Jojo's Bizarre Grail War Part 4 : A Z-Machine Adventure

[Stuffman]

> "It's a dark red savory sauce. Salty, kind of like vinegar, but it's got a sweet part to it."
> "Come to think of it, it's probably exactly the kind of thing you'd want to put on mutton."

[Hello Purvis]

> "It's a dark red savory sauce. Salty, kind of like vinegar, but it's got a sweet part to it."
> "Come to think of it, it's probably exactly the kind of thing you'd want to put on mutton."

>She barks out laughing as if you told a good joke. "We'll definitely have to try it."

>_

[Stuffman]

> Let's finish up dinner so we have time to talk to Mr. Collins before we leave.

[Hello Purvis]

> Let's finish up dinner so we have time to talk to Mr. Collins before we leave.

>It doesn't take you too long, despite Archer's difficulties, it's not actually that spicy. For what it is, it's rather nice. Some vegetables would really give it some extra body, though.

>_

[Stuffman]

> "Thanks for dinner, Archer. At least I enjoyed it more than you did."

[Hello Purvis]

> "Thanks for dinner, Archer. At least I enjoyed it more than you did."

>"I'm surprised you can just shrug that off so easily," Archer says. "And this stuff is really popular enough they just sell it like that?"

>_

[Stuffman]

> "Yeah, you can buy it pretty much everywhere."

[Hello Purvis]

> "Yeah, you can buy it pretty much everywhere."

>"...What happened?" she says. "Who make you all love pain so much?"

>_

[Stuffman]

> "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll learn to love it yourself!"
> Pick up our phone again and pull up Michael Collins' number.
> "I'm gonna talk to Mr. Collins again, let's see if he can tell us anything interesting."

[Hello Purvis]

> "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll learn to love it yourself!"
> Pick up our phone again and pull up Michael Collins' number.
> "I'm gonna talk to Mr. Collins again, let's see if he can tell us anything interesting."

>"I think that's the most ominous thing you've said to me," she says.
>You make a call to your astronaut confidant. Now there's something you didn't expect to ever have... The phone rings about a dozen times before it picks up. "Hello there, miss," comes Collins' familiar voice.

>_

[Stuffman]

> "Hello, Mr. Collins. Are you free to talk?"

[Hello Purvis]

> "Hello, Mr. Collins. Are you free to talk?"

>"I can spare a few minutes," he says.

>_

[Stuffman]

> "Alright, thanks."
> "Well, I don't really have anything new to share, I got caught up in some unrelated business with some, uh, colleagues..."
> "Anyway, after we talked it occurred to me that when I spoke to Mr. Armstrong, he was short on time, so I may not have gotten all the details. I was wondering if you'd be willing to recount everything he told you and Mr. Aldrin, just in case I missed something."

[Hello Purvis]

> "Alright, thanks."
> "Well, I don't really have anything new to share, I got caught up in some unrelated business with some, uh, colleagues..."
> "Anyway, after we talked it occurred to me that when I spoke to Mr. Armstrong, he was short on time, so I may not have gotten all the details. I was wondering if you'd be willing to recount everything he told you and Mr. Aldrin, just in case I missed something."

>"Hm, why don't you tell me what he told you, first?" says Collin. "That way, I can understand what you already know."

>_

[Stuffman]

> "Alright, that's a good idea."
> "Let's see..."
> "It was when he stepped out of the lunar module, and started saying that line, 'one small step for man', and there's that little pause in what he said. But for him that pause lasted for hours."
> "He wasn't clear about what exactly he encountered, but It wasn't something he could see with his eyes. He said he could tell it was watching him, watching everything on Earth. And it had always been watching."
> "I couldn't really make sense of the rest of it. He kept saying that whatever was watching had seen humanity's doom, and that it would happen again. He was really upset that we weren't ready for it."
> "But he couldn't tell anyone, because if word got out, somebody would try to go to the moon to exploit whatever's there. He only told me because he was out of time."
> "I don't remember any other details...I think that's all of it."

[Hello Purvis]

> "Alright, that's a good idea."
> "Let's see..."
> "It was when he stepped out of the lunar module, and started saying that line, 'one small step for man', and there's that little pause in what he said. But for him that pause lasted for hours."
> "He wasn't clear about what exactly he encountered, but It wasn't something he could see with his eyes. He said he could tell it was watching him, watching everything on Earth. And it had always been watching."
> "I couldn't really make sense of the rest of it. He kept saying that whatever was watching had seen humanity's doom, and that it would happen again. He was really upset that we weren't ready for it."
> "But he couldn't tell anyone, because if word got out, somebody would try to go to the moon to exploit whatever's there. He only told me because he was out of time."
> "I don't remember any other details...I think that's all of it."

>"Hmmm, he spared you a few details," says Collins. "He spent the whole trip back, trying to make sense of what happened. He said it was like the most vivid dream in the world, walking through places he knew back on earth, talking with people who were so real that they might as well have been real. He said that he met Vladmir Komarov; ah, he was a cosmonaut who died in a couple years before we reached the moon. Breached the atmosphere, then his capsule parachute malfunctioned. Don't feel too bad if you don't know about him, but to us he's important. Then he says he met a bunch of important people from history, Galileo, George Washington, his great grandfather. The way you heard him tell it, it sounded like he was about to meet St. Peter. But it was all in his head. Or at least that's how it seemed to us. And he knew it too, at least by the time he got back."

>_

[Stuffman]

> "Oh...oh geez, that's a hell of a lead."
> "He might not have imagined it. It's possible he was able to talk to those people the same way I was able to talk to him."
> "How should I put it? When people die, something gets left behind, but what we're able to interact with - at least in the way I'm familiar with - isn't necessarily that person exactly as we knew them. It's colored by people's perception of history or the stories surrounding them. That's why I'm trying to sort out what really happened to Mr. Armstrong."
> "So the missing piece now is finding out why he thought some kind of apocalypse was going to happen. I wonder if someone he communicated with told him that."

[Hello Purvis]

> "Oh...oh geez, that's a hell of a lead."
> "He might not have imagined it. It's possible he was able to talk to those people the same way I was able to talk to him."
> "How should I put it? When people die, something gets left behind, but what we're able to interact with - at least in the way I'm familiar with - isn't necessarily that person exactly as we knew them. It's colored by people's perception of history or the stories surrounding them. That's why I'm trying to sort out what really happened to Mr. Armstrong."
> "So the missing piece now is finding out why he thought some kind of apocalypse was going to happen. I wonder if someone he communicated with told him that."

>"Well, that comes to the next part of it," Collins says. "You have to understand, just this vision or whatever wasn't what he was really grappling with. Rather, it was the fact he knew there was something behind it. Some kind of incredible power, like you mentioned. Neil was pretty sure he may have been in the presence of God Himself, and instead of love he found a quiet observer. I think in the end, he said that it couldn't have been God, but I don't know if he was convinced. But he knew it was there, some kind of vastly intelligent, vastly patient thing. It probably sounds a lot like a computer to you, but he described it as way more like a person. We came to the conclusion, if it's been watching us the whole time, it was probably very interested in the first people who could physically reach it. Maybe it even did care about us, in the way a park ranger cares about the land."

>_

[Stuffman]

> "Ahh, alright, I get it."
> "I wish I could've put him at ease; whatever it is, it's not what you'd call a god, more of a system. It really is like a computer in how it keeps information, from what little I know of it, but how it works or how much awareness it has is a really fuzzy subject. I never would have guessed it was on the moon, though..."
> "At least it can't be reached easily. This is just a wild guess, but maybe it could become dangerous if a lot of people were able to reach it."

[Hello Purvis]

> "Ahh, alright, I get it."
> "I wish I could've put him at ease; whatever it is, it's not what you'd call a god, more of a system. It really is like a computer in how it keeps information, from what little I know of it, but how it works or how much awareness it has is a really fuzzy subject. I never would have guessed it was on the moon, though..."
> "At least it can't be reached easily. This is just a wild guess, but maybe it could become dangerous if a lot of people were able to reach it."

>"Now that's a whole lot of assumptions you're making there, young lady,"  Collins says. "How do you know any of that is true?"

>_

[Stuffman]

> "...You're right, I shouldn't say it as fact, it's really just conjecture, but...uh, it makes sense with what I've been able to find about other interactions with this entity."
> "There are other instances where people have been able to meet important individuals from history - that's what I've been researching, I mean - and it seems like this entity, apparently on the moon, is the source of it."
> "Among people that study this kind of thing, it's incredibly rare to have it happen to yourself, so I'm just...racing to put it all together, I guess. Especially with what Mr. Armstrong had to say."

[Hello Purvis]

> "...You're right, I shouldn't say it as fact, it's really just conjecture, but...uh, it makes sense with what I've been able to find about other interactions with this entity."
> "There are other instances where people have been able to meet important individuals from history - that's what I've been researching, I mean - and it seems like this entity, apparently on the moon, is the source of it."
> "Among people that study this kind of thing, it's incredibly rare to have it happen to yourself, so I'm just...racing to put it all together, I guess. Especially with what Mr. Armstrong had to say."

>"Other people meeting important figures in history, you say?" Collins says. "Neil was always quiet about it afterward, even when he started looking into mystics and stuff. But I never heard him say anything about that. And I think he would have, if it were a lead."

>_

[Stuffman]

I'm not sure how much more I can give away without getting either us or him in deep shit...

> "I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't able to find anything. There aren't many accounts of it and they aren't very reliable."
> "But since it happened to me and you're saying it seems to have happened to him too, I think that means there's some truth behind it."

[Hello Purvis]

It's a fine line.

> "I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't able to find anything. There aren't many accounts of it and they aren't very reliable."
> "But since it happened to me and you're saying it seems to have happened to him too, I think that means there's some truth behind it."

>"You seem to be trying to put the subject behind us, young lady," Collins says. "Relating to his experience, though, I wonder about where this thing might be. We've mapped the moon pretty well over the decades, and haven't found anything. So I would imagine it is either small, or well hidden."

>_

[Stuffman]

"As for that, I have no idea. I wouldn't have even guessed it was something physical until now."

[Hello Purvis]

"As for that, I have no idea. I wouldn't have even guessed it was something physical until now."

>"Well, they talk about cloudy computing these days," he says, "But I reckon that even those things have to be somewhere."

>_

[Stuffman]

> "Well, this information certainly clarifies things, even if I'm not sure what do to with it yet..."
> "I'd still be interested in talking to Miss...Dala, was it? I'm still not clear on what Mr. Armstrong was trying to warn me about. He was very insistent that we needed to be ready for something."

[Hello Purvis]

> "Well, this information certainly clarifies things, even if I'm not sure what do to with it yet..."
> "I'd still be interested in talking to Miss...Dala, was it? I'm still not clear on what Mr. Armstrong was trying to warn me about. He was very insistent that we needed to be ready for something."

>"Della," Collins says. "I'm still doing some digging there. I have to be a little bit sneaky about it, can't have it getting back to Buzz. As for what that last part, well... Neil also said he saw various eras of history during that vision. Some of those eras, he tells me, were before we had written records. And it seems our ancestors had gotten around to the whole civilization thing a lot sooner than we had thought, until something happened and knocked us back down to the caves again. "

>_

>_

[Stuffman]

> "Della, right."
> "I think that's the kind of catastrophe Mr. Armstrong was afraid would happen again. All of civilization, just burned down without a trace."
> "I've got no idea how anyone could prepare for something like that, but I guess he thought it was possible."

[Hello Purvis]

> "Della, right."
> "I think that's the kind of catastrophe Mr. Armstrong was afraid would happen again. All of civilization, just burned down without a trace."
> "I've got no idea how anyone could prepare for something like that, but I guess he thought it was possible."

>"He was never very specific about that," Collins says. "But from what I gathered, there was some force responsible for it."

>_