This Time, There Are Two

Link to article: This Time, There Are Two.

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In which Penelope Gore makes a bold decision, Wren Masterson dissociates in public, and JJ has a nice day out.
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[[collapsible show="Content Warnings" hide=""That's cringe.""]]
This chapter touches on suppressed trauma, dissociation/derealization, gender dysphoria/dysmorphia, the specter of state violence, and (for those sensitive to such things) extremely public sources of secondhand embarrassment.
[[/collapsible]]

------

++ 2018/07/08

"This isn't going to work."
The officer broke off mid-sentence and glared back at his audience, seething with all the righteous indignation of a man who had worked very hard on his slideshow. Eventually, he asked, "Why not?"
Researcher Penelope Gore tapped her foot, thinking about where to begin. She was not a surveillance technician. She didn't really do field work. But over the past two weeks, she had thrown herself into **[[[being-known|Project CLOWNFISH]]]**,[[footnote]]The Foundation's secret effort to infiltrate Gamers Against Weed.[[/footnote]] and she was starting to think of herself as a subject-matter expert. She had used her fancy new SCiPNet credentials to review dozens and dozens of casefiles, searching for clues, mind buzzing with the prospect of succeeding where others had failed. Then -- //eureka!// A series of anomalous items that could only be the work of a single person: her quarry. Her worst enemy. Possibly even her nemesis.
PoI-6966. Wren Masterson. Also known as "steakshift", "MxMasters", and (solely in Penelope's mind) "that bitch".
Those first two aliases had proven to be important. steakshift lived below the Veil, and they were hard to track. This was no surprise -- Veiled networks were piecemeal, and those with inter-Nexus exchange points were closely monitored. But MxMasters existed in the mundane world, and Penelope had found variations on that handle in a multitude of places. They posted enthusiastically on tech forums, wrote sarcastically in Parawatch threads, uploaded thousands of files to archive.org, and shared hundreds more via torrents.[[footnote]]This last charge was tenuous. Maybe even a little desperate. But she'd found a P2P distributor called RZrkRZ, and that's "EMexEM" encoded in ROT-13, which seemed like Masterson's brand of self-indulgent bullshit. Right? Right.[[/footnote]] More importantly... they attended conventions. Public spaces where like-minded people met up, talked, and potentially let things slip.
//If these idiots don't fuck it up for me.//
"First of all," Gore said, "the ground team is excessive. They're going to get noticed, and then we're back to square one."
"That's ridiculous. We're all professionals-"
"6966 noticed their tail in Sudbury. That was MTF Upsilon-20. Your team. Correct?"
The badge on his arm said it all. "That's... correct."
"Thank you. Second: we can't use a proxy. I have to go in there myself."
"Excuse me?" This time, the man's voice was tinged with incredulity, rather than outrage. "Aren't you a desk jockey?"
"You are not cleared for that information!" Gore snarled. The words came out a little easier than expected; fringe benefits of having a codename. "All you need to know is that I am a specialist. I need to gain the target's trust, and I cannot do that through an intermediary."
"Why not?"
She sighed. Gore leaned forward, drew seven lines on her notepad, and brandished it at the MTF officer like a stone tablet.
[[=image legal.jpg width="30%;" style="rotate:-8deg; padding: 1em;" alt="A minimalist rendition of 'Loss', drawn in blue ballpoint on ruled yellow paper."]]

"...I don't know what that is."
"The target does. I guarantee it. And if they make jokes like this, I need to respond //instantly."// She snapped her fingers. "Like that. It doesn't matter if I'm whispering in somebody's ear. Using an intermediary introduces delay. It won't work."
The man pinched the bridge of his nose. "Alright. Well. It's against protocol, but if we're monitoring you-"
Gore shook her head. "We can't be monitored. No cameras, no mics."
"You're out of your mind."
"That's enough, Corporal." This was a new voice, tinny and buzzing, anonymized by some algorithm. The overhead projector flickered and the slideshow died, replaced by a bland, featureless profile picture. Beneath it: MELVILLE (L4/CLOWNFISH). "Go ahead, NEMO. Explain your rationale."
//Oh shit.// This was her first interaction with a project supervisor. Penelope cleared her throat, steadied herself, and said, "This PoI is on our radar because they created an **[[[scp-4581|observer-dependent infohazard]]]**. When we caught them, they boasted about 'mentally compositing' data. For all we know, 6966 can sense wireless broadcasts in, ah, in real time." Her breath hitched for half a second. "We have a real opportunity here, sir, but we can't run this like a traditional operation. Send me in and I'll come back with the results."
There followed a long and thoughtful silence.
"Corporal, would you please step out for a moment? NEMO and I need some privacy."
He obviously wasn't pleased, but the officer complied. The door clicked shut behind him.
"You have spoken with PoI-6966 before," MELVILLE said. It was not a question. "You've spoken with a number of anomalous individuals in containment."
"Yes, sir."
"Have you ever interacted with an anomaly outside of containment? Without safety measures in place?"
Penelope twitched in her chair. "I... yes, sir. Once."
"Tell me about that."
MELVILLE already knew what had happened. That much was obvious. But he was testing her, and Gore wasn't about to fail. "I used to work with the Counseling Division," she said, "at Site-17. I was pretty new, so I lived on-site, in the dorms, and that didn't leave me much space to myself. I was stressed. Then, in 2015, I was... accosted... by an anomalous humanoid."
"A containment breach?"
"Technically. Yes. I was using the on-site gym, and one of the low-risk anomalies walked in. A young woman. I didn't recognize her, because I only had Level 2 clearance and she wasn't part of my caseload. She was supervised, so I didn't think anything of it. I sat down on a bench. The lights flickered. Next thing I knew, I was on the ground, eye-to-eye with this... rat, shark, demon thing."
For a second, she could hear the creature's voice, hissing in her ear: //Feed me. Feed me// now. Gore suppressed a shudder. "It ripped my shoes off and [[[scp-3887|ate my socks]]]."
"Were you injured?"
"No, just... scared. Which was the point. SCP-3887-B feeds on fear, but -A was emotionally stable in our custody. The anomaly was hungry. I was just in the wrong place when the lights went out."
"Did you request any personal time afterwards?"
"No. Didn't feel the need."
"Therapy? Amnestics?"
//"No,"// she repeated, more forcefully this time. "I took it as a learning experience. Focusing solely on counseling had left me unprepared, so I started cross-training with different departments. I broadened my expertise, I improved myself, and eventually, I transferred to Site-76." Gore straightened up and squared her shoulders, projecting confidence. "You picked us for a reason, sir. You think we can blend in. I want to prove you right."
The line crackled. MELVILLE was rifling through documents. "NEMO, for the record: am I to understand that you are volunteering for field work, without backup from Upsilon-20, on the basis that these are 'exceptional circumstances'?"
Her heart soared. "Yes, sir."
"You accept the risk inherent to confronting an anomalous individual outside containment?"
"In this case?" The ghost of a smile tugged at her cheeks. "Absolutely."

------

It was the third and final day of the Montreal Comics Festival. The hustle and bustle had not abated. Some sixty thousand people had come to the Palais des congrès for this year's event, filling its cavernous exhibition hall to capacity. Artists! Vendors! Celebrities! This maze of booths and teeming crowds could get overwhelming, so management had arranged for a music lounge off to one side: a large, windowless space where visitors could sit down, chill out, play games, and chat quietly.
This year, the lounge was Wren Masterson's domain, having scored a pretty sweet deal with the organizers. They got in early to set up their equipment, then played soundtrack selections for eight-to-ten hours, chatting with fellow nerds all the while. They stayed late to pack up their kit, then crashed on a buddy's couch and did it all again. It was a great gig.
Until the janitor walked in.
Foundation lackey "Tipper" Gore had clearly been operating under the assumption that Wren would not recognize her. In most other circumstances, she would have been correct, but steakshift had pulled a nasty little trick to link a Handycam with their optic nerve, so most of their interrogation had been **[[[smile-you-are-being-watched|recorded for posterity]]]**.[[footnote]]"Most", but not all, which is why Wren was aware of Penelope's nickname, but not the fact that she hated it.[[/footnote]]
Still, Masterson didn't spot her immediately. They had seen many, many faces over the last few days, and they were all starting to blur together. It didn't help that their footage of Researcher Gore was in a hyper-clinical setting, armed with her white coat and her clipboard and her piercing glare, and today she was dressed like an anime character. It was closet cosplay -- a frilled pink blouse and a loud teal skirt, '90s throwback fashion -- but it was good camouflage, given the circumstances, so it took a while for Wren to realize that this nervous-looking woman with her hair up in twin pigtails was a threat.
But the clincher? The clue that tipped it over the edge and brought them from "she seems familiar" to full-on "oh shit" recognition? It was her shoes. Dark, no-nonsense loafers with chunky toes. Like a cop would wear.
//Caught twice in three months. Jesus. It's all downhill from here, Wren.//
It was too late to walk away. No convenient exits. The interloper had already shifted her attention from the various card games in progress and onto them, the DJ. She approached slowly, cards swaying on her lanyard, handbag close against her hip.
When she finally came to a halt in front of their table, Wren noticed an extra badge hanging around her neck. Unlike the convention pass, this one was handmade: a faded pencil drawing of an anthropomorphic cat with big, sparkly rainbow eyes. A character badge. It was... pretty ugly, honestly. Amateur work. Letters written in newer, fresher ink identified her as "whistl_stahp".
"Hi," the woman said. "Are you MxMasters?"
They gazed at her blankly for a second... then looked over at the sign they'd put up. Top line: MxMASTERS. Beneath it: MUSIC BY MASTERSON. Lower still: MEMORIES BY MAIL. Followed by contact info. "Yep," they deadpanned. "That's me."
"Do you take requests?"
"Uh, yeah. What do you have in mind?"
"Do you have the Sailor Moon theme? Any version, really."
"I should have guessed. What with the, uh, hair." They busied themselves with their laptop and mixer, mind buzzing with questions.
Penelope Gore felt like an idiot. She was a 34-year-old woman, cosplaying for the first time in... a decade? More? All to get even with some dipshit who had humiliated her at work. Faint heat stung her cheeks. //Why did I think this was a good idea?//
Yet there was no time for shame. No room for embarrassment. She had a mission. If she was going to settle the score, Researcher Gore had to play her part. Instead of shying away, she struck a pose. She turned her left arm aside, splayed thumb, index, and pinky in the runic sign, and pointed at Wren with her right hand. "Play that tune!" she exclaimed. "'In the name of the moon!'"
And lo, like magic: the opening notes of //"Moonlight Densetsu"//. Right on time. She felt a weird spike of euphoria when PoI-6966 shot her a thumbs-up; she'd made it past the first hurdle.
"Anything else I can help you with?"
"Gosh, I hope so." She leaned in a little bit and lowered her voice. "Do you, ah... d'you have any good bootlegs?"
That blank stare again. "Uh. No. I'm not selling this year. Besides, that's against the rules. No fake merch on the show floor."
"No, no! I mean, ah... 'special' stuff." Penelope unzipped her handbag and pulled out her secret weapon: a pair of green cardboard glasses with yellow plastic lenses. Text stenciled on each arm read GATER BLOCKERS.
This was a gamble. **[[[SCP-8735|SCP-8735-1b]]]** had been confiscated from the home of PoI-6897, a minor reality bender who called himself [[[scp-3108|Kektagon]]]. The original investigators had been content to label it as a GoI artifact, but Gore had seized upon it, because it didn't seem like 6897's style. It was too detailed, too specific. She was almost certain that this anomaly was Masterson's work, along with the two other pairs of gimmick shades she had found in the database. Both of those had been discovered in Canada, and the latest -- most tellingly -- had been recovered from a GAW safehouse here in Montreal, just a couple of months after the last Comics Festival.
PoI-6966's wide, dark eyes twitched just a little bit. There it was: recognition.
"One of my friends sent me these," Penelope continued, every word a practiced lie. "She knows I'm pretty sensitive to shitty behavior, out in the world, but there's so much of it, it's hard to keep track." She lifted the glasses higher. "These are cool! But they're a little outdated. I was wondering if you had something newer?"
"I... don't know what you're talking about."
Gore laughed politely. "Really? Oh, wow. This is embarrassing! I just thought... because we both follow [[[protected:scp-2721|Lyris]]] on Tumblr, right? When I found [*https://mxmasters.tumblr.com/ your blog], I thought I recognized your aesthetic."
"Tumblr," they repeated. Their voice was oddly dull. "I, uh. 'I like your shoelaces.'"
"'Thanks, I stole them from the president.'" For once, Penelope felt vindicated by her encyclopedic knowledge of Internet bits, rather than embarrassed. This was working. She had them fooled!
"Looks more like you stole 'em from the Secret Service. Are those steel-toes?" Snark slipped out through a dense mental fog. Somewhere above that haze, gliding over themselves, steakshift was freaking out.
//What kind of sick game is this? Some COINTELPRO shit? I need to get rid of her. But I can't let her know I know she's a janitor. Can't cross the streams. Can't let anything slip.//
"Yo! steakshift! How you been?"
Irritated, Masterson looked past the Foundation stooge and saw another familiar face. Their stomach flipped. They jumped to their feet. "Heyyy... man! I haven't seen you since the, uh, thing. With the guy."
JJ -- also known as jockjamsvol6 -- infamous for co-founding GAW, and for various hijinks with the Serpent's Hand -- beamed back at them. Small, slim, almost infuriatingly beautiful. He had a pair of dark glasses perched on his head, a jacket tied around his waist, and a T-shirt that declared, **I MIGHT BE RETIRED BUT I AIN'T TIRED**. "Yeah! Been a while! I was just passing through when I saw your sign. Small world."
This was a problem. JJ was guided by fate or destiny or some shit. He was always exactly where he was supposed to be, doing precisely what he needed to do, which -- for someone trying to deflect a janitor -- was a very, very bad sign.
Right on cue, he asked, "Who's your friend?"
"Uh, we're not-"
"I'm whistl!" the liar chirped. "whistl_stahp."
"Cool. Nice to meet you."
"Not friends," they said weakly.
If JJ heard them, he didn't acknowledge it. "Oh hey! You've got some of Wren's old glasses. You know there's a new model, right?"
"I did not! I was hoping, though."
"It's pretty cool. Like, machine vision. Oh!" His face lit up. "That reminds me! Masterson, you should tell her about how we met."
Wren gawped at him. "Really? Here?"
"Why not? It's a great story."
It was. Masterson had recited it many times, embellishing a little (or a lot) based on how much they wanted to impress the listeners. Given that their current audience included a Foundation spy and a remarkably perceptive twink, sharing the full truth would be insane... but worse yet... holding back the sordid details would be suspicious.
There was nothing else for it. Masterson contorted their awkward meat puppet into what they hoped was a confident pose. "It's just... a little implausible, is all."
"'Implausible'?" Gore echoed. "How do you mean?"
"Unlikely. Uncanny. In a 'life imitating art' kind of way." Masterson leaned forward conspiratorially. "Truth be told... I was making fake IDs at the time."
"No!" This was the least surprising thing she'd ever heard.
"Yes! Don't judge me too hard, magical girl, I was keeping it clean. Selling to college students. They'd give me their old expired cards, I'd pull the ol'..." They twiddled fingers near their temple, like a stage illusionist. "...and mess with the details. Fifteen minutes later, Buff Drinklots is headed to the bar, and I'm up fifty bucks."
"That doesn't sound like a whole lot of money."
"Ah, but the word-of-mouth? Priceless. All of my customers told their friends about their ID hookup. And those friends told their friends, and so on." Their expression turned rueful. "Which is, y'know, where it got out of control."
The little guy giggled. "Understatement." Penelope hadn't caught his name, but this deep into the conversation, it would be weird to ask.
"So, one afternoon, I'm coming out of my place of business -- alley behind a strip mall someplace -- and lo and behold, there's a cop on the corner. He's talking to some of my clients. And one of 'em... he turns... and points right at me."
"Now, why would he do that?" The guy's singsong lilt suggested that he already knew.
Masterson waved a dismissive hand. "It's //possible// that I got a little silly with it. Started giving the fake IDs funny names. Goofy faces. Born 4/20/69. You know, normal stuff. Anyway. Cop yells 'freeze' but I'm already gone. There's a shortcut nearby-"
"A magical shortcut!"
"Yes, a magical shortcut. Thanks, dude."
Penelope cocked her head slightly. "You mean a Way? You need a Knock to get through those."
"That's exactly what I thought! Once I was through, I figured I was free and clear! Except... that cop was //fast//. Like, wow. He ran in behind me before the door could swing shut. Bam! Unprecedented.
"And then -- get this -- he pulls his fucking gun."
"What? Really?" That seemed like a stretch.
"Yeah! I was in some deep shit. This shortcut is all corridors! Mostly straightaways. Lots of space between exits. Nowhere to hide. If this guy starts blasting, I'm toast. I duck round a corner, and guess what I see?
"Somebody else is walking up the hall, towards me.
"Again: unprecedented. I've used this Way dozens of times and I've never seen anyone else. But now... 'this time... there are two.'"
The wiry guy laughed. Penelope frowned. "I don't get it."
"It's fine. Give it a minute. So, in front of me: unidentified fucking twink." Masterson gestured at their visitor with both hands. "My guy was wearing flip-flops. Totally relaxed. Had a book in his hands. Meanwhile, behind me-" They wheeled around, pointing at an imaginary cop. "Captain Quickdraw has his gun out. It's looking like the end. Until!" They spun back to face them. "This guy says..."
Their guest dropped his shades over his eyes and crowed, "'Get down!'"
Recognition hit her all at once. Gore opened her mouth to protest, then realized there was no point. This was obviously a gag; might as well wait for the punchline.
"...so, I dive, of course, and the cop opens up. Bang-bang, bang-bang-bang! Dumps his whole magazine. Hits nothing but air. And this man right here, my hero -- he just winds up and flings his book like a discus. Hits the shooter right here, under the chin. Bop. Down he goes. Bangs his head. Out like a light.
"Now, as it turns out... Captain Quickdraw isn't a real cop. He's wearing a costume. His badge? Fake! His gun? Fake! Best guess? Somebody heard about my 'entrepreneurial spirit' and decided to roll me. Joke's on him, I guess. He got a concussion, and I got a new friend out of the deal."
They bumped fists with their buddy. Both of them laughed.
Gore let them bask in the glory of their weird little joke for a moment. Then she cleared her throat. "So... you guys met in a spontaneous re-enactment of //'[*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6MQnFQ1kpA Terminator 2]'."//
"Yes, exactly."
"Well, no," JJ said, scratching his chin. "Nothing's 'spontaneous', because everything happens for a reason, right? Cause and effect. Wren was making money, so that guy decided to rip 'em off. Can't do that in broad daylight, so he dressed like a cop."
"Okay, but... what about you? Why were you there?"
"Me? I dunno, I was browsing someplace. I knocked on a door, and it opened, so I walked through."
She laughed. Abruptly. Awkwardly. Her brow furrowed. "You're messing with me, right? There's no way that actually happened."
"It totally did!" Wren protested. "That was 100% how we met."

------
Of course, it wasn't. Not quite.
As stated before, Wren had iterated on this story quite a bit over the years. In the process, they sanded out many uncomfortable details, first and foremost being that they were not calling themselves "Wren Masterson" at the time. They hadn't been using their birth name, either, because as far as anyone knew, Are We Cool Yet? member [[span class="dblock"]]Anna[[/span]] [[span class="dblock"]]Bojarski[[/span]] had died in a field in Ontario, **[[[scp-4784|metaphysically unwound]]]** by anart of her own creation.
Unsurprisingly, that experience had messed her up a bit.
With this in mind, it should come as no surprise that Masterson omitted the most compromising part of the story: the finale.

++ 2009/11/10
The last echoes of gunfire had faded out into nothing. The fallen shooter lay motionless on concrete, a crumpled wreck in uniform blue. Crouched at half-height, hands clasped over her ears, [[span class="dblock"]]Anna[[/span]] looked up at her savior, who offered her a dainty hand.
"'Come with me if you want to live', I guess?"
[[span class="dblock"]]Anna[[/span]] had always harbored a suspicion that the world was something less than real. A show, perhaps, put on for someone else's benefit. Every new trauma had deepened this conviction, but being fatally decompiled and recompiled had changed something in her. Something fundamental. She was seeing patterns everywhere. Hints. Like stage direction. Subtle lines in the margins. Or -- in this case -- a big fat sign screaming PAY ATTENTION, NERD!
Things this contrived simply did not happen. Not in real life. This had to mean something.
"Are you from the future?" she croaked.
"Only by, like, two seconds." The kid sidled over and nudged the cop with one floppy sandal. "Man. How'd you piss this guy off?"
"I don't know. He just started chasing m- wait, no! Who the fuck are you and what the fuck are you doing in the ReTerminal?!"
The kid glanced up. "Is that what you call this place? That's catchy. I just wandered in off the street."
"Bullshit!"
He shrugged. "Happens to me a lot. I go where I need to go. There's a sort of power at work. I don't need to know the whole thing while I'm in the middle. I just... ride." He paused. "My name's JJ."
[[span class="dblock"]]Anna[[/span]]'s brain cut out for a second, like a record player slipping its groove. "JJ", the crop top Terminator, was trying to make conversation. He had saved her life, so it would be rude to decline, but she couldn't call herself "[[span class="dblock"]]Anna[[/span]]" anymore, so she needed a new name. On the spot. Instantly.
"Nice to meet you, JJ," she said slowly. "My name... is... steakshift."
"Oh, is that how you change gears in the Weinermobile?"
Her jaw dropped. "Wh- Yeah! You've heard that joke before?"
"Nah. It's cute, though. I like it. What are you doing here, steakshift?"
"Right now?" She crept over to the downed officer and started rifling through his pockets. "Surviving. Barely. With your help. So, uh, thank you, JJ. From the bottom of... his wallet."
She tossed over the gunman's billfold. JJ snagged it out of the air, glanced at it, and said, "This dude's not a cop."
"What?"
"'Chekhov, Andrew'. Prop house employee."
She looked at her pursuer's badge, dismayed, and found that it was made of plastic. //Motherfucker.// His gun was made of metal, though -- when she picked it up, it weighed heavy in her hand, uncomfortably solid. The top part was locked in an open position, and whole thing smelled like sulfur. Maybe it fired blanks? [[span class="dblock"]]Anna[[/span]] didn't know enough about guns to be sure. But... it could be useful, right? Even just to sell. She considered her options, then unslung her battered blue backpack and stowed the prop gun away. To the victor, spoils, et cetera.
JJ must have grown bored of the wallet, because he lobbed it back. It landed limply on the would-be robber's stomach. "I don't need this," he said blandly. "Got anything else?"
"What, like, to trade? Fuck yes, I do." steakshift pawed through her bag. "You want anything in particular?"
"Got any reading material? I sorta hucked my book at that dude."
She cackled. "You sure did! That was sick. Uh, let's see. What were you reading?"
//"'JoJo's Bizarre Adventure'."//
[[span class="dblock"]]Anna[[/span]] froze with her arm halfway into her bag. Pure-strain fear surged through her system. She'd been caught after all. Hunted down by a Dali-worshipping anime fanboy with perfect teeth. She looked up at JJ and stammered out, "Are... Are We Cool... Yet?"
"Huh? Yeah, of course we're cool." The twink gazed back down at her, nonplussed but not alarmed. He seemed amused, if anything. Not a care in the world. "Why wouldn't we be?"
The terror subsided. [[span class="dblock"]]Anna[[/span]] sagged. "Sorry. Thought you were, uh, riffing on something."
"Nope. Just thinking about the comic! It's really gay."
"Oh."
"Hot vampires. Punch ghosts. Angry dogs. Fun times."
"I, uh, don't know it. You want another manga?"
"Sure. Quid pro quo."
"Can do." She produced three paperbacks from her bag and fanned them like a deck of cards. "Take your pick."
JJ took one without really looking. "Thanks. Are you a collector or something?"
"Uh, or something. 'Collectors' keep things. I want to find stuff and loan it out."
"Like a librarian."
"Yeah. Yeah, actually, a lot like a librarian! I'm learning the basics from this cool old dude."
"Really? That's rad. We should stay in touch."
"Might be tough. I'm sorta getting back on my feet. No phone, no fixed address..."
"Are you on IRC? Lots of interesting people use IRC. Look me up, I'll make introductions. My username's jockjamsvol6."
She snorted, then cackled, then snickered to herself. "That is an excellent handle. Love a good music reference! Or a bad reference, for that matter."
"Oh, then you'll definitely dig the book. //Hasta la vista,// steakshift." JJ shot them a mock salute, then pushed through the nearest door and onto a random street. The door snapped shut and he was gone.
"But... I gave you the book." She glanced around, nonplussed, until they finally saw the paperback resting on the floor. JJ had left his graphic novel behind.
It was an English translation of //"JoJo's Bizarre Adventure"//. Something called "Stardust Crusaders". Volume 8. [[span class="dblock"]]Anna[[/span]] had never actually read the comic during her time with the art collective; she'd just nodded along as her friend David ranted and raved about how great it was.
A pang of guilt stabbed at her heart. Maybe she'd give it a shot, after all. She stowed the book in her backpack before dragging "Mr. Chekhov" out the nearest door, dumping him in an alley, and going on her way.

------

++ 2018/07/08

And so, Wren snapped back to the present, where they were forced to confront the most terrifying question they could imagine: "who knows what?"
Obviously, JJ knew about AWCY?'s weird anime fans, because he and Esther and Jude had taken them down and they had been pretty goddamn thorough about it. That was in the back half of 2008 -- //before// their unlikely encounter. Meaning that JJ should have known what [[span class="dblock"]]Anna[[/span]] was talking about when she blabbed in the ReTerminal. And yet, if he did, he had never, ever acknowledged it. Not once. Not even when he had asked them to handle "**[[[somewhere-empty|that thing with the guy]]]**". This was the only time they had ever come close to discussing the issue, and it was in the presence of an actual janitor.
But what did the janitors know, and what did they want? "Tipper" Gore -- whistl_stahp -- was obviously making some kind of play. She had hung on every word, asking questions, being assertive but not aggressive. Friendly, in an untrustworthy way. She was probably trying to get intel on the group, but somehow, she didn't recognize that one of GAW's Big Three was standing right beside her, gently bobbing with the music. She was focused in on Masterson. Why? They had stayed under the radar for such a long time. The janitors couldn't possibly know about their art project. Could they?
//Should they?//
Those words cleared Wren's blurry consciousness like sunlight through fog. All of a sudden, they were with it again, in the moment, clear as day, a question dancing on their tongue: "Hey man. What made you think of that story in the first place?"
"Huh. Good question. What was I...? Oh, right! Machine vision." JJ whipped the sunglasses off his face and offered them to the janitor. "Check it out. New model. All yours, if you want 'em."
"Really? You're sure?"
"Yeah, I don't need them right this second. Besides, the Arnie look is a bit much."
Masterson groaned. "Dude. Come on. It's //'They Live'."//
"Sure, yeah. Old movies. Anyway, I gotta roll! Places to be. Nice to meet you, whistl."
JJ turned to leave. But as he did -- as he wheeled past Wren -- he winked.
"Have fun," he said.
Wren watched him go, mouth agape, utterly gobsmacked. //Holy shit.// This was not the karmic reckoning they'd feared. No, no, quite the opposite. This was some kind of gift.
"Your friend's a little weird," Gore observed.
"Everyone's a little weird. Right?" They laughed nervously, then coughed. "Actually. Speaking of. You're probably wondering why he called me 'steakshift'."
"I'm guessing that's your secret identity. Like..." She pinched an imaginary veil and raised it above her eyes.
"Yep. You got it. Sorry for, uh, shutting you down earlier. Don't like talking shop in normie spaces."
"No, it's okay, that's smart. I spend most of my time, y'know, 'under', so I've just got the one handle."
"Really."
"Yeah, I'm in tech, so my work/life balance is all messed up. I don't meet a lot of new people."
"Bummer." They sat back down, crossed their arms over their chest, and let the moment hang. The vaguest possible outlines of a plan were taking shape. They would need to clear it with bones first, of course, get its permission, but if they set up a small server... a controlled environment... maybe it could work.
Eventually, steakshift asked, "Are you on IRC?"

[[footnoteblock]]

[[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box
|author=Tsercele]]
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> **Filename:** legal.jpg
> **Name:** File:Legal pad blank sheet (6507071627).png
> **Author:** David Swart
> **License:** CC BY 2.0 Generic
> **Source Link:** https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Legal_pad_blank_sheet_(6507071627).png
> **Additional Notes:** Drew in simple geometry.

=====
[[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box-end]]

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