Muse

well hey there family this week old gods of appalachia are taking an extra week off as we do in between story arcs and we will return on thursday april 16th with the second arc of old gods of appalachia season six long shadows we got a whole new story we can't wait to share with you now if you want to hear that ad free and a day early go ahead and head on over to old godsofappalachia.com slash the holler, cast your tithe in the collection plate, and get that early ad-free access, as well as unlocking hours of exclusive storylines, including the new deluxe edition of Unhallowed Ground, starring Cecil Baldwin of Welcome to Night Vale and former Durham, North Carolina Poet Laureate DJ Rogers. But until then, allow us to fill the void with some exciting work from our friends over at Audacious Machine Creative. From the mind of Gabrielle Urbina, creator of Wolf 359, comes a modern fantasy podcast about the first two real magicians of the modern era and how that power changes the world forever. If you like magical rivals, political machinations, snappy dialogue, and dreaming of saving the world, then The Harbingers is a show for you. Because magic is real, it's real, and it's coming back. Listen to The Harbingers wherever you find your podcasts. Episodes come out bi-weekly on Thursdays. Now let's jump right in to episode one of The Harbingers.

To be continued...

Ms. Skinner will be right with you, Dr. Blackwell. We're sorry for the delay.

It's fine. Don't worry about it.

Can I get you anything while you wait? Water? A cup of coffee?

I'm all right, Ms. Pfeiffer. Thank you. Was there something else?

No, that's everything. Thank you. Well, actually, um, look, I just want to say, I know it probably feels like the whole world's against you right now, but there are people who, who get what you did and why you did it.

Thank you, Miss Pfeiffer. I appreciate you saying that.

I mean it. If you hadn't been there, if you hadn't done what, they're saying that it could have gotten so much worse than-

It got bad enough, Ms. Pfeiffer. We... We let it get bad enough.

I know. I know.

But...

Still. Thank you, Ms. Pfeiffer. I think that's more than enough. Oh, um, yes, ma'am. Is there anything? I think we're all set. I'll ring if we need anything. Yes. Ms. Skinner? Dr. Blackwell?

Please excuse Erica, Dr. Blackwell. She's a wonderful assistant, but unfortunately she's still a bit...

Naive.

Optimistic. Still a bit young and optimistic. I'll fix that in due course. But in the meantime, welcome to Skinner, DeVries, and Wiseman, Dr. Blackwell. My name is Claudia Skinner. It's a pleasure to finally meet you.

Yes, same here. Thank you for making the time. You're... young. Young to have your name on the side of the building, I mean.

Ah, it's my father's name. He started the firm back in 04. Ah. And so you... Graduated summa cum laude from Brown and went on to get law degrees in both Cambridge, England and Cambridge, Massachusetts? Absolutely. I assure you, Dr. Blackwell, you are in excellent hands. Do you have any questions before we get started? Yes. How much do you charge? My fees are being taken care of. You don't need to worry about that.

That's not what I'm asking. I'm asking... A personal injury lawyer is, what, $2.50 an hour? Give or take? If I was trying to get a divorce, that's $400. It's $600.

$600 an hour for an immigration attorney, and $9 for the kind of lawyer I'd need if I hadn't shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. So how much are you, with your Alexander McQueen suit and your name on the side of the building and your naive assistant you're turning to the dark side, how much are you charging per hour to sit here and talk to me?

It's more than any of the numbers you just quoted. I can say that much.

How much more?

Dr. Blackwell, is there a reason you need to know this right now?

Is there a reason why you're not just telling me?

you know there's this story my father used to tell to his clients he'd go once upon a time there was a young scorpion who wanted to cross a river unfortunately he couldn't swim so he asked a passing turtle to carry him on his back the turtle hesitated but eventually agreed after the scorpion promised not to sting him but when they were halfway through the river a terrible impulse fell upon the scorpion he brought his stinger down and and as they both start drowning

the scorpion says don't look at me it's in my nature and you knew i was a scorpion when you

agreed to take me across the river yeah i know that one actually as the scorpion stinger bounced harmlessly off the turtle's hard shell he found the other animal looking back at him over his shoulder. And the turtle just said, tell me, you want to fuck around some more or do you want me to get you across this fucking river? That was a story about how sometimes you can just let people

help you. A frog. It's usually a frog when I've heard that story. Well, let me assure you, Dr.

Blackwell. You're not dealing with a frog. And let me remind you, you are the center of an unprecedented disaster, one in which people died. The only reason you haven't been charged with a hysterical number of criminal charges is because no one is quite sure of how the law interfaces with your unique circumstance. But the government's catching up. They're doing a congressional hearing, the kind that's going to decide how a lot of laws are going to work in this country, and they have been kind enough to invite you to participate. And when I say invite, I mean subpoena. This hearing is either going to go exceptionally well for you or it is going to lead to you being invited to see the inside of a courtroom in a trial which you will have no chance of winning. So finally, allow me to ask you, would you like me to get you across the river or would you prefer to fuck around some more?

Let's, let's get across the river.

Let's. This is Claudia Skinner, handling case MGR 831. This is information prep session number one. It is November 7th, 2030. Dr. Blackwell, just so we can get the formalities out of the way, could you please state your full name, as well as the capacity in which you are known as a public figure?

Yes. My name is Dr. Adam Blackwell, and I am the first human being with real scientifically confirmed magic powers. I am the most powerful man in the world. Audacious Machine Creative presents The Harbingers. Created by Gabriel Urbino. Episode 1. I'd love to change the world.

All right, Dr. Blackwell, why don't we start at the beginning?

Sure. I was born April 15th, 1998, in Portland, Oregon. The house where I grew up had yellow shutters and a white fence. The nursery was... Ahem. Oh, what? You're allowed to be cute and I'm not? Is that how it works?

That is exactly how it works. Let me be more precise. You were a graduate student at Sinclair University in Chicago, yes?

Yes.

You were a master's candidate in the archaeology program?

Technically the anthropology department, but yes.

Why?

Why? Why did I want to study archaeology? Is that relevant?

It could be. If you chose to study archaeology because it was your beloved father's dying wish, very relevant. And if you were convinced there were ancient secrets buried somewhere out there that would help us fight the rise of fascism, absolutely. If you became an archaeologist solely out of your deep-seated love for the films of the Indiana Jones series, that can stay between the two of us.

I liked languages. I thought I was going to study linguistics and go on to work as a translator. But then my second year in college, I took an anthropology class and I just...

fell in love.

Yes, that would be From Rapa Nui to Harbingers, an introductory survey to the Forgotten Empires of the World, taught by Julian McCandless, who went on to be your mentor and chief dissertation

advisor. That class changed my life. It showed me a new way of thinking about the world, and it

taught me that... Tell me about Amelia Sterling.

Amy, Miss Sterling, was another grad student at Sinclair. We started the master's program at the same time. Did you think much of her? Ms. Sterling was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant, but she could be stubborn. It could be difficult to get a word in edgewise around her. Would you call her a rival? Okay, well, here's what you need to understand. If you were interested in the study of ancient cultures that grad program at sinclair was the place it was one of the best funded programs it had some of the best professors some of the best opportunities but there wasn't enough of all the above to go around anytime one of us got a research project approved or a seat on a field expedition or even time with our advisors we were taking it away from one of the other students in as much as you could say it about me and amy you could say it about all of us we were all rivals and yet

You didn't go on a date with any of the other students in the program, did you?

Oh my, come on. That's inbounds?

How do you even know about that? This isn't the hard part, you know. Lord knows we haven't gotten anywhere near the hard part. It's all going to come out, Adam. And I'm going to be the friendliest person who's going to ask you about it. So, pretty please. Stop fucking around and answer the question.

One. I went on one date with her. I was 26, and I thought it might be a good idea, and... Did you find her attractive? The Venn diagram between the people who like Miss Sterling and the people who like oxygen is very close to being a circle. Dr. Blackwell. Yes, I found her attractive. And we went out one time. Must have been... Averill of 2025? And how did it go?

What did the two of you talk about?

Sinclair University, April 2025.

Okay. Did you know that right now, on this planet, there are seven people who could save the world?

Seven people who... what?

Seven people, all with the power to save the world. Right.

Well, common sense says that cannot possibly be true.

Ah, and yet.

And you're not talking, like, people with their fingers on nuclear buttons who are choosing not to press them, thus preventing anyone from...

No, no, no, no, no. Fuck that. That sucks. I'm talking active, making things that are broken not be broken. Saving the world.

Alright, I'm intrigued. Who are these seven real-world superheroes?

Paul Berthold, Makoto Kamiki, Simon Godowski, Jerome Eckerberg, Jacqueline St. Pierre, Carlos Luis Mendez, and Zakir Mujambar.

Ah, the seven richest men in the world.

Six richest men and its richest woman, thank you very much.

Okay, okay, sure. And the way they save the world is?

Simon Gadowski has a net worth of $210 billion. You want to know how much NGOs estimate the yearly cost of ending world hunger would be?

From the way you're presenting that question, I'm guessing $200 billion.

No, way high. Conservative estimate, $10 billion a year. Easy.

What? That cannot possibly be true.

Extreme poverty is even cheaper. Threshold is set at those living for $3.20 a day.

There's people living for $3.20?

Yes, there are people living at $3.20 a day. Bumping approximately 900 million people up to that level costs about $1.8 billion. Chump change. How do you just know this? Clean water across the whole world, $50 billion. Child health, about $400 a year per child. Call that another $50 billion? Homelessness is more complicated, but local experts estimate that $13 billion would end homelessness in San Francisco. That's not solving the issue globally, but...

No, still, that's a start. All of which begs the question...

If there are people who have the ability to just snap their fingers and save the world, why is the world not saved?

I mean, besides the obvious reason.

It's the whole... Wait, sorry, obvious. What obvious reason?

Well, just because Jacqueline St. Pierre has a net worth of $200 billion, it doesn't mean she has it sitting in a bank somewhere. It's in, like, stocks and bonds and company valuation.

Okay, sure, fine, but that's a road bump. If you have something worth $50 billion, theoretically you should be able to sell it and then you'd have $50 billion, yeah?

I'm sort of scared to disagree with you right now.

Good. That means my whole shtick is doing its job. But to get back to the real question, there is no fucking good reason. If someone has that much money, that much power, and there's so much broken in the world, they have a moral imperative to do something about it. So, really, from a social, pragmatic point of view, I don't think there's a way to justify the existence of any of them.

So we're going to eat the rich?

Just the seven richest. That's all I'm asking. Let's eat those seven people and feed the world. Oh, holy shit. Put a beer and a half in me and I just, I went off on a whole thing. Wow.

It was very impressive.

Still, though, I'm sorry. I clearly do not know how to do first dates.

It's fine. How do you know all of this stuff?

I like actuarial tables, and I have a good head for numbers. Even when I'm outraged. No, especially when I am outraged.

So, now what?

I was thinking we'd finish these beers, settle up, and then I'd get you to walk me home.

You'd get me to walk you home? Would I have any say in the matter?

Oh, none whatsoever. I have very pretty eyes and I can make them get all big and round so I can basically get people to do anything I want. Here, watch. Please.

Oh my God, put those away before you hurt somebody.

It's like a superpower. I'm basically a Batman villain.

You know, there is an alternative.

To you walking me home? Because, dude, I think you're going to want...

No, no, I mean, no, no, I do want. I just... How much would it cost to, say, fix climate change?

Oh, that's a big one. Somewhere in the ballpark of... 700 billion? A year?

Well, see? There you go. If I was someone that wanted to solve climate change, but I only had $200 billion, wouldn't the best, most ethical thing I could do with that money be to, well, turn it into $700 billion?

I mean, no. Not if you, like, like if you're burning the world to get richer, that's not going to solve anything.

No, no, of course not. I'm just talking in the abstract. This isn't even a real... Oh, okay, good, because I just... What you're talking about, obviously, isn't the absolute... No, no, I just mean this is all just a thought experiment. No one person can actually stop the world from ending. That's my point. No, I think someone could. Okay, maybe in like a photographer level, but like in the real world, that's not like, would you just let me talk for a second? I can see it, is all I'm saying. I can see why someone might not immediately sink all of their resources into solving one problem if there was something bigger and more meaningful they could do later on. And therefore, I can see why we might want to give your, You're Evil 7 or whatever. A bit of latitude. That's all I'm saying.

You done? Cool, I'm gonna go home.

Amy, hang on.

Pro tip, dude. Next time you're trying to pick up a grad school girl with tattoos and a shaved head, playing devil's advocate for the billionaire oligarchy is so not the move. See ya.

You know, this is exactly why McCandless hasn't approved any of your research proposals.

What did you just say to me?

You know, your proposals for the archives or fieldwork. You know how he keeps telling you to go back to the drawing board to think bigger? This is why. You never look at the big picture, Amy. You always just swing for the fences, and he knows it, and you know it.

And you? Adam fucking Blackwell are so afraid of taking any swing at all that when your opportunity comes, you're going to let it sail past you. And you know it.

And would we consider this one of your more successful first dates? No, don't answer that. field work that year was in princess elizabeth land yep which just for the record is in antarctica

East Antarctica, to be precise. One of the flattest, most accessible parts of the continent.

And why did we want to go to this lovely place?

Well, um, they call it the Robinson Site. They found it a few years earlier, buried under the ice. Global warming and all. The remains of Anserath. That's one of the great harbinger cities. Constructed about 4,000 years B.C., according to the carbon testing. It was buried under nearly...

Whoa, whoa, whoa. What is this? What are we doing here?

What? Oh, come on. You're my lawyer, I'm your client, it's your office, and you're still going to tell me that I can't smoke?

Company policy. Apologies. Should I have Erica get you an ashtray?

No, no. Don't bother. I'll just... Erunkuntelka. There. Happy? oh shit sorry uh it's a habit now i i forget that it's less fun for people now it's okay it's okay where did you send it away just away

shall we yes let's um sorry we were antarctica dig site ruins mccandlus was putting together

an expedition yeah they'd been digging it up for a few years which is really hard when half of the year is freezing darkness before sunset the previous um you know april they made a discovery A crypt, or something like a crypt. Something at the very bottom of the excavation. McCandless wanted to go check it out.

And you got to go?

And I got to go.

But not Miss Sterling.

But not Miss Sterling.

And I presume that's where it happened? Right. December 15th, 2025. The world continues to reel after last night's announcement. What was supposed to be a simple archaeological expedition to the Australian sector of Antarctica may instead be remembered as a turning point in Western civilization. Following contact with the object now known as Article Zero, mild-mannered graduate student Adam Blackwell has been given the ability to freely relocate matter at will. I don't think the Times actually called me mild-mannered. No, that was just me having a bit of fun. You went to the South Pole, found a thing, and suddenly you can do magic. Am I getting that right?

Not just any thing. This thing. Article Zero. A harbinger ring of magic.

But still. Field trip, ring, boom, magic. That's the broad strokes of the thing. What happened when you got back to America? What happened after you got superpowers?

Oh, they're not superpowers. I came home. Spent weeks going through tests. until finally, they were satisfied. I really could do magic. And after they let you go? I went back to a little thing called my life. Finished my dissertation. I graduated in spring, started teaching at Sinclair in the fall. Is that usual? To get hired that fast? No. I was an exceptionally strong student, I had a good relationship with the head of the department, and news had just broken out that I could do fucking magic. Having me as an adjunct was the best and last ad Sinclair would ever need to run. So, they had me as an adjunct.

That first fall semester, you took over one of the survey classes. Introduction to Harbinger Linguistics. Catchy title. Was it popular?

Uh, last time they'd run it, there were four people in the class. That fall, after they saw the enrollment forms, they moved me over to Sumter Hall. That's where they run movies on the weekends. It seats just shy of 350.

You taught a 350-person class on the mechanics of dead languages from 6,000 years ago?

No, no, no, no. The class was 450. If you didn't get there early, it was standing room only. Sinclair University, September 2026. Now, the name Harbingers is what is known as a secondary observer exonym. With some ancient cultures, we have some record of what they call themselves. Failing that, we can usually at least call people by the region they inhabited. These people lived in the Indus Valley, so let's take a wild leap and call them the Indus. Not saying that's a good practice, but it is a common practice. Now with the harbingers, you run into problems. We haven't found...

any records yet that point to what they call themselves. And as for geography, sites containing written records of the Harbinger's languages have been found in Atacama in South America, in remote islands in the south of Oceania, and most recently in rural Ireland. They seem to mostly exist to make historians' lives difficult. It was actually one of the great mysteries of the age of exploration. People would sail from place to place and find these ancient objects with languages that weren't the ones spoken by the locals. Now imagine you're a 17th century Irish sailor. You leave your little village where old man MacDonald found those spooky rocks with the strange carvings. You sail halfway around the world and what do you find? More old spooky rocks with the same weird language nobody understands. Can you even imagine what that must have been like? In any case, they kept finding these really old artifacts all over the world, almost like this really old culture had been around before anyone else got their act together. That's where the name came from. Harbingers. Ones who came before. Now, it wasn't until the age of Antarctic exploration began in earnest that the real ruins of what is now known as the Harbinger Empire were discovered. But by then, the name had stuck, so what are you going to do? Now, I did say Harbinger languages in the plural. The modern theory is that these are actually contemporary languages. One was used for day-to-day activities, your regular please-pass-the-salt sort of things. The other one was their, well, sacred is a loaded word, but their ritualistic language. It was only used for rites and special activities. For a long time, archaeologists referred to these as the day tongue and the night tongue. But a more accurate translation would be the language of the sun and the language of the stars. and needless to say there's a lot more that the harbingers wrote in the language of the sun so we know comparatively little about how the language of the stars worked okay this we've only got a few minutes left so we'll call this good for the day rather than diving into a whole other topic does anyone have any questions any questions that don't have to do with my unusual abilities yeah all right everyone i need you all to understand this is a serious class okay i take the academic study of harbinger languages seriously and i expect you all to do the same Anything else that I can do?

That's not really what we're here for. Okay? Which is why we are only going to do this once, okay? Okay, okay, just a quick demonstration, and then we're done. All right. Folks in the front row, anyone have a quarter? You do? Okay, great. Thank you very much. okay just so we know that i am not pulling a fast one on you i am going to take this marker and put an a on one side of the coin and a star on the other side okay now for most of human civilization if we wanted to transport an object from here to there we had to expend energy to move it across space whether it was by carrying it ourselves or by using a burst of kinetic energy to set it in motion on its own. What I can do is transport matter from A to B without crossing the intermediary space. Okay, everybody ready? I think we're going to hear it more than see it with something this small, so shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh. Here we go. Three, two... Perun laro i ora kata. Okay. Let's see. Where did it land? From the sound, I think it was around the second to last row, maybe? Does anybody... Yeah? You? You got it? And it's got the A and the star, yeah? Yeah! Well, there you go. From A to B, in an instant. Now, now! How did I do that? part of it is just mental focus part of it is the words this it seems is what the language of the stars actually was the harbinger's way of channeling this ability

and part of it is the part we don't understand yet. I found this ring in a very old, very remote part of the world, and as long as I'm wearing it, well, it seems to let me do that. And it really seems like it takes all three, so in case the course catalog didn't make it clear, learning the words won't let you move things across space. Not on its own. Could you do something bigger? What was that? Could I transport something bigger? Bigger like what? A person. A person? Well, a person is tricky because what is a person? Is a person one thing or many? Like, what if I transported you to the middle of the quad and you went, but your... But your clothes didn't. Yeah, that's not what we want I have to be very precise with the language If I want to do it right Alright, that's time Time was, ooh, it's a minute or two ago actually Please read chapters 3 and 4 of The Warner And I will see you all here on Thursday The Harbingers will be back after these messages And now, back to The Harbingers. Sinclair University, 2026. Ten minutes later. Alright, that wasn't too bad. One session down, 31 to go.

What did you stop yourself from saying?

Well, well, well. Amy Sterling.

Adam Blackwell. It's good to see you.

You too, Amy. Did you watch?

I snuck in the back about five minutes in. So, what did you stop yourself from saying? Come on. At the end, when they asked you about teleporting a person, you bit down on something. You said, what if you go, but your clothes don't? What did you almost say?

i almost said what if you went but your skin didn't ah lively i thought it's gonna be a whole thing it's their first day i didn't want to freak them out didn't want to put too much of the fear of you in them very funny amy so what brings you around these parts they said you transferred

They said the truth. Took my business to Columbia. The Big Apple. Greener pastures and all that.

And are they actually greener?

Eh, who knows. Kinda hard to tell with all the concrete. I'm just here to handle some paperwork and take some meetings. I'm flying back tomorrow, but I realized I hadn't seen you since...

Ah, sure.

And I couldn't resist poking my head in here, seeing how your class was going.

How did I do? Any notes?

It was fine. Your fourth slide had some photos of the stuff they dug up at the Ryman. That's still not verified.

Oh, damn it. I'll take care of that. Anything else? What? What else? You're not really here to fill out paperwork, are you, Amy?

Nah. I just... I had to see it. I had to see it with my own two eyes You can do fucking magic And you are You are lecturing about carvings in goddamn rocks

Yes, Amy, I am

I cannot believe that you are lecturing about carvings

And what should I be doing, hmm? Instead of being here, where am I supposed to be right now, Amy? Or what, am I not doing enough with my platform for you?

We are 54 days away from the midterm elections, Dr. Blackwell. Which political party do you support? Okay.

It's nice of you to drop by, Amy. I enjoy our little talks.

It's just... Fuck. I don't know what you should be doing, but dude, you can do magic. Literally the only thing that's a wrong answer to the question, what do you do if you get magic powers, is exactly the same fucking thing you would be doing if you didn't get the goddamn magic powers.

All right, Amy, this has been fun. Let's get together again the next time one of us develops magical abilities. In the meantime, have a good time at Columbia where you'll also be looking at carvings of rocks.

You are such an asshole. Adam, no one, no one has ever changed the world by sitting in an ivory tower. Magic is wasted on you. And yet, I am the only one that can do it. It really is a shame you didn't get to come on that expedition, Amy. What could have been, right? she has a point you know oh she very much does not she does though aren't you my lawyer what

what do you what do you what a point about what a point about how nobody has ever changed the world by hiding in the ivory tower of intelligence oh for gods fritz hobber you know the story

Excuse me? Okay. Fritz Haber. See, a lot of people have this mistaken idea that the apocalypse is something we've only had to worry about in recent years. But no. Actually, people have had concerns, very valid concerns, about the world coming to an end at practically every point in human existence. In the 1900s, you know what was at the top of the list of global concerns? Starvation. The world had reached an absolutely massive population, one and a half billion people. And we could not produce enough food to feed them. The problem was our crops. They took up too much nitrogen in the soil, and it took too long to replenish it. So it was estimated that over the course of the following 20 agonizing years, two-thirds of the world would starve to death. Ah, but see, there was this guy, German chemist called Fritz Haber, big thinker, real kind of ivory tower guy. He locked himself in his lab and figured out a way to make ammonia. You might be familiar with it. It practically extracts nitrogen from the air and is used to grow more than three quarters of the goddamn crops in the world today. Bread from the air. That's what they called it in the newspapers. Bread from the air. It was seen as a miracle. And so, thanks to Mr. Haber, the world didn't starve, and we now have 9 billion humans. Over half of what we ate in the 20th century was thanks to his discoveries. And when we try to calculate which individual human beings are directly responsible for saving the most human lives, Fritz Haber is at the top of that list. So don't ever tell me that you can't change the world by taking time to figure shit out.

Okay. Is it my turn now? Great. Dr. Blackwell, could you do me a favor? Could you say a bit about Fritz Haber's work after 1912?

What?

Fritz Haber. This man who you clearly think so highly of. 1913 and onwards. What did he get up to?

He became involved in World War I. He invented the chlorine gas that the German army used against the Allies. and he personally oversaw much of its deployment.

Which is why he is often called...

The father of chemical warfare.

And after World War I, any other major contributions to European history? Dr. Blackwell?

He... He developed a gas. A pesticide gas which had a warning scent. After his death, it was discovered and reformulated, so it no longer had that warning sent.

And what was it called? Before and after the reformulation.

Zyklon A. And Zyklon B.

I need you to stop doing that.

You need me to stop doing what? Answering your questions?

Losing your temper and going on a three-minute screed about the achievements of a German war criminal.

Wait, but look, he was involved in monstrous things, but that doesn't...

Oh, really? We're doubling down on the merits of, what was it, the father of chemical warfare? This is going to be a very hard process, you know. If you're going to get through it, I need you to be able to not get baited into saying or doing something stupid.

That, that won't be a problem.

Won't it? What happened on August 16th, 2028? Well, that's, um, fuck. Dr. Blackwell, what happened?

I was here in New York. I'd been asked to speak at an event at the UN. New York City, 2028. Thank you. Keep the change.

Well, well, well. Look who actually made it off campus for once.

Oh.

Oh, good. You're here, and this has been such a pleasant day so far.

Is that any way to say hello to a dear old friend, Dr. Blackwell?

Hello, Amy. How inevitable to see you.

That's more like it. Hello, Adam.

What are you doing here?

Same thing you are. Loading up on caffeine and then walking over to today's event.

You're also speaking at the U.S.?

I am.

And nobody told me?

No.

Which I'm guessing is thanks to... It is. Well, thanks for that. I like the hair, by the way. Is that part of the brand now?

Something like that. I thought you liked the shaved head look.

Well, I had awful taste back when I was still a grad student. So, how you been? How's the tour?

Mm, tour's on hold for a bit. I'm doing some events with the campaign.

Oh, yes. I saw your endorsement video.

And I can't help but notice that I haven't seen yours. May I ask what the fuck is taking you so long? Don't tell me you actually want Walker to get re-elected.

I keep telling you, Amy. I'm just a private citizen. I don't see how it's my place to tell anyone which way they should vote.

Oh my god, sometimes I forget just how full of shit you are. And then it's like, oh right, he's totally full of shit.

I'm doing well, by the way. His translation work on the materials from the Ryman expedition...

I really couldn't give less of a shit, Adam. Now, come on. Are you going to do this thing or what?

You know, Amy, you can say that you don't care all you want, but unfortunately for you, I know you. I know how much you love this stuff. The translation, the discovery. I know how curious you must be. What the fuck has he been doing cooped up in there all these years? What is he capable of now?

Oh, it's so cute the way you flatter yourself.

Oh, if you think that's cute.

All right, Mr. Special. You really want me to believe you're not just doing coin tricks like some birthday party magician? Let's see it. No, come on! Doctor, you want me to believe you can do something that's worth my time? Let's see it. Impress a girl.

You made my coffee cup disappear. Yes, I did.

But you didn't make my coffee go with it.

No, I did not.

So now, there is quite a bit of nitro cold brew all over my clothes. You are a child.

Come on, Amy. This is an important event. I don't want to be late.

You are still an asshole, Adam Blackwell. Where did you put my coffee cup anyway?

How long did it take before someone finally found the stupid coffee cup?

Six weeks, give or take.

Mm-hmm. And it was this photograph that did it, yes? Uh, that's the one. Yep. Just for the record, could you please verbally describe it?

It is a photo taken by the extremely large telescope array of the Sea of Tranquility.

Which is a part of...

The moon. And about five meters to the left of the lunar landing site, there is now a coffee cup.

The moon. You put a cup of coffee on the moon because your ex-girlfriend double-dog dared you to.

Miss Skinner, this is all... My relationship with Miss Sterling is very particular. Do you... Okay, okay, okay. What you need to understand is...

You say that a lot, you know. What you need to understand is this. What you need to understand is that you are very worried about how you are seen. I'm going to help you figure this all out, but I need you to let me help you. Okay? All right. That is all for today.

Really? The...

This is plenty for one day. And I have another interview to conduct in a little while. We can pick up this fun tomorrow morning, bright and early.

Right. Well, I'll see you tomorrow, then.

$1,800 an hour. That's how much I'm being paid.

to get you across the river.

Okay. Thank you, Miss Skinner.

And, while I will not have you smoking anywhere in my offices, you'll find I'm less particular about what happens on the balcony on the east side of the building.

Sure. You got it. Day one down. Just another five million more of these to go.

Those things are going to kill you, you know. Unless you're so good now that you can just teleport the cancer straight out of your lungs.

I don't think I'm quite there yet.

Oh, in that case, you might want to quit while you're behind.

I'll take it under advisement. Miss Sterling?

Dr. Blackwell?

I thought your residency didn't end until the 14th.

Oh, all the shows are cancelled for a bit. You know, it's hard to compete with the, uh...

Everything?

Yeah. With the everything. I keep... thinking I'm gonna see it. You know? Every time I look up. I know it's too small and too far away, but I keep thinking it'll be there. Staring back at me.

Yeah, I know. Me too.

You doing okay?

Nah. You?

Not exactly what I had in mind for this year.

No?

No. I thought there'd be more... books. I thought I'd read more this year. More books and less...

Everything. You read McCandless' new book?

Yeah, I got an advanced copy. I can't believe that old fucker is trying to say that I was not a good student. Her proposals were never specific enough. My ass.

Well, can you blame him? You are the one that got away.

Damn right I am. How'd it go in there?

Oh, I pretty much just spent the last couple hours getting bitch slapped. It was fine.

And? How are you feeling?

Tired. Tired and guilty.

Don't say that. It isn't over yet. It's barely even gotten started.

That's not what I meant, Amy. I think this is usually the point in the conversation where you yell at me and tell me I'm an asshole.

You are an asshole, Adam Blackwell. But, for all our sakes, I hope it turns out you're an asshole who knew what he was doing. Ms. Sterling? Ms. Skinner's ready for you. Well, uh, I gotta...

Yeah. Duty calls.

good luck yeah see you around adam

all right ready to get started this is claudia skinner case mgr 831 this is information prep session number two it is november 7th 2030 miss sterling would you please state your full name and the capacity in which you have become known as a public figure this is amelia dorothy sterling

and i perform under the name the silver witch for three years now i have been able to manifest supernatural abilities. I am the second documented person in the world capable of performing magic. Thank you.

Miss Turling, do you know what I would like to talk to you about?

Well, if I had to take a guess, I'd say maybe...

Maybe it's about how I started a chain of events that resulted in the most powerful man in the world teleporting the city of Boston to the moon? I mean, it's either that or Mojito Recipes. No, you want to talk about the Boston thing. Please. Okay. Where would you like to begin?

To be continued... It featured the voices of Andres Enriquez as Adam Blackwell, Lauren Grace Thompson as Amy Sterling, Bemi Bean as Claudia Skinner, and Kristen DiMercurio as Erica Pfeiffer. Today's episode also featured the voice of Olivia Love Hattleston. Our original music was composed by Nicholas Spadani. Recording engineering and dialogue editing was by JoLynn Wu. Our original art was created by Cassie J. Allen. The executive producer for this series is Eleanor Hyde. We'd like to give a special thanks to Joshua K. Harris, Felix, Krista D'Agostino, and Olivia Love-Hadlstedt for their work on the development of the series and its original pilot episode. You can learn more about the show, see a timeline of the events of our story, and become a supporting member at audaciousmachinecreative.com. This is an Audacious Machine Creative production. Thank you for listening.

Today's History Tidbit On October 14th, 1998, Australian archaeologists first discovered the ruins of Anserath.