The thrum of the train tracks douses the otherwise oppressive silence of the carriage in a thin monotone drone. A sheen of perspiration coats the windows and my neck from the sticky heat of the train compartment. The headline of the newspaper in my hand flashes by as I use it as a fan while staring out the window. Boy aged four, mowed down by a drunk driver.
Lush green countryside passes by like a patchy green carousel. A light drizzle zigzags down the outside of the window forming what I imagine are lightning bolts. It’s befitting the dull, cloud-laden skies, and my mood. The train door hisses and cracks open. A woman wearing beige jeans, a red flannel top and tan boots enters. I smile. She returns it with a gruff head nod and then seats herself across the aisle facing the rear of the train. A wave of blonde hair conceals most of her face. I only get one blue eye and half a straight lip. She looks young except for the ton of worry that weights on her brow.
“What’s with the heat, right?” I say, trying to strike up a conversation. It’s like I’ve been sitting here forever.
Her eye flashes to mine and then back out the window. I can see the stubbornness in the set of her shoulders. Round, bunched and tight. Then her foot starts a steady rap on the floor.
Tap tap tap tap tap tap.
“You know, you're more likely to be run down from a drunk driver than be involved in a train crash?” I state, thinking the nervous tick is a phobia.
She doesn’t flinch. It’s not like I expected a reaction. Well, I did actually. I expected her to say how she’s always been scared of trains ever since she was a little girl. Some childhood accident blah blah blah. But nothing? In truth, I’m talking more for myself than anything else. Having someone listening to you can chase away most of the demons just as effectively as sharing one’s pain.
“I’d ask where you're headed, but I don’t think you’ll tell me. Even though there’s only one stop. Kinda makes me wonder why you’re on board though.”
The foot stops tapping, and she gives me a quizzical look. This time she holds my gaze a few seconds and then runs over my attire. The scrutiny lasts longer than I like. I find my hand going to the name badge on my chest pocket.
“Are you a Doctor?”
“Of sorts,” I muse, patting the tag. “But not in a practising way, not anymore, at least.”
I reach into my inside pocket and pull out my flask, take a swig. Her lip curls slightly. Not a smug expression but one more dismissive than surprised. Nonchalantly she turns her attention back out the window. The rain clouds are really setting in. The possibility of a downpour is imminent.
“You got kids?” She asks in the reflection of the glass. I glance down at the bear at my side with the brown tatty fur and gently pat its head.
“For a friend,” I say. She eyes the canister in my hand, so I offer her the flask.
“No! Ok then. Well, nowadays I go to conferences. Life on the road, so to speak.” I waggle the flask. “Caught too many times.” My light-hearted chuckle enlists another head nod.
“I’m on the way to one now actually.” I bring out a pamphlet from an inside pocket as the flask disappears.
“Egotech?” She sounds surprised. “That’s a silly name.” She doesn’t bother hiding her disdain. I retract the pamphlet and continue to fan myself with the paper. In the brief stop, I see her eyes fixed on the picture of the front page. It’s a young blonde haired boy holding a teddy bear.
“That’s what most think until they see what Egotech can do. You ever heard of an app called Victory? No?”
She snaps out of her reverie and shakes her head.
“Big back in the 90s? No? Well, It was meant to get the younger generation active again, like the Pokemon go of the 2010's but more immersive. Pull them off the gaming console and mindless virtual pursuits and bring them back to the real world. And it did for a time. The idea was simple. You sign up and earn real-life rewards for defeating challengers.”
The lady turns toward me, the motion reveals the start of a scar below her left eye. She quickly catches her locks and pulls them back into place. I know she’s intrigued. My need for conversation has won out, so I continue.
“In the beginning, all a player had to do to win was make the other player surrender their phone. The winner would tap the surrender button and the challenge was won. Only some of the kids didn’t want to hand over their phones. Lead to a few punch-ups.”
“Sounds barbaric.” She says, all attention of the scenery now gone.
“Have you read Lord of the flies?”
She shakes her head.
“Well, Ralph would be devastated.” I chuckle again. The teddy bear falls over with my shakes, so I set him right.
“Barbarism wasn’t our intention But, as time moved on it did devolve into that realm. Players took the game more seriously than expected. What we thought would be a simple game of tag turned darker. Leagues formed, regional score sheets were drawn up. Small advertisement sought the more popular players. Eventually, their had drones follow the active hunts. Players no longer just submitted their devices after a brief scuffle. Full-blown fights took place right. Naturally, some areas banned the app. But underground competitors ate it up. Matches were scheduled, bets took place. Single fights turned into massive battles. When the first person died, Egotech contemplated removing the platform but it was huge by them. Not just in the London but throughout the British underground scene. After the third death, Egotech decided to pull the plug, but it was bigger than us.”
“How’d that work out for you?” She says smugly.
I can deal with smug, Most people are when I tell them this story. You got what you deserved often follows their triage. But she leaned in to accept the pre-offered flask. I didn’t expect that so soon. I can see the tension in her shoulders lessen with the alcohol, even though her tone remains unimpressed.
“You know. I never used to drink.” She says. “Couldn’t stand the stuff. Now I can’t get it strong enough.” She laughs mirthlessly.
I retrieve the gin and take a swig. “There were a few complications I’ll admit,” I ramble on. “But we were lucky that all our waivers were signed. The big payoff happened when some Japanese company brought the rights to keep the app going.”
“Nice company you work for.” She spits.
A thunderclap sounds outside. Clouds boil over the farmland terrain and I worry about it. It’s not far from us and I never like thunderstorms. I listen for the next bolt. It rings out strong. Maybe it’s half an hour, or ten minutes away.
“I’m Ben, by the way,” I say shaking the feeling off. My hand closes the distance between us fully expecting her not to return the favour. She eyes it like a dog would a hand with a whip in it, but reaches out. Her grip is firmer than I would have imagined but at least it a good full handshake and not one of those limp finger jobs. I hate those.
“Melody.” She says. “Mel for short.”
“So what are you running from, Mel?” I ask. I considered not asking it so early, but something in her eyes tells me that she wants to get something off her chest.
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, I don’t see any bags,” I shrug, then smile passing the alcohol back. “When people run away they do it on impulse with the clothes on their backs.”
“So what are you running from then?” She asks.
I mull over the life I’ve lived to this point. The decision I’ve made. My tongue works the back of my teeth. She flicks from one eye to the next thinking I won’t answer. That one deep blue eye takes me in. I can see a twist of white woven within.
“A lot of things,” I say, shrugging again.
I didn’t realise I stopped fanning myself until I look down at the paper. I think momentarily and then continue.
“Things I can’t change, and wouldn’t even if I could. But I don’t want to be reminded of them. What about you?” I say.
I catch her eye again looking for something in my face. “Everyone regrets something. Right? That’s life. It all brings us to this moment.” I say.
I gesture to the train and speeding scenery. Mel shrugs and takes another swig. “What happened after the app? Did you get sacked.” She asks through the burn.
“No, I got promoted.” I flash her a wicked smile and then turn away. I can almost hear her brain ticking. One, two, three…
“How?”
“Stocks! Victory, despite its flaws, earned us more money than we ever dreamed of. It was the stepping stone that Egotech needed. Our VR division were already the leaders of innovative technologies. We already had a ton of other highly advanced products that weren't ready for the mainstream markets. Our best was a fully augmentative experience that allowed you to feel the effects of virtual reality with the aid of a pressure-sensitive suit. It was more for military training than anything else but it was far beyond our competitors. Another took you into a virtual world with the aid of a screen, a pill and willingness to succumb, although that one had some drawbacks. But that wasn’t close to what I’d been working on for years, they were all byproducts of my one true goal. I surmised that if we could copy the mind, truly capture the essence of a single individual, and store it somewhere else, then gaming would take a whole different turn. We could shoot for the stars and explore different worlds of our making.”
I let my fingers flutter down like snowflakes. I can’t help it. I’ve always been a motivational speaker.
“Did you do it? Did you reach the stars?”
I close my eyes momentarily caught in the past. I remember the feeling of the first time. The buzz of excitement, the bubbles of nerves, the crippling anticipation.
When I open my eyes, Mel’s shoulders have completely relaxed. Like she’s at home having a casual conversation with a friend. They said it couldn’t be done. I said it could, and I’m close.
“They said it couldn’t be done. The board. It took me the duration of the Victory epidemic to achieve it. But I finally manage to copy the mind of one of my employees.”
“Who was it?”
“You ask a lot of questions you know, and you haven’t answered a single one of mine. How about I’ll answer one of yours and then you can answer one of mine.”
She nods. It’s a start. A thin opening but it’s there to be exploited. The newspaper fan gives me a tentative amount of relief from the heat. Melody unconsciously unbuttons the top of her shirt. A small diamond-studded necklace - the ones that hold photos - dangles just out of view.
“Mine first.” She says. “What was the name of the person you copied?”
“It was two actually. Stew and Natalie Brown. They were the first to receive complete copying. Cute really. They both worked in the research division. Married a couple of years, completely in love. A couple of kids.”
I pick up the teddy again as I remember the boy whom he belonged to. “You know the deal. Anyway. They wanted to have “backups” in case either died. And you know fate has that fucked up thing about tempting her.”
“They died?”
“Not both, her, Natalie. Car accident. Stew was beside himself. Came into my office demanding that I give him the copy of Natalie.” The newspaper in my hands tightens remembering the encounter.
“You didn’t?”
“I couldn’t!” The newspaper squeals as I continue to twist it tighter and tighter. “How could I? I didn’t have the means to put her into anything.”
“You never had a plan? You just copied the mind of a fucking human and you didn’t think about where you could put it?” Her voice rises with shock. “That’s fucked up, man!” Mel says dropping back against the seat. She crosses her arm and sucks air through her teeth.
“Oh, we thought about it, but the program wasn’t active yet.”
My hands are black with the ink of bad news. The heat is stifling. There’s a thin sheen of sweat on Mel’s chest too as she leans forward once more.
“What wasn’t ready?”
The thrum of the train echoes in my head like an angry bee. A constant nagging, like a background noise that won’t go away.
“Our pleasure dolls.”
This enlists a tiny smirk. She’s wasn’t expecting that.
“You made sex dolls?” She laughs. It’s nice to hear. It’s not a pretty laugh like a girl’s should be. It’s a bit more guttural like a pig fucked a fairy and the resulting offspring had found my remark funny.
“You bet! Do you know how many guys out there would love a sex doll while playing some Virtual Reality porn? Loads. And Egotech had the capital to build all of that. Some of the greatest minds worked for us in one way, shape, or form over the last twenty years. Egotech bridged the gap in the technological revolution, you know.”
“But sex dolls? Come on man! Why not a computer or a…” She searches for the right word. “...robot or something?”
“Sort of the same thing,” I smirk. “But more fun.” I throw a finger through the hole of my left thumb and forefinger repeatedly.
“Ah, dude. Too much information.”
She looks out the window with disgust. I wonder why that is. Why the mere thought of a sex doll can be so alien to most. When all it is is a play toy for some and can be more to others. A companion when no love will find its way to them because of insecurities, disabilities or social complications. The outside flashes black as we enter a tunnel. For the moment the scar on her cheek is revealed in the black mirror of the train. She catches my stare and pulls her hair over it again. But it’s too late I’ve seen the deep scarring, the sunken skin surrounding her eye. The eye that’s lost its lustre. Only a white orb sits there now. One deadeye looking out at a world equally as dead.
A clap of thunder that rocks the train. Rain lashes the windows in frightening bursts. A silence fills the train with creeping dread. Even though I was expecting it, I can still feel my heart racing. I never did like thunder. Not since I was four and I got caught out under the big oak tree behind my house.
“Did you do it?”
“What?” I ask with confusion.
“Did you do it? Did you put Natalie into one of your dolls?”
“Yes. We tried our best to make one the exact image of Natalie. For Stew's sake. I think we did a great job. Stew even agreed when he saw her. But the difficulty came when we introduced Natalie’s copy into the structure of the doll.”
“How?”
“You have to remember Natalie was used to using her god given limbs. Integration took a few weeks. We had the best therapist go in and speak with Nat, she understood what had happened, but it was still hard for her. One minute she’s dead surrounded by darkness not knowing what her world is and then she’s thrust back to reality.”
“Damn! That’s harsh.”
“I agree, but it had to happen. After the treatment, we brought her home. Her sons were waiting eagerly to see their mother again. Stew explained that she would be different but it would still be their mum. I saw the fright in the boy's eyes when we carried her out of the car. The youngest loved his mother unconditionally but the eldest one didn’t seem to accept the fact that she was inside the doll.”
The weight of the chair catches me as I slump back and watch the green fields blur by. The rain still lashes the glass and the thunder clouds boil above us. Melody has been hanging on my every word. The chain around her neck is now in her hand. The golden locket fumbling from thumb to finger. The half of her face I can see is bright and alert.
“Why are you running, Mel?”
She snaps shut like a clam. Recoils from the question as if burnt.
“Is it from somewhere?” I ask.
She doesn’t look.
“Someone?”
Still nothing.
“Something?”
Her shoulders tighten again.
“Ah, something. Something happened that you want to put distance between. I can relate to that.”
I gesture around the metal compartment we now sit in. She glances around and nods. She puts her head in her hands and breathes deeply.
“I did something...” She stretches up and wipes her face. I can see the start of a tear in her eye before she bats it away. “...but it wasn’t my fault…”
“...Anyway, back to the story.” I cut her off. She needs more time. “For the first few days, the family started to return to normal, if you can say normal when a family has a sex doll as a parent.” I chuckle then stop realising how bad it makes me feel. I swallow the feeling and bury it with my other past transgressions.
“A few months later Stew comes to my office. He wanted Natalie to have better functions.”
“What like sex positions?” Mel's face crinkles with confusion. She’s not looking at me even though I know she wants the narrative to continue, she stares transfixed out the window.
“No, not positions. Articulations. Stew wanted her to be able to move. Even if it was just her head, or hands. At that point, Egotech’s robotic division was testing a prototype android. Fully functioning. The whole caboodle. I got Stew to bring her in and to tell you what, I was shocked to see the condition of Natalie.”
“Your product wasn’t user-friendly obviously.” She snorts. I hear the smugness in her statement. I can understand it too, but that wasn’t it.
“Our product was fine. But it wasn't used to the beating.”
“He beat her? His wife?” This enlists the fire I expected. The spark that ignites Mel’s wrath.
“That’s what we guessed. Stew wasn’t saying anything except Natalie had fallen a few times. She couldn’t bruise, synthetic skin couldn’t, but her skin could scrape and tear. Stew also asked if she could be tighter, you know, downstairs. And if you saw what he meant it would give you nightmares. As a woman I mean.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he wasn’t gentle, let’s put it that way. A therapist tried to explain it to me. Stew saw his wife as incapacitated. Although Natalie was inside the doll, he had separated her from it. Treating the body as he wanted. Without any regards for his wife’s emotional turmoil. We transferred Natalie into a new bio-body. One with all the functioning of a regular human - apart from bodily. Within the configuration of the android mind we used to house Natalie’s consciousness, we allowed for storage of visual and audible feeds. We watched the recorded time span when we transferred her. Some of that time was pretty tough to watch.”
I glance at the red booties on the chair beside her. Mel hasn’t seen them yet. I wonder what her reaction will be. Another tunnel thunders pass and I snap my eyes up to hers. She shoots me a frightened look and then it vanishes along with the darkness of the tunnel. She takes a long draught of the alcohol and hands it to me. It still seems as full as when we started drinking. I can feel a little buzz. It’s nice in a take-the-edge-off way.
“We went through the months of stored footage,” I say leaning back closing my eye.
”Even we could see the patches of darkness on 24x speed. Stew spent more time out with friends shutting Natalie away in darkened rooms. The children spent more time with the nanny than their own mother. Even the youngest distanced himself from her. Then there were the times Stew used Natalie for his own gratification. I won’t go into that.” I smile weakly. “I wouldn’t want to hurt your pretty little ears.”
She laughs again. Short and barking. “They’re far from pretty.” The alcohol is having an effect on her too. The frown has loosened, like her shoulders. Maybe a few more and her tongue will do the same. Mel’s mouth opens again to speak, but she seems to decide against it and looks over at the window.
“What the hell?”
She picks up the tiny red shoes and waves them angrily at me.
“They’re not mine!” I hold my hand up, palms open in a pose of innocence. She inspects the red booties like she’s seen them before. A memory probably playing out just behind her eyes.
“I wish you could have seen the look on Stew’s face when Natalie came walking out that consultation room.”
My grin fills my face, a spit from ear to ear. It was a good moment. One of those one-in-a-million karma smashing moments. When all is set right in the world. Mel doesn’t notice. The booties rotate slowly in her hands. Every inch under her scrutinising eye. I let the silence build. We have all the time in the world. This tin can isn’t going to stop any time soon. Might as well sit back.
“He killed her didn’t he?” She says it abruptly, completely taking me unawares.
“Nope.” I groan and sit back up. “They went home, lived happily for a while. Until they tried to kill her. Stew and the many Trisha. They had been having an affair. Trisha was a Jesus freak. Thought our creation was the devil's work. I suppose she was. Stew took a blow torch to Nat, but her survival instinct kicked in. Then she killed him.”
“She killed him?” But I thought robots couldn’t hurt humans?”
“You’re forgetting one thing. The same thing the judge missed.”
She looks puzzled for a moment and then realisation sets in. “She wasn’t a robot.”
“Exactly. Natalie wasn’t a full android. She was a consciousness inside a robotic body. She could do whatever she wanted. Stew was found with his man parts burnt off.”
“Ah, man. Gross.”
“You bet. Sickest thing I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen a fair bit of gruesome. Nat tried to run away but thanks to our tracking we caught up with her. Saw the whole thing on the storage. So we wiped it. The police pulled her in and it was her word against Trisha.we convinced the judge that robots couldn’t do any harm and Trisha took the fall.”
“You lied to the judge?”
“I told a different version of the truth. Nice booties.” I say it with a flick of my head indicating the booties.
“Were they always there?” She's scared. I can hear the hint of fear in her voice. “Like, when I sat down. Were they there then?” She pulls at the laces, then almost throws them down and reaches for the flask. I let her take it, she’s in more need of it than me.
The heat piles on again. It’s relentless. Each wave makes me want to peel another layer of skin off. It’s not the tempest raging outside the train. It can’t be. Rain, wind, lightning. In this place, they’re all cold. Mel flaps the collar of her shirt puffing air in and out. I’m glad it’s not just me.
“What happened to Natalie?”
“We don’t know. Never found her. No fingerprints see.” I waggle my fingers. She laughs and lifts the drink.
“Now It’s my turn.” The flask stops at her lips. She eyes me, pours, swallows and nods.
“Okay. What you want to know.”
“What did you do? Did you hurt someone, a friend, mother, father, boyfriend?”
A tunnel thunders pass again. A flash of black, and then bright, wide eyes seeing the temporal clouds of black spots blinking around the compartment. Mel looks at me with downcast eyes. A look of total hopelessness.
“Ah, still not ready. Let me tell you another tale of one of our technologies that are saving lives.”
“Destroying you mean.”
“That’s a bit unfair. It saved Natalie didn’t it?”
“Yeah, after it killed her husband!” She eyes the booties again and then turns so her back is to the window and the red shoes.
“Psst, an oversight. How could we know she was a psycho.”
“Ha! You made her one! How would you feel if you were downloaded, shoved into a body that wasn’t yours and then tortured?”
“It’s just code. I wouldn’t feel one way or another.”
“It’s not just code! It’s can’t be. We’re talking about human consciousness.”
“Yes and no…”
She begins to cut me off.
“...it’s complicated. The mind is complicated. When we copy a mind, it’s not a transference of flesh.”
“So what? You’re saying you’re copying the soul! Are you proclaiming to be gods now?”
“Of course not. More like mediators.”
She laughs again. The pig fucked fairy. It’s amusing.
“That’s unbelievable. You’re just putting people into bodies. That serves no purpose for the greater good. I mean, come on!” She throws her hands up in frustration.
“You tell that to a mother holding the hands of her four-year-old son while he’s in a coma.” My retort has the desired effect.
“Oh my god.”
For a moment I wonder why she’s so shocked. Did she have a child? Was that why such a reaction to the comatose kid, and the infant's shoes? I try reading her behind the hand at her mouth, but all I see is genuine empathy.
“His name was Toby,” I say.
“What happened?”
I glance down at the picture of Toby on the newspaper. His blonde hair has a short quiff across his forehead. The headlines read Boy aged four, mowed down by drunk driver. I hold it up for Mel to see. Her brow furrows like she’s seen it before.
“I carry it with me.” I swallow past the lump. “To remind me of him.” “Did Toby die?”
She seems generally concerned again. Maybe it’s the alcohol adding to her own sense of guilt. We all know how that works. The greenery outside blends to grey with the sheets of rain. It reminds me of the story.
“It was raining. Toby and his mother had just been to the library to get some new books out. One for every day of the week, he would have said.” I half-smile.
“The car came out of nowhere, mounted the curb and ploughed little Toby down. The car threw Susan back against the library but Toby got caught under the car. It dragged him twenty feet before it bounced over him and screeched off. I was doing some grocery shopping when I heard the car and saw the impact. I followed to the hospital to see if I could help. When Toby was put on life support I offered Egotech at their disposal. No charge.”
“So you do have a heart?” She smirks.
I know she’s kidding but it strikes something deep inside me. Did I have a heart?
“The mother was obviously reluctant. But I told her it was just a precaution. We could download his consciousness, even if she didn’t want to use it, like a backup. Insurance if you will. She asked some question and I left her with a card. Susan called in the next day wanting to know more. I showed her our profiles, how it worked, what to expect, that sort of thing. Susan was driving for it, I brought the rig, just in case. We connected Toby up. I told her to come to the office the following day to see the upload.”
Mel stands to seat herself opposite me, she gently takes the paper out my hand and looks at the image of Toby and his teddy bear. “Not another doll, please no. I couldn’t stand a child doll. That’s just creepy.”
“Not a doll. Don’t worry. We didn’t want to replace young Toby, just give him a temporary home until he came out of his coma and then we could put him back. It would be like Toby had a few days sleep. He’d be none the wiser.”
“So what did you do?”
I search her eyes to see if she can guess. She gasps.
“Not the teddy!”
“Why not! It was perfect, with a few adjustments. Didn’t you ever dream about being like your best friend when you were a child? Think about it. Toby has an attachment to the bear, it would be easy for him to wake up in his teddy bear rather than something unfamiliar.”
A bolt of lightning crackles down over the landscape filling the gloomy skies with electric blue and purple flashes. It’s beautiful in an I’m-not-shitting-myself-way. The darkness closes in in the absence of the flash. The rain drones on.
“Do you know what Toby asked for when we unloaded him to the bear? To read his books.”
“Didn’t he remember the accident?”
“Clearly not. But we thought it best to tell him anyway. We wanted to have a reason why he couldn’t move. It was frustrating for him at first and there were moments that were difficult to handle. He even baulked when Susan came near him. But after a while, I think the ruse worked. Susan was ecstatic she had her little man back. Meanwhile, things at the hospital took a more scary turn.”
I can see tears welling in her eyes while the silence stretches. The newspaper crinkles in her lap. I take another swig of gin and pass her the flask. She drains the last of it in one long drought.
“Four is such a young age to die.” She says.
“He didn’t die...hasn’t died...yet.” I correct myself.
“He’s still alive?”
“To this day, yes.”
“Is he still in a coma? What could have happened that was so scary?”
“Toby’s real parents showed up.” Her jaw physically drops.
“Toby was hurt pretty badly, he was covered with gauze and bandages. So much so that he was covered in them. Even his face. No one thought that Toby wasn’t Susan’s. Toby, or rather Harry Bank, had been missing for well over six months when a nurse saw a picture of him in the paper.”
I point to the newspaper in her lap.
“She called the authorities straight away. The rest, as they say, is history. The police brought me in for questioning. I told them what I knew, what had happened. They made me call Susan to tell her we had an important update for Toby’s mainframe. She must have heard something in my voice or saw the broadcasts about Harry Bank.“So wait, she stole someone’s child and then you copied that child’s consciousness and put it in his teddy for her to take away forever?”
“Pretty much. Susan, if that was her real name, disappeared. Gone like a puff of smoke. Now we put tracking within the code, so we know where our products are at any given time. Makes working with the police easier that’s for sure.” She sits back, a distant look clouding her eye. She absentmindedly fingered the scar on her cheek. A moment passes and then she locks eyes with me. “I don’t remember getting this.”
She pulls her hair out the way. Her left eye is dead. It doesn’t move when her other blue eye moves. The deep scar runs from just under the white eye down to the curve of her lip. It’s raw, blotchy and red. The stitches are still visible close to the skin, one has opened revealing the weeping wound beneath.
“In truth, I don’t remember boarding this train. Since you’ve been talking I’ve remembered some...things.”
“What do you remember?” I ask gently. She lets the hair fall and closes her eyes.
“Noise. So much noise. And pain.” She winces at the memory. I wait for the lines on her face to soften as the memories move on.
“It wasn’t my fault, the accident. I had to get away.”
“It’s never our fault when it’s the act of desperation, but we should still be held accountable.”
I say it with feeling. I know what it feels like to want to disappear rather than fight the demons at your door. But we all have them and we must confront them sooner rather than later and make peace or those demons will eat your soul.
“She wouldn’t listen.”
“Who wouldn’t listen, Mel?
The tears threaten to erupt from her eyes. One escapes and barrels down her cheek. Mel swipes it away angrily and sniffs a few times.
“Julie, my partner.”
She brings her sleeve up and dabs at her nose. The tears fall now as another tunnel rumbles past.
“Julie always liked to do drugs on a night out. Nothing heavy. Maybe an E, a bit of coke. She should have said no! But they were all doing it. How could she?”
Now I’ve got her talking the words tumble out.
“It was like the newest thing on the streets. It was everywhere. I told her to wait. Not to be a guinea pig. But Julie’s stubborn. She gets it from her dad. The old Scottish cunt, he doesn’t take no for an answer either, just like her. I hate the bastard. He blames me for his precious little daughter being a lesbian. Jokes on him though, because Julie turned me.” She laughs again mirthlessly and then breaks down.
“She said it would be ok.” She says between the sobs.
“What was it called?
“I don’t know, something like the rabbit hole or something.”
“Tunnel vision.”
“That’s it. Who calls a drug tunnel vision? I suppose it was because that’s what it felt like. It did to me anyway. When you took the pill it did something to your head so when you looked at a tv screen or phone or anything like a video it took over. It caused you to live in that film. The one on the screen in front of you. It was all shits and giggles in the clubs. All they played was dancing videos with fluffy fucking Unicorn. If you were happy then you had the time of your life. But if you weren’t, then it was a different story. One guy Julie knew went out of his way to make it the scariest experiences of his life. He wanted that. He got off on the fright. Fucking madman if you ask me. I wouldn’t watch horror films in the day time. Let alone want to live one out.”
“So what happened?”
“Julie brought some home. She had an idea that she wanted to try. She lost her mum when she was really young. Brain tumour. She wanted to relive those times with her. Julie rung me up all excited tells me that’s she’s got a few of these pills and to get the big screen setup. When she gets home she puts on the video and she pops a pill telling me to come with her. I...I did it. And, and my phone rang.”
She breaks down looking at the imaginary phone in her hands.
“My dad called.”
“Why was that bad?”
“You’ve got to understand. Where I come from things are different. People are different. My dad had a farm, no one ever found out what he did. But I did. One morning I woke up alone, no one in the house. I went in search and found him doing...I can’t!”
“You must.”
“He...wa...he wasn’t alone. There were these other people in robes standing around watching as he and this lady...,” she shakes her head trying to dislodge the image.
“Then there was a knife.” The tears fall unchecked. “He killed her right there on the table, they all did. There all took turns to stab her. I couldn’t take it. I packed a few things as quickly as I could and I ran away. That’s when I met Julie at the train station. She had run away too.”
“What happened when you took the pill?”
“I remember that incident at my dad's farm. The drug wasn’t supposed to work like that, but it did. Only this time I was the girl and my father was doing those disgusting things to me. I couldn’t move, couldn’t run. They held me down while he…”
Mel jumps up and punches the train window, again and again until her hand becomes bloody. The window is smeared with the red of her blood when her anger finally wanes.
“Have you ever been killed?”
I can’t help but grimace. I haven’t, technically, but it stills feel like it.
“Each time that blade came down I felt the steel bite. Hours and hours of torture. But it never wore off fully. Even when the drug had gone out my system I still saw those images behind my eyes. I had to numb it somehow. There was a bottle of whiskey that Julie had brought at Christmas. I drunk that until I couldn’t feel the knives. Until the memory went away.”
Another tunnel thunders pass, they are coming quicker now. As is the rain. Thick angry swarms bombard the train in violent bursts.
“When I came to, Julie was there. She told me everything would be ok. But I couldn’t shake it off. She enjoyed her trip so much she did it again the next night. I didn’t. I sat and drank until I was numb. But I ran out of booze. So I got in my car to go to the shops.”
Mel jumps up and paces the train. She grips clumps of hair in frustration. Tears fall unchecked down her face.
“It was raining. The roads were slippery. I remember the girl. I didn’t mean to hit her. I lost control. Slammed on the brakes but it was too late. Next thing I know blood was trickling down my face. I looked up into the rearview mirror and she was laying in the road. She wasn’t moving. I got out. Stumbled over to her. There was so much blood.”
She looks at the palms of her hand as if she can see the blood still there.
“I killed her! I...ended someone’s life.” She gasps and buries her face in her hands sobbing.
“I didn’t mean to. But I couldn’t stay. I took off. I left her for dead.” She continues her pacing never satisfied with the allowed space of the train’s compartment.
“WHY AM I HERE?” Her screams pierce my ears.
“Because it’s not the first time you’ve been drunk behind the wheel of a car. Has it?”
She clutches her stomach. The wrath of guilt burrowing deep inside her.
“BUT I COULDN'T GET IT OUT MY HEAD!”
“It’s your fault, Mel. No one forced you to drink and drive.”
“I didn’t mean to, the drink numbed the memories. Stopped them from coming. I had to blackout. It was the only way.” She continues to sob as thunder barrels outside the train.
“They picked you up two miles from where you hit poor Harry. You were in a bad state.” I point to her face and the dead eye.
“The only reason you haven’t been tried for mowing down Harry Bank is that he’s still on life support. It’s taken six months to get the conviction for the death of Natalie Brown. The lady you killed. We should thank you for that one because if you never crashed into Harry we would never have found you, never found the car that matched the forensic report. So despite you also being dead…”
“What?” Mel wipes the tears in her eye. A horrified expression settles on her face.
“That’s right,” I say waving my hands around the train compartment.
“This is Egotech’s newest product. I call it platform. You, the real you, is on the cold freeze down in the morgue. The judge wanted you to serve the life sentences for the death of Natalie Brown and Harry bank. They’re pulling his plug tomorrow, Mel. That’s two life sentences for you. I explained to the judge that we could give him what the people demanded even if the eventuality of you never coming out of that coma, which you didn’t.”
“You can’t leave me here! Please don’t do this! I didn’t mean to!”
Contempt curls on my lip. This is what I’ve been waiting for. The feeling of self-righteousness. That the world has been set to rights.
“Melody Grace, you will stay in this simulative prison for the duration of your sentence. You won’t need to eat, sleep, or anything else but go over and over what you have done.”
The edges around me start to fuzz and blur. I lean down and pick up the teddy bear.
“Did I do well Mr Ben?” Asks the teddy bear.
“Yes, Harry. You did brilliantly.”
I leave her with a smile as my digital self fades from the carriage. The screen I’m watching blinks as I take out the USB stick with the digital consciousness of myself on it. It’s the only way I could activate Mel’s consciousness within the program. A necessary evil. Mel thumps the train glass repeatedly while screaming incoherent things. I stuff the teddy into my top pocket so he can see what I can.
“What now Mr Ben?” Asks Harry.
I glance around the storage facility of Egotech’s Neuro-room. The bland grey husks of trillions of terabytes stare back at me. I fold the screen and it collapses on itself then disappears into the column of the Tera-Towers. “She’s our first Harry. There will be more, but as for now, how about a nice game of Victory?”
On my way out I lift the box labelled, “Integration agent,” and poke the USB back Inside. We won’t need that until the inmates arrive.
GH
TCC

Inspired by the overwhelmingly positive response to my previous 'book report' on Ramona Singer's Life on the Ramona Coaster (seriously, thank you all -- truly supporting other women 🙏🙏), I decided to try my hand at writing up yet another of the embarrassing number of Housewives books in my personal collection: Alex McCord and Simon van Kempen's Little Kids, Big City: Tales from a Real House in New York City with Lessons on Life and Love for Your Own Concrete Jungle.
After reading just the title of this book, I'm already exhausted. It's pretentiously long and awkwardly phrased while somehow still managing to be entirely devoid of meaning. In other words, a perfect encapsulation of Simon and Alex. The summary on the back cover describes the pair as the "breakout stars" of RHONY, an assessment that I would charitably call 'debatable,' before going on to inform me that I can look forward to "informative and often hair-raising stories of life in the urban jungle," and that "Alex and Simon use their own hard-won experience as a springboard to discuss a host of parenting topics." I anticipate that this content will be quite useful to me, the guardian of four cats that I spoil endlessly and treat like my actual children.
One of the pull-quotes on the back cover allegedly comes from our very own Bethenny Frankel. I say 'allegedly' because I refuse to believe that the following passage would ever come out of Bethenny's mouth (or keyboard or whatever):

Alex and Simon don't take themselves too seriously, which seems to be essential to parenting. Their fresh 'he said, she said' perspective on parenting is both humorous and insightful!

Please, take a moment and do your very best to picture mention-it-all, betting-on-horse-races-at-age-five Bethenny unironically using the phrase "fresh 'he said, she said' perspective." To describe Simon van Kempen and Alex McCord. Right, didn't think so.
My experience reading Little Kids, Big City started on an unexpected high note when I opened the front cover to find that my copy (purchased used through Better World Books for the low, low price of $5.31 with shipping) had been signed by Ms. you-are-in-high-school-while-I-am-in-Brooklyn herself, Alex McCord! Truly a gift I do not deserve. Samantha and Debbie (whoever and wherever you may be), thank you for your service. I am forever in your debt.
Unfortunately, as would soon become painfully clear to me, after starting off on such a promising note, I would have nowhere to go but down.
The book, which is written in alternating passages from Alex and Simon, begins its introduction with a chronicle of Alex's "fashionably nomadic" early adulthood. Ever the proto-edgelord, she recalls, "I did all those things our mothers warned us about and had fun doing them." We switch to Simon's perspective to hear the deeply embarrassing story of the couple meeting through a dating app while Simon was on a business trip in New York City. No, there is absolutely nothing embarrassing about meeting someone on a dating app. But there absolutely is something embarrassing about using the profile name "Yetisrule" to meet someone on a dating app. To clarify, this was apparently Alex's username, and I remain hopeful that we will get a more thorough explanation of her connection to the elusive Yeti as this book continues.
Alex tells us that, while she and Simon hadn't initially planned to have children, they eventually started to have "clucky feelings." I have never heard this phrase in my entire twenty-five years of life, but based on context clues and also a Google search, I learned that it means they wanted to have a baby. Don't worry, though! As Alex tells us, "You can be eight months pregnant and wear a leather miniskirt." Personally, this is life-changing news -- I had always believed that I couldn't have kids unless I was willing to compromise my 90s goth aesthetic! Maybe I'll rethink this child-free thing after all.
The next bit of advice seems like it actually could potentially be sort of helpful. "No one is a good parent all the time -- nor is anyone a bad parent all the time," they reassure the reader. "You can become a parent without losing yourself." Unfortunately, as soon as I catch myself nodding along, the modicum of goodwill I'd built up is promptly trashed by a gag-worthy line from Simon: "If you take nothing away but a wry smile after reading our little tome, then we've done our job." I immediately vow not to smile until I'm finished reading this book. Excuse me, this little tome.
The book starts in earnest with Chapter 1: "Does a German Shepherd Need a Birth Plan?" To be perfectly honest, I was not expecting a riddle at this juncture, but I am nevertheless excited to hear Simon and Alex tell us "why childbirth is not an intellectual activity." First, however, we get a passing reference to "Park Slope, home of the ParkSlopeParents.com message board made famous in 2007 with a so-ridiculous-it-got-headlines discussion on gender-specific baby hats and where feminism can be taken to extremes." And despite the lame alarmist allusion to ~*XTREME feminism*~, this line did manage to lead me down an interesting Internet rabbit hole, so thanks for that, I guess?
Jesus Christ, I am on PAGE 4 and I am already so done with Simon. Presented without comment:

With the Park Slope OB-GYN, we had the first sonogram and saw the little blip on the screen -- our child-to-be. They say seeing is believing and as nothing was happening inside me, seeing confirmation on the video monitor that indeed my spermatozoa had penetrated and infiltrated one of Alex's ova made me aware that my days as a footloose and fancy-free guy might be coming to an end.

Y'all, I am currently working on my PhD in Molecular Biology. Which, if you were not previously aware, gives me the authority to decree that Simon is never allowed to use the word "spermatozoa" ever again. And so it is.
I was about to say that Alex's passages are at least more tolerable, but it appears I spoke too soon.

The stats they quoted referenced a 40 percent cesarean section rate in the city, and I wonder how that can be acceptable? Are we heading toward Brave New World, where babies are scientifically created in petri dishes and gestated in artificial wombs? Oh wait, we're already there. Are we heading towards a Wall-E existence, where we ride around in carts everywhere and do nothing for ourselves so that our bodies break down and we're all fat, oozy blobs drinking protein from a straw? Somebody slap me, please!!

Truly, Alex, it would be my pleasure.
As a Type-A person, just reading the story of Alex's first pregnancy and delivery gave me anxiety. She says that she just never really "felt the need to establish a birth plan" and that she "gave in to any craving [she] felt." Don’t worry, though -- "If I had suddenly craved chalk, ecstasy or Elmer's Glue, I'd have thought twice." I feel like there is some symbolism here to unpack (Could the Elmer's Glue be a metaphor for the childlike spirit of connection and unity???). Simon describes himself as "a learn-on-the-job guy" and tells us that he and Alex "failed to attend the last couple of [birthing] classes as by then we both just wanted to let instinct take over when the time came." As someone who has never trusted my instincts even once in my entire life, I cannot relate.
Twelve days after his due date, baby François is born. Except it turns out that he actually was born right on time, but Alex "didn't keep regimented track of [her] periods" and miscalculated. What a bummer that modern medicine hasn't advanced to the point where doctors can guide you about that sort of thing.
I don't even know what to say about this next bit, but God help me, I still have 215 more pages of this book to go.

Although the final stages of labor were very, very painful, I [Alex] never used our code word (tin can) for "game over, give me drugs." I definitely recommend using a code word, because it was kind of fun to scream, "I want drugs, give me drugs" through a contraction and have the midwife, nurse and Simon all know I wasn't serious. Once he [François] was finally out of my body, I experienced a tsunami of endorphins that was almost orgasmic, and I understand completely the stories other women have written about ecstatic birth. Simon was sitting behind me at the point of birth, and later when we untangled ourselves he discovered he'd actually ejaculated though hadn't felt any of the normal lead-up to that. It may seem distasteful to some, and definitely neither of us was thinking of sex at the time, but with the rush of emotion and my lower nerve endings going crazy, it's not too far a stretch to say that it's a profound experience.

Johan is born two years later, although it's unclear from the text whether either parent reached orgasm during the event.
The chapter ends with a top-ten list entitled "10 Things We'll Remember That Happened During Pregnancy." These include useful tidbits like

1. Best advice I heard: men's genitals grow and change shape regularly, then go back to the way they were before. Don't worry about your female delicate bits being able to retract.

Which is…a lovely sentiment. But one that is slightly undermined by phrasing the first part in the grossest way possible, as well as by the use of the phrase "female delicate bits." I do like the idea that they "retract," however, because I think it's very cool to imagine the vagina as an SUV sunroof. By the grace of God, Chapter 1 comes to a close.
In Chapter 2 (titled "No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn, What's My Name Again? and Who is This Alien?" -- seriously, were they padding their word count with chapter titles?), we get more questionable parenting advice from the McCord-van Kempens. They glibly dismiss concerns about co-sleeping ("Simon and I both slept with cats and dogs our whole lives without squishing them"), which I honestly would be more annoyed about if I hadn't immediately gone on to read Simon's account of "the midnight race to the 24-hour pharmacy to buy a breast pump as Alex's breasts were seemingly engorged with too much milk and she thought they were about to explode and fly off her chest." As it stands, I'm truly too defeated to care. Again, just to be perfectly clear: no shade to having issues breastfeeding, all shade to using the word 'engorged.’ And also for giving me the mental image of Alex's breasts desperately struggling to flee from her body (though to be fair, who could blame them?).
Proving that she does not inhabit the same world as the rest of us mortals, Alex tells us that she expected that her state of sleep-deprivation as she raised two young children would "spur [her] creativity with graphic design." For some reason, this does not seem to be the case. Alex is puzzled.
Finally, we've come to this chapter's top ten list ("Top 10 Memories of Random Things We Did While in the Post-Birth Haze"). While these lists have so far been utterly irredeemable, they also mean the chapter is coming to a close, so I can at least take some solace in that. This particular list ranges from the irritating…

1. We subversively took sleeping babies to as many non-child-friendly places as possible to prove the point that children can be seen, not heard and not bothersome, such as dinner at the Ritz in London, the Sahara Desert, shopping on Madison Avenue, Underbar in Union Square and film festivals.

…to the truly unnecessary.

1. While changing François' diaper on day one or two, we both stood mesmerized by the changing pad as meconium oozed out of him. It was really the most bizarre and fascinating thing I'd seen to date.

With the couple's general backstory and credentials now under our belts, Chapter 3 ("The Screaming Kid on the Plane is NOT Mine! (This Time)") focuses on advice for traveling with children, which Alex admits "can be a complete pain in the you-know-what." I cannot describe the rage I feel at the fact that she has -- in no fewer than 50 pages -- forced me to read about both her newborn son's excrement and her husband's ejaculate, but cannot bring herself to use the word "ass." Alex, we're really far beyond that at this point, don't you think?
Not to be outdone, Simon shares a conversation he had with François that is remarkable not for its content, but for the fact that one of Simon's nicknames for his son is apparently "F-Boy." Thanks, I hate it.
This chapter's list ("Alex's Top 10 Travel Memories") includes the entry:

1. Both boys charging down Saline Beach in St. Barths like something out of Lord of the Flies.

So, like a horde of primal sadists? I'm wondering if Alex and Simon have inadvertently confused Lord of the Flies with the hit 2007 reality show Kid Nation. I really hope that's what's going on here.
Chapter 4 ("'Mommy, Johan is Gone!'") promises to teach us how to handle accidents. I'm not sure how comfortable I feel taking emergency advice from the authors of this particular book, but (in large part due to the fact that I have slept since reading the previous chapter, giving the pain a chance to dull somewhat), I am willing to at least hear them out.
After relaying a story of François needing emergency surgery after a foot injury, Alex tells us that at one point, she and Simon realized they had spent "nearly $5000 on Indian takeout" in the past year. For the mathematically averse, this works out to a monthly budget of roughly $100 worth of Indian food per week, making my quarantine Uber Eats habit seem downright quaint by comparison. The chapter-ending list walks us through the "Top 10 Things We Do in a Crisis," and fortunately, the tips seem pretty benign.

1. Knowing what calms the children down, such as making silly faces or reciting Shel Silverstein poetry backwards.

Wait, hang on. What?

reciting Shel Silverstein poetry backwards

I'm sorry, please forgive me if I have missed some recent, paradigm-shifting development in the field of early childhood education, but what?? As in, "ends sidewalk the where?" "Sdne klawedis eht erehw?" I am truly befuddled.
Maybe the next chapter ("'Is Today a Work Day or a Home Day, Mommy?'") will have some applicable wisdom for me, as I will, in fact, be working from home every other week for the foreseeable future. And, I cannot stress this enough, I am a psychotically overinvested cat mom. Alas, we are instead treated to an unnecessarily detailed breakdown of how important it is to delegate, and specifically that Simon cleans up vomit and Alex cleans up "feces in the various forms that come out of children's bottoms at appropriate and sometimes inappropriate times such as the middle of Thanksgiving festivities." As if we needed another reason to consider Thanksgiving problematic.
The chapter takes a brief commercial break…

When an everyday product can do double duty such as Dawn Hand Renewal with Olay Beauty, a dish soap that seals in moisture while I'm tackling cleanup, sure, I'll buy it.

…before closing out with a list of the "Top 10 Things We Do Because We Were Here First." I am happy to confirm your worst suspicions and tell you that item number one is indeed "Have passionate sex."
In Chapter 6 ("I Saw Your Nanny…Being Normal?"), I find myself actually sympathizing with Alex for the first time in this book. Which is mostly just because the chapter starts by talking about all of the awful, catty parental competitions that seem endemic to a certain crew of white Manhattan moms, and it makes Alex come off at least slightly less irritating in comparison.
That is, at least until a few pages later, when she starts to complain about a previous au pair:

She was sullen, melodramatic and kept a blog about how she hated Americans, hated France, hated us and the children but loved New York. I think she must have thought we were idiots, and when she asked us to leave early we were only too happy to get her out of our home.

I would love to meet this woman. I think we could be great friends.
This chapter's list is even more difficult to parse than previous ones, because while it's titled "Top 10 Things Caregivers Have Inadvertently Done to Amuse, Annoy or Thrill Us," it's not at all clear which descriptors apply to which points. When a babysitter "accidentally used a household cleaning wipe when changing a diaper," were the McCord-Van Kempens amused? Annoyed? Thrilled? The world may never know.
In Chapter 7 ("'Putting To Death Is Not Nice,' a Duet for Two Boys and A Guitar"), Alex and Simon share some of their hard-earned childrearing wisdom with us. Which basically amounts to Alex telling us that, while normally misbehavior from the kids incurs a warning followed by a time-out, she has also developed an ingenious new strategy where she actually steps in to intervene when the stakes are higher. Let's listen in:

A third permutation is when there's a behavior that has to stop immediately, say if Johan has a big blue indelible marker and is running through a white hotel suite. I swoop in and grab the marker as to risk a three count [warning] would be to risk decoration of the sofa.

Take the marker from the toddler immediately instead of trying to reason with him? Groundbreaking.
Side Note: At this point in my reading, I am incredibly satisfied to report that I have discovered my first typo in the book, and in one of Simon's sections no less! ("These toads secret [sic] a poison…"). This is wildly pedantic of me and proof that I am a deeply sick person.
We run though a list of "Top 10 Things We Never Thought We Would Have To Explain" ("10. Why hot pizza stones do not like Legos.") before moving right along into Chapter 8, "Don't Listen to the Well-Meaning Morons." Strangely, I have a very vivid memory of Alex saying "I have a chapter in my book called, 'Don't Listen to the Well-Meaning Morons" in some distant RHONY episode or reunion. I guess she was telling the truth.
The chapter opens with a series of passages in which Alex and Simon respond to various comments that have been made about their parenting over the years. I think this device is supposed to be a bit of lighthearted snark on overbearing strangers, but instead just comes off as weirdly defensive and passive-aggressive. A few examples:

"My daughter is perfect. Her table manners are excellent, she never speaks unless spoken to and we've always had white sofas at home since she was a child, with no staining."
-A woman with one preteen daughter, no sons
Your daughter sounds boring. I wouldn't want my sons to date her..

Zing!

"Why are you outside?" - A bagel seller in Montreal, in February
I'm hungry and the stroller is well protected under the plastic cover. Johan is warm and cozy, the others are asleep in the hotel and I'm going stir-crazy. Is that enough, or should I buy my bagel from someone else?

Got 'em!

"Excuse me, your baby is crying." -- Someone said to Simon as they peered into the stroller to try and determine the cause of said noise.
You don't say! Do you think, you stupid idiot, that I don't hear that? Do you think I think it's just loud music? Do you think I don't want him to stop and that I like it???

Sorry, did I say 'passive-aggressive'? Let's change that to just 'aggressive.'
But despite bristling at being the recipient of unwanted advice, far be it from Alex to shy away from giving her opinions on the shortcomings of other parents.

There was a mom at another table who wore all black and told her hyperactive daughter that they had to have a family meeting to decide what to do next. The type of woman who might ask her daughter to "process her feelings" about which color to choose. The type of woman who wanted make [sic] a big huge hairy deal about including her daughter in the decision-making process and "negotiating" the next best step for the family to take in the pottery shop. Pardon me while I shoot myself.

I'm sorry, but I just cannot respect this take coming from a woman who calms her sons by reciting comedic children's poetry backwards.
We next learn that there are "many websites out in cyberspace," some of which offer child-rearing advice. Simon summarizes their useless "vitriol" as such:

They say that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, whereas for the 21st century surely hell no longer hath fury, as it's all been hurled at the belittled and scorned Internet mom.

I'm honestly not entirely sure what this is supposed to mean, and my confusion continues all the way through this chapter's "Top 10 Ways We Make Ourselves Feel Better When It's All Getting To Be Too Much." We begin reasonably enough…

1. Check to see whether the person offering advice has children. How old are they?
   
2. Do they have a point? Are they right? It is entirely possible.
   

…before quickly losing all sense of self-awareness and flying completely off the rails.

1. Will we ever see this person again? If not, can we get away with unleashing our fury on them? Note, if you're reading this and decide to try it for yourself, go big or go home.

The last few chapters have been a bit Alex-heavy, but never fear -- Simon pops back up in Chapter 9 ("If I Wouldn't Eat That, My Kid Won't Either") to tell us a charming story about how the family refers to his Bolognese sauce as "Dead Cow Sauce," and this is because his children are incredibly enlightened and understand the circle of life and where food comes from. Or something along those lines.
This chapter also provides a lot of really incontrovertible proof that, even though you may swear that your kids say the most hilarious things all the time, you are wrong. I love kids. I can play cool aunt with the best of them. But this "recipe" for "Johan's Concoction" tries so hard to be cute and funny ("whisk violently -- making sure to spill a little out of the top") that I could barely stifle my groans. For anyone who happens to frequent RebornDollCringe, I am strongly and inexplicably reminded of Britton.
A list of "Top 10 Things We Don't Like About Children's Restaurants" culminates with

1. Where would you rather be? A bistro devoted to race-car driving, with 1950s toy cars on the walls, or T.G.I. Friday's?

Excuse me, ma'am, you must be unfamiliar with the concept of Endless Apps®.
The title of Chapter 10 is "You'll Give in Before I Do!" and although the subtitle lets me know this is referencing "the art and warfare of bedtime," it's hard not to take it as a personal taunt from the authors. Most of this chapter is just transcriptions of 'cute' things François and Johan have said to try to avoid going to bed, but we do get this gem:

Slaying the dragon is our family euphemism for using the toilet (drowning the dragons that live in the sewer) and is fun for the boys to talk about, though probably not forever.

Before giving us a chance to adequately process this revelation, Alex goes on to reflect:

Hmm, perhaps I should delete this -- I don’t want obnoxious classmates getting hold of this book in 10 years and asking the boys if they need to slay the dragon in the middle of geometry class.

Alex, I assure you, you truly have nothing to worry about. Any self-respecting bully will be far too focused on the fact that Simon ejaculated at the moment of his son's birth to pay this comparatively trivial factoid any attention.
The authors shake things up and end this chapter with lists of both "Top 20 Bedtime Stories" and "Top 10 Lullabies," both of which are thankfully inoffensive.
In Chapter 11 ("Children Like Shiny Objects"), we follow Alex and Simon as they purchase the townhouse we see them renovating on RHONY. Although other (read: lesser) parents might store breakables out of reach or limit children's toys to playrooms and bedrooms, Alex and Simon were blessed with two boys whose aesthetic sensibilities are already quite developed:

One kind of funny thing that I noticed recently is that the toys the boys tend to leave upstairs in our red and black living room often tend to be red and black as well. I'm not sure whether that's intentional, but it's funny that the room always seems to match regardless of its contents.

The list of "Top 10 Craziest Places We've Found Objects" is mercifully absent of any orifice-related discoveries.
After reading just the title of Chapter 12 ("Raising Baby Einsteins"), I'm bracing myself for the self-satisfied smugness to come. This preparation turns out to be duly warranted. Baby sign language is dismissed as "a scheme dreamed up by ASL experts who wanted to sell classes to easily influenced new parents," Mommy and Me classes are "not really for teaching anything," and we learn that Alex and Simon have instituted a bizarre family rule that "if a talking toy came into our house, it had to speak a foreign language or speak English in an accent other than American."
We learn that Simon apparently does not know what antonyms are (for the record, Simon, the word you're looking for is homophones) and that New York City is replete with "wailing, nocturnal, type-A obsessed harridans willing to sleep with persons not their spouse if they think it will help their child get into THE RIGHT SCHOOL." Uh, yikes. After a tediously long description of François' pre-school admissions process, Alex informs us:

As a former actor, I've always gotten into play-acting and dressing up with my children. Perhaps a little too much. But I've taken the opportunity to show off a few old monologues, complete with bounding around like a puppy. If you have knowledge, why not share it? If you happen to know Puck's speeches from a Midsummer Night's Dream by ear with tumbling and staged sword play, why the heck don’t you share that with your boisterous boys, who love it and run around shouting, "Thou speakest aright!"

I am suddenly compelled to call my mother and thank her profusely for never making me put up with anything like this. Maybe I'll also get her thoughts on one of the tips listed in "Top 10 Favorite 'Developmental' Things To Do": "if they want something that you want to delay giving them, make them ask in every language they can before giving in." To me, this seems like an effective way to encourage your children to learn how to say "Fuck you, mom" in French as early as possible.
In Chapter 13 ("Urban Wonderland"), Alex and Simon promise to share their unique perspective on "taking advantage of raising a child in the urban jungle." But mostly, we just get a rant about how everyone thinks their kids have weird names, and that makes Simon mad. This chapter's "Top 10 Reasons New York is the Center of the Universe to a Kid" list reminds us what truly matters: "there are more songs with NYC in their titles than any other city."
Immediately after telling us how great it is to live in a city (excuse me, urban jungle), Alex and Simon switch tack and spend Chapter 14 ("'Daddy, a Cow! And It's Not in a Zoo!") expounding on the importance of exposing kids to nature. Sounds great, I'm on board. Unfortunately, we almost immediately take a hard left turn into a story from Simon's childhood where he and his brother are "befriended by this old guy, Dick, who lived on the outskirts of town in a small tin shed." We hear that Dick "occasionally pulled out an early Playboy magazine back from the days when the lower regions were airbrushed out," and that "there had been pretty strong rumors of pedophilia," before promptly returning to the main narrative with no further explanation. I can only describe the transition as 'jarring.'
I can tell how exhausted I am at this point in the book by how hurriedly I skimmed the list of "Top 10 Differences We've Noticed Between City Kids and Country Kids." To be honest, I'm almost annoyed when a particularly bizarre quote manages to catch my attention, because that means I have to think about it for the full amount of time it takes me to transcribe from the page. I'm beginning to think that my initial hope that I could glean some useful cat-rearing advice from this experience may have been overzealous.
Chapter 15 ("You're Such a Great Parent, You Should Be on TV (LOL)") is the only chapter to directly address the family's time on RHONY. It starts with this (attempted) comedy bit in which Alex and Simon pretend to be hilariously self-aware and self-effacing (Alex: "Look up 'Mommylicious' in the dictionary and you will see a photo of me in a ball gown, breast-feeding an infant while making Osso Buco and directing carpenters to build a bookcase for my Dickens and Shakespeare."). This posture would be infinitely more believable if I hadn't spent the previous 205 pages watching these two take themselves deadly seriously.
But rather than share any juicy behind-the-scenes tidbits (or, indeed, convey anything of substance at all), Alex and Simon spend exactly 3.5 pages blustering about how it wasn't harmful for their children to be on TV before giving us a list of "Top 10 Hilarious Things The Boys Have Done While Filming or at Photo Shoots." Spoiler alert: none of them are 'hilarious.'
Chapter 16 is literally titled "The Light at the End of the Tunnel," which makes me feel like this whole experience may have just been Alex and Simon playing some sort of twisted game with me. Alex tells us this is "the chapter of hope," but given that she then tells us about a time when she "spent one full hour discussing why magic markers cannot be carried around with the caps off, particularly in a hotel suite with white couches and walls," I'm not sure exactly where this hope is coming from. Also it seems like this markers-in-a-hotel-room thing happens weirdly frequently. We are then treated to Alex and Simon's "Top 10 Moments of Getting It,'" which includes

1. Apropos of nothing, Johan said, "You give us time-outs because you are teaching us to be good grown-ups."

This is a thing I'm sure Johan said completely organically and not in response to hearing his parents say "we're giving you a time-out so that you learn to be a good grown-up" approximately seven zillion times.
This brings us to the book's Epilogue (a mercifully short two pages) featuring the line "If you made it to the end of this book, we salute you." Honored to accept this hard-earned accolade, I can finally close the book and start figuring out a way to erase the memory of Simon busting a mid-childbirth nut from my aching brain. Wish me luck!

The results are in for Match 4.
A certain member of the audience, however, wasn’t terribly paying attention to what might come of this battle, of swordsmen and ecoterrorists throwing down for public amusement, of the awe of the crowds as certain death-defying stunts and spectacles they had never seen with the naked eye before came true before their eyes, just as had come about on TV.
The viewer thought little about the way the crowd cheered, or how a scarred young man seemed to be rooting particularly for the clown breeder on one side, even as they seemed to be brought to the backfoot.
What they noticed about this, however, only further confirmed their suspicions, the things which had kept them standing here watching this travesty, this waste of time. Despite how it looked, how clean this seemed, light on blood, there was no way in hell that burning wounds like those would look nearly so clean on people. Guy and Arthur had to be hurting deeply, even if they kept going, kept pressing.
Which meant that the disappearing Cairo Satori act at the start was even more certainly an illusion. Ugh, after all this setup of sonic devices, all this planning, all this watching, there was a chance that Cairo wasn’t even really here, huh? Of course, spineless and fake, unwilling to stand before a crowd when there were, in fact, people who knew better than to get swept up in this malarkey.
They quickly texted their accomplice, burner-to-burner, a coded message, seemingly innocuous and yet, in true intent, clear. The plan was off.

Aw, are you sure?
Completely.

Before, all these people would have just been potential collateral, complicit in this in the first place so an acceptable loss, a potent warning. Following through now, though, when Cairo could be in goddamn Red Clay for all the reluctant watcher knew? They still had some standards, and wouldn’t just cut people down for nothing.
You may have given us the slip this round, Cairo… They thought, then, as they turned around to leave, walking away casually, crushing a remote in their hand. But this isn’t over. You’ll answer for everything you’ve done, everything you are, and everything you’ve guided people to.
They didn’t bother looking, then, as the faux-Cairo returned, not aware of any metaphysical idea of ‘scores of 79 to 67,’ but still calling out all the same:
“The winners are Arthur and Guy, of the Suburban Regalia!”

Category	Winner	Point Totals	Comments
Popularity	Suburban Regalia	18-12	Votes were close for much of the match’s run, but in the end Wood Team pulled two votes ahead.
Quality	Tie	24- 24	Reasoning
JoJolity	Suburban Regalia	27 - 21	Reasoning
Conduct	The Audience	10-10

Caroline had apparently sanitized the match somewhat, the public not seeming to notice some of the more grotesque ways in which all four participants were battered, burnt, bruised, and bleeding. Arthur had nearly died once in what was honestly a worse wreck than this, but Guy was lucky that his body was so regenerative or else he might not have taken it.
“Despite the showmanship, that was… That was a real, raw fight, unlike anything where I had worked before.” Arthur remarked, breath short as he and Guy were led backstage, several identical-looking boyfriends of some clothing store employees carrying Medea and Rob to sooner medical attention; being beaten harder, they needed it first, after all. “To think I had believed myself a true warrior from that alone once… Yet now, I feel more prepared than ever, I think.”
“Yeah, in the real deep of it, you learn quick or you die,” Guy answered plainly, nonetheless feeling proud at overcoming such obstacles. “Though I guess we wouldn’t die here, uh… You get my point.”
“I do!”
Of course, led to a backroom, they were all too happy to find seats to collapse into as they awaited the graciously-hired doctor, well aware that she would likely only be a few minutes at most with the others from hearsay. In the room they entered, a young man in a purple aviator hat, goggles, and generally fashionable, was speaking pensively on the phone with somebody, Cairo seated nearby, cross-legged. The conversation wasn’t stopped at all by their approach.
“I’m afraid they’ve gotten away, whoever it was…” The Purple kid tensed, then, adding, “I know, Dollars, this isn’t ideal, but! There’s a but, bear with us here! Cairo was in the thick of it themselves, and found several of the sonic machines they’d set up and abandoned… Clearly, they’d realized that their nefarious intentions would have been for naught, but if this is what they think they are… Tel Mr. Lloyd to be ready to study with ‘To Make Believe,’ yes?” He looked sadder, a moment, adding, “you don’t have to tell him it’s me who asked. Just make sure he knows.”
“Whoever it was, they were really gonna try and take me out live onstage, huh?” Cairo asked, tilting their head back and looking up at the ceiling. “If we didn’t have Caroline, I swear…” For once, then, they looked seriously displeased. “I kinda wish I could’ve tracked them down with a bat, but…” They shook their head. “Not in the middle of the mall…” They looked towards Guy and Arthur, then. “Hey, bangup job out there! Everyone did really well today, you guys included.”
At that, Purple and Cairo excused themselves to quietly go elsewhere, and as they went through the doorway, Caroline Jeffords was standing there, giving them a professional-looking smile.
“What was that about?” Arthur asked. “Did you guys… Go through with this event, even knowing there was some serious safety risk like that?”
“More likely they were sure they could handle it,” Guy answered with a shrug, then wincing as shrugging hurt. “Maybe overconfident, maybe not… I dunno.”
“I assure you, we had the situation under control!” Caroline said happily, before moving to take a seat herself. “Anyway, though, I still remember my promise… You still wanted to grill me a bit, right? Let’s have a nice little chat.”
If you have the time, why not check out a subterfuge-laden brawl between two fighters trying to keep up the appearances of working as waiters at a restaurant?
Scenario:
Location: In an unmarked van somewhere in the Agriculture District
The mood in the back of this armored vehicle was a tense one, every bump in the road and shift in people’s uncomfortable posture seeming like it might be the final push, causing the people within it to come to blows.
Effie Linder glanced to the driver, a weirdly young guy in a blue aviator cap trying to focus on the road, and then to the sour face of a blond lady across from her. She saw no reason to trust either of them.
Jenny Kidd didn’t know how she felt about being given a partner. For all she knew, this girl sitting across from her was here to make sure she didn’t back out on this. Jenny scanned the tomboy over, meaning to do so quietly, but her attitude and her mouth won out. “Just who the fuck are you anyways?”
“Excuse me?” Effie narrowed her eyes at Jenny, “What, am I not good enough for your approval or something?” Effie stretched her arms out in frustration. “Seriously, what’s the problem?”
Jenny was a bit taken aback before verbally retaliating, “I thought this was going to be some whole fucking ordeal, but instead I wind up thrown together with some kid with a slingshot. What are you here for, to pelt people with rocks?” Jenny, with her own reasons to be frustrated by this, let loose some of her anger at the whole situation at Effie.
Effie scowled and pointed at Jenny, “I could say the same about you! Here just to complain people’s ears off? Just to boss me around?” Effie placed her hands behind her head and crossed her legs. “I am not putting up with that no matter how much you threaten me, so shut up and I can leave as soon as we are done!”
“Me threatening you?!” Jenny exploded in exaserbation, “Fuck you, you’re the ones who are blackmailing me!”
“What are you on about now?! You’ve been the ones strongarming my boss into agreeing to do this!” Effie retorted.
“If you don’t quiet down I am turning this van around,” the blue-clad driver said, goggle-covered eyes peering at them in the rear-view mirror. “…just a little joke. A funny. A ‘haha,’ if you will. I’ll just find a bumpier and faster route.”
Silence hung in the room as the realization dawned on both of them and the tension slowly faded.
Jenny was the first to speak, “We...we’re in a similar situation here, huh?” Jenny averted her gaze and looked sideways.
Effie uncrossed her legs and put her hands down, “I guess we are, huh?”
While they were both relieved, that didn’t make the situation they found themselves in that much better.
Well, Effie thought, she might as well extend the olive branch. “I don’t even know why I keep doing this for her… These are her problems, not mine, so why do I keep getting thrown at them?”
The Slums - The Elephant Bones, several days prior
It was just another day at Elephant Bones, most of the initial influx of people that came due to their appearance at the Food Festival had died down to a trickle. This was likely due to how out of the way and hazardous the place was, so those people seemed to settle for deliveries rather than dining-in. Not that Fira minded, of course, the quieter business was, the less disruptions would be made.
However, today was special. While on a delivery route, Zebra had spotted a long Ugo McBasie strolling through the streets of the slums directly towards the restaurant. London and Byte had managed to get a piano perched on top of the building and Glitch had been waiting up there all day with [Vida Loca] itching to drop it on him. Very few things made Fira smile, but this just might get close. A stripe under the door sent Zebra flying in, a trademark smirk on his face, “Give it 5”.
With that simple statement, Fira took a seat at the bar and poured herself something nice before going over some expense reports. It only took a few more minutes before the familiar sound of a piano dropping off the roof of The Elephant Bones crashed through the restaurant. A few seconds of satisfaction hung in Fira’s mind before the sound of the door bell shocked her out of it. An entirely unhurt Ugo stood there, brushing keys off of his shoulders as he surveyed the room before smiling at and then selecting a table. “Cute, but not what I’m here for.”
Fira stared at the familiar helmeted individual. It was hard to tell the extent of the damage, but he did look at least slightly worse for wear, though whatever damage he had taken had only been a temporary setback, as he sat in front of her completely unphased by the large musical instrument he had just dropped on him. “Come on boss, I don't have all day.”
Fira walked up to him, doing her best to burn a hole in the bastard's head with the intense anger of her stare alone, “What do you want.”
“Come on, don’t be like that,” Ugo flashed a wry grin, “I just needed to ask you and your companions for a few favors.”
Fira crossed her arms in bored defiance.
Ugo chuckled, “Listen, I know what you’re thinking. ‘So what’s in it for you?’ Well for starters, I won’t get your restaurant shut down for operating without a…”
“Taken care of, got a lawyer for that too.” Fira shut down Ugo before he could continue, she was slightly annoyed this has happened twice now.
Ugo muttered under his breath, “Goddamn it James,” before he looked back up laughing. “You didn’t seriously think that was my actual threat though, did you?”
Fira continued to stare Ugo down. He had an air about him that seemed to indicate that he was about to try and knock her down, and she had the feeling that if she gave even an inch, he would win out.
Ugo stood up, grabbing the shotgun-leg of the table he had seen as he scanned the restaurant and ripped it off as he stood. As he spun it in his hand he aimed it up at the rough area where the piano had fallen from and unloaded both barrels into the ceiling. As the sound or Glitch’s scrambling footsteps patted across the roof and drywall chunks rained down on Fira.
Ugo smiled in a crooked way, “Looks like we have a loaded and unregistered firearm. That, along with a still valid warrant from the late Councilman March, and I can clean this place out, split up your little family, and even have some of your loved ones brought to our fine city from outside to answer a few questions. We don't want that, yeah?”
Ugo’s face burst into a wide, smug smile before tossing the gun on the floor in front of Fira and crossing his arms. “Cool, then call me by noon tomorrow”.
A tense silence hung over the room as Ugo dusted himself off, tossing a business card on the table and leaving the restaurant.
Once he was out Fira picked up and looked at the card, crumpling it in her furious grip. She swore she’d get back at him for this, but the safety of her staff would have to come first. She wasn’t a lawyer, and that guy Effie worked with before was apparently really unreliable, so she didn’t know how much truth there was to all he’d said, but given what had just become of Jo’s Sushi, she couldn’t really risk calling any bluffs here even if he was bullshitting.
For now she had to bide her time. As she did so, she turned towards someone who had been sitting in the corner of the room, having little presence as she tried to thumb through some Kropotkin. “Hey, Effie.”
She’d heard and seen every second of this, and had been moments away from bailing, already expecting this. “Seriously?”
“Your boss just pushed this on you?” Jenny asked, quietly. “That bites, seriously. All the differences I have with mine, she’d never screw me like that.”
“If you say so,” Effie answered, doubtful, “a boss is a boss, chummy or not. She’s not your friend.”
“I didn’t say we were friends,” Jenny answered, “just that she’s not some callous monster. She’s the kind of person who thinks she’s everyone’s mom…” With particular bitterness, she continued with a clenched fist, “can’t stand that attitude, honestly.”
Shopping District - Bad Apple Breakroom, several days prior
Jenny had just gotten back from a busy lunch rush to take a quick break, but as she sat down she felt something in her back pocket that definitely wasn’t there before. She reached in and pulled out a partially crumpled up letter and her face went pale as she read.

“To ‘Kristy’, Ms. Jenny Kidd: We know who you are, we know your criminal history. If you want to keep your secret you will have to do something for us. Call the number on the back of this card by tomorrow noon or else we will reveal your true identity to the city.”

Gabanna walked into the break room with an already lit cigarette in her mouth as she leaned against the side wall. She looked over to the distressed Jenny, “You ok there, sweetie? You’re looking a bit pale.” Gabanna decided not to bring up the letter Jenny was clutching just yet.
Jenny shook her head, thoughts raced in her mind. Jenny resolved herself to handle this alone. “Nothing’s wrong!” she stated loudly, she tried to convince herself of the fact much more than she tried to convince Gabanna. She slammed the note onto the table face down.
Gabanna quickly glanced over and saw part of a phone number written on the back of the note. Gabbana sighed and put out her cigarette, “Listen, do not be afraid to call me or anybody else here to help you with whatever problem this is. You can trust us with whatever you need.”
Jenny shook her head again, “No I’ll handle this alone. I might have to take a few days off.”
Back to the Present
“Wait, but…” Effie blinked. “Los Fortuna’s not gonna chew you up and spit you out for being an ex-con or whatever. I mean, you see that Jesse guy all over the place and apparently he doesn’t hide what he’s done. They’ve got nothing on you that’ll hurt you, especially if you’ve got a support system.”
“It won’t hurt me,” Jenny agreed, before looking out the window, seeing herself in its reflection. “But I’m kinda supposed to be dead right now, and… There’s people that… I just think would be better off if it stayed that way.”
Someone faking her death, too? Jesus, I am just having a repeat day.
The van stopped and the driver turned back to them, “We’re here. You two are to find Ernie Ford and then grab the notebook he always has on him.”
“You brought us here and threatened us to steal a fucking notebook!?” Jenny interrupted before he could continue.
Effie crossed her arms, “It isn’t that easy, is it? I mean, you look tough yourself, and have this armored van, but you’re asking two girls to?”
“I was getting to that.” The driver took a breath, slightly annoyed from being interrupted, “Ernie is the strongest person in the Agriculture District… Arguably one of the most in the entire city, but don’t tell Ugo I said that. It’s very funny when he hears it being said, but I also prefer it when my limbs and my brain remain functional.”
“How come I’ve barely ever heard of him then?” Jenny quipped back at him. She vaguely remembered hearing about him from Ryuga, enough to know Ernie and their current ‘employer’ didn’t have a good relationship with each other.
“He’s busy.” The driver shrugged, “Look, take my word for it or don’t, do not underestimate him. A whole bunch of us tried to fight him in a van just like this a few months back and… Have you ever seen a victim win a drive-by?”
Effie and Jenny were silent, thinking about that before seeing a building (a bar, apparently) in the slight distance. With that, and the urging of the Blue Kid, the two of them left the van and he drove off.
“Maybe we could give them a fake book and call it a day,” Jenny suggested out loud, “I mean, fuck these guys, right?”
“That’s tempting, but how do we know it would work? We haven’t even seen what the notebook looks like,” Effie was partial to the idea, but if they got it wrong they would be in even more trouble than they started with.
Jenny sighed, “Which means we need more information don’t we. One way or another, we’re doing this.”
Effie nodded, “And they only gave us one lead…”
Ernie Ford was busy measuring the doorframe of Walker Ranger’s bar when a truck came up, and a novelty honk, bearing the sound of four distinct notes, made entirely clear who had arrived again.
“Afternoon, Ernie! Picked up that stuff you wanted.” Yep, Ernie figured, and that low, soothing voice confirmed it. Matilda York stepped out of the truck with a clipboard, walking over to him slowly, “for formality reasons, gonna need you to sign this, you know how it goes.”
As Ernie went to sign the clipboard, he looked up again, seeing someone step out of the passenger seat as well: much shorter, and rounder, the other person had black hair worn in a translucent pink headscarf, her typically formal attire swapped out for a leather jacket, pants, gloves, and an old-looking t-shirt. “Hey, Ernie,” she said, casually, stepping out and looking around the lot. “Sorry I couldn’t make it sooner. Had midterms to grade and a protest to organize. Jeez, they did a number on this place… I swear, it baffles me that Ugo hasn’t been fired, or court-martialed, or something.”
“Barret, probably,” Ernie answered, scoffing, “and half of city hall in his boss’ pocket. I dunno how you stand working out there, Venus.”
“It’s where I’m needed,” Venus York answered, looking between the others present, “but I’m needed here now.”
“It’s like a big huge get-together! We may even have a future again!”
“Don’t push your luck,” Venus sighed at the eagerness, clearly trying not to be flustered. “We’re here to help you get this place fixed up quick, conditionally.”
He cocked an eyebrow, then, making a questioning sound.
“That you’ll take a break after all of this,” she said, leaning into a wall, “give yourself a moment to rest instead of shifting between beating people back and fixing their mistakes.”
Ernie shook his head. “I still got more work to get done today.”
Matilda placed her hands on her hips, “Reeeally now? Well then, mind telling me what was up next today?”
Ernie tugged on his collar, “I was uh, going to check on the hangar…”
“You already finished up the hangar a few days ago.” Matilda chided, “nothin’ gets past the bagboy there, and I just recently saw the thing myself when I was out there.”
“Well…” Ernie looked away. “I was also going to check up with Sheriff East. You know how often he needs something done around here.”
“Come on now.” Venus shook her head, while her ex-wife patted him squarely on the shoulder and looked him over. “You know if he really needed something only you could deal with, he would call you. If you just run off to him on your own, he’ll just make something up to save face for both of you. Remember ‘06?”
“I dunno, do you remember going by a number?” Ernie grumbled.
“I-I was like sixteen, give me a break!” The shorter York divorcee exclaimed, looking away with embarrassment herself.
“Hey, Ernie, you’re the weirdo in the room for usin’ one full name your whole life,” Matilda teased then.
York looked up again, clearing her throat and continuing, “a lot of time has passed, yes. Now we’re all pushing fifty, and this is advice I need to tell teenagers in my classes. I know the urge, trust me, and I might not be as in-shape as you two anymore, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need to let your body rest instead of staying awake for months on end.”
Matilda nodded. “Just take the day off, not looking for work or doing random check-ups around the District. I want you to head straight home, otherwise I won’t be bringing you materials for the rest of the month… I can’t keep facilitating all this not taking care of yourself! If you keel over or something ‘cuz you finally found your limit, it’ll be on all our consciences, and you’ll have inconvenienced everyone way worse!”
Ernie grumbled, looking momentarily to his notebook on a repaired table, before sighing. “Alright, fine, I’ll finish up here and go home.”
“With how much you’ve done, the two of us can cover the rest,” Venus said, “just help us unload and the rest shouldn’t be a problem.” As she spoke, Matilda moved to the back of the truck to open the door. Venus followed her out, cocking her head suspiciously towards something, before dismissing the thoughts.
“Shit, that was close…” Jenny sighed, ducked with Effie under the wall of the rooftop. She’d had a couple of clones planted around, and the short professor had come so very close to noticing the one within the building.
Peering back up, Effie and Jenny saw Ernie come out of the back of a truck holding a full sized table.
“There he is,” Effie said, “let’s just get this done with so we can leave.”
“Wait.” Jenny pointed to Ernie, moving the table through trying to squeeze it past the door. They both saw something strange. In an instant, both Ernie and the table were inside the bar. It was no trick, he had gone from squeezing the table through the door to past the door without any trouble.
“He’s a Stand user, huh?” Effie whispered, unsurprised by this. “Good catch…”
“Would bet the others are too,” Jenny said, “I mean… Matilda looks like she’s pretty jacked, but you saw that ‘Venus,’ there. What could she have to offer that she could totally take over cleanup for ‘the strongest man in the district?’” She spoke from experience, there; she could multiply herself, making her the most suited laborer on her team, after all.
The two of them watched as this continued, both of them quickly saw that there wasn’t going to be any quick opening where they could grab his notebook and get out, especially with the others present.
After a few minutes, Ernie came out with a door and pressed it to the doorframe. Effie and Jenny watched intently, scouting what they would be up against. A blur came up from Ernie’s shoulder, just as quickly as it came in it receded and the door was now screwed onto the frame.
With that all finished, Ernie started to walk away, with Effie and Jenny tailing him. The latter would grow many things to assure they weren’t followed in turn.
An hour later, down a forest trail
A log cabin was in the distance, Effie and Jenny couldn’t believe their luck as they found Ernie going to a secluded area where they could take the book without needing to worry about other people getting in the way.
Ernie felt the pairs of eyes watching him, occasionally he stopped to look over his shoulder, but every time he checked he saw nothing. Even though Matilda told him to take the day off, his mind refused to rest. “Who’s back there!” Ernie called out, “If Matilda put you up to this, I get it already! I’m going home literally right now!”
No response. Jenny and Effie were being as careful as they could, with how Ernie kept looking back it was difficult to gain any distance on him.
Ernie grumbled, pressing himself against a tree. In an instant he was gone again.
No, wait, he was… climbing on the tree? Jenny looked up to see Ernie in the trees, and they briefly met eye contact before he disappeared again.
Effie and Jenny looked around, Ernie was nowhere in sight. They looked around for a good minute with no sign of him. Then a hand clapped them both on the shoulders.
“You’re not from around here, are you? Then she wouldn’t send you for a courtesy call…”They both looked to see the face of Ernie Ford looking back at them, and looking him over, they realized it; their goal was so close in sight, yet a single misstep could cost them. “Now, I’m giving you one warning, leave.”
Jenny and Effie looked to each other and took what could be their best chance. They both jumped to tackle Ernie with their Stands active, only for them to find themselves in a bush behind Ernie.
He didn’t dodge point blank, no, more accurately they were the ones that were teleported. “I don’t like using my Stand that often, only where it makes sense to.” Ernie interrupted their train of thought.
Then pieces of information clicked together, “You have to grab something to teleport it or yourself, don’t you.” Effie grinned picking herself off the ground, her educated guess couldn’t be too far off.
Jenny stood up as well, “You only have a short range, that’s why you took so long and had to hide to approach us. You must be confident in what you can do to pull a fucking stunt like that.”
Ernie just started walking away, “Even if you know all of that, that still doesn’t mean you can beat me in a fight, nor does that make me want a fight.” Ernie acknowledged what all they said was true, but he kept walking, somewhat lost in thought.
“Get the fuck back here. We can’t afford to go back empty handed.” Jenny said as they readied themselves.
Effie nodded, “Well stealth isn’t on the table anymore,” loading up her slingshot. While she didn’t want to do this, Fira made it clear how important this mission was.
Ernie stopped in the middle of the clearing as he reached an epiphany. “My words never work, do they? It doesn’t matter what I say… these things will still happen. Whatever it is you have to achieve, whatever motive you have, whatever you have to prove, I’m gonna be stuck being the guy fixing up whatever comes of it.” Ernie thought back to his previous encounters with Stand users, “All of you are the same in the end, Stand users that pick fights for their own melodramatic reasons, it’s not will power, it’s pride, it’s arrogance. Willpower is shown when stopping unnecessary conflict. It’s doing the hard things in life to help those around you.”
Ernie turned to face them, “I suppose gaining Stands makes it seem like they are the tool appropriate for solving all your problems, doesn’t it? A real golden hammer for all the nails in the world.”
Ernie spat out that last sentence arms crossed now, “Well, go on then. What exactly are you here for?” Ernie let his words ring out, tired that this whole thing looked to be happening in front of him again. It was the same scene he had seen throughout the District - no, scratch that, all of this Metro area - over the years, only this time he had to be a part of it.
Jenny and Effie hesitated for a bit, while neither of them wanted the book for themselves, a fight was inevitable unless they could convince Ernie to help them willingly.
Whether they had a plan or not, they didn’t have much time before Ernie started moving again. This had to end one way or another so it was time to…
OPEN THE GAME!
(credit to magistelles for the image, both the hidden and unhidden version!)
Location:
A clearing where one of Ernie’s cabins are. The map here is 60 by 60 meters total with each tile being 5 by 5 meters. The ground is also covered in grass. Ernie starts in the middle while the players start in the bottom right as represented by their tokens.
The brown and orange rectangles are Ernie’s one room cabin and porch. The thing is made mostly out of logs with wooden boards forming the porch and flooring. Inside the cabin is a bed, a table, two chairs, two desks, a closet with clothes, and a blank notebook.
The green circles are 10 meter tall trees and the brown circles are wooden barrels filled with water.
Goal: For the players, get Ernie’s notebook before the hour mark! For Ernie, keep your notebook safe for an hour!
Additional Information:
For the players to win they must get Ernie’s notebook and leave the map through the South end before an hour passes. After the hour mark if the players are unable to complete their goal Sheriff West will arrive and they will be effectively jailed and Retired.
Ernie’s notebook is in his backpack and is shown on his inventory on his character sheet here
Boss Information: Included in this document (pastebin version here)

Team	Combatant	JoJolity
BADD GUYS and The Graveyard Shift	Jenny Kidd and Effie Linder	"I get it now, Fratellone Prosciutto! I understand your resolve, not through words, but through your spirit!" This man isn’t taking you seriously at all it seems. Prove yourself to Ernie Ford, show your general prowess and the lengths you are willing to go for your objective!
???	Ernie Ford	“The closer you get to my 'Ozone Baby', the stronger the pressure's gonna get...” Your cabin is where you have to rest after this, any unnecessary damage should be kept to a minimum. Keep the players as far away from your cabin as you can!

Link to the Official Player Spreadsheet
Link to Match Schedule
As always, if you would like to interact with the tournament community and be among the first to get updates for the tournament, please feel free to PM a member of our Judge staff for an invite to our Official Discord Server!

The following is a reaction to the post I saw today from u/nuinbostonthrowaway. My opinions are strictly my own, but I will try my best to illustrate other perspectives where possible. While there are many points I agree with, I think the other post is full of exaggerations. Also, I apologize for any grammatical errors.
The worst parts of NUin Boston are laundry, seminar, and FOOD. I also don't think it's a double standard that ICs are allowed guests.
Food

I'm gonna start with food because I don't think enough people are talking about it. I might be in the minority here, but I CANNOT afford to eat out every day. I was prepared to spend more in London, where we would have had a kitchen, but the food options closest to us are really expensive. I can't go grocery shopping and prepare meals here. Most first-years can't cook either, but at least they live near places where they can use meal swipes. I do not think it's fair that I'm expected to travel 40 minutes round trip twice a day just to eat. Many students I know are spending anywhere from $80-$300+/week just on eating out near Copley because they don't want to go to campus. As it gets colder, the administration should either offer us a free delivery service for on-campus food or negotiate meal exchange with venues within a 5-minute walking distance. I'm honestly struggling to get myself to campus to eat, and I'm sure I'm not alone.
They could make places for us to eat inside; however, I don't think it's that hard to eat in our rooms. Students on campus can only eat in a few places, and we shouldn't complain like it's the end of the world. If they did make a space in the Westin where we could eat, it would only become a covid hazard. People at Curry and the dining halls are already ignoring distancing at dinner time, and the privileged Westin kids are sure to drag dining chairs as close as possible.

Laundry

Like many others have mentioned, it takes between 90minutes and 3 hours to dry clothes. I am not exaggerating that point at all. 13 dryers have been stacked together in a tight space without ventilation. ON THE DYERS THEMSELVES, THERE IS A WARNING THAT SAYS THEY WON'T WORK WHEN THEY ARE THAT CLOSE TOGETHER! No wonder it takes 2 hours to dry clothes. I'd bet money that this is the reason the sensors on the dryers are always changing how much time is left.
I think the problem of people taking wet clothes out of dryers and throwing them on the floors is exaggerated. It might have happened the first week but I haven't heard of that happening since. The bigger problem is that people will abandon their clothes in the dryer once they ARE dry. Part of me doesn't blame them because there is no good way to know when the load will be done. The other part of me wishes we could take dry clothes out and put them somewhere safe. There should be enforceable repercussions for students who leave their clothes in the dryer for more than 10 minutes.
I am now going to use math (opposite of a STEM major here) to demonstrate that we don't have enough drying capacity. Including towels and sheets, I would say it's reasonable that residents here have an average of 1load/week (I personally do more laundry). Let's assume that the dryers, on average, take 120 minutes to dry (this is likely higher, I promise I'm not exaggerating). Let's also say that 820 people live here (including ICs it might be a bit higher). Let's also assume that laundry will only be done from the hours of 6am-2am, 20hours of the day:
20 hours in the day * 60 minutes equals 1200 minutes available to do laundry. 1200minutes /120 minutes for a load = 10 loads per dryer per day at max efficiency. There are 13 dryers. 13 dryers * 10 loads = 130 loads per day. 130 loads per day * 7 days is 910 loads per week. 910 loads per week is only possible assuming the laundry room is operating with perfect efficiency and is full 20 hours of the day. The margin is wayyy too close. With real world use, I think I've proven there is not enough capacity in the laundry room. By spacing out dryers safely, and making sure students monitor their laundry, I think the problem can be fixed.
Also, it's incredibly stupid that the laundry room can only fit 3 people. Anyone with a little common sense could figure out that the space is easily big enough to fit 5 socially distanced people. The people lining up outside the laundry room have less distance between them then the people inside. They should increase the capacity to 5 people and put signs up that say "do not loiter" and actually enforce loitering.

Seminar

The NUin Boston seminar is the biggest waste of time. It's an hour long plus at least 25 minutes when the elevators inevitably get clogged because they have multiple seminars that end at the same time. STAGGER SEMINAR TIMES. Even better idea, make it asynchronous. Circling our values and then awkwardly sharing our thoughts with our class is a joke. The instructors keep telling us that Boston is a global city and we need to have a global mindset. My sociology teacher literally told a kid they were wrong when they said Boston was a global city. The University needs to acknowledge that NUin Boston is not the same as other NUin locations and move on. Students didn't choose to come here because they wanted a global experience, they chose to come here because they wanted to be near campus. I understand why the University is forcing us to sit through this propaganda but seminar worsens the spirits of everybody here.

Guest Policy

There is a reason ICs are allowed to have guests and we aren't. Calling the decision to allow ICs to have guests a double standard isn't true. ICs do not have interactions with students or staff without masks. If an NUin kid got Covid, they would likely spread it to their roomate. Everywhere you go on campus, people are eating in close proximity without masks. Plenty of NUin kids openly post snap or insta photos of them and their friends next to each other maskless. My point is that if a student in the Westin gets covid from their guest, they will likely be responsible for spreading it to many other students. However, if an IC gets Covid from their guest, it's not impossible, but the chance they spread it on to students is much much lower. This rule is intended to keep Covid levels amongst students down. People in our giant groupme were citing schools like BC who allow students to have guests. They conveniently forgot to mention that covid is way more of an issue there. Maybe if students demonstrated that they are capable of following the guidelines, restrictions would be loosened. It's also important to mention that there are people in the westin that have contracted covid. I don't know the specifics, but the disease is in our building and I feel as though it's a bit insensitive to complain about these restrictions when kids are getting sick.

The last thing I'll mention is write-ups. Please just make it clearer what the repercussions are for violating different rules. It's dumb that someone supposedly got in trouble for forgetting their keys. What's worse is that whether or not that actually happened, we have no way of knowing if that is an offense that requires disciplinary action.

Preface:
This is a new guide from Typical Contents, the “wirecutter for clothes”. It’s by the team behind Epochs, a now defunct menswear blog.
*We’re reviewing categories of clothing in hopes of finding the best item(s) in that category. This post focused on finding the best rain jackets. We tested 8 different rain jackets. 1 of these, the Arcteryx Zeta AR, was provided to us for review. The rest we bought ourselves. This post does not contain affiliate links.
Check out our previous guides on boxer briefs, plain t-shirts, and low top canvas trainers.
It rains in London, a lot. So there is a need for a go anywhere, do everything rain jacket that can live in your rucksack in case of a shower. A traditional mac or parka works if you know you can expect bad weather but if you’re going for a hike or need to run to the shops while it’s pissing rain, a casual zip up rain jacket is your best bet. Like the best camera, the best rain jacket is the one you have with you.
After researching the best mens rain jackets and testing seven leading brands we think the best go anywhere, do anything rain jacket is Norse Project’s Fyn Shell. Lightweight, water and windproof while being surprisingly breathable the Fyn Shell has the impressive technical features that you’d expect of a high-end outdoors jacket but goes above and beyond with its sleekly futurist design details and quality construction. Pricey but worthwhile. If weight, packability and a pricetag under £100 are your main concern our runner up, the RAINS Ultralight Jacket, is also an excellent jacket to have ready-to-go in your bag. Finally, if you’re on a budget you can’t do better for the money than Uniqlo’s BLOCKTECH Parka.
More than any other category we’ve reviewed, you get what you pay for with rain coats. The trade off with any fully wind and waterproof jacket is price. You could put on a garbage bag and be totally waterproof but your sweat would pool on the inside. The magic of GORE-TEX and similar membrane fabrics is they’re waterproof and breathable — this comes at a premium. We figured for our testing that the coat didn’t necessarily need to tolerate more than an hour or so of hard rain as a city jacket, but it would be a bonus if it could double as a light hiking/​outdoors jacket too.

Best overall

Norse Projects Fyn Shell GORE-TEX 2.0
Lightweight, water and windproof while being surprisingly breathable the Fyn Shell has the impressive technical features that you’d expect of a high-end outdoors jacket but goes above and beyond with its sleekly futurist design details and quality construction. Pricey but worthwhile.
$639 from END Clothing (US)
£540 from END Clothing (UK)

It’s hard to sum up what made this jacket stand out so thoroughly from the 7 others I’d reviewed for this article, so maybe I should go with my partner’s comment when I first tried it on: ​“of all these jackets, this is the one that actually made your outfit better.” That was true, but it wasn’t just that it’s subtly futuristic design looked better, it felt better too. The fabric was lightweight enough as to be barely noticeable when walking, the texture had an almost moleskin like brushed cotton effect and was nearly silent as I moved, in comparison to the swishy crinkled sounding textures of some of the competitors. The generous Kangaroo style pockets in the front felt so natural and easy to settle into and when I zipped it up I felt fully cocooned and protected from the elements without the somewhat locked in and stifled feeling some other jackets in this category gave me. I also loved the cut of the Fyn Shell, it hangs fairly loosely from the shoulders with plenty of room through the arms and body (in fact especially under the armpits) so you always feel like you have your full range of movement available to you.
Style wise, you can just see the love that went into this design and credit to the people at Norse Projects. It really feels like everything has been thought through and laboured over (in a way that the photography doesn’t really do justice to). My partner who trained as a menswear designer was especially taken with the clean, pressed seams and bar tack details on the pockets ​“a technical jacket wet dream basically.”
What about the actual function though? Well we decided to get in an expert and asked Jessica Sheil, a raw materials and sustainability specialist who has worked for brands like Primark, Arcteryx and Lululemon to have a look over the Fyn Shell’s specs. Her verdict was positive, with Jess reckoning it had all the high-end wind and water protection you’d expect from a modern GORE-TEX jacket and noted the environmental credentials of it’s water-repellant coating. Many jackets have DWR’s which are essentially the chemical treatments that make water bead up and brush easily from their fabric. Unfortunately, some of these are especially hazardous to the outdoor environment. PFCec free DWR’s on the other hand are treatments with similar water repellency that don’t harm the environment, although they do suffer slightly in performance when it comes to oil repellency around cuffs and collars. We’re willing to sacrifice a little performance for the environment so thought this was a nice touch.
Then there are the pockets. Oh god, the pockets. 8 pockets! It’s got your kangaroo pockets, it’s got your forward facing zip pocket on the breast, it’s got your sealed pockets with no topstitching to easily slide your phone or wallet into on the inside hip, it’s got the three internal zip pockets for anything else you need to squirrel away. This jacket is a pocket utility dream and blows everything else I tested out of the water. While it wasn’t the lightest of our raincoats, I found it folded up into the hood to comfortably fit into the bottom third of my 16L rucksack.
The cuffs were an elegant single snap to tighten the sleeves, which if you are used to velcro or elastic might be annoyingly un-customisable but I found perfectly comfortable. I also liked that there was the option to pair the jacket with their Otto light primaloft liner to make it a properly year round jacket, and the fit left plenty of room for layering. Finally, I found myself happiest with the hood peak of all our tested jackets, it was rigid enough to hold its shape when folded out and provided decent visibility while keeping the rain from my face.

Downsides

So, what are the downsides? Well at £530 this was the most expensive of all the piece I reviewed for this article, and thats to be expected. From my experience in the industry outerwear is just one of those categories in which you get what you pay for on the whole, especially when it comes to high-end technical fabrications like those made from GORE-TEX. On the other hand, it was a similar price to the purely utilitarian Arcteryx Zeta AR that we also tested but with the additional serious style chops. When it comes down to it, if you’re going to pay that kind of money for the fabrication and performance of a jacket in this category, why not have one that looks great too?

What we’d like to see improved

While everything about the jacket itself is near perfect, and nothing stood out to me as being in need of improvement, something like a zip in bag to pack it in when not in use would be a nice touch. The biggest improvement I could think of is actually around the transparency over the production and environmental impact of the jacket. Aside from a product description noting the use of PFCec free DWR there was no information I could find on Norse Projects’ site about the environmental or workplace credentials of the company, and although most of their product is produced in Portugal and the US, their GORE-TEX range is produced in China which if you’re going on recent information is an ethical minefield. A sub-site like those employed by Asket for their products to show the factories used and the impact of production would go a long way towards giving more ethically-minded customers an informed choice, especially at a premium price point.

Conclusion

As far as I’m concerned, the Norse Project Fyn Shell is the best of it’s kind. A near perfect marriage of elegant form and cutting edge function.

Also good

RAINS Ultralight Jacket
For the city commuter who wants a good looking, incredibly light and genuinely waterproof raincoat that won’t cost more than £100. The Rains ultralight is a gem, albeit, one that offers a less breathable and durable fabric than our main pick.
$125 AT RAINS (US)
£89 AT RAINS (UK)

The first impression when I unpacked the RAINS Ultralight Jacket was just awe at the sheer lightness of it, the weight you’d associate with a poplin dress shirt rather than a piece of outerwear. The texture was also much silkier and softer than I was accustomed to with the generally rubbery feeling polyurethene based raincoats that have become popular in the past decade. When worn over a t‑shirt it felt like it was barely there and I enjoyed the slightly loose ​‘90s-esque fit with the elasticated cuff and prominent cord locks on the front of the hood. If you’re looking for a techy bit of kit that doesn’t stray over into cyberpunk nerd territory then this is for you, especially in it’s alternative colourways of camel, olive and light grey.
Styling and extreme lightness aside, it also boasts serious weather protection capabilities: rainproof, windproof and surprisingly breathable for a PU based fabric, albeit, with some sadly tiny vents at the armpits. I did feel like taking it off on London’s incredibly sweaty tube service. Our expert, Jess, noted the wind and waterproofing were lower than what’d you see in high-end GORE-TEX pieces that you’d get from a brand like Arc’teryx but were still more than a match for city wear.
The jacket is so lightweight that I found it could comfortably fold up to fit into all but the smallest cross-body bags and it would fit into the larger front pocket of a rucksack. So if the best rain jacket is the one you have with you, the RAINS ultralight can quite easily be packed away and forgot about until you find you need it. I also appreciated the welted ziphip pockets, handy for a wallet or a phone.

Downsides

Well it’s not really a serious hiking jacket, the fabric is so lightweight that I imagine durability could be a problem with a heavy rucksack. It’s definitely more on the casual end of the styles we tested. I also found that while the hood covered my head snugly the lack of brim meant rain still got into my eyes and face, not the kind of thing you want to wear for hours at a time in a downpour.

Conclusion

The reality is most people don’t need a top of the line jacket to keep the rain and the wind out, especially the casual urban commuter. You need something lightweight to pack when out for a walk with friends or to head into work. You’ll be thankful for how little space the RAINS Ultralight takes up in a rucksack. At £85 it’s also a bargain, only slightly more expensive than our budget pick with better weather proofing credentials and a lighter weight.

Budget pick

Uniqlo BLOCKTECH Parka
Uniqlo have come through with a brilliant all-rounder raincoat at a great price. Looks wise, it compares favourably with our top pick, the trade off is a jacket that doesn’t have the same level of technical performance but does well under commuter conditions.
$79.90 AT UNIQLO (US)
£59.90 AT UNIQLO (UK)

Uniqlo has become something of a running joke among the Typical Contents team for how often it comes up as the best budget pick in our reviews, but really its no surprise. It’s a huge company with a massive team lead by respected designers like Rebekka Bay and Christophe Lemaire. They put all their efforts towards making the best quality affordable basics on the market and not spending much time on the sort of trend-led pieces that their fast-fashion peers thrive on. On it’s own merits the brand is aggressively uncool and basic, only as stylish as the customer can make it — though the brands lifewear magazine, led by Japanese publishing legend Takahiro Kinoshita, has shown the possibilities. There are even amusing guides to ​“look rich wearing only Uniqlo” which I think speaks to what this brand does so well.
Which brings us to the BLOCKTECH parka. As I expected from Uniqlo this is a really good jacket for the money. When I first tried it on my partner even thought I’d gotten back into the Norse Fyn as they shared similar sleek lines and matte, soft-touch fabric. There is a chance that this is even a dupe of the Norse jacket, but whatever the lineage it’s a great looking functional rain jacket at a suprisingly low price. If you’re looking for a casual rain jacket for occasional use and have a sub £100 budget you could do a lot worse.
Our expert, Jess, noted that the BLOCKTECH parka didn’t meet the legal definitions of waterproof but it held up well under our testing in light showers and under an actual shower. During my research I’d also seen it sited on hiking blogs as being a good budget alternative to higher-end outdoors jackets. There were comments about wet-out over time though this isn’t so much of a concern for commuters.
So as usual with Uniqlo, it doesn’t have quite the wow factor of our other top choices, either from a design or performance perspective, but for the money you probably couldn’t do better and I think the brand itself would say: that’s the point.

Why you should trust us

I’m a professional stylist, working in menswear and based in London. I work on both editorial and e‑commerce shoots and generally spend my time surrounded by racks of clothing. I’ve also written extensively about the history of clothing and style at the now defunct epochs​.co and worked previously in fashion retail and visual merchandising.
All clothing was purchased retail* and no gifts or discounts and no preferential treatment was given. I’ve no professional connections with any of the brands we reviewed.
*Arc’teryx were good enough to send us a press sample for review, no favourable treatment or promise of coverage was offered.

How we tested

Researching began online. I checked professional guides, and reviews as well as surveying experts. I hit up our cyclist, runner and outdoors friends for recommendations. I also drew on pieces I had personal experience in and had encountered in my work.
For range I wanted to try different weights and fabrications, largely sticking to more contemporary aesthetics and lighter weights that tended to be synthetic, though I did try a more traditional Stockholm jacket from Stutterheim.
I created a set of criteria that all rain jackets were judged against (see ​“What to look for” below). All purchased jackets were put in rotation for several months and notes taken on first and subsequent wears. I tracked the different pairs, stored notes, and ranked them using a database before finally compiling my findings into this article. We intend to update this page periodically as we try new jackets (keep and eye on our changelog for updates) as there are other jackets we would still like to try.

What to look for

Easy wearability: I wanted a jacket that was easily available in neutral colourways. This might sound small stakes but so much of the outdoors clothing market is dominated by pretty garish coloured and heavily branded items. It was important that this worked with an everyday casual wardrobe and didn’t look too much like GORP cosplay.
Portability: As I referenced in my introduction, the best rain jacket is the one you have with you, so having the ability to pack down easily was essential to finding the best everyday rain jacket.
Breathable: There is always a trade off when you’re looking at synthetic fabrics designed for keeping wind and rain out and generally it’s the breathability of the cloth. Technology has come a long way though and in our top picks we felt the balance between protection and breathability was met.
Hood: I wanted a hood that offered total protection, ideally with a rigid visor to protect from rainfall without too much loss of visibility. I also rated how adjustable the top picks were both with back and front toggles.
Environmental and social impact: Outdoor apparel is probably the most sustainable segment of the clothing industry but the bar is low and there’s still room for improvement with practices like the use of virgin polyester and toxic chemicals. This is changing rapidly with brands like Patagonia at the forefront of the sustainability revolution in clothing but we were conscious of noting what, if anything, the brands are doing to offset their impact on workers and the planet.
Styling: As referenced in our introduction, we’re not looking for the best ever outdoors jacket, there are other specialists who can do that better than we can, but we did want to find the best looking jackets that can get the job done. It had to be jackets that we’d actually want to wear, and not just when it’s raining.
Elemental protection: While we’re focusing on style, we weren’t ignoring function. A raincoat that doesn’t offer decent protection is just a novelty. We wanted something that wouldn’t dissapoint the casual commuter and occasional hiker if they got caught in a downpour, and we think on balance we found them.
Cuffs and collars: We want the cuffs and collars of the rain jackets to be comfortable, adjustable and in the case of the collar to protect the face when the weather takes a turn.
Fit: Nothing too slim or form fitting, this had to be something you could throw over layers and get the most out of throughout the year, but, we also didn’t want anything too shapeless or utilitarian looking. It was about finding a balance. Generally, we went for hip length but we appreciated the designs that had slightly more length, not enough to restrict movement but offering a bit more protection from the elements.
Movement: The ideal lightweight rain jacket would cover you for a daily run or cycle as well as on a walk to the bus or train, so it had to allow for movement and not be too stifling. We wanted something that emphasised flexibility over complete coverage.
Fabric: We wanted a fabric that had an organic and soft hand feel, ideally without the crinkling plastic feel of some outerwear synthetics.

The competition

The Arcteryx Zeta AR was probably the most hardcore outdoors jacket that we tried out and we were really impressed by it’s performance overall — though I now realise I should have tested their lighter weight LT model. Rain beaded instantly, the hood was generous and the style was on the functional end of things but worked well with a variety of outfits. Downsides were the heavy fabric and a fit on the looser end of things, I’m 5’11 and 150 pounds and the medium was pretty roomy on me, I would probably size down to small next time. This jacket is designed for multi-day treks rather than a cycle into work. It’ll appeal to the hardcore hiking fans.
Coming in at a very similar price point to Uniqlo was Muji’s Waterproof hooded jacket. It had a similar level of quality and water resistance but it just lacked the refinement and styling of the Uniqlo option. It felt just a little bit more drab and functional and while I think I’d be perfectly happy with it, there was nothing exceptional about it. If you aren’t keen on the more futurist aesthetic of Uniqlo’s design then this Muji jacket would be a worthy budget alternative.
Patagonia’s Torrentshell 3L was one of those jackets that we loved the look of, consistently came up on lists of the best rain jackets and according to our expert also boasts some impressive environmental credentials — no surprise, the company is known for it. So it was with some disappointment that when I received the jacket and unwrapped it for the first try on, the fabric felt cheap. It had a plasticky texture and crinkled and swished more than any other we tested. It was difficult to pack small, the shape was a bit lumpy and characterless. At one point I realised why it felt so off, it reminded me of exactly the sort of jacket I would have had as a child in the early 1990’s, the older blends of cotton and polyester that had a similar hand feel. A disappointment.
I’ve always been a big fan of Stutterheim. Their original heavyweight Stockholm model is an elegant take on the classic mid-century fishermans raincoat and their’s was the only model to be produced in Europe. The Stockholm LW seems to be an attempt at taking on Rains at the lighter weight, more affordable end of the rain jacket market and in that sense it suceeds but I felt they failed to do anything interesting with it. The pop buttons are a nice touch, the length was nice sitting halfway down the hip but roomy enough to move in. It looked stylish but it sweat like hell in even light activity and didn’t feel particularly functional. A good and fairly lightweight casual rain jacket but not something I could see myself getting excited over.
We also looked at models from K‑Way the original pack-a-mac style raincoat from the ​’70s but I just felt it was a bit redundant at this point and fabric technology had moved on. If your style is a bit more heritage or retro, it could work as a lightweight layer.

title correction: Black Ops Story Speculation (Tape #6, 1981)
Previous threads:
Tape 1 (1962-63)
Tape 2 (1968-69)
Tape 3 (1972-73)
Tape 4 (1977-78)
Tape 5 (1979)
​
So….the teaser came out :D .
Obviously it’s Black Ops: Cold War, but I’m excited to see more little details revealed in this trailer. I might break it down in a different thread, but expect to see some details here too.

1. I should’ve figured it’s a year closer to 1979. If the flashback narrative being hinted is legit, we would have more events closer to our ‘present’ day. I guess we won't get links to the SDI project OR the Challenger, but then we've got a lot of other interesting events already.

Before we dive in, a correction: I mentioned the chess pieces in the previous thread might link to characters dying in the story. Turns out they were just linked with the ciphers and puzzles, with one coming down each time a day’s cipher was solved (all of the pieces are currently down). It could still be a representation of lives being lost every era of the Cold War, but I’ll admit, I wasn’t paying complete attention to the cipher hunt besides the bunker discoveries.
Anyways, let's get into the final tape. Apologies if this thread comes later than before, but there's a LOT I had to unpack in this one.
So here we go. Again, we’re looking at common themes and individual stand-up clips, for any hints to the story. The full tape for reference.
And for one last time: If something glitches, pay attention!
​

• Talk Show Footage: First clip is a woman talking about baseball player Pete Rose, and then introducing country musician Ronnie Milsap. Again, the first clips of the VHS tapes point to an important event or theme; something that is guaranteed to appear in-game.
  • Pete Rose was a baseball player and manager for the Cincinnati Reds. He was accused of gambling on games he was involved with, and was permanently barred from the Baseball Hall of Fame. Seems like a parallel to Nixon and the U.S. presidents featuring in this game, who all broke the rules in secret (except Carter).
  • Ronnie Milsap is a country singer, who had two of his biggest hits from his 1981 album: ‘There’s No Getting Over Me’ and ‘I Wouldn’t Have Missed It For The World’. He also sang the song ‘Any Day Now’, a cover song that was ALSO sung by Elvis Presley, though Ronnie’s version didn’t come out till 1982. Elvis’s death was featured in the previous tape. I doubt this is a coincidence.
  • We’re gonna hear ‘Any Day Now’ in this game, or one of Milsap’s other songs. Seems like perfect credits music to contrast the game’s events.
  • Baseball and Country Music are two hallmarks of American culture. Later on in this tape, we get clips of baseball players going on strike, and the introduction of MTV. Cultural traditions being disrupted (more on that later).
  • Also, Ronnie’s songs are now stuck in my head. God damn it.
• Ronald Reagan. President Reagan was a conservative Republican who went into office in 1981. He was more confrontational against communism, and was credited for reducing inflation and stabilizing the economy, but he was also accused of allowing corruption, and for funding armed groups in South America like the Contras. Reagan was the very last U.S. president of the Cold War, and oversaw the fall of the Berlin Wall (he was the 'tear down this wall' guy).
  • We’ve got glitching after the oath, again. Reagan was accused of allowing the sale of weapons to Iran in order to fund the Contras.
  • Looks like this game will feature every U.S. president since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Lyndon B Johnson and Gerald Ford have the least presence in these tapes, so the focus will be on Kennedy, Nixon, Carter and Reagan. Three of them will be shown approving actions that go against the U.S. constitution (except good boi Carter.)
  • We also got heavy glitching during Reagan’s inspection of troops during his inauguration. Is this implying the troops will somehow turn against Reagan? Or is it hinting that Reagan will be the most military president of the bunch?
  • Tying with the teaser trailer, Ronald Reagan might be the ‘strongman’ that Yuri Beznemov is warning about, at least in BO:CW’s context. Will Ronald Reagan turn out to be an antagonist in this game? Or a lesser but still negative force?
• Test tube baby: One-off clip. Maybe this is hinting at the theme of psuedoscience in this game? It could make the MKUltra stuff more of a possibility.
• Space Shuttle launch: The Space Shuttle Columbia (and the Shuttle program in general) had its first launch on April 12, 1981, which happened on the 20th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight to space. We then get glitching during clips of the the shuttle’s re-entry.
  • I still stand by my ‘Space Shuttle Endgame’ theory from my previous thread; we’re probably getting a climax involving the Space Shuttle. Looks like it’ll be the Columbia, which makes sense (it’s a lot more tasteful than featuring the Challenger, which had its first launch in 1983) .
• Release of the Iranian Embassy Hostages: Reagan’s presidency saw the return of the Iranian hostages, who were kept in Iran for over 400 days.
  • The last clip of Tape 5 involved the failed rescue of the Iranian hostages (Operation Eagle Claw); one of the main reasons Carter lost to Reagan in the election. If Eagle Claw is referenced in-game, it’ll be to paint Carter as a ‘weaker’ president compared to Reagan, while Reagan was the one who got the hostages home. Not that Reagan will be shown all positively in BO:CW.
• Pershing Missiles standoff: We got a news broadcast of the Pershing ballistic Missiles, which the U.S. tried to deploy in Europe. There’s specific glitching over mention of the missiles, and also mention of nuclear forces in Britain and France. Seems like we'll hear of the Pershing missiles in-game.
• Horse riding: Several horse riders doing circles in 05:21.This comes after the clip about the Pershing missiles. I’m still unsure about this one, maybe it’s a metaphor for ‘going in circles?’ Or we’re getting a horse riding sequence in the game?
• Attempted Assassination of Ronald Reagan: On March 30, Reagan was shot in Washington DC outside the Washington Hotel. Three other people were shot, including White House press secretary James Brady (who suffered brain damage and died in 2014 because of his wound), a secret service agent and a police officer. All of them survived, but Brady was left brain damaged.
  • The shooter, John Hinckley Jr, was declared not guilty for reasons of insanity, even though he had a hand in James Brady’s death (he died from his wound in 2014) . The guy was stalking actress Jodie Foster, and thought that he’d only win her heart if he killed the U.S president. He was obsessed with the protagonist of Taxi Driver, and wanted to copy how he shot a U.S. politician in the film. Also, he was released from psychiatric care in 2016.
  • We have another specific newsclip in 16:45, saying it ‘appears he was acting alone’. This is one of the last clips of the entire VHS tape. I think we’re going to see MKUltra (or some other Soviet mind control) influencing JHJ into doing the shooting.
  • A curious fact: two of the people who pinned down the shooter, Alfred Antenucci and Frank. J. McNamara, died of illness right after the shooting. Antenucci died just months later, while McNamara died in 1984. I wonder if BO:CW will bring this up?
  • Reagan’s shooting happened less than two weeks before the launch of the Space Shuttle (April 12). If my theory on the Space endgame is right (maybe?), Reagan’s shooting will kick off the climax of the story, with things capping off on the launch day of the Columbia. But then, I wonder how in-universe the tapes in this video are? Will this be an alternate history game, where the Columbia launch is interrupted? What would that mean for the clips of the Columbia in 2003, and all the other 1981 events that took place after the shuttle launch? (like Muhammad Ali's match) . It could mean the 'present day' of the game will be after 1981, maybe 1984 or 86 like I predicted.
  • Slight visual glitching during news broadcast of Reagan’s wounds. I don’t know if it was in the original footage, but it’s a similar kind of glitch as a later clip, during Reagan’s speech about the Pershing missiles. Could be further sign that something's off about this shooting.
• Alexander Haig: We have secretary of state Alexander Haig, talking about the line of succession in a White House press conference after Reagan's shooting. He infamously stated that 'he'll be in control' until the Vice President returned.
  • Oh man, Haig. Haig, Haig, Haig, Haiiiiiiiiiiiiig. Never even knew about this guy till now, but I think we're looking at a recurring character in Black Ops: Cold War. There is NO way Treyarch is glossing over this guy.
  • For starters: Haig was a Lieutenant Colonel in charge of the 1st Infantry Battalion in Vietnam, and won a Distinguished Service Cross for beating a larger Vietcong force in Ap Gu, 1967, right outside Saigon. He faced around 900 Vietcong soldiers, and under his command he took down 609, with only 17 U.S. casualties. At one point, he went on a helicopter to survey the field, flying up close until he was shot down. After the crash, he fought his way out, and led his battalion to victory under enemy fire.
  • He was the White House Chief of Staff during Nixon's term, and ran things while Nixon was occupied with Watergate (he was pretty much acting president). Some say he was the one who pushed Nixon into firing staff, which caused an outcry that made a bigger push for his impeachment. Haig was the one who encouraged Nixon to resign, and he might've ensured Nixon's pardoning by Gerald Ford after Ford's presidency. This was 1972.
  • Haig became supreme allied commander of NATO in 1974. During his drive to the NATO headquarters in Brussels, a bomb exploded under the bridge he was crossing. He barely escaped, though several of his bodyguards were hurt. Later, it turned out the attack was by the Red Army Faction. This was 1979.
  • The same year, Haig retired from the military, and became president and director for the United Technologies Corporation, which made aerospace engines and parts, and a bunch of other tech. Then in 1981 (seeing a pattern here?) he became Secretary of State for Ronald Reagan.
  • Haig was known to be incredibly brash and would make frequent outbursts. He was a fierce fighter and general, but as a political aide, he was incompetent and was disliked by many people in the White House staff. People gave him the nickname of 'Al Haig', and noted his authoritarian, narcissistic personality. Also, he had a weird way of speaking (nicknamed 'Haigisms') where he'd keep repeating the same words in a pompous tone. Sound familiar?
  • I'll shut up now. Treyarch worked hard on this game, and I do want to be surprised by the story campaign, so lets settle on this: you're going to meet Alexander Haig in Black Ops: Cold War. And oh my god, I wonder how much Treyarch will ham this guy up.
• Giraffes: We got two giraffes in a zoo, with one of them a baby. This might tie in with the clips about youth and the young. A hint to a child-parent relationship in this game’s story, like the Mason family in Black Ops 2? Or a division between the old and young? Note that the younger giraffe is straying away from the older giraffe at one point.
• Strikes: There are WAY too many clips about strikes to be a coincidence. We’ve got everything from an air controllers strike to a baseball strike, and a strike in Poland. For the news report for air controller strike, there’s emphasis on the words ‘havoc’ and confusion’. More on this later (along with the Giraffes); we have one clip that’ll explain all of this.
  • We have a clip of Reagan talking about the strikes, saying that all the striking air traffic controllers were in violation of the law, and they'll be fired if they don't stop the strike. But then, there’s a later clip of Reagan criticizing Russia for suppressing workers strikes in Poland. Right...
• Air Raid on Iraqi Nuclear facility: On June 7th, Israel launched an air raid on an Iraqi nuclear reactor being constructed outside Baghdad. The clip reports Reagan suspending delivery of more fighter jets to Israel in response. More stuff linking with nuclear power?
  • I don't think Israel has been mentioned in any CoD games at all. This could be a first? It may just be a slight reference.
• Princess Diana’s marriage: Princess Diana was infamously killed during a car crash while avoiding paparazzi. Does this link with all the car-safety clips in Tape 5? Maybe we’ll have an in-game assassination involving a car crash after all. I don't think we'll see Princess Diana's crash, maybe a mild reference......maybe.
• MTV: MTV came out in August, 1981. We've got heavy glitching during a news report on MTV, which came out on August 1st. There's talk of mood and emotion, making people ‘feel a certain way' rather than giving them with any knowledge.
  • Obviously we're getting MKUltra links here. Whatever mind control is in this game, part of it will come from television broadcasts. It'd link to the other suspicious commercials we've had in the other tapes.
• Sandra Day O'Connor : Sandra Connor O'Day was the first supreme court judge in U.S. history, serving from 1981 until her 2006 retirement. Though she was conservative, she sought compromise in many of her cases. She was fair with cases relating to race, and even protected abortion rights. Surprising, since she was also picked by Ronald Reagan.
  • Maybe this is a reference to this Cold War era being more liberal in some ways? Or it could be another hint to a female character in this game. Maybe we'll even meet her.
• Rubix cube: We have someone solving a Rubix Cube, with lots of cuts and close ups. This could be a sly metaphor for the ciphers, and how much work the CoD community is doing. OR it could be a metaphor for the intricate puzzle our characters are solving in this game.
• Reagan Speech: At 11:52, we have Reagan's speech to the National Press Club on arms reduction, from November 18th (our release date? Here's hoping). He talks about NATO's response to the Soviets being responsible and restrained. There is some heavy glitching throughout this entire speech; I half-expected Reagan to get cut up like SCP-1981.
  • Some glitches come up when he talks of NATO's restrained response. Screen blacks out completely when he talks about the Soviets threatening the 'nuclear balance'. Will part of the game's endgame crisis be over this arms standoff?
  • Glitchiest part was when he's saying this line: "War depends on the perceived ability of our forces to perform effectively. The more effective our forces are, the less likely it is that we'll have to use them.". This could imply a Soviet attempt to cripple the U.S. military in-game.
  • The last clip about Reagan had him encouraging Russia to disarm its nuclear weapons, and make a giant leap for mankind like the men on the moon. More references to the moon landings, like so many other clips in these VHS tapes. The moon's going to be an extremely important plot point, along with the Space Shuttle.
• Soviet Spies/Defectors: We’ve got several interviews with soviet spies and double agents, including Adrich Ames, the dickbag who sold American agents out to the Soviets. We also have mention of Soviet sleeper cells, and explanations on how they infiltrated the United States.
  • Sleeper cells were featured in Black Ops 1, though they're only said to be deploying the Nova 6 weapons in the United States. We might have to fight them in this game.
  • Maybe it's also hinting we'll have a defector from the Soviet side helping us. Maybe he turns out to be a double/triple agent? It'll fit with this kind of story.
  • Glitches during this bit. Ames mentions himself being among 'other illegals' (not sure about the meaning of this word. Illegal immigrants?), and that it's the only way the Soviet Union could get in the military intelligence. "Because all their open means would be cut off."
  • I do know about the mention of Perseus in the teaser trailer. I might cover more of him in another thread.
• Trivia Pursuit: A group of people playing Trivia Pursuit: Towards the end of the clip, there's a glitch, sudden freeze on the last frame, then cut.
  • Maybe this is Treyarch's way of saying the ARG is over? Or it could be a metaphor for the whole CoD community searching over the ciphers.
  • Someone in another thread said it might be Treyarch telling us we're just chasing after trivia, and we've been missing something big this whole time.
• Muhammad Ali: Muhammad Ali had his final match in 1981 (Drama in Bahama) where he lost to Canadian Trevor Berbick. Afterwards, he decided to end his boxing career
  • Ali had stopped fighting in 1980 after his match with Larry Holmes, when he lost with crippling injuries (which might've sped up his Parkinsons). Because of this, he was unable to get a boxing license in the States, and had to go fight in the Bahamas. Less than 7500 people watched the match, and only one TV broadcaster bothered to bid for airing rights. It was an ugly final match to go out on, especially as Ali's opponent wasn't that powerful to begin with.
  • Also, the fight's promoter was James Cornelius, a former felon and member of the Nation of Islam, who had goons beating up boxing promotor Don King over this fight (money issues).
  • An American champ quitting his career after a heavy beating. Signalling some plot point in the game? Maybe with a character giving up after some long-fought failure. Or a representation of either the U.S. or Soviets, giving up the Cold War?
  • It could relate to the clips about racial issues in these tapes. Assuming my guesses about a black main character in-game are right, maybe this ties with him? Is this a hint to his fate in the story?
  • A quote from Ali after the match: "The money ain't important. I did this for me. I did it for the people who are too old or too whupped or too tired."
• Christmas broadcast of Reagan. Reagan's broadcast on December 23rd, during the Soilidarity unrest in Poland. He starts by talking about the long history of the white house and all it’s gone through (as we've seen through all the tapes). He then starts criticizing the imposing of Martial Law over Poland, as enforced by the Soviets.
  • Glitch when Reagan talks about the right to strike and protest in Poland being violated (yep, what a hypocrite).
  • Another glitch when he mentions the Soviet Union and Afghanistan invasion. Are we getting Afghanistan in-game after all? Or something else? Maybe this is Treyarch pointing out a similarity between the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and America's invasion?
  • There's a subtle glitching through Reagan's entire last line, and an abrupt cut off in : "I want emphatically to state tonight that if the outrages in Poland do not cease, we cannot and will not conduct ``business as usual'' with the perpetrators and those who aid and abet them. Make no mistake, their crime will cost them dearly in their future dealings with America and free peoples everywhere. I do not make this statement lightly or without serious reflection. We have been measured and deliberate in our reaction to the tragic events in Poland. We have not acted in haste, and the steps I will outline tonight and others we may take in the days ahead are firm, just-". Is this hinting that Reagan will do some
  • We've got comparisons between the Soviets clamp-down on protestors and unions, and the unrest in the United States. Maybe we're being signaled that martial law will be imposed on America too? By who, Reagan? Or someone else?
• Walter Cronkite Final Broadcast: CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite's last broadcast on March, the same month as Reagan's shooting. Pretty much a signal that this is the last tape.

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Finally, let’s get into one clip I skipped. One that's tied directly with our teaser trailer:
Yuri Bezmenov, our Soviet spy boy. Bezmenov was a Russian spy who was planted in India, until he found he disliked the Soviet’s suppression of intellectuals, and defected. He appears in Tape #6 at 15:40, during the series of clips of other Russian defectors and double-agents. His words speak for itself:

“The highest art of warfare is not to fight at all. But to subvert anything of value in your enemy’s country. Be it moral traditions, religions, respect towards authority and leaders, cultural traditions, anything. Put white against black, old against young, wealth against poor, doesn’t matter. As long as it disturbs society, as long as it cuts the moral fiber of the nation, it’s good.’

This is the context for so many of the clips. The strikes, the racial conflict, the protests, young people and economic problems. Maybe not ALL of them are directly caused by Soviets, but they must've nudged something to make them happen.
Coupled with other info in the trailer, I think our game's conflict is obvious: We have a Russian plot to destabilize the United States and its allies. The Russian agents are doing it through assassinations, sabotage, sleeper cells, and quite possibly mind control. We might even have American collaborators to allow this to happen.
Knowing Treyarch's games, this plot's going to be capped off with something explosive; something that could allow for a climatic battle with our characters. Black Ops 1 had the impending launch of Nova 6, Black Ops 2 had Raul Menendez taking over the drones, and Black Ops 3 had Corvus trying to spread a digital-mental computer virus.
Expect Russia attempting a knockout strike on America, and our characters trying to stop it.
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Now, u/ParagonFury made a good thread about Yuri Beznemov. He has some legitimate criticism about Beznemov and his appearance in the trailer (mostly about how Beznemov isn’t as knowledgable as people make him out to be). But I want to highlight one statement:

The things Beznemov talks about and suggests the Soviets do to the US don't work in a country where people like Romney and Trump exist in the same party, or where someone like AOC and Biden can peacefully co-exist in the same party. The US is simply too massive, too diverse for that kind of strategy to work - you can sow chaos by following some basic psychology tricks, sure. But you'd need willing accomplices, AND another method of attack if you actually wanted to destroy a country like the United States.

I agree. You’ll need more than a few Soviet agents in order to do the stuff that Beznemov described. There’s a chance Treyarch will just handwave this for the sake of an exciting action thriller, but I think they’ll actually explain all these points.
The key words here are accomplices, and a method of attack.
1. MKUltra
This is the big one. In Tape 4, we’ve got a LOT of clips about the CIA’s mind control program, and in other tapes we’ve got a focus on emotional manipulation in the media, aggressive impulses, and mob behavior.
I’m certain we’re getting mind-control in this game. After all, it can make people follow orders en-mass (willing accomplices), and it’s a powerful weapon against any state (a method of attack). It also falls in line with Beznemov’s quote in the VHS tape: the highest art of warfare is to not fight at all. Why fight the enemy when you can just control them?
Now, this could just be a red herring. Maybe the CIA did try to experiment in mind control, but the experiments never panned out. But why the emphasis on a Truth Drug? Why the other mentions of Soviets trying to manipulate what Americans are saying, or their actions?
And this is a Black Ops game. We’ve had brainwashing in BO1, drone armies and future tech in BO2, and A.I.s stealing people’s bodies in BO3. Would it be that out of place to put in more mind control?
I guess it depends on how grounded in reality this game is. Treyarch might pull a Modern Warfare, with a more realistic game featuring less implausible tech or events. But will they really tone things down?
2. American Collaborators
Exactly what it says.
if Russia has a hand in mind control (maybe through co-opting MKUltra), I doubt they’ll rely on only mind-controlled Americans. There’s plenty of Americans in the Cold War who willingly helped Russia, like double agent Adrich Ames (who appeared in this tape).
We won’t just face Russians. We’ll be facing willing American collaborators, working with Soviets to create a hardline U.S. government, or just overthrow it altogether. It’ll be standard coup stuff, with either army battalions being co-opted, or we have armed rebels in the middle of cities (like the L.A. level in Black Ops 2.). Or it could be agents infiltrating government institutions, taking things over in silence.
And remember: Call of Duty is a game built on shooting waves of enemies coming at you. If we’re getting combat levels in America, it’ll be a little ridiculous to have a whole army of Soviets in the middle of the United States. If Treyarch wants the game to be more grounded (and seems like they’re doing that), they might have some Americans working with the Soviets.
Though I can think of ways they’d go around this. They could do raids like Modern Warfare 2019, where you have less Russians opposing you, but the gunplay is more tense and dramatic. It could add a stealth element that'll help the game’s covert tone.
…or they could just not care, like how MW3 has an army of terrorists setting up shop in London, or Black Ops 1 having a whole battalion of KGB guys in Hong Kong (without any political consequences).
I’m betting Treyarch’s will find a compromise. It’ll be an interesting change of pace, as the Russian enemies in CoD are getting a little stale. Not that Russia wasn’t a totalitarian government at the time (and now), but it'll spice things up.
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That's all for now. I'll be making one more thread summarizing the possible contents of the game, but it's been a blast. Some people liked the ciphers, but this was the highlight of the teaser for me. Half the time, I felt like I'm uncovering an actual conspiracy, like I'm just a step away from morphing into Mailroom-Conspiracy-Charlie from It's Always Sunny. I think that's the excitement Treyarch meant to spark with this whole teaser campaign.
Thanks for all the support! I'm happy people were so interested in my analysis of these tapes. Also, thanks to u/Sageburner712 for his own threads, he put up some interesting details I missed. Look out for at least one more thread!
Any thoughts and speculation of your own? Let me know in the comments!
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(Also, thank you to Activision and Treyarch for the message! I hope this game turns out amazing; I'm definitely getting it when it comes out.
Also, if you're reading this: please make the game less than a bazillion Gigabytes. I'm saving disk space for Cyberpunk 2077, the only other game I can uninstall is Modern Warfare 2019, and I don't want Infinity Ward devs haunting me in my sleep. )