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The interior of the tent looks just like the interior of every other tent— same size, same shape, same droopy part on the ceiling. There is furniture inside, though. There is an empty red-brown bookshelf and and empty red-brown desk and a chair that spins. There is a cot with green bedding. Above the cot hangs a framed picture of a beetle.
You watch Gil carefully. He doesn't smile. He looks methodically all around the room, right to left, top to bottom. Then he looks at you. "You...?"
If he doesn't like it, can you deny it? Too late: your pure and honest heart means you're already nodding.
He doesn't visibly react to this information, just goes inside. He's still looking in all directions, even though he saw all of it from the doorway. He pushes the chair experimentally. He stops and looks at the beetle picture. "You know I-I-I didn't even really like beetles. Um. Not that I-I hated them or anything, but I don't think I had a strong opinion. They weren't my favorite, I-I-I mean."
>[-1 ID: 8/14]
You squeeze your hands together. "Uh... well, I can take that down and find something else, I guess... what is your favorite animal?"
"Um." He sits down on the cot. "No, i-it's— I guess it's beetles now. I-I-It kind of has to be."
"Oh."
Gil still isn't smiling, but (positive thinking!!) he isn't really frowning, either. He appears to be lost in thought. "How long has it been?"
"Huh?"
He looks up at you. "Since you went and got me. Days i-i-i-in realtime, I mean. I-I've been spending half the time in my head, or yours, so I don't have a good grasp on..."
Oh, God, how long <span class="mu-i">has</span> it been? You can work this out. Today, you woke up in the cult base after the heist went sideways. The day before that, you were at Earl's. Before that was the ritual and the rescue mission, the less said about those the better. Before that was the Headspace tour, and before then was Gil getting shot and Madrigal kidnapped. Before <span class="mu-i">then,</span> you spent the whole day waiting for a snake to hatch out of Madrigal's brain, and before then the crown was stolen, and before then was Ellery not being real, plus the hypothetical current, and before then was... Gil. How many is that in all? "Um, just over a week. Nine days."
"Nine days." He looks out across the tent. "I-i-i-if you came in and told me ten days ago that I'd be... that I'd be out of there, and that I'd have a- a body, <span class="mu-i">two</span> bodies, and I-I'd be across the entire goddamn seafloor, but I'd have a tent, with a... a..." He can't seem to get the words out. He points at the beetle picture. "With <span class="mu-i">that</span> on the wall— and i-i-if I got told I'd be doing any of the shit I've been doing— I would've thought I-I was hallucinating. I-I-I would've thought I finally went bugfuck crazy. And I-I-I-I had gone bugfuck crazy, actually, I was hallucinating out of my ass all the time, so I guess it would've been business as usual... this was a dumb set-up."
(3/5?)
