After my several months' long marathon of getting current, I needed a little break. I'm back now. I missed two issues in my last post, so I'm re-starting where we left off last time.
Dark Beach #2: I had to re-read last issue to realize that the crime-scene photo that Gordo took and kept revealed that Ket wasn't alone in her room when the assassin killed her. It had something to do with her headset's angle, but I couldn't tell you why. The Ghost Choker drug that Gordo has just taken also clearly helped him with this epiphany.
Armed with this information, Gordo returns to the Mayflower to ask Lily about who this second person in the room could've been. She confesses that it was her sister, Eve. Eve and Ket were apparently two members of the "Sun Freaks," a group of five people who exchanged conspiracy theories about the old Sun. Lily tells Gordo that it seems clear that someone is killing the Sun Freaks: Roman disappeared, and Schultz allegedly killed himself. Lily sends Gordo to the fifth member, a Sun Club owner named Razi, for more leads.
Later, at the construction site where he works, Gordo saves a camera before it fell off the side of the building. It belonged to a woman in the lab coat and, in the process, Gordo swipes her badge. The woman's boss thanks Gordo. Seeing Gordo reading a history of New Reykjavik, the man informs him that his multiple-great grandfather, Dr. Robert F. Stanley, helped build the city. He promises to request Gordo's foreman log Gordo's action in his file, which will get him access to better jobs. Later, Gordo uses the woman's "Project Daydream" badge to enter an elevator and discovers some sort of underground reactor. In bed that night, Gordo dreams about the "United States Corps of Engineers" sending rockets into the old Sun.
The next day, Gordo visits Razi at his club. Razi tells Gordo that he started researching the old Sun because he wanted his Sun Club to feel as realistic as possible. Along the way, he realized that the science didn't match the New Reykjavik Corps of Engineers' (NRCE) authorized story. One night at the Mayflower, Razi met Schultz, who worked for the NRCE, who introduced him to his friends, the rest of the Sun Freaks. (Lily had cast aspersions on Razi for being much older than the rest of the Sun Freaks, though it's clear that he was legitimately interested in their theories.)
When Gordo asks what Razi thinks happened to the old Sun, Razi notes that 200,000 people currently live in New Reykjavik. He observes that they're there because the geothermal power under Iceland made it the only inhabitable place on Earth. He and the Sun Freaks hypothesize that someone on old Earth did something to destabilize the Sun and scrambled to send Earth into the outer solar system to save whoever they could (contrary to the authorized story, where the government meticulously planned the evacuation). If true, billions of people likely died. Gordo mentions the possibility that they sent rockets into the old Sun (per his dream), and Razi doesn't dismiss it as an explanation.
Razi begins to tell Gordo that the reactor he saw (and whose existence Schulz revealed to Razi) is the government's real secret when the assassin arrives to kill him. Razi has Gordo hide in the closet. As such, when Razi's assistant enters later, she finds Gordo standing over Razi's dead body, assuming he killed him.
In the postlude, we see a group of scientists sixteen years earlier using the reactor to absorb energy from the Sun. Dubbed "Project Daydream" (sound familiar?), their success leads one of the scientists suggesting that Dr. Stanley dedicate more resources to the team as the lead scientist tells one of the observing scientists that "we" saw the reactor in a dream.
At this stage, I think the biggest unaddressed mystery is the time difference. If Stanley's group destabilized the sun 16 years ago, why doesn't anyone remember? It doesn't take that long to travel to the outer solar system. Vamos a ver.
Past the Last Mountain #2: In terms of the plot, this issue mainly focuses on the threats building for Kate, Simon, and Willa as they continue their flight to Dragon Lake.
In terms of the characters, though, we begin to see some significant shifts. The dragons and fauns are clearly on the pacifist side of the magical creatures' alignments. For example, Willa mourns the humans she killed when she took out the helicopter. But, Kate is all the more appalled, given that she sees even the obviously pacifist dragons as "barbaric."
Her position begins to change when a farmer provides the company a respite. He reveals to Kate that his best friend before the war was a Faun and asks about her tribe. She informs him that the humans broke up the tribes in the preserve. The man tells her that he and his friend were like brothers but were separated when the man's parents died; he was sent to live with an aunt and uncle he barely knew, and the Faun was sent to the preserve. His friend escaped the preserve after unrelenting torment from the other Faun - who told him that he smelled like human - and the man's uncle shot him on sight when he arrived to reunite with the man. The man encourages Kate to kill anyone who tries to stop them. As they depart the farm, Kate tells Willa that she understands now that Willa did what she had to do and that they're her tribe now.
Meanwhile, after speaking to the helicopter's sole survivor, Neil realizes that he has no choice but to unleash the Goblins. Abby's brother Gary confirms to Trevor that the company is heading to Dragon Lake, which, based on Trevor's comment to Neil, might not be the myth that everyone thinks that it is...
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