What? No. No goddamn way. This is… normal? I close my eyes and turn away in an attempt to send the phased-in thing away. Pearl hums in thought and reluctantly closes her own eyes. All the scrabbling noise comes to an instant halt.

  “The hell. The actual hell.” I mutter as I crack open my eyes. “There’s no way that’s normal. No way in hell.”

  Pearl shrugs. “Why don’t you check the messages? That should tell you more.”

  “Not sure I really want to. But I guess I have to.”

  I raise my Class Card and take a peek at it. The entire message sprawls out on my screen, longer than most of the others I’ve seen so far, and its contents are… eurgh. Almost don’t want to do more than just glance at it. Though I don’t have much of a choice; this could be important.

  (Question Recognized)

  What are you talking… oh, you mean the corpse!

  That’s just the body of the person who lived here before I was stationed here.

  They were kind of a problem for the system, so I dealt with them before they could do anything too dangerous.

  Is it moving again?

  Dang it, I thought I finally dealt with it last time.

  Well, if you're feeling helpful, it would be great if you could kill it for me again.

  Oh, and don’t worry about it thinking–I dealt with that before it died the first time.

  Just… what the hell. I shake my head and step away from the fuzzy spot on the ground while reading the message over and over again. It’s unbelievably different from everything else we’ve seen. Almost to the point that it feels like a trap. I scratch my neck and send my Class Card away, then turn to leave. Jumble and Euro have to hear about this.

  Pearl waves vigorously to get my attention. “Wait a second.”

  I slow to a stop. “Yeah?”

  “Don’t say anything yet–there’s inconsistencies here that we need to make sense of first.” Pearl motions at the bed with one hand. “The construct has been acting like it was the person who lived here since we got here. Now one message says it’s apparently a murderer and that it was stationed here by the system itself. Doesn’t that sound more than a little suspicious?”

  “Yeah. It does.” I agree with a frown. “But… what’re we supposed to do? If the message is lying to us, how are we supposed to find out?”

  Pearl blows out a long breath and shrugs. “I don’t know. But Jumble shouldn’t know anything more than we do, right?”

  Honestly… I’m not so sure. She seems like she knows more than she lets on, but it wouldn’t make sense for her to know anything about this in particular. I scratch my neck a little harder and stare down at the bed, my mind racing to try and find some explanation for either the system lying to us or the construct both being conflicted about its existence and a system-slave murderer.

  “Jumble’s going to see it anyway when she finally looks at her Class Card.” I sigh. “I guess it can’t hurt to try and find some evidence before that happens.”

  “It just makes sense.” Pearl says pensively. “If the construct really did kill someone in here, it has to have more references to it than one message. All those messages you sent before made it seem like it’s been living here for a long time. Let’s try to get it to contradict itself.”

  I nod slightly and type out a simple question on my Class Card; ‘have you ever killed someone in this room’? A tap sends it to the construct, and a near instant chime in return heralds its response.

  (Question Recognized)

  I haven’t killed anyone.

  Short, simple, and completely contradicts the message before it. Pearl and I both stare at the message with annoyed confusion; it wasn’t supposed to be this easy. So… what? The message was just a lie, and we can ignore the corpse under the bed? No… no. That’s way too convenient. If this subquest was convenient and easy to complete, we would’ve just found all the anomalies and gotten out of here.

  The overall quest made this complicated and confusing for a reason. To the point that… I kind of have to assume both answers are the truth. Maybe the construct really did kill someone in here. But there’s a bunch of unnecessarily complex reasons why that could be the case; phasing bullshit, time dilation screwing up when things actually happened, or the construct could be… a collection of five different goddamn paindne. Technically more if that shifting patchwork body is actually a bunch of them.

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  This calls for more questions. Way more questions. I tap away at my Class Card, firing them off one by one without waiting for the construct’s answers. They filter in with a cacophony of notifications–all of which are rejections. Mostly for being too vague, but a few of them just don’t register at all.

  Then, it happens. The first question to be answered, and the twelfth I asked overall; ‘what is your name right now’? A more specific version of the absolute first question I asked, which was the exact same except it didn’t have ‘right now’ stapled onto the end.

  The construct’s reply?

  (Question Recognized)

  I don’t have a name.

  Novast.

  Two conflicting answers. I stare at them for a few seconds, committing the answer to memory, then type out the question once more. Another message ding sounds, and the exact same answer appears. I hum to myself in thought, then type out another question.

  ‘How’d you die, Novast?’

  (Question Recognized)

  All I remember is my muscles seizing up, and I could smell something cooking.

  It… might’ve been me.

  I… wasn’t expecting that to actually get an answer. But now we have a name to a death; Novast, the paindne who died by electrocution. Their name definitely doesn’t sound like most paindne I know, save for one who is apparently part of the cast of paindne that are susceptible to system control.

  “Maybe they did give up their lives on purpose.” I mutter in disgust.

  Pearl slowly shakes her head. “If that’s true, then wouldn’t Novast know what killed him?”

  Hrm. Good point. And I guess I can actually just prove or disprove it with one message. So I quickly type it out and send it.

  (Question Recognized)

  No, I didn’t die on purpose.

  But if my death served a purpose for the system, then I have no regrets.

  Even… even if it really hurts sometimes.

  A reference to the construct’s messages after we presented two or more anomalies. Specifically when we put Novast’s anomaly in the list. Maybe that’s important, or maybe it isn’t. I absentmindedly tap my fingers against the messenger as I try to think of my next message. We need to know about the corpse. So this time, I’ll try asking Novast in particular.

  (Question Recognized)

  Since I became a construct… I’ve killed… um…

  I can’t really remember how many it was.

  But that’s not what you asked, was it?

  Yes, I killed whoever lived here before me.

  The system said they needed to die, so I made them die.

  Alright, now that’s more believable than a one-sentence answer. And the writing style is just flat-out different from some of the other answers. Maybe we have been dealing with different people within the construct replying to different things. Now… I think I’m done talking to Novast. How do I start talking to one of the other people, though? Do they just shift around at random? Or do some of them answer specific questions? I lean against the wall and type out a repeat of a simple question; have you ever killed anyone in this room.

  If Novast keeps answering, it’ll be different than before. If it isn’t Novast, then it means… well… something else. Maybe that they cycle randomly, maybe they answer specific questions, or maybe there’s some logic to it that I don’t get yet. Whatever it is, if I ask about the kill, then the follow-up name asking shouldn’t reply as Novast. But if it does… then, I’ve gotta try something else. I press send, and the message pops up.

  (Question Recognized)

  I haven’t killed anyone.

  Exactly the same as before. Hm. Let’s try asking the construct’s name now.

  (Question Recognized)

  I don’t have a name.

  Lunlea.

  “Lunlea.” Pearl murmurs. “Complete confirmation. Perfect.”

  I nod in agreement. “Let’s see if Lunlea is consistent about killing anyone.”

  (Question Recognized)

  I haven’t killed anyone.

  Pearl hums. “More confirmation. Try asking how this one died.”

  Right. I type that out quickly and send it off.

  (Question Recognized)

  I died in a subspace rupture.

  Even though I was pronounced dead on the spot, I was conscious for a matter of hours.

  Subspace rupture? Ah, the paindne that was vertically split in two. I tap my Class Card against my wrist in thought as my mind wanders to the thing that led us to splitting the paindne in two–the fruit with the bit taken out of it. Maybe… asking the specific name about the thing will elicit a different response.

  ‘Lunlea, do you recognize the fruit with a missing chunk?’

  The message shoots out of the room, and the horrible sound of a construct splitting in two echoes down the hall. Jumble lets out a startled ‘eep!’, and hurried footsteps approach from the hall. I sigh through my nose and send my Class Card away, readying myself to share my new findings.

  But Jumble isn’t empty-handed. She holds her Class Card in one hand, and an armful of fabric trails from the other. I raise an eyebrow at her as she appears in the doorway, and she returns the motion with a wide smile.

  “We found number four.” She says excitedly. “And from the looks of the logs, you found something cool too. Time to regroup?”