A discussion on the fate of reality and humanity.
Recording[]
Melanie, John, Martin, Georgie, and Basira are in the tunnels and discuss what to do next. Georgie sees three possible options and starts to lay them out.
The first one is Annabelle's plan of destroying the Panopticon and killing Jonah to release the Fears into an unknown number of other realities. They do not know if this means just some realities or all of them and it is not something John is able to Know.
Their second option is to keep the Fears contained and let John take over from Jonah so that he can try to make things more tolerable until the Fears and all of humanity dies. Martin strongly opposes this plan since it means losing John but John blames himself for the apocalypse and feels that he has a responsibility to try and make things better, even if it means sacrificing himself. Martin counters that they should all sacrifice themselves in that case since they all bear some responsibility for the apocalypse. Melanie protests that Georgie is blameless but Georgie thinks that she should have done more to help instead of staying out of everything.
Their third option is to try and adapt to the world as it is and simply do nothing as the Fears slowly burn themselves out.
They argue about whether they even have the right to make the choice when they are not the ones trapped in never-ending nightmares and John is angry that they are considering dooming other realities to save their own. The others point out that, according to Annabelle, it would not be an automatic death sentence. The other realities would be like it was before the apocalypse with the Fears lurking on the edge of reality and in this reality it took millennia for someone to succeed at a ritual.
John thinks they should take the chance to destroy the Fears forever. The others raise the possibility that the Fears do not even originate in this reality, they may just be one of many realities that received the Fears from a situation just like this. They cannot know for sure either way and the others are not keen on dooming their reality on the mere chance that their Fears are unique.
Martin does not want to watch the world slowly die on the off-chance that it might do some small good somewhere else. John raises the possibility that if he takes Jonah's place, he might be able to speed it along and end humanity's suffering sooner but no one else wants to consider that as an option.
The others have made up their mind to try Annabelle's plan and John unhappily concedes before leaving to have a smoke.
Georgie joins him and asks for a cigarette before they chat for a bit. Georgie asks if she can hang onto his lighter after he jokes that he should quit smoking and John absentmindedly agrees. She apologises for going with a plan he hates and heads off as Martin comes up the stairs
John apologises for getting heated and they chat for a bit. John imagines how it would have been if they had met and gotten together without anything supernatural going on and Martin points out that they would not have been together in such circumstances. They worked a normal job for almost a year and John hated him. It took two years of crisis and trauma to get them together.
Martin cannot imagine making a decision that would mean losing John and is hurt that John can make such a decision. John becomes agitated and talks about causing the apocalypse. He cannot let anyone else feel the burden of that helpless guilt. He tears up and Martin holds him, trying to reassure him. They take a moment before heading back to the others.
Later, Melanie and Basira have done some scouting and they all formulate a plan. The gas main under the Institute is guarded by old archivists that Melanie and Georgie will try to sneak past while Basira creates a diversion. Georgie will need a torch to navigate and if they spot her, she will also try to distract them while Melanie carries on alone. Once they find the gas main they will try to break it and back off once they smell gas, then set something burning and quickly get away. They do not know how big the explosion will be but hope that it will magically channel up into the tower instead of into the tunnels.
Meanwhile, John and Martin will go up the tower to kill Jonah. Martin insists that he be the one to kill him since he thinks John would take Jonah's place if he did it. Martin is certain that he can kill Jonah and he intends to make it painful.
They all agree that it is nice to have a plan for once and decide to enact it the next day once they have had a chance to rest and prepare themselves. As everyone heads off to do that, Basira takes a moment to thank John for coming back for her and says that all they can do is try and do something worthwhile with the time they have left. John agrees and they head off.
Continuity[]
- Angela previously featured in the statement of MAG 14.
- The line 'Can I have a cigarette?' spoken by Georgie was also spoken by the Angler Fish in MAG 1. John seems to recognise this and responds with a small laugh before agreeing.