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Post by mugenginga on Apr 6, 2010 22:25:53 GMT -5
Seth had woken up minutes after Cain had left. The teenager hadn't been doing much more than sleeping since Nirad's death. The death he'd had to cause thanks to that mind reading demon thing. He just lay in bed for several minutes, not even caring where Cain was. Abel had avoided talking to him since then. Things had looked to be on some kind of mend, and then Enjin had shown up.
He finally talked himself into getting up. He'd been about to take a shower when he caught his reflection in the mirror. He turned towards it and his face blanched. He knew about the Death Clocks, of course. He'd missed his own due to a lack of awareness of them before Belphegor had kidnapped him (he'd learned later how narrowly he'd avoided that death. A zero the day he'd been... recovered) but he knew about them now. He hadn't even noticed the fact he had new messages on his COMP. He just pocketed the thing and headed out, hammering on Atsuro's door.
Kaido had come up the stairs from being out for a short time as Seth knocked. He'd gotten a sour expression at the number above Seth's head. It was probably around the time Atsuro was opening the door that Seth turned towards Kaido, saw the number, and frowned.
Both of them...?
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Post by Firebreath Fishslap on Apr 6, 2010 22:38:27 GMT -5
Atsuro had groaned as he read the note that had fallen on the floor. Cain had borrowed his laptop to go do something, Atsuro had no clue what, leaving him temporarily laptop-less. Who knew how long it would be before he got that back.
Atsuro hadn't done much talking to the rest of the group either since Nirad's death. He would talk to Seth when he got the chance, but it was never all that much. Seth spent most of the day sleeping in Cain's room now. Abel avoided talking to just about everyone, but Seth most of all. Ever since Abel had nearly attacked Seth due to the emotional rush brought on by what that mind reader guy had done to Nirad, Abel had been avoiding everyone. He spent more time away from the hotel than actually there.
Atsuro hadn't gotten a chance to check himself in the mirror before he heard the knock at the door. He opened it just as Seth looked down the hallway at Kaido. But that wasn't what Atsuro was focused on; it was what was above Seth's head that bothered him. A 9. He looked out the hallway at the approaching Kaido. Same number.
"Uh-oh..." Atsuro said.
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Post by mugenginga on Apr 6, 2010 22:43:25 GMT -5
Seth found himself grateful Abel wasn't there. It then caused a rush of guilt, but it didn't do much for the panic. The panic that Abel would have picked up on. Whatever was coming in nine days, it would hit them all. Would it hit his brothers too? Seth was pale, but his eyes got wider as a thought occurred. What if it hit because of Abel?
"All three of us...?" Seth managed to say.
Kaido scowled and looked as if he wanted to facepalm. He lifted the COMP from his pocket and took it out of sleep mode by flipping it open. He angled the screen, which still showed the Laplace Mail, so that Atsuro and Seth could see it.
"I'm guessing I'm the only one here that has a damn clue what the hell's going on?"
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Post by Firebreath Fishslap on Apr 6, 2010 22:50:39 GMT -5
Atsuro's eyes widened as he saw what was displayed on Kaido's COMP. "A Laplace Mail? I thought the service had been cancelled after it broke too badly to predict anything else?"
Well, for whatever reason, they had started back up again. That was not a good thing, which was probably one of his larger mental understatements. It was slightly ironic that they had started up again now, especially considering his hypothesis for why they'd stopped in the first place before. Quite simply, their changing of other peoples' fate was causing reality to unravel, as if the stuff in the lockdown wasn't already causing it.
It was a stupid theory anyways. Then again, he'd been spot on about those kind of things before... well, this was one he was keeping to himself. Atsuro pulled his own COMP out of his pocket and saw that he had one of the mails too. The position he had been sleeping in meant he must have muffled the sound with his body.
"Dimensional distortions caused by the impending Fall..." Atsuro blanched. "We're trapped here. That's why we have those Death Clocks."
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Post by mugenginga on Apr 6, 2010 22:59:57 GMT -5
Seth had dug into his own pocket and pulled out the silver COMP. Once again silver, like his first one. It helped that it seemed to be the standard color. He flipped it open and checked the e-mail. Sure enough. He looked up as Atsuro read his and gave a hard swallow. Atsuro was right, but why was he right? Why were they blocked now?
Kaido frowned to himself and pocketed the COMP. He gave an annoyed look towards Seth in particular before he spoke, "Cain and Abel both seem to be gone. Probably tryin' to do something about the mess. It's Cain's fault, you know? It's his program."
"Why now?" Seth said, causing at least Kaido's eyes to fall on him, "Doesn't this seem sudden to anyone else? I mean, Ryoji's the one connected to all this, right? What does that mean?"
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Post by Firebreath Fishslap on Apr 6, 2010 23:28:12 GMT -5
Atsuro was wondering about that too. It seemed to be all too much of a coincidence. He knew Abel had been planning on leaving once the Death Clocks showed up. So why would they be blocked off from leaving the island exactly nine days before the Fall came?
Because they wanted to keep them from leaving. That was why.
"Seth's right, this is all too much of a coincidence," Atsuro said. "We get blocked off from leaving the island exactly nine days before the world is supposed to end? I dunno about you guys, but I think something's up. I think someone's trying to trap us here, and they're willing to sacrifice a whole bunch of other people to do so.
"Not only that, but the Laplace Mails started up again. Isn't that all together too large of a coincidence? And besides, even if Cain's the one who made the program, he has to be getting the data from somewhere. I never got a chance to ask him the specifics of how it worked, but most likely it's a client to some kind of larger server, and the program that generates the mails just takes the data it recieves from the larger server to make the Laplace Mails. But the mail-generation program hasn't worked for a while, and I think it was less the mail generator than it was the root server. For some reason the root server stopped sending data to the program, but something's caused it to start up again.
"Which brings me back to whoever is trying to trap us here." Atsuro decided to abandon his previous thought for the sake of hypothesis. "You two both know how Abel, myself, and Yuzu figured out we could change fate by saving people who were supposed to die, at least according to the Laplace Mails. Well, I think that what we were doing directly lead to the eventual breakdown of the mails, and the stopping of the data flow between the mail-generation program and the root server. But what if we weren't? What if something else did it?
"After I got some internet access back on the island, I took some time to look into this Laplace thing that Cain apparently named the mails after. Apparently Laplace was this scientist who theorized that if you knew the location and momentum of every atom in the universe, you could predict the future. They called it Laplace's Demon. Laplace's Demon. And considering all of our experiences with demons, this seems to be too much of a coincidence. And with its ability, it could probably tell what was going to happen in advance, and decided to trap us and everyone else on the island here." Atsuro finally stopped to look at Seth and Kaido. If Yuzu had been there, she'd have interrupted long ago about how he was getting too complicated for her. "I don't know why it chose us to mess with, but it definitely did, and it definitely wants to keep us from leaving. I don't think whatever Cain and Abel are off doing is going to help at all."
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Post by mugenginga on Apr 6, 2010 23:35:24 GMT -5
Seth hadn't expected a response. Certainly not such a long one. He was still trying to figure out the first sentence when Atsuro was one his third. He managed to keep a decent track of what was being said despite the very long wind. It took him a few moments of looking like he was coutning in his head with his fingers after Atsuro finished to realize what had just been said.
"Someone has to tell Abel... do you think Cain knows?"
"Tell him what. Knows what? Dammit, I dropped out of high school! Mind explaining that in plain English?" Kaido's eyes had glazed over less than halfway through that 'little' explanation.
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Post by Firebreath Fishslap on Apr 6, 2010 23:51:17 GMT -5
Atsuro gave Kaido a flat stare before answering him. Well, they had their Yuzu now. "Laplace's Demon, which I think the Laplace Mails are getting their info from, has decided to royally screw us over in the best way it could."
There, that should be simple enough for Kaido. He looked over toward Seth again. "I think Cain knows by now... but I doubt Abel knows. I'll tell him." He moved from the Laplace Mail section of the COMP and started writing out a mail to Abel.
He hit send and closed the COMP.
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Post by mugenginga on Apr 7, 2010 0:01:22 GMT -5
"So why don't we just go kick its ass?" Kaido growled.
Atsuro was in the middle of writing his e-mail, so Seth took it on himself to respond, "I don't have much experience with those things, but from what I've heard aren't they almost always accurate? Even if things can be changed, I don't think we can exactly sneak up on the demon."
"Tch. I don't know how 'unchangable' they are. I never got any of the damn things until today. I do know your brother used 'em to fuck things up a bunch in the Lockdown. So that demon can't be all that powerful, now can it?"
Seth got an annoyed look. Kaido was insinuating something about Abel's strength there, and the younger twin didn't realize it was meant about K1 then. He was about to get into an argument when Atsuro's hitting of send was acompanied by a beep from Kaido's COMP. Kaido actually jumped a bit, Seth certainly did as well. The man pulled out his COMP and flipped it open. He got a somewhat unsettling look on his face as he read the message.
"I don't know about you pansies, but I'm headed out," Kaido said, closing his COMP, "Cain's more on top of this thing than any of us are, and sounds like he needs a bit of manpower. Man said you two should stay here."
Kaido turned to leave.
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Post by Firebreath Fishslap on Apr 7, 2010 0:17:32 GMT -5
Atsuro did jump as Kaido's COMP beeped as well, and he looked toward Kaido as he read the mail. He didn't know what the mail had said, but Cain wanted him and Seth to stay there. That alone said things about what Cain and Kaido were off to do.
"Fine," Atsuro said. He didn't argue much with what Cain and Kaido said, especially Cain. Maybe he had fanboyed the man once, but now Cain just unsettled him. Atsuro jumped as his own COMP beeped with a response.
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