The Restoration Protocol

43 || daughter

The video footage dates as far back as eleven years ago, and as recently as just two years. A part of Mariko wants to sit down and watch everything from start to finish. But there are too many, she thinks to herself, as she watches Soleil — that is, Alias — cycle through them mindlessly. Surely, if Claude wanted them to find the sixth key so badly, he wouldn't make them sit through hours of recordings just to learn of its location. It must be simple enough to find. What may be a little less simple, however, is the mystery behind the inventor's disappearance.

Perhaps Abe's assumption of there being a hidden door could still be accurate after all. At the same time, Mariko has her doubts. It just wouldn't make sense. The remote to that TV was out in the open, effortless to find. Claude entrusted them with this arduous mission and led them all the way here, so what reason would he have to conceal himself now?

Or could that computerized voice have been mistaken?

As Alias continues to play footage from Claude's collection of records, Mariko decides to investigate the desk where Abe had found the remote. There are papers strewn about. A bottle of pills. Doctor's notes. Hospital bills. An obituary.

Abe's arm appears from behind Mariko to pick up that obituary. Without her knowing, he was scanning the contents of the desk, too.

"...Lihua Locke. 1979-2018."

He lets out a slow, labored sigh after these words leave his lips. Mariko turns slowly to look at him, offering but a quick glance at Alias who has yet to blink at the screen she's staring at.

"This happened in your world, did it not?" Abe thinks aloud, running his eyes across the typed passage. "I find it interesting...why Dr. Locke would feel the need to make note of something like that here."

Probably for the same reason he left those videos here, Mariko assumes. It's obvious they were recorded in the real world, too. Yet Claude went to the effort of transferring them to this dreamscape. Just as Abe said himself, everything Claude has done has seemed so meticulously planned. Well, most everything. Mariko scans the papers in front of her. It's such a mess. This one corner seems in itself separate from the rest of the room. Trapped in its own bubble, so as for the sake of preserving the innocence of that which surrounds it.

In the act of sliding her hand across the papers on the desk, Mariko uncovers a familiar-looking journal. Near identical to the ones both Abe and Alias carry with them, but much more worn. She picks it up and opens to the first page.

In the background as she reads, Mariko hears Claude's voice from the recording Alias plays. It sounds like he's talking to his daughter again. He sounds cheerful — a much different vibe from the words scribbled in fading ink onto this piece of paper...

***

The toxin I ingested was only meant to affect my real world body. Something I knew would occur in order to inflict a comatose state in the first place...but lately I've felt a tick in my brain. Perhaps it's only the work of my anxiety, and my fear of being discovered after all this time... regardless, I can't afford to be presumptuous. I've already transferred all the footage I had stored on my computer into the Dream State System. Specifically into this lab, where it should be safeguarded from the developers. Backups, both handwritten and digital, of memories, my memories, because I'm terrified of coming up short just when the goal is so tantalizingly close...

I've devised a method of preservation. Now, rather, it's much more a lifeline than just a Plan B. Something is happening to me here. My physical form in the dream world. It shouldn't be, but it is, but I'm starting to think this may work in my favor. I believe my agency within the game world as a whole will grow stronger the deeper my consciousness becomes embedded into Paracosia. That said, I fear I will still require some sort of body. So what more is an inventor to do but create one for himself?