Knowing Vegas: How many implosions have there been? Las ...

TL;dr at the bottom.
This will probably be long, because at this point it's less about my ongoing glitches and more about my state of mind. Up until this point, I've done pretty well keeping it together. Taking these events in stride, even. For whatever reason, this one has me genuinely freaked out. I don't know why, but it's been almost 2 days (I usually manage to get a grip and calm down in about 24 hours) and this time it's going the other direction. I'm getting MORE freaked out.
So here I come, back to Glitch, to post for a bunch of people who may or may not think I'm completely full of shit at this point. Has anyone else posted this many "slips"? There must be others out there. I can't be the only one that has this happen repeatedly.
Click on my profile for my other stories. The short version is, Over the last 15 years or so, I seem to "slip" or "jump" or whatever you want to call it into what I've come to think of as parallel universes that are very similar to, but not the same as, the one I started in. These seem to happen mostly while I'm driving. Sometimes I skip ahead in "space" - no differences that I'm aware of, but I physically relocate a few blocks - or in one case, roughly a hundred miles. There have been jumps in time (or maybe it was a parallel place, I don't actually know), like where I witnessed construction work being done, then went back to the same place a couple days later and it had never happened - and then went back a few days later, and it had been done again. There have been other little "glitches" in my life, some of which I've posted. But honestly I don't even care anymore. These "jumps" are getting to me. Anyway, here's the new one. Just as much detail as always. Sorry for those of you that are annoyed by that.
Azure road is a little residential street that runs east-west in North Las Vegas. Running east, it dead ends at a large empty lot little past a road called Walnut. It picks up again on the other side of Lamb. For 5+ years, I lived just off the intersection of Lamb and Azure. To leave my neighborhood, you went west on Azure to a stoplight at Lamb, and turned either north or south - you couldn't go straight because Azure doesn't run between Walnut and Lamb - there's that big empty field in the way. We always knew it would punch through eventually, and something would get built on that lot - but it's been that way for years. I relocated in 2015 and a few times since after leaving that house, but I've been back in the area a few times. Nothing changed.
A few months ago, my girlfriend moved into a rented room very near my old neighborhood - on the "other side" of Azure, maybe a mile directly west of my old place. I have my own place, but I spend more time at her place because her dog isn't allowed where I live. Anyway - point is, since April, I've been over there A LOT. And from her place, to get to the freeway or some other places, we go west to Losee road then north to Centennial, over to Lamb, and south again past Azure - right through "my" old intersection, because in case I haven't made this abundantly clear yet - AZURE DOESN'T GO THROUGH TO LAMB AND NEVER HAS.
Sunday evening, I am returning to her place from working. I had a drop (Uber driver) a little ways south on Lamb, so instead of taking the freeway around I decided to just take Lamb up to Centennial and over. I pass through the intersection of Lamb and Azure - and there's a left turn lane. And Azure goes through. And that big empty lot? A full development. Literally dozens of single family homes in a gated community.
Guys - the last time I passed by there was 6 days ago, and I will swear to whatever being you do or do not believe in, none of that was there. If there had been construction going on, I wouldn't have thought twice. Things get built FAST in Las Vegas. But not THAT fast. And there wasn't ever any construction. EVERYTHING WAS FINISHED. There are signs up promoting the new homes for sale. The landscaping is finished. Half of the houses are occupied, cars in driveways. And the road itself..? One side is worn pavement, the other lane is fresh. Like they paved one side during construction, then went in and widened and finished it after they were done. IN WHICH CASE AZURE WOULD HAVE BEEN AN OPTION IN THE INTERVENING TIME - but it hasn't been. Until Sunday. At least for me.
I have driven past that intersection literally dozens of times in the last few months, and I've never even seen a bulldozer parked in the dirt. There is a zero percent chance i wouldn't have noticed. There's a nostalgia thing going on every time I pass there. Had I seen construction work, I would've been like "oh cool, they're finally finishing that stretch of Azure and building on that lot". I would have thought "oh cool, we can cut straight across Azure soon instead of going around". IT WOULD HAVE BEEN RELEVANT. I couldn't possibly have missed MONTHS of construction. Even if I somehow missed it a few times, I couldn't possibly have missed it EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I passed through there until it was done. Dozens of houses, a renovated intersection, and a new stretch of road. In a neighborhood I travel frequently and with which I am intimately familiar.
Girlfriend and her roommate say it's been that way for months. Specifically, she doesn't remember ever NOT passing through there to get to Lamb. I mention all the times we've driven the long way around and she's like - what are you talking about, why would we go that route? Lucky for me, she was in the car for two of my other teleports, so she doesn't think I'm COMPLETELY off my rocker.
BUT WAIT - THERE'S MORE!
The very next day, I'm working. I drive Uber in Las Vegas, which means I spend a LOT of time on the Strip. I am EXQUISITELY familiar with every single pickup and drop point on Las Vegas Boulevard. There isn't a single one I haven't been to MANY times. I can name every single resort and casino property and most of the other structures, in order, between the Strat and Mandalay Bay. Hell, all the way to the M, because south of Mandalay there really isn't much there. I can tell you where buildings were that aren't there anymore. Over 6k rides, literally thousands of which are on that stretch of road.
Monday, I picked up a passenger at a large resort style condo complex immediately south of Hilton Grand Vacation called Sky Las Vegas. This is a substantial luxury condominium complex directly across the street from the failed Fontainebleau (now called The Drew, assuming they ever finish the damn thing). It's big. It's a beautiful building. It stands out. It's been there for years.
And I've never seen it before in my life.
As far as I'm concerned, there is still an empty lot next door to Hilton Grand. 20+ years in this town, watching things get imploded and built on the Strip, driving up and down that road for hours on end for over 3 years now not including my previous time spent before being a driver - I have never even HEARD of Sky Las Vegas.
The new Harmon road construction project is coming along nicely though, so there's that. They're building the Harmon road expansion that I remember being built more than 10 years ago, that disappeared in one of my previous jumps. The ex wife that thought I was nuts when that happened is a little freaked out because she recalls me describing it to her in detail when it disappeared, and now she can see them building what she remembers me describing - and there's no way I could've known about it then. She's taking my Glitch stories a bit more seriously now. So that's cool I guess.
I dunno why this one is cracking me. I should be used to this by now. Maybe because one is so close to what was literally home? Maybe because the other is a multi-hundred-million dollar project in a place with which I'm almost equally familiar? Maybe it's just stress in general. I dunno. But so far I can't shrug this off like I did my last ones. I'm really freaking out. I don't know what else to say.
Thanks for reading.
I need a drink.
**TL;dr** There's a new road connection/intersection and an entire housing development in a place that I know like the back of my hand, where I previously lived for years, through which I still travel frequently, that has never been there before. Apparently it was completed months ago. I've never seen it before. My girlfriend swears she's driven through there WITH ME, many times.
Around the same time that appeared, a can't-be-missed luxury condo complex on Las Vegas Boulevard called Sky Las Vegas appeared, that I'm told has been there for years. I have been a full time Uber driver in Las Vegas, working the Strip, for 3 years now. I've lived in this city for over 20 years. I have not only never picked up or dropped off there before (highly unlikely), but I've literally never seen it before. It didn't exist until Monday of this week as far as I'm concerned.

Everyone wants certainty; few of us have it. Sometimes, however, confusion can be its own form of clarity, which is precisely what we ought to glean from the most recent employment report for the United States.
It is a sign of an odd era when an unemployment rate higher than at any point in the past 80 years is celebrated as good news, but the announcement by the Bureau of Labor Statistics that the official unemployment rate for May was just over 13% confounded expectations that it would be substantially worse. Hopes rose that the U.S. economy might recover more swiftly than feared, as the report indicated that firms hired back more than 2.5 million people as states began to reopen in May, and while 21 million people unemployed is hardly something to celebrate, stock markets celebrated all the same and rose almost 3% on the news.
That is the cup half full part of the story. There is, alas, a cup half empty part as well. The way that government structured emergency benefits stemming from the mass unemployment of the pandemic shutdown created all sorts of confusion not just for businesses and individuals but for the statisticians who measure employment. Many small businesses obtained loans under the Paycheck Protection Plan that were conditional on keeping employees on payroll through the end of June whether or not the business was open and whether those employees will be kept on if businesses can’t maintain demand come summer. Many businesses “furloughed” employees, often maintaining their health insurance but making it possible for people to collect the temporarily generous unemployment benefits authorized by Congress. That category basically didn’t exist in any meaningful way before March, and it threw the measurement of the unemployment rate into confusion.
The BLS acknowledged as much in a footnote that suggested a “miscalculation” based on how to characterize those furloughed workers lowered the actual rate by as much as 3 percent. 16% unemployed would still be better than what many were expecting, but it is, to put it mildly, historically terrible.
Why then are markets and President Trump trumpeting the report as proof that the economic recovery is underway? To some degree, this is a classic case of outperforming low expectations. If your bar is sufficiently low, it is always easier to exceed it. The fact that as many as 40 million people filed for unemployment benefits at some point in the past two months of shutdowns was seen as a harbinger for unemployment levels of 25% or more, and at the nadir of the shutdowns, it was hard to imagine people ever going to work, buying stuff or living semi-normally ever again. Then, the murder of George Floyd, mass protest and fringe rioting in multiple cities plunged the country into a secondary crisis. A less-dire-than-feared employment snapshot felt like a relief, even as bad as it was.
There is additional the fact that life is resuming in many parts of the country. Las Vegas casinos and Florida theme parks are two of the more visible signs, and while crowds aren’t flocking, the fact that they are open is a psychological sign of some emergence from the worst of the pandemic even as the infection rate and deaths remain steady. And bizarre though it is, mass protests of millions of people in hundreds of cities across the country also suggest that the country is moving out of the pandemic fear, which has been a major source of the economic collapse.
Make no mistake: it is both good that for the moment, employment and the economy overall are not as bad as the worst of our fear and bad that things are as bad as they are. The better-than-expected jobs numbers (even with the error) come at a tenuous time: we don’t know how many of those jobs will be lost once the relief programs run out at the end of the month and employers have to face diminished business. Given that many employers continued to pay workers who weren’t working because businesses were shuttered, it is likely (though by no means certain) that July will see a new wave of job losses that were delayed, not prevented.
There is also the problem of how this report will shape the political calculus in Washington about a new round of stimulus. The House Democratic bill proposing an additional $3 trillion in spending was never going to pass a Republican Senate, but momentum has been building in Washington for more direct aid to cash-strapped states that have seen their tax revenue evaporate. All state revenue has suffered greatly from the shutdowns. But already Republicans in the Senate have reacted to the jobs report as a signal that there may be no need more spending. “There is less urgency to go strike a hard deal,” said one prominent GOP representative. Waiting till things get worse again to bolster jobs and the economy, however, will only make it that much harder to dig out then.
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The protests are about race and police brutality, but the undercurrent is also that the pandemic and jobs losses have hit African-American as well as Hispanics much more severely. The unemployment rate in May for African-Americans is several points higher than for whites, given that African-American were over-represented in many of the jobs eliminated in the shut-downs such as food service. Black American are also dying of COVID-19 at roughly three times the rate. Unequal treatment by the police is the proximate cause of the protests; unequal suffering from the shutdowns and the disease is a powerful fuel.
And then there are stocks, giddily rising to the point where they are almost flat for the year. For sure, stocks benefit the wealthy, yet they also support the pension plans of many of those public unions such as teachers and police. But they certainly do little for the millions who work lower-level service jobs who have been bearing the brunt of disease and unemployment in a hard time. There are good reasons for stocks to be recovering, between massive guarantees from the Federal Reserve that the financial system won’t implode even if the economy does and signs that everything from travel to retail may be on a sharper upswing.
It would be far worse for all of us if stocks were plummeting, business completely cratering, and the financial system melting down. But the disjuncture between how some of us are faring versus others of us has sharpened divisions that were already there before COVID, as have our erratic and inefficient safety nets in a time of crisis. The employment report is the perfect chrysalis for our present: it shows that we are more resilient than we feared and that overall economic activity may prove hardier in the face of the pandemic while also exposing that we don’t really know what is going on, who is actually employed and for how long. And the news highlighted that in these most trying of times, we may all be humans susceptible to a disease but the economic and health effects are not shared equally or spread equitably.
How one reads the employment picture now is the ultimate Rorschach test of where you sit in this roiling world. If you can parse its bewildering muddle of good news and bad news, you will find a very clear diagram of just how challenging this moment truly is. Every crisis may be an opportunity, but let’s hope we use this one to change for the better.

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Fallout: New Vegas or Failout: No Wages as I like to call it, is the worst sequel to any game I have ever played and it is clearly inferior to both it's predecessor and it's successor. Bethesda made a mistake when they handed over the golden gem that is the Fallout series to this group of nobodies and here is why:
The first thing that is absolutely unequivocally awful about this game is the dialogue. What's the problem with it you may ask? Well there is clearly too much of it. It has tons and tons of dialogue with everyone as if you care about the characters or the world. If you're a tad bit curious because you're a friendless virgin with no life, you might want to know about the details of a fictional world and what goes on in it. Well this game is the game for you asshole because these NPC's literally never seem to shut up. Any question you might have about the world or setting it's possible that somewhere somehow one of these NPC's can accommodate you with an answer. Who needs answers when I want to shoot random things in a subway? As if having a bunch of dialogue and characters to talk to wasn't a chore enough it also gives you a bunch of needless dialogue options. Fallout 4 fixed that for us. Dialogue wheels are for real men, needing 80% medical knowledge to heal a wound is for sissies who want to "roleplay." Roleplay me being a dominant top and you being my subordinate bottom. You know the hole only gets deeper for these hacks, because like older RPG's they actually make it so that verbal encounters and roleplaying are more important than combat. They even made the mistake of giving you this option more often than they give you straight action encounters. Hey losers it's not 1997 anymore take your Infinity Engine game script back and give me some corridor action sequences followed by some one liners or get the hell out of this industry already.
Also it doesn't have a villain. What kind of shitty game doesn't have a preset villain to hate? I mean it does have characters and factions you can side with but you have to actually think about what they represent and what repercussions they would have on the Mojave/Vegas area. I cant hate on Obshitian entirely here because Bethesda made this same mistake with their mostly forgettable and crappiest game Morrowind, but that is beside the point. It also didn't keep the importance of Bethesda's brilliant black and white morality system instead opting for a faction based system that relied more on your relations to certain characters or groups rather than a vague idea of morality. Which sucks because how am I supposed to know whether I'm a good person or not if the game doesn't give me good or bad points? It gets even worse when the characters and factions come to represent complex themes and ideas. You know like capitalism vs socialism, corrupt-democracies vs militaristic dictatorships, Keynsian economics (Bulls and Bears), Hegelian historical determinism represented by the conflict of factions vs the freewill of the player to change things... Boring is what I have to say to all that. I mean it would be bad enough if we only had to deal with these things in the main quest and the major three factions but we have to see themes and loaded ideas even in the most minor of factions. Like the Boomers who are militaristic isolationists, The Followers doctors and scientists who are neutral to every other faction and try to help the less fortunate, and The Brotherhood of Steel who aren't the cool armor clad action stars they're in the Bethesda games in this game they're just paranoid hoarders of technology... Lameeeeeeeeeeeee, why would any person or group want to keep a technological advantage over others in an environment where resources are scarce and people are desperate and hence prone to be more dangerous? There aren't any cool factions like people who want ears and fingers for no reason or a merc company that seems to have endless funds and no reason to exist like my favorite group Talon Company. Give me a mission where a giant robot kills other robots for no reason and I get to shoot things. Bethesda knows how to make an action-sci-fi game not like these talent less hacks. The game setting is also a war in a desert over resources, between a corrupt but modern democracy and a slightly less technologically advanced foe who is more determined to win out of desperation and fanaticism and between them is an opportunistic businessman who is reaping the benefits of their mutual folly. Who has ever heard of such fictional nonsense taking place in real life? I almost have to compliment their imagination because clearly this could never take place in a world called Earth. They're all fighting not for bitches, money or to see my dad Liam Neeson like in my favorite game Fallout 3 but for a Dam... What is so important about a dam that gives you both water and electricity in a vast area? Fighting in the Mojave over resources almost makes me wish for a Bethesda Fallout game.
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As a side note, in Mass Effect 3 you got these things called War Assets because you were fighting a war or at least that is what we were told. At the end of the game you didn't really see much of these war assets or their effect on the battle or even if they helped defend anything, but if my bros at Bioware said they were there I'm sure that they were. We were also told all our actions throughout the two previous games and the third installment would culminate into drastically different endings... Anyway, something truly stupid that Obsidian did was at the end of Fallout New Vegas and each of it's expansions they actually told you how your choices effected the world and what consequences your actions had. Some individual quests you did with minor factions could have broad sweeping consequences on the ending and even if you skipped the quests of certain factions or people it could mean their doom in the long run. Helping certain factions even though you also helped a seemingly unrelated faction might also effect things negatively or positively for that faction(s). It's like these tactless nerds actually cared how you effected the games world or something, what a bunch of losers. As if that wasn't enough unlike Bioware these absolute madmen actually took the time to show representatives and resources of the factions who you helped in the final battle of the game. Kind of pointless to add all that in if you ask me who would ever even notice they went through the effort to do that? I guess game journalists agreed with me, because they had my back on this one and they gave Mass Effect 3 the super high score that it deserved and gave Fallout: New Vegas a bad score to show people their disdain with such effort and attention to world building. Only entitled morons care about how their actions effect the world.
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To top it all off, Those idiots at Obsidian went through the trouble of having people from the original Fallout games work on and write this one. Why not just get great minds like Todd "The Rod" Howard and Pete Hines to come up with great ideas like.... Ummmm, Super mutants that shouldn't exist on the east coast, or the Enclave which shouldn't quite exist to the extent that they do on the east coast or how about water that is radiated everywhere but an air craft carrier city which is already sensitive to rust can also endure decades of constant radiation you know with people living inside it all the while. With hardly any need for maintenance. Enough about Bethesda's brilliant decisions though, lets talk about the writers here. Tim Cain was the original creator of Fallout, he started working on Fallout 1 at Interplay as a side project that the executives at Interplay didn't have much faith in. They planned on cancelling it at least twice. In fact due to mismanagement Interplay had it's game division which would go on to make or have at least a part in the majority of games we now see as a PC RPG golden age in converted granary silos made to house the offices of Interplay staff while the company wasted the majority of it's money on other efforts like a console that never materialized and sports games no one remembers. The point is the whole Fallout franchise started as a passion project of one man in a dying company. Without Tim Cain there would be no Fallout anything. Tim Cain just so happens to work at Obsidian. So does Chris Avellone (no longer works there but did during NV), Feargus Urquhart, Darren Monahan, Chris Benson, Scott Everts, Brian Menze and my game making husbando Josh Sawyer. All of which worked at Interplay/Black Isle studios and had a part in Fallout 1, 2 or the proposed first sequel to those games "Van Buren." You might argue like me true blue Bethesd' bros that none of these has beens matter because Fallout 3 was clearly superior from a writing standpoint and I would agree of course. For the sake of argument though lets just consider that these people who worked on the original games just might have a slightly better handle on the themes and ideas therein. Just so we can truly show these Obsidiot's how wrong they are. I want to show them how wrong they're and who really go to the heart and spirit of the original fallout games. To test this lets analyze this games setting and themes a little bit more and another games later on.
We talked about some of the more boring aspects of the plot and setting, but lets talk about where those has beens really fucked up and I mean bad, the flavor details. The Fallout games have always drawn heavily from a sort of atomic-equivalent of steam-punk and cyber-punk. I personally like to call it atomic-punk but sometimes it's called diesel-punk by geeks with no life but it gives us an idea of what the Fallout universe at least in part aims to be like. I mean we also have the two original games and things like the first three Mad Max films which also alluded to real world conflicts over resources, the mirroring of post-apocalyptic factions as real world groups and big ideas and questions framed in a science-fiction/action setting. From my own personal reading and viewing experience I might also add things like 1950-60's science-fiction and horror and the overt love of atomic power in the writings of people in both fiction and real world documents. Completely boring and talent less writers like Isaac Asimov giving us a vision of an atomic future utopia that features as the backdrop placed over 1950's like era that was the precursor setting of the Fallout world before the bombs dropped. That shit is old and boring though who wants to play old games, read old books or watch old movies? Well if this lame ass game is any example apparently the people at Obsidian do because they tried to make New Vegas fit within the framework of all these influences and make sense within them. On top of all that shit I just laid out they also tried to make the game feel like a western and also capture some of the style and flair of historical Las Vegas. You might even say if you want to give them credit that they tried to work in the ideas of gambling, chance and luck into their bigger themes as stated in the paragraphs above. Giving the Vegas setting not just a small role as the location of the game but giving it a thematic importance within the framework of the broader story they were trying to tell. The city of Vegas, which we all know to be a boring setting. Who even likes people like the Rat Pack, Howard Hughes, the Mafia, old country music and the look and styling of old casinos? People who don't understand the beauty of rubble, that's who. Well if you do happen to like such nonsense, Obsidian seemed to go out of their way including all kinds of historic flavor details not just as part of the location or landmarks you visit but as core parts of the story. One of the first people you see before the game even starts is Benny in a cinematic. Benny is made to look and he is acted out like a real historical person named Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, A real life mafioso and figure of classic Hollywood who had a lot to do with Vegas becoming a resort town centered around "large" casinos as opposed to the small gas stop casinos that were there before. Benny is just the first character you see in the game but he is just the tip of iceberg when it comes to Vegas themed characters and historic references. House being the most important character I can think of in this vein. House is based on Howard Hughes in both look and personality, but well integrated into the story of Fallout with motives and wants all his own. That's all well and good Obsidiot's but, I don't care about people that are already dead, YAWN.
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The supposedly "wild west" mostly existed as series of loose cities and territories that tried to impose local business owned government in lieu of the real thing due to historical circumstance and a young democracies lack of interest in the west until later in the century. You might say that the territory between the NCR's reverse manifest destiny eastward and the Legion's burgeoning Pax Romana reflects the same historical circumstance in an entirely different setting but with the people between the two states serving a similar function and having the same attitude of those in the wild west. The denizens of New Vegas in the smaller towns and areas are weary of both of the bigger super powers encroaching on their territory and want to be left alone. Much like the the romantic west they want to hold on to a fleeting lifestyle between the wars that they know will end but they're too attached to anyway to not want to keep. If you can take a hint and see past a few jokes you may have noticed earlier that I stated the circumstances of the game reflect the current circumstances of modern day times. Corrupt Democracies in the west face fanatical regimes in the Mideast in wars over resources while speculators and opportunists like Mr. House Reap all the benefits. Well while I do think that allegorical situation is their intended one, one can also say the circumstance between the warring factions reflect those of other conflicts like seeing things through the western setting, Cowboys and Indians. Obviously I don't mean that interpretation to be taken literally or even as the correct one, but merely to be seen as a possibility given the dense nature of the themes and the setting. This possible interpretation is reinforced slightly by an expansion Honest Hearts, but more on that later. Many of the quests and characters outside Vegas and one of the expansions I will talk about later are dedicated to the western themes and flavor the game tries to convey. That is to say it not merely tacked on to make you feel like a Clint-Eastwood style action star in the west. They thought about these themes what similarities they might have to the world they were creating and tried to lay them out accordingly. You may have asked yourself while playing this game why are there Roman cosplayers in my post-apocalyptic nuclear role playing game? The answer is easy when you consider the allegory above as New Vegas being a stand in for among other things middle eastern foibles. It was called the "Near East" in Roman times, but it ended their eastward expansion and caused problems that reverberated throughout the rest of the empire. Rome was a plunder and intimidate empire, their economy relied on plunder and constant expansion to keep the cash flow and resources needed to maintain its large size and relative prestige. This means that when they lost the various skirmishes in the mid east their options for plundering other states and empires large enough to be useful to them in terms of resource gain and wealth became rather short dooming the the economy to implode inward among a sea of other problems. What this all means in terms of the game is that NCR and Legion may seem different on the surface but their problems and faults mirror each other in certain historical lights and circumstances. The NCR's corrupt democracy is reminiscent of our own and the US's economy built on constant expansion is not just modeled on the Roman one of plundering resources at home and abroad but we also force countries to buy our products and use our currency. The US's empire also feels compelled to secure the middle east for resource gain and as a tactical fortress to further military excursions throughout other parts of the world. The point is the two factions are mirrored opposition empires who might fall due to a desert quagmire over resource distribution. All of this historical context is again used not just to make the game seem more "heady" but was actively used in constructing the world and characters the games constituent parts rely on. It would be one thing to add all this and just have them say this in large exposition dumps, but the makers of New Vegas found ways to merge it into as many areas of game play and setting as possible. They even gave the clothes in the game a western and Vegas feel. From Strip inspired suits to cattle rustler clothing. Because Obsidian seems to have a holistic design philosophy, building things from the setting outward even small or minor details seem to add to the games overall feel and themes. I can go and on about this or I can compare it to another game that, did things... Well, differently to say the least.

Recently, Mark Frost has confirmed in an interview that Homer’s Odyssey has served as an important inspiration during the writing of Twin Peaks: The Return. In this post, I would like to point out a few of the many parallels between this ancient Greek epic and The Return. It’s going to be a bit of a read, but I promise it will be yrev, very interesting. Rather than just listing superficial similarities, I will demonstrate that there is in fact a deep thematic affinity between the two works.
First off, I by no means claim a 1:1 correspondence. The Return examines the fractured nature of identity and reality in a way that fundamentally undermines the Odyssey’s relatively straight-forward narrative. As will be seen below, Cooper and Mr C at times act like nemeses, while at others they blend into one single enigmatic Odysseus-like figure. Dougie – a domesticated and corrupted Xerox copy of this dual ‘man of action’ – provides an uncomfortable counterpoint to the idealized Cooper that has for the last 25 years been part of pop culture’s pantheon. Similarly, Diane and her ‘tulpa’, the false double who has assumed her identity, bleed into one single Janus-headed figure. In the mythology of The Return, the human soul is as irreparably shattered as the atom – the supposedly indivisible particle of Greek philosophy.
I think it’s important to note that Frost’s approach to mythology is quite Jungian in outlook. The dealings of Twin Peaks’ ‘gods’ with the sublunar realm can be taken at face value, but they may also be understood as representations of a struggle that takes place within the human soul. For Jung, the final stage of personal growth and ‘individuation’ (becoming a whole person) takes place when we plunge the dark of our own unconscious mind to face the repressed aspects of our personality – our Shadow. The similarity of this doctrine to Twin Peak’s doppelganger mythos is hard to miss.
The theme of the Odyssey is Odysseus’ nostos, a word which can be translated as ‘return home’, coincidentally the very title of Twin Peaks’ third season. The term nostos is also appropriately related to the English word ‘nostalgia’ – the (not necessarily unpleasurable) longing for a lost world in which we felt at home. In the Odyssey, the eponymous hero has gone missing in action after fighting the Trojan War. He is presumed dead, yet for many years his wife Penelope waits faithfully for him to return to his native Ithaca. Meanwhile she is hounded by a throng of male suitors who have taken up residence in the palace. Consider that the person that Cooper seems to eventually come home to is Diane – of whose tulpa it is literally said that she has ‘many male suitors’. Cooper’s Ithaca is of course Twin Peaks itself, the place where it all began.
If the Trojan War represents the primal conflict that gives rise to Odysseus’ struggles to get home, then the events of the first two seasons of Twin Peaks may be considered this ancient war’s counterpart. If they are read this way, the role of Mr C as a ‘shadow Odysseus’ also becomes clearer, for just like the Trojan War was won when Odysseus conceived of the famous Trojan Horse – which smuggled soldiers into the city of Troy by hiding them inside its belly – the original run’s conflict was won by the forces of darkness when BOB was smuggled into the world hidden within Mr C. Interestingly, BOB seems to be on his own Odyssey. He too is driven by a desire to return home, which in his case is represented by the womb of the dark mother goddess who may double as his mate.
After the Trojan War, Odysseus’ attempts to return to Ithaca are for a long time thwarted by the sea god Poseidon, who has become enraged after Odysseus’ sea-faring crew blinded his son, the fearful cyclops Polyphemus. To avenge this wrong, Poseidon subjects Odysseus to a long series of (mis)adventures. Eventually the hero ends up on an island belonging to Calypso, who falls in love with him and keeps him captive for an extended period of time. Of course, Cooper’s return home after Twin Peaks’ season two is thwarted by his doppelganger, and as a result Cooper remains captive in the Lodge for many years.
If we consider Dougie to somehow represent a fragment of Cooper’s shattered self, rather than a mere automaton, then Cooper’s captivity is also expressed in Dougie’s depressing attempt to lead a regular human life in a failed housing project in Las Vegas. Just as Odysseus gets stuck in a domestic rut during his stint as Calypso’s lover, all the while dreaming of Greater Things, Cooper’s heroic destiny is suppressed by Dougie’s banality. Stuck in a loveless marriage, visiting prostitutes, gambling his family’s money away and barely being tolerated at work, Dougie represents the kind of spiritual death-in-life that Evelyn Waugh must have had in mind when he spoke of ‘a tiny bit of a man, pretending he is whole’.
Eventually, Odysseus is freed from his captivity through the agency of a powerful divine helper: the goddess Athene takes mercy on him and convinces Zeus – her father and the ruler god of Mount Olympus – that the hero should now be allowed to depart. It’s not difficult to see that Homer’s Athena and Zeus correspond in many ways to Twin Peaks’ deified version of Laura –whose face masks nothing but pure white light – and the enigmatic Fireman. Just like Athena is born from Zeus’ head, Laura emerges from the Fireman’s. Just like Athena releases Odysseus from his captivity, Laura tells Cooper that he is allowed to leave the lodge. Just like Zeus rules over Mount Olympus, the abode of the gods from whence they observe and govern the world of men, the Fireman watches us mortals and interferes in our lives from an otherworldly mountaintop castle. And just like Zeus is the god of lightning, the Fireman has harnessed the mysterious spiritual fire that Hawk reveals is somehow akin to modern day electricity. A link may also be suggested between the mythological sustenance of the Greek gods, ambrosia, and the corrupted spiritual food of Twin Peaks’ lodge beings. Garmonbozia: garbled, demonic ambrosia?
In the Odyssey, the practicalities of the hero’s escape from captivity are orchestrated by the messenger god Hermes – a magician-like figure who is able to move between the worlds by means of his winged sandals. Cooper’s return is similarly facilitated by MIKE, the messenger who ‘chants out between the worlds’, and who will keep providing supernatural advice during Cooper’s somnambulations through Dougie’s life.
When Odysseus leaves Calypso behind by building a raft and setting course for his beloved Ithaca, his old enemy Poseidon soon finds out about this plan. Odysseus is again overcome by misfortune when his raft is sunk by the sea god. This episode of adversity of course corresponds to Cooper’s plunge into a realm of ‘non-existence’ after his enemies sabotage his attempt to cross over into the terrestrial world. Odysseus is saved from a watery grave when the nymph Ido provides him with a cloak that allows him to safely withstand the waves. Similarly, Cooper escapes his demise in the vast primordial ocean with the assistance of Naido (Na-IDO).
Eventually, Odysseus washes up on an island belonging to a people called the Phaeacians. He is found and taken care of by a princess called Nausikaa, just like Cooper is taken under the wing of Janey-E when he ‘washes up’ in Las Vegas (American pop mythology’s go-to place for washing up). After Odysseus is received and feasted by the Phaeacians, he reveals his identity by telling them the story of his travels. Remember how I mentioned Odysseus sailed around the world for a long time between the end of the Trojan war and his period of captivity on Calypso’s island? In the Odyssey, his adventures in these ‘lost years’ are only related at this point in the narrative. Upon learning of his tragic fate, the Phaeacians agree to transport Odysseus home. Similarly, after Cooper is feasted by the ‘Las Vegans’ – something of whose supposed essence appears to be distilled in the brothers Mitchum, a pair crooked casino-owners – they agree to transport him home when they learn of his true nature.
Odysseus’ most famous epithet in Homer’s epic is ‘man of twists and turns’. These twists and turns represent the many strange adventures that befall him during his attempts to get home, and also the many cunning tricks for which he is renowned. Let us return for a moment to Cooper’s shadow self, the doppelganger, who for the past 25 years has been on his own Odyssey towards Twin Peaks. During the doppelganger’s ‘descent’ into the penal underworld of Yankton prison, he is visited by the Blue Rose Task Force. A line of dialogue from this scene clearly reveals his desire to pass himself off as the long-lost Odysseus: ‘I need to be debriefed by you about this work, Gordon. I will tell you the whole story, all its TWISTS AND TURNS, and I was going to do so. I was on my way to present it to you. I was a little bit behind schedule when my car veered over across the road, and I had my accident.’
The story of the Good Dale’s Odyssey will eventually also find its way back to Gordon Cole, by means of the Las Vegas FBI department. Consider the following message from agent Headley, which seems to hint at Christ’s empty grave after his resurrection, and agent Tammy’s prospective task of compiling the apocryphal gospel documenting ‘the unofficial version’: ‘The bed is empty. My team is sending everything to you as we speak. Director Cole, we got it all. The whole story.’
Gordon Cole – and also the Sheriff’s team back in Twin Peaks – represent those who stayed behind in Ithaca and saw it overrun by a despicable multitude of suitors. Their nefarious presence is felt in the criminality, drug-addiction and economic hardship that has unhinged the mountain village and tempted its children, but it’s perhaps most clearly embodied in the doppelganger, the false Odysseus who eventually arrives at the Sheriff’s station to claim Diane as his prize.
Interestingly, Cole’s role seems to correspond somewhat to that of Telemachus, Odysseus’ son, who in the first part of the Odyssey sets out on a fruitless quest to find his father. (Richard is another Telemachus figure, but a much more tragic one.) When Odysseus finally arrives back at Ithaca, he reveals himself to Telemachus first, so that a plan can be devised to dispose of the suitors. Similarly, it is revealed in the final episodes of The Return that Gordon Cole has been for a long time involved in a secret plot to destroy BOB and the doppelganger. During the final showdown in the Sheriff’s Station, Cooper’s shadow self is violently suppressed in a rather ridiculous feat of impossible interdimensional heroics.
As great a hero as Odysseus may be, he has one fatal flaw – the quintessential tragic flaw of Greek storytelling. I’m referring of course to hubris, the rash and arrogant tendency to overplay one’s hand and anger the gods. Not satisfied with disposing of his nemesis, reclaiming his rightful position in the world and rejoining his consort, Cooper sets out on a last impossible mission: to bring home the homecoming queen.
There are quite a few precedents in classical mythology for a descent into the underworld – a perilous journey known as ‘katabasis’. Indeed, Odysseus himself at one point encounters the shades of the dead, but the archetypal pattern for the descent into the belly of the beast is provided by another Greek culture hero called Orpheus. In the Orpheus myth, a great musician enters Hades to retrieve his deceased lover, only to watch her plummet away from him when he looks back during their ascent back into the world.
One of the several rivers of the Greek underworld was called the Lethe – the river of forgetfulness. The mortals whose shades resided in Hades were made to drink from this river, which caused them to forget their life on earth. Twin Peaks’ underworld, a town in Texas called Odessa (the name of the town evokes ‘Odyssey’), also seems drenched in forgetfulness. Cooper is warned by both the Fireman and Jeffries to ‘remember’ his mission and his identity after crossing the symbolic river into this mysterious realm. A failure to do so might doom him to forever wander the underworld as a shade among shades.
But Cooper begins to remember something much more disturbing too. Somehow, during his crossing, he seems to finally reach a deeper understanding of the shadow self he has so valiantly strived to vanquish. One and the same they are – and always have been. ‘I don’t recognize you anymore,’ Diane writes in the farewell letter she leaves next to the bed in their motel room, supposedly surrendering herself fully to her Linda persona. An estranged Penelope thus leaves her Odysseus, who is not and cannot be the same after 25 years of hardships. Cooper’s shadow may have been assimilated during his Odyssey, but this grim triumph has left him a changed man. The nostalgic past to which both the show’s characters and its audience have tried to return – the comfortable starting position we all seem to remember – is revealed to be nothing more than a treacherous dream.
In the Odyssey, one of the oldest stories known to man, the visions that come during our sleep are considered to possess both prophetic and deceitful power. While contemplating a dream about Odysseus’ prospective return, Penelope references an old belief which states that true dreams pass through a gate of polished horn, while false dreams pass through one of ivory. Penelope cannot decide on the origin of her vision, and in the 18 episodes that constitute The Return, this same uncertainty seems to have settled over all of Twin Peaks’ fondly remembered native shores. Its denizens each in their own way find themselves stuck in a nightmarish liminal zone between truth and untruth, fact and possibility. In the words of the late Margaret Lanterman: ‘Watch and listen to the dream of time and space. It all comes out now, flowing like a river. That which is, and is not.’ When Laura Palmer’s memories of what has been irrevocably lost are finally jolted to life by the sight of her parental house, something ends. Is it a dream that implodes? But if so, what of the dreamers living their sad, broken lives inside of it?
Perhaps the only joyful return provided by Twin Peaks’ season three is Dougie's. When this new surrogate Cooper, who is happy to abandon heroism for the simple pleasures of the domestic sphere, shows up on the doorstep of a life that might seem bleak and dreary to a zealous knight-errand, but deeply meaningful to an ageing castaway, he can only utter one single blissful syllable: home.
[EDIT: The man's name is, as some of you have thankfully pointed out, indeed Mark Frost rather than Robert Frost. Time to lay off the Arnott's Mint Slices, I guess. Still, I am happy for this error, because it prompted angiuli's excellent contribution down in the comments.]

On Thursday, December, 28th 2017 Adam Guerbuez announced that neither him, nor BN (BurstNation) will promote Burstcoin any longer.
https://www.burstnation.com/wbb/index.php?thread/4567-one-big-bloddy-dymaxipad-just-got-thrown-across-the-room-i-and-bn-will-no-longe&pageNo=1
On the same day Adam updated his profile description on Twitter to make it very clear that he will no longer be actively promoting burstcoin.
https://twitter.com/AdamGuerbuez/status/946602367914528768
Mr. Guerbuez tries to present the reasons for his retreat from Burstcoin as reaction to what he perceives a - quote - "investor trap".
These claims have absolutely no basis and we believe are just plead to conceal the true reasons for his exit from the Burst ecosystem.
We believe Mr. Guerbuez and probably other high ranking members of BurstNation had a future in their mind, where they would rule over the Burstcoin ecosystem as whole. Even prior to the arrival of PoCC, there were already fights/drama ongoing to secure stakes in this (at that time very small) cryptocurrency.
When the PoCC announced its engagement in Burst on August, 11th 2017, of course all parts of the huffy Burst community looked at the PoCC with certain suspicion. Certainly the most antagonistic reactions came from BurstNation, immediately describing the PoCC as cancer, spreading false allegations and censoring everything that would in some way point to our activities.
We chose to ignore this behavior in the hope that "when doing our thing" and harm nobody, BurstNation officials might come to reason. We tried as much as possible to retain a neutral position and never dismissed projects that came from BurstNation when they were beneficial.
You must know the PoCC never intended to do BurstNation any harm. In our opinion it would have been perfectly ok, if BurstNation kept doing what it was doing best: namely entertaining the red light district or the Las Vegas of Burst if you so will. The PoCC certainly doesn't want it.
In the past two months it should have become very clear, that whatever Burst-global "leading role" BurstNation hoped to claim for itself was nothing else but a wishful-thinking chimera.
Burst has set course on its way to the very top of the cryptocurrencies. While there may always be differences within the community, they are nothing compared with external attacks. That is why the unification of the community is an absolute necessity.
Burst will compete more and more with other formidable cryptocurrencies. To pass this test is only achievable with a completely united community where everyone has his place and where all can pull more or less on the same rope in more or less the same direction.
The PoCC therefore looks with regret on the ongoing degradation of BurstNation and we can assure you, that we do not wish to see BurstNation to implode entirely (which is where it is headed now).
We therefore urge the BurstNation leadership to rethink their position and to give calm rational thought of our proposal:
1) Burst's rightful place
We came to lead Burst among its rightful place among other cryptocurrencies. We believe this place is at the very top, competing with todays most formidable cryptocurrencies. There is only a handful of cryptocurrencies we consider formidable. We certainly see a place for Burst in the top10.
2) Global Burst Leadership
There is no such thing. There is no "official". Even the PoCC doesn't claim some kind of globally galactic Burst leadership. Yes, we do claim - for now - the technological leadership of Burst. We will equip the community with the best possible technologies so it can build great things upon them. Of course our claim is based on deeds. We expect to attract bright development capacities on our way to the top and other competent PoC dev teams may form that will compete with the PoCC.
We are not interested in operating some discussion forum. We are interested to give you things you can talk about.
We are not interested in operating casinos and gambling sites. For all we know BurstNation is doing that better.
We appreciate support, but we are in no need to build up any sort of fan community or Burst "fraction".
3) Future Perspective
The PoCC believes it can offer Burst - and therefore all community members - a future perspective. Being invested now in Burst means having a stake in what will become a globally relevant transaction and storage system.
We are in it for the long game and are not considerate of "investors" (observe the quotes) who hope for instant moon. We are working on a self-sustaining moon base and hope you will join us.
BurstNation (BN) can still have its place in the whole Burst community, but we hope BN officials can turn around and stop chasing the chimera of "ruling Burst" - because this will only cause making BN to implode or - best-case scenario - BN will become the North Korea of Burst.
The PoCC does not want this to happen. A great year 2018 awaits Burst. Everybody can be part of it.
sincerely,

 the PoC Consortium members 

P1 The sand was flying from the heels of Sara's combat boots as she jogged up to the top of the highest dune to get a better look. Her goggles were becoming heavily scratched as time went on. She needed a new pair to see further in the storm. Wind was howling and the sound became deafining if it managed to hit your eardrum just the right way. Sara could make out a smoke trail in the distance but couldn't tell which direction it was heading.
Dropping down to her knees she flipped open the flap on her denim backpack and shuffled through the contents for a pair of small binoculars. The directions of the winds were changing. She would use the swirling masses of dust to cover her as she peered out from atop the dune.
As she adjusted the lens she began to make out the racing stripes on the side of the dune buggy coming towards her. Her heart sank for a moment as she looked deeper through the dusty wind tunnels. No sign of the second car.
Snapping back to her backpack she retrieved a single flair gun and shot it high into the sky. The sandy sky lit up with red fire and the dune buggy jerked it's aim towards the origin of the flair. A few minutes later the buggy reached the peak and four soldiers flooded from all sides. Sara ran toward them desperate for answers and angry for all the time they kept her waiting for their return.
"Where are they?" she snarled at the men. "Where is Captain Harris and the rest of Team 6?"
The soldiers assembled to begin answering the bombardment of questions. Sargent Jenner spoke up first, hoping to take the heat off of the rest of the team. They had just drove through a minefield, exploding with bloody bits and raining body parts.
"We separated just before we reached Miller Bridge. Captain Harris's team was funneled into the canyon by a pack of rogues. We lost radio connection less than a mile out but we believe they are hiding out in storm."
"How could you leave them out there?" she barked back at the restless soldiers. Fear swelled up inside of her as quickly as a sand storm can form. Fear had become a common emotion yet Sara had been lucky in the past few weeks to learn to keep her fear in check. Only allowing it to surface when she could no longer contain it. Fear would get you killed, emotion would lead to heartache.
"They're going to make it out," another, lower ranked soldier butted in.
Sargent Jenner shoved the young blood back a few steps in attempt to silence his interruption. The youngster pushed back and ultimately broke through his superiors grasp.
"We have to trust that they will make it out of this storm and meet us back at base." He continued.
Sara noticed this newbies name tag read "Brooks". He had no other distinguishing symbols on his canvas vest yet his disrespectful interuption sounded like a leader in the making. Assertive yet lacking in tact. Sara feared this could however lead to his untimely demise. Now was not the time to contemplate the reason behind this soldiers outburst but it was true that team 6 was more than capable of outlasting a sandstorm of this size.
"Well send out a search group tonight after the wind dies down. They should make it back before then. If not, we'll look for them then." Sargent Jenner reassured Sara of their intentions and convinced her to wait on the team.
P2
Base camp was a reinforced military training camp in the heart of the Nevada desert. Not everyone living there were original members of the squadron. Many of the remaining survivors were flown in or bussed in from surrounding transit hubs. At first the population topped 1,500 survivors crammed into 9 bunkers, 3 common areas, and 15 airplane hangers. Space was tight. There were only 600 mattresses and a food supply to sustain those 600 people for a few months.
Six months have passed since the outbreak and casualties have been part of the process. The rogues hit the camp with stolen weapons smuggled out from secret moles that snuck in among groups of refugees. With one massive show of force against a distracted and unsuspecting military base the rogues were able to take out about a third of the population; strong and weak alike.
The undead have also left their mark on the survivors. There was a lot to learn about the disease in the early days. Without properly disposing of the bodies, reanimation became a problem. Hoards of undead flesh eaters could travel for miles across the desert and would occasionally pile up at the fences. They were also hard to spot in a sandstorm. The particles tore at the rotting flesh and left the corpses ripped and tattered. This would slow them, but didn't seem to stop them.
Sara was among one of the groups bussed in from Las Vegas. She was a dancer and an athlete. She had a 4.0 GPA in highschool but dropped out of the dance academy when her mother disappeared with her abusive boyfriend. Sara spent the next few years pouring her heartache into her training. She grew stronger. And then the disease started to spread.
The undead began to take over the city, consuming anyone and anything that got close enough to them. Sara had her share of close calls. The city of Las Vegas was a breeding ground for the virus in the first few weeks. The virus spread faster than anyone could have imagined. Many luxury hotel guests were trapped in their suites for days. When they came out to resupply they would be picked off one by one. No-one was immune to the viciousness of the virus. The police force and the military started to quarantine survivors. Installing huge barricades around some of the largest buildings and hotels. Sara had fought her way to the MGM Grand where she once use to work at as a waitress. All alone she had managed to sneak past many of the undead. If she planned each move precisely, she could avoid any confrontations and outrun any minor aggressors. The streets were littered with bodies, blood poured into the sewers. As people tried to leave the city they were overwhelmed by the sheer number of the undead.
Once inside the extravagant hotel Sara was able to relax, if only for a short time. She met up with a few of her old coworker; showgirls, wait staff, and casino conartists. Jessie was a Nebraska implant. Her beautiful red hair and porcelain complexion landed her in the spotlight of a few major stage productions. She was an actress at heart but after a brief failure in Hollywood, she moved a second time, out to Vegas. Sara recognized her immediately while walking the endless hallways of the hotel. Jessie was leaned up against her suites door sobbing. Her beautiful red curls were strapped to the top of her head in a messy bun. Her shirt showed signs of a struggle, some blood stains and rips. Sara ran over to her, dodging the strangers also wandering the halls in mourning. Jesse recognized Sara's face as a friendly coworker and collapsed into her arms without speaking a word.
The next week was a blur of terror. The tight space and masses of people contributed to the spread of the disease within the hotel. No-one inside the city was safe. Soon the friends got word that the military was abandoning their posts and heading into the desert to seek asylum. The population of the hotel was starting to dwindle. People that were bitten would die and reanimate in the hotel. Many people committed suicide, some hanging themselves in their rooms while others were jumping from their windows and off of the roof. It was the "opt-out" movement. A time when the emotionally weak realized they wanted to die in their own way, not glaring into the decomposing face of the undead.
Sara, Jesse, and few other survivors made a plan to leave with the troops. Marshal was a bouncer, and a boxer. Jesse introduced Sara and Marshal and the trio began to formulate a scheme to get them and a handful of other survivors onto the trucks with the remaining soldiers. Blending in with the troops would be their ticket to safety. Marshal gathered a number of uniforms from different sources. Dead soldiers, abandoned military supply vehicles, and sneaking into officers hotel rooms to steal their uniforms. They had 7 uniforms all together. A few other staff members would be able to go with them. But there was still remaining task of actually making it onto the truck.
A few days later it was time. The military was packing up to leave when the survivors made their move. They gathered outside of the hotel and scouted put which truck had the most space for their group. As they made their way across the airid parking lot they heard glass beginning to shatter above them and fall to the street. Soldiers began to scurry and shout out commands. Then the bodies began falling. Undead bodies, soaring through the air from the 8th or 9th floor. The quarantined floor. Gunshots started ringing out as soldiers were taking out the surviving corpses that mostly crawled out from the glass. There were about 50 corpses flooding from the broken window. Sara looked up just as a reanimated corpse landed on a nearby soldier. Instinctively she ran over to the clump of flesh and kicked it off of the soldier. The troops quickly retreated. The soldier Sara rescued grabbed her by the hand and jerked her into the back of a canvas truck. She screamed out for her friends who ran to join her as the trucks headed out for their desert asylum.
P3.
The journey into the desert took a few days. Complications and inconveniences kept arising causing the caravan to slow down and veer off course. Sara, Jessie, and Marshal advised their undercover comrades to stay in character as long as possible, or risk being found out and killed. Or worse, left to die in the desert.
The disguises worked, the team could blend in with the troops as long as they kept quiet and attempted to follow orders that were given to them.
Once the caravan finally arrived inside the compound the three friends continued to ride out their plan. The first few weeks were hard. The local government was beginning to fall into anarchy as the virus spread through the country. The soldiers became hostile towards eachother and greedy for any new power positions that became available after the death of a fellow soldier. Sara and her team remained quiet, only talking among themselves about the future of their alliance.
"They're going to destroy each other and we'll be laughing our asses off while we wait for the dust to settle." Marshall had grown leery of of their militant saviors. Some of the soldiers have been stealing supplies and only sharing it with supporters of their own self promotion.
"I'm not sure it's laughable," Sara replied. "We've needed them to get us this far. We couldn't have survived without them and I'm worried that we will be forced to face that ugly truth once they abandon us yet again."
"We don't need them anymore, Sara. Not really. I'm ready to drop the charade. We've learned a lot from them but it's about time we cut ourselves loose from this game. This place is going to implode, and we shouldn't be here when it does. Even if it means giving up out sanctum." Marshal saw a light at the end of the tunnel but still lacked a concrete plan to keep them alive.
"We have nowhere else to go. We are in the middle of a desert surrounded by decomposing corpses that want to eat our hearts out. Do you think we're going to find shelter out there? Do you think a Quick-E-Mart is just going to appear in the sand, like an oasis? And we'll just live in there forever, happily ever after? Face it, we're stuck here for the foreseeable future. We have weapons and food, and respect as soldiers, even if we are the worst of the worst. Our skills are improving and we've made new allies. We can't give up and just take off into the desert. The heat alone could kill us. And we'll be just another undead flesh eater." Sara didn't trust the remaining soldiers but could appreciate her odds of survival if she could convince Marshal to relax and ride out this wave. The time would come to make a change but not until the group was unanimously prepared.
Marshall stormed off towards the armory where he had been assigned duty. He wasn't changing his mind so easily.
Sara went in the opposite direction, to find Jesse in the cafeteria. It was lunch time and the girls always met up for the occasion."What's for lunch" Sara plopped down on a bench seat next to Jesse. "Green beans and collars greens again? At least our colons will be squeaky clean for the dead when they eat us whole." Sara smirked but it made Jesse a little queasy. "Marshall's wanting to leave again. He doesn't get it. We have it made here, for now at least."
"Don't jinx us Sara." Jesse pushed her plate of greens to the side and looked into Sara's eyes. "I agree with you but Marshall senses something we don't. He thinks we can survive, or find a new place to resettle if we leave the troops behind. But that will make us deserters."
"We're not real soldiers. I'm not even sure the rest of the troops are real soldiers either. With the confusion and disorganization, who says we're the only ones smart enough to infiltrate the military. Besides, I'm glad you're on my team about this. I can't lose you guys, we've come too far together."
The next few months worked out in favor of the team. The instability among the troops had weeded out the weak and many of the greedy soldiers were exiled from the camp. Sara had gained the trust of Sargent Jenner, the soldier she rescued from the falling dead. He had made her Commander and put her in charge of organizing scavenging and rescue mission. Her skills grew exponentially once the turmoil settled and she began training with the troop leaders. Marshall became a crucial member of security. He guarded the armory with diligence and supervised most of the West Gate patrols. Jesse had remained low key in her own way. She was quiet, and not very strong. It was quite obvious that some people had grown suspicious of her and her role in what was left of the military. She took up gardening as her trade and was quite happy to be in the sun, creating life, and helping feed the survivors. If she ignored the stares and subtle interrogation she could happily tend to her plants and most doubters would become distracted by the next thing on their list.
P4 The next thing on Sara's list was to get Team 6 back to base camp. The sun was setting on the horizon and the wind has settled to a low growl.
"I want to know everything that happened out there leading up to Team 6 being trapped in the cavern." Sara scowled at Sargent Jenner. Her authority hadn't necessarily given her a big head, but it boosted her confidence in ways she had never expected. It was her responsibility to make sure these missions were executed with precision and safety in mind. She had to appear in control or more people were destined to die.