strongroots | [thecity] inbox

[ Huh. ]

oh, hey. i'm doing better, but... why do you wanna thank us?

That is good, then. As I've said to Tsuruno, the results were informative.

[ To keep it vague, in case it would put Robby and Tsuruno further at risk otherwise. ]

yeah. guess it did its job

[ For how ever he should feel about that. ]

Yes. We can assume that these findings would have applied in previous instances, and that they will continue to apply in all cases.

[ But Tsuruno has apologized repeatedly — perhaps Robby also feels guilty for the consequences of the experiment. ]

so don't make a show about staying back or trying to ruin an experiment unless you want to be fucked with

[ Basically. ]

i know no one got screwed with when they stayed back from these things before. unless the haunted house was different

[ It feels different from, say, the bank vault or the mall. Those just--happened. This seemed more planned. ]

Do you believe that it may have been tied to that particular experiment, rather than the group intent to purposely avoid it this time?

[ The documents made readily accessible at the university in the weeks prior were unusual as well, after all. ]

i don't know. it was the mall one: people got a message on their phones, then if they went to the mall, they got locked in. then the crazy shit with the mannequins and lights happened.

i wasn't going to go except some friends got trapped inside. i guess if you want to be sure, you'd have to find someone who stayed back but didn't care about our experiment either

[ ...ah. ] i might know someone. i'll talk with him later

Thank you. I would be interested in his perspective. The mall was my first exposure to the experiments recorded under that recurring classification system, and I chose to visit the location myself.

sure.

what made you go? just curiosity?

Correct. I wondered what the significance was of a specific building being advertised as "reopening" while others in the same district were already accessible. Of course, now we know why we also received that odd announcement via our devices on the same day.

Did similar messages precede the events at the bank or the welcome party?

i don't know about the party but there wasn't messages about the bank. except people posting on the network about it

that's how i knew it even opened

That is interesting.

[ In other words, only the mall and the haunted house are associated with the same set of steps so far, from the announcement and classification number pattern to the survey, presumably. ]

Were you asked to rate your experience then?

after the mall. it said the same thing the text did. water under the bridge?

i haven't been keeping track of them

Yes. That suggests that the mall and the haunted house were the only such instances to date, in that case. I'd like to confirm the precise meaning of their classification numbers.

did the new survey have one? there was one on the files we found at the university, right?

It did: CE-50-361.74: The Good of the Many. It matches the mention of a previous experiment: CE-47-361.74.

[ He sits on his reply for a second, which sits itself as 'so the only difference is 47 and 50'... ]

do you think the 50 means it's the 50th time they did that experiment? if it was the same one

That was my assumption as well, yes. I also wonder whether it's significant that all previous references have involved what appears to be the 47th iteration of experiments, not another number.

has there been more than one time that 47 showed up?

CE-47-185.43, whereas ours was CE-50-185.43: Water Under the Bridge.

but the only file we have is the one from the university, so it's just one. we're on 50, so we're seeing that number cuz that's what we're on

if anyone found more files i don't know about them

That is true. I'm simply wondering why findings for that particular past iteration were provided to us even partially.

does the experiment on the file sound anything like the experiment everyone just had? i know the haunted house had different levels but i dont know anything else

if they sound the same then maybe they don't do the same experiment each october. but in 47 they did
so 47 and 50 had the same oct experiment

The legible sections may reflect enough to infer that the same experiment was conducted then. Your conclusion seems plausible, as it's possible that 47 introduced "changed factors" for the first time.

deciphering or guessing what everything says in the report would help. and finding more files. i'll go back to the university and see if i can find anything if we want to find more

but someone must be making us find these on purpose. we got the note on the newsletter and then we found the 47 report

[ A pause, and then another message: ]

we can't take out the original 47 report from the office but everything is redacted.

[ ... ]

it has to be on purpose. but the fact it's a redacted file makes me think it had to be to see how we would act than to help us

[ Sorry, dude, Robby is now texting and looking at his own copy of the report and trying to think!! ]

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wordchain - 2023-12-18 03:19 (UTC) - Expand

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strongroots - 2023-12-18 13:35 (UTC) - Expand