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~~Holiday Special (Day 1/7, Page 4/6)~~
“Are you sure you understand?” said Colt. “This is important. If you call me Jeremiah, OR if you text me, then I’ll know you’re contacting me under duress. And moreover, I’ll know to expect some type of trap.”

“Alright, um.”

‘We understand,’ said Garovel.

“But, uh... what if, uh... if you’re the one under duress?”

“That wouldn’t happen, since you’d be the one calling and not me. But I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to have a plan for that, too. If I’m in trouble but can’t say so, then I’ll do the opposite. I’ll call you Mr. Goffe.”

“Er. Okay.”

From there, the meal and conversation both drew toward their conclusions. There was no more putting it off.

Everyone said their farewells, and Hector and Colt shared a firm handshake. On foot, Hector followed the Pontiac up the ramp and out into the early afternoon sun. He offered a last, sweeping wave goodbye as he watched Colt drive west toward Walton. A cloud of yellow-brown dust followed in the car’s wake, lingering for a while after it was gone.

‘Welp,’ said Garovel after a spell. ‘Looks like it’s just you and me again.’

“Yeah...”

‘It’s okay. They were cramping our style, anyway.’

Hector smirked and started back down into the bunker. “So what do we do now?”

‘Still waiting on a call from Gina. Hopefully, she’ll have some information for us soon. In the meantime, you should sleep. We’ll get back to training in a few hours.’

“Alright.”

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These past couple days had been hellishly dull. Listening to the audio recordings out of the castle was more than a full-time job, yet somehow still mind-numbingly tedious. Whenever Gina slept, that meant she would be several hours behind upon waking up, and even with fast forward, trying to listen to every recording from every room she’d tagged was an organizational nightmare. A solid ninety percent of the recordings were either complete silence or just normal people talking to each other.