[Verse 1]
Cassie called the meeting
Seven minutes later
Everyone was still arriving
Drift arrived from twenty minutes ago
Rumble sat down — two chairs broke
Pebble was already there
Nobody knew
“We need a formation”
Everyone agreed
And then immediately disagreed
About what that meant
[Pre-Chorus]
Twenty-seven ideas
Twelve sub-ideas
One question from Vael
That nobody could answer
[Chorus]
Strategic planning — everyone’s talking
Strategic planning — nobody agrees
But we have a plan
We have to have a plan
We march to 289
We need to have a plan
[THE IDEAS]
Castor: “Standard wedge. Me at the front. Herc on left.”
Herc: “I want to be at the front”
Castor: “You will break the formation”
Herc: “Yes. That is my strategy”
Chaos: “I see a clear opening on the right flank”
Everyone looked right
There was a wall
“…a future opening”
Vael: “Should the front be the front? What if the front is actually the back?”
Silence
“Is that a bad question?”
More silence
“Was the silence a yes or a no?”
Fable told everyone the plan was already working
Echo repeated it with Glimmer’s voice
Glimmer released a burst by accident
Everyone ducked
PEBBLE had a suggestion
The table heard it
Nobody else did
[Soup interlude]
Solvren brought the soup
Thresh: “Current excellence percentage”
Solvren: “Forty-three”
“That is lower than yesterday”
“The stakes are higher”
“That should improve the soup”
“It has affected the soup differently”
Cygnus, still wearing the boots:
“The soup is not the problem”
“What is the problem,” said Castor
“THE BOOTS”
“Cygnus—”
“FORTY-THREE PERCENT AND THE BOOTS”
[The Fold 7 incident]
Lorn raised a hand
“The chicken in Fold 7—”
“LORN”
“—has resolved the formation issue”
“What”
“They use a crescent shape in Fold 7”
“How do you know”
“I have been watching”
“DURING THIS MEETING”
“The meeting is also happening in Fold 7”
“ARE THEY HAVING THE SOUP PROBLEM”
“Their soup is sixty-eight percent”
Thresh wrote this down
[The vote]
Cassie called a vote
Four formations on the table:
Castor’s wedge
Herc’s “break everything”
Lorn’s crescent from Fold 7
Persy’s formation, which he had not explained
and was called “obvious”
“All in favor of the wedge?”
Majority
“All in favor of—”
Rumble stamped to vote
The table moved
Everyone’s notes were on the floor
Mira: “I warned you this would happen”
“When”
“Just now”
“That was after it happened”
“…yes”
[Bridge — the plan]
Twenty minutes later
The plan was: crescent entry
Castor at the point
Herc at the left flank — officially allowed to break things
The Ones: contained in the middle
Chaos on right, Vael questioning every decision before it becomes wrong
Pebble: advance terrain work
Drift: time disruption on approach
Glimmer: signal only, aim to be determined
Fable: morale — she will make them believe they’re winning
Mira: early warning, factoring the delay
Cygnus would be wherever the boots allowed
[Final Chorus]
Strategic planning — done
Forty-three percent soup — consumed
The boots — still a problem
The chicken — noted
The plan — somehow real
We march to 289
We have a plan — we march
[Outro]
Cassie looked at the plan
The plan looked reasonable — from a distance
Rumble: “Is this good”
“It is what we have”
“Is what we have good”
Castor: “It is what we have”
Cygnus danced once — in the boots
Small
The kind that means: fine
The meeting was over
Level 280 in three weeks