The Garden of Heathen

What is Normal?

With the guards watching out for them, Aussie sat down with Joan, Gertie, Georgia and Gally. The bugs kept crawling around the garden and they all agreed they would keep doing so as long as they had the note.

They were crammed under a makeshift umbrella to block out any unseen prying eyes as they memorized the typed note and tried to decipher as much of the hidden message as they could. It was more difficult now that it was more crumpled than before. The gist of it seemed to be that someone was not happy with what was going on, that something bad was being done and this person wanted it to stop. Their best guess was it had something to do with them being there in the maze, that maybe they were the ones in this 'trial'.

Joan suggested that the note be destroyed where the creepy critters could see. That way they wouldn't get their little pinchers on it, but also might leave them alone. She was afraid that if the little ones couldn't do their job something bigger might come along to finish it. They balled up the paper and burned it. The creepy critters seemed somewhat miffed as they leisurely turned and left the garden, crawling along the maze walls.

"You really never saw those bef-"

"Never," Joan answered Gally as the five of them stood there watching.

"I'm starving," Aussie remarked before turning and heading to the kitchen without another word.

Gertie went over and resumed investigating the dead creepy critter, pulling the spear from it and prodding it cautiously before scooping the thing up.

"Hey, what are you doing with that?" Gally asked her clearly distressed. "Put it down."

"Are you serious?" She questioned with a raised brow. "Don't you want to know how it works?"

"Not really. Now put it down before you hurt yourself," he reached to take it from her but she evaded him.

"We could unlock some of their secrets!" She said as she scampered off.

"Yeah and what kind of trouble could that get us into?!" He called after her.

He was about to pursue her but his stomach growled. He would have to deal with her later, right now he needed food.

Most of the girls had already eaten breakfast so, to Gally's relief, the cafeteria area of the Garden was not full of girls at the moment. They started their day at sunrise the usual way, not down in a basement figuring out a cryptic note and being attacked by robots. He could see Aussie in the covered kitchen area no doubt getting food for herself.

Because you love her.
The words came back to him then. Maybe the her wasn't Aussie he thought, even though his gut thoroughly disagreed with him.

He had no memory of writing BYLH on that note but he obviously had, which meant one thing in his mind. There was the old Gally, and the Gally he was now. Which was also true of Aussie, there was the before and after versions of everyone here. So he decided to investigate. Old Gally had loved Old Aussie, and New Gally was going to figure out why. Maybe New Gally wouldn't really love New Aussie. All he knew was he wanted to have his own feelings for his own reasons, not just these left over ones from someone else who owned this body before him.

He walked to the kitchen, watching out for creepy crawlers on his way there.

"That Gertie is a nutcase, do you know what she did?" Gally said as he came up behind her.

She glanced at him over her shoulder, her arm bent at a weird angle. "What?" She asked.

Gally paused, his head cocked sideways, wondering what the heck Aussie herself was doing, and stepped closer. She had a towel down the front of her shirt.