un: latrodectus | text

[expatriates]

[ Natasha found herself an egg and wrapped it in the spare jacket she brought under the reasoned assumption that heat might help hatch it. Couldn't hurt, anyway, especially not in their current climate. She brushed the snow away from a patch of jagged, uneven land and nestled herself into it with the bundled egg sitting in the bridge of her lap. ]

Looks like we're going to be waiting a while. Hope you packed your winter coat.

I missed the last mission, something about gods and energy. Anyone want to fill me in?

[ Egg-hatching was like a stake-out; you had to fill the time somehow. Thus, small-talk. ]

Comments

[expatriates]

In other words, they're evaluating our aptitude without demonstrating much on their part. Not entirely uncommon.

[anti_altruisms]

As I said before: I would expect an organization with pre-meditated, dubious motives to operate more efficiently.

[ He believes the over-all mission statement of ALASTAIR is true (it jives with his own background) -- they just go about it in a very...laissez-faire kind of way. Or at least, that's the way it seems to him. ]

[expatriates]

Did the senior operatives fall into this like we did?

[anti_altruisms]

I believe so.

At least one of them, I think, doesn't have a world to go back to.

[ So there is that. ]

[expatriates]

I wonder if there ever was an ALASTAIR at the beginning, or if it's something they built around the Timeline when they started arriving.

[anti_altruisms]

From what I've gathered, ALASTAIR formed after what they call the "Cataclysm". The Timeline was programmed some time later, and it's been calculating what must be done to preserve timelines and worlds ever since.

Where it leads, ALASTAIR follows.

[expatriates]

I heard that version too. But we don't have anyone to speak to it who was originally from ALASTAIR—only the senior operatives, who were imported same as us.

Food for thought. That's all.

[anti_altruisms]

Given personal experience, I'm more inclined to believe their version of things in true.

[ But- ]

All of us must reach our own conclusions.

[expatriates]

Thank you. For helping me collect more information and begin to draw mine.