Chapter 33: ~Chapter 11~ Part 2

Our first stop at the apparently renowned Critias Museum and Library was one of the more relaxed and at the same time perplexing experiences I had. The exhibits, which mostly dealt with the island's history, were housed in a large baroque building that would have fit right into any old European capital if not for the unsettlingly new state it was in. It didn't even make sense; why would someone try to emulate an antique building style and then make it look brand new? Wasn't the patina half the point? But then again, it wasn't like this was even close to making it onto my list of the ten most glaring absurdities this world had thrown my way this far, so I decided not to get too hung up on it, especially since I was just in the process of reading something even more baffling as we spoke.

"So the island's traditional claim to fame and chief source of income is its extensive mining industry?" I scratched my chin in a most cerebral manner while leaning forward to get a better look at the eye-strainingly tiny letters engraved into the surface of the bronze plaque. It was fastened onto the stump of a Greek column in front of a series of large pictures depicting gaping mineshafts and eerily happy miners. After some time I straightened myself and shook my head. "That's just silly."

"How come?" Judy inquired while also straightening herself. I didn't even notice that she was leaning forward the same way I was.

"This is a volcanic island," I stated dryly.

"Really?"

"Yes. What else could a small island in the middle of an ocean be?" I stated confidently, then after some hesitation, I cleared my throat and added; "Also, that other plaque said so."

"Oh." Judy's voice sounded faintly impressed either way.

"Anyways, the point is that volcanic islands are fairly new geological formations, so there was no time for ore veins to accumulate, and let's not even mention fossil fuels like oil or coal. I have no idea what they could be mining that would warrant an industry. Maybe sulfur?"

"It's unobtanium," Judy stated at my side and the word immediately managed to skyrocket my brows.

"Bullcrap." I caught myself responding flatly and quickly cleared my throat. "Pardon. What I wanted to say was: ‘Ha ha, yeah, we just talked about that yesterday, not falling for that.'"

My assistant let out a soft ‘tch' sound, though as usual, her face didn't show any irritation.

"I was found out."

"It was a good try though."

"I see." To my relief, she seemed to perk right back up and calmly walked over to the next plaque in line. "Ah!"

I was startled by the unusually excited noise she made and quickly made my way to her side.

"What did you find?"

"The actual answer," she told me as flatly as ever, but in contrast to that, I couldn't help but notice that she puffed out her chest. It wasn't proper to stare though, so I leaned closer to take a better look at the information tablet in question.

"Well, I'll be damned. It says the island has large deposits of nickel, gold, and... diamonds? Really?"

"It says so."

"Yeah, but..." I scratched my head while trying to keep my mouth from grimacing. "Damn, I should really look into this on the net once we get home." I was about to move on, but my assistant's relentless stare made me stop and raise a curious eyebrow at her display. "Is there a problem?"

"Why did we come here then?"

"Excuse me?"

"I just don't see the point of visiting a museum if you are going to search the internet for information found there anyways. Why did we come here in the first place?"

Somehow she made the otherwise confrontational question sound reasonable. I opened my palms and shrugged.

"It's all about the experience."

"Is it?"

"Yep. Sure, if you are only looking for just the particulars, then the internet is much faster, but doing the legwork like this has its charm too."

"If you say so." She looked around, probably looking for the right words to let me down gently. "I just think it's inefficient. And a little boring."

"Wait, you are bored?" My reaction was, of course, in no way panicked or defensive. "I'm not bored. Are you bored?"

My assistant awarded me another of her long deadpan gazes (which didn't look much different from her usual look, but I was pretty sure it was the intention behind it) before she decided to answer.

"I'm not bored," she paused to inconspicuously nod to the side. "But they are."

"Oh..." I had to remind myself to only look from the corner of my eye, and it didn't take long to locate the entourage. They were hiding behind one of the large round columns upholding the ceiling of the exhibit hall... except for the class rep, who was out in the open and reading one of the plaques in the back. It said something that she was the least conspicuous member of the entire bunch.

"So?" I returned my attention to my assistant with said inquiry. "No one is forcing them to follow us around."

"But they do, and if we keep loitering around they will think we are boring people. We should hurry up."

"Oh, come on. Could we not time our trip to the whims of our stalkers, please?"

"I just feel sorry for them. It's probably not very interesting to watch us viewing an exhibit."

"I don't know..." I tried to object, but she was actually kind of right. But still, a stubborn streak in me just didn't want to give in like that. "Damn, now you made me wonder what they are thinking about."

"You can ask them tomorrow. We should move on."

I shook my head. "No, I was rather thinking about listening in on them right here and now."

Judy discreetly glanced at the still hiding entourage, and when her eyes returned to me there was a look in them that I figured must have been skeptical in nature.

"They are pretty far from us. Do you plan to sneak up on them?"

"Depends," I told her as I looked around the hall. I could practically count the people around me on one hand, and they were all silent. In fact, the place was eerily quiet, though in this case it was a good thing. "Let's act like we are wandering around and get a little closer to them. We might be able to hear something if we focus really hard."

"If you say so."

Ignoring the unbeliever at my side, I closed my eyes and tuned my ears in the direction of Josh and company. Figuratively, of course. To my surprise, I managed to pick up something right away. At first there were only small snippets, word-fragments masked by minor environmental noises I didn't even notice before, yet slowly but surely I was able to make out more and more. I held my breath to reduce the background noise even further and, with the suddenness of a popping soap bubble, everything came into perfect focus at once. So much so in fact that I involuntarily gasped when I thought the princess was right beside me. I opened my eyes, but only Judy was at my side, and she was looking at me with her usual deadpan expression colored by a tinge of incredulity.

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"So?"

"I can totally hear them," I whispered while trying my best to reign in my shocked excitement. "I can hear them loud and clear."

"Really?"

She still didn't sound convinced, so I instructed her to focus as I did. After a few seconds, she shook her head.

"I can't hear anything."

"Maybe it's the acoustics," I hypothesized. "Try standing over here."

My assistant followed my instructions without any complaints, but she didn't seem to hear anything. I decided to try and show her the ropes.

"Listen closely. Right now Angie is complaining that I didn't buy you any snacks at the kiosk. And now Josh is talking about how said kiosk wasn't nearly expensive enough and that I should have brought along some kind of dish I can't pronounce."

"That sounds like something they would say," she tentatively agreed. "But I still can't hear them."

"Seriously? They are completely audible. Try closing your eyes."

My assistant obediently did as I instructed, scrunching up her eyes in concentration.

"What are they talking about now?"

"Right now? Give me a second... The princess is saying that I must have tricked you into closing your eyes so that I can molest you."

Judy opened one of her eyes at me.

"Did you?"

"No, and one of these days I really have to sit down and talk with that girl before things get out of hand."

The answer seemed to satisfy her, for she closed her eyes and began concentrating again. It was apparent Judy tried her best to listen, but in the end she shook her head all the same.

"Sorry, couldn't hear anything legible."

"Seriously? But they are talking so loud, and—" I paused as a disappointed frown settled onto my face, "Oh, you looked their way."

"I did?"

"Yeah, Josh just pulled the princess back. He has his hand clapped on her mouth and... Wow, that's so typical."

"Did something happen?"

"Hm?" I grunted groggily as I glanced at her, then shook my head. "Nah, it's just that the princess apparently got a nosebleed. It's one of those trope things. It's supposed to signal arousal or something."

"How did you know that?"

"It's on the site I showed you last time. Just search for nosebleed; it apparently has something to do with an old wives' tale."

Judy shook her head so abruptly her hair whipped around her face. She quickly straightened her hairdo and continued without missing a beat.

"No, I mean that she has a nosebleed."

"I told you, I'm listening to them. It's not that hard."

"Chief, they are behind the column. Literally out of sight. How can you tell something like that?"

"I..." The words got caught in my throat and instead turned into a confused grunt. "That's... actually a very good question. How the hell can I tell that?"

As a matter of fact, I had a crisp picture of exactly what was going on behind that column, in glorious HD resolution no less. I was just about to ponder whether I was seeing the actual events or I was just hallucinating when my arm got hijacked by my assistant, pulling me along and instantly bursting whatever vision I had like the previously mentioned soap bubble.

"Let's move on, we need to have them think we didn't notice them."

"Fine, fine! I'm coming, no need to pull! Geez..." I agreed automatically, but after a few steps, the gears in my head finally caught up and made me knit my brows in puzzlement while simultaneously planting my feet and stopping the girl dragging me with a sudden jerk. "Wait, why do we need to make them believe that? The cat's out of the bag, I think we could just ignore them pointedly until they leave."

"No. If we do that, it would make the rest of our destinations pointless," my assistant argued while still trying to pull me along. I noticed that there was something wrong with that argument, but at the moment I found myself strangely preoccupied with the sight of Judy tugging at my arm. She didn't actually put her back into it; in fact, she was only pulling on my sleeve with two slender fingers pinched on a crease and she was ineffectually tugging at it at regular intervals while staring holes into my face.

"So...?" I asked her, and she gave me a strangle look in return, so I clarified my question with, "So what if our plans are torpedoed? We still have my original timetable."

"No," she emphatically stated between two tugs, but then she seemed to be thinking for a few seconds before she also added, "It would be wasteful."

"I really don't see what you are getting at," I admitted, but then it turned out my mouth was one step ahead of my brain once again, as a second later the realization hit me like a sackful of bricks. "Oh. Ooooooh... I get it now." I flashed a toothy smile and she visibly twitched. "You were looking forward to going to the amusement park, weren't you?"

Judy didn't answer, but instead she tried to show no reaction whatsoever. I say tried, since at this point I was so used to her natural poker face that her efforts to appear level and stoic manifested as the most overt reaction I have ever seen on her face. It was pretty ironic.

"You know you could've just said so? This entire trip is for your sake in the first place."

"And the research?"

"That's just a side-benefit," I told her while gently un-quenching her still absent-mindedly tugging fingers. "In fact, I guess we can skip the memorial park too. Let's head for the amusement park."

"Are you sure? I don't want to go there that much."

Completely disregarding her protests I clasped her hand in mine and began dragging her along in a mirror opposite of the situation just a minute ago; all the while trying to ignore the strange snippets of excited conversation from the other side of a certain column.

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