The 4th Subject

Chapter 21: The Drop

I sat in Matt's Megachairs next to Sam, staring at the email on Megadesk. It was from John Doe, and it sounded like he had a drop for us. But he sounded different.

"There's misspellings everywhere," Matt muttered, stumbling and stuttering over the jumbled words.

We spent awhile discussing what all of this means. Especially the collection of emojis at the end. Matt started searching for what they could mean. After he switched from Bing to Google, he found a site that read "wingding translator".

"Oh my gosh, it's a wingding!" I cried, sitting up.

"You know what that is?" Sam questioned, looking from the screen to me.

"Yes, it was in this book I read as a kid. It's a code that replaces letters with symbols like emojis. Try that, Matt."

He did, and we almost immediately got coordinates. We discovered an old abandoned park at the coordinates, which must be where the drop is. It wasn't super far away, so we grabbed some snacks and headed out.

After some interesting conversation and Woods and I playing Solitaire on Matt's Tesla, we arrived. It was very much abandoned, there was graffiti and trash everywhere. Bags and bags of trash and leaves. Yes, someone dumped bags of leaves at an abandoned park. We found marble, empty CO2 canisters, old mattresses, and a creepy stuffed bear.

"Maybe there's something... in it..." Sam said.

"You're gonna make cut open a bear, Sam?" Matt replied, pinching its ear to lift it.

"Yeah..."

"Sam!" I said, disgusted.

"What if something's inside? Just shake it."

Matt begrudgingly shook it, dirt and dust falling off of its Christmasy dress.

"What is my life?" Matt said with a dry chuckle.

We kept searching, but it was a huge park.

"If you want me to film, let me know," Woods said to Sam as we climbed up some steps.

"Oh, for like, 3 minutes?" She retorted.

Matt and I laughed.

"Oh, they're gonna be simping for him again," I said, motioning to the camera.

"Don't make Woods hold the camera if he doesn't want to! Force it on Sam!" Matt mockingly whined.

"I can take care of myself, guys." Woods stated as he continued down the path.

After a little more searching, we found a weird mineshaft type structure. It was covered in bright blue and red graffiti and it looked eerie. Woods slowly crept toward it, then the rest of us joined. It wasn't super deep. In fact, it was about the size of a large walk-in closet.

Matt slowly walked in, then pointed out the brand new looking briefcase. He leaned up to it, trying to listen for anything. Perhaps ominous beeping. After confirmation that there was nothing and a Woods jump-scare, Matt carefully grabbed the case, avoiding the piles of rat droppings.

"Who holds a briefcase like this?" Matt said, revealing two handles on either side. He passed one end to Woods and the three of them started wigging out over the concept of it being carried by two people.

"So y'all have just never used laundry baskets before," I muttered, looking between Matt and Woods. Matt looked at me, then down at the case. We all started laughing as Woods grabbed the other handle from Matt.

We paused for a moment, trying to think of two 3-digit codes to unlock it. After trying a code or two, we decided to go back to the studio to look through our evidence.