Book Five, Chapter 43: The Femme Fatale

“We really cannot risk staying here,” I said, but I might as well have been talking to myself because Michael and Andrew could not resist questioning Lila.

My friends seemed to agree that the interrogation was more critical than whatever risk standing at the entrance of the Powerworks Pavilion might hold.

I kept my head on a swivel, looking for Omens. I didn’t know of any that would threaten us, but we were certainly surrounded.

So, if one of the Omens turned out to be mobile, we would be in trouble because there were some high-level storylines around us.

If it turned out that the werewolves in the monster lair up the mountain could somehow leave their invisible chains and come down to us, we would be dead.

There were no cool heads among us except perhaps Andrew’s and perhaps Ramona’s. What a bad Hysteric.

We were all either scared or confused or angry.

“Why did you do that?” Michael asked, with a fury that was usually reserved for enemies. “You got Logan and Avery killed. You got us killed!”

Lila, much like her surrogate in the storyline, had disappeared into a catatonia that Michael’s words could not pierce.

“Lila, talk to me. You’ve always trusted me. We’ve always trusted each other,” Andrew said. “If you have an explanation, please tell us.”

They were so preoccupied with their own issues that they were uninterested in us. They tried to break her silence, but it seemed like it was taking forever.

Lila did eventually start talking.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “I had to.”

Andrew, in a tone that was far too calm, said, “Why did you have to do that? You knew where you were leading us, didn’t you? You knew there would be monsters there.”

“I didn’t know exactly,” Lila said. “I didn’t know it was a monster lair. I just knew I was supposed to take you up the mountain.”

A quick scan of Lila’s tropes showed me that she did have a powerful scouting ability on par with my own, if not better. But it wasn’t clear if it worked on monster lairs. Hers only worked on Omens. Mine at least gave me a clue of other dangers with the anxiety it caused me.

However, her trope also allowed her to find safe paths through Sound Stages to get around the Carousel, a concept that boggled my mind.

“Who told you to take us up the mountain?” Andrew asked.

“I can’t tell you. She’ll get mad at me.”

Andrew tried to pry further to find out who had instructed Lila to lead them up a mountain to their doom.

It was no use; she had gone silent again.

“Alright, wait a minute,” Antoine said. “Now you have to talk. What happened to you on the mountain? Werewolves attacked you, right?”

Michael did not take his eyes off Lila and did not answer.

Andrew thought for a moment, took a deep breath, removed his glasses, breathed condensation onto them, and began to clean them.

Then he looked at Antoine.

“She led us up the mountain toward the storyline we were going to run. There’s a path—you can barely see it through the trees. As we walked, we found a group of fifteen or twenty NPCs loitering. As far as we could tell, nothing was alarming, no more alarming than Carousel usually is. I believe most of them were KRSL employees. But then we continued to walk, and suddenly the sun went down, and the moon rose, and those NPCs… you can guess the rest. They got Logan and Avery, two of our teammates. But I suppose you already know that because you just rescued us. And if you can rescue us, and you know there are werewolves on the mountain, then you’ve no doubt done some investigating.”

He cleared his throat.

“And since you know all I told you, you know that I’m telling the truth. So I hope that you can honestly explain what’s going on. I see that my siblings are among your party, but your levels are higher. In fact, your levels are not uniform at all. I expect something traumatic has happened since we were last here.”

He spoke matter-of-factly and without any blatant aggression.

“We’re the team that got here after you guys got postered,” Antoine answered.

Andrew nodded.

“It was my understanding that Rescue Tropes had disappeared. Would you care to explain why we’re alive here today?”

Lila, who had remained silent, suddenly struck up a curiosity and looked straight at Antoine. She wanted to know the answer, too, and if she was compromised somehow, it was best that she didn’t get it.

“Hold on,” Antoine said. “We’re not going to tell you anything while she is listening. I assume you heard the story of Winston Ashwood. We certainly did, and it looks like this is the same kind of scheme he pulled.”

Andrew nodded.

“Yes, he was before our time, but we heard the story. Psychic player gone rogue, sending innocents to their deaths,” Andrew said. “You’re right; this does seem to be the same sort of treachery.”

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He turned his gaze back toward Lila.

“I don’t know anything about that,” Lila said. “I’m not a killer. I promise I didn’t know. I just… I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

“Not trying to hurt me?” Andrew repeated. “But you were trying to hurt someone.”

“Andrew, please,” she said. “Logan’s quest was going to get us killed. I told you that a dozen times. It was going to get everyone killed. Not just us, but everyone at Camp Dyer, too.”

Quest. The word rang out like a gong.

“A quest?” Dina said. “Your friend Logan had a quest?”

Antoine tried to gesture for her to stop talking. We didn’t want to give out any more information than we had to, especially about that. Even if we really wanted the information they had, we had to be cautious. Memories of deceitful Narrators rang echoed in our minds.

But the cat was out of the bag.

Andrew was very quick on the uptake. He didn’t even have to ask how Dina knew what a quest was. He turned to her and said, “I suppose, having been our replacements, that one of you also has a quest.”

Even Dina kept quiet.

How much could we say? From what Lila had said, it seemed someone had told her about Project Rewind. It was true that Logan’s quest would have gotten everyone at Camp Dyer killed.

After all, Dina’s had.

“Tell us what you know,” Michael said firmly, still focused on Lila.

“His quest was only going to cause trouble,” Lila said. “I promise, I know it’s true. I can’t tell you how I know, but you have to believe me. There have been others like him, and every time one shows up, they are a risk to everyone else.”

“Of course, there are risks,” Michael said. “We have to take risks. We’re not getting out of Carousel if we don’t. I told you from day one that we had to be willing to do whatever it took, you idiot!”

“Michael,” Andrew said calmly. “Let’s hear her out.”

After a quick look around at the rest of us, he turned to Lila. He was formulating ideas, getting a sense of the situation, and using his gentle interrogation to buy time.