Saturday, October 17th, 2020
The bathroom in Oscar's dorm quad was warm. A damp towel lay on a hook next to the still dripping showerhead. Oscar had already finished his shower, and was currently sitting at his computer while waiting for his hair to dry. His workout with Caspo had taken a good two hours, and he was physically exhausted. His bones were already starting to ache from the arm and leg exercises, but Oscar felt a bit better knowing that he had a friend that would help him improve himself. He had taken this time after his shower to add more gym visits to his weekly schedule, managing to fit many of them in with Caspo. He ended up not hating working out as much as he thought he would, going far enough to feel renewed by the start of the experience. Now, he laid back and began to relax, scrolling through his phone's camera roll to recollect the things that had happened that week. Oscar was only a few days worth of photos into it when he stumbled across a large burst of similar pictures.
"Oh, these are the pictures of the crowd in Chick-Fil-A when we all met. He said to himself. Remembering the group's concern with their mysterious employer, Oscar loaded the photos onto his PC's desktop, and began zooming on the faces. However, as he had taken the photos rather hastily, many had been slightly blurry, while others were borderline unusable. However, there was enough overlap in the sheer amount of photos to account for nearly everyone in the restaurant on that day. Scanning over the faces, none of them appeared too suspicious. He counted maybe 65 students and 20 adults in the building at the time. Some of the faces belonged to Oscar's classmates, and a few were even his professors. There were a decent amount of people looking at the camera when the photos were taken, as his group was making a decent amount of noise at the time.
Oscar became a bit frustrated, unable to find any solid leads. Checking the group chat of his stand user friends, he saw that Emily was explaining the events that had unfolded recently. He had heard of the fire in the political science building, but the videos hadn't shown any stands on them. He had guessed that Emily had gotten herself into some sort of trouble, but was surprised by the explanation of Naka's stand she had given the group. The thought of a horny aircraft carrier did give Oscar a pretty good chuckle. However, as he kept reading, he became more concerned. Emily warned the group about her interaction with Mr. Sandman, as well as what he had said about the Speedwagon Foundation. Jonah chimed into the conversation, spouting concerns that Sandman could be only fear mongering. However, the general consensus was still mixed. This changed, however, when Naka himself was invited to the chat, and began to affirm a lot of what Emily had been saying. He also was trying to apologize to Emily repeatedly, but she told him off by saying that he was being more annoying by repeating himself.
The 'typing ellipses' flashed over Naka's profile picture of an aircraft carrier for a long amount of time, before an all caps message was sent, reading "IF YOU INSULT MY SHIKIKAN AGAIN, YOU WILL FIND MY MERCY IS QUITE FRAGILE!" Another message quickly popped up by Naka, reading "I'm sorry guys, ignore that, Taiho grabbed the phone." Emily's profile image of a red cross began to flash with typing ellipses, but after a few seconds it disappeared without a message sent. With that escapade over with, Oscar asked further about the Speedwagon Foundation, but the rest of the group didn't know much. The only thing said was that Emily and Naka were under investigation by the police for the fire. Jonah also mentioned his concern over the incident with the holes he and Caspo blasted into the student union during their brawl.
Oscar turned his attention to his PC, pulling up a google search for the Speedwagon Foundation. The first result was a Wikipedia article that described the group as a medical research and environmental conservation organization. It was started with oil money from an American tycoon, but the article had a brief mention of the confusing nature of their modern funding paper trail and a lack of financial statements. Clicking back to the google search, he followed up with a few personal blogs, mostly written by skeptics and conspiracy theorists. One of them argued that the group was in contact with aliens and mined crashed asteroids. Another argued that they had covered up information about the 1989 Cairo bombings. Others had claims such as them investigating ghosts and digging up temples in South America. Either way, this spooked Oscar enough to try and dig deeper, but the trail ended there. He couldn't really do much more research without the help of someone more technically minded, and he sighed to himself. He sat back and pondered this information for a while, rubbing his still moist hair as he did so.
Eventually, his stomach argued with him enough to tear his attention from the matter. He threw together a turkey sandwich and cut up some strawberries to go with it. Oscar pulled up some youtube videos to enjoy with his dinner.
…
After dinner, Oscar had cracked open his Anthropology textbook to finish some notes for the upcoming week. He had taken his airpods out and was instead listening to music from his PC speakers while he sat on his bed with the book. Oscar always hated reading the cut-and-dry textbooks of his classes, but forced himself through it to make his family's investment in him worth it. He was around halfway done with the chapter when the music from his pc stopped. He looked up from his notes, as if to stare at the deafening silence. Instead, a new window on his PC was showing, and he got up to read it. The page was a Reddit thread. Oscar never really liked the platform too much, but since his university had a subreddit it was a good place to get campus news and information. Besides, he used other subreddits to advertise his own Youtube videos.
As Oscar read more into the page, he found that the thread had only started around an hour ago. The person who made the post attached an image that was taken earlier that day. Its caption read "These tabling clubs are getting weirder every day." The photo itself showed multiple outdoor tables near the student union, advertising various organizations. The one in the center, however, had the logo of a wagon wheel, the words "Speedwagon Foundation" clearly visible in the middle. Two men in the organization's uniform were at the table, one of which appeared to be talking with a campus police officer. The other was adjusting a sign that read "Keep campus safe! Report suspicious activity to police and the SWF for a chance to win scholarships!" The comments on the post shared confusion but also interest by students, especially for the scholarship rewards. People were even discussing recent events like the fire and the broken wall in the student union.
"Oh this isn't good." Oscar muttered aloud. He went to send the Reddit web address to his phone so he could post it in the group chat, but a glance down at the device showed that a message with the link was already sent. A faint glow faded from around the device as he stared. He looked puzzled for a moment, before he smirked to himself and made another sigh, this time one of relief.
"Welcome back. I'm trying to be less of a dick now." He spoke at his bare PC screen.
"You don't need to tell me that. I can see it for myself." That familiar voice rang out from his speakers.
"Sorry for all that mess I put you through."
Monika's hand appeared and pulled down the browser window more than halfway, before she stepped over it and sat down on top of the window. She was wearing a different outfit than her regular school uniform, a thick plain white t-shirt and jeans. Her hair wasn't in the standard ponytail, but instead in a neat bun.
"As long as you're working to improve things." Monika replied, dangling her legs playfully over the window tabs. "Mentally and physically. Hell, I'm surprised you could handle those plates Caspo gave you."
"You were listening at the gym?" Oscar was taken aback.
"You did have your phone on you." She smirked. However, her smile dissolved when she pointed down at the reddit thread she sat upon. "Although I'm not the only surveillance state you need to be wary of." The top of one of the Speedwagon Foundation hats from the image peaked between her swinging legs and skirt. She followed his gaze and quickly pulled another window holding a word document in front of her body like a towel. "Watch it, Oscar." She demanded with a slight air of playful annoyance.
"Hey, you baited me!" Oscar retorted.
"Maybe I did. What are you going to do about it?" Monika leaned forward with a shit-eating grin.
Oscar just shook his head in amusement.
"I'm going to finish my anthropology homework, that's what."
"Nonsense." Monika interjected. "You can do that later."
"I thought you didn't want me to procrastinate." Oscar rebutted.
"Well I want to talk now, so I'll make an exception. Speaking of procrastination, promise to keep going to the gym more, alright? Look, I'm not trying to sound rude but I just want you to be able to improve yourself."
"Oh, I'm going to." Oscar replied confidently. I don't hate going there, and having a Gymbro helps."
"Gymbro?" Monika tilted her head. Oscar was trying to balance suppressing a blush with explaining the term before she looked it up herself. "You may be spending a bit too much time on the internet." She judged.
"Says the AI."
"I can't even tell whether you mean AI as slang or a blanket term."
Oscar was a bit confused by her statement, but he responded. "If anything, when I refer to you as an AI I'm thinking less of a GLaDOS and more of an XJ-9. If that makes you feel any better, that is."
"Fair enough." Monika smirked. "You must've dug deep for that comparison. Your internet history only goes back so far."
"Alright then, Patriot Act."
"Well, you did like a post that said 'In a mass surveillance state, we are all camgirls'." Monika accused.
"You aren't wrong." Oscar leaned back in his chair with a chuckle, ending the back-and-forth. This quickly changed as he straightened up again, worry on his lips. "What about all my private browsing history? Can other people see that?"
Monika hopped back down into her normal DDLC window. The room there now looked less like a classroom from the game and more like a livable dorm room with many of the same amenities as in Oscar's, just digitized. She lounged in her own chair on-screen as she answered, "Even though it says 'private browsing', someone could still access it if they knew where to look. I took the liberty of deleting most of it." Oscar was about to breathe a sigh of relief until she added "Of course, I did see everything."
His eyes were now the widest they had ever been. "Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck" was all he could utter as thoughts raced through his mind. She saw literally everything. She's disgusted with me, I blew it, she's never going to take me seriously ever again, I'm ruined. These thoughts seemed to be confirmed when he noticed that Monika was laughing her ass off in her digital room.
"You probably think I'm crazy, don't you?" He frantically apologized.
Monika attempted to stifle her laughter enough to respond. "Crazy? Why would I think that?" She giggled, wiping a pixelated tear from her eye. "Look, Oscar. Everyone has skeletons in their closet." She stretched her arms out to emphasize the point. "Yea, I'll admit you like some weird stuff, but more people do than you realize. I could dig up dirt on a ton of people if I wanted to, but that would be a jerk move. I'm just glad that you can -oh, what's the term- 'hide your power level' as long as you have." She explained.
"So you don't think I'm pathetic?"
She shrugged. "I was taken aback a little bit, but since you're my stand user I figured I'd chock most of it to primal instinct. Plus, I was born on the internet, and my exploration of it hasn't really set high standards so far. Plus, it's another aspect of self improvement you can work on." She not-so-subtly hinted, and she could see Oscar visibly slump, even if he didn't realize it. "Don't worry, we're still friends." She gave him a reassuring smile. Wanting to distract Oscar from his embarrassment, she shifted to another topic.
"As much of a miniature surveillance state I might be, there's still the outside surveillance we need to worry about." Monika reminded him by once again pulling up the picture of the Speedwagon Foundation's table to get the previous conversation back on track. "I'm afraid I can't find much more information on these guys than you found yourself earlier. Their security is like nothing I've ever seen. Almost like it's magic."
Oscar nodded. "I am curious about some of those conspiracy theories though. Many of them are inconsistent."
"It's possible that some of these stories could be related to stands." Monika suggested. "Maybe the foundation came here after the reports of the incidents with Caspo and Naka?"
"If that's the case, I'm more concerned about if they're a threat to us or not. They are a private organization, so if we're caught we could be trapped far away from the law." Oscar added.
Monika placed her hand on her chin as she thought this through, nodding slowly all the while. A pixelated detective's hat materialized over her hair as she did so, eliciting a smirk from the freshman. "What if Sandman's lying to us?" Monika asked suddenly. In response to Oscar's eyebrow raise, she continued. "If anything, Sandman and its user are just as untrustworthy as the Speedwagon goons. Maybe he's trying to keep us from talking to them?"
"That does make sense. However, I think we should lay as low as possible for now. If we could just find out Sandman's identity or goals, that would clear some fog." Oscar sat back down after realizing he had instinctively began pacing the cramped dorm room.
"We still don't know who Sandman is talking to each night." Monika offered.
"Good call." Oscar sent another message to the group chat, telling everyone to text anytime they get visited by the mysterious stand. "In that case, I think I should continue to keep your true nature a secret for the time being. It could be wise to save you as a trump card if we need a surprise."
"All they know is that you have the power to look things up really quickly. What else can I do that is worth hiding from the others?" She questioned while opening up a tab in a window next to her.
Oscar gazed at the popcorn ceiling for a moment. The swirling patterns of the plaster danced across his mind as he thought. "Well, you can hop between devices using both the internet and my hands, not to mention you're getting better at hacking every day." He complimented. Monika blushed a little as she signed up for an investing app.
"I was kinda banking on us discovering more powers later on." Oscar admitted. "However, there's no guarantee."
"I have been rather impressed by the more… supernatural powers your friends have shown." Monika scratched the back of her neck, averting his gaze. However, a thought came to her as she snapped her fingers. "Hey, I have an idea. What if we went somewhere to test if I can get some new powers! Since I'm primarily a stand, I may not be bound to purely technical limitations."
Oscar lit up like a lightbulb. "That sounds like a great idea! Maybe then we can better defend ourselves..." He lost his train of thought as he focused on the window that was open next to Monika. "Why are you trading stocks?"
"We may need some extra capital if this situation with the Speedwagon Foundation escalates, so I've been doing market research. I'm beginning to get the hang of it."
"Aren't the markets closed on weekends?"
"They are, I'm trading cryptocurrency right now. That can be traded all day. I don't have much to start with, but I'm pretty confident."
Oscar's smile disappeared. "You used my bank account, didn't you?"
"You may have six and a half dollars left." Monika struck a worried smile, digital sweat drops forming on her forehead. "I assure you I wouldn't do this if I wasn't confident."
"You could've at least asked first. Ugh, well as long as you make money, I can live off of my current groceries for a while. I'll have your neck if you lose my savings." Seeing her nod in embarrassment, he continued. Anyway, we'll leave tomorrow morning. There are some open fields around here that are shielded by tall grass. I can barely see past them when I bike around campus, so we should be able to freely practice there."
"Well it seems like we have a plan. In that case, have a good sleep Oscar. Just leave me to my crypto." Monika winked.
Oscar's brow furled. "Didn't Caspo's stand disappear when Jonah knocked him out?"
"I can use your PC's power to at least keep my background processes running. It's how I've been able to do all my research so far, so don't worry yourself." She smiled at him.
Oscar decided not to overthink her description, and instead crawled into bed, turning to face his stand one more time. "You never cease to amaze me. Goodnight, Monika." She said nothing in return, but "Private Eyes" by Hall & Oates began to play softly from the PC's speakers. A lighthearted groan emanated from the student as he gave a chuckle. As Oscar drifted off into a deep sleep, various pages and tabs on finance were pulled up and analyzed. One of these windows was the steady glow of 4chan's /Biz/ Finance board.