milliways_bar | (no subject)

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"I'm gonna need a towel, please," Ray says to the first wait-rat to cross his path. It's been a long day on the job for him and he's got his usual slime issues, namely: he, his proton pack, his jumpsuit, and nearly everything he's wearing under his jumpsuit is saturated in the stuff. "And a large glass of the quantum blue and a cheeseburger."

The rat squeaks and scampers off, returning with the towel first. Ray rubs his face vigorously before dropping into the nearest chair and unbuckling his pack. "Thanks."

Another squeak.

"Oh, hush. I'll wash up later. It's just ectoplasm."

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"okay," ray says. "Sorry. I've been a little frazzled lately. We got them some good ruggedized, waterproofed laptops and set up text messaging between them and the surface, for starters. Made the whole deal a lot easier."

"Positive sign there, at least. What's their political stance toward Y'ha-nthlei?"

"Or should I be asking about a military stance?"

"They weren't aware of their existence," Ray says. "They've been a little busy keeping somebody asleep for pretty much their entire species history, less three or four days."

K looks away for a moment to let that digest. Then turns back fast:

"Less three or four--? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Basically? The first couple of them to realize they'd become sentient got together to talk the whole 'wow, we're aware of ourselves' thing over, and they realized they'd all had roughly the same experience," Ray says. "At which point they all realized they didn't really like what they were experiencing, and opted to put their efforts towards not playing into their sponsor's plans."

K eyes Ray. "And what consequence is that going to have for keeping a certain Entity asleep?"

"Who do you think their sponsor was?"

"An undersea race keeping a 'sponsor' asleep? Not too many candidates to choose from, Ray. And one stands out by a South Pacific mile."

"'Course, if you want to tell me this has nothing to do with Rl'yeh, I can promise I won't be disappointed."

"I wish I could say that, K, I really do, but you know I've never been a good liar..."

"Which brings me back to the main question: if the Lemurians are changing their gameplan, how's that likely to affect the Pacific?"

"They're changing it in the sense that they're tagging out for someone new to enter the ring," Ray says. "They made contact to inform us that they couldn't keep him down much longer. I had to pass the news on, of course... K, does your world have an official in it anywhere named Amanda Waller?"

K slips a slim, shiny black device out of his Suit pocket and mashes a few buttons, but the holographic display is no help. K shakes his head.

"Not ours. Who is she?"

"Senior scientific advisor at DARPA. She was the one to first suggest the selection and training of Marines as a possible initial occult response force once it became clear to the government that they were facing a new kind of threat. She's been drawing up her own analyses and possible response plans to various paranormal disaster scenarios, everything from a basic dimensional cross-rip on up to everything in the 'Religion' category of Exit Mundi. My government's decided to implement what they refer to as the Waller Protocols regarding the Pacific threat. As we speak, one in every four American nuclear warheads is being re-targeted with the coordinates of R'lyeh."

K shakes his head. "Not much of a guarantee."

"Even assuming your delivery systems got to full launch without cultist intervention, there's a good chance the attack would just piss him off."

"Actually, I've read the Protocols," Ray says. "The nukes aren't intended for him. They're intended as a deterrent to anybody else who might be crazy enough to head in that direction to try and wake him up. Waller considered that level of atomic devastation preferable to the alternative."

That makes K thoughtful.

"Now that might work."

"'Course, anyone trying would be crazy by definition. You build it, there's a very good chance you're going to have to use it."

"Even with all the chances of the past couple of years, Ray, is your world really prepared for that?"

"Is any world ever prepared, K?" Ray says, running both his hands over his face.

It's not often he actually looks old, but it's there for a moment.

"Point," K concedes unhappily.

"How are the recruits holding up?"

"Pretty well, actually," says Ray, brightening. "The Hellfighters took responsibility for the doomsday door under 92nd Street and making sure it stayed completely shut. The Intangibles've been running themselves ragged in Chicago, and the Swamp Rats down in New Orleans got their station house inaugurated by a visit from a little old lady who thanked them for coming into town to clean things up and get things quieted down some before vanishing into thin air. Turned out their first endorsement was from Marie Laveau herself."

K chuckles. "Just you giving them the watch over the doomsday door tells me they're doing fine."

"This is stepping things up something fierce, though. Any signs yet of blowback?"

"Not so far, but October seems to start earlier and earlier each year," Ray says. "We're keeping an eye out, believe me."

"That it does."

"As always, you need another hand, just say the word."

"I'll let you know," Ray says. "Believe me, I'll let you know."

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