Chapter 271: College Experience (3)

Chapter 271: Chapter 271: College Experience (3)

(Meta chap lol)

[Edward POV]

As Abed and I climbed down the rope and entered the forgotten, restricted area of the Greendale computer department, he turned to me with a curious look. "Mind giving me some information about our quest?"

I shone my flashlight around, taking note of the agents blocking the entrance to the lounge room, ensuring our privacy.

"I'm searching for Russell Borchert's treasure," I began, launching into an exposition. "He's a computer genius and millionaire who got rich by inventing the nine-track cassette. Supposedly, the eight-track industry paid him to keep quiet about it, and he funneled that wealth into founding Greendale as a computer school."

I chuckled. "Though it's strange that you all don't actually teach any computer courses here."

Abed quipped, "It's labeled 'Computery' college. I thought that they teach things related to computers. But now you mentioned it, it is indeed odd."

Shaking my head, I replied, "It seems there was a time when the college was filled with technological innovations." As we walked through the corridors, I could see traces of where computers used to be and even a research lab.

Abed said, "Anyway, back to Russell Borchert."

"Oh, right. He obsessively pursued a new project...a machine that can process feelings. He apparently used nothing but gold to assemble his circuitry, believing it to be a better conductor for human emotion. I'm quite interested in the tech, so let's see if we can find it." I added.

I continued giving Abed some exposition, "Rumors spread about Russell Borchert's... unnatural relationship with computers. So much so, that people even thought he died from a computer virus. An STD computer virus."

" But, he actually just went underground and continued his research here. The first Greendale Dean was so embarrassed by Russell's... quirks...that he sealed off the entire computer department to prevent another Russell incident."

Abed asked while in character, "Are you here in search of the gold circuit? Is that the treasure?"

I turned to him and said, "I'm not. Also, I'm not planning to break the robot."

Abed was confused, "Then, what are you aiming for here?"

I smirked and said, "You'll understand it when the time comes."

We reached the end of the corridor into another lounge. There was a jukebox there, placed in front of what obviously was a hidden room. I checked the surroundings and found several baseball cards.

"Why are you picking them up?" Abed asked curiously.

"A friend of mine is collecting baseball cards. I can give it to him." I replied casually. Little did Abed and I know, these vintage baseball cards from the 70s in mint condition, were really valuable. One of these could pay for Abed's entire college fees, and I got 40 of them.

Abed checked the jukebox and said, "I'm sure one of them is the key to opening the secret door."

"Try track 127." I muttered.

Abed checked the track's name and said, "Of course. "Open the door" by Secret doors. The key couldn't be even more obvious."

The jukebox rumbled and started playing the song. The jukebox moved inside the walls, opening a secret path to Russell Borchert's lab. I expected to see the inventor there, that's why I told Abed I wasn't going to take the gold circuits.

Russell's entire life's work was to build a robot girlfriend, and taking that gold out of his robot would basically kill the love of his life - however clunky it may be. My aim in this treasure hunt was to trade with Russell some technologies. I'm pretty sure I could just connect him to the internet and he would be glad to give me his money.

"This is the greatest thing that has ever happened in my life," Abed muttered in amazement as the door finished opening. I chuckled and said, "Stick closely with me."

I asked him to do that because I was expecting a feral Russell Borchert there. However, I wasn't worried about him because right now, he would be a 70 year old man, and he had never once exercised in his entire life. I could take him down easily if I had to.

The room was filled with analog servers, which reminds me of the Zola scene in Captain America winter soldier. As we entered the room, Abed and I were both shocked when we saw a human skeleton laying on the floor of the lab.

"Oh my god," I muttered with disbelief. "This isn't supposed to happen." My voice shook as I examined the corpse. "He's supposed to be alive!"

Abed was also disturbed by it and said, "That corpse..."

"This...maybe Russell Borchert--" My words stopped as I suddenly smelled something strange. "Abed! Hold your breath and retreat immediately. The room is filled with gas!"

Abed was startled and he covered his nose instantly. Both of us rushed back to the jukebox, and we closed the secret passage behind us.

Breathing heavily, Abed said, "Gas? Are you sure? I didn't smell anything."

"I'm sure of it. Whatever the gas is, I'm pretty sure that was the thing that killed Mr Borchert."

"What should we do now?" Abed asked. "Do we end our adventure here?"

Shaking my head, I said, "No. We just need a gas mask. Luckily for me, I brought it with me when I came to Colorado. But..."

"But what?" Abed asked urgently. I scratched my cheek and said, "I left it behind in my apartment."

Abed nodded and said, "It's okay. I don't think there's anyone else who knows about the treasure's existence. I--"

Abed suddenly stumbled, and his knees were weakened. I grabbed him from falling down and asked, "Abed, are you okay?"

"I...suddenly feel quite dizzy," Abed said. "My head feels very heavy."

"The gas. You've inhaled quite a lot of it," I said as I felt my head throbbing too. I carried Abed by his shoulder and walked him toward the exit. I called the agents and one of them climbed down through the trap door.

"Take him to the hospital. Quick," I ordered. "He inhaled some gas. I don't know what kind."

"What about you, sir?" The agent asked me with concern.

"I'm fine," I said. I took out a canister from my pocket, and took out 2 nostril filters from it before plugging it into my nose. I didn't want to take it out before because that meant I would be the only one who could adventure inside the room, but right now, it would be better for me to do this alone.

After equipping the filters, I ventured back into the secret lab to find the source of the gas. From my inspection, I figured out that one of the gas pipes he used for heating his secret lab had burst. In my rough estimate, it has been 5 years since Russell Borchert died there, alone, without anyone realizing it. I searched for the main pipeline and turned off the gas.

'That's a harsh way to go.' I thought before grabbing a duffel bag filled with cash stowed under the desk. 'At the very least, I can have this.' I checked the content of the bag.

I was confused at first when I saw that it was filled to the brim with 100 dollar bills. 'Didn't he say that it was Gerard Ford dollars?' I was expecting to see a fake currency here, but the money was quite real.

When I thought about it, I realized that I had misunderstood it.

In the TV series, Russell Borchert meant that it was cash from the Gerard Ford era. Because of the rapid inflation in the 70s, Russell thought that the cash was worthless– which it would've been if the rate of inflation stayed the same as it was in the 70s. That's why he gave it to the school so easily.

The duffel bag was 86L in size. From my rough calculation, 5,186.7 cubic inches of the bag size, divided by 0.069 inches of the 100 dollar bills, should be around 75,166 hundred dollars bills inside the bag, which amounted to 7.52 million dollars.

"Hmm? That's true. Let me check." I said before I walked to the door, opened it, and asked the agent standing guard there. "Did a blonde girl named Britta come by yet?"

The agent nodded and said, "She did. She signed the release form and left."

"Huh? Why didn't she come inside?" I asked in confusion.

The bodyguard avoided his eyes, which made me realize he had something to do with it.

"What did you do?" I asked sternly.

"You were having a moment with the patient. I don't want her to disturb it and send her away." The bodyguard replied. "She doesn't seem to be pleasant. I don't want her to ruin the mood."

Baffled at first, I asked with narrowed eyes, "Your name is Mickey right?"

"Yes. Wait, A-Are you firing me?" Mickey asked, flustered.

"No, you're promoted." I said, turning him speechless. "From now on, you're going to be the head of my personal security."

I returned to Abed after grabbing the release form, leaving the guy alone to process what just happened. Suddenly, I heard him shout from behind the door, "THANK YOU SIR! I WON'T LET YOU DOWN!"

"What was that?" Abed asked curiously. I replied, "Nothing, I just promoted him. Anyway Abed, you can go home now. I'm going back to college to pick up Frankie. I can drive you."

"Okay sure. Thank you. On the road, you can talk about your own show, and I'll give you advice on how to improve it.

"The show I'm working on?" I asked with a quizzical expression. Abed replied, "No, your show. The show where you're the main star."

"I have a show?" I replied in surprise. "No, I don't have a show Abed. My life story is too boring to have my own show."

"I'll be the one to decide that." Abed said decisively. I thought about it for a while and said, "What the hell. As long as we're leaning into this, might as well."

...

[General POV]

While in the meeting with the school board members– Richie and Carl, Frankie got a text from Edward and excused herself from the meeting. Then, she called Edward in confusion and asked, "When did you forge a dead man's will?"

"I didn't. I actually found his corpse underneath the school campus." Edward replied in disbelief. "I told you I was treasure hunting." He added.

Frankie thought about it and said, "Well, since you got the deed, it'll make the negotiation easier."

"Frankie, can I ask you a favor?" Edward interjected. Frankie asked, "What do you want me to do?"

"It seems that the wealth of the deceased men is much bigger than I thought." Edward muttered. "Rather than letting the city get the investment...What if..."

They talked about it for a while, and Frankie finally cut the call. She reentered the room and sat down on the table. Both of the city reps were still smiling, expecting good news.

Dean Pelton smiled sadly behind the glass door, peering into the meeting room with a look of longing. He was thrown out of the negotiation by the school board because of the eccentric ways he was acting.

"Gentlemen, let's cut the meeting short." Frankie said with a serious tone, causing the smile to vanish from the city rep's faces.

"I was only here for a day, and I have to convince Edward to stop the investment from happening." Frankie continued. Both of the city reps were shocked, "Wait? WHY!?"

The school financially was in dire straits, so not getting the investment was a huge deal to everyone there.

"Let me give you a run down on why I did that." Frankie took out a list and read them out loud, "The facilities are crumbling - black mold, faulty wiring, coyotes and other animals running rampant on campus. The power goes out constantly, and they don't even have a proper fire alarm system. Not to mention the building structure and overlooked issues. It's a liability nightmare waiting to happen."

"The money can fix that." Richie said nervously while pulling his collar. Frankie continued without minding him, "Half of the faculty are drunk and they don't even want to be here. Not to mention, frauds. Your Dean hired the Spanish teacher because he thought it'd be racist for him to ask him about his credentials– which is none by the way."

"There's a marijuana farm growing in the lab, which made this entire place complicit in the police matter." Frankie added.

"Lastly, the administration. The place is run by a revolving door of half-competent bureaucrats, and I was being generous. I'm shocked they haven't been sued into oblivion already." Frankie placed down the list and said, "Do you guys have anything to say in defense to what I figured out?"

Richie said angrily, "Alright. We get it."

Frankie commented, "Not only for us, but even the city will be liable the longer you try to keep the college running. Just imagine the PR disaster. "City Council is using Greendale Community College as a Marijuana farm?"

Carl turned to Richie and said, "The school is in a really bad shape."

Richie said to Carl, "I guess that's what happens when you used the time you are supposed to check on the administration to eat chicken wings and drink beer."

"Gentlemen, I pity you guys." Frankie said with a sympathetic tone, which made both Richie and Carl calm down a bit. Richie said, "It's fine Miss Dart. We're the one at fault here. I understand that your company cannot invest in the college because of the liability issue and it cannot be associated with the college either because of the potential fallout from the drug case."

Frankie nodded and said, "Gentlemen, I understand the difficult position this puts you in. If I were you, I'd cut off the institution like a gangrenous limb, saving the city council from the potential backlash it could cause."

Carl said in frustration, "We want to, but we can't."

Richie added, "We wanted to sell this place a long time ago. But we couldn't find any buyer. If the city closes down the place on our own, there'll be backlash. If we don't, we can incur more problems."

"Hmmm..." Frankie pretended to think and said, "There's one more solution you can try. But– Forget it, I don't think it can happen."

Both of the city reps asked urgently, "Please tell us!"

"You can get rid of the institution for cheap. Our company can offer the city to buy out the institution and close it down for you. That way, we'll be the one who'd bear the brunt of the backlash." Frankie said.

She added with a caring, yet difficult tone, "But, you understand why I don't think this can happen. The risk is too great. Unless the price is really...REALLY low, then, I don't think that I can convince the management to take that risk. If anything, we can just sell the land and the property to recover the money after shutting down the college. We won't lose that much in this transaction."

"You want us to sell the college...to you...?" Richie couldn't believe his ears. Carl suddenly shouted, "SOLD! We can go as low as 3 million dollars for the entire thing." He stood up and offered a handshake to Frankie.

"Deal!" Frankie stood up and shook his hand immediately. The property alone was worth more than 2.5 million dollars. Richie looked at Frankie and Carl with disbelief before he shook his head and said, "Well, It's too late to back out now."

"Bring the sale contract tomorrow. We'll transfer the money and handle the problem for you." Frankie said before she left the room. She passed by the Dean as she got out of the room, and he asked excitedly, "Did you guys come to an agreement?"

"Yes." Frankie smiled kindly at the Dean, making him misunderstand the situation. She wanted to leave, but when she had already taken a few steps away from the dean, she stopped and slowly backtracked towards him.

Remembering what Edward told her about the Dean being a level 6 susceptible, it could be damaging to the plan if he was left alone. Frankie asked him, "Um, I wonder if there's a place here I could stay in and watch TV?"

The dean became excited, "Oh, come with me! I'll show you where I usually take my afternoon break."