Safe-Zone

"Do you trust me?"

I stared at Third's outstretched hand. Then up at his face. Then back down at his hand. Then to his face again. "No."

He just sort of frowned and stood there and waited. And waited. And waited. Until finally I took his damned hand, because fuck it. I immediately regretted this decision, as no sooner had I taken his hand were we no longer in the parking lot... only we were in the parking lot... only we weren't in the parking lot. This does not make a lick of sense does it? But I don't think it's supposed to, so lets just roll with it.

The best way to describe it I guess, from what I remember, is that there was this flash of black... which is a weird color for things to flash... then everything just sort of turned monochrome. Or monotone? Whatever, that word I'm trying to mean for black, white, and gray. Lots and lots of shades of gray. And there were suddenly trees where there hadn't been trees before. And their leaves were a suspicious shade of Not Green. I remember getting out a "Son of a bitch" right before a wave of nausea hit me and I felt myself being yanked in a direction I didn't know existed and then everything was normal again only we were in a completely different location...

...and I was on the floor having a coughing fit and puking my guts out. I don't remember actually hearing Third talking at the time, but it's on the tape recorder around this point so, "Wow... really? I thought given your history you'd have had no issues with traversing The Path. If I'd known you were going to react this poorly I'd have dropped us off in the restroom." Later, "At least we aren't on the carpet..."

Since this is kind of an awkward point and I'm just going to skip ahead to the point where I recovered anyways, I just wanted to point this bit out... From what I remember of the experience, we couldn't have been on The Path for more than a couple of seconds. A minute at longest. But when I get to this part in the playback, there's this loud static 'noise' followed by dead air for something along the lines of three and a half hours before the audio comes back in with another burst of noise right before the sound of my coughing fit kicks in. That... kind of bothers me. But maybe that's just how that place works? I dunno... trying not to think about it. My stomach gets upset at me just thinking about it.


Sometime after "I'll clean it up later" and Third handing over the tape recorder that he'd apparently had in his pocket this whole time, I was being given a lackluster tour of our present location. Third is basically occupying the entire upper floor of... I'm still not really sure what. I guess some sort of office building? I haven't been "allowed" to go downstairs, so I don't know. I'm basically being "confined" to this top floor until Third is satisfied that I believe him or something.

See, what he's basically telling me, because I'm not typing the fucking ten minute monologue he hammered out to me about this shit, is that this location is essentially "off the radar" as far as... pretty much Anything is concerned. It's one of his so called "Safe-Zones" that he's erected as a base of operations. Essentially, the location is under a localized perception filter that blocks it from the tall man's vision, and presumably from everyone else's as well. Same basic tech as employed by Eden Facilities from what I gather(there was some insinuation that may even be where he got the tech from, but he wasn't exactly clear on that).

Now, this doesn't mean the Construct can't get inside the place. It's just really unlikely that he'd show up here, given that he doesn't know the place is here and all. According to Third, this is basically as safe as things can get in terms of Anti-Fear security. "It's also the same type of protection field that kept you safe back in that hotel room I was keeping you in last month. I have locations of this nature set up all over the world, so I've always got a backup to retreat to in the event something ever goes wrong. I haven't had to fall back on that fail-safe just yet, but I feel it's best to be prepared for anything."

Shortly after the tour, he informed me that he still had other matters to attend to and that he's appreciate me staying put while he managed his affairs. From there I was left in this room with the couch and the tv, among other things... which I'd have complained about but, again, air conditioning. He also didn't lock me in the room... which surprised me. Though I did find a few other locked locations while I was wandering around in his absence at some point when I got bored. Planned to ask him about that later when he showed back up. But this is long enough as it is, so I'll continue this business later, kay? Hopefully things will continue to go along smoothly for a while...