"Trust in who?"
I felt a sense of dread as Tetesac walked into the room. I fumbled with the book for a moment and shoved it back into my suit pocket.
"Ack... Erm, That's a good question."
Trying to come up with some way to get out of this, my eyes traveled to Tetesac's beard, being unsettlingly stroked by his hand.
Aha, I've got it.
"Well..." he said, looking at me expectantly. "If it's not any of my business, I won't intrude..."
"Oh, no, I was just talking about that old guy from earlier. Just saying we shouldn't put much trust in what he says, like you said."
Tetesac looked at me for a moment. "Ah, yes. I see. A good plan, that one." He looked deep in thought, suddenly not seeming to be paying any attention to me.
Lyra spoke up. "So, what brings you back here? I thought you had king-ish duties and stuff."
Tetesac took a second to respond. "...Oh! Yes, right! I wanted to tell you something, George. The password to the KEVIN."
"You know the password?"
"Well, yes. You trusted me enough to give me access."
"...Ah. I see. Well, that's good, then, 'cause I thought I was screwed on that front. So, what's the password?"
Tetesac looked over to Lyra. "Are you sure you're alright with Ms. Heartstrings hearing it?"
"Oh, yeah, that's fine. I trust her. Besides, she doesn't have hands to type with." She shot me an annoyed look.
"...Hmm. Very well, if you're sure." A huge grin suddenly formed on Tetesac's face. "The password is... 'humpthewalt'."
I think my brain shut down momentarily at that point. Not sure what to say to that, I looked at both Lyra and Tetesac, both of them clearly trying to stifle laughter. They looked as if their eyes were about to pop out of their heads.
"...Yeah, okay," I finally said, prompting them both to burst into laughter. How did I even come up with something like that? Well, whatever. I walked over to the KEVIN and turned back to the two merchants of embarrassment. "Is that all lowercase?"
"Yes," said Tetesac, wiping a tear from his eye. "All lowercase letters."
"All... very small letters. Very small..." said Lyra, trying to keep herself from laughing again.
"Yeah, yeah. You know, comedians don't laugh at their own jokes on stage. Especially when the jokes suck." I turned back to the panel and typed in the password. The screen was overlaid with green letters that read "VERIFIED".
"If you guys are done being immature, the password worked."
Lyra walked up to me. Tetesac, on the other hand, stayed behind. "That's great, George!" said Tetesac. "I must get back to those kingly duties, though. Have fun!" He quickly disappeared through the door.
"Well, that was weird," I said.
"He's probably just in a hurry," said Lyra. "Anyway, let's see what's on that machine."
A series of commands had appeared on the screen, ranging from "cd" to "log". I wasn't quite sure where to start.
"Uh... right. Just gotta figure this out..." I typed "cd" and pressed enter, bringing up the words "invalid directory".
"Well, we're off to a great start so far," said Lyra.
"Yeah, yeah. Let's try this last one..." I typed "log" and pressed enter. A few commands appeared as follows:
log show - Shows logs of KEVIN usage.
log show <date> - Show KEVIN usage logs by specific date.
log erase - Erase KEVIN usage logs.
log backup <name> - Back up KEVIN usage logs to specific filename.
log restore <name> - Restore KEVIN usage logs by filename.
log search <keyword> - Search through logs and backups via keyword.
"Huh," I said. "Alright, let's take a look at the logs of this thing being used..." I typed "log show" into the terminal and hit enter. The words "No logs available" appeared on-screen.
"That's strange," I said, "This thing's been used before, I wonder why there aren't any logs."
"Maybe because of the coffee?" offered Lyra.
"That's a whole other thing. This thing actually still works, even with coffee being spilled on it. It's strange..." Getting an idea, I typed "log restore" and hit enter.
"0 of 1 logs restored
Invalid syntax - Filename is required"
"Damn it," I said. "It looks like there's a log backed up, but I have no idea what to search for." I tried "log search log", coming up with zero results.
"Maybe try searching for one letter at a time?" said Lyra, craning her neck to get a good look at the screen.
"Alright..." I started with the most common letter, "e". No dice. I proceeded to try all the vowels. Nothing.
"So, that means there aren't any full words, right? It might be an acronym."
"log search b"
Nothing.
"log search p"
Nothing.
"log search m"
Still nothing.
"log search x"
Noth- Wait, no, there's something here.
"xxxxx.txt - 3 KB" read the screen.
"Sweet, we found it!" I said. I quickly typed "log restore xxxxx.txt" and hit enter. The screen suddenly filled with a large number of entries, too many to count. Each was marked with a date and success or failure of the experiment.
"These don't seem to be from too long ago," I said. "One of these is dated October 17th."
The log entries were listed from top to bottom, most recent to least recent. They went off the screen, so I scrolled through them with the arrow keys.
TEST #90 - SUBJECT: TREE FROG - RESULT: FAILURE
SUBJECT STATUS: ALIVE
Most of the entries followed this format, aside from a few that caught my eye.
TEST #84 - SUBJECT: RACCOON - RESULT: SUCCESS
SUBJECT STATUS: ALIVE
"Success, huh? Does that mean I bestowed immortality onto a raccoon?" I said to Lyra. She didn't answer, she was too fixated on the screen. I kept scrolling down. The list became rather repetitive after a while, so I started mashing the down arrow to get through the list as fast as possible. That is, until something at the top of the screen caught my eye.
TEST #43 - SUBJECT: RAT - RESULT: FAILURE
SUBJECT STATUS: DECEASED
"Shit," I said to Lyra, "I hope I didn't do that." I scrolled up further, but I stopped as a feeling of dread filled my stomach to the brim. I slowly read over what the screen now said.
TEST #44 - SUBJECT: TORTOISE - RESULT: FAILURE
SUBJECT STATUS: DECEASED
TEST #45 - SUBJECT: HARE - RESULT: FAILURE
SUBJECT STATUS: DECEASED
TEST #46 - SUBJECT: OWL - RESULT: FAILURE
SUBJECT STATUS: DECEASED
TEST #47 - SUBJECT: PIG - RESULT: FAILURE
SUBJECT STATUS: DECEASED
"I... I don't..." I tried to make sense of this, but as I scrolled down one more entry, my stomach dropped into my feet.
TEST #48 - SUBJECT: HUMAN - RESULT: FAILURE
SUBJECT STATUS: DECEASED
I felt dizzy all of a sudden. Not saying anything, I took a few steps back. Did I... conduct an experiment on another person? Did I... kill them in the process?! No, no... There's no way...
I tried to look for someplace to sit, but I slipped on something and hit the floor.
~ Some time later ~
I awoke on a hospital bed. I was nearly blinded with light as I opened my eyes to the fluorescent light bulbs installed in the ceiling.
"Ugh..." I said, or rather, groaned. God, my head hurts like hell. I looked over to the side of the bed and saw Lyra standing there.
"Oh, good, you're awake!" said Lyra. "I was pretty worried."
"Hey... did you take me here?"
"Well, King Tetesac helped. He had to step out for a bit, but he said he'd be back soon."
"Oh..." I touched my head with my hand. "Did I fall?"
"Yeah, hard. Right on your face. Your nose isn't in very good shape right now. Or, rather, it's in a bunch of not-so-good shapes."
"I broke my nose."
"Yep. Try falling on your side or something next time, alright?"
I brought my hand to my nose, but pulled it away as pain shot through my face. "Yeah... sure, I'll try. And how long was I out for?"
"A couple hours. The doctors needed some additional time to fix your nose, so they used some anesthetic to keep you unconscious."
"I didn't give my consent for that."
"Tetesac told them it was fine, he figured you wouldn't want to have a broken nose."
"...Fair enough."
As if on cue, the door to the room opened, and Tetesac walked in. "Oh good, you're awake," said Tetesac. "You have no idea what I had to go through for them to allow Ms. Heartstrings in here." He took a chair next to me and sat down. "They said she could be 'ridden with plague', or something to that effect. Rather insulting, I'd say."
Suddenly, everything that happened before I fell came flooding back to me. I laid there silently, processing everything that had happened since I got to Anthropia.
"Are you alright, George? You seem lost in thought."
After about five seconds, I slowly turned my head to Tetesac. I sat up and looked him straight in the eye as the words came out of my mouth.
"Am I a murderer?"
Tetesac didn't respond for a moment. "You... what?"
"Did I kill someone in one of my experiments?! You'd have to know!"
"I don't quite-"
"I looked in the KEVIN logs, there's a record of an experiment with a human who is status deceased! Along with a bunch of other animals! Did I kill them in my experiments?!"
"George, hold on a moment-"
"And don't lie to me, I need to know this for sure-"
"GEORGE!"
I stopped. Tetesac, for the first time I could remember, looked irritated. I slowly shut my mouth.
"George, there is no need for worry. Those beings did not die in your experiments, they were deceased beforehand."
"...Huh?"
"I will start with the most worrying one. The human who you conducted the experiment on was already deceased."
"How do I know that for sure?"
"I filed paperwork to get you the cadaver, I assure you that you obtained it through entirely legal means. I can show you the papers if you wish. The animals are in the same situation, however I do not have paperwork to prove those."
"...Well, you say you have paperwork, and that would be a hard lie to get out of... Alright, I guess I feel better now."
"George..."
"Yeah?"
"Forgive me for asking this, but I've been curious... Why do you mistrust me so much?"
I fidgeted in my seat a bit. "Oh... you noticed?"
"It was hard not to, George. Your poorly constructed lie about Old Man Musket earlier was perhaps the biggest giveaway."
I looked at him for a second before responding. "I just... I'm sorry, all this new info about my past life isn't easy to take in, so I'm kinda skeptical of things in general."
Tetesac brightened up a bit. "Ah, well, that's understandable. I was beginning to think it had something to do with me specifically."
"...Ah," I said, looking down. I was suspicious of him specifically, but this didn't seem like the best time to say that. Not to mention, another thought had entered my mind.
I slowly looked back to Tetesac and spoke.
"You need to make a peace treaty with Equestria."
Tetesac's expression changed to one of surprise. "I need to do what?"
"Last night, I had a dream. It was... an interesting dream, to say the least."
"George, you shouldn't pay much heed to-"
"I'm not finished. In this dream, someone visited me. Someone by the name of 'Princess Luna'."
Tetesac's face tensed up at hearing this, but Lyra spoke up first. "Princess Luna? She came to you in a dream?!"
"...So I was right, she does exist. Good, then I'm not about to make myself look stupid."
I waited for a response from either one of them, but I didn't get one. So I continued.
"She told me I needed to convince you to make a peace treaty with Equestria, that the current feud between races was pointless and rather harmful."
"...George. Are you saying they want a peace treaty?"
"Yes. They do. So what's the issue? It's a simple matter! You want it, they want it! I'm sure the benefits outweigh the downside of some people here not liking you!"
Tetesac sighed. "It's not that simple, George. As much as I'd like to, this is the sort of thing I cannot just do all of a sudden. If I am to ever do this, it will take a very long time. Perhaps years. And with that, I need to get back to my duties." Tetesac stood up and walked to the door.
Well, I tried. Not much else I can do here- Wait a minute.
"Wait," I said. Tetesac turned around. "Yes?"
I pulled the notebook out of my pocket. "Look at this page!" I turned to the most recently written page in the notebook. "This is a journal I kept before I got amnesia. It says you're planning something! You wanna know why I don't trust you? You explicitly said you're not planning something! You lied! And you lied about my experiments! Your stories contradict each other! You're a shitty liar, Titty Sack!"
Before he could respond, I got up out of the hospital bed and walked up to him.
"For all I know, this couldn't mean anything bad at all. Sure, maybe they're little white lies. But I'd really like to know for sure. The least you can do for us at this point is tell us the truth about everything you've lied to us about."
I looked to Lyra to see if she was with me. She quickly looked away, avoiding my gaze. "Well... yeah, what he said."
I then noticed Tetesac's expression. It wasn't one of annoyance, nor shock. It was a look of defeat.
"...Very well," Tetesac said. "I was wrong to keep this from you, but I simply... well, you will see when I explain it." He went over to the door and locked it, then went back beside the bed and sat down. "Are you sure you want to know the truth, George?"
"Why do you think I went off on that rant? Of course I do!"
"So be it, then. But you will have to deal with the consequences yourself, I'm afraid."