Rabbit had to bail just as we were finishing up character creation, so it was just George and Mack for this session.

Ever since Buddy melted away into nothing, Mack’s been talking to the people who used to know him, and finding out that they don’t remember him anymore.  Everyone except one of Buddy’s (many) ex-bosses, a guy named George who manages the Old Navy outlet in a local mall.  He remembers Buddy and even has some pictures of him from the last office birthday party, but when Mack shows up to see them, Buddy isn’t in them.  There’s a weird grey blur where he should be, and the girl he had his arm around has forgotten him entirely.  Within the week, even that grey blur is gone from the pictures, but not before briefly turning into Buddy’s screaming, tortured face right before Mack’s horrified eyes.  Worst of all, pictures of Mack are starting to look a little…grey…

Desperate to maintain contact with the only other person who seems immune to the memory loss that’s going around, Mack calls up George.  George doesn’t pick up, but suddenly some odd operator is offering to make the connection regardless.  All it’s going to cost is a summer day. 

George isn’t really in a position to talk.  Taken by a sudden upsurge of loathing for his workplace, and drawn on by a series of green lights that seem to be lighting his way somewhere, opening a path for him, he’s driven right by the mall and off into somewhere new and strange.  As much as he was yearning for something new in his life, being boxed in by bizarre policemen at the corner of Taylor and Screaming St. isn’t really what he wanted.  His cell phone is accepting calls without his input, he’s crashed his car into a cop car and now this alley is trying to eat him.  He makes it to the rooftops, and shouts at Mack, the only familiar thing he has left, help.

The helpful operator is back on the line, upselling their new product: transdimensional portals, for the low, low price of the fourth year of your life.  I mean, you don’t really remember much from that year anyway, right?  Not even at the age of reason yet, nothing important. You won’t even miss it. Mack balks, and helpful operator lady offers the option of copay.  George isn’t interested in haggling.  Do it! The transdimensional portal turns out to be Mack’s phone, which eats him, and then coughs him back out again onto George’s rooftop, both of them minus half of the year they were four.   After a moment, Mack’s phone coughs out a receipt, too.

Together at last, they try to take stock.  Doorways and windows dot every surface.  The whole place is laced with walkways and bridges from roof to roof in a seeming unbroken warren of paths and connections.  Oh, and there are hundreds of crashed planes, their shattered fuselages protruding from the roofs and walls around them. 

Plus, they’re being watched.  A kid in a NYG cap is peering around the stairwell of their roof.  He comes out when hailed, cocky and bratty and about ten.  According to him, most of the doors and windows up on the roofs lead to places that they don’t want to be, but he can take them to a door that leads back to the Slumbering City if they want.  In trade.  Do they have any knives?  Baseball bats, maybe?  Mack gives up his belt, which the kid seems to really like.  And really know how to handle, seeing as his testing blow against the brickwork of the stairwell cracks the bricks.  George is dubious but Mack suddenly doesn’t want to piss off the kid, so they follow him as he starts off across the rooftops. 

But the sky is going dark, even though it’s only midafternoon.  The kid looks up, curses someone named Mr. Time, and starts booking it for their target, a door standing partway open on the next rooftop over.  The stars are sliding by overhead like a time elapse film, and just as the kid reaches it, the door claps shut with a bang.  All the doors do, as the bell from some monstrous clock tower begins to toll the hour.  It’s 13 o clock, and they’re stuck in the Mad City.