The journey through Ocean's past continues, as we explore his previous experience with the mysterious Tower.

This one features cheese!

Welcome to Oops!

All Apocalypses, a show where we explore the collapse of society by playing fun, tabletop, role-playing games.

I'm your host, Stu Masterson, and I'm joined by one person trapped in an endless dream, trying to figure out their past.

There's me, I'm Jacob, and I play Ocean, a gentle giant whose brain is probably fried from all these flashbacks.

Yeah, so we didn't expect this flashback to take two full-ass episodes, but I think it was important enough to not split it up or do it in different things.

I think we're going in a good place.

I think so.

I'm really excited.

I think this is the first time we've ever actually really dived into Ocean's past, and I think that's a pretty important thing considering we've done this over a year now.

We don't basically know about as much about Ocean as we did when we started, so.

I hope people aren't missing Brady too much, though, with two consecutive episodes with none of him in it.

Nobody misses Brady.

I'm going to take some of his reactions from other episodes and just throw them randomly into it.

Make it some laughter.

Make it feel like he's right here.

If something's funny, we can just hear Brady laughing.

Add a pretend commentary so that way you aren't missing him too much.

I can make it so no one even realizes he's gone.

Maybe we got 40 episodes worth of stuff to churn through and clip.

So we've been putting off our new questions because we want to wait to make sure Brady's here, our new thing after the questions to fall in love.

We've been put a little stopper on that for a little bit, but let's do a similar thing with just instead of your character, which is the whole intention of this, let's do a Jacob and Stu fun icebreaker question.

A Jacob and Stu fun icebreaker.

I get behind it.

And I think we should start with the most basic one of all time, which is if you were trapped on a desert island, what three movies would you bring?

I know later we'll ask the same question for Ocean, but I want the Jacob answer.

OK, what three movies would I bring if I was trapped on a deserted island?

One, I need to make sure they keep me entertained.

Two, I need to make sure that I got a little bit of variety there.

So, hmm, something that's going to fill all my moods when I feel like I want to watch something.

So I'm going to go with first pick, Lord of the Rings Return of the King Extended Edition.

Absolute mad choice.

That is baffling.

That will, that is the best one.

That is, it's nice and long.

It's got a ton of good moments in it.

A part of a trilogy, unless your next two options are The Two Towers and Fountain of the Hutt.

No, I can't do that.

That's absolutely insane.

But I've seen all three of those movies so many times, I can remember the rest of it.

I can just like, to keep myself occupied, I can just play a little game where I try and reenact the first two.

Yeah, but the third one's the best one, and it's the most importantly, it's the longest one.

That's true.

So it's going to keep me most busy.

Next choice, I'm going to go with Scott Pilgrim vs.

the World, because that'll cover action, romance and comedy, all in one movie.

All in one movie.

So it's three different genres, all in one to keep me busy there.

Spoilers for mine, I would have picked that, but now I'm going to say we're on the same island, so I won't pick that one.

OK, OK.

But excellent choice.

Absolutely for the exact same reasons you did.

Besides the fact it's probably one of my favorite movies.

Oh, yeah, it's up there.

Just a good variety.

And what would my third pick be?

It's tough.

You know, I've got a live action fantasy, a live action romance comedy action movie.

I think I need something animated now to round out the trifecta.

The worst Dragon Ball Z movie created.

I don't know what that is.

I haven't actually seen any of the Dragon Ball Z movies.

I'll be honest.

Something animated.

I'm going to go with, you know, it's not it's kind of in line with some of my other choices.

But I'm going to go with Your Name, which is an anime movie, actually, that is one of my favorite movies.

It's one of my favorite movies ever.

I haven't seen that.

It's kind of a comedy.

It's kind of a drama comedy romance.

So it kind of overlaps a little with Scott Pilgrim.

But it's one of my favorite animated movies, and it's a good comfort movie.

So I think those three picks would cover my bases pretty good.

And I didn't pick any horror because I don't really like scary movies.

So you don't want to be scared on an island.

No, I don't want to be scared on a little island.

I think my favorite animated movie is Princess Mononoke.

That's a really good choice.

I'm not going to bring it.

That's not I just was throwing in some extra knowledge.

That's a good one.

That would overlap a little bit with Lord of the Rings, I think.

If I had to watch one animated movie over and over again, I think that's probably my choice.

But I'm not doing that.

And you've already taken one of mine with Scott Pilgrim.

So I get some good options in here.

All right.

I'll pick a very recent movie for one of mine, actually, which I've recently confirmed by finally rewatching it, that it is potentially my favorite movie and definitely up there.

But everything everywhere all at once.

Oh, gosh, that's such a good choice.

It also captures all of the different Scott Pilgrim things you mentioned.

So that is an amazing movie.

I am so sad I didn't pick that.

But we're on the same island, so I can watch whatever you pick.

So, yeah, I'll let you watch it most of the time if I'm not already watched.

Phenomenal choice.

Also very long, which is good.

That is a norm.

Yeah, that's probably one of my favorite movies ever, too, at this point.

Yeah, I think with my second one, my second one would normally be Scott Pilgrim, but you've already taken that.

So I'm going to take Fury Road because it's just the best action movie of all time.

That is a really great action.

That's just an entertaining movie.

It'll remind me of my podcast, which is nice, too.

I'll sit there and reminisce and be like, Remember when we had that podcast about the apocalypse?

But no, Fury Road is just so good and amazing and perfect.

Pretty easy choice for there.

My third one, I bet you you would not guess me saying in 20 million years, though.

OK.

Knowing that, do you want to make a wild guess?

Or is that too many options for movies?

I'm going to go with Sleepless in Seattle.

Oh, close.

It's a little romance movie.

I do love rom-coms a lot, but I got to go with Moulin Rouge is so good.

Moulin Rouge?

I have not actually seen Moulin Rouge.

You've never seen Moulin Rouge?

I have not.

You should watch it.

So it's a jukebox musical, which I don't think what I'm about to say is even close to a hot take.

This is probably the most pretentious first year of fucking theater school thing to ever say.

But I think jukebox musicals are like way underrated because it's just this really cool use of existing songs that as soon as you hear it, you have like a billion connotations already associated with it.

But then you're listening to it in a new context and they're using it in an entirely different way.

And that like...

I'm with you.

I like jukebox musicals enough.

I think they're pretty fun.

And that one is the best.

I think as much as it's definitely not my favorite movie, if someone had given Stu, especially in college, a billion dollars to make a movie, I would have made exactly...

I would have been like, yes, exactly this movie.

There are some things I definitely don't like about it.

There are parts I think are boring.

There are songs I don't like as much as others.

But as a whole, I think it would be really fun to have on a desert island.

So those are my three choices.

Pretty easy.

I think we got a nice variety here.

I think we'll have a good six-person group.

If we ever get Brady by himself, I'll go ask him this question.

But start thinking of your answers for Ocean instead of...

That'll be fun.

Okay, we should keep this short though, since we're in the middle of a big side thing.

So let's just hurry up and get back to the action.

It's just been a couple of few days since you first opened your brain to the psychic maelstrom and exhibited some magical healing ability.

Since you've started feeling that psychic maelstrom in your brain, you guys haven't had any of that confusion, any of the don't know where to go, not looping back on yourself, not disagreements on what the map looked like one hour ago, and you feel like you're getting closer, and you see this huge, huge tower right in front of you.

I think this is it.

This looks like the tower, right?

He takes a look at the map.

This, I guess, is safety.

Doesn't look like there's a lot of people around.

I was expecting, like, I don't know what I was expecting, but I was expecting like a little happy little society, like maybe a little gardens, old children running around, you know?

Yeah, I don't know what I was expecting.

This is like a brutalistic tower.

I don't know.

But it's safe.

Well.

It is hard to find.

Is there like a front door?

That's good, right?

I would hope so.

There's a front door.

It looks just like the front door the last time you were here in the future.

So this is the tower that I found Book in.

This is the same tower that you found Book in the bottom floor.

So Ocean calls out like, Hello, anybody there?

We're here for shelter.

You see someone poke their head out of a four story window and they have these massive goggles on their eyes.

They got these big lit up right now.

They're this like green color and they're wearing like full armor for full body.

So you can't see any lick of flesh on them.

And they point you.

They do have a gun, but they're not like pointing it directly at you.

They lean over, they see when they kind of wave and they point down towards the front door.

OK, Ocean walks up to the front door.

First it's locked.

But then you see a bunch of keys light up.

It goes like beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.

And then goes green and the door opens.

Bottom floor looks like a makeshift hospital room.

It's actually like the lobby of a bank is what it looks like it actually is.

Like a really big lobby, some big columns.

But all around the edge are these very neat stretchers laid out with a lot of like IVs next to them, whatever that monitoring shit is called, hooked up.

But no one's in it right now.

It's completely empty.

And the only real exit out of here is an elevator on the very back wall.

Pretty dark in here.

There's some like lights in the corners, like there's some accent lighting on the columns that provides some illumination.

But it seems like the lights in this room are off.

OK, he looks around, seeing that they're really the only way up is the elevator.

He motions to Kara, like, well, I guess only way is up.

He opens the elevator and...

Holy shit, it works.

You go into the elevator, there's light on in here.

There's elevator music playing.

It seems like it works, which is very rare.

And Kara tells you that.

She goes, holy shit, I can't believe this elevator works.

And the basically entire wall with the door on it is filled with buttons.

And you look at the very highest numbered button and it is three hundred and fifteen.

But there's also like multiple basement levels.

There's a penthouse level.

There's some like ones that aren't numbered with the traditional numbering system in there as well.

And there's also a somewhat of a directory.

Obviously can't show what's on every single fucking floor.

It's like a billion things, about three hundred something.

But a few things that jump out to you.

Okay, you give me one thing that you would absolutely not expect.

I'm going to give you one thing you would also not expect, but I already know what it is.

Something I would not expect that I see in the directory.

Based on everything you know, like even Future Ocean, what these things are, just something that seems way out of place.

I'm going to go with a theater.

A theater?

A theater.

Something I would not expect.

Like a cinema theater or like a Shakespearean theater, which one?

I think I would expect the Shakespearean theater at least.

So that's what I will go with.

Yeah, you notice there's a big chunk of these that are very strangely labeled.

You see, as you came up with a theater, and it has a little drama mask with a comedy mask next to it.

Or is it tragedy and comedy?

I said that wrong.

I don't know.

I should know.

A tragedy comedy mask next to it.

You see one nearby that that says cooking channel.

You see one nearby that that says news.

It seems like almost different TV channels and things like that around this section, which is a pretty significant portion of it.

You don't know why you know what TV shit is.

You don't really know what a TV is.

It seems like different things like that.

You see a room, a section that says auditions.

You see a bunch of executive suites.

You see a cafeteria button, all sorts of things like that.

You see some that are more like IT focused.

You see one that's like for security, a general directory for that.

Again, it doesn't say every floor, but it gives like ranges of floors.

Like 310s or 310 through 330 are the theater floors.

310 through 330?

I shouldn't have picked a range of numbers that exceeded the total number of floors I said, but yes, that's sort of it.

Yeah, just like a shit ton of them.

Um, well, Ocean turns to Karen and is like, where do you want to go?

And he tosses her the directory.

Do any of these say safety on them?

Yeah, you check.

Is there one that says like shelter or a rest bed or anything like that?

There's cafeteria.

There is a break room floor, but Karen goes, I can pick.

Yeah, feel free.

Pick what you like.

She goes and pushes a button and it beeps red.

It goes brr brr.

Just fuck.

That was security.

I was hoping they had guns.

Well, it's a good try.

You know what?

I'm a little hungry.

He hits the cafeteria button.

Cafeteria lights stays lit up.

OK, and the doors close and it starts going up.

Cafeteria is right in the middle because that would make the most fucking sense.

I don't think I've ever seen a building that actually does it like that, but that's where it's where it definitely should be.

It's almost always the first floor and it should not be.

So you guys go up about what would be the Empire State Building number of floors before you get to the cafeteria and the doors open and you see a massive, very clean, well put together cafeteria that is currently completely empty.

But there are like vending machines around the edge.

There is a currently stocked salad bar and there's a bunch of like grab and go type food.

There's like those yogurt cups.

There is little packages of nuts.

There's cheese sticks with meat sticks and it seems well stocked.

Ocean calls out, hello, anybody there?

Silence.

In the case that that's silent, Ocean makes a break for the salad bar and he grabs a plate and he just starts stacking fresh produce and actual food on his plate.

You look over and Kara does not have a plate and is at the big pile of cheese.

And he's just shoveling it into her mouth, just fistfuls of cheese right in.

And she goes, it was pretty good.

Yeah, I would say so.

I would look at like six eggs, you know, those salad bars, they got like whole eggs.

Yes.

So you guys can gorge yourselves for a little bit here.

And no, it seems very fresh.

It's tasty.

It's good.

But the whole time you're here, you don't see anyone else come at all.

There's TVs in the corner that are playing stuff, which is weird.

There's a few different things playing.

They're all in the corner, like any big cafeteria.

If you've ever been to like a big hospital cafeteria thing like that, you got your TV set up in the corner and stuff like that.

I don't know if you've worked at any fancy hospital like this, but I'm thinking of a nice military hospital.

Yes.

The finest of the finest.

Where they play alternating CNN or Fox News.

Nice.

This one.

There is a news channel going on.

And you know damn well the news they're talking about isn't accurate.

Yeah, I would say so.

There's like someone reporting at like what looks to be the beginning stages of a hurricane, like talking, but not like freaking out.

Like, yeah, it's some dumb story.

They're wearing like a yellow raincoat.

You see there's like a there's like G4 on one of the channels where they're talking about like some gaming news.

You're seeing X-Play.

You got Morgan Webb and Adam Sussler in there talking about Splinter Cell 3.

What the hell?

Giving it some rating.

And you see a cooking channel, which is probably the least likely thing to be useful anywhere around here, where it's Rachel Ray going through how to make a turkey in two hours.

And all of these like it looks like like the weather channel that's showing the hurricane.

It looks like it's the surface, right?

That they're talking about.

It's not like, yep, looks completely normal.

Is there a date and time in the corner for like the news channels?

Oh, good question.

There's ESPN on one of them, and it has the game times for some of the games.

And it doesn't show a year, but it shows months.

Where in a TV would it show the actual year?

I was about to give you the answer, but then I realized I don't know how often the year fucking comes up on TV, because everyone knows what year it is.

Yeah, that's true.

Not a stock ticker, not a sports thing.

If there was like a big event.

I think on the weather channel, because a lot of the times, they show the yearly average, right?

Where they'll show the current year and then what previous years have been historically.

Okay.

I think you've made a compelling argument.

So what you don't see current year, but what you do see is on the weather channel, which is one of the many TVs that's on here, you see it has the historic high for today.

So it says today is May 14th, and it just says May 14th, it doesn't say the year, but it says the historic high was back in 3622.

3622.

Oh, gosh.

You don't know if that's accurate or not, but that's what it says.

Ocean of Motions Kara over, and it's like, Kara, what is this?

And he points at the TV and points at the time, it's like, do you know anything about what year it is or anything like that?

Cause some places have like one calendar and they just keep using it.

But I don't think I've seen one that high of a number.

I think the last one I saw was like 24 or something.

I saw that calendar, but we just reuse it.

We don't keep track of year.

That doesn't seem useful.

No, I would say not.

And I don't know what that date's right.

I have no fucking idea what date it is.

It's just-

But yeah, in general, what is this stuff is also a good question.

I have no idea what all these boxes are doing.

Most, every time I've seen a TV, it's shown like a camera.

Is this happening like right now?

I don't think so.

I don't think any of these people, like they all look super well put together, right?

And I guess Ocean doesn't know who freaking Rachel Ray is, so I can't say like, I don't think she would be around in 3622.

None of these, all these people look really well put together.

I don't think I've seen anyone dressed.

I haven't seen any environment where they could run anything like that, because even this facility, it doesn't look that clean.

Yeah, no, this is definitely weird.

Maybe it's like old tapes that they have.

I've seen some old tapes.

Maybe, you know, I wasn't television studio on that directory.

Yeah.

Is that where they make these things?

I think there's only one way to find out.

And he grabs a few more eggs and puts them in his bag.

You go back to the elevator and you.

Is there a specific chunk you want to do?

There were a bunch of different types of stations.

And then there was like an audition room.

There may be some more on the technical aspect.

Like there's an editing section.

Is there one that says like weather?

Yes.

OK, he's going to check the weather.

He's going to hit the weather button.

You hit it and beep beep.

It's red.

OK, he is going to one by one go through all of the things and see if any of them will let him go to it.

OK, you start going one by one and you're getting like red after red.

And Kara kind of pushes you out of the side and swipes her hand down on all of them at once.

And it's a bunch of reds and then a few green things stay lit up.

The first one it's going to get to is auditions.

But it looks like she went through like all the channels and all those came out red.

OK.

All right.

Well, I guess we'll go to auditions first, if that's the one that will actually pop up and let us in.

Yep.

It's already moving there, in fact.

So you guys just wait a little bit and the doors open up.

You come out into a very nice little waiting room where there is someone sitting at a desk.

Oh, shit.

And this is the first person you've seen, right?

In the building, besides the person who waved out the window.

Yeah, yeah.

But yes.

Ocean walks up to the person's like, Hi, excuse me, we're new here.

We're kind of lost.

We're trying to figure out where are we?

Yeah, Ocean and Kara, correct?

You're the four o'clock.

Are we?

Yes.

Uh-huh.

You're a little bit early.

I guess so.

How do you know our names?

I don't think we told anybody.

Oh, she's expecting you.

Who's she?

My boss.

She kind of runs this place.

You'll meet her soon.

It's okay.

She's really cool.

Don't worry.

Don't be stressed.

I know, like, a lot of people come in here, and they're like, this is my one shot.

This is my only hope to make it big.

But like, you'll do fine.

And I think she already likes you.

Like, normally, she schedules people out way in the future.

And you guys, like, you didn't have to wait that long at all.

It's just a couple of weeks.

How long have we been scheduled for this?

Uh, it's been...

He clicks away at a computer.

Here, click, click, click, and he goes, uh, yeah, 18 days.

Huh.

That lines up right with when Ocean used the Psychic Maelstrom for the first time, right?

Yes.

Something fucky's going on.

Oh, well, um, can you tell me a little bit about where we are?

What is, what are we on, even on, what is this meeting even for?

Um, it depends on what you guys are good at.

But she tries to figure out, like, everyone's unique talent and really put them in a position for success.

So for me, that's like this, I'm, I greet people, everyone loves me, I'm so personable.

And I'm really good at clicking away at this keyboard here.

You should have seen me my first day, I was like, I picked it up after for nothing.

Like I'd been doing it for years.

Clicky clack right away.

Yeah, I don't know what exactly you guys are scheduled for.

You didn't set that up with your audition?

No, we never even set up anything for an audition.

Not that I'm aware of, at least.

That is strange, but that must mean she really likes you.

Like if it's an open role, like maybe there's a few different places you could fit in.

Nothing specific.

That's exciting.

I guess.

What can you tell me about this place that we're in right now?

Like, where are we?

We came here because we have a map, and he pulls out the map and says it said that was shelter here.

No, this map isn't even right.

Look, that thing's like way over here.

Yeah.

Yeah, this is safety, though.

This map is good.

I don't know who you got this from, but they seem to know what they're talking about in that sense.

We just call it the tower.

It's where most of us live.

Some of us go out into subtropolis for scrounge things up.

If that's something you're interested in, like if you don't like being cooped up in here, if you don't like this cool 72 degree AC we got going on, feel free to join one of those groups who likes playing around in the mud.

But this is where we all live, this is where we eat, this is where we sleep.

Well, it's home.

Safety.

Ocean turns to Karen and is like, well, what do you think?

I mean, it sounds like we have a shot of joining something that might keep us a little bit safe.

She's covertly eating some pocket cheese and goes, I'm down to hear him out.

Well, he's run by a woman.

Sounds nice.

Well, I guess at the very least, we'll meet your boss if she's expecting us.

Yep.

Just like 15 minutes.

And you start clicking away, even though it seems like there's no reason you'd have to be typing things.

Ocean finds a seat, sits down, and he kind of looks around, trying to kind of gauge a little bit more about where he is and what the heck is this building.

There's some magazines on a table next to you.

OK, do the magazines have a date on them?

Yes, they have the year issue, and it is the same.

All of them are the same.

And it's all the exact same day even.

So it's all like, all of them say May 1st issue of the year I said before that I've since forgotten.

He picks up one of the magazines and just like thumbs through it.

Seems very legitimate.

There's like ads for things.

There's all sorts of talk on celebrities you picked up, people.

And it has all sightings, some breakups, some new influencers have a bunch of pages taken out.

There's a little short section on like TV shows coming to HBO this fall, stuff like that.

It seems to make sense.

Is there like images of like the outside world or is it all seem to be just like set in the cave?

Oh, yeah, nothing.

No, nothing's underground.

Yeah, nothing looks like a cave anywhere in here.

Any picture, any description is all.

Ocean picks up one of the magazines and he waves over the guy at the counter.

It's like, hey, how often do you guys get these magazines?

Once a month.

I think most of them are monthly issues.

Some like there's like newspapers and things that are daily.

And then maybe some issues are a little more often than that.

But I think mostly once a month.

And who are these people?

These celebrities?

He kind of picks a picture of one.

It's probably like Leonardo DiCaprio.

It's like, who are these people?

Well, that one's kind of shitty.

He really good actor.

Only dates people who are like 23.

But besides that, pretty cool.

Yeah, you haven't seen any of his movies?

He was in The Revenant and Catch Me If You Can.

They're the only two I know.

No, I haven't seen any of these.

It just seems odd.

All these pictures, and he flips through them.

It's like it shows, I assume it probably shows celebrities on the surface and stuff like that.

He was in Who Ate That Grape.

Who Ate That Grape?

No, I've never even heard of Who Ate That Grape.

Yeah, that's a good one.

But look at all these pictures.

They're showing none of these seem to be in Subtropolis.

They all seem to be of, and he looks up and he sees like the sky is like, what, like this?

And he points out the blue sky.

Yeah, don't worry about any of that.

That like, you gotta leave behind your thoughts of the old world.

Like, Subtropolis is, there are some cool things there.

Like, I'll admit, even I go out sometimes and some see some of the old sites.

But like, this is the real world.

This is where you want to live.

You want to be around Leonardo DiCaprio.

But where are you getting these pictures?

Where are they coming from?

I haven't seen anybody that's anyone from the surface the last year, six months, seven months that I've been here.

It's all from this fairy tower.

And you hear a beep beep and a light turns green on a door next to him.

He goes, oh, I think she's ready for you.

Is it for both of us?

Yeah, sure.

Why not?

It's not encouraging, but...

Roll me one D6, tell me what it is.

I know what's going to happen.

Okay.

It's a three.

Dead middle.

Roll another D6.

It's a three again.

You're both gone.

That was very unlikely.

Yeah, that was weird.

He goes, yep, both of you together.

Seems like maybe as a group act or something.

But yeah, going in.

Okay.

Ocean makes his way to the door, hits the button and walks on into the room.

It's completely dark in here.

Like no lights come on as you walk in.

There's like a little hesitation of care, but the guy's like, oh, don't worry, go on in.

It's completely fine.

And the doors close behind you.

And then suddenly a couple of lights come on, kind of shine a path forward that you guys slowly follow.

And then there's this big illumination where you see this human that seems to be made up almost of light, like almost a hologram, but thicker, like Tupac at Coachella.

So a hologram, but more tangible.

And you hear, hello, Ocean, and hello, Kara.

Thank you for joining me.

You, you.

Then we're gonna go a year into the future.

Okay, cut me off.

Cut me off.

Sucker.

Yeah, you don't remember what happened there.

You don't remember that part yet.

All right.

A year into the future, you are repelling down this huge cooling tower.

You are in your full silent getup.

You got your cool ass gloves with fucking leather patches on the knuckles.

You got your fancy goggles on, and you are being let down by this chain that is just rolling through this huge spool that someone is holding at the top.

And you are just at a brisk run going down this big concrete ramp that you would probably know is a big cooling tower.

And you slam into the bottom, but you are fine because you are a fucking badass.

And you pull up your gun, you see you still have your tactical shovel on your side.

You got a much more fancy gun at this point.

It's got like three different tactical flashlights on it.

It's got a laser thing.

You got a scope on it.

All sorts of cool shit.

Two triggers for some reason.

I don't know what one of them does, but they do two different things.

And you pull it up and sweep it over the room, and you see you are in this huge entryway to what looks to be some sort of nuclear power plant.

There's this big heavy green glow in front of you.

A few seconds later, you hear a big set of heavy boots land behind you, and you hear Kara's voice go, man, that never gets tired.

So fucking cool.

Okay, so what are we doing here?

Do I know what I'm doing?

Tell me.

I'm gonna say we're here to integrate it into the network.

Okay.

I don't know what that means, but...

Oh, we're still trying to grow?

Okay, I feel like we've got like enough now, you know?

It's kind of...

Kind of weird to keep growing it, but...

I don't know what we're gonna be doing with all this stuff, but...

I guess it's cool.

You want point?

Yeah, sure.

I'll be in front.

Here you go, and she passes you like a fucking depth charge C4, whatever thing, to blast open some door.

He walks up to the door, places the charge on it, and steps back, like, okay, I think we're ready.

Okay, she counts down for you.

She's like, three, two, one, and you hit a trigger, and the door blasts off.

Right when the dust clears, there's this scattering of strange wheeled robots that come rolling out of here that all have these, like, laser weapons strapped to the top of them that just start raining fire towards you guys.

Give me a do battle roll, unless you want to not fight them for some reason.

If you have ethical considerations to not try to kill them, or if you want to do something else.

No, I don't think Ocean has.

I think right now we're going past past Ocean here.

I think Ocean's here.

He thinks he's got a job to do.

He's here to do what he's supposed to.

So, yeah, he is when they start coming out, he pulls out his his gun and starts firing at the robots.

OK, sweet.

Give me a do battle roll.

That is a ten.

OK, what two options do you want?

Or do you want a full success on Act Under Fire?

No, we're going to.

I always assume you want to do more damage, especially right now where your health keeps healing back up.

Oh, yeah, always.

I mean, even when my health doesn't heal up, I'm always for the full system do battle.

No balls.

Um, I'm going to say seize hold of something.

And I go with inflict terrible harm.

Try to pin down and take out as many of them as I can and also seize hold of this room.

You hear behind you other gunshots and you look over your shoulder.

And it looks like through some of the vents in here, some smaller robots have started pouring out and Caris just shooting them down one at a time as she backs up more into your direction.

But you stay focused on the big mass of them starting to pour through this entryway.

You've blown into the reactor room.

And as soon as they start peering their way through the dust, you just unload on them.

There's a lot and they do start closing in around you.

And you take a few of these really burning hot blasts.

It seems like they don't do very permanent damage to you because like cauterizes immediately as they touch you.

But it hurts super fucking bad.

And you take a total of two harm, which is then reduced to zero.

Because now I mean, oh, no, it's an even gang.

Yeah.

Never mind.

So just reduced by one harm.

So you get one harm from that, but you're able to take out almost all of them.

They like completely destroy and they said drive them away.

But you're just they are mindlessly coming towards you and you get into a position where you're basically able to hold down the trigger on this thing as they run around the corner and you're just melting them.

As they come into the room, a few of them skitter by.

And as you're holding down that trigger, you pull out your tactical shovel and just whack away at them as they get close and they just smash against the wall.

But pretty soon you have it all cleared out and you're able to push forward.

OK, so Ocean heads on into the room, pops inside and you did four harm with your additional harm, so that was shit.

Damn heads on into the room and kind of searches out to see if there's a terminal down here.

Yep, there is.

And you understand how it works, but give me a act under fire for keeping cool as you crank through all these security systems.

And there's a tin.

Oh, hell yeah.

Yes.

You keep it cool.

So you actually finish everything you need to do.

You force this restart on it and it comes back up and you see the new welcoming logo of the tower, which is this big, big building with a big capital T right in the middle of it.

You hear a very quiet in the back of your head.

Thank you, Ocean.

And then you're pulled away from that, though, as you hear some more gunshots and you see Cara kind of jogging towards you and being like, Someone else is here.

Oh, shit.

Did you catch them?

Did you see who they were?

No, they're coming, though.

We'll see soon enough.

Ocean ducks behind the door and she's like reloading all her guns.

Yeah, she goes and tries to find a place.

He ducks behind the door that we've blown over and kind of ducks in the side to use it as cover.

You're sitting there waiting.

Give me a act under fire for your hunkering, hiding, getting an ambush on something.

It's another 10.

Oh, a full ass success.

You see there is a since you rolled a full 10, I'm going to give you a chance to react to this.

As you're quietly waiting behind the door, you see Kara hides behind the console and is like completely hidden in a great spot.

But you hear rolling in a grenade gets tossed into the room and is rolling in front of you.

It looks like you're in a pretty safe spot, but she is not.

Oh, God.

And it just landed, right?

Yeah, it literally like rolls past you.

It's not going particularly fast, but you know, it could explode at literally any moment.

He grabs his he grabs his tactical shovel and Dolph swings it back at the people who just chucked it in.

Give me a try something challenge.

Or no, actually, I think this is also an act under fire.

This is something you could do if there wasn't a risk of exploding suddenly.

OK, another act under fire.

Oh, it's a problem.

That's a six.

That's a no, that's a five.

That's worse than a six.

You run towards it.

I won't make you be like a bumbling idiot who accidentally kicks it further in or anything like that.

I'm just going to say it explodes earlier than you expected.

You get like halfway to it and it unleashes this torrent of fire out and you get blasted back back against the wall.

You take three armor piercing harm.

That sucks a lot.

And you see Kara get absolutely blasted by it and you're like smashed into the wall and seems to be kind of collapsed down, not moving.

The people then start pouring in the room.

Give me one do battle roll.

OK, that is an 11.

Hell, yeah.

What option are you choosing?

It may actually matter.

It may actually matter because I am.

Let's see, what's my clock at?

Because I took two and I just took three, right?

Or no, I took one and then I just took three.

But the three I can't reduce.

Right?

Yes.

Because armor piercing in my gang size does not matter here.

So that puts me at four harm.

That means I have two little boys left.

Yep, you may want to reduce that harm, but then that may not tell them in one hit because you do do a lot of damage.

So go big or go home.

Full of success on the do battle.

OK, are you doing what two options are you choosing?

Let me look and see, actually.

I'm going to say inflict terrible harm and pin them down.

Four harm to all of them, even gang size.

You take three damage, but not armor piercing.

OK, so I think you're still alive.

I have literally one left.

One health.

You spring onto your feet as they start charging to this room.

They seem to still not realize you were over there as you got blown away.

So you get the second to just unload on them and you spread your weapon across the group of them.

The one in the back, that was able to turn around and get a few shots off into you before he collapses to the ground, too.

And you've completely cleared them out.

Looking at them, it looks like they are definitely like trained mercenaries.

They have pretty good weapons, nothing like as fancy as you.

They all have like battle scars.

Seems like they've all been through some shit, but it doesn't look like just random scavengers or anything like that.

But you don't have a lot of time to look at that.

As you notice, Kara is super fucked up.

Yeah, he crawls over to you because he is also pretty fucked up right now.

And crawls over and is like, Kara, I'm going to need some of that touch.

And then he's going to attempt to healing touch her to stabilize her enough for her to try and save him.

You go and you put your hands on her and you use your healing touch.

Give me a roll for it.

I almost didn't ask you, but I will.

That is a nine.

You feel this healing come over her and some of her wounds start to heal up, but you feel like it's not helping enough.

You feel like she's still unstable and in a terrible place.

And you are down a huge cooling tower that you have to basically climb all the way back up.

Oh, and you yourself are super fucked up and you kind of feel this well of hopelessness.

And then we'll move forward like probably a few months.

OK, you don't really know how long it's been.

But you, you're in like a well, and there's this strange light around you.

It doesn't quite look like all that nuclear energy light you've seen before, but there's something different.

And this is the first time in this kind of trip through memory lane where you come to disoriented, like even in your memory here, it feels like you don't know exactly what's going on.

But you find yourself in a standoff.

There's this huge metal door that is being wrenched open by this jack that people are just on the other side of it.

But it seems like they didn't expect to find you in here when it was opened up.

You recognize them.

This future ocean, you recognize them as a nice, happy couple with a small daughter.

Oh, shit.

You look over and you see Kara's with you, and she has her gun up.

You guys are in your full get up, silent get up in this complete standoff.

You see Book's dad pointing his gun at Kara.

Kara's gun is not in a very useful location right now, where it seems like she has been caught, where she had to stop and freeze immediately.

You have your gun, just generally pointed at all of them, as you're seeming to kind of focus in on the situation.

But you try to listen, and his parents are like aggressively talking to each other, trying to figure something else out.

OK, so he sees that they have a small child with him, right?

Yes.

OK, and he's in a well?

A well, you said?

That's what it seems like.

Right, so just like a small, big, like a circular.

Does it look like we came down into it or have we been like trapped in here?

He they came.

Yeah, you guys seem like your backs are against the wall right now.

You don't remember how you came in here, but it looks like they came in through this big door that's been cranked open.

Huge heavy metal door that looks like it's not even supposed to be able to be open.

Like you don't see any mechanism to open it, but it's just this huge metal plate that they've cranked open with some jack.

OK, I think at this point, we've kind of established already in this backflash that Ocean is pretty cool under fire and he's pretty level headed.

He's not super, like guns blazing.

He's been pretty chill with pretty much all the action sequences he's been in here.

So he is going to with his gun raised and was like, I don't want to hurt you guys.

Put your guns down and just back off.

Give me a confront song.

Okay.

It's an aggro roll.

It's a good one to roll really well on.

That's an 11.

Oh, I was really stressed that was going to be go poorly, and I'll be the one that is responsible for killing books family.

Charles McCready.

He holds on to his gun, but he kind of puts his hands up.

Just let us back away here and everything will be fine.

You give me a read a set.

I wish I knew what my circumstance was so I could figure out what I was trying to get out of them.

Okay, let's say 11.

Oh, nice.

Three questions.

Okay, I'm going to say what represents the best opportunity for me to accomplish what I was setting out to do.

I'll say who's in control here, and I'll say what?

No, I'm going to change that.

I'm going to say I'm going to go with the same.

What represents the best opportunity for me to accomplish my goal?

What is the biggest threat to me?

Because I feel like that could be really interesting depending on how you answer that.

And I'm going to say who's in control here too.

You notice, as he's trying to back up very slowly with his hands kind of up, but he still has his finger on the trigger, you notice he has two things sticking out of his jacket pocket that you were sent here to retrieve.

They are these like glowing tubes.

You don't know exactly what they do, but he's got two of them.

And you even notice with your full success, I'll say you notice one on the woman, and you need those.

And you know, the biggest threat to you is whoever is running the power, if you don't come back with these items.

That's what I was kind of thinking.

For who's in control here, that's really hard because I put you in a classic standoff situation.

But you certainly think like from a purely combat perspective, you could take everyone in this room together.

But Kara is in a position right now where she could easily be shot by multiple of them.

And you're in a position where it's not very safe to shoot her over there when there's a child around, which you certainly don't want to do.

So you're in a very hard spot.

And it seems like they kind of have the upper hand in that sense.

Like they already have what they want.

They could easily shoot Kara.

Okay, hand me over those power cells and I'll let you go.

Won't need to be any violence.

Doesn't need to be anything.

Just hand them over to me.

You go your way.

We'll go ours.

We won't even say we saw you.

I know you got that child there.

I know you don't want anything harm to happen to her.

So just please do what we need and we'll let you go.

Okay, let me come over.

I'll come over carefully.

I can't give up my gun.

I don't fully trust you like that.

You can keep your gun.

I just need those cells.

Can I have one second to talk to my wife?

Yes, take your time.

He whispers in her ear, as you're watching them, you see her shake her head no a few times.

And you see him trying to be like, no, it's okay, got to do this.

And then he slowly starts walking back and she kind of walks with him.

Would you allow this?

Yes.

It's not like aggressive.

They're not like jumping on him.

He's got his gun trained on him.

And as long as they're...

He starts coming towards you.

He pulls both of them out of his back pocket.

He's holding them in one hand.

They're pretty large, like he can barely hold both in one hand.

There's these cylinders that are probably liquid death, armless, Palmer sized.

Dead billionaire size, you mean?

Yeah, if that's useful for anyone.

But glowing this like white, pale blue light, he slowly moves towards you, but he suddenly turns and pushes his wife down back towards the outside of the room and kicks the jack.

So the door slammed shut, trapping you, Cara, and him in this small little room.

And then you kind of shake your head and you're back in a courthouse getting absolutely ransacked by the silent, staring into the eyes of Cara, who says, Ocean?

Ocean looks at her and goes, Cara, you're alive?

Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Oops!

All Apocalypses.

Unfortunately, last week, we did not get enough 5-star reviews to allow Brady back onto the podcast, so please find it in your heart to go let us know that you would enjoy to have him back, because it would be very convenient for where the story is right now.

The music and editing was performed by Stu Masterson, Brady McDonough made the art and logo, and Jacob draws us pictures that are so nice that we just have to put them on our fridge.

Love you, bye.

Let me Google, what's a reasonable number?

And by reasonable, I mean unreasonable.

OK, I found an unreasonable.

This one.