can trust, and unfortunately, that necessitates that representatives of all three parties be present during the interrogation." Oh yes, the traditional horror movie intermission interrogation. I wasn't confident that I could be swayed just by listening to Lila, but Andrew had useful tropes for such an interrogation. And at the end of the day, allowing Andrew to have his talk with Lila didn't hurt anything—I would be there to get my own impression.

It was very possible that Lila White had just been tricked into betraying her own team. In many ways, the explanation fit perfectly. The act was brutal, but then Project Rewind was brutal. I couldn't tell if I rejected her claims because I didn't trust her or because of what she had said about Roxy, someone I felt I could trust. If Roxy had been a part of Project Rewind, why didn't she drop any clues for us?

On the other hand, if Roxy only knew just enough about Project Rewind to think that it was a threat and to try and sabotage it, why had she not come to me then? As much as I could understand the logic of why secrets were necessary, I sure felt like a fool, knowing there might have been someone there watching us stumble. I needed to sort my feelings out so I could think. What I hated worse was that when I really thought about it, the story made some sense for an additional reason. The Grotesque.

How did the mobile Omen get into Camp Dyer? Had we ever gotten a reasonable explanation other than our "Carousel is punishing Janet" theory? The "Insider did it" theory was more plausible, but it still didn't feel perfect. Roxy could have done it. It would have been trivial. She could have bought a mobile Omen, flirted with the guy, and tricked him into bringing it; I didn't know. I tried to remember back to the details of that day. Had I missed something?

Roxy could have put the seed of the idea of quitting into Janet Gill's mind. I could still see the look on her face when she quit in the middle of the Grotesque storyline, as if she had been holding it in and was finally ready to exit. Wouldn't it make more sense that someone had hinted to her that she could leave? She had said it so confidently, like she knew someone was listening. Roxy was on that very storyline, holding Janet's hand as she made that deadly decision, and I didn't see what was going on.

If The Grotesque Mobile Omen hadn't come around, I would not have gotten all of my unequippable clue tropes at once. We likely would not have found the Bed and Breakfast in time. Project Rewind might not have succeeded. If Janet hadn't quit the game, I would not have seen The Axe Murderer and would not be a Secret Keeper as required by Project Rewind. I had to be logical. There was no room for actual faith or trust. Her story fit the facts, even though it felt like I was getting my guts ripped out.

Then again, even if she was telling the truth, that didn't mean we could trust her. If bringing her into a storyline where our tropes would help us interrogate her helped us have peace of mind, it was worth it. More than that, I felt myself not wanting to believe her or trust her because I didn't like what she had to say. And I needed to get over that.