Mayday Plays - Doomed to Repeat Ep. 14 - "Victims of the Art"

Episode Date: December 3, 2021

We catch up with Agents Hyde, Boomer, and Samael post-Project TELL. Agent Samael digs at old wounds and hears a confession he can’t keep to himself. Meanwhile, Tuck is forced to bring an injured Merit and shaken Warp home to meet her wife Ruhi. This episode features elements from the scenario “A Victim of the Art” by Dennis Detwiller. TRIGGER AND CONTENT WARNINGS: Mental illness, dissociation, the topic of Covid-19, injuries, mentions of addiction, Catholic confession, manipulation, gaslighting, mentions of stalking, mentions of infidelity, mentions of internalized homophobia, alcohol abuse, mentions of the foster care system, infighting, mentions of violence, blood, and gore, cults and religious trauma. Published by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this podcast are © Mayday Roleplay, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property. CAST OF CHARACTERS • Aaron - Agent Samael • Allegra - Agent Tuck • Amanda - Agent Boomer • Caleb - Agent Merit • Eli - Agent Hyde • Zakiya - Agent Warp • Sergio - The Handler MUSIC & SOUND EFFECTS • Post Sound Supervision: Sergio Crego, Eli Hauschel • Mixed: Eli Hauschel • Original Music: Aaron A. Pabst • Soundstripe (soundstripe.com) • Glitch Machines (glitchmachines.com/) DELTA GREEN LINKS • Delta Green (http://deltagreen.com/) • A Victim of the Art (drivethrurpg.com/product/278578/Delta-Green-A-Victim-of-the-Art) MAY DAY ROLEPLAY LINKS • Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/maydayrp/) • Twitter (https://twitter.com/maydayroleplay7) • Mayday website (https://www.maydayroleplay.com/) • Twitch (twitch.tv/maydayroleplay)

Doom to Repeat is a Delta Green actual play podcast with violent themes in adult language. For a full list of trigger and content warnings, please check our show notes before each episode. Listener discretion is advised. Hello and welcome to episode 14 of Doomed to Repeat. I'm Sergio, your handler. I'm Erin A. Papst, and I'm Agent Samuel. I'm Allegra, I'm Agent Tuck. I'm Amanda Dominic, and I'm Agent Boomer.

I'm Caleb, and I'll be playing Agent Merritt. I'm Eli, and I'll be playing Agent Hyde. I'm Zacchia, and I'll be playing Agent Warp. Tonight's episode features elements from the scenario Victim of the Art by Dennis Detwiller. I'd like to give a special thanks to the players of Mayday, who so clearly love to roleplay, bring memorable characters to life, and let me torture them as their handler. I am very blessed to run this game for you and to play alongside you.

Now, let's begin. Rainbow, Mirage, Puzzle, Tell, Garnet, Wells. Stop shaking. I'm not safe. Go back to the church. Doc experimented on people. She sent them off to die. But not all of them.

One made it. Rainbow, Mirage, Puzzle, Tell, Garnet, Wells. What did I need to understand? You need to stop shaking. Program is not alone, March Industries. They work together. Doc works for them, and I work for the program, right? Pakita, Turner, Nomad, Rainbow, Mirage, Puzzle, Tell, Garnet, Wells.

Why did they have to lie? Why couldn't they just tap them in? If destroying the Tile Gas was the most important thing, why not just tell them? Why put so much effort in stalking Aselu and Langley since they were goddamn kids? Why downtime would be alive? Maybe God knows only what happened to Lyon.

Did Doc even care? We need to calm down. Stop shaking. Rainbow, Mirage, Puzzle, Tell, Garnet, Wells. Maybe it's a warning. We're some kind of experiment. Maybe it's not about the research. Maybe we're meant to find something.

Don't think like that. But there are people in the team. They've seen things. They know things. Boomer knows. Boomer knows about it. There's always more fucking questions. Someone's always got the answer,

but they're never willing to tell you. And you spend so much time combing the desert. Out there in the desert. It's out there in the desert. It's missing. It's missing. He's missing. Where is he?

That's enough, Hyde. That's enough. We can't keep doing this. We have to keep trust in ourselves on this one. We're the only ones that can keep us safe. And we got to keep us safe. We got to stop shaking. But no worries, Hyde.

I got you. I always got you. Let's continue where we last left off. Warp, Merit, Tuck. You guys just survived the attempted destruction and release of a program asset known as Agent Nancy. Agent Merit has suffered a critical wound to his thigh that required casting.

And I'm going to, I'm going to just slightly, I'm going to retroactively change one thing, which is that the process of stopping the bleeding, putting the cast on, making sure that Merit is stable took more than just a couple of minutes. You are coming late to your home about 9 p.m. You have about 10 minutes before you pull up to the house. What are you doing in that time?

I will say that as soon as we were in the car, I called her and I was like, hey, there was an accident. I'm really sorry. We're still coming. I promise we're still coming. It's just, it's going to take us a little longer than we thought. But I will be there soon. I love you.

I'm sorry. She is understanding and says, no worries. We'll see you soon. I'll just keep everything in the oven. You're perfect. Can't wait to meet your friends. Oh, yeah. Okay.

Cool. So I think we owe you something, Tuck, before we pull up. You mentioned before that you wanted personal details. That was mostly the stress talking. If you don't want to tell me, I don't blame you. My name is Orson Bradham and I'm from Ithaca, New York. Orson Bradham. Nice to meet you, Orson.

Very nice to meet you. You can't say anything. But my name is Gaze Joyful and I'm from Connecticut. Hi, Gaze. Gaze Joy. Yeah. And I guess all's fair. I'm Haley.

I'm originally from Washington. So you can call me Haley in this one very specific setting. I will not refer to you as either of the names that you just told me. I'm going to keep calling you Alan and Stephanie. But it'll be weird for my wife if you start calling me Kate. So Haley. Haley. Yeah.

Agent Merritt, I will remind you that your leg is in a cast and that these medics pumped you full of painkillers. You feel good, but I will admit you are on a lot of drugs. For the rest of the evening, you will be at a minus 20% to any dex power or charisma tests. Dex power charisma, got it. I've been watching this whole time. I was originally going to be watching for a tail anyway,

but I'm still I'm continuing to watch her tail as we're going home. Go ahead and make a an alert and check a nine. The success. It is late. You've just experienced the equivalent of a of a 10 car pile up in terms of kind of the emotional highs that you've experienced today. You're a little on edge, but you do a good job of looking behind you and watching the mirrors doesn't seem like anyone is following you.

Hey, can you guys do me a favor? Actually, absolutely. I'm perfectly capable. I know that the program knows that I'm married and they know where I live. And will you just will you turn your work phones off and leave them in here? Absolutely. I'll take mine, but I would rather have as few ears in the house as possible, which I realized they can probably hear right now and I don't care.

That makes sense. You pull up to the neighborhood, you stop in front of the house or pull into the driveway, whichever you prefer. I probably pull up like as far as I can because Mary's on crutches. After close to a week of time, you are finally back home. Right before we get in the house, I pull the chain from under my shirt and I take off the necklace that I have and I pull my wedding ring off of it and I put it on my finger and then I put the chain back on and tuck it under my shirt.

Describe your home. It's very small. It's not like a compact kind of house. It's got two stories. There's a little garage. There's a porch with a little porch swing on it and some like a railing. And next to the front door, there's a little pot of hens and chicks with a really faded sign that you can't really read what it says.

There's a second story. It's kind of like a light yellow color on the outside. The front door is gray. It looks very like gentle for all of the all of that we've been through and all that we've seen. It looks very gentle and like careful and the like the lights coming out through the windows. The porch light comes on as you guys are making your way over to the front door

and outsteps your wife, Ruhi. She immediately locks eyes with you and is up here very excited to see you. Ah, I want to hug her so bad. It's I okay. No, it's I it said that I wasn't sick. So I'm just going to take that I'm not sick and I like rush up to her and like pick her up around the waist. You hug her.

She laughs and hugs you back, gives you kisses and says I'm so happy you're back. It's only it's only for tonight, but I'm so happy. She kind of, you know, instinctively turns to the guests and says hi. My name's Ruhi, but just call me Rue. Yeah, Rue. This is Stephanie and I'll pour in a warp and Alan and I'll point it at Merritt. Nice to meet you. I'm going to hobble up.

I'm going to put my hand as far out in front of me as possible. It is an absolute honor to be in your home and it is so good to finally meet you, Peru. Thank you for having me. And I think he's like shaking in his position, trying to stand up and he's trying to keep the crunch as far out as possible. So he looks normal. Do me a favor make a Dex times five roll and I have my arm out to like catch

him if he does something. Sure. Sure. Dex times five at minus 20 at minus 20. So I rolled a 13 and I think my Dex is enough at that still. Yeah, that sounds like it's probably enough. You know, you're able to maintain yourself. It certainly is a little awkward kind of walking up and, you know, her face does

kind of frown at the sight of you in a cast and says, oh my God, it's very nice to meet you. Are you okay? Oh, by all means, I'll be fine. As long as you give me somewhere to sit, I will be, I will be the greatest house guest I promise. I've, I've set up a, I've set up a place in the backyard. Um, um, come on.

I, and she kind of turns to you, uh, tuck nonchalantly. He's like, I can't believe they make you guys work even when you have a cast on. You should be home. This is the accident I was talking about. This is why we were late. Um, what? You just got into an accident? No, no, no, no, baby.

No, we're fine. There wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't a car accident. The car, look, the car's fine. We were at a, uh, at a training facility and they were running, uh, a training like, you know, like they were running the kids through some new stuff and, uh, and they, they asked Marit and I to, to jump in and you know how competitive I get. And I might've, I might've shoved him a little bit and he might've taken a tumble. I fell.

Yes. Absolutely. I fell across the training facility. And don't you know what? I broke my femur, plain and half proof. Can you believe it? And I'll, I'll lean over and we'll sort. He's on a lot of pain drugs, babe.

It's. I'm going to ask that agent Tuck make one charisma times five role. Okay. Because it's not terrible. Does dinner. Cool. Can they get a minus 20 for lying to their wife? I don't know the colors that I chose for my wife.

You guys weren't here. I would be doing something different. Oh, it was excess with a 55 a crit success in fact. Wow. Okay. Great. She is just astonished that all of this happened today and she's asking you about it.

She's asking, you know, why and how and, you know, you do a pretty good job of just you taking the lead of explaining what happened. And I definitely feel that away from merit. Yeah. And then marriage kind of fills in the details about his own personal stuff. But you know, she's listening to you as she's letting you in as she's also like turning the oven off and getting dinner ready. So there's a lot that is on her mind.

And so she's kind of half listening and you know, just kind of giving the usual. Oh my God. I can't believe this just happened to you. You know, she does suggest that maybe you should be in the hospital. Oh, well, if I was in the hospital, I wouldn't be able to have dinner with you and I wouldn't be able to help out your wife Haley with with the very important project that we're a part of. And let me just say that it wouldn't be without her that I'd be standing with

you now. So I don't think you have anything to worry about, but I appreciate your concern over me through already. You have been the greatest host. I really appreciate it. It's it's Rue, Alan, just are you Rue? Oh, I'm sorry. OK, it happens.

It's all right. No, it's not. I'm so I I'm sorry. Rue Rue, right. She leads you into the back and she has really kind of, you know, taken the time to put pillows out and, you know, has the string lights on and she has prepared you know, a modest but but nice dinner, mostly kind of appetizers and and little little dishes for everyone to share.

There's some nice breads and things like that. And it's kind of a lovely spread. She's gone above and beyond. So I know that you guys aren't really supposed to talk about this stuff. But I mean, how long have you known each other? We've we've been working together for a little bit. It's been like a week or two. Yeah, it's probably been about a week.

They're they're throwing different task force together, kind of see what sticks who works well together. It's going to be kind of a shuffling thing until they figure out what really works well together. I have to admit, I mean, you know, Haley's not allowed to tell me anything, but I'm always curious. It seems really strange to me that during covid, she's brought out like this. I mean, I'm not good.

We don't have to talk about it. I just it just seems strange. Well, I hope nothing bad is happening. Well, you know, the FBI, they're not in the business of making sure we're sitting for too long, even if it's menial work. What we're doing is important. But by no means should you worry too much over Haley. She's very capable and she's been doing an exceptional job out there.

The team would not be the same without her. I've got a good team watch in my back. You guys seem like you, you know, are make a good team. Absolutely. We've got along since day one. Yeah, we really do make a charisma test at minus 20, please, for that. The agent's merit. All right.

It's still 55. Here we go, folks. And that is a 35 still under. So all of a little shit. And and you, agent, I believe your name is Stephanie, right? Yes, yes, Stephanie Pierce. I have to admit, you don't really look like an FBI agent. She gestures to your overalls and lack of the fact that the other two are

in like suit and tie practically, right? That's I'm not really, you know, in the field as much as they are. I kind of just sit at a desk all day. They don't really, they let you kind of wear whatever you want after a certain point. Especially these days. I mean, they should just let you be in your PJs all day, right? Hardly ever really seeing anything. It's just paperwork and postings.

Well, we need to maintain a professional manner, of course. PJs would be a little too far, right? I suppose so. You know what? Actually, that that reminds me of Haley and she kind of turns to you. Remember, I said I had good news. Yeah. Yeah.

What's the good news? So I got this call kind of out of nowhere. The local news station wants to interview me for a job. That's incredible. Oh my God, babe. Yeah, I know. I'm she kind of points to herself and gestures to the others. I'm a meteorologist.

So that's kind of what I do. I've been doing kind of freelance stuff. But yeah, the local news just kind of out of the blue called me. They said they want to do a Zoom meeting probably tomorrow or the next day. Yeah. And if I get it, you know, I'll have somebody somewhere close that I can work and a lot more consistent work. You're going to be on TV?

No, no, no, no. I'm just in the background doing the math and, you know, giving the pretty people on camera the information. You're beautiful and you're brilliant. And this is exactly what you deserve. Thank you. I'm very excited. I'll let you know how it goes.

I'm so proud of you. So you trek storms through? Yeah. Storms of I've been I've worked with the weather channel before mostly data tracking that kind of stuff. Oh, I know data tracking very well. I have very many friends who are interested in that sort of thing. I myself love a good number crunch, right?

He's in charge of our budget all the time. Oh, I didn't know that there was like one guy in charge of the budget. Well, no, I took that upon myself because I think the team needs some order every so often. You know, the FBI hates when you're the habit of going over number, right? It's not important. What draws you to storms? She tells you her her life story, you know, that kind of led to

being interested in that stuff or passes. Merit a plate and keeps like take it and do something else, please. She, you know, eventually as the dinner goes on, she does kind of, you know, again, bring up the job. And she says it's it's exciting that it's interesting that you guys have a budget you you've been traveling. I kind of envy you guys, huh? It must be must be an exciting job.

Oh, it's not all it's cracked up to be. It's a lot of sitting around, a lot of waiting, a lot of waiting. It's it's better than being, you know, locked underground or something. Yeah, that's yes, much better than that. Agent Merit, please make a power times five roll at minus 20, please. That's a big failure. OK, 95 for 30. Jesus, Warp and Tuck over the course of dinner.

You know, Warp has handed him a plate and is like even putting food on the plate and feeding him. And it looks like the medicine might be wearing off because Agent Merit is like having trouble like keeping his eyes open. Rue, is it is it all right if we give Stephanie and Alan couch and the extra room for the night and we can we can stay here and leave in the morning? Oh, I I don't want to impose.

You you can just I put me in the car. Oh, you're not putting you in the car. No one is sleeping in the car. Alan, it's fine. A little little surprise. I wish you could have told me earlier, but yeah, absolutely. Well, sorry, sorry, sorry. Yeah, yeah, don't worry about it.

Guys, we've got a comfy futon. You guys need separate rooms? I mean, I guess somebody can sleep in the jujitsu room. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, I guess there's a mat in there. There's a there's a floor mat. I'm sorry. The jujitsu room.

Oh my God, I'm so sorry. I didn't give you the house tour. You guys want to see the house? There's nothing I would enjoy more. By all means, absolutely. Let me get my crutch. I'm going to help bear it out. Tug is slowly getting more and more stress and like like her hair.

She's taken her hair out of the ponytail that it's usually in and she's just running her hands through it and it's getting like frizzier and like she's just like her eyes are huge. Now, Rue, are you a practitioner of the jujitsu arts? Well, Haley is trying to teach me, but we don't always get through classes. We do. We do. We do.

We work very hard. I'm just kidding, honey. It's she's a great teacher. Yeah, I just I have a short attention span. That's all she kind of hit you in the ribs. Tux face is flaming. Maybe it would be better if I just stayed in the living room in case Alan needs something.

OK, well, I can stay in the jujitsu room if you don't want it. We can put some cushions on the floor for you. As long as it's. Sanitary. It's very sanitary. Nothing happened. It's just sweat. Oh, fuck.

It's just sweat. What else could they be doing in here? Stephanie, Tuck Panic. Tuck Panics and goes and tries to find the cat. All right, just roll some dice here. So agent Tuck, you said you're going to go get some sheets and stuff. Yeah, I go and get sheets and I like look for the cat desperately. Yeah, the cat's in the bedroom and while you're getting the sheets,

Ruth steps in and she closes the door and says, is everything OK? Honey, are you all right? You seem really stressed. Yeah, no, I this is I'm it was a long day. I'm very happy to be home. I wasn't expecting you to meet these two. They're they're they're great. They're wonderful team members.

They're characters. I really think you should go to the hospital tomorrow morning with with Alan. Yeah, he they checked him out there. They gave him a clean bill of health. I even asked if they should if they should send him to the hospital, but they said since it's been so overrun, you know, with COVID lately, it's did you did you notice he called Stephanie Warp? Yeah, it's a joke.

It's a it's a joke amongst the team. It's like it's like she like she thinks really fast. And so like and sometimes we can't all like keep up with it. And so one time speed. Yeah, like warp speed. Like I think it was someone else on the team called their warp once and it kind of stuck. But no, we we just we usually go by go by just our regular names.

You know, Stephanie, Haley, Alan, Mickey. Just one more charisma times five rolls. We usually go by a regular name. Talk is stressed as fuck. Oh, that's a fail in 98. OK, shit. My wife knows me. She she just is like calm down.

Once you give him the sheets and then come back, you know, we've only got a couple hours before you leave. Yeah, OK. Um, all right, I love you. OK, I love you too. I'm going to get ready for bed. OK, was dinner OK? It was it was perfect.

You're that was incredible. You are too good for this world and for me, I can't. Oh, God, I'm going to make this up to you so much. Calm down. Everything's fine. You're acting crazy. I know, I'm sorry. OK, I'll see you.

OK, I love you. Tuck's going to going to like grab some of the some of the cushions off the like the pullout couch in the living room and like any extra cushions she can find like take them off the off the armchair and like make up makeshift bed for for for Alan. Cover it with a sheet. Get him some like Tylenol and some water.

I can't believe I said it. Did she hear it? Did I say it? I said it, right? I heard I heard the words form and they I could see them and I didn't say them. She it's fine. She's used to me saying weird shit.

So OK, it'll be OK. It's not that big a deal. We did OK. We you are very gracious guests. I'm very thankful for you and this. Were you just saying that? No, I'm not. Are you sure?

Yes, I'm sure. Are you OK? I'm great. I get to see my wife. Why wouldn't I be great? And you're going to stay. We're going to stay. You're going to like we talked about earlier.

Yeah, yes, like we talked about earlier. You got in my head. So yes, we're going to stay. Fantastic. OK, you rest. I'll have my phone on. You don't have my. You know my you know my you know my work number.

Sure. So you can call me on my work number. If you know it. Yeah. Do I need to write it down for you? It's in the phone. I'm going to write it down for you. I'm going to I'm going to grab a slip of paper

and write my work phone number down. Have a great memory. So I don't know why you're doing that, but I appreciate the concern. OK, it's OK. You call me if you need anything. Don't try and move. I don't OK.

Yeah, just go to sleep. Just go to enjoy. Enjoy your time. We will be fine. We'll do well. Yeah, do your thing. Warp, I'll I'll show you the pullout couch tonight. You're stalling.

We can do this. I'm not stalling. I'm trying to be a good host. You are losing minutes on the hour to be with your wife. I am familiar with with futons and how they work. Yes, there's a there's a TV. There's a Roku, I guess. I don't I've heard of those things.

Yeah, do you need me to turn it on for you? No. OK. All right. OK, there'll be a cat wandering around probably. You're stalling again. Please go. Shut the fuck up, Alan.

Have a good time. Be safe. Good night. Good night. Tuck goes back into the bedroom. Hi. Hey. Thank you for being cool with.

All of this and no answers. She puts her fingers on your lips, kisses you softly and brings you to the bed. OK, yeah, this. Yeah, we don't have to talk. Yeah, this is fine. Merit and warp, how do you get to bed? You better get it.

It's getting late. Yes. I think warp is going to stick to what she knows under the mattress. Yeah. That's fair. That's fair. Then if warp is sleeping under the mattress, then I am going to caution her to set up cushions on the floor with her.

And I would like to sleep like sleep over style next to her on the floor. Like I'll move out the coffee table and I'll push position out, kick it out and just lay down with it. Are you sure that's comfortable for you? Oh, by all means, it's safer this way. And I figure. I may need some comfort. Maybe you need some comfort.

It'd be nice to have someone nearby, right? Yeah, actually, but I'm fine. I've got my system. I'm just worried about the literal bullet in your leg. Agent Merit, this is in a comfortable position. Make a sanity check for me. OK. Eighty three, which is a failure.

You get almost no sleep. Roll the D4. OK. Three. You're going to lose three willpower. I also need you to make a constitution times five roll. OK. Zero zero is zeros or hundred?

It's zero zero four. There is no hundred. So it would be a zero zero. That is a success. You know, you're you're just kind of like mentally scanning your body and you're just thinking and you're recalling what the medic told you had that bullet moved a centimeter more to the left or the right.

You might have a permanent injury, but they assured you with enough time, you'll probably be back up to full speed. You could have gained a permanent injury, but you rolled well. Oh, exceptional. Regardless, the day comes to an end for you all at last. And I think it's a good time to check in on the other agents of perennial. So we're going to rewind the clock a little bit back to the start of the day. It's April 23rd, a little after 10 a.m.

Agent Samuel, the other agents have split off and they have gone about these tasks, these chores that they have assigned themselves. But you've decided that your day job is important to you and that you are going to take some time to do your priestly duties, namely confession. You head into the back of the church and you find a small room in the administrative hall that has a landline telephone, a headset with a microphone, a Bible and a pitcher of water.

You sit down, you put on the headphones, and you can see that already one of the lines is blinking with a collar. What do you do? I will, of course, accept it. A woman is on the other line and as she's getting out her, forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. She just kind of starts quietly sobbing. In between her cries, she explains that her addiction to amphetamines

has driven her friends and family away from her and that she doesn't really see a life past the addiction. And she asks you, if God is real, why can't he heal me like he did the lepers in the Bible? What do you say to her? Oh, boy. Well, the short answer is there is no easy answer. The longer one is he can,

but you have to want it for yourself. If you don't want it, if you really want to go about the work of being healed and it is work, there's not a lot that can be done for you. The first step, you have to take a step back and ask yourself if you want to get better. And if you find that the answer is yes, then you can. And there's resources available for you to do that.

You advise her the best you can. And after a time, she seems to calm down and she seems to listen to what you're saying. And eventually you have to move on to the next call. Something you notice is that the phone has a digital screen. It does not display the names, but it does display the phone numbers. Technically, this should be anonymous,

but you assume that this whole thing was kind of rushed together. So you do your best to just not stare at the number, you know what I mean? The next call is a man who confesses to stalking his wife and the process learns that she is being unfaithful to him. He isn't angry because it's made him realize that he has been keeping the truth from her and from himself as well. And he asks you if God will still love him, even if he's gay. What do you say to him?

Of course he will. And you know, listen, a lot of people are going to tell you that he won't, but they're lying to you. And when you meet those people, you need to turn around and get yourself away from them. It's not going to be easy. But yes, yes, he will call after call after call is like this. People who are desperate, people who are broken, people who need guidance

and you do your best knowing that. It'll have an impact on some and it might not on others. After about an hour and 40 minutes and change of this, you're exhausted and you're getting ready to wind down. And there's one last call, of course, accept it. You hit the button and it sounds like a nervous boy, a younger male voice. And he kind of starts by saying, I've never really done this before. So I'm sorry, I don't really know what to say.

And he starts to kind of struggle to get something out. He says, I have this. I have a bad feeling and I've been having trouble sleeping at night. I don't know how to put this, but I'm having nightmares about terrible things about people that I know. And then these terrible things, they happen. First it was my death, my doctor and then it was this other lady I know. Deaths, horrible deaths.

They've been pulled apart. It seems like they died in excruciating pain. Hey, hey, it's okay. It's okay. It's okay. And when you say your doctor, do you mean your psychiatrist or your doctor? I don't know if I should. I don't think I should say it.

It's okay. No one's going to know but me. I just, I can't shake that I somehow feel responsible about this. You're not. You're not. I know what you're feeling and I'm telling you, you are not. Then why am I dreaming about them? About them dying?

It could be stress. It could be some kind of mental illness. Can I ask if you have seen a psychiatrist? Is that what's happening to me? Am I going crazy? Well, you're not going crazy. You're just having a little bit of stress. It happens from time to time.

So I want you to do one thing for me. I want you to breathe in deeply through your nose. Hold it for two seconds. Exhale. Do you have insurance? I think my parents do. Okay, so here's what you're going to do. You're going to find your insurance card.

You might have it. Your parents might have it. You're going to go see your general practitioner. You're going to ask him if you can go see a psychiatrist. And after you've done that, if you are still feeling sick, if you are still feeling like you're having problems, you need to come down to the church and see me in person. Can you do that?

I think so, but I'm just... I'm worried. I'm worried if I interact with people that they'll get hurt somehow. I just... Do you feel that you are in danger and the people around you are in danger right now? I don't know. I don't know what to make of any of this.

Young man, can you come down to the church right now? Where are you at? It's okay. I think I have to go. Okay, well, you call back if you need anything, okay? And the line goes dead. Agent Samuel, you've heard people call in and say things like this before, but something about it just sits with you wrong.

But it is... It has been about two hours and you think you've done your part. What would you like to do? It's about noon. I will swing by my office and see if... Make sure that Boomer and Hyde are still in there and that they're doing okay. You see them and they seem their noses deep in the laptop. Do you approach them?

Do you say anything to them? No, no, if they're doing fine, they're doing fine. I think I'd like to step out of the church for a minute and get some fresh air. I'd like to stop by the liquor store around the street, pick up a pack of camel unfiltered, and then behind the church, there's a little lotus garden. And I just like to go around the block and sit down in the garden and smoke some cigarettes. You smoke as many cigarettes as you like and the time passes.

It is a lovely day, quiet as usual since quarantine. As you're sitting there, you get a text on your personal phone. It appears to be from Tony from the club and it is an invitation to a party tomorrow night. The address seems to be somewhere on Long Island. You know your way around this area and it seems like it's an address that is in a very expensive part of town, a very expensive neighborhood. Okay.

Do I assume I have contact numbers for Hyde and Boomer? Yeah, you all have your burner phones. I'll forward them the text. I'll forward it with no context, but I'll also make sure to say text me if you need anything. I'll be your upout. I'm just going to do that double tap thing where it's the thumbs up. Again, priorities, not your priorities. I imagine Samuel has like a flip phone.

Yeah, I think you mentioned you have the cheapest possible phone. I think I'll pick up a bottle of something and I'm very interested to know if that young man calls back. So I'd like to go. There's a spot in the church and the attic where Samuel likes to go and hide. I think he wants to be around in case he hears anything back from that kid though he doesn't expect to. So I think after he's calmed himself down a little bit, you'll just go hide up there and wait. Effectively as players, we know that for the next, you know, 12 to 16 hours until 10 a.m. tomorrow, Agent Hyde and Boomer are going to be preoccupied.

What are you doing in this time? Are you going to spend the whole night in the rafters? I mean, I would like the I feel like he's going to wait for a while in case anyone needs him, but he's going to realize at a certain point that nobody really does. So you know what? While I'm not needed, I would like to grab the keys to my car, go to where it's parked around the corner. I want to drive down to South Manhattan to keep an eye on my dad a little bit. You get on the highway or you get onto the streets and you make your way.

You arrive and pull up. You find a space, maybe a block or so, a little less than a block, more like a quarter of a block away. And you see the home that your daughter lives in and she's actually kind of playing outside. Yeah, she's drawing, you know, skipping chalk marks on the ground and skipping over them. And her foster mother is out there with her. I'm going to make sure they keep plenty of distance. I'm not going to leave the car. I'm just going to watch after a few minutes.

Ruth's foster mother hears something going on in the house and she gets up and she kind of walks inside. And Ruth is now outside by herself kind of finishing her drawings on the sidewalk. I'll get out of the car. Get out and do you walk towards her? I walk past her, not towards past. You're walking. Are you on like the other side of the street or something? Same side. I'll go to the same side. I just don't want to. I don't want to be the kid that's or the guy that's approaching a kid that he, you know, a strange kid directly.

So I'm just going to pretend like I'm kind of walking down the street. I think that in your time communicating with her as much or as little as you have, you walk past her and you do notice these kind of glance back that she's stopped what she's doing and seems to have recognized you. She's just kind of watching you go by. Hi, young lady. What you drawing? She's kind of looking at you and sees that you engage her and just points down and says hop scotch. Oh, yeah. Can you show me? Yeah, yeah. She starts to, you know, she throws a little stone and it lands on one number and kind of starts skipping through.

Well, you have fun. Okay. Be good for your mom and dad. I know you. Your father, Jones. Uh-huh. Yeah. I know you. You call me sometimes, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Just check up on you and your family. Are you doing okay? Yeah. It's around this time that Ruth's foster mother steps out, notices you, kind of covers herself a little up and, oh, Father Jones, I wasn't expecting you. I wasn't expecting myself.

Is everything all right, Ruth? Ruth is like, yeah, I showed him hop scotch. She kind of comes over and pulls the girl a little bit to her and says, Father, I think you should call me the next time you want to come visit. I'll get out of your hair. I'm sorry. I just, I think it's confusing her. I know. I know. I believe me. I know. I'll get out of your hair. Please don't do this again unannounced. I, um, I won't. I won't.

All right, Ruth, let's go inside and she kind of turns the girl. She, you know, Ruth waves at you and they both go inside. I'll, um, I'll linger for a bit and then we'll head out. Make an alertness check for me, please. Great. Oh, uh, that's a 14, which is a success. You're going back to your car and there is a bench across the street. And as you kind of get in, you look to the other side and there is a man reading a newspaper who you realize has kind of had his head up and has been watching you this whole time.

And when you look at him, he kind of goes back to reading his newspaper. Doesn't look familiar at all. No, doesn't seem familiar. I mean, he does have kind of glasses. He's got a hat on. Hey, buddy, he doesn't respond. He's just kind of like deep in his newspaper. Well, hey, listen, you tell Mallory.

I said hello back in the car and drive off and where are you heading to? You know what? I'm just going to drive for a while. As you make the corner, you look back just kind of instinctively and you see him standing and walking over to a vehicle. Oh, and I'm definitely going to keep driving around. Are you moving at a kind of regular pace or are you attempting to kind of get? Well, you know, it's the middle of the city. You know, I can't do it.

There's not a lot of there's not a lot of room to maneuver. And you know what? I'm I'm curious. So I want to I want to see if he follows me. Let me let me ask a question in my not non existent, but relatively limited history with the program. Would I expect this sort of thing? Like, would this be something that I would maybe anticipate that they might be keeping tabs on me? Or might this strike me as a little bit more strange?

I mean, you've never been followed before that I've noticed. While you're thinking these things, you recognize his car about four cars back. I see he's not driving like aggressively or anything. Is he? No, you just you just notice that you'll make a right and then about four cars later, that other car will make a right. And it's been going like this for about an hour. I'm assuming he I'm assuming it never stops. Like if I go for half an hour, I'm assuming he's still on me.

If if you're going to if you're going to drive for as long as you can at the end of that hour, he seems to take an opposite turn and just kind of goes away. All right. Well, I'll shrug my shoulders and think that that's weird. But I think you know what? That seems like something Boomer and Hyde I don't know about. I'm going to head back and tell him about it. Yes.

That's growth. That's fucking growth, right? I've never hit anything but drugs. Around, I would say you get back to the church by like eight around the time that you get back, Boomer and Hyde are still going at it. At this point, I would say one of them has taken a turn napping. One of them is sleeping. Which of the two of you around eight o'clock would probably be sleeping?

Maybe me. I'll be napping. All right. So Boomer is just kind of feet up on your on your thing. The chair leaned back and she's just kind of snoring as Hyde is meticulously reading in the laptop. What do you say to them? Is she okay?

I'm just giving Boomer a dirty look. The louder she snores. Yeah, I think she's just tired. All right. Well, hey, listen, have you ever? How long have you been doing this? What do you mean? If you don't mind my asking.

Like this? Yeah. Oh, a few years. Why have you ever been followed? Or like, has anyone ever been? Has anyone ever kept tabs on you or anything like that? I wouldn't put it past the program to put a tab on you, Sam. Yeah, I wouldn't either, but.

Are you being followed? Yeah. You know how in like old cartoons and shit, there'd be like a guy sitting on a park bench and like a fedora and a newspaper with like eye holes cut out in them. Yeah. Hey, Hyde. Yes. You can smell the alcohol coming off of him.

Are you sure somebody was following you? Yeah. Yeah, they follow me for probably at least a couple dozen blocks. Where were you coming from? Well, I was out in the street. When'd you leave the church? A few hours ago. A few hours ago.

And at what point did you start drinking? Like four hours ago. How do you know that it was somebody following you or was just a random car behind you? You shouldn't even be driving while you're drinking in the love of God, Sam. Yeah, but listen, it's not like I'm not used to it. If I see something weird, I know I've seen something weird. Your gauge of weird, Sam.

I know it sounds. I know it sounds weird, but there was a guy in a fucking trench coat. A guy in a trench coat. Why don't you go sleep it off? Because right now, I don't have time for you. OK. What can I say? We can rehash this following of people's tomorrow

when you're a little bit more coherent and I can trust some level of your judgment. Would you like me to call you a cab to take you home? I live down the block. I think I'll be just fine. I'm responsible for you. Please remember that. Fair enough. Let me know if you need anything.

I will see you in the morning. Thank you. All right. Well, I'll get out of there. I tried to do the right thing, but whatever. I'm a little busy. I'm sorry. Oh, you know what?

I mean, God, I don't know. I think I feel like I'm almost I'm almost not feeling safe going home right now. So, you know what? I'm just going to crash in the pews. We'll be the first time. Yeah, I've known before you go to the pews. You go to lie down. You've done this before.

9 p.m. rolls around 10 p.m. 11 p.m. 12 a.m. rolls around an agent. Samuel, you're having the hardest time sleeping since we last saw you. You gained a disorder. If you'd like to try to sleep, I'm going to ask you to make a sanity check. It's a forty seven, which is a failure by two. Unless you can think of a medicinal way of falling asleep, you are not going to sleep tonight. You just can't seem to get that feeling of drowsiness.

I can think of several ways to do that. But none that I'm comfortable doing in the sanctuary of my church. So I think I'll just suck it up. Boundaries. Go ahead and roll a d four. Three, you are going to lose three willpower. So me and Samuel got matching willpower losses for insomnia. Yes. Wow.

Wonderful. You literally just spend all night. Yeah. Kind of just realize that the church is slowly coming awake around six or seven a.m. It seems that now Boomer and Hyde are both awake and they are both combing through something on the laptop. Where are you guys at? You good around 10 a.m.

They seem to have finished. And as you are walking in, agent Hyde is storming out. I'd shoulder check Sam on the way out. Um, is that something we need to address? Probably, but frankly, I don't think they want to hear anything. We want sorry. It just we just just read. We just knocked out this whole case file and we just look.

They learned some stuff that they're not happy with. Well, let me give it a shot. I'll go after Hyde. God, good luck. I'll need it. Bring coffee. Let's stay with Boomer for a moment as Semi-L kind of rushes out. Boomer, you've read the same thing as Hyde.

You've been able to kind of stem your feelings. The incredible revelations that you have learned that there was this machine that could effectively still exist today that caused this anomaly that required Navy SEALs to be sent back in time. Your head is swimming with the the thought of what else is being hidden from us. What else? What other horrors could there exist? But you didn't lose sanity because you remembered that you're just here to do a job.

You're collecting, putting things away and moving on. What are you doing in this moment that you're by yourself in this room? If I'm alone in the office, I would have taken out a second Bob and I would have actually updated it with all the other previous case information. We grabbed the second laptop, done things on that laptop to make sure like any kind of coding and all that would show not my personal laptop but I'm basically copying that and then I'm going to go ahead and slip that back into my pocket. And then I'm going to, I'm going to do a quick Google search

because I feel like this is connected to Daniel Fries. So you open up the search engine and what do you type into Google? I'm going to do the most basic one. I'm just going to write Daniel Fries to see all that just comes up really quick. You type in Daniel Fries and there's probably 800,000 results? I am going to go ahead and Google Daniel Fries and Black Chamber. You do so and you get about 100,000 results. And as you start looking through the first page, you realize that there is some kind of connection to a Daniel M. Fries and a Black Chamber.

What you learn is that Black Chamber was a real group that existed in the early, early days, 1920s, 1910s. That was a decoding group. It was a group of people that spent their time decoding the Nazi, the Italian, the Japanese codes that were being sent out. There were code breakers. And sure enough, a Daniel M. Fries was connected to Black Chamber. You eventually see an old photo on a website of a group of these code breakers and you surmise that the way that it's annotated, you think you know who this Daniel Fries is, kind of a younger, blonde looking man with glasses. You continue searching and you finally come upon a website called californiaobits.tributes.com.

It seems to be a website that lists the obituaries of naval and army personnel as well as citizens. And there is a obituary with the name Daniel M. Fries. Could you read for us what the entry says? Daniel M. Fries, 65, born on June 22, 1905 in Glendale, California, passed away October 1, 1970. He resides in Camp Pendleton Naval Hospital at the time of his passing. If there is any record of Fries, as they said, would probably exist in terms of medical records, the records of any interviews he may have done with psychologists or psychiatrists, it would be found at this place, this Camp Pendleton Naval Hospital.

Sir, no, I was born there, no legit. You were born in Camp Pendleton? That's why I was starting to giggle. I'm not joking. This is not Boomer though, you're saying no. I'm talking Amanda, yeah, I was born in Oceanside, I was born at the Naval Base. Sir, it's coming from our real backstories. I swear I didn't know that.

Okay, so Boomer's going to note that and she's going to start looking into Oceanside, which is sitting nearby, also outside of San Diego within that region, and kind of see what our flights, whether hotels, because I know that Daniel Fries is going to be a key thing, especially to everything, so I'm going to try to gather as much info to start making my plea case to Tuck, because I figure if I can get anyone on board, if I get Tuck, I can get everybody else. You know that this is a key to getting Mr. Pleasant to help you, and you are doing the research, getting the hotels and getting everything kind of planned.

You do see many articles stating that the COVID cases are pretty bad in this area, and that Camp Pendleton Naval Hospital would be the epicenter. You immediately realize if I'm going here and I'm convincing them to go, we're literally going into a hospital that is currently dealing with this issue. While this is happening, also I need to send a text to my fiance, and I'm going to two separate texts, one to my fiance saying, hey, checking in, miss you, I hope today's easier than it was before. Send another one to my sister saying, hey, hope all's good,

and also to my business partner saying, hey, it's basically checking in so they know I'm alive. Who is, what is the name of your business partner? Evans. Evans texts you back, and he says hi, checks in on you. He does make mention that he is in talks with a client, a new client, like brand new, like just texting him the other day, and he just wants to know that it's cool that, you know, he send all of your, you know, kind of business information, he'll probably share phone numbers,

make sure that if they want to reach out to you, and he just seems kind of excited about this new client. I will say a great exclamation point, smiley face. Oh, what, can I have more details? Business, question mark, shruggy, maybe. He responds with, not really sure yet, still feeling them out, hoping that somebody interested in our product, and he's referring to the encryption process that you have with the server.

Okay. I was, I'm just going to write, copy that, keep me posted, and I kind of paranoid now, because anything involving our program, I'm extra cautious of, so that makes me nervous. And honestly, is there a restroom, like a restroom in this, or like, you know, I mean, like in this church where there's like a shower or something? Yeah, I believe the other two, Meredith and Hyde had taken a shower, so yeah, there is a downstairs if you want to go shower.

Yeah, I got to, I'm feeling gross. You go downstairs and the showers are individual and they're small, and if you'd like to take a shower, I'm going to ask you to make a sanity check. Shit. Oh yeah. As you feel like it's going to be very difficult to take a shower in these tight spaces. It is. Oh, it's going to remind me of like a coffin.

Oh, I got a one. Nice. If you steal yourself, please roll a D4, because you will lose that much willpower. That's fair, I guess. I just want to clean myself. I got a three. Okay. You steal yourself, you go in, you take the shower, your eyes are closed most of the time,

so you're not kind of thinking about what a small space this old shower is, and you manage to do that. Let's cut back to Agent Hyde. Agent Hyde, what eventually gets you to stop? What eventually gets this kind of semi panic attack that you're having to kind of quiet down and go away? I'm probably like eventually get like stopped at one of the like walking lights. So I just stop even though there's like no traffic on the street. It's just following the rules and just stop.

And there's probably like just like a glass like window. And I just during that entire time I'm just staring at that glass window trying to sort myself out. And eventually I just combed to his level of calm. Agent Semile, give me a search role to see if you can kind of comb the streets and find Agent Hyde. Ooh, 95. Yeah, you just go in the opposite direction that Hyde went and unfortunately time passes and you can't find her. That's too bad. What are you doing Hyde once you've calmed down?

Figuring out how far I went and then the most logical thing would be to circle back and try to head back to the church. I think that eventually you would both at the same time kind of walk back to the church doors at the same time. So the two of you see each other outside the church. You okay? Perfectly fine. Everything's fine. I just needed a moment, but I'm good now. I'm safe. Everything's safe. You need anything? No, you look tired though. Are you all right?

I didn't really sleep, but that's okay. No, why didn't you sleep? Just thinking about stuff. Oh, that sucks man. You can always tell me if something's wrong, you know? We're a team in all of this, right bud? I will. Let's go find Boomer. Okay. Let me ask the two of you make intelligence times five rolls.

Intelligence? I succeed with the 61. 89. Hyde, you realize that, I mean, it's been 24 hours and you haven't heard from Tuck, Merritt, or Warp. Oh, fuck. Oh shit. Yeah, you're right. Eventually Boomer, you finish your shower and you come in and the three of you are together again, probably in Samuel's office, I assume. I would like to text the other group.

I will send a message to Tuck and, you know, then I'll just say we're being watched. Look out. Tuck, you're welcome to respond to that. What time in the morning is this right now? It's probably, like, 11? It's probably 11 a.m. I mean, in all honesty, you're probably on your way back. Yeah, we're probably on the way back. I probably, like, I probably, like, notice that we got a text and then I pass it over to Warp because I'm in the, because I'm in the, because I'm driving since our boys, since our boys hurt.

So I pass it over to Warp and say, will you check this? This is from Sam. Sure. And then it just says we're being watched. Look out. It says what? It says we're being watched. Look out.

Hmm. So probably just the normal stuff. Yeah, sure. Tell him to be careful when we be back soon, I guess. I don't know what he wants me to say to that. I think you would probably know your ETA, you know, a few hours by the time you get back into the city. Yeah, we'll tell him when we're coming back. And then Tuck spends the entire rest of the drive looking over her fucking shoulder.

Yeah, I'm going to be vigilant too and looking for any sort of cars on our tail. Both of you give me alertness checks. 51. That's a pass. Pass with a 19. Warp's going to text back. It's Warp. Tuck said.

And everything that Tuck said. Okay. You guys don't notice anything. There's one asshole that kind of rides you the whole way, but that's about it. Tuck slows down intentionally any time he gets on their ass. And as soon as he tries to get in the other lane to pass us, I speed up. And then as soon as he gets back behind us, I slow down. I'm like a petty asshole for like probably 15 minutes and then I let it go.

So let's go back to the three of you. Hyde, Boomer and Sam. Who are you texting, Sam? Oh, I was just telling Tuck to keep an eye out. Why? From, I told you. It was a guy with a literal newspaper and a literal fedora watching me. Wait, what?

Then he followed me for, followed me across like half a man hand. Sam, I would be, would be very aware if you told me something like that. That seems very troubling. You don't remember? I came in here. What? It was probably, yeah, there wasn't even 10, 10 in the evening yet when I came in here. You don't remember that?

I've, I remember you babbling something incoherently because you were drunk. But other than that, you didn't mention anything about being tailed. What was I doing? You were sleeping. Regardless, did you get a license plate? Did you get a look of whoever it was? License plate. License plates exist.

Yeah. Faces exist too. I didn't see, I didn't see their face. Well, I'm sure I caught a glimpse of it, but I don't, I didn't get any meaningful details. Right. All right, Sam. Well, if you see the man with the, with the newspaper again, please, please point it out so we can get a look on it.

I'm watching two of you and there's only one of me. Let's all do our jobs. I'm muttering. I have been doing my fucking job. Like I'm in the, I'm getting kind of, I was like, I've been the only one doing the fucking job. Irritated. What was, what was in that file?

You know what? Let's, yes, because we need to catch you up, but I am starving. No, we have literally not left. Do you have a waffle house? Do you have pancakes? Where can we go where I know COVID is shut down, but where can we get some food so we can catch you up? We have a lot.

There's flour, baking soda and sugar in my apartment. I can make that work. Okay. Let's go. You head back to, um, Samuel's apartment. It's as messy as it always is. And sure enough, you find a old box of pancake mix and some flour and other stuff. I'm going to do whatever I can to actually make some decent pancakes, but while I'm mixing

all the dry and wet ingredients, I will go ahead and go into detail about the case file. And I won't like skim over everything. I will tell him, I'll catch Samuel up on that. Okay. I think that Samuel, you're far enough removed from really getting into the details of it that I'm not going to ask you to make a sanity check. Uh, but it is a incredible tale nonetheless. And you certainly wonder what it has to do with anything, but it is quite strange.

So March, March industries. Have you guys, um, have you guys looked that up yet? No, we, uh, we should actually, though, I did do some research on, uh, Daniel Fryce in black chamber. That's, um, I did that. Anything interesting? A little bit. Uh, to be, and I think once we're done here, I do think we should make that a priority.

And I, uh, from what I found out, it's in Pendleton in, uh, California, Southern California, just outside San Diego and Oceanside. It's a long ways out. I know, right? My God, I wish we had an accountant or something. I'm wondering if March Industries has any, like, connections to, uh, to Ansel or something. Could be. I don't know how the, I don't know how to find that information.

Well, at the same time, though, March Industries is a bit outside of our objective. Boomer brings up a valid point. Fryce is our objective. March Industries is more of a side thing that's kind of irrelevant. Mallory wasn't very interested in it. Might be connected though. Mallory said that anything on the board was of interest. Let's Google it.

Let's Google it right now. Sam. Why not? It's not on the board. It's not on the board. March Industries isn't anywhere on the board. It's still off subject. You never know.

I'll take my laptop and I just want to, I just want to do a cursory search for March Industries. See if anything comes up. Yeah, um, sure. You go to look for your laptop and you can't find it. Slight problem. What problem? What would you do? You do haven't seen my computer, have you?

I'm sorry. What? Sam, where's your laptop? Did I leave it back at the church? Oh my God. Sam. I'm going to get right up. I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Stop, stop, stop, stop. Where, where is the super secret government fucking computer that was assigned to you and no one else? Well, um, well, can you turn it off? Holy shit. Okay. Um, I, it's, it could be at the church. We're going to, we're going to, yeah.

So we're going to eat because I just, I don't want to burn this stuff anymore than I have to. And we're going to go. Boomer. We're going to eat. Boomer. Take it with you. Take, wrap it up in a paper towel.

Take it with you. Boomer. I'm telling you right now, we have to go find this laptop. I know. I know. You win. You won. You won.

We're going. Um, all three of you give me search roles as you head back to the church and attempt to find this laptop in the fob. Oh, it's my. 99. 92. Yeah. I failed.

I failed too. 63. Sweet fucking hells. I mean, you think you're looking at all the places that you've been, but you do not see this laptop. So I hate to be Mr. Paranoid here, but I'm going to go ahead and blame this on this guy that was, uh, that was following me yesterday. He took the laptop with you.

I would like to point out I was very certain I left it in this office, but we were here all night. There are contingencies. There are backups. We need to get our story straight really quick because I don't want us to get killed with a missing laptop. So what do we say? I don't think it matters.

What are we saying? What can you do? If it really got destroyed, we could say that and we could buy some time until we can find it. Well, you can't like, there's no like kill switch or anything. Well, there's thank God that there's security to get like, yeah, so don't worry. It's just, but if you, if you're saying someone is following you and you didn't get the license plate, and then all of a sudden all of our super secret technology is missing, that's,

that, that doesn't bode well for me. Okay. You know what? One problem, one problem. I think that's, I think at this point we're all just standing in a circle in the office. We're just, we're just like, um, hide question. Yes. You've been with, I have my relations with the program, but with yours in your estimate,

how screwed are we? It's, it's a lot. Boomer. It's a lot. The safest thing would be to locate the laptop because we are now in the violation of, uh, security. And I have orders to do things if we are in breach of security. So it's the best interest of both of you to find that laptop.

So let's go ahead. We'll look at the office. Uh, I will take this area. I'll take the office. I don't go to confession. Was that where you had it? The car? Where's your car?

It was different. Oh, I didn't take, it's in the, it's in the parking structure around the corner. I need to go look at your car. I, I'm going to check, I'm going to check the couch and area like furniture because I feel like there's places like he might have just stumbled and either done that. And I'm going to look under the couch. Do I find anything or can I look there and make a dex times five role please? Okay.

Oh no, I failed by like, I failed. I have a 70 and it's a 60. Samuel and Hyde, please make alertness roles. I failed. Alertness succeed with it. 27. Agent Hyde, you are the only one that notices that agent boomer reaches down under the couch and with slight of hand places and then pulls out the laptop.

Are you fucking kidding me? Samuel, you don't see anything. I know. This is Aaron just being mad. And what, and what do you say boomer? I am going to grab it and then I'm going to go behind Samuel and smack him upside the head, shove it in his chest and I'll be like, do not fucking lose this shit. Let that be a goddamn lesson for you.

Do you understand? I mean, I'm a researcher where I'm a researcher and I'm going to point to Hyde. I'm like, she's the fucking gun. Just have the pleasant smile on my face. Her job is to kill us just FYI. I'm going to look and know like, yeah, you bitch would be like that, but be like, do not lose this.

And I'm going to just shove it in his chest and walk out the office. Boomer, make a sanity test for me, please. Yeah, sure. I believe that's fair. 55. 58. Yes. I mean, you walk out into the cold air and it's just like, you can feel it.

I mean, you're just starting to really sweat heavy, but you think that you're cool and nobody saw anything and we've moved past this. We've got about two hours before Merit, Tuck and Warp are going to return. What are we doing with our time? Well, now that I have my fucking laptop back, can I Google March Industries now? Yeah. You Google March Industries and you find a incredible website, rave reviews about a leader in the military tech industry named March Technologies has existed since the

sixties and is best known for its computer technology, its navigation technologies. It seems to always be on the cutting edge and our government loves being supplied by them. Do you share that with us, Sam? Yeah, I'll just, I probably read the article out loud. It's a cover from. We don't need to worry about it. Well, let's try this.

I'm in the Google search bar. I'm going to type in March Industries, Ansel Incorporated into the same search and see if anything pops. Make a luck roll. Here we go. My boy, you got this. He's all luck. Nerd.

Three. Wow. Oh, yes, honey. Yes, my boy. With a success, there are many. I mean, we're talking pages and pages of information about these two companies. But you do see one mentioned in a business magazine about the fact that Ansel Incorporated is a subsidiary of March Technologies.

Well, there's your connection. But come on, Hyde. You're a little, come on. You're a little impressed. Come on. You Google search something, which I guess could be impressive for your age, but. Come on. I'm 35, by the way.

It will shut your 35. Regardless, regardless. So you've connected both of them. But it doesn't pan with the mission that we're supposed to be. Boomer's talk about Frise is. So we should be pursuing more of what Frise is doing and where those connections lie. Did anyone hear from the group yet? From the others?

They said they were a few hours away. Why? I mean, if you think about it, they have gone dark the entire time. We don't know, like. I mean, what could have happened to them on the way up to DC? I don't know. How many people are following them? Well, that's why I gave them a heads up.

At some point in the next like hour or two, Tuck will probably have a warp text and just say like, Hey, we're meeting church apartment. Question mark. I'll tell him to come to my apartment. Hyde, where do you stand on speaking with Dr. Thornbill? Oh, I do need to talk to the good doctor. Maybe at some, maybe some point in that two hours, I'll go outside or do you have a balcony, Sam?

Yeah, sure. Yeah, you step out and I assume you're calling Thornbill. Yeah, I'll call Thornbill. She answers and she explains that she is in Long Island at a naval base there. It's in Glenridge. It's called the Francis S. Gubreski Air National Guard Base. It's about 30 kilometers outside of Glenridge. She explains that she's currently stationed right there.

They're looking at the items that you gave them and she would love to speak with you. She asks if you've finished reading the book that she gave you. I have. And I've read through the files extensively. There's a pause on the line and she says, What file? There are files about this mission. Are you not aware of that? I didn't know you had access, but let's talk about this in person.

Can you meet me today? Yeah, I can. One question, though, before I go. What's her name? Hooks. Tell me about Hooks for a second. When did she join up onto the research team? I don't know the call seeing her before.

Is this about what happened on the tarmac? A bit. Seemed to rattle somebody. Dr. Hooks is new to the team, but she has been vetted and recruited. We've been looking forward to having her as part of the team. She's actually looking into some of the items you recovered right now as we speak. Whose team is she recruited for? I have a feeling you know things more than I thought you did.

I think we should talk in person as opposed to on the phone. Okay, duck. Is there something wrong with Dr. Hooks? Not that I'm aware of. Not that I've been told about, but when she bothers one of my members of my team I have to ask. Purely security-based. Do they have some kind of history together?

I don't know, but one runs out on a tarmac, duck. One has to ask questions, right? Well, maybe we'll get this sorted out when you come here. Alright, I'll give you a call when I'm in Long Island. I'm supposed to be making that way anyways. Okay, just give my name at the gate and they'll direct you how to get to me. You know, Sergio, I just thought of something that I'm actually useful for. I remembered that Tuck had asked me to look into that Italian deity.

Ah-ha, Neal Arthotep, whatever was the name. I'm assuming there's not going to be a ton of info on the internet, but I just want to flip through, you know, my directory of people from Harvard and see if I can find anyone that I can call to ask some questions of. Okay, make an occult roll. Finally. Success, 66 out of 80. You look into some of the more esoteric books that you have and you do start seeing a pattern

in Italy and in other countries. This story of the dark man. Often he is portrayed as the devil or he is portrayed as some kind of malevolent entity. It's usually played off as old paganistic ideas and things like that, but you do eventually come across the name Luol Monero, the dark man, the crawling chaos, the black pharaoh. You come across some very, very strange tales, most of them kind of mythological in nature. You don't find Neal Arthotep. Do I, in looking around, is there any one culture, like a Truscan or something that's associated to, or is it more widespread?

No, it's more widespread. It seems to be in Italy and then it seems to be in Egypt and then it seems to be in Africa. This deity, this figure does seem to kind of transcend these countries and borders, which makes it very strange that you had only really recently learned of them. You see a lot of references to Miskatonic University as being one of the major sources of research on these kinds of deities. Do I know anything about that institution? You know that Miskatonic University is an institution up north that is well known for its occult studies. They've done a lot of expeditions and things like that to the Antarctic.

They're an old institution. They've been around a very long time. I have a contact up there, possibly, or someone like a contact. Make a luck roll, let's see. No guy that knows a guy? 36. Okay, that's a success. I would say that you are not very friendly with, but you know of someone that you could probably get their number and see if they're in. If I could work on that, I'd love to.

If you want to spend the entire time doing it, I think you will eventually speak to someone who can get you that phone number. I'll put the time on, yeah. Let's say that you get a phone number, it's to a doctor in anthropology, occultism. You know what, I'm going to keep that number and I'm going to wait until Tuck is around and I'll call him up once Tuck is with us. Okay. Dr. David Bauer is the man's name, B-A-U-E-R, and that's it for me right now. Is there anything that Boomer Hyde want to do before Tuck, Warp, and Merrick come back? Honestly, that's all I'm kind of just doing. I'm focusing on cataloging as much as possible.

Okay, so we kept the VHS, the reel-to-reel, the Sky Devils, the beads, the knife, the gun coffin, and gave the rest to them. I want to actually look at this bead. This is stupid, but I do want to look at it. Okay, so there's one single bead and it's like a marble, you know? It's kind of a clear, slightly opaque marble and what do you do with it? Are you just kind of rolling it around? I'm going to roll it around. Believe it or not, I will try to take as much detailed notes on it to, like, approximation. Like, okay, lightweight color. I'll put it up against anything weird, but it's mostly just all cataloging. All of that is detailed as possible and taking photos.

You are making notes of this bead. I mean, there's really not much to say about it. You put it down on the table and there's a little metal paper clip and it sticks to it like a magnet. Oh, what? Magnetic beads. I'm going to do that again, like any other metal thing. Yeah, you separate it. You can feel the force, but you separate it, but as soon as you bring it too close, it sticks to it again as if this glass bead is magnetized. Is there a TV in this office or in this space? Sure. I'm going to take the bead and turn on the TV and see if it does that thing where it messes up the pixels and all of that. Yeah, you bring it over and it seems to act just like a magnet.

That's not going to hurt my TV, is it? I want to point something out. There on the television is the news and as you're kind of moving this thing around, you realize the news is going over some tragedy or accident or something like that. And as you slowly begin to pay attention, you realize that the news is talking about a murder, a gruesome murder that occurred in a park in Long Island where they are not able to show the photos and images of the crime scene because it is so graphic. The bodies are so horribly, the singular body of a woman is so horribly mangled. Hmm. Hear me out on something. What if we told everybody to go to Long Island and meet us there in Long Island?

Don't you have somewhere to be in Long Island today, Samo? Oh yeah, the text. You know what? What the hell? Let's go to Long Island. And we'll have the others meet us there. But wait, why do you need to go to Long Island? I have to meet somebody.

I have to talk to somebody. A contact. I will point out that as the news goes on, it explains that this body was originally found in the early part of the morning, suspended from a tree on the property of Glenridge High School. Oh. Do we think that we're related to that in any way? Is that something that we should get involved in? I'm asking. I'm not saying we should.

It's not out of question for a team in the vicinity to at least check it out and report if we need to further investigate it. All right. I'll pick up my phone and all text talk and I'll say, hey, change of plans you're having to Long Island. I'll give them like a public address, like a Starbucks or something and say let's rally here. Do you want to drive? Yes. I would love to drive. Go ahead.

Thank you, Sam. Better. I don't do it. Take a big old hit off the flask. So you send that address. You guys get the number and the three of you jump into a car and you are, is anyone following us? Make an alert miss roll. 99.

No. It seems like the coast is clear. It seems. You guys jump into the vehicle and you make your way out of the city. I mean, it takes 45 minutes just to get out of the area that you are in, even with the lack of traffic. There are zones where they are stopping and checking and making sure that you guys are government officials allowed to leave. You flash them your D your CDC badges and you make your way to Long Island. This is a drastic change from the city.

It's much more rural in certain areas. It's very nice. And you make it to the small town of Glenridge. I'm going to lean my head forward between the two because I'm going to be like, hey, hi. If you see a white castle, can you pull over? Okay. Okay. Yeah.

Why don't we just grab lunch or something and then we'll wait for everybody and then. They should be close. We'll regroup. There's a television on in the White Castle. And they are still talking about this morning. The news updates and says that they had finally learned the identity of this person who was killed. It was a Vanessa hat van. She was the librarian at the Glenridge High School.

And they believe that it is connected to a murder that happened a few weeks earlier. One Carl Moretti, who is a dentist in the area, who was also found in a similarly gruesome torn apart fashion. You know, the they can't show the images, but they go into as much gruesome detail as possible, explaining that the the spinal cord and head had been severed. It seemed that the brains had been removed, much of the spinal fluid removed, and the body kind of discarded in a like a wooded park area. As I'm sipping my Diet Coke and watching this and pointing to it, I'm going to be like, you think that's zombies or vampires or. Um, you know what, Sergio, can I find like an Internet link to that to that story or something? Sure. And just send it.

I sent it to the other group. I at least want them to have an idea of what they're walking into. You have your lunch. Are you going to wait at this White Castle until you meet the others? Yeah, we're waiting. That's fine. Let's check back in with Tuck, Merritt and Warp and see how their morning went. Most of you slept well enough.

Agent Merritt, let me ask you to make another con times five role to see if you have healed at all over the evening. 49, which is one under my con of five. Wow. You will gain one health. Awesome. Um, you know, you get up in the morning and you see that your legs in a cast, your, you still have bandages over your neck. You're a mess. Yeah.

I think, uh, we're waking up right in the morning or at least, you know, the others are, I think I'm going to send a text, um, to Miranda. Uh, and it is going to be an old picture of Miranda Gordy and I on a hiking trail. Um, one that we frequented a few times. And it's an older picture, like two years ago, maybe. Um, I'm going to send that and then say, thinking of you both, uh, remembering fondly are trails. Uh, see you soon. I hope, uh, I hope things are well. And then I'm going to list out again all the things I need her to do for my dog.

And in between your, your large texts, she texts back and says, so cute. Thank you for sending this. Please come by soon. Gordy wants you to read him another story. He keeps talking about that one with the sailor named anchor. Thanks. Thanks for you. My heart didn't already hurt.

Um, I'm going to send back a text that says, uh, in New York. Talk soon. Oh, please come by as soon as you can. She'll send you a photo of Gordy sitting next to your dog, Samson. Oh, I think I'm good there. He'd probably send some bullshit text about how for Gordy not to hug him too tight because that influences snapping tendencies. You guys wake up. Rue offers to make breakfast.

Anyone up for breakfast? I, I, you don't have to do that. I can, I can, I can do it. You should get ready for your interview. Oh yeah, but that's not going to be for a few hours. Don't worry about it. I just want to spend time with you before you have to leave. What time do you have to leave?

We should probably leave soon. Yeah, we need to, we need to get back to the team. And I need to grab a box out of the closet actually. Oh yeah, sure. Yeah, go ahead. I'll just chat with these guys. Well, will you help me actually? Can you come help me with the box?

Okay, all right, yeah, sure. She joins you. I just want to just spend more time with you. I just like looking at you and being close to you. What are you looking for? The 97 box. Oh. Yeah.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's right here and she goes into one of the kind of lesser used closets and pulls out an old box. An old box of yours. Does this have something to do with like what you're doing? Um, potentially. You, you don't have to worry about anything. It's not. I, I'm, I'm, I'm solid. I'm, I know I told you that before.

Okay. I, I believe you, but I just know that this is sensitive for you. Yeah, this. Hmm. Yes. It's fine. I need this for work stuff. Okay.

All right. Yeah, sure. Whatever. I'm going to start breakfast. Thank you. Um, okay. I'm going to just like rifle through it, make sure everything's there. I mean, it's, it's not a huge, it's not a big box.

It's probably like a, like a, like a little banker file box. I'll check through it. Okay. Okay. Okay. This is fine. This is going to be fine. Yeah.

Breakfast is had. Rue is as lovely as she was the evening before and she's doing the dishes. I think that merit is trying the absolute best he can to assist with the dishes. Yeah. I also am trying to do this. She's three people doing this. They're three year old trying to do the dish. It is not helpful.

It takes twice as long because of this. We've all got to get hands on each plate. It's terrible. I think for the first time warp feels normal. She just watches. Good. Okay. Well, we, oh, I hate this.

We need to go. Well, I'm so happy I saw you. It's very nice to meet the two of you. I'll let you know what this, how this interview goes. Yeah. Okay. Keep me updated. Oh, do you have that, that letter that came in the mail about my COVID thing?

Can I, can I have that? Yes. Yes. Guys, guys pay, you know, be careful with her. She did, I guess she did a test. She did a COVID test. I guess you guys may have done it too. She is very sensitive to this stuff.

Okay. I'm extra worried about her. Noted. As in. Susceptible. Yes. Extremely vulnerable. Apparently her blood type is very susceptible.

What? This won't do. Oh, I'm going to write up a plan and make sure that she's taken care of. I promise you, I will extensive care of her. I like this guy. He's very sweet. And by all means, let me write out my personal number for you in case anything goes awry. If you can't reach talk, you can reach me.

Sure. Yeah, I appreciate that. Do you have somewhere I can write this down for you or do you want me to dictate to you? I'll just put it in my number or in my phone. Absolutely. Okay. I'm going to dictate. Are you ready for the number?

Ready. Okay. Hailey looks like she's going to fucking cry. He goes three numbers at a time. The number is exchanged. Which is all right. I appreciate it. Oh, and Rue, for your interview tonight, I would like to extend to you something my mother

used to do for myself as a good luck charm. If you have a penny in your wallet or somewhere around the room, go to your kitchen counter, flip it heads up on top, and that will give you a good look for the day. And I want you to have that just so you can go into a meeting with that. That's very sweet of you, Alan. I'll remember that. Of course. He's adorable and she turns it.

He's very sweet, yes. Well, it was very nice to meet you guys. Very nice to meet you, Stephanie, or AKA Warp Speed, am I right? Yes. That's right. Sorry, she... Yeah, I overheard last night. It's funny.

It's a good one. It's so funny. It's an exceptional joke that we came up with. An inside joke that's extended to you, like a family. You're a part of the team now. Yeah, maybe. Well, I'll let you know if there's any killer rain out there. Please do.

Amazing. That's good killer rain. Exceptional. Please get in the car, you two. I'll turn. I'll just kiss her all over the face. I'll be back soon. I will...

I'll keep talking to you. I can't really promise I'll keep you updated, but I won't not talk to you. Okay, just let me know when you can come back. I mean, it's been a little while, right? Like, they should let you go for a few weeks or something, huh? I'm hoping so, especially with Alan's injury. I'm hoping they give us a little time. We're a solid team.

I'm hoping they want to keep us together. And if Alan can heal, maybe that'll give us all time to take a breath. Yeah, he needs a break. Yeah, he does. He's been through it. Am I mistaken or he's really young, huh? He's a baby. He told us yesterday and I was like,

this, I can't be mad at him. He's like a kid. Yeah, well, why were you mad at him? No, he just reminded me of me when I was, you know, that age, you know what an insufferable little shit I was. Well, you know, just look after him. He seems to mean well. Oh, I am.

Yeah, it's... I have... My eyes have been opened. I'm... Yeah, he's... I can't unsee anything. I love you. I love you too.

Okay. Bye. Take care, Jane. Bye. You're the best. Bye. She stands on the porch and kind of waves goodbye to the three of you as you hobble back into the car.

Yeah. I tuck the... I tuck the box between the... between the back passenger seat and the back passenger... or the front passenger seat and the back passenger seat, like in the four-well. I'm by no means manned that mission, but I think we...

I think we killed it. That was incredible. My heart is still racing. That might be the broken leg, Merritt. Oh, right. The medication. Yeah, that's... That's...

We need to... We probably need to take you to a hospital. Agreed. Like, do we think Sergio in this, you know, with Merritt's sense of time, that we have any ability to see a medical professional before we head back to New York? Yeah, I think it would make sense.

It's still pretty early in the day. It's... It's like 8 a.m. You could probably stop at the hospital. It's only a four-hour drive back into New York. You should be able to make it, you know, at a decent hour. In that case, I think for the most part,

we should be all right as long as there's not any extension or look underneath the cast, which that would break protocol anyways, since it needs time to heal. So it should just be a refill on prescriptions. Yeah. Double check that the side effects aren't destroying you. Yeah.

You need antibiotics. Would they have given me a prescription in case I needed it? Yes, yes. Okay. So if I have a prescription, I don't think I have to give them any real story at a hospital past that,

so I'm banking on that information that DG checked its boxes that I can get help if I need it. So you're going to go fulfill the prescription? Yeah, I think so. Okay. We can sort of like CVS for that then. We don't have to go to the hospital.

Yeah, yeah. Whatever the nearest location for getting us some quick help, that's more or less innocuous. While you are waiting for the prescription to be filled, Agent Warp, your personal cell phone rings. Oh, she answers it. An automated voice says,

Hello, this is a call from Gratitude Heart in Clayton County Jail. Press nine to answer. We're in the car? You are stopped outside or inside the car. You are waiting for the, for Merit to return with his medicine. Okay.

Then yeah, she, I'll accept it. There's a pause and then a beep and you hear the familiar voice of Gratitude Heart come on the line and say, Hey. Hi. How you doing? I'm good.

You called me, right? Yeah, I called you because you barely ever call me. I'm sorry. I've been busy. I mean, you got, I don't know if you got my most recent letter. It's been a while, but I'm working again.

Yeah. Well, good for you. I'm, I'm still rotting in here. I'm, sorry. Look, listen, I'm, I'm, I'm working on an appeal right now. So I don't have a lot of time,

but I wanted to call you and just say, could you ask your therapist to like, not bother me asking questions about you? I don't have time. Why did Dr. Burn call you? That doesn't make any sense. When did she call you? She called me like a day ago.

What did she say? I don't know. She was just asking me like your address and like where you work and asking you for further your phone number. She said she lost it. She like lost it in her phone or something. Don't do that again. Well, I mean, next time don't,

you know, have, don't give my information to your, to your therapist. I didn't know what was going on. I just told her what she wanted to know. So everything that address, the phone number, all of it. I just, yeah, I gave her like, you know, the information she said she already had,

but she lost like your address, your phone number, email, that kind of stuff. Is there something wrong? No. No, part of me is honestly a little happy that you memorized all of that. I've got it written down. Sure.

Then. Are you okay? I'm fine. Yeah? You said you're working again? Yeah. Organizing. Reading.

Okay. Regular. Regular stuff. It's not working. It is now. It's fine. Don't worry about it. I will.

Is there anything that I can do to help you? Like, do you need a character witness or anything or? Yeah, I'll let you know about that. After all, you're such a talkative, good character, huh? We all did what we had to do. I'm not going to talk to you about that. We've made our decisions. But I will help you if you need help.

I appreciate that. I'll let you know. Okay. Okay. Bye. Bye. I think by this time, Merit and Tuck, you've at least come back to the car and you see that warp is kind of getting off the phone.

Everything okay? Yes. Is that the other team? No. No, it was personal. Are you sure? You're okay. You look shaken.

I always, you know. You don't always look this shaken. It's an old friend from the family. Oh. Which we also need to talk about, but not right now. Okay. Well, I'm in the car right now. Okay, I'm making out.

I mean, if you're not ready, that's... It's fine. We already touched on it. It's actually a little easier to talk about because it's mission related. Okay. So I was being really ambiguous about it before, but okay. I was in a cult and the cult got swatted. And everyone, a lot of people aren't alive anymore.

And I'm obviously one of the people that are alive. I've been alive the whole time. Anyway, the person that called me was also from there. And when we were in Cicada, they... I'm worried and... Take your time. We might have to go to Kansas. Kansas.

What's in Kansas? Galworthy Farm. Another farm? It's not like that. It's not like that. It's... Should we leave Samuel home just in case? Wait, why?

Oh. No reason. No. None. None reason. It was... I was trying to make a religious joke about shepherds and flocks. It didn't scan the way I wanted it to out loud.

Why would the shepherd be kept away from the flock? Is this why we found you in the state we found you in Cicada? Yes. The Galworthy Farms. This is... This is your inciting incident? It looks a lot like my inciting incident. Up until then, I thought that it was gone.

But apparently not. We had a leader that... I mean, he was very charismatic, very powerful. Collulators usually are. You know the phrase black don't crack? He never even wrinkled. Like he didn't... He didn't age?

No. Well, I mean, how long were you in the cult? I was born there. Oh. And never. No. Did other people? Yeah.

Yeah, everyone else actually. And when I thought it was taken care of, I assumed he was one of the people that were also taken care of. But this place looks a lot, a lot like that place. Down to the symbol. And it's clear, like in Warp's notebook, this symbol is everywhere. Well, the cult is all about sending a message. Is it possible that he passed this message on to someone else?

Or perhaps he left to move the flock? I'm hoping that that's what it is. It's just someone who didn't learn their lesson the first time. But it was at a program facility. Oh. Wait, do you have the information? Where did you get it? Do I have the pamphlet by now, right?

Yeah, they made a photocopy for it. Okay, yeah. Then I show it to them. Oh. And it's this... What does it look like a crab? Is it the crab looking thing? Yeah, it's like a...

Like a hip bone thing. Yeah, it's supposed to be a few things, but... Yeah, that was sort of our symbol. Genuine compassion and the understanding that this will make you the magnetic attractor surrounded by friends and admirers. Harmonic bliss. No, that's a new angle, but it's the same everywhere else. This is something we absolutely have to look into. I'm trying to look at it out of the corner of my eye as we drive.

So galore the farms, Kansas. Man, we have so many fucking different states to go to. Where to start? Where is the most fun? It's not the priority. Obviously, the mission is the priority, but... Well, this could be part of the mission. Wait, hold on.

You said you were born in Connecticut. Were you in Kansas when this happened, or was your cult in Connecticut? The land of sight was in Connecticut. The land of sight. Well, we need to focus on New York first. That should be our priority since that's where we're based. Whatever we can do from the east coast, working in, there's also the matter of Daniel Price. This is priority. This is on the list, absolutely.

We can look in green boxes. If it was a program thing, maybe the green boxes will have something on it in the area. Do you want us to go looking into your old one, or do you want us just to jump to Kansas? Oh, I don't know. Technically, the acquisition of information is more important than my own emotional discomfort, so we should prioritize that for now. You're beginning to sound like me. Any of our emotional discomfort is going to affect the mission, so we also have to take that into account as we go. Well, if we go, I don't have to look at anything. Trust me, I know enough.

Okay. But I do want to go to Kansas. Okay. Speaking of personal connections, did you pick up the 97 box? Yes, I did. It's in the back. And you think that may have something to do with what we're doing here? I think it may have something to do with the dark man. This is the third case that, or I guess this one happened in the middle, so technically it would be the second.

Matter of fact, timelines don't matter. I think it's involved in whatever this dark man, long and narrow, narrowly thought up, whatever this is, I think he's something in it. Where is that based? Yosemite. California. Yeah. We'll say that you get on the road, you eventually get the cryptic text from Samuel. You get the update about meeting at a Air Force base and then later a White Castle adds about 30 minutes to your drive.

But nonetheless, you know that you'll be able to get there in a few hours. Around, a little after like 1.30, Warp, you get another call on your personal cell phone. Immediately answered. It is Dr. Margaret Byrne calls you and says, Hey Gaze, I'm calling for our weekly appointment. Right now. We scheduled it for now. Do you want to change it? Sugar.

We did. We can totally change it. It's okay. Yes. Let's do the same time two days from now. Two days from now? Okay, let me check my book. So how are you doing? How are things going? Things are going and I am fine. Good, good. Okay. Yeah, I do see some time. Let's see here. Is it a Saturday? So Monday? Yeah, we could do Monday. Does like 10 a.m. work for you?

That should. I have a question. Actually, did you call Gratitude? Gratitude, your sister who's in jail? Yes. No, was I supposed to speak to her or was I expecting a call from her? I don't think Warp says anything. Yeah, Warp, give me a sanity check. Oh no, Warp, sanity check. Oh, brace yourselves, everybody.

Y'all, 32 out of 35. Oh. Yes, yes, yes. Explain to me how Warp is able to maintain her composure in this moment. I think it's only because she's in the car with the rest of the dysfunctional family. She reaches out and grabs literally the closest person. It's probably me. Okay. Then yeah.

Gaze? Gaze, are you there? Yes. Gaze, are you okay? I am. I am okay. So am I going to expect a call from Gratitude or? No, don't worry about it. Confusion, it was a mix-up. It's handled now, thank you.

Oh, okay, good, good. All right, honey, well, I'll see you on Monday, okay? Yes, Monday at 10, thank you. Looking forward to it. She hangs up. Would you tell them what just occurred? Yeah. So we'll assume going into next session that when we see you guys again, you've had a conversation. And I think that's a good place to bring our session to a close.

God damn it, Sergio. I knew, I knew that Dr. Burns shit was no bueno. So good. Hey, Mayday listeners. Caleb here celebrating a year of Mayday role play. It's been an absolute joy bringing you all of the content we've been able to show you this year. More than anything, it's been such a pleasure to share our table with you. Now, I know what you're doing.

You're thinking, wow, it has been so great to listen to Mayday, my favorite podcast and the only podcast I listen to. But how can I help those lovable assholes over there at Mayday role play? Well, you're in luck. You can help us continue to provide the same level of high quality, actual play content by joining our community on Patreon. With each tier of support, you gain access to our Discord where you can get the answers you deserve by speaking to us directly. You will also get exclusive access to behind the scenes content, Patreon one shots, artwork and so much more. We love what we do. We want to continue to share our game with you.

To do that, we need as many people at our table as possible. And we've saved you a seat. Join the Mayday role play Patreon today at patreon.com slash maydayrp. Hey, yo, can you hear me? Yes, me, Johnny. Who's this? Her sister. Jesus, I'm gonna be talking a whole fucking family about the end of this. What's that, sweetheart? No, it's just a little weird. Every time I call this number, it sounds like I'm talking to a different person, you know what I mean? You're gonna relay it, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, all right.

Well, I was predicted Father Jones showed up. Had a group with him. Four women and another guy. They sure as hell don't look like clergy, I'll tell you that much. Right. Anyway, the next day he led them to his church. They were held up there for a day doing God knows what. Three of them split in the morning. I think two stayed the night and the next morning Father Jones left alone. So I followed him. Went into Brooklyn. Yeah. He had this weird interaction with the little girl and a woman. I got the impression they were related. So when I went digging, turns out old Father Jones has an illegitimate daughter he put up for adoption. Now, I'm not sure if the church knows about that yet, but for some little extra scratch, I'd be willing to retrieve the birth certificate for you.

Is that something you want? A little dirt, huh? Okay, yeah, yeah. I can leave it alone if that's what you want. Yeah. Look, I got one minor setback though. He spotted me. Yeah, I was sitting on a bench and I thought I was clear of his view, but he caught me being a lookie-loop. He called out to me, said something like, uh, hey, tell Mary you're a Mallory. I said hi. You know a Mallory? No. Okay. Anyway, I followed him for a while, but he must have been on me because he led me nowhere for 45 minutes, so I broke it off. I'll probably have to lay low for a day or two while he cools down. I don't know what he's up to now, but, uh, yeah. All right. All right. Hey, as long as those direct deposit keep coming, I'll follow this guy wherever the hell you want. I gotta ask though, I'm real curious as to what you guys want from this priest. I mean, he seems like a bit of a drinker, but what, he owe you money?

You know what I'm saying is it'll help me know what to look out for. I know how these holy men can stray, you know what I mean? Yeah, sorry. Oh, hey, no, sorry, of course. I can respect your privacy. Sorry. Um, well, that's it for now. I'll call back in a couple of days when I got something new, okay? Yeah, take it easy. Fucking weirdos.