Ivy and the Fluorescent Lightbulb

Chapter 17.2 - Missing Records

Huh? Ivy thought, searching around the room. "Hey, guys?" she called out.

No response.

Ivy peeked behind the shelves and equipment, to no avail. Where did they go? She glanced down to the cellar. "Hey, Uncle Taner?"

There was a long pause. "What?" he abruptly replied.

Ivy flinched. His voice was sharper than it already typically was. "...Never mind," she said.

She could hear a long sigh waft from the cellar. "Okay," she heard him mutter.

Ivy slowly crept over the debris of the broken wall, looking into the stairwell. "Oak? Syndria? Augaley?" she quietly called. Where could they have gone? Just then, something caught her eye: a conspicuous doorway in the corridor, just next to the stairs. "Huh, never noticed that before."

Ivy approached the door, then stopped. What if this is a trap or something? she nervously thought, looking at the top of the metal stairs. The door still appeared to be closed. We didn't hear anyone come in...but then again they could have just snuck in...couldn't they? She peered closer, trying to get a better look at the inside. Oh! I can see someone's clothes glowing!

The figure in the space moved, then popped out. "Ivy?" Oak said, blinking at her from the dark doorway.

"Oak?" Ivy exclaimed. "What are you doing out here? Where's everyone else?"

Oak shrugged, then ducked out of the room. "Uncle Taner never said we couldn't go in there."

"What's in there?" she asked, walking past him to peek inside. There was Syndria, Kronalia, Augaley, and Carbon, sitting in a comfortable circle.

"Hey, Ivy!" Syndria said. "Is Uncle Taner done with you then?" She patted the ground next to her, inviting Ivy to join them.

"We were just discussing our investigations while we were here," Carbon said.

"It's the furthest place from Uncle Taner where we could talk about it," Oak hurriedly explained.

"But I thought Uncle Taner said to stay in the lab—"

"I don't remember making any promises," Oak said, glancing into the lab at the open hatch before stepping behind Ivy as she walked into the room. He closed the door.

"So, what have you all been talking about?" Ivy said, looking at each of them as she sat next to Syndria.

"Our investigations," Carbon said.

"Right," Ivy said with a nod, thinking back to the conversation they had in the library when she had first come. "With the whole failing thing and how you're going to help them find the lost element?"

Oak nodded. "While we were trying to look for more evidence of system glitches," he said, sitting next to her, "We found this interesting document." He swiped open a panel in front of himself and enlargened it, moving it to be between himself and Ivy.

"...What am I looking at?" Ivy blankly said as she tried to make sense of the endless charts and spreadsheets.

"This is the record for imprisonments in Cryptoprison. Do you see anything interesting?" He highlighted a block of rows. "This is the night that Uncle Taner was supposedly taken in."

Ivy scanned the list of names. "I don't see him on there... What's his full name again?"

"Monitaner."

She looked again. "Hm, no, I don't see him." She glanced at Oak. "Okay, so what's the big deal with this? Maybe they let him off that night?"

"Definitely not," Syndria said with a firm shake of her head. "After you went in the portal and it disappeared, that agent's backup moved in and arrested him on the spot."

"What happened to you guys?" Ivy said with a frown.

"They took us home," Kronalia said. "I thought they were going to take us in for questioning or something!"

"Yeah, I didn't think that we'd get to go home," Augaley agreed.

"We weren't expecting to find that Uncle Taner wasn't on the record books," Oak said, "so we're sure that it's another glitch in The System."

Ivy thoughtfully looked at the screen. "...Unless he wasn't taken to prison," she quietly said. Her mind swirled with thoughts. He has been acting kinda weird since I've come back...I wonder what else he's hiding. Ivy frowned.

"Wait, wait," Oak said, shaking his head. "Are you saying that Uncle Taner lied to us?"

"Isn't it a possibility?" Ivy asked, shrinking under Oak's blazing stare.

Oak faltered, then leaned back with a sigh. "I mean...I guess it is..." He trailed off, lost in thought.

Ivy watched the others as they sat with troubled expressions. Maybe I can cheer them up with some good news, she thought. "Guys," Ivy hesitantly said. "About saving The System... I think I may have found the lost element you've been searching for."

The group snapped out of their melancholy, much to Ivy's relief.

"Really?" Syndria said.

"What is it, Ivy?" Carbon said.

"Well—" Ivy started.

She was abruptly interrupted by the door suddenly sliding open. "What are you all doing out here?" Uncle Taner said, his hands full of tools and face fixed in a frown. "Didn't I specifically say not to leave the lab? You all should be on the other side of the wall."

Ivy jumped. Did he hear anything we were saying? She nervously looked at Uncle Taner, who inquisitively returned her gaze.

"What?" he said with a half-bewildered scowl. "Come on, I don't want you guys out here," he said, beckoning to them.

Ivy noticed that he glanced at the door at the top of the stairs before returning to the lab. She lingered behind them, her mind wandering as she looked at the door. He keeps looking behind us as if he knows that someone is following us... she shivered and hurried after the rest.