I've Got the Strangest Feeling This Isn't Our First Time Around

38

"Is there anything in this lab that would play this kind of disk?" Mario asks.

"Sure." Pauline says. "If this was back when this place really was a castle."

"Snoozemore is gonna kill us." Mario says despairingly, right as the man in question walks in.

"Well? What's on the disk?"

"We still don't know." Luigi says. "None of the technology in here can read it."

"Luna woke herself up, and as you know, that means her memory is now gone. We can't dreamwalk again." Snoozemore turns to Mario. "And yes, you should look at it as if your life depends on it, because it does."

"Reach out to E. Gadd, see if he can whip up a device that can read it?" Mario offers.

"I'll track down his number." Pauline agrees.

"Mm, yes." Snoozemore agrees. "I want this finished by tomorrow."

The team starts to leave, but Luigi finds himself calling, "Uh, Mario?"

Mario turns, joking, "Wait, you actually know my name? Color me shocked."

"You're shocked I'm doing the bare minimum?" Luigi rolls his eyes, but Mario shifts the focus back, "What's wrong Weeg?"

"You asked, no, begged me to tell you if something felt...wrong?"

In seconds, Mario's worry goes into overdrive, "What happened? Are you okay?"

"Not me!" Luigi throws up his hands and says quickly before Mario can send himself into a panic attack. "Well, I don't think it's me. I'm seeing things that I'm...not sure I can explain."

"That's kind of in the dreamwalking job description." Mario says. "We explain what others--"

"No, not that either." Luigi shakes his head. "I mean I'm seeing flashes of things that aren't supposed to be in a particular person's dreams, and now I'm seeing them over and over again every time I dreamwalk."

"Not sure I understand." Mario says apologetically.

"Okay, you remember Lemmy?" Luigi changes tactics.

"The Bob-Omb expert?" Mario asks.

"I saw a castle made of blocks in his dreams." Luigi confesses.

"Maybe Lemmy played with blocks as a kid?" Mario offers.

"Could be." Luigi says, but he doesn't sound convinced. "But then how did I see that same exact block castle in Luna's? How's that possible?"

"It's not." Mario says. "Which means more than likely, it's not from Lemmy or Luna's dreams."

That leaves Luigi even more confused, "It's from me?"

"Maybe." Mario shrugs.

"I think I'd remember building a castle made of blocks like that." Luigi tries to reason, then adds, "I don't remember anything from before the night my parents dumped me with Molly, so why would it suddenly come back now?"

"Off the top of my head?" Mario asks, then continues, "Making you sleep on a bed that boosts your subconscious through a computer running enough power to light up one person's house for 10 years without stopping."

"I found an old photo Molly had with her stuff." Luigi changes the subject. "It was of her and me. With Wake Up written on the back."

"Wake up from what?" Mario asks, but Luigi's already standing up.

"Thanks a lot, Mario." He says genuinely, then walks out of the conference room.

Luigi flips through Molly's crime scene photos again, this time going slower.

When he gets to a picture of the China cabinet, he stops.

"Why's a teacup missing?" he ponders, right when his phone goes off.

He checks it, but the words make absolutely no sense to him.

Outer circle. Shell engravings. Symbols. Button.

Luigi deletes it, then picks up the disk from Luna's truck, and without warning, a memory unfolds.

"Time's up."

Molly comes over, where Luigi's on the computer.

"It's been 10 minutes, even though I only said five." Molly tells him. "I need it for work."

"Go buy a laptop then." Luigi says without looking up from the monitor.

"They're expensive and break too easily. 10 minutes, move your butt."

"Or 10 seconds. I don't know that." Luigi says logically, right as Molly switches off the computer.

"You do now. Off."

In the present, Luigi picks up the disk and leaves the lab.

Upon finding his old piece of crap laptop, he blows off the dust and brings it out to the kitchen table.

He inserts the disk into the laptop's disk drive and starts typing; he doesn't know how long he stays at it, all he knows is one moment he starts, and the next his fingers are cramping, and he's being allowed to see what's on the disk.

He watches as the data slowly comes out of the printer, but the moment he sees what it is, his eyes narrow in anger.