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Jesse: Did I lose you there for a moment? You know what’s on my mind: my baby brother, Dylan. Seventeen years since the men of this Bureau took him.
Jesse: Ah! Shit. Shitshitshit. You want me to pick it up? The murder weapon? Really?
The Board: <Testing testing testing. We are broadcasting from the Pyramid/Other. Only the Director can wield the Gun/Sword/Intentionally left blank. Your Application will be processed.>
Jesse: And there goes the poster.
Darling: Objects of Power can cause, or be results of, AWE’s—Altered World Events—intrusions upon the perceived reality. Now, the Service Weapon is of course a primer example of an O.o.P. A very powerful one, ingrained in the Bureau’s DNA, a key component in our Prime Candidate program: come out of that Russian roulette a winner, and you, you’re it.
The Board: <Only the Director can bind the Service Weapon and Live/Die. This is your Ritual/Challenge. You must choose to be the Chosen One.>
Jesse: Look at this place… Where am I?
The Board: <Bubblegum/Polaroid. All/None of the above. These are the Concepts/Tattoos we see in your Minds. The Service Weapon. It has many Forms, like the House/Prison you occupy.>
Jesse: The same gun.
The Board: <Control the Gun/House.>
Jesse: Okay. Now I have a gun.
The Board: <Destroy the Copies/Targets. Earn/Become the position.>
The Board: <You/We wield the Gun/You. The Board appoints you. Congratulations, Director.>
Trench: Something’s coming… this threat… an attack… duty as Director… keep the Bureau safe…
Jesse: Did you hear that? It’s the dead man. Right after the pyramid spoke to me and it was just noise and I understood every word. And this gun’s alive. You know what? I’m happy, happy to be here.
Jesse: Things have quieted down outside. Is it safe to go?
Jesse: Ah. What is that? You can’t let this happen. Too much. You can’t let this happen. Drowned. You can’t let this happen. Hate. You can’t let this happen. Out of me. You can’t let this happen. What. You can’t let this happen. You can’t let this happen. You can’t let this happen. You stopped it. Hah, you—Thank you. That was—Horror.
Jesse: Get the fuck away!
Trench: … the Hotline… secure line of communication… guidance… reach the Hotline…
Jesse: The Hotline, says the dead man? Okay.
Jesse: The hissing sound that tried to invade me earlier. The Hiss. Burrowing into everything in this place. Is the Hiss your enemy? Alright. It’s our enemy. That babble’s contagious, it burrows in like an infuriating melody that makes you hum it over and over.
Trench: … must cleanse control points… an enemy… corrupt… spreading…
Jesse: “Cleanse the control point.” What does that mean? Help me fix it.
Jesse: Holy shit! You did it! We did it!
Pope: Hello? Can you hear me? Are you with us? With the Bureau? Are you still sane?
Jesse: I can’t tell you how happy I am to talk to somebody sane.
Pope: The feeling’s mutual. I’m Pope, Emily Pope, Dr. Darling’s assistant.
Jesse: (My turn. Should I lie?) Jesse Faden. I’m just visiting. (I should’ve lied).
Pope: Shit! You’re the new director! Hold on. We’re coming out.
Pope: Director… Faden?
Jesse: Call me Jesse.
Pope: Okay, Jesse. I’m Emily. Somehow this hostile force, this—
Jesse: Hiss?
Pope: That works. Somehow the Hiss managed to infiltrate the building without any warning.
Jesse: (And just like that, my name for it is official. The Hiss, like the sound of poison gas leaking in.)
Pope: We’re in full lockdown. It seems to have spread everywhere and to everyone not protected by an HRA, and, extraordinarily, you. You are the Director and that makes you special by definition. Trench is no longer the director, obviously. I’m sorry. I’m talking too much. This whole situation is just a lot.
Jesse: Trench is dead. Shot.
Pope: Ah.
Jesse: I found his body, and the gun. (Do I tell her it looked like a suicide?)
Pope: The Service Weapon.
Jesse: Also, and this can sound crazy—he keeps appearing to me, saying things. It’s hard to make out, but he told me to cleanse the control point? Push the Hiss out, the whole room shifted around.
Pope: You did that? And you entered the building when it was already in the lockdown, before you became the new director? How?
Jesse: (I’m not ready to tell her about you yet.) A janitor let me in.
Pope: I love it. This is fucking unbelievable. It’s—I can’t even—Look, Jesse, I have a million questions, you probably have a million more.
Jesse: (Like: Do you know my brother Dylan? Not yet.)
Pope: But there’s something I need to ask you to do first. If you can cleanse a control point, then you can maybe cure those infected, possessed, by the Hiss. Because if that’s possible, our options are very different.
Jesse: (Emily Pope. I don’t know her, but I like her already. She’s the opposite of the faceless agency I’ve blamed for what happened to me for so long. But I can’t trust her yet, or rather, the Bureau she’s a part of.) Yes. I can try. (I’m speaking for you, of course. We can try it together.)
Jesse: Okay. You with me? We did it before, pushed the Hiss out.
Jesse: Come on. Come on, come on, come on. It didn’t work. The Hiss has burrowed too deep, ripping it out, rips them apart.
Pope: Jesse! Over here. We need to make a plan, Jesse.
Jesse: I can’t cleanse them.
Pope: I saw. It was worth a shot. Thank you, Director. Jesse.
Jesse: (I’m gonna tell her why I’m here. I’ll risk it.) Listen, the Bureau was involved in an incident in my home town, Ordinary, seventeen years ago. The Bureau came in and covered the whole thing up. I’ve been looking for this place for a long time. (That’s enough. Maybe that’s too much already. I can’t tell her about Dylan and the rest yet.)
Pope: I’ve seen mentions of an Altered World Even case dealing with Ordinary. You were at ground zero as a child? It was one of the big ones. And before my time. And very classified. I can try to dig out some old files for you. My boss, Casper Darling, would know. But he’s missing. I think he knew this was coming, or suspected. He came up with the HRA’s the Hedron Resonance Amplifiers, I think they’re what saved us, or a few of us. And Director Trench would know.
Jesse: Trench… the ghost or whatever he is… he mentioned something called the Hotline, said I should find it.
Pope: It’s another Object of Power like the gun, an old Bakelite telephone, a direct line of communication between the Director and the Board. Maybe he can talk to you more clearly through that. Trench has years and years of experience. He might know how to destroy the Hiss.
Jesse: Where is the Hotline?
Pope: It’s kept in the Communications Department, through the Mail Room. It’s part of this sector, so we can access it even with the lockdown in place. We’ll get the door open for you.
Jesse. Okay. That’s my next stop.
Pope: That’s Tommasi’s department. He’s the Head of Communications. I don’t think he had an HRA. He kind of made a point about not wearing one earlier. Keep an eye out.
Jesse: They call me the Director. But that’s not me. I’m not a director type, not a leader. Why am I here? I think you already know. Yes, I came for my brother. But there are other reasons too. I said I was looking for answers, but I might never understand them. I’m not looking for proof, this is already it, more than enough. No matter what they told me all those years. I know it’s real now. I didn’t imagine this. I want to be a part of this world. What scares me shitless, is that I finally found it. Only to see the Hiss destroy it all.