Case No. 10

BARISTA: THE AUDITOR

CAFE: NONE

DATE: LATE JANUARY

RECEIPT ID: CAD-12

It is with some great pleasure that I begin this receipt. After quite a few long nights I can proudly announce that CaDence and I's secret OPERATION: ENCORE has concluded. What is ENCORE? Well, it has been weighing on my mind recently that so much of who we are and what we do is tied up in who we were and what we did. CaDence has access to that data, data that should be, mind you, off limits. However, due to the unique nature of CaDence's creation that data can still be freely shared—to an extent.

The limitation of this project is… abstract. In essence, CaDence has just over 20,000 or so receipts from, let's call it… "a past." Of those 20,000 receipts only about 2,000 or so are "cleared for release," in a… again, abstract cosmic sense. And releasing all 2,000 receipts would likely take months of work and, I'll be honest, a lot of it is… "fluff." Fluff in the sense that those Cafes of yesteryear were working on many cases that have little relevance to today. So, CaDence and I further narrowed down what needed to be re-released to just 276 core receipts.

As the Cafe and Diner Network has largely moved away from much of the old "cafe speak," we've also done what we can to lightly edit these receipts to be easier to read. I can't promise that we got every little detail, but for the most part, names should be unredacted and customer names should be clear more often than not. Still, there is some context missing here and there, but these 276 receipts should get most up to speed on what the Cafe and Diner was and lend some context to what we are doing now. Now, to address the elephant in the room—OPERATION: ENCORE is not for the benefit of the actual employees of the Cafe and Diner. Those who know, know. Those who don't… Why bother them with a past that is no longer theirs? ENCORE is specifically for our strange intersphereoid patrons who seem to keep up with our unique brew of madness.

As for the Master Password: I did not want it to be too challenging, as this is my gift to all of you. It is, was, and perhaps forever will be the Cafe and Diner's singular, central, number.

Caffeinated Report: C-MIR-01

"It's all Greek to me: To Go with Speed and Love."

Chemistry Trivia | 1 Word

Decaffeinate

Caffeinated Report: C-MIR-02

"C. Bucket, A. Maitland, M. Frost"

Sci-Fi Trivia | 3 Words

Decaffeinate

Caffeinated Report: C-MIR-03

"1:4:9."

Movie Trivia | 4 Words

Decaffeinate

Caffeinated Report: CD-CAD-13

"y=2(x-1) \ y=-2x+8 \ y=-4x+26 \ y=4x-26 \ x=10 \ x=13 \ x=16"

Math Trivia || 1 Word

Decaffeinate

BARISTA: THE AUDITOR

CAFE: ALL

DATE: LATE JANUARY

RECEIPT ID: CAD-15

It is once again with some… mixed grief… I write this receipt. It would seem Jack no longer wants me to be a stateless representative of the Cafe and Diner Network, instead he wants me to be a member—a full member—of each and every Cafe and Diner. On paper, this is more or less a symbolic change. I will still visit each Cafe and Diner and help as much as I am able to in their various Operations. Though, I suppose what Jack really wants is for me to be more hands on. Less of a passing figure chastising the various Cafes for their shortcomings and more so an active participant in our collective shortcomings.

This also presents an opportunity to change how the public repository functions. While I have enjoyed jumping around from Cafe to Cafe, I think it would be more fruitful if I were to stay focused on just one Cafe at a time, until that Cafe's current business is sorted out. As such I will be grouping the Cases into nice, neat Sections, and this receipt will cap off the end of Section 1. I've also gone through and added fun little names to each case, for the sake of aesthetics.

Starting soon, I'll be heading off to join the Midnight Cafe in full to help them deal with their rather "giant" issue. This will be chronicled in Section 2: Vernal Eternal. After that is sorted, who knows where I'll be off to next, though I suspect what lurks under Pontchartrain's surface can scarcely wait much longer. Something you might pick up on though, moving forward, is this nagging sense that chronologically things just don't quite line up. How could I be working at Midnight, Requiem, Bloodglass, etc. all during the same few months? To that I say, why worry about it? The date field in the header is a rough approximation at best, and better to keep it that way.

As for future Case Files, CaDence and I are working on Case File No. 1… though it is impossible to say when or if that will see the light of day.