Hal confesses the secret Bob Hope habit to Mario

pivotal · 11-12 Nov YDAU, toward dawn

• When: night of 11-12 Nov YDAU, toward dawn
• What: THE CONFESSION. Prompted by Mario's "I'm sorry if you're sad, Hal. You seem sad," Hal discloses that he smokes high-resin Bob Hope alone, in secret, down in the Pump Room off the secondary maintenance tunnel, concealing it with Visine, mint toothpaste, and Irish Spring showers — "Only Pemulis knows the true extent." He explains the O.N.A.N.T.A. urine situation: Pemulis is the real target (public Port Washington dosing; Visine-bottle urine sales), Hal and Axford's samples are just context/objectivity, and Pemulis is likely to get the Shoe; the thirty-day grace Pemulis extracted was secretly for Hal, who is the one with fat-soluble THC that lingers. First full external admission of the arc's central secret; Mario responds that he's zero percent hurt at having been kept in the dark.