"No! Naw naw! What is this? No you can't.. what is all of this?" The Government Center security guard was alarmed and confused. His timing couldn't have been worse, as far as I was concerned. We'd just teamed up to assemble a rain shelter for the ladies of stage three, they'd set their dinner table and lit their candle and everything. His name tag read 'Tyrone' and he wasn't a cop, he was building security.

"We're having a picnic," I started out, gamely.

"Aw no. You can't be here with this thing."

"But it's a public place. It's public property."

"Naw this here is the government building."

"They're outside. Nobody's in the building."

Then my phone was ringing. For the twenty second time in two hours. OliverX--just five minutes after Star5 had called to note the first very determined group of runners had just come through her stage two ('I guess they know the buses,' she said). I assume Oliver was calling because I'd just texted to tell him Dok Harmon, the lead chaser had a dead phone and that someone needed to get a handle on the staff chasers because stage two was at risk of turning into a deathtrap.

Of course Oliver was calling because no one had told him the phone numbers of the other staff chasers. But I had to let it go because Tyrone from the Hennepin County Government Center was agitated and trying to figure out what the heck was going on. He was also insisting we had to leave. Journey to the End of the Night Minnesota had been running for an hour and everything was melting down.

But hold on. How did we get here?

Obviously we overcame numerous challenges to launch this version of Journey to the End of the Night. You can read about pre-event planning and work here at Eleanor's praxis. The proof you're reading now focuses on the event itself, whereas Eleanor's and my alter-ego's is full of (hopefully interesting) pre event detail. The two experiences of the Journey—planning it and executing it—are so distinct, and lengthy, it made sense to break into two praxis proofs, with the non-Unit part of my personality doing the heavy lifting elsewhere. Particularly since Eleanor made some nice contributions and I wanted her help to be recognized!

Arriving at the start we got to cutting lengths of ribbon (maybe a little too short? from what I could see--since I put the measurement mark out there, it's my bad!) and handing out manifests. Ink Tea called with a problem we should have expected, and very funny (a flat tire. on the bike chaser's bike). We asked people to sign a waiver and hang on for instructions. We had one drunk on hand who wanted to heckle me, which was annoying, but given our location (the riverfront woods in the Old Main area are popular hideouts), only one drunk on hand should be considered getting off pretty easy!

With the clearing skyline behind me, we talked through the rules a little bit, and sent them on their way (I missed a couple notes I'd wanted to make, shoot, and I didn't say "deep breath. now push!" which would have been cool). JJason and OliverX gave their battle cries (they're battle cries were "RUN!") and got some of the folks to get running.

Then the phone calls started in earnest.

"I just found a parking spot because I didn't realize there was an event and I only found a meter. I put in enough for 30 minutes," it was Mean Jeannine. We'd basically hung her out to dry: even though stage one was only going to be open an hour, it sure didn't make sense to have her risk a ticket for staffing it. Not only that, but we'd designated Stage One as the place to go if people came late to the game--we even had a sign up at the start when we left telling people where to head. So she needed ribbon supplies, among other things. Since I was going to take JJason to his spot as stage five agent, and then swing by to set up the women of stage three, I lit out for stage one. JJason came with me to help Mean Jeannine. It was a good thing too, because we noticed all these runners ambling through the stage. Ambling.

"Go get them to quit fucking ambling," I snarled.

I believe that is what I snarled. Anyway, JJason hopped out to have some fun. But my phone was ringing.

"I just caught a resurrection ribbon," it was Dok. He was lead staff chaser and had just gotten nailed by our in-game trickery. Damn, that was... unexpected. Bad contingency planning.

"Okay. Uh. Good luck?" I was laughing pretty hard, which is not very nice. But what could we do, we'd found one key hole in our game mechanics and got caught bein' fancy. I think I just couldn't believe it happened so soon. We should have thought of that one ahead of time. Immunized the lead chaser or all staff. Had him discreetly run to a hidden location and put a red ribbon back on. Told him who the sleepers were. Something. Whatever. A truly adventurous spirit, Dok decided to see what would happen next, promising to keep in touch with me as the night wore on.

Having inspired some fear, JJason returned to the van to hear me cackling about Dok's strange blessing (may you live in interesting times, right?). We drove over to Mean Jeannine's car and plugged her meter (JJason pursued a couple more chasers. At this point I really regretted not festooning the van with red ribbons as we'd discussed once upon a time). Time slipping away we headed west, to get into downtown and set up the women of checkpoint three. The cost of this was I didn't deliver all the "SAFE AREA" signs I wanted to. For example, paying a visit to checkpoint two with some might have clarified things, or at least enabled us to remain true to the promises we'd made on the manifests. But my phone rang again, interrupting my internal debate about whether or not to go back to stage two before hitting up three. It was Mean Jeannine.

"Craig was just here and he asked me to call you," she said. I was relaxing, thinking 'good, he's back in.' Then she dropped the bomb, "His phone is dead. He said 'you'll know what to do.'"

Shit.

I love tasks with 'You'll know what to do' instructions. I think they're a critical piece of SF0 culture. Like the hole in our resurrection rules though, this one caught me flat footed. no Dok, I surely do not know... But then, in a moment of confidence, I felt an inkling. Your character never misses a connection - it will get you Score.

"Thanks. You can close up pretty soon." I rang off and relayed the news to JJason. We had another laugh and just as I started texting OliverX, Star5 called me to let me know the lead group was moving out of stage 2. This was a problem because we didn't have 3 set up yet! The gals were there but I had really wanted to provide them a shelter just in case it rained again. Also it would make the point look cool. So the text to OliverX got modified:

[Dok] cell is dead. You are in charge of chasers until further notice. You are immune to resurrection (still give them 30 secs.) Hit lead group hard now out of stage 2 pls.

Then another:

They know the buses so we need to slow them a bit

"You people can't all be here with this thing," said Tyrone.

"They're just having a picnic."

"Y'all can't have a picnic with this thing. How long you been out here?"

"What?" I was determined to work any advantage and I figured if we made it look like we had momentum and like he'd dropped the ball not noticing us, Tyrone would let it ride. "It's not so bad. We've been here like forty-five minutes already!"

We'd moved up to stage three. There were three beautiful women in nice outfits here, ready for a picnic dinner. Windelina said they had brought placemats and napkins. They also had crackers and frosting (I heartily approve!) and some teacakes. They wanted to know what to do and what the rules were, so we kinda scattershot told them, while scoping out good places to hang SAFE AREA signs and cutting yellow ribbons for them. Throughout all this we'd teamed up to assemble the sunshade/rain shelter (hope it didn't rain sideways tonight!) and the low camper table I had brought for them. Things were getting settled when our buddy Tyrone had showed up. I felt like we were getting him to take it easy on us, maybe let us stay or maybe let us set up further away from the building.

All hope that negotiation and weaseling was going to work flew out the window though, when the lead group of runners hit the plaza.

Diligent inspirer that he was, JJason pursued them across the SAFE AREA line, and they were baring down on our little group just as I heard Tyrone say it was okay to have our picnic on the plaza as long as we took down the shelter. But a gaggle of runners thundering into the location meant our jig was up: this was no weirdo picnic, something was officially going down and I'd been bullshitting Tyrone to his face, not very successfully, but it was still exposed. The running and shouting meant shenanigans were afoot.

"Woah woah! No! You can't! No!" Tyrone was pretty much at his limit.

"Okay okay. We're playing a game—"

"Naw! You can't be here like this yall gotta go," I think I could see the paperwork piling up behind his eyes: '9/13/08 19:55. Riot-like activities in plaza, several persons wearing blue armbands attacked, this officer apprehended leader and dialed 911 for backup.'

"It's a game. Like tag. It's tag. This is one of the safe points in the game," I admitted. "I'm sorry. We'll take it down if we can just stay. I thought it was a public place. Can we please just set up over—" something must have descended on us from above in that moment because Tyrone relented.

"You all can just move over there. I don't care, you just can't have this on the Government Center property."

"Over there? By the light rail?"

"Yeah sure. Just go ahead. Go on over to the city hall side, let them deal with y'all."

"There's no reason to break this tent down if he doesn't care," interjected Windelina, ever a voice of reason. "Don't take it apart if he doesn't care."

She was right. We enlisted the runners to help us move it. They looked a little wild-eyed (after all we were delaying them from their date with destiny, and they were getting an unplanned look underneath the skirts of my bad contingency planning).

"So are you guys cool?" I was anxious to get moving because runners present meant we were behind again. Windelina and Alis waved me off. I hollered for my shotgun: "JJason! We gotta move on!" He ran over and we were gone.

OliverX and I conversed more on the phone about things, and I twittered everyone that checkpoint one was closed. Suddenly things were opening up. If the lead group had just been diverted from the race by helping the stage agents with their relocation...

We buzzed over to Loring Park. It was finally dark when we got there. Yes, I murmured. Yes, we're ahead. We're going to make it. Curio Sir was waiting for us. I parked the van and flipped on the hazards, and ran around to the back. We hefted out the desk and hauled it over to a park bench in the safe zone. I reached into my bag of tricks once more, much to the delight of Curio Sir, when I said "I brought a laptop for you to work on while sitting at your desk." It was a Tandy 102 portable. He was appropriately excited (not that I had the power supply, but whatever) and we set him up. I hoped it was as eerie a situation as anything we'd placed on the route. It sure looked cool as we hustled back to the van.

Ink Tea biked up at that moment. I was a little nervous that it meant we weren't as far ahead as we should have been. But of course she was on a bike. She was doing great, there weren't any runners near yet, and things were starting to sound really fun for everyone. Oh gawd, I'd left the van running! No wonder I couldn't find the keys... That was risky.

JJason piled in and we were off again, to Spyhouse and then to the finish. He bearded up (ridiculous! outrageous!) and I dropped him off (a moment's panic while we tried to find the yellow ribbon). Another twitter message:

Mothra activation sequence initiated

JJason had requested that at least one point in the night we mention something about Mothra over the twitter feed. Word on the street is that I picked just the right moment, for at least one group got very paranoid. I checked in with a couple of my sleeper agents, who reported that things were going very well. I let one of them off the hook because I figured he didn't need to ruin everything for everyone just then. See? I can be nice.

I drove down to Symphony Place and started pulling together my stuff. I called Kannon and Mattack! to let them know I was on site. I think I caught Kannon off guard because they were out. She was cool though, and we agreed to meet down at the fountains. I walked over.

I used colored cloth to cover my stuff, laid out the Fowers of Courage and Valor on one of the platforms, donned my robe and removed my shoes. Sitting in a quasi-lotus, barefoot among the flowers, I opened my umbrella. This must have been the linchpin for bystanders, as from that moment I think I became an object of unsettling dread. heh. I sat in peace for a while, meditatively reflecting on how it was going, enjoying the cool air, and smiling. I answered the next few phone calls with joy in my voice. I hoped people felt it.

I remembered to walk to the perimeter and put up my signs, which on reflection were too tightly spaced. Sorry runners. . .

As I sat, fielding more phone calls and beginning to worry about the level of charge in my battery, a woman approached.

"Hi there!" She was all smiles. Middle aged, nice pantsuit, close cropped hair.

"Hi!" I replied, in beatific-manic mode.

"What are ya doin' tonight?"

"I'm waiting for my friends to come!" I smiled again. Then I noticed her smile become a little...strained...at the edges. A pause.

"Do ya really think your friends are gonna show up?" she asked, kind of leaning down now, hands on her upper thighs like one might address a child.

uh oh. she thinks I'm a crazy person. she's talkin to me like a crazy person. it must be the robe and the umbrella with no rain. well! it could rain. dangit.

I broke. I couldn't help it. Dropping the big face, I used my normal, non-manic speaking level, "Actually yes. We are playing a giant game of tag and I'm like the last home base. If you look over at those signs? Yeah, they say 'safe zone' on 'em and they tell the runners where they can go to be safe from chasers. I'm just waiting for the first group of runners to come to the finish line. That's what these flowers are for"

"Oh! Oh I just think that's great! Ya, what a good idea! You have fun now!" she toddled off.

I resumed sitting. I observed clusters of red-ribboned men and women stalking along the top of my perimeter. I waved at some, smiling. Others...looked... ssurrious, so I let them be.

Ink Tea called in with a hilarious anecdote about all the chaos and mayhem on the stretch run to checkpoint four. Apparently there were chasers and runners everywhere and they all ran each other ragged. Other proofs have mention of this riot of excitement and tests of nerve and verve.

I noticed another woman approaching, this time from across the fountain plaza from the direction of a big event that was going on over there. She was carrying something. I hung up hastily and focused on her. She had a plate? Two plates?

"Oh my gosh," she said. She gestured with the plate. Maybe seeing the cell phone in my hand she realized her mistake. "Oh my husband thought you were a homeless person and told me to bring you this..."

I burst out laughing.
"What?? Oh man! No. It's... No... we're—"

"My husband said lookit there's a man over there he's homeless—

"No! I'm the finish line. We're ... playing a game. Thank you! Oh man!"

"Okay well, I thought... Yah," she was laughing too. She held out the plate to me. What could I say? I took that food. I was famished, too. Though I can't say overdone cold hamburgers are my favorite, I was not going to look this particular gift horse in the mouth. Some people appeared at this point, running in from all directions.

"Thank you! Thank you, I have to talk to these folks."

"Oh yah. Well, you take care now!"

Then the excitement was upon us: the first runners had arrived! Huzzah! The first guy in the house was Neil, a very happy and tired looking gent. I embraced him—tried to hug everybody that night, I think people didn't mind too much since I tried not to be creepy about it. He felt elated and yet not great—apparently he was the victor by dint of acquiring someone else's mostly complete manifest 30 seconds from the end. A hole in the resurrection ribbon concept, since the manifest rules said 'first one across with a complete manifest wins'. (Nice. Who teh hell planned this thing anyway??) Shortly after him came Max and Dylan, still sporting blue ribbons. They were the first start-to-finish runners and went home with the runner trophy. (I have since learned they might have made an unholy alliance to get it. Interesting. That's another quirk of the rules I suppose: nobody said they couldn't. It's an interesting strategy. What might it imply for the long term? Hm...) Neil doesn't know this, but I'm building him a trophy, I'll call it the Lacuna Prize (aka, the "you ran fair and square and don't deserve to get screwed out of a trophy just because the planners didn't think through the implications award") and deliver it to him soon.

It's impossible to convey all the excitement of people as they arrived, the drama, the sense of how many had bonded as they raced through the town. The feeling they'd just achieved something they were really proud of and surprised by. One chaser said, "This is the most fun I've had all year man. Seriously. This was the best."

Star5, Kannon and Mattack made their way down to the finish eventually, once they got the afterparty location ready to go. They conducted our dozens of new best friends up to the warm and welcoming confines of Kannon's fancy party room and pool area, where food was eaten, acquaintances became friendships, and stories became legend...

I remained, occasionally popping open my umbrella and holding flowers, ready to open my arms for anyone risking it all. We chatted up chasers, runners, stage agents, all of 'em. The stories flowed around me, the excitement of the evening now rolling in waves—though never commonplace—regularly crashing upon my little island.

Loki showed up, we had a couple words, basked a bit. He had taken the Chaser mantle and kept things at just the right level of excitement for runners down at the end. He'd done a quick sweep and we felt confident closing down the final stage around 11:45. From there, it was a single block walk and a quick elevator ride to the afterparty, a whirl of celebration and camaraderie, high above the city we'd claimed. We owned now. For this night.