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[[File:Radvansky Center 2.png|thumb|left|''MIMI: I just get this awful feeling whenever I see them. Like I knew them once, but not anymore ... like when they make up a dead person to look like an old photograph of themselves. <br />JENN: Sort of familiar, sort of strange.'']]The next video shows a cat, [[Coconut]], who Jenn mentions disappeared from the center one day without a trace. Shannon walks over, underneath an archway, to feed Coconut. The video cuts to yet another room where Shannon listens to a tape of doors opening and closing, with a questionnaire asking her to recall her thoughts before and after listening to the recording. Mimi and Jenn switch to viewing an extended monitoring tape showing Will sitting in a waiting room; Mimi comments that he looks familiar, likely having worked at the university when she was an undergradundergraduate student. Mimi recounts her time in college and her distressing final year in which her boyfriend, [[Charlie]], died suddenly by falling off a roof while back home visiting his [[:Category:Lysette's family|family]].
<!-- SHANNON[[File: I donBat sanctuary.png|thumb|right|''t think you ever forget anger like that. --><!-- CONWAY: I guess thatjust mean: all people need is enough to ''pretend'' we's what a memorial should dore home, huh? Help you hang on to your feelingsand we can make it anywhere. Otherwise, they fade away; that's just what time does. -->']]
<!-- [[File:Echo River Central Exchange.png|thumb|left|''FLORA: I'm a romantic. <br />SHANNON: Really? What does that mean to you? <br />FLORA: It means I like poems and rivers and mysteries. -->'']]The two , dog in tow, pull into the entrance to the Echo River Central Exchange. Shannon sees Flora who has come to retrieve her paper boat. She reveals she drew a picture of Ezra inside it, and that it's traveled 250,000 miles. On the other side of the river, Shannon talks with Dashiell who is repairing old phones at a reception desk. He tells her about its history as a train station, reclaimed by the Bureau for the phone company after a flood. He mentions he works on wiring for WEVP in the Crystal Room, an underground area of resonant, amplifying rock formations where the cable signal is located. He says he used to work with Weaver, who handled archives, but doesn't know where she ended up and that she isn't too popular around the station anymore. For more information, he directs her to the Silo mail stop, where other volunteers are located.
<!-- POPPY: Take care. Think of me when you dial {{Zero|zero}}!" -->Shannon meets with Poppy, the Exchange's switchboard operator, who thanks Shannon for the package. She clarifies that Dashiell is still allowed to work as a hobby, but doesn't technically work for the Exchange anymore; when the power company took over, they attempted to automate the work after buying up the phone lines and firiting firing the majority of the staff, leaving only [[Loretta]], [[Angie]], and her. After a few months, she was its sole remaining employee.
<!-- [[File:Sam & Ida's.png|thumb|left|''IDA: Yes, it's all about ''patience'' down here. Everything grows more slowly in the dark. -->'']]
<!-- SAM: Just passing through. Hey, aren't we all? -->Down below, Sam returns from a diving expedition with a small eel. He muses about having listened to the divers boast and attempt to one-up each other in telling grand fishing stories, and having made a mental map of routes which have now helped him catch fish for the restaurant for 15 years. He says, however, he is afraid he could die any day following a false story told by the divers for the sake of winning their competition. A he walks up the stairs, Ira brings out the food, and the group prepares to leave.[[File:This World Is Not My Home.png|thumb|right|''SAM: Just passing through. Hey, aren't we all?'']]
<!-- [[File:Clara performance.png|thumb|right|''JUNEBUG: When I met you — when we met, we were nothing, just these little gray shadows. And we grew, and filled in, and ... but we did all that together. -->'']]
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=== A gas station ===
[[File:Gas station.png|thumb|left|''AL: GLORYITISGOODTOBEAMONGFRIENDS!'']]Cate, Junebug, Johnny, and Ezra debark at the floating gas station, which changes its position along the Echo nightly. Cate talks with Junebug about the roaming storm upstairs and possible flooding and damages, but says she looks forward to the mushrooms that it'll bring, and she can search for them with Val. The gas station attendant tells Junebug he has crystals for sales, and recounts how he used to reside in Cleveland, Ohio, living off inheritance in hotels, [[File:Gas station.png|thumb|left|''AL: GLORYITISGOODTOBEAMONGFRIENDS!'']] until he ran out of money and took up his current job. A man named [[Norm]] enters and talks with Junebug, mistaking her for a woman named [[Loretta]] who he was planning to meet for a date. He mentions he may head down to the [[Rum Colony]] later, and asks for her advice on his online dating profile. Junebug browses the available food, drink, and crystals; in deciding to pour some coffee for herself into a styrofoam cup, she accidentally drops the pot. Meanwhile, Johnny talks to a man named [[Al]], who tells the story of how, looking for an ice floe, he became lost on the Echo without a lantern and almost starved to death. Preparing to eat his last apple, he noticed it was rotten, infested with a maggot which hatched just as he was about to take a bite. Thinking about the futility of the insect's life, he paused and, in that moment, its lower abdomen lit up. Using the lightning bug's glow, he found his way out of the complex river cave.
=== Sailing down the Echo ===
[[File:Radvansky Center.png|thumb|left|''MIMI: Weaver's video showed up again right before the flood. Actually, I think it might have been the last thing we ever broadcast.'']]
On the following video, Shannon stands in a room with multiple TVs where she watches a number of videos about doors and answers questions about them. Mimi and Jenn discuss what happened with Weaver – a few months after her departure, bizarre events started happening around the station that persisted for years, such as interference during regular broadcasts via a jamming signal that blacked out the feed. After a few moments, a video of Weaver staring at the camera would come on, accompanied by a sinister, awful -sounding hum and creepy captions in an unconventional font. The video was the last thing broadcast before the flood[[File:Radvansky Center 2.png|thumb|right|''MIMI: I just get this awful feeling whenever I see them. Like I knew them once, but not anymore ... like when they make up a dead person to look like an old photograph of themselves. <br />JENN: Sort of familiar, sort of strange.'']]
As instructed by another questionnaire, Shannon makes a phone call and talks with a man who reveals himself to be an orthopedic physical therapist; the two have a brief chat about getting to know someone based on the sound of their voice. Mimi suddenly recollects that she knew "Wise Will" from university, where he worked as a technician in the music department, frequently telling stories about the school's architecture and local history. As Shannon flips through a calendar, Mimi and Jenn change to a tape of the monitoring room in attempt to see who was working back at the time of the group's visit. The tape proves unhelpful in answering their question, but does answer another mystery – on the tape, Ezra walks into a room, greets Coconut, and promptly leaves; the cat follows him outside, taking her leave. The two switch to the final extended monitoring tape of the dock, where Conway is seen talking with three glowing skeletons. As Will, Shannon, and Ezra – now followed by Coconut – return to the dock, the skeletons disappear, and the group boards the dinghy to return to the boat.
{{anchor|Sailing down the Echo 6|The ''Mammoth'' sails on…}}
[[File:Forgetting Game.png|thumb|rightleft|''EZRA: Nine gray feathers, seven blue petals, three white doves, eight deep breaths, five slow hours.'']]
=== The Mucky Mammoth ===
:''Everybody thinks they're ''inside'', just because they can't see the sky — but it's a ''microclimate'' down here, and it surely does rain. […] In my life's work as the Echo River's premier anecdotalist, I've always found that a carefully excerpted moment is more powerful than any epic history.
[[File:A grove.png|thumb|right|''He felt like the world outside the woods had somehow slipped away while he was gone, and now there was nothing but the woods. He kept going.'']]
Will either {{anchor|The Mucky Mammoth 6|takes a nap}} or Cate and Ezra {{anchor|A grove|forage for mushrooms}}.
Cate and Ezra step onto a lush, floating island, where she teaches him about various kinds of mushrooms, and lets him taste a few. She jokes that the first rule of mushroom hunting is to ask her before eating anything, and the second is to have fun. At the sides of the grove, both forage for mushrooms separately and have their own introspective moments, with players choosing to advance two side-by-side texts simultaneously. Cate remembers how she got started with mushroom hunting, from hearing about alternative medicine while waiting outside a hospital, to encountering a book on it that mentioned mushrooms, collecting mushrooms on hikes, connecting with the the Lexington Mycological Society, and finally beginning to study the medicinal uses of fungi. Ezra remembers a childhood story of playing in the woods outside, alone except for the deer, instead of inside his cold house.
[[File:The Iron Pariah.png|thumb|left|''CATE: It's hard to know where ''anything'' down here really comes from.'']]
The two reconvene, identify found mushrooms, and discuss family. Cate tells Ezra left home when she was young and almost had a baby, and now helps other women with difficult pregnancies. After her mother passed, she bounced around jobs and shelters before ending up on the Echo, and now considers family to be those who come aboard her ship. Ezra tells Cate about his missing parents – his dad who used to sell windows and mom who worked at a bakery and bar – and about Julian, his brother. He discusses with Cate a large stone monument he discovered, along with graffitied rocks and cypress trees.
Shannon either {{anchor|The Mucky Mammoth 7|makes soup in the kitchen}} with Will or {{anchor|Echo River Central Exchange|sets out to deliver a package}} with Conway.
[[File:Mucky Mammoth kitchen.png|thumb|right|''WILL: This stew is for ''tomorrow''. It has to simmer all day! Some things are just better done slowly.'']]
=== The Mucky Mammoth ===
Cate thanks Shannon and Conway for making a delivery to the [[Echo River Central Exchange]] — or, as the power company has called it since they took over, "Consolidated Auxiliary Switch Number 30." She says they'll want to talk to [[Poppy]] about the parcel, reminds Shannon to meet Dashiell, and says that they'll rendezvous on the other side at Sam & Ida's for an early breakfast stop.
[[File:Memorial.png|thumb|left|''SHANNON: I don't think you ever forget anger like that. <br />CONWAY: I guess that's what a memorial should do, huh? Help you hang on to your feelings. Otherwise, they fade away; that's just what time does.'']]
To reach the Exchange, the two pass through a bat sanctuary. At its entrance is a shrine to miners who died in the flood of the [[Elkhorn Mine]], comprised of a a central pile of helmets spilled out into the water and large wooden beams with signs nailed on:
</div>
As they drift away, two skeletal figures pass by in a small boat and wave at Conway, who waves back with his skeletal arm. Shannon looks at him oddly. He tells her his leg and arm don't hurt anymore, and instead feels as if nothing's there. He says the distillery workers can help him take care of his medical bills for his leg, and help him get everything together on a plan, and consolidate it. Worried, Shannon tries to talk him out of it, but he says he has a feeling everything will work out. He suggests that Shannon take his truck, as the antique shop is closing and the distillery has its own trucks.
In the sanctuary, which also functions as an artificial hibernaculum, Shannon and Conway encounter a number of facts about bats, echolocation, diet and agriculture, and information about the history of [[wikipedia:White-nose syndrome|white-nose syndrome]]. In the darkness, they talk about Conway's family, Lysette's illness, and the friend that Shannon was speaking with on the phone when they first met.
[[File:Echo River Central Exchange 2.png|thumb|right|''POPPY: Take care. Think of me when you dial "{{Zero|zero}}!"'']]
Shannon turns her flashlight around to see three buzzing, skeletal figures sailing away in a boat. Conway's dog can choose to either follow or stay behind. Shannon returns to the dinghy alone.
=== Sailing down the Echo ===
On the way back to the tugboat, Shannon meets a number of nameless characters – a family of five traveling all night, a guitar player on a floating bicycle, a flower salesman on a raft, and a painter of shipwrecks. Eventually, she shuts the motor off and floats in silence.
=== Sam & Ida's ===
Shannon reconvenes with the Mammoth crew at Sam & Ida's, a floating, stilted restaurant on [[Lake Lethe]]. Cate, Will, and Junebug sit at a table deciding on their to-go order for Clara, who is back on the ship practicing for her concert. Shannon talks with Johnny and Ezra off to the side, who are playing a crane game, and tells them that Conway either left or was taken. She returns to the table to order food while Ezra plays for either a stuffed octopus, a bag of clam shells, a cowboy hat, or a pair of headphones.
Johnny and Ezra look at the restaurant's plastic food display and discuss Ezra's parents, and how he misses them. Shannon talks with Cate and Junebug about how Conway left his truck to her, and vows to complete his delivery. [[Ida]] appears and Shannon orders her a seafood dish – "something primordial." Ida tells Ezra the story of the [[wikipedia:shellac|shellac]]-covered dinner preserved on the table, how she and her husband [[Sam]] were inspired by two divers with bottomless appetites who ate there, which became a turning point in their career.
Shannon walks back to the boat as [[Emily, Ben, and Bob]] float by, playing "[[This World Is Not My Home]]."
=== A neighborhood ===
The tugboat arrives at a small houseboat neighborhood. From the deck of the ship, Clara plays a [[Music for Rivers|solo theremin piece]]. Ezra can choose to watch from shore or assist her by playing the sounds he recorded as part of the performance. Junebug and Johnny reminisce about a previous performance of Clara's at a flower shop where Cyrano opened for her. The two discuss Ezra, who seems directionless and lost, and Johnny brings up the possibility of having him join them. Junebug worries what this development could do to their relationship that they built together, from simple robots to unique individuals, but soon reconsiders, saying they would both appreciate his company, and considers teaching him to play the drum machine with them. As the memory of Clara's flower shop concert come to an end, so does her performance on the Echo, and the crew members return to the boat.
[[File:Silo.png|thumb|left|''JUNEBUG: Tired? Don't worry, lady. We're almost there.'']]
=== Sailing down the Echo ===
