Eschaton: growling at Ingersoll, the dark thrill

pivotal · 8 Nov YDAU — Interdependence Day

• When: 8 Nov YDAU (Interdependence Day), afternoon, at the Gatorade pavilion beside the East Courts
• What: Axford spectates the Eschaton with the upperclassmen, he and Struck with suspiciously bracing Gatorades and a hand-rolled psychochemical cigarette passing between them; he overinhales and hunches coughing, forehead purple, then maroon. Throughout, Hal can hear him growling under his breath at Evan Ingersoll — his own Little Buddy, playing for IRLIBSYR. He bets Hal a U.S. finski that AMNAT will accept terms (Hal takes "no way"), needles Pemulis's map/territory tantrum ("Except is the territory the real world, quote unquote, though!"), and at some point passes the remainder of the duBois toward Struck's empty chair, which is how Hal ends up smoking dope in public without deciding to. As the game collapses and Ingersoll is savaged, Axford tells Hal and Troeltsch he wishes he didn't feel the dark thrill he felt watching it, and asks Hal the timeline's most honest question — whether he's ever just hated somebody without any idea why. His maimed hand's anniversary is noticed the same afternoon (event 2).