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As always, the entire situation had started out with the best of intentions - though with some apprehension on the Guard’s part.
“We don’t usually do cults,” Andy said to Copley as he proposed their latest job. “Things can get weird.”
“That’s exactly why I want to send you in,” Copley argued. “This group has raised some red flags. On the surface it’s all peace and love and harmony, but there is lots of money being moved around back channels in some very secretive ways, and they’re really doing a good job covering their trail. I can’t tell if it’s some yuppie pyramid scheme or the next Jonestown massacre.”
“Could be a sex cult!” Joe added, sounding a little too excited at the prospect.
“It could be all three,” Nicky pointed out.
“Like I said, things can get weird,” muttered Andy. “This is why I hate religions.”
“This should be relatively simple,” Copley continued (he was getting very good at ignoring the team’s extraneous commentary). “You infiltrate under the guise of wanting to join, scope the place out, and if there’s nothing out of the ordinary going on then you can just leave.”
“Since when can you just leave a cult?” Nile asked, thinking of all she had learned from her binge of true-crime podcasts and Netflix documentaries.
“Satellite imagery doesn’t show the compound as guarded or enclosed in any way,” Copley informed them, pulling up some aerial photos on a screen. “And it seems people are moving in and out freely.”
Nicky raised a dubious brow. “Brainwashing doesn’t show up on satellite imagery.”
“Well, we won’t know whether there is brainwashing going on until you get in there, will we?” Copley gritted out. “Look - it seems like a fairly low-risk op. You get to spend a few days breathing in the fresh mountain air at their retreat, poking around to find the secrets of these rich people, and maybe break up some sort of criminal enterprise. Win-win.”
“I mean, that practically sounds like a vacation,” Nile grinned. “Why not?”
Andy rolled her eyes at that, but didn’t object. Copley figured that was basically a gung-ho assent.
“Then it’s settled,” he nodded. “I’ll set up your aliases, sign you up for the cult’s latest retreat, and send you their literature. Start packing.”
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“This is the compound?” Andy asked as they drove up a winding dirt road, past a dingy wooden archway proclaiming ‘Welcome to Camp Sunny Day’. Under the sign a shiny new banner was strung that read ‘Greetings to the Exalted Circle of the Radiant One!’.
“It’s an old summer camp!” Nile laughed, taking in the dozens of wooden cabins dotted around the lake. Men and women were scattered all over - some canoeing, some playing sports, and generally looking like they were having good, wholesome summertime fun.
“That’s smart,” Nicky mused as the team pulled up to the end of the road, in front of what looked to be the main building. “If I were to lead a cult, I wouldn’t waste capital on building a new compound when I could just repurpose an old campground.”
“I’m sure you’d be a very fiscally responsible cult leader, babe,” Joe grinned at him, before his eyes looked past him to the man making his way out of the main building and over towards them. “Speaking of, heads up…”
“Why, hello there! Do we have some new recruits? Welcome, welcome!”
The man greeting them looked like an accountant crossed with a lumberjack. His pleated khakis and button up shirt (complete with pocket protector) screamed “I’ve memorized all my state’s tax codes for fun” while his Birkenstocks, fringed leather vest and man bun all asked “do you wanna go check out this new craft beer brewery I saw on Instagram?”.
“I’m Brad,” he introduced himself with a friendly grin. “High priest here at the Exalted Circle of the Radiant One. Hello, and all hail.”
“Yeah, hi Brad,” Nile smiled non-threateningly at him (she was the best of the four of them at that). “We’ve heard such great things about your group, we’re here to join!”
“Of course, all are welcome here. And what great timing, you made it before the ceremony tomorrow! Leave your things in the car for now, first we’ll gather everybody for the introductory hug-and-greet!”
“The what?” Andy asked flatly.
“Oh, just our version of a meet-and-greet,” he explained cheerily. “To introduce yourselves to the family, we’ll gather everybody and have them line up for hugs! You’ll just work your way down the row, and everyone gets a hug.”
“Aww,” Joe grinned, already running up to Brad and throwing his arms around him eagerly. “Sounds sweet!”
“Oh wow, great hug, buddy!”
“Thanks man!”
“Anyway, we’ll do the hugs, and then we’ll all gather in the Emotion Circle where we can learn about all your hopes and dreams.”
Andy pursed her lips. “Excuse me?”
“You know, speaking our truths to the universe, so that the all-powerful Glow Cloud (all hail) can manifest our desires. Didn’t you read the pre-retreat handbook?” Brad frowned.
Nicky quickly nodded, his poker face giving nothing away at the mention of a glow cloud. “Of course we did.” (They hadn’t.)
“Oh good, then you know the value we place on expressing and sharing our emotions with each other. There’s nothing more important between your fellow brothers and sisters than completely baring our souls! That’s why we have our thrice-daily group hug sessions, our celebratory singalongs, our hair-braiding confessionals…”
“Yeah, um, I’m just their Uber driver,” Andy said, backing away slowly. “Have fun, kids. Call me when you need an extraction.”
And with that, she chucked their duffel bags out of the car, hopped back in, and sped off in a cloud of dust.
“Ugh, 1-star rating for her,” Nile grumbled.
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That evening found Joe, Nicky and Nile bunking together in one of the compound’s cabins and catching each other up after a surprisingly busy day. All were welcomed into the cult without any hesitation and had been dragged off to various activities by their new brothers and sisters.
“I made us matching friendship bracelets!” Nicky beamed, tying one of his creations snugly around Joe’s wrist. “Our group was making these while we chanted to hail the Glow Cloud. And see these threads here? They’re all in shades of blues and greens and greys, to supposedly match the colour of the Cloud itself. But of course they’re just guessing at that, since looking directly at the Cloud would theoretically liquify your eyeballs.”
“Aww, habibi, it’s beautiful,” Joe cooed. “My group made little popsicle stick figurines of ourselves that we then threw into the campfire to cleanse us of our impure thoughts so as to honour the Glow Cloud. Buuuuut…” He reached behind his back and pulled a figure out, complete with brown yarn hair and a tiny twig rifle in its hand. “Here Nicky, I made one of you and saved it from the flames!”
“Oh, tesoro, he’s adorable,” smiled Nicky, carefully taking his miniature. He patted him fondly before placing him under his pillow, next to his pistol, for safekeeping.
“Well, I made this kick-ass tie-dye shirt,” Nile informed them, gesturing to her new blue and green top. “Apparently the blending together of the colours is supposed to represent the Glow Cloud raining down knowledge on us all… or something.”
“Yeah, it’s not all very clear, is it?” Joe mused. “They need to stop mixing their metaphors.”
“Is it all metaphorical though?” Nile wondered aloud. “Like, what’s the angle here? Is this Glow Cloud talk just spiritual symbolism or are we going to come across a cache of chemical weapons or something and end up being gassed to death?”
“So far we’ve heard talk of the Glow Cloud being all-knowing, all-powerful, unerringly good, painfully beautiful, a giver of life, a haven of hope, a guiding light in the darkness, the manifestation of our dreams and desires…” Nicky recited all they had heard that day. “It all seems to be some sort of device that gets people to unburden themselves of their fears and doubts, to forgive themselves and try to live better lives. On its face, nothing about this seems particularly sinister.”
“Yup,” Joe acknowledged, while pulling a blanket over him and Nicky. “So we all agree there’s got to be some sort of seamy underbelly to this whole thing, right?”
“Obviously,” came the instantaneous agreement from the other two.
“Alright then, maybe that ceremony Brad mentioned tomorrow will give us a chance to see what’s really going on here.”
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The next day the entire camp was abuzz with excitement. Just before noon everybody started migrating over to the large field on the east side of the lake, and the Guard decided it would be a good time for one of them to scope out the buildings while they were empty.
Three rounds of rock-paper-scissors later resolved that Joe would be the one to skip the ceremony and sneak around while Nicky and Nile went with the rest of the campers.
The pair arrived at the field shortly before Brad (now decked out in some sort of ceremonial robe) made his way onto the raised stage that had been erected in front of the lake.
“All hail the Glow Cloud!” he cried, raising his arms into the air. The audience repeated his words after him. “My dear brothers and sisters, let us rejoice - the time for our union with the almighty Glow Cloud (all hail) is finally upon us. Huzzah!”
“Huzzah!” the crowd cheered back, throwing their hands up. “Huzzah?” added Nile and Nicky a beat later, trying to look like they had a clue what was actually happening.
“My brothers, reach out a hand to the sister beside you,” Brad instructed, and the crowd obeyed. Nicky played along, reaching over to grab Nile’s hand. “On this beautiful day where the glow cloud smiles down upon us, let us offer up our undying love to each other and the all-merciful, ever-loving Glow Cloud. All hail! Now please, repeat after me…”
When the man began chanting in a strange language, Nile looked over at Nicky. He cocked his head and listened for a few seconds before concluding, “He’s just speaking gibberish. That’s not a real language.”
“Whatever,” Nile shrugged. “That’s no weirder than any of this other shit. Might as well go with it.” And so they sighed and struggled with repeating after the leader’s gobbledegook for the next hour and a half.
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Approximately two hours later, Nile wished she could throw herself into the lake and drown. Or rather, drown and stay dead (that was the key point). “Oh my God, he’s going to kill me.”
“He won’t kill you,” Nicky reassured her calmly. Too calmly, she thought, considering the circumstances.
“Are you sure? I feel like he’d be well within his rights! I feel like I betrayed him!”
“Nile, you didn’t betray him. It was an accident. We didn’t know.”
“But now we do know! And we have to tell him, don’t we?” she cringed, trying to imagine how that would play out. (Every scenario had a lot of blood and tears.)
“Perhaps… perhaps he never has to find out,” Nicky suggested slowly, as if still mulling over the idea. “It is meaningless, in the end.”
“If it’s meaningless, then why hide it?”
He winced, ever so slightly. “We are still on a mission here - and to be honest, depending on how he finds out, he may cause a scene.”
“By killing me, right?” she groaned. “I knew it, I’m fucked.”
“No, no, of course not. He won’t be mad at you, I promise. He wouldn’t be mad at either of us, really. But you know he can get a bit... dramatic sometimes. So perhaps we just keep quiet about this for as long as possible?” Nicky suggested, patting Nile awkwardly on her shoulder.
He quickly drew his hand away when Joe suddenly burst into the cabin, a grin crossing his face.
“Good news!” he announced. “I think we’re in the clear as far as any sort of death or destruction goes. I searched through the buildings and didn’t find any sort of weapons caches or Kool-Aid jugs or anything like that. And then I broke into Brad’s office and went through his documents - this looks to be some sort of elaborate money laundering scheme.”
“That is good news,” Nicky said. “It’s quite refreshing to know that sometimes it is just about money, no?”
“Definitely better than some sort of doomsday thing, that’s for sure,” Joe agreed. “Anyway, turns out the man is some sort of CPA, he looks to be doing some very creative accounting with the cult’s finances. I took pictures of all the paperwork on my phone and we can send them over to Copley, he can figure out how to deal with all that. Looks like he was right with the rich yuppie angle.”
“So then does that mean we can get outta here?” Nile asked, hopefully. “Doesn’t seem like there’s much else for us to do.”
“Oh, can’t we stay a little while longer?” Joe wondered. “They were going to have s’mores around the campfire tonight!”
“No no, Nile is right, there’s nothing more for us to do here.” Nicky steeled himself against Joe’s pout, turning to Nile to say, “Why don’t you call Andy to come get us? We can fill her in on the ride back.”
“Cool cool, will do!” Nile quickly agreed, her phone already out and fingers already dialing.
“Why the rush? Did something happen at the ceremony?” Joe asked. “What was that all about anyway?”
“Oh, nothing! A total waste of time, just Brad chanting nonsense…”
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“Despite all the strange beliefs the cult seems to hold about this cloud thing, I almost have to admire the intricacies to their whole scheme,” Copley mentioned the next morning over the speakerphone, as the Guard sat around the safehouse table in a debrief session. “Thanks to some very convoluted laws and obscure loopholes around religious non-profit tax exemptions, marriage tax refunds, and various offshore shelters and shell companies, the cult was really raking it in from the tithes they collected from their members. The fact that they were conducting such large numbers of marriages only increased their take.”
“Fascinating,” Andy said dryly. “So what now, do you want me to lead a covert audit team against them next?”
“I’ll alert the proper authorities to what’s going on,” Copley informed them, pressing forward in the face of Andy’s weapons-grade sarcasm. “Joe, thanks for the photos, that was great evidence you sent along. Nicky, if you’re able to send me some evidence from the actual wedding ceremony then that should be all they’ll need for proof of fraud.”
An eerie hush fell over the safehouse. Nile and Nicky looked over at each other apprehensively. Andy raised a brow in a silent question. And Joe blinked once, and then once more, before asking, “...I’m sorry, from the WHAT ceremony?”
“Yeahhh, so, Joe, crazy funny story…” Nile began, giggling nervously. “You know that ceremony at the lake you missed while you were breaking into Brad’s office? Turned out to be a mass wedding, and Nicky and I sorta maybe... got married?”
“That’s funny,” Joe said. “It sounded like you just said that you just married the love of my life, the light of my spirit, my soul’s one and only mate for all of eternity, my-”
“Breathe, amore mio,” Nicky soothed him, reaching over to place a calming hand on Joe’s arm. “It was all by accident. And technically, the entire cult married each other. As well as the all-seeing Glow Cloud.”
“Yeah, that’s right!” added Nile quickly. “It was just this symbolic soul-merging thing, Brad explained the only reason we were put into pairs was to comply with state regulations around officiating weddings. But there’s no way it was legit, it was total bizarro-world stuff.”
Joe gazed at Nile and Nicky for a few moments, his face oddly blank. Then after a few tense seconds, a laugh escaped him as he threw his head back and roared. “Ha! Oh, that is funny. No wonder you two wanted to get away from there so quickly.”
“You’re taking this surprisingly well, Joe,” Andy noted with an impressed nod.
“Well, in the end it’s just a funny little anecdote,” he kept laughing, waving a hand casually in the air. “Besides, they’re right, it’s not like it was official.”
“Actually,” Copley interrupted over the phone. “It might very well be? An alert I set up for your aliases pinged earlier - it looks like the cult already filed all the paperwork from yesterday’s ceremony. I’m looking at a copy of Nicky and Nile’s marriage license now.”
Andy groaned, dropping her head down onto the table. “Damn it, Copley.”
Joe’s jaw dropped. “Wait, so you’re telling me there’s paperwork? That this is technically legal?”
“I mean, in so much as two immortal people who do not technically exist and were using completely imaginary aliases can be legally married, I suppose,” Copley mused, beginning to mull over philosophical concepts of existence in his mind.
“But somewhere out there in the world there is a paper that says Nicky and Nile got married yesterday,” Joe pressed. “So as far as the universe is concerned, there is documented proof that the last person Nicky married was not me.”
Another horrible silence fell over the group. “...Technically, yes.”
“I need to go lay down.” Joe pushed his chair back from the table and got up to leave. Before he reached the doorway however, he looked down at his wrist and frowned. Quickly untying his friendship bracelet, he turned back and dropped it in front of Nile. “Here - I think you get to wear this now.” And then he spun and left the room.
Nile stared at the beautifully braided embroidery floss and felt tears prick her eyes. “I think I'd feel better if he would've just killed me. He’s so upset!”
Nicky sighed and clenched his jaw, unable to tear his gaze away from where Joe had just walked out. “Andy, I’m going to need the car keys.”
She let out a long-suffering sigh. “Yup, I figured.”
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Nicky, Nile, and Joe burst into Brad’s office a few hours later, startling the man as he sat behind his desk.
“Oh, hey guys!” he greeted, gathering himself quickly. “What’s up?”
“We need you to redo yesterday’s marriage ceremony!” Nicky told him, in that way that made it clear he wasn’t really asking.
“What? Why?”
“Joe missed it, he… got lost. And so he wasn’t there to marry me.”
“But didn’t you marry Nile yesterday?” Brad asked, confused. “Hey, I see you even have matching friendship bracelets, how cute!”
“Woah, hold up. I didn’t want anything to do with marrying Nicky. No offense, but this bracelet belongs on that man’s wrist,” Nile insisted, waving the friendship bracelet dangling from her fingers towards Joe.
“Yes, that is its rightful place, so let’s make this happen please!” Joe all but begged.
The upset look on his face was clearly getting to Brad, who seemed genuinely sympathetic, but then he frowned and said, “Aww, guys, I’m sorry but I can’t do anything about that.”
“WE HAVE MATCHING BRACELETS, BRAD!!!” shouted Joe, grabbing the band from Nile and practically shoving it in his face.
“You didn’t read the pre-retreat handbook, did you?” the leader sighed, crossing his arms and then muttering to himself. “Nobody ever reads it… Look, aside from the fact that I don’t have the authority to divorce Nicky and Nile - and we’re not into that whole plural marriage thing here at the Exalted Circle of the Radiant One - well, um…”
He paused awkwardly, glancing nervously back and forth between Nicky and Joe. They gazed at each other briefly with raised brows, and then looked coolly back at him.
“Ugh, is this a no homo thing?” Nile groaned. “I thought you guys seemed pretty woke with this whole ‘love each other’ schtick, but I guess not.”
“Look, I’m sorry, but our holy books forbid it!” Brad cried.
“In my experience, holy books can be interpreted many ways, often to suit the needs of the reader,” Nicky stated in his calm (and yet utterly terrifying) way. “May we please see these holy books? Perhaps you are wrong.”
“Um, I’ve spent most of my life piecing together our holy texts from a variety of historical sources, so I’m pretty confident in their interpretation. Now look, I’m sure you two are really great friends -”
“Friends? Friends?!” Joe repeated, as if the word left a bad taste on his tongue. Taking a deep breath, he stepped closer to the feeble soul who called himself a cult leader and coldly began, “This man is not my friend. I mean, he is - obviously, he’s my best friend - but he is more to me than you can dream. He’s the moon when I’m lost in darkness and warmth when I shiver in cold. His heart overflows with the kindness of which this world is not worthy of and -”
“Mother of the Glow Cloud (all hail)!” Brad interrupted him. “You’re speaking the words of the Prophet!”
Joe paused, the rhythm of his speech now totally thrown off. “...Er, what now?”
“Your speech - I know those words, those exact words!” cried Brad, rushing over to the blank wall of his office.
Awkwardly jumping up to reach a string tied to an old roll-up projector screen, he pulled the screen down. The Guard’s eyes widened as it unfurled to reveal a mishmash of book pages, photographs, newspaper clippings, post-it notes, and red strings connecting various items.
“Has Copley been teaching stalker wall courses or something?” Nile wondered quietly.
Brad ignored her, rushing over to point at a worn scrap of paper with multiple strings intersecting on it. “This! This is the only known translation of an ancient poem found in the Negev dated back to 1375, attributed to an ‘Al-Tayyib’. It’s almost word-for-word what you just said!”
“Well, haha, I mean, that’s ridiculous! I clearly wasn’t around in 1375 to write those words,” Joe chuckled tensely, trying not to meet Nicky’s scolding gaze.
“No, of course not,” Brad snickered too, as if Joe’s idea was ludicrous. “I’m saying you’re the reincarnation of the man who wrote those words!”
Joe blinked. “Uh…”
“It makes perfect sense - it was written in 1375, and 1 plus 3 plus 7 plus 5 is 16, and then 1 plus 6 is seven, and this is the seventh month, and it’s the 13th day, and this camp is 75 years old this year. It all points to today being the day when the Prophet returns!”
Nile opened and shut her mouth a few times before managing to draw out, “Riiiight...”
“Praise be to you, oh glorious Prophet!” Brad cried, suddenly throwing himself down onto his knees before Joe in supplication. “We are but your mere mortal subjects, here to worship you and follow your wise words!”
“Now this cult is finally starting to make sense,” Nicky grinned. “I think he’s onto something here.”
“I’m sorry for not recognizing you sooner,” the leader continued to wail shamefully. “I should have guessed from your hug when you first arrived! That was such a great hug.”
“You’re… forgiven? Or, wait, no! No, you’re not forgiven,” Joe grumbled, shaking his head in disgust. “If you were using my poems as the basis of your holy books, how did you manage to interpret an anti-gay stance from them?”
“I mean, the American educational system?” Nile guessed.
“It boggles the mind! How would that be possible, when all the poems were about Nicky!” Joe kept ranting, throwing his arm out to gesture at his beloved.
“Easy, mio caro, I know you would never write a word against me,” Nicky reassured him, reaching over to grab his hand.
“Wait, wait, wait - if you’re saying all the poems are about him, then that means…” Brad looked up at Nicky and Joe from his spot still kneeling on the floor, before he fell back onto his rear, quaking. “Oh, oh my goodness. The Prophet was meant to harken the arrival of the bodily transmigration of the Glow Cloud (all hail) - and now you’re here! You’re both here!”
“What is happening right now?!” Nile whispered over to her teammates.
“We weren’t expecting you would arrive together, we must have misread the prophecies,” Brad muttered to himself, before shaking his head and leaping to his feet. “But that doesn’t matter now. Come, come! Ignore everything I said earlier, of course I will perform another ceremony for you both - let’s gather everybody and we’ll do it immediately. No time like the present to join you both in a spiritual union!”
“Wonderful,” Joe nodded, with Nicky doing the same. “That’s exactly what we wanted.”
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That evening back at the safehouse, a phone rang. Andy put down her half-empty bottle of vodka in order to grab it. “Yeah?”
“I’ve just received reports of a fire razing the entire Exalted Circle compound,” Copley said without preamble. “I haven’t heard of any fatalities reported yet, but witnesses say it all began after a melee broke out during a ceremony where the leader was performing some sort of ritual for two men who sound an awful lot like Nicky and Joe, based on the descriptions.”
“Huh.”
“Yes, ‘huh’. That was my exact reaction too. Are Nicky and Joe there with you?” Copley asked, trying to sound patient.
At that moment they both walked in the door, followed by an annoyed-looking Nile. All were covered in soot and ash.
“I’ve got good news and bad news, Boss!” Joe called out to Andy, raising his hand where it was clutched in Nicky’s to show off them wearing the matching friendship bracelets again. “Good news is - Brad married us!”
“Put me on speaker,” Copley sighed, and after Andy did so he said, “Let me guess the bad news - you then burned the place to the ground? Some sort of dramatic statement about them daring to stand in the way of your eternal love for each other?”
“No, though that would have been quite romantic,” Nicky chimed in. “The bad news was that he was only marrying us because apparently they thought Joe was the reincarnation of their holy Prophet whose words foretold the earthly manifestation of their all-holy Glow Cloud...”
“...And because all of my poetic ‘prophecies’ were about Nicky, he of course assumed that Nicky was the manifestation of said Glow Cloud,” Joe continued, before adding, “You know, habibi, I‘ve always said you had an ethereal glow to you, have I not?”
“You have, my love,” Nicky smiled, bringing their clasped hands up to his lips for a quick kiss, before saying, “Anyway, apparently Brad was fine marrying two men if it was a ‘celestial union’, so we started to get ready for that.”
“To be fair, we probably should have clarified what a ‘celestial union’ was,” admitted Joe.
“Ya think?!” Nile cried, fed up. Dropping into the chair beside Andy, she pointed accusingly at the men. “These two idiots were so busy staring into each other’s eyes during the ceremony that they were too slow to pick up on the fact that the ‘spiritual meeting of their souls’ meant they were about to be frikkin’ sacrificed!”
“Well, obviously,” Andy said, and then rolled her eyes when the other three immortals looked at her with astonishment. “What? It was all in the pre-retreat handbook! I got bored and read it earlier...”
“You know, it’s called a ‘pre-mission reading’ because it’s meant to be done before a mission,” muttered Copley, only to be ignored.
“Anyway, long story short: Brad is dead, fire is cleansing, and we should probably plant three bodies into the burnt rubble to fake the deaths of our aliases,” Nicky concluded.
“Oh, I have more good news though!” Joe cried, pulling some skeins of embroidery floss out of his back pockets. “I managed to save these from the craft cabin before I burned it down. Here you go, hayati!”
“Grazie!” Nicky’s eyes lit up. “I will make us all matching team bracelets!”
“I told you things would get weird,” Andy said, grabbing for the bottle of vodka again. “Copley? No more cults.”
“...No more cults.”
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