7: The Mechanification of Theory: A Plausible Methodology for Retrocausal Informatics

Episode Description
A string of words that proves that its author went to college if I’ve ever seen one. What even is “retrocausal informatics”? More like “retro-pretentious infoSNOBics” if you ask me.

Plot
Mike receives a cryptic email back from Aliza Schultz. It describes a poisonous potted plant and a pole reaching many lightyears away from Proxima B. When Mike sends a second email, being more direct in his questions about WOE.BEGONE, Aliza sends back another cryptic message, this time about a ghost who sits on her chest, worrying about someone who has "good days" and "bad days."

Mike reads The Mechanification of Theory: A Plausible Methodology for Retrocausal Informatics. While very dense, Mike gleans that it is about applying theoretical physics to send particles back in time. Aliza also writes that by sending something back in time, anything that could happen, happens, and that one must switch to the desired universe in order to achieve the original goal. Mike is suspicious of CANNONBALL; he wonders why CANNONBALL didn't bring up Aliza Schultz earlier, and why he only dropped her name as a breadcrumb.

Meeting at the café again, Mike notes that CANNONBALL has a "shit-eating smirk" as a result of Mike calling the Aliza Schultz meeting. CANNONBALL talks about how Aliza was unable to complete the third challenge because she couldn't kill someone. As a result of this, she lost the game, her mind was messed with, and now her blog is only full of poems. CANNONBALL explains his relationship with Aliza Schultz, how she forgot who he was when he got out of prison, and how she "looked gone" when he visited her in-person. CANNONBALL then says he's narrowed down the second place player's city, and Mike panics. CANNONBALL ends the meeting telling Mike the last thing Aliza said to him, a poem about a lighthouse.

Mike is highly suspicious of CANNONBALL; however, before he can reflect deeply on this, Mike gets the fourth challenge. This challenge is to kill Matt, his first place prize, in order to "get started on what this is all for." Mike also realizes that Anne's fourth challenge will be to kill him, but that if she doesn't complete it and she loses, he will die regardless.

Trivia
This episode contains the song "I Must Be a Loser In Some Ancient War."