"Are these—," Austin began, find himself unable to complete his sentence.
"Weapons?" Aaron finished, sounding amused. "Not all of them, but many of them are full of weapons like pistols, machettes and swords and stuff. They only arrived a weeks before you did — Jackson and a few scouts spotted them at each gate's threshold before they began their duty that morning. Stryker's forbidden word to spread on them and only he, I and the few scouts who noticed them know about them. He doesn't want panic to spread."
"Why put them down here, though?" Austin asked. "Not the weapons; no one here seems to be sane enough to carry a loaded gun. I'm talking about these maps. Why put them here exactly when you could just have them in the attic up at the Oakhouse, where it's much more easily accessible for the scouts and everyone involved in mapping the Labyrinth? Also, the containers with the supplies, why have them here as well?"
Aaron fixed Austin with unreadably searching eyes. "You're smarter than you look. "While you make a valid point in both topics, I can only share the reason for one: This place — the Flat Shack — used to have been used as our pantry, where the preppers stored the food and supplies needed to run the Meadows."
"'Stored' food and supplies…," Austin repeated out loud. "As in, they were 'given' food and supplies? By who?"
"Perceptive…," Aaron murmured before clearing his throat and continuing. "Yes, well, I'm sure you've heard the term from one of the others by now, but we call them 'the Watchers'. They're the same people who's trapped us here, is my guess — They're also the same people supplying us with necessities, though no one knows how. The supplies we need just appear by the southern most gate every other week. We all have our theories though."
"Wait, wait, wait, what?" Austin held his hands up. "The 'Watchers'? How do we know they're watching us? How do they watch us?" he said, looking around himself as if he could find a hidden camera somewhere.
"Relax," Aaron snorted, his voice annoyingly relaxed for such a topic. "Look, no one knows for sure how they watch us, but you can't know what one exactly needs to survive without doing one or two things — and I doubt anyone here is a traitor, secretly working for them Watchers, afterall, even she was only a spy for the Bane Brothers, not the Watchers. The only logical conclusion one can make is that we're being watched, hence is why we call them the 'Watchers'.
"Also, this place is the most secured area in the Labyrinth, not many Meadowers know it even exists. And even if the Watchers know it exist, they can't see up in here — I searched this shack inside and out for any bugs, and found nothing. We're safe as can be here from them."
Austin thought about this for a minute, contemplating over all the new information he'd just absorbed. The Watchers… they provided the Meadows with all their food, weapons and supplies needed to survive in this hellhole on a bi-weekly bases. But why? To keep them trapped here — What was the point? None of this made any sense. It was causing Austin to get a migraine.
"Don't overthink it too much," Aaron said, interrupting Austin's thought process, forcing Austin to look at him. "We also think them Watchers put something in our heads that blocks our memories and cause us headaches when we think too deeply about stuff they don't want us thinking about… like a defense mechanism that keeps us from figuring out anything of value."
"That oddly makes more sense now that I think about it," he murmured.
With this, Austin decided not to think too much these topics. He could already feel the start of a headache. Still, he had a question…
"Hey, quick question," he started. "Do you train all the new scouts yourself or what?"
"Each Overseer is allowed only 1 pupil to train themselves. Afterwards, that pupil is incharge of training the rest, and the newbs and so on. My pupil, though he came just before you and thus didn't train the other scouts, was named Jackson – He was my only ever student and pupil…"
There was a pause as Aaron let a slight tear trickle down his face before whipping it away, his face still sadly reminiscing.
"Is… is he dead?""Honestly, I don't know. He went missing a few days before we rescued you, though I — we,, haven't stopped looking," Aaroon answered, pausing to collect himself, as he obviously sounded distraught. It was obvious that he was going to say I hadn't stopped looking just then. It had Austin become curiouser and curiouser on how this Jackson person disappeared. "I- we haven't stopped searching since he disappeared."
"So that;s why Stryker went into the Labyrinth this morning,' Austin said outloud upon realising. "He's taking your place today to look for Jackson—."
Aaron interrupted Austin with a forced cough before saying "Yo, hey, newbie, focus."
Austin didn't know why, but he knew Aaron didn't want to talk about the subject regarding Jackson anymore. The topic was dead. Instead, Austin said "So if an overseer is only allowed 1 pupil, then who trains the rest of the people under them?"
"For my scouts, it's different. I trained someone to train the others, but I didn't accept a new pupil until Jackson. For the other jobs, I believe Reya takes care of that matter. As head of the overseers, she's often busy with training the newbies. Anyhow, got any more questions, or can I explain what the 2nd trial is?"