Segmented

Great.


Just. Great.


Pedaf Truman. VChicago. Everett.

Pedaf Truman, an Everett, from VChicago, is in the wrong Time Fragment. And he has Controller Gustav to thank. And he's thinking in the third-person. Focus.


"You ok? That stuff'll hit'cha kinda hard," he said, exhaling a haze of odorous smoke, looking at Pedaf with glassy concern.


No wonder I'm thinking in the third person. This is my contact? This is my in?


"Pedaf? Pe-doff! What is that...Russian?" and he made a noise he must associate with deep thoughts, or chocolate. "Kalashnikov, comrade! Da Bolshevik sputnik!"


"You're saying you can't even tell me what a 'Gaw' is?" This is going nowhere.


"I don't think it was ever anything. I mean, was I a Gaw? Yes, but...what do you think that means?" he leaned forward abruptly, "That's the question, Pedaf, right there. Why are you here?"


God only knows. But I don't think he means "here" the way I think he does. I haven't heard this much existential bullshit since, hell I dunno, fake-memory-number-twenty-four. "Do you still contact Subject: V?"


His laughing suddenly turned into coughing, his face contorted sharply, "If he knew you called him 'Subject V' God his head would just-," and he pantomimed a head swelling like a blow fish.


"Well, I was just trying to get in touch with him. Do you know how I would do that?"


He flicked his lighter, almost compulsively, "No. No, I haven't seen him in a long time. I haven't seen any of the Gaws in, hell, years."


How did this go wrong? Why am I here, indeed? This guy can't even give me an answer as to what a Gaw is, and it sure as hell doesn't sound like there's any dangerous element to them. At least, not to the extent Gustav made them out to be. Is this just some story he's told me to...justify what he's sent me to do? Is their only transgression having escaped Sebastian Dock? Does he think I'll sleep any easier at night either way? I can't even guess about my last assignments and I'm sure it'll be the same for this one once it's complete. In the meantime I'm still going to have to track these four down and this "Gaw" has proved utterly useless. I'm no closer now than when I started. I'm already thinking about trying to find Entroop and that's not good. But, he may already know I'm here, somehow. Just the way Entroop always seemed to know.

"You know who you should talk to? The Brothers," he said, crossing his legs.

"These are Gaws? What would they know?"

"Maybe nothing. But they kept a kind've...database. If anybody can help you...,"

The Brothers...a database? Doesn't make sense that the Controllers wouldn't have known about this.

"Hey!" he lurched forward again, "You're not wearing green!"

"...What?"

He reached out as if to pinch him, "It's Saint Patrick's Day!"

"You're not wearing green, either!"

He stopped and looked down at his plaid blue shirt, "Are you sure?"

Christ.

I'm going to shift into the stone age.