Ruby Quest: Chapter 20

"Leave Closet" "Unlock Medical Room"

">Leave Closet" ">Unlock Medical Room" Ruby can't open the door

from here, even if this IS the correct key.

The doorknob and lock on this side are stuffed and tightly wrapped with what appears to be...

hair.

"Ruby, re-enter closet, give key to TOM to unlock. Tom is manly enough to beat hair."

">Ruby, re-enter closet, give key to TOM to unlock. Tom is manly enough to beat hair."

Ruby slips the key through the hole in the wall.

It promptly falls down the shaft.

Ruby hears footsteps coming from outside the closet.

"TOM. YOU MUST RETRIEVE THE KEY."

">TOM. YOU MUST RETRIEVE THE KEY."

Tom goes down the shaft to fetch the key.

The footsteps are still coming from just outside the closet.

A figure appears in the doorway.

RUN Slice that bitch open! Say Hello

RUBY IS SO CONFUSED.

Ruby demands to know who the figure is. Her voice is shaking, but she tries to sound confident.

She recognizes that face.

She's seen it twice before.

She just didn't realize it was the same one, until now.

"VERY. CAREFULLY. TRY TO TALK TO HIM. ASK HIM WHAT HIS NAME IS."

">VERY. CAREFULLY. TRY TO TALK TO HIM. ASK HIM WHAT HIS NAME IS."

"S--STITCHES"

Stitches recoils slightly. His sewn-up headwound head begins to bleed.

He staggers uneasily backwards, glancing at Ruby, confused.

"H-h-h-how do I kn-kn-know you?!" he shrieks in a hoarse, rattling pitch.

"Ruby: "That's your name! It says so in the papers!""

"Click the "broadcast"-button on the walkie behind your back twice quickly. It'll give two sharp static cracks on Tom's. And hope he gets the idea."

">Ruby: "That's your name! It says so in the papers!""

Ruby's papers don't mention Stitches at all. She's never heard the name "Stitches" before this creature shrieked it at her.

">Click the "broadcast"-button on the walkie behind your back twice quickly. It'll give two sharp static cracks on Tom's. And hope he gets the idea."

Tom receives two bursts of static as he picks up the key.

...something very strange is happening in this room.

Stitches pauses momentarily. His expression changes and his eyes widen as he stares at his own hand.

"Ruby should tell her name."

">Ruby should tell her name."

Ruby tells Stitches her name.

Stitches freezes. Again, he stutters.

"H-HOW DO I KNOW Y--Y-Y-YOU?"

He appears to prepare an attack, then suddenly turns and flees from the closet, wailing a rattling moan.

"STAY AWAY FROM ME," he shrieks. "I--I-I'LL ONLY HURT YOU!"

With that, Stitches is gone.

Tom hears the screaming and rushes back, key in hand.

"go after Stitches"

">go after Stitches" Ruby nearly had a

heart attack. She's not sure she could go after Stitches right now even if she wanted to. And she's not sure she wants to.

Tom unlocks the door.

"Wait! Read the diagram on the wall, first."

">Wait! Read the diagram on the wall, first."

Tom examines the diagram on the wall.

"Clean up that blood."

">Clean up that blood."

Unfortunately, it's soaked into the old print, rather than simply hanging around on the outside of it.

Tom unlocks the door. Tom and Ruby meet up again in the hall.

Tom makes sure Ruby is okay. He reassures her things will be all right.

Ruby and Tom speak briefly. Tom explains the growing rift in the lower level. Ruby tells Tom about Stitches.

Tom reacts strangely to the name.

When pressed, he explains he read it in a medical document.

"Stitches" was officially recorded as dead.

"Both go inside the door that they are next to."

">Both go inside the door that they are next to."

The reinforced door is locked with a magnetic keycard strip.

...something is beeping inside the FIRST AID KIT.

The closer Ruby gets to the keycard slot, the louder it gets.

"Now that you're at it TALK without BS, already!"

">Now that you're at it TALK without BS, already!"

This is it. After that encounter with Stitches, Ruby knows she and Tom have to be 100% on the level. She can't keep it a secret anymore.

She and Tom sit down by the door and she tells him everything.

The documents about her own involvement in the study, labeling her "deceased", the visions of her own corpse, the injury she sustained from the abomination in the maintenance room, her encounters with Red...

Even her third eye.

She spills it all.

She tells him everything.

Ruby Quest: Chapter 21

Tom says as long as they're sharing secrets, there's something Ruby should know about, too.

"Ruby, open the beeping medical kit with the severed finger."

As unsettling as it is to realize each other's bizarre mutations, Ruby and Tom find a strange comfort in knowing they're both in this together now. If nothing else, they no longer have to fear each other, or hide secrets.

">Ruby, open the beeping medical kit with the severed finger."

The FIRST AID KIT beeps louder whenever Ruby gets closer to the keycard-slot for the fitted on the big reinforced door.

But the FIRST AID KIT is locked with a fingerprint scanner!

"Have Tom and Ruby try their own fingers (all of them) on the kit scanner."

"Have we examined the ladder going up? If not, do so now. Does the hatch open?"

"But in the meantime, is that plaque part of the wall, or can it be looked behind?"

">Have Tom and Ruby try their own fingers (all of them) on the kit scanner."

None of their 28 combined fingers and thumbs work.

">Have we examined the ladder going up? If not, do so now. Does the hatch open?"

It is capped with a sealed metal hatch and no visible means of opening.

It is covered in bolts (not buttons).

">But in the meantime, is that plaque part of the wall, or can it be looked behind?"

It's a framed painting mounted on the wall.

Tom and Ruby return downstairs and compare inventories.

"Use MEDICAL TOOLS on HOLE"

">Use MEDICAL TOOLS on HOLE"

Tom uses some forceps to reach deep into the hole in the wall, and retrieves yet another ACCESS CARD!

"Can Ruby use her dormant MacGyver powers to combine the spade and the cane into a more deadly weapon?"

">Can Ruby use her dormant MacGyver powers to combine the spade and the cane into a more deadly weapon?"

Ruby wedges the cane into the shovel head to create a BLUDGEONY CANESHOVEL!

"There appears to be something sticking partway out from behind mister Water Cooler. Tom is about eye-level to it so he should look, as Ruby's busy starting at his rear."

">There appears to be something sticking partway out from behind mister Water Cooler. Tom is about eye-level to it so he should look, as Ruby's busy starting at his rear."

Tom sees something behind the water cooler.

Tom retrieves RED'S HAND.

It must have been blown here after the explosion.

So which will it be? Do they go together to

the handscanner downstairs with Red's hand? Or do they go together to the display case upstairs?

Or do they split up and do both at the same time?

Consensus is on the handscanner.

Ruby and Tom descend to the lower levels, to find that power and lighting have returned.

Tom gives Ruby RED'S HAND, and she presses it to the scanner.

It beeps lightly, and a small light turns green.

The machine boots up slowly, and provides a short prompt.

Some kind of video feed begins playing.

The video ends.

"It's okay to cry, Ruby"

">It's okay to cry, Ruby"

Tears will have to wait.

Just one thing I wanted to add.

I don't think I'm spoiling anything by saying the keycard from the hole in the wall does indeed work on the display case, as you all expected.

For the record, however:

Smashing open the case would have sprung a lethal security system.

Yes, it would have killed Tom.

Luckily a few smarter posters got the tool idea in first, but if they hadn't, I was ready to have him die.

♠