Negotiation, Part I (
Synopsis
The unnamed man escapes and eats the cookies left behind by the kids. The door was tied to another door making it locked from the outside. The Grace Field Kids checks the archive to learn about the timeline and other Plantation Farms.
Grace Field House uses digits on the neck as Farm Identifiers. Glory Bell a character string on the belly. Emma and Ray plan to go outside and find William Minerva by negotiating with the unnamed man.
Plot
The unnamed man awakens again after passing out in front of the kids previously, and is mad that Emma managed to thwart his plan to get rid of the kids by punching him in the groin, which he did not expect at all. He finds that the cookies have been stolen too, and he cannot get out of the room due to a bar between his door and the wall, however he is unfazed as he grabs a knife, stating that they're "playing with grown-ups now".
Meanwhile, Emma and Ray are with Don, Gilda, Nat, Thoma, Lannion, Jemima and Anna. Ray says that they now have to figure out what to do next now that they've secured their own safe place, more specifically how to get the remaining Grace Field children out of the House and after, to cross to the human world. Unfortunately, none of them seem to have a good idea for this.
Nat asks Ray what he managed to find in the archive room, and Ray answers that he found a lot there, for example, the overall classification and general location of the plantations; which kinds of farms there are and were; and what their particular identification marks are. The difference between Grace Field's and Glory Bell's identification system (coming from the mark that the man showed them) are both different, Ray deduces that the types of writing, the order of characters and location of the mark will vary from plantation to plantation.
This means that from a simple glance, the demons, or at least the intelligent ones, will be able to know exactly which plantation they came from, especially when only the four premium plantations are the only ones that use this system.
Ray says that he also found information about the 'Promise', the human world and the location of demon settlements in the world, though the latter is still unclear. They also found an encyclopedia of the plants in the demon world along with hand drawings, normal material like novels and children's books, and some information relating to the demons. However, this information is very old, and seems to have been published before 2015, like the books in the Grace Field Library.
He cannot be sure about the non-book material, but the books related to the 'Promise' and the demons are so old that they could be considered historical. Gilda thinks about what this means, and wonders if Minerva has disappeared for not thirteen years, but thirty years. She remembers Krone saying that she saw a human being from the outside.
Thoma, Lannion and Anna are shocked at the ragged state of the book, which is falling apart, while Nat sneezes from the dustiness of it. Thoma says that at this rate, they will only be learning outdated information from the books.
Don realises that this doesn't make sense, and Ray confirms this. The man they met yesterday knew how many of them escaped and when, meaning there had to be a way of getting real-time information about the world. He says that it was most likely the room filled with monitors. Emma is surprised that there was a way to watch the farms without ever having to leave, she thinks it would be useful for finding how to Rescue Phil and the remaining Grace Field kids.
Anna asks about the method of crossing to the human world, and Emma is disappointed to say that they have not found any information about that so far, so they will have to locate Minerva first. Gilda asks if they have found anything out about him, and Emma says 'yes!'. The information is in the form of a letter from him that was found inserted into one of the ancient books.
It reads: "Congratulations on your success in making it so far. I apologize for not being able to celebrate it with you personally. This shelter was made for you. However, should you aim for more, should you want to go beyond merely in peace, then use your pen and head here." finally signed with his name and the location 'AO8-63'.
Emma makes the observation using the handwriting of the letter so this must be from him. Gilda believes that "beyond living here in peace" could mean reaching the human world, and Ray agrees with this. However, he is not sure if William Minerva is at AO8-63 since the letter must be several years old. Ray says that after they are finished with archived materials, him and Emma will go and find AO8-63, while everyone else takes care of the kids. Don disagrees, but Ray says that in this circumstance, not everyone is needed for it.
Anna recalls the text reading 'THE POACHERS' in the darkroom. In the shelter, everyone is safe, the demons do not know about it and the man has hidden here for more than a decade. But, all of his friends are dead, the 'POACHERS' may have had some in-fighting in the man's old team, if not, the ones who did it to them are in the outside. And since the man said he gave up looking, this trip may be dangerous, so splitting up lowers the losses.
Don is still worried, as they would be losing their two best friends, but Ray says he isn't planning on dying, which confuses Thoma and Lannion given his suicide attempt to get the children to escape.
But they cannot do this trip alone and will need "a tutor with experience", the other three quickly catch on, realising that that "tutor" is the man that tried to kill Emma. At that moment, he walks in, scaring the other children away. Emma smiles and says she was waiting for him, and says that they should make a deal, with the man having a knife behind his back.
Characters
Research Elements
In this chapter we have the following Research Elements:
- This is the time where the Farm Identifiers are explained in the book.
- There is a letter from WM.
