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Pope’s Collection
Jesse: Is this a Bureau ID badge? It looks so old… Pope’ll definitely wanna see this.
Pope: Jesse, you’re back! Did you find anything noteworthy? The original Bureau expedition down here left so much interesting stuff behind!
Jesse: Like their ID cards. I picked up a weird one. It’s pretty old.
Pope: Oh wow, look at that! I’ve found a few ID cards myself… or more accurately, the Rangers found them for me.
Jesse: Are you starting a collection?
Pope: I’m going for the whole set! I kid, of course. But I suppose they are sort of like baseball cards, except for Bureau staff from the ‘60s. The one you’re found is different than mine. Looks like it’s a higher clearance level.
Jesse: A rare one then. Want to keep it, Emily?
Pope: Yeah, I absolutely do! But I think you should hang onto it for now. High clearance access might come in handy.
Jesse: Sounds like you have something in mind.
Pope: Guilty! I’ve been going through Dr. Ash’s notes. The ones I can find anyway. Like Darling, he seemed to enjoy hiding his most relevant research. From what I gather, there is another floor beneath the Warehouse — with a special lab that requires five high-level staff members just to access! Here, take this. It’s an old skeleton key. Something else the Rangers found. I give them five bucks for every useful trinket they bring me
.
Jesse: I’m gonna assume this key is my ticket to that lower floor. And that super secret lab you mentioned?
Pope: Bingo bango, as Dr. Darling used to say. Keep your eyes peeled for more ID cards around the Warehouse. If Ash’s notes are reliable, and I’m sure they are, then five is the magic number.
Jesse: Weird place to leave an ID card but okay.
Jesse: Another ID card… for a cartographer.
Jesse: Another one of those ID cards. “Security Chief.”
Jesse: This ID card was for an excavation engineer. Why did so many people abandon their cards down here? From the layer of dust on this place, nobody’s swept here in years. Not even Ahti. No way he’d stand for this. There’s an elevator, which I’m sure is super safe, and a space in each terminal for an ID card. But which card goes where?
Jesse: It worked! Now I just have to get on a rickety elevator that goes who knows how far down.
Jesse: More dust. Still, this lab’s way tidier than any of Darling’s. Why would they need such a heavy door down here? This looks like the Nail… only, mini. A document… Is this in some kind of code? I can’t read a word of it. I should take this back to Emily, and tell her I got into Ash’s secret lab.
Jesse: I found Ash’s secret lab.
Pope: Excellent. Please, tell me everything. Spare no details!
Jesse: Uh, well, there was another cave. The walls were covered in paintings of eyeballs. The research seemed dedicated to studying a kind of… smaller version of the Nail? It looked like the same material as the one up here, but just a different shape.
Pope: Are you sure you didn’t see any functioning prototypes? Or at least some schematics? Dr. Ash was a very accomplished engineer.
Jesse: None, sorry. I did find this handwritten note.
Pope: Wow. Ash had terrible handwriting. Never meet your heroes, right? It looks like a transcribed conversation between Ash and someone named “F”. Oooh, this is juicy. This’ll take me days to parse out. Maybe weeks!
Jesse: Have you ever thought about taking a vacation, Emily?
Pope: Are you kidding? This is my vacation, Jesse!
Jesse Faden Starring in “Swift Platform”
PA Voice: Warning. Altered Item detected in transport bay. Access is prohibited per safety regulation 18.A.
Jesse: I should hire someone who builds smaller machines. So that’s the Altered Item. Looks pretty secure.
PA Voice: Altered Item transport in progress. Please stand back from the moving platform.
PA Voice: No altered material detected in area. Personnel may now safely enter. Have a Bureau-ful day.
Jesse: “Properly trained”. Guess I pass. I’m VERY properly trained.
Jesse: I remember that camera. How the hell did it get out? Are the Hiss shooting movies now?
Jesse: After that camera! And step on it! No way am I sharing the spotlight with Hiss! Thought you could lose me, huh… Why am I talking to a camera? Almost had it! You’re too tall for this ride. Wait? What? We’re back? Did that really just happen? It felt like a dream. Or maybe a bad movie…