#spnuriel

“A beautiful, wooden coffin, and I do mean all wood. There were no nails to hold it together, it was so perfectly crafted. When no one claimed it, they decided to break it open.”

“Inside was a dead body like all the others, although they didn’t even realize it at first. The woman inside, the ‘mummy’ that had been brought aboard, was so lifelike she seemed to just be sleeping.

“Of course, the waters out there in the North Atlantic were freezing, so they assumed she’d rot eventually back on shore, but it never happened. Weeks, months passed, but even by summertime she stayed just as completely frozen as she’d ever been.

“The newspapers of the day started to call her ‘All-ice’.”

“Alice.”

Seven paused for dramatic effect. “And then…she disappeared. She was stolen, coffin and all.”

“And made her way to another cruise liner,” Balthazar blinked, slowly taking it all in. Seven, even Quatre, laughed at his “funny” commentary, and Balthazar blushed irritably.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Seven continued. “See, there was a thriving underground market in New York at the time - I mean a particular one: all millionaires, from all over the world.”

“The story goes, Alice was bought there that summer by an Englishman, Lord Gordain.”

“Lord… The one who bought the Gigantic?”

“The one who would buy the Gigantic, four years later,” Seven corrected him. “Before he died, in 1931, a friend asked him, ‘Where is Alice?’ Gordain had never told a soul, but right there, he said to his friend…

“Alice sleeps in a small chamber past the forest of knowledge, beneath the navel of the Gigantic.”

“…forest of knowledge…” Balthazar murmured in the silence. “Does this ship have a library?”

“This doesn’t make an awful lot of sense…” he started.

“It is strange we didn’t need it to solve the puzzle,” Seven cut in, “but it wasn’t empty, we know that. At least this way we can keep the door from locking again.”

“Yes, but why?” Balthazar continued. “It isn’t--”

He paused for a dramatic sigh.

“Well, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but--it isn’t fair.”

“Why would Zero lock us out of something we need, when we’re usually locked in with it, you mean?” Duo offered, then answered herself. “Maybe it isn’t something we need. Maybe it’s something we’ll want, like an easter egg.”

“Something like…?”

“Well, maybe we don’t need it to escape the ship. Maybe it’s...a clue to Zero’s identity? Or the ‘purpose’ behind the game?”

“All I’m saying,” Seven spoke with let’s-get-on-with-this finality, “is that Zero is too meticulous to leave an odd piece out of the puzzle.” He started off down the hall, clapping both his teammates on the shoulder. “Haven’t you ever heard of Chekov’s gun?”