Fifth Trial

[bathymetric]

[ There's a long while of examination before the Mayor speaks up. There's plenty of evidence to pick up yet again this week, after all. ]

Annnd that's going to do it. Wrap it up and head to the bathyspheres, kids, you've got some business to attend to.

[ The bathyspheres take you all down, down, into the now-familiar dome below the city. The similarly familiar red glow persists until the lights properly turn on - the projection of Fontaine's silhouette is gone, of course, replaced by that same flickering "please stand by" message. But your mayor's voice is still the one that speaks over the increasingly empty circle of podiums. ]

If you somehow need a reminder of why you're here, three of you are dead. Get away with it, killer or killers, and the execution room gets to really work overtime today. But I guess if you wanna live, you should find who murdered three people. Could be important for you guys.

[ Welcome to your fifth trial. ]

Comments

[everythingeverywhere]

[What a lovely, not at all ominous song you have there, Joy. Oh, I'm sorry: Jobu Tupaki.]

Yeah, I'm not really feeling copying Thomathan or that loser Vholran. Oopsie, I murdered your friends! Get out all your little emotions out and I'll pretend like I care.

[MTB... start?]

[onemillion]

[WELL, THAT'S FINE, PROBABLY.]

Jobu, is that correct? Who... are you, exactly?

[Are you still Joy, are you someone who was pretending to be Joy this whole time... what are we looking at here?]

[everythingeverywhere]

Joy Wang. Or I was, at one point. The profiles are, shockingly, technically correct but very misleading. I haven't been "Joy Wang" in a long time.

[You know. Like since her mind fractured into a thousand little pieces.]

[onemillion]

What happened, then?

[He can take a guess given the things she's spoken of in meetings before, but taking blind guesses isn't really something he wants to be doing right now.]

[howveryglib]

...

Ah. I... see. Certainly.

[why does this keep happening : (]

[everythingeverywhere]

Look on the bright side, Gaius! I didn't kill you.

[howveryglib]

...

I appreciate it.

[: ( : ( : (]

[fuckingguy]

[ he is so
so
so fucking lost right now so he's just instinctively going to say: ]

... Hi.

[everythingeverywhere]

Hi.

[She gives him a little wave.]

[fuckingguy]

[ absolutely raising his arm a fraction, remembering what's happening, and then stopping— ]

So, did Hild see you in the nightclub? Or was it all just...

[asymptotes]

What a corner of this wheel we turned out to be.

[everythingeverywhere]

Oh, I'm sure that must be on purpose. Why else would she put Dandy, me, and you in a little row?

[asymptotes]

I imagined so, but seeing it all come together at once like this is something else.

[inaclearing]

....no. I'm okay.

[Fuck that, he's just going back to his podium. Nothing better for packing all that pesky sadness back down deep where it belongs than spite!]

[everythingeverywhere]

Suit yourself!

[visiblepattern]

So is the lack of reason why you did it? Because I can see that going multiple ways, but they generally come down to the notion that if everything is pointless there's no reason to continue doing it.

[everythingeverywhere]

Exactly. It was fun playing poor little Joy for a while, but now it's boring. So I'm leaving. Bye! I sort of liked some of you, as much as I like anything.

[visiblepattern]

[...]

What's your full name, then? Jobu...?

[capreelcious]

...

So is that why your government assigned nickname is Jojo Chewbacca?

[ FLOYD IS THIS THE TIME- ]

[everythingeverywhere]

Well, no. That's because my mother—one of them, anyway—can't fucking pronounce my name for the life of her. I'm sure Little Miss Mastermind thought that one was funny.

[capreelcious]

Oh, rude.

[specialyellthing]

… Sis. [She doesn’t know what else to say.]

1/2

[everythingeverywhere]

Z.

[For a moment that seems like that's it.]

2/2

[allatonce]

... I'm sorry, yeah?

[specialyellthing]

… Get over here.