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[The ID reads Clark Kent, as always. Not the right time to try fooling the network yet.]

Sadly, Captain Holiday was put under intensive care not long before I ended up here so I never got to talk to him. But I was hoping some of you might have gotten a chance to contact him before that. If you have, I'd appreciate if you could tell me about your conversations with him.

You don't have to tell me what the conversation was about, I understand a lot of them were confidential. [That word, he hates it. Lois might see it as a sign that she's pulling the right strings but Clark only sees it as a wall he cannot punch or fly over.]

It's really him I'm interested on. If you noticed anything weird in how he behaved, perhaps, or if he was acting completely normal.

[He pauses for a second. And then:]

I'd also be interested in talking with people who've been able to take a look at the Porter, or been in contact with it. I understand it's a privilege to be allowed near it?

Thank you.

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Huh. Sorry, I didn't really delve into his personal life. [ A pause. ]

They might have a reason, they might not. Shooting in the dark normally leads us to getting a little fucked by guessing. [ A beat. There he goes again. ] It's worth looking into, but guessing kind of...

I don't know. I really don't think the government here is that malicious, but... we don't know much about Holiday, not enough. Did his partner have anything else to say? Suspicions?

Not really, and honestly? I already felt bad enough for asking as much as I did. He said most of the things related to his job were confidential and he couldn't tell me about them, anyway.

But that's the thing. Even if the government isn't doing this- whatever they are doing- out of malice, they are still hiding something from us.

[ He almost, almost opened his mouth to start. Why Governemnts lied, why they didn't share the whole truth, why this was probably them trying to keep from inciting panic --

But just like they don't know about Holiday, he doesn't know, and this doesn't seem the place to get into that debate.

Particularly with your #1 best hero ever. There are just some things you don't do. He ejects a breath. ]

And you're trying to uncover it, right? It's hard, they're...very protective of their secrets, I think.

[Especially when said hero is a reporter. 'Not inciting panic' is every government's favorite excuse to keep the press away, their justification from hiding important facts from the general public. He wouldn't take that kind of reasoning well.]

I'll just have to pull harder, then. Honestly I don't expect to uncover some big ugly secret, I don't think the government is inherently mean or anything like that. But if we're going to get out of here we're going to need all the information possible.

If we can get home.

I don't know if finding anything out that way is going to give us any answers, but I hope it will. I'm just...

I was in the place before, so I'm a little low on faith that we can get out of here. I was in the City for over four years. I guess you could say accepting this kind of prison comes naturally.

I really, really hope you're right, though.

I can't blame you for thinking like that, at all. But you'll also understand than just a couple of months are not enough to make me give up. I still think it's a very big 'when', not an 'if'.

[He spent thousands of years in a weird alternate world, and came back. He died, then came back. He can do this.]

Did anyone study the porter in the City extensively?

Oh no, I do. Hell, I hope something comes of it. I just...don't like getting my hopes up at this point. I've been away from home for over five years now. It's a little long.

[ some of us aren't immortal, Clark!! ]

Some people might have studied it, but they never let most of us know. They, ah, didn't let people near it most of the time, so it was never really well known. Nothing ever came of it, since she was -- Lachesis back in the City wasn't exactly just a machine, it seemed, most of the time.

[ What solidified that for him was the fact that he couldn't hear her like normal. Just a presence, but nothing more than that. Surreal, for someone who lived every moment bombarded by the sounds of everything as simple as a toilet. ]

It is. And I'm sorry you and others have had to live through this for so long.

[He's not immortal! OR, at least he's pretty sure he isn't. He totally died once.

...Technically?]

Some people have told me she didn't use that name as a code, that she as actually was the Lachesis. What do you think of that?

I don't know. [ He says, honestly. It's a rarity, but even politicians can be honest with themselves and other people sometimes. ]

I mean, she could have been, but would I know the difference between if she was and wasn't? I'm an engineer turned politician, not an expert on Grecian mythology.

But... if she was, I wouldn't put it past her. She was...different. Even from the beginning, before she'd made herself known. I think it happened...after, but I can't be certain. [ Her voice has always been different, but it was moreso after she'd achieved omnipotence. ]

I suppose most of us wouldn't be able to tell, no. [Maybe Diana would. He really misses her... he's got the other Bruce so the loss of his best friend isn't hitting him as much, but he does miss the other part of the trio.]

What do you mean, 'after'? After she made herself known?

She really just called herself the porter, for the longest time. Something...changed. It was so long ago, I'm not sure what it was, but she... before the porter, it was just a thing -- after, when she cropped up as herself, she was a lot more open about the fact that she was sentient.

But other than that...we never knew much about her. She wouldn't let us near. And there was nothing... [ A pause. ] Nothing unusual any of the technopaths could detect.

Do you remember if there was anything specific that set her off and made her 'crop up as herself'? I mean, I highly doubt she woke up one day and decided to play mythological gods. There was probably something that made her decide to reveal herself? Or something that allowed her to, if she couldn't before.

By nothing 'unusual' you mean?

[So many questions and he's yet begun to ask.]

Shit, let me think. It's been something close to five years, and I think this happened...either right after I showed up or right before. I can't remember if there was much but... The thing in place before, it was destroyed by her.

Maybe she was insulted by the fact that we thought it wasn't her that was in charge, and wanted to let us know who was in charge.

She's always been chaotic. Subject to her own whims.

'Chaotic' would be a way to put it. Temperamental as well, maybe, but if she really is from the ancient mythology I'm not really surprised.

She destroyed the thing in place before? Then maybe she could have destroyed the porter in here as well, maybe not just 'infected' it. Which doesn't matter much to us since in the end we're still being ported here against our will but it's something to consider.

Thank you for answering my questions.

She could have done any number of things. The problem with Lachesis is that she's... really beyond what we could even really begin to know. "To know her is to fear her", right? [ Mitch, not everyone reads comics like a goddamn nerd. ]

Anyway, it's no problem. If you have more, or need...anything, just let me know. I'm always available to answer questions. I just wish we knew more than what we do. She always kept her secrets close.

[Especially not comics from the rival company, gosh.]

Which makes me wonder why she made herself known in the first place, or why she was bringing people from all around the world into the City. There's a lot of questions that could be answered if we just got to have a conversation with her.

If she'd answer them. She never really...did. She just brushed them off, or made vague statements about chess pieces, and that was it. Sh's not exactly...going out of her way to give us any information. I think she revealed herself for the fuck of it, and because she likes screwing with us.

[ He awkwardly stopped. Oh yeah, swearing in front of your hero is probably...not the way to endear yourself to him. Good job, mitchell. ]

[Clark does wince a bit on his end but hey, Mitchell is an adult. He can swear if he likes, and considering how frustrated he must be after so many years he can't blame him one bit.]

Chess pieces. Were the imPorts- or however they were called before- the chess pieces? Or just humanity in general?

[ He feels bad, anyway. Probably because he's kind of... a disaster. ]

We were the chess pieces, yeah. It was never specific who she was playing against -- or if it was anyone -- for all we knew, she was playing it against herself for the fun of it.

I don't know if she ever planned on telling us, but there was... she sent us places too. Sometimes, it's like she had a goal in mind, and other times it was just that she wanted to see how we'd mess things up.

[Wait hold on what]

When you say she sent you to places do you meant she sent you to other cities? Like the porters?

No. [ That one 'no' is a lot more...emphatic than one would suspect. It's the kind of word that says, very clearly: "I've seen some shit." ]

Alternate universes. Of the City. Heropa was just the last place we were sent to.

[SOMEONE COULD HAVE MENTIONED THAT.]

How often did she do something like that? And you implied sometimes she actually wanted to get something out of it, what was it? Information?

I think it was... every few months? Only near the end, when Vulcanus was... they were there, whenever we showed up. Anyway, she was trying to stop them. She sent us once to a world where everything was water, and once to a place where...

Well, if you think this is bad, you have no idea. Imports were...property in that place.2

Pleasant trips all around, it seems. And it hasn't happened since we got here, has it? At least I haven't heard anyone mention anything like that before, and I think people would remember to warn about something like that.

Did she give you missions or things to do in these trips?

Not since showing up here, no. I think that's a sign that there's something wrong, or different. Then again, she only started doing that in the last year, before we came here. There was a purpose to it.

[ There was a pause. ] She didn't give us...missions exactly. It was clear we had to do something, though. Sometimes it was easier to figure out rather than others. The last one, where we were property... we had to find her sister.

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