Part 56: The Journal
Forty-five minutes remain until Ambidex Game polling closes.
VLR OST: [Eeriness]
Dio...
Listen in: [English/Japanese]
You don't mind, right? I figured you and Clover would get up here right away.
Urg...
I glanced around the warehouse.
Listen in: [English/Japanese]
They're in the infirmary.
We carried Quark to one of the beds.
Tenmyouji and Luna are looking after him.
I see.
How's he doing?
He seems to be sleeping soundly, but beyond that there's really no way to know.
No change then, huh?
Right.
...
A laboratory.
Is that so...
Did it look like the kind of place where they'd be researching viruses and DNA and those kinds of things?
Yeah, it did.
...
I see...
...
So how'd it go with you?
Find anything interesting?
Listen in: [English/Japanese]
We've still got about 40 minutes left until voting ends...
What're you gonna do?
I'm a little curious about that lab you found. I thought I might go take a peek at it.
I'll show you the way, then.
That would be wonderful.
Never know, maybe you missed something.
Perhaps there's some Axelavir hidden somewhere in there...
(Guh... What a bastard...)
Then I shall take you there.
Where are you going?
I'll... I'll... Hmm...
Well, I think I'll start by heading over to the infirmary to see how Quark's doing.
Then I will too.
Glad that's settled.
[Music fades out]
Listen in: [English/Japanese]
Hold on.
Show me that journal first.
Uh...
Dio told me about it.
He wouldn't tell me anything about the lab except that you found a journal with - his words - "some sort of bullshit language".
He said you had it, so I was hoping I could take a look.
Y-Yeah... One second...
I dug the journal out of my pocket and handed it to Phi.
999 OST: [Riddle and Puzzle]
...This is Latin.
Latin?
You mean you can read it?!
Yeah, with time and a dictionary.
So in other words, no.
This looks like some kind of research log.
It's not going to be some sort of "I took the dog for a walk today. It was nice." kind of stuff.
I can understand a little of it, mostly conjunctions and things like that...
But most of these words I've never even seen before.
Phi started to leaf through the book again as she spoke.
Then suddenly she stopped.
Wait...
...?
I can read this one... Page... Page 216.
This isn't research notes. It looks like a personal entry...
What's it say?
Don't rush me. This is going to take a minute...
Hmm...
...
...
...
...
[Music fades out]
It looks like they're talking about Radical-6.
What? Why are they talking about that?
Not sure. Let me read it to you. Keep in mind I'm paraphrasing...
VLR OST: [Sublimity]
There're no voiced lines while this (new) track is playing.
[Music fades out]
Now we know what the virus does to you, though.
If you get infected, your brain slows down by the root of one sixth. That's... what, about 40%?
Listen in: [English/Japanese]
That isn't the important part.
VLR OST: [Sinisterness]
"Those infected by Radical-6 eventually develop a powerful urge to commit suicide."
Yeah...
That would explain why Quark was... well, trying to kill himself.
There are two other things in here that worry me.
First, the part about how they haven't managed to develop a treatment for it yet.
What do you make of that?
What am I supposed to make of it?
Maybe they just hadn't found one when this journal was written?
I mean, from what we know there's a drug called Axelavir that cures it.
But in the journal it says it might take twenty years to make something like that.
Hold on a second... I'm getting confused.
When was this thing even written?
December 29th.
No year.
Well... There's no way it was written this year.
Yeah, probably not.
...
After we read it, we all thought the same thing...
What if this was one of those quarantine facilities?
"The few humans who survived the outbreak have been locked away by the government in underground shelters."
You're trying to say that this place might be one of those underground shelters.
Which would mean we're all supposed to be uninfected.
We would have been thrown in here to keep us safe.
Yeah. I mean, there's no way to say for sure at this point, but it seems possible.
But Quark's been infected, right?
Then maybe the virus got in somehow.
That would be... bad.
If this is one of those shelters, a lot of things start to make sense.
Maybe we've been here for a long time...
Like, maybe they put us to sleep somehow. Made us sleep for years - maybe even decades.
And then once the anti-viral treatment was finished, they woke us up?
Right. It's all just speculation, but...
...
No, that doesn't make sense.
I mean, it seems like a pretty plausible scenario, but...
We were all captured before the pandemic started, right?
Yeah...
And how would they have put us to sleep for that long?
How would they have known to do that?
Throwing a bunch of people into a game that might kill them is a pretty weird way to protect them from a pandemic.
...
Yeah, you're right.
...
[Music fades out]
I think we should see if we can find anything else.
I changed my mind!
You can tell me about Quark later!
And with that, she was gone.
Man...
