pressure of the water above it. And every Sunday, a whole building 
full of people are born again just to be drowned. A perverse baptism, 
like the Reverend I'm responsible for but on an even larger scale. 


The worst part of all? As | stare out and imagine the horror of 
drowning | can't help but smile. Because that one isn't my problem. 
Someone else handles the drowning church. The ethical 
implications of the decision to let them die over and over again isn't 
my purview. I'm free of guilt. For that at least. 


Tomorrow Jacobs leaves. Tomorrow | have to find an apartment 
near the Site. | stand up, dust myself off and walk back to my car. | 
grab a flyer off my windshield and toss it into the passenger seat. | 
sit down on the driver's side and open my glove compartment. The 
Gideon bible inside has brought me solace on a number of 
occasions. Solace is something | need in this moment. 


When you work for the Foundation, believing in something larger 
and grander than yourself is easy. Believing in something larger and 
grander than the stuff around you is a bit harder but it is something 
I've done for years to stay sane. | open the bible to a random page 
and select a passage. Ezekiel 20:29. 


"Then | said unto them, What is the high place whereunto ye go? 
And the name thereof is called Bamah unto this day." 


| wrinkle my nose as | look up from the pages. The half crumpled 
flyer in the seat beside me is bright red, and catches my eye. 


"Check out 'Bama Boat's Gulf Tours! Only 20 bucks at Pier 8!" 
Well. 
That is just unsettling. 


« Sex, Success, and Targeted Advertising | Rammer Jammer 
Yellow Hammer Hub | The North Pole» 


The Assassination of Beleaguered Normalcy by the 
Coward Gamers Against Weed 


"They're not gonna have her in downtown Portland, dude." 


The truck was silent for a minute, save for the sound of the man in 
the passenger's seat cracking his joints one by one. Each arm 
flexed sharply until the elbow made a popping sound. Wrists 
crackled as they rolled around in their sockets. Ten fingers tugged in 
quick succession. Repeat. 


"Wwwhy not?" 


Jude stopped his popping and crackling. "I mean, think about it. 
You're some kind of secret government conspiracy, and you have a 
secret base where you put the secret magic things you grab. Are 
you gonna keep it in the city, where if anything goes wrong a bunch 
of people see it, or out in the country where there's jack shit?" 


Armand drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he 
considered this. "Yyyeah | iguess, bubut then we havve n oway 
offinding her." When Jude didn't respond, Armand laughed a little 
forced laugh. "Thej janitors raid you're apartemnt, and youuu're 
woriede about that girl withha police badger." 


Jude's eyes focused on the highway stretching out in front of them. 
Streetlights, and the occasional car ahead of them, illuminated the 
road up to the horizon. "Yeah, ‘cause it's my fault. We can get a 
new... place to live or whatever. Gaycop can probably get us new 
IDs. We'll be fine. Brenda's gonna lose her job if she doesn't show 
up to work." 


"Your a betteter guy than meJude." Armand dutifully hit his turn 
signal before taking an exit. 


Jude's apartment was precisely what Armand expected it 


to be: sparsely furnished and spotless, with trash cans 
overflowing thanks to the last-minute efforts of its owner. 
It smelled of air freshener and weed. There was a clear 
shot to the balcony door in back, where the dull light of 
an overcast afternoon provided the apartment's sole 
source of illumination. 


Jude himself was not at all what Armand expected him to 
be: a_ six-feet-and-change pallid man whose weight 
blessedly manifested itself as a soft, doughy full-body 
padding rather than as an unsightly potbelly. He made 
an attempt to lean in the doorway, but apparently got 
self-conscious at the last second and just stood up 
straight. 


"Hey, what's up. Harmpit in the flesh." A hand was held 
out in some vaguely invitational gesture, and an equally 
ambiguous tight-lipped smile shown on his face. 


Armand set his duffle bag down before meeting the 
vague hand gesture with one of his own — something 
between a high-five and a handshake that just sort of 
trailed off before his hand could fully disappear into 
Jude's meaty paws. 


"Are you bluntunttfffiend? Legallyyou hafta tell meee if 
you're bluntfiend.". He smiled brightly. His teeth were 
awful. 


Papa Pete's Pizza, as well as the sub and burger restaurants to 
either side of it, had closed a good four hours earlier. The squat, 
pointy-moustached caricature of Papa Pete cast a modest light over 
the empty parking lot from the building's stone facade. Armand 
deftly parked his truck in the space furthest from the highway before 
exiting and heading back to its bed. 


"How do you even know about this place?" Jude stepped out of the 
truck and slowly paced around. The spot was surrounded on three 
sides by trees, and a fence blocked the fourth from view of the 
highway. Not that he was complaining, but Jude had to wonder if it 


was designed with this sort of endeavor in mind. Probably not. 


"lii ate here onnn thew way up." Armand stood on tip-toe to see 
inside, then withdrew a hollow metal pole substantially longer than 
he was tall. He stumbled briefly, and almost fell over, but managed 
to gain his balance. After examining the pole, he carefully turned the 
far end towards Jude. "Here, your tallaler." 


Jude took hold of the pole and, with considerably more ease than 
Armand, shifted it to balance in his grip. "Right." He turned around 
and headed towards Papa Pete's, looking up at the sign. "Trait 
swapping takes an hour, you said?" When they reached the pizza 
parlor, he oriented the pole vertically. 


"Revverobo-semmmmanticas assoc—" Armand shook his head. 
"Sssurethat. And yes." He stood off to the side as Jude slowly 
angled the pole to go behind Papa Pete from beneath, lifting it up 
past his chest. 


"Awesome. And uh, we have that long, right? Like, they won't 
immediately break into your laptop and find pictures of your truck 
anywhere?" With a somewhat unsatisfying clunk, and a much more 
satisfying crunch, Jude jerked the pole backwards, levering Papa 
Pete free from his mounting all at once and letting him fall onto the 
ground. Both flinched a bit from the noise which they had completely 
anticipated. 


Armand looked around at the parking lot. Predictably, absolutely no- 
one had come to avenge Papa Pete's death. Jude was now 
examining the wreckage for handholds free of broken glass. "Yyeah. 
Donn't gravthere, lemme help." 


Jude just sort of watched from the kitchen as Armand 
used a rubber spatula to slather some wheat paste out of 
a pot and onto his wall. "... so. Do | wanna know why 
you're about to lose me my security deposit?" He 
checked in the fridge to see if any food had magically 
appeared there in the past ten minutes. None had. 


Armand looked over his shoulder. "A mmmeme, 


obvisaly.". He set the pot and spatula on the ground, 
wiping a bit of the white goop off onto his makeshift 
apron (an old dress shirt tied around his neck). 
"Bessidesy, you're definitely goiing to getchased out to 
hereby thej anitors in the middle oftenight." 


Jude opened his mouth, then closed it. "... yeah, you're 
probably right. Hopefully that's after you've found some 
place to stay permanently." He gave a little chuckle of 
dubious authenticity. Another fridge check: leftover 
quesadillas, raw bacon, hummus, an empty bottle of 
mustard, and a few bottles of hard cider. Same as 
before. 


Armand didn't answer, instead opting to pick up a 
printout from the pile by his feet and hold it up to the wall. 
Black on white, with a few esoteric symbols surrounding 
one immediately recognizable symbol in the center. He 
smoothed it over with his palm, binding it to the wall. 


"So uh... speaking of... have your parents...?" Jude left 
the question open-ended as he blinked. "Wait, what am | 
thinking. Wheat paste comes off with water." 


"O rly? Hey check thhhis out." Armand rapped the wall 
next to the printout with his knuckle. 


Jude leaned over to get a clear look at it. "Huh, | kinda 
like it. Unironically. Is it supposed to do something?" 


"Itm makes youu reddorrractivevly love quesadillas." 
Armand matter-of-factly picked up a picture of a 
distraught-looking Slavoj Zizek and placed it directly 
below the first image. 


Both got a bit of a guffaw out of Jude. "No, but seriously, 
what... | mean, you can't actually... can you? How would 
you even know?" Knowing full well that its contents 
would not shed light on the situation, he opened the 
fridge a third time. The quesadillas were still present, as 
was a can of pineapple chunks. 


"By the way, uh, we should buy a can opener." 


The Fiat Toro was, by Armand's standards, a very ugly vehicle, and 
proof that the Italians had no business producing pickup trucks. 
Armand's standards also stated in no uncertain terms that, having 
transmuted his perfectly good F-150 into the monstrosity, he had no 
business complaining. The only one who could complain was the 
newly-American Flapjack Frank, whose disgruntled visage dropped 
the occasional shard of glass into the truck's bed in protest. 


The silence in the ugly truck's cab was broken only by Jude's noisy 
joints. Eight knuckles popped in short succession. Wrists rolled until 
they failed to crackle. Repeat. He spoke up suddenly. "I'm gonna 
message JJ. He's gotta be up, right? He wouldn't just... tell us to get 
out of dodge and fuck off, right?" Jude pulled out his cell phone, but 
doesn't turn it on. 


Armand shrugged. "Worthher a try." Beat. "They're nnot tracccking 
you. Relax." 


"Yeah, | guess." Jude pulled out his phone and turned his phone on, 
tapping in a password, and then a second, and a third. That one 
opened up Signal. 


Siiiitnere? 

Simpiying t wouid just ieave you nanging like that 

imean. it’s not ike you foliowed up or anything. 

Hm. 

Yeah, | guess that would qualify as leaving you hanging. 

In my defense, | was waiting for confirmation that you weren't 
compromised. 

And this counts? 

You're running from the janitors and you're worried about MY 
infosec. Of course. 

You know i'm basicaily untouchable, right? Luck, etc. 

it's for my sake, not yours. 

is kkruie online? Can you get him to set up a secret handshake? 
Shit, blunt. 

| pushed my luck to get you advance notice of that raid. 


Now you're making me talk to the bernie guy? 

Nah ft got this thougn. 

2q*x71767085r/3IM-‘L9G3!,52" 5y+T$*4d6K2g803H4n|T~ 
+Bt0irgsABQZj8 
2q*x71767085r/3IM-‘L9G3!,52"5y+T$*4d6K2g803H4n|T~ 
+B10IrgsABQZ]8 


Jude set his phone in his lap as a small metal box, featureless apart 
from a digital keypad, appeared in his hands. "Hey Armand, you 
should probably pull over. | gotta disarm this EMP real quick." 


There was a spot on the wall of Jude's room, about nine 
inches in diameter, that shimmered with psychedelic 
patterns when the light hit it right. The spot was a straight 
shot across the room from Jude's pillow; Jude had 
forgotten whether he did that on purpose to have 
something to look at, or whether staring at the same spot 
for hours every day made stuff like that happen on its 
own. In either case, he welcomed its presence. 


At that moment, however, his view of it was blocked by 
Armand's belt buckle. While the two green rectangles 
emblazoned with pointing hands were well-crafted, Jude 
was never quite sure what to make of the fact that both 
hands pointed at Armand's crotch. Or rather, he knew 
what to make of it, just not whether Armand was doing it 
ironically. 


Armand stuffed one hand in his pocket, the other holding 
a laptop under his arm. "Hhhheyg. Goanna get out of 
bed tomorning?" The tone was hard to decipher through 
Armand's slurred, stumbling speech, but it probably 
wasn't disappointment. 


"Doubt it. Thanks for your concern, | mean, don't you 
have stuff to do? | thought you were busy today." Jude 
didn't bother averting his gaze, instead grabbing his 
phone from his bedside table and using it to block the 
view. 


"Your nnnot int trouble, youuu don't have to defelect 
attention." Armand sat cross-legged on the floor, setting 
his laptop in front of him and pulling a pack of Newport 
100s out of his pocket. "I'm watchchching polls, m yself. 
You?" 


Jude reached out and snapped his fingers (or, he almost 
did — it made an unsatisfying 'plap' sound), igniting the 
tip of his index finger and extending it towards Armand. 
He extinguished it after Armand used it to light a 
cigarette. "Literally anything else. The last way | want to 
celebrate the end of this election is by shotgunning more 
election coverage. You have any ideas for Mr. Mad 
About Video Games? | wanna square that away by the 
end of the week." 


"Heee should make vibeo james suck less." Armand 
puffed on the cigarette a little bit, opening up his laptop. 
"So hec can be lesss maddatem."” 


"Do my eyes — uh, ears deceive me? You came up with 
an actual idea for one of the misters?" Jude smirked, 
tapping away on his device. "| guess that's solid, but | 
think we'd have to know shit about video games to do 
that | think." 


"Or weed do ap public service annnd make him stoppopp 
people from being maddat games." 


"Let's call that a stretch goal... eh, I'm sure we'll think of 
something." Jude rolled over. 


Armand drummed his fingers on the steering wheel a bit. He had 
never participated in this 'secret handshake’ before, but he was 
aware of the protocol — kkrule would "tag" a text snippet with a 
simple EMP, and then the involved parties would share the text, thus 
summoning copies to disarm with a memorized password. Ideally, 
those in the know would render theirs inert if all was safe, and those 
not in the know would puzzle over it for a few minutes before all of 
their snooping devices were fried. 


Armand found the whole thing fairly melodramatic, and riddled with 
flaws, but also pretty harmless. Indeed, a few short beeps indicated 
that Jude had easily defused the device, which went into the 
backseat. He picked his phone back up, giving the thumbs-up to 
Armand, who pulled back onto the highway. 


s kind of siliy, honestly. 
But | love the thought of the janitors and the NSA getting their spy 


S pretty great. 
Mm all ears. 
Or eye guess. 


First, harmpit left his laptop behind. It weighs like 500 pounds, 


because snenanigans. 


Odds are they can break its crypto somehow. 
| doubt anything on it is compromising, but they'll have his chatlogs 


a a % a 
CO 


lope. Forgery’s not their forte apparently. 
Lesbian_gengar can probably stick a mind trick onto a blank card 
OUQN. 


Good idea. Have her talk to harmpit, they can probably wor 


As tor lodging, | Know a girl in Idano and now a fairy in Iceland. 


Y Our pick 
wa eland like € Of year? 


old. Genetically homogenous. 
OU O AY ior A Tavi cwaY; 7 ive ny Ole 


Awesome. Assuming she agrees when | tell her. 
Just head in the general direction of Boise and remember that 


nothing Is a CoInciIadence. 
Y OU Ti 


Nd YOU Way. 


This is either going to be kinda neat or it's going to be awful: 
Trust me, it'll be ~magicai~. 

What's the third thing? 

¢ 

Oh, right. You're in charge for now. 

l really shouldn't run things until I'm in the clear. 

Think you can handie that? 

Weil, yean. it’s not rocket surgery, is it? 

lmostly mean “keep kkrule from fucking up or leaving”. 

The kid is impressionable, and also grossly OP. 

ifwe don't peer pressure him, someone eise wiil- 

tesign. Yeah, l'itmake sure he learns the ways of the gamer. 
Fantastic. 

See you in a few weeks, dude. 

And thanks again for saving my ass. 

Don't mention it. 


Jude's knuckles were the only sound in the cabin, until Armand 
turned on the radio.