New Hope University School of Ultimates: South Quad

Even more so than the rest of the campus, NHU's South Quad is dedicated to the philosophy of change, evolution, and adaptability! As the best examples of the young generation, School of Ultimates students prove each day that learning and growth are values that can only be achieved through open-mindedness, tolerance, and flexibility! (though don't tell those stodgy old coots in the East Quad!)

Notable locations:

Goins Social Science Pavilion
Move aside, stairs! Take a hike, hallways, floors, and ceilings! Always on the forefront of design and technology, NHU is proud to house the Goins Pavilion; not a building but rather an everchanging and everexpanding collection movable, educational "pods."

Each pod is dedicated to a single question within the larger field of social science. Can rats who have been dosed with ketamine distinguish between blue and purple? Does a country's rate of homelessness in anyway correlate with its rates of corn meal consumption? Why aren't psychopaths just murdering people all the time? How did ancient meso-Americans craft their percussive instruments? These are just a few of the important projects happening all around you in this exciting, fair-like atmosphere!
Potential murder weapons: Highly variable.

DORM: UPSTAIRS HALLWAY

Katy and I just looked at each other for a moment, matching shocked expressions on our faces. Then, just like the sun coming from behind clouds, she let out a huge, delighted smile.

She pressed her index finger up against her lips and pointed into Lucina's room. "She's sleeping!" she whispered. Then she grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me down the hallway towards her own room. I was too surprised to stop her from opening the door and pulling me inside.

In the safe and comfortable confines of her room, she grabbed me by both hands and jumped up and down, letting out a high-pitched squeak of joy. "Saya!" she sang, "she likes me, she likes me!"

She spun in a reeling circle, hugging herself, apparently not having noticed how nonplussed I was. "Of course, I have a certain effect on girls... I always have. But Lucina! Oh, how wonderful..."

I eventually found my voice in time to ask a very stupid and rude question. "Did you really have sex with her?"

"Oh, my!" Katy pressed both palms against her blushing cheeks, but her grin gave away her lack of embarrassment. "Oh, I could never give away personal details of my private adventures!" She waved her hand at me. "Naughty Saya."

Dumbly, I wondered why I wasn't able to turn my emotions off like I could when there was a murder. Was I actually feeling more from this than when someone died?

I found myself thinking of Nicole, and I realized I had a decision to make. She killed because she couldn't trust anyone, but she had hope for changing the world, too.

My mind filled with viciously seductive ways to ruin Katy. To make her think Lucina didn't really like her, to make her think everyone hated her for being gay, to ruin her confidence and kindness. I suddenly realized what the mastermind knew already... she'd be so easy to turn into a murder victim. Maybe not as easy as it seemed at first... but still easy.

But... that would prove Nicole right about the trust and wrong about the hope. And what a stupid, stupid thing to die for.

"I'm happy for you," I said.

She galloped in place. "Me too, me too! I'm not jumping any guns yet, of course, but I think this might turn into something! I have a sixth sense for girl's love, you know..."

I was clenching my left fist very, very hard, and I tried to clench it harder, sending all my anger and jealously down into that hand. I was able to smile softly. "Listen... I really am happy for you, but I think I'll have a really hard time hearing you talk about this. You don't have to hide anything, but, um... is it okay if you don't talk to me about it in detail?"

She gasped. "Oh! I'm so sorry, I didn't realize. Of course! Emily died and you never... oh Saya, I'm sorry to be so insensitive."

I nodded and it felt like rocks scraping against each other in my neck. "Yeah. I miss Emily."

She flung her arms around me and squeezed tight.

Before he died, Morgan told me that he trusted me. But I didn't trust him, and I really didn't trust the Vandal, and they were now dead. About half of us had died, all because we were idiots and couldn't trust each other.

I put my arms around Katy and squeezed back. I was in college now; I was too mature to let some high-school drama wreck the trust I had in my allies.

Bizarrely, I felt myself relaxing.

MAIN QUAD

After leaving Katy's room, I went to the gym and ran for a long time, and I felt better afterwards. I was succeeded at not thinking about anything, and I even got back into my chess-thinking groove. After a quick shower, I felt refreshed and rested, though not exactly back up to my usual self.

After I took literally one step out the door of the gym, I heard a loud banging noise cut through the air. I shrieked and dropped to the ground, covering my head. The banging noise continued rhythmically.

I looked up and saw, sitting in the middle of the quad, a collection of electronic equipment surrounding Rocky and Rodrigo, who were talking casually. I noticed there were speakers set up, and the banging noise was an electronic drum beat.

I decided the best course of action was just to stand up and casually walk over to them, hoping everyone would just ignore the fact that I'd just thrown myself into a terrified heap because music was playing.

Luckily, I'm not sure they even noticed. Rocky looked up as I approached, waving and giving me a more relaxed smile than I'd seen on him in days. He leaned over to Rodrigo as I walked up. "Okay, try pushing that button there."

Rodrigo complied, and a piano loop started playing over the drum loop. "Hah!" Rodrigo yelped, looking totally delighted. "May I push the button next to it?"

Rocky scratched his head. "Hm. Sure, go for it."

Rodrigo pushed the button. A second drumbeat began playing under the first. It sounded kind of tinny and weird, but Rodrigo thrust his fist up into the air. "It is amazing!" he bellowed. "I am an entire congress of troubadours, all in myself!"

Rocky reached over and turned a knob; the pitch of the piano rose. "It goes up!" Rodrigo yelled. "Miraculous!" He wobbled the knob back and forth, sending the music's pitch all over the place.

He suddenly gasped and jerked his hands back from the equipment. "Friend Rocky," he whispered. "Could you play... the Devil's Interval?"

Rocky looked back at him blankly. "The hell is that?"

"It's a diminished fifth," I answered. They both looked back at me in surprise, and I felt myself cringe a little. "Um... I don't actually really know what that means, someone told me it once. I have a really good memory."

Rocky shrugged. He switched off the beat that was playing and reached over to the small keyboard, playing an eerie and odd-sounding chord.

Rodrigo frowned, disappointed. "I thought it would be more... malevolent."

Rocky smirked. "That sounds like a challenge! This can be our project, okay? Let's make a totally evil house song based on tritones." Rodrigo nodded back, intrigued.

I raised an eyebrow. "You two are in a pretty good mood," I observed.

"On the contrary," Rodrigo replied. "I am awash in grief and fear, and I believe Friend Rocky is the same."

"Total mess!" Rocky confirmed.

"But I refuse to respond with acrimony!" Rodrigo continued. "The mastermind here is just one of many individuals who have worked to break my faith and spirit. I simply refuse."

"Roddy helped me get my music stuff from my studio," Rocky explained. "If the rest of my life is dead bodies and trials, all I can do is go out doing what I love, right? When he explained it that way, it just made sense."

I found myself nodding. "I think... I'm kinda the same. Three people died yesterday, but I feel more determined than ever to survive this place, because all this death is just so stupid and pointless. These people could have been our friends, and..." I chuckled dryly. "God. Ashley was supposed to be president someday. I don't know how much I can owe people I knew for a week and a half, but I'd just feel really dumb if I got murdered, at this point."

"Well said." Rodrigo's encouraging expression was strained; he somehow looked really young and really mature at the same time. "I am slowly coming to the conclusion that being insolent in the face of cruelty is the final lesson a paladin must learn."

Rocky shrugged. "I'm just trying to not flip out again." He squinted at me. "Hey... you're smart. Why do you think Earl did it?"

"We're not even sure he did," I pointed out. "We never had a vote about him."

"Yeah, I guess so." Rocky shook his head. "Part of what's been driving me nuts is trying to figure out why someone would murder. I knew a guy that got murdered, and that was just getting stabbed in a fight. Just not even thinking, just pow, dead. And I get that, I get killing someone 'cause you don't know what you're doing. But these murders here? Nicole and Juliet and Therion had all these big ideas, like it was all for some abstract vision, and I don't get any of that shit, that makes my head hurt."

"I believe, Friend Rocky, you are lucky to not understand such things," Rodrigo said.

"You know what I read somewhere?" I ventured. "Most psychopaths actually have pretty low IQs. We have this idea of the brilliant evil murderer, but it barely exists. The people who actually work to plan out a murder carefully are doing it for money."

Rodrigo nodded. "Jealousy and greed, the basest of motivations. Godparents of murder, since Cain slew Abel."

"Yo, but Therion and Nicole weren't after money!" Rocky said.

"I was thinking about something recently," I said, which was a lie, but I was thinking about it now, and my mind was racing. "One of the ways they turn people into terrorists is, they tell them over and over that they're important. You take powerless people and tell them they're important, and they'll, uh... turn bad, I guess. So maybe the most dangerous place to be is trapped with a bunch of kids who've all been told over and over... well, that they're the best at something."

We looked at one another uncomfortably.

DORM: NICOLE'S ROOM

I felt a lot of weird emotions as I found my way into Nicole's unlocked room. Besides the fact that I had never been in a situation to have to fulfil someone's last request before, this was a person I kind of had wanted to be friends with, and who had just indirectly tried to kill me because she thought it'd be good for the world if I died.

The turtleneck was in a side room on an ironing board sitting among piles of yarn and thread. It looked awesome, of course. I held it up under my chin in front of a mirror; it accented my paleness, but not in a way that made me look like I was wearing clown paint; I looked moody and intense and bohemian. It was a little tight for my usual comfort-level… but maybe I was ready for that?

Goddamn it, Saya, you're fucking good at chess, that doesn't mean everyone has to fucking pay attention to you all the time.

I lowered the sweater and glowered a little at my reflection. I turned to go, but in so doing I noticed a piece of white paper on the ironing board under where Nicole had left the sweater. It had my name written at the top of it in beautiful script.

Looking closer, I noticed it was mostly just a list of six or seven names and addresses. All the addresses were in Detroit, Michigan, and three of the names ended in 'Archina.' "DON'T FORGET THEM" was scrawled at the top.

Her family. Her people. The ones she was always so protective of. If she'd just kept her head down, she might have been able to make it. And Earl would be alive… or at least if he wasn't, we'd have closure for Ashley. Just…

I sighed. I couldn't get bogged down in what-ifs. Morosely, I folded the paper and slipped it into my back pocket, then I draped the sweater over one of my arms. Maybe I'd wear it later if I had the guts.

DORM: UPSTAIRS HALLWAY

As I stepped out of Nicole's room, I saw Bepi walking cagily down the hallway. I froze, remembering him yelling at me the night before, but he just beckoned me over.

"Hey," he said as I approached. "Come look at something with me, wouldja?"

"What…?" I asked, but he was already walking away back down the hallway. He stopped at Earl's room and pulled it open. I followed him in, still pretty confused.

DORM: EARL'S ROOM

"Hold on," I said, as we stepped into the immaculately clean room. "Why are you showing me? I kind of thought you wouldn't want to talk to me."

"Huh?" He paused, then shook his head. "Oh, because of last night. Saya, I'm not mad at you, I'm just worried." He went to the window and looked down. The scar in the ground made by Barrett and the Vandal that very first week was still stark and ugly down in the quad. "I told you I was good at keeping my buddies alive in the field, right?"

"Uh. Yeah. You said something like that."

"Well, it's true. I was really good at it. But I wasn't perfect. And that's a shitty spot to be in, you know? I'm good enough that I don't have to just expect it'll happen... but it still happens sometimes. I never got numb."

"Isn't that good, though?" I pointed out. "I don't know what it's like out there, but keeping more people alive has to be better than fewer, right?"

He glared back at me, then sighed. "Maybe. Either way, I failed Ashley, and I got worried I was gonna fail you, too. I'm over it, now."

"Oh," I said. "That easy?"

"Uh, yeah. Juliet showed up in my room at three a.m. last night. Kinda put things in perspective."

I blinked at him. "Hold on, what happened?"

He rolled his eye. "Told me she was in love with me. Tried to get me to murder her."

"Holy shit, Bepi, how'd she even get in your room?"

"That is a very good question." He shook his head gruffly. "Don't take it too seriously, I don't think she was trying particularly hard to convince me it wasn't bullshit. Just fucking with me to have the power."

"Of course," I grunted. "For an evil psychopath, she sure does just seem to try to get on people's nerves."

"Forget it," he said, waving his hand in the air dismissively. "She's being confusing on purpose to drive us nuts trying to figure her out." He turned and gestured to a small, nearby room. "Speaking of going nuts trying to figure something out, lemme show you this thing I found."

He walked into the room, continuing to talk over his shoulder as I followed him. "I still don't think Earl killed Ashley, so I came here to try to get some answers. And I found… this."

The room was filled with small pieces of machinery, mechanical blueprints, and tools. But Bepi led me over to the corner, where there was a small pile of paper. The top paper I recognized: it was the folded sheet that Therion gave me just before his execution. But underneath it were more official-looking documents, each one marked with the header New Hope University School of Ultimates: Killing Game Intervention

My mouth hung open as I flipped through the papers. Before I even read the words, I focused on the odd stains and spatters, colorful marks on almost every page. "Paint…" I said out loud. "Did… did these come from Morgan's room?"

"Must have," Bepi answered.

"I searched it after his murder, but I wasn't looking for this kind of thing," I said.

"I looked around the next day, but there wasn't anything like this," Bepi replied. "I guess Earl got to it first."

I scanned over the pages. They were all obtuse and technical and out-of-context, but I tried to piece together what information I could. "It's… a grant application? Like, they're asking for money to build this place." I blinked, then looked up in bewilderment. "Someone gave people money to do this to us?"

Bepi took the papers, flipped to one of them, and showed me. "Not just 'someone.'"

I looked. At the bottom of the page, in ugly, bold font, it read: Funding Institution: UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

"The… government?"

"The fucking army."

I found myself shaking my head, flipping through the pages looking for some kind of evidence this was all fake. "Nicole was right? No, that can't… Why would the government do this to us? This doesn't…"

But all I found was more of the same. There was a big block of text that wasn't too covered by paint, and I could make out terms like "social conformity" and "undesirable youth" and "refusal to respect authority."

"Kill off the bad ones," Bepi said. "And turn the good ones into people you control."

I sat back, looking blankly up at the ceiling. "When this was just an abstract possibility, I totally believed it. 'Oh yeah, the government would totally make up some death game to keep talented kids in line; that's completely plausible.' But looking at this right here in front of me… I just can't wrap my head around it."

"You know what the funniest part is?" Bepi took the papers and flipped to a particular one, showing me. It was the end of whatever document this was; it was a name and a date and a signature. "It's not even the government's idea. They're funding it, but some guy just came up with this. 'Eugene Alameda.' Some professor."

"So he's the mastermind?" I ventured. "But no one here is old enough to be a professor. And… look, this date was eleven years ago. He's been doing this over a decade. There's no way he's one of us." I frowned. "Monokuma must have lied."

"Just like a spoiled child!" a squeaky voice piped up behind us. I flung myself around to see Monokuma standing there in the doorway. Bepi stepped slightly in front of me, muscles tensed, but the ridiculous bear just pressed his paws against his mouth and tittered. "Young people always think they know best. Always trying to change the world, when they don't even have control over themselves! Always looking to blame society or the government instead of looking within!"

"Who's Eugene Alameda?" Bepi asked coldly.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Monokuma snapped. "You kids and your slang words! 'I'm going to go Netflix and chill with Eugene Alameda because my purple drank is so woke!' Speak English!"

"You lied to us," I said. "The mastermind was never one of us."

"I am a professional educator, and I would never lie to my students!" he growled, stomping his little feet. "Not about something you need to know for the final exam!"

I started to speak, then I paused. "Wait, what? Final exam?"

Monokuma's paws grabbed the sides of his head and he stiffened in horror. "What! No! What? I never said anything about a final exam! I said 'I would never lie to my students' and then I just was silent and you must have hallucinated me speaking because you're probably on drugs!"

I glanced up at Bepi. "Why would we need to know things about the mastermind for our… final exam?"

"Aa!" Monokuma bounced around the room. "No! I'm broken! See? Remember? Whoaaa I'm malfunctioning because my computers got blown up! I'm just talking nonsense!"

Suddenly, the speakers above us, crackled to life. Monokuma's voice began blaring: "Attention, surviving students! This is a pre-recorded announcement to inform you that a new section of campus will be accessible starting tomorrow morning. It is important for you to remember that information you find in the new area will be relevant for your final exam! Make sure to seek out information about the mysterious Dr. Alameda!"

The voice cut off, and Monokuma looked back at us blankly. "Hold on," he said, "how many murders have there been, again? I just opened up the frat house, right?"

"I think Monokuma is still malfunctioning," I remarked.

"I am not malfunctioning!" He shrieked, then bounced into the air and disappeared.

Bepi shook his head in contempt. "See, this is where Ashley would say we need to look for all this evidence to do well on the exam, because it'll be good for us. And it's where Nicole would say we need to not look for any of this evidence, because it's what the mastermind wants us to do." He started to leave. "They're dead, though. So."

And then he just left. I looked helplessly down at the pages of the grant application.

DORM: SAYA'S ROOM

I spent the rest of the day by myself, trying to avoid running in to Lucina or Katy. I did go and find Rocky and Rodrigo ('RoRo,' as I'd been idiotically calling them in my head) to show them the pages from the grant application. I was worried that was a mistake, but then I thought of Earl sitting along in his room, the only one other than the mastermind who knew it. When they promised to tell everyone else they saw (except Juliet), I felt nothing but relief.

As I hunkered in my room, staring at the chess set playing out simulations in my head, I found myself dreading the coming night. I hadn't dreamt the night before… I just rejected Lucina, blinked, and woke up to Katy coming out of her room. But there was something so enervating about the idea of more Murderer's Theater, packed full of people but still not full yet. I staved off sleep until very early in the morning, but I finally conked out.

Almost immediately, the scene came up. JP, broken in the corner. Therion, staring straight forward at me. In the back, Earl led Nicole in some sort of tai chi exercise, but they simultaneously argued with one another, angrily and silently.

For the first time, I realized they were on some sort of movie set. There was a fake backdrop, like a big painting of a landscape and a horizon stretching out behind them; Monokuma sat nearby in a director's chair, waving his little paws around.

"What makes belief true?" Therion asked, his voice a reverberation in the vacuum. "Plain answer: belief that corresponds with reality, and based on observations. But insufficient."

He gestured over to Nicole, who just kept ignoring him and copying Earl's movements. Therion looked back to me, and when he spoke, his voice was Nicole's. "Like, okay. So, there's this farmer. Cow farmer. And this one cow is missing, right? And he's trying to find his cow. And he tells his wife this one cow is missing. And she goes, 'Oh, you know that cornfield next to the road? I saw her there.'

"The farmer's like, 'Nice!' And he goes over to the road and starts going down it, looking for the cow. And he sees this brown and white cloth draped across some of the corn stalks, right? And from the distance it looks just like the cow. And he realizes that's what his wife saw."

Therion stood in the least Nicole-ish way I could imagine, but the voice just kept coming. "But then he gets even closer! And he sees the cow behind the cloth! The cow was in the cornfield after all! So…"

Like a switch, he flipped over back to his own voice. "…was belief of farmer's wife true or not? Cow was in cornfield. Belief corresponded with true reality. Belief justified by observation. But observation not really of cow. Farmer's wife not lying. Not mistaken. But did she know?"

He wiped his mouth with his hand and when he spoke again, it was with Nicole's chipper voice. "You need to think about who you really are, kid. There's way too much you think you know."

I woke up slowly.

MAIN QUAD

Even though I stayed up so late, it was still pretty early when I stumbled out of my room and downstairs. RoRo were out there fiddling with the music equipment, which was nice to see… but Lucina and Katy were there too, watching and chatting. I froze in place, but it was too late; they saw me. Both Katy and Rodrigo waved me over. Lucina just kind of looked.

"Uh, hi," I said, nodding to them all. "How's the song going?"

"We're just gonna be playing around with shit for a while," Rocky replied. "We decided it's going to be a dirge. Y'know, for the people who died?"

"A… house music dirge?" I asked, bemused.

"Hell yeah!" Rocky said. "That's the problem with funerals, not enough dancing! You can't remember someone if your brain's all going nuts, you gotta shut it off. Remember them with your body."

"That… makes a certain kind of sense, I guess," I replied. "Um… is everyone going to go to the new area Monokuma opened up?" I gestured to the south gate, now accessible and open.

"Hell no," Rocky said, and that was that.

"I think we might," Katy spoke up. "I'm still not sure if it's a good idea, but I still have to believe there's a way to escape." She glanced up at Lucina, then blushingly looked away. "Now, especially."

Lucina waved her hands around, causing Katy to nod with determination. "Yeah, I think so, too."

"Wait." I glanced back and forth between them. "Was that… sign language?"

Lucina nodded, expression unreadable. She held up a note: But Katy's the only one who understands it, so I usually talk this way.

"Where'd you learn sign language?" I asked Katy, trying to keep from sounding completely offended.

She blushed slightly. "Oh, I know lots of languages! I would never let a silly thing like that keep me from a beautiful girl, after all…" Lucina blushed too, and I tried to keep my eyes from rolling like they wanted to, partly to be polite and partly because I was legit worried I would sprain something.

"Well. I was going to go to the new area, but I wanted to eat first."

"Oh, perfect!" Katy chirped. "We were just about to go get some breakfast, too!"

Lucina and I both froze. "Uh, Rodrigo? Rocky? You hungry?"

"Nah, go ahead," Rocky said, completely oblivious to any tension.

Left with no other choice, we stiffly followed Katy into the student union, trying not to get too close to one another.

STUDENT UNION: CAFETERIA

I froze when I got to the cafeteria entrance. The entire room had been completely ransacked. Wreckage of tables and chairs were strewn all over, and there was a crater in the middle of the floor filled with the ashes of something that had burned. The food sat as normal on the ledges by the kitchen, looking very odd next to the rest of the room.

Only one chair and small table were upright. Jane sat there, daintily eating some sausage and eggs.

"Oh my god!" Katy exclaimed. "What happened?!" Jane just kept chewing, so Katy ran up to her. "Are you okay? What happened here?!"

"I'm sure I don't know," Jane replied sourly, "and please stop shouting." She gestured around with a complete lack of interest. "Most of the people living here are such monkeys, I barely even notice when things are in disarray, anymore."

"This isn't disarray," Katy argued. "It's… destruction. What could have happened?"

I rubbed my chin in thought. "'Destruction.' Do you think Barrett did this? He demolishes things."

I haven't seen him since the trial, Lucina wrote.

"Me neither," Katy said. "But… why would he do this?"

"Because he's a lunatic," Jane remarked. "And please, eat your breakfast or leave. It's bad enough sitting here in this pigsty, much less hearing you call my attention to it."

Deciding not to pick a fight, we just gathered up what we could of usable chairs and fixed ourselves some breakfast. The meal wasn't too bad, actually. Katy's good mood kept the conversation moving, and Lucina and I didn't have to directly interact much.

When we got up to leave, though, the awkwardness increased. But as we started heading for the exit, Jane's voice called after us. "Oh. Saya. Be a dear and speak with me for a moment, will you? Your hair looks dreadful, and I'm afraid I can't stand it any longer."

We all paused, looking at her. "Uh, what?"

"We must have a productive conversation about your hairstyle." She stood and waved her hand at Lucina and Katy. "Shoo."

Lucina glared, but I said, "Uh, it's okay, I'll catch up with you." After a brief hesitation, they nodded and left. Jane watched them go, then nodded smartly and returned to her second helping of scrambled eggs.

I looked at her with bewilderment. "Um. My hair?"

"Hm?" She actually looked surprised. "Oh! Oh, that was a lie, darling. Well. It was a lie that I wanted to talk to you about it. This was just so you could have a break from those two."

"What? Why would I, uh…"

"Oh, please don't insult my intelligence." She pointed at me with a greasy fork. "And be grateful my sympathy actually outstrips my contempt for the esoteric mundanities of social relationships. I'm a bit surprised by that, myself."

"Thank you," I said automatically, realizing in retrospect that I meant it. "But… why did you insult my hair…?"

She shrugged. "I had to work with what was available, didn't I?" She daintily wiped her mouth with a napkin and stood. "Now. Accompany me to the new area. I had hoped to search it before the middle of the day."

"Um. Sure." But without even waiting for my answer, she had already started walking to the exit. Still addled, I followed.

SOUTH QUAD

The new area was huge, and I could make out no large buildings anywhere; just those stark, huge concrete walls that surrounded everything. But there were large, cube-shaped things all over, like trailers or storage spaces. Each was painted a different color. "Curious," Jane said, approaching the nearest one. One side was open, and we ventured in hesitantly.

SOUTH QUAD: PURPLE AND WHITE MODULE

We found ourselves in a small room with a small television screen on the wall. A nondescript man faced the camera, droningly repeating the same few syllables. "Dah. Fah. Pah. Bah." There was a door at the other end of the room.

I scratched my head in confusion as Jane went to the door and tried in vain to open it. "Are… we supposed to do something in here?" I asked.

"The enticingly locked door suggests yes," Jane replied, "but perhaps not." She huffed. "It is indeed frustrating… SHUT UP!" This was directed to the man on the television, who did not shut up. Jane grunted. "It is indeed frustrating to not be able to access a potential treasure trove of information."

"Hm." I put my hands on my hips. "Maybe it's a good thing. I am a little worried about this 'final exam' thing. Anything we find could be leading us right into a trap."

"Knowing information is always better than not knowing it, and you will not shake my belief in that." Jane poked a finger at the screen, but nothing happened. "Saya, I am going to repeat these ludicrous noises out loud in hopes it will make the door open, and my pride requires you not be present for that. Please explore a different area, and we will reconvene later."

I thought about arguing, but on second thought I realized that was actually a pretty self-revealing thing she had said. "Okay. I'll show you whatever I find."

She didn't respond. I just left.

SOUTH QUAD: THE CRICKET

I approached the largest of the modules, a green box with one open side, a curtain draped over it. A velvet rope was in front of the curtain, and a large sign declared, COMING SOON: THE CRICKET! DO NOT ENTER BEFORE OFFICIAL DEBUT! VIOLATORS WILL BE SHOT FOUR TIMES!

I was already near the sign and finished reading it before I noticed the silent figure standing to my right. It was silent because it was Lucina. She was just kind of hunched over, staring at me unreadably.

"Hi," I said, and then I ran out of things to say. There was a very long pause. Finally, I mustered up, "Where's Katy?"

She pointed over her shoulder vaguely. But in the movements I could tell she was at least as uncomfortable as I was.

I sighed. "Okay. Look, can we talk?"

She held up a message that I think she just had pre-written and ready to go, Nope.

"Engrh…" I waved my hands around uselessly. "Look… if this was just college, I'd agree with you. I'd be moving out of state and changing my name to avoid running into you. But we're in a death game, and I don't think we can afford to lose allies."

She looked very skeptical.

"I really like you," I said. Although it was the worst-kept secret ever, it was still very strange to say it out loud. "When you… uh. The other night, I freaked out and probably hurt your feelings. I'm sorry."

She was still clenched up defensively. I wanted to be with you that night, but I can't deny that I have feelings for Katy too. And at this school, I can't just wait for someone to be ready. Not when I might die at any moment.

I took that in and slowly nodded. "I'm jealous of Katy. I can't change that, not right away. But I promise you can trust me to be on your side. Both of you."

She didn't move for a moment, then she nodded gently. I felt myself relaxing. She wrote out a new note, You're dodging a bullet, really. I'm pretty fucked up.

"Apparently, I'm into that," I remarked. Feeling oddly brave, I took a step closer. "This might be really inappropriate, but can I ask a question? How did you even…. I mean, with her fingernails? Those things are like knives."

She blushed and held up the Nope. message again, but her body language was finally relaxed, too.

"Well, look at these mature students!" a voice yelped from the module next to us. Monokuma stuck his head out from the bottom of the curtain and then grinningly crawled out towards us. "Or so it seems! In my experience, a mature student is just a student who's learned how to lie!" He tittered. "Well, we'll get to the bottom of that!"

I glared at him. "What are you talking about?"

He skipped over to a rope hanging at the side of the curtain and jumped up to try to grab it. It took him a few tries, since it was hanging over his head, but he finally succeeded and yanked the rope down. The curtain fell open.

There was an absolutely grotesque machine inside, just a weird and alien set of wires and jagged terminals. I could make out a series of chairs, arranged in a circle, but everything else just looked completely science-fiction.

"This is The Cricket!" Monokuma announced. "Oh, I'm so excited. You're the first class to experience it! One of our distinguished alumnae invented it, and it is going to be so great!"

"What… is it?"

"Well! You spoiled brats never learned true moral values! You don't have consciences. I can tell, because you keep murdering each other! So this amazing device serves as an external conscience. With The Cricket, any lie you tell will be as plain as the nose on your face."

"Wait." I was sure I hadn't heard him correctly. "With this machine… we can't lie?"

"You can," he clarified. "But everyone will know." He giggled and clapped his paws. "The first Cricket session will be tomorrow. You'll receive an official Monomail about it! Oh, I love when we open up the frathouse…"

As he continued chortling and babbling, Lucina and I looked at one another somehow with expressions of simultaneous hope and hopelessness.

FACT 1: Lucina and Katy are dating now, so there's that

FACT 2: Bepi found a bunch of documents in Earl's room about this program. It's funded by the Department of Defense, and it was created by someone names Eugene Alameda. I told Rocky and Rodrigo about this, and they spread it to the others.

FACT 3: Monokuma's still broken, but he said something about needing to know secrets of the program to pass the 'final exam.'

FACT 4: Someone completely smashed up the cafeteria.

FACT 5: The newly opened area is some kind of big pavilion full of huge storage crates. Monokuma suggested there was information about the program hidden around.

FACT 6: One of the crates contains a machine called The Cricket, which Monokuma says exposes any lie a person tells.