Kinda a short chapter, but I'll make up for it in the next one.
Going in the middle of the day was probably the most ingenious plan that Pence had ever come up with. The day was for planning, and the night was for carrying out those plans, so it had been since the dawn of mischief. But now they had an almost sure-fire way of succeeding; during the daytime, almost everyone seemed simply too busy to keep track of them.
Dodging Seifer and his gang was an average experience, no harder or easier than usual, nothing out of the ordinary. Unknown to the kids, Seifer was kicking himself for not confiscating that map when he had the chance.
"Maybe I can get it from them later. Say it's for the search or something." He thought. But first he'd have to find them.
Hayner had plotted out their pathway the previous night. They met at the Usual Spot, and then they took the tunnels, and then the rooftops. Lying in wait on top of some restaurant until the coast was clear to make a dash for the hole in the wall, he outlined the rest of the plan.
"There might have been someone posted there to keep us out, but we've all been off being suspicious elsewhere for quite some time, and the adults are all understaffed, so they probably didn't bother to post anyone yet."
"All the more reason to make this trip count." Olette said, peering over the edge of the roof. "If we get caught before we find anything good, we may not get back inside."
"From this angle, our biggest problem is the people in the restaurant. If they see us acting weird, and with everyone on high alert, they may just talk to the wrong people." Hayner continued.
"The best way to do this is to hide in plain sight." Pence said. "The key here is to not look suspicious, or like we're up to something."
"Not gonna happen." Hayner said. "The call went out yesterday. Turns out our parents really were just that cheesed at us for breaking curfew all week. They got together to talk about this 'problem,' and then went to the police, who then issued a bulletin asking people to keep an eye out for us."
"What? Why didn't anyone say anything?" Olette gasped.
"Duh. Because we got in late last night, and probably were all standoffish. I know I was. And then we left at the crack of dawn this morning." Pence told her.
"It's the curse of living in a small town." Hayner said. "And of being easily recognizable. And desirable. And good-looking."
The usual good-humored attempts to deflate Hayner's big head were passed around.
"All right. Here's how we're going to do this." Hayner said to his friends. "We're going to keep an eye out for the train, and we're going to look for one that's passing by and has as few passengers as possible. Preferably none."
Olette and Pence nodded.
"Then we're going to make the jump from off this roof to the top of the train, and from the train to the ground on the far side. The driver won't see us because he has to keep his eyes on the road, and no one in the restaurant will see us, first because the train will be in the way, and then because we'll be too far away to catch their attention from their meal."
It was a good plan. But easier said than done. Neither Olette nor Pence were much of a jumper. Still, as the day rolled on, they found a train in the slow hours that suited their needs, and though Olette twisted her ankle a little, she still made it to the hole in the wall with the guys.
"Do you think anyone saw us?" She wondered.
"No. And don't look back. You might be seen."
The gravity of what they were about to do was hard to keep off during the boring walk through the woods. Action was a lot more unnerving that just sitting and waiting for something to happen. Conversation was stressed, tense. Olette shrieked when an animal of some kind dashed out across their path and into the bushes on the other side. Hayner was irritable, which wouldn't have surprised any of the other town residents, but was nonetheless an unusual experience for his friends. Pence said little the entire trip, lapsing into the quiet boy he became when separated from his buddies.
The gate to the mansion was a welcome sight, as it signaled the end of this rainy-day parade. They tiptoed up to the building, and Hayner began poking around for the things he had used to break in a few nights ago. With a thick log to boost them up, and some tools to gently pry into a low window, the three slid silently into the menaced inside of the otherwise beautiful house. Here, their nerves go the better of them, and the three of them bounced as quickly as they could around the rubble and over to the second story, making as little noise as possible. The creaking of the door to the room with the secret passage was like thunder in their ears, they were all sure that it could be heard from at least the next town over.
The gaping entry into the basement was still open, and still just as forbidding as always. Hearts pounding and mysteriously short of breath, they walked shoulder to shoulder down the stairs.
Pence pensively typed in 'sea-salt icecream.'
The computer booted up with the expected flicker and whirr. Hayner and Olette loafed around the room, peering into corners in the dim light from the computer screens.
They poked around in the drawers and cabinets, shifted around books and diagrams, and dusted off unidentified pieces of machinery. But mostly they waited. And waited. And waited some more.
They waited patiently for Pence, who had the more interesting, and more frustrating, job. He knew from before that this computer was a real piece of work, designed differently and running differently from anything that people from this world used. Still, with a little trial and error, he could navigate its contents.
What he found was aggravating, confusing, and a little creepy. Whoever it was that made this thing was some sort of mad voyeur. There was information on everybody, from speech patterns to bodily functions. The programmer had been spying on the entire town, seemed like. But there were inconsistencies. There were two sets of data for everything. And while one set of data did influence the other, the differences between the two remained, deliberately, and in the most bizarre ways. Pence traced these differences, used them as markers for his search. As he came closer to the truth, his breath hitched, he started thinking in circles. This could not be happening.
Finally, he had to pull away. The implications of what was going on were astounding.
Hayner and Olette were at his side, soothing him until he found the strength to tell them of his discovery. With his back hunched over and his face in his hands, he tried to convey the horror of the data within the computer.
"We know of the other traverse town." He said. "Sora went there. I opened the gate for him. We all remember that."
Nods and 'uh-huh's' from the others.
Pence was having trouble breathing, having trouble spitting it out.
"The guy who made this made a fake Twilight Town by spying on the real one. This computer system continues to watch us, to watch the entire town, even in his absence. It automatically updates the fake town with the weather, the actions of all the people, the patterns of our daily lives. But it also adds in some differences. You can look and see how the towns are different.
Pence wiped off sweat that had accumulated on his forehead and around his neck, even in the cold of the metallic room. "Roxas is in there." He said.
"He is?" Hayner said, excitement slipping into his voice, and Olette gave a little squeal of joy. "He's in there now? Let's go get him!"
"No. No. He's not in there now." Pence hated disappointing them like this. "I can't find where he is now. But there's data in there that shows us exactly where he was, from entry to exit."
"So we can find him?"
"No. Because you can't find what does not exist."
Like I said, short. But the next one will be much longer.
