The Good, the Bad, and the Insane

Chapter Six: Troubles By the Score

Six was going over her notes for lack of anything better to do. There was no point in continuing to look for pages both brothers knew she'd never give them, or going to the remaining Ages when they were both deserted. Maybe confronting them hadn't been the brightest idea she had ever had, but in her defense she hadn't entirely known just what it was Sirrus would inadvertently confess to.

All she had was what she had gathered so far because Sirrus was clammed up shut, and Achenar had lost all semblance of sanity he had left. She had thought about threatening to destroy the red book, but she thought Sirrus had managed to figure out she had been bluffing earlier and now wasn't about to believe a word she said. Oh, he had looked furious when she had opened the book again after returning from Mechanical. Refused to say one word to her. Achenar was the opposite. He said plenty to her, just none of it in any way helpful. 'Skin you alive, break your bones, cut out your tongue, blah, blah, blah...'

Six knew she needed to come up with a contingency plan on the chance Atrus had taken her way back home to his grave, but she wasn't quite ready to call it quits. It's never over until it's over, and she hadn't found his corpse yet.

She sighed, and rubbed her face. What if she was stuck on Myst with only the brothers, and Roxie for company? It would certainly be a boring existence. Speaking of boredom, she was sick of looking at the blue display on her pip-boy and changed it to green. She was just in a green mood.

Roxie was off somewhere above ground. Six supposed she ought to go take the elevator to find her before it got too late. The nights on the island were cold ones, she wouldn't want to trap the dog up there in that weather.

The elevator ride was taken in complete silence. It was a damn shame the Mysterious Broadcast didn't reach wherever in cosmos she was because she could really go for a some smooth jazz to improve her mood. Six had looked all over the living quarters for something that played music, but came up with nothing. There had been the organ in the rocket ship, but she was not going all the way out there for an instrument she didn't really know how to play. Agatha had taught her the violin, but there wasn't one around and she could only play about two songs adequately anyway.

The elevator door opened in that abrupt motion it had, and she stepped out to find Roxie. When she walked into the library she was glad to find her fears that the dog would be playing in the ocean again unfounded. Roxie was sniffing around the fireplace looking every bit in deep concentration as she was when she was tracking someone.

"What is it?" Six asked, startling the cyber dog. In response, Roxie pawed at the back of the fireplace. "Another secret panel?" She got down inside the large space beside her and pressed against the wall.

Nothing happened.

Roxie growled, and butted her head against it.

"Relax, I believe you. Another one of Atrus' illusions, probably." She sighed and rubbed her eyes, "I'll check it out in the morning, right now it's bedtime. Come on, girl."

2

Six slept in. She figured she had earned it. The only thing of urgency that required any attention were the brothers, but she had already resolved to leave them alone for a bit in hopes they would start singing different tunes when they realized they were stuck with her.

When she finally got up from her makeshift bed on the couch it was close to noon. She helped herself to a long bath, and more of the food in the kitchen before checking in on Sirrus.

He was making a truly valiant effort not to show just how bad off he was. Had she not known anything about medicine she might have believed he was fine.

"I have thought a lot about what you said," Sirrus began softly, refusing to meet her eyes. "You're right. I have done terrible, terrible things. I know that, I have known. You might not believe me, but it's something that's been weighing on my conscience for a long time." He raised a hand to his forehead and shook his head, "But you've met Achenar. I feared what he would do to me if I refused to help him with his twisted pleasures, but I know that just makes me a coward. I can't do it anymore. I told Achenar, I did, I told him that helping him remove father from the picture would be the very last time I assisted him." Sirrus finally looked at her with great sorrow etched on his face, "But then we both ended up trapped in these books and you came along. You are absolutely right. I have done horrible things, but I am so sorry. So, so sorry. All I want to do is make amends and apologize to father. Please, that's all I want."

Six looked at the time on her pip-boy, "Nice. Try adding tears next time, Crocodile, it adds wonders to the effect you're going for." She snapped the book shut, and addressed Roxie who was tearing into the largest piece of jerky Six had found. "He's pretty good, but if he wants to be a professional con-artist than he's got a lot to learn before he tries to set up shop somewhere like the Strip. He'd probably get himself shot there."

Roxie barked in agreement.

"I want to ask them the details of their condition, but all I'll get out of them is more lies." Six toyed with her empty glass, "My working theory is that their in some kind of stasis, maybe not completely frozen, but close enough to it. Sirrus' symptoms are progressing far slower than they should be, and neither of them have complained of hunger. Unless I find evidence otherwise, that's what I'm going with. From the sounds of things, no one's going to shed a tear if they do end up starving to death in there. I'll feel pretty bad, but I suspect I'll be able to get over it." She picked up her dishes and began to wash them. "What is interesting is that Sirrus was talking about apologizing to his father. You can't do that to a dead man. Well, you can, but I don't think that's what he meant at all." The one shred of flimsy evidence to renew her hopes. That Sirrus was just a goldmine of information when he doesn't mean to be.

The two rode the elevator back up to the library level with Six singing to break up the silence that was slowly driving her mad.

"I don't want to set the world on fire. I just want to start a flame in your heart. I've lost all ambition...Hey, Rox, have those books always been on that shelf? Am I an idiot, or is that new?" Six asked as she bent down to pick up the books tucked into the corner of the bookshelf she had previously dismissed as empty. "Have I been walking passed them all this time?" They was at least partially burned. "Wait, no. These are the books I saved from the fireplace downstairs. Did I place them up here and forget about it?"

Roxie gave her equivalent of a shrug.

"Wouldn't be the first time. That's what the pip-boy's for, alternative memory." She went through them. All but one of them were completely trashed. She dropped the ruined ones with a puff of ash accompanying their arrival to the ground. The survivor was full of square patterns. She flipped through the pages, but saw nothing that stood out or even what they were for.

She put the books back onto the shelf, and went over to the fireplace. Roxie laid down by the entrance with her head resting on her paws to stay out of Six's way as she worked.

The Courier was a bit on the shorter side- which she attributed to living underground for the first nineteen years of her life- and so she could fit into the space comfortably. She knocked against the wall. It wasn't thick. C-4 could probably blast it open had she possessed any.

She pushed her hair back as she turned around, and immediately wished she had just done that earlier. There was a button to the side of the opening of the fireplace. Six pressed it and watched as a bronze color panel slid down in front of her. Six touched it and a square indented where she pressed. She touched it again and the square disappeared.

Six messed with the panel in front of her for two minutes before the realization hit her.

"Roxie! Bring me the pattern book." She called. A few moments later, Roxie slid the book through the gap between the fireplace and the panel. Six searched the pages, but couldn't find any one pattern that looked more likely than the others. "There are hundred here." Six thought about searching Atrus' office again, but she had already done that three times. If there had been any indication on which pattern was going to work than she would have already found it. The brothers certainly weren't going to tell her if they even knew. "This is the best lead I've got. Why don't you go play outside." She sighed, "I'll be here awhile."

3

"Who the devil are you?" The man in the newly discovered book asked the second she opened the cover. Atrus looked positively exhausted. Like minutes away from just collapsing on his desk.

"Confused, irritated, tired, hungry, but most people address me as 'Six' these days. You can call me that if you're the fashionable type." Six leaned up against the wall in the hidden room. After well over a hundred patterns she had finally found the combination. Inside had been the green book, and two pages in familiar colors. "You're Atrus. Nice to see you're still kicking around."

"D-Don't come here to D'ni-not yet. Oh, I have many questions for you, my friend, as you, no doubt, have for me. Where should I begin?" Atrus asked, a newfound energy spurring him on.

"The beginning's a good place unless you're pressed for time," Six said.

He nodded, "Yes, of course. As you have already guessed, my name is Atrus. I fear you have met my sons, Sirrus and Achenar, in the red and blue books, on Myst Island, in my library, my library...Oh, it contains my works, my writings. Oh, I wrote many books, many books that lead me to fantastic places. It's an art I learned from my father many years ago. Oh, but the red and blue books, those were different. I wrote those book to trap over-greedy explorers that might stumble upon my island of Myst-"

Six interrupted him, "I have met your prodigal sons and can guess for myself how they got stuck in there, skip that bit for now."

"I...oh, yes. You're right. They lured me here to D'ni, using their mother- they used their own mother- Oh, my dear Catherine- as bait. Of course, I could return to Myst, except they removed a single page from my Myst Linking Book. I cannot return without that page- you, my friend, can bring that page to me here in D'ni, I could go to Myst and bring justice to my sons for what they have done."

"Okay, hold up, do you know where they might have put that page? 'Cause they aren't about to tell me a damn thing." Six said, moving to leave the fireplace to meet back up with the waiting Roxie.

Atrus shook his head, "I'm afraid not, my friend. You will have to find some clue as to where they might have put it."

Roxie must still be outside as she wasn't in the library when Six made it out. "What if they burned it?" She asked.

"I can only hope that they haven't. I must return to my writing. Please hurry. My wife's life hangs in the balance."

Chapter Six End