[attr="class","beck"]he fortifies his defense and moves the knight back, defending a tight position.

"i found a chip at the cook-off with the dilfs."

his phone's pulled out, unlocked, and extended over to her.

"click on the weird logo."

[attr="class","noodles"]Lulu Flint

the king was moved nearby her rook, making the obvious assault more of a compromising position.

the dilfs. she smiled involuntarily, amused, but mouth pressed as though willing not to show teeth. momentarily derailed, she had to mentally backtrack.

”a chip?”

handed the phone, she selected the logo and watched it spin around before revealing some kind of report.

”unown.” a mysterious, ancient pokemon. interesting. she scrolled through, and her brows raised between her bangs. a word for each letter. each number. it might not have occurred to her, if not for the startling relevancy of the words themselves…

she looked back up at theo, all but forgetting their game for now.

”what do you know about this?”

THEO BECKETT

[attr="class","beck"]little attention is paid to the chess board between them. he watches her, appreciating the way she observes and analyzes.

at her question, he shrugs a shoulder.

"little. i assume a few others have access and have contributed, but apart from that..."

nothing.

"any thoughts?"

[attr="class","noodles"]Lulu Flint

her attentiveness to him was already vague. she gave no answer at first, roused into almost a hurry as something seemed to click and she reached into a drawer. pulling out a pad of paper, she began feverishly jotting down numbers.

9INTER994DIMENSION/DREAMS3COLLISION33…

it was written with sharp, cubical lines. extremely odd, and nearly illegible at a glance. there were also no spaces, because lulu never used them.

eventually, it occurred to her that theo had asked her a question.

“i think this might match up with something…”

THEO BECKETT

[attr="class","beck"]his question is met with nothing but silence that washes over them with little resistance. he assumes she's deep in thought, so he stays quiet and simply leans a little closer to peer at her pad of paper.

he understands nothing.

"something?"

[attr="class","noodles"]Lulu Flint

She continued. It made less and less sense as she went, which began to deflate her enthusiasm. She bit her lip, forehead scrunching.

1ANTIMATTER5EVENT3COLLISION6FLAT/FANTASY…

Wait. Zeros. That’s right. What did all the zeros mean? Were they breaks in the message? Or was this just going in entirely the wrong direction? Regardless, this report was interesting.

She set the pen down and leaned back in her chair, a finger coming up to her lips pensively.

“Decker had a meteorite fragment from the site Deoxys was seen leaving. A couple of weeks ago, we performed an experiment. Showed it to several Beheeyem, and they suddenly synchronized their patterns. I think they were giving us a message.”

She looked back up at him, face both excited and a bit concerned. Not quite sure why she was worried, considering the end of the world was what she wanted.

“It seems a lot like Morse code, broken up into three parts, and each starts out the same. 99943. I don’t know the significance of that number, but if this holds any relevance,” she held up the phone to gesture, “That’s ‘inter-dimension collision'.”

THEO BECKETT

[attr="class","beck"]inter-dimension collision.

it still makes little sense to him. who's trying to give them a message?

he narrows his eyes, extending a finger over to scroll down the screen.

"nightmare."

he looks at her.

"is that you?"

[attr="class","noodles"]Lulu Flint

What a mysterious question. Her head tilted to the side a bit, eyes narrowing in confusion.

The word had stuck out to her, because how could it not? But she hadn't expected him to take particular note of it.

"What do you mean 'is it me'?"

THEO BECKETT

[attr="class","beck"]the word had stuck out to him, too, for more reasons than one.

"nightmare; singular, not plural."

unlike branes, which is what draws his next suggestion.

"maybe you play a part in whatever this is."

[attr="class","noodles"]Lulu Flint

Well, she didn’t like the idea of that very much—but she doubted it was her.

“I’d say Darkrai’s a better bet.”

She gave a shrug, but it still didn’t feel like it boded well for her.

Her eyes passed around the office, looking at shadows briefly before she leaned in and set the phone back in front of him.

“I want to know who made it.”

THEO BECKETT

[attr="class","beck"]"darkrai didn't connect the dots just now. you did."

the idea doesn't sit well with him either.

he reaches for the phone, tapping back to the home screen to briefly look at a picture of fishies set as his background.

"i don't know yet, but i'll find out."

the phone is pocketed.

"i'm trying to find the missing unown."

[attr="class","noodles"]Lulu Flint

she eyed him, unsure about what he meant. did he think she’d guessed darkrai could solve the riddle? no, but she figured it was likely the thing this word referenced—not her. she certainly hoped it wasn’t her. she was about done with unknowingly being a part of people’s schemes.

he was going to find them. good. for some reason, there was trust that he would. she wouldn’t wait for it to happen, though. this was her mission now, too. all because of that one word.

”do you remember anything else strange from when you found it? where exactly, again?”

THEO BECKETT

[attr="class","beck"]he pauses for a moment to remember.

"we found it while closing the stall. i imagine it was left for us to find."

with a soft sigh, he moves a piece, restarting the game.

"the organizers disappeared without a trace. even i haven't been able to find them."

[attr="class","noodles"]Lulu Flint