[Calibrations] Dustin's Liminal Space Bookstore

[quark_assassin]

WHO: Dustin and you!
WHERE: Dustin's Calibrations room
WHAT: CALIBRATIONS TIME
WHEN: All through the Calibrations event - 6/10 -> 7/10
WARNINGS: Uncanny liminal spaces per the title, nonconsensual scientific experimentation on children, violence, injury, and assorted Creepy Shit depending on the memory. Also, your general Dustin-centric language warnings.

Darkness. Then the gentle chime of a bell, and a heavy wooden door coated in a thick layer of chipped emerald paint finishes swinging open, revealing a small, hole-in-the-wall bookstore. The shop itself is modestly sized, but any semblance of roominess is immediately and violently quashed by the sheer quantity of books, shelves, tables, books stacked on top of shelves and tables. The entryway is probably the most open part of the whole building, and that's only because there has to be enough room to let the door open inward, and because half of that entryway is taken up by a checkout counter. Or, the suggestion of a checkout counter - it's stacked just as high with books as everywhere else. The only thing that differentiates it from the rest of the shop is the L-shape of the counter, the fact that there's a Temba-style communicator sitting on the only clear spot on the tabletop, and the sort of unsettling tendency of the counter to always appear in the same relative location no matter how the room changes.

Oh yeah - the room changes. That will become apparent as soon as any visitors turn around and realize that the front door doesn't exist anymore, now replaced with another shelf of books pressed against the back wall. Trying to walk around the maze of clutter will reveal an impossible number of twists and turns; backtracking is pointless, as the path and local room layout changes as soon as they turn around. Maybe they've turned a corner to a dead end with a reading desk, then they spin and find that the only way out is via ladder to a previously nonexistent loft, and then that loft opens up to the ground floor again, somehow. It's a frustrating, literally impossible maze, one that could be wandered aimlessly for hours if the Calibrations program didn't time out first.

But things change if the visitor expresses a little more purpose.

1. The Terminal

The first and most obvious clue to this puzzle is the communicator sitting on the ever-present front desk. It can be picked up and tapped without difficulty and without memories being triggered. The usual menu for the communicators isn't present, though; instead there's just a black screen with a few lines of text, and a prompt:

unwelcome.visitor@temba:/Users/dustyThatcher/tmp/Calibrations$ ./Shopkeeper.exe
What do you want? □

Clicking on the slowly blinking square will bring up the keyboard, and visitors can type in whatever they want. The expected commands to exit the program still work, and in fact immediately end the dream as soon as they're entered - but maybe this program is set up to take other inputs, too?

2. Miscellaneous/Wildcard

POV: You're stuck in a bookstore with apparently no way out for at least an hour. What do you do?

The obvious answer is probably to sit down a read a book. There are quite a few of them, after all, of various shapes, sizes, and states of use, some with faded felt covers and others bound in sturdy leather, although none are especially elaborate. Not a single one has a title, so picking one to read is kind of a gamble. But as soon as one ends up in a visitor's hands, the cover immediately pops open and the pages rapidly flip through a memory from Dustin's perspective, in perfect clarity, before snapping closed again. They're typically only a few minutes long and of pretty mundane activities: Skulking around a small, New England town at dusk, excitedly bounding after a grasshopper at a park, eating a bowl of sugary cereal while reading a book. Some of them are even clearly of events that happened since his arrival on Agra-10.

Every single book is a memory. Picking them up at random produces results, of course, but if a visitor has a specific topic in mind, the next book they pick up after turning yet another blind corner is much more likely to contain content related to it. Having an intense and burning desire to escape this building, for example, would produce a memory of an adolescent Dustin rapidly solving a series of pencil mazes in a small, colorfully-decorated room next to a digital stopwatch - and if the visitor remembers the path he drew and follows it through the stacks, they'll eventually find their way to that faded green door.

3. Restricted

Not all memories are readily accessible. Inquiring after certain topics with the Terminal, or simply being curious enough about them that they should start appearing in the stacks, leads to a dead-end stack of books or haphazardly-tiled shelves piled to the ceiling. Topics along the lines of his family, his powers, or anything that happened before he turned six all result in this outcome.

But that doesn't mean they don't exist, or can't be found. A keen eye will notice that these obstructions are surface-level; there's gaps in the shelves and the piles of books that can be pulled away or crawled over, and on the other side is a small, surprisingly bare nook, dimly-lit with a low-hanging bare lightbulb over a wooden reading desk, with a metal bar spanning the path. RESTRICTED: AUTHORIZED PERSONELL ONLY says the sign pinned on the bar. There's nothing stopping a visitor from simply ducking the bar and going inside anyway.

The desk has three heftier books on them, and each of them actually has a title: Earliest Memory (CW: violence and injury of a child, Creepy Shit), Eyes Opened (CW: implied medical experimentation on a child), and Betrayal. Picking up any one of these books will also end the dream after the memory plays out.

Comments

3 - Because you wanted it (She's speed running so I can have her find him in the mingle too)

[butterfly_kiss]

If there was one thing that Tae was used it, it was wandering in too tight and mazelike spaces while looking at books. There was actually a famous series of shops to that end in the Tokyo area, and on long weekends she had been so happy to go through the stores looking for something new to delight herself with.

So of course she's gone though the place, enjoying bits of wholesome little memories in the easily accessed books. But she's been here long enough that she's looking for a way out now. And that means facing the maze. She moves easily through the place in her heels, impressed by how the books muffle the noise, and then she finds it. A restricted area.

"This seems promising," she says as she looks at it, and then she's ducking under the bar. "Sorry kid, I just want out of here."

A desk. That might have secrets to her escape. With a frown she looks at the titles. Betrayal seems invasive. Earliest Memory feels like a restart. But Eyes Opened? Was that waking up? She reaches out and picks the book up.

CW: implied medical experimentation on a child

[quark_assassin]

Tae should already know what to expect when she picks up this particular book up. The cover flies open and the pages start to flip, just like all the other ones she's found, but this tome is several times thicker than the rest - even than the other two books on the desk next to it. She's going to be here for a while.

It's early morning in the Thatcher house, but Dusty has been awake for a couple of hours now already. An empty glass and a plate stacked with what's probably half a loaf of bread's worth of peanut butter toast sits on the kitchen table, to his left, while he idly fiddles with the strewn-out guts of a robotics kit in front of him. But he isn't working with purpose, or even casual interest - just screwing in one bolt at a time, looking the part over, slowly adding another. He's waiting for something.

That happens a few moments later. The faint creak of an opening door from just down the hall makes Dusty perk up, a kick of anxiety thumping through his chest. There's a pause, then a gentle click as the door closes again.

"...Dusty?" calls Rose, sounding curious. She must've seen the door to his bedroom cracked open and been surprised; usually she has to wake him up before she goes to work. This was, of course, calculated.

Dusty ducks his head down to the table as he hears her footsteps approaching the kitchen. "Busy," he calls back, feigning disinterest. His voice sounds similar to how it does now - teenager, then. "Couldn't sleep."

That much was true. Dusty's much too excited to sleep.

Rose stops just within the entrance to the kitchen, a light chuckle escaping her lips. Dusty glances up at her; Rose is already dressed for work, suit top and pencil skirt, straight black hair in a tight bun. Her flats click on the linoleum tile as she heads for the fridge, because of course she made her lunch the night before. "Please eat something else that isn't bread," she chides, retrieving a chilled bento box and slipping it into her work bag. "Two vegetables and a fruit. There's some broccoli that's about to go bad, you could steam it for lunch and--"

"--Busy, mom," Dusty interrupts. The impatience in his voice is genuine now. "Trying to focus."

Rose lets out a long-suffering sigh. "They send boys like you to cotillion, you know," she murmurs, walking over to the table to fondly ruffle Dusty's hair. He begrudgingly leans into it. "Don't get too sucked into your projects, okay? You know better. Take care of yourself."

Dusty responds with a noncommittal grunt.

"Love you too," Rose chuffs. She heads for the front door. "See you in eight."

"Later," Dusty calls at her back, not bothering to look up.

He listens for the click of the door and the sound of her car starting, engine noise fading as it rounds the corner of the block. The seconds count down as he imagines her path: Another right turn, one minute, a left into the parking deck, thirty seconds to find a spot, one minute to take the elevator down to the waiting area so she can catch the 7AM company bus. The whole time Dusty continues playing with the kit, too nervous, even, to touch his stack of toast. 7AM comes and goes and Rose hasn't returned home.

Now.

Dusty suddenly springs to action. Abandoning everything on the table, he swings out of his chair and strides quickly down the hallway, but skips his intentionally-open bedroom door and goes straight for Rose's at the end. Her door is closed, but it isn't locked - and why would it be? There's nothing she has that would interest him or that doesn't have security of its own, and she trusts him to follow the one main rule of the house: Don't mess with her home office.

Naturally, Dusty ignores everything else in the room and goes straight for her desk. Her work computer is switched off. Before Dusty turns it on, he retrieves a USB stick from his pocket and ducks under the table to plug it into one of the back ports, then disconnects the ethernet cable before wriggling his way upright again. He quickly pulls up the boot menu, changes some settings. There's a string of code that flashes across the screen for a moment before the computer automatically shuts down. Dusty hurries his way back under the desk to plug the ethernet cable in again, presses the power button, and waits.

Everything seems to go smoothly. The computer boots to a corporate login screen, which stays up for a couple of seconds before Dusty's malware automatically populates the password and fakes an authenticator token, bringing him to desktop. At this point he only has five minutes, roughly, before red flags are raised in Diamond Pharmaceuticals' IT security department when Rose also tries to log in to her account from her on-site computer, but that's all the time Dusty needs. He opens a file explorer window and starts rapidly clicking through folders, opening documents, scrolling through them for several seconds before closing them again. His search is practiced and methodical.

But after a couple of minutes, a path name forces Dusty to pause. ASIS Proposal. Another flash of anxiety runs through him as he identifies the most recent document inside, and realizes that the last edit date was the night after he last went with Rose to work. This time, when Dusty opens the file, he actually takes the time to internalize what he's looking at instead of just relying on his perfect memory to analyze it later.

ASIS Stress Test #457

Abstract
We've seen the ASIS perform well with directly introduced pathogens via ingestion, injection, and topical application. However, aerosolized contaminants have not been studied in sufficient detail to declare that the ASIS could reasonably protect against agents of biological warfare. In this blind study, a subject with a well-established ASIS interface will be introduced to a room with slowly-released contagious artificial pathogen ME456, which subject has previously demonstrated immunity when introduced intravenously. Subject will be monitored for symptom onset for two weeks, then introduced in the same manner to artificial pathogen ME457a, which subject's ASIS has not been trained for in any capacity. Subject will be monitored for symptom onset for two weeks as normal, then tested a second time to see if differences in presentation occur after immunity gain. ...

A pit opens up in Dusty's stomach as a whole new type of anxiety starts to churn through him, steadily morphing into confusion as he moves through the list of papers, finding ones that refer to experiments on others to replicate the ASIS results in himself - all resulting in failures - finding others that attempt to analyze and explain the odd protein structures found in his nerves, things he didn't even realize existed until now. Confusion flashes into anger when he notes that the earliest paper dates to within a few months after Rose found him, and has references to other papers not saved on this drive.

Eight years. His whole remembered life, he's been nothing but a curious experiment to the person he thought of as his mother. All the times she and her coworkers have invited him to 'help' with their studies, the weeks of discomfort after them that Rose wrote off as eating too many sweets, or a mild cold. It was all a lie.

A notification springs up on the computer's dashboard, alerting of an attempted duplicate login. Dusty jolts to attention and slaps the power button off - and the memory ends.

CW: implied medical experimentation on a child

[butterfly_kiss]

Tae hurls the book away from her in disgust when the memory ends.

"Of all of the immoral, unconscionable, horrifying decisions for a medical researcher to perform. A child. Not even her own child. Her consent means nothing!"

And yes, she's very angry here. Angry and ready to set something on fire.

She needs out. She needs out now. She needs a searingly hot shower to wash off the disgust that she might even be remotely in the same field as Dustin's caretaker. And she would only call it that, because that is clearly no fucking parent!

starting with 1 let's see where this goes?

[thepurpleone]

At a glance, Donnie's almost relieved, maybe even enamored, to find himself in a bookstore of all things. Sure, it's crowded and a bit claustrophobic but there are so many books and he'd love to just stuff them all into his eyeballs.

Naturally he takes a practical approach to the matter despite not being able to remember how he got here, but it is short-lived the moment he turns to find the door missing.

"Wha-?"

Yeah, that's...concerning. Frowning, he eyes the stacks with more suspicion, scanning the place until he notices the familiar tablet. What's that doing there?

Donnie weaves his way towards the counter, picking up the communicator. "Hm," he muses as he skims the line of text. "Some kind of AI?" Which is...weird in a place like this. Even weirder is the way the query is phrased, casual compared to what he'd expect for a command window, maybe even rude? Text is so hard to gauge for moods. Tapping a finger against his chin, Donnie decides to try pulling up a directory.

/dir

[quark_assassin]

/dir
Fine, nosy asshole.

shopkeeper.exe              shopKeeper.exe          Shopkeeper_test.exe
Shopkeeper_test_1.17.exe    Shopkeeper_final.exe    Shopkeeper_FINAL_bugged.exe
Shopkeeper.exe              memDir                  mapGen

Anything else? □

Definitely rude, then.

[thepurpleone]

"Huh. Well, points for personality quirks I guess."

Donnie skims the list. At a glance it doesn't seem to contain a whole lot of offerings. "Shopkeeper.exe must be this program..." He strokes his chin. Test? He puts a mental pin in things and decides to look into the 'memDir'.

[quark_assassin]

/cd memDir
/dir

What follows is a rapidly-scrolling list of individual program files that rapidly fill up the terminal screen and just keep going. They all follow the same name format of eight numbers, underscore, four numbers - date and duration, year leading, standard enough of a naming convention for Donnie to probably recognize it.

After a solid two minutes of spewing text on the screen, another directory shows up at the bottom of the list of executables: memAdmin. And, of course, Shopkeeper has something to say about Donatello's continued investigation.

Good fucking luck parsing that I guess.
Is that what you wanted? □

[thepurpleone]

It's not something Donnie's unfamiliar with, but he doesn't have all...whatever frame of time this place goes by- to go through everything.

"...hm." He rolls his eyes at the endcap of text before glancing back at the listing. He could just pick something at random but he wasn't even sure where to begin there. Maybe something from...early on?

The alternative option seems... Well, it won't help narrow things down, he suspects, but he's gone this far. "MemAdmin it is...." Donnie murmurs to himself as he types up the next command.

[quark_assassin]

/cd memAdmin
Nah. □

[thepurpleone]

"-what."

Donnie's brow twitches at that. "Well why put the option there if you aren't going to-" He takes a deep breath to calm himself. "Fine, fine, we'll try something else."

He goes back to the initial directory, looking back at the contents. Does he want to run these other shopkeeper items? He makes a face and decides to go with something else. "Hm. Let's see- this an actual map?"

[quark_assassin]

cd ..
Yeah, I thought so.
/cd mapGen
/dir

Donnie is allowed into this directory, and much like the previous one it is absolutely stuffed with files. Except, these ones are all individual bitmap images, and the string of numbers and letters that make up their filenames are seemingly random. There's also a mapAdmin directory at the end.

[thepurpleone]

This isn't getting much of anywhere without some reference point, Donnie notes. So much information potentially at his fingertips but too much to sort through, what a pain.

The snippiness of the program itself is also grating on his patience. On a whim he types back a response rather than a command.

Oh shut up.

[quark_assassin]

The program responds back.

Fuck off.
My dream, my rules.
You're the one prying into my shit anyway, ass.
I'm allowed to be angry about that.

2

[newmemorywhodis]

Link spends a little while trying to solve the maze - exploring the path, seeing where it will take him. He half expects to find a hidden chest somewhere, filled with a gemstone or a shiny new weapon.

Eventually, though, Link gets bored of the exploration - and turns his attention to the books. He picks one at random, curious to see what is inside.

[quark_assassin]

The book is a small, dark blue hardback, the paperboard chipped and lightly textured with age, and as the first one Link has picked up so far, he'll likely be pretty surprised when it flips open on its own and his senses suddenly change.

Dusty practically skips down the sidewalk, brimming with excitement in spite of the bleak, overcast sky and the persistent chill in the air. The only thing keeping him from sprinting away is the firm hand holding his own behind him.

"Liiiibrary, liiiibrary!" he chants, tugging impatiently on Rose's arm. She tugs back, firmly but not aggressively. It's not hard to keep Dusty from running off; he's tiny for his age, barely above eye-level with her waist.

"It's not going anywhere," Rose chides. Her steps remain level, voice calm but faintly amused. "You can be patient. How about you tell me what you're going to read today?"

Dusty turns to answer immediately. Rose Thatcher - a rather severe-looking woman in her thirties, straight black hair pulled neatly back, barely ruffled by her fluffy coat and scarf - looks back at him, a smile creasing her eyes.

"--Dinosaurs," Dusty chirps. "I read a book yesterday where people brought them back to life, and I wanna see if there's any research papers on it!"

"Oh?" Rose's eyebrows quirk, but she doesn't seem nearly as surprised by this behavior as she probably should be. "We'll have to talk to Miss Jennifer at the front desk so she can search the archives for you."

"Okay!" Dusty pops in the air and doesn't quite stick the landing, although Rose's steady hand keeps him from falling over. "'Dinosaur' as a keyword might be too vague, so I think I should also specify papers on genetics - or maybe genetic reconstruction? And--and also, probably molecular analysis, and I heard about stem cell research and I think that could be related, and--"

He babbles on like this for another minute or so, Rose casually prompting him with questions, until they turn the block and the memory abruptly ends.

[newmemorywhodis]

Link blinks, as he returns to the library. Huh. Not what he would have pictured Dustin being like, as a child. And yet, at the same time it makes a certain amount of sense. Even if Dustin doesn't like to show it, he still has that same enthusiasm.

...Zelda would like Dustin. He'd frustrate her to no end. They'd probably argue like anything. But they share the same kind of desire for knowledge.

He stands there for a moment. Looks at the book, as a small lump forms in his throat. Then he carefully puts the book away...and immediately reaches for another one.

Maybe this one will explain what 'dinosaurs' are.

[quark_assassin]

Link's request is read loud and clear. The next book he picks up even looks like it's bound in an artist's interpretation of dinosaur leather, light brown and covered in thick, lumpy scales.

Dustin watches from the gap between two people's backs standing in front of him as his employer looks over an assorted table of artifacts. It's frustrating that they're keeping him in reserve like this, where he can't get a good look himself to do his job, but that desire to look wars with his desire not to draw attention to himself in this definitely illegal exchange. The glint of metal from a sidearm at one of the guard's sides tells him that much, if he wasn't painfully aware of it already.

His employer - a dusky-haired, middle-aged man in business casual, a museum curator that is doing a very poor job of staying incognito with his waxed shoes and the flashy pager periodically lighting up through his pants pocket - makes a show of pacing the table a couple more times, just to make his client behind it sweat a little. He stops, then casually beckons behind him.

That's the signal. Slipping between the guards, who just barely move to give him enough space, Dustin strides forward with his head ducked.

"Who the hell is this?" says the man behind the counter. Dustin refuses to look at him, focusing his attention on the array of artifacts per the contract. "You bringin' your grandkids to our deals now? This ain't a daycare, bud."

"He's insurance," says the curator. Dustin's eyes flick over a vase and information flashes through his brain: 12th century, authentic. "The board almost kicked me out after that last piece you sold me. You play games with me, Red, I'll bring a child to play them with you."

Dustin's gaze settles on a large slab of white stone with an immaculate series of black, cleaned bones revealed in the rock. Ichthyosaur, species...hmm. He taps the table twice for attention.

"Fake."

Red visibly blusters. "Your grandson's a fuckin' idiot," he snaps. "You know how many hoops I had to jump through to get this piece? Handled transport myself, all the way from--"

"--The White Cliffs of Dover," Dustin interrupts, sounding unimpressed. He can see Red nodding vehemently out of the corner of his eye. "The ones made from Cretaceous chalk deposits? Dumb place to find your Jurassic fossil. Also, the bones don't make any sense for established Ichthyosaur physiology, and I can see the super glue in the gaps."

He steps to the side, turning his attention to the next piece - a scrap of colorful, faded fabric set in glass - but the memory ends before he starts to analyze it.

[newmemorywhodis]

The memory does not, in fact, explain exactly what dinosaurs are. Though Link is able to gather at the very least that they're some kind of long-dead creature. Something like the leviathan skeletons, perhaps.

As he the memory fades, Link stands for a moment thinking, while holding the book. He's not wondering about dinosaurs so much anymore. But he's thinking about the man - the one Dustin was doing some kind of task for, by identifying the bones. Did Dustin do that kind of thing a lot?

He reaches out for another book - and as he does so, he thinks that perhaps he might be beginning to get a handle on how this particular puzzle works.

[quark_assassin]

Link's two projected interests war a little with the bookstore's algorithm. The book he ends up with is small, paperback, with a white square on the front split into nine equal parts.

The child stares at a mirror image of the front cover of the book Link just opened, except it's one page of many, and the nine-by-nine squares are partially filled in with numbers one through nine in seemingly random locations between them. He holds a green marker awkwardly in his right hand, hovering over the page while the ink slowly dries. The book is propped against his legs as he lies back in a hospital bed. His neck hurts, and he's tired, but the puzzles are helping him keep his mind off of things - plus the nice lady Doctor Rose is here, and her visits are always nice.

"Good work," Doctor Rose says with a small, pleased smile. A little bubble of satisfaction lifts the child's chest. "Now that you understand the rules, do you think you can do the rest on your own?"

He blinks in confusion at her.

"...What's the matter?" Doctor Rose asks after the long, awkward pause.

The sense of satisfaction bursts. I've done something wrong. "...Um," he mumbles, shuffling uncomfortably under the covers. "But I already did it."

It's Doctor Rose's turn to blink in confusion at him. "Did you?" She cranes her neck to glance at the inside of the book, then back at him. "It doesn't look like you have."

The child suddenly understands. "--In my head," he clarifies. "I gotta write it?"

Doctor Rose doesn't look like she understands back at first. But then, after a moment's silence, she breaks into a fit of giggles. "Yes, Dusty. That's part of the game!"

The child - Dusty, still need to get used to that name - frowns at the book. He doesn't understand why the answers in his brain are any less valid than the answers he writes on the page; he can figure things out so much quicker in his head, anyway. But if that's what Doctor Rose wants, he'll do it.

He nods slowly. "Okay." Then, with the slow, careful strokes of a young kid still figuring out how to write, the child starts filling out the squares, starting from the top left and working across. 9, 4, 6, 8, 5...

As he marks the final, lopsided '8' in the bottom right corner, the memory ends.

[newmemorywhodis]

Oh! Not the kind of memory Link was expecting, but - Dustin was doing a puzzle. Not one Link had ever seen before too. And while Link's not as good with numbers - certainly not as good as Dustin - he thinks he gets at least a little bit of an idea of how the puzzle is meant to be solved, from seeing Dustin do it.

Now, though, Link wants to try. He looks at the books. Obviously they hold memories, but...are there any normal books? Maybe even a puzzle book like the one Dustin had?

He reaches for another, trying to manifest nothing more than a simple puzzle book, one not connected to any memories at all.

[quark_assassin]

There are, unfortunately, no non-memory connected books here. The one Link picks up seems like it might be promising - very similar to the first, a small paperback with a nine-by-nine square on the front - but it looks worn, with a prominent fold in the spine, discolored pages, and scuffs in the corners. It flips open on its own, though, just like all the rest.

Dustin flips to a fresh page in his book of sudoku puzzles. He hardly finds them difficult; a quick glance over the first one in the top left is all he needs to parse out the pattern and fill in the blanks, at least mentally. But he's found that doing them while riding the bus keeps people from bothering him as much. A teenager, alone, taking an interstate jaunt in the middle of the night with nothing but a backpack and a puzzle book, must fill some kind of subconscious niche that the other travelers are expecting. He's not too fussed with the process as long as it stops anyone from asking questions.

The man currently staring at him from across the isle is, apparently, an exception. He's wearing a tucked-in button-up and pressed slacks, and Dustin's caught flashes of a badge clipped to his belt. Interstate police, probably. He'd intentionally sat on the other end of the bus from him, but predictably, the man moved closer as soon as a spot opened up.

Dustin furrows his brow at the puzzle as he starts to methodically scribble in the numbers with a ballpoint pen. Maybe I'm reading too much into it.

The man clears his throat at him.

Or not. Dustin pretends not to notice, but he can't stop the little sigh of annoyance that makes his shoulders droop. That's the only sign the officer needs.

"You should get some sleep," he offers, keeping his voice low.

Dustin's gaze flickers around their immediate area to see if any of the others on the too-bright bus are paying attention. They're all trying to sleep, from the looks of it - something that he's sure the officer was waiting for before trying to talk to him.

"Not tired," Dustin mumbles back. His pen keeps scribbling away, finishing the current puzzle, pausing a moment, starting the next.

"Night owl?" Dustin doesn't dignify that question with a response, so the man keeps talking. "A bit of one myself. Stopped being able to pull all-nighters after college - never had a problem when I was your age, though."

He leans forward, elbows resting on his knees. The both of them jostle as the bus hits a bump in the road.

"How old are you, anyway?" asks the officer, casual. "Fourteen? Fifteen?"

Sixteen, Dustin thinks with an irritable frown, but he knows he can't answer that question. "Do you want to see my ID?" he tersely answers instead. It's the fake one that says he's eighteen - old enough to be operating on his own.

"No, no, no need for that," the man chuckles. Dustin's frown deepens; that would have ended this pointless conversation faster if he had. "I have a daughter around that age. She's obsessed with puzzle books like the one you're doing. Can't buy them fast enough."

There's another awkward pause as Dustin stubbornly refuses to engage.

"At the rate you're going, you'll probably need to buy another one at your stop, too," notes the officer. "Where are you headed?"

That's an answer Dustin can provide. "Michigan," he murmurs. Of course, now he'll need to take an extra long pitstop in Vermont to shake this guy, but he'll make it there eventually.

"Long trip," the officer whistles appreciatively. "Have family waiting for you there?"

Something inside Dustin snaps. "--Leave me alone," he hisses, looking at the man directly for the first time so he can shoot him a venomous glare. "What do I have to--"

When Dustin slaps the half-completed sudoku book closed, so does the book in the store, abruptly ending the memory.

[newmemorywhodis]

When this memory ends, Link is frowning. The concept of police isn't actually one he's at all familiar with. They simply don't exist in Hyrule. And while there probably was some kind of law enforcement once...Link doesn't remember it. And it's not around anymore.

So all he sees is someone in some kind of uniform, harassing Dustin when Dustin doesn't want to be talked to. It's an unsettling interaction, and one far out of Link's own experience.

He puts the book back. Thinks for a moment. He doesn't want to keep looking at random books. He wants to find Dustin. He must be in here somewhere, but...where?

Link walks around the bookshelves, looking for things he missed earlier. It's at this point then, that he notices a gap at the top of the bookshelf.

He climbs up the shelf, and squeezes through the gap.

[quark_assassin]

For a little bit it seems like the space is actively trying to stop Link from climbing over the shelf; the internal layers seem to randomly shift underfoot when he isn't looking, in an apparent attempt to make Link fall, and as he gets closer to the top the books on the upper shelves start randomly falling out and over onto his arms and fingers. But none of it should be enough to completely deter someone as determined (and as skilled a climber) as Link. Eventually, he crests the top.

There aren't more bookshelves on the other side. Instead, Link finds himself crawling on the floor leading to a blank, sterile-looking room, empty except for a reading desk and a chair. Over his head is a swinging gate, with a sign bolted over the chain and lock holding it closed: RESTRICTED: AUTHORIZED PERSONELL ONLY

[myownprice]

Honestly, upon finding himself in the bookstore, Boba does not bother trying to find the exit at all. Why should he? This is more books than he's seen in one place in his entire life, apparently free for anyone to read given the lack of staff to chase him off. As angry as he still is about being tricked into this situation by the Agrii's promises of a way home, he has to admit that this is about the best place he could imagine to be trapped for the time being.

He grabs a book from a shelf at random, the lack of a title making him all the more curious, and is caught off-guard when the covers suddenly fly open of their own accord.

Suddenly, he's not in a bookstore at all. Afternoon sunlight filters through wispy clouds as Boba chases something through the grass—except, it's not Boba doing the chasing at all. He's merely a passenger, watching the world through someone else's eyes as the shape in the grass resolves itself to into a little hopping insect. Someone else's hand reaches out for it, but it flits away and the chase continues, bounding over grass and fallen leaves.

Boba watches the memory to completion and then the book snaps shut, leaving him just as abruptly back in the bookstore. He stands there for a few moments in stunned amazement, trying to process what had just happened. He'd opened a book and then he'd seen... a scene? A memory? He's not even sure whose memory it is but it had been bright and vibrant and so different from what he himself is used to. The green grass and the sun, the chasing of something for the sheer joy of it.

Already, he knows that he wants more.

He pulls another book off the shelf at random and opens it, even more eager now to see what lies inside.

[quark_assassin]

Boba's desires for more of that are answered quickly. The book he picks up, even, seems to implicitly reflect it: Pastel yellow hardback with a red patch on the front, like that should be where a title or colorful picture lives, but just like all the others it remains blank. The cover flips open in an instant.

Midwinter in the New England Appalachians has never been something Dustin got used to. There's a certain beauty he can appreciate, though, especially on a day like this - the lack of clouds on a pure blue sky, sunlight reflecting off of a blanket of snow, everything swaddled save the plowed road on his right and the bare cliffs revealed on either side of it. Dustin subconsciously identifies the layers of metamorphic rock as he walks past. It helps him keep his mind off of how cold, hungry, and miserably tired he is.

The map said there was a gas station two kilometers down the road. Two more kilometers. This would have been a pleasant, brisk walk, if not for the fact that he's been on his feet all night. At least the cold is helping to brace him, too.

Dustin crests the hill. To his immediate dismay, the road is covered in slick black ice that is probably going to deter anyone from wanting to take this route - fewer options to hitchhike with, and it's not likely that any long-distance busses will be going this way either. On the other hand, he can see the gas station at the bottom of the hill.

Food. He's got money for food. Dustin's dragging footsteps pick up with renewed vigor, kicking through the deeper snowdrifts on the far side of the ridge, and the memory abruptly cuts away.