The Golden Rules 42

Chapter 42

Only when the giant was gone, the two finally took their time to greet each other with a hug.
  "Man, you won't believe how happy I am that you're alright. I was so scared that you wouldn't make it out there.", he said and ruffled through her hair once they stopped hugging.

  "I had a bad of dumb luck, to be honest. But I think all the stress was necessary to get through Tom's thick skull... I think the both of us learned a lot from that, it opened our eyes.", she said and sat down on the soft blanket.

  "Yeah, sometimes you need a healthy jock... apropos ... how come that you can talk now? With the giants I mean.", he sat down next to her-

  "To be completely honest: I don't know exactly. I think it had something to do with a photo I've seen. It just made click and suddenly I was able to talk. Maybe it's also because there's some kind of connection between me and Thomas."

  "What do you mean by connection?"

Then she told him about the great resemblance between her and Toms wife Melissa and about the journal of the Prussian professor. This one also had written about his resemblance to his giant's brother.

Meanwhile, Tom came back to the attic and gave them Sophie's backpack as well as some food and drink. But he vanished quickly again, so he would not disturb them longer than necessary.

  "Hmm... I don't look similar to anyone in Sven's family. So maybe there is no connection at all.", Pato stated and seemed to be a little jealous.

  "Probably all of this is just one huge coincidence. But I'm pretty sure this book will help us.", she answered and pointed at the opened pages before them.

Thereupon, the young man got up and cracked the joints of his hands.
  "Well, if you think so, let's start. Keep paper and pencil ready. Let's elicit
some secrets from this baby." he slipped out of his sneakers and stepped onto the book's first page to take a look at the content.

Sophie had taken out her notebook and pens and inched closer to the document to write down every single information they got.

Pato let his eyes wander over the lines an murmured:
  "The dedication says: "In honor of Siegfried, the founder of the Realm of the Immortals.' "

  "Realm of the Immortals? Sounds like a campy title of a fantasy novel.", Sophie said a bit snidely.

  "I think we should not wonder about that. I mean, we're sitting in a giant's  attic and most probably are victims of collective brainwashing. At this point, I'm ready to believe anything, even if this would book would tell me that pigs can fly.", he retorted.
  
  "You got a point there... yeah. Please go on.", she mumbled sheepishly and jotted down the dedication's translation.

Even if Pato still hat a good knowledge of Latin, it wasn't always easy to find the right translation. Moreover he had no dictionary or grammar book to help him. So most paragraphs were based on assumptions.
But it was enough to understand the basic meanings of the text. They were very revealing, not to say quite shocking. What they read there was something they would have never imagined, not even in their wildest dreams.

--

Meanwhile, Thomas and Sven sat downstairs in the living room and tried to kill the time that Sophie and Panto would need. Again and again they had to hold themselves back from just going upstairs to ask about the progress.

For quite a while, Sven silently stared into his glass of water and did not look as if he was well.

  "Everything alright?", Tom just studied the TV-guide for something that would distract them well enough.

  "I don't know... There's this annoying buzzing sound in my head since earlier this day."

  "Is it the same buzzing one get when they think too much about the Twimps?"

  "Er, yes that's it I think. But it got stronger since earlier. Don't you think so, too?", he massaged his temples with his free hands to get rid of the slight pain.

Tom put the magazine away.
  "To be honest... I don't hear it at all anymore. As soon as I could hear Sophie talking it was almost one and once she told me that -" He did not go on. He wanted to tell him what Twimps really are: human beings. But he got second thoughts.

  "What did she tell you?", the blonde asked further.

  "You said the buzzing became stronger, didn't you?"

  "Yeah, most of the time I did not even notice it, but now I hear it all the time. But what has this to do with it?"

  "I have a little theory about that. Could you do me a favor and call your wife? You have to ask her if the buzzing became stronger for her, too."

  "Uhm yes, I can do that, but why?" he was even more confused now.

Tom looked at him with a very serious face and said:
  "Whoever it broadcasting those Golden Rules into our brains must have noticed that someone is corrupting them. I think they amplify the signal, so there won't be any more incidents like that."

  "You mean, you think they know what we are doing?" Sven was very worried now.

  "I don't know if they can locate us as the troublemakers. I guess we will only find out once they take any actions directly against us."

--

Patricio and Sophie go ahead much faster than they thought. After a few pages Pato got the flow and nearly had no problems at all with translating the sentences. But with every note that was added to Sophie's notepad,  the mood got darker and darker.

  "I can't believe this! I would've expected almost everything, but this?" she put her writing utensils down to disbelievingly move her hand through her red locks.

Pato looked up from the lecture now and stretched his legs which were almost numb from kneeling all the time.
  "That's heavy... but when you think about it... History proves again and again that there are countless, extremely insane people out there. And some of these manage to  present their idiotic ideas as absolute truth." He shook his head when his eyes went over the big black letters again.

  "I would've never thought to look in this place for the one who is to blame." Sophie nodded and took a sip from a bottle cap full of water. "Somehow I'm too scared to tell this Tom..."

  "How would you even manage to do that? How would he even understand a word of this while he still thinks we are something like pets?"

The girl was silent for a moment. She did not say a word about the giant knowing that they are humans. Well, after reading this book, she wasn't even sure about that fact. anymore. Nevertheless, She had to fill him in on that now.

  "He knows what we are. It was not easy I tell you. I had to do it in a very indirect way, but I could tell him."

The young man stared at her with his mouth agape just as if she had  turned into a chicken in front of his eyes. Only when his jaw had found its way back up, he could talk again:

  "What? And you are telling me this now?!" he made a double facepalm and groaned frustrated. "And you can talk to every giant! Why didn't you tell Sven! Do you know what I had to go through because everyone saw nothing more in me like a mere little rodent?!" he angrily paced back and forth and shook his head. "How could you keep that from me?"
At first Sophie could understand that he was upset, but he said it like she had betrayed him.

  "How are you actually thinking of me? If I had been sure it would solve all your problems, I would've told you right away. But just saying into one of those giant faces: ' Oh by the way, I'm human just like you and by the way, everything you thought was appropriate behavior towards me, was the biggest insult ever. In fact, you did not act like a friend or at least a caring pet owner, but like a complete asshole.' ... yeah, that does not solve all your Problems, it's just creating a hundred more. For some days, Thomas just ignored me completely because he was so ashamed of himself and did not even dare to look at me. And to be honest: After what you told me about how Sven acted towards you in the past and after I've seen how he just reacted to me talking, I think he would react even worse." She said this in a quite irritated tone, which softened in the end.

Ptricio actually took a few moments to think about how Sven would take such a message. He had to admit that she was right. Without a bit more tact and carefulness, that would end into a complete chaos. With a sigh, he put his hands into is pants pockets.
  
  "Yeah, I don't think that would end well. I'm sorry for yelling at you. This is quite a lot to take in, you know?"

Sophie put her hand on his arm, since she could not reach his shoulder without straining herself.

  "It's all good. Now cheer up. We'll work this ou without having the two boys down there flip out completely. If you want to, we could take a longer break. I bet translating  all this is pretty exhausting. My head would already spin if I were you."


But he shook his head.

  "I don't think I can stop right now. I would not find any peace until we are finished with this."

With that said, the two of them continued to work through the text

--

Sven just finished calling Lena and she in fact could confirm that she and most of the other people she met today, had noticed the buzzing getting stronger. This could hardly be a coincidence. Something must have caused the signal to get amplified. It still was unclear if the events of the recent days were the reason for that.
In the next few hours, Sven was extremely nervous. He did not like this at all and would prefer to be with his wife right now, who could be in some kind of danger, just because he was here. But he forced himself to remain as calm as possible while waiting for the two Twimps to finish. To do that, he tried to talk about less relevant subjects with Tom.

Meanwhile, Tom had arranged that Joschi could spend the night at a friend's house today. He did not want Sophie and Pato to be disturbed and he did not have the energy to avoid the subjects that had to do with what was going on in the attic.
Soon, the daylight faded and he stood up from the sofa.
  "Now I have to go upstairs. The light will be gone in a few minutes and the two would be sitting in the dark. Got to switch the lamp on." , he explained.


--

The last few hours just fortified what the had found at the beginning of the book.
  "Jeez, It's been long since I read something as intense as this book.  Somehow I think I'm going to be sick." Pato used his feet to push the book away from him, but tsince it was so huge and heavy, he only made it move away an inch.

  "Uh hu... this feels like having rocks in your stomach." Sophie agreed and lay down on her back and stretched all her four limbs.

Just in this Moment they could hear steps coming closer from downstairs and soon after the door to the attic was opened with a loud creak. Toms head poked out from the stairway right after that.

  "Hello you two. Sorry if I disturb you, but I thought you needed some light"

He walked over to the switch, which lit the room with the warm yellow light of an old light bulb, once he flipped it. As he was about to leave again, he cast a look at Pato and Sophie, who looked as if they had seen a ghost. Now pretty worried, he hunched down in front of the blanket they were sitting on.
  
  "Are you okay? You look really beat."

The girl propped herself up on her elbows and sighed.

  "I would not say that anything is okay at all. This is some heavy stuff right here." she used her foot to point at the book, which lay there with the last page open.

  "Are you finished already?" He looked at them disbelievingly and Pato nodded at that.

  "Finished with the book, and literally finished.", Sophie added.

Tom bit his lower lip a bit before he asked further:

  "Are you feeling like telling us what you found out?"

Sophie exchanged a few looks with her old friend and then both of them nodded.

  "It would not be of any use to wait much longer." She stood up, shaking her body a bit to get rid of the stiffness of her limbs.

  "Should I get Sven, or can I bring you down, Pato?"

He just gave a small wave . It seemed like he did not care anymore about who was carrying him around now. Maybe he just wanted to leave the dusty attic as soon as possible.
Tom tucked the book under his arm and placed Sophie in his breast pocket again, so he could carry the young man with both hands.
It felt very strange to pick Pato up, He was quite a lot bigger and of course heavier than Sophie, moreover he knew that the little human did not entirely trust him. It just was a completely different feeling, but he tried to ignore it on the way back to the living room.

When the finally arrived at their destination, Tom was relieved when he could put his valuable freight down on the table.

  "Are you done already?" Sven was astonished and one could hear that he was very nervous.

  "That we are indeed." The girl waved her notepad in a meaningful manner.

  "So you know who is behind all of this?", the blond giant dug deeper.

  "Yes we learned about who is the reason for the situation that Pato, I, and all the others of or kind are in."

Sadly, Pato could do nothing else but nod at everything she said.

  "The Golden Rules are, just as we assumed, the work of the Community of Salvation. But the reason for us being stuck here and letting all of this get this far... was somebody with the name Siegfried. And he was one of us.
A Twimp."