Part 9: Learning about Kyle's Mother

New Music: Razzle Dazzle


Each chapter begins with a short movie that I won't bother record. It's more of a slideshow than a movie, actually.



The slideshow has a static effect, which makes it look kinda blurry on screenshots.





It basically recaps the previous chapter in a short way, with the summary being the moderate way and the novel being the LONG way. We'll get to the novel soon.





The text says "Sleepless Night." It's more legible in motion.

Music stops


Now the chapter truly begins.





Every morning I have to fight the temptation to get a gun and shoot the damn thing. Guess the only way to stop that damn beeping is to get up and hit it myself.

Or use a hammer, but that still qualifies as "get up and hit it myself."

Okay, okay, I get it.



The alarm is beeping all this time. It's still not as annoying as "Ajanouha ihtan!" though.

On the table beside my bed is that damn alarm clock.



A simple minigame. You have 0.5-second window while the clock isn't blurry to press it. If you miss, you have to wait 3 seconds before you have to try again, with the alarm still beeping.



If I still had my job, this would be my cue to get up. Guess I don't need to worry about that kind of thing anymore, though.



That pretty much me on a holiday. But of course, Kyle can't sleep because...

*phone rings*



"Now the phone's ringing."

I reach out from my bed and grab the receiver.



You know, Kyle, that's a really awkward position to hold the phone. I mean, you could use your left ear.

"From your voice, it sounds like you're still in bed."

Who's this?



Music: Ace of Diamonds
Oh, Kyle, you don't remember your mother's voice after only half a year?
Mom? (So, it's my mom, Jeanie. She had a tough time after my old man passed away. Had to raise me on her own. Now she lives by herself in New Jersey, working as a nurse.)

Yeah, remember Kyle's mother that was mentioned once in a conversation with Rosa about independent women? Well, here she is. Needless to say, she already played a bigger role here than last game.

If you don't drag yourself out of bed soon, you'll be late for work, you know.
I'm taking today off.

That's a way to say "I'm fired," I guess.

Oh, I'm sorry. I should've saved this call for another time and let you rest.
Don't sweat it, I was planning on getting up around now anyway.

Awww. Kyle is nice to his mother

But why're you calling me this early? Is something up?
Well... Actually, there is. It's been on my mind since last night. I got a call from someone calling himself Rex Foster.
Rex Foster?
He said he wanted to ask me a couple of questions. He was keen to know if I was the mother of Kyle Hyde, ex-New York detective. When I told him I was, he continued with something that caught me off guard.



About time that name pop up.

What did you tell him?
I said I didn't know. That's all he wanted to know. In fact, once I answered his question, he hung up.
I need to know, though. Are you still looking for Bradley, Kyle?
That's ancient history, Mom. I'm done looking for Bradley. (Brian Bradley, my partner from back when I was a cop in New York. Four years ago he was working undercover, and it turned out he was on the take. He was a good friend. After I put a bullet in him, I quit the force.)

We got all about it by the end of last game.

That's probably for the best.
Yeah, maybe.
Who is this Rex Foster anyway?
Can't say the name rings a bell. And Mom... If you get any more calls from strangers asking you questions...
I know what you're going to say, but I thought he might be a friend of yours.
He's not. I told you, I don't know the guy. I don't know anybody who'd call my mom to snoop around for info.

I don't know, I wouldn't put it past Tony. Or Dylan. Seems like phone fraud wasn't that big of a thing back in 1980.

Okay, I understand.
Glad to hear it. Anyway, I gotta go, Mom.

Music stops


What now?
How're things with Ed?
Yeah, about that... (Ed, boss of Red Crown. He and my old man were buddies in a sense. They both drank at the same bar, and they got to talking a lot. It's been 25 years since the incident in the downtown parking lot, when an officer on patrol came across my dad's body. It was Ed, a member of the Los Angeles police force at the time, that found him.)

This is new. Ed and Kyle's Father's relationship is only mentioned in like 2 sentences at the beginning of the last game.

New Music: Contemplation
When you said to me you were going to work for Ed, Kyle... I couldn't work it out. You're just not the salesman type. I worry about you, even now. I'm your mother, it's in the job description.
Look, Mom. I'm 34 years old. I think it's about time you eased up on the worrying a bit.

The expired groceries in your fridge says otherwise.

You're probably right. It's just, you're the same age your father was when he died, and...
No, you're right, I worry too much. I'll let you go now, Kyle. Have a nice day off and look after yourself.



I was wide awake after the chat I had with my mom. Gave up trying to get back to sleep and dragged myself out of bed.



Music: Heating Up


I splash cold water over my face, giving my senses a sharp wake-up call.



Notice how there's no mention of him taking a bath.





Before I know it, I find myself slumped on the sofa. I slowly begin to gain a little clarity as I sit there, but... There's something about hearing my mom's voice after all this time. That, and the fact that I'm blankly staring at the worn out wallpaper in my room, sends me plunging back through my thoughts to a point somewhere in the past.

Music: Distant Memory




He was a man with little to say. So into his work that he was rarely home. My mom was working as a nurse back then, too. I'd come home from school each day only to be greeted by an empty apartment.



Three days after he left for a job, he wound up dead in a parking lot somewhere downtown.



After she managed to get her feelings together, she packed our stuff, then took us off to start a new life in Manhattan.



Who wanted him dead and why did we have to leave town? I had all these questions going round in my head, but Mom wasn't talking.



Mom decided to start talking to me about Dad. She chose this time to reveal something I didn't know about my dad. She told me that he used to be a safecracker.



But after he left home to do his last job, he never returned. His death was unexplained and the case remains unsolved to this day.

It's basically like an action movie, except instead of being the "hero" we get to be the family of one of the people the "hero" killed.



I still remember the words my mom said to me on that day about my old man. She said that now I'm a detective I can uncover the truth behind his death. I took her words lightly. After all, I knew about being in this line of work. I knew that getting to the bottom of the mysteries surrounding a man's death could lead to truths that relatives of the deceased wouldn't want to hear. Even with the tools I had at my disposal, I wasn't willing to dig. I quit the job and still don't know the truth.



Just me and my thoughts.