Part 118: Interview Five - Brian

The final interview, as said before, unlocks once you've seen the other four, and it is with none other than...

[BGM: Rat's Awakening]


… Welcome. I am the Jade Emperor.

...No, no that's not right.

Hi, uh, I'm Brian.

I've been stuck here, tied to this chair, watching everything unfold on these screens. I guess it's a sort of hell? But... now the screens have turned black, and... you're here. I guess that means you're here to take me to wherever I'm now supposed to go?

...Questions? I mean, sure, if you want. Can't promise you'll like my answers, though.

What was Aaron Morris like?



You want to know what my father was like? That's pretty cruel.

For the record, he was really great. Don't just take my word for it, many would agree. Yeah, around work he might not have been... the most pleasant. How could you with that sort of job?

But, he was as good a dad as I could ask for. He always made time for me. He helped me when I was feeling down. He gave me good advice. He pampered me. He was... he was like a friend to me, more than just a parent.

More than anything, he had integrity, he wasn't the type to back down from a fight. He could've taken a plea deal, you know? But he didn't. Because he was innocent.

I remember, so vividly, back when his trial was raging. The things said about him on the news, online, they were just... objectively wrong. They made him out to be a bad person, when that couldn't be farther from the truth.

I think that's what really cemented my belief in how wrong everything was. The world I saw around me was just... upside down, from my own reality. And I refused to believe that I was the one in the wrong.

What's with the butterfly tattoo?



Is the question why I have a butterfly tattoo, or why I have a tattoo at all? To answer the second question, I was feeling particularly rebellious and had some change in my pocket.

To answer the former, I've always been fascinated by the butterfly effect. I'd explain it, but... come on, you know what the butterfly effect is. The idea that such minor decisions could ripple into world-altering events... it's both empowering and frightening. It's oddly beautiful.

So, if I was going to get a tattoo, I thought a butterfly would be a nice image. There's really not a lot more to it beyond that.

How did you come around to hosting the Zodiac Trial?



It's simple, really. I became obsessed with the darkness of Hightower. It enveloped everything else. Which... to be clear, wasn't hard.

I never really did good in school. I didn't have any friends. I didn't have any passions or desires, no idea what I wanted to do with my life. After everything that happened, it's not like our family could afford a fancy college or... anything, really.

Looking towards the future, there was nothing to reach for. All I saw ahead of me was emptiness.

In the face of that, when confronted with something that seemed to me like such a huge problem, such a huge injustice... It seemed reasonable to spend all I had to at least accomplish one meaningful thing.

I never made it clear in the game, and I was killed before I could explain myself further, but... it wasn't actually about vengeance. I mean, it was partially about that, for sure. Everyone who I planned to put through the wringer deserved it.

But I designed everything so that any reasonable group should be able to get through it with everybody alive. So long as nobody acted incredibly selfish, or hateful, or stupid, there was an out for everybody.



My actual motivation was to find the truth.

See, I had microphones installed in all the neck devices. By gathering so many people involved with the corruption case, making it clear why they were gathered, and forcing them to both compete and cooperate, well, I figured it was the perfect situation.

They were bound to let the truth come out. If I made it clear that that was what I was going for, well, I'd never get anywhere. But in the darkness of all the game mechanics and competition and whatnot, and with their minds very fixated on the event...

Maybe it was naive, but I hoped I'd be able to reach the truth. A truth.

...That's all very noble sounding... but I'm not that noble. It was also about vengeance.

How did you actually set everything up?



In a word, dedication. Our family wasn't rich, but if you're not looking to the future, you can amass funds pretty easily. Just... sell a lot.

The hardest part by far was creating the neck devices. But, there was a metalwork shop not far from my house that was willing to let me work on “projects” with a fair amount of discretion.

Actually getting the mechanics to work took the longest time. But, it's the age of the internet. If you're clever enough, dedicated enough, and look online a lot, you can figure out how to do pretty much anything. And... it's not like they were particularly sophisticated designs.

Once I designed one, it was all downhill from there. Programming the tablets, the phones, the operating system – that was all child's play in comparison. I knocked that out in a three day weekend.

In terms of setting everything up, I did my research on the school ahead of time. Figured out how to get in ahead of time. Figured out what I'd need to set up.

Getting a hold of the weapons was... painfully easy. Really should've been harder than it was. And kidnapping as many people as I did? If you do your research, turns out most people aren't prepared to be kidnapped.

The thing about kidnapping is that usually the hard part is to do it where you're not caught. But... I knew one way or another my identity would be getting out when all was said and done.

The game would take place not long after I kidnapped everyone, so I didn't need to buy that much time. All in all, it was totally achievable. Took a lot of time, a lot of money. But it's a death game, you know – it's not like it'd be easy.

Honestly, the fact that I was able to do it all by myself's pretty impressive... at least, in my opinion.

Why'd you select who you selected for the trial?



Obviously, I needed to select people worthy of punishment.

But if the plan was to work, I needed people of various levels of involvement with the conspiracy. If people were too “on the same page”, there wouldn't be enough conflict, and the truth might not come out. So my selections were well thought out.

Mouse was supposed to be Richard Brill, the judge behind the case. His decisions in my father's trial were so inept that he was either deeply corrupt or terminally stupid. Either way, he had earned his place.

Ox was a prosecutor whom I had every right to believe was in on the conspiracy. He was the one most responsible for my father's death.

The choice of Tiger was a bit off the wall, but I think it was inspired. Not only was her testimony – the one about my father holding the weapon – clearly bullshit, but she had an interesting history.

She was unstable, possibly dangerous, having killed her mother. But then she got away scot-free. Probably by abusing the same system that killed my dad. Yeah, she was a good choice.



Bunny I felt no sympathy towards. I couldn't tell how much he was involved, but he had killed an innocent nonetheless, and that was good enough for me.

Dragon was supposed to be Oliver Bowen. The reason for his spot on my list should be obvious.

Snake was supposed to be Anna Redd. Look at her history and she's done a ton of shady shit in the corporate world, so there's just cause for throwing her in. She was also close with Amadeus, so she could possibly spill some info.

Horse was a pick I was... unsure about, but I thought he might stir things up. His past was definitely fucked up enough to warrant throwing him in the death game. He was also contracted by Amadeus, so I thought he might spill some info in the heat of things.

Sheep was a pure revenge pick. She was the one who threw my father under the bus. She was a coward. She was pathetic. She was also Amadeus' secretary, and the one with a lot of opportunity to do any number of things.

I wasn't sure if she was the real killer, or an accomplice, or... if she was even involved in some way. But I had no hesitation in throwing her in.

Monkey was supposed to be the Chief Prosecutor. If Ox wasn't corrupt, she certainly was. If she wasn't corrupt, Ox was. But, most likely... they were both in on it.

Rooster was going to be the head of this newspaper company. They'd be put in for the same reason I put in Pig. They were a tool used to slander and kill an innocent man.

They deserved punishment, but they were also one of the ones more likely to break rank and say something they shouldn't.



Finally, there's Dog. I was unsure about Dog. But I knew he knew more than he ever let on. And that alone was enough of a sin for me.

...Who knows. If he ever decided to sit down with me, to really talk things out and explain everything from his point of view... maybe things could have played out very differently.

What are your thoughts on how everything played out?



There's a lot to regret, obviously. Looking back on it now, I'm pretty sad I died. That part was... very unnecessary.

I feel stupid, looking at how Jae used me. I feel stupid that Ethan, my main target, I was never even suspicious of.

I feel bad that I got so many innocent people involved. Dog and Pig both died. And while I hold contempt for both of them, I can see now that neither of them probably deserved that.

So yeah, things didn't go perfectly. But you know? I was right. Because of me, Jae's dead. Ethan's caught. Hightower's on fire, and my father's name is being cleared. And, really... that's just what I wanted.

Could things have gone better? Sure. But to complain too much would just be whiney.

I got what I wanted. That's good enough for me.

No more questions.

So... is this finally the end?

...unfortunately not, for there's one final update, one final shred of information that you can only get by completing the game without using the hints, like “Themis” said...