List of Priorities

OK, me and Specter have been talking long-term priorities.

Priority 1: Killing the Slender Man.

This has not worked out for almost the past year. No progress made at all, and it's draining us dry - Money, supplies, personnel, faith in us from our superiors - everything. It's also impacting anyone who's been around the SMD long enough psychologically. The new guys aren't really getting the picture, but me and Specter keep finding it hard to sleep at night, and took to recording ourselves and reviewing the footage daily, just to make sure we catch anything important before things get too bad. Our best shot has to be the Hammer of Thor, but nobody's gotten close enough to actually hit him with it. So, fingers crossed.

Priority 2: Fixing this dimensional bleeding crap.

I'm not going to lie, this dimensional bleeding has everyone here rattled. No telling when things are going to get better or worse, but it seems like nothing's happened in a while. The science team has been working on it, but with the PATCH needing so much effort poured into it before, there wasn't much of an opportunity to really do anything on this front until recently. So far, no word, but Goggles (the head of the science team, you guys don't really hear about him much) has been getting the nerds back on track.

Priority 3: Figuring out what's up with these hacker posts, and the transcript and communication leaks.

You guys have repeatedly come to Specter in the past about blog posts on this blog, and on Specter's, obviously made by someone or something else that keeps hacking the blogs and posting transcripts that were supposed to be classified, up to the point of people apparently knowing Specter's real name, now. That's a problem and it needs fixing, so we need to find out how and why it's happening, then stop it.

Priority 4: Figuring out the identity of 'A Friend.'

Then there's the guy who hacked Specter's Blog ages ago and started asking nonsensical questions for a contest. We need to find out what was up with that guy, and see if he can't help us any further. Whoever it was, he seemed like he was on our side, and we can see the blog posts he put up. So far, that means he's being straight with us. We think, anyways. Apparently, he hasn't been active for a while, so there's no telling when and where he'll pop up again.

Priority 5: Killing Indoctrinated.

This part has worked out, but to a lesser extent than anticipated. It was bad enough to warrant direct attention from the Slender Man on at least one occasion (Or so we think, anyway), so, we must have been doing something right. Haven't engaged any Indoctrinated for a while, so that makes me think we need to really get back on the ball on that front. We did more damage when we were fighting Indoctrinated than whenever we started going after Twiggy directly. Besides, killing some more people will really raise morale around here. That's something.

Priority 6: Clearing up whether or not Father Paranoia is involved in any of this at all.

We honestly haven't been able to find any serious ties between the Wyoming Incident and the Slender Man at all. The Wyoming TV Hijacking not too far back (the one Dr. Zelphest helped inspect) was a definite sign something's up on that front, but nowadays we're not so sure. Eyes are peeled.

Priority 7: Figuring out what's going on with this attack by PTC Internal Affairs.

Specter keeps insisting it has to be someone else, but I honestly think that Internal Affairs is after us. The head of Internal Affairs is definitely a bit nuts, and has been known to make bad decisions. Like trying to kill PTC personnel for taking care of a problem that needed taking care of ASAP. So, another case of waiting for any response from the guys in charge at Central Command.

Priority 8: Ensuring the safety of the Reintegration Tablet.

Self-explanatory. Gotta watch out for the Tablet and Crowley. So far, so good.

Priority 9: Ensuring the safety of Dr. Cairo Zelphest.

Dr. Cairo Zelphest is still with us, but he's been keeping quiet on his Youtube channel, Twitter, and his own blog. No clue why; we gave him the passwords we changed them to. Haven't really spoken to him myself, and neither has Specter. We've both been too busy to associate with someone who's essentially an Irregular informant on any regular or consistent basis. Even one who's on-base. Seems like he's a bit scared of us, to be honest. Then again, I did interrogate him. So, might be a bit of a connection there.

Priority 10: Working out the kinks in the PATCH.

The PATCH has proven remarkably useful and has been at work reorganizing and sorting all of the files the command staff and science team need sorted out. But, the PATCH has a few problems with voice-command recognition. If the thing was any smarter, I'd swear it was deliberately ignoring us sometimes. We've been making sure not to use it too much. The thing runs hot, and we need to keep it in working condition. So, the science team's been trying to split themselves between keeping the PATCH running and fixing the dimensional bleeding issue.

Priority 11: Trying to convince the PTC's financiers to provide additional funding.

This part's actually critical to us continuing to operate, so it shouldn't be this low on the priority list. But, basically, the entire PTC has been dropping into the red financially. The guys who provide the PTC with their budget are looking at progress reports for the last few quarters, and decided that since we weren't showing results, they need to cut funding all across the board to cut their losses. It's at an almost ludicrous point. Ever since the Slender Man warranted our attention, we started failing to make much in the way of results as the Slender Man became a higher and higher-priority problem for us to deal with. It's at the point where the vast majority of the PTC's resources are being poured into our Division, which means every other Division can't show the results they need to, thanks to a lack of assets. Some Divisions are being cut altogether, others are being downsized, and it's all to keep us going in the hopes we'll make some big breakthrough, and the financiers are starting to figure that out. Central Command was happy about the Tablet, and us figuring out how to access the Path of Black Leaves, but that's the thing. Central Command doesn't finance us. They just do Division assignments and budget allocations each quarter.  The guys who really run the show haven't put it all together that we need more money, not less. We can't keep this going until they see that, so that's Specter's job right now.

Gotta see if we can't pull this trainwreck together. Everything hinges on some good things happening over the next few days.

-B2