The Long-Awaited Return of a Completely Different Book

[Roundy, The Great Communicator of Truthiness]

PROLOGUE

Chris Candelo sat staring at the screen, horror slowly dawning on him.  He had been writing "The Book" for months now, and never thought he would get writer's block.  Come on, Chris, everyone's counting on you, he thought, think of something.  But nothing could come to him, the fresh ideas he had been building on since the beginning had run dry, and now he felt like he was just spinning his wheels.  He almost wanted to cry.  They were all demanding "moar"!  Moar moar moar!  The bastards.  Didn't they know how delicate the creative process is?  Didn't they understand that sometimes you just can't think of any moar, and have to give it time?  But they all loved him for "The Book" and he didn't want to let them down.  He cracked his knuckles and started typing.

Dann sleepily looked outside the Lazarev and almost did a double-take.  Out there, in the blinding snow, was what appeared to be a clown shaping a balloon animal.  He rubbed his eyes and looked again, and the clown was still there, closer now, trying to hand him a giraffe...


Oh God, had it really come to this?  Why can't a plane just fall on your house when you need it?

No sooner had the thought formed than he heard a whistling outside in the still night air that got steadily louder.  And before Chris knew it, or was able to react, or was able to appreciate the irony, a missile hit his house.  He, his family, and most of his neighborhood were obliterated instantly.

This is not his story.
*********************************************************

Daniel Mayweather watched the screen from his elegant Bristol flat with little interest.  Something about a terrorist attack in Birmingham.  Who cares about Birmingham?  He mused that if the terrorists destroyed Birmingham completely it would be a win for the good guys.

God he hated Birmingham.

The newswoman was speaking on the screen.  "...and now, for the surviving residents of Sunnyside Valley, what few there are, there is nothing left but to try to pick up the pieces.  I'm Tovah Chicklet-Pu, reporting for BBC News."

Something about that last bit made Daniel sit bolt-upright.  It was definitely familiar.  He went to his computer, opened his database, and typed in the search field " 'Sunnyside Valley' + 'Birmingham' + 'Flat Earth' ".  Within a second of hitting the enter key the file popped up.  There he was, Chris Candelo, seventeen years old, senior at South Birmingham Upper School.  Father Bertram Candelo, mother Candy Candelo, nee Barr, brothers named Charles and Matthew.  All dead now, Daniel assumed.  He shuddered, a feeling washing over him like his internal temperature had dropped ten degrees in an instant, starting right at the base of his spine.

Poor Chrisetti.

The red phone.  It was time to use it.  He picked up the receiver and hit the pound sign.

"Thomas Bishop," the gruff voice on the other end said.

"Mr Bishop, I'm afraid we've had an incident," Daniel said as calmly as he could.

[Roundy, The Great Communicator of Truthiness]

Chapter 1: Unfriendly Visits

Jacob Blixter sat on the couch, watching South Park on TV.  It was another boring night, home alone, nothing much to do.  His parents were out, his sister was on a date, all his friends had plans... he sighed.  Sometimes it seemed like his friends all had plans on the same night a lot, as if they were together and conspiring to exclude Jacob.  He knew he was being paranoid, of course, and that in reality he rarely found himself in this situation, but on a lonely night like this he found it easy to let his insecurities get the best of him.  Not having a girlfriend didn't help matters, of course. 

If only there was some excitement in his life, something to remind him that he was, in fact, still alive...

He sighed again, a much deeper and heavier sigh than the first.  He wondered quietly how loud a sigh could be before it stopped technically being a sigh.  It gave him something to think about as he leaned over on the table and stuffed some of the broken-up pot he had there into his bowl, an exotic dragon-shaped bowl he had picked up at a flea market.  He grabbed his lighter, exhaled deeply, held the end of the bowl up to his mouth, and lit it, inhaling as deeply as he could.  He held it in for a few seconds before exhaling deeply.  A couple more hits like this and he was feeling rather calm, a sheepish grin growing on his face as he watched Cartman on the idiot box.

"Marijuana, you're my only real friend," he said aloud, then laughed, both at the sentiment and at the fact that he had uttered it aloud.

There was a knock at the door.  Oh shit, he thought, and frantically stuffed the bowl into his pocket.  He then gathered all the pot that was on the table (it wasn't that much, thankfully) and swept it into the baggie he had gotten it out of, and he stuffed this into his pocket as well.  There was another knock, louder this time.  "Just a minute!"  he yelled, terribly nervous.  What if it was the cops?  He knew this was a ridiculous thing to think, but once again paranoia was getting the better of him (the weed only aided this feeling) and he was extremely nervous.

Come to think of it, it was after ten PM.  Who could this be at this hour?

He ran to the door and looked through the spyhole.  There were just a couple guys there, both nearly identical with their short-cropped black hair, in their black suits and black sunglasses.

Sunglasses?

"Who is that?" he said through the door.

"Open the door," was the only response.

"What if I don't?"  And now Jacob was really anxious.  What the hell was going on?

They didn't answer.  Instead Jacob heard a low buzzing outside as the door vibrated.  The knob turned.  And the door was open.

"Mr Ireland?" the one on the left said.  Jacob was shell-shocked.  He saw that the one who wasn't speaking was holding a gun.

"H-h-how did you know--" was all he got out before the one on the left started speaking again.  Mr Ireland was a handle he used on an internet forum, how could they know?

"Mr Ireland, that's not important.  You need to come with us."
***************************************************

In the small town of Bofunk, Texas, a young man was in his studio, mixing electronic music.  It was his greatest passion; that, and imposing his mental superiority over others.  He was laying down the rhythm for what he hoped would be his masterpiece, a sweeping, hardcore trance ditty entitled "The Machine Owns the Machine".  That title may sound nonsensical to those unequipped to understand the mind of a genius, but it had multiple layered meanings that most people wouldn't comprehend, which enticed one such as he.  He had gone by many names and had practiced many disciplines in his short twenty-eight years on the planet.  His most common non de plume was Midnight.  His real name was Boris Tarasov.  And he was dedicated not only to pumping out mesmerizing beats but also to getting the truth out to the world, before it was too late.  His biggest fear was that that time had passed.

"Hon?" his wife Katrina called down to him.

"What is it?  I'm working," he responded impatiently.

"I know you're busy and I wouldn't bother you, but there are some people at the door.  They say it's important."

"Who are they?"

"I'm not sure but I think they're from the government."

That piqued Boris' interest.  "Why do you think that?"

"Can you just please come up here?" she called back, far more nervously now, clear urgency in her voice.

"Yeah, I'll be right up," Boris responded.

Boris walked upstairs and through the kitchen into their living room, where he found his wife being held at gunpoint.

"What the fuck?" Boris said.  He was stunned by the scene before him and quickly trying to figure out what his move should be.

"Relax, Midnight, we're not going to hurt you," one of them said.  "But we know your type and we knew it would take some cajoling for you to cooperate."

"What the fuck are you, the men in black?" Boris said.

The one who spoke before chuckled.  Now both were holding guns, one aimed at Boris and one at Katrina.  "Midnight, you need to come with us."

"How do you know that name?  I've covered my tracks so well..."

"Rest assured, we know a great deal about you.  Like I said, we're not going to hurt you or your wife, but you both need to come with us."

"What if we refuse?" Boris said.  "I want to know who you are."

"We are representatives of a group with which you have close contact, and we are allies.  That's all I'm at liberty to say at the moment."

"Boris, dear, I think we should just do what they say," Katrina said.
***********************************************

"Masterchief2219, you need to come with us," the one on the left said.

At that moment Chuck Cheeseman didn't care that they knew his common internet screen name.  In fact, he found it flattering.  But his mind was occupied by the World of Warcraft campaign he was trying to run.  His group was trying to kill the Dragon of Elishomem and he was their shaman (60th level), which made his presence absolutely necessary for their success.  "Look, fellas, I'm awful busy, but maybe if you come back in half an hour--" he said as he quietly started shutting the door.  Then the one on the right produced a gun while the one on the left said, "I'm afraid time is of the essence.  We don't want to hurt you.  Just come quietly and we won't have to use force."

"Who the fuck are you to threaten me?" Chuck replied, but inside he was so scared it was all he could do to keep from wetting himself.  What was going on?

"I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to discuss that at this moment, but suffice it to say I work for a group with which you are intimately connected.  Your life is in great danger.  Just come with us."

"I guess I don't have a choice," he said, and was led out at gunpoint to the backseat of a nondescript black Ford Taurus.  The other two got in the front and he saw immediately that there were no locks on the back doors and there was a cage separating the front and back of the car.

"Fasten your seatbelt," the one behind the driving wheel said, the one who had been speaking all along.  Chuck did, and that was the last thing he remembered before waking up.
*******************************************

Over a space of twenty-four hours some forty people were abducted, mostly in similar fashion.  Some were ridiculously easy to get.  In the mountains of Colorado Brian and Kimmy Popper, also known as Trekky0623 and Muffz, were quickly snatched up while walking from their schoolbus to their house.  In Finland, Debbie Dallas, also known as General Gayer (at times), was taken off her university grounds.  Several were abducted in England, among them Jeffrey Stottlemyer, who was greeted as Kasroa.  In Australia they took Mark Bartlett, also known as quixotic.

Most were met on their doorsteps much like Jacob, Boris, and Chuck had been.  Few put up much of a fight, knowing that a gun in their faces kind of forced their hands.

The most notable exception to this rule was one Emily duBois.  Like many, she looked out her spyhole and saw the two men in the suits.  Instinctively, she sensed some kind of trouble.  "Just a minute," she said in a singsong voice as she walked to her desk, opened the drawer, and pulled out her Raven Arms MP-25.  She lived alone out in the country and a girl can't be too careful.  Then she glided back over to the door, cocking the hammer and concealing it in her robe as she did so.  Tentatively she opened the door.

"Can I help you?" she said, not betraying a hint of nervousness.

"Mrs Peach, you need to come with us," the one on the left said.  Emily noticed the one on the right reach into her pocket and immediately produced the pistol, which she aimed directly at him.

"Hold it right there," she said.  "Pull that out and you're a dead man."  She was curious about how they knew that name she only ever used while logged onto an obscure internet forum but figured there would come a natural time for asking questions.

The man on the left sighed.  "Mrs Peach, please don't do this."

"That depends on him," she said.  "And on you, too, I suppose."  She was eying them both as she spoke.  "Now, both of you, put your hands up in the air."

"Mrs Peach, we know you're not a killer," the man on the left said.  Doesn't the other guy ever speak? Emily thought.

"Certainly not without good reason," Emily responded.  "Now, who are you?  And how do you know that name?"

"We are representatives of the Flat Earth Society, Mrs Peach.  Your life is in danger and we're the furthest thing from a threat you could imagine."

She believed him about the first part.  She had long suspected that there was such an actual active organization even though evidence on the forums and from the research she had done seemed to indicate otherwise.  She wasn't so sure about the second part though.  FES seemed to be a group of lunatics.  How could anyone in this day and age possibly believe the earth to be flat?

"Why should I believe you?" she asked, still fishing for information.  The man on the left opened his mouth to reply and just as he did so the man on the right brought his left hand down in a swift motion on the hand in which she was holding the gun, causing it to fall to the floor.  It was a risky maneuvre but one he had been trained to handle with efficiency.  "You fucker!" Emily screamed as he reached into his pocket with left hand, pulled out the gun, and cocked the hammer, aiming it directly at Emily's face.

"We don't want to hurt you," the one on the left said almost conversationally, which scared her.  Usually when someone said they didn't want to hurt you while aiming a gun at your face they meant exactly the opposite, she supposed.  But what could she do now?

"Okay," she said coolly.  In her mind she was terrified but that didn't translate to her face.  "I guess I'm yours."

[Roundy, The Great Communicator of Truthiness]

Chapter 2: Waking Up Is Hard To Do

There was a jackhammer going off in Chuck's head and there were beetles crawling around in his stomach.  He was extremely disoriented and had no idea where he was.  Was I drinking last night? he thought painfully.  Grudgingly, he opened his eyes and saw stars.  Then when they cleared, darkness.  Total, absolute darkness.

He was lying in a cot.  He could feel the thin mattress beneath him and the metal bars underneath it lightly digging into his back.  He was lying in a cot and that didn't really make much sense.  The last thing he remembered was playing World of Warcraft.

He didn't want to sit up.  He wanted to just keep lying there until the pain went away.  Just keep lying there and try to figure out what the fuck was going on.  Then it hit him like a sock full of rocks.  He had been playing World of Warcraft and there had been a knock at the door.  Two men dressed like extras from Men in Black were standing there.  One was holding a gun at him.  They wanted him to go with them, and realizing he had no choice he had accommodated them.

They called me Masterchief2219, he thought, and for the first time the true weirdness of this fact dawned on him.

He heard movement above him.  It was still pitch-black in the room and he could still not see anything but he realized he was in some kind of military-style bunk bed.  "Who's up there?" he demanded.  There was no answer but a low moan at first.

"What's going on?" the male voice above him said groggily.

"I was hoping you could tell me," Chuck replied.

"Jesus, I feel like I drank a whole bottle of tequila last night and ate the worm."  He heard the figure above him sit up and get out of the cot.  "Ow," the guy said.

"I think we were kidnapped," Chuck said.

"Kidnapped?" the other guy said.  "Oh, that's right.  The guy who took me called me Diego Draw."

"Diego?" Chuck said, eyes wide.  "Is that really you?"

"No, it's Mary fucking Poppins.  Who the fuck's asking?"

Yep, it was Diego, all right.  Things were starting to come together for Chuck.  "I'm Masterchief."

"No shit," Diego said.  Chuck could hear the smirk in his voice.  "Do you think the Conspiracy finally got to us?"

[Roundy, The Great Communicator of Truthiness]

Chapter 3: Hi, My Name Is Tom Bishop

All around the complex, they'd be waking up about now.  Confused and disoriented.  Daniel was truly sorry he had to put them all through that.  But it was the only way he could get them all together without compromising the Flat Earth Society's security.  And getting them all together was essential.  Absolutely essential.  Even though a couple could not be found, the plan wouldn't work without most of the forum's members.

A gray-haired gentleman wearing a suit and glasses walked into the office.  "Daniel, it's time," he said.
********************************************************

Boris woke up much like Chuck had, much like they all had.  Dark room, lying in a cot, darkness, confusion, disorientation, etc.  He got right up despite the pain and climbed out of the cot.  Walking was a bit of a chore, especially in the dark, but he managed to stagger his way over to the far wall.  He felt along the wall until he found a door.  Locked, of course.  He fumbled a bit longer and managed to find a lightswitch.  He flipped it up and brilliant white fluorescent light flooded the room.  Boris found himself momentarily blind and the headache really came on full-force.

He looked back over at the cot.  Standard military bunkbeds.  In the bottom bunk his wife was still sleeping, her breathing a bit laborious, and Boris breathed a sigh of relief that she was there and okay.  He went over to her.

"Honey, wake up," he said softly while gently nudging at her shoulder.

"Mmph.  Hit the snooze button," Katrina said sleepily.  "I have a killer headache."

"I know, me too.  Honey, we're not in Kansas anymore."

Lazily Katrina opened her eyes.  She squinted as her vision came into focus.  Two Borises... ah, there it was, one Boris.  But where were they?  She panicked upon realizing that the surroundings were unfamiliar and sat up abruptly.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Kat, we were kidnapped."

"Huh?" she was still half-asleep, despite being filled with dread.  Boris sat down and massaged her shoulders.

"I don't know where we are now, but we were kidnapped last night," he repeated for emphasis.  At least, I think it was last night, he thought.  "Don't panic."

"How can you say not to panic?  Jesus Christ, what's going on?"  And then she remembered.  "He called you Midnight," she whispered.

"That's right.  Look, they said they weren't going to hurt us, so I think it's in our best interests to just keep calm until we know more."

"Do you really trust them?  Whoever they are?"

Boris wanted desperately to lie, but he couldn't do that.  "No," he said softly.  "But at the moment I don't think we have a choice."

Katrina was terrified.  If Boris had been anybody else she would have been shocked that he wasn't terrified.  Maybe he was terrified and was hiding it for her sake.  But he always was the sensible one and he never did scare easily.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Boris caressing his wife's shoulders and back.  Trying to comfort her.  After a few moments there was a loud clicking sound coming from the door.  Immediately, Boris got up to try the knob again.  It turned freely and he opened the door.

He looked back at his wife, who was now in much better shape.  Then he looked out the door, seeing a wide hallway lined with doors.  Slowly, other people began shuffling out into the hall.

There was a screeching sound, and then a loud voice boomed out of a speaker inside the room.  "WALK DOWN THE HALLWAY," it said.  "FOLLOW THE ROOM NUMBERS IN DECREASING ORDER.  THEN TURN LEFT AND WALK DOWN THAT WAY."

"I think it's time to go," Boris said to his wife.

"But why?  Why should we do what they say?  They held a gun on us, Boris!"  She was panicking.

"Do you think we have a choice?" he asked her.  He had a desperate look on his face and immediately she realized that he was scared.  She was certain of it.  He had a good poker face but there wasn't much in the way of emotion he could hide from her.  He was scared and concerned, no doubt more for her than for himself.  Katrina got up and walked out of the room with her husband, arm around his waist.
*******************************************************

Emily and Debbie emerged from a room about halfway down the hall from Boris and Katrina.  Despite the circumstances they had actually been delighted to meet each other once they realized who each other was.  "Mrs Peach and General Gayer, together for the first time," Debbie had said with a smile.

They walked down the hall to the end, then turned left as the voice had commanded.  All around them were faces that were completely unfamiliar, but Emily was sure she knew them all.  She had just never met them face-to-face.

"So we've been kidnapped by the Flat Earth Society," Debbie said as they walked.  "Lovely."

"I have to admit, I don't trust these people as far as I can throw them, but I'm curious as to what this is all about," Emily replied.

"Oh, me too," Debbie said.  "I just hope we're not being led into a gas chamber or something."

Towards the end of the hall two men in black outfits stood.  The one on the left instructed each person to join the line that had formed before a big set of double wooden doors.

"Fuck you," someone screamed at them.  He appeared to be about sixteen years old and looked like a nasty little cuss.  "I want to know what the fuck is going on right now, you fucking dog-raping, shit-eating asshounds."

The one on the right reached into his pocket and pulled out a small device that Emily recognized as a taser.  "That's quite enough," the one on the left said as the other reached out and sent a strong electric current ripping through the kid's body.  The kid screamed and shook with convulsions before landing hard on the floor.

"We don't want to hurt anybody," the one on the left said.  "If you don't want to join Jesus Jones on the floor, please just follow our directions."

Emily was sure they were armed with more lethal weapons.  She would have bet on it.  "We better do what they say," she said.  Debbie, wide-eyed, nodded agreement and together they joined the line, behind two young kids, a boy of about fourteen and a girl of about twelve, who were bickering.

"Trekky?  Muffz?" she said and they both turned around.

"Yeah," the boy said.  "What's going on?  How did you know who we are?"

"It wasn't hard to figure out, love," Debbie said.  "I don't think there are many low-teens brother and sister pairs in FES.  Even I could tell and truth be told I'm not all that bright."

"FES?  Are you saying this has something to do with the Flat Earth Society?"

"I told you," the girl said, a broad grin on her face. 

"Shut up," the boy said.  "So who are you?"

"I'm General Gayer, and the lovely lady standing beside me is Mrs Peach."

"He was scared," the girl said, giggling.  "He was all 'Mommy, Daddy, what's going on?' when he woke up."  As she mimicked her brother she put on a voice that was even higher-pitched than her own.

The boy hit her.  "Shut up, that's not true.  You were the one that was crying."

"Nuh-uh.  You're not allowed to hit me.  I'm gonna tell Mom and Dad when we get back home."

Emily was astounded.  At once she missed her youth.  Only a child could be facing such circumstances and be thinking about tattling on her brother.  She couldn't help but grin.

They quickly made their way through the line.  Just before the double doors there was a foldout table set up with a smiling woman sitting behind it.  She had long blonde hair and a perky disposition that went right along with her pert, pointy breasts.  She was giving each person who reached the front of the line a name tag.  She was wearing one herself that said "Hi, My Name Is Ubuntu".

"Hi, welcome to the Flat Earth Society Emergency Conference," she said brightly as Emily reached the front of the line.  "I'm Ubuntu.  And your FES name is?"

"Mrs Peach," she said.  Ubuntu shuffled through the name tags.  "Ah, here it is!" she said, and handed Emily a name tag that said "Hi, My Name Is Mrs Peach".  "Everybody needs to wear one of these at the meeting," Ubuntu said.  "And your FES name is?" she said to Debbie.

"Erm, General Gayer," Debbie said.  Ubuntu found the appropriate name tag and handed it to her.  She took it and put it on.  "You know, I always thought you were a dude," Debbie said.

"That's funny.  I thought the same thing about you," Ubuntu responded with a smile.

They walked through the double doors and into a large gymnasium.  Dotting the walls now and then were more of those men in black.  At the opposite end of the gymnasium was a stage.  Of course! Emily thought.  This is a school!

Once everybody was in, the huge double doors swung shut.  Four men walked out on the stage, escorted by two more of those men in black.  By their name tags Emily identified them as Dogplatter (the squat, older one), The Engineer (the short, nerdy-looking guy), Dysfunction (the long-haired young guy)... and Tom Bishop.  In the flesh.  There was no longer any question in her (or anybody else's) mind about whether the picture in his avatar was really him; she was surprised to find that indeed it was.

Tom Bishop walked up to the podium.  At once the low murmur that had enveloped the room died down.  He started to speak into the microphone.  "Hi, my name is Tom Bishop," he said.  "We at the International Flat Earth Society apologize deeply for the way we gathered you all here but I want you to understand that we're all in mortal danger.  This was the only way we could get you all together without compromising our security.  Again, terribly sorry about kidnapping, drugging, and locking all of you up."  He paused for a moment, expecting a lot of shouting, and was surprised that there was none.  "I have an announcement to make that is sure to shock the socks off of all of you," he said.

[Roundy, The Great Communicator of Truthiness]

Chapter 4: The Announcement

"The earth is actually flat," Tom Bishop said.  He paused to let the gravity of this statement sink in.

"Well, no shit," Diego piped up.  "That's the same line you've been feeding us from day one.  Seriously, that's your announcement?"

"Well, more or less," Tom said.  "The fact is that contrary to what you've read we can actually prove it beyond a shadow of doubt."

"Impossible," someone whose name tag identified him as Physics101 said.

"Oh, I assure you it's true," said Tom.

"How?" someone else identified as Taters343 asked.

"In due time," Tom replied.  "First, I'd like to take a roll call, just to make sure we're all here."  Tom fidgeted with the paper on the podium in front of him and cleared his throat.  "Er -- bracket bracket, bracket bracket, bracket bracket?"

"Here," someone said from amidst the group.

"Althalus?"

"Here," a young man with shocking white hair called out from around the edge.  And down the list Tom went.  Nobody in the room decided to challenge the logic of what was being offered them and each responded in the affirmative when his or her name was called.  This continued until Tom got to Raist, at which there was silence.  Then a couple names down the list another name was met with silence when Tom called out for Theonlydann.  After he got through the list he asked if anybody had any idea where the two missing persons were.

"I think I saw a couple in a dark room out off the hall," a pretty young blonde replied.  It was Space Cowgirl.

"Oh, great," Tom replied.  He turned back to the others on the stage.  "Whose bright idea was it to put them in the same room?" he asked them sternly.

"We didn't," The Engineer replied evenly.  "We only had two coed rooms - one for Midnight and his wife and one for Trekky and Muffz."

"Oh, that's right," Tom said.  He chuckled.  "They must have met quickly and just snuck off.  Guards, two of you go to retrieve them," Tom said.

"Wait a minute," someone at the front - it was Divito - said.  "What do you mean coed?  Are you saying that one of them is a girl?"

Tom smirked.  "Just one of many surprises in store for you all today.  Indeed, Raist is a chick."  There was a roar of laughter.  "I always suspected," General Gayer said, amused as the rest of the group.

"I have a couple questions," Midnight asked as they waited for Raist and Theonlydann to show up.  "Why are you referring to us by our FES names?  You know our real names, why not just use them?"

"We thought it would be easier to identify everybody by the names we were most familiar with.  In fact, I suggest that from now on you all refer to each other strictly by your FES names so as to avoid confusion."  There was a general murmur of agreement among the group.

"Fair enough," Midnight said.  "I also noticed that there were some names missing from that group.  Where's Lord Z?"

Tom crinkled his nose.  "He's about," he said.

"What about Roundy?" General Gayer cut in.  "Where is he?"

"We really did our best to track you all down," Tom said.  "The fact is, there were a handful we just couldn't find.  Roundy was one of them.  No need to necessarily fear the worst, but we do."  There was general shock among the crowd.

"Some others were plants by the Conspiracy.  A couple already work for us and you will meet them in due time.  And we've already suffered at least one casualty."  Tom paused and bowed his head.  "I'm afraid Chrissetti was killed before he ever even got a chance to join us."

"Chris Spaghetti?" Gayer asked, nearly in tears.

"That's right," Tom said solemnly.  "I promise you all, if we had known the conspiracy would strike when it did we would have held this conference sooner."

A couple walked in at that moment.  The guy was in his mid-twenties, tall, slightly overweight, hairy everywhere except his head, and tattooed.  The girl was short and slim, in her very early twenties, with ample breasts and long brown hair.  Both looked particularly disheveled, even for this tired and weary group (all of whom had just woken up less than an hour before), and the girl seemed slightly embarrassed.  The guy was just beaming.

"I'm glad you two walked in, you should all hear this," Tom said.  "Everyone in this room has a target on his head, and only by working together can we eliminate the threat."

"No shit," Theonlydann said.  "I like pie."
**********************************************************

"Okay," Midnight said.  "Are you going to tell us exactly what the fuck is going on, or what?"

"I think perhaps it's best we start from the beginning," Tom replied.  "I'm sure most of you know the history of the International Flat Earth Society and of Flat Earth Theory.  Just as a refresher, it was founded a bit more than fifty years ago by a man named Samuel Shenton.  Shenton died in 1971 and the presidency of the society was passed down to Charles K Johnson."

"Who was a religious nutjob," Kasroa interrupted.

"Perhaps," Tom said.  "Although we tend to play it down because it's a bit embarrassing to most of us, the origins of the society do lie in a literal interpretation of the Bible.  When Samuel Rowbotham set out to discover the true shape of the earth about a century and a half ago, that was certainly at the forefront of his mind.  He knew he needed scientific evidence to really convince the world of the truth.  Hence what is perhaps the greatest scientific masterpiece of modern times, the monumental Earth Not a Globe.  In it he recorded several experiments that proved that the surface of standing water could not be convex, which for years was the only real evidence the Flat Earth Society had in its favor.  Using logical deduction he was able to work out how our observations that seem to contradict Flat Earth Theory come about.  As it happens, he was right about most of what he said.

"But back to Charles K Johnson.  As again most of you know, he maintained the most comprehensive library of flat earth literature ever assembled.  And that body of literature was destroyed in a fire.  That fire also destroyed the Society's membership list, and his particular iteration of the Flat Earth Society was all but dead.  It never recovered, and when Johnson died a few years later, the last trace of the society was gone."  He paused and took a sip of water.

"Gone, that is, except for one Reginald Rutherford, who had been a member of the Society.  Rutherford suspected something was amiss with the fire, and knew that if he could provide a link between the fire and the Conspiracy it would go a long way toward proving Flat Earth Theory.  He began investigating the ruins of the fire and the circumstances surrounding it.  Early in his investigations he found that there had been an arson inquiry opened up, but it had been shut down rather quickly due to lack of evidence.  He went to interview the Lancaster, CA police chief, who essentially gave him the run-around.  Rutherford gave him his card and left.  Two days later he received a call from another officer who had been working on the case, saying he found Rutherford's card in the police chief's wastebasket.  This fellow, Jerry Mather, communicated his opinion that the investigation had ended much too abruptly, and that he himself had strongly suspected arson in the case.

"He also recalled that within a day of the case being opened the chief had had a meeting with a mysterious man who looked like a government agent, 'but didn't really act like one'.  The chief had spoken to him in private, and within minutes of his leaving the chief had emerged from his office, 'waxy-white, like he had seen a ghost', and announced that the arson inquiry was to be shut down.  Mather prodded the chief as to why, and the chief just rather angrily said 'We haven't found any evidence, and I don't think we will.'  Mather disagreed, but was powerless in the matter.  The investigation was over and the fire was ruled accidental.

"Rutherford asked if there was any evidence of arson, and Mather replied that he felt the house had clearly been broken into.  He also found a card with an unusual symbol on it which he described as 'a wire coiled around on itself above a ball', which neither Johnson nor his wife Marjorie recognized.  Unfortunately, all evidence in the case, including this card... just vanished.  Mather was always suspicious, and when Rutherford had gone to the police station, he felt a need to unload.

"Within a week, Mather and the chief had both vanished.  They had both gone missing and never turned up again.  About the day they vanished, Rutherford received a card in the mail.  It bore that unusual symbol that Mather had described and came with a note that said simply 'Stop'.  Now Rutherford was absolutely certain that the fire was a case of arson, and further that the Conspiracy was involved.  But scared for his life, his investigation froze."

"In 2004, Rutherford attended a lecture on conspiracy theories by Daniel Mayweather.  Mayweather was a university professor who was fascinated by conspiracy theories.  Rutherford needed to get his story out as it was virtually driving him insane.  Over drinks one night Rutherford told Mayweather the whole sequence of events I just related to you.  He also showed Mayweather the card, which he had always kept.  Mayweather was skeptical of Flat Earth Theory but agreed that something didn't seem right.  He did some research and found that the symbol on the card was actually linked to the Royal Astronomical Society in London.  It was an archaic insignia for their group.

"Excited by his discovery he called Rutherford to tell him about it, only to find that Rutherford had committed suicide the day after their meeting.  Now Mayweather was a bit scared for his own life, but after researching Flat Earth Theory he had come to the conclusion that perhaps there was something to it.  He secretly started amassing a collection of Flat Earth literature, and began the internet forums you are all familiar with.  He also started The Southwest England Flat Earth Society which would grow into what it is now, simply called the Flat Earth Society, though its official existence was kept a secret from the rest of the world.  Mayweather also regularly posts on the forums.  You know him as Dogplatter."

"Wait, so Dogplatter is actually Daniel?" a man in his early twenties whose name tag identified him as Hara Taiki said.

"Correct," Tom replied.  And with that he sat down behind the podium, replaced by Dogplatter.

"Hello," Dogplatter said.  "I'm going to pick things up from here.  You're probably all a bit incredulous now but please bear with us.  I knew that by restarting the Society I was putting myself and others in danger, so I did it all in secrecy.  That includes the forums, which are registered under a false name and maintained by proxy.  It's worked so far; the Conspiracy has not found me yet.  Or my Flat Earth Information Repository, which is where we are now.  In the library of this building is a body of literature and scientific study that rivals even Johnson's own.  But trust me that we're all safe here.

"I and the three men behind me represent the nucleus of the society.  We all serve our own functions within the group; I am president, and it is I who managed to track down the literature now located in the Information Repository.  Tom is my vice-president.  He joined with me before anyone else.  He personally duplicated all of Rowbotham's experiments and also conducted a few of his own that prove the shape of the earth.  The Engineer is my science officer, and he set himself to the task of discovering why all the evidence seems to point toward a round earth despite that not being the case.  He has actually made several important discoveries, the results of which are found in this building and nowhere else.  Finally, Dysfunction is my communications expert.  It's largely thanks to his efforts that we've been able to maintain the Society in the secrecy we have."

"What secrecy?" Mrs Peach asked.  "If what you say is true obviously the Conspiracy knows about your existence."

"That's true," Dogplatter responded.  "Somehow they know we exist.  But they do not know where we are, or who we are.  And they have no idea the body of evidence we've amassed.  Evidence that both proves the shape of the earth and damns the Conspiracy."

"So where do we come in?" Mr Ireland asked.

"Dysfunction?" Dogplatter said, and sat down, letting Dysfunction take over the mike.

"Greetings," he said.  "I don't want this to shock you, but your membership in the forums was not accidental.  We sought you out, we led you there, and each one of you has a talent that we consider useful to our agenda."

[Roundy, The Great Communicator of Truthiness]

Chapter 5: AS Inc

While the majority of the Flat Earth Society forums' members were being schooled about the group's past, Michael MacLugh was a bit busy.

Michael had begun working for AS Inc three years prior, when he was fresh out of college.  It was a rather large, though highly secretive company (Michael had suspected that it was government-owned at first) housed in a mid-sized office building in Edinburgh.  Michael worked in the computer-imaging department.

Michael discovered he was working for the Conspiracy quite by accident.  Indeed, most employees of the Conspiracy were in the dark about what it was they were actually doing, and few ever came to understand that they were actually responsible for the duping of the entire human race.  Michael was part of a group whose job was to create realistic images of objects in space, including images of the earth from space.  The reason why they created these images was never given; it was always a "top-secret project".  As long as Michael was getting a steady paycheck he didn't care and never questioned why he was doing his job. 

One day he was browsing the internet and he came across a photo of the earth from space on NASA's official website that was identical to one he had personally worked on.  He couldn't prove it, of course, as once an image was fully created and shipped to wherever it was going it and all traces of its development were erased from the database, which always struck Michael as odd.  He had gone to his boss about it, who assured him he had been mistaken.  But he knew better.  From that point on he began to keep an eye out for his images and had come across several in connection with NASA, the images passed off as real each time.  He felt a bit like Winston Smith, knowing that the public was being misinformed (though still not understanding why) and feeling like he was partially responsible for it.  But after that first discussion with his boss he had kept mum about it.  He didn't know why but felt it might be dangerous to try to look into it further.

Then, also by accident, he had come across The Flat Earth Society.  Intrigued, he browsed the forums and discovered that part of Flat Earth Theory was this idea of a Conspiracy perpetuated by NASA and other worldwide space organizations that hid the true shape of the earth from the world.  The connection in his mind was immediate.  He registered for the forums, then sent the forum's administrator, Daniel, an e-mail about his own experiences.

Within an hour of doing so Daniel actually called him up on the phone, which really struck him as odd at the time, and told him to never post anything about it or e-mail him about it again.  Daniel told him that the Conspiracy was very dangerous and that people had disappeared for getting too close to the truth in the past.  Michael had asked if he was serious and Daniel had said that he was.  Then he asked Michael if he'd like to join the Flat Earth Society.

"You have information we find useful," he had said.  "If it's okay with you I'd like you to be employed as a spy."

"A spy?  That sounds dangerous, especially if the Conspiracy is as dangerous as you say it is," Michael had responded.

But Daniel Mayweather could be very persuasive, and he offered Michael a steady paycheck if he would work as a spy.  Michael quickly did the math and realized he would have two steady paychecks if he did this.  The salary Daniel offered was actually fairly generous given that it would really be supplemental income for Michael.  And of course it was under the table.  So he accepted, and ever since he had filtered information he had discovered to the Society.

He also started nosing around various parts of the building, trying to glean some information on who the masters of the conspiracy were.  One day while tip-toeing around the upper level he had overheard, through a door, talk of a future attack of some sort.  Michael didn't get all the information but he dutifully reported what he knew to Daniel, who told him he should pay close attention to what was going on in that room and report back everything he found.  He couldn't do it every day, of course, but occasionally he was able to catch something of importance.

That was what Michael was doing now.  He was standing in the deserted hall, ear pressed to this door (Office 99), listening to the conversation going on.  He could barely hear through the heavy wood door, but at one point he heard something about the Information Repository and again something about an attack.  Somebody asked where the Information Repository was, and Michael turned white when he heard someone respond with the exact address.

Then the door opened.  A man in his mid-fifties with silver hair walked out and caught sight of Michael, who had started walking away.

"Who are you and what are you doing up here?" the man asked.

"I'm Michael McLugh," he responded.  "I work in the imaging department."

"What's your business up here?" the older guy asked sternly.

"I, that is, I was looking for somebody..." still walking away.  The man ran after him and grabbed him.  "Who were you looking for?" he asked.  Michael responded with icy silence.  "Who are you working for?", the man now asked angrily.

"Working for?  I don't know what you mean..."

"Oh, I think you do."  The man slammed him against the wall hard enough that he felt a tooth loosen.  Fresh pain welled up in his head.  "I'll ask you again," the man said testily.  "Who are you working for?"

Michael broke free and ran down the hall.  The older man ran after him.  Michael made it to the stairwell and swung open the heavy metal door, then started racing down the stairs, nearly tripping himself and falling as he did so.  Frantically he pulled out his cell phone.  He dialed Daniel's number.  It rang a couple times before Daniel answered (it felt like forever).  There was silence above him and he stood still for a moment.

"Daniel, this is Z," Michael said.

"Z!  I'm putting you on speaker," Daniel responded.  Michael heard Daniel tell the group he knew was gathered at the Information Repository that Z was on the line.  Then he heard the metal door slam shut above him and started racing down the stairs again.

"Daniel, they know where the Information Repository is!  I repeat, they know where the Information Repository is!"

A gun fired off at him from somewhere above.

[Roundy, The Great Communicator of Truthiness]

Chapter 6: Saddam Lives!

There was a moment of silence after the latest revelation.  Mr Ireland decided to break it by voicing what the others were surely all thinking.

"I don't believe you," he said matter-of-factly.

"I don't blame you," Dysfunction replied.  "But it's true.  Think about it.  How did you first come across the Flat Earth Society forums, Mr Ireland?"

"It was a link on an entirely different forum.  The guy who linked it thought you were all a bunch of morons."  There was a ripple of laughter throughout the gym.

"Okay, now everybody, raise your hand if you also found the forums through another forum."

Mr Ireland looked around.  Nearly everybody in the gym had their hands raised.  Dysfunction continued talking after a moment.

"We actually have fantastic resources," he said.  "As I said, each one of you has a talent or ability that we consider useful to our agenda.  In each case where you were linked from another forum it was a member of the Society that left the link, because we knew you would find the link and most likely follow it."

"So let's say that's true," Hara Taiki piped up.  "Why specifically am I here?  What's my 'talent'?"

"We feel it's best if we not reveal that at this time."

"What kind of bullshit is that?  I almost bought into this crap but this is just beyond unbelievable!" Hara shouted.  Mr Ireland felt cold.  He didn't know what or who to believe.  The only thing he knew was that they were all brought there for a reason, but was it really a reason he would support?  The jury was still out on that one. 

The thing that bothered him most was the level of manipulation Dysfunction was implying.  He realized that if all of their lives were truly in danger as these people kept insisting, then they were put in that position by the Society.

Now there was a rumble among the group.  Mr Ireland thought there was going to be a riot.

"Please, everybody," Dysfunction said.  "I can't prove what I just said but I'm going to ask you all to trust us.  We need to work together or we will all surely die."

"And that's your fault!" Diego shouted.  "If what you say is true you as good as murdered Chrissetti, and if anything happens to any of us that's on your hands too!"

"I assure you, nobody in the Society expected the Conspiracy to take such rash action.  We certainly never expected them to target the innocent members of the forum.  But they have now, and we have reason to believe that they intend to target everybody."

"What reason?" Mr Ireland asked.

"We have a spy within the Conspiracy.  We knew that an attack was being planned before it ever happened.  But we didn't expect the target to be someone who's not even connected to the Society except by the thinnest of strings.  We feel it was a message, and we're pretty sure it won't be the last.  They don't know where the Society is located or who its inner circle of members are, so they've decided to attack us through our forum's members, who are much easier to track."

"You still haven't explained exactly why you are so sure that the Conspiracy was behind Chrissetti's death," Midnight said.

"I was getting to that," Dysfunction said.  "After the attack we sent a couple of men to the site to look for clues.  We found several of these littered around ground zero of the explosion, which by the way was specifically Chrissetti's house."  And he held up a card.  It was black with a silver symbol on it: a coiled wire above a ball.

"It's the insignia of the Conspiracy, in case those of you toward the back can't see it.  The only explanation is that they were left there after the missile hit with the intention of being found.  By us.  Interestingly, that means that they knew, or at least suspected, that we would investigate the incident.  And they wanted us to know who was behind it.

"Our intel indicated that it was the first of several planned attacks.  Once we knew the nature of the attacks we sent for all of you."

That's a pleasant way of putting it, Mr Ireland thought.

"Why are they attacking us?  What are they trying to accomplish?" General Gayer asked.

"That we're not sure about.  Our best guess is that they wanted us to see that they were a threat and it was meant as a message to shut down our investigations.  I'm sure most of you heard about the attack; it was blamed on terrorists.  And it was terrorists, but not of the Islamic extremist or IRA variety.  It was the conspiracy, and the conspiracy is deadly.  If they weren't they probably wouldn't have kept this secret for so long."

"This is a crock of shit," someone shouted.  His name tag identified him as Sokarul.  "It's the same line as always.  The earth is flat, but you have no proof."

Dysfunction smirked.  "Oh, we have proof," he said.  "There's someone I'd like you all to meet."  He nodded to one of the guards standing beside the big metal doors off to the side of the stage.  The guard walked out the door and within seconds was walking back in with a man who stood a bit more than six feet tall with dark skin and a shaggy beard.  He walked up to the stage.

"This is Saddam Hussein," Dysfunction said.  "I'll let him take the mike."  With that he stepped down and up walked the new guy.  You have to be kidding me, Mr Ireland thought.

"Hi everybody," the man who it was incredibly claimed was Saddam Hussein said in a thick Arab accent.  "To quote Mark Twain, rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated."
***************************************************

"Bullshit!" somebody yelled.  Space Cowgirl could not tell who it was but this was all making her very uneasy, because she knew they were telling the truth, at least about Saddam.

"I assure you," Saddam quietly replied, "I am the real Saddam Hussein."

There was a murmur throughout the crowd and Space Cowgirl could feel the dissent, could feel the anger and distrust that had been building since they had all gathered there coming to a head and was afraid people would inadvertently get hurt if she didn't speak up.  But what good would it do?  Would they believe her?  She had to say something.

"Maybe we should just hear him out," she shouted above the crowd.  Saddam looked at her, his grimace turning into a tiny smile.  She smiled back, but she was still uneasy.  She could feel murder in his thoughts, and sadism, but that seemed distant, far in the past; far stronger in his thoughts were guilt, and repentance, and above all truthfulness.  This was the real Saddam Hussein; of that she had no doubt.  She knew it as easily as she had known that they would find Theonlydann and Raist making out in one of the rooms; she had not really seen them, that was a lie.  She had felt them, together, alone in a bed, happy and aroused.

For as long as she could remember, Space Cowgirl had been psychic.  She couldn't really "read" thoughts, it was more like she picked up impressions.  One of her earliest memories was knowing that her parents were lying about the existence of Santa Claus.  She could just tell and it upset her a great deal.  And that upset her parents, and also scared them, something else she could feel.  Other incidents would come up; sometimes she knew where things were that her parents could not find; it was like she just plucked their locations out of their thoughts.  Space Cowgirl had lost her innocence at a very young age and realized that she would be better off in life just keeping her impressions to herself.  So she suppressed her ability, and until puberty that had worked out fine.  But when she had hit puberty it got so much stronger...

"Why should we?" Sokarul asked.  And suddenly the group quieted down, and she could feel their attention swing toward her.  Uneasily, she replied, "Well, we're all here, aren't we?  I doubt any of us are going anywhere anytime soon.  We've listened to all they've had to say so far, why not just hear them out?"

"Ah, that's ridiculous," Sokarul said.  "How could Saddam Hussein still be alive?  Magic?"

"Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm curious about what he has to say," Mrs Peach said.

"I concur," Midnight said.  "Perhaps we shouldn't pass judgment on the circumstances until we've heard the whole story."

Space Cowgirl could feel most of the crowd calm down, and she was relieved.  She felt that a potential disaster had been averted.

"Thank you," Saddam replied.  The crowd quiet, he began his story.

"Ten years ago my country embarked on a great quest," he began.  "It was my intention to remove the world's perceptions of Iraq as a backwards third-world country and bring us into the space age.  Work began on a secret space program.  I hired some of the greatest astrophysicists in the world to make my dream of reaching space a reality.  Around this time I also gave up on creating weapons of mass destruction.  I realized that as things stood my greatest legacy would be that of a butcher and warmongerer and it was my intention to change that.  I also stopped torturing and killing my own people, and started some humanitarian programs in my country, though this fact wasn't recognized widely by the world's media.

"In late 2002, when I was close to reaching my goal, I received an unusual message.  I was mailed a letter that said simply 'Stop the space program now or there will be consequences.'  Accompanied with this letter was a card with that curious symbol on it.  Attempts to trace the mailing proved futile.  I ignored it, and that was perhaps the greatest mistake I've ever made.

"It was around this time that the United States and the United Kingdom accused my country of still having stockpiles of WMDs.  They even released an intelligence report that supposedly outlined exactly where they were being kept.  Imagine my surprise when I saw these reports and found that the areas outlined were areas where research and development of my space program were being conducted.  Perhaps at that point I should have just given up.  But how could I know that there was a vast Conspiracy covering up the true shape of the earth, and that I had made myself a target?

"The space program continued as scheduled and our first launch was planned for February of 2003.  We pulled it off, but there were problems.  We were able to reach space, but we could not achieve orbit.  We reached a maximum height of 120 kilometers before the craft started just falling.  It actually crashed into the ocean not far from where the launch had taken place.  Our predictions indicated that it should have landed much further away, but that wasn't the strangest thing about all of this.  We had a video feed on the craft going to the central headquarters of my space program, and the images it returned just didn't make sense.

"As the craft exited the earth's atmosphere, there was never any curvature recorded of the earth's surface.  The higher the craft went, the more of the earth's surface was visible.  Incredibly, we were able to see the outline of an Antarctica that stretched around an earth that was shaped very differently from what we were used to seeing, and what we were expecting.  We couldn't see all of what I now recognize as the Ice Wall, just an arc that grew fainter in the distance.  Indeed, the earth itself seemed to grow fainter the on the edges of what was visible until it was covered in darkness.  We could see a circle of earth, but not one that corresponded to a hemisphere; our calculations indicated that it was actually a circle whose midpoint was the sun.

"We had a feed on the sun itself during the launch, and my top scientists were stunned to see that it swelled to double its apparent size as the craft reached its maximum height.  At that point, they reached a conclusion that defied all logic.  They concluded that the earth was actually flat.

"We intended to go public with our discovery.  But war was on the horizon and we needed to prepare for that.  Over the next couple months, the scientists involved in my space program started disappearing; then on March 20th my country was invaded.  I was forced to flee Baghdad.  By this point I had come to the conclusion that all my troubles were caused by the space program but there was nothing I could do about it.  In December of that year I was captured. 

"One of my top scientists was able to flee the country.  During my trial he was able to get in contact with the Flat Earth Society and he told them what we had discovered, and his belief that it was this discovery that had led to the war.  Together they concocted a plan to free me from prison since I was such an aid to their cause.  In March of 2006 they were finally able to break me free, replacing me with a clone."

"Wait a minute," Althalus said at this point.  "A clone?  So you're saying that it was actually a clone that was hanged?  That's impossible."

"No, it's not.  I confess I don't understand how it's possible myself but perhaps someone else up here can explain it.  But that's how I'm here.  And I was able to procure a copy of the footage we took from that ill-fated launch."

At that moment a cellphone started ringing.  Space Cowgirl could feel that it was bad news, just like she could feel that Saddam had been telling the truth with his story.  She felt nervous as Dogplatter answered his phone.

"Hello?"  he said.  There was a short pause and Dogplatter lighted up.  "Z!  I'm putting you on speaker," he said.

Through the phone, amid the static, they could all here what was said on the other line.  "Daniel, they know where the Information Repository is!  I repeat, they know where the Information Repository is!"  Then the sound of a gunshot, and a clacking sound, and the phone went dead.

Dogplatter was waxy.  "Oh dear," he said.

[Roundy, The Great Communicator of Truthiness]

Chapter 7: The Game Has Changed

There was a commotion in the gymnasium.  Pure chaos.  Saddam stepped down and Dogplatter took the podium again.

"Please, calm down," he said.  "We have no reason to think an attack is imminent.  I'm sure we can save everything in the library and get out of here.  I have a backup base."

"Bullshit," Midnight calmly shouted.  "You've led us to our deaths."

"Now, there's no reason to get pessimistic here..."

"Oh, I think now is exactly the right time," Midnight coolly responded.  Jesus, was he serious?  Midnight laughed quietly to himself.  Oh, what fools these mortals be, he thought. 

The commotion died down somewhat, and now attention was turned to Midnight.  He spoke again.

"Z is already dead, probably, thanks to you.  So is Roundy, and who knows who else?  And Chrissetti, of course, we know he's dead, thanks to you," he continued.  "The game has changed, Daniel."

"Please, call me Dogplatter..."

Midnight ignored him.  "You see, Daniel, if they were monitoring the forum at all, they have now seen that there is a long period of inactivity among its regular members.  Us.  Don't you think they were waiting for that?"

"Why..." Dogplatter said.

"Because they knew you were planning something.  They knew that bombing Chrissetti would spur you into action.  And now they know where we all are, and they were waiting for this opportunity, Daniel.  And I'm sure they know a great deal more, including much of your plans from now on."

"That's impossible..."

"No, Daniel.  Isn't it obvious?  There's a spy in your midst, and now you've made us all sitting ducks.  We need to get out of here, now."
****************************************************************

Z woke up, blind and completely immobile.

His memory of those last few moments, after he had called Daniel, was in pieces.  He thought he had been shot but wasn't sure.  Pain was no indicator, because he was sore all over.

He was tied to a chair, with a blindfold over his eyes.  It might be over for me, he thought grimly.  Who knew that spying on an organization whose purpose was upholding a conspiracy about the true shape of the earth would have such dire consequences?

Well, he was still alive, and he reasoned that maybe there was a reason for that.  Maybe it wasn't over for him yet.  But this thought just made him shiver, because it meant that they weren't finished with him yet.  And what more could they want from him?  Information, of course.

Who are you working for?  That's what the guy had asked.  How did they know that he was working for anybody?

Z was cold and miserable.  Torture.  That's why they had kept him alive, he was sure of it.  They planned on torturing him until he talked.

Unfortunately, Z didn't know much.
*********************************************

Hara Taiki was laughing.  He didn't know why; he was scared shitless.  Indeed, the very fact that he was laughing when things seemed so grim was scary in itself.  There was just something about this confrontation, capping off all that had gone on before (The earth is flat!  We have proof of a Round Earth Conspiracy!  And the best - Saddam Hussein is still alive!), that was tickling his funnybone.

He had decided that the Flat Earth Society wasn't a hoax; that, whether it was the case or not, they really believed that the earth was flat, and that there was a Conspiracy.  And the call from Z seemed to confirm that, unless it was all part of the hoax, which Hara doubted.  Whatever the actual shape of the earth, there was something very sinister going on here, and Hara was both amused and curious, despite himself.

Now, he just wanted to see how it all ended.  And for that reason, he decided he would probably stand by this merry band of misfits and weirdos.  Should be good for shits and giggles, anyway, he thought.
*******************************************************

For Masterchief, it was almost a dream come true.  A true devotee of video games, particularly of the action/adventure genre (he had named himself after the main character in Halo, after all), he now felt like he was smack dab in the middle of a very elaborate and grand adventure, and that at any minute the world might explode in pure FPS excitement, except in real life.  Everything up to now was nothing more than a cut scene, and the adventure was only beginning.  Although he was scared, he was also thrilled out of his mind, and he couldn't wait to see what came next.  Just give me a gun and some frag grenades, he thought, giddy.
*******************************************************

For Mr Ireland, it was something.  And something seemed better than nothing, and his life was mostly a whole lot of nothing.  He was sick of nothing.  Already he was embracing the thought of helping the Flat Earth Society out.  But I'm just a kid, he thought.  How can I help?

He looked forward to finding out.  He looked forward to adventure.
*******************************************************

Trekky was trying to comfort his sister.  He could see the look of distress in her face; she wouldn't speak when he tried to say anything and she just looked scared.  Why us? he thought.  Why her? He felt like he and his sister were being terrorized, for no good reason.  But what could he do about it?  If what they said was true, they wouldn't be safe if they just made a break for it.  And he felt like he needed to give them at least some benefit of doubt.  But it wasn't right.  It just wasn't right that a twelve-year-old girl should be put through this, and although he didn't vocalize it to the rest, he was pissed.

Muffz was sobbing.  He gave her a strong hug.  "Calm down," he said.  "It's gonna be all right, Kimmy.  We're gonna get out of this."  She hugged him back, tightly, and he smiled.  He was actually near hysterics himself, but he needed to be strong, for his sister, and he was determined not to fold as long as she was in danger.
*******************************************************

General Gayer was angry, not specifically at Dogplatter and crew (although she did blame them for all this, obviously), but more at this whole situation, if it makes any sense to be angry at a situation.  Mostly, she was furious at the Conspiracy.  They had killed Chrissetti, who she had felt like she was getting so close to.  She had been so charmed by his little schoolboy crush for her, and amused by many of the things he posted, and now that was all over.  She had cried over it.  She had also cried over Roundy, whom she hoped was okay.  And now Z... God, how many people would she cry over before this day was over?

But a fragile flower General Gayer was not, and she had revenge on her mind.  Since her own life seemed to be in danger because of the Conspiracy, and they seemed to be the ones directly responsible for the deaths so far, she focused her own anger over to them.  She would do whatever it took to avenge those she had lost, and preserve her own life and the lives of the others she had met through the forums.  Although it felt wrong, dirty even, she silently pledged her allegiance to the FES, and to their cause.
********************************************************

Mrs Peach was a born pragmatist, and she recognized that whatever was going on here, it would do no good to fight, or to accuse.  Whatever had gone before, it was clear that the best course of action from that point on was sticking by the Flat Earth Society.  So she decided that she would, plain and simple.
********************************************************

Diego Draw looked over at Hara Taiki and saw that he was laughing.  Why not? he thought.  If this wasn't all the height of absurdity, what was?  Diego Draw embraced the absurd, and despite having extreme reservations over the logic of all that had gone on that day, he was intrigued.  He, too, wanted to see how it ended.
********************************************************

For Space Cowgirl, there was no question.  She knew they were telling the truth, although she didn't trust Dogplatter.  She could feel manipulation and pride in his thoughts and didn't believe that he had anything but his own interests in mind.  But none of that mattered, because the danger they were facing was real, and she honestly believed that if they didn't all stick together, they would all be in serious trouble.  Her mind was made up even before Z's distressing call.
********************************************************

Sokarul was pissed.  This was all bullshit and he couldn't believe these sheep around him were buying it.  They all think I'm stupid, he thought.  Well, they're the ones who believe that the earth is flat.  Fucking morons.

He had no intention of sticking around.  As soon as the opportunity presented itself he was leaving.  If it weren't for those stupid agents with the guns he would already have done so.
********************************************************

The Engineer decided that enough was enough.  He had had reservations about this whole plan; he knew the danger they would be putting these innocent people in.  And so did Dogplatter, he knew.  Although he had joined the Society because he believed in their cause, he didn't like Dogplatter.  He thought Dogplatter was crazy and perhaps a little too driven.  Of course, it might take such a personality to bring down an organization like the Round Earth Conspiracy, but he didn't trust him.  This whole business about each of them having a talent was part of the reason.  Sure that was true about some of them, but not all of them; many really were just innocent victims of circumstance who had gotten caught in the crossfire.  Dogplatter's intention was to manipulate them into concession, but was that really the best way?  He had had reservations about the whole plan, and now it seemed to be falling apart.

He felt like if he let Dogplatter keep the podium his and Midnight's argument would drive everybody away, and he didn't want that to happen, as much for their own safety as for the integrity of the Society.  And it didn't help that Midnight was right.  He himself had long suspected that there was a spy within the Society, and he recognized that they needed to move, or they would all die.  The Engineer stood up.

"Let me have the podium," he said to Dogplatter.  Exasperated, Dogplatter complied.

[Roundy, The Great Communicator of Truthiness]

Chapter 8: The Engineer

The Engineer walked up to the podium and adjusted the microphone to accommodate his short stature.  He was nervous and unsure exactly what he was going to say; doubt and uncertainty over the situation gripped him.  He just stood there a second, clearing his throat at one point to buy some time.  Looking out he could see that most of the crowd was paying rapt attention, and while it was impossible to tell what was going through their minds it was clear that they were willing to hear him out.  His thoughts gathered, The Engineer began speaking.

"I know how bad this must look to some of you," he said.  "I understand how difficult this is for all of you to believe, because believe me, there was a time when I was in your position.  More or less.  I mean, my life wasn't being threatened at the time, but I know how hard it is to throw a lifetime of understanding out the window in favor of a bold concept that doesn't make much sense at first glance, and that seems to hinge on a massive, impossible Conspiracy.

"When Dogplatter first contacted me, I was a simple mechanical engineer who happened to be a whiz with physics, particularly as it relates to the principles of relativity.  Dogplatter got into touch with me because I had written a well-received thesis on the Equivalence Principle, in which I put forth a thought experiment: what if the earth is flat, and we are actually constantly accelerating upwards?  How different would the world be if that was the case?  The interesting thing is that from a physical perspective, locally, the two models -- flat earth, in which we are accelerating upwards, and round earth, in which the earth's mass is causing the phenomenon we know of as gravity -- are indistinguishable.  So we would need more evidence to conclude that the earth was actually flat, and not round.

"Of course, we have such evidence.  The horizon, the movement of the sun, moon, and planets, and a few other pieces of information -- we don't have time to go into the specifics and you'll see that they're inconsequential, in any case.  Continuing the thought experiment, I put forth the notion that all of this evidence was actually interpreted from a round earth point of view, because a long time ago the learned people of the age decided that the earth was round.  And while much of it seems unlikely interpreted from a flat earth point of view, mathematically, it was possible to explain each and every discrepancy.  Mathematically, a flat earth was possible.  Physically, a flat earth was possible.  Unlikely (so it seemed to me, but I wonder now if my lifelong bias has something to do with that), but certainly possible.  I jokingly concluded that the only way we could really know the truth was to visit space and see for ourselves that the earth was round.

"Dogplatter read the paper and apparently was astonished by it, because I had reached some similar conclusions to what Rowbotham had, more than a hundred and fifty years ago.  He hired me to further my research into flat earth theory.  That seemed ridiculous to me at the time, but Dogplatter is very persuasive, and truth be told he has a lot of money.  He was able to pay me a lot more than my engineering job was.  So I joined the Society, feeling like a moron, but also entranced by much of the literature I read; I thought it was possible there was a kernel of truth to it, and that it was something that should be investigated.  Once I was a full-fledged member, he told me about the Conspiracy, outlining the evidence in much the same way as it has been outlined for all of you, tonight.  And the more time I spent studying, observing, and experimenting, the more convinced I was that the earth is actually flat, and that this fact was being suppressed.  It wasn't until Z joined up that I was positive about the existence of the Conspiracy.  He is part of a team that creates images for NASA.  Images that they pass off to the unsuspecting public as real.  I thought you should all know that, because you need to understand that we're in a lot of trouble.  You can all verify for yourselves that Chrissetti was the target in that bombing a couple days ago.  You could all hear the urgency in Z's words when he called, and I'm sure you could all interpret the importance in what he was saying.

"Midnight's probably right.  They know where we are, and that's likely because we have a spy in our organization.  Likewise, they know we're all here.  So we need to act, and quickly.

"If we try to scatter, they will find us.  At this point, just going back home is not an option for any of you.  There is a threat out there to all of us, and if we don't work together to eliminate that threat, we are all going to die.

"Now, I ask you all.  Are you with us?"

Most of the crowd, The Engineer was relieved to see, was nodding in agreement.  Thank God, he thought, supremely relieved.  But there was one holdout who was about to make his position clear.

"Fuck you," Sokarul said.  "Fuck you all, fuck the Flat Earth Society, fuck Dogplatter, fuck fucking Chrissetti!" he screamed, nearly in tears.  "You're all insane!"  And with that, he ran out one of the sets of metal doors.

A pair of agents went out after him.

A minute later, there was the sound of a loud explosion that shook the gymnasium.

[Roundy, The Great Communicator of Truthiness]

Chapter 9: Narcberry

Narcberry had suspected the earth was flat for a very long time.  It wasn't an academic question for him; all he had to do was look down on a wide plain to confirm what, for him, was obvious.  When he was little, he sometimes got into trouble with the teachers for questioning the shape of the earth, when it was brought up.  This and the inevitable ribbing from his fellow classmates forced him to be quiet about his belief, but it was still a belief he carried with him throughout his life.

NASA, for him, was a TV show, sometimes entertaining but usually very boring.  Even when he was old enough to discern the difference between fantasy and real life (for Narcberry was not stupid; don't let that thought enter your head) he never let go of the notion that what he was seeing was filmed.  Fake.  There was no real reason for him to believe this connected to the shape of the earth, for at the time he had no reason to believe that space travel should be impossible with a flat earth, but his fervent belief about the shape of the earth led him to question authority at all turns.

In high school he excelled in his studies, even when those studies ran contrary to what he believed.  In his mind, he always drew a difference between what you know, deep down, and what you say.  It's what you say that's important in your relationship with others, but it's what you know that's important in your relationship with yourself.  In that way he was able to relate normally to others; he just kept his mouth shut on points with which he disagreed.  He didn't consider it hypocritical; on a fundamental level he thought that everybody else probably approached the world in much the same way.  People put on airs, facades, in the pursuit of having fulfilling relationships.  It was easy for Narcberry to reason that that was all he was really doing.  To Narcberry, it was really just an important part of being successful, of getting ahead.

It was in college that Narcberry really came into his own.  He discovered his two great passions there: philosophy and debate.  He found philosophy fascinating because it coincided with one of his great passions: questioning the nature of the world around us.  Questioning authority on its own terms.  Questioning how certain we can ever be, of anything.  In truth, there was very little that Narcberry was really certain of.  He felt that the validity of any premise could be questioned.  It was this attitude that led him to be a natural debater.  He left college undefeated, but he really cemented his reputation the day he debated that the earth was actually flat, successfully.

There is an academic grapevine.  It grows everywhere, sending invisible tendrils around the world.  It wasn't long before Dogplatter from his office at Cambridge found out about the bright young student and his remarkable achievement at UCLA.  But he didn't meet him until the day Narcberry graduated.  This was mainly due to the fact that given the Conspiracy's history he was afraid to just approach anybody about the Flat Earth Society, and he wanted to do a background check to make sure Narcberry was a viable candidate for membership.  This was when he had first started the Society back up and he wasn't taking a lot of chances at the time.  Also, he wanted to make sure Narcberry got a full education before he started devoting time to the Society, if that was what he wanted.  After seeing a detailed history on the young man he suspected that he would jump at the chance.

Dogplatter sat in the audience during the graduation ceremony, and approached him outside in the parking lot.  It was an unusually cloudy day and there were shadows everywhere.  Dogplatter walked up to Narcberry during a moment of privacy and put out his hand to be shaken.  Narcberry took it and shook as Dogplatter congratulated him.

"You're a very bright young man.  I've heard a lot about you," Dogplatter had said.

"Well, thank you," Narcberry had replied, not sure how to respond to a total stranger in an empty parking lot saying he's heard a lot about him.

"I am a professor at Cambridge.  I'm putting together a sort of academic team in England whose purpose is questioning the validity of what they tell us about the world around us.  I think you'd be a natural fit."

"What, is this a job offer?" Narcberry asked, skeptical as always.

"Indeed it is.  I can pay your handsomely for your services.  But I have to ask you something.  Do you really believe the earth is flat or were you playing devil's advocate in the debate when you argued it was?"

Narcberry grinned rather sheepishly.  He looked down.  "Looks flat to me," he said.
************************************************************

Narcberry reminisced about this first meeting as he pulled a book from a shelf in the library.  All around him was literature of various media concerning the shape of the earth, as well as research papers written by members of the Society who were trying to bring the old theory into the modern age of science.  The book he was pulling down was 100 Proofs the Earth is not a Globe by William Carpenter.  It was one of the old masterpieces of Flat Earth Theory.  He sat down at a table and opened it up.

At the moment Narcberry was primarily the librarian of the Flat Earth literature, and he kept all of this information in good order.  It was a small library he had mastery over as this was simply a primary school library but that was okay because there was plenty of space to keep the meager works in the Society's possession.  Narcberry was proud to have this job and considered himself a sort of keeper of the truth and a champion of knowledge.

He barely got the chance to open the book when he heard a loud crash in the hallway.  He looked up at the door to the library, which was locked.  He saw a shadow move beyond the door.  He walked up to the door and peered out the window.

What he saw made him sick.  There were figures who looked almost military, but dressed in blue, out in the hall.  They were wearing caps with that weird symbol on them that Narcberry knew identified them as members of the Conspiracy.  Oh, shit, he thought, terrified.  He walked away from the door and ducked behind one of the shelves.  His heart was pumping as he listened to the shouting going on right outside.  Oh, God, he though, does Dogplatter know what's going on?  They may have been all over the school by now for all he knew; the Society might have already been at an end.

Narcberry heard a loud thud as something beat against the door.  Tentatively he peered around the corner of the shelf and was immediately rocked off his feet by an explosion that sent the door off its hinges.  Panicked out of his mind, Narcberry now ran to the exit door at the opposite end of the library, feeling extremely lucky that one was built.  "I've found the library!" he heard someone shout behind him as he slipped out.  He made a beeline down the empty hall to the gymnasium, running into Sokarul as he did so.

"What's going on?" Sokarul asked.

"They're here, we have to warn the others!"

"Fuck you!  I'm getting the fuck out of here!" and with that he went running down the hall the opposite direction.  Wrong way, Narcberry thought, but just kept on his way.  The gymnasium was just up ahead.  He heard gunfire and looked behind him to see Sokarul fall to the ground, blood pumping out of his back.  Some Conspiracy members came around the bend behind and Narcberry started running faster as bullets whizzed past his head.  He also heard another explosion, this one much louder, and realized intuitively that the library was probably gone.

Finally he reached the side door of the gymnasium, just next to the stage.  He stumbled in and immediately locked the door behind him, panting and choking for breath.

[Roundy, The Great Communicator of Truthiness]

Chapter 10: Going Underground

Hara Taiki grinned.  The world seemed to be exploding around them and death seemed right around the corner but he couldn't help it.  He thought he might start laughing if he couldn't get a hold of himself.

The guy had stumbled in and slammed the door, locking it.  As he did so, his gown rippled around him comically.  It was a graduation gown, and he was also wearing a graduation cap.  It's Narcberry, Hara thought, still grinning. 

"Dogplatter, they're here!"  Narcberry announced, exasperated.  "I think the library is gone," he added morosely.

"Oh, dear," Dogplatter responded.  He immediately walked to the back of the stage and opened a panel, behind which was a numbered keypad.

It was Narcberry who had just come in, to be sure.  He was clearly younger than the guy in the avatar on FES, but it was strange how much he looked like him.  Hara suspected image manipulation.  The black gown with the yellow stripes going down was exactly the same as in the picture.

For his part, Hara seemed to be the only one not in a panic.  A couple people had gone running out the door as soon as they heard the explosion.  To Hara, given the circumstances, that seemed foolish, but on the other hand, what good would sticking around do?  It was quickly stopped anyway.  The agents who were guarding each doorway promptly locked the doors they were guarding to prevent anyone else from doing that.

There were more gunshots and a shrill scream outside the gymnasium doors.  Several in the crowd were screaming now, and a couple of the younger kids in the gymnasium were crying.  Hara noticed Trekky hugging his sister who was bawling her eyes out and somehow that image brought reality crashing down on him.  Whatever the truth was about the Flat Earth Society, it appeared that Midnight had been correct and they had all been led to their deaths.

Hara turned his attention back to the stage where Dogplatter was pressing some numbers on the keypad.  Then he turned around to face the group and said, "Okay, everybody, on the stage!  I can't explain, there's no time!"

For a second there was no response.  Then there was another explosion that seemed to rock the whole building.  "On the stage!" Dogplatter repeated urgently, and then people started piling on the stage.  Hara followed suit, although he didn't know why.  He suspected that nobody gathered who were climbing on the stage knew why they were doing it, except that they were panicked and a figure of authority was telling them to do it.

Within seconds the stage started to lower.  Hara could feel humming as it did so.  As it lowered the last of the stragglers climbed on.  Even The Engineer and Tom Bishop seemed confused over what was happening.

"Dogplatter, what's going on?" Tom asked.

"Shortly after I first acquired the school I had a bunker built beneath it," Dogplatter replied.  "We'll be safe down there."

"What about Raa?" Tom asked.

"There's no time.  Hopefully Raa can take care of himself."

"And Username?  He's out there, too," The Engineer said.

"Hopefully Raa can take care of him, too," Dogplatter replied with a shrug.  "There's nothing we can do to help them."

Slowly the stage descended with some forty people on it, testing its durability.  Indeed, the wood below Hara's feet was creaking and he thought he heard a sharp snapping sound underneath him, like a loud crackle coming from a bonfire.  But the stage held up as they descended below the level of the floor of the gymnasium.  Now the stage was surrounded on all sides by a wall and Hara started to feel a touch dizzy.  He was claustrophobic.

Deeper the platform went.  Above Hara could see something thick and metallic close over them, cloaking them in darkness.  Maybe Dogplatter knew what he was doing after all.  It seemed as if they were headed towards safety.  Hara could hear more explosions as they descended but they were getting fainter now.  Lower and lower the stage descended and Hara found himself wondering just how deep in the earth this "bunker" was.  The feeling of claustrophobia was now mostly replaced by fascination over the whole situation.  Whatever came of all this at least it was interesting, he mused. 

Finally there was a thud as the platform reached the bottom.

They were enveloped in darkness, and if there was anything still going on above them they were too far down to be able to hear it.  All Hara could hear was some whimpering.  Then a flash of light; Hara looked over to see Dogplatter holding a small flashlight.  In front of them was a set of double metal doors.  Dogplatter now pressed a button just to the side of the doors, and they came open.

The thin stream of light issuing from the flashlight did little to illuminate things.  Dogplatter walked through the doors and they all slowly shuffled out after him into the darkness.

"So what now, Daniel?" Midnight asked, bemused.

"We may not have much time," Dogplatter responded, his hands sliding along the wall closest to the elevator doors.  "It's only a matter of time before they discover that we've escaped, if they haven't already.  Then they may figure out where we are, and then it's only a matter of time before they figure out how to get down here."

"Then we're still sitting ducks," Hara chimed in.  "Except now we're a mile underground."

"No," Dogplatter said.  "Ah!  Found it," he said, and he flipped a switch that filled the room with bright white light.  It was blinding at first but when Hara's eyes adjusted he could see that they were in a huge chamber lined with metal with fluorescent lights lining the ceiling.  He looked around and saw that there was a kitchen, a pantry, several computers including a huge one with a big projection screen hanging on the back wall, and over in the corner...

His eyes widened.

"This is where I keep the armory," Dogplatter said.  In that corner, against the wall, were several dozen weapons of all sorts.  Small handguns, large rifles, grenades... a rocket launcher?  And boxes and boxes full of ammunition.

"This is where we fight back," Dogplatter said.

"Awesome," Masterchief said, a wide smile on his face.
****************************************************

Z was dozing in and out of consciousness.  He had tried to loosen the rope that bound his hands but it was no use, it was tied far too tightly.  So he just sat there for he didn't know how long.  It might have been hours, it might have been minutes.  It might have been seconds, for all Z knew, although he doubted that.  But time had lost all meaning for him.

Finally he heard a door open and through the blindfold he could sense a shift in light.  Then footsteps that grew louder and louder with each step forward until he could sense someone standing right in front of him.

"Hello," the figure said.  "I must say, it's rather fortuitous that we have caught you when we did."  Z found the dulcet tones in the figure's voice soothing, oddly enough.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Z responded weakly.  "Please..."

"Come on now, I know better.  You work for the Flat Earth Society."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Z repeated.

He felt the figure bend over, his breath now warming Z's forehead.  "You can quit the games, Z.  I know all about you," the figure said as he removed the blindfold.

Z squinted, the light being too much for his eyes to handle.  The figure before him was shadowy and blurry at first, but he could clearly make out the gray, neatly parted hair, the glasses, and that benign smile on his face.  He recognized the face, and went cold.

"Tom Bishop?" he asked, unbelievingly.

End Act 1

[Roundy, The Great Communicator of Truthiness]

Interlude

A small city park in the middle of the day in the late spring.  There is a wide, square green in the middle of the park that is flanked with benches and trees with various-colored flowers blossoming from them.  At opposite corners there are identical plexi-glass enclosed bus stops where several people from all walks of life are sitting or standing.  On the green some kids in their mid-to-late teens are tossing a frisbee.  Buildings flank the park: a large gothic library on one side, a former courthouse with wide steps running the length of the building on another, a stately hotel on the third, and a modern office building rounding them out.  GENERAL GAYER is sitting on a park bench watching the kids play frisbee.  She is wearing a pretty bright green and red sundress and her favorite floppy straw hat.  She is happy; it is a beautiful spring day.

The frisbee comes her way, landing on the bench beside her.  She picks it up and tosses it at the closest kid.

KID PLAYING FRISBEE:  Thanks!  That was a good toss.

GENERAL GAYER (with a laugh):  Thank you, but it was just beginner's luck, I suppose.

The kid goes back to tossing the frisbee with his friends.  GENERAL GAYER looks off into the distance dreamily.  She is caught off-guard when somebody addresses her.

ROUNDY (smiling): General Gayer, is that you?

GENERAL GAYER (brightening up):  Roundy!  Oh, how nice to see you!  What are you doing here?

ROUNDY: Waiting for the bus.  You?

GENERAL GAYER (puzzled): Hmm.  I don't know.  That's really weird.

ROUNDY (with a laugh): Okay then.  Nothing wrong with that, I guess.

GENERAL GAYER starts to get alarmed as she realizes that she has no idea what she's doing there and none of this makes sense.  Also, she's never met ROUNDY but knew immediately on sight that it was him.

ROUNDY: Mind if I sit down here a minute?

GENERAL GAYER: Of course not!  Please, I'd love the company!

ROUNDY sits down next to GENERAL GAYER.  He notices that she looks disturbed.

ROUNDY (concern on his face): Is something wrong?

GENERAL GAYER: No.  I mean yes.  I mean, I don't know.  There's something not right about all this.  It doesn't make any sense.

The sun goes behind the clouds, casting a pall of deep gloom over the park.  ROUNDY is no longer smiling.  GENERAL GAYER looks around and realizes that they are alone now.

ROUNDY (now deadly serious): If you think things don't make sense now, Gayer, just wait.  Things are going to get very weird really soon.

GENERAL GAYER (fear now plainly in her eyes): Roundy, what are you talking about?  Are you okay?

ROUNDY sits silent.

GENERAL GAYER: What's going on?  This doesn't make any sense.

ROUNDY: Chrisetti is dead, Gayer.  It happened tonight.

GENERAL GAYER: What?  How?

ROUNDY: They got to him.  They're after all of us.

GENERAL GAYER: Who's after us?  You're not making any sense.

ROUNDY: The Flat Earth Society is going to come calling soon.  You're going to have to trust them, but only so far.

GENERAL GAYER: The Flat Earth Society?  Roundy, you're scaring me.  What are you going on about?

ROUNDY: More people are going to die, Gayer.

GENERAL GAYER (turning away, tears in her eyes): Roundy, are you okay?

GENERAL GAYER looks back at ROUNDY, but he is no longer there.  The sun comes back out from behind the clouds.  She looks up and sees that the kids are playing frisbee again and there are people waiting at the bus stops again.

In the distance there are church bells ringing.  They appear to get closer and closer.  GENERAL GAYER starts to wake up and only realizes then, as the images around her fade into each other, that she is dreaming.

Fade to black.

End Interlude

[Roundy, The Great Communicator of Truthiness]

Chapter 11: The Ad Hoc Flat Earth Society Militia

"Dysfunction, get that computer online," Dogplatter said, pointing toward the huge computer in the back.  "We need to assess the situation."  Dysfunction diligently did as he was told, walking over, flipping a switch, and then operating the terminal at lightning-fast speed.

There was little chaos among the group.  Most of them were just standing there, staring at that mammoth pile of weaponry, hypnotized about what it seemed to imply about their future.  The only real activity at this moment came from Dysfunction and Theonlydann, who was desperately milling about the tightly-enclosed group.

"Raist?  Raist, where are you?" he yelled as he moved about the group.  A few people knew, but didn't have the heart to tell him.  Finally, Taters343 spoke up solemnly.  "I'm sorry, Dann," he said, "she went running out after the explosion upstairs."

"What?  She went running out into that?" Theonlydann responded disbelievingly.  "No, she has to be here somewhere," he said with conviction.  He continued weaving through the crowd, oblivious to logic, to the fact that she surely would have spoken up if she had been there.  "Raist!" he now screamed desperately, tears in his eyes.  Taters felt sorry for him.

"Did anybody catch who else went running out?" Dogplatter now asked.  "I'm sure I saw at least two."

"I think it was that white-haired kid," General Douchebag said.  "I didn't catch the name tag."

A look of resignation crossed Dogplatter's face.  "No, not Althalus," he said, almost mumbling.  "We needed his brilliant scientific mind."

"Althalus?  What?  The Jesus freak?" Diego now said, amused.  "Brilliant scientific mind?  What are you, shrooming?"

Before Dogplatter could respond the giant monitor affixed to the back wall blazed into life, displaying an oddly standard desktop with an empty blue background.  "The computer's online, sir," Dysfunction said.

"Very good," Dogplatter responded, hurrying over to the computer terminal.  He clicked an icon that was marked "Information Repository - Video Feeds", entered a password, and the desktop was taken over by a window with several video feeds in it, each one depicting a different area of the outside of the building - the front entrance, the courtyard, some side views, and so on.  It was the first time the vast majority gathered there had seen what the outside of the building looked like.  It was a pretty standard, boring even, single-level brick and glass primary school.  There was little indication from these outer views of the chaos going on inside, though parts of the left wing of the building were fairly demolished.

Dogplatter worked the terminal and several interior images were now visible.  Some, including the one to the auditorium, were blank.  He cycled through the feeds to the library, which was visible, and in ruins.  He breathed a heavy sigh.

Narcberry was in tears.  His life work these last couple years was now destroyed.  The Engineer saw his reaction and walked over to comfort him, clapping him lightly on the back.  "It's okay, Narc," he said soothingly.  "We have copies of many of the old manuscripts at Main Headquarters and our recent research is all on computer disk."

"I know," Narcberry said, the tears drying from his eyes.  "But I loved that library.  Guess this is a whole new chapter in the story of the Flat Earth Society, huh?"

"Yeah, I guess so," The Engineer responded.

In the halls, and some of the rooms, Dogplatter found the odd Conspiracy member shuffling around.  That was what he was looking for; he had wanted some idea of how many Conspiracy members were there.  By his rough count there were about a dozen, but he couldn't know for sure because roughly a quarter of the feeds were out of service, the cameras connected to them probably destroyed in the destruction being caused by the Conspiracy members.

They all had guns.  Dogplatter's cheeks flushed with anger when he saw one tossing grenades into room after room.

"Do you see Raist up there?" Theonlydann asked hopefully.

"I haven't caught her or Althalus.  Either they got out or they're in one of the areas I can't access a feed from."

He was able to find Raa and Username, though.  They were holed up in Room 118, one of the sleeping quarters, pulling the big set of bunkbeds over to the door.  Raa, a big, beefy black man, towered over the other.  He looked a bit like John Coffey from The Green Mile, only built like a slab of beef.  His form drew a sharp contrast to Username's, who was much shorter and scrawnier, his skin tone pale white under a mess of red hair.  Raa was doing most of the work.

"We have to get to them," The Engineer said.

"Yes, we do," Dogplatter agreed.  He now turned to the group.  "Okay," he said.  "I know that Mrs Peach, Nomad, The Skeptic, and JackASCI all have extensive experience with firearms.  Is there anyone else who knows how to shoot a gun?"

Kasroa stepped forward.  "I do," he said.

Masterchief, still dizzy from the display before him, stepped up as well.  "I have a small amount of experience at a shooting range," he said.  "But I feel like I've been building up to this point my whole life, and I really want to help out."

"Absolutely," Dogplatter said, delighted that he came forward.  "I was hoping you would.  Anybody else?"

Begrudgingly, Oscar Wilde came forward.  "I deplore violence of all kinds," he said, "but I do have some experience, and I recognize the severity of the situation.  I'll be happy to help."

"Great," Dogplatter said, "Anyone else?"  After a moment of silence, Theonlydann said "I'm going up too."

"Do you have experience with a gun?"

"No, but I'll figure it out."

"I don't know if that's a good idea--" Dogplatter said, but he was interrupted mid-sentence.

"I have to find Raist," he said stoicly.

Dogplatter sighed.  "Okay," he said.  "Now, I recognize it's very dangerous and I'm sorry to have forced you into this position, but Mrs Peach, Nomad, Skeptic, Jack, will you all fight alongside us?"

The four now came out of the crowd, standing beside Kasroa, Masterchief, Oscar Wilde, and Theonlydann, a silent acknowledgment that they were prepared to fight for the cause.

"The eight of you will come up with myself, Narcberry, The Engineer, and Saddam." Dogplatter said.  "We'll bring four agents up with us as well."

And now the twelve stood astride each other, a motley crew if there ever was one.  The Ad Hoc Flat Earth Society Militia, Dogplatter mused.  The fact that only JackASCII, Saddam, and (oddly enough) Mrs Peach really looked like the type to be comfortable with weapons was beside the point.  For better or worse, they were shortly going into battle against the powerful enemy who had besieged the Information Repository; although he didn't like it Dogplatter couldn't help but mentally draw a comparison to the Battle of the Alamo.

"Let's hope this ends better, and doesn't last as long," he whispered.

"What?" Mrs Peach asked.

"Nothing," Dogplatter responded.  "Everybody grab a weapon and load it."  He walked over to another set of metal doors, opposite the wide bunker from where they had come in.  He pressed a few buttons on a keypad beside them and they sprung open.  "This elevator leads to a spot in the courtyard," he said.  "It's enclosed, so it's not a viable method of escape, but they won't be expecting us to be coming from outside. They ambushed us.  We're going to return the favor.  We'll have the element of surprise working for us."

"Let's hope so," JackASCII said as he loaded the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle he had chosen.  When he was done he noticed that Masterchief was having trouble with his weapon of choice, a Kalashnikov, and went over to help him.  "Are you sure you're up to this?" he asked.

"Oh, hell yeah," Masterchief responded.

"Okay," JackASCII said as he clicked the chamber in place.  "If you need any help figuring out how to shoot or anything give me a holler."  He handed the gun back to Masterchief.  "Whatever," Masterchief mumbled in reply.  He seemed embarrassed.  JackASCII looked over at Theonlydann, about whom he was also concerned.  He was standing there with a Colt Python, listening intently as Mrs Peach explained how to use it.

Once they were all ready Dogplatter spoke up.  "All right, let's get back up there," he said.  They filed into the elevator and Dogplatter pressed a button beside the doors.

"It's clobberin' time!" Masterchief shouted, grinning, as the doors closed.

[Roundy, The Great Communicator of Truthiness]

Chapter 12: Sweet Melissa

"Tom Bishop?" Z asked.  Although he had never actually met Tom before, he knew the face well.

"Surprised?" Tom asked, a wicked little smirk on his face.

"Yeah, I admit I am.  What the fuck are you doing working for the Conspiracy?"

"So now you drop the pretense, eh?  Now you're perfectly willing to admit who you're working for."

Indeed, although his statement had just slipped out without thought, Z realized that there was probably no point in hiding anymore.  He had no reason to suspect that Tom wouldn't have known about his dealings with FES; Dogplatter himself had mentioned Tom on multiple occasions, often in hushed tones, like he was talking about a great human being, an Einstein or a Galileo.  Dogplatter clearly had the utmost respect for Tom, which just made his presence at AS Inc all the more confusing.  Tom Bishop, a traitor to the flat earth cause?  It just boggled the mind.

"Well, I guess there's no point.  Listen, I swear I don't know anything."

"I don't believe you, but it doesn't matter.  What do you think you might have told me that I didn't already know?"

Dread blanketed Z.  He was right.  But that just raised more questions...

"You're wondering why we're keeping you here.  I can read it in your face," Tom said quietly.

"Well, yeah.  What's the point?"

Tom smiled.  "I wanted to show you something," he said.  He walked over to a television at the back of the room and switched it on.  There was an overhead view of a school on the screen; Z could see flames shooting out of several of the windows.

"Do you know what that is?" Tom asked Z.  Z shook his head.

"That's a satellite image of the Flat Earth Information Repository," Tom explained.  "At this moment several of our agents are laying waste to it.  Do you know what was going on in there today, Z?"

Z felt his heart fall into his stomach.  He did know what was going on there; Dogplatter had told him about Chrisetti and about his planned convention.  He nodded.

"At this moment we're destroying everything in that building.  Your friends are probably already dead," Tom said.

Z shut his eyes tightly, fighting back tears.  When he opened them again, he noticed several human shapes, tiny but clearly visible, emerge from a gazebo in the center of the courtyard.  There looked to be better than a dozen of them, and he couldn't tell for sure, but it looked like they were armed.  Z smiled a little.  He was sure he recognized Dogplatter among them.

"They're not dead yet," he said.  "At least not all of them."

Angrily, Tom backhanded Z across the face.  Then he quickly pulled out his cellphone and dialed a number.

"What's the status of the operation?" he asked whoever was on the other line.  There was a moment of silence, and then he said, "What do you mean you haven't found them?"  Another pause, then: "Several of them appear to be in the courtyard attempting to ambush you.  They're moving toward the north wing."  Then there was a long pause, and Tom shouted, "Just make sure you find them and take care of this!"  He angrily hung up the phone.  Z was smiling again despite the pain.

"Oh, you think it's funny, huh?" Tom said before swiping him across the face again.  "I'll be back shortly," Tom said.  "I have to consult with some colleagues.  Just sit tight."  And then he walked out of the room, leaving the blindfold off Z's eyes and the television on.

"Satellites don't exist, you stupid fucker," Z said quietly once Tom was out of the room.  He spat out a tooth.  "Son of a bitch," he mumbled.
*****************************************************************

After an anxious trip that seemed to Mrs Peach to take forever, the platform finally reached the top.  There were no walls around them, although there was a ceiling.  There was a warm breeze and the sun shone brightly above.  Mrs Peach felt somewhat energized by the outdoor air, something it seemed like she hadn't felt in a lifetime.

"Okay," Dogplatter said.  "Everybody ready?"

"As ready as we're gonna be, I reckon," JackASCII replied.

"Good enough," Dogplatter replied.  They began shuffling off the platform, and Mrs Peach saw for the first time that it was a gazebo they had arisen into.  "We're going to all enter at the same place.  After that I suggest we split up.  There are at least twelve of them scattered all through the building."

"Let's get those bastards," Theonlydann said angrily.

"Yes, I admire your spirit," Dogplatter responded.  He began walking swiftly toward the north side of the building, and the rest of the group followed.  When he reached the door Dogplatter pulled out a set of keys, each one with a number at the top.  He quickly found the correct one (number 4) and unlocked the door.

"Let's try to keep it quiet," he cautioned.  Then they all walked in.

The hallway the door led to was silent.  It was curious how hushed everything seemed, with all the bedlam that was going on.  Then, without warning, a grenade skirted around the corner, stopping several feet short of the group.  "Look out!" JackASCII shouted; they all ran the other way as the grenade went off, breaking the stillness with a loud explosion.  Chaos had finally arrived, perhaps a bit overdue.

Two Conspiracy agents came around that corner, firing their guns at the group.  They were expecting us, Mrs Peach thought, as she ducked.  On her belly, she quickly and carefully aimed her Semmerling LM4 at the one on the left and fired.  His neck exploded and he fell to the floor, dead eyes staring out of a head that was now only half-attached to his shoulders.  Before she could even begin aiming at the other one she saw the side of his head erupt.  A second later, he was lying lifeless on the floor beside the other.  Blood slowly pooled and congealed around them.

"Piece of cake," Masterchief said.

"Was anybody hit?" Dogplatter asked.  They all shook their heads (a miracle as far as Mrs Peach was concerned) and Masterchief said "Only them," pointing at the Conspiracy agents.  Nobody laughed.

"Okay, that's two down.  Now we should all split up," Dogplatter said, repeating his advice from earlier.  He, The Engineer, Narcberry, Kasroa, Masterchief, and JackASCII went in the direction the Conspiracy agents had just come from, accompanied by two of their own agents; Mrs Peach, Theonlydann, Saddam, Oscar Wilde, Nomad, The Skeptic, and the other two agents started going the opposite way.  Looking back Mrs Peach saw Masterchief take notice of the vest with two unused grenades that was around one of the Conspiracy agents and knelt down to take it off him.

"What are you doing?" JackASCII asked him.

"I'm gathering weapons," Masterchief responded.  He put the vest around him, and with that the two slipped around the corner.

After watching this Mrs Peach caught up with Theonlydann.  "You're sure you're up to this?" she asked him.

"Yeah," he said as they walked.  "I have to find Raist."

Mrs Peach kept a sharp eye as they walked down the hall.  So far things seemed pretty clear.  She was relieved, although she knew such calm probably wouldn't last very long.

"Raaaaiiiisssstttt!" Theonlydann screamed as they walked.  He kept ducking his head into rooms as they walked past them.  Many were destroyed but none had anybody in them.

"Quiet, Dann!" Mrs Peach scolded him.  She was getting a little angry at his foolishness.

"Sorry," he replied.  At that instant a bullet whizzed past her head, hitting the wall just up ahead.  Dammit, I have to pay attention! she thought as she whirled around and aimed in one swift motion.  She fired off a shot that missed.  Theonlydann didn't, though.  His bullet caught the Conspiracy agent in the forehead, causing him to stagger a bit, then fall.

"Nice shot," Mrs Peach said, her earlier anger now fading.

"Thanks," he said.  "Beginner's luck, I guess.  I've never fired a gun before in my life."

They continued on, now turning another corner.  They were now just down from the gymnasium; there was a figure lying belly-down motionless on the floor.  Mrs Peach turned him over to read the name tag.  It was Sokarul.  Despite never having liked Sokarul she still felt pain at seeing him lying there dead on the floor.

Mrs Peach saw a shadow sticking out from around the corner ahead, in the hall leading to the side door to the gymnasium.  She quietly aimed as the figure emerged.  It was a Conspiracy agent, ready to fire at her.  She beat him to it, and he was soon sprawled on the floor himself, dead.  That was for Sokarul, she thought.

"You're really good," Theonlydann said.

"I have a lot of experience," she replied.  Quickly she walked up to that corner and whirled around, gun at the ready position.  The hall was empty.

They walked quietly up to those big double doors where they had entered the gymnasium earlier.  Quickly Mrs Peach opened the door.  Looking in she could see that the gymnasium was totally empty, and completely destroyed, debris lying everywhere.  There was destruction all around them but this scene was particularly poignant; something like fifteen minutes ago they had all been gathered in that gymnasium, and it had been in tip-top shape.

"Raist!" she heard Theonlydann scream behind her.  She turned around and saw that Theonlydann was turning the corner at the other side of the gymnasium.  She hurried after him.

"I told you to be quiet!" she said as she followed him.  But when she turned the corner she saw what Theonlydann had been reacting to.  There, lying on the floor, was Raist, her pretty brown hair matted with blood.

"Raist, no!" Theonlydann said, oblivious to Mrs Peach's chiding.  Her heart went out to him.

As he bent down and lifted up her head Mrs Peach kept watch behind them.

"Dann?" she heard a female voice say weakly.

"Oh, God, Raist, you're still alive!" Theonlydann said.

Raist coughed.  Blood came spewing out as she did so.  "I don't know for how long," she said.  Theonlydann hugged her tightly.

"No, don't talk like that.  We'll get you help," Theonlydann said.

Satisfied that the coast was clear for the time being, Mrs Peach walked over to them.  Immediately she saw that there was a large hole in Raist's chest, right next to the heart.  The shirt she was wearing was soaked through with blood.

"Don't worry, Raist, you're gonna be all right," Mrs Peach said, trying to comfort her.  She knew better though.  She had seen wounds like that, first-hand, and she knew that Raist's chance of survival was probably close to zero at that point.

"You're sweet," Raist said, her voice barely above a whisper.  "You know, Dann, I never told you my first name.  Isn't that weird?"

"Oh, sweetie, it's okay," Theonlydann said.

"It's Melissa," Raist choked out.  Then she coughed a little more, blood spraying out.

"Oh, Melissa," Dann said, crying.  "That's such a pretty name."

"Avenge me," Raist said, her voice now a barely audible croak.  Then her eyes went glassy, and her chest stopped moving.

"Raist?  No," Theonlydann mumbled.

"I'm sorry, Dann," Mrs Peach said.  "She's gone."

"No, she can't be.  We have to help her."

Mrs Peach bent down and put her arm around Theonlydann's back softly.  She hugged him, and he hugged back.  Now they were both in tears.

[Roundy, The Great Communicator of Truthiness]

Chapter 13: Some Deaths and Conversations

Username had a headache.

It wasn't the sound of destruction all around him; that might have had something to do with its genesis, but it had died down anyway, and it wasn't the reason why his head was pulsing right now.

Username had a headache because Raa insisted on singing some hymn, over and over again.  From the mouth of a talented singer it might have been beautiful.  Unfortunately, Raa's voice sounded vaguely like that of a frog that has found itself caught in a food processor.  And it didn't help that he was singing in French, making it impossible for Username to understand what the fuck he was singing about.  And it sounded like he just kept singing the same two verses, over and over again.  How many times would that make it now that he'd heard the same garbled phrases over and over again?  Twenty?  Thirty?  Username had lost count.

"Would you please stop singing that?" Username asked.  He had just been sitting in the corner, rubbing his temples and trying to ignore it, but it was becoming increasingly obvious that that just wouldn't be possible.

"Sacre-bleu!" Raa responded.  "What crawled up your trou d'cul?"

Username wanted to shout, but worried that shouting might exacerbate his headache he decided against it.  "I'm sorry, I have a headache and your singing just isn't helping.  Please stop."

"I am just trying to find comfort in an uncomfortable situation."

"I understand, but it's killing me.  And what if they hear you?"

"I don't think they're out there right now, mon frere.  The noise seems to have died down."

"I noticed that.  Can't we just sit in quiet for a few moments?"

Before Raa could reply there was a loud banging on the door.  Raa and Username exchanged a brief nervous glance.

"Raa?  Username?  It's The Engineer!  Open up!"

With that Username was flooded with relief.  "Engy baby, it's so nice to hear from you!" he shouted.
*******************************************************************

Dogplatter and Narcberry were walking together to the library, an agent in tow.  It had been Narcberry's idea to return to the site of his previous horror, to survey the damage and see if anything might be salvageable.  Along the way they found a young man face-down on the floor, his white hair a bright contrast to the pool of red that had formed around it.  Narcberry leaned down and felt the body's wrist for a pulse.

"He's dead," he said.  There hadn't been much doubt beforehand but there was none now.  Narcberry turned the body around on its back.  Stuck to the corpse's chest was a name tag, on which was written (difficult to read with all the blood but still unmistakable) "Hi, My Name Is Althalus."

It brought up a question for Narcberry that he'd had since they had been in the bunker.  "Why was he so important, anyway?"

"Althalus was a brilliant student at MIT.  Online he was just a troll, and he posted most of what he did for a reaction.  In real life he was well on his way to becoming the greatest physicist since Einstein.  According to my research he may have been well on his way, all on his own, to proving FET and subsequently unifying the laws of physics."

"Wow.  So why not contact him directly, like you did me?"

"Because I'm a foolish old man with a dream," Dogplatter responded cryptically.

A Conspiracy agent turned a corner ahead of them.  Dogplatter fired, barely even looking, and caught the Conspiracy agent in the right arm.  His gun went flying before he had the opportunity to take a shot and he grabbed his arm in pain.  It looked like the bottom half of his arm was only half-connected to the top half.  The FES agent lifted his gun and Dogplatter immediately halted him.  "No," he said, "I want to keep this one alive."
***************************************************************

"Be honest," The Skeptic said.  "You're not really Saddam Hussein, right?  This is all a hoax?"

He, Saddam, Nomad, and Oscar Wilde were walking shoulder-to-shoulder down the hallway, the agent accompanying them keeping pace a few steps behind.

"I assure you," Saddam replied, "the only hoax here is that the earth is round."

The Skeptic laughed.  "Right.  And it was a clone who was hanged.  And right now we're stuck in the wildest science-fiction story of all time."

"If you really feel that way, why are you up here?"

"I don't know.  Obviously somebody is acting very hostile towards us for some reason, and I feel like I've been caught in the middle.  What am I going to do?  But that doesn't mean I trust any of you."

"Can you two please can the koffee klatch?" Oscar Wilde asked.  "Don't you think that's a bad idea?"

As if to clarify the point, two Conspiracy agents came whipping around the bend, firing away.  Instinctively all four of them ducked.  The FES agent accompanying them was hit and fell to the floor wordlessly.

All four of them fired in the direction of the Conspiracy agents.  For a brief moment there was a hail of bullets going in both directions before each of the Conspiracy agents was hit.  One was hit in the head.  He staggered around, bullets wildly flying in all directions, and he actually hit the other one he was with who had also been hit by a couple bullets coming from the FESers.  They kind of crumpled into each other before falling lifelessly to the floor.

"Is everybody okay?" Oscar asked.  He looked over and saw that Nomad was not.  He was clutching his shoulder, which was draining blood, forming a spreading stain on his shirt.  He moaned in pain.  Saddam examined the wound.

"Well, it doesn't look mortal," Saddam said.  "He's going to need immediate medical attention though."

"How's he gonna get that?" The Skeptic asked.

"If we can get him back down to the bunker Ubuntu should be able to help," Saddam responded.
*****************************************************************

Most of the group down in the bunker watched the computer screen in a mix of fascination and horror as the events detailed above unfolded.  General Gayer was too but her thoughts were somewhere else.  At some point she had started thinking about a dream she had had a couple nights before.  It had been jostled out of her subconscious while Tom Bishop had been speaking up in the gymnasium.  The thing was, she remembered hearing that Chrissetti had died, but initially she couldn't place where it had been.  During the trip down it struck her: she had dreamt it.  She'd had mildly prophetic dreams in the past so it really didn't surprise her.  What bothered her was that it seemed like there was more to it, something important... but she had no idea what it was.

She wanted to talk to somebody about it.  Scanning the room she noticed that Space Cowgirl was not looking at the screen like everyone else.  She was staring directly at Tom Bishop, a look of befuddlement on her face.  Then she turned to look at General Gayer, her eyes trained right on Gayer's own.  Startled, Gayer looked the other way.

Space Cowgirl walked over to her.  "Is there something on your mind, Gayer?" she asked somewhat consolingly.

"Oh, it's nothing," Gayer said.

"Come on, I can tell.  Believe me.  What are you thinking about?"

"Well, it's kind of silly, really.  Have you ever had a prophetic dream?"

Space Cowgirl looked at her, and the look made Gayer uncomfortable, because it felt like Space Cowgirl was looking into her very soul and it felt like an incredibly uncouth invasion of privacy.

"You think I'm crazy, don't you?"

"Oh, not at all!" Space Cowgirl replied.  "In fact... God, this is weird, I don't usually tell people this..."

"What?" Gayer asked, now wondering if Space Cowgirl was crazy.

"Well, I'm actually kind of psychic," she replied meekly.

"No," Gayer replied, skeptical although she supposed she was in no position to be skeptical of such a confession.

"Really, I am," Space Cowgirl replied.  "I can't exactly read thoughts, but I can always tell when people are telling the truth, when they're lying, what they're feeling, things like that."

"Okay, so what am I feeling right now?"

Space Cowgirl laughed.  "Uneasy," she said, "although not really about me.  It's the situation we're in.  Skeptical, but willing to believe.  I think that's about everything.  And I'm getting deep frustration right now."

"Okay, I admit you're right, but that could probably describe anybody here --"

"The frustration is because you can't remember something that you think is important.  It has to do with that dream, doesn't it?  There was a warning of some kind, and you can't remember it now, and it's driving you crazy."

General Gayer was now a bit stunned.  "Now you're stunned," Space Cowgirl said.

General Gayer laughed nervously.  "Okay, stop," she said.

"I wish I could," Space Cowgirl responded dourly.  "So, do you want to talk about it?"

And then General Gayer spilled all that she could remember about the dream.  The park, the presence of Roundy, the revelation that Chrissetti was dead.  "And there was a warning," she said at the end.  "And I know it was important, but I can't remember what it was, except that more people are going to die."

"Bummer," Space Cowgirl said.

"So you believe me?"

"Yes.  And I have something I need to get off my chest too," she said.

"Well, go ahead," Gayer said.  She was feeling better having unloaded that on someone else.

"I'm not joking when I say I'm psychic.  Ever since I was about eleven I've been able to pick up impressions on everybody I meet.  It can be overpowering at times," Space Cowgirl said.

"That sucks," Gayer replied.

"When I woke up today," Space Cowgirl continued, "it was dulled.  It must have had something to do with whatever drugs they gave us.  But now I have it back full-force.  Right now I'm picking things up on everybody in this room, except one."

"Who?"

"Tom Bishop.  He's a total blank, and this is the first time that's ever happened to me."