999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors Part #48

Part 48: Operating room 2

Seven nodded, slowly, and spoke.

Well, I remember a story about EDT. It happened about 50 years ago. There was this factory, somewhere in America, making big old EDT crystals. They were makin' it to sell as industrial-strength cleaner, like I told you before. But...

[Music: Digital Root]

Once the crystal turns into a hydrate, though, it's useless as a cleaner. The factory had to just dump the crystals--as a hydrate, they were useless.

But it didn't end there.

After that day, the same thing started happening in EDT factories everywhere, even ones nowhere near that first American factory.

In fact, ever since that day, no factory anywhere has been able to make a pure EDT crystal.

Even in EDT research done years before, they'd never gotten a hydrate.

But after it happened at the first factory, it just...spread.

You mean like it was infected with a virus or something?

Seven shook his head.

No, not like that. It spread like wildfire. It showed up in labs that were completely isolated from the rest of the world.

It doesn't seem like it could have been a result of this stuff coming in contact with other samples.

Then...

Like...the crystals were transmitting this information all across the world somehow.

What information?

How to make a new crystal. Something had to...tell the stuff how to do it, right? Like it just whispered to the EDT in the tank...

C'mon man, that's just... I mean, who is this "someone" anyway?

Someone you can't see. Someone who exists all over the world.

You mean, like...a god?

Seven grinned.

As Junpei was trying to figure out what on Earth he was going to say next--

Clover's shrill voice pierced the room.

[Music: Silence]

Stop wasting time and get over here!

Okay, okay, we're coming.

Geez!

Seven looked at Junpei.

Yeah, so, anyway, that's the story.

With that cryptic remark, he turned and left the room.

Well, thinking about that crap isn't going to help me right now.

He took a deep breath, tried to clear his mind, and followed after Seven.

[Music: Septenary Game]

Now that story time's over, we can use that key we got earier on the door on the left of the room too!

It takes us to a slightly larger room. This one even has what looks like a bench to rest on! What luck.

What the hell're you doin'?! Don't you want to get out of here!?

But I'm tiiirreeed.

...Okay, so much for taking that break.

If we've learned anything from our excursions on this ship now, it's that there's almost always something in cabinets and drawers. Thus this is the perfect place to look!

Is this some kind of medical record?

A medical record, huh? Well, that certainly makes sense. We might want to grab that, since it could come in handy later too.

There's, of course, one last thing you should've noticed in this part of the room.

The door, I mean. I wonder where it leads, considering we had to unlock the door that leads here and all.

Do you think this is the exit...?

Hey wasn't this Jupiter symbol engraved by the keyhole on the other door?

Other door?

The door at the end of the hallway with all those rooms.

Maybe?

I suppose this makes sense, given how we already knew the Jupiter key is somewhere in here.

For now, though, let's just spin around to the other half of the room and take a look at these suspicious lockers.

We'll go through them in order; left to right.

It looks like it's locked. There's a red plate on it. Do you think that means something?

Locked, of course. The blue plate on here seems a little suspicious, though...

It won't even budge. It's got this purple plate on it too...

So... they're all locked? This could be a problem.

There's one last thing in the room, that we ought to check out.

(Does this thing react to something, and then the lights light up?)

Well, that's... familiar.

I wonder what we can do with these things, then, to make them light up?

...oh.

Yeah, but the red, blue, and purple ones still aren't lit.

Hmm... a beam of light that affects this thing? There's a beaker in the middle...

We do have liquid coloured red and blue, respectively, so I wonder. Let's give this a shot.

Forget about that... Didn't you hear that just now?

Seems obvious to me what happened;

By making the relevant light, uh, light up it somehow unlocks its associated locker. Sure, why not? Let's grab this leg, then.

I guess it's a woman's foot but damn... Doesn't look hot at all...

Have you got a thing for feet, Seven?

You're sure actin' kinda shady...

Well, that's one down.

So, we'll fill the beaker with blue liquid now instead.

I think I heard another noise.

We know what this means.

More specifically: the other leg is now ours.

Do you think I'm better?

Uh...what?

Well, let's see... we've still got to open that purple locker by the looks of things. As a result, we do need to find a purple liquid to get it open.

We found the red and blue in the other room, so let's go search there.

Well, I found a red liquid and a blue liquid, so there's gotta be a purple one around here somewhere.

Naw, we're just not looking hard enough. Let's keep looking, okay?

Make it?

Yeah, you know, you could mix 'em. The red and blue.

That's it!

Oh... duh. Let's head back to the prep room then.

Stick the red in, and then add the blue...

You combined the red liquid and the blue liquid to make a purple one.

Good job, Junpei! The purple light came on, and I heard it unlock!

All right, let's see what happened.

Of course, when we back out to go look, the purple liquid has to go... somewhere. It can't be split up again, so it goes into one of our two empty bottles.

(A bottle with purple liquid in it.)

(W-Wait, what?!)

(Why am I even thinking about that?!)

...And if we pour it back into the beaker?

There's nothing in there anymore, though.

(A bottle that had purple liquid in it once.)

(Aah! No! No!)

(It's purple! It's just a purple liquid!)

...Let's just go open the locker before we learn more about Junpei than we ever wanted to.

Rather conveniently, I do believe this is the last mannequin part.

That's no nose... It's a stomach!

Oh... A stomach.

Hey, that ain't a drum, kid!

Let's see... we have the full body of the mannequin, both legs and her other arm too. Heck, we even got a heart for good measure. I think we're done with this, now.

...So the one's we've got must be for Lucy. Right?

Yeah.

Seems like it.

Well, I say we give Lucy her parts back. Any objections?

Nope.

Agreed.

All right, let's get started.

That's odd...

Weight?

Yeah, well, you know how there's a scale on the side of the bed? Maybe...

...How're we gonna do that?

Oh...

Let's give it a shot.

Well, let's see... this seems easy enough and... no, no I've lost it. Sorry.

You gotta use your hints, or you're never gonna figure it out.

You're right. Maybe I oughta take a look at that thing...

If you add up everything on her medical record, it's only [21].

The head and arms are 30kg, huh...

right?

So basically, we need to make Lucy's weight equal to [23.2] kg.

Right, we need to get Lucy's parts to weigh [23.2] kg. All we've gotta do is a little calculation...

Well, let's take a look.

...Okay, so you see this record?

Ignore it.

We don't need to do anything related to it. We don't have to do any calculations. This is REALLY simple, the game just makes it sound more complicated than it is for some reason. The solution?

Just swap every part. It's really... very not hard.

It came from John's operating table! We better check it out.

Sounds like a plan.

Okay, John, what are ya hiding?

...Oh, uh, oops. Let's do that instead then!

Hey, it opened!

Oh...I get it! It must've opened because we matched John's weight to what's on the chart!

Is that... a key?

Then...that means--!

Oh, we know exactly what means.

Let's get the hell outta here, at last!

[Music: Silence]

What's up?

Where's Clover?

Huh?

Junpei turned around. Clover was nowhere to be seen.

Goddamnit. Where the hell did she go?

Arg. Okay, just hold on a minute. I'll go get her.

Sure thing.

Junpei left Seven at the door, and headed back to the operating room.

[Music: Imaginary]

Hey, Clover, what's wrong? C'mon, let's get outta here.

...

She didn't respond.

If she hadn't been standing up and breathing, Junpei might have thought she was dead.

What're you doing?

Clover didn't laugh.

She stood stock-still, and said nothing.

Hey, Clover, can you hear me?

Perhaps it was something he'd said, or perhaps it was...something else.

Suddenly, her mouth opened, and she whispered in a dry, dead voice...

...

Huh...?

That's why we couldn't find him. If he's dead...

Suddenly the operating room felt very, very cold.

Wh-What are you talking about? What's wrong with you?

He gave her a small shake, but she still didn't respond.

The silence grew heavier.

Let's just get out of here.

Clover nodded, almost imperceptibly.

Still, Junpei was glad to see she was at least somewhat responsive.

I'm sorry...

What was this? Why was she apologizing? Junpei wasn't sure what to make of her.

Was she emotionally unstable because her brother had gone missing?

I'm really sorry...

Don't worry about it... Really, I mean it...

How could anyone pretend not to hear something like that?

But something told him this wasn't the time to press the issue.

Junpei gave her the warmest, kindest smile he could manage.