It felt a little strange with Sans gone after a solid day of never being out of his sight. You would have expected to get sick of him in that time, but surprisingly the two of you had become very comfortable near each other. Well, not anymore. You weren't sure where things stood now.

It took the rest of the afternoon to get the papers sorted. Undyne spent over an hour explaining the organizational system of the papers, and even then, you were pretty sure it was total nonsense. She became very frustrated when you couldn't understand why would there be an entire pile dedicated to files that have seven syllables in the name. In a fit of exasperation, she accidentally kicked the pile. Papers flew everywhere and the mess doubled in size. After that, Papyrus excused himself to check on his brother. He took a long time to come back—you suspected to escape the growing chaos downstairs.

Eventually, Alphys switched you to recording duties while she and Undyne worked on paper sorting. She showed you how to work with a spreadsheet program and record every single project name, start and end date, and budgetary breakdown. It was horrible mind-numbing work, so Alphys offered to play some anime in the background for everyone to enjoy. Because it was in Japanese you couldn't follow the plot as you worked, but you still enjoyed the over-the-top voice acting and colorful music of Mew Mew Kissy Cutie as you typed.

You were grateful to have your friends, the repetitive work, and loud anime to distract you from the troubles that would otherwise weigh heavily on your mind. No, you would not let yourself think about Gaster. You began humming to yourself, absolutely not at all feeling vulnerable to another encounter. You kept your eyes glued to the monitor. Everything was fine. You were fine. I'm safe. I'm safe. Something touched your back and you gave a startled shout.

"Oh! U-um, sorry."

You turned to see Alphys and felt relief. It was just her. Everything's still fine. You smiled. "It's okay, just surprised me. Um, what is it?"

The lizard tapped her claws against each other. "I just, um, thought maybe you'd like a break? You haven't moved in three hours."

Wow, you had no idea. You tried to climb out of the chair, but almost fell in the process. You hadn't realized a leg had fallen asleep, and your back was so sore from hunching over. You took a few seconds to stretch and rub your leg as it painfully returned to life. As you did, you noticed that Papyrus had finally returned; he was helping Undyne sort some old binders by weight (for some reason). A beach episode of Mew Mew was playing on the television.

"S-so, I was looking for things in the basement earlier. Until the, um, until we had to go help you and Sans. I think it's time to try looking again." She offered a nervous smile. "Maybe you'd, um, like to come help me search the basement? Just to walk around?"

"What about the—" You stopped yourself. You weren't supposed to know about the Amalgamates in this life. She must have them under control if she was inviting you downstairs. You smiled back at the scientist and nodded. "Sounds fun."

A short elevator ride later, you were in the basement. But it wasn't the True Lab as expected—turns out there was another underground floor just below the main. That made sense. You had never had opportunity to look before; the elevator always broke in past lives. "U-um, back when Gaster was the R-Royal Scientist, a lot of monsters worked here. This floor was for administration and, um, offices. I don't think Gaster's old office has been touched since he died. I was trying to get in. Surely we could find something there. It's, uh, locked though."

Your eyebrows raised. "Why didn't you tell us about it before? We could've…"

Alphys shrugged. "I-I didn't think of it until you left. I figured I'd look myself, but I didn't get far before Undyne called and told me what Sans did. And then when you came back, well, we needed to get things back on track with the files upstairs. A-also, I didn't want to give Sans another reason to stay awake. This was the first good opportunity to say something."

You nodded and gave her an understanding smile. "Well, that's alright. When Sans wakes up, this can be a new surprise for him." Alphys smiled back.

"Come on! L-let me show you where it is… we just don't have a way inside." You followed her as she quickly scurried through the bland halls and corridors, until you both arrived to the door of a large office. It didn't look very spectacular, but the sign reading "W. D. GASTER" on the frosted glass window informed you this was your destination. You peered through the window, but all you could see was darkness inside.

"Where would the key be?" You looked back at Alphys. She smiled and shrugged. You bit your lip thoughtfully. "Should we just… break the door down?"

"Uh, I… guess?" The lizard scratched her chin. "I don't think anybody would mind."

You smiled. "We could use the phone! It shoots pellets, right?"

Alphys smiled. "How did you know about that?"

"I was, er, playing with it." That was a lie, you had barely touched your upgraded phone except for notetaking, but the pellet function came in handy in many previous lives during fights with Mettaton Ex.

Alphys stood back as you aimed the cellphone at the glass. It took a few shots to break the window. You reached in, mindful of the broken glass, to unlock the door from the inside. You and Alphys exchanged triumphant grins and cautiously stepped inside. It smelled like mildew; you wondered how long it's been since someone had cleaned up in there. Alphys found the light switch.

The office was humble, but large. Filing cabinets lined the walls. There was a desk and chair at the center, perfectly tidy, with a small wastebasket to side. Alphys picked a random cabinet to behind her search and you sat at the desk and began shuffling through the drawers. The bottom one, you noticed, was locked. You decided to focus your search for a key. As you looked, a question came to mind.

"Did you ever work for Gaster?"

"Um, no. H-he was before my time—I was just a kid when he died. I became Royal Scientist a few years later, but the title doesn't mean as much now. I'm the only one who works here now."

"Why does nobody else work here anymore?" You asked. You had found an old calendar in the top drawer and looked through it as you spoke.

"He and twelve other monsters disappeared all at once, one day. N-nobody really knows what happened." Alphys pulled a stack of manila folders from one of the cabinets and sat them down on the floor. "It was, um, a big deal. Some monsters accused the King of some kind of cover up. I don't think that's right, though. I think he was just as scared and confused as the rest of us. He shut down the lab entirely for a while because of it all. But when he saw what I did for Mettaton, you don't know him but he's really cool, the King started the lab up again and hired me as Royal Scientist. It's a, uh, lonely job now."

"So, did you know much about the Constant? Back where Sans and Papyrus live?"

Alphys looked at you and smiled. "I know of it. Upstairs we have a few files on it, even. It's a weird thing, huh? But powerful, I can see why Sans uses it as our server." She chuckled. "I wonder if it even works. For, you know, time travel."

"Um. I guess we'll never know." You replied, hopefully not sounding suspicious. Unfortunately, all of the accessible drawers were pretty empty and revealed very little about Gaster. You would have to try the locked one. "Didn't anybody else investigate this room after the disappearance?"

"Um, if they did, I don't know about it. This place seems untouched."

"Where were they last seen when they all disappeared?" Looking at the drawer, you decided the only way to get in would be to take it apart.

"Um, here in the lab." You could hear the nervousness in her voice. "There's a, er, a deeper level. We can't go there. It's not safe to visit." You guessed she was referring to the True Lab.

You were happy to see the desk was cheaply made—the back of it was a thin piece of wood attached to the frame with large staples. Dumb old Gaster probably didn't expect someone to just get in this way. You found a screwdriver function in your phone (hey, if it came with a jetpack and a gun, why not that?) and used it to wedge the back off of the desk frame. You didn't realize Alphys was staring at you.

"Um, what're you doing there?"

You looked over at her and smiled. "Locked drawer."

Once the wood was removed, you were happy to see you could now see the backs of each of the drawers. You pushed all of the unlocked ones out as far as they would go, allowing you access to the locked drawer from the back of the desk. You couldn't open it, but you could still reach inside. You couldn't help but smile, feeling victorious and clever, as you put your hand inside. There was only one thing in it, a single sheet of paper, which you pulled out to reveal…

A crossword puzzle. Of course. You stared blankly at the sheet of paper. There was a cartoon of Ice-E in the top left corner who, at that moment, seemed to be grinning mockingly. It was mostly incomplete except for one word filled out in red ink, but in strange symbols instead of letters.

Alphys peered over your shoulder to see and let out a chuckle. "Oh, yeah, that's Gaster's alright."

"It's very… hard to read." You frowned.

"Yeah, he wrote in Wing Dings. It's a, um, type of code, but not hard to break, really. He did stuff like this a lot. He was kind of eccentric." Alphys pulled out her phone for a moment and showed you a simple table. Each Wing Dings symbol corresponded to a letter of the alphabet. "Maybe he didn't want someone copying his answers, ha ha…"

You took the phone and used it to quickly transcribe the single written answer in your head. Looking at the corresponding hint, Gaster was clearly off to a bad start on this puzzle. He definitely misspelled "residue" for the question about dirty dishes left unwashed by a dog. You turned the paper over and found something else on the back-a short, hastily scribbled note in Wing Dings. Now that looked far more interesting. The translation, however, was nonsense. You read it aloud for Alphys.

"CD /G/SP USR DOG"

"That's, um…" The scientist looked at you. "I don't know what to make of that."

You let out a frustrated sigh and stuffed the paper into your pocket. "Probably something stupid. Let's just get what we need and head out."

Alphys smiled. "L-let me just go get something to put all these files in to take upstairs. I think I found everything we need." She began to step out.

"Wait! Uh, I need to stay with you." You jumped up to follow her. "You know, um. Because of Gaster?"

"Oh my god!" Alphys' eyed widened. "I completely forgot you, uh…" She smiled nervously. "I'm sorry. I wasn't even thinking about that."

You smiled weakly. "It's okay, but… well, I'm not safe by myself. Sorry."

"No, no! I'm sorry." The two of you looked at each other a few moments, feeling awkward. "Uh… well let's go!"

If you know what the back of the note means, you might be a little bit of a nerd. Just saying. If you don't know, I don't blame you. Either way, all will probably be revealed in the next chapter.

Also, totally off topic, but the new episode of Steven Universe was so freaking good. I wasn't ready. My poor heart can't handle cuteness of that magnitude.