Chapter Text
Before their little adventure downstairs, Nobita and Mayumi had something to do, a little precaution against a certain device that could give them away.
And for that, they asked a favor of someone who was about to leave.
"Okay. Can you repeat what you want me to do? I think I missed the acting part."
Takeda Joji was standing with his school bag in the downstairs hallway, near a spot where the cameras couldn't record.
"You just have to pretend you're in a hurry to leave, making sure you bump into Nobita, who, COINCIDENTALLY, will be checking his watch, and it will crash into the wall, an accident." Mayumi made air quotes.
Joji blinked, glancing sideways at Nobita. "Are you a masochist or something?"
"Believe me, I don't like the idea of getting hit again in this life either" Nobita sighed wearily.
"But I have no other choice. This watch is a nuisance, and I can't just take it off or break it myself. Mr. Sota will notice because the GPS will send him an alert."
"That's why I want you to slam me against the wall, hard enough to damage the watch and break it. That way, since it'll be an accident, I won't get in trouble."
"And even if he notices the watch is broken, it won't be my fault, and he won't want to come right away like he would if I did."
Obviously, they weren't going to tell Joji the real reason for breaking the watch. They weren't close enough to tell him what they were going to do.
The dark-haired boy whistled in astonishment. "GPS?! Wow! Dad said Mr. Sota was the kind of guy who liked to control everything, but I thought he was just exaggerating."
"Trust me, your dad isn't exaggerating about that." Nobita shook his head, sweating profusely. "I can't ask that of your brother because of the treatment he's undergoing."
"Well, fine. If it's a staged accident, at least I won't be in trouble. I'm eager to be out of this punishment; I've barely been able to catch up on DarkGolds because I haven't had the time."
"Thanks, Joji." The boy with glasses sighed in relief, and Mayumi smiled.
Nobita and Mayumi moved far enough away to be captured by the camera in that area.
The honey-haired girl started talking about something random, and Nobita raised his arm toward the wall, pretending to look at his GPS watch.
That was the signal.
Joji ran, pretending he was running late, thus creating the necessary push, slamming Nobita against the wall.
And it worked. The watch hit the wall, causing static electricity in its circuits that immediately shut it down.
Mayumi helped her friend up while making a (fake) pout at Joji, who only hastily apologized.
They both turned their backs to the camera to avoid having their expressions captured. "Did it work?" she said softly.
The boy with glasses fumbled with his watch, it reacted, but its screen didn't respond, displaying an accidental error message as it shut down again. That made him sigh and nod with a small smile.
"Well, it's time to go. We'll thank Joji later. When he's not being a brute, he's a big help." Mayumi chuckled softly.
"You know? He reminds me a little of a friend of mine called Gian. Well, his name is actually Goda Takeshi, but he's the same, a tough guy you can always count on."
"I'd like to meet your friends from Tokyo, Nobita. I'm sure they're friendly" she said.
"You'd like Shizuka and Dekisugi right away. Suneo and Gian are kind of like the ones here, not quite, but they're a great support when they're in a good mood."
"But first, you're going to meet my best buddy."
They both nodded and started walking.
"Anyway, the ground floor is long. It'll take us a while to find it" Nobita said, looking around.
Mayumi put her hand to her chin. "Cl_22309_Groun_Flo_FVROR4_Column4"
She stopped. "Wait. There are eight decorative marble columns on the ground floor, four on the left and four on the right."
"Do we have to check all the columns?" Nobita asked.
"Not necessarily. Each column has a number on its base in the order they were placed."
They both started running to the left, Nobita following Mayumi. "And if it's the one I'm thinking of, it must be that one."
After running, the two reached the floor-to-ceiling marble column, polished and gleaming. At its base, a number 4.
"Could this be it?" asked the boy with glasses, scratching the back of his neck.
"I think so. There should normally be a working camera here, but look"
Mayumi pointed to the camera on the opposite wall. "The red light on that particular camera never blinks, so it's off. I noticed it on the first day, but I thought it was broken. But it's still like that today."
"So it's just there for show?" Mayumi nodded, and Nobita asked "Then-"
"Yes, I'm going there."
The sound of a man's voice echoed in the hallway. Footsteps were approaching the pair.
"Someone's coming! Let's hide!"
Near the column was the door to the art studio. They both hurried inside, closing the door behind them.
When they cracked the door open to peek, they saw a man with a gray beard, a square chin, wearing a purple vest, a white shirt, gray pants, and indoor shoes.
He was talking to someone on the phone while carrying some cream-colored folders.
"Who is that?" Mayumi asked quietly, watching him stop near the column.
Nobita squinted. The man wore a badge on his vest beneath the institute logo. The badge read: Dr. Hara.
"That must be the school therapist. Joji told me his name yesterday. What's he still doing here when the teachers have already gone home?"
"I have the students' progress reports for the program." Dr. Hara looked up.
"Huh? He's here? I haven't seen him. He's probably in the garden or something. Don't worry, I'm careful. This is the perfect time to submit progress reports."
Nobita jumped. Were they talking about him?
"Okay, tell the bosses to transfer the money to my secondary account as usual. I'll drop off the paperwork and go home. Goodbye."
The therapist hung up, put his phone away, and walked over to the column. Nobita and Mayumi watched him intently.
They saw the man tap three times in the middle of it.
They both jumped when they saw something like a hatch open from the side. An electronic keypad had been revealed.
Dr. Hara entered a code and waited.
A section of the wall opened like an automatic door, revealing an elevator.
The elevator door opened, letting the man in. He adjusted his vest as the door closed, along with the access panel in the wall.
The access panel also closed immediately, as if nothing had happened.
Nobita and Mayumi were startled by what they saw.
"So it is there, there's a hidden entrance!" Nobita said, leaving the art room with Mayumi.
"We have to go in there, Doraemon must be there."
When he said that, Mayumi gave him a pair of black pants and a matching hooded sweater; she had one draped over her shoulder.
"If we're going to stealthily save your friend, we have to be as unrecognizable as possible."
Nobita nodded, so they each changed clothes while the other waited outside the room.
When they were ready and had their hoods up, Nobita tapped the column, imitating the therapist. The panel appeared.
"What's the code?"
Mayumi looked at the panel. "It has five digits."
They both remembered something from that part of the dream clue.
So, Nobita typed: 22309.
A soft beep sounded, and the wall opened, revealing the elevator.
"I figured as much. The 'Cl' was a password" the honey-haired girl shrugged.
She went inside, but Nobita stayed put. "Are you coming?"
He couldn't help it; he remembered the night he tried to escape from the mansion, how Sota discovered him, and how the incinerator's fire was calling him to stop suffering.
"What if they discover us? I'm a little scared that they might do it when we're so close to succeeding. It's happened to me before."
"What if this is the only chance to save your friend? He told you they're going to get rid of him this weekend. You won't be able to see him again if you back out now."
"You won't be alone in this, Nobita. I'll be by your side. Don't back down."
"Doraemon was the one who saved you from making mistakes. This time, today, you can save him."
Nobita blinked. She was right. Maybe this was his ONLY chance to save a friend who needed him more than ever.
He understood the feeling.
Because before, he had wished someone would free him from that mansion.
Now, he could be the one to free someone.
The boy with glasses stepped into the elevator with a determined look, adjusting his hood to hide his face from any cameras they might find.
And as soon as he pressed the button to close the elevator door, it began to descend, leaving them both standing inside the small white space.
"It seems like whatever this place is hiding is underground" Nobita said, feeling the pressure of the descending elevator.
"What do you think we'll find in there?" Mayumi asked. "If the school therapist is involved, it must be something like a secret experimental lab or something." She trembled slightly with curiosity and nervousness.
"Could it be? Maybe it makes sense with whatever's going on with Juro and the other students in that special therapy program."
When the elevator stopped and the door opened, Nobita swallowed hard and Mayumi broke out in a cold sweat.
Without realizing their own actions, they both held hands and managed to calm down a little, a gesture of mutual trust developed over time.
The two carefully made their way down a clean, white corridor. Nobita placed his hand on the handle of the shinai he carried on his belt, ready to defend himself if anything jumped out at them. They also dodged the cameras as best they could to avoid being caught, even in their spy gear.
"This looks very modern, and definitely has a lab feel to it" Mayumi said, walking beside her friend.
Nobita noticed Dr. Hara enter a room. The two managed to get close before the automatic doors closed.
They hid behind a stack of wooden crates.
A large table was unfolded in the middle, and in front of it was a large computer screen. Some men in lab coats were writing in notebooks, while others were reviewing notes with cardboard boxes.
The most curious thing was the jars containing test tubes filled with a purple liquid that, when shaken, briefly displayed blue lines like veins.
"Nobita, look" Mayumi whispered, pointing toward the large computer screen as they hid.
Something on the screen made the boy's skin crawl.
The symbol was a drawing of an orchid. But this one had bluish edges and in the middle of the flower some purple lines that came out of the center like a leafless tree.
The flower brought back memories of that folder he'd seen in Sota's office. And he remembered how Dr. Hara had alluded to him indirectly when he spoke to the stranger on his cell phone.
"Reviewing a sample of Orchidaceae 5.9, Dr. Watanabe?" Dr. Hara asked, placing the folders on the table.
"I was finding this fascinating" said a scientist with dark square glasses, black hair, and a lab coat.
"It's a small, pure dose, but when distilled sufficiently while retaining its potency, it works wonders as a tea."
"Tea? Isn't that like what you usually have with lunch?" the honey-haired girl whispered.
Nobita shook his head. "No, well, the Camellia tea I drink is purple, but it's a little lighter and doesn't have those weird lines."
"Hey, boss!" One of the men in lab coats was carrying a box, catching the attention of the man who seemed to be the head of the lab there.
"What day did you say yesterday that we were supposed to remove the failed subject MS-903 from warehouse 2 and take it to the scrap yard?"
The head of the lab spoke without taking his eyes off the test tube. "Saturday, Keiaisha Recycling Center, 11 p.m."
"Oh, great! An hour before an appointment I have" the employee said with a smile.
Nobita and Mayumi looked at each other, startled by that.
"Did you hear that?" She whispered,
"Doraemon said he overheard a man saying they were going to get rid of him this weekend."
"So it wasn't Mr. Sota who was speaking at that moment, it was the boss of this place." Nobita frowned at Dr. Watanabe.
"That means he's here with that strange name and they're keeping him captive until they get rid of him tomorrow. To a junkyard? That sounds awful" Mayumi added.
"And I understand he has a number. I've seen science fiction movies where mad scientists call their subjects by combinations of numbers and letters."
She put her hand to her chin. "But. Why would they call him 'Failed Subject'?"
"I don't know, but now that we know where he is in this place, we should go there."
Just as Nobita and Mayumi were about to leave, a black folder fell off one of the wooden boxes when the boy moved. Luckily, the contents didn't spill because it was held in place by an internal clip.
/Tirin, tirin!/
Nobita heard that tinkling sound like a bell when he saw the black folder; something inside him told him he had to see that first.
So he took it in his hands. Mayumi, sitting next to him, looked at the folder, confused. "It looks like one of the folders Dr. Hara had, but a different color."
"I see."
The pair turned back to the head of the lab and the therapist. The former was looking at the folders intently.
"The Orchidacae 5.9 test subjects are responding well, and although some are showing some resistance, it seems we're close to achieving a definitive result this time."
Dr. Watanabe approached the large computer and began typing.
Immediately, the computer changed from the logo to several photos that had numbers underneath them, including Juro's.
And the name: Orchid Project
And that name on the screen startled Nobita even more, reminding him once again of the folder in the office.
"Thanks to the proud and egotistical students at Furora Institute, the testing of Orchidacae 5.9 is going smoothly enough to reach its final version, version 6.0."
"And when it's ready, tested, and accepted, all that will be missing is the Dendrobium Group's authorization to begin mass production of Cattleya."
"Cattleya?" Dr. Hara scratched his chin. "It's a curious name for the final version of Orchidacae turned into tea."
"The Dendrobium Group said they needed a catchy name for when it hits the market. As long as they pay us, what does it matter?"
"What matters is how Orchidacae performs in the test, and that Special Evaluation Program works perfectly with those spoiled kids. And if they give us the green light, we can implement it with the other students."
Dr. Hara laughed. "That's right, that way, the entire Furora Institute will become the first bastion of perfection."
The honey-haired girl pulled out a small camera and took pictures of everything she could, without using the flash to avoid making noise.
"They're using the school's troublemakers as guinea pigs for their perfect-conditioning drug" Mayumi said, bringing her hands to her mouth.
"And then they'll do the same to us."
"It's similar to what Sota wants to turn me into, but using a strange tea instead of physical abuse." Nobita clutched the folder in his hands.
"And why haven't you started the upgrade to version 6.0 yet?" Dr. Hara asked.
The head of the lab shrugged. "We ran out of the main components needed to continue the development trials for the final version."
"We'll have to wait for Karende Uya Hospital to send us the bimonthly donation of the Key Component that the assigned doctor obtains, just like we've done for the past five years. The guy's strange with that smile, but he knows his job."
"Karende Uya Hospital? Bimonthly donation for five years? Strange guy with a smile?" Nobita said quietly.
He felt like he was missing something, something that needed to be put together, but he didn't understand anything.
Until he looked at the folder in his hands, a dreadful feeling began to grow within him.
So, he turned over to get more comfortable on the floor.
Pale, he turned the folder over.
And he saw it.
/ORCHID PROJECT N-807/
He opened the folder to the first page.
A photo of himself looked him in the eye.
And he read.
"Subject N-807."
"Current name: Sota Nobita."
"Pre-adoption name: Nobi Nobita."
"Subject Type: ...Key Component of the Orchidaceae"