Nanowrimo day 6: Anachronominion part three: outline sections six and seven, day 1

We need to run, Cloud said. Her forehead burst into a hot crimson blush, her hand going dead in Moone's. Her body hitting the floor.

The Pontifex was there, by his side. Run, he yelled, though Moone didn't hear it. Bursting through the [french doors,] into the bright outdoor light. They were both running. Ducking into a shrub, crawling through the mud of the underbrush. The agents stationed around outside searching for them, confused, unable to detect their auras. One of them hearing something, approaching their location, right on top of them...

Moone woke up, cold sweat clinging his sleeping bag to his skin. He looked up at the prostrate form of the Pontifex, lying across from him in his own sleeping bag, still breathing gently, eyeballs fluttering underneath their lids. Gingerly, Moone crawled up out over him, exited the tent, popping his head up into the pre-dawn light, and took a deep gulp of air. It seemed almost peaceful out here. The sky was awash in a deep blue, which soon became touched with violet and yellow as the sun prepared to crest the horizon.

It had been two weeks. Two weeks on the run, and Moone was by now plagued with new nightmares. Back to that day, over and over. Nearly being shot, nearly being blown up. The Secretary, lying in a puddle of his own blood. Coming face-to-face with Gef, the perpetrator of it all, whom once Moone had felt a friend. But especially the part at the end, letting Cloud down, her blood the price for his mistake.

Moone's dreams were a force, he'd always felt. As real as the waking world. A thousand different Clouds, all real, all living the same life and dying the same death, night after night. Moone's nightmares of inadequacies were quelched, now, it seemed. Or at least, they'd taken a different form.

Pontifex's aura wrapped around Moone like a warm blanket. He felt almost invincible with it around him. And though it kept Moone's bane from triggering, alerting any harmful supernatural creatures nearby to Moone's existence, he had to live constantly with the Pontifex himself, who always knew where Moone was, and who still could feel the call to injure Moone, strong as the enhanced bane, regardless of the shape of the boon around it.

Moone had mixed feelings about the Pontifex's company. [Establish during contract scene a reason for them to stick together- until Moone's name is cleared.] He still could, of course, escape Pontifex's power if the man really did decide to strike. But that wasn't the thing that was really bothering him...

His thoughts were interrupted by the rustling sound of the tent unzipping behind him, Pontifex throwing open the flap and stepping up into the morning breeze. "So," the Pontifex's familiar voice came, as Moone turned around. "It's today, isn't it?"

Moone nodded. "It's today."

Two weeks of hiking had taken the pair of them from the northeastern edge of Virginia to the western edge of West Virginia, to a small town on the Ohio boarder called Point Pleasant. They were seeking the aid of an old acquaintance of Moone's, and the cell of which he was part.

Moone hadn't been born into this world, but he was still a part of it. Most, but as far as Moone knew not all, of the cryptozoological urban legends occurring in North America in the past fifty years was actually the work of a collective of undercover agents provocateur, in the field to [sow confusion,] this particular cell being a group with whom Moone had worked previously.

They were here to see an old friend, known to Moone as Himsters Keepses.

But the locals knew him as the Mothman.

Moone had played the role of a cutout, [a courier intermediary between an agent and the outside world,] signaling Keepses that a [supply dump] was waiting for him at Keepses's regular drop point. The drop was in one hour.
Moone exhaled shakily. He didn't want to run for the rest of his life. [Moone's motivations for seeking aid from the Mothman? he's on the run, and needs help, but being on the run he's reevaluating his attitudes or something.] The nightmares of a [few?] month[s] ago, they had awakened in him a realization, that although reality may have been unpredictable, that although the world may have been dangerous and things would go wrong, [they'd still be safe;] things would go wrong and [that would be okay.] The new nightmares, they cemented [things;] were brought around not from the end of the old dreams but the failure itself. Failing Cloud, like that. In failing Cloud he'd failed himself-- would that have been possible?

Maybe Tetragrammaton was, like he'd pondered sometimes, just another trap that he could escape from. Maybe his [expulsion] from Tetragrammaton was brought about, possibly because he'd used the Pontifex's aura; in enhancing his boon, in such a way that he could escape from any supernatural scenario, the used of the aura had marked his escape from Tetragrammaton, but the method by which it was done inadvertently wound up as Cloud's death. Now that Moone was free, would going back to them like he was trying to do make Cloud's death in vain?
Or maybe Tetragrammaton was just another trap he could escape from, but he would need to stop outrunning them in order to do so. Rejoin, and retire, not escape by going on the lam from the government. Or else he really would be running the rest of his life.

Catch up or outrun. Else be turned to stone, Moone mused. Laelaps and the Cadmean Vixen. Which of those was he? Perhaps he had always been both.

He finalized his plan with the Pontifex. Now that Moone had the attention of Keepses, he'd infiltrate into the group by claiming the necessity to [shake up the way that] Keepses received this particular [contact,] needing to perform a live drop instead of a dead one. This is where the Pontifex would come in, as the role of the courier. Probably claiming that the recent events at the Pentagram had compromised the [communications] channel.

This was the shakiest part of the plan; the project that Mothman belonged to was actually an operation of the occult government's domestic-intelligence bureau, Project Overneath; what went on with Tetragrammaton was another jurisdiction entirely; [would something going on at CIA headquarters fall under the FBI's jurisdiction, if the headquarters is domestic?] Would this story sell? If Keepses decided to bolt, he'd at least be out in the open, where Moone, whom Keepses would recognize, could approach him. He would need to come out with the truth, then, and there was no guarantee that Keepses would believe it- would he have already heard of Moone's alleged [villainy]?

If Keepses bought the line, then Moone was in, and he'd have a powerful ally on his side. But if he didn't, then Moone was truly out in the cold.

Pontifex knew the mission, and agreed with the assessment that going along with it served his own best self-interests in the end- with Moone free, the Pontifex would be free. Moone was the Pontifex’s handling officer, but he didn’t technically have the authorization in himself to let Pontifex free- he’d be in trouble again, rightfully this time, possibly court martialed. It was an action committed in the course of escaping for his life in the face of wrongful [accusal,] and hopefully that would allow him some [legal] leeway, but still Moone suspected that even if Pontifex weren’t technically directly attacking him he’d get his vengeance in the end, through the contract itself.

Half an hour later, the Pontifex sat on a bench under a copse of trees at Tu-Endie-Wei State Park, wearing the [signaled item of clothing] as had been signaled in the previous [bout of communication.] Moone was positioned [distance] away, at an information plaque, close enough to observe and intercede if necessary but far enough away to remain inconspicuous. There had been a battle here, the plaque said, more than 200 years ago now, between white settlers and Indians; some said it even technically marked the first battle of what became the American Revolution, [make that tie in symbolically somehow or something?!] Things had a tendency to spiral out of control like that.

A man approached out of the long shadows of [place.] It was still early morning, and the air was still relatively cool, even here in the mid-summer. The man [describe man.] Moone recognized him from the way he walked. Himsters.

The conversation, as relayed to Moone later, went as follows:

Keepses approached, gave sign; Pontifex received sign and gave counter-sign. Pontifex, trying to get Keepses to bring them back to their cell, began talking about the attack at the Pentagram, and tried to bluff his way how that would relate to Overneath jurisdiction, running out the possible scenarios that he had gone over with Moone, but Keepses just said, oh sure, like it would be a natural thing for the jurisdiction to cross over like that.

Pontifex was confused by this, and Keepses was confused by his confusion. Pontifex tried to play it off, mentioning Moone also in an attempt to see if Moone would be safe with Keepses’s cell. At this point, also, he began signaling Moone with his body language (crossing his legs, right over left) to be on the ready to take action. Keepses, talking about Moone, said that he wasn’t sure if he believed it; Pontifex said good, and signaled Moone to approach.

Which is when he did.

Keepses looked justifiably surprised to see Moone. “What’s going on?” Keepses asked.

“You tell us,” the Pontifex said, briefly explaining to Moone that the scenarios they’d created for describing jurisdictional [stuff] were [needless,] and that the Pontifex had acted like it was a perfectly natural thing for an occurrence affecting one agency would affect tradecraft in another.

Keepses looked to the right, then to the left. “We’re going to need to talk someplace more private,” said he, and guided them to the cell’s safe house with him.