The WETA "apocalyptic broadcast" (Wayne meltdown)

pivotal · 17 Nov YDAU — Tuesday, ~1435-1445h

• When: 17 November YDAU, during Troeltsch's Tuesday WETA sports segment
• What: During Troeltsch's own broadcast the disaster of his November arrives. John Wayne — who had gone rattling through sickly Troeltsch's bedside table for Troeltsch's real Seldane (wanting a clear head for a 1515h exhibition against the Syrian Satelliter) and instead ingested the Tenuate that Troeltsch had stashed in that Seldane bottle back on 3 Nov (event 5) — comes to the intercom and, wildly out of character, holds forth over the closed circuit into every room, savaging E.T.A. staff, administrators, and peers by name, including a chillingly detailed pseudo-Tavis seduction scenario that Pemulis privately recognizes as one of Orin's top "Strategies." Wayne is taken to St. Elizabeth's overnight for observation and recovers to run Wednesday's conditioning ahead even of Stice; the pharmaceutical fallout lands on Pemulis, whose pilfered Tenuate it was. Troeltsch himself vanishes — he "very prudently hasn't shown facial-feature one" in his room since. The record splits three ways on what happened (see Dating notes): staff and rumor frame it as Troeltsch having "jury-rigged the Duke into candid sharing"; Lateral Alice Moore's eyewitness account (relayed by Pemulis) is that Wayne shoved Troeltsch aside and grabbed the mike unbidden; and the public cover story is a "violent allergic reaction to a decongestant." Whatever the truth, this is the one time his hobby collides with real institutional consequence — carried as printed as an unresolved crux.