Chapter 8f: Da Seul
After her (rather stressful) round, Da Seul had (rather unwillingly) joined the mysterious Elaine, where they proceeded to wait outside a single nondescript room for what felt like hours. “Tell me again why we’re here?”
Elaine suppressed a groan. “There are two groups here from Little Port Coo, which is where we tracked that note. One of them has to be responsible, or at least have a link to the real source. Edward and your friend Kellie are tracking one group, and this person, here”—she indicated the door—“is the last member of the other group. They won’t split up, it’s too ghetto, so we’ll be able to follow them all together after she gets out.”
Da Seul tried to digest this. “But why are you—we— trying to track down that paper in the first place?”
Elaine appeared to be unable to answer this. But the moment passed and she turned back to face the door again. Da Seul was getting sick of this steakout. Stakeout. Whatever.
The door opened. “Quiet!” hissed Elaine, dragging the two of them around a corner and causing Da Seul’s leg to bark sharply against the wall. Da Seul rubbed her smarting shin as Elaine listened intently.
“Oh. My. GOD!” they heard, “That was the longest round ever!”
“Christine, the judges might hear you!” said another voice. Da Seul saw Elaine mouthing the words Who is that?, and shook her head in response.
“Yeah, well, I think they agree with me. If only that one girl hadn’t had to finish her Interp first…” The voices got farther away as Christine and the other woman moved away.
“Quickly!” Elaine hissed. Da Seul found that a lot to hiss in the span of two minutes, but had to (quietly) run to catch up with Elaine.
The two of them pursued the target Cooportinoan and her companion in an uncomfortable chase that lasted maybe 10 minutes. At the start Da Seul had kept running into Elaine whenever she stopped abruptly, but by the end she had gotten quite good at anticipating her sudden stops. She was just congratulating herself when Elaine held up her hand sharply. Stop!
FIRST WOMAN: What took you so long, Christine?
CHRISTINE: Oh, it was awful! The third person in my round had an Interp first, so we were all stuck waiting, and then the person before me went way over time. I heard the judges actually had to stop him.
FIRST MAN: You had multiple judges? Wow.
CHRISTINE: Oh yeah, this is Cecilia, everyone.
CECILIA (COMPANION) shyly: Hi.
Noises of surprise and mistrust.
CHRISTINE frustrated: Come on, guys, she’s OK.
Noises of grudging acceptance.
CECILIA: So, uh, what were your topics?
SECOND WOMAN: Rain.
CHRISTINE: What’d you talk about, Ivy?
IVY (SECOND WOMAN): Cats and dogs.
Short silence
FIRST WOMAN: Like, raining cats and dogs?
IVY: No, mostly just cats and dogs.
Short silence
SECOND MAN: Knowing you, I can believe it.
Elaine looked disgusted. Da Seul felt more and more that this was a waste of time.
SECOND MAN: Hey, look, it’s Gordon, Richard, and Kushal.
A sigh, unknown source.
THIRD MAN: Hey, you guys are here too? Wow, what a coinkydink.
Several groans.
FOURTH MAN: Have any of you guys seen my brother? Pause. He disappeared just before the round.
FIFTH MAN: Yeah-zors. We didn’t worry about it since we were, you know, kinda late. But we thought he’d be back afterwards.
CHRISTINE: Andrew? No, we haven’t seen him.
FOURTH MAN: Great. I’m actually starting to worry about him.
CECILIA: What does he look like?
FIFTH MAN: Kinda short, wears glasses. Looks like this guy.
THIRD MAN: OOOOH! That was bad.
SECOND MAN smilingly: But which one was he insulting?
CECILIA: I think I saw him.
FOURTH MAN: Where?
CECILIA: He was with these two other people. Couldn’t tell…
FIFTH MAN: If they were men or women? Yeah, we’ve run into him—
THIRD MAN: —her—
FIFTH MAN: —before.
CECILIA: I don’t think he was conscious.
SEVERAL VOICES: What?
CECILIA: They were carrying him.
SEVERAL VOICES: WHAT?
SECOND MAN: OK, this is bad.
FOURTH MAN: We’ve got to go find him!
CHRISTINE: But how?
FOURTH MAN: We’ve got talents, we can do it.
FIRST MAN: I guess the round’s over, but I was supposed to meet someone. I sent them a note—
EDWARD: HALT! Come out with your hands up!
“Edward?!” Elaine shouted, then clapped a hand over her mouth. Da Seul peeked around the corner.
Five men and four women were staring in her direction, having obviously just turned away from the sight of Edward holding a banana like a laser gun. Behind him, Kellie was in a ridiculous pose of a martial arts master on the side of Justice. Her heroic expression turned to dismay as she saw Da Seul. The nine others were still in shock.
“I heard that, Elaine. Come on out here!” Edward called.
Da Seul dragged Elaine, also shocked, out into the open.
“What’s going on here?” asked the first woman.
“Show them the note!” Edward commanded.
Elaine bristled at his tone, but pulled out the orange neon piece of paper that so blinded the eyes.
“Oh…” said the first man. Everyone turned to him.
“Jin? You know something about this?” said Christine suspiciously.
“Well…” said the man, Jin.
“I KNEW IT!” Only a few of them stared at Christine now; their necks were getting sore from spinning around so much.
“This round is over, right?” asked Jin, not expecting an answer, “Then if you come with me, I’ll show you what this is all about.”
The first woman (Flora) looked at the second woman (Ivy). The fourth man (Richard) looked at the fifth man (Kushal). The second man (Fritz) looked at Christine. Elaine looked at Edward. Da Seul looked at Kellie, and despite herself felt curious about what they were going to do. The third man (Gordon) looked, with an expression of intense interest, at the nearby couch.
“Well?”
“All right!” Christine cried, “Let’s go, then! But you better have a good explanation for this. I still have to find the Avatars!”
The tension fell out of the room like the bag with the eggs or the glass bottles falls from the hand of an overworked parent.
“Great. Then…let’s go.” Without waiting for the others, Jin walked out of the room. Everyone glanced around again, then followed.
“Bye, Cecilia!” Christine called hurriedly. Cecilia waved goodbye and muttered something about getting back to her group.
A missing brother, a secret plot, and the source of the note! Are all tournaments like this? Da Seul made a note to ask a regular as she moved up back next to Kellie. They all followed Jin back into the now overcast outside. The sun was setting downhill.