Quoted By:
>Grand reveal
On one hand, you hate proving Ellery right. On the other hand, if you don't prove him right, he might lose it (again)— and when he's already trying to get himself killed, that's something you don't need. You better make sure he has nothing to feel guilty about.
How do you make a body again? Richard, don't answer that. He said it was easy, so it's probably easy: do you just imagine it really hard? You imagine it really hard. Real eyes and fingers and everything. None of this halfway stuff. You should be able to breathe in and mean it. Oh!
It's like stepping into a sheet of wet gauze. It doesn't feel anything like having a body. At least you can see properly, enough to catch Ellery startling, then relaxing. He dangles the crossbow at his side. "There we go. You had me worried for a second."
Damnit. You knew he'd be smug. "Well, of course I wouldn't— I wouldn't have let you do it if I was really going to die! That'd be so stupid! Also, for your information, Richard <span class="mu-i">isn't</span> Management, so you don't know anything. Can you let me do it now?"
"Did he tell you that? They like to lie."
"No— well, yes, but— he said he was something else! Not Management. Not all snakes are Management, Ellery; that's a stereotype." You fold your arms. "Are you going to blow up Headspace or not?"
"I am."
"Okay. Well, that's still really dumb, since I could do it and save you the—"
"I don't want you to," Ellery says coolly, and steps right to the edge of the puddle. The puddle? Oh, dear: Everard's faucet has been running. You suppress an urge to shut it off. "Here, hold this."
"Huh? Oh." He's shoving a glorb into your hands. "Uh..."
"And, uh, take care of yourself." He clicks his tongue and holds a keycard up between two fingers.
"Wait, where'd you—"
"Bye, Charlotte." Ellery looks straight down into the puddle— admiring his reflection?— then tilts forward, falls through it, and vanishes. "Hey!" you say, and splash your foot in the puddle. Nothing happens. "HEY! COME BA—"
«Charlie, if you're yelling, don't. I believe you have people looking for you.»
Casey and Jerry are— Casey and Jerry are not way above you. They've vanished.
«They aren't fools. Get moving.»
You will, you just... where to? Maybe you should've gone with Ellery after all. You don't know where anything is. You barely know what you're going to blow up.
«You never know anything, and still you scrape through. The time for reconnaissance is past. Get moving.»
Okay. Okay. Maybe you can explore the weird underground hallway, or whatever it is. You're great at underground hallways. You're an expert. Why are they always underground hallways?
(1/2)
