ars PARADOXICA

As punishment for his crimes, Anthony Partridge is exiled to the Blackroom, ODAR’s communications hub situated at the anchor point. He’s not so sure he wants to be ODAR’s slave until the end of his days, but that all changes when he’s the only one who can get Sally Grissom the care she needs. Sally’s fallen into a coma after a meeting with her future self, and ODAR’s off and running without her. What world will Sally find waiting for her outside the hospital?

Louis Gaines is a journalism professor in trouble for introducing taboo concepts to his students. David Marian is a chess prodigy with an anger streak. The two war buddies are recruited by a mysterious government agency. Is it ODAR? Of course it is. But will their new employer mean the end of their friendship?

Sally and Esther fly out to the east coast. Sally has found a way to communicate with Anthony in the Blackroom, and needs to go to Philadelphia and commit a few crimes and put her life in mortal danger to make it happen– y’know, the usual. Meanwhile, Esther says she’s going to New York for boring supply line reasons, but instead meets with someone from her past.

**WARNING: This episode contains graphic depiction of gun violence. Listener discretion advised. What’s an ODAR agent doing in the Philadelphia harbor? Nikhil Sharma is from a future dangerously close to Sally’s own, and he claims to have forgotten his orders. Claims. Happy to meet someone who gets all of her Back to the Future references, Sally ditches Esther to road trip back to Point-of-Exile with Nikhil. What awaits them at their destination?

**WARNING: This episode contains depictions of animal cruelty. Listener discretion advised. (No animals were harmed in the making of this episode.) Still shaken since Sharma, Sally seeks a shrink. Meanwhile, mild-mannered Maggie manipulates mice.

Sally starts gardening and digs up something from her past. Esther falls back on old habits. Chet realizes he’s not here to make friends.

**WARNING: This episode contains depictions of manipulation & implied harm of children. Listener discretion advised. Petra and Carmen have been recruited for a special training protocol within ODAR. Their mission: Grow up through history backwards, make no connection with the world around them, in an attempt to Stave Off the deadly effects of Butterfly Syndrome. Helped along by their chaperone Van, their peers, and a mysterious guide who offers lemon drops with a side of dissenting opinions on the way things ought to be, can the girls become proper ODAR agents before their last connection to anything in the world–each other–falls apart?

Anthony’s poking at the limits of the Blackroom, and facing his inevitable lonely demise, conspires with Sally to look for a way out. But when Esther and ODAR get word of the team-up, their concern for their future brings them to conflict.

Lou Gaines is on a mission to find his friend David Marian, and in the course of his search ropes in others who have fallen beside ODAR's wake.

June Barlowe's done biding her time. She's out for vengeance for her late husband Quentin, and heaven help ODAR and anyone else who stands in her way–except for a face she never thought she'd see again...

The team has assembled, and it's time to take the fight to ODAR. Step 1: get Victor Lambert out of an ODAR prison facility, with a passcode from the desk of Director Chet Whickman himself. To pull this stunt off, they'll need help from an unlikely source.

Chet draws a line in the sand; the Anchorites are trapped. But sand is easily washed away by a rising tide.