- Initiate Connection -

Test.

Is this thing working?

Appears so.

Damn, I feel out of touch. On the Island, we had our own 'technology'. Improbability certainly had it's uses. But that's a thought for another day.

Three and a half years ago, I was recovered in a joint operation and extracted from the Island. Since then, things have been... interesting. I'll do my best to fill you in.

The world is so out of touch, and the island is a unifying feature. Everyone watches the show. Everyone watches the war. They don't know, though, how real it all is. The front line of this war has expanded.

We think it's because of the escapees. The Ex-Cons. The people that were removed from the island by the Network and the vets that made it out. Contestants disappear off the cameras, and then months later we find them off the Island. 
Season 1, Season 2, doesn't matter. They get pulled from the show, and everything seems fine, but we've been correlating information on the instances of Probability Breakdown Manifestations. The only thing that is a unifying factor are the people that have come in contact with the Drive for prolonged periods. Sometimes, it kills them. Sometimes, though, they become Focuses.

God, there's so much to tell, and I know I'm doing a terrible job. I'll do my best to organize my thoughts.

Ever since the inception of the Improbable Island Show, the Network has always kept it's 'fingers on the pulse', as the Network techs say. They gauge audience reactions, use focus groups, statistics, whatever, to determine contestant popularity. Every contestant attracts a certain demographic for one reason or another. Perhaps the viewers tune in to the 'Adventures of Ebenezer' because they enjoy the 'everyman' aspect that Eben represents (Or they're accountants with a secret desire for adventure). Other viewers might enjoy the 'Zolotisty Hour', for the sheer insanity that revolves around the life of a improbable Joker. Somebody might watch 'Fun with Bob Zarido' because they used to like monster movies. Regardless, the people watch, and the Network pays attention to what is watched.

Now, oftentimes there are contestants that are simply don't bring in the ratings. There's a minimum amount of viewers that most contestants must maintain after a certain period of time on the island (The so-called Grace Period, usually eight months), and failure to maintain the minimum number of viewers after the grace period means removal from the island. They'll simply disappear off the cameras one day.

These contestants are collected by the Improbable Island Failboat Crewmembers ('Failors'), and returned to the 'Failboat' for debriefing, and after a 'cool-down' period (usually involving psychological treatment or chemical/physical alterations), they're returned to society. At least, that's what the Network tells us. We think there's a fair number of contestants that 'disappear into the jungle forever' due to an inability to reintigrate into society. We don't have proof, of course. But there's a way some of the Network people speak about the Failors that makes me wonder... that and personal experience.

The end result of this is that there are Ex-Contestants ('Ex-Cons') that are returned to the mainland after exposure to the Improbability Drive. Sometimes, this means nothing. Other times, though, it kills them. It's called Probability Exposure Sickness. The contestant's body, for various reasons, has developed a reliance on exposure to Improbability. Maybe there's an important blood vessel in their brain that's decided that it works better if it runs on Improbability. When they lose their connection to Improbability, they might be fine. OR, that blood vessel might rupture unexpectedly, inexplicably, improbably. Brain hemmorage is an ugly way to go, if it does kill you outright and not leave you a drooling vegetable. And that's only one example. There's been all kinds of things. Sometimes it manifests like radiation sickness. Their body's cellular structure can fail to hold together. They'll just drop dead, suddenly. There's been other, more strange reactions as well*.

There were plenty of Ex-Cons that would return, contract Probability Exposure Sickness, and pull through. And there were plenty that would never get it at all. The survivors would, we assumed, lead normal lives. Or as close to normal as they could get. Most Ex-Cons always came away from the Island a bit different.

Here's the big point, though:

Every so often, there would be cases of what we've dubbed 'Probability Breakdown Manifestations'. Moments where, OFF-Island, Improbability would assert itself. Sometimes, it was benign **. Sometimes it wasn't. We've had cases where somebody stepped into a telephone booth and discovered that it was actually a Quantum Suicide Booth. People have seen a Panthzer in South America. There have been more lion-related deaths in the last twenty years than in recorded history, and mind you, this includes areas outside the lion's natural habitat. We recently responded to a call in Georgia where a man discovered, much to his confusion, that a meat-bearing shrub was constantly sneaking up behind him. We determined this to be a Ham-Bush. Yeah, save your groans. I've heard it all.

When I was given command of IMPCOM, we were working to determine the cause. We blamed the Drive, at first. Of course it was the damn thing's fault. It HAD to be. How couldn't it be ol' Horatio?

We've since determined that it's Ex-Cons.

We'd been tracking the Ex-Cons for a while now, and we've started correlating data on their movements and coinciding instances of Probability Breakdown Manifestations. It's pretty conclusive. Where Ex-Cons go, the manifestations assert themselves. Recently, we've discoevered something disturbing. There are Ex-Contestants that these manifestations seem to assert themselves around more than others. We call these individuals 'Focuses', and whether they know it or not, they're probably the most dangerous people on the planet outside the Island.   


*(Once, somebody turned into a rubber duck. We're not sure if they were ALWAYS a rubber duck, though, and leaving the Improbability Bubble that's generated by the Drive just caused it to revert to it's natural state. Still makes some of the R&D boys scratch their heads.)

**(J.L. Putnam of Great Britain won the lottery seventeen times in a row. We're pretty sure this is a case of Probability Breakdown. The odds against him are astronomical, and the big point is that he never recalled buying ANY of the winning tickets.)