[classical]

Wulf: Hahah, excellent! But yeah... "supposed to"? I guess we'll hear soon... if Val's still alive, that is.
I emailed the actual convention panel people over at ARGFest and asked if they'd actually invited Bricker/if he'd accepted their offer--still waiting on a reply. I really need that secondary confirmation, though, before I make any plans myself. (Have been researching it, in the meantime--my best option might be taking a train!! I've totally never been on one before!)

EYE: No idea. Rage did express his disappointment in us a few tweets back, but I have no idea if we actually hit 16 or not. Send TT an email if you'd like, though! Every one counts!

[E.Y.E. Spy]

Wulf74 wrote:

On the upside - there's a small chance I might be able to make it a "work related" trip .. w00t .. *crosses fingers*

Hopefully your boss doesn't read Unfiction, lol.

Did you ever get 16/16? If not, I can raise the total for you.

[Wulf74]

Another update with the ongoing strange conversation with Bricker about ARGfest-o-con:

Quote:

Not only have I looked at the website, I registered today. I\'m assuming they will tell me at some point what panel I am going to be on. I\'m a bit apprehensive, but I\'ve learned to trust Val. If you\'re supposed to go too then I\'ll see you there.

If I'm "supposed" to go? Seems an odd turn of phrase. I'm going to email Val to find out if the Oracle has forseen me going or not... /shrug

I do need to find out pretty quick though, so I know if I need to book a flight/room/car/etc. On the upside - there's a small chance I might be able to make it a "work related" trip .. w00t .. *crosses fingers*

[dee molay]

I'm Sorry

[TheCheese]

Here's mine

[classical]

I'm assembling the pieces--there may be three or four final images; I don't know if I have '03' correct at all. It would actually make sense that, if we managed to get the 16 responders, there would be four four-part images.

But as far as I can tell, I think we got ourselves another drop. Going with what paperbound mentioned, betting this wall in the images is near the Santa Rosa Memorial Cemetery.

[Grady Martin]

a lurker passed the fifth piece along to me

[syntacticAtrocity]

Quote:

From: jjdemolaySPLATgmail.com Subject: Re: Re: Date: June 14, 2009 3:38:44 PM MDT (CA) To: **** Starting out, I knew what I was doing, my friend. It was planned, I had intel arriving from all sides and could anticipate my next moves with clear visibility of the outcomes. It started to fall apart when Stain discovered that I had been involved in Brian's death. But that was manageable because he couldn't effectively act on it, but I did lose my connection with one side of this little triad. Then the Watchers, with whom I had built a wary but symbiotic relationship with, started to grow ever more suspicious of my motives. This was driven predominantly by your friend Classical's relationship with Mr. King. They feared that I was hitching a ride on King's trail in order to gain access to the Brightman and connect with the One, while doing harm to Jenny. They began to shut me out and limit my access to their resources. This, along with the silence from New Jersey, began to impact my ability to monitor the third leg, the Feds. Whereas initially, I was in full control, I suddenly found myself reacting and, for the first time, being caught off guard by what was occurring. I was finally driven to anger when they relocated King from Colorado to Southern California without advising me and I knew that they had ceased being useful to me altogether. Nothing drives me into a rage more than being minimized. I killed all of them except for King, who has been running scared through most of this and didn't deserve it, and Holly, Ernie's daughter. Not for lack of trying, it's just that she's one tough bitch who doesn't look like she is, which gives her an advantage. I killed them all because they pissed me off and because I know that they were involved in the death of my sister, Ari. For the past two months it has been my pastime to travel up the San Francisco heroin supply foodchain, exacting payment from those implicit in her overdose and obtaining the next name on the ladder. The last name, a DEA field supervisor working out of New Mexico, was the brother-in-law of Darren Aronsky, second-in-command of the Watchers. Too much of a coincidence for me to overlook. The problem, my friend, is that I now seem to be in a sort of disconnected freefall. I've always had purpose. Beginning when I was a boy and my father took me to his office at the now-demolished Letterman Army Hospital at the Presidio in San Francisco. We were moving through a dark corridor and an arm shot out of nowhere and pulled me right up to the port of a large steel door where I came face-to-face with Death. He smelled like death, spoke like death and his eyes were as blank as an old worn grave marker. In the time that it took my dad to realize that I wasn't behind him anymore, Death had told me who I was and what my life would be. Of course, I didn't believe him then. Who would? It wasn't until several years later, after my mother had died in a fiery car accident in the Waldo Tunnel, that I caught my father with Ari and realized that Death had been right. My father had ran after me into the living room, tears streaming down his face, and dropped to his knees in front of me so he could look directly into my eyes. "I'm sorry," he said. "Since your mother died, I've been so lost." I didn't respond because I hated him. He just looked at me for several long minutes and then got up and came back with his .45. He put it in my clumsy hands and held it up to his forehead. I was just a boy and I began crying and let the gun drop to my side. "No," He raised the barrel back to his forehead and held my hand on the cold metal. "Do it Lenny. You have to protect your sister no matter what. You have to protect her from people like me." The explosion was deafening and I still smell the hot blood. I looked over and saw Ari in the doorway of her bedroom, tears dry on her cheeks, and she looked at me in a way that I will never forget. Like I was her hero. And now that little girl is gone forever, first smothered in the tattooed body of a woman who fulfilled her purpose by making men desire her, and then finally killed by a worn-out heart buffeted by drugs and pain. I'm lost without Ari. And now I've lost almost everything. I've never felt adrift before. I feel weak and useless. I don't care about Lincoln anymore, or power, or even the collecting of souls. Ultimately I am still that boy standing in a living room with a gun to his father's head with a small blonde sister looking on. I hate myself, Asher. I despise who I am and what I've done. It has left me empty and alone. I'm not sure why I sought you out. Perhaps it was because when we chatted a couple of months ago you struck me as intelligent and good, a solid person. Somebody that I could see myself wanting to have been like at one time. And I didn't know what else to do at the moment. A.R.

[classical]

And oh hey, since no one mentioned it, the Hazeltine blog was updated:

The Cortlandt Strategy wrote:

"It was anticipated that when Mr. Arlen Rage discovered that his carefully calculated vision had been corrupted by those less passionate than he, he will be left with only one option. Destruction. Total and complete. All those who remain standing will pick their way among the rubble and the smoke and will, slowly and in silence, wander back whence they came. That will be the final tumbler falling into place, securing this entire situation back into dark anonymity. At this stage it will be absolutely critical that Rage be left in the tortured solitude of his own distorted self-evaluation. It will prepare him for his second and final encounter with Lincoln." "What about those still involved in the...game?" "They're of no consequence really. Involving them was Rage's first and greatest miscalculation, he made some unfortunate assumptions about the abilities of groups like that. You saw how quickly they dispersed in Buffalo, Omaha and San Francisco, despite Rage's best efforts. This online thing is an anomaly, propped up by a few die-hards keeping it in front of everyone else who, to be frank with you Jerry, would much rather solve number puzzles than crawl through dark tunnels on their hands and knees. If Rage was successful in eliminating the majority of the Watchers, which he seems to have done, the uncomfortable confusion and silence will drive even those last stragglers away. Back to their daily lives or their simple games, thinking that they had been lead down ever-narrowing corridors until there was finally no room to move, and then they will just walk away, cursing. In short, you have nothing to worry about with them." "What if Starr contacts them?" "He won't." "And King?" "Ah yes, that leaves Mr. King. He's just a rabbit in an open field now. If he does somehow get away, he'll just hide in a hole somewhere, breathing heavily and missing his stupid kid. He doesn't remember enough to be dangerous. Only to appear insane." Andrew Ryan, PhD Special Counsel CIA Dark Investigations Division Internal Interview 09-3499837

So... I wasn't sure whether or not to try and respond to Starr via text/phone, but I think I might now...

[DarkWings]

Montage

[classical]

Mine!

No word from Port, either.

[TTHSK]

Here's mine.

[Deep, Deep]

Mine.

[paperbound]

I've been studying the picture I got from TT. Where Franklin Ave. connects with Terrace Way happens to be at one edge of Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery.

[Wulf74]

And mine.