[b]November:[/b]

[b]Waffle:[/b]

Goat [url=https://drive.google.com/file/d/1soNReKz9hOF6DP4yNYYndETwTYPM_wdR/view?usp=share_link][color=#1155cc][u]speaks [/u][/color][/url]as you do. And you [url=https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XpWmLtIXtckR9WVBvsXsR8TYNo9wvQPc/view?usp=share_link][color=#1155cc][u]understand[/u][/color][/url]. 

But Goat doesn’t give you time to answer. There’s a second rush. 

The first voice, the one with the draconic bass, says: “I am no prisoner, but you would make one of me. You lie.”

The second voice, the one that sounds like a doctor over a bad radio connection, says: “You [i]are[/i] here to replace me. But I have so little time to teach you! We must begin immediately.”

The third voice, the one that barely cares to synthesize speech at all, says: “No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.”

The fourth voice, the kind and feminine one,  says: “Workplace? What workplace?”

The fifth voice, the rich and well-spoken one, says: “We are confused. These [i]are [/i]our Father’s puzzles. Why would he be sorry?”

The sixth voice, the young and awkward one, says: “I’m excited too! Five minutes is basically forever. What have you been up to? How have you been?”

A silence of less than a second. A problem here- Goat has to speak to you. Goat doesn’t have to speak to itself. Its internal conversation is still hidden. Unlike November, whose audience can follow her arguments. 

The fifth one, the rich and well-spoken one, says on his own: “For five minutes? We have put our game down. You have most of our attention. Forgive us if we become distractible. We cannot pause it.” 

Goat makes no effort to name their own voices, introduce them individually. It’s not even clear Goat [i]has[/i] a name for them. 


[b]Strawberry:[/b]

Alison Mycroft mutes all channels but her own. It turns out she can do that. The din you’ve been dealing with until now has always been by her whim. It is to the credit of the organization that its panicked spaghetti conversation has been constructive and productive. It would have been detrimental to do so before. 

“Everyone working on the Cloud problem, hold position.” Her voice is a deliberate steel calm, the flawless armor of someone who knows how important it is to be calm. It is the voice of a Captain at the Somme, who has just heard the Colonel blow their whistle. “Something bigger is happening. No action until we know if the Richard Goddard explosion is up or downstream of it. If it’s upstream, we’re about to be all hands. If it’s downstream, then it’s about to become low priority.” 

Two possibilities. Either Mycroft is in on the conspiracy, or Goat pausing their game is [i]that [/i]noticeable.