Dimension 20: Season 19, Episode 1 script (2024)

A murder has everyone in Mentopolis on edge - but there may be more to this case than meets the eye.

Are you wondering how healthy the food you are eating is? Check it - foodval.com
---
(cool opening noir music)

- Hello one and all.

Welcome back to another thrilling
season of "Dimension 20:

Mentopolis."

I am your humble GM, Brennan Lee Mulligan.

With me for the very first
time are our Prefrontal PIs.

(group laughing)
Say hi, Prefrontal PIs.

- [Everyone] Hi, Prefrontal PIs.

- Oh my gosh.

I am so excited to bring to
the dome our wonderful cast

of gumshoes settled within the mind

of a scientist here

(thunder rumbles)
in the rainy city.

How does it rain inside of a brain?

That's for you to decide.

(group laughing)
- A brainstorm.

(all gasp)

- Goddammit, this is why Trapp is here.

(group laughing)
- Coming in hot.

Coming in hot.

- Oh, a brainstorm.

I'm writing it down.

(group laughing)

With us, Alex Song-Xia

(group laughing)

Danielle Radford.

- Hi.

- [Brennan] Mike Trapp.

- Hi.

- [Brennan] Siobhan Thompson.

- Hello.

- [Brennan] Freddie Wong.

And Hank Green.

- I've been here the whole time.

(group laughing)

- Gotcha, Sam.

So without further ado, we'll dive in.

We're actually gonna be playing
a different game this time.

This is my first time in
the dome running a non D&D-

- Yeah, eat that tie.
- A non D&D game.

(whispering) Aabria, let
me know how I'm doing.

(group laughing)

We'll be running a sanctioned
hack of Kids on Bikes,

our amazing system that
has been noir-ified.

A couple rules, it's a very simple system.

All of our heroes have six
stats that have been coded

to different noir themes.

They are sneak, snoop, sharp,
sturdy, savvy, and slick,

which of course are the
traits of any great noir hero.

They'll roll different dice
for these different skills

and abilities they have, and
if they fail on their checks,

don't worry, they will get a Moxie token.

(sounds of enthusiasm)

- Moxie tokens may be spent
to trigger different abilities

and turn failures into successes,

and when you get a Moxie token,

we do something very, very fun with them,

which is we get them right
into your little carriers

where you need them.

- Let me tell you, if I ever succeed,

I'm gonna be so disappointed.

- [Brennan] Oh, it jumped the track.
- That's fine.

- There we go.

Remember, in this game,

if you roll the highest
value on any of your dice,

the dice explodes and you
get to keep that number

and roll again.

Without further ado, we welcome you

to Dimension 20: Mentopolis.

For your consideration, watching at home.

the mind of one Elias Hodge,
(cool retro-futuristic music)

Junior Researcher at
Gobstopper Industries,

a retro-futurist conglomerate
working on all sorts

of amazing art deco technology

in a gilded, non-descript past like past.

(group laughing)

- Gah, he paints a picture with his words.

(group laughing)

(chimes ring)

- It's magic every time.
(players laughing)

And what pray tell does young Elias,

fresh out of university as a
mento-technological researcher,

working here at Gobstopper
Industries work on?

Well, the mind of this young researcher

is as frantic and busy
as a, (fingers snap)

say, as a city.

(Freddie and Siobhan laughing)

That's right,

a city with tall cerebral skyscrapers
(lights pulsing quickly)

and the civic structures of Cortex City,

where the big wigs hobnob
with each other night and day,

and who knows what impulses
and urges might shake hands

behind closed doors with those
higher cognitive functions

that would seem to speak for
the citizens of Mentopolis,

and deep down in the industrial belly

of those limbic systems and temporal lobes

and the working class joes

down in the cerebellum, ah,
this place stays pretty busy

with trains running in and out

of Oblongata Station night and day.
(trains whooshing past)

Well, during the night it's way less,

'cause actually, melatonin,
there's different,

there's stuff that goes on.

You get it.

It's a city that's a brain, folks.

(players laughing)

We (laughs) bring you to Mentopolis,

a city in a mind, a mind in a city,

the hustle and bustle of a
nerve-wracked junior scientist

at a large corporation
rendered in slick sidewalks

and shadowy figures doing God knows what

in the depths of the subconscious.

We begin our story as we often do in tales

of dread and mystery...

In the shadows.
(hollow ringing)

A massive switchboard filled
with cables, synaptic firing.

We see all of the various
cables going to and fro,

the Synaptic Switchboard at the heart
(static crackling)

of Cerebell Pacific,
the company that runs-

(players laughing and clapping)

- Guys, this is really
serious. Stop laughing.

- There's gonna be a lot of these puns.

(group laughing)

- Of Cerebell Pacific, the
telecommunications company

that keeps all those
telephone wires running all

throughout Mentopolis so
that the people can stay

in touch going to and fro.

(tense music)

Footsteps,
(footsteps click)

a swish of fabric, someone turns around.

A shadowy figure lunges
from the darkness, (gasp)

a knife (huff) moving through.

We hear bang, bang,
(gun fires)

shots fired, and a body
(splat) falls to the ground.

A murder deep in the heart of Mentopolis,

but that's not where
this story really starts.

Where it really starts,

why in the office of one Hunch Curio.

(group laughing)
(smooth detective music)

I invite you now to picture an office

littered with the detritus
of a hard-boiled gumshoe.

That's right, a real private
eye, a brother seamus,

a real swingin' dick.

(players laughing)

Trapp, could you please
describe your character for us?

- Yeah, I'm Detective Hunch Curio.

I'm covered in bruises and cuts.

(group laughing)

It seems like I'm always nursing wounds,

nursing a hangover, real
lanky, rubbery kind of guy.

Doesn't look like I should be
getting into as many fights

as I seem to,

and a big old nose that I keep

stickin' in where it don't belong.

- That's right, Detective Hunch Curio,

of course, Mentopolis' premiere gumshoe,

and also curiosity itself
rendered in this form

here within Mentopolis.

Outside you hear the door open

and your secretary Anna looks in.

Anna is a much older woman.

She has those deep, sort of
wrinkle lines in her face,

little half moon spectacles, bun of sort

of bright blue hair
comes up off of her head,

and little sort of one of
those like old lady sweaters

that like has a doily as the collar.

She comes in, she goes, Hunch,
how you doing on coffee?

You need anything?

- Always more, always more coffee.

- All right, I'll go down
to the dopamine store.

And you see she wanders off.

As she opens the door,
she goes, oh, I'm sorry,

and you see, you hear
her ushering someone in.

She opens the door to your
sort of private office again

and says, Hunch there's
somebody here to see you.

- Oh, send her in, him in, her in?

- Her.

- All right, send her in.
- Good guess.

- Put away, it seems
right for those situations

in the general setting,

it's probably a dame, right?

That happens a lot in this office.

(Brennan laughing)

- It sure does.

(group laughing)

- Tropes.

- Tropes!

You see that she looks over and says,

Ah, it's a real classy looking dame too,

not the normal kind of riffraff

that we exclusively work for.

(Hank laughing)

- I scrape some of the blood off my tie.

- As we look around, what
do we see in Hunch's office,

and any like things of
past cases you've solved?

- Yeah, yeah.

There's probably like some
framed newspaper clippings

of like "Detective Solves the
Case of the Missing Keys."

(players laughing)
It's full of quotes like,

It's in the last place
you thought of looking.

(players laughing)

The case of what's that
song that goes like,

(hums jazzy tune)

(players laughing)

All these like little tiny like,

just sort of everyday
mysteries that Hunch's sort

of had his hand in and cracked.

- Anna looks up at you and says,

Ah, real body of work.

(players laughing)

We did figure out what
that song was, it was...

Oh god, what was that song? Ah sh*t.
(group laughing)

- Case has gotta get reopened.

(players laughing)

Hold on a second.
(Trapp hums a similar tune)

- She walks out and says,

All right, if you feel tidy enough.

- As I'm busily just scraping
so many cigarette butts,

and just junk on the
desk, just like putting it

into a basket that I can
just sort of hide away.

- Tons and tons and tons
of junk hits the floor.

As it does, you lean back in your chair,

and you see Anna and you can see

as she opens the door, we see
a little thing on her desk.

She has a little name placard as well,

Ms. Anna Lysis.

It's gonna be a lot of these.

- Every single time.

- Strap in.

You see that she walks in and says,

Mr. Curio will see you now.

Siobhan, could you please
describe your character for us?

- Yes, my character is
an impeccably dressed,

mysterious woman in a dark velvet cloak.
(smooth piano music)

She is mysterious,

but you can tell immediately
she reeks of old money.

(Brennan laughing)

And that's all I'm gonna say.

(players laughing)

- Well, Mr. Curio'll see you now.

You're very fancy.

Do you need different kinds
of chairs than normal people?

(players laughing)
- No, I'll stand by the window.

Thank you so much.

(players laughing)

- Ooh, stand by the window, la di dah.

- I immediately go towards the window

and wipe some of the grime off of it.
(window wiping sounds)

(players laughing)

- [Brennan] The door closes

and you are left alone in Hunch's office.

- Mr. Hunch, I think I need your help.

My name is... Stacy Fakename.

(players laughing)

- I would like to do a snoop check to see

if she's lying to me.

(players laughing)

- If I can get a snoop check from you,

and a slick check from... Stacy.

- Great.

(dice rolls)

- I rolled a two but I got a four.

- I rolled a three, but that's plus four.

It's a seven.

- Okay, you got a seven and you got a?

- [Siobhan] A four.

- One Moxie token for Siobhan.
(ball sliding on a track)

So Hunch, something in your
years of training kicks in.

(group laughing)

Years of training leads you to believe

that there is something
about the name Stacy Fakename

(Alex laughing)

that feels like maybe
that's not her real name.

- I play it super cool.

I just light up a cigarette
and sort of stop and admire.

Oh, Stacy Fakename, huh?

You know uh,

Is that at all related to Joanna Fakename?

- So what if it is?

(Alex laughing)
- Well, I'll tell you so what if it is.

There ain't no one named Joanna Fakename.

- (sigh) You got me.

(players laughing)

- Case closed.

(players laughing)

- The door cracks open and Anna goes,

No, not closed.

You have to get money.
- Oh sh-

It's a business you have to get-,

and closes the door again.
(door clicks shut)

- So why don't you tell me
what your name really is?

- My name is Imelda Pulse.

Perhaps you've heard of my family.

- Oh yeah.

- We've been in the this town

since before the brain existed.

- Yeah, I think that's
written on like the gates

of your mansion. (laughs)

You're constantly bragging about that.

- That's correct.

We do brag a lot.

- [Trapp] All right.

- I'm here because of this,

and I throw a newspaper
down in front of him.

- Pick it up.

Don't tell me,

(players laughing)

this is a newspaper.

(players laughing)

- That's right.

- Case closed.

(players laughing)

- Do you wanna gimme another snoop check?

(group laughing)

(rolls dice)

- That is a nine.

- Okay, on a nine snoop check,

you are looking at this newspaper.

You notice it's from
probably like yesterday

or the day before, right,

pretty recently, earlier this week,

which by the way I should mention,

days pass in Mentopolis
(snapping) quite quickly.

It's not one-to-one with the days

that the big guy is feeling, right?

You see the newspaper,

and you notice that it's out of order.

You just notice that the front
page is not the front page.

It's not like someone's
like taken the funnies out

and like put it on front of the thing,

but you just see it's
a little bit crinkled,

and the page that's on front
is way, way buried in the back.

It's like a tiny little puff piece article

that basically leads this
page 20B kind of thing,

and this is from The
Daily Observer by the way.

Looking at this, sort of the headline

of our little article is not that it's

like a big splash page,

but just this tiny little
sort of heading says,

"Packet on Desk, Ready to
Go to the Big Wigs Upstairs.

Last Chance to Take a Look."

And it basically,

reading sort of deeper
down into the article,

it just says like months
and months of research

from the big guy's hard work now sits

in a manila envelope on the desk waiting

to go upstairs to the big
wigs of Gobstopper Industries.

It's just sitting there,
and it's the last chance

to look at it, or fix anything,

or do anything else before
it goes away forever,

and then it goes into an interview

with a local, Anxiety Source,

that talks about the packet sitting there,

and then you see there's a quick line

from Reckless Self-Confidence

that says, it's perfect,

and a couple other sort of bits of voices

and stuff like that,

but that little tiny
article just sits there

on the front page that
Imelda has handed to you.

- And what does this have
to do with the Pulse Family?

- Well, let me ask you this.

You heard of the nightclub Sugah?

- Oh, I know Sugah.

- I was coming outta Sugah two days ago,

and a little rascal,
an urchin if you will,

handed me this newspaper,

and I couldn't help but
notice this very headline

even though it was not on the front page,

it was handed to me directly.

Do you understand?

- I understand the sequence
of the words that you've said.

I don't understand how
it involves me just yet.

- Perhaps you don't know this about me,

Mr. Curio.

I'm reckless.

I'm impulsive.

I'm a little crazy.

I see this headline. I think,

well maybe we should do
something about this.

Now, my family,

we have ways we have means
of making the big guy move.

You know what I mean?

You understand my drift, Mr. Curio?

- I pick up what you're putting down.

(Trapp and Siobhan laughing)

- You eatin' what I'm serving?

- Oh yeah, I'm takin' a
big old servin' of it,

gobbling it up with a spoon.

(players laughing)

- I look out the window again.

- Give me another slick
roll and another snoop roll.

(rolls dice)

- That's a 16.

- Is this, well, it doesn't matter.

(Trapp laughing)

That is a three.

(ball sliding on a track)

And I will take two because
I take two when I fail.

- Oh that's right, you are Determined.

There you go.

(ball sliding on a track)

- Thank you.

- So looking at Imelda's face
as she looks out the window,

you see a poised and confident woman

checking the street outside the office

and cannot observe anything
other than an air of mystery

and grace, quite a poker face on the lady

across from you in the office;

however, you are aware of Sugah,

and you do know that's down
like near the limbic system,

and the amygdala.

There's a, it's right
near The Hippo Campus,

which is Mentopolis' premier university.

- (groans) Oh yeah, I love it.

- So looking at that,
you do know that area.

Give me actually a savvy check as well.
- Sure.

Call it a difficulty of... four.
- Okay.

- (laughing) That's a two.

- [Brennan] Okay.

- Oh wait, hold on.
I've got a ton of Moxie.

I'm gonna go ahead and
add two Moxie there.

- Hell yeah.
- [Trapp] Why not.

You think you've seen a scrappy kid

hanging around Sugah before,

which is weird cause that's
like in the red light district

for the city, a lot of
like pleasures and urges

and stuff like that.

Appetites are down there all the time,

but yeah, you have a recollection
of definitely there you

like one time being down
in that neighborhood

and seeing a kid down there.
- Mh-hm.

And I think on that,

like that's just enough of a success

that that's all you know.

- Got it, cool.

So Ms. Pulse, what exactly
are you employing me for?

You want to get the big guy
moving on this envelope?

'Cause I'll tell you this,
as soon as I heard your name,

I said, she's got enough money,

I'll do anything she wants.

(players laughing)

- Well, let me tell you,

I have no need for your help on that

because I have already made that happen.

What I'm employing you for is...

people don't seem very happy about it.

I'm being followed, Mr. Curio.

I'm being followed by heaven knows who,

and by who knows what, and by
he and her and Mr. Mischief.

You get my-

(players laughing)

- Here we go again.
- I got a big old spoon of your drift.

Your drift's piling up
on the side of the road

and I'm gobbling it up.

(Hank laughing)

- It's snowy and delicious out there.

- And I'm eating that snow.
- [Siobhan] No doubt.

- That's right. That's for sure.

(group laughing)

- Anna opens the door a crack and goes...

What the f*ck is going on in here?
(players laughing)

Everything all right?
- Everything's okay.

- Oh, sorry.
- [Trapp] It's all good.

- Do you want me to go call Mr. Mischief?

- Mr.- What?
- What?

- No, no. We're cool. We got it okay.
- Okay, yeah yeah.

(door clicks shut)

So you're being followed?

- And I don't know why.

Why is this file so important?

Why is it so dangerous
and why is it so bad

that I got the big man to pick it up?

- These are questions, Ms. Pulse,

and if there's one thing
I love, it's questions,

and if there's two things
I love, it's money.

If there's three things
I love, it's coffee,

and I see a lot of those
three things in my future

with this case.

(Brennan laughing)

- Anna hands you a coffee
as you put your coat on

and you head out of your office.

From there,

we are actually going to move right along

to a place under very
different circ*mstances

than we have seen before.

Lit up bright, the Synaptic Switchboard

at Cerebell Pacific is
in a very different state

than that first time we saw it.

The lights are all on and
bodies hustle to and fro

as some of Mentopolis' finest
take impulse control red tape

and band it off, say, all
right, everyone back up.

It's an active crime scene.

Everyone back up.

As a body lays on the floor,
(tense noir thriller music)

a pool of blood surrounding it

and a massive switchboard shattered in a

act of some kind of
(sparking)

explosion or corrosion or
something of that nature.

Pushing to the front of
the crowd at the edge

of the tape here at
this active crime scene

at Cerebell Pacific,

Danielle, could you please
describe your character for us?

- My character is a...

tough scrabble reporter.

She's trying to gain more notoriety.

She's trying to kind of break in more

to getting bigger headlines,

'cause right now she
mostly does stuff like,

Breaking news, we stubbed our toe.

Ouch.

And so she's trying to get to a point

where she can become more successful
(chill detective music)

and get some of the bigger stories,

so she's got a nose for the news

and her name is A. Tension

because that is the role
that she plays in the brain

is that she helps with
focus and attention.

- You push to the front of the crowd.

Looking around, you see that the sort of

cops are around pushing back people away.

There's some other like
reporters and stuff here.

You see this guy, Officer
Connell, who you know,

standing there says,

All right everyone back up, back up.

It's still a crime scene, and
he sort of looks over at you.

You also notice seeing
the switchboard that

all of the lights have sort of dimmed.

This is the central Synaptic Switchboard,

which could mean something
sort of terrible.

It could be that- Something
very bad has happened here.

This is like a central piece of machinery

within Mentopolis.

Looking around, you also see

that there are some
employees of Cerebell Pacific

who have been allowed under the tape
(tense inquisitive music)

to like help explain
some stuff to the cops

about the switchboard

and other stuff that's happening here.

In this moment,

I think you'd be aware that
you have some connections

and other people that
are sort of around like

on the other side of that tape,

and you're also not too far away.

This is still in Cortex City,

so like the Daily Observer's
right around the corner

from here.

What is A. Tension or Anastasia,

what are you doing as you push
to the front of this crowd?

- Excuse me, pardon me,
misters. Excuse me, pardon me.

Press, press. Misters, press.

- All right, oh, okay.

Miss Tension, hello, hello.

Fancy seeing you here.

Officer Connell sort of
speaks up to you and says,

I'm sure the paper of
record would love for us

to notice whatever this is,

but listen, the mayor's
called, everything's fine.

We don't have to bring
this to the attention

of the big guy, okay?

This is all gonna get
sorted out in a second.

What's- What's the good in him noticing

that something's gone wrong?

- Well, I just believe
that it is important

that we make sure that everybody knows

what's the news of the day.

What am I looking at exactly here?

- Well, this guy's not gonna
be waking up anytime soon,

so I think that's plenty, don't you?

- (excitedly) A body?

Oh, I mean (somberly) a body.

(players laughing)

- So you're at the tape right now,

and you're talking to the officer here.

Do you want to

try to make any observations
you can from a distance,

which might make it a
little bit more difficult,

or do you wanna try to like
push through to this other spot?

- I wanna try to push through
to the other spot and so...

Hmm.

So I know Officer Connelly,

but I don't know a lot of the other people

like the scientists and stuff.

Well, thank you very much
for your help Mr. Connell.

I agree, we don't necessarily
need to bring this

to the attention of the big guy.

Thank you for all of your help.

I will go ahead and leave now if you wanna

attend to the body.

- Yeah, that's right. That's right.

And you see he turns around and continues

to sort of man the tape.

You walk a little bit away and do see

some of the other
scientists moving around.

Gimme a snoop check.

We'll call it a difficulty of eight.

(rolls dice)

- Oh, you're joking.

(nat one sound)

A one.

- An actual, you rolled
a natural one on the-.

- I rolled a natural one on my d20.

- You add some to your snoop
roll, I believe, right,

or no, you don't.

- Nope, not with snoop, not with snoop.

Not with snoop.
- Incredible.

I'll also remind you of
the halving mechanic,

so if you want to, this
is a planned action.

- Oh yes, yes yes yes.

Let's go ahead and halve that baby.

- [Brennan] We'll halve that baby,

so that is a 10-
- King Solomon stat.

- [Brennan] So that is
a ten automatically.

(players laughing)

You see that there is a young scientist,

or I should say there's a young
sort of switchboard operator

who is seated outside of the tape,

who is kind of being
comforted by a coworker,

and you can see her sort of
sitting there like weeping,

so you see that she's
crying and someone's sort

of being blocked off from the body,

but something in your sort
of reporter sensibility

looks over at her (sniffling)

because she's just outside of that domain

of where the cops are all buzzing around.

(sniffles)

- All right, so I go ahead
and I walk up to her.

(sighs)

Sounds like a bit of bad news.

- (sad, New York accent) Yeah.

(players laughing)
(jazzy music)

- I take two cigarettes out, light both,

and then hand one of them over to her.

- Aw geez, that's awful nice of ya.

(sniffles and puffs on the cigarette)

Nothing's more soothing when you're crying

than a nice drag off a cool cigarette.

(players laughing)

- Some mucus, stuffy nose, yeah, yeah.

Just clears it up.

- Well it's a menthol.

(players laughing)

- Woo, fresh, that's fresh.

(players laughing)

I'm sorry (sniffles) I'm over here crying.

What's your name?

It's nice to meet you.

- Well hello it's nice
to meet you as well,

my name is...

Stacy Fakename.

(players laughing)

- Oh my God, are you related to Joanne?

- I am, I am related to Joanne Fakename.

- I love Joanne.

She's one of my best friends.

- One of God's own children.

Did you happen to know,

I'm sorry, I don't mean to,
but did you happen to know?

- Yeah.

(cries)

He was my brother.

He got me the job here.

He's been working here for so long.

He's older than me.

I'm the youngest and he's the oldest

and we're outta seven.

He's such a sweet guy, and now he's gone.

Why would anyone do this?

I don't understand.

- Well, would you know if
your brother was working

on any special projects happening here?

- Last night he was
manning the switchboard.

He was running the graveyard shift,

so normally there's a
couple operators in here,

but he was just taking care of things.

Norrell was always such a sweet guy.

I can't think why anyone
would ever ever wanna hoit him

(Alex stifling a laugh)

- Did Norrell happen to be
working with anyone else

on usual occasions or was this a night

when he was working alone?

- Last night he was the
only one on the schedule,

so he was working alone.

He said he was gonna be there and,

you know, I mean,

I know that he went down
to the red light district

every once in a while,

but I don't think he would've
done anything too dangerous

and made any enemies.

He's a nice guy.

- Well, would you happen to know

of any of his proclivities
in the red light district?

- She looks over.

You can see that some, right
at the corner of your eye,

you notice some of the
evidence being gathered

around the crime scene is
being sort of taken away

and put in a little baggie
that is like going back

toward, there's almost like a little cart

or gurney that has bagged
and tagged evidence

that you see is being
moved towards the edge

of the tape area.

You see, she turns to you and says,

Well, there was one place, you know...

Norrell was a lonely guy

and it's prohibition and
it's hard to come by some

of the more, those
neurotransmitters and hormones

that make a lonely fella
feel a little less lonely.

There was a place downtown
that I heard served

some of the good stuff,
not just this cortisol,

that's the only thing we seem to be able

to drink these days.

It was called Sugah's and he
talked about it once or twice.

I never wanted to go,

but that's where he seemed
to used to wanna go,

and hopefully that's helpful.

- Thank you very much for your help.

I apologize for the death of Norrell

and I hope that you and your seven,

I'm sorry, six

(players laughing)
siblings,

we wish you all the best of luck.

- On behalf of the entire Ojiccle family,

I thank you so much.
(Trapp laughing)

- Goddammit.

(players laughing)

- All right, thank you.

And so A starts going
over and starts walking.

I assume there's like a cab situation

when you kinda go outside.

- For sure, and give
me one last snoop check

and we'll call this a DC 11.

(nat one sound)

- You've gotta be f*cking kidding me.
- Is that another natural one?

- Are you kidding me?

- Throw it away.
(Danielle laughing)

- I need new- Someone blow on this.
- [Siobhan] New die.

(ball sliding on a track)
(Danielle sighs sadly)

It brings me no joy anymore.

(players laughing)

- The sad clunk of a failure.

- The clunk means failure.

So, you see-

So I think as you're walking away

on that failed snoop check,

you see that before you can get
a look at that evidence cart

'cause you can tell that
they took some stuff

from the body and from the crime scene,

they sort of peel away
and go, so it's like,

ah, there might have
been some stuff there,

but the fuzz gets rid of it.

As you walk away,

I think the last thing
you look back is the body

of Norrell on the ground.

You've spent a long time
interviewing all different

stripes and shades of this city,
(slow, sad piano music)

and you get a look at Norrell's face,

the body dead on the ground,

the blood pooled out away from him.

(final deathly gasp)

You look at the face of this dead man,

and you hear the words

of his sister and some
reporter instinct in you goes,

This guy didn't have it coming.

You see a lot of murders in the city.

Some murders you go,
oh, this guy owed money.

This guy, this was a revenge killing

'cause this guy killed someone else

on the other gang or something like that.

You look at this guy, face of a citizen,

a guy who clocked in at Cerebell Pacific

and something doesn't add up.

Why would someone kill this guy?

- I just have a hunch that
something doesn't add up.

(players laughing)
(slick, jaunty jazz music)

Why would someone kill this guy?

(players laughing)

Of all of the murders I've seen here,

I don't think he had it comin'.

(players laughing)

- I liked it better when she-

That was much better.
(players laughing)

- All right, we'll edit my part out.

(group laughing)

As you leave, where would
you like to go next,

'cause you have your newspaper nearby,

but there's also this sort
of lead to go to Sugah's.

Do you think you would stop
by the newspaper first,

or head straight to Sugah's?

- I'm gonna stop at the newspaper first,
- [Brennan] Okay.

- Even though like my
instinct says go to Sugah's

because we'll see what
happened at the newspaper,

but I'm gonna go over
to the newspaper first,

and see if I can talk to my
editor about being able to,

because obviously when you go down

in the red light district,
you wanna make sure

that folks know that you're there.

- So we see the Daily Observer,

a tall skyscraper with a huge rotating eye

up on the top of it,

(light buzzes and static crackles)

and you see tons of reporters,

(ambient office muzak,
typewriters clacking)

the bullpen of reporters is so enormous.

You see one little lonely
fact checker just off

in a corner like hi,

and you walk in and you
hear the hustle and bustle

and sort of like massive
forearm sleeves rolled up,

just huge cigar.

You see the Editor-in-Chief
Freddy Focus looking around

and saying, goddammit, I want
that in 24 point bold font,

top of the paper, front page.

Get it to the presses.

"Our Ass Crack is Sweaty"

That needs to be the first
thing on everybody's mind.

Oh, well, well, well, Ms. Tension.

I see you're back from the beat.

What was all that ruckus?

We saw the bulls charging on down

to Cerebell Pacific.

- I think we've got ourselves
a big one, Mr. Focus.

- Yeah, what do you reckon?

- We've got ourselves a dead employee.

- Dead employee, well why'd they kill him?

You got motive, you got means,
you got a moidah weapon?

- I don't have motive or
means or a moidah weapon yet.

- When you say "moidah weapon,"

I know that that's not how you talk.

(players laughing)

- But I believe I have a lead,

but that lead will lead me to
some seedier parts of town.

I may need to go to
the red light district.

- Look, the last thing
the big guy wants is

to know what's going on down
in the subconscious, okay?

We got things to worry about.

I got Betty over here
who's got me 23 inches

on page two all about what
snacks we might have later.

That's what the big guy wants.

- You know, Mr. Focus,

I have been on this beat
for a very long time,

and I believe that I have
covered enough stories

about stubbed toes, too much ear wax,

and being really, really
annoyed at the person

who lives next door to us

because they keep letting their dogs out

and their dogs went- Anyway.

I believe I have done enough puff pieces.

- [Brennan] Puff pieces?
- It's time for us to-

- That earwax story got us a Pulitzer.

(players laughing)

(Danielle sighs)

- It got you a Pulitzer.

(collective near-silence from tension)

- Go ahead and give me a slick check here.

- Well, that was a mistake, Danielle.
- [Brennan] We'll call it a-

(players laughing)

- We'll call it a DC eight,
difficulty eight slick check.

(rolls dice)
- Be nice.

(nat one sound)

- What is happening?

- Is that your third one in a row?

I need new dice.
- No way.

No way.
- Oh my god.

- Okay, so (laugh-sobbing)
that gives me a three.

- How much Moxie do you have?

- I know, what was the DC on that?

- [Brennan] Eight.
- [Siobhan] Eight.

- Can I borrow one?

- Yes.

- Unfortunately no one else
is in the scene with you.

- Oh, I can't borrow a couple Moxie.

- I'm so sorry.

(ball sliding on a track,
but stalls partway through)

- It takes such a long time.
(players laughing)

- [Brennan] Clunk.
- [Trapp] Clunk.

You see that Freddy looks at you and says,

Anastasia, it was a joy
and a privilege to be able

to hire someone who wanted to come here to

make a name for herself
and forge her own way.

And it is out of respect for the people

whose name you are so
graciously not you using

that I am going to afford
you the ability for me

to forget that momentary
lapse in judgment.

Paying attention is what
we do here at this paper,

and you've done a lot of great work,

done a lot of great work.

That dog story I still think about it.

I got it framed up in the
office, but I'll be honest,

if I'm gonna give you the
resources to follow this lead,

it better be front page worthy,

or if it's not, we're gonna
have a hard conversation

when your contract is up.

You read me?

- I believe that this is worth pursuing.

I am not afraid of hard conversations.

(deep breath)

I believe that this is a lead
that is worth us going for,

and if I wind up being wrong,

then you may fire me

and I will live destitute,
poor, alone, sad, lonely,

unfulfilled with nothing to
look forward to the next day,

and if you would like that
on your conscience, sir,

then you go right ahead.

I'm just a lonely spinster
at the ripe old age of 24.

(players laughing)

- You see, he pulls a cigar
out of his mouth and says,

I heard you say a lot of words there,

but deep down I really
don't wanna pay attention.

And you see that he turns
around and walks off.

The other reporters kind of look over.

You see he seems to have given you license

to pursue this lead, but stakes are high.

- Everything's fine, everyone.

Just go back to,

I think we need our nails clipped.

If someone wants to make
sure we take care of that.

(players laughing)

- One cuticle, it's like...
- Incredible.

- With that A. Tension heads
out to follow this lead,

and with that we go ahead and move away

from Cortex City all the way down to the

temporal lobe of the brain.
(jazzy music)

We move down to a place that
we've mentioned a couple times

so far, Sugah's speakeasy, and
oh, what a wild time it is,

people throwing back shots,
dancing up on the stage,

deep down in a little hidden
pleasure center of the brain,

and the ring master at the center

of all of this mayhem, mischief,

and just flat out good times...

is Freddie's character.

Freddie, could you please
describe your character for us?

- Yeah, well, so you see,

I think in the corner booth
and he's sitting there,

big fat stogie, this guy, and
I want to be very clear here.

He has a shirt that's open,

like every button is open
except for the very bottom one,

so it creates this like V sort of thing,

and then so you get this chest,

you get this belly button
and anatomically, right,

you probably are picturing,

where the hair down there begins,

wherever you have in your head,

it's two inches higher.

(players laughing)

It starts two inches
higher than you think.

Do you know what I mean?

- How'd it get above his head?

(players laughing)

- This is the proprietor of the club,

the purveyor of all pleasures,
earthly and otherwise,

Dan f*cks, spelled however you want.

- I think we know how it's spelled.

(players laughing)

You see this wild unfold, this
bacchanal throughout here,

a couple of patrons raise their glasses.

Thanks again.

Here's to Mr. f*cks.

- Eh, shut up.

(stammering)

I've got to deal with these
bills and reports, man.

- You see that some of
your employees come up,

one of your guys walks up,

big, pronounced snot running
mucusy nose, bloodshot eyes.

This is Joey Sneezes
who walks up and goes,

Hey there boss.

- Look up at one of those bright lights.

- What?

(making those sounds you
make right before sneezing)

(sneezes)

Oh, that feels so f*ckin' good.

(sniffles)

- Oh, you got another one?

We're a two sneeze man.

(sneezes)

- Oh, there it is.

(players laughing)

- Some people are like that.

- We are, that feels great.

- And I throw a handkerchief
like a baseball at his face.

- Pow, sticks to the snot
in his nose and he wipes it.

- You are welcome.

- You see that there's
another woman who's sort of

dressed in that co*cktail waitress attire.

She's got like a little
pillbox hat and a big tray

full of little serotonin
packets everywhere,

and she comes over, and she goes,

Mr. f*cks, I wanted to say-.

(Trapp and Brennan snickering)

- Oh yeah, I knew what I was doing.

- This is another one of your employees.

This is Libby Longshower.

(group laughing)
- Great.

And she is just drenched
with like steam rising up

off of her and she says,
hey, the place is packed.

There's some people
outside who want to get in.

Are we at capacity or can
we try to stuff 'em in?

- I take a glance around

and it's probably pretty packed, right?

- Yeah, it's stuffed in here.

- (sniffles) Yeah, bring them in.

- All right, I'll go let 'em in,

and she wanders off.

As she does so, we actually zoom out

and you hear a little bit
of a commotion nearby.

It looks like there's
some folks that are like,

there's a little bit like
of a scuffle breaking out,

and you see this big guy.

He's got a sort of dock workers',

like a leather sort of jacket on.

He's got sort of almost
like naval-looking cap.

You see him just wheel out
and clock somebody in the jaw,

bam, send him to the floor, and he says,

back off buddy,

You don't wanna mess
with Donny Urges, okay.

You see he looks at this
flattened dude on the floor,

makes eye connect with you and says,

Nice spot you got here.

You're Danny f*cks, right?

- Yes indeed, who are you?

- They call me Donny Urges, but uh.

- Donny, do you work for me?

- I don't, but maybe I could.

I'm new in town, you understand?

- Well, you've come to the right place

with fisticuffs like that.

I could use you a little
muscle around here.

- (laughs) That sounds good.

Why don't you send some free
drinks over to my table?

- Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Nothing comes free.

Everything's comes with
a little bit of a cost.

- Hey, I thought we're all looking out

for number one around here.

You don't want to gimme a hand?

- I have to keep things
under control, my man.

I can't just be handing out free drinks.

Why, if people start seeing that,

I'll be run out of town.

- All right, fine.

Keep the drinks for yourself, nogoodnik.

- Hey, what the hell?

(players laughing)

- I'll buy 'em myself. He turns around.

Give me a snoop check difficulty of five.

- Snoop check difficulty of five.

That is a natural exploding ten.

(Brennan cheers)

- [Brennan] 10.

- We're gonna keep going, 17.

- Urges is a very, like,
that's a common last name.

You see a little shimmer across his eyes.

There's something almost
like a, (whoosh) a sheen.

You've seen this before.

This guy seems like he might
be something a little bit

more dangerous.

- Destructive.

- A little more destructive,

something you've seen
before a couple times.

You think he might be
an intrusive thought.

- Oh,

so do I have like muscle in the club?

Do I have, 'cause I feel like,
as the proprietor I have,

like a bouncer of some kind.

Do I have anyone like that?

- You look at the door

and you see there's an enormous bouncer

at the door who's really a
really sweet, good natured guy.

You hired him a while ago.

His name is is Hans Schadenfreude.

(players laughing)

Hello there, Mr. f*cks.

- Oh Hans.

- Thank you again for the job.

I hope that I can be of service.

I love to hurt the people who are here

that are doing no good, you know.

- Maybe a little bit too much.

- I delight in seeing their torment.

(players laughing)

- That's why we keep you
around to keep balance.

- Very good.

We love it.

- Hey, so this Danny guy over there,

you see him at the bar?

- Oh yes, Mr. Donald Urges.

Yes, I see him.

- I'm getting a little bit of a,

what we may call in the future,
a bad vibe from this dude.

- Oh yes, a bad vibe from the dude.

Would you like me to go
over and ruin his day?

- Maybe not, don't cause a scene, man,

but dispose of him
discreetly and pleasurably

as you may wish.

- Very well, Mr. f*cks.

Humiliation is part of it though.

(group laughing)

- Weird thing to say, but
you know what, go for it.

- I am technically a pleasure too.

(group laughing)
And you see,

(laughing) Hans gets up
and begins to walk away.

You see, as he gets up
to walk away though,

we're actually going
to pull out towards the

other side of the club
where Donny has returned to,

and we see him sit down
with some other riffraff

and low lives here in this

hot and steamy pleasure
center of the brain.

- Oh really quick though.
- [Brennan] Yeah.

The person who got knocked down.
- [Brennan] Yeah.

- I feel like I gotta go
up to them and be like,

Here have a little bit of a
strange new pleasure on me,

and this one is, and I pull from like,

I think Libby has like the
tray and stuff, I pull one.

It's like, we've just discovered this one.

This one is that one time a
barber whispered in our ear

during a haircut and it
made us feel really strange,

and there's not a word for it yet.

- You see this just
like a small memory here

who goes like, oh, thanks
Mr for the, oh, ooh, oh, oh.

- Listen to me, it's not
sexual. But it's also-

- No it's not. But it's

- Not not sexual.

- (being satisfied) That's exactly right.

Wow, it's so deep in there.

(group laughing)

Gets up, and as lascivious
as this place is,

you see that people are
having a great time,

and you see the guy does
take that little look,

and you see there's a couple other people

that are getting these like
weird little physical pleasures,

these scratches.

There's a whole wall of little like,

sort of almost like
pachinko or ski ball things

of like ASMR kind of like places,

but you also see that
there's a place in the back

where a lot of very lonel-

there's like a lot of
people that you know work

in the different like
motor function centers

that are different
motorists and machinists

who just coming and taking
a little secret drink

of something like oxytocin,

and you see these little cups
of like a thick hot chocolate

that go in and little hearts
kind of pop out of their thing.

It's an illegal drug in the city

because the big guy has not had

any affection or physical
contact in a long, long time,

so the big wigs and muckety
mucks have outlawed it.

We zoom across the
nightclub to see the table

with Donny Urges at it
with a couple of riffraff

and real sort of up-to-no-good
types seated around a table.

You see Donny sits down and says,

(sly, mischievous jazz music)

So here's the plan fellas,

it's the heist of the century.

We're supposed to be uh
working all afternoon,

but here's the thing,

the big guy saw a birthday
cake in the staff break room,

(players laughing softly)

and we're not invited to that
department's birthday parties.

How easy would it be to jump
in there and cut a little slice

for ourself or even just
stick a finger into the icing?

We don't need to spend all day working

when there's such a
lovely score to be had.

And as we zoom out,

there is a figure at a nearby table

listening to this entire conversation.

Hank, could you go ahead
and describe your character?

- Yes, I am The Fix,

and I'm like a manifestation of the system

that allows for hyperfixation,

so anything that might
distract you in a moment

when you're focused on
something that's very important

or not important at all, it's
like a jackhammer outside.

If it's the hungry belly,

I'm just letting you do your thing.

Don't let anything arrive,

and I do that by...

silencing anything that's
coming in to distract,

and I silence with my arms.

(players laughing)

So I'm very big, but my
arms are like stupid,

like they're bigger than my legs,

even though my legs are very big.

- You're like real like
a Dick Tracy villain.

- Like a trapezoid.

- And I do it also with
my gun if necessary,

but I had to have a special gun designed

that would fit my finger
in under the trigger guard

without me pulling the trigger,

so I can't easily use other people's guns.

I have a special gun.

In exchange for not being able
to use other people's guns,

I'd like something.

(players laughing)

- Yes, the barter system.

- Yeah, it was gonna be a huge impediment

to not be able to use other people's guns.

(group laughing)

So this enormous figure of
The Fix over in the corner,

you hear this conversation
had at the table next to you

by this guy, Donny.

He says, so, meet me down

at Oblongata Station later tonight.

We'll all get together and make history.

We're gonna ruin this workday.

It is at this exact moment that

there is a crash at the door
(door crashing, patrons gasping)

and you see a bunch of cops
(police chatter, ruckus)

pour into the club.
(whistles blowing)

As they all begin to pour in altogether,
(glass shattering)

you see the chief of police.

You recognize this guy.

Huge bristly mustache.

He's got one of those long,
there's a million buttons on it,

old timey, police officer uniforms,

and you see him raise his badge up.

This is Chief Tightass
who walks in and says,

All right everybody.

This joint is busted up.

All of you, I want hands against the wall.

And just cops sort of rush in.

You see that Donny and this other table

far away from the
entrance begin to break up

and sort of like run out the
back sort of exit of the place.

Dan, in this moment, what do you do

as you see the cops begin to pour in?

- So I'm gonna put my
hands up oh no, oh no,

(sarcastically) we're being raided, oh no.
(players laughing)

You'll have to arrest me, Chief.

- Chief Tightass walks up to you and says,

Well, ol' Danny f*cks.

- Yeah, Chief Tightass,

your horrifying visage
graces my club once again.

- He's gonna go around
to like handcuff you.

- Oh, not too tight, or maybe.

- Ah, I hate when you like it.

(players laughing)

You see he walks over to the bar,

sort of marching you over there,

scoops a finger up along it.
(slurping sound)

Oh. Well, well, well,

if that isn't a trace element of oxytocin.

You haven't been having
people feel loved in here,

have you Dan?

- My God, love?

I would not, waste my time
on such foolish delights

when you have all these
other great ones I've got.

- You see next to you,
the guy still going like,

(in ecstasy) Oh, it's still doing it.

- I wanna be clear, that
one's something else.

(group laughing)

- You see, the chief of police says,

Well, I understand that you
maybe don't have a control

over every single thing
that goes on in here,

but if I start to check behind that bar,

am I gonna find anything
I shouldn't find, Daniel?

- There's no reason for
you to check behind there.

Why don't you sit down, take
a load off, you and your boys,

all of 'em. You hear that?

I'm speaking loud enough so that

him and the boys can all hear I say,

Hmm, you know, you hard
working individuals here.

Could use a break.

- This is gonna be a
difficulty 11 slick check.

- You fool, (laughing
victoriously) you fool.

(Brennan laughing lightly)

That's an 11 on the nose.

- Wow, okay.

You see that there's
like a couple like racks

of different neurotransmitters up there

of- that like "award won
for doing one's job."

- Civic duty.

- Yeah, civic duty,

and he says, look here Danny.

Your job here,

it's not like the bigwigs
don't know about it,

but the profile's getting a
little high, wouldn't you say?

- No.

(group laughing)

- Yes, good one.
- I disagree with you.

I think in fact we could be expanding.

I'm thinking about tearing down that wall,

opening up a wing,

maybe taking over a little bit more

of the red light district.

What do you think about that?

I don't know why I'm telling
you this, chief of police.

- He begins to undo the
handcuffs and says,-

- No, don't. (laughing)

- You are a freaky guy.

(Freddie laughing)

He takes the key out and says,

Fellas, let's get the
contraband outta here,

and the cops just start cleaning you out,

just everything's moving off the shelves.

- This is bullsh*t.

- And he undoes the handcuffs
and says on that success,

on an exactly an 11.

You see, he says,

You're a free man for now, Daniel,

but you need to understand,

the people who run this city,

they set the rules.

The big guy doesn't deserve pleasure.
(smooth trumpet lick playing)

- Oh, but he likes it.

(saying "yeah" back and forth,
in increasingly horny ways)

(Hank trying to contain
his laughter and himself)

- Is this about you and
me right now, or is this-

- Could be, could be, my man.

(weirdly tense mouth sounds)

- All right, well,
- That's what I thought.

- Nah, I'm working, I'm working.
I'm working, I'm working.

(laughing) He looks around and says-

- While you're clearing this place out,

you might as well get rid of
that trumpet player over there.

He's been playing one lick
just over and over again.

It's been really driving me crazy.

It was cool at first.
(trumpet music stops abruptly)

- You said you liked it.

- I did! 20 minutes ago I did,

but you're still here.

- If I learn a second
lick, can I come back?

- Yes, sure, fine, but
get him out of here.

I don't know how to get rid of him.

(Trapp hums the same tune from earlier)
(group laughing)

- So you see the cops begin to leave

and like the night's been ruined.

You've probably lost a
ton of money here tonight.

As you look around,

you see Joey Sneezes and Libby looks over.

Hans looks over and says,
I'm very sorry, sir,

that in all the chaos,

I wasn't sure if you wanted me to

grapple and hit and
destroy the police officers

that wandered in here,

but it seemed like you were
having a flirtatious encounter

with the chief of police.
(players laughing)

- Oh, shut up, Hans.

I know you got quite a bit of pleasure out

of watching this place get torn apart.

- (cheekily) You did
not want it to happen.

- I see right through you, man.

(group laughing)

Get this pervert outta here.

Hans, go home.

- Oh, go home.

This is terrible. (squeal of delight)

And you see he,
(group laughing)

he walks off and you look
around at this place,

and I think there is that moment of

looking at your speakeasy
that's been busted up again.

There were so many clients in here,

like you could expand.

You could have a street of
venues with all the people

that want to come down here,

but the ordinances that
city council, the mayor,

the DA have passed,

have basically all been about the fact

that like until this project

that Elias is working on
that like, he, y'know,

that Elias Hodge has not gotten the praise

from the bosses yet.

The project's not completed yet,

and until that happens,

City Hall has said nobody's
allowed to feel good.

But I think, I wanna go back
to The Fix for a second.

When all that chaos breaks out,

you see various people sort
of leaving and absconding.

You see that guy at
that other table sort of

head off into the darkness.

What does The Fix do
when the cops show up?

- Well, he's been paying
attention to those guys

at that table.

He doesn't like it.

He knows this area well.

They don't.
- [Brennan] Mh-hm.

So hopefully I'm gonna,

I'd like to try to
intercept them, not follow,

but anticipate where they're going to go

and be there when they
walk down that alley.

- Hell yes.

I would say, go ahead and give me,

knowing the neighborhood
as well as you do,

this is just a difficulty
four sneak check.

- Can it be a savvy?

(group laughing)

- f*ck what I said.

This is a difficulty four savvy check.

- This seems like a savvy check to me.

- [Brennan] Yeah, for sure.

- That's a nine.

- Oh, I also could have just halved it.

- You can just halve it
as well as planned action.

Moving from Sugah's

out to the streets out
near Temporal Square,

deep down here in the midbrain.

We journey through
Mentopolis where Donny Urges

and the various riffraff
that he's collected

for his criminal scheme run off

(pants)

on the streets.

Dutch angle, dutch angle.

High contrast, high contrast.

- Huge shadows.
- Huge shadows, big shadows.

- Tropes, tropes.

- Tropes, tropes, tropes.

Donny stops near a massive brick wall.

The rain of the brainstorm overhead.

(raining pouring down)

(pants)

All right, that was close.

Bulls almost came down on
us like a ton of bricks,

but lemme tell you this right now.

And in this little circle of criminals,

from whence does The Fix
emerge having spotted this,

or you've been here from
the moment they arrived?

- Right, I sort of loom out and I say,

Have we met?

- You see all of them turn around

and look at your basically sternum,

(players laughing)
(zoot)

and then you see Donny goes,

(twinkling noir music)

Who's asking Bub?

- So I have a job.

It's a weird job.

I get in strange situations in my job.

I get exposed to things.

I'm often there when the big guy's

up to something ridiculous.

Like for example,

did you know that for every

snake on earth there is one snake dick,

and at first ya might think,

well yeah, that makes sense,

but actually, only half
of snakes have dicks,

and that means
(Danielle lets out a laugh)

that every snake that
has a dick has two dicks,

and that's a true fact about our world.

That's the kind of
information I run across

as I'm doing my job,

and that job is to eliminate distraction,

and you seem like distractions,

(tense music begins building)

so would you like to turn
around and go the other way,

or would you like to
see if I can keep myself

from punching you too hard?

(Brennan silently laughing
in of terror and awe)

- I'm gonna say, I'm gonna
need a slick check here.

- Yeah, I can use sharp instead of slick

'cause I'm Menacing.

(Brennan laughing)

- (Breathlessly) That's true.

- And that does carry out here.

I'm going to, the-

With how truly terrifying that was,

I'll have Donny make a sturdy check,

and so I'll roll it

and I'll roll it in front
of the board actually.

He's got a d12 for sturdy.

He's a sturdy guy.

(dice rolls)

And he rolls a six, the difficulty is six.

This is not a planned action.

This is a snap decision,

so go ahead and roll sharp for me.

- That's gonna be a 11.

- Beating a difficulty by five is a,

means an extraordinary success,

so trying to resist as best as possible,

but looking up, Donny looks and goes,

Hey, (laughing in fear)
I don't have two dicks,

so if that's what,
(players laughing)

I'm not a snake, but, and guys, what?

He turns around, everyone's gone.

Everyone else in the middle of the speech

already has left and turned.

There might even be
different thoughts now.

They're so terrified
and he looks and says,

I just thought this, you know

there's a birthday cake
in the fridge, and-

- I know, I know, man.

I understand, I understand.

We all sometimes want to put our finger

in the birthday cake, but
you're never gonna do that.

(Brennan laughing in shock and awe)

- He goes, that's right.

I'm never gonna do that.

I'm never,

and I think you literally
watch this guy fully,

like as an intrusive thought,

the shimmer goes across
his face and he goes,

I'm- I'm never gonna do that.

And he straight up turns into mist.

(group laughing)

He just turns into fog.

- There was like two murders this episode.

(group laughing)

- There's some other part of him

that just floats off and will come back

in some other part of the brain as just

a more normal desire to
get some cake sometime

(group laughing)

when it's reasonable to just
go get a cake for yourself,

and this distraction has been neutralized.

Standing over here in this area as well,

you hear a noise not too
far away of a car idling,

which, this is mostly like
a pedestrian neighborhood.

It's like a downtown area,

but you do hear a car idling
around the corner from here

and it sounds like a sort
of pretty souped-up engine.

You kind of even recognize the sound of it

as being probably a nice
town car from Cortex City.

In this moment, does The Fix
do anything here in this place?

- Do you think he might recognize
that sound specifically?

- Yeah, I think so.

I think that hearing the noise,

you recognize it as probably like

one of the DA's cars, right?

- Yeah, that's what I was guessing.
- [Brennan] Mh-hm.

- [Hank] I don't think that
he thinks it's there for him,

- Yeah.

- And so I think that he
does not interface with it.

- You hold on for a moment

as you are standing around
the corner from the car.

The car idles for a while longer,

and then you hear a click of the door,

and walking around the
corner, you see two figures,

long coats, fedoras, and
you see the beautiful face,

and even under the brim of the
hat sort of coiffed hair of

Mark Bition, which is
the District Attorney.

(Trapp chuckling lightly)

- M. Bition?

(Brennan laughing)

- Dashingly handsome figure,
walks around with an assistant,

looks up and says,
Sorry to interrupt, Fix.

I uh...

I was lucky enough to hear some
of your work at a distance.

I do depend on it so much of the time.

We're just posted up here
waiting for the chief of police

to finish up at Sugah's.

There's a squad of criminals
that I'm looking forward to

locking away.

These pleasures do tend to...

get in the way of the plans
that we have for the big guy.

Thank you again for all your hard work.

I take it to this guy, I don't see a body.

I hope you didn't eat
him. (laughs boisterously)

- It depends on what you mean.

- All right.

- He's gone and I enjoyed it.

(stifled laughter)

I have a job and I do like doing it

and I like doing it for you, Mr. Bition.

- We know we can rely on you,

and you're a huge part
of why the big guy's

been able to achieve so much.

Without you looking out for
the interest of this city

and obviously, we rely
on the chief of police.

It's wonderful those
impulses to be controlled

and emotions to be regulated,

but sometimes you need to work

outside the bounds of the law,

so it's very nice to have your help.

- Your hair looks very nice today, sir.

- Gimme a slick check.

- He's wearing a hat so
it might not go well.

(players laughing)

- (shakily) Ah, it's a two.

(players laughing)

- He goes, There's the part you can see

from under the hat?

- I just wanted to be nice.

- Oh, that's very honest.

(players laughing)

Well, you know, you're
a swell guy The Fix,

but I know you're a busy, busy man.

You have lots of people to go see.

I'm sure you have a very
busy social calendar.

- Did you know that every snake has-

- Okay well you know-

(group laughing)

The important, yeah, I did,

and thank you.

You see, he says, but
while I have you here,

and you see, he clicks over,

and you see there's a sort of stocky guy

that you actually recognize
as the deputy chief of staff

for the mayor.

He's sort of like very
scowly looking dude.

They call him Mr. Lance.

And you see that he reaches over.

(laugh) Trapp's looking at me like-

- Well just, any time you
say a name now it's like,

All right, what's this gonna become now?

It's not ambulance, but
it's gonna be something.

(group laughing)

- You do see him kind of
looking around very nervously,

and you see that he reaches
in and pulls out a small file

and you see that Mark
looks at you and says,

While we have you, if you've
finished your business here,

we need you to take care of... this.

This is a top priority for the time being,

and I think the faster we
can eliminate this threat

to the mayor's agenda and
the council's ambitious plans

for the big guy, this would
be our number one priority.

This has become the largest
distraction on our list

of distractions,

and hands a small file to you,

a little manila folder, tips his hat,

and he and the deputy
chief of staff walk away.

Do you take a look inside of the file?

- Yeah.

- Alex, could you please
describe your character?

- Yes, this is a small
boy, kind of too small.

(group laughing)

- Huge judgment right out of the gate.

Too small.

- Too small,

and has a look in his eyes
that he's seen too much.

He's wearing a newsie cap,

a dirty brown jacket, and
has dirty brown pants on.

That's- That's him.

(Brennan laughing)

- And you see in that sort of
like stenotype font, it says.

- Conrad Schintz.

- You see the name Conrad Schintz.

I will say this is the first time

that the District Attorney
has ever given you a file

with a child in it.

What does The Fix do in this-

- Do I know who this child is?

Have we met? Are we...

- Give me snoop difficulty eight,

or actually, sorry, gimme
savvy difficulty eight.

- Nine.

(Brennan gasps)
- [Alex] Mmm.

- You have seen this kid around,

and I think you actually
know a way towards like,

this kid is like not too far
from this specific neighborhood

as well.

I think you could definitely go looking.

You also know a place you
could go in general that kids

come to and fro from
that you could go check.

- Well I think that the first thing is

that The Fix feels a feeling
that he does not know

and is not comfortable with.

(Brennan and Alex laughing lightly)

He's very used to doing the job,

- [Brennan] Yeah.

and he just does the job,

- [Brennan] Yeah.
- And he always likes doing the job.

(gritty noir music)

But he's not having that
sensation right now.

- A strange feeling overtakes you.

Do you think you stay here
for a while in that feeling,

or do you think you head out?

- I think I might head out

and go and see if I
know where this kid is.

- You wander off in search of this child.

As you do so, we're
actually gonna move over

to our friend Conrad,

moving throughout the
city throughout space,

we see the hustle and bustle

of the late afternoon people sort of

like leaving from work
out in the city center.

We see young Conrad plying his trade.

As people walk to and fro,

you've got a bag of newspapers
by your side and we also see

by your side something else,

which is a big old basset
hound that sort of sleeps

wrapped around a little
lamp post on a street corner

as people hustle to and fro

coming up and buying newspapers from you.

What is Conrad doing in this moment?

- Conrad's saying,
papers, get your papers,

but it's like a little too quiet.

(players laughing)

- You hear a guy, a sort of
older man walking by go, what?

(players laughing)

- Papers.

- What kind of papers?

- Newspaper, sir.

- Ah, good.

(players laughing)

See he comes over hands you
a couple coins takes it.

- Oh, it's the wrong amount.

- Hmm?

- Sir you gave me the wrong amount.

- Oh.

- It's okay, nevermind.

- I didn't pay enough or I overpaid?

- You paid half what it cost,

but that's okay.

Forget I said anything.

- No, you wanna hold me accountable

(Alex laughing)

'cause I did something wrong.

- That's not what I said, sir.

It's-

- No, I think it was implied.

You told me I'm a piece of sh*t,

(Hank laughing)

and I'm not a piece of sh*t.

I'm a good guy.

Would a good guy do a bad thing?

- No.

- Then how could what I have done be bad?

- Okay.

(group laughing)

And you see he walks off
and you see your dog Justin

looks up and goes,

Woof, you could have gotten
that extra money from him.

Now you're gonna be short
at the end of the day.

- That's okay. I have a
stash for just this occasion.

(players laughing)

- You're gonna cover
the cost of his paper?

- Yeah, I gave him all the
facts and he made a choice

so that's okay.

(group laughing)

- Justin goes, oh, Conrad, I'm so sorry.

- Justin, you're my best friend.

(group laughing)

- I know it's true.

You're my best friend too,

but we just tend to say it

after something real sad's happened.

(group laughing)

- I never thought of it like that before.

- You're my best friend.

(group laughing)

You see that you sell all your papers,

you see another person comes up

and buys a paper off you and goes,

Oh little boy. I'm so sorry,

but I believe the the paper
is sorted the wrong way.

(stammering)

The pages are out of order.

- Oh, sorry.

No one's ever called me out
on that, but I did that.

Here, I can put them back in the order.

- Oh thank you.
- [Alex] Yeah, no problem.

- And you sort of shuffle
them back in order.

As it does so you see there's
like a hustle and bustle

nearby you.

There's some people that seem to be

sort of like arguing or
there's a phone booth.

Then you see there's a
guy kind of like fiddling

with the dial on the phone
booth and pointing at it

and sort of shrugging.

There's like a couple phone booths in this

big plaza that you're in.

You see like a huge dome of City Hall

that has like the wrinkles
of a brain around it.

There's like a bunch of overpass highways

with synaptic cars that
light up the highway

as they travel along them.

You see that the highways
sort of like come into and

out of the mouths of like giant
statues in the sort of image

of Elias Hodge or the self-image moving in

and throughout you see the
people sort of looking worried

and you see a sort of image pop up

and a bullhorn as the balcony at the

sort of City Hall banners unfurl,

and you see Mayor Leon Logic step up

with a big old bullhorn
surrounded by people,

sort of people in the square turn.

A sort of older man,
big handlebar mustache.

He's got a top hat, very mayoral.

And he goes, Citizens of Mentopolis,
(old timey speech music)

it is I, your mayor,

Leon Logic.

As always, it is a pleasure
and an honor to serve.

I am sure you are well aware

that our telecommunications
infrastructure is

momentarily disabled.

Fear not, this routine
upgrade has been planned

for a long time,

obviously because why else
would it happen in a brain

as well ordered and functional
and happy and fulfilled

and content and we're
doing great as this brain.

(players laughing)

And you see, he says,

So never fear the phones
should be back working again.

In the meantime,

feel free to use our
fair city's incredible

public transportation to
deliver messages by hand,

which you will have to
do for the time being,

and one and all, remember very soon

all of your hard labor
will have been completed

and we can expect a raise and maybe even

a pat on the back for the big guy,

at which point many of the
city's ordinances will be

repealed and celebration will commence

and festivities, et cetera.

This has been Mayor Leon Logic
and all of this makes sense.

(players laughing)
You see his campaign button,

it just says, "Vote for
Leon, it makes sense"

on it as he turns around and walks back

into City Hall,

and you see a bunch of
the angry looking people

like, freaking phones.

This city's going to the dogs.

Justin goes (gasps).

- Wait, what do you want
me to do about it, Justin?

There's a lot of stuff
wrong with the city.

- Woof, but we know what
the cost of that's gonna be.

- I know well, we'll keep
doing what we're doing

and it's just switching what we think

is the most important part
of the newspaper that day

onto the front page and hoping
that makes a difference.

(players laughing)
- We could go like one notch higher.

That's such a subtle,
non-intrusive way to try

to make a difference.

- What is one notch higher, Justin?

- Telling someone with
your mouth, with words.

(players laughing)

- Man, what if they're upset about that?

- Well, I mean some,

I guess that if the center
of your moral compass is

never upsetting people,

I guess it's better to not
upset people then it is

to upset people.

- Okay fine, I'll tell one
person if you're gonna dare me,

I'll tell one person.

- Yeah, I'll dare you tell one person.

- Okay, well what about this guy?

Conrad just goes up to the
next guy that walks by.

- The very next guy
that walks up is you see

just an organ grinder.

He's got an accordion and
there's a monkey next to him

and he goes,

(accordion music plays)

this big accordion noise.

Hello?
(accordion music playing)

- Hello? Conrad's trying
to speak under the volume.

(imitates accordion music)
- He walked by and Justin says,

You're not being loud on purpose.

- Okay, fine, fine.

(clears throat)

Excuse me sir.

- Oh, bonjour, hello?

- Oh well I don't speak that.

(group laughing)

- He leaves and Justin says,
He said hello after it.

- What are you calling me xenophobic?

- No, he clearly spoke the language.

- All right, okay, I
should try to talk to him.

(Brennan and Alex stammering)

- But I also don't think you should talk

to that guy 'cause I
don't think he's pulling

a lot of levers around here.

- All right, I'll go learn French

and then we'll circle back.
- No! That's not what I-

(group laughing)

So after you sell your last paper,

what's Conrad's routine
at the end of the day?

- At the end of the day,

he probably goes around the
city like making sure there's no

like discarded information anywhere,

- [Brennan] Yeah.

like little trinkets or
whatever to take back

to his little home pad.

- I think that probably it's hard

to find the really good
trinkets these days.

It's just that you found
a lot of the ones already,

so we'll call it a
difficulty nine snoop check.

- Okay, snoop...

That's a three.

(ball sliding on a track then clunks)

(players laughing)

That feels right.

(group laughing)

- You scrounge around and head back.

You don't find any trinkets or treasures,

nothing that would be really significant
(smooth noir jazz)

to you on the way.

You do notice as you head
back to your neighborhood,

however, that like you start getting

out of the sort of Cortex City
and you start noticing a lot

of coffee joints and
diners and places like that

with chalkboards outside that appear

to have things scratched out,

and you see there's like a two for one...

cortisol special.

You see there's one of
the diners has a big sign

that just got put up in chalkboard

that says like adrenaline
floats for everyone.

It says like four for a quarter,

like there's just a
bunch of things all over

that you see like a couple
different coffee places

that have had the regular like
dopamine espresso crossed out

and had like quadruple shot macchiato

adrenaline specialty drink,

and there's a bunch of those places

throughout the brain as you head back,

or there's a bunch of those
places throughout Mentopolis

as you head back to one
of your like safe houses.

- Conrad's just mumbling, this city.

(players laughing)

- As you begin mumbling this city,

you head back towards the
area that you are from.

As you do so,

are you then making any attempt
to be stealthy as you do so?

- Sure, I think Conrad also

part of his nightly routine is

leaving a little handwritten
note on Sugah's saying,

"Please reconsider."

(group laughing)

- Incredible.

With that, as you go to write
your handwritten note there,

I think that we're actually
going to come back to Sugah's.

As we do so, all of you see
the exterior of this place.

It has just sort of been freshly raided,

so it's quite empty,
like the chairs are up.

Hans is like sweeping in a corner.

You see Joey and Libby kind
of counting out the money.

It's like basically the one thing

that the fuzz didn't
take when they came in

was like the actual just
like cash in the drawer.

Dan, you're in there

and let's go ahead
actually and have all three

of you just roll a sneak check

just so we can see who arrives first.

- I'm gonna roll in this box
cause I don't trust Danielle's.

(Hank laughing)

That is a five.

- I got a nine.
- [Brennan] Nine.

- Seven.

- Oh, okay.

- So nine.

So the first people to arrive here-

- Does it make sense that I'm sort of,

if I'm hired to find
who's following Imelda,

if I'm arriving later,

if I'm sort of tailing behind looking

for people who might be behind her?

- Yes, absolutely.

I love that,

and go ahead and give me actually a

snoop check in that case.

We'll call that a difficulty of six.

- Okay.

You know what? I might just
do a planned action with that.

- Hell yes.

You tail around with a six,

and you can see sure enough
that as you get here,

you just notice two gentlemen,
hats low over their head

in a parked car that you see has this

like big filagree around it of gold with

a bunch of the little hood
ornament is a dollar sign and-

- Subtle.

(Trapp laughing)

- You see this little dollar sign ornament

with a couple of people that seem

to be posted up watching Sugah's,

so by the time Imelda
gets to the front door,

but you do know that Imelda left Sugah's

so it's possible that someone
might know to be here for her

or they could be here
on some other business.

- Okay.

- But you do notice them on that check.

Uh so Imelda, you walk in the
door first seeing Dan here.

You see a very large bouncer
look over, broad shoulders,

got like a little apron on.

Hello and welcome to Sugah's.

- Hello, the name is
Fakename, Stacy Fakename.

I have a table in the back.

- Ah, Miss Fakename of course,

right this way, and
sort of leads you over.

We have been raided by the police,

so we have no more goods to sell,
(players laughing)

but if you are looking
to be in an indoor area,

then we can accommodate you.

- That's perfectly all right.

Thank you so much Han-
- Very well.

Mr. f*cks?

- Yes, what is it?

- A Miss Fakename is at her table.

- Woah! Which one. Joanna or Stacy?

(players laughing)

- Joanne said she was
never coming back again.

(players laughing)
- I expected not after last time.

It must be Stacy then.

Yes, well. I suppose we could
scrounge up something here.

Fix her up her usual.

- Oh, everything has been stolen

by the police.
- Ah, sh*t.

I suppose I could go in
the back and get some

of the bar peanuts.

- Ah, (stammering) it'll do.

And perhaps you can get on stage

and do a little song and dance.

- Oh, I have a tight five.

- Oh good lord no.

- You sure? You don't want-

- You know what, let's hear it.
(funky comedy club music)

- Hi, good evening ladies and gentlemen.
(players laughing)

My name is Hans Schadenfreude.

The other day something bad
happened to a person I dislike.

- Oh, this sh*t again. Booo. Boooooo.
(crickets, players laughing)

You need to update your sh*t, Hans.

- Ah, he's enjoying how
much you're disliking it.

(group laughing)

He's just sitting there he's like, yes.

This was your plan the
whole time, wasn't it?

- I have deceived you.

- Ah, lovable rapscallion.

That's why I keep you around.

- Yes, I love you too.

You see Stacy Fakename
over at a corner booth.

- Sta- wait a minute, Hans,
this is not Stacy Fakename.

- It's not?

- This is Imelda Pulse!

(gasps)

- Oh.
- She has lied to you,

and now I derive pleasure
from your being lied to.

(Brennan gags)

Very strange.
- Just Hans vomits.

(retching)
(players laughing)

I have become ill.

Wanders away.

- Oh Imelda, I must apologize

for the sorry state of my club.

- Oh, I apologize.

- The fuzz has come in and
raided the sh*t out of it.

Can I get you anything?

- So there's no sh*t around.

- There's absolutely none to be had.

- I'll just take some peanuts, please.

I'll throw them at whoever's on the stage.

- Oh yes.

Looking around there's like, I guess-

Libby, Libby!
- Libby's like,

I'll go get some peanuts.

- Yes, the peanuts.

- You see she wanders off again,

just like little wet
footprints behind her.

- Mr. f*cks, I don't suppose
you've seen a young urchin

hanging around here, have you?

I saw him.

- Oh, who Conrad? That little sh*t?

- Conrad, sure, that's probably-
(Alex laughing)

- My mortal enemy.
(Brennan laughing)

How dare you invoke his
little sh*tty name in my club?

- Your mortal enemy is a child?

- Yes.

- That tracks actually.
- You got a problem with that?

- No, I don't have a problem with it.

- Children can be mortal enemies,

rambunctious rapscallions, all of them.

- I have a nephew who I deeply dislike.

- Well, you know exactly
where I'm coming from.

- At this moment A. Tension
walks in through the door.

- A. Tension walks in.
(smooth, serious jazz music)

A. Tension's got her
trilby down a little low

and is wearing the
trench coat of a flasher

trying to look fully
like Girl Reporter'd out,

but like trying to like put her head down

just like no one sees me, I'm assuming.

- Well, well, well if
it isn't Stacy Fakename.

- She told me her name was Fakename.

- Well, well, well, if
it isn't Joanna Fakename.

- Wait, no, hold on, Joanna Fakename.

Wait which-

- Yes, there's two you see

The parents decided to
name them both Joanna.

- But who was the one that
said she was never coming back?

Because that did that happen to me.

- Joanna with an A.

- Okay, I'm gonna go lie down.

(group laughing)

- I make some space on
in the booth and I say,

So what's a good girl like you
doing in a place like this?

- I kind of like slide in,

still kind of like slinking
trying to look like mysterious,

but I couldn't look more like,

I'm like someone who's
trying to look mysterious.

Well, Miss Pulse, what
a sight for sore eyes.

How have you been?

- Anastasia, I've been so
well, and your parents,

they're worried about you.

- We don't need to bring up my parents.

- Oh, but I love bringing up your parents.

- You also love occasionally pretending

that you might fling
yourself off of a bridge

if you get too close to it,

so we're not gonna pretend like we know.

- You know, a little spice up the day.

Give it a little zing.

Everybody loves to think
that they might jump in front

of a train when it's coming
right towards them, don't they?

- No, not everyone loves that.

- I throw her hat off.

- My trilby!

- At this moment,

I think this is when Hunch
Curio comes in through the door

as well, having been
shadowing behind Imelda.

- Right, I come, I
immediately see A. Tension.

Christ.
(Brennan laughing)

How is it you are everywhere

I don't want you to be?

- How is it you're
everywhere I want to be?

- How is it that you want

to be where I don't want you to be?

- How is it that where you
don't want me to be I be

and then you don't want me to be,

and then I be, and then you be,

and then we be in the same
space at the same time?

- How indeed?

(Brennan laughing)

- So you two know each other?

- She's always at all the crime scenes

that I'm trying to get to, right,

and she's blabbing about all
the facts before I got 'em,

and, all her stories very
unflattering to me in particular.

I really feel like she
has something out for me.

- Well, if you weren't
such a flatfooted dummy,

then we wouldn't have to worry about this.

- If you weren't lettin' out all the clues

before I finish the case.

- Well, if you wouldn't find the clues

before you allowed someone to punch you

in the face several times.

(Danielle and Trapp arguing)
- Are you sure you don't have a drink?

Just one will do.

I'll take the bad stuff.
- Just wait, I have something for this,

Detective, Detective.
- Dan!

- Check out this special
from the back room for you,

a shiny rock that we remember.

(Trapp laughs heartily)

It's notably slightly
shinier than most rocks.

- This is, you've got the best stuff, man.

(Brennan laughing)

- Hunch, look over there.

It's a clue.

- Huh?

- And she grabs the shiny rock.

- Goddammit.

(players laughing)

- Incredible.

Yes. A. Tension and Hunch
Curio, curiosity and attention

right parallel to each other.

I'm gonna need a sneak check from Conrad,

and I wanna snoop check from The Fix.

- That's 19 plus two, 21.

- [Brennan] Wow.

- That's a two plus zero.

(players laughing)

- Incredible.

I actually owe you a
Moxie token from before,

so there's,

(ball sliding on a track)

so we see in this moment that,

as you were all discussing here,

you see that Joey Sneezes
goes out and begins

to bring some more like cases,

has basically gone to your
supplier, and it's like,

all right, we gotta re-up, like
get ready to open up again.

Conrad, you arrive at the door
with a little note saying,

"Please reconsider",

and I think all of you hear a little

like bang, bang, bang on the
front door of the speakeasy.

- Conrad in that moment is like thinking,

Oh, I should probably
elaborate what I mean,

and just starts adding to the note.

Not all pleasure is bad,

but to be purely motivated
by it is not great.

Just trying to fit it all in.

- Justin goes, yeah, put more asterisks,

really add nuance.

Get into what you really, really mean.

- I think life is nuanced, you know?

- Oh for sure,

and that's a great thing to think about

because the more nuance there is,

the more things there are to consider.

And the more things there are to consider,

the more right you can be.

- I feel like Dan has heard
this and like is expecting it

because every morning he comes in,

there's another note,

So he like busts the door
down and grabs Conrad

by like the scruff and the dog as well

and like throws him in there.

Conrad, you churlish cur,

What are you doing out here?

Explain yourself.

- I'm here like I always
am every night, Mr....

(Hank laughing)
(Freddie stammering)

Mr. F...

(group laughing)

Mister.

(group laughing)

- All of you see this-
(players laughing)

- Dan, what are you doing, he's a kid.

What are you doing?

- Eh, responsible for their own actions.

You're telling me a child
can't be responsible

for their own actions?

- What was he doing?

- He was vandalizing

like Martin Luther nailing the indictments

against the Catholic Church on my door,

my door, my establishment.

- No, I was using a, a
very removable adhesive.

(players laughing)

- And we are going to cut away from here

to a nearby location

that The Fix has traveled to.

So, having beaten the,

or, the sneak roll having beaten that,

you do a little bit of snooping
around the neighborhood,

sort of staying close to
Sugah's, which you know, is like

where you've seen the kid before,

but like looking for anything
about Conrad Schintz.

And you walk by a very
familiar building to you.

Deep in the heart of Mentopolis

with two overpasses from the
synaptic highways overhead

that leave just this thin crevice open

to the terra-cephalon sky overhead

with rain pouring down
to the tall spires is...

Madam Loathing's Home
for Wayward Interests,

(Alex chuckling lightly)

And you see the sort of
wrought iron gates around it

in a cold, strange sort of
manor house in front of you.

The door opens and
Madame Loathing appears,

stern matron of this
boarding school and refuge.

She goes, ah, Mr. The Fix,

always a pleasure for you to drop in,

our beloved benefactor.

Is there anything I can help you with?

I hope your visit will be short as I know

that you are a busy man.

- I like it here very much

And I never quite understood

why you're always so mean to me.

You seem like a lovely woman.

- Don't refer to me with any superlatives

if you'd be so kind.

- I'm not sure that's
what a superlative is.

(group laughing)

- She like opens the door and says,

Do you mean adverbs?

- Adjectives?

- An adverb is a kind of adjective.

- Is that true?

- [Hank] I think so.

- Wow.

- She turns around and goes,

Well I guess that I am terrible,

(slurps)
(weird eldritch reverberation)

and she walks, says right this way.

It's like, she lets you step
outta the rain into the foyer,

but like stops you there,

just to like get you just in
and you hear a thumping run

and a tiny little kid runs up

and you see it's a little
kid with a snake's head

and a turtle shell,

and he's got little clawed
feet and he walks up

and you realize this is one
of the wayward interests here,

which is reptiles.

It's little Ronnie Reptile, and he goes,

Mr. The Fix, look what I drew.

- Hey kiddo, that's great.
(Brennan laughing)

I don't know what that is.

- (laughs) And he says,

It's a diagram of the indentations

on a snake's lip that lets
it detect heat signatures.

- I know a couple things
about snakes myself.

(Brennan laughing)

- He says, really, I'm
interested in everything

about snakes and turtles and lizards

and every sort of reptile there is.

Did you know that komodo dragons
are actually not poisonous,

but that the bacteria in
their mouth is so powerful

that it acts like a toxic venom?

- That is awesome, Ronnie.
(Brennan laughing)

- He smiles.

- I give him the little
rumple of the head.

- He like hugs your leg and
hands the thing up to you

and you see Madame Loathing's
hand like cover the kid's head

and pull the little reptilian head.
(players laughing)

That's enough, Ronald, sort
of shoves him away and says,

Your presence here...

can be disconcerting

for the children.

- Does it encourage them?

- It encourages them in the sense

that it gives them false hope, Mr. Fix.

- None of us know what
this man is gonna become.

There's a lot of life left.

Any one of these kids could
be rediscovered at any moment.

- I'm sure I'll tell them that Mr. The Fix

is going to come along any
day now and adopt all of them,

but for the time being, that
would be a little hurtful,

don't you think?

(somber, serious music)

- It's nice to be nice sometimes.

- What do you want, Fix?

- I was wondering since
you interact with children,

if you know anything about Conrad Schintz?

- Oh, Conrad blew
through here a while ago,

but managed to sneak out,
very dexterous little child.

(players laughing quietly)

But the children can't leave.

(stammering)

Let's be very clear about
what my whole deal is.

(players laughing)

I've captured these children, all right,

I'm bad and I'm very bad, all right.

I am bad,

but Conrad was in here a while ago,

but managed to breeze out.

When's the last time we saw Conrad?

Oh, Conrad was staying here,

and then I threw out a pair of ice skates,

and there was a whole
thing about a pair of ice,

and Conrad blew up and ended up,

there was a dog that was sort of

scrounging around in the alley

and Conrad adopted that dog and...

got the ice skates outta the dumpster

and ran out a long time ago.

- So I'm looking for a little
kid with some ice skates

and a dog.

- You're not the first person

to come by here asking about Conrad.

- That is excellent information for you

to have volunteered.

(players laughing)

- She says, there's two others

that have come by here looking.

- I don't even roll for any of this.

(Brennan and Freddie laughing)

Tell me about those two people, or else?

(group laughing)

- As you say, or else even jokingly,

she looks at you and she
begins to grow taller.

And she goes, Mr. The
Fix, let me be the first

to inform you, focusing on me

is not going to do anything
but make me stronger.

And she starts to like rise up.

She sort of smiles and says,

Roscoe Hungry came by here,

one of Don Avaricci's enforcers.

You see that (laughs) she,

Trapp likes that one.
- It's great.

(Trapp laughing lightly)

She says, came by here asking

where the child could be found.

I said he hadn't been here in a long time,

but the first person to come

looking after Conrad was...

(sighs out of annoyance) Daniel f*cks.

(players laughing)

He said that the child
had been pinning notices

to the door of Sugah's for
some time with some regularity.

You see, she looks up at the sort of

this menacing grandfather clock

up on the wall says, usually
around the end of the workday,

the child works.

You know, we have child
labor here in Mentopolis?

(players laughing)

- [Brennan] Yes of course.
- That seems fine to me.

I've never lived anywhere else.

- Of course, exactly. And you know,

it's like the brain has
childhood is in there.

It's like a layer that you layer.

Anyway, the point is Daniel
f*cks came in here asking

if I could capture the child.

I think he was somewhat annoyed

that the child was vandalizing
the front door of Sugah's

with some sort of moralizing,

maybe some reference to Martin Luther.

I don't know. But,
(players laughing)

point being the person who
this child most accosts

seems to be Daniel f*cks.

- That is useful,

and I am thankful for you for
taking care of these children,

regardless of how much
you seem to hate it.

- Well, I do hate these children,

and I hate taking care of them,

but if it makes you feel better,

I also hate everything else.
(players laughing)

- Snakes have two dicks.

(group laughing)

- Gleam in Ronnie's eyes.

- Yeah, Ronnie's like, That's incredible!

That's incredible!

And runs off and joins a
group of other children.

You see there's a little kid
with like a choo choo train

for a head, and there's a another kid

with just a list of lists,

like a Wikipedia article of
like a taxonomy of taxonomies.

(players laughing)

- I actually didn't get to
meet my favorite little kid,

which is magic, he does magic.

- Oh yeah, there's like a sweet little kid

that their head is.

You see like there's a little
girl that has a deck of cards

for a head,

and the front is the queen of hearts

that has a little talking like
the face on the card talks,

and you see as you're walking out,

she like waves at you from the window

as you're walking away.

- [Alex] Aww.

And you head on out of there.

We cut back to Sugah's, where...

- I'm holding back Dan from
beating the crap outta Conrad.

- No, he's like, he's a kid. Come on.

- Give me one good reason I
shouldn't beat this kid up

right now.

- Gimme one reason you should!

- And I think at this moment, The Fix

you can hear the commotion inside.

You can hear the voice
of a child from inside,

and I'll leave it up to all of you

what happens next,

if you would enter the space or listen,

but all of you are here at Sugah's now

and Conrad is still, I think, yeah.

- Being held back. Hold me back!

- Don't worry.

I always let him get one punch in

and then I make a dash for it.

- Jesus Christ.

(group laughing)

- Okay, everybody stop it.

- Was that as far as you'd gotten?
(players laughing)

- That's it. That-

I thought that would stop everybody.

Yes I did.

- And everybody stops for like one moment.

- Hey Ms. Pulse, here's a rock.

It's shiny.

- Don't give her my rock.

- I smash the rock.
(stone breaking)

(group laughing) - You're going
need to pay for that, madam.

- You see Hans looks and goes,

Wow, she smashed the rock.

That was really unexpected.

It's a very strange thing
to do out of nowhere.

(group laughing)

So Imelda, you look and
see the kid in front of you

who gave you that newspaper.

- Come here kid.

- Well, I'm kind of being held right now.

Okay, yeah.

- Imelda, will you do this
dirty task for me then?

Kick him.

(Brennan laughing)

- I'm not going, I'm
thinking about kicking.

Okay, now I'm really
thinking about kicking.

- Why don't we go-
- Just do it.

Why don't you tell me
everything this kid has done?

- Oh wait 'til you- I'll
talk your ear off. We go off.

- Well, is somebody gonna kick me or what?

(players laughing)

- Justin goes, don't
ask, don't remind him.

(group laughing)

- Sit down kid.

Have a bowl of peanuts.

- Oh, okay.

- You don't have to eat
them if you don't want them.

- I'm deathly allergic.

(group laughing)

- I pull the peanut out and wipe his hand.

- Okay, thank you.

- You wanna tell me about
this newspaper, kid?

- Wait, did you, you
read it, you read what I?

You read the front page?

- Are you so shocked?

That's your job, right,
to give out newspapers.

- Yeah, but nobody ever, for some reason,

my plan of putting what I
think is the most important

on the front page has never resulted in,

I guess people just throw out the front.

I don't know what happens.

(players laughing)

- Honestly,

I think a lot of people
don't read the newspaper.

I think it just feels nice to hold.

- I'm standing right here.

(players laughing)

- Yeah, I mean, none of the
reporters have gotten mad

at me for doing what I do either.

Nobody follows up.

- I pulled Dan aside
in, in such a way where

I'm still like, I'm sitting
with my back to this.

I can like still listen to what's going on

while I'm like giving polite nods to this.

And when A. Tension's like,
I'm standing right here,

I give like a really loud, like, ha.

(players laughing)

- Don't make me find another rock.

- Well, as you can see it,
this was our last chance

to take that packet on the desk

and make sure the big
wigs don't get to it.

- Well, it happened.

- What happened?

- He took the packet.

- The big guy took the packet?

- Mm hmm, and I'd really like to know why.

- So I'm trying to snoop on this,

but I'm terrible at that,
so I'm gonna get caught.

- Hell yeah.

- Ooh, four.

- I think if anyone wants
to roll a snoop check

to notice the looming figure of-

- I'm like at the door with
my like giant shoulder.

- I got an eight which means I roll again,

and I got a one on that one.
(Brennan laughing)

- I got a 15.
- [Brennan] Okay.

- And a six for me.

- Anybody not beating a four?

- So I think all of you notice
a huge, looming, menacing

figure in the doorframe,

and The Fix, you are spotted as you enter

Sugah's once again.

- I lean back and go,

for all my years detective work,

I've noticed a little something
here and it's the giant man

in the doorway.

(players laughing)

- The Fix, as you look over,
you see Justin, the dog

sort of looks up and goes,

wait, what do you-

You mean the...

the big guy took the packet off the desk?

How do you know that?

- I may have a little in with a big man,

and I pull from under my
shirt a very shiny gold key

on a chain.

- I'm gonna need Anastasia
to give a snoop check here,

and as you pull the gold
chain out, I think...

Dan, you would definitely
recognize these keys.

These keys are incredibly
significant because,

and the difficulty I think of
this snoop check is an eight.

- Oh, then I'm gonna halve it.

- Okay, you halve it, bam.

Dan, these keys, members
of the Pulse Family,

you didn't know that there were like

more than one necessarily,
but you know that your

mother and father have these as well,

but these keys allow
members of the Pulse Family

to speak directly to the big guy,

to be that voice of temptation
or impulse or reflex

that says something that bypasses

all of the frenzied bureaucracy

of the conscious mind
to make snap decisions

for the big guy himself,

and you're looking at something that is

like an incredibly powerful object

held in the hands of Imelda.

On halving that snoop check,

you remember something.

There was a ruined part
of the switchboard back

at Cerebell Pacific.

The ruined part of the
switchboard that you saw,

the center of the like
corrosive blast of this,

almost like buckshot

that had torn apart had
shattered glass around it,

and you realize the
shattered glass that was

on the console was one
of those glass encasings

that covers a keyhole

that stands in a switchboard.

and that that had been at
the center of that blast.

Conrad, you see this key here and,

up to you whether Conrad,

I think actually gimme a savvy check.

Call it DC five.

- Five.

- You have no idea, when you
sold the paper to Imelda,

you didn't know who she was.

You realize that your your little plan

of just like trying to bring
focus to a little thing

that people would know that
something was going on.

You put a paper into
the hands of one of the

handful of people in Mentopolis

who can unilaterally make calls

for the big guy to do something,

and that means you didn't
just like raise awareness.

The big guy, as Imelda said,

grabbed that packet off the
desk and now none of you know

what the big guy's doing with it.

- Oh, you're someone important.

- Some might say that, yes.

- Some, some might say that.

- Some people choose not
to be as an important

as say maybe were born to be.

- That sounds crazy.

Who would do a thing?

- I don't know.

- I don't know either.

Why are you wearing the keys?

- I just felt like it.

Why aren't you?

- I don't know what you're talking about.

- There's some sort of relationship here.

(Hank laughing)

- She's my cousin.

- [Brennan] Oh.

- She doesn't like to admit it.

She likes to think she's a
self-made woman, but, well...

- I am a self-made woman.

I am a self-made woman.

You don't see me carrying
those keys around my neck.

Mostly because I keep them
in the freezer at home,

but you don't see me
wearing them around my neck.

- (softly) That's a good thing to know.

- Conrad, you see, she's
actually very important,

both of them.

- In the middle of this argument.

Conrad has tried to make an escape.

(group laughing)
- Hell, yeah.

Incredible, go ahead and
give me a sneak roll.

A snap decision sneak roll.

- Can I see if I notice it?

- I think that this is going to be,

you can oppose this either with snoop,

or if you're keeping focus on the kid,

then you can use sturdy instead of snoop.

- All right, so that's a six plus two

and then escape artist plus three.

- [Brennan] Ooh, hell yeah.

- [Freddie] Ooh the bonuses.

- So you get the bonus. That's an 11.

So we need to beat an 11 on

sturdy if you were paying attention

and snoop if you were not.

- Definitely wasn't paying attention.
- My sturdy is better,

but I feel like my attention
was pretty split here.

- That is just a six.

- And what did The Fix get?
- Two.

(ball sliding on a track)

(ball sliding on a track x2)

So as you all begin to argue,

you suddenly notice that Conrad is gone.

Conrad, where do you head off to?

- There's a car parked
outside and I get in the car.

I uh...

hot wire the car (laughing).

- Okay, so you go to
the car parked outside.

Are you going to the car that has...

that has the gilding

on it with like the
dollar sign hood ornament?

- Yeah, let's go for it.

I don't think I was paying attention
(action music)

and so I go right for that car.

- Great.

I'm gonna ask for a snoop check difficulty

'cause you're rushing, difficulty of nine.

(cool heisty music)

- That's a six.

- So that is a failure.

(ball sliding on a track)

You open the door to jump
in and as you open the door

to jump in and hot wire the car,

you feel a hand clap onto your
shoulder as the person seated

in darkness in the
driver's seat grabs the top

of your shoulder and says, hey there kid.

Mr. Avaricci wants to meet with you.

I'm gonna need you to roll a sturdy check

as this guy tries to
grapple you into the car.

You are trying to, only rolled a three,

but plus two is a five,

trying to beat a five on a sturdy check.

- Three.

- [Trapp] A Moxie?

- Oh yeah, I'll use... I
would use two Moxie for that?

- You use two Moxie, you can-

- Okay, so I'll burn these two.

- Cool, you burn two, so he grabs you,

you pull back and you see both of them go

for guns in their belt.

There's a guy in the shotgun seat as well.

What do you do in this moment?

- I have a, a strength that's, stealthy,

spend one Moxie to not
be seen within reason.

GM's discretion. (laughing)

- I will go ahead here and say,

because they're both focusing on you,

you can spend a Moxie here,

but I also think that
there is a chance that

spending that Moxie, only one
of them will still see you.

- Oh, okay.

I think Conrad just
flying off the cuff goes,

okay, just do it.

Just do it, just do it.

- You see that one of the guys,

one of the gangsters in
the car goes, Jesus Christ.

And all of you inside hear
that loud Jesus Christ

from the gangster out there.

- I know that saying!

(group laughing)

- I know that saying!

I'm gonna say, so you
say that, just do it.

One of them is going to take out a pistol

and go for the kid.

Go for Conrad.

- I didn't think you would,

I didn't think you were gonna
do it. (laughing awkwardly)

Can we burst out of the the club?

- I feel like if I clocked
those shadowy figures,

I'd be like listening
for something suspicious

going on out there.

I'm gonna go ahead and ask for
one more sturdy roll from...

ask for one more sturdy roll from Conrad.

- Gonna kill a child in episode one.

- Episode one.

- It's a five.

- You rolled a five on your sturdy.

- Everyone else bursts out of Sugah's.

Conrad's gone.

Justin, the dog, (barks).

Rushing out, as you all
charge out of the doors

of Sugah's speakeasy,
all of you see time slow,

the rain falling.
(tense music)

You see the small shape of Conrad Schintz,

a little newsy reeling
back from an open door

as two goons in the front
seats reach for their heaters.

The guns come up and you hear...

Bang!
(gun firing)

(crashing)

Up above, a synaptic highway,
you hear crashing vehicles,

and as the gun goes off,

co*cked at an angle far away from Conrad

due to the falling highway,
a giant overpass collapses.

Boom, all of you hit the deck.

The feeling of an earthquake rumbling.

(crash)

The highway collapses overhead,

smashing into the car and
killing the two goons instantly.

Conrad, you are inches away
from the collapsed highway.

All throughout the city you hear it,

(crashing)

and the rain falls.

Something horrifying unfolds
throughout Mentopolis

and we'll resolve that roll
at the top of next episode

here in "Dimension 20: Mentopolis."

See you then.

- I think that car was following you.

(players laughing)

- This is a message for Mayor Logic.

Mayor Logic, I need your attention.

(Brennan gasps)

- Would it be possible for me to
just take a look at your keys?

I just find them so fascinating.

- The keys to the vehicle?

- I'm interested in all of
the keys that you have.

- You want my apartment keys?

- I'll take those as well.
- Okay.

- Oh, you frozen motherf*cker.

- (clenched teeth) Don't. Do. Anything.

- I think it's time to "take
you into the police station"

and maybe process some of the

"contraband" on you for "evidence,"

so we can go to the "evidence" locker.

- And I suppose it's normal for you

to have a dog and a very large

bodyguard with you.

- Listen...

I'm curious!

- (gasps)
Are you Imelda Pulse?

- That's right. I heard
you're looking for me.

- (walkie talkie feedback) Boss,
you're not gonna believe this.

(Everyone laughs)

- There's some salamanders that feed

their babies their own skin.

Uh, I got to go.

- Oh. Goodbye.

All of you turn at the same time.

(big boom) And you hear
clacks and alarm bells

(Brennan imitates alarms ringing)

going off all over the station.
- Well we don't know

what that means.

(Brennan laughs)
That could be good.

- (Russian accent) Why you
make that strange-

- I never lied about who I am before.

(Everyone laughs)

- Everybody in this station!

We're about to f*cking die!

(lively instrumental music)