Episode 115: Outside Tier One Episode 4: Continuous Correction

SUMMARY

I had been smiled at in confusing contexts more times in those two weeks than I had in the rest of my life combined.

CREDITS:

Rae Lundberg as Jamilla Gardner

TRANSCRIPT

WOE.BEGONE Episode 115: Outside Tier One Episode 4: Continuous Correction

[Slyly] So, I left you all on a cliffhanger last time. I hope you weren’t too worried about little ol’ Jamilla Garnder. Maybe a little worried. That’d be flattering. But I recorded the episode, so things couldn’t have gone too badly in H’s office. I was still alive to record it, after all (more on what it means if you’re hearing this later, I promise). Don’t get me wrong, things went very badly at Base that evening. I survived that evening in H’s office. I definitely did not think that was going to be the case when he told me that “we need to talk about Mike Walters.” I assumed that H was about to tell me why he needed to kill me.

I was so startled by how casually he brought up Mike that I didn’t have the composure to lie about it. I had worried about H finding out, of course, but  I hadn’t imagined a scenario where H had found out and not killed me immediately. I was not prepared. I could have said “Mike who?” Or “you mean that guy that Marissa talks about sometimes that was always late or whatever?” There was some plausible deniability there, depending on what H knew about what I had done. I would need to be a different person to be able to play it cool, someone more like H. H and I are very different people. We are both extremely driven, but H is cold and calculating in a way that I was not able to match. I lost the staring contest before it even began. 

“Y-you stole the surveillance recordings,” I stammered out. I wanted to stand up and run out of the room, but I was frozen there, stuck in H’s leather guest chair.

“Yes, Jam. I did. I took the recordings as part of my reconnaissance,” H smiled at me understandingly, as though I were a child who didn’t know right from wrong. “Collecting those recordings was part of finishing the job in Mike’s cabin.”

“You killed him again,” I said.

“I did. And his knowledge of what was going to happen didn’t save him. It only made things messier. There’s nothing for you in that recording, Jam. You don’t need to hear it.” H absentmindedly twiddled a pen between his fingers as he spoke, as though this were a casual conversation barely deserving of his attention. “You had no way of knowing this, but we have a choice to make in this timeline. It’s either Mike or me. There’s lotsa other folks who wouldn’t survive Mike being loose in the timeline, too. Edgar, for instance. I know that you don’t want us to get hurt, Jam.”

I could feel the sweat on my face. “I-I don’t understand. I know Mike pretty well by now. Not well… but… you know. I’ve met him. He doesn’t seem to have any ill-intent. He just doesn’t want to die.”

“He doesn’t need any ill-intent,” H said. “It is in his nature.”

“I don’t believe in that sort of thing,” I said. “You’re talking about predestination.”

“I don’t believe in it either, Jam,” H said. “All I know is that Mike Walters has had his three strikes. He’s out. If it were possible for things to go any other way, I haven’t seen it. It is time to stop giving Mike chances and to start protecting ourselves.”

“Okay, then,” I said. “He’s out. I’m not exactly sorry and I don’t see things your way, but… fine. You killed him and that’s that. I’m not happy, but I’m not going to fight you, H.”

H stopped twirling the pen. He looked me directly in the eyes. “What will we find if we search your cabin tonight, Jam? Don’t lie to ol’ H about this.” Spoken very much like a cop.

“An empty cabin,” I replied, perhaps a bit too quickly.

“Is Mike Walters in your cabin, Jam? Did you iterate him?” he asked.

“No!” I said. “I hadn’t figured out what to do yet. You killed him. He’s gone.”

“Hey, Eagle?” H called out. “You can come in now.” Eagle, who was apparently just on the other side of the door, made his way in and stood next to me.

“What’s up, boss?” Eagle asked.

“Jam says that there is no iteration of Mike Walters in their cabin,” H said. “I’m sorry that I don’t trust you, Jam, but I think you might still be protecting him.”

“He’s not in my cabin,” I replied. Run, Mike! I wish that I could tip him off somehow.

“Oh, really?” Eagle asked. He cracked his knuckles. “So, if I transport there right now, I won’t find him there?”

“No, you won’t,” I said. I gulped. I don’t know how convincing I was. Innocent people don’t often gulp. 

“”What’s the punishment for that, boss? If I get there and there’s one of these iterations running around?

“It would be a serious betrayal,” H said, “And I would have to seriously punish Jam, as much as I don’t want to.”

“Like what? Wipe my memory with a correction?” I asked.

“Can’t just wipe you and send you on your way,” Eagle said. “You go back to how things were, find out about Mike Walters again somehow and the whole process starts over. We could do something trickier, like maybe you never make it to O.V.E.R. in the first place, but that’d leave threads dangling and we have too many of those already. It wouldn’t be very much fun for me… but I’d hafta send you where Mike’s going.”

“You’re going to kill me?” I asked. My body felt distant from my mind, like I was watching this play out from afar.

“Not if there isn’t a Mike Walters in your cabin,” Eagle said.

“H… please…” I whimpered. “We’re friends.” I looked at H. I couldn’t bear to turn and look at Eagle. H’s face was unchanged. Not concerned, not angry, just a man going about his business.

“Is there a Mike Walters in your cabin?” Eagle asked, sternly.

“I… there’s… no…” I could not find words.

“IS THERE. A MIKE WALTERS. IN YOUR CABIN? JAM?” Eagle asked again, his face close to mine, his voice booming. I could smell his breath. I didn’t turn to look at him.

“Stop…” I cried, meekly.

Eagle smashed his hand down on the armrest of the chair so hard that it tilted toward him and crashed back to the floor. I was still seated in it, rattled. I couldn’t figure out how to stand up. He moved so that he was in front of me. I had no choice but to look at him. “MIKE WALTERS IS IN YOUR CABIN, ISN’T HE, JAM? COME CLEAN NOW AND THINGS DON’T GET UGLY. YOU DON’T WANT TO DIE FOR THAT ASSHOLE.”

I could feel the tears, hot and wet on my face. There was no compassion in Eagle’s eyes. 

“…H-h-he’s in there…” I blubbered. I remembered what Mike had said about working at Base. I understood the “black mark on my soul.” I could feel it getting etched in there. I had just killed Mike, just as surely as I had killed the man with the Calculator on the mission.

Eagle dusted off his hands [You can do this in your audio if you’d like]. “Phew. There it is. Great. Thanks for admitting it. I didn’t want to… you know,” Eagle mimicked a throat-slitting motion with his hand. His voice had returned to normal, as though nothing had happened. “You think they should take care of it, H? Sounds fair to me.”

“You mean… you want me to kill Mike?” I asked. I was trembling.

“It would teach an important lesson…” H said.

“And you don’t want me doing it,” Eagle said. “I’ve got a grudge. I wouldn’t be gentle..”

I heard the door open behind us. It was Edgar.

“What is going on in here?” Edgar asked, alarm in his voice. “I heard a bang and some yelling. Is everything okay?”

“Jam here has been aiding and abetting Mike Walters,” Eagle said.

“They want me to kill him,” I eeked out. “Edgar, help.”

“Either Jam does it or I do,” Eagle said.

Edgar squatted down beside the chair that I was sitting in. “There’s no need to be cruel, Eagle. H, I expected better from you. Jam, this was all a big mistake, right? You found Mike Walters before you started working at Base?” I nodded. “Jam can’t kill Mike, H. They already had their first mission today. That’s too much. I’ll do it.”

“You sure, Edgar?” H asked. “I know he was special to you.”

“That was another timeline. I can handle it. No problem,” Edgar said. He sounded nonchalant.

“I’m going with you,” Eagle said. 

“There’s only one Mike left, right Jam?” Edgar asked. I nodded. “Then I’ll do the work and Eagle will stand guard.”

“Jam stays here until you give the all-clear, Edgar,” H said.

“Does that work for you, Jam?” Edgar asked. His attempts at calming me allowed me to come back into my body a bit. I didn’t want to be in that office for one more second, but I knew that I wasn’t being given an option. I shook my head yes.

“Let’s do it then,” Edgar said solemnly. “I’ll take a Calculator and will report back ASAP. Shouldn’t take too long.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Eagle said. “Let’s rock and roll, Edgar.”

“Everything is going to be okay, Jam,” Edgar said. “I promise you. It’s going to be okay.” I didn’t respond. I sobbed quietly as Eagle and Edgar left H’s office.

The worst 30 minutes of my life passed in H’s office, waiting for Edgar and Eagle to report back. H attempted to make conversation. “I’m really sorry that this happened, Jam. Eagle is extremely protective of me. We’re war buddies, essentially. I’ve saved his ass and he’s saved mine, dozens of times. He’s scared of Mike Walters. He’s scared of what Mike Walters means for me, for this whole timeline we worked so hard to perfect. This is life or death stuff we’re talking about” and so on and so on. I didn’t reply. I curled up into the chair with my eyes closed. Time slowed around me. My body felt sore from tensing up. After what felt like a lifetime, H received a notification on his phone.

“Ope, looks like we have confirmation from Edgar. Looks like there were 2 iterations, actually, but that both confessed to not notifying you of the iteration. And Edgar sounds pretty sure those were the last two, in his expert opinion. So… we’re done here. You’re good to go, Jam.”

“It’s… that easy? It’s over?” I asked.

“Sure is. I know that tonight was disturbing for you. You can take some time off if you want or you can come in tomorrow morning if keeping things normal makes it easier for you. I understand either way,” H said.

“You… still want me to work here?” I asked. 

“Of course,” H said. “Everyone messes up. I don’t want there to be any hard feelings. You wouldn’t be the first one to put the timeline in danger.” He chuckled. “And you won’t be the last.”

“What if I quit?” I asked.

“Do you want to quit?” he asked. “It won’t bring Mike back. And it’s is going to be smooth sailing, at least in the near future.”

“I… don’t know,” I said, perplexed at how I truly didn’t know. How did I not know? Could I really stay there?

“Think it over, why don’tcha?” H said. “Sleep on it and see how you feel.”

“I… I’ll do that,” I said and made my way out of H’s office and back to my… now empty… cabin.

Nothing felt amiss in my cabin when I finally got back. In fact, it was cleaner than I had left it. Edgar and Eagle had cleaned up some of the messes that Mike had made. I resented that. They erased all of Mike. All I had to remember him by was a box of his dead friend’s belongings. I laid down and stared at the ceiling, prepared to not sleep that night, hell, maybe never again. It was while I was lying there that I received a text from Edgar.

“Don’t quit Base. Come in tomorrow like usual and I’ll tell you about what happened.”

I’m Jamilla Gardner. This is Outside Tier One Episode 4: Continuous Correction. Stay with us.

[INTRO THEME PLAYS.]

I couldn’t believe myself as I got dressed and ready and drove to Base the next morning. I think if I had been more rational about it, I might not have gone at all. I didn’t sleep that night, I just looked up at the ceiling. I wasn’t really thinking about Mike. I wasn’t thinking anything. I couldn’t process. My brain was not willing to accept what was happening as reality. 

I was going back to Base because Edgar told me to and only because Edgar told me to. Edgar was my friend. I trusted him. He wouldn’t let me down. He went in my place so that I didn’t have to kill Mike. If he thought that I should come back, then I would give him a chance. I owed him a conversation, at least. H seemed willing to accept it if I wanted to quit, but I was afraid of what he might do. I would have to ask Edgar if it was truly safe to quit Base. I didn’t know what I was doing. That’s the best way to put it. I didn’t know what I was doing in the most literal sense of the words. I was going into work at Base because I knew not what I did. 

I got to Base early. My insomnia translated to nervous energy and I left my cabin when I couldn’t take waiting anymore. I was on the road by sunrise. To my surprise, someone had arrived even earlier than me. There was another car in the driveway. Edgar. I felt a rush of relief. It was just me and him. I wasn’t ready to see anyone else yet. Most of the lights were still off as I made my way to his office.

“Oh, hey Jam,” Edgar said. I could see his gentleness.

“Hi Edgar,” I said. I tried to prevent the situation from weighing down my voice. “You wanted to see me?”

“I wanted to tell you about what happened last night, if you’re prepared for that,” he said.

“I’m never going to be prepared, but I have to know,” I said.

“Then consider this the official mission debriefing. Keep in mind that this is the official Base account,” he said. He made eye contact with me, as though that were supposed to mean something that was being left unsaid. I let him continue. “We set up the mission in a typical fashion. I went in through the front door and Eagle stood guard. I entered the front door and found the suspect… Mikey… in the kitchen. He put up some argumentative resistance, but did not flee or attack. Once I explained that your safety was predicated on his cooperation, he took orders decently well. I interrogated him about some key details and he admitted that he had made a second iteration of himself that was hiding in your back room. He claimed he made the iteration while you were at Base and you had no knowledge. Is that correct?”

“There was a second Mike? I think H mentioned it last night,” I said.

“That is correct. So, you didn’t know. Since these iterations of Mike were from before his time at O.V.E.R., I ascertained that he was almost definitely telling the truth that these were the only 2 iterations. He did not have enough training to take more sophisticated action. My expertise and our eyewitness accounts mean that this observation is the official view of the events according to Base.” He looked up at me from the report when he said this last part. “He had not had time to experiment with iterative technologies and develop more nuanced systems. I radioed to Eagle that there was a second iteration, since that iteration might not be as cooperative. Eagle entered the cabin and quietly dispatched that iteration with a hunting knife. I finished my part of the mission and joined him in time to see his section of the job completed.”

“Heh! I got here just in time for the good part,” a voice said behind me. I spun around in my chair. It was Eagle. “I love it when the good guys win,” he said through a mouth full of donut. There was a full box of donuts in his hands. “Want one? They’re not poisoned or nothin’. I didn’t know what your favorite was, so I got a jelly-filled one. Jelly was as close as I could get to Jam. It’s on the bottom right there.” I took the bottom right donut to placate him. I had no appetite whatsoever.

“So yeah, I gave ol’ Mikey Boy the sshk,” he said, imitating the sound of a knife. “I knew you were upset, so I did a clean job with this one. I was real sweet to him. Held him steady with my right hand on his back and stuck him quick with the left hand. Got him done pronto, no messing around. You’d be amazed at what a big, sharp knife can do.”

“They don’t want to hear about that, Eagle,” Edgar said, enough sternness in his voice to communicate that he was serious.

“He didn’t suffer is what I’m sayin’,” Eagle said. “I’m sorry for making you cry last night, Jam. H is my best bud, you see, and I won’t let anyone take him away from me. So when I heard that Mike Walters was back, I saw red. If Mike was back, I needed to know where he was, how many iterations there were, and I needed to get him taken out fast. So… I snapped at you. I’m sorry, Jam. You shouldn’t ever have to see that side of me. That is supposed to be reserved for enemies of Base.” I didn’t respond. “You don’t have to accept my apology. And if you want I can sit you down and talk you through what happened from my side of things, but that’s for later. While you’re here, I want you to have this.”

He balanced the box of donuts in his left hand and pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to me. “It’s an invite to the second annual Base barbeque, weekend after next. We have a little satellite Base that we outsource some work to and we throw a little get-together out there every year as a team-building exercise. Me and the boys slaughter a couple pigs, maybe a cow, everyone enjoys some fresh meat and fresh air. It’s a lot of fun. And you don’t have to hang out with mean ol’ Eagle unless you want to. Everyone from Base will be there. You don’t have to say yes, but I wanted to invite you, personally. You can be mad at me. I understand. But I do want you to know that I’m not mad at you.”

I looked at Edgar.

“It might be a good idea to come along, Jam, if you’re going to stay on at Base,” Edgar said. “Get to know everyone better.” Edgar looked at me as though he were trying to hint at something, but it was so far from my understanding that I didn’t know what. The whole conversation had been full of meaningful glances that I didn’t know how to decode. “You know what? Let’s get ready for the barbeque together, make a whole day out of it, blow off some steam. Does that sound good?”

“Yes?” I said, playing along. “I’ll think about it, but yes, tentatively.” I could tell that Edgar wanted me to say yes. 

“Hell yeah,” Eagle said. “I leave you two to it. You know where to find me if you need anything.” He winked at us and then left.

“So, yeah, two main takeaways this morning. You’ve heard the official Base summary of the mission. Again, that is what has happened according to Base. And you got an invite to the barbeque. Perfect timing on Eagle’s part. The barbeque is an important event. You really ought to go, Jam.” Edgar was no longer hinting. He was telling me.

“I’m going to the barbeque then, I suppose,” I said.

“Excellent. It was wonderful checking in with you. I hope that I was able to put you at ease. I’ll be here if you need anything at all,” he smiled professionally.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said and made my way to my office with more questions and suspicions than I had walked in with. 

[SCENE TRANSITION.]

“Jam! You made it!” Edgar was wearing a summery shirt with yellow flowers on it. He smiled at me, a larger smile than necessary, at least in retrospect. It had been two weeks since Mike died and I had been smiled at in confusing contexts more times in those two weeks than I had in the rest of my life combined.  “I know that you’re a little bit nervous about this whole barbeque thing, but it’s going to be great. Thanks for coming.” He led me into his cabin.

“There’s something that I wanted to talk to you about, before we get out there with all the people, but this is the first time that I’ve seen you not at work or Base,” he said. “I assume at this point that I can entrust you with secrets.”

“I’ve been keeping a lot of them recently,” Jam said.

“This is a pretty big one, Jam.” He looked serious, yet barely contained his excitement. “Don’t worry, it’s the good kind of secret.”

“I don’t know what that means,” I admitted.

“Then don’t worry. You’re going to like it. Come with me.” He led me into the back room of his cabin, one analogous to the room that I had been keeping Mike in inside my cabin after I cleared it out for him. 

“Help me with this,” he said and gestured to the large area rug in the middle of the floor.

“I’m helping you redecorate?” I asked.

“Something like that. Here, grab that side.” I did as he said and we moved the heavy rug. Edgar started removing the floorboards that had been exposed. “I want you to see the basement.”

“You have a basement in your cabin? I don’t know anyone at O.V.E.R. who has a basement,” I said.

“The place didn’t come with a basement,” he said. “But I run some pretty high-powered operations at Base and part of that is involvement with a project that uses the transport process for efficient construction, so I whipped something up for myself. It was quite the technological feat, actually, since I had to install it under my cabin without anyone noticing. Not even Base knows. Don’t tell anyone.” He briefly stopped plucking floorboards to make stern eye contact with me.

“I won’t,” I assured him.

“Alright, good. Because there’s also something inside the basement that you can’t tell anyone about,” he said. “No one. At Base or O.V.E.R. Step inside.” He opened a hatch, which led to some stairs and to an honest-to-goodness basement. I tried to imagine how he was able to move the soil under his cabin and place a whole basement there without destroying everything in the process, but I didn’t know enough about the technology to even hazard a guess.

“This whole basement project is really impressive, Edgar,” I replied. 

“I’m not done impressing you… ta da!” He flipped a lightswitch.

Sitting on a couch in the middle of this impressive basement was none other than Mike Walters. 

“Jam!” Mike jumped up from the couch and embraced me in a tight hug. I’m not much of a hugger, but I hugged him back just as hard. “I’ve been waiting in the dark for hours waiting for Edgar to lead you down here so I could surprise you.”

“It’s been 10 minutes, Mikey,” Edgar said.

“My other senses are so much stronger from the blindness,” Mike said.

“How did you manage this?” Jam asked. “No one knows about him?”

“Just me and you so far,” Edgar said. “Our failsafe protocol allows us to do a thing called Continuous Correction to tightly control variables and sort of “access” other timelines. It’s not like we’re “jumping” into them, more like we’re creating them for split seconds and immediately reversing them. We can “simulate” events to see what will happen (or what did happen in another instance), but the “simulation” is briefly reality.” He made heavy use of air-quotes when saying “simulation.” “I used this ability to consolidate with an Edgar from a timeline where Mikey Bear was still alive. I had only intended to do so in an attempt to better understand Base objectives, but knowing about Mikey set off a chain reaction. I didn’t tell anyone that I had done this. Then a year or so passed (maybe two at this point?) and you entered the picture with an alive Mike Walters and… that’s where we are now..”

“I hope it wasn’t important that I understand any of that,” I said. “I was too focused on Mike being alive.” I could feel a tear rolling down my cheek.

“I’m okay, Jam,” Mike said. 

“They don’t suspect you at all, Edgar?” I asked.

“I made sure that they don’t suspect me,” he said. “I made a second iteration of Mikey and led Eagle right to him. I needed Eagle (and Base) to believe that I was on board with the mission and that I didn’t have any feelings toward Mikey. Thanks to that second iteration, they’re convinced that I am as equally invested in eradicating him as they are.”

“He saved me because I’m the most handsome iteration of all,” Mike said.

“That checks out,” I said. “The iteration gambit thing, not the handsome iteration thing. Hey, Edgar, do you think that I could have a moment alone with him? Just a couple minutes?” I asked.

“You’re gonna kill me off once and for all?” Mike asked.

“Not funny, you ingrate,” I said, though I did laugh. “I just want to talk to him. Is that okay?”

“That’s fine with me, Jam,” Edgar said. He headed back upstairs to wait for me.

You’re about to hear what Mike and I talked about, the first time that I saw him after Eagle and Edgar killed him in my cabin. It is a recording of this conversation. In order to protect the parties involved, this recording was not produced in a conventional way. We had been lucky that Edgar was in a position to save Mike and all episodes after that moment must take caution to honor the risk that Edgar took for us that night and not to jeopardize for the sake of a podcast.

Neither Mike nor I were aware of the recording as it was happening. In one sense, that was because there was no recording while we were having the conversation. I will not detail the process here, but an imaginative listener might be able to speculate on what kinds of methods were used. And, as you likely have concluded, you imaginative listener you, that means that the relationship between myself and this technology has changed between now and when these events took place. I implore you not to draw hard conclusions based on this (especially optimistic ones), but it is something to keep in mind as the series goes forward. Without further ado, the recording:

JAMILLA

It’s so good to see you again, Mike. I really thought you were gone.

MIKE

Edgar says that I have a way of sticking around. Apparently stuff like this has happened in other timelines. There’s no getting rid of me.

JAMILLA

Like a cockroach. What’s living in the basement like?

MIKE

Only slightly maddening. I haven’t seen the sun in a few days. I mostly stay down here. Edgar’s down here a lot, though. Sometimes I’ll be sleeping and I’ll wake up and see that he’s peeking at me from upstairs. We were dating in the timeline that he consolidated with.

JAMILLA

He mentioned that. Is that why he calls you Mikey Bear? 

MIKE

Yeah. He loves me. Like really loves me. I feel bad because he remembers a whole life that I don’t. He’s great. He talks me down out of my night terrors and stuff. But I don’t remember that life. He can be there for me but I can’t be there for him, ya know?

JAMILLA

I get it. Maybe you’ll be able to remember sooner, rather than later. Edgar has a plan. Has he told you anything about it?

MIKE

Apparently the next step is to recruit everyone using that whatever he was talking about with the corrections.

JAMILLA

Yeah, I think we’re starting at the barbeque today.

MIKE

There’s a barbeque? Aw! I wanna go.

JAMILLA

Mike, one of the organizers pulled your guts out all over my cabin.

MIKE

Not to split hairs, but according to Edgar he punctured my heart and lungs. Speaking of butchered meat: bring me back some pulled pork at least.

JAMILLA

I’ll see what I can do.

MIKE

[PAUSING] Do you think that it’s going to work?

JAMILLA

Edgar wouldn’t do it if it didn’t work. You might not know him well, but I do. Edgar doesn’t take risks. He’s doing this because he knows it will work. You can trust him. And you can trust me. I’m in this all the way. We won’t let you down, Mike.

MIKE

[SNIFFS] Don’t let me down, Jam.

JAMILLA

Also, did you order a record player and a jar of olives to my cabin?

MIKE

[SIGHS] Yes. There was an incident and I broke the record player. I’m sorry. I got you a new one.

JAMILLA

Did you charge my debit card, by any chance?

MIKE

[SIGHS] Also yes. I know you love music and I loved when you played music in the cabin while making dinner and I wanted to say I’m sorry.

JAMILLA

[CHUCKLING] You asshole.

MIKE

Are you scared?

JAMILLA

Of H and Eagle? Of course I’m scared. But I’m more scared of myself if we don’t set this right. I felt that black mark on my soul you were telling me about.

MIKE

I told you. The black mark is real.

JAMILLA

It sure is. [Sighs.] I had better get going. We’re heading out to the barbeque soon. I’m sure we’ll end up back here after it’s done.

MIKE

Are you gonna be in your cabin before you head back here?

JAMILLA

I swear to god, Mike, if this is about the olives you ordered–

MIKE

No. The box with Matt’s stuff? Do you still have that? Can you grab it for me?

JAMILLA

[Bittersweetly.] Yeah. I can do that.

I felt like I was floating on air while getting ready for the barbeque, fixing my hair, sipping on an IPA, applying SPF 10,000 sunscreen. Edgar elaborated a bit on the plan.

“I can do the same sort of consolidation on the rest of Base as I did for myself,” he explained. “We need to evaluate everyone and perform the process on as many of them as is safe. Eagle and H are obviously out of the question, but the rest of field team is fair game. Marissa, Chris, Ryan. Maybe even Charlie? It’s a risk to ask anybody, but that’s the point of rigorous failsafes. If any of them put the plan in danger, we can have it undone with a printout of what went wrong just as soon as it happens. A failed “simulation” in a sense.”

“And we’re going to start sizing people up at the barbeque?” I asked.

“It will be nice to get a feel for where everyone stands, but that isn’t the only reason I wanted to take you there,” he said. “There is going to be someone there that I have already tested this plan out on.”

How’s that for a cliffhanger? You’ve been listening to Outside Tier One. Next time: a plan is put into action. And as much as I may hate him, Eagle’s probably great at grilling. Until then, stay safe.

[END THEME PLAYS.]

Outside Tier 1 is a Drop Stitch Audio Production. Created by Jamilla Garner. The theme song is “Roadtrip” by the band Cutting Grass. The background music was also provided by Cutting Grass. Check them out at wearecuttinggrass.bandcamp.com/. Special thanks to Mike and Edgar for their help with this episode.