Eschaton fallout: the waiting room, and the O.N.A.N.T.A. urologist

pivotal · 10 Nov YDAU

• When: 10 Nov YDAU
• What: Summoned to the Headmaster's waiting room with Hal, Axford, and Kittenplan for the Eschaton fallout, Pemulis bobs in his chair studying a printout of Eschaton's ESCHAX directory, "already clearly nauseated with worry that he's going to get the lion's share of the blame" and "maybe get denied a spot on the trip to Tucson's WhataBurger, or worse." He works Lateral Alice Moore's desk (feeling out whether a WhataBurger invite exists for "M.M.P."). (Working Moore's desk is a standing skill: in the same aftermath he and Struck "blarneyed her into putting the exchanges on her intercom's speaker" while Tavis placated the injured kids' parents, Pemulis concluding "the man's missed a genuine calling in sales" — n266 pp. 1046-1047.) The scene's sting is in its last line: when they are finally ushered in, the room holds not just Tavis, Rusk, and a monitor-headed Otis Lord but "the scrubbed young button-nosed urologist in an O.N.A.N.T.A. blazer, severely underdue at E.T.A." — the urine-test threat made flesh. This is the crisis Pemulis must defuse (event 18) to keep the DMZ plan (event 13) and himself alive at E.T.A.