What's It Like Outside? [An II Fanfiction]

Chapter 12: The Meeting

Bot stared at the empty bed for several moments. They slowly stood up and walked over to it. Goo surely couldn't be missing too, right? They climbed up onto the bed and peered down from the window next to it. They couldn't see anything on the ground below. Bot usually woke up before Goo, but maybe they just slept in and Goo went to get breakfast already. They hopped back off the bed and checked the time.

6:12 AM.

Bot fidgeted with their bracelet. It was around 30 minutes before they usually woke up, which meant that Goo had to have woken up nearly an hour before normal and leave within 10 minutes without Bot knowing. That didn't seem realistic at all to them, but Bot left the room and went down to the hotel's kitchen just to be sure. They walked around the kitchen for a bit but couldn't see Goo anywhere. However, they did see Paintbrush and Fan at a table, so they decided to go ask them about it.

Paintbrush looked up as Bot approached them. They had noticeable bags under their eyes, which Bot was kind of surprised they hadn't developed sooner from all this. Paintbrush set down their cup of coffee and smiled at them. "Oh, hey."

"Hiya Bot!" Fan called out.

"Hey, uh, have- uh.. Have you guys seen Goo at all this morning..?" Bot asked.

"I don't think so." Fan responded.

"Is he gone too??" Paintbrush seemed a bit surprised.

"I think so.." Bot said sadly. "The window next to his bed was open, and he's usually never up this early."

"The window-??" Paintbrush stood up, grabbing their coffee. "We should probably go check that out."

Fan stood up as well. "Yeah, that's really concerning."

The three of them walked outside the hotel and stopped right below the window.

Paintbrush stared up at it, taking a sip of their coffee. "That certainly is open..."

Fan looked around at the ground below them. "I don't see anything suspicious down here.. I-" He stopped when something suddenly caught his eye. "More tire marks!!" He called out.

Bot and Paintbrush walked over to him. Sure enough, there were tire tracks on the ground leading into the trees.

"Let's follow it!" Bot exclaimed.

They all followed the tire marks into the forest and back out. At the end of the trail, they were yet again met with the soda machine.

"Okay they have to be down there." Paintbrush stated, a bit of urgency and panic in their voice. 

"But we still don't know the code!" Fain reminded them.

"And there's no other way down there.." Bot continued.

"Right, but, uh... Okay, okay, let's just... wait until the meeting maybe, and tell everyone they're probably down here. And then maybe someone else can help us get into it better??" Paintbrush suggested.

"Sounds good!" Fan chirped.

They all went back to the hotel and waited for the meeting to start. They tried to get their minds off things in the meantime, but it was much more difficult now that they thought they knew where everyone was. Eventually, 11 AM rolled around and they were able to start the meeting.

OJ tapped the microphone a few times. "Thank you all for coming, I can assure you this is very important. This meeting was arranged by our friends Paintbrush, Bot, and Fan, who I will now let take over."

He walked to the other side of the stage and let the investigators walk up to the mic.

Paintbrush cleared their throat. "So, uh, as most of you may know already, several objects have gone missing within the past few days- Those being Lightbulb, Test Tube, Baseball, Balloon, And as of just this morning- Goo."