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Pope: Federal Bureau of Control, how may I help you?
Langston: I need those field reports typed up and in management’s hands first thing tomorrow.
Arish: The Bureau’s the best at what it does: protecting everyday Americans from foreign threats.
Pope: There’s the new girl. Standing around day dreaming when she should be getting work done. Who the hell does she think she is? The Director?
Office worker 1: You’re late!
Jesse: I will get it done right away.
Office worker 1: You’re dismissed.
Jesse: Glad to be of assistance!
Office worker 1: I’ve got nothing more for you.
Jesse: Thank you for giving me a chance.
Office worker 2: Fine. Now get out of here.
Jesse: My pleasure!
Office worker 2: You’re dismissed.
Jesse: No problem!
Office worker 2: That will be all.
Jesse: Let me know if you need anything else!
Office worker 1: Don’t let it go into your head.
Jesse: Anything for the Bureau!
Office worker 2: You can’t find good help these days!
Pope: No, he’s not in… No, not today… a research project he has to oversee… Yes, top secret stuff… strictly classified… He is, isn’t he…
Underhill: Did you hear already? We have a crisis on our hands… but only the Director’s secretary ever brings him his mail. He’s been waiting for his mail all day, but no one’s stepping up. Honestly, I’d hate to be here when the Director realizes his mail isn’t coming.
Langston: It’s wonderful work, it really is. Important too. Very proud to be a part of it. Proud to serve.
Arish: You’re so right. The Bureau has a phenomenal track record, so many solved cases, big numbers. All thanks to our Director.
Langston: Yes, yes, yes, Trench is great. Never had a better Director.
Arish: He really is. I hear there are big plans on the way too. Big plans. The biggest.
Langston: I love big plans. Can’t wait. Back to work then? These objects won’t catalogue themselves.
Arish: Yeah, and I need to do my rounds.
Ahti: Are you sure you are not lost? Maybe you can find yourself in the Director’s office.
Trench: Not now, I’m busy. Come back later.
Jesse: Sorry. I’m sorry.
Pope: The nerve of this woman. Who does she think she is?
Underhill: Someone has to take it to him. Better her than me.
Langston: Did you see that? The new girl took the Director’s mail.
Arish: Is she taking it to the Director?
Trench: Oh, great, I just was waiting for my mail. Just leave it on the desk there, please. So you’re the… you’re the new girl, right? Well, welcome to the Bureau. We’re glad to have you on board. And you should be proud. We do very important work here. Oh, and don’t worry about starting at the bottom. I wasn’t always the Director, you know. My Bureau career began as a lowly agent. Those were the days. I never dreamed I’d one day be sitting here, an old man in this big chair. Like they say, when you’re pushed upwards, you’ll end up out of your comfort zone. Please take the outgoing mail as well. Thank you. Very good. You’d better run along now. I have a lot of work to do. Important Bureau business.
Jesse: What? What is happening? I don’t like this. No! This isn’t me! I’m not me! I can’t… Why can’t I feel you? I’ve forgotten something. I can’t think. I’m lost. Where are you? I can’t feel anything. I don’t want to be alone here. Where am I? What is this? Why won’t it end? Wake up. Please! I want to go home.
Office worker 2: Why do they keep you around?
Office worker 1: You forgot something!
Office worker 2: Get moving.
Pope: Have you seen him? Faden, the new Director? Oh… yeah… very handsome.
Underhill: As painful as it is, it’s a relief to admit it, like a weight has been lifted. It’s gone for too long. The Director is crazy, insane. Trench has grown more and more out of hand. He’s dangerous. Finally the Bureau is doing something about it. They even brought Trench’s replacement in for a visit.
Langston: Years of misconduct on the Director’s part. Disgusting. Tarnishes everything the Bureau stands for.
Arish: Oh yeah, I have seen a lot of questionable shit in my time. There’s enough incriminating evidence here to bury him in his mail alone!
Langston: This is what happens when somebody with power isn’t held accountable.
Ahti: You should keep trying. You are getting closer.
Jesse: I need to go inside. I need to keep moving.
Trench: We’ve been invaded. I must act. I have a plan, an answer. I’ll take the Slide Projector to the Nostalgia Department. I’ll turn it on. I’ll bring the Hiss in. I’ll fix this. I can hear them, plotting against me. We’ve been invaded. Corrupted. I’ve lost Darling. He was the first to go. He’s been exposed to Hedron’s resonance. It controls him now. It controls everyone who wears the amplifier device. I ordered them not to use the damn things! They didn’t listen. Hedron corrupted the Bureau. They’ll never be people again. They’re either dead, or they’re monsters. I’ll stop them. I have a secret ally. The Nostalgia Department. I have my own slide for the projector. I took it — a memento — in Ordinary, after the girl burned them. It’s burnt, but it’ll work. The Hiss will save us all. I lost my train of thought, I … It’s confused, like somebody switching channels too fast. I see so much, but it’s too fast. On the expedition through the slide, something got into my ear… and it hurt at first, but then it didn’t. It started as a distant whisper, like something you hear in a dream, a faraway voice calling you to wake up. I’d open my eyes with those words still on my lips. In the dream, they had made perfect sense, but awake they’re like a … like a foreign language, already forgotten. Then the sense of loss hits, like losing a child, like losing yourself. You see, I was being taught a song, a poem… a prayer, that would light up my world and make me break through, make all this pain worth it. Something once lost was found and it made a home in me, a spring, with waves carving me… making me see. And it grew until it filled me, and I receded deeper into myself, into this office, locked in, in this Oldest House which is my aging body. I stared in awe through the peephole, and I was filled with knowledge and made better. I often feel like I’m being watched, like there’s someone watching me. They can see me, but I can’t see them. I remember it was like this dream I had last night. There was this man here, in this very room. Sometimes he was a plumber… unclogging the drain — because there was a fish stuck there, a big fish — but sometimes he was an old god, you see, and he had put the fish there in the first place to keep the waste, there was rising waste, from leaking out. So he was conflicted. But he knew many things… but he was also senile like me. It was like a riddle or an omen. Wasn’t a very good one or an interesting one, but … I get so confused so easily. It’s so very hard to follow everything that’s happening…
Jesse: I won’t let them win. That’s how it happened. The Hiss got Trench first. He turned on the Projector. He let them in. I have to remember: the Hiss. The Hiss is the enemy.
Jesse: This is all inside my head. The Hiss, burrowing in. I’m trapped in here. They’re taking over. I’m done with this! I will fight this. I will find a way to push them out.
Ahti: Welcome back. I knew I chose a good assistant.
Trench: You are a worm through time.
Jesse: I need my gun.
Trench: The thunder song distorts you. Happiness comes. White pearls, but yellow and red in the eye. Through a mirror, inverted is made right. Leave your insides by the door. Push the fingers through the surface into the wet. You’ve always been the new you. You want this to be true. We stand around you while you dream. You can almost hear our words but you forget. This happens more and more now. You gave us the permission in your regulations. We wait in the stains. The word that describes this is redacted. Repeat the word. The name of the sound. It resonates in your house. After the song, time for applause. We build you till nothing remains. The egg cracks and the truth will emerge out of you. You are home. You remind us of home. You’ve taken your boss with your boss with you. All hair must be eaten. Under the conceptual reality behind this reality you must want these waves to drag you away. After the song, time for applause. This cliché is death out of time, breaking the first the second the third the fourth wall, the fifth wall, floor; no floor: you fall! How do you say “insane”? Hurts to be happy. An earworm is a tune you can’t stop humming in a dream: “baby baby baby yeah”. Just plastic. So, safe and nothing to worry about. Ha ha, funny. The last egg breaks now. The hole in your room is a hole in you. You came and we let you in through the hole in you. You have always been here, the only child. A copy of a copy of a copy. Orange peel. The picture is you holding the picture. When you hear this you will know you’re in new you. You want to listen. You want to dream. You want to smile. You want to hurt. You don’t want to be.
Jesse: I know what I must do. Start at the beginning. I should’ve seen it earlier. This is my mess to clean up. My fight. No one else’s. I am the Director.
Darling: Hello? This is Dr. Casper Darling. I have a classified message for the Director of the Federal Bureau of Control. I have sad news. Hedron is gone now. But it was not a source, it was a catalyst. Do you understand? You must go to my office. The endgame. It will be revealed.
Jesse: You’re gone. Dead. I can’t feel you. I can’t — This is what Dylan wanted all along. But there’s something. I can feel it, but I don’t… I don’t know what. The motel is a Place of Power, of change, a place to pass through. Connecting everything. This is a dream. Inside my head. Why shouldn’t it take me anywhere I want to go?
Jesse: Really? This is so weird. But it is my head. You’re such a weirdo, Jesse.
Jesse Polaris: Grow brighter. Around one constant, they revolve.
Jesse: Hedron is dead, but you’re alive. Here. In me. Maybe Hedron put you in our heads when we met her. Maybe you were always there, and she was just trying to teach me how to trigger you. Maybe I’ll never understand. Maybe I don’t need to. Trench was the first to be corrupted by the Hiss.Slowly, over the years. His need for control only made it worse. It was Trench who took the Projector to the Nostalgia Department. He opened the door to the Hiss, just like that. With Hedron dead, the Hisss tried to corrupt me too. But I’m stronger than them. We’re stronger. They’re waiting. They’ll try to stop us.
The Board: <EMERGENCY BROADCAST: LISTEN, DIRECTOR/WEAPON. THE HISS IS HERE/INTERIOR. TRANSMISSIONS BEING CORRUPTED/REWIRED ### Reddish yellow outer skin ####>
Dylan: My sister had this dream. A bad dream. And the whole world was dreaming with her.
Jesse: Dylan?
Dylan: She’d convinced herself that she was awake. She’s always been stubborn. I knew I had to end her dream. I had to wake her up. I had to rip down the poster she’s been staring at. Cut off her eye lids… to make her see, to save her.
Dylan: You are a worm through time. The thunder song distorts you. Happiness comes. White pearls, but yellow and red in the eye.
Jesse: I know he’s still there somewhere, locked inside. I know because that’s how it was
for me.
Dylan: The egg cracks and the truth will emerge out of you. You are home. You remind us of home. You’ve taken your boss with your boss with you.
Jesse: Dylan’s in a coma. I don’t know if there’s anything of him left in there, if he’ll ever find his way back. The portal’s been closed, but the Hiss is still in the Oldest House… and the lockdown can’t be lifted as long as any trace of it remains. I’m working on a solution with my management team, but there is still a long road ahead. I’m the Director of the Federal Bureau of Control. We’re in this together. You and I.
Jesse: Shawshank Redemption! That’s the name of the movie I was thinking of earlier. Not important, but that was it.
Pope: Jesse. Good to see you. We’ve got Dylan situated in his containment cell, like you asked. I’ve got medical staff running tests as we speak and I’d be happy to walk you through the details later. Other than that, what’s next?
Jesse: With the Slide Projector turned off, the Hiss are shut out but we’re stuck with the ones already here. We can’t lift the lockdown until they’re all eradicated. If any Hiss ever got out, that would be the end of the everything.
Pope: Eliminating them all will take time. I’ll do what I can on my end, but my research is progressing slower than I’d like.
Jesse: I think I can help with that. I am making you the Head of Research, effective immediately. I want you to use everything the Bureau has, every resource, every confidential scrap of data, and find a way to keep the Hiss out for good.
Pope: That’s… really? I mean, yes, yes, I can certainly… yes! Yes, I accept!
Jesse: You’ll do great. Besides, I didn’t really have anyone else lined up.
Pope: I’m honored, Jesse. Really. Thank you.
Jesse: How do you feel about me taking over as Director?
Pope: You act like it just happened. You’ve been Director since we first met, remember? I’m still thrilled. Nothing’s changed, not for me. But the Bureau has changed. Trench and Darling are gone. Their knowledge, anything not written down, disappeared with them. They knew the Bureau better than anyone.
Jesse: They’re the Bureau’s past, Emily. We won’t operate like they did. We’ll learn from their mistakes. We’ll be better than they ever were. (We won’t ever be like them.) When the Hiss got into my head, I saw some weird things. I think Darling even spoke to me? Does that make any sense to you?
Pope: Empirically, no. But, phantom voices as well as hallucinatory states are not uncommon here. Considering the forces that Dr. Darling was working with, he could have been transferred to a different place of consciousness, physically or otherwise.
Jesse: And that doesn’t upset you?
Pope: Oh, very! The fact that he hid those forces from me? It’s infuriating. But Darling’s dream was always to look beyond our reality. This time he may have taken a step too far, but as long as his consciousness can perceive his surroundings, I’m sure he’s loving it.
Jesse: Maybe Darling was just trying to protect you from the darker side of his work.
Pope: Fuck that! I’m not a child. Don’t just assume I’m going to consider something morally repugnant.
Jesse: Which it all was.
Pope: Which it all was, of course.
Jesse: How is Dylan?
Pope: The same. I can’t detect any Hiss activity, but his physiology has certainly been altered by it. I can’t tell if his brain activity is genuine or simply the aftermath of the Hiss, like spasms. Dylan could wake up tomorrow for all I know. I really can’t say.
Jesse: (Then I just have to wait for him. That’s fair. He waited a long time for me.)
Pope: Don’t worry. We’ll be monitoring him around the clock. If he wakes up, we’ll be ready. I don’t mean that in a hostile way, just, well, you know.
Jesse: I hear you. My brother isn’t exactly popular around here. (I hope one day he’ll have the chance to change that.) So there was a moment after Hedron died that I couldn’t feel my powers. The Hiss got into my head, just for a moment.
Pope: That explains the HRA outage. Before we knew what was happening, this Hiss had us. They were in my head. I saw… terrible things. I was about to go under forever when the Hiss was pushed back. The HRAs had come back. Dylan vanished afterwards and we fought off the Hiss that came after him. So if Hedron’s death knocked out the HRAs, that means there must be a new local source for them to relay which I’m guessing must be —
Jesse: (Me.)
Pope: You. Hedron is dead, assuming that word even applies to a resonant-based life form, but whatever it awakened in you, the power you call “Polaris”, is still active. At least that’s what my instruments are telling me.
Jesse: (I don’t think we’re ever going to understand all of this. And I’m okay with that. I’m just glad you’re here with me.) That’s good to know. Thanks, Emily. I found Dylan attacking the Astral Plane and the Board. What was he hoping to accomplish?
Pope: Huh. Since they arrived, Hiss have been corrupting Objects of Power, which have an inherent link to the Astral Plane. Maybe their goal was to access the Astral Plane, and the Board itself.
Jesse: That still doesn’t tell us why.
Pope: Hiss motives are a difficult thing to work out. But I have been digging through confidential files and noticed a strange gap in knowledge regarding the Board. Looks like any data on them has either been deleted or was never gathered in the first place.
Jesse: Then maybe it’s time someone looked into that.
Pope: Maybe it is.
Jesse: Well, I’ve got a Bureau to run.
Pope: See you soon. Yes, ma’am, Director Faden.
Jesse: Please, Emily. Not even as a joke.
Langston: Hello, ma’am. I heard about your little tussle over in Nostalgia. So, a good house cleaning and things will get back to normal, right? Right? I mean, our normal anyway.
Jesse: Can I get a situation report for the sector?
Langston: Woof, OK, uh, we still have to perform a proper inventory of the cells. Lord knows how many Altered Items snuck out during all this. Staffing. We definitely lost some people. Gonna have to hit those college career fairs, am I right?
Jesse: Hard to imagine the FBC at job fairs.
Langston: The Hiss are still tearing up the place faster than we can fix it, but the Containment Sector is stable… ish.
Jesse: Considering the alternative, I’m happy with stable-ish. Any thoughts on me serving as Director? I know it was a sudden change.
Langston: No complaints so far. Trench was all secrets. Lots of meetings behind closed doors. You seem much more… approachable. But if I can give you some advice, ma’am: keep a grip on who you are. I’ve been here a long time and I don’t know if it’s the job or this place, but people change here, and not for the better.
Jesse: I’ll try to keep my head on straight. Will you stay on after things calm down, Langston?
Langston: Are you asking if I’m quitting? No, ma’am! I’m not having some mid-level agent make a mess of my Panopticon. Plus, I’m racking up serious overtime hours with this lockdown. Just don’t take too long clearing out the Hiss. My cat gets separation anxiety.
Jesse: I’ll do what I can. (He must have gotten a pet sitter.) I’ll see you later, Langston.
Langston: I’ll be here. Like always.
Jesse: Ahti’s still gone. I get the feeling he had more of an agenda than he let on. Did he already get what he was here for?
Jesse: NSC: “Northmoor Sarcophagus Container.” The two previous Directors both lost control while dealing with paranatural forces. I don’t want to make that a rule.
Wake: I used to know where fiction ends and reality begins. Here they’re all the same. It’s a hideous trap, my every thought made real. Fear, desire… How can I ever know for sure I’ve escaped and not just lost in my own fantasy of it. That thought alone can drive you insane.