BAD-028
Barista: Jenny Wells
Date: Jan-15-2020
Receipt: BAD-028
Subject: Omens
Okay, first off—WHERE THE HELL ARE THEY???
Twenty-four hours. A FULL. DAY. Since they went spelunking into the True Barrow. And you know what we’ve gotten? NOTHING. CaDCom? DEAD. Quiet. No pings. No messages. No receipts. NO. NOTHING.
Sure, sure, it’s an otherworldly tomb. Obviously, the reception’s gonna suck. But STILL. You’d think we’d get something. A distress signal. A butt-dial. A single cryptic text message that just says “DOOM” or “help.” But nope! Not a peep. Not a whisper. Not even a single skull emoji.
I don’t like that.
I don’t like it at all.
Now, do I have theories? Oh, you bet your ass I do.
- Time dilation nonsense. Classic—CLASSIC—Plane hopping move. They probably think it’s been, like, ten minutes. Meanwhile, we’ve been pacing the floor for twenty-four hours. If they walk out of there saying they “just stepped in,” I swear to God. Happens every time we go into other Planes. Might as well also happen with these new Planes.
- They got lost in a cosmic maze. Because let’s be real—when has a haunted Barrow not had at least one impossible labyrinth? It’s how I’d design it in a D&D campaign.
- The Corvine decided to be EXTRA cryptic. If the the Corvine’s down there, she probably dropped some cryptic, world-ending prophecy on them, and now they’re all standing in a circle, thinking. It’s a thinking bunch down there. Rachel, Jean-Marc, Julia—OH!
- Julia’s Mark Did A Thing. Like at the funeral, it did something and now they are all zapped into that weirdness from before and they’ll all come back out having learned the truths about themselves.
And, uh, yeah, I guess I’m worried or whatever.
Not for any reason. No reason at all.
Certainly NOT because of Max. Nope. Not even a little bit.
Because let me make this absolutely, painfully, crystal clear—the rumors? The whispers? The so-called ‘eyewitness accounts’ of me and Max having some kind of thing? They are WRONG. INCORRECT. BASELESS FABRICATIONS.
I WOULD NEVER. NEVER. SLEEP WITH THE ENEMY. NEVER. I know, I understand, they were fired from the Agency. They work here now. But they work here AS A SPY FOR ALFA. Come on. COME ON. Secret back door deals? Two rando Astorians working for us now?
Suspicious.
And Max? Stupid. Smug. Suspicious. Stupid.
And anyone who says otherwise is a filthy liar. I hope they’re okay. ALL OF THEM. Not just Max.