C-AA2305 (Aug 24, 2017)
Puzzle
“35’s Friendly Ally”
See: AA2304 | 1 Word
Clue
Hover over the clues if you require!
Clue 1: Look at AA2304. Any two words stand out?
Clue 2: You're looking for the playwright of the plays 'Defeat' and 'Group', written by a 'Yankee'.
Clue 3: Since this one is quite a leap in logic, another play is 'The Adulateur'. Yes, I spelt that correctly.
Answer and Explanation
Answer: Mercy
Explanation: The Adulateur, The Defeat, and The Group are all plays by Mercy Otis Warren.
Summary of Receipt
35 meets up with his old friend, now Agent Mercy of Division Yankee. Though Mercy doesn't know much, being basically a paper pusher, they mention that Astoria's been busy with an outbreak of 'Null Forms' - creatures hypothesized to be from Limbo - in the Tuskkin Worldline due to the eclipse. Since Astoria has a deal with that worldline's '55 Society', they've been called in to help. As a side note, it seems Astoria's aware that Mercy knows 35, but they don't really care. Mercy'll need to write a report about this meeting, but nobody really cares about Yankee reports - and, in any case, Mercy's watch-recorder-thing 'coincidentally malfunctioned' anyway, so.
Transcript
CAFE AND DINER RECEIPT FROM */24/17
MANAGER 35
RECEIPT: COLUMNTRIP04
STATUS: OPEN
I met with my ally from Division Yankee, Agent Mercy. It turns out that A23 already knew we were acquainted, so no harm, no foul. It seems like Mercy is willing to bend A23’s rules and regulations to help us out. Of course, I don’t want to mess with their job more than what’s necessary, so I’ll try not to pester them too much for information in the future. Anyway, it seems like most A23 has been called to another worldline(?) to help contain some sort of strange creature. So… we might be able to use this as an opportunity to snoop around a bit. I’ll fill the other managers in on the specifics and see if they want to put anything together.
S.O.T.
35: Hey, thanks for catching up with me.
Mercy: Of course… though are you recording this?
35: What? No! Of course, not—
Mercy: That’s odd… My watch says there’s a “CaDCom Device” recording in this range.
35: Oh… haha! Darn thing. Must’ve not… turned it off.
Mercy: It’s fine. But,
[Agency Mercy of Division Yankee pressed a button on their watch]
Mercy: I should record this too.
35: But then, wouldn’t Astoria know you have a relationship with a member of the Cafe and Diner?
Mercy: Yeah, the eye in the lighthouse symbol is pretty accurate. They already know about our connection. I’ll need to file this away, but no one would bother to check a Yankee report, especially with this whole meltdown in another dimension.
35: That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about! What’s going on?
Mercy: You know I can’t say.
[Agent Mercy conspicuously nodded to their watch. A watch that cannot transcribe non-vocal communications like the far superior Barista Technologies CaDCom device.]
35: Right… I guess what I’m worried about, what the Cafe is worried about, is the solar eclipse and the blood moon and how that’s impacting the boundary lines.
Mercy: I see… Well, if I’m being honest, [35], that’s a little out of my field of knowledge. I’m just a paper pusher. I push papers around from desk to desk and division to division like this.
[Agent Mercy pantomimed, pushing papers around a desk, and as they went to straighten the imaginary papers, they slammed their wrist down on the desk, disabling the inferior Astoria 23rd Agency Wrist Communication Device.]
Mercy: Whoops. Well, I should probably go let Victor know that my watch got busted. Though I imagine they’d be pretty busy considering the outbreak of Null Forms in the Tuskkin Worldline. Nasty thing, Null Forms. I guess they’re some sort of creature that typically lives in Limbo? At least, that’s where they’re presumed to come from. Some sort of celestial phenomenon, likely the eclipse and blood moon, might have caused them to resurface in a neighboring worldline. Astoria, having agreements with the Tuskkin’s 55 Division, needs to go help clean that mess up. Null Forms are notoriously hard to kill and hard to contain. You’ll know if they breach this worldline. Wow, sorry for getting so chatty all of a sudden.
35: No, thank you, Mercy.
Mercy: Come on [35], we’re friends. You can still just call me Max.
E.O.T.