Being "escorted"—a polite word for "kicked out"—from the Frostfang Grotto stung more than I'd expected. We landed back at that same bench near the dormant jellyfish fountain, but everything felt different. The cheerful music of Neptune's Realm now grated against my nerves, too bright, too loud, too fake. Judy sat stiff beside me, her hands clenched, staring into the distance as though she was disillusioned with the entire existence of the world around them.
"He knew," she finally said, her voice tight. "Dior, that detective. He knew we were there before he even turned around. And Thompson… 'take the week off.' Like that makes up for anything, was Scott just an inconvenience to his bottom line?"
"They don't get it," I muttered, kicking at a loose paving stone. "Or they don't want to. Dior called us 'unhelpful variables.' Maybe he thought we'd tamper with his perfect little crime scene just by breathing too close. I wasn't even angry anymore—just tired. Tired of being treated like background noise." Anger was burning in my chest. Scott wasn't some variable in an equation; he was our best friend, and we are all people.
The week off Mr. Thompson had so grudgingly granted us felt less like a kindness and more like a gag order, if not the conscience of a guilty mind, to make restitution or move us out of the way.
We had time, now, too much of it, and no official access to anything that might give us answers.
By the following morning, the shock had begun to settle into a grim, exhausting determination. That first full day off became a blur of phone calls and dead ends. Judy, ever the pragmatist, tried the official channels first. She called Inspector Dior's department, hoping for an update or a chance to provide more background on Scott formally. She was met with a polite but firm secretary who informed her that Inspector Dior was "in the field" and would contact them "if further information was required." A dead end.
I tried a different angle. Lily Cruise. She'd been so sweet on Scott. Maybe he'd said something to her, anything out of the ordinary. I found her number from an emergency employee contact list.
"Nick? Hi!" Lily's voice was small, and when I brought up Scott, the sadness in it deepened. "Oh, it's just… awful. I still can't believe it. He was always so… so full of life."
"Yeah," I said, my voice thick with grief, too. I hesitated, then pressed on. "Listen, Lily, this might sound strange, but did Scott seem worried about anything lately? Did he mention anything odd happening at the park, or anyone he was having trouble with?"
There was a pause on the line. "Trouble? No… not really. He complained about his shift manager sometimes—Mr. Grumbles, we called him. You know, Alec Stevens? Balding, with the combover and that embarrassing pitting problem?" She gave a weak laugh. "Scott was focused on saving up, you know, for that business you guys were planning. He mentioned wanting to pick up extra shifts."
She hesitated again. I could almost hear her chewing on whether to say more.
"Actually," she added carefully, "Mr. Thompson called a staff meeting this morning. Just for our sector. He said there were a lot of rumors going around about Scott, and that we shouldn't gossip because it might hurt the park's image or slow the investigation. He looked... really stressed about it."
"Did he say what kind of rumors?" I asked, trying to sound casual, even as my heart picked up.
"No, just… you know. People talk. It's a theme park—it's like a small town sometimes." Her voice dropped, cautious now. "I… I probably shouldn't say more. I'm still on shift, and I need to go before Mr. Grumbles gets more grumbly. I'm sorry, Nick. I really do wish I could help more."
Another dead end. Thompson was actively trying to suppress discussion. What was he so afraid of?
We tried to think like investigators. Security footage. That had to be the key. Future World was a technological marvel; cameras were everywhere, from the obvious dome units to the tiny lenses hidden in animatronic eyes and decorative flora.
"The main security hub is in the Administrative Spire," Judy said, pulling up a park map on her datapad. It was on level Sub-Zero, next to the employee basketball court. It's funny how highly restricted it is when it is next to a break room like that. There's no way we'd get access officially, especially now."
"What about the local sector offices?" I asked. "Each land has its own smaller security station, right? For immediate incidents?"
"They do," Judy confirmed, zooming in on Neptune's Realm. "But footage is usually uploaded to the central archive pretty quickly. And after what happened with Dior, I doubt Officer Fields from the police or Jeff, the security officer on duty, would let us within ten feet of a monitor, even if we asked nicely."
She was right. We were hitting a wall of silence, of polite dismissals and carefully managed information. The park, which had once been our playground and our stepping stone to the future, now felt like a fortress, its secrets locked away.
The frustration was a living thing, coiling in my gut. Every night, Scott's smiling face from that horrible holographic file would flash in my mind. He deserved answers. He deserved justice. And the people who were supposed to be finding it were either too slow, too hamstrung by bureaucracy, or, in Thompson's case, actively trying to sweep it under the rug.
By the time the third night rolled around, the days had already started to blur together. Each one passed with the same stifling mix of silence and helplessness.
It was late that evening, and we were sprawled in the living room at my place, the silence punctuated only by the hum of the city outside and the occasional frustrated sigh. Sophie and Emily had tried to cheer us up earlier, but even their youthful energy couldn't penetrate the gloom. Dad had offered his condolences again, his quiet sympathy a small comfort.
"They're not going to tell us anything, are they?" I said finally, staring up at the ceiling. "Volkov, Thompson… even Dior, for all his fancy talk. They're either hiding something, or they just don't care enough to look where we would look, to ask the questions we would ask."
Judy sat up, her eyes, usually calm and analytical, now glinting with a hard, determined light I hadn't seen before. It sent a chill through me—equal parts awe and worry. I wasn't sure if I was inspired by her resolve or intimidated by how far she looked ready to go. It was the same look she got when faced with a particularly impossible coding problem, the one that said she wouldn't back down.
"No," she said, her voice low and resolute. "They're not. So, if we want real answers, we can't rely on anyone else." She looked at me, a silent question in her eyes, but I already knew what she was thinking. It was crazy. It was reckless. It was probably illegal.
"You're thinking what I'm thinking, aren't you?" I said.
A small, grim smile touched her lips. "If we want to know what really happened in that grotto, if we want to find out what Scott stumbled into… we have to go back. After hours. When the park is empty."
The idea hung in the air, heavy and dangerous. We sneaked into Future World, a place bristling with technology and security, even if it was just one night guard. It was straight out of one of Sophie's mystery novels, but this wasn't fiction. This was real. Scott was real. His death was real; we could really be put in jail for trespassing.
"Okay," I said, the words barely holding together under the weight of adrenaline and grief. "Let's do it."
I hesitated, tried to soften the moment with a joke. "Junior detectives are going out into the world to unmask the bad guy, but with slightly higher stakes."
The words came out flat. Hollow. Even to my ears, it sounded wrong—like trying to laugh at a funeral. Judy didn't say anything, but her lips tightened, and she glanced sideways at me, brows drawn. Not angry. Not amused. Just… present. A shared silence settled between us, heavy with everything we weren't joking about. That silence made it clear: this wasn't about ourselves anymore.
"We know the park," Judy said, already shifting into planning mode, her datapad lighting up with schematics she'd probably downloaded ages ago for our application research. "We know the schedules, some of the maintenance access points, and the older camera blind spots in the service tunnels. The night shift for custodial robots and basic maintenance drones usually thins out around 0200 hours…"
As she talked, outlining a terrifying and meticulously detailed plan, I thought of Inspector Dior. While we were plotting our unauthorized return, I wondered what he was doing. Was he also hitting walls? Or was his "meticulous order" slowly, patiently, uncovering the truth we were so desperate to find? I wanted to believe he was on our side—that somewhere behind that crisp suit and frosty demeanor was someone who cared. But part of me couldn't help but question it. Was he keeping things from us, too? He was a professional, after all. But Scott was our friend. Waiting and doing nothing felt like a betrayal that we couldn't stomach.
We talked late into the night, fueled by grief and a desperate, shared resolve. We'd find the truth. For Scott. No matter what it took.